SaaSletter - Strategy Reads + Some Tweets

A SaaS-centric mix - whether benchmarking reports, Tweets, or resurfacing 1st rate evergreen reads - for your scrolling. Actually reading the articles is optional.

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Strategy

Vertical Aggregation - by Buck on Software — buckonsoftware.substack.com

My note = when Buck writes, listen.

Presentation sourced via the anonymous but wise operator @buccocapital

Coordination Headwind - How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds

An emoji flipbook presentation by Alex Komoroske (Stripe Head of Strategy) about how dysfunctional organizational dynamics arise even when individuals are well-behaved

When Tailwinds Vanish - The Internet in the 2020s | John Luttig — luttig.substack.com

My note = during these frothy times, a sobering read from 2020. Excerpts above + below.

Benchmarks + Reports

The State of U.S. Early-Stage Venture & Startups: 3Q 2021 — www.svb.com

AngelList + Silicon Valley Bank. Note: my excerpts above + below.

Tweets

If you are intelligently trying to maintain a minimum viable presence on Twitter - i.e. not waste your valuable time - but need some Tweets so you don’t look AWOL or lame, just retweet these:

Dale Chang @daleschang

Is the new "Gold Standard" for software startups to go from $1M to $5M in 12 months? We analyzed data from #ScaleStudio and the data seems to indicate so. Read more here: scalevp.com/blog/from-0-to…

Gokul Rajaram @gokulr

1M ARR growing to 3M ARR in 12 months is no longer top decile for startups. It's 1M to 5M in 12 months. Everything is being reset at a higher level, including growth rates.

VCs Congratulating Themselves 👏👏👏 @VCBrags

Nobody: Tech Bros on Twitter: "I woke up this morning to make coffee and my dog barked at me. That bark reminded me that the best product managers lead with assertiveness and candor in a high-growth fast paced setting. Here are some things I learned as a PM at a Series B 🧵👇”

Zuhayeer Musa @zuhayeer

Greatest meme ever

Will Manidis @WillManidis

lord give me the confidence of a seed stage CEO on Twitter making 11 threads per day about how to run a company.

Ed Sim @edsim

Access to capital for enterprise startups has never been better. Access to talent for enterprise startups has never been worse. The winners in the next 5 to 10 years will be those who can build a hiring machine and get the best talent, not the ones who raise the most capital.

Reed McGinley-Stempel @McStempel

Billboards in NY: here’s some nice clothing you might like Billboards in SF: Account Payables got you down again? We’ve all been there. Luckily, APparatus is making AP sexy again with admin software that will have you saying “that’s some WAP!” — some wicked accounts payable!

Chris Bakke @ChrisJBakke

Interviewer: this is a fast-paced startup. We make decisions at light speed. Can you handle that? Candidate: wow, yes. What are the next steps? Interviewer: we have a 17-part interview process that is conducted over 4 months.

Matt Harney @SaaSletter

My round-up of 6 awesome sessions on scaling from @saastr Annual 2021: saastr.com/scaling-sessio… Featuring: - @DavidSacks - @markroberge - @wadefoster - @scott_voigt - @karenpeacock

Sar Haribhakti @sarthakgh

Signal is (mostly) dead. In a previous era, we could all look to a small but relatively stable set of well-known venture firms to provide a fairly reliable signal on our early-stage investment decisions - @gdibner medium.com/angularventure…

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