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
The “Buy Your Own Product” Test: Why Every B2B Founder Should Be Their Own Customer (At Least For A Day)
Jason Lemkin urges B2B SaaS founders to purchase their own product using the public buying flow, not internal shortcuts. By submitting contact forms, calling support lines, and attempting in‑app upgrades, founders expose friction points that often go unnoticed. The exercise typically uncovers silent contact‑form black holes, slow support responses, broken upgrade paths, and missing trial‑extension mechanisms. Fixing these leaks immediately can boost conversion rates, reduce churn, and realign product roadmaps toward genuine customer needs.
No Product-Market Fit Fuels Founder Frustration
Year 1: You’re eating ramen. Year 5: You’re still eating ramen. And you’re starting to wonder if this will ever become your retirement plan. It can get pretty anxiety-inducing. You're on social media, and you see no one else stuck like you....
Profit Without Growth Halves PagerDuty’s Valuation
PagerDuty has fallen to $1.1 Billion market cap … at $500m ARR 2.1x ARR It’s profitable now, but it isn’t growing anymore. Revenue growth has slowed to 4% and new customer count is net 0. The markets reward growth. Efficient growth...
These 4 AI Automations Will Make You $1M (With Zero Employees)
In this episode of The Martell Method, Dan Martell outlines four AI-driven automations that can generate a million dollars in revenue without hiring staff, emphasizing real‑world tools and playbooks he uses across his portfolio. He expands on how AI is...
AI Week: Massive Growth, New Tools, and Security Risks
Any interesting AI news this week? Here are the Top 10 news stories of the week: Anthropic releases Opus 4.5 with new Chrome and Excel integrations OpenAI launches a new shopping research tool just in time for Black Friday OpenAI...
Black Friday Hits $6.2B, Traffic Peaks Record
Congratulations to our merchants on another record breaking Black Friday. LFG → Merchants total Black Friday sales were $6.2 billion, up 25% YoY → Edge peaked at 489 million requests per minute. App servers handled a peak of 117 million requests per...
Tackling Cybersecurity Burnout, Once and for All
Cybersecurity burnout is reaching crisis levels, with 76% of professionals reporting fatigue in the past year and 69% seeing it worsen between 2023 and 2024. The chronic stress threatens productivity, job satisfaction, and can lead to costly security incidents. Experts...
Product‑Led Growth Needs a Team, Not One Unicorn
One of the most expensive mistakes SaaS founders make is hunting for a product/ growth unicorn. I see this happen constantly. A founder decides to go product-led. They open a job req for a "Head of Growth." They write a...
Cyber Week Drives 11% YoY Spend Surge, Flawless Performance
🧵 Cyber Week 6PM PT Update – Nov 28! +11% YoY online spend (and still climbing) 🔥 Zero multi-customer incidents or Sev1s 🙌 AgentForce Marketing Cloud: 7B messages delivered ├ 5.3B emails ├ 1.5B mobile pushes ├ 175M SMS └ 39M OTT Slack is nothing but ❤️🎉...
That's Not Very Trendy of Them - AI Browsers Can Be Hacked with a Simple Hashtag, Experts Warn
Researchers at Cato Networks have uncovered a new attack vector called “HashJack,” which embeds malicious instructions in URL fragments after a hashtag. AI‑assisted browsers process these hidden fragments locally, allowing attackers to steer the assistant without the server ever seeing...
AI Voiceover App Delivers 90% Margins, $250K Revenue
90% margins on this app! AI text-to-speech app for generating voiceovers in seconds. > $250K TTM revenue > $180K TTM profit > 100% YoY growth Live on @acquiredotcom: https://t.co/HtzQVs42uS https://t.co/in7czbVTl1
Balance Conviction and Humility: Filter Feedback Effectively
“Founders need conviction strong enough to ignore bad feedback — and humility to hear the good.” 💡 Duncan Barrigan breaks down how to tell the difference in Episode 220 of The SaaS CFO Podcast. Watch 👉 https://t.co/r7Q1ZbKANk #SaaS #AI https://t.co/A2pAtktSdZ
The Oura Ring 4 Is Still at Its Lowest Price Ever for Black Friday
During Black Friday, the Oura Ring 4 is available for $249, its lowest price ever, representing a $100 discount off the usual $349 retail price. Gold and rose gold variants are also reduced, now selling for $350 instead of $500....
Let Top Customers Guide Your Short‑Term Product Decisions
Worst case, just build what your top customers want They can't see too far into the future But they probably have a better sense of what really moves the needle in the short term than you do
Break Barriers: Code Like This Publicly
What’s stopping you from coding like this? #saas #buildingpublic https://t.co/9npjRPXHqz
Cloudways vs InMotion Hosting: Which Is Better for WordPress Sites?
The comparison pits Cloudways against InMotion Hosting for WordPress sites, highlighting that Cloudways starts at $14 per month while InMotion begins at $6. Cloudways bundles a managed‑service layer with a polished dashboard, AI‑driven Copilot monitoring, and automated backups, whereas InMotion...
Future SDRs Will Earn $250k Managing AI Teams
The $250k SDR role is coming. But it won't be remotely the same role as it was from 2005-2015. The $250k "SDR": - Will mange 10+ AI SDR agents - Will >truly< be on the hook for $5m+ of Closed Won - Will be...
Opus 4.5 Delivers 20‑Point Reasoning Leap In
We ran our latest Box AI advanced reasoning eval on Opus 4.5 with medium and high effort and saw a 20 percentage point boost over Opus 4.1. What’s insane to think about is Opus 4.1 came out just 3 months...
Microsoft Teams Guest Access Could Let Hackers Bypass some Critical Security Protections
Microsoft Teams recently enabled a guest chat feature that lets any user start a conversation with an external email address, even if the recipient does not use Teams. The feature is turned on by default for many small‑business licenses and...
Solo Founders Now Outpace Teams Thanks to AI
The best performing private companies in 2025 are being built by solo founders. This chart makes it clear. Here’s what this means for startups👇 For years, the default belief in tech was simple: you need co-founders and a big team...
Custom AI Needed Until Generalization Boosts Corporate Efficiency
Let's talk AGI and GDP - and a question I have... I have no idea when AGI is coming or even what the precise definition is. But there's one thing I have strong priors around: large companies have incredibly bespoke processes -...
The First $100,000,000 ARR at UiPath: How Founder CEO Daniel Dines Went From 10 Years of Struggle to Hypergrowth
UiPath, founded by Daniel Dines, hit its first $175 million ARR after a four‑year sprint from a modest $1 million base, illustrating a textbook hypergrowth trajectory in B2B SaaS. The company’s breakthrough came from a $10,000 pivot that turned a niche screen‑reading...
Seeking Simple, Consistent UI Without Unwanted Design Elements
CURRENT STATUS: Trying to get really professional web UI/UX out of Codex 5.1, but struggling. Looking to build a mini "design language" for my projects. Current issue: Despite specific instructions to avoid purple accents and buttons and such, it just...
US Buyers Pay Premium for Software Thanks to Bigger TAM
In the international M&A/private equity markets, US buyers/investors tend to be the most aggressive in terms of valuation (specifically for software & internet companies). The primary reason is that TAM in the US represents a much larger opportunity compared to...
Closing High-Trust, High-ACV Deals: How ElasticScale Uses SaaStock Events to Win Revenue
ElasticScale, a Dutch AWS‑infrastructure specialist for SaaS firms, launched in November 2024 and quickly adopted events as its primary go‑to‑market engine. The company discovered that 95% of its target CEOs and CTOs are unaware their AWS spend is four times higher...
Scribe's $75M Funding Powers Enterprise Agentic AI Adoption
Are you thinking about which processes can benefit from Agentic AI? Have you heard of Scribe? If not, well, you should... Scribe just raised $75 million ($1.3 billion valuation) to support it's release of a new platform to help agentic...
Year‑End Quiet Reveals What You’ve Been Ignoring
There is something unusual about the quiet at the end of the year if you know how to use it. It sharpens your perception and brings forward the things you set aside while moving quickly. Your attention settles on what...
Zendesk Users Targeted by Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters Hackers and Fake Support Sites
The Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters gang has expanded its phishing campaign to target Zendesk users, registering more than 40 typosquatted domains that mimic legitimate Zendesk URLs. Researchers at ReliaQuest identified these domains, all registered through NiceNic and protected by Cloudflare‑masked nameservers....
No Feedback? Your Product Is the Wrong One
Last week, a founder with 500K LinkedIn followers reached out to me. $6K MRR SaaS that won't budge, and he asked how to incentivize feedback. Me: “Bro, if nobody will take your tool seriously enough to give you feedback, then you're...
Founders Must Remain Hands‑On After Hiring First VP
The biggest mistake you can make as a founder when you hire your first VP of Sales is stepping out of sales I see this again, and again It only works with the very best VPs of Sales Every other first VP of...
How to Make $100K in 6 Weeks With a Productized Service
Dan Martell outlines a six‑step framework to generate $100K in six weeks by productizing a service. He emphasizes pricing for outcomes, targeting affluent clients, and using a single‑page offer delivered via chat‑based selling. The method relies on a repeatable delivery...
AI Will Democratize Creation Like Anchor Did
Every major shift in consumer tech has a moment when it suddenly becomes accessible to millions. Michael Mignano (@mignano) helped spark one of those moments with Anchor, making podcast creation something anyone could do with a tap. Now at Lightspeed,...
Use a Tough GPT to Sharpen Your 2026 Strategy
I built a custom GPT to help you pressure-test and refine your 2026 business strategy. Crafting a sound growth strategy is hard, and takes time, but you don’t need a 2-day offsite or a pricey consultant to start sharpening your...
These Worrying Security Flaws Could Put Every Major Cloud Provider at Risk - Here's What We Know so Far
Researchers at Oligo Security disclosed five critical vulnerabilities (CVE‑2025‑12969 to CVE‑2025‑12978) in the open‑source log processor Fluent Bit. The flaws permit log manipulation, authentication bypass, and remote code execution across major cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. Fluent Bit’s...
Repeatable Vertical SaaS Exits: Build, Sell, Repeat
Stuart Faught has been acquired 18 times on @acquiredotcom. No plans to build a unicorn. Just trying to escape a corporate job that felt like Office Space. One tiny product at a time. Dentists. Orthodontists. HVAC. Med spas. Home care. Build vertical SaaS....
Five Essential Founder Tools for $799 This Black Friday
Let's gooo 🎉 Black Friday is here! Here's your chance to get access to 5 founder essentials. ⭐ FeedHive (AI SMM tool) ⭐ Aidbase (AI support tool) ⭐ LinkDrip (Link tracking tool) ⭐ TinyKiwi (Design tool) ⭐ SignupGate (Fraud prevention tool) You could go with the industry-leading tools...
OpenAI Apologizes for Big Mixpanel Data Breach that Exposed Emails and More – Here's What We Know
OpenAI disclosed that a data breach at its analytics vendor Mixpanel leaked limited developer information, including names, email addresses, and coarse location data. The breach did not affect ChatGPT users, API keys, passwords, or payment details, and OpenAI terminated Mixpanel’s...
Guess Our Pricing, Win Lifetime Free Account
If you can guess the Fizzy free/pricing model on the nose, I'll give you a free account for life once we launch. You can guess 5 times.
Shopify Hits $5.1 M per Minute at Noon
Peak sales hit $5.1 (!) million per minute right around noon today across the Shopify platform. https://t.co/M5xfYjG7KA
Opera Neon’s AI Researcher Does in One Minute What Used to Take a Dozen Tabs
Opera Neon introduced a one‑minute Deep Research mode powered by its Opera Deep Research Agent (ODRA), delivering citation‑backed mini‑reports in roughly 60 seconds. The update also adds a model selector that lets users toggle between AI engines such as Gemini 3 Pro...
Trust Grows When You Deliver Consistently, Every Time
The best way to build trust with people? Do what you say you’ll do. On time. Every time. Consistency communicates character.
Credibility and Experience Can Secure Pre‑Seed Funding Pre‑MVP
Can you raise a pre-seed round without a product? 👀 On Episode 220 of The SaaS CFO Podcast, Duncan Barrigan (Founder @ Lunos) shares how credibility + experience can secure early funding before the MVP exists. Watch here 👉 https://t.co/r7Q1ZbKANk #AI https://t.co/zmUJnPTNoU
How the New SaaStr AI Benchmarking Tool Can Build Your 2026 C60 Plan in Seconds
Jason Lemkin introduces SaaStr.ai’s new AI‑powered benchmarking tool that generates a data‑driven C60 financial plan for 2026 in roughly a minute. The C60 model, based on the Last‑4‑Months (L4M) growth rates, provides realistic revenue, burn‑rate, and runway projections, replacing the...
AppSumo Black Friday Bundle Live, Selling Out Fast
AppSumo Black Friday bundle is LIVE featuring @boltdotnew @reclaimai and more. Selling out fast 🏃♂️ 🤘 https://t.co/RcYslb4vOz
Shopify's BFCM Demo Shows 32k Orders per Minute
This is so ridiculously over-the-top! An OS sim with dragable windows, a pinball game that's really playable, and the bonkers sales globe already showing more than 32,000 orders per minute running through Rails. Shopify's BFCM celebration is next level. ...
Get Business-Grade Cloud Storage for Just $1 per Month This Black Friday
Ionos is slashing its HiDrive Business plan to $1 per month for the first year, a 90% Black Friday discount, then rising to $7 per month—a 30% reduction from the regular rate. The plan provides 1 TB of storage, support for...
AI Automates B2B Receivables, Boosting Speed and Resilience
🚀 New episode! Chatted with Duncan Barrigan, CEO of Lunos, on how AI is transforming B2B receivables. 🔹 AI workers automate messy AR 🔹 Fundraising = resilience 🔹 Fast onboarding, fast value Watch here: https://t.co/r7Q1ZbKANk #SaaS #AI #Lunos https://t.co/l6ugM78FiL
Consistency and Fundamentals Drive Record ARR Growth
2025 has been about consistency, not shortcuts - and November just became our strongest month of ARR growth in univid's history. What we've learned this year: when we take a step back, zone in on the fundamentals, and stay...
AI Support Isn’t Perfect, But It Beats No Help
New!! Is AI Support Perfect? No. But It’s A Lot Better Than No Support at All https://t.co/lwHOPUf7mm
Most Reps Prefer Inbound; Outbound Effort Is Rare
95% of sales rep that have only done inbound ... won't start doing outbound, even if they are missing quota. Not really. They'll pretend a bit, send a few emails, but that's about it. 95% of sales reps that will do...