Today's SaaS Pulse
Salesforce Launches AgentExchange, a Unified AI Marketplace with $50M Builder Fund
Salesforce has merged its three app and AI stores into a single AgentExchange marketplace, offering over 13,000 ready‑made apps, AI agents, and automation components. The platform features intent‑aware search, one‑click buying, and instant activation within Salesforce or Slack, and includes a $50 million builder fund to encourage partner development.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Loop raises $95M to scale its supply‑chain AI platform
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Gets a Major Pay Rise - but Will Its Increasing AI Focus Be Enough to Continue...
Microsoft said CEO Satya Nadella will receive $96.5 million in total compensation for fiscal 2025, a 22% increase from the prior year, with $84 million in performance‑based stock awards emphasizing long‑term value creation. The raise comes amid blockbuster company results — $281.7 billion in revenue, $101.8 billion net income, Azure revenue up 34% to over $75 billion, and expanding AI deployments like Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry — even as Microsoft cut up to 9,000 jobs and reports a CEO‑to‑median‑worker pay ratio of 480:1. The package spotlights the tension between investor‑driven, AI‑led growth and internal cost‑savings, raising questions about whether AI investments will sustainably fund outsized executive pay and broader workforce benefits.
Enterprise AI Adoption Lags, Unlocking Massive Opportunity
While this may be a more extreme exaggeration, there is a substantial capability overhang in the form of things that AI models can do but have not been uniformly adopted for yet. When I talk to enterprises, it’s clear that most...
AI Support Saves Money, Yet Still Costs Too Much
We all know how much AI has already changed customer support But it's not cheap Across all my investments in the space, the average price to resolve or reflect a ticket is about $1 For complex issues, around $5 in tokens etc That's much...
SaaStr AI App of the Week: Higgsfield — The Video AI Platform That’s Crushing It Where Everyone Else Is Still...
Higgsfield, a mobile‑first AI video and image platform, is gaining rapid traction with a “click‑to‑video” UX that eliminates prompting and produces cinematic short clips via curated presets. The startup has attracted over 11 million users and 1.2 billion social impressions...
Software Awakens: Real‑time Learning Revives Innovation
Software is waking up again. Ten years ago, apps were the frontier. Screens were canvases. Curiosity was the culture. Then the App Store froze. The same grids, the same playbooks and the same incentives repeated endlessly. We optimized everything except imagination. For a while,...
No‑Code Platforms Turn Weeks‑Long CRUD Projects Into Minutes
Yes, ‘prosumer’ vibe coding apps like @Replit are best at CRUD and CRUD+AI apps today. But that also means if you have some experience building CRUD apps … that you can just fly when you ‘vibe’ your next one. All the stuff...
5 Tips For Pitching VCs for The Very First TIme
Veteran founder Jason Lemkin offers practical advice for first‑time founders pitching VCs: rehearse with experienced founders, craft a compelling opener that highlights your top growth metrics, be candid about weaknesses without leading with them, and deliver a strong product demo....
“This Is Where We Start to Move Beyond the Hype Cycle” - Slack Tells Us Why It Can Be the...
At Dreamforce 2025 Slack pitched an upgraded Slackbot and an agents-first vision that positions Slack as the workplace operating system and front end for Salesforce’s Agentforce/CRM stack. The company says Slackbot’s contextual awareness—pulling team and channel data—lets agents live alongside...
Lean Execution Drives 24% Revenue Growth and Profitability
2025 has been a big year for us at @acquiredotcom. We have grown revenue, reduced expenses and finally became profitable. > $6.1 million in revenue, up 24%. > $4.5 million in expenses, down 26%. > Operating profit, up 50.2%. > Total profit, $1.6 million. Absolutely...
75% Fit with Top VCs Signals Major Validation
"A 75% fit with @altosvc + @20vcFund? That's huge. It was exactly who we'd hoped for." Sign up for waitlist for SaaStr AI VC -> https://t.co/Eg5TFmnXmm https://t.co/r9Ct5KFhbP
🧠 Community Wisdom: Diagnosing Early-Stage Churn, Automating Cross-Department Release Comms, Paying for UserTesting.com, Integrating Prototypes Into Your Product Development Process,...
The Community Wisdom newsletter roundup highlights practical product and growth tactics from a members-only Slack community, including diagnosing early-stage churn, automating cross-department release communications, budgeting for UserTesting.com, and integrating prototypes into development workflows. Contributors shared actionable diagnostics and process templates...
Flat ARR? The Fix Is Simpler than You Think
If your ARR is flatlining, the problem is simpler than you think..
SaaStr AI VC Matchmaking Delivers 116 Intros in Two Weeks
The new SaaStr AI VC Matchmaking tool has already made 116 VC intros in https://t.co/P5GuMbTEG9 https://t.co/RzkMeULyjI
ICE Is Building a Social Media Panopticon
Federal immigration enforcement is expanding online surveillance: ICE has paid $5.7 million to contract Zignal Labs’ AI‑driven social media monitoring platform, which the company says can analyze more than 8 billion posts a day in 100+ languages and surface geolocated...
Built a CRUD App in 5 Days, Now Earning Revenue
I vibe coded a simple CRUD app that is now generating a little bit of revenues using @lovable_dev. It took me about 5 days to build. Here's what it does, and how it came together...
AI Startups Should Target $6T Knowledge‑worker Market
If you’re looking to build an AI business in 2025… Here’s something you need to know. Everyone’s been chasing the $300Bn SaaS industry. But that’s not the real prize. The real prize, the real disruption for new AI businesses? It's the $6Trillion knowledge worker Industry.
How to Scale Your Ad Budget Without Breaking Your Funnel
The post explains how SaaS companies can scale ad spend profitably by treating budget increases as a systematic, data‑driven process rather than a quick boost. It outlines a step‑by‑step framework—starting with a test month, weekly tracking, incremental 10‑20% budget lifts,...
7‑Second Deployments with Kamal’s Local Registry
Deploying a change with Kamal using the new local registry against my homelab server is now down to 7 seconds. Getting close to those FTP-drag-to-production days 😄🤘 https://t.co/Okdt1fWiHv
Win First Customers by Targeting Event Influencers
In 9 years, Alina Vandenberghe grew Chili Piper to over $30m ARR. Here’s her 5-step “IRL Influencer” sales playbook for finding your startups first customers (and why it still works for them today): 1. Go to EVERY industry event Alina’s...
How to Use Paid Search and LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads to Drive B2B SaaS Growth
The post explains how combining paid search with LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads creates a predictable growth engine for B2B SaaS companies, capturing high‑intent demand while building brand authority. It offers a step‑by‑step framework—choosing platforms, structuring keyword tiers, using phrase match,...
Wabi Revives Playful Discovery in Modern Software
Every few years, something quietly rewrites the rules of how we interact with technology. You don’t always see it when it starts. It begins as something playful. Something that feels small, even strange. But it carries an energy you can’t quite...
Smart Sustainable Growth Wins Over Doing More
From London to DC, Belgium to SF, and now Miami — week five on the road reminded me how powerful it is when growth leaders come together to reimagine what’s next. The Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE) Summit for Revenue and...
How to Use Matched and Lookalike Ads to Scale Your B2B SaaS Growth
The post explains how SaaS companies can break growth plateaus by using matched‑audience and lookalike advertising to achieve market omnipresence. It walks readers through step‑by‑step setup for Meta, LinkedIn, Google, and AdRoll, offers practical tips to boost match rates, and...
Curiosity Fuels the Next Generation Operating System
The next operating system grows from curiosity. What feels like a toy today becomes the foundation of tomorrow. Wabi feels light, even whimsical, but that is how big shifts always begin. The first computers were for hobbyists. The first social...
SaaS Greed: Price Hikes Threaten Customer Loyalty
We had an app we’d been reference customers for — for years. Our case study was on their website, we got them several of the largest customers in B2B via our direct recommendation. Then last year they told...
How to Create B2B Ads That Convert: Campaign Structure and Retargeting for SaaS Growth
The post outlines a systematic approach to building high‑converting B2B SaaS ad campaigns, emphasizing proper tracking, attribution, and a layered multi‑channel structure that combines outbound email, LinkedIn, Meta, Google, and retargeting. It details practical steps—from installing pixels and using attribution...
AI Success Depends on Data, UX, and Top Talent
My biggest takeaway from Chip Huyen : 1. Most AI product problems aren’t AI problems. When companies think they have an AI performance issue, it’s usually a user experience problem, an organizational communication gap, or a data quality issue. One...
Adjust LTV for Multi-Year Deals Using Renewal Rate
Is LTV Flawed with Multi-year Contracts? Let's find out in today's edition of SaaS Metrics School... This was a great reader question. Should we adjust our LTV calculation when we offer multi-year contracts? Yes and no. We know that multi-year...
How to Build a B2B Ad Strategy That Actually Scales
The post argues that scaling B2B SaaS revenue beyond $5‑10M ARR requires a disciplined paid‑ads system built on solid unit economics, rigorous testing, and continuous optimization rather than luck or creative flair. It walks readers through a step‑by‑step framework—defining CAC,...
SQL-Powered OCR with LLMs: Beware Auto‑corrections
We never marketed this widely, yet it's growing very fast. Just using our data warehouse and call SELECT ai_parse_document(content) and get OCR working on your document corpus (PDF, docx, etc). This is harder than one might imagine with LLMs. For...
Growth Stalls Aren’t About Pipeline; Four Deeper Issues
Why your pipeline isn’t the problem to your slow growth. 4 deeper issues sabotaging your growth.
How to Use LinkedIn for Outbound Prospecting: Building Relationships at Scale
The post explains how to integrate LinkedIn into a B2B outbound prospecting and ABM strategy, emphasizing that LinkedIn’s high‑intent audience and accurate data make it a crucial human touchpoint alongside email and ads. It outlines a step‑by‑step system—from syncing ABM...
Speed Wins Nothing without a Persuasive Point of View
AI tools can crank out X content in seconds…. But words without a worldview don’t make people buy. Speed < POV
From Zero to Twenty AI Agents in One Year
A year ago we had zero AI agents. Zero AI, really. Today, we have 20 AI Agents running SaaStr. And have replaced 12 humans. It's not all better. But it's the future, today. More here -> https://t.co/yEaD8WhJJg
How to Write AI-Personalized Outbound Email Sequences That Actually Get Replies
The post explains how AI-driven personalization can transform cold outbound email sequences into high‑response conversations, outlining a five‑email, fifteen‑day framework that balances value offers and reply‑focused messages. It emphasizes building a clean ABM list, warming domains, and using AI tools...
Build Friendships with Competitor CEOs for Founder Success
I always tried to keep a good relationship with the CEOs of HubSpot’s competitors, like Salesforce, Zendesk, Marketo, Eloqua, Mailchimp, etc. It served us well. I recommend founders do the same.
Knowing Everything Makes You the Best CEO
For a long while, you probably aren't a great CEO But you know the customers The software The feature gaps The roadmap The competition How to sell it How to market it How to build it So maybe as flawed as you are You are still the best CEO
How to Use AI-Powered Outbound Email to Scale B2B Growth
The post explains how to build a scalable, AI‑powered outbound email system for B2B SaaS growth, emphasizing the need for a well‑defined ABM list, AI‑driven personalization, and a thoughtful cadence. It outlines the prerequisites (high enough ACV), the four outbound...
Only One of 16 Core AI Agents Is Legacy
New!! “Everything’s In Play in the Age of AI: Why Only 1 of Our 16 Core AI Agents Comes From a Legacy Vendor” https://t.co/ZWUROQEB9H
Current Top 10 SaaS Cloud Multiples Revealed
This week in enterprise software: Top 10 #SaaS #Cloud multiples as of today's market close
Fizzy Beta Invites Launch Next Week After Rebrand
For all those waiting on a Fizzy beta invite, a couple things: 1. The initial batch should begin next week. We had our all-company retreat this week and decided to hold off on invites until everyone was back at work. 2. We’re...
AI Empowers B2B Buyers, Redefining Marketing's Funnel Role
AI is changing the balance of power in B2B. “Get on the phone with us and we’ll tell you pricing.” No more. “Get on the phone and we’ll show you our product.” No more. Today’s buyers now self-educate, run deep...
AI Productivity Gains Require Upfront Workflow Redesign
There is a wide gulf between those getting major productivity gains from AI agents and those that don’t. The difference comes down to being willing to do the work up front to make the agent effective by giving them the...
AI‑Powered Agentforce Transforms IT Support via Slack
Today, with the launch of Agentforce IT Service, Salesforce is helping customers transform IT support with an agent-first, conversational IT suite that delivers instant, AI-powered resolutions directly in Slack. For decades, IT teams and employees have faced frustrating productivity drains...
1500+ Pitch Decks Uploaded, Get Real-Time VC Feedback
Woo-hoo!! Crossed 1,500 VC Pitch Decks uploaded to SaaStr AI VC -> https://t.co/XzJ5d0OYvZ Get real time feedback on your deck, benchmarking against 1000s of rounds, and optional intros to the best VCs https://t.co/BIC0fmziG2
Bootstrapped AI SaaS Duo Generates $200K Profit
What’s better than one B2B SaaS? Two B2B SaaS. Two profitable AI SaaS duo for content creation + SEO automation. > $252K TTM revenue > $200K TTM profit > 20% YoY growth > 5K+ customers Bootstrapped + Lean Listed on @acquiredotcom: https://t.co/hVgmr7nPE3 https://t.co/gTiI2EJmqJ
Results, Not Connections, Secure VC Funding Instantly
You don't have to know the 'right people' anymore to get funded If you've got the results -- we'll tell you And introduce you to top VCs. In minutes. SaaStr AI VC. Sign up here -> https://t.co/Eg5TFmnXmm https://t.co/4KllqrnwZp
Velvet Offers Adobe‑Premiere‑Level AI Video Creation in Seconds
Velvet (@Velvet_Videos) is building the Adobe Premiere of AI video, allowing creative teams to generate and edit dozens of cinematic AI videos in seconds. https://t.co/lYvqpwSEXb Congrats on the launch, @lrmantovani_ & @luke_tux! (They made this launch video using Velvet by spending ~$50 in...
Guest Speakers Aren’t Growth Hacks—Build a Demand Strategy
If you’re relying on your guest speaker to drive signups, it’s because you don’t have a demand strategy. Guest speakers aren’t your growth hack. They’re your marketing partners.
Stay Close to Customers: Let Market Feedback Guide
Always be close to your customers. Don't build a product nobody wants. Too many startups fail from this. The market has the feedback you need to hear.