B2B SaaS Funding Metrics, Improving Customer Onboarding, & the "Dark Matter" of Software Valuations

A newsletter for founders & friends (29th edition)

Hey 👋

Welcome to the 29th edition of Re:VITALIZE, a newsletter with tactics, strategies, and stories on building companies plus cool things we’re seeing in the future of work.

Did you miss last week’s newsletter about building a $3.6M+ marketplace, solving important problems, and 1 tweet to get a VC to invest? Subscribe below so you never miss another👇

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This Week’s Newsletter is Sponsored by Trulytell

Trulytell helps founders articulate how their biz ​​stands out to disrupt the status quo. They apply YCombinator and Techstars’ proven deck methodologies to concisely communicate your vision.

Check out Trulytell for impactful pitch decks so you can get back to building.

Use code REVITALIZE for 10% off (valid until 8/31/22).

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Top 3 Tweets

🥇 Improving Customer Onboarding

Sam DeBrule @SamDeBrule

We decreased customer churn @heyday_hq from 8.5% to 3.3% Just by improving our onboarding. Here are 3 steps to improve your onboarding and a breakdown of our experience:

🥈 The “Dark Matter” of Software Valuations

Nnamdi Iregbulem @whoisnnamdi

There's something strange about software valuations. Growth and profitability only explain half of valuation variation. This leaves a ton of "dark matter" in the software universe – variation in valuations that goes *unexplained* Let's explore this vast darkness 👇

🥉 One Large Customer vs. Many Small Customers

Gokul Rajaram @gokulr

Early stage B2B Founders: If you have to choose between one very large first customer (say $500k+ ACV) and ten smaller first customers (say $50k ACV each), the right choice (at least for venture funded companies) in most cases is the latter. Why?

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Resources

• Challenges and opportunities of B2B marketplaces

• The goldmine of Google Chrome extensions

• How Shopify grew so big in a decade

• The B2B SaaS funding napkin

• A great hiring example

• A valuation matrix

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Future of Work Reads

• Why more employees are now openly curious about job prospects (Fast Company)

• Who Gets to Work in the Digital Economy? (Harvard Business Review)

• ‘Head of Team Anywhere,’ and Other Job Titles for an Uncertain Time (NYT)

• Download: MIT Sloan research on leading the future of work (MIT)

• 5 Ways To Make The Most Of Remote Hiring In The Officeless Era (Forbes)

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The World of VITALIZE

• VITALIZE portfolio company, WeeCare, announced a new partnership with JCPenney to provide childcare benefits to their 50,000 employees!

• This week on The VITALIZE Podcast we had Shayna Harris and Noramay Cadena, co-founders and managing partners at Supply Change Capital, a VC firm that believes in a future of food that is sustainability-mindful, supply chain efficient, better for you, and culture rich.

  • Watch on YouTube

  • Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

• We posted a table of our investment criteria at VITALIZE

• Open jobs at Vitalize portfolio companies

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Written by Justin Gordon, Director of Marketing at VITALIZE, a venture capital firm and nearly 400-member angel investing community for everyone investing in U.S.-based B2B software founders in the work revolution. Find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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