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 to anyone to dive into a hot topic in B2B marketing. Wednesday the session is all about AI + SEO. AI has created a whole new game for SEO and a lot of brand perception is being shaped outside of channels marketers directly control. So what’s a CMO to do? Where should you invest? What changes need to be made to the current playbook? Respectfully: how is this any different than traditional SEO? It's not the same thing? We'll discuss... My guests: - Dave Steer (CMO at Webflow; website experience platform) - Marcy Comer (CMO at EagleView; they do aerial insights / property intelligence) - Clare Schmitt (VP Marketing at Piedmont Global; they help companies expand internationally) So we're coming at this from a bunch of different angles and industries. Join us Wednesday January 21 and we'll cover: You will learn: - How to think about AEO at the leadership level - What to focus on in the next 90 days - The risks of ignoring AI-driven discovery - How to gauge AEO maturity, from basic visibility to real authority Get the details and register here: https://lnkd.in/eb-JmFxW
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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
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...
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
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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
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...
Open Models Turn Research Into Scalable Startup Opportunities
During last month’s NeurIPS 2025 conference, YC’s @sdianahu sat down with @Thom_Wolf, co-founder and CSO of Hugging Face to discuss his unconventional journey from physics and law to building one of the most influential open-source AI platforms. They discussed why open...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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
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
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...
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
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...
Sumo.com Soft Launches New Feature, Seeks Feedback
Sumo.com - soft launched something new there today. 👋 Love your feedback 👋
Instant Outbound: AI Finds Ready Buyers, Books Meetings
Clodo (@ClodoAI) is the Vibe GTM. Execute your outbound at the speed of thought. Clodo finds prospects who want to buy now & automates personalized campaigns to get meetings booked. https://t.co/l7pajZ2yis
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...
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...
AI Analyst Rori Automates Risk Audits, Saves Millions
Roe AI (@try_roe_ai) is building Rori, a Cursor-like tool for risk and compliance. Rori acts like a senior analyst. It pulls data from internal tools and public records, connects people, companies, transactions, and behaviors, and produces audit-ready evidence, saving teams millions...
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...
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...
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 &...
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
AI Agent Auto‑Updates Docs From PRs, Slack, Tickets
.@promptlessai just launched Promptless 1.0: the first AI agent that automatically updates your customer-facing docs, including screenshots and code snippets. It listens to PRs, Slack channels, tickets, and more & drafts proactive updates wherever your docs live. https://t.co/s5GwMtd69V
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
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)...
Most Companies Mismanage AI Adoption—Here's Why
"You're Likely Screwing Up AI Adoption..." & more in today’s Operator Links, full post + sources in the comments.
Guard Small Signals: Culture Drift Undermines Growth
We lose a team member before that team member drags down culture. That's not about the person we lose. It's about the people who stay. My job as a leader is to create an environment where everyone can thrive. Culture...
Turn Customer Conversations Into Decisions in 4 Weeks
My cat has a more rigorous research process than most B2B companies (it's probly the glasses) Meanwhile, companies are treating customer research like throwing spaghetti at a wall and asking AI to help them figure out what noodles stick. Here's...
SaaS Valuations Dropped as Standards, Not Performance, Rose
Public SaaS valuation multiples didn’t fall because the businesses got worse... ...they have fallen because the bar is higher 👇 Looking across public SaaS over the last 12 months, here’s what’s actually happened: 📉 Median EV / Revenue has fallen...
Maintain Multiple Buyers to Preserve Deal Leverage
Most founders don’t realize how exposed they are until they’re already in a deal. One buyer, one offer, one path forward. At that point you’re not negotiating, you’re just trying to get to the finish line without losing it. The buyer feels...
AI Agents Need a GTM Specialist, Not Just Sales Teams
"You can't just hand an AI Agent to the sales team or marketing team to deploy. Not if they don't have the skills to implement the agent, train it, manage it." with @kylecnorton CRO @kylecnorton "You have to find that GTM...
