John Mayfield

For early-stage founders one of THE most important parts of your GTM motion needs to be understanding the HIGH-PRIORITY PROBLEM(S) you solve for your prospect. However, even that is too much of a simplification... Because when you've mapped out your key stakeholders, you need to understand the problem you're solving, the answer to the question 'What's in it for me?' for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. In your deal you will have an Economic Buyer, a Champion, User Buyers and Technical Buyers, and you need every one of the to say YES (or at the very least from your User and Technical Buyers, not a 'no') to get your deal done. And for them to say YES, you need to be solving a high-priority problem for each them. This problem might be a different by stakeholder, or might be the same problem, just seen through a different lens. Obviously, for different solutions those problems will be different, but there are some commonalities on the types of things they will usually care about. ➡️ User Buyers - for your User Buyers, the problem is usually around features and functionality. What does your product do that makes their lives much easier, better, more efficient, more effective? ➡️ Technical Buyers - usually for Technical Buyers, they want to know you don't break anything or that you're in line with whatever compliance infrastructure they have. Essentially, you want your Technical Buyers not to say 'No!' ➡️ Champion - you're going to ask your Champion to advocate for your solution. They're going to be putting their reputation on the line for you, and may even be putting their jobs on the line, so you really need to be solving a HIGH-PRIORITY problem for them. For it to be a high-priority it usually needs to be related to their targets / KPIs /OKRs - so you need to understand what these are and show how your solution helps them hit these targets in a way they cannot do without you. ➡️ Economic Buyer - as your EB is likely more senior, they usually care more about strategic projects as well as the cold hard cash of the commercial benefit of your solution. So you need to understand what these strategic projects are, and how your solution gets them to where they need to be, in a way they cannot do with their incumbent solutions. That last part is key, EBs are usually change adverse, so you need to show how hard - or ideally impossible - it will be for them to hit their targets without you. And commercial benefits for EBs come down to reducing costs, maximising revenue and reducing risk. So how does your solution move these needles? Even if they don't have a target for these, EBs will always be thinking how they will justify the use of their budget in buying your solution. And there's no better justification than a rock solid ROI. Much more on this in our booklet Value Creation Explained where we go through the Value Pyramid of understanding the PROBLEM you solve and the VALUE you create for every one of your stakeholders. Link in the comments below ⬇️

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In case you missed it last week, one of my favorite SaaS benchmark reports was released. Thanks to High Alpha and OpenView for the work and having us as a partner! This thing is stuffed full of insights on everything from growth rates, net revenue retention, ARR per FTE, and more. You can't build a great SaaS business without it! https://lnkd.in/ghKT_tBY

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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.

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Well-written and sourced article describing what's going in seed-stage venture market. At 9point8 Collective we tend to orbit the seed-stage (both ideating and developing companies to reach seed and helping post-seed companies refactor and scale in anticipation of A) and for many companies it's a critical inflection point which determines their long term success or failure. The main takeaways I was able to gather: 1️⃣ Many startups that raised seed rounds in 2021-2022 are struggling to secure Series A funding due to tighter market conditions and increased investor expectations. 2️⃣ Seed investors are becoming more cautious, leading to longer diligence processes and a preference for startups with strong traction or experienced founders. As a result, valuations have stayed relatively high even as deal flow reduces. 3️⃣ Startups are adopting various strategies to navigate this challenging environment, including cutting costs, raising bridge rounds or convertible notes, and M&A/acqui-hires. 4️⃣ Despite the challenges, there are opportunities for both startups and investors in this new landscape, particularly for those who can adapt to the changing market conditions. Investors are accumulating dry powder -- and with rates on the decline -- will be looking to deploy into companies with stronger fundamentals than their 2021-2022 counterparts.

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I'm officially launching my new business today: Early Stage Labs. We help Seed and Series A startups level up with fractional execs in finance + growth. If you need the horsepower and execution of an experienced operator but don't want to add heavy FTE burn to your runway, I'd love to see if we can support you. We have been quietly building in 2024 and are up to 11 CFOs and 5 growth folks on the team. We can't wait to roll up our sleeves and get into it. Learn more about what we're doing here: https://lnkd.in/eddDSWCn -- I was out on a walk with my wife back in 2018. I had been running a bootstrapped startup for a few years and was talking to her about a pivot we were making. She asked me what it was that I loved about the business I was building. Simple question, but I paused and had to spend a few days thinking about it. I remember coming back to her and telling her how much I love the art and the act of creating something from nothing. How it’s difficult and nuanced and sometimes even feels impossible. But how - when you get it right - man, it can feel like magic. I’ve built and sold a few businesses since then. We sold our last one to Healthline in 2021. I then jumped to the other side of the table and I’ve been the General Partner of a seed-stage venture fund since 2022. I love deals. I love getting into the hard and dirty parts of a business that can really move the needle. And I love delighting customers. I’m a scrappy, gritty founder who loves finding high impact + low burn ways to move businesses forward, and I think I’ve found that here. I think we’re really doing that for our customers. Early Stage Labs is a love letter, of sorts, to this beautiful, treacherous, wondrous world of startups that I’ve - for some strange f’ing reason - made my home over the last two decades. Here’s to the ride.

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Orb (#uncorrelated) raised $25M to continue building their pricing and billing platform that lets companies automate a range of different billing modes e.g., usage-based, subscriptions, or a mix, marry analytics and billing, collect and meter product usage data, invoice customers, generate revenue reports, draw on product usage insights to find revenue opportunities, model out alternative pricing plans (thus enabling experimentation), orchestrate changes in real time, schedule future price changes for certain customer cohorts or contract renewals, directly embed draft invoices into product billing portals, surface past-due invoices, and recover failed payments automatically. "Orb gives companies a single source of truth that can connect every unit of product usage to revenue. We’ve found a particularly strong fit in AI, cloud infrastructure, fintech, and dev tools, and have seen most of our growth come from those verticals.” Orb’s revenue grew 5x in the past year, and the customer base tripled to include brands such as Vercel, Replit, Pinecone, and Perplexity. https://lnkd.in/gYh4y2tg

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I believe two of the big winners over the next 10 years in the SMB category will be PE who are rolling up the businesses and GenAI powered software that makes running these businesses significantly more turnkey and/or profitable. Thanks for having me on Jay Kapoor. If you want spicy takes fast forward to 25 min mark. If you want to get deep in market analysis buckle in for the whole thing. https://lnkd.in/d8M7Jyrx

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There's a crucial difference between scaling and strategic scaling. While it may be tempting to seize every growth opportunity, scaling a B2B lending product at the wrong time can be detrimental. Strategic scaling leverages data to ensure new (or updated) products truly benefit end-users while protecting lenders from adverse selection. So, what data should we be looking at? According to portco Canopy, it's: 1️⃣ Previous underwriting decisions vs. actual outcomes. How else can we improve future decisions? 2️⃣ Niche customer data. Rapidly growing businesses have different lending needs compared to startups. Each requires a tailored approach. 3️⃣ Economic data. Both general (like interest rates) and industry-specific, covering the market landscape for your niche. Use data to continually build products and bundles your customers actually need. Then, iteratively introduce and test them before rolling out to the wider market. There's a reason I'm saying data is the new gold. This data-driven approach was the recurring theme in Canopy's article on the seven unexpected challenges when scaling a loan product, linked in comments.

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I love data. Especially people data. It helps answer those lingering..."is it just me...or?" late night questions. The OpenView SaaS Benchmark Survey is one of those annual ones I always read and reference with the founders I work with. That's why I'm so excited that High Alpha is partnering with OpenView, Paddle and Kyle Poyar to launch the 2024 annual SaaS Benchmark Survey. And guess what -- it's live! If you want early-access to the report, be sure to participate and we'll be back in November to share insights. Link to survey below. https://lnkd.in/ey9FAgYV #SaaSBenchmarks

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🌱 For founders taking on venture debt, covenants are the fine print you cannot afford to ignore. 📃 They set the boundaries for how you can operate and manage your company’s finances. If you don’t play by these rules, the consequences can be pretty dire. It’s all about negotiating terms that align with your startup’s financial health. Be sure to read the original post by Kruze Consulting to get the full breakdown. Link in the 1st comment. 👇 #StartupFinance

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Founders, this is how you can incentivize your employees with a stock option plan. Relying on cash alone to incentivize talent at an early stage does not work. Also the risk is higher and you have limited funding. Your first hires will most likely take a pay cut to join and rely on equity to get skin in the game. Also, with no equity, some employees might stay for a paycheck but not for the long haul. There's a better way: Design your compensation strategy to empower your team. 1. Align employee goals with company success. 2. Offer stock options that grow with your company. 3. Communicate transparently about the value of equity. While doing that, set up your stock option plan properly. Valuation, hiring plan, equity pools, and vesting schedules. For valuation (490A) and vesting schedules, Carta is a great tool. The size of your option pool is something you need to spend more time on. 1. It's highly dependent on your hiring plan. 2. Define how many people, at what level (co-founder, exec, lead, etc), you will need until your next round of funding. 3. Structure the size of you option pool to match your needs as it will difficult to increase it between rounds. 4. Choose your vesting period - typically 4 years with 1-year cliff. Remember that equity grants in the form of stock options is about building a committed and invested team. Your compensation strategy should enhance employee loyalty, not just fill a role. It's easier than it sounds, you just need to put some real thoughts into it. Peter Walker and Carta published extensive data in this topic. Need some help? Feel free to DM me.

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That planning season is upon us once more - almost like it’s an annual thing :) The more informed you are the more realistic the planning the cycle - especially in a new market transition cycle (here we go again!) Join Randy Wootton and Maxio break down all dimensions of growth and operations with data points across the SaaS market to build a plan rooted in market reality 🔥

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YC founders: here's a harsh truth that might help you when hiring. Great people want to work with great people. But...A-players hire A-players. B-players hire C-players. Keeping the hiring bar relentlessly high is critical, especially early on. A single person that isn’t great can drag the quality down of the entire team. Folks will look around and realize the standards are lower than they thought. They’ll realize that they don’t need to be as good. They’ll realize they can learn less from their colleagues. People make the organization, not the other way around. And that if you don’t have great people, you won’t have a great organization.

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KNOW YOUR REAL BUSINESS ECONOMICS • GAAP Revenue • Cash Flow • Cash • Contribution Margin • CAC • CAC Payback FUNDRAISING: PRESENT & SUBSTANTIATE FINANCIALS • Investor needs to know what your forecasts are • They need to believe them David Weiden, Khosla Ventures

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When we asked CPG founders who they wanted at Founderland... Their answer was clear: People who can help them grow their business & achieve their goals. Specifically: - The top retailers - The most founder-friendly investors, and - Other founders they can learn from and share with This conversation that I'm hosting at Founderland is a perfect representation of this group, plus one BIG bonus. We're also including Joel Toledano and ChargeUp.ai which is one of my favorite tech companies that is supporting consumer brands today. They automate the retail deduction and chargeback process for brands, saving them an insane amount of time and money. Such a cool co. Excited to teach, share and connect...and get some deals done, while of course having lots of fun. Joel Toledano Jen Zeszut Kim Coffin Deb Conklin

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There is no single answer to this question. But founders should at least know the impact on current effective valuation and the ability to hire complementary talent. So interesting to follow comments for the original post!

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There is little room for errors in these roles. Let’s always take the time to sanity check our reporting and avoid shortcuts. Make time to learn and keep up with compliance in your vertical. Keep alignment and stay informed with changes such as the “Corporate Transparency Act” or depreciation changes over the years. It’s always worth the time to triple check agreements prior to signing and simply never make a decision that goes against your morals or logic. Strategy and the crossover in the duties within leadership is growing every year. I’ve been beyond lucky to work with brilliant minds in every department. Communication and emotional intelligence are key. CFO mandates have changed as we all strive to deliver a timely, accurate and reliable financial assessment to all decision makers. Geopolitical risk and rates will change, but these modern challenges are where we the opportunity to shine. A little weekend appreciation as we near the last months of FY2024 :)

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I recently saw this metric from Carta’s 1Q24 VC Fund Report, which is very concerning. DPI... is nowhere to be found in earlier vintages that probably should start showing DPI. Funding early-stage projects is great, but ultimately, these venture dollars need to exit their investments and pay back their limited partners. That’s where the metric Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) comes in. While managing a fund, we get interim measures during the life of the fund (e.g. IRR, MOIC), but ultimately, “you can’t eat IRR.” If you want to build a lasting venture capital organization, you need to start showing DPI for your fund. Keep in mind that this is traditional VC data from Carta, and is not strictly crypto venture. Crypto venture tends to get liquidity earlier (tokens) and things tend to go parabolic sooner (faster, more unicorns) - but I’d wager that the data here is somewhat similar for Crypto VCs… Not as much DPI as there should be from these earlier vintages. Read the full article, as well as a recap of all the crypto fundraising rounds for August, here: https://lnkd.in/g3eVJ-iF

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