The Metrics Brothers (fka SaaS Talk)

Aventis Advisors recently published a report on AI Valuations which covered the number of investments, size of those investments, median valuations and multiples on AI investments over a 15 year period from 2010 through first half of 2025!Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss some of the highlights including:AI industry categories includedNumber of financing rounds (2010 - 1H2025)Total Capital Raised (2010 - 1H2025)Median sizes by round (2010 - 1H2025)Valuations (2010 - 1H2025)Valuation multiples (2010 - 1H2025)Large Language Model valuations vs AI Coding Assistant ValuationsSummary of the AI funding environmentYou can follow along to Dave and Ray's conversation by clicking the below link to the reportAventis AI Valuation Multiples ReportSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI-Native products and AI products integrated into a traditional SaaS platform have different Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) than a SaaS platform, which directly impacts Gross Margin. With over 80% of SaaS companies already integrating AI products into their platform, the Metrics Brothers knew it was time to discuss the Gross Margin and Cost of Goods Sold considerations of deploying an AI product:Topics that CAC and Growth discuss during this episode includes:Gross Margin benchmarks for AI products versus SaaS platformsCost of Goods Sold (COGS) for SaaS productsCost of Goods Sold (COGS) for AI productsGeneral Rules for COGS vs OPEX categorizationIncreasing AI product Gross Margins with scaleThe cascading reality of AI investments and build-outsIf you are considering investing capital and resources into an AI product, be it in an AI-Native product or as an add-on to a legacy SaaS platform, this conversation between CAC and Growth provides multiple insights and considerations for many Cost of Goods Sold components for AI products vis-à-vis traditional SaaS products.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI is creating a level of need for data centers, power and processing capacity that has not been seen before - but how to measure the magnitude of that need is the topic for the Metrics Brothers to take on during this episode.During today's conversation, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss many key Data Center metrics including:FLOPS - Floating Point Operations per SecondModel ParametersWatts and Gigawatts = PowerGigawatt/hours = EnergyFirst multi-GW data center named Prometheus Why data center size is now being compared to the city of ManhattanAI is changing the world as we know it - and the Metrics Brothers are diving into this trend metric by metric!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SaaS companies were traditionally measured on how many years it took to achieve $100M ARR - a key milestone! In today's brave new world of AI, this milestone is now measured in MONTHS. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike highlight discuss this new AI growth metric in today's episode with many examples including:LovableCursorWizBoltAnthropicOpenAIDave and Ray discuss how these new hypergrowth AI-Native companies compare to some of the fastest growing traditional SaaS companies including DocuSign, Atlassian, Box, HashiCorp, Zoom and Slack.The Metrics Brothers then dive a little deeper into the details of the "months to $100M" to discuss WHEN does that clock begin to tick, at launch or at $1M ARR? They then go beyond just AI and discuss how Product-Led Growth was once viewed as a key to accelerating growth to $100M and where the reality meets the expectations.Lastly, CAC and Growth discuss one example of a fast growing AI company that could not quite sustain the early growth trajectory that was greatly helped by the hype and the hope of AI - a cautionary tale for other high flyers or just an interesting data point?Take a listen to this episode if you are involved, interested or evaluating how growth rate expectations for software companies in the new era of software!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The recent $2.4B deal by Google to purchase Windsurf's two co-founders, key staff and a non-exclusive license to the Windsurf software is an example of the new Reverse Acqui-hire structure. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the tradition vs new acqui-hire structure model as evidenced by the Google-Windsurf deal.During this episode, CAC and Growth cover not only the Goggle-Windsurf deal, they also discuss the broader impact to the future of acquisitions across the software industry. Topics discussed include:The timeline of the Google, Windsurf and now Cognition dealOverview of the traditional tech acqui-hire deal structureDiscussion on how the new "reverse acquihire" is differentComparing professional athlete's top salaries to top AI and software talent in reverse acqui-hiresWHY the use of the new reverse acqui-hires happen and why it will probably continueIf you enjoy going beyond the traditional headlines of industry acquisitions and thinking about the underlying reason why tech acquisition deal structures are evolving and changing - this discussion on the Google-Windsurf deal provides great content to go beyond what and think about the why!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI and AI-Native companies are changing the software industry and the metrics to measure AI market momentum are still evolving.During this weeks episode, our co-hosts Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss a recent article on AI Metrics by Benedict Evans. AI measurements and metrics discussed include:Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)Tokens - what they are and how they are calculatedWeekly User RetentionDave and Ray take us on a stroll down "metrics memory lane" as they discuss the early days of the internet, and some of the metrics that were used in the early days, that evolved and changed as the use of the internet began to mature - some of those metrics included:Internet HostsHitsPage ViewsEyeballsLastly, the term Occam's Razor was introduced to discuss why sometimes the simplest metrics that require the lowest number of assumptions is a good place to start when initially measuring new things.The Metrics Brothers are excited to expand their metrics-centric analysis and insights into the rapidly evolving world of AI, and specifically AI software and AI metrics!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Figma is a web-based collaborative design platform used by product designers, UX/UI teams and developers. They also just recently filed their S-1.During this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss several aspects of the S-1 including:Customer count & revenue by customer segment (< $10,000 ARR, > $10,000 ARR, > $100,000 ARR, > $1M ARR)Net Revenue (Dollar) Retention Rate Calculation (132%)Gross Revenue (Dollar) Retention Rate Calculation (96%)Rule of 40 = 79 (higher than Palantir)Impact of the Adobe acquisition collapse - an enterprise valuation perspectiveInspiration for the discussion and a few data points beyond what was in the Figma S-1 included:Jamin Ball - Clouded Judgement NewsletterOnly CFO NewsletterCJ Gustafson - Mostly Metrics NewsletterIf you are interested in SaaS companies, S-1 filings and SaaS Metrics such as Net Revenue Retention, Gross Revenue Retention, and Rule of 40 - those metrics that impact enterprise value - this episode is for you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Go-to-Market is a term often used to describe the strategy, processes, and organizations that B2B companies employ to acquire, retain, and expand their customer base.In this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the recently published ICONIQ report on the State of GTM 2025...and yes, it includes a lot about how AI-native and AI utilization are impacting all things GTM. Topics include:Funnel Conversion Rate TrendsAI-Native Funnel Performance Advantages Cost per OpportunityCustomer Renewal TimingGo-to-Market Headcount allocation (AI-Native vs Legacy SaaS)AI's impact on Sales ProductivityAI Spend TrendsIf you are a GTM leader, are responsible for the financial performance of your B2B SaaS company, or are interested in how AI is impacting all things customer acquisition, retention, and expansion, this episode has something for you!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The definition of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has never been standardized - but in an era of variable pricing models such as Usage-Based Pricing, the innovative approaches to calculating and reporting ARR continue to evolve. During this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike cover the topic guided by a few recently industry influencer posts - coupled with their own experiences including:Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO - Please Don't Tell me ARR is DeadCJ Gustafson - How Public Companies Report ARRNotable, Glenn Solomon and Laura Hamilton. - Is ARR Dead or Just Evolving?Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO - Defining and Reporting ARR in a Variable Pricing EnvironmentDave Kellogg - SaaS Metrics Palooza '24 - The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics (especially ARR)If you are interested in the topic of how companies using a variable pricing model are calculating and reporting ARR - this is a must listen episode and provides links to some of the most recent thinking on the topic!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mary Meeker’s experience dates back to her role as a leading technology analyst at Morgan Stanley with her “Internet Trends Report”, she was in the middle of the Netscape, Amazon, and Google IPOs, and became a VC at Kleiner Perkins (2010) and then founded Bond in 2018 which has raised $5.75B to fund companies including Canva, Stripe, Plaid, Ironclad and Nextdoor to name just a few.During this episode of SaaS Talk with the Metrics, CAC and Growth discuss some of the KEY highlights of the 339-page report, Bond and Mary Meeker just released on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Trends - 2025 including:ChatGPT and Generative AI are the fastest growing technology adoption of all time - with contextExponential growth of the AI ecosystemHow Generative AI is reinventing the technology stack and economic modelsGeo-political impact of the race to AI leadershipCapital intensive nature of AI and the operating profitability realityLegacy SaaS companies or native language models applications - who will win...and whyThe Metrics Brothers go beyond legacy SaaS to discuss the AI Trends captured in the Mary Meeker - Bond report and guess what - it includes numbers and metrics!!!Full report available at: https://www.bondcap.com/report/pdf/Trends_Artificial_Intelligence.pdfSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down the recent Benchmarkit B2B Marketing Budget and Productivity Benchmarks Report. Key trends and insights into how the Marketing budgets are established, consumed and reported upon including:Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue including YoY changes and segmented by company sizeGrowth Rates compared to Marketing budget allocation - the chicken or the egg discussionPeople vs Program vs Technology budget allocation - and which company profile attributes impact the resultsDemand Generation - how much of the Marketing budget is consumed by demand gen - it depends...Product-Led Growth vs Sales-Led Growth - how the GTM motion impacts budget allocationTop 3 Marketing Performance Metrics use and the Top 3 Marketing efficiency metrics usedIf you are evaluating how your Marketing budget companies to similar "like" companies or how other companies are measuring the efficiency and/or Marketing ROI - this episode has something for you!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do you calculate the efficiency of pipeline generation in a B2B SaaS company? Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike take this metric(s) topic on head first by discussing both the Cost per Opportunity and Pipe to Spend metrics - key to understanding how much investment is required to generate pipeline!During this episode CAC and Growth also touch upon the closely aligned metric of "Pipeline Conversion" which is a critical metric to partner with both the Cost per Opportunity and the Pipe to Spend metrics!If you are responsible for generating pipeline (Demand Gen), responsible for the budget that goes into pipeline generation (Head of Marketing / CMO) or for how efficient new pipeline and the associated New ARR is produced (CFO and CEO) this episode has something for each pipeline generation stakeholder!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Customer Acquisition Cost efficiency continues to be challenged in the B2B SaaS environment, while alignment across the Go-to-Market organization continues to be a topic of conversation. So, Dave "CAC" Kellogg a long time Marketing executive and Ray "Growth" Rike, a long time Sales executive decided to take on the the topic of Marketing and Sales alignment from their respective experiences as department executives. Topics discussed include:What is Marketing and Sales AlignmentWhat isn't Marketing and Sales AlignmentTop 3 Ideas to Achieve Marketing and Sales AlignmentHow Metrics Can Impact Marketing and Sales AlignmentThe Impact of AlignmentIf you are a CEO depending on the productivity of an aligned Go-to-Market organization, or the head of Marketing or Sales in a B2B SaaS company, this conversation is full of interesting ideas, stories and approaches to increasing revenue growth efficiency.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike recently did a LIVE episode of SaaS Talk with the Metrics Brothers at the Baker Tilly Technology Finance Symposium in San Francisco. The topic of their discussion was aligning Finance and the Go-to-Market functions and included how SaaS metrics can be used as a core "alignment" strategy. During this "extended" version of SaaS Talk with the Metrics Brothers, Ray and Dave discussed several different strategies to align Finance and the GTM functions, including:What is alignmentWhat isn't alignmentReal-life stories on what misalignment looks likePutting "Strategy" back into Strategic PlanningStrategic Planning Frameworks to considerSaaS Performance Metrics Framework to considerIf you are a CFO or GTM executive leader - this live conversation is full of interesting ideas, experiences and of course a few attempts at humor by the Metrics Brothers!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Stock-based Compensation (SBC) has been a hallmark of the SaaS and Cloud industry since the early days. Stock Options, Restricted Stock Units, Strike Price, and vesting periods continue to be a key discussion point for potential hires. Today's episode covers how Stock-based compensation impacts Operating Expenses on the Income Statement...and how SBC can impact SaaS metrics.Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike dive into the details of Stock-Based Compensation in today's episode including:What is Stock-Based Compensation (SBC)How does a company pay/account for SBCWhat kind of expense is Stock-Based CompensationWhere does SBC show up on an Income StatementHow can SBC impact SaaS metricsStock-Based Compensation can be a very complex and nuanced topic, but if you are a SaaS executive, a SaaS employee with stock options, or a SaaS company investor, this conversation and episode is full of detailed insights.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

B2B SaaS Benchmark reports are popping up like mushrooms - but how do you know if the benchmark report is good, contains valuable insights and how to use the benchmarks to inform your own objectives and SaaS metrics goals? Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike take on a topic that is near and dear to their hearts and discuss several key factors that are a tell for a good benchmark report including:Top things to consider when reading a benchmark reportAttributes of a good benchmark reportAttributes of a "not so good" benchmark reportBenchmark utilization best practicesGood Benchmark reports to reviewIf you read benchmark reports and use them in helping to establish goals and objectives in your B2B SaaS company - this episode is a must listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a term commonly used across the SaaS industry - but what does it really mean, how can a company effectively build a customer acquisition strategy around it and what METRICS can be used to determine a company's ICP and then measure if it really is the best target customer segment?During this week's episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the following ICP elements to understand, execute and measure the ROI on the "Ideal Customer Profile":What variables are used to determine the ICPHow to measure the relevant fit of a prospect to the ICPHow to measure if the identified "ICP" is the best target customer segment(s)What metrics can be added to the traditional ICP criteria to enhance the targeting strategyAs always - CAC and Growth introduce a new pairing and an attempt at humor throughout the episode 😱See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Net Customer Base Expansion = (Expansion ARR - Churned ARR) which helps SaaS companies to understand how the existing customer base is impacting ARR growth excluding the impact of new logo customer ARR. Why not just use Net Revenue Retention? CAC and Growth dive deep into this SaaS metric including:Calculation formula for Net Customer Base Expansion (NCBE)How is NCBE different from Net Revenue Retention (NRR)What is CAC's definition of lazy NRRCohort vs Segment Calculations - what is the differenceWhat is a good Net Customer Base Expansion RateWhen and where does the Net Customer Base Expansion provide the most valueIf you are responsible for impacting how ARR grows at existing customers in a B2B SaaS company - this episode may provides some new insights and maybe a new metric to add to your SaaS Metrics glossary!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

B2B SaaS Pricing models have evolved over the past few years with 67% of SaaS companies now saying they have introduced at least one element of Usage-Based Pricing. Though this benchmark does not tell the whole story of pricing, as the primary pricing model is still based upon a subscription fee per user or a subscription fee per user + a Usage-Based or Value-Based pricing variable.During this episode, CAC and Growth cover a wide range of current pricing trends and benchmarks including:Subscription vs Usage vs Value vs Hybrid pricing model adoptionAdoption of AI and the associated pricing strategiesImpact on Growth Rates based upon pricing model usedUtilization of "Usage CAPS" and how they are chargedTreatment of Usage-Based Revenue when calculating ARRIf you are a student of the SaaS industry, and/or are evaluating if your current pricing model is optimized for your customers and your company's financial performance - this episode is chalked full of unique insights and thought-provoking commentary from Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" RikeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Common practice is to measure Sales and Marketing expenses as a percentage of revenue, which in the SaaS industry ranges between 20% - 60% based upon stage, growth and efficiency. CAC and Growth discuss an alternative metric which measures the ratio between Sales expenses and Marketing expenses, known as the Sales/Marketing Expense Ratio.During this episode topics discussed include:Sales and Marketing expense as percentage of revenue benchmarksSales and Marketing expense ratio - value and insightsWhat a 2:1 Sales and Marketing expense ratio meansWhat drives a changing Sales and Marketing expense ratioCustomer Acquisition Cost Efficiency metric - CAC Ratio vs S&M Expense RatioIf you are interested in measuring the allocation of the GTM budget between Sales and Marketing, this is a great episode and listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.