2023

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Why Your Startup Needs a Fractional CTO – TechEmpower

TechEmpower SaaS

A Fractional CTO bridges the gap between founders and developers to help keep your tech strategy aligned with your business goals. This helps your startup stay agile and competitive in a fast-paced marketplace.

CTO Hire 975
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Raising Venture Capital in 2024? The Air is Very, Very Thin Above $200,000,000 Valuations

SaaStr

If I had to summarize venture capital today, it would be like this: There is Very Little Oxygen Today Above $200m Valuations What do I mean? It’s still a weird world in venture: Firms are both shutting down and raising new funds. More entrepreneurs are doing direct investing themselves than ever. Unicorns are hurting, but — Nasdaq is at an all-time high.

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How Much Does it Cost to Use an LLM?

Tom Tunguz

How much does AI cost? It depends on a a few different dimensions, but for a typical use case where a user enters a query & expects about a 200 word response, the cost varies from $0.03 to $3.60. Different models cost different amounts. Also, the size of the context window is an important factor. The context window is a fancy way of saying the quantity of background information the user can provide to the AI.

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Nifty Project Management Review

The Daily Egg

Nifty is a project management software company that focuses on providing an all-in-one solution. Get collaboration features, discussions, document sharing, and reporting. The post Nifty Project Management Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Signal-Based Selling: How to Leverage 4 Key Buying Signals

As prospects define their problem, search for solutions, and even change jobs, they are generating high-value signals that the best go-to-market teams can leverage to close more deals. This is where signal-based selling comes into play. ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck recently broke down specific ways to put four key buying signals into action with the experts from 30 Minutes to President’s Club.

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53 Questions Developers Should Ask Innovators

TechEmpower SaaS

At TechEmpower, we frequently talk to startup founders, CEOs, product leaders, and other innovators about their next big tech initiative. It’s part of our job to ask questions about their plans, challenge their assumptions, and suggest paths to success. The conversations are interesting and varied because they’re about new, exciting, different things.

More Trending

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ChatGPT & Taylor Swift

Tom Tunguz

For each of the 14 weeks, more people searched for ChatGPT than Taylor Swift according to Google Trends data. You won’t find people outside of tech hubs googling for microservices or layer 2 blockchains or serverless databases with any great frequency. But Minnesotans & Idahoans & Vermontans are searching for ChatGPT. People are curious about AI.

ChatGPT 347
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Webnode Review

The Daily Egg

Webnode is a website builder utilized by more than 40 million users. With Webnode, you can build a simple website or blog. The post Webnode Review appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Should I Sell for $50m … Or Push On And Try to Build a Unicorn? Especially … Today?

SaaStr

A life poorly lived is a trap Go for it at least once — Jason ✨Be Kind✨ Lemkin  (@jasonlk) May 5, 2023 BusinessInsider had a great story a ways back on Datto’s $1b exit to Vista Private Equity (more on the role of PE in SaaS here ). So much of it resonated with me, especially the story of the CEO’s 10-year journey, and turning down an earlier $100m offer to sell.

Banking 353
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Clouded Judgement 12.1.23 - Net New ARR Starts to Rebound + AWS ReInvent Recap

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 Amazon ReInvent This week Amazon had their annual AWS ReInvent conference. Couple takeaways for me: 2024 is shaping up to be the “prototype to production” year for AI. This year, there was tons of experimentation.

AWS 299
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From Start to Scale: Driving Growth Through Seamless Payments Implementation

Speaker: Michael Veatch, Senior Director, Implementations & Ella Aguirre, Director of Solution Consulting

Embedding payments can be a transformative step for software companies looking to enhance their platform capabilities, boost customer satisfaction, and drive long-term growth. However, the success of payments hinges on a single thing: implementation. Drawing on real-world insights and experiences, payments implementation experts Michael Veatch and Ella Aguirre will explore actionable strategies that can lead to a transparent, friction-free launch and mitigate potential challenges like technical

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How to Use Generative AI and LLMs to Improve Search

TechEmpower SaaS

Artificial Intelligence (AI), and particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), have significantly transformed the search engine as we’ve known it. This presents businesses with an opportunity to enhance their search functionalities for both internal and external users. With Generative AI and LLMs, new avenues for improving operational efficiency and user satisfaction are emerging every day.

AI Search 519
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Selecting a Software Development Company in 2024

TechEmpower SaaS

In 2023, there were approximately 26.3 million software developers worldwide. This vast pool of talent showcases a wide range of experience and portfolios, quality of work, and inquisitiveness. Given this diversity, it's important to be selective in the development services company with whom you choose to partner. In the 25 years that TechEmpower has been in business, we’ve seen thousands of companies come and go.

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Generative AI – The End of Empty Textboxes

TechEmpower SaaS

We recently completed a web-based application that uses a unique algorithm to match professionals with new career opportunities. As part of the onboarding process, the app asks both job seekers and employers what they’re looking for - in a text box - while providing a few suggestions in a pop-up. If you’ve ever used a similar application, (or if you’ve ever used the Internet at all) you’ve probably seen this approach before.

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The Top 20 Symptoms of a Weak Development Team

TechEmpower SaaS

When speaking with founders and CEOs, we often hear concerns like this: My project manager is losing confidence in the development team. The PMs are seeing late deliveries and bugs that suggest the devs just aren’t capable enough. I think that poor communication and differing team cultures might be part of the problem, but how can I know for sure? It’s a good question.

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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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Technical Review: A Trusted Look Under the Hood

TechEmpower SaaS

Many CEOs of software-enabled businesses call us with a similar concern: Are we getting the right results from our software team? Most innovators don’t have a technical background, so it’s hard to evaluate the truth of the situation. We hear them explain that their current software development is expensive, deliveries are rarely on time, and random bugs appear.

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Startup CTO or Developer

TechEmpower SaaS

What does it mean to be a CTO for a startup? What does the role demand? Should a startup CTO spend their time programming? Exploring new technologies? Increasing competitive advantage? The answer is: it depends. The role of a CTO varies as the company matures. Here’s a graphic from Socal CTO that illustrates the roles as they change over time: In its earliest days, a startup’s top need is often to produce a product.

CTO Hire 390
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Startup Metrics

TechEmpower SaaS

When talking to startup founders or other innovators, we always ask questions to better understand their business as a core. What does the business do? How does it meet customers’ needs? And most importantly, how does it make money? One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects?

Metrics 390
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Pilot: 57% of Venture Startups Will Need to Raise More In 2024

SaaStr

SaaS products and services like Pilot track the finances of 1,000s of SaaS and other startup so they’re an interesting source of hard data. What does Pilot’s latest data say? Something that’s both not surprising but also pretty impactful: 57% of venture-backed startups will have to go “back to market” in 2024 to raise more capital.

Startup 357
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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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A Look Back: Slack at $30,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

As we gear up for SaaStr Europa 2023 in London on 6-7 June and SaaStr Annual 2023 in the SF Bay Area on 6-7 September , we wanted to take a look back at some of our most iconic speakers and sessions from over the year, that we can still learn from today. Back at the first SaaStr Annual, in February 2015, we kicked off the day with Aaron Levie from Box — who had just IPO’d a week or so before.

Scale 363
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SaaS Capital: Across 1,500 SaaS Startups, Yearly Contracts Don’t Actually Increase NRR

SaaStr

So SaaS Capital put out its latest report on SaaS retention and NRR after having surveyed over 1,500 SaaS companies and professionals. You can download it here. There are a lot of great learnings and metrics in the report, and a few stood out to me: #1. Annual Contracts Didn’t Boost NRR, And Even Multi-Year Contracts Only Had a Modest Impact on NRR.

Startup 362
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Fundraising By VC Firms Themselves Is At a 10 Year Low. What That Means.

SaaStr

So when I was a founder, I didn’t pay much attention to how VC funds themselves worked. I just pitched them. But fast forward to today, and there is an incredible amount of information about how the industry actually works, and we put a bunch of the best stuff on SaaStr itself. Most important today is for founders to know (1) how active the venture markets are, at each stage and (2) how healthy venture is overall.

Startup 362
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We End the Year at All-Time Lows for SaaS Growth. A Buying Signal — Or The End of an Era?

SaaStr

So 2023 wasn’t a rough year for everyone. Shopify, Canva, Monday and tons of other SaaS leaders less focused on tech and startups had big years. And broader Cloud players had great years too, from MongoDB to Cloudflare to Azure, if not quite as crazy as at the peak of 2021. But overall, overall … well SaaS and Cloud growth hit record lows per the BVP Cloud Index: As you can see, even though 2022 was a tough year in the public markets and for valuations, revenue growth still held up

Azure 349
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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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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 358
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My App Stack: Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist at Gong

SaaStr

“My App Stack” is a new series where we dig in with top CMOs, CROs, CTOs and CEOs on just what apps they’re really using to run their business. I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader. Last week we had a great one with Jack Moberger, Director of Enablement at Algolia, check it out here. This week we have Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist at Gong!

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5 Interesting Learnings from nCino at ~$500,000,000 in ARR

SaaStr

So if you are outside of fintech and banking, you may not have heard of nCino. But if you’re in the space, it’s a big player. They’re at almost $500m in ARR, with 1,850 customers, now growing a modest but steady 19% and they have gotten pretty efficient, like most other public SaaS and Cloud leaders. Non-GAAP operating margins are now +17%.

Scale 349
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Dear SaaStr: When Searching for a Co-founder, How Do You Know You Found The Right One?

SaaStr

Dear SaaStr: When Searching for a Co-founder, How Do You Know You Found The Right One? I think it boils down to 2 key factors: Someone that is both very good at, and better than you, in several key functional areas. If you are good at coding, she is good at sales and customers. Or whatever. That together, the two of you have all the key functional areas covered decently, at least initially (Engineering, Product, Sales & Customers, Marketing).

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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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ClickUp vs. Airtable

The Daily Egg

ClickUp and Airtable are two effective tools designed to help project managers streamline their processes and ensure the successful completion of project. The post ClickUp vs. Airtable appeared first on The Daily Egg.

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Frontline Growth: SaaS Companies Get About 20% of Their Revenue From Europe. The Best — Even More.

SaaStr

One thing we’ve talked a ton about at SaaStr since inception is the power of going global as early as you have customer pull in other geographies. The internet works everywhere. You should be selling everywhere, assuming there are no regulatory or related issues in your space. Some examples: HubSpot gets 54% of its revenue from outside the U.S. Asana gets 39% of its revenue from outside the U.S.

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Canva and Databricks: The Two Big Potential SaaS / Cloud IPOs of 2024

SaaStr

So the IPO market sort of, kind of, reopened a bit in 2023 — after being closed for 2 years for the most part. Kalviyo, Instacart, and ARM all 3 great leaders, IPO’d in a short window, unfortunately, to a bit of a quiet thud. None really traded up, and for the most part, I think folks view their IPOs as a test around a brief market up-tick that didn’t taken.

Cloud 347