1/ I’m all for fast, efficient fundraising processes but this year, IMO, many founders have over-optimized for speed.
A few things to keep in mind.
⬇️
2/
Fast decision ≠ high conviction.
If an investor gives you a TS a few days after the first meeting, it MAY be a sign of strong conviction. E.g. because they have a thesis, have done a lot of work beforehand, or when it’s true love at first sight.
3/
It may also be a sign of high-velocity investing and FOMO.
If an investor/partner leads 2-3 investments per year it’s much harder to decide within a few days than when he/she does 20. If he/she does 20 it’s not high-conviction but optionality bets.
1/ Are enterprise SaaS or SMB SaaS companies faring better in the current crisis?
I think there‘s no general answer.
Enterprise SaaS:
👍🏼 No significant churn due to customers going out of business.
👎🏼 CFOs pushing for longer payment terms.
👎🏼 Longer sales cycles.
2/
👎🏼 No industry events, no customer conferences, no steak dinners.
👍🏼 If you manage to generate leads and close them without these field activities, you can reduce your CACs.
3/
❓Will companies try to reduce the number of SaaS solutions they use and try to renegotiate prices? Seems logical but I haven’t seen it so far.
❓ Digital transformation gets higher priority, but probably not across the board. Probably easier for large SaaS companies ...
1/ Homeopathy is a ~ €600 million market in Germany alone. Worldwide it’s billions.
ICYMI:
- Homeopathy is effective, which explains why so many people swear by it.
- Homeopathy is not more effective than placebo but it is particularly powerful in triggering ...
2/ ... the placebo effect (because of the rituals, stories and ideology around it).
- Efficacy of drugs is usually assessed based on the benefit beyond placebo baseline. So based on that standard, homeopathy is ineffective.
This brings up two questions. One ethical, one ...
3/ ... political.
Should doctors give placebos to adult patients? (Without disclosing that it’s a placebo, since that would reduce the placebo effect)
Should society allow the producers of homeopathic products to generate huge profits by selling hot air? In Germany, ...
1/ Because I live in an echo bubble of early-adopters, VCs and fast-moving startups, I think I've underestimated (a) HOW slowly large companies move and (b) HOW long it takes to displace them.
Two examples from Google and Microsoft:
- I absolutely love Google Docs and ...
2/ ... Google Sheets, but boy are they slow at improving the products (remember that Google acquired Writely back in 2006 and turned it into G-Docs). With hindsight, there was a whole decade that offered a great opportunity for a startup to build a better version of G-Docs and...
3/ ... G-Sheets. It looks like @airtable and @notion are doing it now, so it’s not too late.
- Microsoft lost search, social networking, MP3, mobile phones, mobile OS and a bunch of other big markets. And FWIW, I don’t know any founders or VCs who use a Windows PC (except ...