RB2B

Ryan Allis is the Godfather of SaaS. He founded iContact in his dorm room and then sold it for $169m. Now he helps founders build for their 8 and 9-figure exits. Here's what he told me acquirers/investors are looking for in 2025 (and the multiples you can expect): What Acquirers/Investors Want to See 1. Predictable Revenue Machine: Buyers pay a premium if your revenue can be forecasted accurately. A systematic ABM + outbound + inbound machine that you can demonstrate on a slide deck is insanely attractive. 2. Growth Rate: 30%+ YoY growth is the benchmark for a “hot” SaaS. The faster you’re growing, the higher your multiple. 3. A “Rule of 40” Company - If you’re at a firm with 30% annual rev growth rates and 10% EBITDA then you’re at a Rule of 40 company. That or higher and you’ll find interest. 4. Healthy NRR: Annual net revenue retention of 110%–130%+ is a green light. It shows your existing customers stick around and expand. 5. Profitability (or a Path to It): Depending on the macro environment, many buyers want to see that you’re not burning cash unsustainably. Valuation Multiple Benchmarks: 1. Revenue Multiples: In private deals, 4–6x revenue is common for mid-market SaaS with decent growth. However, if you’re at high double or triple-digit growth (and a large TAM), 8–10x or even higher multiples can happen. 2. EBITDA Multiples: Some private equity buyers focus on EBITDA multiples, often 10–20x, depending on growth and profitability. 3. Exceptional Cases: If your product is in a hot niche (like AI, cybersecurity, or a sector with network effects), multiples can go even higher. Ryan is an absolute SaaS legend. And tomorrow at 3pm ET he's going to join me on "Unf*ck Your Startup LIVE" to share his playbook for building and scaling a SaaS company and the growth systems you need in place to achieve 8 and 9-figure exits. Want to sell your startup? Come ask him all your questions. Join us here: https://lnkd.in/gPtx-RN2

Tom Hunt has racked up over 300,000 likes and 175 million views on LinkedIn and he shared his surprisingly simple tricks for success with us. 👀 First up, his top-performing topics... 🤯 This and more on our most recent episode of Unf•ck My Startup with Adam Robinson and Pete Crowley 💡: https://lnkd.in/g_wUXZD4

Only 4% of startups make it to $1m ARR. Why? Because Founders who FAIL do it backwards. Founders who fail: 1. Come up with an idea 2. Build way too much product 3. Try to find buyers post launch through growth hacking Founders who succeed: 1. Find their buyers BEFORE they start building 2. Build as little as humanly possible to get a feedback loop 3. Ignore growth hacking and focus on doing 1-to-1 things that don’t scale The problem with the first approach is: - Software is INCREDIBLY slow and expensive to build - Our intuition is a bad indicator of market viability - Nothing works when you don’t have word of mouth The reason the second approach works is: - They don’t spend dev resources until they know people will buy - People are literally telling them (with their wallets) what they need to build - They don’t do ANYTHING 1-to-many until they have strong word of mouth ______ My favorite “founders who succeed” story of all time is BarkBox. In 2012, Matt Meeker had a great dane in Manhattan. He thought it sucked that you couldn’t buy toys for big dogs on the island. What did he do? 1. He made a photoshop doc of a website for a monthly box of dog toys 2. He walked around NYC asking big dog owners if they’d buy it 3. He charged 50 people $30 before they started building anything What happened to BarkBox? It IPO’d in 2021 and it’s listed on the NYSE. ______ Startups are HARD. It's the MOST risky career path you could ever choose… But you can reduce risk with three simple steps: 1. Sell before you build 2. Build as little as possible 3. Do things that don’t scale That's the formula for the 4% club.

What's Adam Robinson's secret to Linkedin success? 👀 It's not just about the post. 🤔 It's about the 🪝. Pete Crowley 💡 digs in with special guest Alec Paul on Unf•ck My Startup: https://lnkd.in/ghTYGRPJ

CEO Friend: My bootstrapped healthcare startup just crossed $3M ARR. We’re still only the 4 co-founders. I think we can raise $10m at $70-80m valuation. Should I do it?  Me: What are you going to do with the money? CEO: We are getting our asses kicked by our heavily funded competitors who all have 30-50 person sales teams. We’re just grinding right now and getting out-sold … So, we were thinking we’d just hire a bunch of salespeople as fast as possible. Me: I don’t hate using external funding with strong PMF - which you clearly have - to accelerate growth. But if you do what you’re planning to do, you’ll get smoked. CEO: Why do you say that? Me: Two main reasons. One is there is a big difference between a product that sells and a sales machine. Hiring, training, and retaining productive reps is a totally different business than you 4 pushing product out the door. CEO: That makes sense. What’s the other reason? Me: Everybody underestimates the magic of the Founder Selling. It’s impossible to quantify until you get other people in there doing the job instead. CEO: You’re probably right. But we need to figure it out, and we need some money. Me: Yes - but do you need THAT MUCH money? To let’s say … create a small pod and at least start to figure out what it looks like to hire a rep and ramp them to productivity. CEO: No … not $10m. I could probably do it with $500k or so. But I still need the $500k. Me: If that’s the case, I’d use non-dilutive funding from someone like Nathan Latka at Founderpath, and stay bootstrapped. Flesh out your repeatable sales model, get to $10m ARR, then if you want to do a big raise, go even bigger than $10m. Or, if you’re growing fast enough, stay bootstrapped! CEO: I’ve never heard of Founderpath. What’s that? Me: They can give you debt against your ARR. High teens coupon if I remember correctly… but it’s WAY cheaper than equity. I can intro you to Nathan if you want. CEO: That sounds like a pretty good option. Hook it up! (P.S. This is not a paid post. Nathan Latka did not ask for this. I just think non-dilutive funding is great in this context.)

Someone gave Adam Robinson a microphone again... so obviously he used it. Check it out!! 👇👇👇

Tune in!! https://lnkd.in/gtx7FKnz

Why do 99% of LinkedIn posts suck? (except for ours, of course) What's Adam Robinson's top-secret LinkedIn strategy to successful build-in-public posts? 🤔 Is it constantly talking about himself in every post (whenever he's not 💩-posting about VC)? 🤷🏻♂️ Does he even have a strategy? Pete Crowley 💡digs in with Adam and Alec Paul on the most recent Unf•ck My Startup: https://lnkd.in/ghTYGRPJ

👀 🎧

309,719 likes. 111,502 likes. 19,011 likes. Tom Hunt is the undisputed viral (selfie) king of Linkedin. But something seems suspicious... Does this actually drive business? He's mastered the format. He's done 175M views. That is insane! But look at the hooks: "I cancelled a weekly 1-1 with a direct report." - 111,502 likes "I was in a 1-1 with team member, she said she was going to work from another country for 6 weeks. - 309,719 likes "11 brutal truths your employer needs to read" - 3,521 likes "If you work on a laptop all day...You don't need to be in an office" - 6,966 likes You get the point. Here's my questions for Tom: - How the hell are you doing it? - Why do the selfies of you drinking coffee work so well? - Is this short term gain for long term pain? - Does this actually lead to business for Fame? - How do I get 175M views? Come join us tomorrow at 3pm ET. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gPtx-RN2