AI Agents are moving from hype to practical deployment — here’s what the data really says from a conversation between Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike

The buzz about ROI from AI software investments is palpable, so Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike take on the topic of measuring Return on Investment on AI software investments

Everyone is talking about 9-9-6 and why it's critical to winning in the newest era of Software - AI! Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss why it's such a trending topic.

The Forward-Deployed Engineer

The Iconiq State of Software 2025: Rethinking the Playbook is a solid industry report that includes several metrics and benchmarks for SaaS and AI-Native companies alike and Growth and CAC dive into the most interesting details

The 2025 BVP Cloud 100 Benchmarks Report provides a snapshot into the top 100 PRIVATE SaaS/Cloud/AI companies - Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the details

Positive Business Outlook or Work-Life Balance - which is more important? The "Grindscore" metric combines the two to determine the attractiveness of a company for employees.  Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the metric from many different angles including:The origin of the Grindscore metricPositive Business Outlook (PBO) + Work-Life Balance (WLB)Sample of Private and Public Company GrindscoresWhy a high PBO and high WLB scores the same as a low PBO and an average WLB (flaws of the metric) This episode covers a metric that most software companies are not using - and the conversation may put a light on some of the reasons why?! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bessemer Venture Partners recently released their State of AI 2025 Report, and it reads like an astronomer's space exploration manual. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike explore the universe of AI in today's episode.

Aventis recently published a report on AI Valuations which covered investments, valuations and multiples on AI investments over a 15 year period from 2010 - 2025!

AI-Native products and AI products as part of a SaaS platform have different Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) than a legacy SaaS platform, which directly impacts Gross Margin - the Metrics Brothers discuss the details

AI is creating a level of need for data centers, power and processing capacity that has not been seen before - but how to measure the magnitude of that need is the topic for the Metrics Brothers to take on during this episode

SaaS companies traditionally were measured on how many years it took to achieve $100M ARR - in today's brave new world of AI, that discussion is now MONTHS - Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike highlight discuss this new AI growth metric in today's episode.

The recent $2.4B deal by Google to purchase Windsurf's two co-founders, key staff and a non-exclusive license to Windsurf's 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.

AI and AI-Native companies are changing the software industry and the metrics to measure AI market momentum are still evolving. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss a recent article on AI Metrics by Benedict Evans.

Figma is a web-based collaborative design platform used by product designers, UX/UI teams, and developers recently filed their S-1 in preparation for their IPO. Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss several interesting aspects of the S-1 including how they calculate Net Revenue Retention, Gross Revenue Retention and where they stand amongst other public SaaS companies as measured by the Rule of 40.

Go-to-Market is a term often used when referring to the strategy, processes and organizations that B2B companies use to acquire, retain and expand customers. 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 is impacting all things GTM.

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 calculate and report ARR are evolving - Dave and Ray take on the trending on-line topic under the umbrella of "Is ARR Dead?"

During this episode of SaaS Talk with the Metrics, CAC and Growth discuss some of the KEY highlights of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Trends 2025 report just released by Bond VC and legendary technology analyst and investor Mary Meeker

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down the recent B2B Marketing Budget and Productivity Benchmarks Report from Benchmarkit. Key trends such as Marketing budget as % of Revenue, People vs Program vs Technology budget allocation and the top marketing performance metrics as covered in this episode!

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!