Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending February 14, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Share of Wallet. This is a fun one for all you marketplace people (who should also check this other article on Marketplace Liquidity). Share of Wallet is a measure of a marketplace going from being one of many options to becoming the primary option for a buyer (AND also a supplier).


2. ADVISORS: Startups need them; often they can be a little overly plentiful and somewhat predatory. If you find a sound advisor, how should they be compensated? Peter Walker from Carta has some data for you. TL;DR market rates are  0.23%-0.07% median based on stage unless full-time hires, who get 1% typically.


3. VENTURE: Dealroom's latest Global VC report reveals a mixed venture landscape. Startups raised $330B globally in 2024, with megadeals ($100M+) making up 53% of investment. The U.S. dominated, claiming 57% of global VC funding, mainly AI-driven. Meanwhile, early-stage funding slowed.


4. PRIVATE MARKETS: Mostly Metrics has looked into the current state of private markets at EOY 2024 SOY 2025. Much of the same, really - slower deal activity, cautious investors, and a shift toward profitability over growth. Despite the slowdown, AI continues to attract capital.


5. AI: Nice handoff from #3 and #4 above, AI startups have and are rewriting the fundraising playbook. But when can we all expect AI-based economic growth, and how much? This article backs the sentiment by outlining that 2025 should be the year of killer AI apps.


6. AI and JOBS: Bonus content expanding from above - this article has looked at the impact of AI across different tiers of AI and tech sector unemployment. Is it feeling the flow on? IT unemployment rates rose to 5.7% in Jan from 3.9% in Dec (that's a 46.15% change, according to ChatGPT). This same article also shows that job listings for Devs are down -8.5% YoY in Jan


7. GROWTH: Kalungi's Growth Matrix shows how to pinpoint hidden opportunities by plotting segments and adoption stages. It's an excellent four-step process that helps you focus and even comes with a template.


8. FUNDRAISING: What does it take to raise a Series A? How do you break through the $10M ARR barrier and secure growth capital? More Intelligent has a great guide along with must-hit fundraising milestones—from scaling your go-to-market motion to tightening unit economics and KPIs.


9. DRAKE EQUATION: No, Kendrick isn't involved with this; it's for your tech dictionaries. The Drake Equation was originally used to estimate alien civilizations (totally my jam) and calculates success by multiplying probabilities of key factors. This article adapts it to startups—highlighting how market fit, execution, and scalability shape your survival odds.


10. CASE STUDY: Deel's on a growth rocketship right now —70% YoY at $800M ARR (AND profitable). This proves that in SaaS, market share isn't everything when your TAM is massive. SaaStr analyzes Deel's strategy, focusing on category expansion and prioritizing global scale over head-to-head competition, and it looks like they may be able to kickstart Tech IPOs again.


POD OF THE WEEK: This is such a great article covering day-to-day AI use that I used Notebook LLM to turn it into a Podcast. ​