Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending March 17, 2023

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: FINANCIAL MODELING: Fun fact: SaaS financial modeling is uniquely complex and requires careful thought and expertise. Luckily, there is a boatload of helpful content on the web to help with financial modeling. Baremetrics are incredible at this and have 1. An overview of why SaaS metrics are different; 2. A deep Dive on a usable model for you; 3. A Google Sheet that is ready to go (make yourself a copy).


2. SILICON VALLEY BANK: This week started with absolute chaos in the startup world, and hopefully, the crisis has been diverted, as it would have been a global GFC-style event. For an accurate unit economics breakdown of what caused the run on SVB leading to its demise in under 48 hours, read this post - or here for a longer Twitter version. I can't wait for the movie. (note this is written as of Wednesday this week, leaving plenty of room for more chaos before publication). Tomasz Tunguz has some wise words though "Take a Breath."


3. DILUTION: I didn't mean to scare you with that word. It's one of the most feared words a founder can hear. So here we go - let's make it a benchmark. What is the average ownership percentage by SaaS Founders at the time of IPO? Sammy Abdullah takes a review, and the median level of founders' ownership is 14% while the average is 23%, with VCs owning about 54% on median. Obviously, there is a significant difference in Bootstrapped vs. not in this dataset.


4. SPEND: I can't report all doom and gloom this week. For startups that sell B2B, good news, the Q1 2023 Cloud Software Spending Survey from Battery details a robust software spending budget. 46 % expect to increase budgets in 2023.


5. EXPENDITURE: Rounding out above with some opposite state stuff: We all know running a SaaS business is basically a Ponzi Scheme of having to spend a bunch of money on other SaaS Products. So in these operationally critical times, what are ways to cut some spending, especially as SaaS pricing inflation is five times higher than market inflation? TechCrunch has an article promising to cut your spend by 30%.


6. SHERLOCK HOMEBOY: Crack open your Tech Dictionaries so you can add this awesome phrase. The Sherlock Homeboy Technique is a way to reverse engineer your Content Marketing strategy for the rest of the year.


7. CHURN: Churn is not a Customer Success problem- it's a business one. Check out eight ways to move the needle on churn in this current economic environment.


8. DEVS: What are the tools du jour for Devs? According to a StackOverflow survey, when it comes to Cloud, AWS is the most used cloud platform (51%), followed by Azure (29%) and Google Cloud Platform (27%). Node.js and React.js are the two most common web technologies; JavaScript is the most popular language, and unfortunately, according to the survey, it's a 91.88% dominated man's world.


9. AI: Sample size of 1 - NetDragon Websoft, a Hong Kong-based online gaming firm ($2.1B in annual revenue), has appointed an AI CEO (Ms. Tang Yu). Check out how Ms. Tang Yu outperforms the Hong Kong Stock Market by working 24/7 for $0 in salary. Not too bad considering that at Fortune 500 firms, the average CEO pay is now about $16m per year - time to take another look at #5 above.


10. CASE STUDY: Moving into the Enterprise is no mean feat. Here are the top 5 Lessons from Howie Liu, the CEO of Airtable, on their upmarket mission. Bonus content: how Airtable also leverages SEO.


POD OF THE WEEK: Complimenting #10 is from Lennys Podcast on Lessons from Airtable's unconventional growth strategy and how Airtable found its first super-users.
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