Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending May 2, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: CHURN: This is a kinda newsletter in two halves this week - looking at the bigger pictures of churn. According to CatchJS, we're all calculating churn rates wrong. If you love Statistics, the article is well worth reading, and it even gives some Python code to perform the more complicated probability-based equation they recommend. You can then check out this tool (as a handy Google Sheet) from Newfund as a way to analyze the strength of revenue streams for any B2B startup. A complimentary article outlining the methodology behind the tool is here (and you should read it first).  


2. CHURN 2: 40% of SaaS businesses with ARR in the $15-30m range have negative churn and, on average, startups with ARPA over $1k have negative churn. The higher the ARPA, the lower the monthly net MRR churn rate. This is because of lower gross churn and higher expansion revenue at higher ARPAs. This article notes that a monthly churn rate below 5% is healthy, while under 3% is best-in-class.


3. CHURN 3: It's the ultimate leaky bucket. BVP's guide on tackling customer churn explains how to identify root causes and implement strategies to reduce attrition (that can be terminal). Analyzing churn data, improving customer onboarding, and enhancing product value to retain users are all in there. The guide also provides actionable steps for creating a comprehensive churn action plan to plug those leaks.


4. RETENTION: Adding onto #1, #2, and #3 above, Churn math is messy. SaaS Capital outlines the five biggest pitfalls in measuring retention—from inconsistent cohorts to expansion masking poor GDR. If your NRR looks "fine," it might not be. Start here before your next board deck.


5. LEAD: A new term for you us all to ponder, "Leading from the front" isn't just some kind of self-help book cliché - for most of us in startup land, it's the difference between high-trust teams and checked-out ones. Stay SaaSy breaks down how great leaders model urgency, own the hard stuff, and never ask for what they won't do themselves.


6. ESTIMATES: "That'll take months." Heard that before? Ryan Singer unpacks what engineers really mean when they say it. Hint: it's often not the code—it's all the unknowns that make things so hand-wavy.


7. EXPERIMENTATION: Running one feature test a quarter won't cut it. Aakash Gupta breaks down how top SaaS teams build and scale experimentation engines -from setting up infrastructure to aligning product, data, and engineering around test velocity. If you want to ship smarter (I definitely do!), check it.


8. VENTURE: It's difficult to mention tariffs in a weekly newsletter as it's a constantly moving target (I've already removed listings twice), but Venture deal volume just posted its biggest drop in a year—and tariffs might be the reason. Startups facing supply chain costs and trade uncertainty are delaying raises (and those pesky forward multiples). Tariffs are messy to track, but their potentially chilling effects look to be starting to show.


9. WORK TRENDS: Microsoft has just launched the 2025 Work Trend Index, where the trend is the rise of the Frontier Firm: companies rebuilding around AI, human-agent teams, and intelligence on tap. 82% of leaders in the survey say it's a pivotal year to rethink strategy. Copilots, agent bosses, and flexible org charts are all actual strategies happening now.


10. CASE STUDY: Superhuman got a little obsessed with onboarding but it resulted in a 75% trial-to-paid conversion. They layered concierge onboarding calls, tailored user journeys, and laid down some agggggressive time to value (they cheesily call it time to magic) moments, they transformed their churn-prone SaaS trials into revenue.


POD OF THE WEEK: Jason Lemkin jumps onto the 20VC podcast and covers everything: OpenAI acquisition of Windsurf (for a cool $3BN), Are endowments in trouble? ​