Domenic Giovanzana

One of the coolest parts of working in software PE is getting a behind the scenes view on SUCCESSFULLY SCALED software businesses. Eventually, you see so many software businesses that 'worked' that you can predict all the shit that the venture funded start ups will screw up. You also can see very quickly if one will 'work' (obviously not referring to the long journeyman like notion). Some random thoughts: -RETENTION: Your retention is EVERYTHING. Even if you bill annually, you need to watch your users like a hawk. Even if you're getting a lot of annual contracts, you need to watch daily logins. Even if you sell a lot of contracts, if people don't fucking use it, you better build something they do. Getting a sale != getting users who love your product. -PRICING: THINK ABOUT PRICING A LOT! In the first 2 years, you should be moving pricing around. Figure out your elasticity. This is a nightmare. It is important. -FEATURE CREEP: I have seen feature creep DESTROY so many businesses. It is the slow killer. You don't realize it is happening because 'well we are just building what users are asking for!'. You cannot please everyone. DOUBLE DOWN on features you KNOW get used. Build features RELATED to that EXACT feature you can upsell (increasing NRR). Do not boil the ocean. -PRICING AGAIN: You can analyze your pricing relative to a few situations: conversion rate, pipeline, and retention. Make assumptions about each of these and figure out which price you need to charge relative to TAM/Growth rate to get yourself to the next raise milestone (if that's the path you wanna go). I have seen so many founders scaling a poorly priced product with not enough use and too low of adoption. This is a failing effort. You are going the wrong direction and you're going there quickly.