Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending April 4, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: CRO stands for Conversation Rate Optimization, and Banklinko has created a great web guide about what it is and how to design for CRO within a business.


2. MARKETS: Redpoint's March 2025 market update shows a public/private disconnect (due to IPO pipeline inactivity and investor cooling)  - top software names are thriving, while most of the market lags. AI startups continue to raise at record valuations (up to 39% premiums), and time-to-$50B valuations is shrinking fast. Liquidity? Still slow, with most unicorns stuck in "Zombieland."


3. R&D: What if you cut R&D by 50%? Tomasz Tunguz ran the numbers - it turns out you'd only boost enterprise value by 3%. But if you grow revenue by 5%, you unlock 5x the value. TL;DR: cost-cutting is fine, but growth still reigns.


4. BILLING: ChartMogul's 2024 Billing Report breaks down all kinds of interesting billing benchmarks and trends: monthly billing is on the rise, but quarterly and annual still dominate revenue. Usage-based pricing keeps growing, and the best-run SaaS teams are doubling down on payment flexibility to boost retention and cash flow.


5. API: APIs aren't just dev tools—they're products, and pretty much all AI needs them. Zuplo's API guide lays out how to run API product management like SaaS, covering pricing, usage tiers, onboarding, and churn. If you've got an API, this gives you a roadmap.


6. APPS: Most SaaS companies pay other SaaS companies to build their SaaS company. It's a big ol' Ponzi scheme, and those SaaS costs are rising - currently $4,830 per employee/year, according to Zylo's new report. There is also some massive waste - an average of 52.7% of licenses are unused, and companies are still running vendor reviews looking to consolidate. AI-driven price hikes. Shadow IT, one-year contracts, and decentralized purchasing all compound this pain.


7. OUTCOME-BASEDSED PRICING: Another term for your AI Tech Dictionaries, outcome-based pricing. It's a pricing strategy tied directly to the value your product delivers to customers, very much a pricing model driven by the growth of AI.


8. PRICING: Based on 7 above, is it time for a pricing review? Great pricing can equal better growth. This post breaks down why pricing should be owned, not inherited—and why repackaging can outperform raising prices (such as Outcome based). Bonus: a dead simple framework for revisiting pricing without blowing up your funnel.


9. WRAPPER: We all rapidly became quite dismissive of startups with ChatGPT wrappers. But for all you Vertical AI integrators, give your wrappers even more thought. Without deep integration into existing B2B tools like CRMs or billing systems, your AI agents will probably fall short. Real power (and stickiness) lies in the data and workflows—exactly where vSaaS (new acronym y'all) incumbents thrive.


10. CASE STUDY: Wiz's $7B revenue-less exit to Google made headlines, but this breakdown shows the real winners: early employees and insiders. OnlyCFO estimates many engineers walked away with $10M–$50M+, making this a masterclass in cap table structuring and momentum-led outcomes.


POD OF THE WEEK: Last month, I did the annual post sharing the "Shape-Up" technique for designing, prioritizing, and shipping products/features. So check this Podcast featuring the Shape Up creator, Ryan Singer, on how Agile/Scrum methods often lead teams into endless cycles of work without meaningfully "shaped" shipping milestones.
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