Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending February 6, 2025

​1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Not all ARR is created equal - and some is faster! This week’s breakdown from The SaaS CFO explains how to split AI ARR from traditional SaaS ARR—vital as more tools blend AI features, infra, services, and usage-based models.

2. MOSTLY METRICS: I like this newsletter a lot - SaaS isn’t dead, it’s just priced like everyone gave up doing the maths. Median EV/NTM revenue is now 3.9x (a 10-year low), despite retention metrics holding steady (ServiceNow at 98%) and Rule of 40 profiles improving over the last coupla years. The Bears are betting that AI will kill SaaS, and that incumbents can’t use their data moats.

3. PRODUCTIVITY: Tomasz Tunguz draws a sharp parallel between Ford’s assembly line innovation and AI-assisted coding in relation to productivity. Just as the Model T drove a 90% productivity gain and wiped out 80% of automakers, AI dev tools are cutting build time 55–81% in under five years. But the outcome flips: instead of capital consolidating power, AI commoditizes it. Cheaper, faster software creation means more builders, more startups, and massive second-order job creation, not fewer developers.

4. BUYERS 1: New report - 6sense’s 2025 Buyer Experience Report points out the obvious - buyers still decide before talking to sales. But overall, journeys due to AI are shorter; seller contact happens ~6–7 weeks earlier; 80% of deals still go to the pre-contact favorite; buying stakeholders average 11–14 people, but only 3–4 ever engage sellers. AI can pull sellers in earlier, but not really influence anything later.

5. BUYERS 2: A follow-up to #4 above - are your Funnels lying to you? This article reframes buying as a circular orbit, not a long pipeline. About 60% of buyers are insulated, and out-of-market, ~35% are evaluating, and just ~5% are validating. 80% of vendor shortlists are locked before sales contact. Broad-beam brand builds mental availability for future cycles; narrow-beam proof only works once your buyers re-enter your orbit. Miss day-one considerations, and you’re probably done.

6. UNFAIR ADVANTAGES: Gaurav Vohra's Unfair Advantages Framework is a new one for your tech dictionaries. It’s all about identifying unique, hard-to-replicate strengths:  Proprietary data, customer networks, logged industry experience, lets you leverage what others can't - it's a startup superpower moat.

7. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES: Expanding on number 5 above, this article explores how to turn a competitor's strength into your own advantage: Reposition their wins as your opportunities to differentiate, pivot, and outpace - really critical in today's competitive SaaS markets (with some good examples)

8. FOUNDER QUESTIONS: What can drive success for all y'all at the early stages in 2025? Check out these 16 questions you can use and be prepared to answer around strategy, customer focus, scaling plans, etc.

9. SALES: PLG is all fun and games in the early days, but at some point, as companies scale, it has to grow up. The shift to Sales Led Growth (or a hybrid of) isn’t necessarily a strategic thing - it’s customer-driven. Signals to watch: enterprise feature requests (like SSO, security/ISO/SOC/GDPR stuff), organic team expansion, and inbound for bigger contracts. Winners don’t “add sales,” - build the PLG-SLG hybrid around PQLs, usage signals, and shared ownership across product, marketing, and sales (see Calendly and Asana and the case study below).

10. CASE STUDY: Following on from #9 above, I really like Supabase on the Company and product size, so take a look at this Case Study that shows what product and community-led growth actually looks like in practice. By going open-source first, Supabase lets developers experience value before buying, turning GitHub stars and Discord into a high-intent funnel. Content is written by builders, not marketers. I just love the integration simplicity personally (similar in vein to how Stripe focused on simplicity and integration).

POD OF THE WEEK: Going through a bit of a slump in growth? Check this podcast out on 5 questions to ask (when your product stops growing).