AI Agents Will Become Vertical‑specific, Integrated Professional Teams
From Karpathy’s latest post: “LLM apps will organize, finetune and actually animate teams of them into deployed professionals in specific verticals by supplying private data, sensors and actuators and feedback loops.” This is exactly right. In a world of AI agents, there is a much thicker layer above the LLM than was initially perceived. The thin wrapper criticism somewhat worked in a world where people were repackaging tokens with a lightly customized interface or system prompt, which was largely all that was possible 2 years ago. But AI agents will combine tools, proprietary data, highly domain specific system prompts, specialized interfaces for the human-in-the-loop parts of the workflows, advanced context engineering to deal with context window limits, and more. The vast majority of these will perform better when tailored to a specific vertical, job function, or type of task. Further, to get real adoption in the enterprise, a heavy degree of system integration and change management is generally needed to drive the workflow changes and adoption. This is why companies (or at least products) focused on specific opportunities will often be required to actually power these workflows. Tons of opportunity here in the year to come.
Outdated GTM? Adopt ICP, Messaging, and Repeatable Motion
The 5 warning signs your GTM Strategy is already outdated for 2026…. 1) Your only form of Marketing is spending on Google ADs 2) You're waiting for SEO to kick in 3) Your AI SDR is returning zero replies 4)...
Founder Cashes Out at Peak to Fund New Venture
ChatFAI was winning. Millions of users, strong revenue, and viral growth. Umar (@heyumarkhan) got acquired when things were going great. Cashed in the chips. He then used the exit to fuel his other startup. Full interview here: https://t.co/tNIE71aLPb https://t.co/htq2TImIUZ
First SDR Teams Demand Heavy Management and Constant Recruiting
The toughest part of building your first SDR team is how to manage it: 1/ Need a lot of management 2/ Turnover often high 3/ Who will train 4/ Need constantly be recruiting 5/ Often junior Outbound always works. Always....
Small Wins Build Toward Massive Startup Success
Startups are built by consistently executing small short term goals towards really large long term goals.
Anthropic Takes Enterprise Lead as OpenAI Shifts to Consumers
The AI LLM market share story of 2023-2025 is one of just ... massive change. Fast. Enterprise LLM Market: 2023: OpenAI 50% | Anthropic 12% | Google 7% 2025: Anthropic 40% | OpenAI 27% | Google 21% 🥇Anthropic went from distant third to...
Give Your Product Away Generously to Drive Growth
Lovable 's secret sauce to growth: Give the product away—a lot. Here's the relational from their head of growth Elena Verna 👇
AI Agents Scaling to All Knowledge Work by 2026
The rate of AI agents being able to complete more and more complex work is definitely the story of 2025. Next year it appears this will only go more vertical. We’re collectively figuring out how to develop agent architectures that...
Great Marketing Starts with Customers, Not Competitors
The best marketing ideas come from studying your customers (not your competitors)
Entrepreneurship: Expect Future Self to Question Today's Decisions
I think about where I was 10 years ago, and I wish I could go back and smack myself upside the head. The things I thought were correct were ABSOLUTELY not correct. There's almost nothing about how I made decisions in my...
From Poor to Best: Support Can Turn Around Quickly
Had an issue on @Replit last night and they pushed a fix in wee hours of morning Went from mediocre support (at best) in June 2025 to … the best support I’ve gotten this year in December 2025 You can do the...
Pricing ERP Pre-Scale: Two Critical Metrics Revealed
How do you price an ERP before scale? 🤔 On Ep 223 of The SaaS CFO Podcast, Michael Salorio breaks down Solentrex’s per-proposal pricing model—and the 2 metrics that matter most right now. 🎧 https://t.co/qW6DePhZzM #SaaS #Podcast https://t.co/K9Q5UvmZ0p
Customers Know Your Startup’s Roadmap Better Than You
Talk to your customers. Talk to your customers. Talk to your customers. I promise they know more about your startup's roadmap than you do.
Build Moats, Not Features, to Win in 2026
Stop competing on features in 2026. Start building moats. Achieving feature parity is tablestakes these days. The ONLY way you get a chance in the playing field (and more importantly to stay there) is through building hard-to-copy moats. Here are...
Top CEOs Forecast AI Landscape in 2026
2026 AI predictions from the CEOs of NVIDIA, Harvey, Glean, Cognition, Box, .... Jensen Huang, @jainarvind , @winstonweinberg, @ScottWu46 ,@raizamrtn, @zackmziegler, @levie, @MishaLaskin, @polynoamial, @joshim5, @bryan_johnson, @_sholtodouglas, @bfspector, @amspector100, @dylan522p
Competitor's Domain Grab Reveals Fear and Amateurism
A startup told me a highly-funded competitor bought the .com of their name. I told them this is good news in a way. It means the competitor is (a) amateurish and (b) afraid of them, both of which suggest the...
Shape Up: Different Approaches for New Vs. Existing Products
We apply Shape Up slightly differently when building a new product vs. maintaining an existing one. Here's a look.
AI B2B Takes Off in 2026 After 2025 Foundations
We are literally >just< getting going in AI B2B. Really, most stuff didn’t even work before Claude 4 and the beginning of 2025. That’s why Lovable, Replit, Cursor, Gamma, etc. exploded. The models alone weren’t good enough — until early...
Organize Diligence and Keep Competition to Prevent Retrades
One of the most frustrating things for a founder selling their business: A retrade. Retrading is when a buyer tries to renegotiate the terms of a transaction late in a process due to "new" information that arose during final diligence....

Comment Counts Added to Cards for Conversation Insight
Fizzy refinement continues. Now we show the number of comments on a card. Helps you spot ones with conversation vs. ones with crickets. https://t.co/KSonHBvAqX
Recordables Pattern Keeps Basecamp and HEY Code Joyful
The recordables pattern has been the single-most important architectural pattern we've used on both Basecamp and HEY. It's a key reason both code bases are still a joy to work on. Jeff breaks down the magic in this new podcast....
AI‑first, Word‑of‑Mouth, Personal Brand: SaaS Survival 2026
It's almost 2026. If you're a SaaS founder, you're probably screwed. Anything you do that works gets copied, CAC is up, LTV is down. Here are the 7 things I see that ARE working - in a world where most...
Hyperscaler Marketplaces Set to Capture $42B by 2029
Hyperscaler Marketplaces are becoming a mainstream enterprise procurement channel. By the end of 2025, over $21B in third-party software purchases will flow through hyperscaler-operated marketplaces, rising toward $42B by 2029. These marketplaces now represent roughly 5% of global enterprise software...
Salient Scales to $25M ARR, Zero Churn,
In just two years, Salient has hit $25M ARR—with zero customer churn and 100% of pilots converting to paid deals. They're automating loan servicing for auto lenders (including 5 of the top 10), cutting costs by 50% and delivering 30x better...
Optimize the Offer First, Ads Will Follow
I don't "optimize" ads first. I optimize the offer. If the landing page can explain the value in 8 seconds and the pricing has a clear next step, even mediocre ads work. Fix the offer → ads get cheaper, CAC drops, ROAS...
Beyond Big Data: Human Insight Drives Marketing Differentiation
my husband challenged me yesterday: if you say "go to market using research, not assumptions" companies are gonna think you mean Big Data 👀 my husband is an engineer, so I get where he's coming from... data means big complicated...
Master Full-Stack PLG with Proven $1B System
In the last 9 years, I've helped companies like GrooveHQ, Boomi, Microsoft, Keap and 400+ others generate over $1B in self-serve revenue. Through that work, I noticed something interesting: Most PLG operators (myself included early on) only knew pieces of...
Qualify for Success, Not Just a Signature
A common gap in the founder selling playbook: the Customer Success Qualifying Matrix. Most people know the Sales Qualifying Matrix—the framework that helps predict whether a prospect will buy. Common examples are BANT, MEDDIC, and SPICED. This Sales Qualifying Matrix...
Bootstrapped Profits Beat VC Promises Every Time
50+ VC and private equity firms. A full year of pitches, term sheets, and big promises. I walked away from every single one. And I’d do it again because: 1. Dividends Beat Lottery Tickets VC money is a lottery ticket that might pay...
Pay More for Quality Leads, Not Cheap Ones
Cheaper and more leads don’t mean growth. Here's a common mistake in B2B SaaS: Teams celebrate a $50 cost per lead (because it's cheap), but ignore what happens next. Low-cost leads look great on a dashboard until you realize only...
Demand Generation Should Be Year‑Round, Not Seasonal
Sometimes we have to push our customers out of their comfort zone. What's in their best interest is not always the easiest path. We had a customer at @ListKitio that wanted to only run outbound cold email campaigns a couple of...
Never Make Lead Generation Seasonal—Build Demand Year‑Round
Sometimes we have to push our customers out of their comfort zone. What's in their best interest is not always the easiest path. We had a customer at ListKit that wanted to only run outbound cold email campaigns a couple...
Founders Need Q&A Practice—Try This Free Tool
🎙️ After years around startups, one thing stood out: founders spend weeks preparing pitch decks but rarely practice how they answer questions from investor or media. I built a small tool to help founders rehearse answers out loud and get...
Founderpath to Deploy $5‑10M Before Christmas, Leading Startup Investor
everyone wants to close before Christmas. busy day at Founderpath today. we'll fund ~$5-10m more before holiday Founderpath is, by far, the most active investor in Software startups by deal count https://t.co/sU5DGqneOU
FinnyAI's AI Boosts Advisor Revenue, Drives $7.7M Asset Gains
Congrats to @FINNYAI on their $17M Series A! The $90T+ wealth management industry still prospects with tools built for other industries, with advisors spending ~60 hours on cold outreach to convert one client. Finny's AI matches advisors with high-intent prospects,...
AI-Native B2B Firms Surge, Seat‑based SaaS Lag
The Great B2B Bifurcation of 2025 Palantir +142%. HubSpot -51%. Despite the fact both businesses end the year pretty strong. Some patterns from the top 25 B2B / SaaS public companies: What's working: 🔼AI-native infrastructure (Palantir, Cloudflare, MongoDB) 🔼Mission-critical + high switching costs (CrowdStrike, Palo...
Metricable Integration Arriving Soon on Acquired.com
New @metricablecom integration coming to @acquiredotcom soon: https://t.co/Juquyki0zL
Speed of Insight Delivery Determines Organizational Progress
Progress is constrained by how fast information moves. It has nothing to do with raw intelligence. Ambition does not fix it. Neither do longer hours. Information has to travel. It has to reach the people who can decide, and it...

Shopify Subscription App Generates Predictable $30K Monthly Profit
Recurring revenue is king. Live on @acquiredotcom: Shopify subscription app helping merchants turn one-time buyers into predictable monthly revenue. > $29K ARR > $32K TTM revenue > $30K TTM profit > 190 paying merchants Full listing: https://t.co/zCumfIm8mD https://t.co/wYOQ3FwbAz
Simplify LLM Scaling with OpenRouter, Avoid Model Chaos
I can be slow sometimes I didn't totally get why products like @OpenRouterAI are a big deal but this week I hit API issues with OpenAI and had to manually add a fallback to Anthropic. A real pain. And I also...
Three Key Snapchat Trends Every CDO Must Know
As a Chief Digital Officer, 3 things jumped out to me in Snapchat for Business 's latest report. Let's unpack what you need to know before 2026 - ready? And, get the full Snapchat Generation report: https://lnkd.in/eBs4gESm #snapchatpartner
ExtendHQ's /Edit API Automates Complex PDFs for Fortune 500
.@ExtendHQ's new /edit API enables filling out any PDF. It's already being used by F500 companies to automate even the most complex document layouts. https://t.co/BGz6doc7IE https://t.co/EX421nd3YV
Pulse AI Launches Free Public Document Intelligence Platform
After processing 1B+ pages for global banks, top private equity firms, Fortune 50s, and large insurers, @Pulse__AI is opening its document intelligence platform to everyone. Production-grade parsing is now publicly available via the platform and API. 20K free pages for all. Congrats...
AI Startups Bleed Revenue Due to Perfectionist Promises
The AI bubble is cracking. AI startups are losing 50% of their revenue within a year. A new report is circulating in VC circles, and the numbers are brutal. I just read Kyle Poyar ’s latest report, and one chart...
Scale Faster: Hire Leaders Better Than Yourself
How do founders that have never done it before scale to $10m, $100m, $1B in ARR? They hire people better than them This is the mistake most Stretch VPs make. They don’t hire folks better & later more experienced than...
Intercom's AI Pivot Delivers 393% Growth, 30K Customers
The AI growth re-acceleration at Intercom is wild: 1. Fin went $1 to $12 million in a year -- more than a year ago. 2. On track to cross 30k paying customers by end of year. 3. Annualized growth is...
Start Building Today for a 2026 Exit
2026 might feel far away but exits don’t happen overnight. Most founders who sell in 2026 start preparing now. Not because they’re desperate but because they want options. You don’t need to rush and you don’t need to sell tomorrow. Just build...
Measure Time, Not Just MRR, to Buy Back Life
Founder KPIs that don't show in Stripe: - Deep work: 2 hours/day - Workouts: 1 hour/day - Sleep: 7.5 hours/night - Support tickets: <1 hour/week (self‑serve wins) - Time‑to‑value for new users: <7 minutes - Automation coverage: +80% of repetitive ops - Time with family: Whenever I...
Reputation Beats Onboarding Tweaks for User Activation
I rebuilt my onboarding flows 117 times. It never made any big difference. Reality is, the users who activate most likely already made up their minds way before visiting your website. From recommendations. Word of mouth. Brand awareness, etc. So you can spare all...
Step-by-Step Guide: Building Our Editions Page
Technical how-to on how the team build the editions page