This week an AI startup called big SaaS apps glorified databases, Foursquare finally checked in somewhere permanent, and a PGA Tour caddie quit on the fairway after eight straight pars.
Same lesson all three times: nobody wants to carry dead weight anymore. Let's tee off.
THE DRIVE: Your SaaS Is Becoming a Database
Ema just raised a $77M Series B led by Creaegis, with Accel and Prosus doubling down. The pitch: "AI employees" that run multi-step HR, IT and finance processes across the apps you already pay for, then quietly make some of those apps optional.
The scorecard is loud: revenue up 50x in two years, net dollar retention around 180%, and pricing tied to finished tasks, not seats or tokens. Where's the new money going? Sales and marketing. Of course it is.
"Many of our customers are already on the way to replace [large SaaS applications] completely... because they are mostly becoming like a database." — Surojit Chatterjee, Ema CEO
If your product is the cart path and not the round, this is your Monday-morning slice. Customers still need the path. They just stopped paying greens fees to look at it.
THE FAIRWAY: Jacob Bridgeman Wrote Three Goals. Hit Four.
Bridgeman fired a bogey-free 61 to win the first-ever Biltmore Championship Asheville by two, about 80 minutes from his house, with his parents watching. The Tour's No. 1 putter gained over eight strokes on the greens for the week.
"My goal to start the year was to win, make East Lake, and make the Presidents Cup, so I hit all those and hit the win category twice." — Jacob Bridgeman
The kicker: he says the par saves on 11 and 12 won it, not the birdie run. Write your three Q4 goals down today. Then go make the boring saves nobody posts about.
THE GREEN: Foursquare Finally Checked In for Good
Remember fighting your coworker for mayor of the office Chipotle? Infillion is buying Foursquare outright. The check-in app grew up into a location-data business with 100M+ points of interest and 16B check-ins, per SaaSRise, and Infillion wants it next to its purchase data to connect ads to real store visits.
This Week's Hole-in-One Award goes to Foursquare for the most graceful second career in tech. The app was the tee shot. The exhaust, all that data, was the actual business. Worth asking what your product leaves behind that someone would pay for.
FROM THE CLUBHOUSE: Scheffler and Burns Closed on Touch Five
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns were 0-3-1 as partners in team events. Thursday at Medinah, on try number five, they finally won one together, 1 up over Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im, and the U.S. leads the Presidents Cup 3-2 heading into Friday foursomes.
"This is a long week. This is one session. We've got four more to go." — U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker
Most reps drop a prospect after touch three. The deal that lands on touch five looked hopeless on touch four. Keep the sequence, change the club. Got a touch-five story? Send it to us at gtmgolfclub.com and the best one runs next issue.
THE CADDIE'S CORNER: Eight Pars and a Walk-Off
At the Biltmore, Alejandro Tosti's caddie Cliff Ellis dropped the bag in the middle of the fairway, peeled off his bib and walked to the clubhouse. Tosti thought he'd gone to the bathroom, then recruited a fan from the gallery to finish the nine.
His explanation, texted to Golfweek, per Total Pro Sports: "He couldn't keep up with eight pars in a row." Every exit interview you've ever done, in one sentence.
19TH HOLE INSIGHT
At the Solheim Cup, Lottie Woad played every team session and came away with half a point. Then on Sunday she holed the 2-footer that clinched the Cup for Europe.
Your rep sitting on half a point through Q3 might just be waiting for singles. Give them the Sunday match.
See you on the back nine. And if you haven't yet, follow us on LinkedIn.
