Gleb Polyakov

Like Stanisław Lem’s Trurl and Klapaucius, we built a machine. This one doesn’t generate kingdoms or artificial happiness. It helps founders prepare for a VC pitch - using a structured set of Claude Cowork skills. https://lnkd.in/dhXab2bz No magic. Just clarity.

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The median $5-20M B2B SaaS company is no longer investable. And the funds investing in that space are drying up. Plan on a 2+ yr runway. I said that out loud to our portfolio CEOs a couple of weeks ago. It's blunt, and I think it's the most important shift in this year's data. Median ARR growth for a $5-20M company is now about 16%. In Q4 2021 it was 38%. Over the same stretch, the growth an investor expects at a Series A moved to 77% at the median and 219% at the top quartile. Their entry point is this chart’s top quartile. It just opens the door for a conversation. Plus, the sub-$250M fund pool that actually leads rounds at your stage went from roughly $130B of dry powder three years ago to $73B. Big $1B+ funds are gobbling up fundraising dollars. That means even less eyeballs on your company. So unless you’re crushing these metrics, you should assume your raise takes longer than your model says. Two things I'd do about it: - Pick two metrics to be top quartile. Not seven. Nobody fixes all of them at once, and trying is how you end up mediocre at all of them. If it isn't going to be growth, make it gross retention. If it isn't going to be Rule of 40, make it burn multiple. - Plan on two-plus years of runway, and treat that as a floor rather than a goal. More to come on the AI of it all next (this is part 3 of 4). Full Report and free anonymous Board Scorecard to measure yourself in the comments.

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What drives valuation in today’s environment, and what common traits tend to support premium outcomes? Where is the SaaS market heading, and how might this shape acquisition decisions in the coming years? How do buyers think about company readiness, and what should founders realistically expect from a process? These are some of the questions that Mario Ćaja, who leads M&A activities in CEE at Visma, will answer during our next #FounderSession at Product dots. Visma is Europe’s largest provider of mission-critical software for SMBs and the public sector, serving more than 2.4 million customers and generating close to €3 billion in revenue across Europe and Latin America. By combining organic growth with selective acquisitions, completing around 30 each year, Visma has built a network of more than 200 independent companies and is regarded as one of the world’s most active long-term strategic investors. This session will help founders think through if, when, and why bringing in a strategic partner could make sense for their company. We will also touch on how different strengths and challenges influence valuation, and highlight common blind spots founders encounter as they prepare for the next phase. 👉 Would you like to join? If you are a SaaS CEO or founder, send me your email address via DM and I’ll share the invitation to this Founder Session. #SaaS #ExitAgent #ExitSession #ExitPlaybook #ExitMentor #FounderAgent

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I met a founder who went from $1M to $80M ARR in 4 years. He said product market fit isn't enough. You need "Go-To-Market Fit." Here's the difference: Bob Tinker took MobileIron to a $1B IPO. But immediately after finding Product Market Fit, he hit a wall. He hired a sales team. His burn rate exploded. But his revenue didn't. His board was freaking out. He could close deals— his reps couldn't. He had authority. He had deep product knowledge. He could pivot the pitch in real-time. But it didn't scale. So he locked his team in a room for a "Deal Grind." They analyzed 20 wins and 20 losses. They looked for the exact patterns: Who was the buyer? What was the trigger? What was the "aha" moment? They codified it into a 1-page playbook. Step 1. Step 2. Step 3. The result: Year 1: $1M ARR Year 2: $5M ARR Year 3: $25M ARR Year 4: $80M ARR They went from founder magic to a repeatable process. Then went from signing 10 customers a quarter to 10 customers a day. /// Listen to the full episode on The Product Market Fit Show #startups #venturecapital #founders

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SaaS isn't dead. It's just being demoted. As users shift to multimodal, agentic workflows, most traditional SaaS products will persist mainly as dumb backends. Commoditized systems of record that agents read from and write to, not products users meaningfully interact with. To replace something like SAP with an agent-native system, you'd need to reproduce it as a modern data store. Most enterprises would rather just keep what they have. Same reason many fortune 500 companies still run mainframes. Easier and safer to just keep it. Of course, this only applies if the logic in a SaaS platform is super complex. If it's simple, then yes, it's dead.

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You can turn $100,000 into a $50 million business through acquisitions. This is closer to capital allocation than traditional entrepreneurship. Here's the deal structure. First, the capital stack. You buy a business the same way you buy a house. Equity in, bank covers the rest. With SBA loans: 90% loan, 10% equity. A million dollar business might require $100K to $200K down. Target companies with $1 to $3 million in earnings. Go to sellers that are NOT at market. Brokered deals are competitive and sellers want cash at close. This only works off-market. Here's what you propose: Seller keeps 20% equity in a new entity. Asset sale, their company moves into newco, they keep running it at fair market salary. You write them a check for 60% via bank loan. Remaining 20% is a seller's note: 10% straight note, 10% performance earnout. From the bank's perspective, you created 40% equity. The truth? It's really only 20%, and it's the seller's. Your money in? Approaching zero. But you own 80% of Enterprise Value. Why would a seller agree? Tell them: my goal is to make your 20% as valuable as the 80% we're giving you today. What are the odds you double the value on your own in 3 to 5 years? Now stack earnings. $2 million average per company. Buy 10 just like this. $20 million combined earnings under one entity. Centralize marketing, accounting, HR, governance at HQ. You bought each at 4 to 4.5x. A $20 million earnings business sells for 7 to 7.5x or more. That's multiple expansion, just by combining them. Close the first one. Negotiate the next $100K for the next business. Then newco sells to PE for 7, 8, 9x your $20 million in earnings. That's the path from $100K to $50 million. If you're considering buying a business in the next 12 to 24 months, we built Acquisition Lab for exactly this. walkerdeibel.com

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Over the past few years, fundraising has become significantly tougher, especially for smaller funds. This, unfortunately, is the case even for VCs delivering solid returns. In my recent Crunchbase piece, I talk about how emerging managers can survive (and even thrive!) in a challenging fundraising environment. I discuss why the process today is more about familiarity than performance, and highlight places where managers should look for capital that others ignore. Check out the full column via link in comments. Curious to hear from other managers who have recently raised successfully. Which part of this rings true?

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The hardest thing in VC isn't finding the next big thing. It's saying no to a founder. I was a founder once. I know what it's like to pour your whole life into a company until it becomes the very extension of who you are. Sadly, the no is inevitable in our line of work. But over the years I've learned how to be less bad at it: 1. "No" is not the cruelest word in venture. "Maybe" is. The slow fade. The "let's touch base in 6 months." These aren't kindness. They're just a way of keeping optionality at the founder's expense. Yes, sometimes an opportunity is genuinely too early. But you know the difference. If you know it's a no, say it. 2. Don't hide behind abstractions. A famous investor once counseled founders: "Believe the no and not the why." Investors usually don't want to open a Pandora's box of heated back-and-forth with founders, so they take refuge in vague cover: "it's too early," "we don't have enough experience in this space," "the market's not big enough," or the classic "it's just not a good fit for us." I've used every one of those. Now when I pass, I try to be direct about why I don't have conviction. But I'm also aware that in saying no, I may be describing the limits of my own imagination. So I explicitly say: this is my read...it's based on incomplete information and a highly subjective point of view. I may well be wrong in my assessment. 3. You're not saying no to a pitch deck. You're saying no to someone who probably hasn't slept in months. I'll be honest, there were times I'd glance at my phone during a pitch or quickly check email during a pitch. Not because I'd lost interest, but because something felt urgent and I was already juggling 100 things. It took me too long to understand that when an investor checks their phone, the only message a founder hears is: "this is not that interesting." I accepted the meeting. They've been at this for months or years. The least I can do is be fully there for an hour. 4. Founders remember how you made them feel. Forever. The company you pass on today may be run by someone who pivots and builds something extraordinary tomorrow. Or who becomes a founder you want to back in five years. Or who tells every other founder in their network exactly what kind of person you are. As in every other facet of life, reputation takes a lifetime to build and a minute to destroy. 5. If you're passing, try to be useful. Introduce them to an investor whose thesis actually fits or a corporate partner they've been trying to connect with. It costs you ten minutes. It saves them months. In summary, there is no way to make rejection painless, whether in one's personal or professional realms (startups are both and that makes it doubly bad). But there is a way to make it honest and dignified. To every founder I've said no to: I tried to do it right but I know I didn't always succeed. I also know some of you will prove me wrong and I genuinely look forward to that.

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Bootstrappers hate on VC backed cos because their metrics aren't good enough to raise capital. Be honest. Not hating, I’ve built and exited three bootstrap businesses myself. But the bar to raise now is real. You need ~$1M in revenue to even be in the conversation. Lots of founders start with big visions, fall short of that number, can’t raise… then join team bootstrap and take shots at the VC ecosystem from a distance. It's okay... just be honest... The VC game is the game, and we are honest about the game we are playing. If you're a VC backed founder keep going, you can hit huge outcomes... people prove it is possible every single day. Everyone telling you you're wrong or won't making it is messaging you from venture back apps, on venture backed devices, using venture backed infrastructure.

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