Our Guest: Nick Tippman, former Chief Marketing Officer at Greenlight Guru, a category-leading provider of regulatory software for the MedTech vertical. He is now an angel investor, investing in exceptional Vertical/SMB SaaS, AI, Fintech, and B2B Marketplace founders and companies at the pre-seed/seed stage alongside other leading investors.

Episode Topics:

• Nick’s current investment criteria for a vertical SaaS company.
• Nick’s minimum TAM + how he looks at take rates.
• How important are fintech and payment opportunities in evaluating vertical software markets?
• How embedded APIs - like embedding payroll into your app - are changing opportunity sets for seed-stage vertical SaaS
• What constitutes founder market fit?
• Nick’s advice on effectively demonstrating founder-market fit in a pitch deck.
• Nick’s views on the increased venture capital flow into niche vertical markets.
• The impact of Generative AI in breaking through to categories that have been resistant to digital transformation
• Is AI an opportunity, neutral, or a threat? 
• Eli Dukes Question: What's the primary challenge in vertical SaaS: Is it GTM or product? Why?
• How to assess founders and their teams' product management skills in this changing landscape?
• Understanding operator funds + Nick’s perspective as a Limited Partner (LP) in 11 funds.
• Nick’s recommendations and tactical advice for potential emerging managers.

Resources:

Eli Dukes Vertical SaaS Substack - https://verticalized.co/

Nick’s Google Doc - “Ultimate List of 37+ VC & PE Firm Theses & Market Updates on Vertical SaaS”

About Cloud Returns by Cloud Ratings:

Cloud Returns covers ALL types of software investing, whether seed, venture capital, growth equity, private equity, debt, and the public markets.

Our host - Matt Harney - is active on Twitter @saasletter and writes "SaaSletter", an investing-oriented SaaS newsletter on Substack.

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About Cloud Ratings:

Cloud Ratings is a customer outcomes-focused, data-driven software research analyst firm. We exist to allow organizations to make more confident, lower-risk software purchasing decisions.

Our Cloud Ratings Category Reports combine user reviews with verified vendor data to impartially identify leading software products. Recent report examples include: Board Management Software, Account-Based Marketing Software, Cap Table + Equity Management Software, Lead Routing Software, and Sales Training + Onboarding Software.

Built upon investigative customer interviews, our True ROI Reports quantify and provide 3rd party validation of a software product’s business value.

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