Theory Ventures founder on GTM leverage, AI margins, real enterprise TAM, and more | Tomasz Tunguz

In this episode of Second Acts, Krish is joined by Theory Ventures founder and General Partner, Tomasz Tunguz.Tomasz talks about: the three infinite learning curves that originally drew him into venture, the tricky thing that is advising operators, writing lessons that have made him one of SaaS’s most prolific and admired public thinkers, why he has long believed in the compounding power of distribution, the current case for pursuing uneconomic growth, why pricing is continually in flux, Looker’s extreme PMF and second acts, three reasons why this is the best time in history to start a SaaS business, Umberto Eco, and more. —Chapters:(05:22) A walk along Embarcadero (07:58) Venture’s three infinite learning curves(09:05) “Advice is a tricky thing” (11:53) Dalio, Munger, and effective board members(13:58) Product limited/GTM limited?(16:00) Situation, Complication, Question, Answer (19:33) Several short sentences(21:00) Writing as a way to think better about AI(23:02) Krish’s fun, clarifying AI use case(24:51) A distribution-first thesis (29:38) How AI changes GTM (32:08) The past and present of category creation(34:30) The generalist-specialist pendulum(36:00) “Pricing is a perennial”(39:09) The inevitability of better AI margins(41:52) Uneconomic growth as a valid bet(46:44) Monte Carlo’s radical daily revenue model(50:34) Never been a better time to start a SaaS business(54:17) “PMF is grease”(56:53) The year of Looker 500(59:07) Why the growth bar keeps moving(01:00:51) Umberto Eco and explaining China—Referenced:Tomasz Tunguz on raising Theory Ventures’ $450 million second fund The Decade of Data with Tomasz Tunguz Joel on Software Poor Charlie's Almanack Principles by Ray Dalio Mike Volpi Tomasz Tunguz on Venture Capital Intercom Des Traynor McKinsey & Company SCQA The Second-Order Effects of AI Several Short Sentences About Writing Copyblogger MongoDB HashiCorp Google ChatGPT Lovable Cursor 5 Mistakes SaaS Startups Often Make with Pricing Explore vs. Exploit in Agentic Coding Barr Moses How Monte Carlo's Daily Revenue Model Rewrote Their Strategy The Market Size Mistake Gainsight Why There's Never Been a Better Time to Found a SaaS Startup A Challenge to SaaS Orthodoxy Extreme PMF : Sustaining Success with Scale My Favorite Books of 2024 Chronicles of a Liquid Society Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future —Connect with Tomasz:LinkedInXTomasz Tunguz —Connect with KrishLinkedIn X —About Chargebee:Chargebee helps thousands of recurring revenue businesses unlock second acts of scale with transformative billing, monetization, and growth infra. Learn more.