It\u2019s time to employ yourself \ud83d\ude09<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech companies laid off 160,000 workers in 2022, and 100,000 more this year, according to Layoffs.fyi<\/a>. The bright side is that laid-off employees are starting their own companies, leading to a surge in startups, according to a Wired story. As Henry Kirk, who was an engineering leader at Google, posted on LinkedIn, he turned the tragedy into an opportunity with six \u201coutstanding xooglers\u201d. \u201cThe golden handcuffs are off, and I can do whatever I want now,\u201d says Jen Zhu, another laid-off techie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another fallout of the tech layoffs is a loosening of admission rules by US business schools. Top MBA programs have waived standardized test requirements, GMAT\/GRE test scores, and application fees for terminated workers, reports Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n Sequoia shifted its perception about being a growth-stage VC by launching an early-stage focused accelerator program in India and Southeast Asia four years back. Investing up to $3 million in its startups, and drawing upon the VC firm\u2019s vast resources, Surge began to outpace Y Combinator which had made attractive early bets in India like Meesho and Razorpay. Now Surge appears to have a higher strike rate<\/a> than YC in India. Although it is yet to mint a unicorn, Surge portfolio firms have raised over $2 billion in follow-on funding. The likes of Doubtnut, Scaler, Khatabook, ShopUp, Bijak, Classplus, Hevo Data, InVideo, Juno, BukuKas, Atlan, LambdaTest, Plum, Absolute, and ApnaKlub have raised multiple rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silicon Valley Bank shares tanked 60% on Thursday and continued to fall in after-hours trading, reports TechCrunch<\/a>. This came after a press release disclosing it sold its entire available-for-sale bond portfolio at a loss of $1.8 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason for this drastic action is that deposits shrank as startups, who are its main customers, withdrew money at a fast clip to cover their cash burn. They\u2019re facing a liquidity crunch brought on by US Fed interest rate hikes. Earlier, deposits had soared in the low interest rate period after the pandemic which had made startup valuations skyrocket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now SVB is trying to raise $2.25 billion of fresh capital to stabilize its situation and stave off a run on the bank. VCs like Founders Fund have advised their portfolio companies<\/a> to withdraw money, which is making matters worse for SVB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What spooked SVB depositors and stock investors even more is that its press release coincided with an announcement by Silvergate<\/a> of its liquidation. The crypto bank had to wind down operations after being hit by customer withdrawals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the US Fed chairman\u2019s statement that interest rate hikes may go higher<\/a> because of inflationary signals threw fuel into the fire. Investors reacted to the statement by driving down stock prices of public cloud software companies. The likes of Datadog and Snowflake, who have adopted a usage-based model, felt the pinch harder. That\u2019s because enterprises may tighten their cloud purse strings while liquidity remains tight.To make matters worse for Datadog, its software had an outage on Wednesday<\/a>, which directly impacts revenue in a usage-based model. However, the long-term trend appears to be a switch to usage-based SaaS models<\/a> despite these hiccups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amidst all the talk of inflation, recession, and liquidity, here\u2019s something positive. A report<\/a> by Ernst & Young in partnership with Upekkha Value SaaS Accelerator says that eight out of 10 Indian SaaS companies have a burn multiple of under 1.5x. Indian B2B SaaS is twice as capital efficient compared to its global counterparts, says the report. This puts them in a good position when \u2018profitable growth\u2019 becomes the talking point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep It Simple, Stupid. From starting out with a low-code platform, before its time had come, to pivoting to the workflow platform, Kissflow, and pivoting back to low-code – one of the core leaders of SaaSBOOMi, Kissflow founder Suresh Sambandam goes into his journey and that of SaaS, as a guest on the Forbes Startup Fridays podcast<\/a>. One of his bon mots – what Kiss stands for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Suresh shares his dream of making Kissflow one of the top two in its category, his goal of $100 million ARR rather than aspiring for valuation, and his firm belief that Indian SaaS can deliver $1 trillion in value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AWS of fintech<\/a>: Meet Prabhu Rangarajan, co-founder of M2P Fintech, providing API infrastructure for payments, lending, and banking, on Suresh\u2019s Founder\u2019s Deep-Dive podcast<\/a>. How did M2P Fintech scale at a breakneck speed from a 60-member company before the pandemic to a 1200-member company now? Find out how they disprove the adage that too many cooks spoil the broth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our latest Founder\u2019s Playbook feature<\/a> the experience of a Guwahati SaaS startup, whose employee engagement product has been deployed in India\u2019s IT services giants as well as Fortune 500 companies. Its secret sauce? Content marketing. A necessity to be frugal forced Vantage Circle to commit to content marketing five years ago, instead of splurging on paid marketing. Today it has a 50-member content marketing team and its HR blog in six international languages gets 2 million monthly unique visitors, generating most of its sales leads from across the world. Vantage Circle co-founder and CTO Anjan Pathak shares five secrets to success in content marketing<\/a>, which he learned the hard way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While generative AI tools like ChatGPT have become the latest craze, after cryptocurrency, there\u2019s a dark side. Cybersecurity firm Darktrace claims<\/a> that phishing scams have become more sophisticated since the release of ChatGPT. Hackers are sending email that sounds more convincing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the genie is already out of the bottle. Multiple fields are seeing a paradigm shift, including the legal profession. Large law firms are using ChatGPT<\/a> to research and write legal documents. What could go wrong? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mindful of growing concerns, the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAi, and others have signed up to a new set of guidelines<\/a> on building and using AI tools more responsibly, says a piece in the MIT Technology Review<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dev.matsio.com\/matsio\/saasboomi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/image-7.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSequoia\u2019s Surge is actually surging<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
SVB in an SOS situation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
SaaS feels the pinch<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Capital burns are real!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Kissflow story<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Underestimated value of content marketing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Scams powered by AI<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Survive and thrive<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n