Intercom gave up about $60 million of contracted seat-based ARR to put the whole company behind Fin.
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Sam Jacobs said on Topline"35% growth on a SaaS business is better than 35% growth on an agentic business" because of gross margins; with CAC flat and margins halved, agentic companies need massive retention.ListenMetrics & finance
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35% growth on a SaaS business is better than 35% growth on an agentic business because of gross margins. Listen
Sam Jacobs cautions against celebrating headline growth rates from AI businesses without comparing their margins to SaaS. He says cash flow and margin structure matter, and that markets are currently pricing growth in a period of enthusiasm.
“just understand 35% growth on a SaaS business is better than 35% growth on an agentic business because of gross margins.”
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Agentic businesses have much lower gross margins than SaaS, so they need to grow at exponential rates. Listen
Sam Jacobs says SaaS businesses run at around 90% gross margins while proactive, compute-heavy agents do not. He describes the shift as trading a good business for a worse one. AJ Bruno later adds that this is largely ignored by the VC community, which assumes costs will go down.
“You have to grow at exponential rates as an agentic business because your gross margins are so much lower than SaaS.”
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If CAC stays flat and gross margin is halved, an agentic business needs much stronger retention to recoup its investment in each customer. Listen
Sam Jacobs walks through the unit economics of an agentic business. With customer acquisition cost unchanged and gross margins cut in half, he says the company needs massive retention and higher growth than a SaaS business would to recover its investment in a customer.
“That means if CAC remains the same and gross margins are cut in half, you are going to need massive retention.”
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AJ Bruno Bruno said on ToplineBefore its reset, Intercom had five straight quarters of zero net new ARR growth, a crisis that made a wartime focus on AI possible.ListenMetrics & finance
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Intercom had five straight quarters of zero net new ARR growth before its reset. Listen
AJ Bruno says that before Intercom's public relaunch, the company had five consecutive quarters of zero net new ARR growth and was approaching negative growth. He says this created a crisis that made a wartime focus on AI possible.
“Intercom had five straight quarters of zero net new ARR growth.”
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Intercom gave up about $60 million of contracted seat-based ARR and moved all its marketing and staffing behind Fin. Listen
Sam Jacobs says Intercom gave up about $60 million of contracted seat-based ARR to back Fin. The company moved its marketing and energy to Fin and staffed the team building it, which he describes as pivoting the whole organisation rather than a single product.
“I think he said he gave up 60 million of contracted seat based ARR. They moved all of their marketing, every bit of energy, they staffed the team that was working on Fin.”
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AJ Bruno Bruno said on ToplineQuotaPath's board is happy with roughly 50% growth, but he believes the company is dead in the water in 2027 if it doesn't act now; a co-host framed this as being willing to miss Q2 for 2027 and 2028 in order to have a company in 2028.ListenLeadership & culture
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QuotaPath's board is happy with 50% growth, but he believes the company is dead in the water in 2027 if it doesn't act now. Listen
AJ Bruno says the board is happy with QuotaPath's roughly 50% year-over-year growth, but he believes the company is screwed in 2027 if it does not fix things now. A co-host responds that this means being willing to tell the team they will miss Q2 for 2027 and 2028, lower the goal and rewrite the plan.
“I'm willing to miss Q2 for 2027 and 2028. I want to have a company in 2028.”
This quote could not be matched to the transcript. Treat it as a paraphrase.
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Chris Vik said on Revenue BuildersPlanning and preparation take 90 to 95 percent of pipeline generation time, yet no one teaches reps how to plan, so preparation is the first thing to fix.ListenSales team, hiring & comp
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Planning and preparation make up around 90 to 95 percent of the time spent on pipeline generation, by Chris Vik's estimate. Listen
Chris Vik said that when he asks people what takes the most time in pipeline generation, the answer is planning and preparation, yet no one tells reps how to plan. As a rep he had a cappuccino moment every Sunday: two hours on his own at Starbucks doing account research to build a why you, why now that he could send out that Sunday, before automation existed. He tells reps he does not care how they do their account research.
“it's typically 90 to 95 percent is the planning and preparation”
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Unprepared reps show up to pipeline calling days with low activity and a poor attitude, so preparation is the first thing to fix. Listen
Chris Vik said people often do not prepare because they do not know who to call, or because a first-line leader did not inspect whether an account fits the ICP. He said reps should check with channel partners whether they have any relationship in an account before calling. He said unprepared reps treat the calling day as a Hail Mary, while prepared reps have a better attitude.
“it was just a Hail Mary if you're going to get the right number on PG Tuesday”
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Christina Meng said on [Un]ChurnedOpenAI's champion program dropped attendance metrics and now measures activation as weekly active usage over enabled seats, betting on sustained activation.ListenMetrics & finance
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OpenAI defines activation as weekly active usage over enabled seats. Listen
Christina Meng said the champion program moved from measuring attendance and engagement, which was what marketing focused on, toward operational rigor on activation and sustained activation. She said the program is aligned to driving activation and sustained activation as its main bet.
“Weekly active usage over enabled.”
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Customers building internal champion networks is a way to sustain AI adoption after initial excitement. Listen
Christina Meng said initial excitement around AI is expected, but adoption then tends to tail off or become very uneven. She said many OpenAI customers are building their own internal champion networks as a way to sustain adoption.
“I think that is a crucial way to sustain adoption because what we're seeing is that there's initial excitement, of course there is”
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From 3 episodes that week, checked against their transcripts.
Most discussed this week: Retention & customer successMetrics & financeStrategy & market