Antonius Rittberg

🚀 2024 Restaurant Tech Map: Who’s In and Who’s Missing? The latest Brizo FoodMetrics 2024 Restaurant Tech Map showcases many innovative solutions, but where are the key players in the actual delivery space? 🧐 Key Observations: 🚗 Missing Delivery Players: Companies that ensure food reaches the customer like dlivrd and DeliverThat are notably absent, while non-delivery operations are featured. 📊 The critical role of delivery drivers and logistics companies is underrepresented, downplaying the importance of last-mile delivery. Simply having software and some integrations doesn't mean you understand the complexities of real-world delivery. 🥗 Catering is lumped with other categories despite its unique logistical challenges and large market cap of +$73B according to Cater, deserving dedicated focus. 🔍 Why It Matters: By not accurately representing delivery players and conflating catering with other categories, we risk underestimating the challenges in these areas. Finding these important players and their unique categories can help the industry come up with more workable solutions. #RestaurantTech #FoodDelivery #Logistics #Innovation #RestaurantIndustry #TechTrends #DeliveryEcosystem #Catering

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Crunchbase has released June’s largest startup funding rounds. AI, biotech, and healthcare were some of the top sectors. But what about travel startups? I searched for them myself. Here are June’s five largest travel rounds: • TravelPerk ($135 million): Business travel booking platform • Cognigy ($100 million Series C): AI customer service agents for airlines • Fetcherr ($90 million Series B): AI-powered airfare pricing • Canary Technologies ($50 million Series C): Software to automate hotel operations • Nium ($50 million Series E): Travel payments for businesses What do these rounds mean for the travel industry? Below are my key takeaways: • Many travelers are frustrated with long waits to reach customer service. AI agents will help people quickly do tasks like requesting wheelchairs and upgrading seats. • Creating flight prices is a complex process that airlines want to automate. AI will enable airlines to have fares based on real-time market conditions. • Even though remote work is here to stay, people still enjoy meeting each other in person. Many companies are sending their employees to industry events for this reason. • Many travel businesses can’t operate without a strong payment infrastructure. For example, a cross-border payment between a Canadian travel agent and a South African hotel. What do you think of this data? Share your insights in the comments. #startups #vc #travel #traveltech ———————————————————— Enjoyed this post? I ghostwrite LinkedIn posts for travel tech founders and CEOs looking to scale their personal brands and attract customers. DM me “Travel” and I’ll create one personalized LinkedIn post for free.

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Here are 45 Test Ideas you can steal from RiverIsland's £500M Website ⚡️ Over the past 4 years, we have done CRO for Germany's top 1% D2C brands, including HelloFresh, SNOCKS, Giesswein, Purelei, and 97+ more. One thing that always helped me to come up with winning ideas is to keep an eye on what market leaders are doing. I recently analyzed RiverIsland's Website for our team. Since I already put together a Figma File, I just decided to share it with all of you. If you want access to all 45 Tests & Ideas: 1. Like this post 2. Comment “Sharing is caring” or "Breakdown Please" And I'll send them to you ✨ #ecommerce #shopify #conversions P.S. Thanks for all the support on my last whitepapers & breakdowns. They have been downloaded more than 7,350 times, and I received more than 975 messages with amazing feedback. 🥰 My goal this year is to create one free & helpful CRO resource every week. The more feedback I get, the better they will become.

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"BIG is winning"🥇 - Sam Lessin I can't stop thinking about this segment from Episode 31 of the More or Less Podcast... Mostly because it so acutely gets down to the crux of the Adyen vs. Stripe debate (or, insert your word of choice here: competition, trade, rivalry, etc.). If Stripe is a proxy bet on the long tail, then Adyen is the opposite and essentially a proxy bet on further consolidation and the power law continuing to play out from a GMV perspective (however, I would note that in this case it's probably more likely that Chase is waiting for both of them in the colosseum). BUT, but but but but but...but! What about #AI??? On the one hand, from Greg Brockman on down OpenAI is looking more like the post-graduate institution of Stripe University and we should assume most of those $billions+ will flow through through their alma mater (at least until their shares become liquid). And if it's true that productivity gains will be so impactful that 2-3 person companies will become Unicorns then that too is good for Stripe. Though I think Sam would argue that Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. are going to be the biggest beneficiaries therefore reinforcing "BIG is winning". Ultimately, in the near-term, we're talking about $Billions in a market where the leaders are processing $Trillions so... B-I-G FOR THE W-I-N It's worth checking out the whole episode (which can be found here: https://lnkd.in/gx7tFVEC) because Dave Morin (full disclosure, a Basis Theory investor) very presciently raises the question about the "Shopify factor" and identity layer - which is a whole separate post...

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How to Determine If You Have Product-Market Fit: From a16z & Sequoia Capital's Partners. "When the customers aren’t quite getting much value out of the product/service, word of mouth isn’t spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast (spikes in the months where you advertise), press reviews are kind of “blah”, the sales cycle takes too long, and most of the deals never close." - Marc Andreessen. Most startups that have raised ($5-$10 Mn) Series A funding, assume they’ve got a product-market fit, just because they’ve raised funding. They're wrong, why do you think 70% of startups that raised Series A still fail, because the no.1 reason was lack of PMF! You have it ... On a high level, you've found product market fit when you can repeatably acquire customers for a lower cost (CAC) than what they are worth (LTV) to you. - Elizabeth Yin (Hustle Fund) “You can always feel when Product/Market Fit is happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it - or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company's account. You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it.” - Marc Andreessen When product-market fit occurs something magical happens, all of a sudden your customers become your salespeople i.e. they sell for you - Josh Porter. So What metrics to track and analyze, whether you've achieved the Product/Market Fit? We have shared detailed writeup in our recent newsletter, it includes: 1️⃣ Product/Market Fit Metrics for SaaS Businesses - Returning Usage (Day 1,3,7,30 retention) - A Net Promoter Score (NPS) & PMF Score - Paying Customer Renewal Rates or Retention - Growth Rate - Market Share - Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) vs. Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) 2️⃣ Product/Market Fit Survey By Superhuman founder and CEO Rahul Vohra 3️⃣ Retention and Customer Love Rajan Anandan MD, Sequoia Capital 4️⃣ Do Customers Love You? Net Promoter Score (NPS) & PMF core 5️⃣ What if you don't have a Product/Market Fit? Advice from Y-Combinator partners, Hustle Fund Co-founder and Co-founder, CEO of Mercury. Check out here: https://lnkd.in/dNeNjZ6F . #startups #pmf #founders #investors #vc #venturecapital #startuptips #business #founder #startup #funding #fund #investor #startupfundraising #angelinvestors

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Great insights on SaaS Benchmarks : Growth Metrics: 1. Investors are looking for Top Decile, or more specifically, startups that can at least Triple Triple Double Double from $1m ARR on. 2. They’re looking for 100% growth or better at $10m ARR. Maybe 80% if they really believe things are taking off. And certainly > 100% annual growth at $1m ARR. 3. From $1m-$5m ARR, top quartile startups are growing 100% still. But the median is only growing 53%. A huge gap. 4. From $5m-$20m ARR, top quartile startups are growing 58%. The media is 29%. Not fundable, but still a growth rate that can compound to something awesome over time. 5. Things get tough from $20m-$50m. Top quartile still are growing 38% — but the bottom are shrinking at -7%. The wall many in SaaS hit if they don’t push through it. When new entrants and change pass them by. Other Insights : 1. 60% of B2B startups have already integrated GenAI into their products 2. It takes 22 months now to raise a Series A, and 25 months to raise a Series B 3. NRR is down across the board, but top quartile startups all still have 100%+ NRR on average 4. As startups cross $50m ARR, 40% of their new bookings come from upsell 5. True CACs on average are still at 20+ months across all categories 6. Startups at $5m+ ARR are already crossing $200,000 in revenue per employee 7. Actually, 79% of startups did not increase pricing last year #saasmetrics #growth #saastr #beyondbenchmark2024

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Sifted just released their list of the most promising SaaS startups in Europe. https://lnkd.in/erxJRGzi If you are looking to leave your corporate job for a startup but aren’t sure where to get started, do this. 1. Look at sifted lift of promising startups and pick 10 that really interest you. 2. Based on your skill set, use linked look up the lead of the department you think you would be interested in. For example, if you want to get into sales then look up the VP of sales. 3. Send them a DM on why you want to work for the company and what impact you could have in your first 100 days working there. Don’t send your CV until asked for it. 4. Follow up diligently every few days. If after the third try, no one has got back to you, move to the next 10 on the list. It sounds simple, and it is. Recruitment is the hardest thing for growth stage startups, and no one enjoyed paying 25% recruiter fees. Good luck

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Here are 6 stats that Sam Jacobs shared at the GTM EMEA event by Pavilion in his keynote about the shift from growth at all costs to profitable, efficient growth: 1. Annual growth rates for SaaS companies have dropped from 36% in 2021 to 18% in 2023, and expected to drop further in 2024. 2. NRR has dropped from 125% in 2021 to 113% in 2023 3. Only 31% made quota in 2024 4. 44% of deals slipped in 2024 5. Win rates are down -18% in 2024 6. Average deal value is down -21% in 2024 Plus: Most revenue leaders face bloated pipeline as they are inflated by value, with massive ripple effects for their ability to hit their numbers, and progress inn their career. If your last 24 months have been intense, those numbers explain why. PS: Loved the event! #gtm #pavilion #GTMemea

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This embedded financing company - Seedflex 🇲🇾 looks promising 😎. After going through their website and some podcast sharing by their founders. Here are my findings on how they tackle the two main problems of being a financing company: 1️⃣ Customer acquisition cost (CAC): CAC is generally high in the financial services industry. They don't advertise to attract merchants to look for them for financing; instead, they leverage partners' platforms to provide financing to their users. With this strategy, they can lower the overall CAC ⬇. 2️⃣ Non-performing loan (NPL)/ Default Rate (DR): Since they're not categorized as lenders, I will use the default rate instead. By having visibility on the cash flow/sales data of the merchants, they can provide the right amount of financing to merchants and automatically deduct a % of the sales amount from the partner Payment Service Provider (PSP). The DR can be greatly reduced ⬇. How it benefits each party 🤝 ✅ As a partner, I can get risk-free income from Seedflex and help my merchants to grow. ✅ As a merchant, I can access financing easily and quickly. ✅ For Seedflex, a Lower CAC + Better Underwriting & Collection model. I'm glad to see more SMEs can benefit from this type of innovative financing model. It's your turn to have a look at their website - https://www.seedflex.com/. Comment below if you have any ideas to share(like how this model can be optimized to serve more SMEs). #Seedflex #revenuebasedfinancing #embeddedfinancing #Malaysia

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Have not really thought about it before (and its probably obvious to public markets people looking at very high growth SAAS): SAAS is a fairly aggressively negative working capital business (i.e. a decent fraction of customers will prepay to a decent extent, payment terms for customers significantly after the period's of use are pretty rare, payables balance tends to be less important, physical inventories are near zero) This means that revenue growth funds expansion to a greater degree than just in period revenue would lead one to expect. It also enables better leverage on equity base (higher ROE) For very early stage startups (revenue less than 1% of costs) this effect is pretty negligible without very abnormal behaviour If you're getting towards breakeven, with a triple digit growth rate, this effect is really substantial automatically Hyper growth fuels more growth! Neat! #shipsandshipping #founder #maritime #vc #cash

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The WeWork chronology of madness: ✳ 2010: WeWork founded in New York ✳ 2014: Company valued at $1 billion - a unicorn 🦄 📛 2019: Valued over $50 billion after SoftBank investment. Plans for IPO fail. Due to excesses and accounting manipulations, Neumann resigns. ✴ 2021: WeWork goes public via SPAC merger, market cap drops from $9 billion to less than $500 million in 24 months. ✴ 2022: Adam Neumann launches Flow, a mysterious coliving startup raising $350 million from A16Z (just like that...) 📛 November 2023: WeWork files for bankruptcy, initiating a restructuring process to stabilize the company. 📛 December 2024: WeWork renegotiates hundreds of leases to ease financial burdens but still fails to pay much of April's rent. It asks for $400 million from its historical investors, or else it'll have to sell. ♻ March 2024: Adam Neumann proposes to buy WeWork for over $500 million via Flow WeWork's board orders the company to provide Flow with all necessary information to start negotiations... ⁉ April 2024: WeWork now has 30 days to present its refinancing and cost-cutting plan to the board. Otherwise, Adam Neumann will be in a prime position to buy WeWork for a song 😮 😮 #culture #motivation #entrepreneur #digitalnomads #branding #socialliving #lifestyle #communitylife #experience #globalcitizen #remotework #innovation #realestate

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It's coming home. SaaStock's coming home. To Dublin this October. 14-16th. And we're opening our doors to 4500 SaaS Founders, Execs and 600 Investors for the biggest gathering of SaaS decision makers in Europe. It will be the place to have meaningful conversations to take you and your SaaS to the next level. To get hundreds of leads to help with your Q4/Q1 goals. To meet with Investors to help with your next funding round. It's only been 12 months of hurt by October, since the last SaaStock. Don't score an own goal or get sent off by your company for missing out. Book your ticket or space to exhibit today. #saastockeurope #saastock2024 #saasconference #b2b #meetings #connectandthrive

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Read more on the 9 biggest startup mistakes and key takeaways from female entrepreneurs in the article below ⬇🌟 https://lnkd.in/egQrbh8N

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Finding Product-Market-Fit at scale is NOT 10x but 100x harder. 4 key metrics that matter - ‘C’onversion, ‘U’sage, ‘R’etention and ‘W’ord of Mouth (I call it are you ‘CURW’ing in the right direction) - imagine them as your 4 pillars supporting the weight of your PMF. (1) If you are a low frequency use case then retention is hard to prove out early but then conversion, usage and word of mouth need to be exceptional to carry the additional weight due to unproven retention. More here - www.thenetwortheffect.com

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65% of our new ARR last month came inbound. Our secret? We do one thing every early-stage startup should (but lots don't): Consistently publish social content. In March, we decided that we were going to go all-in on posting on LinkedIn + Twitter daily. A lot of Founders neglect it because they feel they don't have the time, or because they can't tie it to revenue effectively enough. We're 3 months in and it's clear that it is the easiest way to punch above your weight (especially in a competitive market like ours). Not to mention, it's been a huge money-maker for us. We're driving both top-of-funnel awareness and bottom-of-funnel conversions. When I was at the PLGTM conference earlier this year, I had multiple people come up to me and mention that they'd heard about me from my LinkedIn or Twitter posts. Opening a conversation with some familiarity to myself and Unify is insanely powerful. TLDR: Make social a core part of your GTM motion. Done right, you'll drive both top-of-funnel awareness and bottom-of-funnel conversions. ...unless you're in the outbound/GTM space. In that case, social is a complete waste of time and doesn't drive any results 😀 PS - as Reed called out in this tweet, a warning that you will 100% get roasted by your friends for being cringe 😁

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Customer-centric strategies are 🔑 to unlocking efficient revenue growth in 2024 and beyond. Check out how Chargebee's latest updates help scale your financial operations while dramatically enhancing the customer experience: - Our one-step checkout process is smooth and secure, specifically designed to enhance your customers' initial interaction and make it as pleasant as possible - We understand the importance of customer retention. That's why we're offering customizable cancellation experiences and personalized offers that truly reflect your brand’s unique essence - Take control of your invoice designs to ensure they're compliant, maintain your brand identity, and consistently impress your customers - Looking to expand your reach? Now you can effortlessly venture into the Latin American market without the complexity of establishing a local entity Ready to drive smarter, more efficient growth in 2024? Dive into our latest blog for all the details ➡️ https://chrge.be/3UIjlHh

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Ask my partners Evan Allen Blair Merlino JT Benton and they'll tell you I'm a glutton for asking and figuring out not just what works, but how things work, and why. Perhaps it's the researcher side of me, but I get uneasy relying on heuristics/patterns without knowing what's causing it, not just for an intellectual curiosity standpoint, but because it introduces uncontrolled risk into the business. Power law is a classic example of this. Sure, it tends to work for large enough funds over a long-enough duration. To the degree that trend holds, everything is fine. If the trend all of a sudden breaks (some evidence suggests that may be happening in real time), then all of a sudden a lot of GPs and LPs are going to get crushed and no explanation or understanding as to why. As studio builders we don't rely on power law. We constantly develop and fine-tune our ventures to learn and master what is driving their value. We are by no means perfect, but in our estimation we're asking the right questions and seeking the right answers versus relying on a trend and hoping for the best.

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More VCs should operate as business angels with their portfolio companies. 🔥 Make your companies a priority over new investments, ⬇️ Be there when your CEOs are down, 📞 Be the one they want to call when metrics are not looking good, ✌️ Show up when they need a sparring partner to brainstorm on their roadmap. Remember, being a CEO is the loneliest job in the world, really, so if you're the one who surrounds them during the full roller coaster ride 🎢, you'll be the one-in-a-million kind of investor everyone is looking for.

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Stripe advertises a 𝟮.𝟵% 𝗳𝗲𝗲 (+30c) - yeah, but AIPRM 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝟱.𝟴% What's up with that? That 5.8% is the average on all sales processed, across all transactions globally. Yes, international, yes currency conversion fees... But it doesn't look like we get the benefit of (much cheaper) US transactions with an 𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝟱.𝟴% 𝗬𝗲𝘀, 𝟱.𝟴% 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗔𝗜𝗣𝗥𝗠 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽𝗲. And that needs to improve.

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