#195 | Evolution of Vertical Software, Sales Stack of the Future, & more
Sept 1st | The latest from Matrix, Equal, Madrona, Fred Wilson, Bain Capital and others
SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 700+ VCs, analysts, and operators.
This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.
Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks
Invisible asymptotes in vertical software (Matt Brown, Partner @ Matrix)
Energy’s Next Frontier: Knowing Your Customer (Grace Penders & Rick Zullo, Equal Ventures)
The Rise of the AI-Powered Service Business (Commerce Ventures Team)
The Fintech Passport: Cross-Border Transactions & Money Movement (Nia Patel, VC @ Montage Ventures)
Industry Developments & Analyses
The Sales Stack of the Future (Vivek Ramaswami & Sabrina Wu, Madrona)
Understanding the Future of Autonomous Agents (Amit Kini, VC @ Lotus)
Evolution of the developer economy in the age of AI (Janelle Teng, VC @ Bessemer)
Battery Software: The Tools Empowering a Growing Energy Storage Industry (Energize Capital Team)
Five Key Learnings from Google’s Antitrust Ruling (Tanay Jaipuria, Partner @ Wing VC)
Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating
Developing Brand Credibility in the Early Stages (Earlybird's Insights)
A few SaaS best practices in CS, sales, and onboarding (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street)
Gross Margin is a BS Metric (Sarah Hinkfuss, Partner @ BCV)
Learnings from selling code and IP of a dead startup (Sammy Abdullah, GP @ Blossom Street VC)
Additional Reads
Reserves, Recycling, and Returns (Fred Wilson, GP @ USV)
The Technology Deployment Phase (Rick Zullo, GP @ Equal Ventures)
Incrementalism vs Transformative Leaps (Jamin Ball, Partner @ Altimeter)
Vertical Integrators (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)
Mo' Money, Mo' Problems (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)
Cutting the Legal Ties That Bind (Lakshmi Prakash, VC @ Bessemer)
Moderation in Social Networks (Albert Wenger, GP @ USV)
VC: Hot Or Not? (Alex Lazarow, MP @ Fluent Ventures)
The Bell Isn’t Ringing. (Jason Stoffer, GP @ Maveron)
Did we miss something?
We’re now pulling posts from over 700+ newsletters and blogs (full list here). Let us know if you notice something we miss and we'll include it in the next digest. Just respond to this email with the URL.