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Last-minute May 4th update: I received this message from the Jedi High Council this morning, and I just thought I woud share it with you all.

The next VYS event is at Entrepreneurs First in SF on Tuesday, May 12, and it’s going to be the best one to date.

We received 72 pitch decks. This was up by 22 from the last event, where we received 55. Since we only select 5, the odds of getting picked to pitch are less than 7%. This makes the VYS Startup Pitch Competition one of the most competitive in all of Silicon Valley. (And we are also the most rad 🤙)

Here are the 5 finalists:

And here are the 10 startups that will be doing demos:

Now, who will win the coveted Nano Pac-Man? And will forever be able to say they won one of the most highly regarded startup pitch competitions in the San Francisco Bay Area?

You’re going to have to attend to find out.

Plus, the SaaStr conference kicks off in San Mateo on the same day, and we are an unofficial SaaStr partner, and if you bring your SaaStr badge, you’re in!

If you’re a cool startup and want to do a unique and interesting activation or sponsorship at the event, reply to this email. We have great ideas.

Co-founder & CEO: Larry Cordisco
Location: San Francisco, USA
Stage: Early
Website: neatlyhealth.ai
Social: LinkedIn

Neatly is building an AI-powered layer to help people navigate healthcare. Instead of patients figuring everything out themselves, it guides them through options, providers, and next steps. It turns a fragmented system into something more structured and understandable.

Neatly uses AI to organize healthcare information around the patient. It helps users understand symptoms, explore care options, and find the right providers. Rather than searching across multiple sources, users get a guided path tailored to their needs.

Healthcare is one of the most confusing systems to navigate. Neatly focuses not on replacing doctors, but on helping patients make better decisions. As AI becomes more integrated into everyday life, this kind of guidance layer feels inevitable.

Software had a good run, but the agent era is starting to feel less like a feature launch and more like an extinction event. Cold synths, indie dance, and post-SaaS dread for everyone watching the dashboard economy get quietly unbundled.

For much of the past 15 years, the orthodoxy of B2B GTM has been mostly unchanged. You build a funnel, feed it with leads, pass them to sales, and optimize conversion at each stage. But that model assumed buyers entered the process in a relatively uniform way and were open to being educated, persuaded, and in the end converted.

Well, it now looks quaint.

For the past few months, I have been digging into the Mt. Everest of B2B marketing data reports, and wow, there is so much stuff out there.

Ultimately, after reviewing over ten different reports, I decided to go with these 6 charts, which I believe show why your company does not just need more leads. Buyers are now anonymous as they search, chat, read, and look for solutions that occur largely outside the reach of most marketers.

This means founders must build trust and awareness well before a prospect becomes problem-aware and is in search of a solution.

I have heard GTM people say this many times, and so here is the data.

At any given moment, only a small fraction of potential buyers, roughly 5%, are actively in-market. The remaining 95% are not. But they are reading, watching, talking to peers, and developing preferences.

They may not be purchasing today, but they are quietly determining whom they are likely to purchase from tomorrow.

A clear majority, around 67%, prefer to conduct research independently. They do not want to be walked through a sales process before they understand the landscape. They want to enter the conversation with context, confidence, and a point of view.

I think this makes a very strong case for the importance of content marketing. Buyers may not want to talk to sales, but they will consume content, watch videos, read reports, and engage on social media. Which content needs to be both informative and, of course, entertaining.

That is why discovery matters so much.

Nearly 89% of buyers report consuming materials they found themselves, often sharing those assets internally. In other words, the most valuable content is not always the content your team pushes hardest. It is the content a buyer finds credible enough to bring into the decision-making process.

This means you should double down on research, customers’ stories, influencers, analysts, and getting other third parties to say great things about you.

Roughly 90% of buyers already have a shortlist in mind before they begin actively looking. That means most companies are not competing to win the deal. They are competing to be considered at all.

By the time a buyer enters your pipeline, your position may already be fixed. If you’re not building top-funnel and awareness, you won’t be in the consideration set.

At this point, you should know that B2B influencer marketing is no longer a side quest. Roughly 55% of B2B marketers now use influencers or third-party voices.

Buyers have always trusted people who help them interpret a market. Analysts, operators, customers, creators, and practitioners can shape perception long before a vendor appears.

The most effective voices are not random celebrities with a following.

They are thought leaders, analysts, customers, independent creators, and industry partners. The same people that buyers have always looked to for feedback and advice. In B2B, influence is not about reach. It is about credibility.

The right person can make a company feel obvious before the buyer has even started shopping.

Pipeline is downstream of preference. If buyers research alone, consume what they find, build shortlists early, and rely on trusted voices, then the real work of GTM starts before intent appears.

Founders should take this personally. Not emotionally. Strategically.

Your company does not just need more leads. It needs to become known, trusted, and preferred before the buyer is ready to buy. That is the new work. Not replacing pipeline, but preceding it.

Because by the time the pipeline shows up, the market may have already made up its mind.

Sources:

🎙️ 044 Gregory and Paul Show - Open AI is Making a Phone With No Apps?

This episode opens with a major shift. OpenAI may be building an AI-native phone, and that idea alone forces a rethink of the entire app ecosystem. From there, the conversation turns sharper. Compute costs are rising, vibe coding is breaking in public, and distribution hacks like clipping are getting industrialized. Underneath it all is a theme that keeps showing up. The easy phase of AI is ending, and the constraints are starting to matter.

I'm a former creative director, 3x head of marketing, and founder of Vibe Your SaaS. After 20 years in Silicon Valley, devising new ways to get people to click on things, I now help early-stage B2B SaaS companies scale their businesses through strategic sales and marketing consulting.

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