SaaS Weekly

The best curated SaaS content right in your inbox | Every Friday, we summarize the best strategies, stories, and case studies to help grow your SaaS startup.

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

https://t.co/eeNxRIInPW

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

This Week in SaaS: Salesforce bets on the logic layer while the battle for creator workflows heats up.

https://t.co/MCYkAzm0rt

[SaaS Weekly @SaaS_Weekly]

Three reads to think about this week:

Salesforce goes headless and makes a clear bet on agent-first CRM

The war on creator workflows heats up with Claude Design in the mix

Private dinners are pipeline plays – please tell your head of marketing

https://t.co/augGgNz1tX

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

https://t.co/ydSs2uB9mg

[SaaS Weekly @SaaS_Weekly]

🚨 New weekly roundup just dropped:

Three reads to think about this week:

– Why growth is now a trust problem

– The two jobs of marketing communication

– The simple math to set up a sales team

Read the full article here 👇

https://t.co/ZxPBCl7bJ9

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

https://t.co/l1KEATPQTQ

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

When I was still new to the startup scene (five or so years ago…I’m not that old), I remember learning about exciting companies through early-stage funding announcements.

Back then, I would scroll through my inbox or Google News, land on a TechCrunch article, and read about the company’s vision, team, and problem space.

To me, these announcements felt like the company's introduction to the startup world – the "going live" moment.

Fast forward to today, and that discovery journey doesn’t happen the same way.

Funding articles don't hold the same attention as they once did (source: Eleanor Warnock - Sifted), and TechCrunch no longer publishes as many funding announcements compared to three years ago (I looked at the data).

[Data pulled from TechCrunch articles tagged/ categorized as funding & fundraising]

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

This week in SaaS

Rounding out the week with a roundup of a few key news narratives:

🤝 Acquisitions & VC | Salesforce and ServiceNow go halfsies on Genesys
Genesys just raised $1.5B to fuel AI-powered CX, with Salesforce and ServiceNow each writing a $750M check. Two SaaS giants just bet the future of customer experience on orchestration over automation. (The Information)

🦄 VC | CRV returns cash and re-ups with $750M
After quietly slimming down, CRV is back with Fund 20 at $750M. It's smaller, leaner, and ready to dig deeper into product, metrics, and market pull. (TechCrunch)

📈 IPO | Figma’s public debut goes full send
Shares surged 250 percent on day one, pushing Figma’s valuation to $67B. The message is clear: real revenue and a cult following still move markets. (The Information)

🛠️ DevTools & AI | GitHub Copilot hits 20M users
Copilot just hit 20 million users after adding 5 million in three months. It's already in 90 percent of the Fortune 100. First it was a hack. Then a helper. Now AI pair programming is just how dev gets done. (TechCrunch)

☁️ Cloud | AWS loses its growth crown
Q2 results are in. AWS grew 17 percent, while Azure jumped 39 percent and GCP 32 percent. AI workloads are reshaping cloud priorities fast. (TechCrunch)

🌐 AI Platforms | Anthropic cuts off OpenAI's Claude access
Anthropic just pulled the plug on OpenAI's Claude access. A reminder that betting on a single AI vendor is a risky move. Build with backup in mind. (TechCrunch)

🚀 Market & Macro | OpenAI raises $8.3B and targets $20B ARR
OpenAI is now valued at $300B and expects $20B in revenue this year. Software ate the world. AI ate software. Now it’s coming for your margins. (The Information)

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

This thread was getting long...

So read the rest of the post in this article.

Jump to the section "Why curration matters"
https://t.co/uQQsN6gn6i

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

What happened to SaaS Weekly?
(A thread)

The loss of taste
From the beginning, @SaaS_Weekly had one goal: to inform your next growth strategy.

Every Friday, I would deliver the best content to those in the trenches of growing a B2B SaaS company.

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

Words without context are just commodities.

If you think about the best pieces of content - be it a blog, a social post, or a campaign - the way the ideas are presented frames their impact.

This act of framing starts by crafting the narrative structure, outlining what matters and what doesn't.

An essential step that’s often overlooked.

Without framing, even the best copy lands flat. The audience has no anchor, no tension, no reason to care.

(ooof 😮‍💨)

Take something like Apple's "Think Different" campaign, or Salesforce's "No Software" movement, or even how startups like Clay position their features.

My observation in marketing is that it's less about what was said and more about how ideas were presented.

The angle. The arc. The way it made sense of what you were feeling before you could articulate it.

That kind of intuition is important, but it’s not built overnight.

And it starts by improving what you consume.

Follow creators whose framing you admire. Study how they structure their narratives. Notice what makes you stop mid-scroll and think, "I wish I'd written that."

Over time, you start building taste - the skill of knowing what’s worth paying attention to.

It's the ability to recognize quality and pattern-match your reaction with an audience’s empathy.

In a world where LLMs make "wordsmithing" commoditized, taste and framing matter more than ever.

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

Taste and framing.

Two skills that matter more when anyone can generate copy or code in seconds.

LLMs have democratized creation. You can write content and ship products faster than ever.

But speed doesn't always equal value. If anything, we're drowning in more noise than signal.

My take: two skills are becoming increasingly important in this "age of AI."

1. Taste – the ability to recognize quality and match your output with an intuition about what your audience needs.

2. Framing – the act of establishing context, whether you're setting up a story for readers or crafting a prompt for an LLM. You structure the inputs and the journey that leads to meaningful output.

These skills can't be automated (yet?). They come from experience, understanding your space, and caring deeply about the problem you're solving.

Over the past few years of running @SaaS_Weekly, I've developed taste for what makes SaaS content worth reading.

And this past weekend, I decided to turn that context into code.

Introducing the SaaS Archive: a curated database of the best content on how to grow your B2B SaaS business. Three years of newsletter curation, organized and searchable.

Built with:
• @lovable - for the mvp and new features in staging

• @cursor_ai - for continuous code edits/refinement in production

• @vercel - for hosting and deployment management

• @statsig - for analytics and user journeys (plus, cool experiments eventually)

It's a pretty good start!

Let me know what you think.

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

@SaaS_Weekly's mission has always been to guide B2B SaaS founders and operators along their growth journey.

Each roundup is an artifact for those laying the foundation for their GTM motion. This audience is digging through the trenches to find the inflection point of their growth curve.

And week after week (mostly), the newsletter has been in the trenches with you.

---
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞, I’ve curated over 400 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 covering topics like growth hacks, signal-based outbound, AI SDRs, and influencer marketing.

The roundups have generated about 3,500 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬 across these resources – eight of which stood out as the most impactful features.

𝐓𝐨 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 – here are the top SaaS reads of 2024: the posts, perspectives, and playbooks that resonated with 4,400 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬.

Congrats to those who made the list!!

---
𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬
1. @poyark at Growth Unhinged
2. Mishti Sharma at @clay_gtm
3. @majavoje at GTM Strategist
4. @emilykramerat @mkt1cap Newsletter
5. @cjgustafson at Mostly Metrics
6. @vivekramaswami & @sabrinafwu at Aspiring for Intelligence
7. @AZinkevich at Full-Funnel B2B Marketing
8. Ethan Crump and @FoundationIncCo

𝐓𝐨𝐩 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐝𝐈𝐧 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭
- @IvanLandabaso
- @PeterJ_Walker
- @rayrike
- @kevbosaurus

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬
- Mike Northfield
- Jacob Dietle
- @stanrym
- Travis Ito

Discover the top reads below 👇
https://t.co/HQ1BRHmo7r

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

📣 In about 30 minutes...

over 4K SaaS founders, operators, and growth practitioners will receive the latest SaaS Weekly roundup.

Oh, and it's good.

Subscribe to join the crew!

(Or you can wait until next week..)

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[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

Read the full issue below 👇

Let me know what you think of the design and if you have any feedback 🫡

https://t.co/rvxnbMPsIl

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

SaaS Weekly and I are getting a makeover (same year, new me kind of vibes).

While I work on my sixpack, the roundups are making a comeback!

Here's the rundown of what's new:
• Refreshed design
• Sections are easier to scan
• Punchier summaries, taking theory into practice

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

Don’t make the same mistakes I did
There are a ton of lessons learned throughout my past life. I tried to capture all of them in the latest SaaS Weekly article.

Dive into the full story 👇

https://t.co/OWQ8ntu1cc

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

We all have our past lives.

And mine are buried in my virtual backyard.

Ideally, the mistakes we made and the lessons we learned shape the foundation for future wins.

However, that isn't the case for me. I’m only left with a scorecard of losses and a tally of lessons.

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

This week in SaaS...

A roundup of the hottest news and impactful content:

1️⃣ Carta | Q2 2024 showed modest improvement in the venture ecosystem, with 1,287 new funding rounds and $20.9 billion invested, up 4% and 12% respectively from Q1

2️⃣ Bessemer | Cloud companies are scaling faster than ever, with the average company reaching $100 million ARR in just 7.8 years, down from 10 years in 2016

3️⃣ TechCrunch | Linktree, the link-in-bio platform, has acquired social media scheduling tool Plann for an undisclosed amount

4️⃣ TechCrunch | A social media spat has erupted between VC giants Ben Horowitz and Michael Moritz over a potential news story by SF Standard, a news outlet backed by Moritz

Dive into the latest @SaaS_Weekly roundup here 👇

https://t.co/utgX20Tbam

[Ian Ito @ian__ito]

Dive into the debut @SaaS_Weekly roundup after my 1-month break 👇

https://t.co/kCcq33k5Wi