Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending December 6, 2019

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: $116 Billion! According to Jason Lemkin of Saastr (based on Gartner data), this is the size of SaaS in the Cloud next year (and Cloud overall will reach $266 billion), meaning that SaaS covers about 50% of all cloud spend and there are about 25 SaaS companies at, or close too, $1B ARR
2. INSURETECH: Insurtech funding hit $3.3 USD billion globally across the first three quarters of 2019, hitting a new high. However the number of new entrants into Insurtech hit an all time high (3 total year to date!), indicating that the space may be getting a little crowded.
3. SALES: The Startup challenges us all to sell something bigger than your boring product. It’s similar to the mindset of "The Jobs That Need to be Done” discussed in earlier posts, making the point that the true sales value is something that genuinely helps users get better or more successful at what they do.
4. RETENTION:  How do publicly traded SaaS companies measure up to this metric? KBCM Technology Group (formerly Pacific Crest Securities) have compiled a comprehensive database of publicly reported SaaS metrics with an easy-to-reference table, PDF version is also here.
5. DUE DILIGENCE: It’s a two-way street when it comes to raising Venture Capital. Jason Lemkin, discusses due diligence questions every founder should be asking VC's
6. BIG TECH: Just how profitable are they? A great way to do this is to calculate net income per employee. Across the big 5 (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon), that metric has shrunk for Facebook, Apple and Google, remained the same for Amazon and actually had a significant up-tick for Microsoft. But Facebook still remains significantly more profitable. As a little bonus, this is a fun article on the big-tech rivalries of 2019.
7. PITCH: I can’t bang this drum enough. If you are looking to raise capital, burn this into memory: You have 2-4 slides tops to grab the attention of an investor. Use those slides wisely and don’t go beyond 12-15 TOTAL. Oh and also do these 4 things as a business.
8. MARKETING: From Tomusz Tunguz, I really like the simplicity of this - 13 critical questions to answer about your startup’s product marketing and SaaS hacker provided 19 strategies a bootstrapped SaaS business can deploy.
9. REAL-TIME OMNI-CHANNEL: As evidenced by this years Black Friday/Cyber Monday mash-up, everything is omni-channel. But how can retailers integrate omni-channel while shoppers are actively in their store and also putting their phones to work? Google has some great ideas.
10. REMOTE WORK: Can be an employment strategy that improves employee retention, hiring, and productivity. Here is a report that reviews the data and this article is the TL;DR version.

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POD OF THE WEEK: From Y-Combinator: Why fundraising is different in Silicon Valley

BONUS: Just raised a bunch of money? Sweet! As an add on to the podcast below, Y-Combinator provides great guidance on How Much Should You Spend After Fundraising