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- 🫡 The last roundup of 2024
🫡 The last roundup of 2024
Ian Ito
December 20, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
ISSUE #256
Well, folks…that’s a wrap! Here’s to the last (regular) SaaS Weekly roundup of the year. It’s a lighter version as you get some air time 🛫 and I get some downtime 😮💨,
But wait, there’s more!
Next week, I’ll send a special edition recapping the Top SaaS Reads of 2024, followed by a year-end review of this publication (the ups, the downs, and the valleys of death ☠️). More to come.
In this week’s roundup, we cover:
Putting Seattle on the map: Perplexity acquires a Seattle-based startup
AI’s impact on SaaS: Microsoft’s CEO shares his outlook
A high growth lever: Are you optimizing your customer referrals?
Let's dive in!
Ian at SaaS Weekly
INDUSTRY ROUNDUP
📊 SaaS Markets | Fed plays Grinch with public valuations this week
Markets took their biggest post-Fed tumble since Covid (down 3.5%) after Powell hinted at fewer rate cuts in 2025, but the median SaaS multiple is holding steady at 6.2x revenue with high-growth players commanding 10x. (Link)
🚀 Tech Acquisition | Seattle's startup scene be popping off
Carbon, a retrieval engine for LLMs, got scooped up by AI darling Perplexity–who reportedly just raised a fresh $500M round, proving you don't need a Bay Area zip code to build the next big thing in AI or SaaS 👀. (Link)
🤖 AI x SaaS | Will 2025 be the year AI agents crash the SaaS party?
Microsoft's CEO drops truth bomb: while SaaS was built for siloed CRUD operations, AI agents will seamlessly orchestrate workflows across apps and databases, changing how SaaS apps work together. (Link)
📢 B2B Growth | Your 2025 B2B playbook? Think like a media company
Forget boring company updates - top marketers are betting on 10-min expert YouTube vids, short-form clips, and LinkedIn authority content, while turning newsletter readers into sales targets (hmm - sounds familiar). (Link)
FOR YOUR COMMUTE
🎙Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Founder: It’s Time To Quit Your Job When You Feel This!
The Diary Of A CEO Podcast
🎙HubSpot: An Underdog Takes on Goliath
Crucible Moments | Sequoia Podcast
FROM THE TRENCHES
 | 👷 | Travis Ito | Chief Problem Solver at Blue Logic Labs |
What’s one growth lesson you’ve learned recently?
“When we analyzed our client's lead funnel data, the numbers were obvious: referrals consistently delivered the highest conversion rates and shortest sales cycles. It was a wake-up call that we needed to stop treating the referral loop as a passive process and start optimizing it.”
How did you put this lesson into practice?
"We rebuilt the entire referral engine from the ground up. We mapped out key moments in the customer journey for referral requests, tested different incentive structures, and tracked which approaches drove the best results.”
SAVED SOCIAL POSTS
11 years scaling Dropbox and Asana taught me a lot about PLG.
Since wrapping up six years (!) at Asana in September, I've found my mental models resonate with VCs, growth leaders, and consulting clients, so I’ll be sharing them on LinkedIn and Substack over the next few weeks.
It's almost the New Year !
Don't go into 2025 without anything scheduled to go live throughout January. It's a great time to be active on LinkedIn and build momentum that will carry throughout the year.
Here are a few ideas…
TOP READS FROM LAST WEEK
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