SaaStr Fund

Being a CEO is a tough job, and you often break some glass. But there are 9 types of CEOs that VCs ... just really don't like to work with. You may see some of yourself in here. If you do, maybe just make a few changes.

RevenueCat launched App Performance Calculator where you can compare your app metrics vs. 75,000 others. We've got nothing to hide, so here is Bliss Brain's data and some takeaways: * We've got a high percentage of users who start a trial – a clear sign that our onboarding performs well and there is a high interest in the product. * At the same time, our conversion from trial to paid is lower than the industry average - there's a lot of work to do in keeping customers. * Monthly renewal rates are low and that's ok since we are not oriented towards monthly subscriptions right now. * Yearly subscriptions are at the median, which aligns with our current focus - we highlight them on the paywall. On average, we perform in line with or better than other apps in our vertical but we feel we can do so much more!

RevenueCat's 2025 State of Subscription Apps Report just dropped, with data from >75k apps generating >$10B in revenue, and it's full of insights. 💡 Here are a few of my favorites: 1️⃣ AI apps are printing money - their Day 60 Revenue per Install (D60RPI) is 2x higher vs. the median, but they must still figure out retention to sustain growth. 2️⃣ Retention is king - median apps only retain ~30% of annual subscribers and ~9% of monthly subscribers after a year, but p90 apps have ~2x higher annual subscriber retention rates and >3x higher monthly subscriber retention rates. 3️⃣ The rich get richer - the top 5% of new apps generate 400x as much money after 2 years vs. the bottom 25%, which is double last year's gap of 200x. 4️⃣ Apps are innovating on monetization - 35% now mix recurring subscriptions with lifetime plans and/or IAPs, helping them capture more value from "whales." 5️⃣ Onboarding and paywall optimization are key - 82% of trial starts occur on the day of install, and p90 apps have >3x higher trial start rates vs. the median! 6️⃣ North America outperforms - this includes KPIs like Price, Trial Start Rate, Trial Conversion Rate, Install to Paid Conversion Rate, Subscription Renewal Rate, and RPI, highlighting the challenges of profitable international expansion. Thanks to Jacob Eiting, David Barnard, Hendrik Haandrikman, and the entire RevenueCat team for doing this every year - it's the best report of its kind! Excited to have Jacob on my podcast this month for a deeper discussion. 🔥

⏰ It's the final countdown to #AdobeSummit, and we're excited to share a behind the scenes look as we put the finishing touches on our Summit booth! Will you be joining us at Booth # 1171? Comment below if you’ll be in Las Vegas for the Digital Experience Conference—we’d love to connect: https://lnkd.in/eA9_YJVu #AdobeCommerce #AdobeStack #AISearch #SiteSearch #AdobeSummit25 #DigitalCommerce #eCommerce

Them: It’s really hard to grow a B2B Instagram account. Us: This week, Owner.com passed Toast, one of the biggest brands in restaurant tech (not for long) on Instagram. We did it in less than a year, growing 4,220% in 2024, from 874 to 37,000+ followers. And the craziest part? We did it with 85% fewer posts. How? We threw out the B2B Instagram playbook and doubled down on only posting world-class content. But what does that actually mean? ✅ We built our strategy around YouTube. It’s one of our biggest organic growth channels, and we hold ourselves to an extremely high content quality standard. ✅ We record with YouTube in mind, but edit for Instagram separately. Instead of lazily repurposing clips, we create short-form content that actually fits Instagram’s algorithm and user behavior. ❌ Most B2B brands clip long-form content as an afterthought. They cut sections from their final edit instead of treating short-form as its own format. Or even worse outsource their clips to AI. ✅ We do it differently. We hire expert short-form editors who extract the best moments from raw footage and re-edit them into fresh short-form ideas. No “leftovers” from long-form. ✅ We optimize for discovery. Each reel gets a high-performing thumbnail and is posted once per weekday. We also set guardrails for what “world-class” content looks like for us on Instagram: 1️⃣ We don’t do memes 2️⃣ Lead with value 3️⃣ Quality over quantity That’s it. That’s the strategy. But it’s worth saying again, none of this would work if the raw content wasn’t great. It all starts with content that’s truly novel, credible, and educational. It’s not about posting more, it’s about posting better. And if you go look at both Instagram profiles, I think the feeds speak for themselves 👀 Which B2B brands are actually doing Instagram right? Drop your favorites below.

🕸️🔗 Today, we’re launching RevenueCat Web Billing to make it easy for mobile devs to unlock the flexibility of web purchases — and make more money. No coding or hosting required. Gaining subscribers on the web is as easy as sharing a link! ⚡️Web Billing brings our powerful subscription engine to the web. Embed our Web SDK into your site or use no-code Web Paywall Links for a web-to-app experience that’s fully integrated with everything you already do in RevenueCat. 👩🏼🎨No site to integrate the Web SDK into? Web Paywall Links let you create a no-code web checkout right from our dashboard. We handle hosting, invoicing, and the subscription management UI. All you have to do is share the link! 👉🏻📱New subscribers from the web just need one tap to redeem in-app — no login required. After checkout, users tap a deep link or scan a QR code to instantly unlock their purchase in your app. Link to your web checkout from ads, email, social and more to maximize profit, flexibility and measurability!  🔄Web Billing is connected with the RevenueCat backend so that no matter where your users purchase, they’ll have seamless access to their purchases across platforms. We've made it easier than ever for you to unlock the benefits of web purchases! So... what are you waiting for? Start exploring Web Billing today!  Even more improvements and capabilities are on the way, so be sure to share your feedback with us to help shape the feature. https://lnkd.in/eDbewvkG 

📣 Introducing AI-Powered Ranking: Smarter Search, Bigger Impact! 🔎✨ Traditional ranking isn’t enough anymore. Search needs to be more dynamic, strategic, and adaptable—all at once. That’s why we’re launching a breakthrough trifecta of AI-powered ranking capabilities to help businesses optimize for conversions, revenue and more. With Advanced Dynamic Reranking, Multi-Signal Ranking, and (Coming Soon) Dynamic Reranking for Revenue, retailers can fine-tune results in real time—balancing relevance, margins, inventory, and customer experience effortlessly. This means smarter decisions, stronger performance, and a search experience that drives real business impact at scale. Swipe ➡️ for the highlights and discover why AI-powered ranking is the future of search: https://lnkd.in/ePhpwpcS #SearchRanking #AISearch #Ecommerce #Merchandising #Algolia #RetailTech #Personalization #SearchOptimization

Gorgias mobile apps didn't get a ton of attention from us and speaking frankly: they sucked. A year ago Andrej Tomić started a long journey to change that. Now thanks to all his hard work the mobile apps are much more stable and less buggy and will continue to improve. The latest improvement is the notification system - we replaced it entirely with Knock which should provide for a much smoother experience now. There was also an annoying bug when typing a ticket message which should be fixed as well. If you're a merchant and tried the mobile app and it was not a great experience for your would appreciate it if you tried it again. I'd love to hear where we should keep pushing. 👏 Andrej Tomić

OpusClip announced a new $20M round led by Softbank today! 🎉 True testament to an incredible team and product. Thank you to our 10M+ customers who use OpusClip to level up their social media content creation. Also just in time for the launch of our newest product, OpusSearch! If you want to learn more about how the Top 1% of creators and media companies can triple their views in 40 days, find us at SXSW this week! Link to the article below 👇

We couldn’t be more honored to share that Algolia has recognized within the Best Sales & Growth category for the E-commerce Germany Awards! 🎉 This recognition is a testament to our team's dedication to improving the customer experience and boosting ROI for all customers. Read more in the full release here 🏆: https://lnkd.in/e8njpndD