🎯Today's SaaS Pulse
Updated 19m agoWhat's happening: FoodOp secures £4.4 million to scale AI‑powered kitchen SaaS
FoodOp, a SaaS platform for professional chefs, raised £4.4 million in a round led by MK Capital to accelerate its rollout in the UK and US. The service is used daily by over 2,000 chefs across more than 700 kitchens, automating procurement, menu planning and budgeting with AI‑driven tools.
Also developing:
Blog•Oct 15, 2025
5 Critical Phases of Building Your SaaS Sales Machine: Jason Lemkin + Harry Stebbings
SaaStr co-founder Jason Lemkin and investor/podcaster Harry Stebbings updated their deep-dive guide on building a SaaS sales machine, refreshing a 20+ minute playbook for 2025 that outlines five critical phases for creating a first sales team. The piece details practical steps—hiring and role sequencing, compensation and quota-setting, go-to-market motions, process and tooling, and metrics to track—to move startups from founder-led selling to repeatable revenue. For SaaS founders and early-stage CEOs, the framework clarifies when to invest in people versus process, how to de-risk scaling, and what KPIs signal readiness to expand field sales, directly impacting speed to scale and cash-burn efficiency.
By SaaStr
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Let Vendors Handle AI Agent Deployment, Not You
You probably need a team of Forward Deployed Engineers. Even if you don't think you do. We've deployed 11 AI Agents so far at SaaStr, and we're adding our 12th, Agentforce. More on that soon! One common thread: the vendor helped us deploy. Look, we're smart. We...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Join Fizzy Private Beta: Early Access Before Public Launch
Aiming to begin sending out a handful of Fizzy private beta invites as soon as tomorrow. If you want to get on the list, quickly sign up here: https://t.co/6eFNse2WPf Also... Promise that if you sign up on the list you *will* get an...
By Jason Fried
Blog•Oct 15, 2025
The Odds of Making It
A new look inside startup growth from zero to $25 million ARR
By Kyle Poyar
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Will Boost Selling Time to 80% by 2026
Most GTM teams haven't even entered Phase 1. That's the punchline of this new piece I wrote regarding my hypothesis on how AI will reshape field of go-to-market over the next decade. In the work, I propose four sequential phases where humans...
By Mark Roberge
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Underfund Sales & Marketing Limits SaaS Growth Past $5M
The biggest mistake SaaS founders make is spending too little on sales & marketing. This works until around $3M–$5M ARR, not more. Here’s why👇
By Ryan Allis
Podcast•Oct 15, 2025•49 min
196. Ines Lourenço, VP of Product Growth, Usercentrics. Growth = Product Distribution: How Usercentrics Hit €100M ARR with Activation-First Pods
In this episode, Inês Lourenço, VP of Product Growth at Usercentrics, explains how she scaled a 50‑person growth organization into cross‑functional pods that treat growth as product distribution, putting activation ahead of acquisition. She details the evolution from manual signal detection...
By The SaaSiest Podcast
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Invest 10‑40% Revenue in Sales to Scale SaaS
The biggest mistake SaaS founders make is spending too little on sales & marketing. This works until around $3M–$5M ARR, not more....Here's why Most SaaS founders obsess over product but underinvest in growth. Then the company stalls. The reason is simple: you cannot...
By Ryan Allis
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Stop Forcing Customers to Master What You Should Do
We've all optimized for the craziest thing. 臘♂️ Trying to get customers to execute perfectly when they don't have experience, expertise, or even the desire to do so. Yet, we've designed our entire operation and organization to try to make this work....
By Lincoln Murphy
Blog•Oct 14, 2025
AI Deals Are Scaling to Massive Valuations. But In Many Cases—Also Massive Dilution. See E.g., OpenAI
So there has never been a “start-up” like OpenAI. Already with 800,000,000+ users and a breathtaking $500 Billion (!) valuation. But it’s also raised and spent epic amounts. So as the chart from FT below shows — all the historic...
By SaaStr
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Invest in People, Experience, and Trust to Drive Growth
When I was asked to spend National CX Day with two outstanding leaders, Van Wolfe from REPAY and Ines van Daalen Thornburg from @splunk, that was an easy yes! After (re)listening to the conversation, I had a few powerful takeaways...
By Tiffani Bova
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Minority Funding Still Means Investor Decision Power
Founders are often interested in minority transactions for one reason: Control. In a founder's mind, if they retain majority ownership in the company, then they'll fully control the strategic direction of the company, even if they give up a seat on the...
By Michael Lyon
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Stop Guessing: Use Metrics to Scale Beyond $5M ARR
If you're over $5M ARR and still leading by gut, you're flying blind. I've helped 100+ SaaS companies in the last four years and see the same pattern. - You know the product. - You know the market. - But you don't know the...
By Ben Murray
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Gen AI, Challenger Sale Insights for Revenue Leaders
CMOs, CROs, CXOs — this one's for you. We've been working hard on the Breakthrough Executive Experience agenda, and I couldn't be more excited about what's in store: A powerhouse panel of PE operating partners sharing what's actually working...
By Latane Conant
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Excellence Grows From Adversity, Discipline, and Collaboration
At GITEX, I had the chance to speak with David Popovici, Olympic champion, Global Ambassador for UiPath, and someone I'm lucky to call a friend. We talked about how excellence can emerge even when the conditions aren't perfect. David became...
By Daniel Dines
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Balance Core Operations with Innovation for True Value
Mission-critical work keeps your business running but rarely wins customers. Too often it absorbs the resources that should fuel innovation. Volkswagen's decision to partner with Rivian on software shows how to control essential work without diluting focus on what creates true value. Every...
By Geoffrey Moore
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Hype on LinkedIn vs Marketers' Reality
LinkedIn vs Reality - when it comes to how we are using AI….. I think on LinkedIn you open up the feed and every day you see new use cases and examples of how people are supposedly using AI. But I spend...
By Dave Gerhardt
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Works When Humans Orchestrate With Right Tools
AI is still being oversold. And it's such a shame. They tell you it will: - Think for you - Run everything for you - Make money for you It's obviously not true. And people had it enough of this... And as a result, you might go 180...
By Simon Høiberg
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Free Trials Fail when They Solve Advanced, Not Basic Problems
Your free product is probably solving the wrong problem. I've seen this kill conversion at hundreds of product-led companies. You build something technically impressive with unique features and powerful capabilities. But free-to-paid conversion stays under 3%. The problem is you're solving advanced problems...
By Wes Bush
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Auto-Editing Empowers Authentic Human Video Messaging
Congrats on the launch of Supercut, David Okuniev and Neil Kinnish! I've known David since we invested in Typeform back in 2013, and it's been a great pleasure to work together again! It's super impressive what Supercut has achieved in...
By Christoph Janz
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Ship Fast, Test Minimal, Cut Dead Weight
Not shipping because you're still "polishing"? The market doesn't care. Test the smallest version. Measure. Cut what stalls you. Build lean. Automate only what saves time. Scale the wins - kill the rest.
By Simon Høiberg
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Essential SaaS Insights: Magic Number, NRR, Valuation, and More
Want to join 95K of your SaaS colleagues? My next newsletter is about to drop. Today, I'm covering: - The SaaS Magic Number - NRR's impact on your valuation - The latest founder story - New revenue automation players - Today's modern ERP - Agentic FP&A? Sign up...
By Ben Murray
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Watch Dreamforce 2025 Keynote Now Online
The Dreamforce 2025 keynote is now online! https://t.co/q9FDsk9mBP.
By Marc Benioff
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Workforce Cuts Pre‑Construction Design Time by 30%
Structured AI (@getstructuredai) is an AI workforce for pre-construction design engineering. They save engineers 30% of their time by automating documentation and validating designs directly inside the software teams already use. Congrats on the launch, @stingrayzz22, @Green181024 and @brandonstarxel!
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Nail Your ICP, Then Growth Compounds Through Service
Once you nail the ICP. Then the growth flows. Once the growth flows, the next question becomes simple... "What else can we do for our customer?" Then you get even more compounding growth. Saleem from Lavu explains how 👇 https://t.co/ngKhNZ044m
By TK Kader
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI-Driven Broker Automates Insurance Paperwork and Support
Fernstone is an AI-powered insurance brokerage for businesses. Their platform handles the back and forth with carriers, autonomously files paperwork, and instantly responds to customer requests. Congrats on the launch, @lukebbutton, @James_R_Chen, and @BryantLe18! https://t.co/iuDWVaTy8N
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 15, 2025
AI Agents Gain Memory Through Hyperspell Integrations
Hyperspell (@hyperspell) gives AI agents memory. It connects to Slack, Gmail, Notion, and Drive, so agents get context and remember what they learn. Congrats @conor_ai and @maebert on the launch! https://t.co/WkfMWkUs5p https://t.co/BQj8QMpdkF
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Growth Requires Integrated Systems, Not Single Silver Bullets
Founders often ask me: "What's the ONE thing that will 10x growth?" But breakthrough happens when multiple parts work together: messaging, activation, pricing, retention. Stop chasing silver bullets. Start optimizing systems. Ready to build yours? https://t.co/ZKzoSwMLP6
By Asia Orangio
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Canvas: Unlimited Visual AI Workspace for Collaborative Thinking
Canvas from @Spine_AI is an unlimited visual workspace for AI — where you can think, branch, and collaborate across hundreds of models. Chat works for Q&A. Canvas is for thinking. https://t.co/thZKTQWq0w Congrats on the launch @BudhkarAkshay & @AshwinVRaman! https://t.co/vyaNLQE88D
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Ask, Get Instant Engineering Insights—No Dashboards Needed
Waydev AI (@waydevco) is the AI-native conversational platform for Engineering Intelligence. Ask questions like “What’s our AI adoption rate?”, “How’s our cycle time trending?”, “Which teams drive the most impact?” Instant insights, no dashboards. https://t.co/b2YsuqATPI
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 15, 2025
500K AI Startup Valuations Hit on SaaStr AI
Holy Cow!! We crossed 500,000 AI Startup Valuations on new SaaStr Ai!! (Thx @Replit!) https://t.co/i1bef0zpBU
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Oct 15, 2025
Sidekick Turns Any Business Question Into ShopifyQL Report
Shopify's analytics are amazing. You can do queries across your entire org by just asking Sidekick and it will get you the unique report and teach you ShopifyQL along the way
By Tobi Lutke
Social•Oct 14, 2025
From SaaS to AI: Keynote Tour & Meetups
Just finished keynoting at Canvas by Miro. My talk was all about transforming your company from SaaS to AI, and what a great crowd both IRL and online. Thanks to Andrey for the invite My next few events (if you want...
By Des Traynor
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Production Apps Demand Ongoing Maintenance, Not Just Launch
Now that I have 8+ apps in production from vibe coding, it's great. But every day I have some maintenance to do now. It might be 10 minutes, it might be much more. Like today. Now it's my "during coffee"...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Fivetran‑dbt Merger: A Natural Evolution of Data Stack
Why was the Fivetran-dbt merger all but inevitable?
By Tomasz Tunguz
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Delayed Vendor Response Cost Me a Deployment Window
I had a window to deploy a new app a few weeks ago. A few days of time to dedicate to it. I reached out to the vendor and I even told them I'd be a halo customer for...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Oct 14, 2025
App Development Is Now Essential for Career Growth
A few years ago, if someone said your career growth might soon depend on whether you can build an app, you'd probably laugh. Yet that's exactly where we are.
By Swarnendu De
Social•Oct 14, 2025
RB2B Fuels Growth Amid Core Business Stagnation
Retention.com & RB2B grew 1.2% in Sep '25 to $25.6m ARR. RB2B grew 5.6% to $6.3m ARR and Retention shrank 0.7% to $19.5m ARR. Here's the good, bad, and ugly that happened last month: GOOD: - RB2B hit $6m ARR...
By Adam Robinson
Social•Oct 14, 2025
AI Builders Draft Fast, but Miss Core Details
AI website builders are like interns on caffeine. Fast, but forgetful. We tested 19 AI website builders. Generated 51 landing pages. Scored them across 60 UX, CRO, and SEO criteria. Most skipped basics like testimonials, pricing clarity, and brand identity. The best ones (Base44,...
By Hiten Shah
Social•Oct 14, 2025
ChatGPT Lifts Limits, Adds Personality and Adult Content
We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we...
By Sam Altman
Social•Oct 14, 2025
FleetWorks Secures $15M Series A, Accelerates Trucking Matchmaking
Congrats to @fleetworksai on their $15M Series A! FleetWorks matches truckers with cargo faster, automating the manual coordination that bogs down small carriers. They've onboarded 10k+ carriers & dozens of brokers (incl. Uber Freight) in just 6 months. https://t.co/t2YmM7YPrM
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 14, 2025
New Benchmarks Test Agents on Real-World Tasks
Most benchmarks test agents on short-horizon reasoning, not real-world, long-running tasks with stateful environments. To solve this, @agenthublabs is launching Benchmarks: one-click testing for your agents on realistic, economically valuable tasks, starting with E-Commerce and CRM automations. No infra setup needed. Try...
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 14, 2025
AI-Driven Launch Videos Go Viral with Autonomous Creativity
Absurd (@trydune) makes absurd AI launch videos — turning raw authenticity into absurdity that actually spreads. Their autonomous agents plan, generate, and edit every scene for clients in a live Figma-like canvas. Their first launch video hit 450K+ views on X....
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Validate Fit First, Then Hire Agencies
I've seen too many founders spend $100K with an agency only to learn they didn't have product-market fit. There are cheaper ways to learn this. Before you hire the big agency, make sure you have: 80%+ NRR at 12 months Clear channel hypotheses >6 months...
By Asia Orangio
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Dreamforce Live: Three Days to Transform Your Business
Dreamforce is live. Stream three days that will change everything for your business. Watch the keynote now: https://t.co/vWKJ84fiFM https://t.co/o6WUHPkAjH
By Marc Benioff
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Zavo Launches First AI‑Powered POS for Restaurants
Zavo (@zavopay) is building the first agentic point of sale for restaurants and retail. Payments, POS, and AI agents in one platform to build the future of autonomous commerce. Over 400 businesses already use Zavo to accept payments and manage operations. https://t.co/17M89V566A Congrats...
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Customers Reveal Priorities by Avoiding Time‑Wasting Tasks
Customers won’t tell you what to build. They’ll just show you what they hate wasting time on.
By Hiten Shah
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Pre‑Seed Vs. Seed: Are the Boundaries Blurring?
Is Pre-Seed still a thing? Or have lines blurred with Seed? Doing research for Sunday’s episode. Will quote you for your insights.
By TK Kader
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Reducto AI Secures $75M Series B Funding
Congrats to @reductoai on their $75M Series B! Reducto is the leading AI document intelligence platform, and has now processed over a billion pages for leading startups and global enterprises. Startups can get started with 15k in free credits at https://t.co/88zX5ajAId. https://t.co/DE51kgRs6w
By YCombinator
Social•Oct 14, 2025
Profitable Open‑Source App Platform Generates $70K Profit
Awesome open source drop on @acquiredotcom. One codebase for building modern apps that feel native. > $72K TTM revenue > $70K TTM profit > Near zero overhead Full listing: https://t.co/4roZtQrct3 https://t.co/aCGM3Leu5v
By Andrew Gazdecki