# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending July 26, 2024

Published: 25 July 2024
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-july-26-2024

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

MRR: According to [this article](https://chartmogul.com/blog/reactivation-expansion-mrr/), there are only five types of MRR growth that hinge on expansion and reactivation. [Chartmogul takes a more emotional approach to MRR segmenting](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chartmogul_pricing-activity-7214688648942759936-U_14) (new, happy, and at risk). MRR is a simple concept [until you actually need to compute it](https://medium.com/@lucas_dvrs/mrr-is-a-nightmare-for-data-analysts-3ba8abd435e3). Benchmark your MRR [here](https://chartmogul.com/blog/understanding-mrr-movements/).

Link: https://chartmogul.com/blog/reactivation-expansion-mrr/

## 2. MARKETING

There are many marketing strategies organizations can deploy that are relevant to their line of business and target audiences, from pay-per-click to content marketing. [Bloom lists the differences between the three main categories](https://www.cobloom.com/blog/paid-vs-owned-vs-earned-software-marketing-strategies). Cutting to the chase, though, creating a solid marketing strategy is no walk in the park, so look here at [how to make a solid one in 7 steps](https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-to-create-a-saas-marketing-plan-in-7-steps). (BTW - benchmarking budget - Marketing teams spend 5-10% of a company's ARR).

Link: https://www.cobloom.com/blog/paid-vs-owned-vs-earned-software-marketing-strategies

## 3. EXPONENTIAL GROWTH

It's all marketing hype and doesn't exist in real life. [Take a look at this article, which explains it more](https://longform.asmartbear.com/docs/exponential-growth/) by taking a deep dive into the numbers of "Exponential" companies such as Slack ($0-$10m ARR in 10 months!!), Facebook, and HubSpot. [According to McKinsey](https://www.dropbox.com/s/92toit0p31z2pi7/saas-and-the-rule-of-40-keys-to-the-critical-value-creation-metric.pdf?dl=0), despite the sector's image as a bastion of hypergrowth, only a tiny share of SaaS companies sustains growth rates above 30 to 40 percent.

Link: https://longform.asmartbear.com/docs/exponential-growth/

## 4. INDUSTRY

Public software markets saw some sharp declines last month, and [according to Tomasz Tunguz](https://tomtunguz.com/weakness-in-software/), it was all due to declining revenues. Growth rates for many public tech companies have halved in the past 18-24 months (even though revenue increased from $124B to $592B. Giants like Salesforce face growth challenges, but private market data still shows strong potential.

Link: https://tomtunguz.com/weakness-in-software/

## 5. SALES

Do technical products need a different sales process than traditional enterprise SaaS products? [Check out this guide on Tech SDRs](https://playbooks.hypergrowthpartners.com/p/product-advocates-technical-sdrs). Understanding developer needs is key for these reps to selling DevTools efficiently.

Link: https://playbooks.hypergrowthpartners.com/p/product-advocates-technical-sdrs

## 6. VESTING

Different companies have different vesting schedules to align employee incentives with long-term goals and retention. Levels.fyi [explores some different strategies, highlighting approaches like front-loaded, milestone-based, and retention-focused plans](https://www.levels.fyi/blog/unique-vesting-schedules.html).

Link: https://www.levels.fyi/blog/unique-vesting-schedules.html

## 7. PITCH DECK

Another [pitch deck resource this month from Alexander Jarvis](https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/resources/collections/pitch-deck-slides-collection/), who hosts almost 540 of them (and 10,000 pages)! The cool feature here is that you can search/filter startup decks by stage, topic, and country.

Link: https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/resources/collections/pitch-deck-slides-collection/

## 8. RED QUEEN EFFECT

I'm running my first presentation on AI this week, and during my research, I came across [this great article from Clouded Judgement talking about AI and its impacts](https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-71224-the-red-queen). The Red Queen Effect analogy was used, referencing Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass," where the Red Queen says, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." I couldn't agree more, and neither can the 85%-ish of B2B SaaS companies currently building AI into their product sets. Businesses must constantly invest and evolve to stay competitive. Immediate benefits may not be clear, but long-term gains in efficiency, innovation, and market relevance are highly likely. The potential downsides to not doing all the running you can do are massive.

Link: https://cloudedjudgement.substack.com/p/clouded-judgement-71224-the-red-queen

## 9. DISASTER

If you were not sleeping under an IT rock last weekend, you probably noticed that many Tech Workers had a VERY insane week fixing a massive global Windows outage caused by just one publicly traded SaaS Company, Cloudstrike. From many accounts, it was a total shit show of anti-malware malware that poor or ill-prepared Business Continuity Plans, lack of redundancy, and risk management compounded. [This was the real Y2K, 25 years late](https://www.techradar.com/computing/this-is-why-y2k24-was-so-much-worse-than-the-real-y2k), and today is the second-best day (the best being before last weekend) to revisit your BCPs; check[GitLab's BCP](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/business-technology/gitlab-business-continuity-plan/) for an example of a real one. [Here are some teachable lessons for all of us](https://www.techradar.com/computing/this-is-why-y2k24-was-so-much-worse-than-the-real-y2k). Ironically, Crowdstrike [has a great incident response checklist](https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/incident-response/incident-response-steps/).

Link: https://www.techradar.com/computing/this-is-why-y2k24-was-so-much-worse-than-the-real-y2k

## 10. CASE STUDY

Reaching 100 users in four weeks? I'm in! [This is actually a great, soon-to-be 3-part series on growth](https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/how-we-got-our-first-1000-users), with this first part focusing on the cold-start problem of going from 0 to 1000 users.

Link: https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/how-we-got-our-first-1000-users

## POD OF THE WEEK

[Building a world-class data org](https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-world-class-data-org-jessica-lachs) from Jessica Lachs of Doordash.

Link: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-world-class-data-org-jessica-lachs