Sorin Alupoaie

SaaStock Dublin is three days away. Considering an exit in 2024? At my talk, I'll be answering questions I get every day like: - What are current SaaS multiples? - What metrics matter most? - What do buyers *actually* care about? Don't have a ticket to SaaStock? I have a few extra - reach out and I'll hook you up 😎 #SaaStock #Dublin #founders

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Here is the first article in my 5-part mini-series on High-Impact Negotiation Frameworks. 👉 Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/eCTMq7zt This series published weekly on Substack, delves into the principles and tactics honed through extensive experience, thousands of negotiations, and a wealth of reading. 🔑 This week's focus: Negotiation Principles 🔑 In this article, I explore foundational strategies such as: - Getting the other side to commit first - Acting smart by playing dumb - Ensuring you read every contract - Understanding and decoding "funny money" - Concentrating on the core issues - Always congratulating the other side These principles are essential for successful negotiations, whether you're closing a business deal, buying a car, or negotiating in everyday life. Stay tuned for the upcoming articles in this series, where we will cover: early-stage tactics, mid-game strategies, end-game tactics, and how to handle pressure situations. Each article will provide actionable insights to help you become a more effective negotiator. #Negotiation #BusinessStrategy #HighImpactNegotiation #Substack #ProfessionalDevelopment #FastFrameworks #Frameworks

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This is a fabulous, hands-on, practical review of Helen Bird's first year in Product Operations. One thing I dislike these days is this constant needs for ultra-high level, ultra-generic articles and descriptions of jobs. What I really like here is the detail, the in-the-weeds problems solved. Because we are all professional and practical enough to take what she have done and apply it to our own situations. This is a great read for all aspiring or early-stage Product Ops professionals. Well done Helen.

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Palantir stock is 🆙 Up 152% Year-to-Date (!) 📈 Trades at 34x ARR (!) and ⤴️ Is Growing New Customers +41% 🔥The Fire of the Fire in SaaS🔥 5 Interesting Learnings: #1. Growth Has Re-Accelerated tp 27%, from 13% a Year Ago Fueled by commercial and government contracts, and by AI-related demand in both, Palantir is seeing growth re-accelerate from 2023.  Pretty impressive, in a time when almost everyone else that is public is seeing slowing growth. #2.  Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) is a Year Old But Fueling $159m in Q2 Bookings Alone To some Cloud and SaaS leaders, AI is a table-stakes addition.  But for Palantir, it’s a true accelerant. #3.  Commercial (Non-Gov't and Defense) Customers Fueling Growth.  Up From Almost None in 2020 to 295 Today. Palantir is closing big, big deals and its roots are in government and defense.  When it IPO’d, commercial customers were a tiny bit of their business.  Fast forward to today, they are closing 300 of them.  And revenue is up +55%.  This potential for a decade of growth at scale here helps justify the high revenue multiple Palantir trades at. #4.  Closed 27 Deals Over $10,000,000 and 96 $1,000,000 Deals — Just Last Quarter Palantir is very enterprise. #5.  Profitability Has Increased Even as Growth Has Reaccelerated Do you have to do it all today, at least once you are at scale? Grow AND be more efficient?  Yes, you do.  And Palantir has risen to the challenge. It's pretty impressive to do both.

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With $900m ARR & $2.7BN Market Cap there is one simple question: Is Lightspeed the most underrated public company? Today we dig in with Lightspeed Founder on what Wall Street does not understand & Lightspeed’s pathway to $10BN. My top lessons from the discussion with Dax Dasilva 👇 1. Companies That Raise $5M on $25M Pre-PMF Will Not Be Successful - I coded until 4AM every morning in the first 2 years. - When I wasn’t coding I was with customers & iterating on the spot. - We wouldn’t have achieved PMF if we were not so close to customers.  - If we had raised $5M on $25M we wouldn’t have needed to be. 2. How VC is Distorting a Generation of SaaS companies - Founders are shortcutting a lot of product development for attractive metrics for VCs. - You need the slow-burn process to create something truly phenomenal. - Let the business cook a little. 3. Stay Private or Build in Public? - Going public has been a freeing & independent way of operating. - You get tons of valuable feedback from shareholders. - It’s almost like a graduation process, that is why we went public at $70M ARR. 4. The Feedback from Shareholders is Direct and Brutal  - They said Lightspeed doesn’t need any further distractions with new M&A projects. - Everything we’re doing should be creating value. - Direct feedback is one of the best things about being a public company. 5. Why I Returned as CEO - We had to do a lot of tough things to tell the story of profitable growth. - We cut teams, reallocated resources, and stopped M&A activities. - We needed to see investor confidence return. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding

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It's coming home. SaaStock's coming home. To Dublin this October. 14-16th. And we're opening our doors to 4500 SaaS Founders, Execs and 600 Investors for the biggest gathering of SaaS decision makers in Europe. It will be the place to have meaningful conversations to take you and your SaaS to the next level. To get hundreds of leads to help with your Q4/Q1 goals. To meet with Investors to help with your next funding round. It's only been 12 months of hurt by October, since the last SaaStock. Don't score an own goal or get sent off by your company for missing out. Book your ticket or space to exhibit today. #saastockeurope #saastock2024 #saasconference #b2b #meetings #connectandthrive

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Agree with Dheeraj. One of the most common requests we get is, why do we need a CRM if the conversations are flowing through you. So far we have avoided getting into the system of record. But AI changes everything. You don't need structured data for a system of record. And that's why we are building something in stealth. Prediction: CRMs as they look now won't exist within 2 years.

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Last week, we announced our partnership with Ververica | Original creators of Apache Flink®, the company founded by the original creators of Apache Flink, and introduced Ververica’s VERA engine to StreamNative’s BYOC clusters via the Managed Flink service in StreamNative Cloud. This collaboration is built on a framework we call BYOC², which stands for "Bring Your Own Compute" and "Bring Your Own Cloud". Your data remains in your own bucket, and you bring your own engine to process it—all within your cloud account, with a fully managed experience. 🖥️ Bring Your Own Compute: While data streaming is highly valuable, it can also be extremely expensive to run, especially due to networking costs. Setting up a stream processing engine like #ApacheFlink requires expertise and careful design to keep network configuration and expenses under control. The concept of “Bring Your Own Compute” or “Bring Vendor’s Compute” brings data processing capabilities closer to where the data resides, eliminating inter-account or inter-zone traffic and reducing costs. ☁️ Bring Your Own Cloud: While BYO-Cloud has become increasingly popular, we’ve seen debates about which approach to BYO-Cloud is best. In our view, whether it's BYO-Cloud, Fully Hosted (Dedicated or Serverless), or self-managed in a Private Cloud, what organizations really need is a Portable Data Plane. This allows them to choose the deployment option that best suits their needs (balancing data sovereignty, a fully managed experience, and cost) while maintaining the flexibility to switch between options. A Portable Data Plane is portable across different environments and atomic, meaning it has no external dependencies. The unavailability of any other data plane or centralized control plane should not affect the applications interacting with it. We built our Portable Data Plane using open standards, leveraging Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and Kubernetes for workload management. Everything is self-auditable with no need for closed-source agents, so you don't have to blindly trust the vendor's promises. With BYOC², your Kafka or Pulsar data stays in your cloud, while Flink jobs run in your own VPC. You maintain ownership of your data, avoid high networking costs, and still enjoy a fully managed experience. We believe BYOC² represents a complete approach to data sovereignty throughout the entire data lifecycle, offering a more cost-effective solution. We’re not alone in this vision. Our partnership with Ververica exemplifies the BYOC² model, and we’re excited to collaborate with other stream processing engine vendors to provide the best tools for our customers. The future looks promising under the BYOC² framework, offering a straightforward, portable, and sovereign cloud experience. Check out our blog post to learn more: https://lnkd.in/gbNV8Q5K

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"We show them: 'Hey, you’ve got a shipment here that hasn’t been invoiced for 12 months,' or 'You’ve made a duplicate payment to a supplier,' and they go, 'Wow.'" Lars Reinkemeyer spoke to Alex Zaharov-Reutt about the process intelligence revolution and how Celonis is helping companies identify, frame and realize value. Watch the full interview here: https://celon.is/4gJF77E

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What are the risks and implications of picking the wrong go-to-market leader? Why many startups (and even some scaleups) are not ready and what do they typically do wrong? Why do we see a rise in fractional VPs and CROs? Does it work? Who wins? I wrote about my experience and perspective about it. https://lnkd.in/di7xBVCe ******** Join other CEOs, Founders, Private Equity and VC Investors interested in “Healthy” SaaS and Customer-Centric go-to-market & revenue growth who get these insights in my newsletter: go to saasification dot net and subscribe.

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Rehgan Bleile (Avon) you raise some interesting questions. The use of standardized AI agents as replacements to generic instruction is one thing, assuming away the need for customization is another. The customized needs of an organization potentially using such services should consider the old adage- fitting a square peg in a round hole!!!

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We got +100 NPS for our recent SaaStock Founder Membership (SFM) retreat. Based on feedback and on reflection, here are a few reasons why: 1. Magic 🪄: We sourced a magical location in the Agafay Desert, Les Terrasses D'Agafay. It created the base for the first wow moment. Also as we were in the middle of the desert, it kept the group together (as no one could leave). 2. Grounding ⛺️: Glamping instead of 5* resorts. Kind of an unexpected one but a good learning. The previous retreats had been in 5* resorts which we could go to any time on holiday with family/friends. Glamping I think resulted in us feeling a bit more grounded which helped with the openness and transparency of the group. 3. Fire 🔥: We had a campfire which every evening created a central space for us to congregate and we ran roundtable discussions for the whole group with a level of transparency not seen before. 4: Ice 🧊: We broke the Ice the night before the retreat started with a dinner in Marrakech. Allowed everyone to connect and familiarise if they were new to the group. 5. Space 🛸: The agenda allowed for lots of space for people to just talk and relax 6: Power of 40 🔋: Not that one, but we cap the size at 40 people. Just the right amount for everyone to connect and bond. With this, i think we found the recipe for the perfect Founder retreat. Already planning next years and wish the NPS scale could go above +100 #saastockfoundermembership #retreat #events #saas #founders #community

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Benjamin Lauzier has been building and scaling marketplaces for almost 15 years. He was the VP of product and growth at Thumbtack, where he rebuilt the product team and Thumbtack’s growth levers, re-architected their revenue model, and helped double the company’s growth within three years. Prior to Thumbtack, Ben was at Lyft for six years, where he led the supply side of the product organization to a point where 1% of U.S. workers were driving for Lyft every month. Currently, he advises marketplace teams and founders, teaches a Reforge course on marketplace growth, and has recently launched a health tech company called Nurra, which connects users with care advocates to navigate the healthcare system. In our conversation, we cover: 🔸 What defines a marketplace business 🔸 Strategies for growing supply and demand in the early stages 🔸 How to measure liquidity and other key marketplace health metrics 🔸 How to evaluate if a marketplace model is right for your idea 🔸 Lessons from Lyft, Thumbtack, and other successful marketplaces 🔸 The differences between product management in the U.S. and Europe Listen now 👇 - YouTube: https://lnkd.in/g9G4sTt3 - Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gxQ9sC9T - Apple: https://lnkd.in/ga8DhCuX Some key takeaways: 1. Your first priority in building a marketplace business should be to concentrate on achieving product-market fit for the hardest side of your marketplace first. Identify which side is the hardest (aka most valuable), and grow that side first. 2. Once you get started, focus on liquidity—how efficiently your marketplace matches supply and demand. High liquidity results in better user experiences and increased retention. A simple way to gauge this is to analyze your fill rate: the percentage of demand that successfully translates into transactions. The higher your fill rate, the better your marketplace is performing. 3. Signs that a marketplace model is the right model for your idea: a. High fragmentation on both sides b. Relatively uniform set of needs c. High barriers in matchmaking or transaction creation 4. A few reasons marketplaces fail: a. Not maintaining a high bar for quality b. Failing to achieve liquidity (efficiently matching buyers and sellers) c. Ignoring one side of the marketplace for too long 5. Product management practices in Europe can differ significantly from those in the U.S. Due to a less liquid job market in Europe, employees have more job security but potentially less autonomy. Founders and managers in Europe might struggle to let go of control, leading to a more micromanaged environment. Conversely, U.S. companies often emphasize equity and ownership, giving product teams more responsibility and autonomy.

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It's the end of B2B SaaS week in Paris. I enjoyed it from the 1st minute to the last one. Here is why: 1. Knowledge🧑‍🎓: I got many learnings from other CEOs of B2B SaaS and investors. It's really hard to find the right GTM strategy as a SaaS company. Here I learned from 50 others CEOs in only 2 days. 2. Network 🚀: I met many high quality people (see list below) and some already made great introductions to develop our business further. I know I got some personal connections that I would never had if I had an online meeting with them. 3. Clients/partners 👋: we met some of our customers, prospects and potential business partners 4. Energy 🔥: it gives so much energy to meet other entrepreneurs that have their ups and downs. A few people to mention 1. Colin Lalouette, PhD CEO of Appvizer and B2B Rocks 🎸 Sept. 25-26, Paris: happy to have met you in person and all the privileged invitations here and there ;) 2. Clément Puren and William Swinnen CSO and CMO of Guideflow - Interactive demo: impressed by your growth since we met last year and looking forward to hearing the next great news ;). Thank you for the event yesterday with Captain Data 3. Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz and Kacper Floryn 👻 from Valueships. They impressed me a lot with their energy and their very deep knowledge about SaaS pricing in France (they benchmarked 2000 French SaaS companies!) 4. Vincent Thuillier and Maxime Robles from Ignify. Those 2 ex A-players from Swile grew their agency at an impressive pace the last 12 months. Great energy and we immediately started a partnership. 5. Andreï Sochala VP Growth at Aircall and Deidre Hudson: reminded the importance to think like your buyers and not as a seller. It's more crucial than ever. 6. Stan Massueras ex-VP growth at Intercom: what an energy! I’m also looking forward to our meeting next week. Btw, I’m now considering visiting Dublin, you intrigued me. 7. Bertrand Gaté the magician: we spent such a good moment with you on the boat, next to the Eiffel Tower. Vincent is still in shock. Me too to be honest :D Thank you again for this memorable moment. 8. Sébastien Le Roy, Partner at Serena: we have the same favorite kpi: NRR 9. Thibault Le Meur thank you for the super chat about growth yesterday 10. Julie Farley and Valentin Bernier from Semrush: thanks for the clarity and hundreds of tips shared about demand generation. Thank you Vincent Bully for being part of this! #B2BSaas

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🚀 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 We're moving from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to Service-as-Software (SaaS 2.0). In the past, SaaS sold tools. Users had to achieve results on their own. Now, Service-as-Software shifts this responsibility to the service provider. For example, instead of selling QuickBooks, a company offers tax services with an AI accountant. This opens a $4.6 trillion market. The services market is bigger than the software market. 📈 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁? AI is changing how software is made. More companies can create software. McKinsey estimates productivity in coding could double for simple tasks and improve by ~30% on average. MarTech believes some of the 433k marketing agencies worldwide could soon launch their own software with AI. This is 30 times more than the already high number of martech products (over 14,000, +27% vs. 2023). 🔍 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀? 1️⃣ More Choices = Higher Workload AI enables more companies to create software. More options mean increased demand and competition, leading to a higher workload for buyers. 2️⃣ Pay for Results = New Opportunities The service model is shifting. We are moving from seat-based pay to paying for outcomes. For example, Salesforce is now used as a workflow tool. Companies pay based on the number of leads generated, not seats. 3️⃣ More granular solutions = Reduced Vendor Lock-In As we adopt Service-as-Software, solutions are less customized and more modular. This reduces the dependency on a single vendor, making it easier for businesses to switch providers as needed, leading to greater flexibility and reduced vendor lock-in. 💼 𝗩𝗲𝗸𝘁𝗶𝗾 At Vektiq we offer Service as Software solutions. Our pay-for-results model provides: • Cost reductions for renewals • More relevant vendor choices for new demands 🤔 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 How are you adapting to Service as Software? What challenges and opportunities do you see? Let's discuss!

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Whilst building Bitloops, we've been thinking and experimenting with pricing particularly given the new era of "consumption-pricing" or "usage-based-pricing". Most people think of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) as the gold standard in the software industry's revenue models. But here's what we've found: We're witnessing a significant shift towards consumption-based pricing, led by industry giants like Salesforce and their innovative Agentforce pricing model - charging just $2 per conversation. This move aligns value directly with software usage, fundamentally changing how buyers engage with and pay for software.💡 Here's what we think will work going forward: 1. Adoption of Consumption Models: Software incumbents are increasingly adopting models that charge based on actual usage, offering a more granular and flexible approach to pricing. 2. Impact on Financial Forecasting: With the cyclical nature of consumption revenues, software companies like Bitloops face new challenges in forecasting and billing. 3. Emergence of Hybrid Models: The transition isn't about the abandonment of ARR but evolving towards hybrid models that incorporate both recurring and consumption revenues, posing a new analytical challenge for founders and investors. 4. Redefinition of Software Metrics: Metrics like Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and ARR per FTE are becoming crucial in evaluating customer health and organizational performance in this new pricing paradigm. 5. Reshaping Growth Benchmarks: As consumption pricing models gain traction, new benchmarks for growth are needed, factoring in the increased flexibility and volatility associated with these models. The difference? Companies that adapt to consumption pricing are positioning themselves closer to their customers' needs, fostering better engagement, satisfaction, and ultimately, loyalty. 📊 Will traditional ARR metrics soon become a thing of the past, replaced by more dynamic, usage-based measures? How are you thinking about this? Would love to hear your thoughts! #SoftwareIndustry #PricingModels #ARR #ConsumptionPricing #Innovation

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Unless you are the founder of GitLab or another publicly listed SaaS, please don't do this! 🙅 While the traditional seat-based SaaS model was relatively straightforward to measure and analyze, usage-based pricing models have introduced new complexity in metrics reporting. But this complexity isn't an invitation to engineer your metrics! I now see an increasing number of founders presenting "fake" numbers that paint an overly optimistic picture. They created their own definition of “customer” and the way they calculate certain KPIs. These conversations go something like this: Founder: "Our Net Dollar Retention is 120%" Me: "Would be cool if you could send me some raw data" *Me running the numbers* Me: "I arrived at 85%" Founder: "Oh, sorry! Should have told you that we only count customers who.. • ..stay more than 6 months" • ..have an ACV of more than $5k" • ..signed up for a multi-seat account" This isn't limited to NDR. I'm seeing it across other metrics too (Growth, Churn, CAC, ..). Look, segment your data internally all you want – it can be super valuable for decision-making. But when communicating with investors, be transparent about your overall business metrics. Remember: Investors will always value your entire business, not just your best-performing segment. Maybe we need different/modified SaaS KPIs to measure performance of primarily usage-based and hybrid models, but that's another topic. _____ Credit for the research on customer and NDR definitions of top tech companies: CJ Gustafson (Mostly Metrics)

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Why settle for spreadsheets when you can impress your buyers with a polished plan like this?

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How to transform your reactive QBRs into a churn forecasting powerhouse PART I ⬇⬇ Let’s face it: The way most orgs run QBRs turn out to be a waste of time (for everyone). They’re time-consuming to prepare, executives rarely show up, and when they do, they’re bored out of their minds. Why? Because most QBRs focus on cherry-picked usage stats and roadmap slides that have nothing to do with your customer's key needs. But here’s the thing: the problem isn’t the QBR itself—it’s how it’s delivered. Executives don’t care about your internal metrics. They care about Outcomes. They want to know "how is your solution helping us achieve our goals" and if not "what are we doing about it?" Here’s how to fix it: ➡ Don’t call it a QBR. The new world is called a Value Review — a session to review the value your customer is (or isn’t) realizing and identify ways to unlock more. ➡ Be a partner consultant. Your job is to guide your customer on their value journey, not just review the past. Position yourself as the expert who can help them achieve their priorities. ➡ Center the agenda around outcomes. Engage stakeholders beforehand to understand their priorities and perceived gaps. Build the meeting around actionable recommendations tied to their goals. When we’ve helped teams make these shifts, the results have been game-changing: ✳ 50%+ increase in executive engagement. Simply reframing the invitation as a Value Review can get decision-makers in the room. ✳ 33% of Value Reviews lead to upsell opportunities. By identifying unmet needs and offering targeted solutions, teams can turn reviews into growth moments. Stop wasting your time with internal metric-driven QBRs. By focusing on customer-value driven reviews, your Exec Buyers (and revenue) will thank you. Want to dive deeper on how this works? Check out our latest article in the comments below detailing this critical mindset shift. We've got two more pieces coming out this week so stay tuned for more! #CustomerSuccess #ValueRealization #QBRs

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