Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending June 13, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Here is a new one - The Customer Success Ratio. Calculate this as CSM expense ÷ Net New ARR from Existing Customers. Track it to see if your post-sale team drives growth or burns margin. Rule of thumb: keep it <10%.


2. AI: Bond Capital's monster 340-slide AI report is a goldmine: ChatGPT scaled 20x faster than the internet (p. 20), 73% say AI sounds human (p. 26), inference costs down 99% (p. 40), agent apps surging (p. 93), revenue scaling fast (p. 102), 70% of GenAI users seeing productivity gains (p. 109).


3. UNICORN: The 30-year unicorn backlog may finally be moving (this is referencing the 700+ unicorns stuck in private markets). Q2 saw 20 unicorn exits (vs. six last year), led by AI, cyber & health. Wiz's $32B buyout, CoreWeave IPO & more signal some kinda thaw—but with 700+ unicorns still waiting, this logjam may take some time.


4. VENTURE: VCs seem to be funding two things: AI & SaaS—but in very different ways. AI receives massive rounds, but even pre-revenue SaaS companies must show traction and efficiency. AI = 'fund the vision,' SaaS = 'fund metrics.' Same VCs, two mindsets.


5. GROWTH: Unlike the focus of #3 above, mostlymetrics breaks down why 10-15% annual SaaS growth is just fine for many. Not every startup is a rocket ship—and that's OK. Realistic growth expectations & compounding wins > unicorn-chasing.


6. PRODUCTIVITY: I've been having lots of productivity talks over the past few weeks, and this is a great article that validates a lot of the discussions (and, tbh, gave me a few hard truths to act on). It's targeted at engineers, but the 15 productivity hacks here apply to any knowledge worker IMO. High-signal, no fluff.


7. MARKETING: Here is a GitHub treasure trove: Marketing for Founders. Crowdsourced, no-nonsense advice across positioning, pricing, SEO & more. A really practical resource worth bookmarking for revisits.


8. PRICING: Check out this go-to pricing guide for early-stage founders. It covers freemium, premium, usage-based, and hybrid models—plus when (and how) to charge more.


9. MOATS (AI): Clouded Judgement dives into what modern SaaS moats in the modern AI world look like: Speed isn't just important; it is the moat. As well as scale, network effects, brand, and distribution. But because AI compresses product moats, this all matters more than ever. (also read the rest of that post - tons of nuggets always in there - benchmarks on multiples, revenues, gross margin, etc., etc.)


10. CASE STUDY: Perplexity AI is scaling fast! Check this deep dive on its acquisition and retention machine. Sixty percent of traffic is direct, mobile usage is exploding, and SEO and product-led virality do the heavy lifting.


POD OF THE WEEK: Adding on to number 9 above on speed as a Moat - Sam Parr and Shaan Puri talk to Jason Lemkin about cloning yourself with AI and how ChatGPT will be the end of incumbent apps.