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I built a $150M ARR SaaS business, then backed 500+ founders as a VC. Now I also write…
Articles by Chris
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How Founders Can Use Marketing Analytics to Drive Smarter Campaigns
How Founders Can Use Marketing Analytics to Drive Smarter Campaigns
In today's hyper-competitive startup landscape, intuition-driven marketing decisions are no longer sufficient…
13 Comments -
How to Set the Right Milestones for Project Growth
How to Set the Right Milestones for Project Growth
Growth doesn’t just happen, but it’s built, one milestone at a time. As a founder, your project’s momentum isn’t…
15 Comments -
Why Zero Trust Security Is Important?
Why Zero Trust Security Is Important?
Cybersecurity is no longer a back-office concern. For today’s B2B SaaS companies, it’s at the heart of product trust…
13 Comments -
How to Manage Remote Teams in 2025
How to Manage Remote Teams in 2025
Forget beanbags. Remote work is your competitive advantage: if you know how to use it.
1 Comment -
Low-Code vs No-Code: Which One Is Better for SaaS Founders?
Low-Code vs No-Code: Which One Is Better for SaaS Founders?
Building software no longer requires a CS degree, a team of developers, or a six-figure burn rate. Because of the rise…
20 Comments -
The Role of AI in Modern Data Analytics for SaaS Companies
The Role of AI in Modern Data Analytics for SaaS Companies
Data is no longer a competitive advantage, but it’s the cost of entry. In 2025, SaaS companies aren’t struggling to…
8 Comments -
How Visual Content Accelerates SaaS Growth
How Visual Content Accelerates SaaS Growth
SaaS companies that grow fast don’t just explain what they do. They show it: clearly, visually, and with intention.
10 Comments -
Sales CRM vs Marketing CRM: What’s the Difference?
Sales CRM vs Marketing CRM: What’s the Difference?
I’ve seen it a million times — businesses either confuse the two or waste way too much time trying to decide which one…
3 Comments -
How to Improve Workflow Efficiency with the Right Collaboration Tools
How to Improve Workflow Efficiency with the Right Collaboration Tools
Are your teams working in silos, causing poor communication? Is communication constantly breaking down and confusing?…
5 Comments -
How to Streamline Business Finances with Automation Software
How to Streamline Business Finances with Automation Software
Let’s be honest, managing business finances isn’t glamorous. It’s the backend grind that no one sees—but when it’s…
3 Comments
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisAI acronyms get messy fast. LLMs, RAG, Agents, MCP. Four layers doing four different jobs. Easiest way to hold it in your head. Think of a body. The LLM is the brain. It reasons, writes, codes, works a problem through. But it only knows what it was trained on. It has no idea what is in your calendar this week. RAG is the brain with a library. It checks your docs, your policies, your live data before it speaks. Answers come from your reality instead of its memory. Agents are the brain with hands. It stops talking and starts doing. Research, scheduling, updating records, firing off actions. This is also where it bites. Loose permissions and it reaches into systems it should never touch. A vague brief and it does the wrong job at speed. MCP is the nervous system. The wiring that joins the brain to every tool and database in one shared language. Without it the intelligence sits stranded in separate apps. Brain thinks. Library grounds. Hands act. Wiring connects. Enterprise AI works when you design the whole body, not one organ at a time. LION Customers wake up to warm leads in their inbox. This is part of LION's white glove service so reach out to see how we make that happen.
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisSomeone just left OpenAI's alignment team to work on reading your thoughts. Naomi Bashkansky spent about eighteen months on alignment and has joined Conduit, a startup training non-invasive thought-to-text models on neural data. No implant. No keyboard. You think it, the model writes it. My first reaction was the obvious one. Absolutely not. My second reaction was more uncomfortable. We have been walking towards this for two years and barely noticed. → Typing has always been the slowest part of using AI → Voice helped, then we learned nobody wants to dictate in an open-plan office → The bottleneck was never the model. It was the input That is the real argument here. Not science fiction. Bandwidth. But here is where I keep getting stuck. Every interface we have built so far gives you a moment to reconsider. You type, you read it back, you delete half of it. That pause is where judgement lives. Thought-to-text removes the pause. I would take a faster keyboard tomorrow. I am less sure I want a tool that hears the first draft. Like my content? Follow me Jimmy Acton for more real AI experiments and what actually works in the wild 🚀🤖 I test the tools so you don't have to. Subscribe to my weekly newsletter in the header for the breakdown 📬 Inspired by Endrit Restelica
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisThe most iconic performance car Britain produced in the 1980s was never supposed to exist as a performance car. 🚗 Ford needed to go touring car racing. The rules required 5,000 road-going examples of any competing model to be built. The Sierra was the platform. The RS Cosworth was the minimum viable product to satisfy a homologation form, and Ford handed it to engineers who happened to be among the best in the world at this sort of thing. ⚙️ The result was a 204bhp turbocharged saloon with a whale-tail spoiler that looked like nothing else on British roads. When it arrived in 1986, used car prices immediately outpaced new ones. Dealers added thousands to the asking price before the cars arrived. It sold at a premium on day one and has never really stopped. 🏆 On the track it did exactly what Ford needed it to do. It won the 1987 British Touring Car Championship. It won touring car races across Europe. Andy Rouse, Robb Gravett, Tim Harvey. The car Ford built to tick a box became one of the defining racing cars of its era. 📦 Off the track, it became something else entirely. The RS Cosworth became a car of choice for a certain kind of British criminal, which did its residual values no favours in the short term. But survivors in good condition have come back from that era in remarkable shape. Fewer than 1,000 of the original three-door Sierras are believed to remain in roadworthy condition today. If you want to understand why certain modern classics outperform while others fall behind, or you are considering a fractional portfolio, feel free to get in touch. Always happy to dig into the technical detail. 💬
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisFor decades the standard answer to urban flooding has been more concrete. Bigger drains, faster runoff, get the water away as quickly as possible. Rain gardens flip that. Shallow planted areas that catch rain where it falls, hold it, filter it through soil and let it soak away slowly instead of hammering the drainage network all at once. The clever part is that one small feature does several jobs. It cuts stormwater runoff, filters pollutants, recharges groundwater, cools the surrounding air and makes the place nicer to be in. Permeable pavements, bioswales, green roofs and urban wetlands all work on the same principle. I like this because it is not really an environmental idea, it is an infrastructure one. A drain does one thing and fails hard when it is overwhelmed. A landscape that absorbs water does several things and degrades gracefully. For any business sitting on a car park, a roof or a yard, that is worth a look. The surfaces you already own can be doing more than shedding water into a pipe.
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisI’m pleased to finally share something I’ve been working on for some time. I’m a Co-Founder and CTO of Blockchain Pharma My career started in pharmacy, long before I became involved in blockchain and emerging technology, so Blockchain Pharma brings together two areas that have shaped a large part of my professional life. At Blockchain Pharma, we’re building infrastructure designed to improve visibility, traceability and trust across the pharmaceutical supply chain. That includes giving authorised stakeholders better visibility of medicines as they move from manufacturers, through wholesalers and healthcare organisations, to pharmacies and ultimately patients, while creating a trusted record of the data associated with individual medicine packs. There are significant challenges across medicines supply, from understanding availability and shortages to provenance, authenticity and the ability for different parts of the supply chain to work from trusted information. We believe there is a real opportunity to improve that infrastructure. As CTO, my focus is particularly on the technology, security and blockchain architecture behind BCP, and on ensuring that what we build is appropriate for the highly regulated environment in which healthcare operates. Over the last few weeks we’ve also started publishing a series of posts from the Blockchain Pharma page looking at the platform from the perspective of patients, pharmacies, hospitals, wholesalers, manufacturers and the wider NHS. If we’re connected here, I’d really appreciate you following the Blockchain Pharma LinkedIn page. https://lnkd.in/dWzFsTxw If you see one of our posts that resonates with you, a comment, share or interaction genuinely helps us get the work in front of more people across healthcare, pharma and technology. We also have a completely new Blockchain Pharma website almost ready to launch, with much more information about what we’re building and why. There’s a lot more to come.
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Chris Tottman shared thisRed Flags of a Psychopath Boss (According to Psychology) 🚩 1. They possess superficial charm and an inflated sense of self-worth. 2. They're cunning, manipulative liars. 3. They lack guilt, remorse, or feelings for others. 4. They're easily bored and have poor impulse control. 5. They're irresponsible risk-takers. If this sounds like your boss, watch out. Working for a psychopath is a nightmare. You'll face: - Constant manipulation - Unpredictable behaviour - Zero empathy - Impulsive decisions - Dangerous risk-taking No one should have to deal with this. But unfortunately, psychopaths are drawn to positions of power. If you find yourself working for one, here’s what you should do: 1. Document Your Interactions ↳ Keep detailed records of every interaction. ↳ You may need this later to defend yourself. 2. Protect Your Staff ↳ Monitor the boss's conduct closely. ↳ Don't let them bully or manipulate your team. 3. Build Strong Relationships ↳ Develop close ties with colleagues. ↳ You'll need people to stand up for you. 4. Follow Policies Meticulously ↳ Don't give them grounds to attack you. ↳ Always adhere strictly to company rules. 5. Safeguard Your Reputation ↳ If allegations are made, trust your record will speak for itself. ↳ Those who know you will question their claims. 6. File a Formal Complaint ↳ If their behaviour crosses the line, take action. ↳ Follow company procedures to report misconduct. Remember, it's not you. It's them. You didn't cause this and you can't fix them. Focus on protecting yourself and your team. Stay professional, stay vigilant. You've got this 👊 If you love my content and want to guarantee you get every one? Make sure you hit the 🔔 on my profile page Chris Tottman & LinkedIn will notify you 💙 To have me working on your startup check out my new Workbook - The Big Book of BrainDumps
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Chris Tottman shared thisAI leadership is becoming two different races. One is about building the technology. The other is about getting people to actually use it. The US dominates the first. EY’s latest research across 23 markets shows a very different picture on adoption. Its “Pioneer Markets” include India, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Hong Kong and South Korea. Across these markets: 94% are using AI. 24% have used autonomous AI. 36% have received significant AI training. The US isn’t in the Pioneer group. That doesn’t mean the US is losing AI. It highlights something more interesting. Building AI and adopting AI are two very different challenges. For companies rolling AI out globally, that distinction matters. The best market for your next AI deployment may not be where your engineers are. It may be where people are already ready to change how they work. The real AI race might be less about who builds it first. And more about who adopts it fastest. Credit Dr. Joerg Storm If you love my content and want to guarantee you get every one? Make sure you hit the 🔔 on my profile page Chris Tottman & LinkedIn will notify you 💙 To have me working on your startup check out my new Workbook - The Big Book of BrainDumps
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisBig tech is pouring billions into data centres. Which raises a question nobody has answered properly. Do the energy companies burn more fossil fuel to feed them, or does the demand finally push them into renewables at scale. Then there is the accounting, which is the part everyone skips. How do you depreciate a data centre. You build it on a five year life, technology moves, and it is outdated in two. That is a very large hole in a balance sheet. Nobody can call any of this with confidence. What I would say is this. Every one of those billions is a bet that compute and attention are the scarce resources of the next decade. Most of us cannot buy compute at that scale. Attention you can build yourself, and it costs you consistency rather than capital. LION's customers are on track to hit 100m impressions this year. Reach out if you'd like to understand how we make that happen. Credit James Eagle
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Chris Tottman reposted thisChris Tottman reposted thisMy slogan started as a warning to myself. Now it is the whole business! "The world is changing, are you ready?" sounds like a tagline. It was actually a question I asked myself in 2005, standing in an airport with paperwork I did not fully understand, watching the country I grew up in shift underneath me faster than I could plan around it. I was not ready. Tbh, nobody had told me I needed to be. More than a decade later, I ask that question on behalf of other families instead of just myself. Not as a scare tactic, and not because I think collapse is coming for everyone. Because I have now watched enough political and economic shifts up close to know that readiness is not paranoia. It is just planning before the shift happens instead of during it. Most people wait for a crisis to make the decision urgent. By then, the options are fewer and the timelines are longer. The families who come to me early, before anything has gone wrong, tend to have the calmest version of this process. The ones who wait are making the same decision under pressure I once had to make with none. I built an entire career out of a question I asked myself in an airport, half convinced I had already waited too long. What question have you been putting off asking yourself?
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Chris Tottman liked thisChris Tottman liked thisToday I hand-delivered the first parts from Isembard's newly launched flagship in Southwark, the largest factory in London since World War II. I joined Isembard this month because rebuilding industrial capacity in the West is how we keep critical supply chains sovereign, a mission that matters to all of us. Excited to be building something so vital, so fast (and with such an exceptional team!). Pics hosting the first episode of the Reindustrialse pod, link in comments.
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Chris Tottman liked thisChris Tottman liked thisYOUR CIRCLE SETS YOUR CEILING Success rarely happens in isolation. It accelerates when you’re surrounded by people who already operate at a higher standard. Spend enough time in the right rooms and something shifts: What once felt unrealistic starts to feel normal. The pace changes. Expectations rise. Execution improves. Here’s what strong environments do: 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 You adopt higher benchmarks for quality, speed, and accountability. 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭 Big goals stop sounding risky and start sounding reasonable. 𝐌𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐦 Progress compounds when ambition is shared. 𝐄𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 The right circle pushes action, not just ideas. If you want to grow faster, be intentional: Choose rooms where learning is constant, effort is visible, and progress is expected. Your environment is either reinforcing limits or accelerating potential. 👉 Who are the people raising your standards right now? ♻️ Repost to keep your network informed. 🔔 Follow ( Petar Dimov 🔥) for more. 🎥 Video source: @mindsetbymarisa
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Chris Tottman liked thisChris Tottman liked thisWe planned a post for our 10,000th user. By the time we sat down to write it, we were already at 10,112. A single reefer of frozen beef can be worth more than €100,000. For decades, a deal that size started with a phone call to someone you already knew. Until your usual buyer says no. This summer showed how fast that can happen. Spain lost two of its best-paying pork markets. Brazil lost Chinese quota and EU access within weeks. Suddenly, thousands of tonnes needed a new home, fast. That's exactly when a phone list stops being enough. You need buyers you have never met, in markets you don't usually sell to. That's what is happening on Meat Borsa every day. Processors, exporters, importers and distributors listing product, posting requests and closing deals. And new companies join every single day. Trade flows are shifting faster than ever. The traders who move first are the ones who can see the whole market. 10,000 of them already can. When a market closes on you tomorrow, who will you call first?
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Chris Tottman liked thisChris Tottman liked thisHow much equity should each co-founder get? A study of 7,764 US-based startups looked at median founder equity splits before fundraising...and the numbers surprised me. Most founding teams start with the idea that everyone should split equity equally. In reality, equal splits are much less common than you’d think. 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐬 📊 Two-Founder Team 🤝 - Founder A: 55% - Founder B: 45% Three-Founder Team 🤝 - Founder A: 47% - Founder B: 33% - Founder C: 17% Four-Founder Team 🤝 - Founder A: 40% - Founder B: 27% - Founder C: 18% - Founder D: 10% And honestly, I get it. I split equity equally in a previous company. At the time, it felt fair. Later, I realized equal did not necessarily mean fair. People contribute differently...we all have different roles, levels of risk, responsibility, time, ownership, and sacrifice and these things all matter. This time around, my co-founder and I had the conversation early and agreed on a split that reflected what each of us was actually bringing to the table. I think that made the partnership stronger. The same goes for decision-making. “We make every decision together” sounds great in theory, but at some point, somebody needs to make the final call. Don’t do the co-CEO thing. Most of the time, it happens because neither founder wants the other to feel less important. But ambiguity at the top usually creates more problems than it solves. Investors want one clear point of contact. Employees want to know who owns the final decision. And when things get hard, the buck needs to stop with someone. Founders should challenge each other, debate hard, and let the best answer win...no matter who it comes from. But when the debate is over, ownership needs to be clear. The best idea should always win, no matter who says it....the buck still has to stop somewhere.
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Mon Ali
Exciting news! We’ve just launched Qwantro, our new pricing intelligence platform designed to make Microsoft cloud licensing fair for everyone. For too long, small and mid-sized UK businesses have paid more for the same Microsoft services large enterprises get at discounted rates. Qwantro changes that, giving all organisations access to enterprise-level pricing, no matter their size. No middlemen. No complicated contracts. Just transparent, fair pricing. Follow @Qwantro to see how we’re helping UK businesses save money on Microsoft cloud services. #MicrosoftPartner #Qwantro #Altiatech #UKBusiness #CloudSavings #M365 #Entrepreneurship #Innovation
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The Server Labs
Responding to the Prime Minister’s call at Labour Conference 2025 for Britain to become an AI superpower, our CEO, Dolores Saiz, said: “AI at scale doesn’t happen by wishful thinking. Investment in AI without investment in cloud capability and compute infrastructure is like building a Ferrari without roads to drive it on.” At The Server Labs, we’re committed to helping build AI-ready, cloud-native foundations. Swipe through to see more of Dolores’ insights. 👉
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New Future Ventures
From 'build it and hope' to 'build, validate, scale' - what UK B2B SaaS founders need to remember.. I’ve been talking to a lot of UK SaaS founders lately (Shout to the Tech South West awards), and one shift seems to stand out: the market is no longer chasing bold promises of unicorn valuations - now it’s chasing trajectories. Here are our three practical take-aways for founders 1) Validate first, scale second. The example of Kraken Technology (spun out from Octopus) shows what happens when a platform built for real internal problems gets externalised and scaled. ~$500m ARR, ~80% margins. Financial Times 2) A regional & focused approach often beats generic global-dreaming. The UK SaaS ecosystem still rewards founders who are selling to UK / EMEA customers, solve a niche, repeatable business model. There are over 3,350+ SaaS companies here now. Beauhurst 3) Investors are still paying attention - traction matters more than size. Early-stage UK investors are active, particularly in SaaS/AI/fintech. But they’re focusing on validated product-market fit and go-to-market execution. AWISEE What this means for your startup • Instead of “let’s build the next everything”, ask: what recurring, painful problem am I solving for another business right now? • Get customers, even if small. Show retention > churn. Build repeatable sales motion. • Use your region (UK, EMEA) as strength: local network, regulation, channel knowledge. Then expand. • Investors are watching metrics not just hype: ARR growth, unit economics, churn, expansion revenue. Bottom line: The UK B2B SaaS story is moving from promise to delivery. There’s no golden ticket - just good product-market fit, regional sales chops, and boots on the ground. If your startup is executing, you’re playing in a strong field. If you want to chat about go-to-market for your SaaS, UK investor intros, or how to bootstrap better in this climate - DM us! #B2BSaaS #UKStartup #BootstrappedGrowth #FounderMindset
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meshcloud
🇬🇧 meshcloud is officially entering the UK, and we’re excited to be here! As organizations scale in the cloud, complexity tends to follow. Platform engineering is how teams keep moving fast - giving developers easy, consistent self-service while staying secure and in control. The UK is a mature cloud market, and a great place for platform engineering to shine: higher developer productivity, clearer ownership, and platforms that are actually built to scale. As Anne Huber, Managing Director at meshcloud UK, puts it: “𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘯𝘦.” After proven success across Germany, bringing this approach to the UK feels like a natural and exciting next step. Looking forward to building platforms developers genuinely enjoy using. 🚀 #UK #PlatformEngineering #meshcloudUK
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Lisa Baker (She, Her)
Connectus Business Solutions announces full roll-out of Evolve AI for businesses looking to transform Connectus Business Solutions has announced the full roll-out of Connectus Evolve AI, an innovation designed to help organisations transform the way they operate through safe, scalable AI tools. From first steps to full transformation, the latest offering from Connectus Business Solutions ensures AI is deployed appropriately, strategically, and at scale. The new service helps organisations accelerate decision-making, increase productivity, and reduce operational friction....
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