Edwin Chu

Thanks for the insightful pitch strategies. When can I get a slot to pitch to you?

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Let's talk a bit about Stripe's usage based billing product from Sessions. The gaps in their new "reporting usage" features highlight why Orb is a *different* product from the ground up (and why companies choose to work with us!) 1️⃣ One fundamental move you need when doing usage-based billing is the decoupling of "events" with "quantities". You report raw usage, and leave it to a different layer of the system to aggregate into quantities. That aggregation layer needs to be flexible. 2️⃣ Stripe's new `Meter` APIs have higher rate limits, but they don't actually change the abstractions - you only get to do a `SUM` or `COUNT`. For anything that requires a real query (even just a `COUNT DISTINCT`), you still have to build and run your own data infra. 3️⃣ Starting today, you can report "more events", but it's a far cry from "raw events" → you get one numeric key, and no grouping or filtering capability. And note that `transform_quantities` operates at wrong layer -- you need help going from events -> quantity, not quantity -> 2*quantity. Engineers, don't settle for `"round": "up"`. You want SQL! This is a data infra problem, not a multiplication problem. 4️⃣ Unsurprising to anyone who's done it, billing on usage requires transparent invoicing - they're inexorably tied. Now with Stripe, you get more precision on your usage ...and then lose it when actually billing -- see screenshot 👇🏽 5️⃣ What happens when you report the wrong usage? Stripe asks you to get the id of the event and you have 24 hours to do so (super limiting!). This means *you need to store each event*. It's the wrong paradigm altogether -- this storage and query is exactly what should offload.

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Don't be that SaaS company that waits until they're going through a round of funding to take churn, retention, and LTV seriously. Not only do these metrics take time to improve upon, but they're core to everything you're about to do: – they matter a great deal to investors – they'll influence the valuation you get - heavily – they'll impact your ability to scale to the next level As an early-stage startup, it's easy to put these metrics on the back burner while you figure out customer acquisition. That's normal, and I've been there before, too. But please, don't wait until churn becomes a thorn to take it seriously. #b2b #saas #churn #startups #revenuegrowth

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Uber and Lyft both launched UberX in Raleigh on the same day. Fast forward 6 months, Uber had 90% market share in the area. Here's how we won: 1. Uber's main KPI at the time was ETAs. When a rider was ready to take a trip, we wanted them to get a driver in under 5 minutes. So we launched in a very small geographic area, and our team worked our butts off to match rider and driver demand so ETAs were under 5 minutes. Thus, we launched Uber in Raleigh in a 7 mile circle in downtown Raleigh in April 2014. Lyft, on the other hand, launched in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill on that same day. They thought covering the entire area (each of those areas are 30-45 min from each other) would help them win since they were first. However, their result was 10-20 minute ETAs for the entire area. So while Uber wasn't available in Durham & Chapel Hill, Lyft's experience was already sub-par. 2. For our team to hit 5 minute ETAs in our small geo, we needed more drivers on the road AND we needed existing drivers to drive when the demand was. So we did tons of top of funnel marketing: ads, driver referrals, and flyers were the best performing methods. And for existing drivers, we looked closely at the real-time data and we'd design targeted incentives. When we saw rider demand not being met, we'd target X number of drivers with extra financial incentives to drive during those times so all ETAs were under 5 minutes. Yes, we burned money to meet rider demand. And it worked. 3. As we grew our small geo in Raleigh and more and more rides were under a 5 minute ETA, we started to build a driver base in Durham and Chapel Hill. We did driver onboarding events, we advertised that we were "coming soon" and we built up supply so come launch day, we'd cover the area well. And 3 months after we launched Raleigh (and 3 months behind Lyft), we launched Durham and Chapel Hill nearly hitting sub-5 minute ETAs on day 1. 4. Uber had local city teams at this time. Meaning my team's sole focus was on the Raleigh-Durham area. We lived, ate, and breathed Uber Raleigh. I worked day and night to grow my market and ensure happy riders and drivers. I answered every single driver support ticket myself. Lyft, on the other hand, had their company in SF overseeing the United States. They didn't have dedicated city teams. This meant when there were events going on in Raleigh, we knew about it and we'd make sure Uber drivers would be there. I don't know what Lyft did, but their presence lacked, and we'd win the big events. Fast forward 6 months from launch, Uber had a >90% market share in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. It taught me a valuable lesson: you don't have to be first. You just have to be focused on what matters most.

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Build vs Buy, the great internal debate every developer product has to overcome when selling to companies of all sizes. I had a great chat with Han Wang at Mintlify on how he sees Build vs Buy. Whether its docs, sdks or any part of the developer stack you will always meet great product teams that believe they should build and maintain exactly what your product does in house. Here are some takeaways 👀 ⏹ Its all about control. You're product needs to increase your users ability to ship high quality product. Think deeply about where you should blackbox vs expose controls to the user. ⏹ Quality. Do you think your product reflects the quality at which they could build AND maintain this themselves ? ⏹ Our job as vendors is to grow with companies over time. As your product matures the gap between what you can do vs what can be built in house will quickly diminish. If you're buyer of docs or sdks how do you think about build vs buy ? 👇 Speakeasy #sdks #docs #buildvsbuy

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📊 ‎Gem benchmark data tells a pretty clear story... The market we're in has steered candidates from small startups back to larger companies. It makes sense that candidates are looking for more stability in this market. These data points were two of the strongest that jumped out to me in our recent benchmarking report.  - In 2021, offer accept rates were highest at small companies, probably driven by the surge in tech startups that offered location flexibility and financial upside.  - In 2023, the trend reversed to favor larger companies. This can likely be traced back to broader economic uncertainty and talent’s desire for stability. Intuitively, this makes sense, and matches what many tech startups are seeing and feeling this past year, but it's always clarifying to see just how much real data backs this up.

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Starting today, teams can now fully white label IntegrationOS’ AuthKit. I’ve always been a big fan of Plaid and the growth loop that in-component branding provides. Building a trusted brand that’s also visible to 2nd-party users is what I believe to be a big part of Plaid’s success. That said, our north star is to be the most open, flexible and developer-first integration middleware for high-velocity product and engineering teams. Our preference is to let developers embed IntegrationOS anywhere and everywhere - in any way they want. Almost all CPOs and CTOs want to offload the headache behind integrations to a vendor. They just also want access to the same flexibility they’re used to when building in-house. These two demands shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. White labeling is just another push to make sure they're not.

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Companies ghosting you is not new. I hear from product managers that in this market, companies are becoming less applicant-friendly, to the extent that they regularly ghost candidates after interviews. I agree with that. But it's not a new behavior. It has increased temporarily because there is a supply-demand gap favoring a large supply of product managers and not enough jobs. But let's break it down: why does this behavior exist? It's not because companies are bad or recruiters are inherently evil. It's because 1) Their incentives are all towards getting the right person in fast and 2) People generally avoid unpleasant activities - like paying a bill or telling a candidate that they were rejected Here's what you can do as a candidate: 1. If you don't hear back, don't just assume you did not get the role. Recently, one of our clients did not hear back for two weeks and assuming he did not get the role at a significant Fintech company, only to get later informed that he was indeed moving to the final stage 2. Follow up many times over with the correct language 3. Always position yourself as the prize. Never appear desperate in your reachouts 4. Move past ghosting or rejections fast. In our program, we emphasize radical acceptance, which means that candidates should get out of this loop quickly. Remember, ghosting is not new; it's just become more common. But at the end of the day, you own the impact it has on your mental state. --- P.S., If this resonates with you, and you: - Are a product manager - You love to take action - You are committed to career growth But if you need help landing that ideal next role, DM me "dream role" and I will send you details. We only work with selected folks and have started to limit how many people we accept every month.

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Tech CEOs trying to scale be like: The hardest transition is from founder led sales to hiring your first sales team. Doing this right will make it easier later on. This is how: 1. Hire the right people - don't compromise. It never works out. - start with sales people. You don't need a VP Sales just yet. You need leads, so hire either SDR, or Hire full cycle AEs 2. Document what works for you - at least you have a foundation. It is the foundation to systemise your sales. It is step one to delegate. 3. Onboard your sales people - teach them what works for you. Make it a continuous journey: 1 - 4 weeks intens onboarding 3 months intense follow up weekly sales coaching 4. Stay involved Stay involved in sales, BUT sales people will give you already more bandwidth So you can focus on other stuff. What would you add? -- ♻️ Repost to share with others. 📌 Interested in revenue, sales leadership & strategy? Hit the 🔔

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Been seeing PropelAuth pop around a bunch and boy do I love auth. Always like new players in the game. Let's take a quick look. Pricing. I don't get it. The first tier is 150/month for 2.5k mau. 6c an MAU is pretty crazy expensive esp given most competitors offer 10k for free... The feature breakdown between tiers is also a bit confusing. Some features which seem critical to building an app are behind paywalls where as others which are "nice to haves" are in the free bucket. Unlimited orgs is nice I suppose but that cost is just built into the MAU pricing. Maybe I don't need unlimited? I know Clerk charges way more per org but their MAU's are almost free in comparison. Features. Outside the usually suspects, (2FA, SSO, email, RBAC, etc) the API key stuff was pretty cool esp if you are setting up a dev focused product. Waitlist feature is also a nice little touch. I think most waitlists are disgustingly complicated for their purpose and it is cool they have this on the free tier. It would be nice if there was a drop in UI to let end orgs manage their own users but I couldn't find that anywhere. Clerk has this but it was a little janky in my experience. Docs. The setup is awkward or maybe more so strange. When i go to quickstart I see all these warnings about framework selection. It took a solid 5 minutes before I realized there is a selector in the UI. Using what appears to be a HOC withAuthInfo, seems again awkward at least in the react realm unless I am missing a reason for this. I'd strongly recommend dropping all the HOC usage esp given their are hooks which do the same. Backend was pretty simple. My 2c after an all be it brief review, docs need a bit of love. Which features fit into what payment bucket could also use a review. Clerk and everyone elese for example let me have a staging env at the free tier given it is kinda a requirement to move anything to prod. Little odd to gate that behind a 150/month paywall. It is actually kinda a complete non-starter for any project. 2FA is not needed for a free tier and could easily move to a paid feature. The target customer seems to be anyone launching a very early enterprise developer focused product. A waitlist with unlimited orgs and built in api keys hits many of the fast path needs for a GTM play in that space. The per mau cost isn't as important here but the feature bucketing is strange and would be a non-starter for me. I wish propel the best of luck as auth certainly needs more innovation. It is my least favorite part of building an app.

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My cofounder twisted my arm to join a "B2B Product-Market Fit" bootcamp. I was skeptical, but it wound up being insanely useful - probably the highest ROI thing we've ever done. Here's why: WHY I WAS SKEPTICAL: Yes, product-market fit is "the only thing that matters." But it's a vague concept. It's a vague, ethereal thing that nobody seems to understand. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can teach or learn. I'd also tried all the "best practices" out there (ideation exercises, customer interviews, experimentation, etc.) and found that they... didn't really work. So a bootcamp about product-market fit seemed like the best way to incinerate money and time. WHY I DID IT: My cofounder and I met with Rob Snyder, who's got founder experience and started this weird Product-Market Fit bootcamp... geared towards MBA/consulting/i-banking as well as product and developer types. In our first 30-min meeting, Rob didn't try to sell us on the bootcamp... he just helped us make a TON of progress in our business. I was still skeptical… But we decided to do the bootcamp & schedule weekly 1:1s with Rob. Why not -- it was more affordable than a sales coach, and Rob actually speaks at a founder level WHAT HAPPENED: The bootcamp is insane, like nothing else I've experienced. It approaches product-market fit from first principles, but is highly actionable. So we made a bunch of progress on our business, but I also built mental models about product-market fit and scaling that help me feel confident that I'm focused on the right things. It also didn't take a ton of time, maybe 2-3 hours per week. Not at all a distraction, with a very high signal:noise ratio. My favorite part has been getting a ton of feedback from Rob and from other founders in the program. We review each others' sales decks, sales calls, outreach messages... and debug things to get closer to "pull", vs "push." It was cool to see that there were pre-revenue companies all the way to companies with $2M+ ARR... each trying to find repeatable pull and deepen their understanding of product-market fit. SO WHAT: Our startup feels different now. We're getting a lot of traction, our sales conversations are smooth, and I know exactly what matters & doesn't. We feel pull in sales calls, customers say, "we're cutting budget... Konko is the only thing we're investing in." This is energizing to hear, and a lot of this comes from the work we've done as part of this bootcamp. If you're a B2B startup, $0-$2M ARR, and customers aren't pulling the product out of your hands... you should apply to the next Product-Market Fit bootcamp. We're coming back for our second round, it starts July 8, DM me for an intro to Rob! (Or just DM Rob Snyder)

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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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Insight on departure knowledge management: $ spent to retrieve/wipe/reissue departed employee laptop: $500-$1000 $ spent to save and learn from that data: $0 Why?

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Why engineers at early stage startups should double as customer success: 1/ engineers at early stage startups shouldn't just write code. they need to be in the trenches with customers. why? because understanding the user firsthand is the only way to build products that truly matter. 2/ founders get this. they're out there talking to customers, solving problems on the fly. but why leave this crucial task to just them? engineers need to feel the pain points too. it sharpens their instincts and improves their coding decisions. 3/ the usual excuse: "engineers should focus on building, not support." wrong. the best code comes from a deep understanding of user needs. without that, you're just guessing. and guesswork is a luxury early stage startups can't afford. 4/ the divide between engineering and customer success is a relic of bloated corporations. early stage startups thrive on agility and alignment. tearing down these silos accelerates feedback loops and drives innovation. 5/ engineers in the trenches aren't just solving bugs. they're witnessing the impact of their work in real-time. this builds a stronger connection to the product and the mission. it's not just about writing code; it's about creating value. 6/ imagine an engineer hears the same complaint from multiple users. instead of filtering this feedback through layers of bureaucracy, they can pivot instantly. this kind of responsiveness is the competitive edge early stage startups need. 7/ customer success isn't just a department; it's a mindset. by having engineers engage directly with users, they develop empathy. this empathy translates into intuitive, user-centric design choices that no amount of abstract brainstorming can replicate. 8/ the early stage startup journey is brutal. long hours, tight budgets, relentless pressure. but this crucible forges stronger teams. engineers who understand and empathize with users' struggles are more motivated to push through these challenges. 9/ every interaction with a customer is a goldmine of insights. when engineers handle support, they uncover nuances that drive better feature development. these insights are often lost when feedback is secondhand. 10/ let's be real: early stage startups live or die by their ability to adapt and grow. engineers on the front lines of customer success are not just coding; they're shaping the future of the company with every interaction. 11/ in the end, it's about breaking down barriers. everyone in the startup should be obsessed with the customer. engineers doubling as customer success isn't just a strategy; it's a philosophy that fuels the relentless drive to build something great. 12/ so if you're an engineer at an early stage startup, embrace the chaos. dive into customer success. the trenches are where the magic happens, where real innovation is born. don't just build products; build products that matter.

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We’ll be processing millions of credit card transactions for a $15B client, and we had to get PCI DSS Level 2 Compliant. It's one of the hardest things we've ever done. We've created a challenger to our client’s onboarding flow to boost conversion rate.  These AB tests will very likely result in a major lift in orders, which would be incredibly valuable to this company. Taking on this project means we're handling sensitive data: - Millions of transactions are being processed on our website - Then passed through our codebase to their servers via secure APIs - And there’s no storing of data on our end We're talking about one of the world's largest credit bureaus – Any breach of their data puts millions of people at risk. So we've become PCI DSS Level 2 Compliant and layered on unparalleled levels of protections. And it was an insane process. We had to: - Submit 102 detailed controls and policy details - Run a thorough penetration test through our systems - Provide countless specs and diagrams to detail how we are handling each item - Undergo yearly internal audits and regular network scans from an approved vendor Thankfully, we have a secret weapon: Elissa Larabee, our Head of Operations. She's spent the last year whipping us into shape for this certification: ✔Identifying our compliance needs ✔Learning how Amazon Web Services, lambda gateways, and APIs work ✔Writing literally 100s of pages of docs to prove we're up-to-date with compliance requirements ✔Assembling a team of specialists to solve for specific challenges that come with PCI Level 2 compliance (stuff like building new compliant infrastructure behind firewalls). Single-handedly. Every detail, every bit of minutia. She's on it. It's hard to convey the amount of work she's put in – Even just managing our consultant team means: - Finding the right experts - Keeping them accountable - Assigning their tasks to them  - Executing project management - Monitoring and validating their work - Doing 3-5 meetings a week with them - Providing daily status updates to leadership - Jumping in on nights and weekends as needed - Sending their work to Thoropass (our PCI compliance vendor) She's gone above and beyond at every step.  And this is probably clear by now – but it hasn't been easy. Being able to handle client needs like this is a huge leap for Apex Growth. It's going to open up a whole new world of ways we can help our clients. To take what we do best and bring it to the next level. And the truth is – when you're a small organization –  Growth like this comes down to people like Elissa. Dedicated, brilliant, willing people. The least I can do is celebrate it here. Elissa, thank you so much – appreciate you! 

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This is some of the best advice for job seekers I've ever seen. Geared toward #SaaS, but relevant to most industries. Study this! #hiring #jobsearch #jobseeker #jobseeking #career

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Rob's goals and progress on contactout and athena.vc 22nd July 2024 Last week: Monday - meetings Tuesday: QA pricing plans, admin,sign and mail company docs, pay capital call community moderation. Wednesday - Talk with deeptech founders, connect with influencers from alex brogan interviewRead about fusion, longevity and sam altman, peter theil investments Thursday - Read about helion, world coin, other sam altman investments. read btc and eth whitepapers, rain ai , lob, cocorobotics, running tide, hermes, boom Friday - Read fcp docs, eth whitepapers, sam altman peter thiel investments. What did I learn: https://lnkd.in/g3D8__Q2 what are the highest impact industries and technologies? study what top investors like sam altman and peter thiel have invested in: https://lnkd.in/gFeutEcM https://lnkd.in/g_ErBh7k lots of stuff from nuclear fusion, to longevity, to a better GPU than nvidia, universal basic income, growing seaweed to capture carbon, building the next google. https://lnkd.in/gYGjbEF2 should we start on researching how to build a better google especially google scholar for scientists: study futurehouse.org and similar and lots of scientists and deeptech founders about problems they face Jessicia Livingston's started a new podcast "Social Radar" interviewing YC founders. Her old book founders at work is really good too. The old YC content from PG, Sam, Jessica is way better than the current YC content. Going through all the startup school interviews from 2012, 2014, 2016 way better speakers. Next week: continue reading YC content write up founders curriculum

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Only 0.001% of all SaaS companies get to $50M ARR. Most SaaS companies don’t hit enough velocity to reach $10M ARR and beyond. This can be due to a number of reasons… ·      Lack of product market fit. ·      Poor GTM strategy and model. ·      Low Net Retention Rate. ·      Hiring the wrong team. ·      Not setting the right foundations. ·      Founder inexperience in managing a business. If you are attending SaaStock USA today and would like to find out what you can do to try and become one of the 0.001%, please speak in-person to our business partners CX Growth Advisors. Rita Jhaveri and Mark Bracken helped to grow Salesforce and Elastic and so are in a great position to help you. #saastock #saas #sales

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You don't need to be in SF/ NYC / LA to build a successful SaaS company. It might be easier to raise venture dollars in one of those cities, but it isn't necessary. Any company that hits $1MM in revenue, growing quickly, with good economics is going to be able to raise venture capital if they want to. You probably don't need to raise venture capital at all, BTW. We scaled Levelset to a pretty good size with New Orleans as an HQ. We raised money from San Francisco, Austin, and New York. It's easier to raise money from a non Tier-1 city compared to 5 years ago. There are more funds available with money to invest. And there are generally more investors in the market. It's also easier and less expensive to build software. So good founders who understand distribution can get to initial scale without having to raise a bunch of money. Focus on getting to initial scale, profitably if you can. It doesn't really matter what city you are in.

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