Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending May 31, 2024

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Fundraising Metrics. Make your fundraising way less chaotic by getting these metrics dialed in. Unless you are pre-revenue, Investors will expect to see detailed ARR, CAC, LTV, retention rates, and engagement metrics. A strong data deck (or data room) can answer investors' questions and show a clear path to growth.


2. GROWTH LOOPS: Elena Verna (Head of Growth at Amplitude) gave a great presentation about predictable and defensible growth loops and how to make money from them. Elena makes the interesting argument that revenue is an outcome and should not be a KPI in Growth. Reforge has a recent article with some examples and feedback on how to put Growth Loops into action.


3. WEB: Super interesting read from The Pew Research Center: Digital Decay, a quarter of all pages that existed from 2013 to 2023 are now unreachable, with pages often deleted on otherwise functional websites.


4. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (AI): Historically, in the Tech World, many startups have been vulnerable to their competitors producing copycat technologies - looking at you Meta/Facebook. Generative AI raises newer questions on intellectual property – who owns AI-generated content, and who benefits? (Google AI search already has ads - gross!) This article from Benedict Evans delves into the complexities - looking at ownership, moral rights, and potential exploitation.


5. UN-SCALE: Sometimes, while building a repeatable scaleable business model, some un-scaleable things have to be done.  This article highlights three specific non-scalable things sales teams should be doing right now.


6. INVESTMENT: Carta's "State of Markets Q1 2024 Report" is out with some quality insights critical for those of us looking to raise a round (or others of us planning our runway). Funding rounds are down by almost a third, and investors are being selective (if not AI, then solid growth potential and fiscal sustainability). In the Seed/Series A side of town, over 40% of funding was directed at bridge rounds, which I assume are VCs protecting their existing startups and funds.


7. PRICING: This is an excellent report from Vendr: The SaaS Trends Report for Q1 2024 (B2B only). You can compare quarters from Q1 2020 to now: Renewal ACV and Net New ACV (after a remarkable drop last year) remain flat, and buying life cycles are getting longer. Cybersecurity is the leader in new-category purchases. A cool feature at the top is that you can select and compare the category your SaaS may be in.


8. MARKETING: Hubspot continues to report on marketing data gathered via the platform with the State of Marketing report. TL;DR: Marketers focus on AI, with 77% saying AI helps create personalized content. In this business environment, efficiency, personalization, and innovative tools will drive marketing success in 2024. This other Hubspot page pulls some good stats. Again, TL;DR, the average landing page conversion rate is less than 10%, the average bounce rate is 37%, and the SEO click-through rate is 13%.


9. TEAM: Check this stat: VCs say startup success depends on your TEAM DYNAMICS (56% of them), then timing (12%), and tech (9%). Tech sector likes teams more (64%) than healthcare (42%).


10. CASE STUDY: Notion is a great product, and notably, to me, they also run some pretty impressive marketing tricks. First Round Capital agrees and has a great case study on their different strategic layers of Marketing, especially with community.


POD OF THE WEEK: From a16z:  Metrics and mindsets for retention and engagement as marketplaces and other platforms evolve over time.