February 20th, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Fundraising Metrics. Make your fundraising way less chaotic by getting these metrics dialed in. Unless you are pre-revenue, Investors will expect to see detailed ARR, CAC, LTV, retention rates, and engagement metrics. A strong data deck (or data room) can answer investors' questions and show a clear path to growth.


2. PPG: Tech dictionary time - another acronym for you: PPG or People Powered Growth. This is a derivative of product-led growth, which consists of a cross-functional team with both customer-facing and non-customer-facing members. It's a People + Product partnership that develops and tests solutions, searching for ways to scale human interactions/intervention with a product. Some examples of PPG companies are Drift, Dropbox, and Loom.


3. PRODUCT-MARKET FIT: Finding Product-market fit isn't a one-and-done event—just like the product you ship, it's an ongoing process. This updated playbook breaks down the key signals, from retention curves to sales velocity, and the tactical moves to iterate faster. If you're still guessing, this is your roadmap.


4. MARKETS: Carta's Q4 2024 report is out and shows a fairly dynamic shift in private markets. Early-stage startups saw a 36% drop in deal activity. Series D rounds are up 60% YoY, and Series C bridge valuations doubled! Hopefully, this will give investors confidence in scaling ventures. Despite early-stage declines, median valuations rose by 22%, and M&A activity hit a record high, with 333 deals in 2H 2024.


5. FREEMIUM: AI is sparking a freemium renaissance in SaaS, according to Jason Lemkin. OpenAI and Claude offer robust free tiers, setting new customer expectations. Established players like PagerDuty, HubSpot, and Cloudflare are doubling down on freemium models to drive growth and enterprise pipeline. With AI costs plummeting, embracing freemium is both feasible and strategic.


6. GTM 1: Bookmark and take a read of these 25 automated GTM plays you're probably not using—but should be. From reviving closed-lost deals to automating expansion motions, this list can help your teams rethink your GTM plays for sure!


7. GTM 2: Fast follow from above, Enterprise GTMs are a lil' different, as they aren't just about sales—it's orchestration. This article breaks down the critical pillars: cross-team alignment, stakeholder mapping, sales productivity, and support structures that make or break frustratingly complex deals.


8. INFRASTRUCTURE: The AI boom has a very unique platform architecture compared to prior tech booms, and this article explores the next wave of data infrastructure companies that will be built for AI-scale efficiency. As a former platform geek, what's cool is that energy efficiency, new compute architectures, edge initiatives, and novel go-to-market motions are all going to be needed.


9. SCALE: Hitting $1M ARR is part luck and part product (and PMF), but you don't get there without execution. Bessemer Ventures breaks down what separates those winners: selling before building, picking the right GTM motion early, and ruthlessly qualifying customers. If you're grinding through the early days, this is a solid playbook


10. CASE STUDY: Series B+ raises. Most of us should be so lucky to get to this stage, but how do you raise funds beyond Series B (roughly 15% that raise seed make it to Series B)? Scale Ventures' Stacey Bishop gives the lowdown.

​POD OF THE WEEK: Why read when you can listen to this? Leveraging Notebook LLM again for the podcast version of this week's newsletter - but the AI cannot pronounce "SaaS."