Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending August 18, 2023

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: CLV. - How far out should you calculate your customer's lifetime: two years, three years, five years? Turns out the shape of the decay curve matters, as does max customer lifetime.


2. CLOUD 100: Bessemer Ventures/Forbes created a "Cloud 100" list eight years back, an annual ranking of the world's top private cloud companies. The 2023 list looks a little different. This year saw the first-ever drop in overall aggregate value. Also, Stripe has been dethroned from its usual #1 spot by, surprise, surprise, AI with OpenAI, who also made the list for the first time. Combined, the top 10 companies in the Cloud 100 are worth a staggering $211 billion and average 26x ARR in forward multiples.


3. NETWORK EFFECTS: Building and scaling products like Slack and Zoom is still quite challenging, so read this conversation between Andrew Chen and Des Traynor on building networks that make your product thrive.


4. VENTURE: According to the Q2 2023 US VC Valuations Report from Pitchbook, early-stage startup median valuations dipped to $38.5M in Q2 2023 from the Q3 2022 peak of $45M - interest rates, bank drama, and economic volatility look to be major influences, which is why investors are eagle-eyed for solid fundamentals.


5. VENTURE: This week, Tomasz Tunguz notes that the correlation between public market trends and venture activities during the 2008 financial crisis might not have felt apparent at the time, but historical analysis reveals a strong connection - which we may be able to learn from this time around.


6. PRODUCT MARKETING: In this article, Kim Caldbeck of Bessemer Ventures outlines "The Six Ps" framework from Dan Olsen's Lean Product Playbook for effective product marketing. These Ps - persona, problem, proposition, positioning, product, and promotion strategy - form the foundation for successful product marketing. 


7. PLG MODELS: Free trials and a freemium model aren't the only options for "free" experiences you can give to your users: Opt-In Free Trials, Opt-Out Free Trials, Usage-Based Free Trials, Freemium, New Products, and Sandbox.


8. PMF: OMG - we now have a Product Market Fit Report! High Aplah has put together some research on PMF to help those founders benchmark their progress against others on the same path: Only 56% believe they have product-market fit, and 29% think they will do this within the first 12 months of founding.


9. ROBOTAXIS: Self-driving companies Waymo and Cruise have been given permission to launch 24/7 driverless taxi services in San Francisco. This is a substantial industry shift, allowing these companies to expand operating and charging models; what could possibly go wrong?.


10. CASE STUDY: This one is for the CFOs: Five CFO Learnings scaling from $10M to $100M+ ARR.


POD OF THE WEEK: Take a watch of Four SaaS experts who discuss sales tech stacks, emphasizing the importance of purpose-driven tools and the need to understand your problems before adding software.