ISSUE #272

If you haven't heard the news: Statsig is joining OpenAI.

Wild to think that SaaS Weekly landed me my role at Statsig over two years ago. (a quick backstory down below).

In this week's roundup, we cover:

• Seattle's quiet talent is finally getting seen → the Pacific Northwest is the infrastructure backbone of AI

• AI credits becoming the new seat licenses → OpenAI, Salesforce, and Microsoft are shifting to consumption pricing for enterprise AI products

• Atlassian's $610M browser bet → Why they paid big for Arc's team and an AI-native enterprise browser

Let's dive in!

Ian at SaaS Weekly

THIS WEEK IN SAAS
Trends across the industry

🌲 Startup Ecosystem | Seattle's "quiet talent" has its spotlight moment
Two deals this week prove what I’ve been watching up close.

OpenAI is acquiring Statsig for $1.1B, keeping the Bellevue team intact, and Vijaye Raji will be reporting as the CTO of Applications (pretty freak’n good!). CoreWeave scooped up OpenPipe, another local startup training AI agents.

Throw in xAI opening a Seattle hub with $440K engineering packages, and you're watching the market recognize what's been brewing here quietly: the Pacific Northwest is building the infrastructure for the new wave of AI products.

Why it matters: For GTM teams looking to hire or partner, don't default to the marquee tech hubs. The best talent often comes from ecosystems where they've actually solved these problems at scale, even if the startup density isn’t as high.

💳 Pricing | The all-you-can-eat AI pricing experiment is ending
OpenAI’s Enterprise plans ditched seat licenses for pooled credits, Salesforce launched "Flex Credits" for Agentforce, and Microsoft shifted Copilot to consumption (Growth Unhinged).

Seems like the math broke: the infra cost isn’t getting 10x cheaper each year for SaaS companies, and a handful of power users drive most of the consumption…seat licenses couldn’t cover the spread.

Why it matters: Pricing can’t be an afterthought – it has to be built into the product strategy as a lever to shape usage, defend margins, and tie dollars to value.

🖥️ Strategy | Atlassian's $610M browser bet is about workflows, not search
The Browser Company's Arc, a Chrome alternative with AI features, couldn't crack consumer browsers (no path to Google's search revenue?).

It seems like Atlassian paid $610M for something else entirely: an AI-native enterprise browser that could become the new front door to knowledge work (The FishmanAF Newsletter).

Why it matters: If browsers become the workflow layer for enterprises, Atlassian just bought early positioning in a category that doesn't exist yet. The risk? Arc's elegant design getting "Jira-ified" into another bloated enterprise feature.

BUILDING THE PLAYBOOK
Frameworks and resources to design your growth play

🏗 Brand Campaigns | 9 min read | SaaS Weekly
How do you launch B2B campaigns that stick

Memorable campaigns aren't about bigger budgets for reach or flashier creative – they're about tying together narrative, authority, and style.

Distribution without context leaves audiences behind: the messaging gets passed by like a street sign (you only see it when you’re looking for direction).

Campaigns that break through the noise reframe how people think about the problem. Salesforce didn't attack Siebel directly. They made "software" itself the enemy, giving frustrated executives permission to hate installations, IT nightmares, and budget overruns.

REFLECTION
A note to the audience

My road to Statsig

OpenAI's acquisition is a huge milestone for Statsig. For me personally, it's wild to think SaaS Weekly is what connected me to this journey in the first place.

If I hadn't bought this newsletter back in September 2022 (almost three years ago now, crazy), I wouldn't have had an excuse to meet Vijaye Raji, the founder and CEO of Statsig.

It all started with vegetable dip

I first met Vijaye during a panel event at the Madrona office – this was back in 2023, during Seattle’s Tech Week.

After his talk, he was standing in line for vegetable dip when I thought "f’it" and approached him.

Caught a little off guard, I proceeded with my quick elevator pitch: “I work at a growth equity firm, but I also write this newsletter called SaaS Weekly. Would love to feature you and Statsig in it.”

A sentence or two later, he introduces me to the Head of Marketing at the time. I gave the same spiel, but towards the end of the conversation, we started talking shop – pipeline conversion rates, lead sources, the typical growth equity lingo.

She goes, "Those are great ideas. We should totally do that."

I respond with, “Great! Happy to be helpful.”

The follow-up

After the event, I followed up about writing the Statsig feature. She said “sure,” then asked if she could introduce me to Skye (my current boss).

It was the week after July 4th, 2023. I hopped on a call with Skye, who was sitting on a couch, getting ready to go on PTO. It was a very casual conversation.

We exchanged introductions, then I threw out some crazy ideas – like scraping LinkedIn for hyper-personalized outbound messaging, something we were doing for portfolio companies.

He goes, "That's a great idea. Why don't you do that here?"

I hadn't considered it, but I was open to it.

A few interviews later, I was hired as the first bizops hire under him.

(The best part out of all this…I’m still waiting for that SaaS Weekly interview to feature Statsig. What the heck 🤷🏻‍♂️)

Full circle

Over two years later, I'm doing growth and GTM Ops, and we just got acquired by OpenAI.

There's that saying: "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

But another quote I've heard is that the right opportunities present themselves to you, and you'll know which one is right for you when you see it – so keep your eyes open (paraphrased from Skye himself).

My Statsig story is proof: taking a leap of faith is always scary. But when you jump, you often see a new field of opportunities you couldn't see when your feet were still grounded.

P.S. I’ll be sure to write a follow-up post about: what vegetable dip taught me about B2B SaaS 🫡 

TOP READS FROM LAST MONTH

1. The ABCs of Notion's B2C2B influencer strategy (Link in Bio)

2. GTM 3.0 = Humans + Agents + Multi-Agent Workflows (GTM Strategist)

3. Google is now indexing shared ChatGPT conversations (LinkedIn)