Daniel Saks

If you enjoyed our first blog on the metrics that matter for Verticalized SaaS then don't miss on the Part II of the series where my colleagues Devraj Hom Roy and Matt Schaar discuss the strategic and operational choices to improve these operational indicators. https://lnkd.in/g5QkCrcH

15

1 Comment

#Imagine inviting friends over for dinner and giving them a ridged diagram of the allowable conversation paths for the evening – that would be insane! So, why do companies do it to their fans / customers? Today, the ASAPP team released #GenerativeAgent to solve that nonsense! Their team of #AI #Scientists is well known for publishing peer reviewed AI #Research papers like Gold Records, so the below statement doesn't seem hyperbole. "GenerativeAgent isn't just groundbreaking—it's revolutionary, redefining what we thought was possible in what is likely the largest automation opportunity in the world today," said Gustavo Sapoznik, ASAPP's #Founder and #CEO. Thanking Amazon Web Services (AWS), EY, PTP, Infosys, Cisco, Genesys, and Avaya and many of the world's most #iconicbrands for helping to drive the #transformation. I love #investing in #extraordinary #founders!

21

1 Comment

Many people have asked that I share the keynote presentation from Coatue’s East Meets West conference from this past June. This gives a great perspective on both public and private markets and how we see the impact on investing. #coatue #venturecapital

87

4 Comments

Who are the leading GTM experts in VC that you know? Think Jason Gelman who is GTM operating partner at Primary Venture Partners or Max Altschuler at GTMfund!

18

13 Comments

This is quite a piece on accusations of unethical pay-to-play within the #cyber #VC ecosystem. -Guaranteed first-year sales for portfolio companies -Formal loyalty program for CISOs -Points awarded within the program for CISO commitment level to portfolio companies (meetings, PoCs, product purchases) -Share of GP fees for CISOs in the loyalty program https://lnkd.in/gDta7Gp7

31

2 Comments

Rolling into another day of the Primary Summit. Hit me up if we should connect onsite. Kudos to the Primary Ventures team so far, as yesterday’s Pre-Seed Summit was on point. Mar Hershenson, Benjamin Sun, Chris Douvos, Zach Weinberg, and Graham Pingree all dropping helpful nuggets for fund managers. Some paraphrased highlights: - Chris Douvos (AHOY Capital) - Most fund decks are terrible. Start with your people (not your strategy) and know you have about 6 slides of his attention. - Zach Weinberg (Curie.Bio ) - beleives SF’s AI talent is a significant advantage over NY, wouldn’t build AI in NY. Also questions if VC exits can keep up with VC expansion (generally hilarious and smart Twitter follow) - Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) - VC is so much more competitive now. It’s not enough to be an ex-founder with a great network and domain expertise. Have a better “why you are different” or do something else! - Benjamin Sun (Primary Venture Partners)- still sees arbitrage in going long NY venture (vs. SF). Do the work to keep various influential networking nodes aware of what you’re doing and how you think.

50

5 Comments

Founderville believes one of the most significant opportunities is emerging in legacy system applications. We look for manual tasks to leverage AI for efficient automation. Rather than chasing massive TAM, which will be addressed by larger VCs, we focus on smaller market domains that won't be chased as hard. Think of "boring" processes that require human intervention or manualized tasks. Those are opportunities. Keep your eyes open if you have deep domain expertise in a non-automated and fragmented industry. #entrepreneurs #venturecapital #startups #saas

17

7 Comments

The Forbes 2024 Cloud 100 List is live ☁ Congrats to all the honorees – the world's top 100 private cloud companies –including the 3 healthcare and life sciences companies featured this year: • Benchling - biotech R&D platform • Komodo Health - healthcare data analytics • Abridge - AI for clinical documentation For more on how AI is colliding with cloud computing, check out Bessemer Venture Partners's 2024 Cloud 100 report. Personally I'm focused on advancements in multi-modal AI, as applied to biomedical applications (Trend 3!): https://lnkd.in/euzurvQV

36

1 Comment

Free case-study webinar on July 25th. Al Transformation: Overcoming Adoption Challenges How Al Accelerator Addresses Key Obstacles to Full Integration? Register with the QR Code.

5

Microsoft’s #AIstudio hugs Nasuni’s file storage so their customers can natively unlock business insights from their global #unstructuredfile data. This is possible as Nasuni’s #cloud-native global file system inherently consolidates customer file data on near infinite #storage. This is just one of many #filesservices you can now activate. I love #investing in #extraordinary #founders!

5

"Using examples of successful Verticalized SaaS companies, we identified four core methods that have a marked influence on the metrics that matter: Acquiring new customers quickly, increasing ARPU for existing customers, preventing churn, and building a capital-efficient sales engine." Alongside Devraj Hom Roy and Michael Wolfe, we're back with Part Two of our series on #vSaaS - this time, we're focused on the strategies for success, giving kudos to some of the greats in the industry who have paved pathways of growth for others to follow. We hope you enjoy it - and share widely with any investors, practitioners, or founders who would find it valuable! Amee Parbhoo Rahil Rangwala Paolo Limcaoco Ishan Mishra Sebastian Molina Gasman, CFA Jasiel Martin-Odoom Semra Ezedin Eugenia Shevchenko Katie Hallaran Jackson Pellegrini Alon Pardo Khushi Gupta

10

1 Comment

We’ve seen countless buzzwords come and go. “AIOps” is the latest in a long line of catchy but ultimately misguided terms that fail to capture the true potential of AI in the world of IT ops and observability. The observability market has been fragmented for years, with leading vendors like Datadog, New Relic, and Splunk rarely capturing more than 20% market share. Why? Because fundamentally, observability has been treated as a big data problem rather than an intelligence problem. Why is there an opportunity to change this paradigm now? LLMs offer a unified approach to data understanding. Their ability to process and correlate heterogeneous data types – logs, metrics, and traces – in their raw formats breaks down some of the silos that have plagued observability. The transformer architecture underlying LLMs excels at capturing long-range dependencies, crucial for understanding system-wide patterns. LLMs also bring the power of zero-shot and few-shot meaning they can adapt to new failure modes without extensive retraining, addressing the perennial issue of concept drift in rapidly evolving systems. Beware the technical challenges: LLMs currently struggle with both tabular and time series data, common formats in observability. Although we anticipate that innovations in newer architectures, multimodality, and multi-agent systems will mitigate some of these challenges over time, near-term solutions will require creative workarounds from builders. Read more on our point of view below! Foundation Capital https://lnkd.in/grqHXNMF

41

2 Comments

💪💡Wisdom is learning from past mistakes from others but also oneself. Retrospection with action is powerful. An insightful weekend read from the WSJ… Christopher Mims shares his list, from 10 years of covering consumer tech for the The Wall Street Journal: ( link here: https://lnkd.in/eKj2wX_t ) 1. Disruption is overrated. 2. Human factors are everything in tech adoption. 3. People lie to themselves… and to you. 4. Tech bubbles are productive, even if wasteful. 5. We’ve got more power to shape how tech impacts us. Some of my list, from 25 years of early stage consumer internet investing and operating: 1. Tech disruption is overestimated in the short run, underestimated in the long run. (Amara’s Law) 2. Social proof is powerful in tech adoption. 3. Hope kills. Execution is everything. 4. Run towards tech bubbles. 5. Tech optimism empowers positive change.

2

Watch this space. There are more amazing things to come from Cohere, a JC Venture Capital portfolio company. I was there when the Internet was just starting out and I tell anyone who will listen that AI is to Gen-Z what the Internet was to Gen-X. #ai #venturecapital #artificialintelligence.

23

1 Comment

What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

4

2 Comments

Great time on the Embracing Erosion podcast w/Devon O'Rourke! We talked about: 🚀 How to scale a company from concept to 9-figure exit 🔄 How to break away from the traditional consulting model and apply product approaches ⏩ Why it’s important to iterate quickly and often with messaging 💸📈What signals are important to pay attention to when investing in startups and much more!

1

1 Comment

Big news from Cephable! This team is transforming interactions with the digital world and creating the accessible future we all deserve. There is nothing better than investing in leaders like Alexander Dunn. Congratulations Cephable and thank you for including Hyperplane in your journey! ➡️ See them in action (I still get goosebumps): https://lnkd.in/eHfCp3iD ➡️ Read the full release here: https://lnkd.in/e68MS2CP

78

7 Comments

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to scaling a business, but the key is making intentional decisions about how you choose to grow. 🥾 Bootstrapping gives you control but might mean slower growth 🏦 Venture capital fuels fast growth but comes with trade-offs 🔋 A hybrid approach can balance both—but it requires discipline. At York IE, we believe that your growth strategy should reflect your goals, values, and market reality. Don’t chase hypergrowth for the sake of it. Be pragmatic, preserve optionality, and stay in control of your company’s fate.

22

3 Comments

Getting into the Ai game is more than just creating a bot or using an LLM. A secure and thoughtful approach to any kind of Ai is needed to have success! Join us below as we go deeper into this topic and how you can be confident in your Ai deployments! #Security #Ai #Cloud

2