To understand what a healthy capital strategy looks like—especially for organizations that are courting funding—it only makes sense to get insights straight from the source: Investors themselves.
That’s the strategy that the team at saascan takes when compiling resources to “level the playing field” for innovative Canadian SaaS companies. By speaking with the investors funding innovation today and understanding what they’re looking for within their own portfolios, everyone from the SaaS CFO to the frontline developer can optimize their approach to drive even more value.
See their recent SaaS Map of Canada for further proof.
Today we welcome to the show Lauren Thibodeau, who, along with being the Founder at saascan, is an adviser and all-around rock star within the Canadian startup ecosystem.
Leveling the playing field with innovation insights
At saascan, Lauren and her team provide mentoring, enablement and advisory services to Canadian SaaS startups at almost all stages of their growth journey. What sets saascan apart is that they help SaaS leaders be metrics-savvy and customer-centric, leveraging the latest research to inform all decisions. This ultimately helps businesses achieve higher Annual Recurring Revenue, Net Dollar Retention, and SaaS company valuation.
On the topic of research, Lauren and her team recently published The SaaS Metrics That Matter Most for Startups in 2024 report, which highlighted the key success factors that burgeoning SaaS businesses need to prioritize to navigate all that 2024 has in store. From the expected impacts of generative AI to the rise of “hashtag growficiency,” I’m excited to get Lauren’s take on how these metrics are starting to bear as 2024 rolls out.
But as I mentioned before, Lauren’s reach goes beyond saascan, as she’s an advisor to incubators and accelerators across Canada—including our friends at Volta and Invest Ottawa—as well as directly providing customer success strategy for a roster of startups in her network.
She’s got her finger on the pulse of the Canadian startup ecosystem, and I can’t wait to pick her brain on the current state of startups and what it takes to succeed in today’s market.
Avoid the Generative AI Hype
For saascan’s The SaaS Metrics That Matter Most for Startups in 2024 report, Lauren’s team spoke with investors from across North America to provide direct insights to SaaS businesses about where they can be driving the most value within their businesses.
Both investors and SaaS leaders themselves cited generative AI and it’s raise as driving incredible efficiencies within product development, helping teams accomplish more. It’s also not proving to be a workforce displacer, but a way to enhance processes while demonstrating to investors that dollars are being spent wisely,
Investors are focused on capital efficiency in today’s market. For SaaS leaders, that means driving a healthy burn rate multiple earlier than ever when building new products and acquiring subscribing customers.
To get even more specific, teams need to be more focused than ever on the outcomes their investments are driving, and seek out ways to recoup costs and stretch dollars further to drive market differentiation and innovation without burning through runway.
It’s not just findings from saascan—across the tech industry, investors and founders are all accepting the fact that operational cash runways need to be longer than ever in today’s market.
By demonstrating that teams can successfully budget for 18-24 months, they’re offering a “best case” scenario to potential investors, who are understandably more conservative given the current market volatility.
Extend your runway with innovation capital
At Boast, we have an unmatched track record for helping Canadian businesses capture the non-dilutive capital they need to drive innovation efficiently and at scale.
By tapping into programs like the Canadian government’s SR&ED tax credit, teams can regain a share of the investments that they’re already making into product development to actually double down on tackling “technological uncertainty” and driving innovation.
Using non-dilutive funding to diversify your capital strategy isn’t just a means to stretch your dollars further either. By taking advantage of SR&ED, you’re demonstrating to potential investors that your business is not only financially savvy, but the work that you’re R&D teams are driving has the government’s literal buy-in.
This is a bona fide that companies can wear proudly as they seek out avenues of growth and scale, despite whatever lending or funding conditions the market may present.
