Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending October 11, 2019

1. EARLY STAGE CAPITAL (DEEP DIVE): Last month I referenced that deal size inflation isn’t just happening at the high end of town. Tomasz Tunguz takes an interesting view of this trend this week, by breaking down early stage fundraising as a collection of products (such as a $5m Series A or a $10m Series B). This is a great read -  in 2010 it was very likely that a business raised a $1M round before raising a $3-5M dollar round. Today, the first institutional round of capital is $3-5M in 54% of cases. Crunchbase backs this up, noting that the annual quantity of seed rounds of $5 million or more quadrupled from 2014 to 2018 and that Seed Stage deals are on the increase while everything else seems to be cooling a little.
2. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: I’m cheating a bit with this one and asking a simpler question around value: What are the best value metrics for you business (and how to figure that out).
3. BENCHMARKS: How, as an operator, does your startup compare to peers? OpenView Partners have gone to town to answer this again this year with an extensive Expansion SaaS Benchmarks report. The UI of this report is great so the web version is my fav, but here is the PDF, if that is your preferred thing. Product Led Growth businesses lead the pack!
4. CFO and FINANCE: In an early stage tech company hiring a CFO is critical and Andreessen Horowitz discuss how CEO’s and CFO roles need to compliment each other (using Topo Maps as a metaphor). SaaSx also provide a great primer on Finance terms every SaaS leader should be familiar with.
5. CADENCE: The cadence at which a company operates is set by the Senior team, who keeps the rhythm and beat. But don’t conflate this with execution.  Startups and Tech companies operate at a fast cadence, often reporting on a weekly basis, some teams daily. But even in larger scale corporates, the top economic performers follow a faster rhythm than their industry counterparts. And this all requires a fierce focus and prioritization.
6. DEVELOPER KPI’s: I love this post from JD Trask of Raygun discussing his perspective on what (and how) to measure the quality and efficient of work within product teams. 
7. RETAIL 5/5: The future of retail is tech-centric and Business Insider are providing a 5 part series on the future of retail (2020 edition) In this final part of the series, the focus in on
8. SEO: Writing amazing content is no use if it’s not discoverable and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an ever evolving dark art - but here is a pretty good (current) guide from Founder Institute.
9. BRAND: People buy with their heads and their hearts. Sure the product has to be solving a significant problem, but your words have consequence (maybe not so much in this newsletter). Building your Brand matters, as do the words used in your messaging. From Google here are 3 approaches to try with stories
10. MARKETPLACES: They are a hell of a business model to nail and liquidity is the lifeblood of marketplaces - It is the efficiency with which a marketplace matches buyers and sellers on a platform. The Point Nine Team dive deep into WTF liquidity really is.

POD OF THE WEEK: We all probably attend more meetings than we need to, in the US apparently there are 55 million of them a day. So check this great episode from Freakonomics on how to have healthier meeting habits.

BONUS: Optimize dollar spend! From Gainsight an on-demand webinar on how Customer Success teams can become a growth center (and how to budget for that)