Hi everyone 👋,

I’m excited to share the 50th SandHill.io digest! It’s crazy to think this project is almost a year old.

My goal with these digests has been to share the latest insights & theses from investors and sector experts. I’ve heard from several subscribers that this has served as a great way to meet other investors and founders with overlapping focus areas and the founders amongst us have found it as a helpful resource to identify relevant investors.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching a new interview series focused primarily on enabling investors to share their current focus areas & any theses they are pursuing. Think of it as a low-lift way to share areas you are interested in without needing to write & promote a long-form blog post.

If you’re an investor (VC or angel) and would be interested in sharing where you’re spending your time & capital, please reach out and we’d love to share your insights. Just reply to this email with an “I’m interested” and I’ll follow up with more details on next steps.

Ali

Investment Themes, Theses & Outlooks

• How to Move Money in the 21st Century (Seema Amble & David Haber, A16Z)

• The Rising Consumer Demand for Data Privacy and Autonomy (Konstantine Buhler, Partner @ Sequoia)

• The Next Frontier of Customer Success Software (Sam Baker, VP @ Scale)

• Embedded Fintech: Which financial services should be embedded? (Part II) (Medha Agarwal, Emily Man, & Urvashi Barooah, Redpoint)

Industry Developments & Analyses

• State of Marketplace Report 2021 (Roger Lee, Justin Da Rosa, Courtney Chow, & Avik Wadhwa, Battery Ventures)

• The Rise Of Many in Consumer Fintech (Anish Acharya, Sumeet Singh, & Alex Immerman, A16Z)

• Breaking Through The (DevTool) Noise (Amanda Robson, Principal @ Cowboy)

• Learning, earning, and web3 - why I'm jumping in (Jomayra Herrera, Partner @ Reach Capital)

• Web3, Crypto & Learning (Mercedes Bent, Partner @ Lightspeed)

• DAOs, A Canon (Sonal Chokshi, Zoran Basich, & Guy Wuollet, A16Z)

Guides, Case Studies, & Best Practices for Operating

• Measures of Success: SaaS Metrics & Benchmarks Resource Guide (Tien-Anh Nguyen for OpenView Partners)

• How to Build a Winning PLG Revenue Model (Part 1/3): Should You Go Freemium? (James Wood, VP @ Insight)

• From Good to Great: How to Ace Your Marketplace Fundraise (Justin Da Rosa & Philip Specht, Battery Ventures & Speedinvest)

• Massive Growth, IPOs, and PLG: Fifth Annual Financial & Operating Benchmarks Survey Results (Shannon Curran, OpenView Partners)

• 2022 Whisper Numbers: Growth Rolls On (With an Asterisk) (Dale Chang, Operating Partner @ Scale)

Additional Reads

• Lux Q3 Letter 2021 (Lux Capital)

• Seed Rounds At $100mm Post Money (Fred Wilson, GP @ USV)

• When the VC playbook needs to be rewritten (Antoine Nivard, ex-Principal @ Inovia)

• #2 - Auto-immune disorders, Buying the Constitution, and Hyper-Subjectivity (Nicole Ruiz, Investor @ Compound)

• Sales Efficiency Drives Valuation Premiums (John Tough, MP @ Energize)

Did we miss something?

We’re now pulling posts from over 600 Medium writers, Substack newsletters, and blogs (full list here). Let us know if you notice someone we’re missing and we'll include their content starting with our next digest! Just respond to this email with their URL if that’s the case.

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