Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending February 24, 2023

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Here is another list (seven) of the SaaS metrics that VCs evaluate Startups on - the bonus is that it comes with a downloadable Google Worksheet template (make a copy for yourself).


2. BUSINESS MODEL: You will be asked often, especially when pitching, about your go-to-market business model: This is a pretty long but very high-value read from Alex Jarvis with real-life examples of good business models (and some good humor thrown in). The business model is always more important than the product (but of course, they both matter - but so does timing. There is a more extended PDF version - so I got that for ya too.


3. MARKET SIZING: The dreaded slide on everyone's pitch deck that is required to outline the business model and pricing in #2 above. What's the size of the market? TL;DR if the market is small, same with your startup. Understanding the nuances of TAM, TOM, and SOM is a great way to complete the slide but get started with your TAM first via this guide from Bling Capital on how to size a market (in 30 minutes!).


4. VENTURE 1: A couple of weeks back, I discussed the potential of a mass extinction event coming for early & mid-stage startups (#8 and #9)- same is probably valid for Venture and, according to this article, a "horde of ailing venture capital zombies" will emerge in the coming years.


5. VENTURE 2: Adding to evidence for the impending VC Apocalypse above, January's VC funding landscape stats are in this Crunchbase report - all rounds were down except seed. And that includes the banger of a round from OpenAI (ChatGPT's Parent) of $10 Billion.


6. SMB: In general, the Old SaaS-Skool guidance was to start chasing the most significant contract values as soon as possible (hello Enterprise!). But according to Craft, newer school thinking is to focus on SMBs, as sales velocity is a better strategy than chasing contract size - and SMBs are plentiful. However - the downside of SaaS-for-SMB is discussed in this article from SaaStr - CHURN!


7. PRODUCT LED FRAMEWORKS: Bookmark this as it's the first part of a pretty amazing 3-part series from Calixa covering PLG fundamentals, starting with defining what a PQL (product qualified lead) is and how to find it.


8. B2B MARKETING 1: SaaS B2B Marketing is a unique beast. I'm running a new demand generation campaign and finding out the hard way that growth marketing and demand generation are different. So don't learn the hard way, as I did. Instead, read this too-late-for-me article from Emily Kramer if MKT1 on the difference (and how to organize your B2B growth marketing team).


9. B2B MARKETING 2: Now that market conditions dictate profits are more important than growth, what is the role of growth marketing? And is it even marketing in the first place?


10. CASE STUDY: According to the Bessemer Cloud Index, only 11 of its 75 companies earn a profit today, but here is Slab's path to startup profitability.


POD OF THE WEEK: A great discussion in the Y-Combinator Podcast on the normalization of Startup jobs in the US and beyond (and how the drift from non-conformists (less than 15 years ago) to mainly conformity today.