Social•Jan 19, 2026
Six Essential Steps to Close an M&A Deal
What are the basic phases of a process (M&A or capital raise)? 1. Pre-marketing Complete the marketing materials (information packet and buyer list) and get your house in order. 2. Marketing Reach out to buyers, execute NDAs, and share marketing materials. 3. First-round bids Receive Indications of Interest (IOIs) with loose terms of a deal. 4. Management meetings and detailed diligence Meet with buyers and provide access to deep diligence materials. 5. Final bids Receive and review detailed Letters of Intent (LOIs) from buyers. 6. Closing of deal and final documentation. Paper the deal and take a vacation. #founders #pathtoexit
By Michael Lyon
Social•Jan 19, 2026
AI SEO: The Must‑Invest Play at $1M ARR
I just spoke to Godard Abel - UNICORN Founder of G2 - about the ONE THING he would invest in if he were at $1m ARR. His answer... AI SEO. I was so confused about the details and whether or not...
By Adam Robinson
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Building Reliable AI Requires a New Empirical Playbook
I had a wide ranging chat with Eléonore about Intercom, Fin, and a variety of topics * Why did we need to drop everything and run to AI immediately, and do so regardless of the cost. * Building reliable AI...
By Des Traynor
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Silent AI Agents Drive $2.5M Pipeline by Listening
My AI agents sent zero messages last month. They helped me close $2.5M in pipeline anyway. Here's what everyone gets wrong about AI on LinkedIn: Most people use AI agents to send more messages. More connection requests. More follow-ups. More...
By Amos Joseph
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Stop Adding Features: Focus on Core Value in 2026
Why ‘more features’ is the worst GTM mistake you can make in 2026. I see this pattern with almost every ambitious AI and SaaS Founder I work with: the moment growth stalls, their instinct is to build more features, fast. 1. Chasing...
By TK Kader
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Context‑Driven AI Agents: Avoid Costly GTM Noise
AI agents in GTM without the right context are expensive noise.
By Amos Joseph
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Early Traction ≠ Market Acceptance in GenAI
Early traction does not equal market acceptance. That distinction matters even more with GenAI. Join me on Jan 27, 2026, 1:00 PM PT in this discussion focusing on how pragmatist buyers evaluate new technology, why the chasm still applies, and what...
By Geoffrey Moore
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Focus on Five Key Lead Metrics for Predictable Growth
- “Should we focus on cost per lead or conversion rate?” - “More lead volume or better quality?” - “How do we know if our pipeline is predictable?” Here’s what I often tell teams: It’s not about tracking the most metrics, it’s about tracking...
By devbasu
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Ads Must Align With Real‑Time User Intent
For decades, digital advertising has trained marketers to optimize for interruption. You buy attention, compress a message into a few characters, and hope the click carries enough intent to survive the landing page. That model works when discovery and evaluation...
By Hiten Shah
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Buyers Ready to Pay for Real
A good business in a bad market often sells for nothing. A great business in a strong market can sell for something that actually changes your life. That’s where we are right now. > Strategic buyers are buying tech to move faster. >...
By Andrew Gazdecki
Social•Jan 19, 2026
AI Redefines SEO: CMOs Must Revamp Playbooks
[This week] I'm hosting a conversation on AI and SEO with three marketing leaders that have actual receipts from the past year. Details below. Each month we host Exit Five Live sessions (don't you dare call it a webinar) open...
By Dave Gerhardt
Social•Jan 19, 2026
B2B Shifts to 70% AI, Old GTM Obsolete
The best B2B companies are now running with 30% humans and 70% AI agents. Or even higher. The old GTM playbook is dead. At SaaStr AI 2026, we're going deep on what the new playbook actually is. And what really...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Six Threats Force SaaS to Deliver Smiling AI
“Can your team ship AI features that make you truly smile? If you don’t smile — your customers won’t either” Traditional enterprise software and SaaS is under assault. The leaders are all still growing, but in many cases slower than ever....
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 19, 2026
Dominate AI-Driven GTM at SaaStrAnnual 2026
AI is changing every GTM role. You can run from it. You can argue with it. Or ... you can learn to dominate the new world at SaaStrAnnual.com 2026. Join us.
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 18, 2026
Great Marketers Thrive on Diverse, Limited Resources
Great marketers know how to take inspiration from everywhere. They are curious. Creative. Scrappy. They don't need "B2B marketing examples" to understand what might work in a B2B context. I think one of the best parts of the job is...
By Dave Gerhardt
Social•Jan 18, 2026
AI Empowers Non‑Technical PMs to Build Real Products
The future of product management looks a lot like Zevi Arnovitz . Zevi is an IC PM at Meta , has no technical background—is scared to even look at code—but has taught himself how to use Cursor and Claude Code...
By Lenny Rachitsky
Social•Jan 18, 2026
Late AI Adoption Sparks 100% Growth for Veteran SaaS
Just got an investor update from a 10+ year old vertical SaaS company I invested in a looong time ago. Founders never quit, know space cold, but man it’s been a grind. And they are far, far from “AI Native”. However … They...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 18, 2026
Public Software Stocks Tank, Private AI Startups Soar
Strange World Indeed, 2026 January edition: - The worst time in our history to be invested in public software stocks - The best time in our history to be invested in private hot (AI fueled) startup stocks
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 18, 2026
AI B2B Landscape Shifts: Lawsuits, Billion‑Dollar Valuations, and Market Moves
📰 Top AI+B2B News - Sun, Jan 18 https://t.co/MWFHfEuzpm Top Stories: 1. Musk Seeks Up to $134 Billion Damages From OpenAI, Microsoft 2. ClickHouse Lands $15 Billion Valuation in AI Database Race 3. Figma (FIG) Is Down 13.2% After AI Deal With OpenAI Top SaaStr...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 18, 2026
Salesforce Emerges as Central Hub for AI GTM Agents
"When you have 5, 10, 20+ AI GTM agents ... you need a hub. And for the most part, that hub is @salesforce today. It's a Renaissance for @salesforce." with @kylecnorton CRO @owner https://t.co/IaEh5Zt3Gh
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 17, 2026
VC Expectations Escalate: From $1B to $100B Targets
10 years ago, VC was optimized around $1B+ outcomes, for the most part. 5 years ago, VC was optimized around $10B+ outcomes. Today, VC is optimized around $100B+ outcomes. It’s exciting and bold and startups in the Age of AI...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 17, 2026
Red Oceans Win: Leverage Existing Budgets Over Blue Ocean Education
Esben Friis-Jensen scaled Userflow to $4.6M ARR with just 3 people inside a bloody "Red Ocean" market. Most founders spend their lives looking for a "Blue Ocean." They want a market with zero competitors, wide open space, and the freedom...
By Wes Bush
Social•Jan 17, 2026
Legacy Records Must Evolve Into Ecosystem‑Driven Platforms
"Why can or can't legacy systems of record just add AI?" Great reflections by Jamin Ball in his latest "Clouded Judgment" newsletter (link in comments). I'll just add that this is one of the best arguments for those legacy systems...
By Scott Brinker
Social•Jan 17, 2026
AI Shifts to Enterprise Infrastructure and Revenue Engines
11 top AI stories this week worth paying attention to in today's AI to ROI: Just the News 👇 🍎 Apple picks Google Gemini for Apple Intelligence & Siri This isn’t a win for “better answers.” It’s a pragmatic admission...
By Ray Rike
Social•Jan 17, 2026
AI Lowers Code Costs, but Core Competencies Still Matter
AI brings down the cost of building software dramatically. And now everyone can write code for any use case they can think of. But nothing changes about the concept of core competencies in a company. Companies spend their finite resources...
By Aaron Levie
Social•Jan 16, 2026
2026 Vertical SaaS Outlook: Buyers Return, AI Valuation Shifts
How do we see vertical Software M&A and fund raising shaping up for 2026? A lot of founders we speak with are trying to figure out what 2026 might actually look like if they're thinking about raising capital or selling....
By Michael Lyon
Social•Jan 16, 2026
AI Agents Turn Cloud Files Into Instant Slide Decks
Claude Cowork gives you a peek into the future of knowledge work. Here's a demo of using Box as a cloud filesystem via MCP for Claude to leverage content as context to generate new slides locally. The future is having...
By Aaron Levie
Social•Jan 16, 2026
AI's Next Decade: Interchangeable Models, Trusted Data, Human‑Centric Impact
We’re now in what I believe is the most important, and most misunderstood, phase of every tech revolution. It’s the moment when the deeper truths that will shape the next decade begin to emerge. In a new op-ed for the...
By Marc Benioff
Social•Jan 16, 2026
YC Mentors Founders for a Decade, Not Just Launch
One of the things that surprised me about YC is how long we continue to advise founders. We thought we'd just help them get started and then hand them over to later stage investors, but in fact we're still talking...
By Paul Graham
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Built Custom AI VP to Drive 10K Attendees, $10M Revenue
So this year we’ve built an AI VP of Marketing for SaaStr. The v1 at least. We didn’t want to, we wanted to buying an AI agentic solution that does what we need in marketing. But we just couldn’t find...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Skip “Strategist” Hires Until You Hit $20M ARR
Before $20,000,000 in ARR Maybe even before $50,000,000 in ARR Do not hire anyone with "strategist" in the first few lines of their LinkedIn bio
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 16, 2026
When SaaS Needs Human Onboarding, Kill It
Vincent Jong literally wrote the book on Product-Led Sales and spent months building a SaaS product in that category. However, he ultimately killed the entire project before onboarding a single customer. Most founders would have launched it anyway. They would...
By Wes Bush
Social•Jan 16, 2026
AI Multiplies Productivity, Creates Jobs, Not Layoffs
“AI is the new boogeyman” - every single person after seeing Cowork. Respectfully, that is the dumbest thing I’ve heard. I let AI run my $6.6M ARR business for a week, and we grew faster than we did in MONTHS. And...
By Adam Robinson
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Convert More: Prioritize Strategy Before Landing Page Design
Many SaaS landing pages fail because of 1 reason: (and it's not a terrible design) They are built skipping the strategy and jumping straight to design. The result of that is beautiful pages that don't convert. After creating 1000+ of...
By devbasu
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Rethink Support: Metrics, Structure, and AI-Driven Roles
Patrick McKenzie is one of the sharpest thinkers in the game, 6 years at Stripe where he remains a Strategic Advisor, and he is also a former Customer Support rep. We spoke about * customer support not as a cost...
By Des Traynor
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Solve Real Problem First, Then Exit Becomes Simple
I see this pattern over and over in great exits. Founders don’t start by trying to sell. They start by solving a real problem well. Arman Iranpour (@ArmanIranpour) and Matt Aleali (@aleali_mahdi) were real estate investors frustrated by how slow and...
By Andrew Gazdecki
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Customer Assumptions Failed, Real Insight Beats Strategy Decks
We thought we knew our customer. We were wrong. But that eventually taught us more than any strategy deck ever could. https://t.co/lF3XrnVMxY
By Jonathan Rintala
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Add AI to Inbound for Instant Deal Qualification
"Which AI Agent vendor should you pick?" with @kylecnorton CRO @owner "The lowest hanging fruit is adding AI to Inbound. To instantly qualify deals, instantly answer customer querstions, and instantly set up a meeting with a human AE." https://t.co/TUcLRTLEiB
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 16, 2026
Unexpected Clients Refine Our Ideal Customer Profile
We thought we knew our customer. We were wrong. We started with universities. It was a need we had ourselves. Selling to universities was… hard. So we pivoted. And then pivoted again. Somewhere along the way, our webinar platform ended...
By Jonathan Rintala
Social•Jan 15, 2026
The Untold Truths Every First‑Time Founder Needs
What nobody tells first-time founders Clip from my chat with Sam Lessin : https://lnkd.in/gN3JzMXv
By Lenny Rachitsky
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Built a No‑Code Unified Semantic Search in Days
Your timeline is probably full of people shouting that they’ve cured cancer and achieved world peace using Claude Code.... so maybe you've had enough. But I can’t help being incredibly excited about it, so I wanted to share my experience...
By Christoph Janz
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Sumo.com Soft Launches New Feature, Seeks Feedback
Sumo.com - soft launched something new there today. 👋 Love your feedback 👋
By Noah Kagan
Social•Jan 15, 2026
SEO Is Dead; Embrace Generative Engine Optimization Now
Today's Thought: The "Blue Link" Era is Over. Is Your Growth Plan Stuck in 2010? For decades, we’ve told Marketing: “Rank on page one.” We’ve told Sales: “Don’t worry, the leads are coming from search.” But the seismic shift to...
By Tiffani Bova
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Replit's AI Agent Now Delivers 99% Accurate Code
When I started using @Replit last summer, agent v1, you didn’t really know if anything you told the agent to do … would really work in practice when it created the code. You hoped. But you just didn’t...
By Jason Lemkin
Social•Jan 15, 2026
CFOs Must Secure Data Quality Before AI Adoption
CFO's really want to use AI this year. But it still comes back to data quality and structure. Shocker. I'm holding a live session next week to help CFO's and Controllers assess their AI readiness. I'm teaming up with the...
By Ben Murray
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Refine Existing Content to Close Deals, Not Just Publish
I’ve sat in a lot of pipeline reviews where content looked like it was doing its job. At first glance, everything looks healthy. Pages are getting published. Rankings improve. Traffic trends upward. Then the conversation turns to which pieces actually...
By devbasu
Social•Jan 15, 2026
AI Drives Emergent, Context‑Driven User Interfaces
The history of software is really the history of how humans interact with computers. A (partial) history of user interfaces: TUI: (Terminal User Interface): Type & Read GUI (Graphical User Interface): Point & Click MUI (Mobile User Interface): Touch &...
By Dharmesh Shah
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Copy Shopify’s Checkout, Boost Conversions by 13%
Turns out just copying Shopify works. Made our AppSumo cart and checkout pages more similar ro them. Improved conversion 13.01%. https://t.co/dSwVWHYMW4
By Noah Kagan
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Even Churned Customers Keep Watching; Notice Their Return
Churned customers don’t disappear. They always come back to check on you. The question is whether you notice… https://t.co/2uqVT1n4Q9
By Adam Robinson
Social•Jan 15, 2026
Match Platforms, Prioritize Distribution Over Price in M&A
I recently sat down with @PaloAltoNtwks CEO @nikesharora on Long Strange Trip, and we spent a lot of time talking about M&A – from the buyer’s side. I mulled on that for awhile and came up with my (hopefully non-obvious)...
By Brian Halligan