Jos White

We're launching the inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks, a deep dive into the metrics and trends observed across the early-stage enterprise cloud market. This is the first look at some of the business data around GenAI in SaaS. Some initial observations: 1) 60% of SaaS companies have already integrated GenAI into their offerings (60% of these as part of their current product and 40% as a new product), and an additional 20% are planning to do so this year. Almost half aren't monetizing these features. Those that are are primarily experimenting with both usage-based and flat fee pricing models. 2) Most companies are utilizing OpenAI as their primary LLM, but many are experimenting with multiple models - and we are noticing an early trend towards intelligently routing GenAI inference requests to different models based on cost, performance, and security. 3) Though we are in the initial innings of GenAI, we are seeing some positive signals - companies that implemented GenAI had 7% higher NDR than those that did not. Still early days, but we'll be doing this benchmarking report regularly to track and share how things progress in this new era. Link to report in comments.

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At the heart of all business transformations are: 1. Reduction in opex 2. Investment in new/better revenue streams That’s it, that’s the list.

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If you're looking for inspiration and advice on how to grow your business from its early stages to scaling it at incredible rates, have a listen below. The Hiveway Inc. founders sit down with CanadianSME Small Business Magazine to discuss the highs and lows, and perseverance required - to take an idea to becoming a leader in a global partner ecosystem.

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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There has to be a fair and transparent process to any change to taxes and a coherent plan for the future. Unfreezing fuel duty would raise £3bn to absolutely dwarf these taxes on ambition and value creation. And benefit the environment.

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A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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Very proud to see the WVC:E dream team - Anisah Osman Britton MBE & Rachel Drapper - alongside long time friend and rockstar Ekaterina Gianelli on stage at TechBBQ discussing "Fixing the Talent Exodus in VC". Key Takeaways: 💰Impact of Consolidation on Culture and Talent: The ongoing consolidation in the VC industry is reshaping company culture, affecting morale, and influencing talent. 🚀Emerging Managers Aren’t Diversifying VC: Despite the rise of emerging managers, the industry remains largely homogenous, with many new managers still coming from the same traditional, non-diverse backgrounds. ⚠️Perceptions of Diversity as High Risk: Many in the VC industry continue to view diverse hires, investments, and business models as "high risk," "too time-consuming," or "too costly," perpetuating a cycle of exclusion. 🚼 Parental Leave Inequality: Inequities in parental leave policies are disproportionately affecting women in venture, creating additional barriers to progression. But there are funds, investors, LPs and organisations (like us!) that are trying to change this!

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York IE is an advisory and venture capital firm for technology companies. We have a mission to be a one stop resource (R&D, GTM and G&A) and capital provider (early stage venture funds and a network of 300+ later stage partners) for startups. We've achieved some impressive feats in the first five years of our business working hard and doing things our way. The opportunity is enormous! There are pros and cons being left to your own devices! We have no formal board of directors outside our co-founders and managing partners. We own, operate and govern our own business. I'm the majority owner. My name is on the masthead. This makes for ultimate freedom in running our business as founders, executives and operators. From a stage perspective, we've bootstrapped our way to become an established and formidable company -- revenue scale, product maturity, team size, customer base, established partnerships, fund size, fund LPs, total investments, market opportunity etc. We have no outside venture capital or private equity investors funding our operating company, which in turn is typically when a board of directors gets formalized. We're a rare breed to get to this point in the startup journey on our own accord, especially within the SaaS business model. We were recently even named Inc. 5000 for our hard earned efforts. It's working well, but we have all the relatable challenges like the many startups in our investment portfolio and advisory client base. We're all figuring it out together, the best we can, but to get to the next level we need help too. So, what did we do? We created a strategic advisory board to meet quarterly to help advise us short, mid and long term. Similar cadence, presentation, checkpoint and accountability as a formal board. We recruited distinguished industry veterans in our market (professional services/consulting) from larger enterprises to help us realize our vision to SaaS-ify and technology enable an old space. We are Advisory as a Service! Most CEOs wouldn't let others in the tent, most founders would avoid this structure and rigor, most operators would be reluctant to introduce additional voices. Not us. Our vision is to reshape the way startups are built, scaled and monetized. To do so, we need to challenge ourselves each and every day. This new group will be an integral piece of our success in the future! Rising tides! 🧠

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Survival of the Fittest in a Shifting Funding Landscape Founders are adopting a low-key approach, focusing their energy on internal growth. Armed with capital secured in 2021, many are strategically revitalising their businesses. But the big question remains: What will the dealmaking landscape look like in 2024? "Overall, capital infusion will be concentrated on a narrower spectrum of companies than in all. The private capital raising landscape is anticipated to be robust, showcasing significant improvement from 2022. However, the capital infusion will be concentrated on a narrower spectrum of companies compared to the prolific scene of 2021." Read More: https://lnkd.in/d3536qvA In the meantime, share your thoughts! Are you a founder facing a funding crunch? How are you adapting your strategy? #StartupFunding #Founders #Growth #DealMaking #SibaPanda

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40 mins of immensely actionable advice for all Vertical SaaS founders from ServiceTitan’s Ara Mahdessian. The TL;DR: - Everything about your business needs to back into delivering tangible customer ROI: Your product, your messaging and your org structure - If you are in a market where your product workflows can deliver meaningful financial ROI: Go deep - Invest deeply in Customer Success: Be a person of your word, if you promise ROI orient your team around unlocking it - Expand faster than you think: Move up or down market, start building product 2 and 3 before you think your ready. The compounding effect is real - Act fast if it’s the wrong fit: Both the company and the team member will thank you later - Psycho analyze what drives you and your team: Why are you on this journey? What are you chasing? #builders #mindset

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The Vanta EMEA team brought the 🔥 to QBRs this week in Dublin! We have an incredible team on the ground here in Europe. I’ve also had many insightful conversations this month with folks who have built some of the greatest SaaS businesses on the continent. A few of their bits of advice and wisdom include: - Every business, country, and segment comes with its own nuances. Don’t copy someone else’s strategy. Leverage benchmarks but know your business will be unique. - Many SaaS companies entering Europe repeat the same mistakes time and time again. Leverage your local friends, investors and contacts to see around corners. - Compliance and regulation are taken very seriously in Europe. This should mean our opportunity here is tremendous. - Don’t settle. Go big, think broad, be ambitious. If you don’t, someone else will. Thank you EMEA team for your hospitality! Can’t wait to be back soon.

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Rob's goals and progress on contactout and athena.vc 22nd July 2024 Last week: Monday - meetings Tuesday: QA pricing plans, admin,sign and mail company docs, pay capital call community moderation. Wednesday - Talk with deeptech founders, connect with influencers from alex brogan interviewRead about fusion, longevity and sam altman, peter theil investments Thursday - Read about helion, world coin, other sam altman investments. read btc and eth whitepapers, rain ai , lob, cocorobotics, running tide, hermes, boom Friday - Read fcp docs, eth whitepapers, sam altman peter thiel investments. What did I learn: https://lnkd.in/g3D8__Q2 what are the highest impact industries and technologies? study what top investors like sam altman and peter thiel have invested in: https://lnkd.in/gFeutEcM https://lnkd.in/g_ErBh7k lots of stuff from nuclear fusion, to longevity, to a better GPU than nvidia, universal basic income, growing seaweed to capture carbon, building the next google. https://lnkd.in/gYGjbEF2 should we start on researching how to build a better google especially google scholar for scientists: study futurehouse.org and similar and lots of scientists and deeptech founders about problems they face Jessicia Livingston's started a new podcast "Social Radar" interviewing YC founders. Her old book founders at work is really good too. The old YC content from PG, Sam, Jessica is way better than the current YC content. Going through all the startup school interviews from 2012, 2014, 2016 way better speakers. Next week: continue reading YC content write up founders curriculum

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Tomorrow is the summer edition of SaaStock Local London and we've a great entrepreneur sharing his story of how he orchestrated an exit (to Zuora). If your building a SaaS with a view to a future exit (most folks except Basecamp), Or your currently thinking about M&A Then this is the inside story from a great founder, James Henderson, who got a fantastic outcome. The content will not be recorded, so you have to be there to get the insights such as: Why selling was right for James and Zephr - How do you plan an exit - What forces did James consider before he sold - How he managed his team and board through the process - What happens when you make a deal and sell All these questions and you get to ask your own. So make sure you're there if you're serious about building a SaaS company to sale. Around 17 tickets remaining. Link in the comments. #exits #M&A #founders #saas #london #CEO #saastocklocallondon

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Ever wondered how top B2B SaaS founders scale their companies from zero to millions? Unlock the Secrets of B2B SaaS Success with SaaS Academy's Leadership Duo 🚀 In this eye-opening episode of The Expertise Economy, I sit down with Johnny Page (CEO) and Matt Verlaque (COO) of SaaS Academy - the premier coaching program for B2B SaaS founders. Key insights you'll gain: > The power of extreme focus in scaling a SaaS business > Why knowing your numbers is crucial for making smart decisions > How to attract and retain top talent as you grow > The importance of founder-led branding in today's market > Practical frameworks for identifying your biggest growth levers Johnny and Matt share their inspiring journey from SaaS Academy clients to company leaders, offering a unique perspective on what it takes to build a transformational coaching business. Whether you're a SaaS founder looking to scale or an aspiring entrepreneur, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiring stories. Don't miss out - watch the full episode on YouTube now to take your SaaS game to the next level! https://lnkd.in/dju-Be2u #SaaS #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #StartupAdvice #SaaSAcademy

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Today at Vanta we made going from zero to compliance easier than ever for startups. 🚀 TL;DR: We're making compliance SOC even less. 😎 We're excited to launch a boatload of new usability enhancements. Here's what you can do with our latest enhancements: 📝 Create and adopt policies faster with our new policy builder ✅ Streamline background checks directly inside Vanta (❗) 🖥️ Easily navigate the platform with our new UX 🦙 And more! Watch our video to see all the updates or read more on our blog (link in comments)!

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Trigger warning. UK founders to VCs: "you (generally) suck". I was taken aback by the intensity of comments made during an exit fireside chat organised by our friends at ARGO, Jeff and Aneesh. Room full of founders, we're talking about the importance of starting exit planning very early (say 3 years+ prior to exit) and the message is: "I would never feel comfortable bringing this topic up to my board, I just would not trust them to handle any of it well". Ensued a discussion about Tier II board vs. Tier III boards, how much VC boards suck, how VC's just do not know how to interact with founders and how a number of key topics are best actively avoided. Nods across the room. The Tier I Board, the kind of place where you could actually bring up strategic topics like, you know, "who might actually want to buy us some day and how do we start building the right kind of relationships today" seemed to be a sort of faraway land, as if sitting with the Knights of the Round Table or the Jedi High Council would actually be easier to achieve. Damn. So we can say all we want about founder-friendly blah blah but if this is still the prevalent reality for UK and European founders, what the heck are we doing and when do we start the topic of "being a great board member" seriously? We need to collectively get out shit together and start training investors to be better board members.

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Since early 2021, VC quarterly exit values have plummeted to $50B or below, a stark contrast to the six consecutive quarters of $100B+ exits before then. With IPOs dwindling and M&A activity slow, the future of venture industry exits appears uncertain. Will we see a surge in private venture-backed company acquisitions? This could be a crucial and innovative strategy to boost VC exits. Increased private acquisitions might offer a much-needed lifeline, providing a creative solution to the current exit drought in the venture capital market. #venturecapital #inspireglobalventures

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Interesting to see a venture fund invest in a production co A24 at a $3.5B valuation, up 40% from their last round, yet A24 explored a sale with a floated asking price of $2.5 billion to $3 billion a few years ago. Three years later the perceived value has gone up (probably due to new IP, pipeline and residuals) yet it has to significantly grow and expand in order for the fund to make a sizable, venture expected return. Which begs the question is this less about the IRR on one deal but instead learning an industry and the players for a larger move? That’s my hot take. Could an A24 be exploring buying assets, a rollup or other mechanisms to grow their value? #entertainment #content #media

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Nice overview of how we're using data to inform how we invest in early-stage founders. We'll be announcing more this summer but we're seeing some really interesting early data. https://lnkd.in/exU_Juf5

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