Sat.Oct 05, 2024 - Fri.Oct 11, 2024

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The Quiet Liquidity Crisis in SaaS

SaaStr

So Thomasz Tunguz put together a great chart summarizing one of my top worries over the past 24+ months in SaaS. He summarized the M&A (acquisitions) of The Top 10 Software Acquirers. And what you can see is there is really almost no liquidity for startups and scale-ups in SaaS and Cloud at the moment. And there hasn’t been for a while: It was great times for SaaS liquidity in late 2020 through the end of 2021.

SaaS 304
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A Challenge to SaaS Orthodoxy

Tom Tunguz

Klarna, the Swedish fintech giant, is making waves by churning from industry-standard software like Salesforce and Workday in favor of building its own internal systems with AI. After their success with AI customer support automation which manages 2/3 of their customer inquiries , Klarna is now doubling down on this strategy. Klarna is betting AI-enabled software is the future of internal tools.

Scale 204
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SaaS Sales Cycles: Strategies to Shorten the Process and Boost Conversion

Inturact

In SaaS, the faster you move a prospect from initial interest to a closed deal, the better. However, shortening the sales cycle without sacrificing quality or conversion rates is a delicate balancing act.

Sales 59
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Billing System Migration: How to Nail It?

Subscription Flow

Billing system migration is the process of replacing your existing billing system with a new one. Companies opt for this process to adopt new tools, and upgrade their functionality. Billing system migration is painstaking without a proper plan in place. Some of the pitfalls that come with unplanned billing migration are faulty revenue reporting, data duplication, and customer churn.

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SaaS Essentials: Failed Payment Solution Guide

For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.

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Is Google Losing Search Market Share?

Sparktoro

A recent Wall Street Journal made the top of feeds in the digital marketing world, claiming that Google is on the precipice of losing the lead in the search advertising wars. Supposedly, in 2025, for the first time, Google may fall under 50% of market share in search advertising (according to an eMarketer report the WSJ cites).

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GTM 116: The Future of SEO and AI’s Impact, with a $100M+ Product-Led SEO Framework with Eli Schwartz

Sales Hacker

Eli Schwartz is an SEO expert and consultant with over a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for both B2B and B2C companies. He has worked with major brands like Shutterstock, Gusto, WordPress, Quora, Mixpanel, and Zendesk to build and execute global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their visibility at scale. Previously, Eli led the SEO team at SurveyMonkey, growing organic search from nearly zero to one of the largest growth channels at the company.

AI Search 100
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How To Streamline Customer Service: 7 Tips For Small Businesses

Groove HQ

We’re willing to bet your customer support agents have a lot on their plates. Juggling tickets, switching between apps, searching for information in disparate places… They’re working hard, but are they working effectively? If your team spends more time on tedious tasks than actually helping customers, you’re wasting valuable resources.

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Need more customer success budget? Operational excellence is the key.

ChurnZero

This guest post is by Kristen Hayer, CEO and founder of The Success League. As a discipline that’s shifting from new to established, customer success is facing some interesting headwinds right now. Economic uncertainty is affecting purchasing decisions. This is pretty universal, but the new Customer Success Leadership Study found that two-thirds of CS teams’ purchasing is delayed by three months or longer.

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Strategies for Prioritizing Retention in an Acquisition-Focused Sales Environment

Chargebee

Acquiring new customers is a critical driver of growth and revenue. Marketing and sales teams are structured to generate leads and close deals, keeping the pipeline flowing and ensuring a steady stream of new business. However, too much focus on acquisition can eclipse retaining your existing customers, which is important for efficient growth.

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Straight Facts About PayFacs: What Every ISV Should Know

Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments

Many software companies are exploring PayFac-as-a-Service providers in an effort to drive more embedded payments revenue and gain greater control over the customer experience. But there are nuances in a PayFac relationship that often get downplayed – nuances that can impact the risk and resource responsibilities of software providers. In this webinar, integrated payments veteran, Pete Uselman discusses the following: What is a PayFac?

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Dear SaaStr: If a Startup at $1.5M ARR is Hiring a COO, How Much Equity Should They Get?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: If a startup is at $1.5M ARR and is looking to hire an experienced COO how much equity should they give him/her? 0%. I think $1.5m ARR is too early for an experienced COO in 95 cases out of 100 — unless it’s a total rocketship and you plan to be at $10m+ ARR within 12 months. At $1.5m ARR you should still be the COO. You should find, hire, and manage the VPs of Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Product and Engineering and even Finance yourself.

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How M&A Fosters Innovation

Tom Tunguz

Recently, Thomas Laffont of Coatue highlighted a non-obvious impact of the M&A slowdown after this preamble : “Ironically and I think somewhat perversely one of the byproducts of constraining big companies from buying small companies is it hurts small companies. This point is clear & straightforward. Less demand for an asset decreases price. 2023 & 2024 are two of the three lowest in the last 12 years in both activity & value across the ten largest strategic software buyers

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Breaking Into Asia? Benchmarking Data and Insights on SaaS Subscriptions in Asia

FastSpring

When you’re expanding your software business into new regions, industry benchmarking data can help you make better strategic decisions by answering important questions about business in the region. Here are the questions we sought to answer by analyzing anonymized subscription data for transactions across various Asian countries (excluding broader “APAC” regions like Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia): How do customers in Asia’s growing markets prefer to manage their SaaS subscr

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Clouded Judgement 10.11.24 - Budget Flush

Clouded Judgement

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Budget Flush Coming? Something that has been on my mind recently - will we see a larger than normal budget flush at the end of this year? First - what is a budget flush? A budget flush occurs when companies rush to spend remaining budgeted funds before the fiscal year ends, often due to a "use it or lose it" mentality.

Cloud 161
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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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5 Interesting Learnings from Zscaler at $2.5 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

So Zscaler is a security juggernaut well known to everyone in the industry, but for whatever reasons, it doesn’t quite get as much attention outside of it. Wiz’s epic growth — and saying No to Google’s $22B offer — gets the attention. More obscure (but still important) vendors like Darktrace get attention due to their founder.

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How to Craft a Winning About Us Page: 10 Real Examples for Creators and Small Businesses

Buffer Resources

Call me strange, but the About Us page is one of the first web pages I visit after discovering a brand or a creator. I want to know the people behind the curtain — their core values, the company’s origin story, and brand identity. Turns out, I’m not alone: A study by HubSpot found 31 percent of participants saying that an About Us page is one of the most important elements of a business website.

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8 SaaS Customer Onboarding Examples to Learn From

User Pilot

Can you imagine what the ideal SaaS customer onboarding process looks like? When done well, it can be the difference between a user becoming a loyal customer or churning after the first week. That’s why we’ll go over what onboarding is in SaaS and analyze 8 onboarding examples from reputable SaaS companies to learn what they’re doing right (or wrong).

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What Is Keyword Intent and How Does It Impact Your Conversion Rate?

The Moz Blog

Keyword intent is the key to understanding your audience's needs. Discover how to decode search queries and deliver exactly what they're looking for.

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Improving the Accuracy of Generative AI Systems: A Structured Approach

Speaker: Anindo Banerjea, CTO at Civio & Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

When developing a Gen AI application, one of the most significant challenges is improving accuracy. This can be especially difficult when working with a large data corpus, and as the complexity of the task increases. The number of use cases/corner cases that the system is expected to handle essentially explodes. 💥 Anindo Banerjea is here to showcase his significant experience building AI/ML SaaS applications as he walks us through the current problems his company, Civio, is solving.

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Most Great VP of Sales Were Fired Once In Their Career

SaaStr

Most of the best VP of Sales have been fired once. It’s not always on their LinkedIn, they don’t always bring it up, but it’s part of it. Sometimes, it’s for a mismatch of skills vs. opportunity. You can crush it one place and struggle in another. Sometimes, for the best sales leaders, it’s a mismatch on passion. And that one time is often good — for you.

Sales 304
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The Ideal Facebook Cover Photo Size and How To Make Yours Stand Out (+ 11 Ideas and Examples)

Buffer Resources

Your Facebook cover photo is one of the first things people will see when visiting your brand's Facebook Page. You only get one shot to make a good impression. Read on to learn the Facebook cover photo dimensions, find out how to create a perfect cover photo, and get inspired by winning Facebook cover photo ideas and examples. What’s the ideal Facebook cover photo size?

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12 Best Practices for Creating an End-to-end Customer Experience

User Pilot

What is an end-to-end customer experience? It’s the complete customer experience that covers all the interactions between a user and your business, from initial contact to post-purchase. Improving end-to-end CX requires you to design a seamless experience across multiple channels, including email, company website, and the product. Why is an end-to-end customer experience important?

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SEO Content Has a Packaging Problem — Whiteboard Friday

The Moz Blog

In this episode, Bernard explains why SEO content has a packaging problem, introducing concepts such as perspectives to help address the issue.

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SaaS Business Fundamentals: How Decline Codes Impact Failed Payment Recovery

A failed payment isn't just a lost transaction - it could mean a customer churning for good. But not all payment declines are the same. For SaaS businesses, decline reasons vary, shaped by customer demographics and the nature of your service. Understanding your decline reason make up can be a game changer when it comes to improving retention and revenue.

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Jason + Henry Schuck, CEO of ZoomInfo on ” AI and How SaaS Has Radically Changed”

SaaStr

ZoomInfo’s Season 2 of its Zoom Labs Podcast is up and we were fortunate enough to be the opening guest. Founder CEO Henry Schuck and I went deep on a lot of stuff you haven’t heard before: Who is the better CEO (Henry 10000x) — and why What AI has done to post-sales, and where it’s going in sales How AI will lead to radical transparency in sales Bootstrapped vs.

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How to Schedule Instagram Posts (For Free): Step-by-Step Guide to 2 Options

Buffer Resources

Learning how to schedule Instagram posts is one of the best productivity hacks for busy creators, social media managers, and business owners today. And the benefits of scheduled Instagram posts go far beyond just saving you time — although that sounds pretty great though, doesn't it? In this guide, I’ll cover the biggest advantages of scheduling Instagram posts and explain exactly how to schedule posts on Instagram to improve your posting consistency and content performance.

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How Callbell Cut In-App Flow Creation Time From Days to 1 Hour with Userpilot

User Pilot

Callbell is a multi-channel communication platform that helps businesses manage their customer interactions across various messaging apps, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Telegram. We chatted with Pedro Ribeiro , the Account Executive at Callbell, about how the company used Userpilot’s engagement features to drive meaningful interactions.

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Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead by Scott and Halligan: A Belated Book Review

Kellblog

Since It Costs A Lot to Win, and Even More to Lose [1] It’s hard for a DNA-level marketer and inveterate deadhead [2] to review a book that fuses both. While I first read Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead not long after its publication in 2010, I’d never wanted to write about it. There was too much to say, the subject too close to home, and the Dead were becoming passé anyway — who’d want to learn lessons from a band that supposedly peaked on 5/8/77 and that played

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Demystifying Consumption-Based Pricing: Modeling & the Path to Business Success

Uncover the secrets driving the future of the Subscription Economy. Zuora and BCG’s latest report uncovers how hybrid pricing models—combining subscription and consumption (usage)—are fueling faster growth, especially in AI-driven sectors. Discover how industry leaders are outperforming their competition by diversifying revenue streams and adopting cutting-edge infrastructure and billing systems.

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Dear SaaStr: How Many Options Should I Give to the First Non-Founder Employees?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: How Many Options Should I Give to the First Non-Founder Employees of they are making below market but non-zero salaries? Here’s the tough part. It’s really hard. What you should do is give them say 3x their forgone salary in stock — 3x to account for risk. So let’s say you hire a seasoned engineer in the Bay Area and her salary ‘should’ be $120k, but she works for you for $60k instead.

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I Raised $463,000 With Equity Crowdfunding: What I Wish More Business Owners Knew About This Funding Path

Buffer Resources

Building a company from the ground up always takes time. Building a company in a new category that requires a lot of education while also trying to do so sustainably adds significant runway. That’s why, when I started thinking about securing funding to scale my supplement brand Rootless , I wanted to think creatively about our sources of capital beyond the traditional VC models that could set us on a different path and model of growth.

Scale 109
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The Sales Leadership Framework Behind Multiple $100MM ARR Orgs

Sales Hacker

Hello and welcome to The GTM Newsletter – read by over 52,000 revenue professionals weekly to stay up-to-date and scale their companies and careers. GTMnow is the media brand of GTMfund – sharing go-to-market advice from the top 1% of revenue operators including the 350 executives behind the fund, news, and our viewpoints from working with hundreds of portfolio companies.