Matt Price

CFOs don't care about "operational efficiency." Not in the way you think. They care about three numbers that modern order operations directly impacts. After analyzing hundreds of enterprise implementations, here are the metrics that grab CFO attention: 𝟭. 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 Modern order operations reduces inventory by 15-25% through real-time visibility (Gartner, 2021). Seeing exactly what inventory you have across all locations = holding less safety stock. 𝟮. 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿 & 𝗜𝗧 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 At Pipe17, we’ve found order operations platforms reduce IT costs by 30-80% thanks to no-code connectivity. No more custom integrations means no more developer bottlenecks that, with traditional OMS, required an around-the-clock IT team. 𝟯. 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 We’ve worked with companies adding new sales channels (e.g. TikTok Shop) who went on to see $10M+ in fresh first-year revenue – but only once their operations supported rapid channel expansion without manual workarounds. Want to get started thinking like a winning CFO? You need order operations modernization. Start by tracking inventory reduction, labor savings, and new channel revenue over 12 months. Present quarterly progress to your team against these three metrics. The biggest savings are in inventory and people, while the biggest profits are gained through new channel sales. Only modern order operations directly links the two. — Sources: 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳, 2021, “𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘙𝘦𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘭 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴,” https://lnkd.in/g8u36gW7 𝘕𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴, 2025, “𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴,” https://lnkd.in/gnqA_7Sw

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Part three of my blog series on "Time to Invest in Commerce Enablement" focuses on how supply chains are separating the successful retail, e-commerce and CPG companies from the also-rans. The importance of tech innovation in the process cannot be overstated. Check out the 28 companies in the Silicon Road portfolio at siliconroad.vc/portfolio. https://lnkd.in/e_ZMJQ7U

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We've nearly reached the midpoint of 2025, and it feels like a great time to take stock of some of the key trends in VC investment. Perhaps what is most notable is the continued, albeit more focused, interest in AI. In the commerce enablement space this likely looks like continued emphasis on AIs aptitude for powering both efficiency and personalization. Startups that can harness AI to deliver in these areas for retailers will have a strong platform for growth. https://lnkd.in/eqdxE4WE #AI #Startup #Entrepreneur #CommerceEnablement

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Following up on our new Opendock Index launch, we are now showing warehouse activity on Hard-Goods (Furniture, Appliances and Equipment). The Opendock Index shows hard-goods warehouse activity cooling after an early-Q3 peak. Softer demand and excess inventory suggest furniture and appliance distributors will end 2025 slower than expected. • This year’s December–January slowdown came early as importers and major retailers shifted holiday inventory to July–August to avoid tariff risk, reducing late-Q4 volume. • High financing costs are suppressing big-ticket spending and reducing retailer orders. • Home-furnishing demand is falling amid historically low housing turnover. Follow us for more! #SupplyChain #Logistics #Distribution #MarketTrends #BusinessInsights

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Good news for the ecommerce supply chain arena. Pattern®is filing to go public. Pattern is a marketplace accelerator that helps brands sell on third-party sites including Amazon. They provide logistics, fulfillment, inventory management and other supply chain services as a part of their suite of services. They grew 35%, to $1.14B, in the first half of 2025, and are tracking to exceed $2.4B this year. And, yes, they are profitable. Kudos to Melanie Alder, David Wright, and all involved! This is encouraging news for many companies in ecommerce, supply chain, and related fields. https://lnkd.in/eh447efD

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I’ve been talking with founders about how painful enterprise customization still is — even in 2025. David Dworsky and Gordon Ritter just put words to what we’ve been seeing: the age of point-and-click configuration is ending, and the next category winners will make customization conversational. For early-stage founders, this is the wedge: - Own one painful workflow - Capture the data - Build toward becoming a system of record If you’re building in this space, I’d love to hear how you’re approaching it. Link to the full article on this in the comments. 

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Want a strategic exit? Stop selling “cool tech.” Start selling “low risk.” I’ve been talking with corporate M&A teams. Here’s the internal checklist they’re building before they can buy anything: 1️⃣ Buy vs build (and why now) What changes if they wait 12 months? What breaks if they try to build? 2️⃣ How difficult is integration? Where does it live in their stack, how many teams touch it, what’s the real time-to-value? 3️⃣ Regulatory + compliance Does this introduce new risk, audits, or requirements that slow everything down? 4️⃣ Revenue synergy thesis What has to be true for distribution to work? Attach rate. Implementation. Contracting friction. Sales cycle. Customer fit. 5️⃣ Proof Not logos. Proof of adoption. Renewals, embedded workflows, references that match their ICP. What you don’t see on this list? Your technical IP. The "overnight exits" you see online are rare, and usually multi-year setups. Strategics pay for de-risked adoption and low integration friction. Not innovation theater.

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For software startups, most tariff impacts will be indirect—but make no mistake, these indirect effects can still significantly disrupt your business. If your customers sell physical goods, prepare for: 1. Lengthening sales cycles 2. Increased churn risk 3. Purchasing hesitation similar to early COVID uncertainty The impact extends beyond direct sellers. If your customer's customers sell physical goods, expect similar downstream effects as the economic ripples spread through supply chains. This is not the time for a passive "wait and see" approach. It's worth revisiting the customer management framework Gillian Heltai and I developed for navigating downturns (in comments): TLDR: Segment your customer base into strategic quadrants and implement tailored retention strategies for each. The customers most vulnerable to tariff impacts will need different approaches than those in more insulated positions. A systematic triage now will strengthen your retention regardless of how long these tariff conditions persist. While we can't predict the duration of this tariff regime, we can predict that proactive companies will weather it better than reactive ones. What steps is your company taking to prepare?

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It’s 2025 B2B SaaS Benchmarks Report release day! We curate everything we see/hear into what’s most relevant for $2-20M SaaS. We at also included an Interactive Quarterly Board Scorecard Tool in there, which you can use to get everyone on the same page at your next board meeting. We’ve been using it for 5 years at EVERY Jurassic Capital portco board meeting. Thought it was time to share. Here are some key highlights from this year’s report: 1. Retention Under Pressure - Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) dropped to 88% median for $5-20M ARR companies (down from 90%), with logo retention falling to 86% - Net Revenue Retention (NRR) declined to 101% showing expansion is becoming increasingly challenging - AI is making switching easier, forcing vertical SaaS to rely on unique datasets and specialized labor for stickiness ⠀2. Growth vs. Efficiency Trade-offs - ARR Growth continues declining for 4th consecutive year - $5-20M companies at 27% - Burn Multiples are stable at 1.5x while gross margins improved to 77% as companies focus on capital efficiency ⠀3. Sales Getting Tougher - Expansion ARR now 37% of total new ARR as new logo acquisition becomes harder - Sales cycles finally dropped 9% YoY in early 2025 after years of increases, showing some market softening and hopefully leading to growth later in 2025 ⠀4. Lean Operations - Teams are doing more with less: Series A companies down to 15 people (from 20 in 2023) - Hiring at historic lows with dramatic reduction in 2024 software hiring, likely due to AI improving efficiency in OpEx - OpEx % of Revenue is dropping for companies utilizing AI (with some re-deploying into Growth via Sales & Mktg), while COGS are increasing due to compute costs - Founder salaries plateau around $140k median after $5M revenue ⠀5. Market Recovery driven by AI, but cautious road ahead for equity-backed companies, driven by barbell effect - Growth/PE dry powder and re-opening of IPO window drove best first half for software M&A ever in quantity with median multiples slowly rising to 4.2x - Concentrated LP fundraising into fewer firms leading to fewer rounds at higher valuations: Seed/Series A up 30%/2% in valuations but down 48%/60% in volume - Seed and Series A companies are still ~2 years to graduate to the next round; Bridge rounds increased to record highs as Seed/Series A at 46%/36% of all rounds - AI companies command 41% valuation premium over those that aren’t defined as AI Huge thanks as always to the researchers (like Carta, Peter Walker, SaaS Capital, Benchmarkit, PitchBook, Pilot.com, Software Equity Group, ChartMogul, Maxio, and so many more) who actually find this data via surveys, their own reporting/software, etc., and then we get to curate down. You all rock. See full report below and access our Benchmarking Tool here: https://lnkd.in/exT4bkva

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My top five GTM take-aways from the SaaSiest 2025 conference: ⏱️ Ensure buyers understand the time and effort required to realize the value of your software, not just the value it offers - this helps reduce friction in the buying process – Mie Elmkvist S. 🦸🏻‍♂️ Help your buying champion build internal problem consensus before pushing your solution to the problem – Jen Allen-Knuth 🔀 Use multithreading (engaging multiple stakeholders at the prospect) to reduce the risk of losing the deal – Chris Sander 👩🏻‍💼 Focus on the users, not the logos, to drive virality and adoption – Jacco van der Kooij 💥 Update your LinkedIn headline to reflect the impact your product delivers (not only your job title) to attract better-fit leads – Morgan J Ingram *** Thank you Thomas Sjöberg and Daniel Nackovski for arranging! Image credit: SaaSiest. #b2b #saas #software #GTM #GTMisHard

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“For the first time in human history, the cost of developing software is getting cheaper, not more expensive. That's never been true at any point until about a year ago. Ever.” Hg Senior Partner and Executive Chairman Nic Humphries discusses how AI is dramatically changing the costs in a software business, which impacts how software investors can approach underwriting and value creation. Watch an incredible conversation with Nic on Alt Goes Mainstream here: https://lnkd.in/erQGkAMK

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