Today's SaaS Pulse
OpenAI acquires Ona to embed secure workspaces for autonomous AI agents
OpenAI announced the acquisition of Ona, a 79‑person cloud development environment provider, to embed secure, persistent workspaces for autonomous AI agents. Ona’s platform has seen a 13‑fold rise in weekly agent sessions across banks, pharma firms, and sovereign wealth funds. Analysts estimate the deal value between $450 million and $500 million.
Also developing:
By the numbers: NinjaOne raises $400M Series C extension
🧠 Community Wisdom: Combating Ageism, Facilitating Roadmap Discussions, 90-Day Onboarding Plan, Staying Stealth Pre-Launch, and More
The episode covers practical community‑building tactics, including how to confront ageism, run effective roadmap discussions, and design a 90‑day onboarding plan for new members. It also shares strategies for keeping a product stealthy before launch and balancing transparency with secrecy. Throughout, the host draws on real‑world Slack community experiences to illustrate these approaches, emphasizing inclusive culture and clear communication as keys to sustainable growth.
4 Reasons to Send Investor Updates Even When Times Are Tough
Founder communication falters when startups hit rough patches, but Jason Lemkin argues that regular investor updates are essential even in downturns. Updates break isolation by connecting founders with experienced backers who can offer advice or introductions. Writing hard‑line metrics forces...
Leverage Trusted Logos, Repeat Their Names, Drive ROI
We landed one of the absolute darlings of the ecom very early at Retention(.)com. Everyone knew them. Every brand respected them. Every ecom founder wanted to be them. We said the brand’s name no less than 100,000 times over the next...
VCs Overload Winners, Driving Sky‑High Valuations
Larger VC funds want to cram more and more capital into their winners. More than ever. It’s not that complicated but two core reasons: #1. Fewer and fewer winners, so everyone wants to throw money at whatever truly breaks out...
The Top 10 “Hidden Gem” SaaStr Posts You May Have Missed — Per SaaStr’s Own AI
SaaStr.ai scanned the platform’s massive archive and surfaced ten under‑read articles that deliver high‑impact SaaS guidance. The list spans sales playbook design, quota cadence, founder dilution, hiring stretch VPs, and financing pitfalls. Each post offers concrete tactics for founders looking...
Think Before You Click: Most Free File-Sharing Apps Expose Your Downloads to Security Risks, Warns Surfshark
Surfshark’s recent analysis of six popular file‑sharing services reveals that most free tiers do not scan uploaded files for malware, leaving users vulnerable. Only Box and WeTransfer offer virus scanning to paid subscribers, while Dropbox and iCloud provide no scanning...
Curiosity Fuels Top B2B Marketers – Free Leadership Toolkit
How to level up as a B2B Marketing Leader (something we created) I've spent the last 10 years around a group of incredible marketers; in my career as VP of Marketing and then CMO, through hosting my podcast, and now...
Clunky Early Demos Drive Rapid AI Product Iteration
Early demos are clunky—but they bring the best feedback. Great chat with Kelby Zorgdrager & Dave Murphy (TryTami) on rapid AI-driven product iteration, fast engineering loops, and shipping features in days. YT: https://t.co/QOQelZUnUN #SaaS #TryTami https://t.co/xrm6MFM5DZ
"There Is 'No Way'" - IBM CEO Says Current AI Data Center Trends Are Unsustainable, and He Would Know
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna warned that the rapid expansion of AI‑focused data centers is financially untenable. He estimates a single 1 GW AI site now costs about $80 billion, and with industry plans targeting roughly 100 GW of capacity, total exposure could approach...
Top 10 SaaS Cloud Multiples This Week
This week in enterprise software: Top 10 #SaaS #Cloud multiples as of today's market close
Tech Finally Catches up, Turning Decades-Old Vision Into Reality
I’ve been carrying the same product in my head since 2003. Every few years I’d take another run at it, only to watch it collapse under the limits of whatever tech existed at the time. It always worked in one...
How to Do AI Outbound Email the Right Way
The post argues that AI’s value in outbound email lies in amplifying personalization, not merely increasing volume. Modern prospects expect handcrafted relevance, so successful campaigns depend on richly enriched ABM data that AI can stitch into unique insights. By using...
The Difference Between Warm Email & Cold Email
The article draws a clear line between warm and cold email in B2B SaaS, explaining that warm email leverages opt‑in lists and high‑volume platforms while cold email relies on separate domains and slow, human‑like cadence. It details the infrastructure, compliance...
ChatGPT’s User Growth Has Slowed, Report Finds
OpenAI’s flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, recorded only a modest 5% increase in global monthly active users between August and November, marking a noticeable slowdown in its adoption curve. In contrast, Google’s AI conversational agent Gemini experienced a robust 30% surge in...
How to Use Instantly to AI Personalize B2B Cold Email
Instantly has positioned itself as a full‑stack AI personalization engine for B2B outbound, turning enriched lead data into custom subject lines, openers, and full emails. The platform pulls signals from LinkedIn, company sites, and bios to craft messages that feel...
How to Write a B2B Cold Email Sequence
The post demystifies B2B cold email, positioning it as a scalable pipeline engine rather than a spammy outreach tactic. It stresses that successful cold outreach hinges on a distributed infrastructure—multiple domains, limited daily sends per inbox, and precise sequencing. The...
Adoption Needs Culture, Incentives, Not Just Tools
LinkedIn CPO: "I see a lot of companies roll out their agents and just expect people to adopt them. It doesn't work this way. It's not enough to give them the tools. You have to build the incentive programs, the...
Free CAC Payback Template for All SaaS GTM Strategies
Free Template Fridays 📊 CAC Payback Period is a top operator and investor metrics. Download the template at the link below. Grab it here: https://lnkd.in/gRyQ6Sqh Whether you are SLG or PLG. Targeting SMB or Enterprise. SaaS or AI. When you...
I Had a Big Audio Transcription Problem – Gemini Solved It, and ChatGPT Didn’t
Lance Ulanoff tested Google Gemini 3 Pro against ChatGPT 5.1 for transcribing an iPhone 17 Pro Max audio note. Gemini accepted the .m4a file directly, produced a full transcript, and correctly labeled speakers, aside from a minor name‑mix‑up. ChatGPT, despite a Plus subscription, could not access...
LinkedIn Deploys Trust Agent to Preempt Product Threats
LinkedIn built an "trust agent" that reviews team PRDs and identifies potential attack vectors, before they start building
Scaling Learning, Not Headcount, Drives Sales Success
Most sales teams don’t have a pipeline problem. They have a learning problem. The symptoms are the same everywhere: Higher costs. Flat quota attainment. Exhausted reps wondering why “work harder” is somehow still a strategy today. Meanwhile, the top-performing teams...
It’s Code Red for ChatGPT
OpenAI has issued an internal “code red” as Google’s Gemini and other rivals close the gap on large language model capabilities. CEO Sam Altman called for a renewed focus on ChatGPT’s core features to maintain market leadership. The move highlights...
AI Turns Marketing Focus From Production To Judgment
Marketing will never be the same again. Evidence of the shift is already visible. Teams are experimenting with AI in scattered ways, but the scale of what is coming is much larger. Creativity once expanded at the pace of human production. Today...
Fizzy Hits 11,000 Users, Community Fuels Growth
About to pass 11,000 accounts so far on Fizzy! Love seeing the enthusiasm around this product, especially when I get emails like these below. Really proud of the work we did on this one. And it's just the beginning. Love...
Microsoft 365 Is Hiking Prices for Businesses - Here's How Much It Will Cost You
Microsoft announced price hikes for most of its business‑focused Microsoft 365 and Office 365 plans, effective 1 July 2026. Seven of nine SKUs will rise between 5% and 33% in USD, while Business Premium and E1 stay unchanged. The increases fund added security layers...
Automate VIP Customer Journey in Seconds, Not Hours
Here’s a workflow that I love: Customer buys a specific product 6x or more → automatically triggers a Slack notification to the team → creates a personalized task in project management → schedules a follow-up email for 30 days later...
Three Founders Scale to 200+ Customers Using AI
"3 founders alone can't scale a real business" - that's what they said in Jan 2025 when we set out to build the first autonomous business. To all the haters: We're still standing, moth****ers! 11 months later: 200+ customers, 5M+...
Google, Amazon, and xAI Want to Launch AI Into Space
Google, Amazon, and Elon Musk’s xAI are accelerating plans to deploy artificial intelligence workloads in low‑Earth orbit. Google’s Project Suncatcher will mount solar‑powered TPUs on satellites, Amazon’s Leo aims to embed edge AI in its broadband constellation, and xAI envisions...
B2B SaaS Wins With Story, Not Features
Every tool has every feature. Winning on more/better features is a transient advantage at best. So what do you do when you're very similar to other players in the market? In B2B SaaS, you're competing on your story. On whether...
Agentic AI Unlocks Trapped Value, Demands Immediate Investment
Customers everywhere are signaling the same message. Their needs have outgrown the systems designed to serve them. Wait times increase. Outcomes suffer. Growth stalls. That is trapped value. Agentic AI provides a release. The question is whether leaders will invest...
From 10 to 31 Tasks Daily : The Agent Inflection Point
An author integrated Google Gemini CLI with Asana, linking AI agents to email, calendar, and CRM, enabling them to execute tasks directly within his workflow. By delegating to agents, he increased his daily output from 10 to 31 tasks, handling...
Scale Gradually: Bootstrap Before Raising Massive Funding
CEO: My startup is at $2.5m ARR after 24mo, and it’s just me and my co-founder. We want to raise $5-7m at around $30m post. What do you think? Me: I hate that idea. CEO: Why? Me: What are you...
AI Ran Our $6.6M Business Solo, Boosting Growth
In April, we switched all customer interactions to AI. Then a few months later, AI ran our entire $6.6M ARR business alone for 7 days. 0 humans around. Sales: 176 conversations initiated with a 96.6% accuracy. Only 6 wrong answers...
CEO Pushes AI, GTM Results Remain Disappointing
Everyone in B2B tech uses AI, relatively few see real GTM impact. Maja and I recently surveyed 195 B2B GTM leaders. Three-in-four said they feel top-down pressure from the CEO & Board to adopt AI. But the impact is a...
Self‑serve SaaS: No Handholding, Just Automated Value
The perfect SaaS is fully self-serve. Otherwise, it's not really "-as a service" - it's just software. Users should be able to: → Sign up themselves → Onboard themselves → Create value for themselves → Find help by themselves → Cancel by themselves No handholding from the team...
Build Precise ABM Lists Instantly with Clay
Build High-Precision ABM Lists With Clay 🔍 Most B2B teams still build lead lists the old way… Manual. Slow. Incomplete. But with Clay, your outbound and paid pipeline becomes a data engine. ABM starts with one thing: a perfect list....
Clay: Essential Data Enrichment for Powerful ABM Lists
You can’t afford to build your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) lead list with just one or two tools. You need something powerful—something that not only finds people but enriches them with verified, usable data you can actually act on. That’s where...
Today's Top 10 SaaS Cloud Multiples Revealed
This week in enterprise software: Top 10 #SaaS #Cloud multiples as of today's market close https://t.co/2XF2dRfFgW
Future Billion‑Dollar Startups Need Only Three People and AI
The next billion-dollar companies will be built with 3 people and an AI stack.
Besimple AI Secures $3M Seed to Power Audio Data Layer
Congrats to @besimple_ai on their $3M seed! They're building the data layer for AI, starting with audio. Besimple licenses and processes diverse conversational audio so teams can ship better voice models, faster. https://t.co/PGihh57d8S https://t.co/r4m6g3h45i
Software Valuations Spike with Growth: High‑growth 15.1×
This week on Clouded Judgement: Monopoly Money - Median software multiple: 4.8x - High Growth software median: 15.1x - Mid Growth software median: 6.0x - Low Growth software median: 3.8x - 10Y: 4.1% Article in next post 👇 https://t.co/ovyzvnhQGE
Bridging the AI Engineering Gap Between Seniors and Juniors
Senior engineers fear AI tools. Junior engineers lack the foundation to use them well. Great convo with Kelby Zorgdrager & Dave Murphy of TryTami on how teams can bridge the AI engineering gap. YT: https://t.co/QOQelZUnUN #SaaS #TryTami https://t.co/J68P7U7lIq
Stable Platform Shifts Focus to New VC-Scale Prototype
A little personal news, @groupthinkAI is stable and will continue to operate and slowly grow its paying customer base — but I’ve decided to start exploring other VC-outcome scale ideas… can’t wait to share my first prototype
Seeking the Leading N8n B2B Marketing Expert
Who's the top n8n expert in B2B marketing, someone who does cool things with it and talks about it?
Study Customers, Not Competitors, for Top Marketing Ideas
The best marketing ideas come from studying your customers (not your competitors)
Focus on Sales and Support, Not Features
Instead of building more features, do more sales and support at your startup. You'll will grow faster and learn more.
AI-Powered VC Intros: 526+ Matches for Founders
SaaStr AI VC has made 526+ VC intros for founders 1️⃣Upload your deck 2️⃣Get an instant AI score 3️⃣If it's a fit, opt-in to top-tier VC intros Learn more here: https://t.co/dd0zpQKZQp https://t.co/2pHhYC61aQ
LLMs Become Commodity, Model Moats No Longer Viable
LLMs are the new disk drives: commodity infrastructure you hot-swap for whoever’s cheapest + best. The fantasy that the model is a moat just expired. ☠️ https://t.co/VIBm3TH6nr
AI Agents Need Training, Scaling to Small Self‑Serve Remains Challenge
AI Agents work in GTM today. We've got 6+ in production now. They work for sales, they work for outbound, they work for marketing. But ... They don't work well without a lot of training. That...
Lark: Flexible Billing for Any Model, Built by Ex‑Stripe
Lark (@uselark_ai) is a modern billing platform with the flexibility to support any pricing model, at any scale. Whether you’re building an AI-powered API or a B2B SaaS product, Lark provides the tools you need to implement complex billing logic without...