Hi <<First Name>>,

Clément, our newsletter Editor-in-Chief, is busy with far more important things this month. What could be more important than our (in)famous newsletter, you ask? Ain’t gonna tell you, but suffice it to say that it has to do with a beautiful little girl and the fact that maternity/paternity leaves are a thing here in Pointnineland.

Because of this, please be advised that Clément cannot and will not take any responsibility for this month’s newsletter and makes no representations, express or implied, as to the (i) timeliness, (ii) accuracy, (iii) relevance, (iv) funniness or (v) appropriateness of the information contained herein. Any and all complaints relating to jokes enclosed herewith, including but not limited to (a) bad jokes, (b) old jokes, and (c) no jokes, shall be directed to:

Christoph Janz
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
noreply@pointninecap.com

In other news, we are excited that Tilman Langer has joined Point Nine as our General Counsel, turning Trump green with envy.

Tilman is hands down the most pragmatic, business-savvy, no-nonsense, constructive, productive, humane and overall best attorney we’ve ever worked with. Having worked with him as an outside counsel on literally hundreds of transactions over the last years, we’re delighted to finally welcome him as a full-time member of our team!

FROM THE #P9FAMILY FOUNDERS

This month we talked to Alexander Aghassipour, co-founder and CPO of Zendesk. Below is a summary of our key takeaways, and the complete interview is on our Medium channel.

What are the key reasons behind Zendesk’s success?

• Crazy hard work
• A founding team that complements and inspires each other
• Timing (AKA luck)
• Domain knowledge that allows you to go after an underserved industry

• Moving to Silicon Valley gives you huge advantages …
• … yet the competition is crazy, and salaries are through the roof
• You can build a globally leading SaaS company from Europe, but hard to think of a case where relocating to the Bay Area would not be an advantage

• Letting go of things
• “Hero culture” is toxic

• Louis tried to Deconstruct VCs’ Decision Making Frameworks. If you’re curious what the five Ts stand for and why his post got more than 2,000 claps on Medium, check it out. (and no, it’s not “toss a coin”, “try to be lucky”, “taste”, “tiptoe”, and “triplecorn.)
• Want to assess your chances of raising venture capital? Check out Louis’ VC Compatibility Calculator.
• Christoph (AKA me) doubled-down on the topic and published several posts that are based on feedback that we collected from more than 60 of the best SaaS investors in North America and Europe:
  • What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2018?
  • The top 3 things investors are looking for in SaaS startups
  • The SaaS Funding Napkin 2018
• Christoph went on to double-check 10 years of SaaS funding data before handing over the baton back to Louis, who asked what AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol tells us about the interaction between humans and intelligent systems.

• Robin, our industrial-grade guy for all things industrial, will be at the Hannover Messe on April 24/25. Don’t miss his talk about “Reinventing the Factory Stack” at the AWS Digital Factory booth on the 25th at 3.00 pm.
• On Friday, April 20, we’re hosting an afternoon event in Munich to discuss the topics of building a successful SaaS company, early-stage selling to enterprise companies, and much more. There are a few empty spots, please let us know if you want to join.