The same VCs that tell you “not to chase trends” and “go against the grain” are often the ones that end up being “momentum chasers“. The nature of VCs, in fact, always overindexes on “future unicorns”, so going with the dominant narrative is crucial for them in order to be “early” in a “category leader” and capture the upside.
The emphasis here is on “them”. Founder and VC goals align when a lot of things go right, but if your goal is to create a meaningful and lasting business, the only thing that matters is YOUR conviction on the direction of this business.
As we live through the tumultuous times of the B2B SaaS-vs-AI agents apocalypse, it seems like the AI incumbents are taking all the spotlight. If you’re a B2B SaaS founded pre-2022, you’re best off just closing your laptop and moving to the mountains to raise sheep.
The problem B2B SaaS companies face right now is not just “to AI or not to AI”. It’s about structural changes they need to go through to continue capturing market share and growing.
tl;dr
Here’s what this article is about and what I see great leaders focusing on right now:
- Efficiency is about the metrics you track and the goals you want to attain.
- AI content will not solve your distribution problem. A sense of taste and an opinionated approach will.
- You don’t have “too much headcount”. You have a “not enough risk-takers” problem.
Sara Archer gave an interesting talk in Ljubljana a couple days ago and it inspired me to highlight some facts and stories that might help you rethink some of these problems.
Being efficient means staying the course
In the newest batch of data ChartMogul collects, they focused on NRR (Net Revenue Retention) of AI-native companies. They found that they surprisingly don’t look like B2B SaaS at all. With an average NRR of 48%, they actually resemble B2C SaaS more. That looks like a win for B2B SaaS for now. The full report will be out soon, so make sure you follow ChartMogul & their Analyst in residence Kyle Poyar for more on this.
Now, this doesn’t mean the low NRR is here to stay: as AI-native products get better, retention will improve. But it’s fair to say that high retention is still highly valued, and it’s an ace up your sleeve while making changes to your business.
One of these sticky businesses is SETCCE, which hosted us for the Ljubljana meetup. Their flagship product BetrSign is a €5M+ ARR business operating (almost exclusively) on the Slovenian market.
E-signing is a crowded niche with plenty of global players. Still, the founder Aljoša and his team captured the local market going after Enterprise customers. They have since made changes to the business, including adding a PLG (Product-Led Growth) motion, localizing the offering for surrounding countries, and focusing on “the magic number” as their North Star metric in going downmarket without sacrificing their enterprise offering.
The magic number is actually a SaaS metric that tracks revenue growth per dollar spent, so it’s a helpful tool to stay efficient as you scale.
Instead of looking at your org chart and thinking who can be replaced by which AI agent, think about the goals & how you measure against them, and which team members own the initiatives. The core question of the efficiency problem is the business direction: is your CAC high because you’re forcing a product that does not solve core problems for your customers? Or if it does, is there a customer segment that responds better to your messaging than others?
Acquiring with taste
LinkedIn reach is down across the board, website traffic is under threat of AI overlays, and it seems like marketing headcount is getting slashed left and right.
People are posting more (way more), and following a “marketing playbook” is a losing game.
The simple truth is that boilerplate posts are just boring to read. In a content-saturated world, those who present an opinionated stance stand to win. AI-generated content tends to sound dull and uninspiring, and a “LinkedIn playbook” of the week is sure to be obsolete by Monday EOD.
I’ve recently started following Quartr on X. It’s an app that helps you track earning reports of public companies. But that’s not the reason I’m interested in them.
This is the reason:
The amazing design of these posters signal taste. They show human effort and love for the craft. That’s what made them stick out and differentiate.
In B2B SaaS, the best example is a story coming from Buffer, who recently decided to cancel the subscriptions from customers that are not using their tool.
So Buffer actually increased their churn (for a whopping -$14,000 MRR) in order to earn trust from their customers, thus paying the price for their conviction.
Not only did they earn their customers’ loyalty, their growth marketing leader Simon Heaton posted about it and it paid off!
The risk takers of the AI age are… not who you think
Drawing on the “Buffer story”, Sara highlighted what Buffer went through in the last couple years.
The founder Joel Gascoigne and his team have been transparent with their metrics from the get-go. When the ARR chart started pointing downward, they didn’t back down from that approach.
Six months ago, Joel posted they broke through their new all-time-high ARR after dropping 20% over 4 years:
In a tweet from 2024, Joel explains what went wrong and how they course-corrected:
“Culturally, we shifted back to Build Mode where we had slipped into Maintenance Mode. We let that happen as we scaled and became complacent about continued growth, and as we brought on folks who didn’t have the same risk appetite as earlier team members. I asserted to the team that now that we were declining, we cannot be in maintenance mode anymore, otherwise we are maintaining our decline. We needed to rebuild our product, marketing, the brand, and how we work. And most importantly, be open to changing everything and not shy away from delving into core parts of the product or how we work, if adjusting them can serve us.”
— Joel Gascoigne, 2024
The problems in your company don’t stem from inconsistent use of playbooks. It’s the exact opposite: the same playbooks are plain wrong for the growth phase, cultural moment, and business environment you’re in. Change is constant, but convictions matter. Moving forward, core convictions will help you make the bold moves that ultimately yield results.
Direction beats precision
Next time you see a “copy X to do Y” post on LinkedIn, just ignore it. When your VCs tell you they aren’t interested because you’re not “AI enough”, don’t get discouraged. And when you feel the need to do something “controversial” to stick out, think about the ways you can capture attention with unique taste and respect for your customers and the industry instead.
And if you’re hiring, put less emphasis on the resume and more on the creativity and the “outlier” traits. The good hires are out there, but you won’t screen for them by measuring through the lens of executing old playbooks. It’s time to make bold moves, so inspire your team to propose the risky initiatives. Whatever comes out of it is a better lesson than copying what everyone else does.
If you need help along the way, reach out! We’ve organized 23 SaaS events this year + an annual conference, so chances are there’s someone we can introduce you to to help you make the next step.
And if you stop by Šibenik for SaaStanak 2026 next May, the peers you’ll meet there are sure to help you on your journey.
