Adam Broadway

I wrote about the different builder personas one can find in web3: - corporate - mercenary - app builders - tinkerers Descriptions are in the X thread (because Linkedin limits post length). Can you think of any others? https://lnkd.in/dph-5drV

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When you're scaling a DTC brand from $5m to $30m, don't try to optimize for lowest cost of capital when you raise debt financing... The lenders out there who can offer the lowest cost of capital usually can't offer the capital flexibility and deal terms that you need as you scale. Low cost of capital lenders don't love DTC. It scares them because there is little to no A/R and inventory is a riskier collateral base. As such, they'll either offer you way too little capital availability or their offer will come with hefty protective provisions that feel punitive. Non-bank lenders tend to be the best fit for a DTC-heavy brand that is scaling profitability beyond $5m in annual sales. Traditional bank lenders, which offer lower cost of capital, tend to become a better option after you hit $30m+ in annual sales. Obviously, there are always exceptions to this rule, but the advice I'm offering here turns out to be true most of the time in my experience. __ Want more tips like this? Consider reposting or giving me Jon Blair a follow.

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Trying to get from $0 to $1M ARR? Find your PMF. Obsess over identifying a problem that a big enough market urgently needs solving. Talk to your customers about their most painful problems and validate your assumptions. Not all feedback will be valuable. Focus on insights from your early adopters—they become your ICP and shape your product. Stay true to your core customer profile. Chasing revenue or artificially widening the PMF dilutes your product's effectiveness. Your product can only meet so many needs. Tailor every feature to your ICP. Your first version is your Minimum Sellable Product (MSP). Make the MSP easy to use and beneficial. With customers using your product, continually collect feedback to improve: 1 - Offering 2 - Marketing messages 3 - Sales calls 4 - Pricing structure 5 - Demo flow If you reach $1M ARR, congratulations! Your product has real demand. Next, it’s time to think about scaling to $10M ARR. More on that soon.

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Learn how to fine-tune your product to meet market demands with strategic customer conversations and data-driven feedback mechanisms 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Brian Long, CEO & Co-Founder at Attentive 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Nick Moran, General Partner at New Stack Ventures and Nate Pierotti, Principal at New Stack Ventures ✏ “The Playbook to Finding Product-Market Fit, When Founders Should Begin to Scale, and Lessons from Building Attentive” ⭐ 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀: 💬 "I think that what we got right were two things. One, I think that we talked to a tremendous amount of customers, before we started building things. So we learned to hear their problems, hear their issues, and then start building and assaulting those, you know, rather than kind of just jumping right into build-build-build, so that saved us a lot of time." ⭐ 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀: 💬 "I think you're also looking at things like NPS, you know… because if that number starts dropping, it's often because you're no longer solving the problem." ⭐ 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆: 💬 "I think that we've taken an even longer term focus. We know what can be big. And we know it's dangerous to start getting an ego to think you can do things because it's always very hard. You've always got to think towards taking a longer term view, having a thesis around that view, and then understand how the pieces can come together for success." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Many startups face common pitfalls that prevent them from advancing to the next level. James Ker-Reid give us some insight A key issue is failing to define the use case of their product and the target audience. Founders often serve diverse markets, which complicates scaling. Refining the use case and audience profile is crucial for growth and success. What challenges have you encountered when defining your product's use case? #Startups #Entrepreneurship #GrowthHacking #BusinessStrategy #ProductDevelopment #TargetAudience #MarketResearch #ScalingUp #BusinessGrowth #StartupSuccess #Innovation

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Today is a fricking masterclass in product-led growth with one of the OG’s Adam Gross. “If you’re doing paid acquisition sub $100M ARR you’re not PLG.” “Product-led growth is not a go-to-market motion, it’s a business model.” “It doesn’t matter what alignment methodology you use. If you are doing it right, you can feel it viscerally.” My 5 key takeaways 👇 1. PLG Is a Business Model Not a GTM PLG is not for everybody. It’s a way of architecting your product, business, & entire organization. It’s not a random distribution channel to add on. You have to be really intentional about it. 2. If You Have Paid Sub 100M You Are Not PLG Good PLG businesses have discovered one effective acquisition mechanism. It contributes up to 70% of their customer acquisition volume. Doing paid acquisition sub $100M ARR isn’t PLG. 3. The Poet & Librarian of Hiring There are two types of hires: Poet: Creativity-driven, experts in domain knowledge. Librarian: Process-oriented, experts in systems & efficiency. Know which one you’re hiring & find a mix. 4. Importance of Team Alignment  An organization’s attention & focus is the most precious resource you have. I am a big believer in planning methodologies to align teams. It doesn’t matter which methodology you use. When a team is genuinely aligned, you can feel it. 5. The Seasons of Software A leader should align everyone in “seasons”. We do quarterly updates through blogs, web posts, etc. It creates a rhythm everyone can align to. It’s one of the most powerful yet simple things you can do. (links in comments) #founder #funding #business #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #seed #funding #growth #SaaS

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Can anyone define what makes a CMS an enterprise-level CMS??? For me, it's not just about the size of the company the project is for. It’s about the complexity of the integrations and requirements of the project. We've recently built a complex crowdfunding platform for a very small startup that involved integrations with HMRC, payment gateways, and CRMs. This shows that enterprise web development isn't just for large organisations. So, what characterises an enterprise CMS? For me, it’s one that can seamlessly integrate into a complex solution architecture, regardless of being headless or traditional. What do you think? And this is where Umbraco excels! It’s versatile enough for simple content sites yet powerful enough for enterprise-level projects. Plus, it’s open-source and free to download, making it accessible without hefty licence fees. If you're considering a powerful yet flexible CMS for your next big project, give Umbraco a try. For more website project hints and tips, follow me, you won't regret it, sometimes I'm funny too 😊 #umbraco #opensource #enterprisecms

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What's the biggest problem every app builder faces? It's not user acquisition. The real issue is the "attention problem"—every other app is constantly competing for your users' attention, according to Schaun Wheeler of Aampe. Standard solutions are poor at best. The lack of effective solutions points to a bigger issue: most companies aren't effectively integrating data science into decision-making. The root cause is a lack of "decision connectivity." Watch Schaun's full Data Council '24 talk at the link in comments.

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What do you see when you search for "curated road" / "curated roads" in Google? Here's the Google search link for quick tests: https://lnkd.in/eAXB5bS5 I've been chatting with GPT 4 Turbo Vision above normal lately... Google got kind of jealous? Thanks, G! Both G's. It's not everyday when you see your favourite sweat & tears / roads & spots brand, holding 1st & 2nd places in an accidentally discovered victory! It's the era of curated roads, folks, G's won't lie. Support the new movement! So that it's no longer "not a standard phrase" - GPT-4: The term “curated road” is not a standard phrase, and its meaning could vary depending on the context. However, generally speaking, a “curated road” could refer to a journey or path that has been carefully selected or organized for a specific purpose. In the context of travel, for example, a “curated road” might refer to a road trip where the route, stops, and attractions have been meticulously planned or “curated” to provide a particular experience. In a metaphorical sense, a “curated road” could refer to a life path or career trajectory that has been thoughtfully planned and organized. Please note that without specific context, these interpretations are just educated guesses. If you could provide more context, I might be able to give a more accurate interpretation. -- end of GPT-4 #curatedroad #curatedroads Road.Travel #specialmoments

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Ready to Sell Your Early-Stage SaaS? 5 Key Concepts to Nail for a Better Exit I recently conducted a coaching call with an advisor helping a 2M ARR SaaS company look for an exit. At this stage, we are not calculating the full stack of SaaS metrics in my 5 Pillar SaaS Metrics Framework. But we should focus on several financial concepts in Pillars 1, 2, and 3. Some of these dive into metrics, but a lot of this is about making our data easily consumable for potential acquirors. 🔑 Clear Revenue Streams: We need clear and distinct revenue stream. Subscriptions, variable (usage, processing, etc.), professional services, managed services, hardware, and other. These must be separate on our P&L. Don’t comingle! 🔑 Departmental Expense Coding: We need ALL expenses coded to the department level. At 2M, it may be a little early to push on this, but acquirors must understand where you are spending your money. Don’t mix employee expense with contractor expense. 🔑 SaaS P&L: Create an actual SaaS P&L. Don’t send the native P&L from QBO or Xero. Again, make it easy for all readers to understand your business model. 🔑 MRR Schedule: This is a “must-have!” You need a schedule that shows revenue by customer by month. And you might need to segment this data by ICP, pricing plans, etc. Whatever makes sense for how you manage your customer base. 🔑 Retention Analysis: Buyers must understand the health of your recurring revenue. This is done via retention analysis. With an MRR schedule in hand, you can calculate your retention on an aggregate basis and a cohort basis. Key metrics include customer retention, gross revenue retention, and net revenue retention. Takeaways: If you're an early-stage SaaS business looking to exit, begin taking the steps now to put the foundation outlined above in place. This prep will make your data easily consumable for potential acquirors and facilitate better discussions on your business. You can also listen to this post at the link in the comments. #SaaS

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"Your startup is just a ChatGPT wrapper" - scoffs every VC who has never spent a day trying to build useable AI products for enterprises. This female founder is proving the skeptics wrong. Jiale T. is the co-founder of ByteGenie - an easy-to-use toolkit for companies to assemble their own specialized AI agents, using composable parts like Lego bricks. See, ChatGPT and other LLMs need a lot of work before they can be useful for different businesses, industries, and specific tasks. Just like any new employee needs to learn the ropes before they can perform, ByteGenie provides companies with the tools to train different AI models on specific data sources, content formats, or analytical models. This allows companies to train "AI employees" to fill roles in a variety of roles and industries - from market intelligence, credit risk analysis, ESG risk scoring, financial reporting, and more. Despite launching only a few years ago, her app is gaining traction. She recently pitched her app to a global MNC operating in over 10 countries, competing alongside other far bigger software vendors - and ended up coming out on top! Her company also was shortlisted as a Top 10 finalist to pitch in the Singapore Fintech Festival, and was selected to be a part of AWS x Accelerating Asia’s Gen-AI reactor cohort last year. Jiale's advice to other aspiring female founders? "Just do it" She fears that female founders are often handicapped by perfectionism. The fear of having to make the “right decisions" about everything, often paralyzes them from making any decision. In a world that is evolving rapidly, companies die when they don't execute fast, learn quickly from failures, and grow together with the needs of their customers. Being a female founder has also given her an edge in recruiting talent from a broader pool, especially in a male-dominated industry. Throughout their startup journey, she has had at least 50% women in their team, and at one point - more female engineers than male ones! If you're interested in learning more about ByteGenie, or want to learn how you can build a team of AI agents, give Jiale a shoutout! 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘥���𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 "𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘦'𝘴 20 𝘏𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘴" 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 2 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 😥 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 - 𝘴𝘰 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮!

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I agree, the AI-generated code flywheel has started 🚀 The more code generated by AI, the better AI handles debugging and enhancements of the code written by AI. It's like Bob-the-AI writing cryptic code to ensure job security, but Bob-the-AI is much more sophisticated than any human. Soon, human software engineers will need to adapt and learn new skills to thrive in an AI-driven environment 👇

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When assessing new saas/apps, I go straight to the pricing page. Not because I am looking for the price, but because that is where you find the most succinct description of what the software does and how to fits your needs.

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Exciting Opportunity for Founders and Aspiring Entrepreneurs 🌟 Are you considering starting a C corporation in Delaware? 🚀 Look no further! Check out this free Founder Handbook tailored just for you! 💼 In this comprehensive guide, you'll discover valuable insights, practical tips, and essential information to help you establish and run a successful C corporation in Delaware. Download your free copy here: https://lnkd.in/g4R8MXaH Don't miss out on this valuable resource! #entrepreneurship #startup #Ccorp #Delaware #FounderHandbook 🌐

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SaaS founders please trust me on this one. Regret is more expensive than tracking product data. Don't let hindsight be your only insight. --- P.S. If you're interested in learning more about which metrics you need to measure and how - I'm hosting a free webinar in July to answer all your questions 💡 Want to join? 👉 Like this post and comment "metrics" below and I'll send you the link :)

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You don’t need to raise VC to build a business with big impact, *even in a market that has heavily VC-funded players*. Case in point: Excalidraw is an open source alternative to Miro. Excalidraw is bootstrapped and revenue-funded, Miro is VC-funded ($476M raised). Miro just added a comparison page to Excalidraw - meaning that they saw enough demand for people searching for Miro vs Excalidraw that they added this page.

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🎥 New tutorial: Find companies investing in ads at scale using Clay! 🔥 In this video, I walk you through a simple but effective process for uncovering companies that are prime candidates for your products or services. 🎯 The secret sauce? Analyzing their website's source code! 🕵️‍♀️ By leveraging Clay's powerful "Built With" feature, you can quickly identify the technologies a company is using (or lacking) on their site. This intel is pure gold for tailoring your outreach. 💰 For example: 🗨️ If you offer live chat solutions and notice a company doesn't have one installed... boom! There's your opening. 📋 Or, if you provide a top-notch CMS and see a business using an outdated platform, you can swoop in with your cutting-edge alternative. The possibilities are endless! In the tutorial, I also give a shoutout to Michael Saruggia for sharing this brilliant flow. Simplicity for the win! 🙌 I'm telling you, combining the insights from website source code with Clay's prospecting capabilities is a game-changer. You'll be able to: 🎯 Zero in on your ideal customers 🗣️ Craft compelling, personalized pitches ⏰ Save time and resources on manual research Ready to revolutionize your client acquisition strategy? Check out the full video tutorial and let me know your thoughts! 👇 And if you're curious about how Clay can help you crush your outbound goals, drop me a comment or DM. I'm always happy to chat! 😄 #ClayTutorial #ProspectingHacks #WebsiteIntel #SmartOutreach #ClientAcquisition

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SaaSOpen is the most expensive SaaS event in the world. How many $697 tickets have we sold? 70. ...$697 Early Bird tickets just sold out. Why do SaaS leaders pay to get in? Nicolas Vandenberghe “I was amazed by the seniority of the attendees" ↳Co-founder of Chili Piper ↳$30m and cash flow positive Rajesh Jain “Best conference for SaaS Entrepreneurs” ↳CEO and Founder of Netcore ↳Bootstrapped to $100m ARR SaaSOpen starts Sept 5-6th in NYC. “Nathan’s just trying to drive urgency” You’re right. Why? ... Because once you have your ticket: ↳ Get the attendee list (name, titles) now ↳ We’ll start your 1 on 1 intros ↳ Host your own CEO Roundtable (you pick topic) ... the earlier you book, the more CEO’s we can connect you to: James Isilay “My favorite speaker was public CEO Savneet Singh. SaaSOpen is my favorite event for networking” ↳ CEO Cognism ↳ $55m+ ARR Liam Martin “Great event and networking, would definitely go again,” ↳ CEO of TimeDoctor ↳ $25m ARR Bootstrapped Stefan Smulders “No boring keynotes, only real founders sharing stories from the trenches. Tightly-knit conference,” ↳ CEO of Expandi ↳ $8m ARR Adam Baker “We spent $10k to attend SaaSOpen and have booked 3 new customers. It’s more than paid for itself. We love this event because its founders who come with intent to do business,” ↳ CEO of Dealpad ↳ $6m ARR Palash Soni “ Loved meeting so many other founders and getting actual on the ground tactics,” ↳ CEO of Goldcast Marie Martens “Loved the no BS SaaS learnings from Bootstrapped Founders,” ↳ Co-Founder of Tally ↳ $1m+ ARR See the attahced screenshot of our Bizzabo sales dashboard from the last 48 hours. ...CEO's and sales leaders waiting to meet you. Grab your ticket before the lower cost ones sell out: SaaSOpen.com Want slide decks and recordings? - - - - -- - - - - 📌 If you missed our last event and want the Top 3 Google Slide Decks and recordings: 💘 Comment "Top 3 Replays" ♻️ Repost ✅ Like this post I'll then DM you (must be connected)

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