Throughout March we are sharing some of the brightest and best talks from BoS to celebrate the wonderful women we have welcomed on stage.

Tessa Clarke

TED Talk

Tessa Clarke did a TED Talk – the surprising climate benefits of sharing your stuff.

Tessa’s TED Talk is short, eyeopening and suggests, backed by facts, that sharing things more could be part of the solution to climate change.

BoS Talk

Before she was TED famous, Tessa Clarke, CEO and founder of OLIO the foodwaste app, spoke at BoS Europe 2022. We think the story behind the company she and her co-founder created is remarkable without the potential for having an impact on the world.

She discussed how she started with a worthy goal – to make the world more sustainable – and has built a successful, sustainable and rapidly growing business.

OLIO is different.

• OLIO is fully remote.
• OLIO is Fifth on the list of ‘top 100 businesses to work for in 2021’.
• Over 50% of OLIO’s staff are women and over 50% of staff are neurodivergent.
• OLIO has closed over $50million funding from top VCs including Accel.

Watch both talks below and see how OLIO has taken a big idea and made it a business. They’re worth your time.

TED Talk. The Big Idea.

Bringing the Big Idea to Life

You can see more from this including transcript of the conversation here.

Throughout March we are sharing some of the brightest and best talks from BoS to celebrate the wonderful women we have welcomed on stage (often after they’ve been in the audience first).

Kathy Sierra

Women’s History Month is one of the most important celebrations in the equality calendar. The event recognises the achievements of female academics, adventurers, and activists who have defined society as we know it but are regularly left out of the important and the everyday discussions. It is recognised by businesses, organisations, and Government bodies across the globe, leading to increased awareness of gender inequalities.

The Tech and SaaS world is crying out for a more diversity but is speckled with some amazing and inspiring women – some of which we’ve been lucky to have speak at BoS. Throughout March we are going to be sharing some of the brightest and best talks from BoS to celebrate the wonderful women we have welcomed on stage (often after they’ve been in the audience first).

We know you’ve been waiting patiently to find out the full line up and schedule for the upcoming Europe Conference in Cambirdge UK on 27-28 March 2023.

We are fine tuning the finer details but here it is:

Much like BoS, Avalara helps businesses of all sizes.

Their comprehensive, automated, cloud-based solutions are fast, accurate, and easy to use and their Compliance Cloud™ platform helps customers manage complicated and burdensome tax compliance tasks imposed by state, local, and other taxing authorities throughout the world. Avalara offers more than 500 pre-built connectors into leading accounting, ERP, ecommerce and other business applications and process billions of indirect tax transactions, file hundreds of thousands of tax compliance documents and tax returns every year.

This year, they are coming to BoS to find out how they can help you and the rest of the BoS community automate compliance needs.

Over on the mastadon, Sara Safavi recently posted:

Which got us thinking about the full alphabet of SaaS that is more realistic to life:

Back in 2019 I was asked for a couple of predictions for 2020. Obviously no one seen Covid coming and hitting as hard as it did, but I did have a feeling that remote working would be further embraced and become much more normal.

To Recap:

We’ve been playing around with AI and we asked ChatGPT to, ‘Write a SaaS Newsletter With AI’. I predict 2023 will be the year AI becomes mainstream.

At first glance, it was pretty impressive, typing away to produce this…

Since Elon Musk’s (shudders at the mention of his name) $44bn takeover of Twitter, and the abhorrent way he has fired and cleared out the employees and wiped billions of value off the platform, everyone has been looking for the new ship to jump on where we can share cat gifs, sassy comments, important news, views, and find out what other people are up to.

So tell us: What you think the ‘new Twitter’ will be:

At the beginning of 2022, having come out of a difficult 2021. We were really excited about 2022 and we’d also found that the online conferences that we’ve been running had really struck a chord with people. Many people who attended the online conferences found that they were getting better networking and better conversations than they were in the in person events.

Business of Software Europe 27-28 March, Cambridge UK

Business of Software USA (Dates and location TBC)

The brightest software entrepreneurs from across the world will be meeting at BoS events throughout 2023 to interact with their peers, discuss the big issues around running a software business, and participate in interactive sessions led by experts.

Every year at Business of Software Conference, the generosity of our supporters allows us to offer full conference tickets to deserving entrepreneurs and leaders who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend the event.

This is a brilliant way to get a leg up in the industry and meet some extraordinary people who want to help you succeed.

You will leave with ideas that will make a difference and an amazing network of people who can help you make it happen.

This year is no different.

What is happening in M&A in 2022 and beyond?

Interesting conversation with Christopher Moore at Quiet Light Advisors on the state of the economy and how it has affected acquisition activity for SaaS and software companies.

2021/22 has been a frantic time for exits with a huge amount of capital deployed in rollups and acquisitions. However, many aggregators have found it harder than they expected to find the deals that work for them and the cost of capital has risen so while there is still an active market, many are being more choosy about the deals they do.

Christopher discusses what buyers are looking for, the outlook for the market and how entrepreneurs can best prepare for their sale. You might be surprised to hear an M&A guy say that many entrepreneurs should not sell. He explains why he thinks that is the case and why entrepreneurs should run their business as if they will never sell but be in a position to sell tomorrow if they had to.

Podcast

Preparing for Exit

If you are considering an exit for your business, you will have plenty of questions.

BoS may be able to help.

Starting January 2023, we’re running a programme where you’ll join a small group of others in a similar situation and together we’ll define your goals and timelines and thrive through this exciting and challenging time. For more information…