Thanks for visiting my Substack, I’m Sanket 👋🏼

I’ve spent 18 years building and scaling businesses across the United States, Australia, and the U.K. — mostly in software.

I founded and sold two software businesses, then became an adviser to Fortune 500 executives. I recently founded Spring Street Capital, a software investment firm based in New York. Entrepreneur.com recently wrote about it.

In my spare time, I serve as a Coach for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, helping students, faculty, and alumni build and scale software.

I’m a big fan of boxing, snowboarding, and riding motorbikes.

TLDR

SaaS builders, investors, and leaders are facing a fog of uncertainty like never before.

1. Productivity is low, impacted by AI disruption, talent scarcity, and burnout.

2. Growth is stalling due to economic, political, and regulatory headwinds.

3. Profit is declining from technical debt liabilities and increased churn risk.

4. Financial risk is increasing from concentration in customers, infrastructure, sales channels, and capital structure, making it harder to scale or exit.

And so much more.

My goal is to help SaaS builders, investors, and leaders understand the dynamics shaping SaaS and navigate the complex intersections of innovation, growth, and market forces.

I try to write things that are useful — tangible tactics, mental frameworks, and market musings.

What you can expect in every letter

1. A challenge we’re facing right now.

2. A solution that’s working for us.

3. A tactical way to execute.

4. And the expected upside—strategic, financial, or both, if executed well.

All data used in analyses will be sourced. Scrappy tools we build to solve our own challenges will be shared.

Challenges I'll cover

The ones I find myself best at solving, and others generally ask for my advice to solve, generally cluster across the four core areas of the business:

1. Leading

2. Growing

3. Optimizing

4. Deleveraging

These are the areas I spend most of my time when operating.

Uncertainty has increased the severity of impact when faced with these challenges. I’ll share what was working, and equally important, what is not. I hope that, over time, we can make this small group into something far greater.

I have a lot of fun writing these letters with friends, and I hope you’ll get a lot out of reading them.

It will take me some time to get this right, so please bear with me as I get my writing, rhythm, and cadence in order.

Cheers to building together,
—Sanket