The recent $2.4B deal by Google to purchase Windsurf's two co-founders, key staff and a non-exclusive license to the Windsurf software is an example of the new Reverse Acqui-hire structure. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the tradition vs new acqui-hire structure model as evidenced by the Google-Windsurf deal.

During this episode, CAC and Growth cover not only the Goggle-Windsurf deal, they also discuss the broader impact to the future of acquisitions across the software industry. Topics discussed include:

• The timeline of the Google, Windsurf and now Cognition deal
• Overview of the traditional tech acqui-hire deal structure
• Discussion on how the new "reverse acquihire" is different
• Comparing professional athlete's top salaries to top AI and software talent in reverse acqui-hires
• WHY the use of the new reverse acqui-hires happen and why it will probably continue

If you enjoy going beyond the traditional headlines of industry acquisitions and thinking about the underlying reason why tech acquisition deal structures are evolving and changing - this discussion on the Google-Windsurf deal provides great content to go beyond what and think about the why!!!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI and AI-Native companies are changing the software industry and the metrics to measure AI market momentum are still evolving.

During this weeks episode, our co-hosts Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss a recent article on AI Metrics by Benedict Evans. AI measurements and metrics discussed include:

• Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)
• Tokens - what they are and how they are calculated
• Weekly User Retention

Dave and Ray take us on a stroll down "metrics memory lane" as they discuss the early days of the internet, and some of the metrics that were used in the early days, that evolved and changed as the use of the internet began to mature - some of those metrics included:

• Internet Hosts
• Hits
• Page Views
• Eyeballs

Lastly, the term Occam's Razor was introduced to discuss why sometimes the simplest metrics that require the lowest number of assumptions is a good place to start when initially measuring new things.

The Metrics Brothers are excited to expand their metrics-centric analysis and insights into the rapidly evolving world of AI, and specifically AI software and AI metrics!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Figma is a web-based collaborative design platform used by product designers, UX/UI teams and developers. They also just recently filed their S-1.

During this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss several aspects of the S-1 including:

• Customer count & revenue by customer segment (< $10,000 ARR, > $10,000 ARR, > $100,000 ARR, > $1M ARR)
• Net Revenue (Dollar) Retention Rate Calculation (132%)
• Gross Revenue (Dollar) Retention Rate Calculation (96%)
• Rule of 40 = 79 (higher than Palantir)
• Impact of the Adobe acquisition collapse - an enterprise valuation perspective

Inspiration for the discussion and a few data points beyond what was in the Figma S-1 included:

• Jamin Ball - Clouded Judgement Newsletter
• Only CFO Newsletter
• CJ Gustafson - Mostly Metrics Newsletter

If you are interested in SaaS companies, S-1 filings and SaaS Metrics such as Net Revenue Retention, Gross Revenue Retention, and Rule of 40 - those metrics that impact enterprise value - this episode is for you!!!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Go-to-Market is a term often used to describe the strategy, processes, and organizations that B2B companies employ to acquire, retain, and expand their customer base.

In this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the recently published ICONIQ report on the State of GTM 2025...and yes, it includes a lot about how AI-native and AI utilization are impacting all things GTM.

Topics include:

• Funnel Conversion Rate Trends
• AI-Native Funnel Performance Advantages
• Cost per Opportunity
• Customer Renewal Timing
• Go-to-Market Headcount allocation (AI-Native vs Legacy SaaS)
• AI's impact on Sales Productivity
• AI Spend Trends

If you are a GTM leader, are responsible for the financial performance of your B2B SaaS company, or are interested in how AI is impacting all things customer acquisition, retention, and expansion, this episode has something for you!!!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The definition of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) has never been standardized - but in an era of variable pricing models such as Usage-Based Pricing, the innovative approaches to calculating and reporting ARR continue to evolve. During this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike cover the topic guided by a few recently industry influencer posts - coupled with their own experiences including:

• Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO - Please Don't Tell me ARR is Dead
• CJ Gustafson - How Public Companies Report ARR
• Notable, Glenn Solomon and Laura Hamilton. - Is ARR Dead or Just Evolving?
• Ben Murray, The SaaS CFO - Defining and Reporting ARR in a Variable Pricing Environment
• Dave Kellogg - SaaS Metrics Palooza '24 - The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics (especially ARR)

If you are interested in the topic of how companies using a variable pricing model are calculating and reporting ARR - this is a must listen episode and provides links to some of the most recent thinking on the topic!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mary Meeker’s experience dates back to her role as a leading technology analyst at Morgan Stanley with her “Internet Trends Report”, she was in the middle of the Netscape, Amazon, and Google IPOs, and became a VC at Kleiner Perkins (2010) and then founded Bond in 2018 which has raised $5.75B to fund companies including Canva, Stripe, Plaid, Ironclad and Nextdoor to name just a few.

During this episode of SaaS Talk with the Metrics, CAC and Growth discuss some of the KEY highlights of the 339-page report, Bond and Mary Meeker just released on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Trends - 2025 including:

• ChatGPT and Generative AI are the fastest growing technology adoption of all time - with context
• Exponential growth of the AI ecosystem
• How Generative AI is reinventing the technology stack and economic models
• Geo-political impact of the race to AI leadership
• Capital intensive nature of AI and the operating profitability reality
• Legacy SaaS companies or native language models applications - who will win...and why

The Metrics Brothers go beyond legacy SaaS to discuss the AI Trends captured in the Mary Meeker - Bond report and guess what - it includes numbers and metrics!!!

Full report available at: https://www.bondcap.com/report/pdf/Trends_Artificial_Intelligence.pdf

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down the recent Benchmarkit B2B Marketing Budget and Productivity Benchmarks Report. Key trends and insights into how the Marketing budgets are established, consumed and reported upon including:

• Marketing budget as a percentage of revenue including YoY changes and segmented by company size
• Growth Rates compared to Marketing budget allocation - the chicken or the egg discussion
• People vs Program vs Technology budget allocation - and which company profile attributes impact the results
• Demand Generation - how much of the Marketing budget is consumed by demand gen - it depends...
• Product-Led Growth vs Sales-Led Growth - how the GTM motion impacts budget allocation
• Top 3 Marketing Performance Metrics use and the Top 3 Marketing efficiency metrics used

If you are evaluating how your Marketing budget companies to similar "like" companies or how other companies are measuring the efficiency and/or Marketing ROI - this episode has something for you!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do you calculate the efficiency of pipeline generation in a B2B SaaS company? Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike take this metric(s) topic on head first by discussing both the Cost per Opportunity and Pipe to Spend metrics - key to understanding how much investment is required to generate pipeline!

During this episode CAC and Growth also touch upon the closely aligned metric of "Pipeline Conversion" which is a critical metric to partner with both the Cost per Opportunity and the Pipe to Spend metrics!

If you are responsible for generating pipeline (Demand Gen), responsible for the budget that goes into pipeline generation (Head of Marketing / CMO) or for how efficient new pipeline and the associated New ARR is produced (CFO and CEO) this episode has something for each pipeline generation stakeholder!!!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.