Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending October 31, 2025

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: CARR - Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue. This is a forward-looking SaaS revenue metric that estimates the maximum revenue size of a SaaS company, measuring current recurring revenue from your SaaS P&L and future revenue that sits in newly won customer contracts.


2. PRODUCT-MARKET FIT: Finding Product-market fit isn't a one-and-done event—just as the product you ship, it's an ongoing process. This updated playbook breaks down the key signals, from retention curves to sales velocity, and the tactical moves to iterate faster. If you're still guessing, this is your roadmap.


3. UNDERSELL: If expansion fits into your growth strategy (it should) take a read of two-part series from Tomasz Tunguz and  Bill Binch - part one is deliberately underselling as a sales strategy to minimize churn and increase upsell/expansion opportunities as a land and expand strategy and post 2 is an expansion of land and expand witch details how to structure a Startup sales team for optimal land & expand.


4. COMPENSATION: Early-stage comp is more art than science, and most founders are so hectic at this point that it's easy to get it wrong. This First Round piece offers tactical advice on what to break (like "market rate" rules), what to follow (like transparency), and how to build trust before you build out pay bands. A little more in talky format here.


5. PRODUCT: Here is a tech-ism I like - AI changes everything and nothing at all. Teresa Torres is here to remind us all that AI is great and all, but great product work still always starts with understanding user needs. (and here is how you find out what they care about).


6. MENTOR: SaaS founders don't need perfect advisors; we all need people who've broken shit and learned from it. This guide covers why mentorship matters, how to earn it, and how to keep it useful. Includes outreach templates and cadence tips that can work.


7. VENTURE: Good VC pulse check. This pod n' post breaks down the "Great VC Shuffle," what's driving TAM fatigue in AI (bubble anyone?), and why $1B ARR is still just getting started (broken liquidity pipeline). Good follow-up to the State of Software signals from last week's newsletter.


8. LIQUIDITY: Fast follow from #8 above. If IPOs stay rare and private rounds dry up, who buys the next crop of SaaS companies? Lemkin breaks down the likely acquirers (and what they're really after). Probably means some top-of-the-heap consolidation is on the way.


9. DECIDE: Good decision-making isn't just speed, it's perception, insight, and good judgment - which this Forbes article consultingly wraps up as discernment. It also has 10 sharp rules to upgrade how you make calls as a founder or operator. Not new ideas, just well-said reminders worth keeping as an easily accessible reminder. I prefer this analogy, too - A fire ain't no emergency if you are the Fire Department.


10. CASE STUDY: AWS and AI - AWS currently dominates Public Cloud (did you forget what happened last week?) - we all assumed it was supposed to dominate AI too. But bloat, bureaucracy, and missed bets are showing up and slowing it down. Bloomberg breaks down why Amazon's cloud empire is stalling while others race ahead.


POD OF THE WEEK: No matter what Robbie says in this Podcast from Lenny's Podcast - Google Search IS changing (60% of Google Search is now unclicked). But launching AI Overviews was cool, and he has also scaled Stories and Reels at Instagram.