Sat.Mar 18, 2023 - Fri.Mar 24, 2023

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What Is a Good Conversion Rate? The Answer Might Surprise You

The Daily Egg

What is a good conversion rate for your online business? And how do your company’s conversion rates stack up against the competition? The post What Is a Good Conversion Rate? The Answer Might Surprise You appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Business 322
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It’s Now Year 2 of the Venture Downturn

SaaStr

Here's the thing about venture right now Seed stage remains vibrant, similar to any of past 5-6 years Series A and later has gotten over 2021, and is back in market … but … Has moved back to Default No Pacing is far slower because of it — Jason Be Kind Lemkin  (@jasonlk) March 19, 2023 So folks in venture are back to business. 2022 was a year of dealing with the fallout of fallen unicorns, terrible deals, and slashed valuations.

Startup 305
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The Hardest Round to Raise in 2023

Tom Tunguz

The hardest round to raise so far in 2023 is the Series B. Although, all the early & mid-stage rounds have fallen to levels not seen for 5-10 years. Q1 volumes by year show broad declines across early-stage venture capital. Seeds peaked at 1500 in Q1 of 2020 falling to 155 in Q1 of 2023. Seeds fell 64%; As 68%; Bs 86% & Cs 80% of last year’s round counts.

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Clouded Judgement 3.24.23

Clouded Judgement

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Fed Update This week the Fed hiked rates 25bps. The current fed funds target is 4.75-5%. While the expectation was for a 25bps hike, there was some doubt given the banking crisis. I read a couple articles that stated the effects of a tighter credit market given the banking crisis would have a similar effect in the economy as a 50-150bps hike in rates.

Cloud 130
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An Omnichannel Payment Solution––Without the Complexity

Simplify omnichannel payments with a solution that unifies every channel through your platform. By integrating front-end systems like online, mobile, and in-store payments with robust back-end infrastructure, you can deliver a seamless payments experience without the need for heavy engineering. Omnitoken technology enhances security by tokenizing card transactions for reuse, enabling merchants to drive cross-selling opportunities.

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Start A/B Testing Today with 6 Simple Steps

The Daily Egg

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “If you’re not doing A/B testing, you’re guessing” many times while reading various marketing blogs. This is. The post Start A/B Testing Today with 6 Simple Steps appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Marketing 291

More Trending

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How to Build Your Startup like Google & Stripe

Tom Tunguz

In late 2021, Office Hours welcomed Claire Hughes-Johnson, former Stripe COO & VP at Google. During that session, she alluded to a book sharing her expertise in building exceptional teams at two of the most successful startups. That book, Scaling People : Tactics for Management & Company Building. is a book a management team could take to an offsite to develop or re-imagine the entire operating system of a business.

Startup 203
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Microsoft customers locked out of Azure and M365 services due to geolocation error

IT World

Some Microsoft customers were unable to access the company’s Azure and Microsoft 365 services on Thursday due to an issue with Microsoft’s geolocation services. Just after 12 p.m. GMT, the Microsoft 365 Status Twitter account posted a tweet alerting customers to the fact that it was “investigating an issue where users with specific conditional access policies applied may be unable to access any Microsoft 365 service,” adding that Microsoft was attempting to reverse a recent change in order to m

Azure 139
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To Niche or Not To Niche: Guidance from Creators on Picking A Lane

Buffer Resources

What do creators like Mr. Beast and Ali Abdaal have in common? Not much, actually, other than the ‘Creator’ label and being YouTubers. They serve distinctly different audiences and create very different types of content. However, no matter how you look at it, they’re both pretty successful in their own rights. For content creators , one of the biggest debates is whether or not to "niche down" and focus on a specific topic or audience.

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Dear SaaStr: How Do You Become Successful at Enterprise Sales?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: How Do You Become Successful at Enterprise Sales? If you haven’t done enterprise sales before, the biggest thing to understand: you can do it. But, you’re going to have to hustle. Really, really hustle. Many founders want the customers and leads and users to come to them. They want to focus on the product, then on the funnel, A/B testing, optimization, SEO, SEM, etc. etc.

Scale 246
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How Clinic Sense Reduced Churn and Unlocked More Revenue

ClinicSense is a SaaS platform that supports over 7,000 massage therapists who use it for appointment management, payments, scheduling, marketing activities and more. Despite having a relatively low payment failure rate, the company discovered that the failures disrupted the customer experience. This often led to churn as customers decided to cancel or abandon their account, preventing ClinicSense from realizing the full lifetime value (LTV) of its users.

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Which Increases Productivity More : The Advent of Personal Computer or a Large-Language Model?

Tom Tunguz

“Our analysis indicates that approximately 19% of jobs have at least 50% of their tasks exposed to GPTs when considering both current model capabilities and anticipated GPT-powered software.” That’s the conclusion from OpenAI’s recent paper “ GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models.

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“Adventure is out there!”: Opportunities in AI x Travel

Andreessen Horowitz

Travel is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past. The last major breakthrough came in the 1990s, with the emergence of online Travel is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past. The last major breakthrough came in the 1990s, with … The post “Adventure is out there!”: Opportunities in AI x Travel appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Travel 128
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How I Use AI Writing Tools as a Content Writer

Buffer Resources

A slate of writing tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have recently made headlines as a new and more effective way to produce content. Most tech companies have even been implementing AI into their own tools as well, like we did earlier this year when we launched our AI assistant. I’ve written about my conflicted feelings about these very AI writing tools , but I’ve been making an effort to push past my hesitation and add AI into the articles I write for the Buffer blog.

AI 127
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Dear SaaStr: Why Don’t More VCs Replace Founders That Don’t Deliver?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: Why Don’t More VCs Replace Founders That Don’t Deliver? Yes, it did seem like in the old days, VCs replaced founder CEOs pretty often. It happened at Apple, Google, Cisco, and more. But it’s rare these days. In fact, ~90% of SaaS companies that IPO still have their founder as CEO! And when founders do step down as CEO these days, most often I see it as voluntary, when the company really hits scale and the founders know they’ve personally hit a wall they ca

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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O’Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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OpenAI's ChatGPT gets support for a dozen application plug-ins

IT World

OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed company that developed ChatGPT, on Thursday announced support for plug-ins designed to allow companies to more easily embed chatbot functionality into their products. The first plug-ins have been already been created by Expedia , FiscalNote , Instacart , KAYAK , Klarna , Milo , OpenTable , Shopify , Slack , Speak , Wolfram , and Zapier , OpenAI said.

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Investing in Character.AI

Andreessen Horowitz

The first time I tried Character.AI , it completely hijacked my husband’s birthday dinner. What had started as a party of 12 friends conversing quietly around the table quickly turned into picking Elon Musk’s brain on Mars, getting the Queen’s … The post Investing in Character.AI appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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Attitude and Conviction Affect Your Close Rate — Here’s Why

Sales Hacker

Sales is the transfer of conviction and inspiration: The person who is most certain during the interaction will win. Why? Because your prospect is uncertain. Which means your sales conversation will either inspire in them the certainty to say yes — or it will reinforce their uncertainty, and they will say no. As a seller, your success rests in your attitude: your complete conviction that your solution is the best in the world for your customer.

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5 Interesting Learnings from UiPath at $1.2 Billion in ARR

SaaStr

So few Cloud software companies have had a more interesting history than UiPath. It took them a full 10 years to get to $1m in ARR (!). And then after that, explosion. Robotic Process Automation took off, and they rocketed toward $1 Billion in ARR. Growth then slower after a take-off like we’ve almost never seen before. So now it’s a new world, where profitable growth is what’s valued.

Scale 234
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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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Adobe enters the age of generative AI with creative and enterprise apps

IT World

Reality? What reality? Soon, apparently, everything from brand assets to corporate videos to illustrations will be created differently using Adobe’s creative and enterprise apps and its generative AI tool Firefly. You’ll literally be able to speak to paint (or make video). If you can say it, you can draw it At Adobe Summit, the company also announced Adobe Express for Enterprise , a new tool to create, share, and collaborate on high-quality brand content such as multimedia assets, social posts

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SPEEDRUN Your Gaming Startup

Andreessen Horowitz

Starting a gaming company is like playing one of the most difficult video games out there. It’s an expensive and time-consuming grind with the vast majority of games never making it to launch. But what if there was a hack … The post SPEEDRUN Your Gaming Startup appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Startup 125
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Motivation vs. Discipline: How Knowing the Difference Skyrockets Customer Engagement

Sixteen Ventures

When you’re working with customers, whatever your role (CSM, Sales, Account Management, Consultant, etc.), you may find yourself acting as a coach. To be an effective coach, you need to strike the right balance between motivation and discipline. Which means we need to explore the differences between motivation and discipline, and how to apply them effectively to engage your human customers.

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Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Should I?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: I’m an Early Employee and Have a Chance to Sell Some of My Startup Shares. Should I? Goodness. Congratulations on the change for some liquidity. It’s both exciting — and confusing. Marc Benioff sold a huge amount of his Salesforce stock before its run from $2b to $100b+ in market cap. Today, he only owns a few percent of Salesforce.

Startup 212
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Buyer’s Guide: Finding The Best Payment Provider For Your Software

Choosing the right Embedded Payments partner can feel overwhelming. This comprehensive buyer’s guide simplifies the process by breaking down seven key criteria to consider, from platform technology to security and growth potential. Learn how to assess partners that align with your goals, offer personalized support, and drive long-term success. This guide equips software companies with the insights to make confident, informed decisions that enhance customer experience and fuel business growth.

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Q&A: Univ. of Phoenix CIO says chatbots could threaten innovation

IT World

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has opened the door to endless opportunities across hundreds of industries, but privacy continues to be huge concern. The use of data to inform AI tools can unintentionally reveal sensitive and personal information. Chatbots built atop large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 hold tremendous promise to reduce the amount of time knowedge workers spend summarizing meeting transcripts and online chats, creating presenations and campaigns, performing d

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Investing in CCP Games

Andreessen Horowitz

Years before the first blockchain was created, the sci-fi space MMO EVE Online proved out many of the core principles that define web3 today. This is why we are excited to be partnering with CCP on a new project set … The post Investing in CCP Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

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Where do you stand?: Five hot topics of debate in Customer Success

ChurnZero

The Customer Success industry is constantly evolving and developing new strategies for driving customer-led growth. With the emergence of new technologies, market trends, and CS practices, the industry is abuzz with debate and discussion. To explore some of the most controversial topics in CS today and hear what those on either side of the debate have to say, we asked four industry experts to weigh in.

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Dear SaaStr: Is it Ethical For a Startup CEO to Accept a Sales Commission for Deals They Close Themselves?

SaaStr

Q: Dear SaaStr: Is it Ethical For a Startup CEO to Accept a Sales Commission for Deals They Close Themselves? It’s a bit odd, because you want the CEO’s incentives to be aligned with the whole company’s, not just her or his individual efforts. An annualized bonus for meeting the stretch plan is a great idea for a CEO. But not a deal-by-deal commission like a sales rep.

Startup 212
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Prepare Now: 2025s Must-Know Trends For Product And Data Leaders

Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, and Terrence Sheflin

As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.

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How to train your chatbot through prompt engineering

IT World

One reason artificial intelligence-based chatbots have taken the world by storm in recent months is because they can generate or finesse text for a variety of purposes, whether it’s to create an ad campaign or write a resume. These chatbots are powered by large language model (LLM) algorithms, which can mimic human intelligence and create textual content as well as audio, video, images, and computer code.

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The Future of Ecommerce: How a Product Becomes a Purchase

Andreessen Horowitz

General Partner Connie Chan on how leading brands are using AI and other technology to combine the serendipitous discovery of offline shopping with the infinite options of online shopping. Today, most of the Western world revolves around search-based online commerce … The post The Future of Ecommerce: How a Product Becomes a Purchase appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

AI Search 117
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Where do you stand?: Five hot topics of debate in Customer Success

ChurnZero

The Customer Success industry is constantly evolving and developing new strategies for driving customer-led growth. With the emergence of new technologies, market trends, and CS practices, the industry is abuzz with debate and discussion. To explore some of the most controversial topics in CS today and hear what those on either side of the debate have to say, we asked four industry experts to weigh in.