TLDR SaaS: 11/07/25
š Howdy, Welcome to TLDR SaaS! Each week, we curate the best SaaS insights from across the web and deliver them in an easily consumable format.
š Startup, Fundraising & Growth
How to Raise a Seed Round (Disrupt 2025) ā 3 minutes
Top VCs break down how early-stage founders should approach fundraising: optimize for narrative, not just traction. Build investor trust by showing clarity, market pull, and a plan for capital use.
Growth Tactics from OpenAI & Stripeās First Marketer ā 5 minutes
Krithika Shankarraman shares tactical growth lessons: nail your positioning before optimizing channels, obsess over onboarding, and use data to validateānot driveāyour GTM strategy.
Dear SaaStr: Hiring a VP of Sales ā 3 minutes
Look for pattern recognition, not just credentials. Great VPs of Sales bring structure, not just charmāand the first hire should be closer to a player-coach than a pure exec.
The Advice I Got After Losing $100K ā 3 minutes
After burning $100K, a founder was told: focus on solving painful problems, test faster, and stop chasing features. A brutally honest but refreshing perspective from the trenches.
š¤ AI, SEO & UX
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) > SEO ā 5 minutes
a16z coins āGEOā as the new SEO: optimizing for AI answers, not blue links. GEO demands structured, high-trust content that LLMs can ingest and cite. Think API-first content creation.
How AI Redefines UX: English as Input ā 2 minutes
Tunguz explains how AI turns natural language into a UI. The new UX principle: make everything feel like a conversationāprompt-based, responsive, and intent-aware.
AI-Generated Content Doesnāt Hurt SEO ā 4 minutes
Ahrefs analyzed 600,000 pages and found no correlation between AI-generated content and poor rankings. Quality, relevance, and site authority still matter more than the contentās source.
š§ Leadership & Team Dynamics
Managing Up: 30 Tactical Tips ā 6 minutes
From clarifying priorities to preempting objections, this guide helps you build trust with execs. Managing up isnāt brown-nosingāitās about reducing friction and earning influence.
5 Principles for Managing Managers ā 4 minutes
Lenny shares tested practices: empower managers to own outcomes, avoid the āhero trap,ā and coach vs direct. Great leadership scales when managers grow, not when you step in.
Leaders, Stop Scaring Your Team ā 2 minutes
Wes Kao urges leaders to communicate intent clearly. Ambiguity in tone or expectations can trigger anxiety. Deliver hard messages with calm clarity and predictable follow-ups.
š Product, KPI & Market Signals
KPI Definitions in Board Decks ā 2 minutes
David Cummings highlights how vague KPIs weaken board discussions. Clearly define every metric in your deckāespecially north stars, CAC, LTV, and retention benchmarks.
Unwinding Our Clustr Fck (Product Hunt) ā 3 minutes
This honest teardown of a startup that went sideways shows how misalignment in vision, founder expectations, and market understanding can slowly compound into chaos.