Alexander Berry

Startup decks vs Business plans. It's accepted that a startup needs a deck. Dax Dasilva of Lightspeed Commerce made an important point on 20VC. Writing a business plan - including financial projections - is an important step. It requires discipline. It provides a rigorous framework for thinking deeply about the problem you're trying to solve. Harry Stebbings countered that he doesn't even want to see a deck since it's all dreams. We spent a lot of time and energy on our business plan with the expectation that we would show it to no one ever. The business plan was part of our roadmap for the company. We researched customers - including having 50+ conversations. We wanted to understand them: their background, their interests, their presence on social media. We also wanted to understand how they were evaluated by leadership and how integrated they were with the business of the company they were protecting. We researched pricing both with potential customers and other products in our industry to find out if OpEx or CapEx was a better fit. How did they buy today? How would they like to buy? We did market research to understand the verticals and map the right entry point - we were wrong but that doesn't reduce the value of the research. We looked at competitors in depth to understand what they were seeing that we weren't. Dax is right. This is an invaluable document that should be updated every year - the company is changing, the market is changing, there's more feedback about price and ICP. It's not for sharing with the outside world. It's a map for driving forward. Decks won't get you investment - VCs invest in people. We make decks but we know they don't tell our story. The deck is a calling card. Dax and Harry are both right. https://lnkd.in/e25M82xY

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Faster growth, the path to $100M ARR, the secrets shared on mega exits or founder secondaries. This is what goes down at SaaSociety, our invite only event for 50 B2B SaaS Founders over $5M in revenue up to $50M, that want to get to $100M or even exit before then. Each year we take this select group of founders, to a special location for 2 days, to connect with peers on the same journey and we invite 3 special Founders who’ve passed the $100M ARR mark and maybe had a mega exit or two on the way. It’s chatham house rules (whats said there stays there). Except, you’ll only get the insider knowledge and make the connections by getting out of the office and being there yourself. We’ll also throw in a bit of fun, like Whiskey tasting and clay pigeon shooting. Most that attend learn more in those two days than in one year of running their business. And look at this list of previous attendees who combined have exited for around $10B Co-founder of Pipedrive,  CEO of Segment,  CEO of Brandwatch,  CEO of RD Station,  Co-founder of WalkMe,  Co-founders of Userflow,  CEO of Peakon,  Co-founders of Hotjar,  CEO of Datafox,  CEO of Mention,  CEO of Profitwell Spaces are limited, so apply today should you want to connect with your scaling peers and get the knowledge from those that have done it. Link in the comments #scaling #saas #founders #retreat #saasociety

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RevOps leaders, this is the playbook you’ve been waiting for. In a world flooded with content that often lacks substance, the RevOps Docs for Startups by LeanScale are a breath of fresh air. This guide isn’t just another rundown of the basics—it’s an in-depth, yet easily approachable, guide to the rapidly evolving RevOps landscape, crafted from real insights gathered across 50+ hyper-growth companies. Huge shoutout to my longtime buddy Joe Zaghloul and the team at LeanScale for putting in the thought and care to make something truly impactful. The format alone—structured like API docs, complete with a changelog—makes it incredibly usable and memorable. #RevOps leaders and #GTM teams will find it packed with playbooks that feel almost built-in to the process. If you’re scaling a B2B SaaS, you’ll want to bookmark this one. It’s hands-on, actionable, and unlike anything else out there. https://lnkd.in/ekrUJAW5

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Simo Lemhandez started building folk, the next gen CRM, in April 2020 when he was just 25 (!) along with co-founders Jean-Yves and Thibaud. The Accel-backed startup now boasts: 🚀 Over 100,000 users & 2,000 paying customers 🚀 5x year-on-year revenue growth 🚀 Winning #1 product of the month on Product Hunt I sat down with Simo to hear the behind-the-scenes story – folk’s four year journey from zero to 100,000 users. Read the full story in Growth Unhinged: https://lnkd.in/eG6Qjk2a Here’s the TL;DR: 1️⃣ Attracted a waitlist of 10,000 people before writing a single line of code. 2️⃣ Spent 18 months building before entering beta, and another six months before launching on Product Hunt. 3️⃣ Doubled prices every six months to land on the right pricing strategy. Each time folk doubled the price, they were reluctant to do it. But it didn’t hurt conversion and did meaningfully improve ACV.    4️⃣ Turned to influencers and affiliates to stand out in the most competitive software market on the planet. 5️⃣ Manually onboarded hundreds of users (Superhuman-style) before moving to self-serve. Even today, manual onboarding has a 4x (🤯) impact on conversion rates. 6️⃣ Doubled free-to-paid conversion after experimenting with a new user onboarding flow. Good friction isn’t necessarily a bad thing during onboarding; a few extra steps can set the user up for success. #startup #growth #product #plg

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✨🚨 Another Make Cents post is live! 🚨✨ In this post, "AI & its Impact on Vertical SaaS: The Gates of Distribution have Flung Open", I explore how AI is impacting vertical SaaS workflows and its implication for distribution and defensibility. We defy.vc are more excited than ever to invest in vertical SaaS because we believe there's tremendous value leveraging AI to enhance human productivity across tasks like 1) structuring data, 2) analysis, 3) recommendations, and 4) taking action. I also walk through why customer acquisition costs are at an all-time low, attributed to more than just AI-driven product functionality. Read more ⬇ and share your thoughts and feedback in the comments! https://lnkd.in/gRVcJASH

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What if you could guarantee that shoppers interacted with your products via personalized, bespoke experiences that improved conversions? And what if that only took a few clicks? It’s possible with the strategic Elastic Path // Klevu partnership our teams announced today. No-code and pre-built landing page templates means launching personalized shoppable landing pages with optimized search and product recommendations. Instant-on integration means easily activating data to deliver relevant experiences. The result is better product discovery. Incredible commerce experiences. More conversions. All in a matter of clicks, or a few command lines. (And without asking IT or finance for more resources). Check out the demo, and DM me if you have questions. And I’ll drop the link to the full announcement in the comments.

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The Ultimate Cheat Sheet collection for SaaS leaders & Founders - by Vencha, Included #VC & Notion Capital Here you have 15 cheat sheets on marketing, sales, fundraising, pitch decks and more: 💵 How to price and package your software ? 🎢 The 5 prospect stages 🚀How fundable is your company? 💸 Leadership transitions at different stages of business growth 🎯 SaaS monetisation in 8 steps 🕹️ Identifying your market: TAM, SAM & SOM demystified 🛠️ How to skyrocket SaaS sales? ⚖️ The ICP Grid, goal setting and how to prioritize ? #Fintech #saas #CheatSheet #isaphr #isapone #isapsolutions #starthubagency #isapinvestments www.isap.group www.isap.one www.isap.hr www.isap.agency www.isap.investments iSAP Solutions ltd iSAP ONE iSAP.HR StartHub.Agency iSAP Group Investments ltd Tino Herold

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This time last year, we hosted the first-ever Ecosystem-Led Growth (#ELG) event in Europe alongside our friends and ELG Alliance member, Stripe. As the inaugural event of its kind, we were uncertain about the demand, so we kept it fairly small. 😳 Little did we know, it sold out shortly after we announced it. 🤝 Fast forward to today, and we are thrilled to be hosting another ELG event in London, once again in partnership with Stripe. A lot has changed since last year: 🔺ELG has exploded in popularity 🚀 Everyone is talking about it, and we see this reflected in the numbers every day—from the growth of the ELG Index to the fact that the banner in the picture below now reads "20k customers" (43% ⬆️). 🔺 In response to this growth, we've adjusted the format accordingly. What started as a couple of hours' meetup has evolved into a full-day conference, following our successful event in Austin, TX last month 🇺🇸 Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to be part of the ELG movement. With only a few tickets left, now is the time to secure your spot and join other SaaS industry leaders and GTM operators for a day of insightful discussions, networking, and growth. Book your tickets today before they sell out 👉 https://bit.ly/3RKLGft

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Great insights from Ash Lomberg, Chargebee's Vice President, GTM EMEA, on the benefits of Apple's recent move to discontinue the Apple Pay Later service! By using third-party BNPL providers and alternative payment methods, Apple can streamline payment processing and avoid the complexities of managing multiple gateways, allowing the tech giant to focus on what it does best. That’s the power of strategic partnerships – they enable you to allocate resources towards improving your product and services while leaving the complex financial operations to the experts! 🤝 Read the full article here: https://chrge.be/46ji4vM

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40 mins of immensely actionable advice for all Vertical SaaS founders from ServiceTitan’s Ara Mahdessian. The TL;DR: - Everything about your business needs to back into delivering tangible customer ROI: Your product, your messaging and your org structure - If you are in a market where your product workflows can deliver meaningful financial ROI: Go deep - Invest deeply in Customer Success: Be a person of your word, if you promise ROI orient your team around unlocking it - Expand faster than you think: Move up or down market, start building product 2 and 3 before you think your ready. The compounding effect is real - Act fast if it’s the wrong fit: Both the company and the team member will thank you later - Psycho analyze what drives you and your team: Why are you on this journey? What are you chasing? #builders #mindset

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If an advertiser is spending profitably on a small portfolio of the largest advertising channels already --- which almost all are with some significant percentage of total budget -- and wants to consider a new channel, they have to determine whether that same amount of incremental spend would deteriorate the performance of their existing campaigns, and whether that degradation would be worth the added cost of managing a new channel. As uncomfortable as it might seem, most user acquisition teams would be better off operating only on the largest channels — concentrating their spend, developing channel specialization, and minimizing their analytical overhead — versus having their team’s attention and time spread across a wider array of channels with a longer-tailed distribution of ad spend and revenue.

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Is NRR trending down? There has been recent analysis of public SaaS companies suggesting that Net Revenue Retention is trending down. Is that also the case for private companies? This is one of the questions that the PeakSpan Capital Ibbaka 2024 NRR survey will answer. Please participate and we will share our results and recommendations on how to improve NRR performance. https://lnkd.in/gYZ9GxBZ #NRR #innovation #SaaS #B2B #NDR #pricing

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10 Lessons in building a $150m ARR SaaS business within 8 years Whilst also investing in over 200 SaaS Companies The Go to Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders 🎯 I had the chance to be Interviewed by Rubén D. with my Co-Author Richard Blundell about our straight-to-the-point WorkBook for SaaS Leaders. Stoked to be in my favourite Newsletter The VC Corner 💙 The Go-to-Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders pulls from our decades of experience founding, scaling & investing in companies. I invest in a new company every week, in fact 2 this week 😉 A few things Founders & CEOs are making a killing on from the Book: • 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 💡—if you’re not crystal clear on this, you’re missing the mark. The proposition will miss the most valuable buyers.. ⬇ 💲 • 𝗚𝗼 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁 ⏳—strategic, deliberate steps will get you further than rushing. Why 80% of Start Ups never find Product Market Fit... ⬇ 💲 • 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗵𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 💰—pricing and packaging aren’t afterthoughts, they’re growth drivers. Price for the Entire Lifecycle to get richer... ⬆ 💰 For SaaS Founders & Leaders trying to nail product-market fit or scale efficiently, this interview is a must-read👇 https://lnkd.in/e-3uaGB9

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The Art of the VC Pitch: A Brief Guide to Maximizing Your Chances With Venture Capital Through Giving Better Pitches Pitching to a Venture Capital firm is different from any other kind of pitch. It's not like a sales pitch, a product pitch, or any other kind of presentation. This guide is a road map to the nuts and bolts of maximizing your opportunity when you manage to get in front of VCs

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Truly inspiring to listen to Dax Dasilva tell the story of Lightspeed Commerce on 20VC. With $900M in ARR I was thrilled to learn that Dax bootstrapped the company for 7 years to get to $10M in ARR. I hope it doesn't take us 7 years to get Liquid360 there but it makes me feel better about the 3.5 years we've put in to date. For me these stories are deeply encouraging. When you're building something very big it can take time to get to launch. A couple of weeks ago we met with a global player in the VC world. They were looking to invest $5M - $10M and we said we weren't there yet. We'll get there but it wouldn't be the right move today. They then jumped to another conclusion. The wrong one. I get it. They have a multi-billion dollar fund and capital to deploy. We have a company to grow and too much cash will not help us do it right. We've made good decisions being lean. Our customers are starting at $500K. This is an enterprise/gov't product. We have to satisfy a very discerning customer. No bugs, no glitches. A dependable and reliable product. We are excited by the feedback. We are making the world safer. Harry Stebbings suggested that Lightspeed is one of the most misunderstood companies. It's market cap is $2.6B which seems really low relative to the ARR. Very interesting episode.

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European startups are on fire, and the latest list of the fastest-growing ones to watch in 2024 showcases some serious innovation. Companies like Aily Labs are streamlining big data with AI, while Escape is fortifying API security like never before. Adway is revolutionizing recruitment by targeting the right talent where they hang out online, and Fracttal is transforming asset management with cloud solutions and AI. As these startups lead the charge in fintech, consumer tech, and cybersecurity, they're changing the game across industries. Imagine being in their shoes—what strategies would you implement to stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving landscape? https://lnkd.in/eCr_tgbP

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(NEW EPISODE) In the ever-evolving landscape of entrepreneurship, few have experienced the full spectrum of highs and lows like Zvi Schreiber. His journey from software engineer to successful serial founder offers invaluable insights into the trials and triumphs of building and scaling companies. In this exclusive interview, Zvi talks about his experiences selling a company to IBM, taking another company public, and fundraising. He has had a series of successful acquisitions and fire sales. #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #entrepreneur #business #success #venture #venturecapital #investment #invest #investors #tech #technology #innovation #leanstartup #leanstartups #inspiration #startup #startups https://lnkd.in/ein5Ny7M

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Interesting article when you are being told by investors that your solution is not solving any problems 😉 Thanks for sharing Markus Wagner Slides available on request #pmf #growth #findyourway #techcompanies

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