Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 9, 2017

When negotiating your next fundraising round, should you talk valuation in premoney terms or postmoney terms? Premoney is the valuation before the investment, employee stock option pool (ESOP) expansion, debt-to-equity conversion and investment. Postmoney is the value of the business after all that. As an investor, postmoney is simpler. Despite the improved simplicity, I don’t think the industry is going to move to postmoney anytime soon.

Investment 202

Investment Engineering Startup Pricing 202

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

DECEMBER 2, 2017

I know this may be heresy to almost every marketer and sales person on the planet, but I’ll just say it: it’s possible to have too many leads. Lots of the effort to generate new leads – those programs, events, campaigns and incentives we’ve got in place to build more visibility, drive more traffic, and gather more names - might just be a waste of time and money.

Acquisition 122

Acquisition Education AI Retention 122

The Angel VC

DECEMBER 4, 2017

I’m very excited to announce that we’re looking for a new Associate. In all modesty, I think that for a young, smart person who’s passionate about startups and technology, an Associate role at Point Nine is one of the fastest ways to learn, build your network, and advance your career. Case in point: Rodrigo, who started as an Associate four years ago, is now a Partner at Point Nine ; Fabian is running his own fund ; Nicolas became a “30 under 30” and is now VP at Insight ; and Mathias is now GM

Startup 115

Startup Technology Investment 115

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Selling to c-level executives is a different ball game. You have to be concise, respectful of their time, and really think about how to differentiate yourself in order to break through the clutter and earn the right to ask for something. Here is a message to sellers from a real c-level buyer: Outbound tactics without strategy are sheer lunacy. We must lead with an insight-driven value narrative (‘hypothesis of value’), otherwise hammering away in blended channels is worthless.

Interviewing 111

Interviewing Leadership Education Branding 111

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InsightSquared

DECEMBER 29, 2017

There are different uses of cement such as to make cement mortar, cement concrete which are used in various types of masonry and concrete structures.

Technology 110

Technology 110

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2017

There’s a crisis in the scientific academic world. It’s called the Replication Crisis. Scientists have found that they cannot replicate the results published by many scientific studies. The same thing is happening in the world of business. Over the last 15 years I’ve read several hundred business books, and I’ve written one. Across those 15 years, one of the most interesting is a book called The Management Myth, which traces the history of management science back to its l

Artificial Intelligence 188

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Trends Startup 188

FastSpring

DECEMBER 15, 2017

One of the most interesting trends we see (as presented in the stats below) is a movement away from traditional websites to app experiences. People are choosing to spend more and more time with apps because they are personalized, intuitively designed, and task-oriented. Smartphone users typically have loads of apps installed on their devices, but use only a select few daily.

Engagement 88

Engagement Retention Trends Marketing 88

Chart Mogul

DECEMBER 5, 2017

Sellbrite helps e-commerce businesses of all sizes to sell across multiple channels. Find out how they tackle optimizing their SaaS pricing for customers -- from tiny online stores to high-volume multi-channel sellers. The perpetual pricing dilemma. Designing and defining the pricing for your SaaS product may be one of the most difficult aspects of building a subscription business. “ What should I charge?

Pricing 70

Pricing Scale SaaS Marketplace as a Service 70

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Ever since the 4-Hour Workweek where Tim Ferriss wrote about using virtual assistants (VAs) as a way to outsource your inbox – hiring virtual sales assistants has hit the mainstream. What is a Virtual Sales Assistant? A Virtual Sales Assistant is a remote contractor that you hire as a means of outsourcing a specific task or set of tasks in order to build a more efficient sales process.

Sales Hiring 109

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Sales Recruiting Sales 109

Speaker: Tamara Fingerlin, Developer Advocate

Apache Airflow® 3.0, the most anticipated Airflow release yet, officially launched this April. As the de facto standard for data orchestration, Airflow is trusted by over 77,000 organizations to power everything from advanced analytics to production AI and MLOps. With the 3.0 release, the top-requested features from the community were delivered, including a revamped UI for easier navigation, stronger security, and greater flexibility to run tasks anywhere at any time.

Data

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 11, 2017

As a sales leader, you’re only as good as your team, and it starts by managing a team effectively. It’s important to create a process to systematize the way your reps generate, manage and close opportunities. To encourage the right behaviors, you must provide evidence that shows your process is effective, and straightforward. A team of some of our top customers recently brainstormed ideas for how a sales leader can institute an effective, data-backed rep management process within their organizat

Forecasting 95

Forecasting Metrics Market Segmentation Management 95

The SaaS Garage

DECEMBER 4, 2017

Berlin-based Contentful? ?raises? ?$28 million? ?to? ?help more? ?digital? ?teams? ?ship? ?content? ?faster. By Thomas Ohr , December 4, 2017. Contentful , the content infrastructure startup, today announced it secured $28 million in Series C financing. Led by General Catalyst Partners, with participation from existing investors Benchmark Capital, Balderton Capital, and Point Nine Capital, the round puts the total funding raised to date to $45 million.

Software Development 61

Software Development Benchmarks Finance Enterprise 61

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 2, 2017

A friend suggested that I read the Five Dysfunctions of a Team over the weekend. Though I’m passionate about business books, I rolled my eyes. I had seen this one on best seller lists for a long time, and never thought it would have much to offer. I admit my book-cover bias was wrong. The author has a counterintuitive assertion. Meetings shouldn’t be boring.

Startup 180

Startup Development Investment Management 180

FastSpring

DECEMBER 11, 2017

It’s almost 2018, and let’s face it: customers have incredibly high expectations and standards for online commerce experiences. Today’s online shoppers want to check out with as few clicks and barriers as possible – they expect a seamless checkout, they expect it to match your brand, and they demand fast (and successful !) payment processing.

Payment Methods 68

Payment Methods Payment Services Branding 68

Speaker: Alex Salazar, CEO & Co-Founder @ Arcade | Nate Barbettini, Founding Engineer @ Arcade | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO @ Aggregage

There’s a lot of noise surrounding the ability of AI agents to connect to your tools, systems and data. But building an AI application into a reliable, secure workflow agent isn’t as simple as plugging in an API. As an engineering leader, it can be challenging to make sense of this evolving landscape, but agent tooling provides such high value that it’s critical we figure out how to move forward.

AI

Outseta

DECEMBER 17, 2017

By Geoff Roberts 10 min read When you say “Blockchain” or “Ethereum” to people who live their lives outside the spheres of tech or highly speculative investments, you often get confused or simply apathetic reactions, to which I say… understandable. But the applications of blockchain technology are in fact vast, highly useful, and go way beyond whether or not you’ve chosen to invest in Bitcoin.

Blockchain 58

Blockchain SaaS Payments Technical Review Technology 58

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 13, 2017

In our last article, we did a tactical tear down of when to hire sales trainer or sales consultant. In this post, we’ll explain how to find and hire the right sales consultant or sales trainer for your business. We’ll lean on our panel of experts and start by sharing their unique perspective, followed by 7 very specific questions to ask when interviewing a sales consultant or trainer candidate.

Sales Hiring 106

Sales Hiring Consulting Scale Sales 106

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 19, 2017

SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin recently discussed the reality a sales team faces on January 1: the closed/won deals start at $0. The commitment of new goals can be daunting, even for the most seasoned of sales teams. To alleviate some of the pressure of the new year, Lemkin offered a list of ideas you can implement to help your sales team succeed in 2018.

Sales Hiring 88

Sales Hiring Sales Management Marketing 88

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 18, 2017

When you run a services business, it’s only natural to think, “You know, this would be a whole lot easier if we were a software company.

Software 52

Software Business SaaS Sales 52

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AI

Totango

DECEMBER 14, 2017

Your customers are your most important asset and their data is critical for your business. We’re launching today Totango Shield. Totango Shield provides comprehensive protection for all of your sensitive information and allows you to automatically comply with internal security policies and external regulations, including the new GDPR going into effect May 2018.

Data 49

Data Business 49

FastSpring

DECEMBER 21, 2017

We have already talked through “conversion optimization” and dispelled a few myths surrounding the process in order to orient you in the right direction. Once you understand where you’re headed with conversion optimization, you have to take the time to dive deeper, study the data, and constantly update or test your web design to increase conversions.

Data 60

Data Trends Marketing 60

Joel Caparella

DECEMBER 4, 2017

This conversation with Joel Comm , best selling author, keynote speaker and host of one of the world’s most popular Cryptocurrency podcasts , is fascinating. A fearless practitioner of the new, Comm takes on new projects and executes on new ideas more frequently than most people change their bed sheets. The results have been impressive; from early bestselling books on Adwords and Twitter, the aforementioned Cryptocurrency podcast, and one of the leading influencers on applying live streami

Innovation 49

Innovation Business 49

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 21, 2017

What is Sales Operations? Sales operations refers to the unit, role, activities and processes within a sales organization that support, enable, and drive front line sales teams to sell better, faster, and more efficiently. Through strategically implemented training, software tools and engagement techniques, sales ops leaders enable sales reps to focus more on selling in order to drive business results. .

Scale 106

Scale Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Technical Review 106

Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments

Most integrated payments providers share a percent of the payment revenue with their software partners. But, oftentimes, that revenue share is only a fraction of the true income potential software providers can realize. If you want to maximize income opportunities from your payments program, check out Wind River Payments’ webinar-on-demand.

Payments

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 18, 2017

Sales teams are notorious for their traditions that spark friendly competition among their reps — gongs, chants, spiffs and more. To up the competitive ante just a bit more, sales organizations also use leaderboards. Each time a rep wins a deal or hits a goal, the leaderboard activates on large screen TVs, triggering the reps’ “song” to play. The songs — some are more crowd pleasers than others — can be heard throughout the office, which often elicits excessive cheering and cla

Sales 87

Sales Data Management 87

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 13, 2017

In today’s fast-paced world, the humble sales kickoff meeting might seem like a relic of older, simpler times.

Sales 52

Sales 52

Totango

DECEMBER 27, 2017

Head over to Amazon where you can grab the All-new Echo (2nd Generation) with improved sound, powered by Dolby, and a new design! You can get it in 6 designs. We have an Echo and absolutely love it! The all-new Echo (2nd Gen) has a new speaker, new design, and is available in a range of styles including fabrics and wood veneers. Echo connects to Alexa to play music, make calls, set music alarms and timers, ask questions, control smart home devices, and more—instantly.

Pricing 48

Pricing Sales 48

FastSpring

DECEMBER 6, 2017

If you own an online business or website and have been looking for ways to improve your conversion rate, chances are that you have stumbled on the term “conversion optimization.”. Simply put, conversion optimization involves methods to get more people to click the “Buy” button, sign up for your email list, or any other goals you may have set for your business.

Business 60

Business 60

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Payment Solutions

ReSci

DECEMBER 4, 2017

Nearly every executive team at top retail companies are discussing it: “How can we grow digital channels outside of Amazon?” Today Amazon accounts for 34% of all ecommerce sales… and by 2021 that number is expected to be at 50%. That’s right: half of all. The post 3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Retailers As Amazon Looms appeared first on ReSci.

Artificial Intelligence 41

Artificial Intelligence Sales 41

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 15, 2017

If you send an event follow up email, but no one is around to read it, does it even make a sound? No, not really. Imagine returning to your office from a business trip across country after an exhausting 3-day conference. Tired, hopefully inspired and motivated, but always playing catch up from being gone. You sit at your desk with 100+ new business cards to look through, notes on actions you wanted to take when you returned and hundreds of emails to sift through.

Scale 100

Scale Benchmarks Sales Strategy 100

InsightSquared

DECEMBER 20, 2017

Pipeline cleanliness is critical to managing your reps, controlling your pipeline, and making an accurate forecast, but it’s a challenging and lofty goal. We recently hosted a small customer workshop for sales ops leaders to compare their successes, and collaboratively develop the Pipeline Cleanliness Playbook: Four Lessons Learned. Lesson 1: Decide what you will look for, and when.

Forecasting 85

Forecasting Systems Review Sales Development 85