Blue Horizon’s reading list is a curated collection of articles for SaaS founders and management teams. We are entrepreneurs and operators who have lived through the process of founding and scaling software companies. Here are the articles and resources we found useful this month.

Dangers of SaaS Metrics | What NOT to do
On OnlyCFO’s Software World

Used as a framework for making business decisions and investments, the understanding of a DCF is very valuable. Many software company founders and leaders clearly don’t understand DCFs and what drives long-term business value though.

What’s the Big Unlock for a New Venture
by David Cummings

Entrepreneurs would do well to think about the “big unlock” that makes their new venture possible. The “big unlock” makes it so that now is the time to build this next company.

Great Marketing Machines Are Like Costco
by Dave Kellogg

There is no magic wand. There is no secret lever. It’s about 50 little things, all working together. And that’s one reason why people have trouble understanding them. This may be obvious, but I’d never previously seen it so clearly. CMOs show the funnel slide in board meetings with stages and conversion rates. But no one really understands the machine. They ask a few random questions, usually about channels. The inevitable attribution conversation follows. You can almost feel them searching for the one thing. (Or the one cock up.) But in this case, there isn’t one.

Why Long-Term SaaS Revenue Growth Rates are Slowing; and What it Means for Your Private B2B SaaS Company
by SaaS Capital

Every company is different, but it is crucial to acknowledge the overall deceleration in revenue growth regardless of company size when crafting your business strategy. Penciling in ongoing robust revenue growth may be more difficult than ever, but for those companies that are able to execute, they will stand apart. Companies raising financing to continue their growth goals will likely need to post lower losses, or even net profits, in order to appear attractive among comparable financing candidates today.

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Blue Horizon acquires and invests in profitable software businesses with stable recurring revenue streams. The Blue Horizon platform combines long-term capital and industry expertise with an operating model that enables businesses and their leaders to focus on growth and profitability.