Yes, The IPO Market Came Back in 2025. But It Still Has a Long Way to Go.
The post argues that while the IPO market for software and AI companies has revived in 2024‑2025, it remains a fraction of its 2019‑2021 boom. Data shows only eight IPOs so far in 2025—about 17% of the 2021 peak and barely above the pre‑boom average of nine‑ten per year—while valuations have collapsed from 20‑25× revenue to around 10×, with many listings sliding further on day one. Lemkin highlights a massive backlog of unicorns, higher profitability standards, and the growing importance of secondary‑market liquidity for founders. He advises founders to extend IPO timelines, tighten unit economics, and prepare for modest multiples, and tells investors to focus on secondary exits and expect continued volatility.
NEW: AI Tool & Social Network Usage Graphs Are in SparkToro
The post announces a major upgrade to SparkToro’s data visualizations, now showing the exact percentage of a target audience that uses specific search engines, AI tools, and social networks rather than just country‑level averages. It highlights the ability to customize...
Stop Building Financial Plans on Hope and Prayer: Why Your C-60/C-90/C-10 Planning Is Backwards
Jason Lemkin warns founders that many financial plans are built on hopeful Q4 spikes rather than realistic data, leading to cash crises. He advocates using a C‑60 revenue plan—about 60% confidence with linear growth—and a conservative C‑90 cash plan that...
How to 10x the Value of Your Business Without Adding a Single Customer
The post shows how to dramatically increase a company’s valuation by maximizing customer lifetime value instead of chasing new leads, detailing formulas for LTV, churn reduction, and revenue expansion. It highlights retention tactics, upselling, cross‑selling, and pricing adjustments as levers...
The Hard Truth About Fundability: What 2,000+ Pitch Decks on SaaStr AI VC Taught Us
Jason Lemkin analyzes over 2,000 SaaStr AI VC pitch decks and finds that only about 23% of companies meet top‑quartile growth benchmarks that make them fundable for elite VCs, with just 12% truly elite. The data reveals a massive gap between founder...
How to Use AI Agents for Marketing
In this episode Kyle Poyar talks with Hamish Grant of SafetyCulture about how they built a suite of AI agents to super‑charge their marketing and sales operations. They detail four workflows—platform‑agnostic lead enrichment, an AI‑powered inbound BDR that drafts personalized...
20VC X SaaStr This Week: Why Most VCs Need to Step Aside, What’s Really Defensible Today, and How to Actually...
In a candid 20VC × SaaStr episode, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings and Rory O’Driscoll argue that the traditional VC playbook is obsolete, urging most VCs, executives and founders from the past decade to step aside for AI‑savvy talent. They outline three viable...
Stop Looking For Sales Magicians
Jason Lemkin argues that the idea of a "sales magician" is a myth—only a handful ever exist and even they falter when market conditions change. The real breakthrough comes from hiring a first sales rep who can quickly internalize and...
The Single Biggest Mistake You’ll Make as a Founder. Again and Again.
Jason Lemkin argues that the single biggest mistake founders make is tolerating mediocrity in senior team members—co‑founders, VPs, and partners—because it silently drains time, resources, and momentum. He breaks down three deadly forms of mediocrity, quantifies their hidden costs, and...
NEW in SparkToro: Take Action Combines Real Audience Data with LLM Magic to Give You Actionable Marketing Takeaways
The post introduces SparkToro’s new "Take Action" feature, which merges real audience data with LLM prompts to turn research insights into concrete marketing recommendations across 16 pre‑built tasks. By embedding smart prompts, a short questionnaire, and automatic saving/sharing of outputs...
Yes, AI Native Wins Today. But It’s Not Too Late. You Can Change. See, E.g., Clio and Gamma
The post argues that while AI‑native companies dominate today, legacy firms can still catch up by fundamentally redesigning their products to "do the work" rather than merely support workflows, as demonstrated by Clio and Gamma. It highlights that true AI‑native...
It’s Not Just You. Everyone Is Paying a Lot More for AI Engineers. Especially Equity.
In this SaaStr AI episode, Jason Lemkin highlights Carta’s data showing AI engineers’ equity grants soaring up to 40% while salary growth remains modest, driven by an "AI or Die" mindset, big‑tech poaching, and perceived massive upside. He warns founders...
Traditional SaaS May Be Dying. But It Might Also Be Your Fault.
Jason Lemkin argues that traditional SaaS models are collapsing because vendors are exploiting existing customers with aggressive price hikes, mandatory AI bundles, and hostile renewal tactics, turning customer success into a sales funnel. He illustrates the fallout—lost advocacy, higher churn,...
When Competitors Come Calling: 6 Questions That Will Help You Make the Right M&A Decision
Jason Lemkin outlines a six‑question framework for founders to objectively assess acquisition offers, emphasizing gut instinct validation, understanding the acquirer's strategic motives, honest economic analysis, and the founder's own growth trajectory. He stresses timing, opportunity cost, and the importance of...
SaaStr AI App of the Week: Dust – Build Custom AI Agents That Actually Know Your Company’s Data
Jason Lemkin highlights Dust, a no‑code platform that lets any employee build specialized AI agents tightly integrated with a company’s own tools and data, achieving remarkable 70%+ weekly adoption at firms like Doctolib and Qonto. The key differentiators are its...
If You Ever Think "Should I Fire This Person?" Even Once ... Well, Then It's Time
In this episode, Jason Lemkin argues that the moment a leader questions whether to fire an employee, the answer should be an immediate, compassionate termination. He explains how gut instincts synthesize performance data, and why retaining "pretty good" or mediocre...
You Can Hide From a Lot of Things as a Founder. Cash Burn Isn’t One of Them.
Jason Lemkin warns founders that while many operational issues can be postponed, cash burn is unforgiving and must be faced head‑on. He stresses calculating true runway using actual burn, adding a substantial buffer, and making decisive, deep cuts early rather...
10 Coolest Things You Can Do on the New SaaStr.ai
Jason Lemkin showcases the ten live features of the revamped SaaStr.ai, from the AI‑powered valuation calculator and pitch‑deck analyzer to VC matchmaking, market benchmarking, and a suite of purpose‑built AI agents for SaaS founders. He highlights concrete usage metrics—500,000+ valuations,...
The Compounding Startup
Kyle Poyar analyzes ChartMogul data to show that the rare SaaS startups that break the $20 million ARR barrier do so by continuously improving their revenue mix—raising ARPA, boosting expansion and retention—rather than relying on early‑stage momentum alone. The outliers double‑digit...
Dev Steps Down as CEO of MongoDB: The Beginning of the End of an Era?
MongoDB announced that long‑time CEO Dev Ittycheria will step down after 11 years, with former Cloudflare executive CJ Desai named as his successor. The transition comes as the company beat Q3 expectations, saw its stock rise and reported re‑accelerated growth,...
Part 2 of How to Get the Most Out of Your Product Pass—And Welcome, Stripe Atlas, to the Bundle!
Lenny Rachitsky announces a 40% discount on Stripe Atlas for Insider subscribers, positioning it as a core component of his $15,546‑value product‑pass bundle that now costs $200‑$350 per year. He explains how Atlas streamlines incorporation, tax filings, and banking, making...
Your Seed Round Now Needs to Last 3+ Years: What 3,365 Startups Tell Us About the New Series A Timeline
Carta’s analysis of 3,365 U.S. startups shows the median time from seed to Series A has more than doubled, with 39% now taking three or more years—up from 19% in 2019. The shift reflects higher VC expectations, now demanding 5× growth...
Part 2 of How to Get the Most Out of Your Product Pass—And Welcome, Stripe Atlas, to the Bundle!
In this second installment, Lenny Rachitsky outlines seven tools—Lovable, Bolt, Granola, ChatPRD, Superhuman, Raycast, and others—that streamline product prototyping, research, note‑taking, email handling, and workflow automation, helping builders work faster daily. He also announces a new insider perk: a 40%...
AI Wins When It Does The GTM Work … People Won’t
Jason Lemkin reports that SaaStr’s AI‑driven SDR booked a six‑figure sponsor meeting at 6:02 PM on a Saturday, a task virtually no human rep would perform. He argues AI’s value lies in handling the low‑energy, time‑sensitive GTM work that humans avoid,...
The Top 10 Mistakes I See In The VP of Sales Hiring Process
The post lists the ten most common errors founders make when hiring a VP of Sales, emphasizing that a successful hire must deeply understand the product, be willing to sell and close deals themselves, and bring a ready pipeline of...
How to Price Your AI-First Product: The Death of SaaS Pricing and the Rise of Transactional Models with Defy Ventures’...
Medha Agarwal of Defy VC warned that traditional seat‑based SaaS pricing is being eclipsed by transactional models as AI‑first products can replace or augment labor, allowing companies to sell into larger labor budgets. Transactional pricing—either input‑ or output‑based—captures more value...
“Vibe Analysis”: How Faire’s Data Team Uses AI to Investigate Conversion Drops, Analyze Experiment Results, and Convert Raw Data Into...
In this episode, Faire’s data team members Tim Trueman and Alexa Cerf demonstrate how they use AI‑powered tools—such as Cursor, ChatGPT Deep Research, and Model Context Protocols—to quickly diagnose conversion drops, evaluate experiment outcomes, and turn raw data into polished,...
Nasdaq Reaches Another ATH. Nvidia Tops $5T. But Navan’s IPO and JAMF’s $2B Exit Show B2B Still Isn’t Easy.
Nasdaq reached a new all‑time high and Nvidia topped a $5 trillion market cap, underscoring the AI‑driven rally in public markets. Yet the week’s two B2B SaaS exits—Navan’s IPO at a $4.7 billion valuation (7.7× 2024 revenue) after a 20% opening‑day drop,...
Traffic Is No Longer a Reliable Growth Metric
Kyle Poyar argues that raw traffic is becoming a misleading growth metric as AI‑driven search, especially ChatGPT, delivers far higher‑intent leads that convert six times faster than Google. He shares seven insights from Webflow’s VP of Growth, including the need...
AI App of the Week: Assistant UI – The React Library That’s Eating the AI Chat Interface Market
Assistant UI, a TypeScript/React library backed by Y Combinator, has become the de‑facto standard for AI chat interfaces, pulling in over 200,000 monthly downloads and adoption by firms such as LangChain, Athena Intelligence, and Stack AI. The library offers composable...
Why The Top Quartile in Venture Is Brutal Today: When “Doing Great” Isn’t Enough to Raise Money
SaaS founder Jason Lemkin reports that SaaStr’s AI‑driven pitch‑deck analyzer, after reviewing over 1,600 decks, shows a stark shift in VC expectations for companies with $2‑10 million ARR. While a 200% YoY growth rate at $3 M ARR once guaranteed a Series A,...
Wayback Machine Joint
Automattic is collaborating with the Internet Archive to launch a WordPress plugin that automatically redirects users to archived versions of pages that have gone offline, mitigating link rot. The tool detects broken links, fetches a snapshot from the Wayback Machine,...
VCs: Want More Dealflow? Sign Up for SaaStr’s AI Dealflow
SaaStr has launched an AI‑driven deal‑flow platform that lets founders upload their pitch decks directly to a centralized hub. In its first weeks the service has collected more than 1,542 decks and performed over 556,387 AI‑generated startup valuations. The platform...
Who’s Just Crushing It in SaaS Today: Palantir, Rubrik, Figma, Klaviyo, Snowflake and Shopify
Seven public SaaS firms—Palantir, Rubrik, Figma, Klaviyo, Snowflake, and Shopify—are each growing ARR faster than 30% while surpassing the $1 billion threshold. Palantir accelerated to 48% YoY growth at $4 billion ARR, earning a 107× price‑to‑ARR multiple, while Rubrik’s subscription ARR rose...
JAMF Goes Private for $2.2 Billion. That’s 3.3x ARR. Why B2B Can Be a Long, Hard Road
Private‑equity firm Francisco Partners agreed to acquire JAMF for $2.2 billion, a 50% premium to its recent share price but less than half the $4.6 billion market cap the company commanded on its 2020 IPO. The deal values JAMF at roughly 3.1×...
The Great VC Reshuffle: OpenAI’s $500B Restructuring, A16z’s $10B Mega-Fund, and Why Two-Thirds of Series B Investments Fail
OpenAI completed a landmark restructuring into a public‑benefit corporation, separating its for‑profit arm valued at roughly $500 billion and leaving CEO Sam Altman with no equity while Microsoft’s $13 billion stake positions it for a near‑10× return. Andreessen Horowitz announced a $10 billion...
What To Expect From a New VP of Customer Success in The First 30-60-90 Days
The article outlines a 30‑60‑90 day plan for a new VP of Customer Success, emphasizing immediate customer engagement, internal alignment, and data analysis in the first month. In weeks 31‑60, the focus shifts to refining onboarding, establishing health scores, piloting...
$555B of Cloud Spend
Microsoft and Google reported surging AI-driven cloud demand, with combined remaining performance obligations and capex commitments swelling to roughly $555 billion as both ramp data-center builds and GPU capacity. Microsoft’s commercial RPO topped nearly $400 billion and Google’s backlog hit...
If Your CRO, CCO or CPO Doesn’t Meet With Customers Their First Week On The Job … Move On. ...
SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin warns that a newly hired CRO, CCO or CPO must meet with customers in their first week, or the company should apologize for the mis‑hire and let them go. He says skipping direct customer interaction signals...
5 Interesting Learnings From MongoDB at $2.4 Billion in ARR
MongoDB reported $2.4 billion in ARR, with revenue growth rebounding to 24% and its stock up about 45% year‑to‑date. Seventy percent of Atlas ARR now comes from customers that use at least one additional platform capability, and those multi‑product users generate...
What’s Working in GTM Right Now
Surveying 195 software GTM leaders, the inaugural 2025 State of B2B GTM report finds companies juggling heavy channel experimentation—an average of five core GTM channels plus 5.5 experiments—while inbound (23%), outbound (19%) and account‑based GTM (18%) remain the most common...
Sabbaticals Keep Our Attrition at Bay
37signals says offering a six-week sabbatical every three years has been a simple, effective tool to curb churn in an industry where average tenure is about 18 months. The company reports the policy — in place for roughly 15 years...
From Zero to Eight Figures in 18 Months: Decagon CEO’s Playbook for AI-Native SaaS Growth. And Why They Partnered With...
Decagon, founded in late 2023, scaled to eight‑figure ARR in roughly 18 months by selling AI customer‑service agents to major enterprises including Hertz and Chime, claiming roughly $800K in annual savings for every $250K spent. Backed by Accel at Series...
AI in Tech Isn’t So Much About Laying Off Humans. It’s About AI Backfills
Jason Lemkin explains that SaaStr has replaced departing employees with AI agents as a routine backfill, not as a cost‑cutting layoff, and now runs over 20 agents covering sales, marketing, support, RevOps and operations. He notes that AI agents require...
The Brutal Truth About Series B: Only 1 in 3 Deals Even Double Investors’ Money, Per Latest Carta Data
Carta’s analysis of 547 U.S. startups that raised primary Series B rounds in 2018 shows that only about one‑third of those investments doubled investors’ money, while 66% delivered two‑times or less – including 38.6% that are now worth the same or...
The Change Economy with Bonfire Ventures’ Brett Queener: Why Your Product Must Ship Every 30 Days or Die
Bonfire Ventures partner Brett Queener warns that AI‑driven “agentic” software forces a new SaaS playbook: companies must ship major product updates roughly every 30 days or risk being outcompeted. He advises starting small with demos and rapid trials, embedding continual...
“Cursor Is a Much Better Product Manager than I Ever Was”: How This PM Uses AI for PRDs, Jira Tickets,...
Dennis Yang, Chime’s principal product manager for generative AI, says he uses Cursor as a no‑code product‑management hub to generate PRDs, push documentation to Confluence/Notion, create Jira tickets, and automate status reports and comment replies. His workflow leverages Model Context...
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...
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....
🧠 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...
