AI & B2B SaaS: Worth the Hype? (Part 1)

Will every SaaS company become an AI company? Will AI unlock guaranteed ROI? Is the promise of AI real and what’s the hype anyway? Storm Ventures Managing Director Ryan Floyd and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Ajay Awatramani answer these questions and more in the latest episode of Ask A VC!

#b2bsaas #AI #venturecapital

Here's what's covered in Part 1:

0:05 Introductions
1:05 AI is not new
1:50 IBM Watson & Deep Blue
2:18 AI has finally become accessible
2:38 Lowered infrastructure costs has made today's AI possible
3:55 What is the hype around AI?
4:15 Tech investors get trends right, timeline wrong
5:40 Companies need to think about ROI
7:25 Can AI guarantee ROI?
8:24 Examples of new SaaS model: guaranteed ROI

Make sure to also:

Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanFloyd for more content on building SaaS B2B startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship in general
Subscribe to Ryan’s blog at https://ryanfloyd.org, where he talks about why he invests in certain companies and broader tech industry issues
Connect with Ajay on LinkedIn   / ajayawatramani  
Check out the #AskAVC​​​ podcast based on this channel - https://anchor.fm/ask-a-vc

About Ryan Floyd:

Ryan is a founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures, where he invests in, and works with, early-stage enterprise SaaS startups. His primary focus is applications and cloud infrastructure-related companies. He is always interested in hearing from passionate technology entrepreneurs. Ryan is a skilled writer and commentator on all things SaaS. He's written for TechCrunch, Sifted, Thrive Global and regularly contributes to The UK Newspaper. He's the host of the recently launched #AskAVC​​​ YouTube channel aimed at enterprise entrepreneurs. In each episode, he tackles a different issue relating to building and scaling B2B startups - topics such as pitching to an investor and tackling sales churn.

When he's not working with his portfolio founders, Ryan is active with Code2040, a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities. And occasionally, he finds time for surfing!

About Ajay Awatramani:

✔ 23 years of growth leadership experience at Adobe, Marketo, Siebel, Oracle and Sun. And transformation experience at Cornerstone. Venture capital and Private equity deal and industry advisorship. Board role at 150M+ portco. 4+ buy-side and 3+ sell-side txns experience.
✔ Accelerated Marketo growth under public, Vista and Adobe ownership through enterprise transformation incl. platform retrofit for scale, multi-product evolution and TAM expansion into ABX. The 3B$ equity value creation in 2.5 years is the largest exit for Vista in 18 years of existence. Co-led acquisition of Bizible, and integrated Toutapp.
✔ Expanded the TAM at Cornerstone beyond mandatory training/certifications/compliance into a Talent Experience Platform. Created value through platform transformation, operational excellence and add-on acquisition of Edcast (strategic) and SumTotal (EBITDA). Added content business responsibility in '22.
✔ Build a business around Hyperion apps for Sales within Oracle
✔ Founding member of industry's #1 Field Service Automation enterprise solution at Siebel