Today's SaaS Pulse
Fire disrupts Google Cloud India network, performance stays sluggish
A fire damaged Google Cloud India's network infrastructure, and the service remained slower than usual a week after the incident.
Also developing:
By the numbers: GIA acquires 30% stake in De Beers' Tracr blockchain platform
The UK’s Broken Energy System Could Burst Its AI Bubble
AI’s soaring electricity needs – projected to rise 165% by decade’s end – are exposing the UK’s antiquated wholesale power market, which already carries some of the world’s highest industrial electricity prices. Training a single GPT‑scale model consumes as much energy as 100,000 homes annually, and the market’s reliance on outdated trading logic and gas‑linked pricing makes renewable power costly and volatile. This inefficiency threatens to inflate costs for businesses and households while undermining the UK’s ability to attract AI‑driven investment. The author urges a radical overhaul of electricity transaction mechanisms to deliver transparent, low‑cost power and preserve the nation’s competitive edge in AI.
Akira Ransomware Is Now Targeting Nutanix VMs - and Scoring Big Rewards
Akira ransomware has expanded its campaign to encrypt Nutanix AHV virtual‑machine disk files, a move first observed in June 2025, according to a joint advisory from CISA, DC3 and other agencies. The attackers first exploit a critical 9.6‑score SonicWall SonicOS...
Microsoft Clarity: Free, Faster Alternative to Hotjar
If you’re a B2B SaaS debating which user recording tool to use, just go for Microsoft Clarity. It does everything Hotjar does, but better - and it's completely free. That sounds too good to be true, but after working with...
In AI Era, GTM Becomes the Real Product
From zero to $4 billion ARR (!!) - one CRO, one epic run. He figured out something about building in an AI-native world a decade before AI existed - and if you don’t understand it yet, you’re already behind. I...
E298 | Why LLM Agents Are Now Your VIP Visitors and How to Optimize for Them
In this episode, Kevin White of Scrunch AI explains how AI‑driven answer engines like ChatGPT are turning large language model agents into a primary audience, prompting marketers to optimize their sites for LLM discovery. He outlines Scrunch’s approach to making...
AI Maturity Hits Industry Scale, Reshapes Business and Geopolitics
“AI agents running $5B in ad spend & deepfakes triggering a UN emergency meeting? 🎙️The Metrics Brothers just discussed this 313-page report from Air Street Capital - "The State of AI Report" on our most recent episode... ...this "State of...
Black Friday Deals Just Got Better! Adobe Has some Major Discounts Available Now on Creative Cloud Pro and Firefly Pro...
Adobe unveiled Black Friday promotions that slash the cost of its Creative Cloud Pro and Firefly Pro subscriptions. Individual and team plans drop from $69.99/$99.99 to $34.97/$49.97 per month (‑50% for the first year), while student/teacher plans fall to $19.98 per month (‑70%)....
Web Services Giant Aruba Spoofed in Major Phishing Scam - Here's What to Look Out for to Stay Safe
Security firm Group‑IB uncovered a sophisticated, fully automated phishing framework that spoofs Aruba’s webmail login, using CAPTCHA filtering and Telegram bots to harvest credentials and payment data. The multi‑stage kit delivers phishing emails that mimic Aruba’s service‑expiry warnings, directing victims...
Masterclass: Storytelling & Conflict Drive AI Category Creation
I didn't want my team to publish this talk. It was too good. Should have only been for the memory of the people that went to Drive this year. But I'm also a marketer and understand the power of social...
Software Makers Say Piracy Is Becoming a Bigger Problem than Ever Before - so What Can Be Done?
New Revenera research finds that 31% of software makers now view piracy as a major source of revenue leakage, with unlicensed usage especially prevalent in China, Russia, India and rising in Germany, where engineering simulation and CAD tools are targeted....
WhatsApp Is Launching Third-Party Chat Integration in Europe
Meta is preparing to launch third‑party chat integration for WhatsApp across Europe to meet the EU Digital Markets Act, with rollout slated for the coming months. The first interoperable services, BirdyChat and Haiket, will allow users on iOS and Android...
The New Age of Layered Security: From Supply Chains to Endpoints
A 2025 global survey shows 72% of business leaders see rising cyber risks while the cybersecurity talent gap widens by 8% since 2024. Panasonic Connect’s Dominick Passanante argues that modern threats now target hardware and firmware, often originating in the...
Why “Old” Data Is the New Gold in the Age of AI
We speak to Seagate's Melyssa Banda to find out more
Full Money-Back Guarantee Boosts Checkout Conversions Instantly
If you're on the FounderStack checkout page and about to leave - this pops up. After adding this, we saw an immediate increase in sales. A full money-back guarantee is an S-tier move. Let visitors know that committing is a two-way door...
Align Success, Support, and AI for Scalable Growth
SaasRise CEO & Founder Mastermind Recap — Week of Nov 9–13, 2025 This week on the SaasRise Masterminds, SaaS founders and leaders shared practical strategies for scaling efficiently, improving customer success and leveraging AI to streamline operations. The conversations focused...
Baidu Unveils Proprietary ERNIE 5 Beating GPT-5 Performance on Charts, Document Understanding and More
Baidu announced ERNIE 5.0, a proprietary omni‑modal foundation model that the company claims matches or outperforms OpenAI’s GPT‑5‑High and Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro on benchmarks for document understanding, chart reasoning, vision‑language tasks, and language coding. The model is delivered through Baidu’s...
Add AI Agents to Any Product with Minimal Code
Arcten (@arcteninc) lets you add AI agents to your products and internal tools with just a few lines of code. Use their components or bring your own UI, data, and frameworks— Arcten handles the runtime, scaling, integration, observability, and managed RAG....
Deploy Scalable AI Agents Quickly without Big Budgets
Lua (https://t.co/cmg7JWp2xX) makes it easy to build, deploy, and scale AI agents across your entire business—without the big budget lines, consultants, or multi-year implementations. Roll out agents that are deeply integrated, measurable, and under your control. In days, not months. https://t.co/RBQPl1T0A4
Thousands of Fake Packages Flood Npm Registry in Major Attack - Here's What We Know
Over 43,000 spam packages were uploaded to npm over a nearly two‑year period, accounting for roughly 1% of the registry and representing a coordinated campaign dubbed “IndonesianFoods.” Endor Labs traced the effort to at least 11 user accounts that generated...
Most Reps Prefer Inbound; Hire Outbound Specialists
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...
Seeking UX Feedback on AlertMouse Interface Design
UX friends (and anyone who's using @alertmouse)... Does this make sense to you? Any language or layout things you'd do differently?
Pakistan Restarts VPN Licensing in Fresh Bid to Control Online Space
Pakistan’s telecom regulator (PTA) has issued the first licences to five domestic VPN providers, creating a state‑approved pool of services that can be used without individual IP registration. The licensing scheme is presented as a cybersecurity and user‑convenience measure, but...
Distilling Tool-Calling Skills From Claude to Smaller Model
Ten months ago, DeepSeek collapsed AI training costs by 90% using distillation - transferring knowledge from larger models to smaller ones at a fraction of the cost. Distillation works like a tutor training a student : a large model teaches a...
DeepSeek Cuts AI Training Costs 90% via Distillation
Ten months ago, DeepSeek collapsed AI training costs by 90% using distillation - transferring knowledge from larger models to smaller ones at a fraction of the cost. Distillation works like a tutor training a student : a large model teaches...
Apple Halves Commissions for Mini App Makers
Apple unveiled the Mini Apps Partner Program, slashing the commission on in‑app purchases for web‑based mini apps to 15% and requiring use of its Advanced Commerce and Declared Age Rating APIs. The program extends the 2017 App Review Guidelines for...
GPT-5.1 Doubles Speed, Boosts Extraction Accuracy
We've been testing Box AI with GPT-5.1 for the past week to compare it to GPT-5 for enterprise content use-cases. It's a very strong upgrade from GPT-5. It's super fast, performing ~2X (or more) faster on our tests on long documents...
Cursor's 29x Valuation Suggests AI Bubble Cooling
Cursor just raised at a 29x multiple. Not as crazy as the SaaS 40x multiples of 2021... We might not be in an AI bubble....
Google Gemini Live Gets Its 'Biggest Update Ever' With 5 New Upgrades – Here's How to Try Them
Google has rolled out the "biggest update ever" to Gemini Live, its real‑time conversational AI, on Android and iOS. The upgrade adds five new capabilities – adjustable speaking speed, automatic tone modulation, a storytelling mode with character accents, seamless multi‑language switching,...
SaasRise CEO Mastermind Recaps for the Week of November 9 - 13, 2025
The SaasRise CEO Mastermind recap highlights practical strategies from ten sessions covering customer success vs. support alignment, AI‑driven lead generation, analytics optimization, and revenue expansion. Key takeaways include defining distinct success and support roles with growth‑linked incentives, leveraging AI tools...
Scammers Trick over 500,000 Victims with Fake Google, Bing Ads to Steal Personal Info
Cybersecurity firm Check Point identified a campaign dubbed “Payroll Pirates” that uses paid Google and Bing ads to lure employees to counterfeit payroll, HR, credit‑union and trading‑platform login pages, harvesting credentials and multi‑factor authentication codes. The operation, which has targeted...
Google’s NotebookLM Will Now Do ‘Deep Research’
Google announced that its NotebookLM AI workspace will integrate Gemini’s Deep Research agent, giving all users access within a week. Users can choose a fast or deep research mode, with the deep option delivering in‑depth analysis, source citations, and the...
From Fired to $17B: Turning Failure Into Fuel
“Startups are somewhere between completely impossible and very, very, very, very hard.” That's @parkerconrad, CEO of @Rippling, on the first episode of Long Strange Trip. Parker's got one hell of a story. Violently fired by David Sacks from Zenefits. Character assassinated in...
AI Founders Now Prioritize Real-World Use Cases over Models
Quick takeaways from yesterdays excellent CVAI conference: 1. So many inspiring entrepreneurs presented 2. Agentic pricing is still in the wild west 3. Same with agentic UX 4. Fascinating to see founders talking more about the underlying application use cases versus just the models...
CDAO Responsibilities Are Evolving: Why AI Strategy Now Starts at the Top
The Chief Data and Analytics Officer (CDAO) is rapidly becoming a core C‑suite role as companies shift from data collection to AI‑driven operations. A recent survey shows 73.7% of firms now have a formal CDO/CDAO, up from 12% a decade...
Turn Existing Customers Into a Low‑Cost Growth Engine
CMOs are sleeping on customer marketing 💤 instead of growing your company WITH existing customers, you're treating customers primarily as an advocacy channel (e.g. case studies, references) 🛑 customer marketing is too narrowly defined. limiting customer marketing to advocacy misses...
Understanding Market Adoption
By Geoffrey Moore Author – The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality The big words we are talking about here are mission, vision, strategy, and execution. Typically, they are prominent in the PowerPoint slides...
EBooks Lose Spark: Emily Kramer’s 2025 B2B Channel Forecast
B2B marketing whisperer Emily Kramer from the beloved MKT1 newsletter dishes on which channels are hot or not in 2025. You might be surprised about eBooks. Do you agree? Chime in below. --- If you <3 this clip, you'll love...
Join Us Live with Harry Stebbings at SaaStr AI London
We’re BACK and it’s GOOD TIMES folks!! And come see Harry Stebbings + me LIVE in London Dec 1-2 at SaaStr AI LDN!
Lancey Automates PRs by Learning From Customer Channels
Lancey (@trylancey) is the multiplayer coding agent that builds what your customers want. Lancey scans your customer channels, builds an understanding of your codebase, and one-shots PRs. All in the background, without human prompting. Congrats on the launch, @_adipatel_ & @itsmeabhipatel! https://t.co/IpxLow4PtA
HireGlide Instantly Surfaces Top Candidates From Applications and Network
.@HireGlide screens inbound applications to immediately surface the best candidates. If the right person has not applied for the role, it surfaces perfect-fit matches from a pre-screened network of candidates seeking roles. Congrats on the launch, @theokitsberg & @axellapira1! https://t.co/BFwpm3V7re
Loyal Customers Start with a Team‑backed Culture
If you aspire to cultivate a base of loyal customers, the first step is to establish a culture that your team truly supports and believes in. https://t.co/Js4jyb8Ker
Turn Scattered Data Into Optimized Customer Routes
https://t.co/dqTuZpyd7w is the Google Maps for customer acquisition. It finds the most optimized routes to reach your customers and turns scattered data into clear next steps. It's the all-in-one GTM and marketing tool that gives one person the power of an...
Don't Claim PMF Until 12 Months of Retention
Stop shouting "we have product-market fit!" when you've got 5 customers and 6 months in business. It's way more accurate (and honest) to say: "I have early intuition that we might have PMF, but I won't know for sure until I...
ChatGPT Adds Basecamp Connector for Work Queries
Hey, look at what just showed up in ChatGPT this morning. A Basecamp connector! Now you can ask ChatGPT some Q’s about your work in Basecamp. Special thanks to the folks at @OpenAI and ChatGPT for making this happen. https://t.co/xPoSsMFSKS
GPT‑5.1 API Launch with 24‑Hour Prompt Caching
GPT-5.1 is now available in the API. Pricing is the same as GPT-5. We are also releasing gpt-5.1-codex and gpt-5.1-codex-mini in the API, specialized for long-running coding tasks. Prompt caching now lasts up to 24 hours! Updated evals in our blog post.
Get Certified Home Appraisals in 20 Minutes
Automax (https://t.co/h7TqSl2WHD) is the fastest way to appraise a home- accurate, compliant, and in just 20 minutes. Their mobile app analyzes 150+ features from a quick scan, and AI agents turn it into a complete valuation report signed & verified by...
Build Production-Ready Voice Agents in Minutes
With @vogentai's Voice Agent Wizard, you can create an effective voice agent with just a short description. Trained on the design processes of thousands of production agents, their wizard helps you go from idea to production voice agent in minutes. https://t.co/tcT4wV3IPb
Cursor AI's $2.3B Raise at 29x Suggests Cooling AI
. @cursor_ai just raised $2.3 billion. ... at a 29x revenue multiple. Not as "bad" as the 40x SaaS multiples of 2021.... Maybe we're not in an AI bubble? https://t.co/laqcS0YrUZ
Benchmark Your Pitch Deck Against 4,000 Startups
Wondering how you stack up? Try the new SaaStr VC Pitch Deck Analyzer. We’ll share how you stack up against 4,000 other start-ups. And we’ll provide you honest and confidential feedback on how to do better. Try it here -> https://t.co/S5UFYzoN7a https://t.co/3M6fas5f2w
OpenBuilder: Free Open-Source App Builder with Unlimited Credits
OpenBuilder (@theopenbuilder) is the open source alternative to Lovable. Unlimited build credits and real developer support when you hit a wall. Built for non-technical builders to ship real apps. https://t.co/Wg51wSz5N9