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Posts by Neal Polachek

July 23, 2019

A Closer Look at Home Services in Light of Thumbtack’s Big Raise

As a follow up to our post yesterday on Thumbtack’s $150 million round led by Sequoia Captial, I decided to dig around more on the two companies that I believe Thumbtack sits in between in the market — HomeAdvisor at the higher end and Taskrabbit at the lower end. I listened to the latest HomeAdvisor…

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July 22, 2019

Thumbtack’s Latest Haul Shows $1.7B Valuation

Thumbtack, a company we’ve watched for some time, just announced a $150 million raise, which places its valuation at $1.7 billion. Backed by one of the Valley’s premier VCs – Sequoia Capital – Thumbtack has now raised upwards of $500 million since launching in 2008. Yes, I took a second look, it was 2008. Way…

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July 15, 2019

Banks Morphing into “Bank as a Platform” Players

Forbes published an interesting piece last week offering more evidence that banks understand they must go beyond offering narrow banking services to small businesses. They need to broaden their offering to remain relevant to SMBs and capture a greater share of their wallet. BNP Paribas – the French bank that owns San Francisco-based Bank of…

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July 11, 2019

Is the LTV/CAC Equation Obsolete?

My colleague Greg Sterling pushed this article, entitled “The Death of the SaaS LTV/CAC,” in front of me earlier this week. I encourage anyone in the SMB SaaS space to read it in full. Its author, Canaan VC partner Michael Gilroy, makes a compelling argument that the traditional approach for valuing SaaS — Long Term Value…

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July 9, 2019

Is Shopify’s Dual Business Model the Future?

As we posted a couple of weeks ago, Shopify is on a tear. In that post, we said that we’d cover the launch of their fulfillment network and discuss the company’s revenue mix. So here goes. At its investor event earlier this summer, the company announced plans for its new fulfillment network. Bloomberg reported that…

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July 2, 2019

Upserve’s Aggressive Move to Capture Market Share

Yesterday, we wrote a post based on some data and analysis we were pointed to about how Square has used a promotion to drive adoption of its Cash App. Today, we stumbled upon a promotion by restaurant SaaS company UpServe. The company is offering restaurant owners $2,000 and zero interest financing to replace their existing…

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July 1, 2019

Going to School on Square Cash App’s Customer Acquisition Tricks

My friend Darby Sieben, formerly of YPG and now at RBC Ventures, directed me to this interesting piece about Square and its Cash App, a mobile payments app competing with the likes of Venmo and PayPal. The article in ARK Invest, an investment management company, outlines the approach Square has taken to boost Cash App…

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June 29, 2019

New Endurance Integration Boosts SMB eCommerce

We’ve been saying for a while that the boundaries separating functional SaaS solutions will continue to blur. And this process will only accelerate. So it comes as no surprise that Endurance International Group property Constant Contact made some news yesterday along these lines. But first, some context. Constant Contact is probably best known for its…

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June 25, 2019

Shopify Is Flying High

Few companies in the SMB SaaS ecosystem have gained the traction or attracted the spotlight as Shopify (SPOT) has. Investors have rushed to participate in the Shopify evolution, doubling the value of the company over the past year ($153 v. $320 share price). What exactly is driving this remarkable valuation?  Before we go there, let’s…

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June 13, 2019

LOCALOGY ENGAGE 19: Are You Focused on Engagement?

Among the many excellent sessions at LOCALOGY ENGAGE: SaaS/SMB held this past week in the Washington D.C. area was former HubSpot CRO Mark Roberge’s talk on why usage and engagement are the most important metrics for SMB SaaS players to worry about, particularly in the early stages of a product. Mark, now a lecturer at…

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