October, 2017

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Knowing when to scale (and how to prove that you can do it)

The Angel VC

When you’re talking to investors about a Series B, Series C or later round, one of the questions that will inevitably come up is “What are your CACs?”. It sounds like a simple question, but from the question of what costs to include and the right way to account for organic traffic to the pandora box of multi-touch attribution , there are lots of devils in the details.

Scale 233
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Important Changes in Revenue and Profitability Definitions for SaaS Companies

Tom Tunguz

Starting in January, public software companies will report their financials using ASC 606. Normally, accounting changes are not that interesting, but ASC 606 will change several of the key attributes and benchmarks SaaS startups use. The two most important changes are changes to revenue and profitability. Today, all software revenue is recognized ratably over the contract period.

Revenue 215
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As A Software Business, How Are You Preparing For This Holiday Season?

FastSpring

Experts are predicting that 2017 will be the strongest holiday shopping season ever for ecommerce. Why? Because even last year, when many people were feeling uncertain about the U.S. economy in the post-election season, they still spent 13% more online than the previous year.

Software 121
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Customers need to trust you

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

If you think your customers subscribe to your software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution only because they love the features or the price, think again. Of course, customers look at the solution’s features, the fact that it’s easy to use, or the attractive price… but that’s not all they look at. They’re also figuring out if they can trust you. The fact is that if they don’t trust you and they don’t believe they can rely on you to deliver your service as promised, none of that other stuff really matter

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An Omnichannel Payment Solution––Without the Complexity

Simplify omnichannel payments with a solution that unifies every channel through your platform. By integrating front-end systems like online, mobile, and in-store payments with robust back-end infrastructure, you can deliver a seamless payments experience without the need for heavy engineering. Omnitoken technology enhances security by tokenizing card transactions for reuse, enabling merchants to drive cross-selling opportunities.

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How CIOs are Leveraging AI and Machine Learning to Achieve ITSM Goals

Think Strategies

For the past decade, many IT departments have been on the defensive trying to keep pace with escalating end-user demands and competitive pressures. The emergence of ‘shadow IT’ as a major force within many enterprises raised questions about the role of IT in a cloud-first world. Now, enlightened CIOs are exploring ways to employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to actively engage their IT teams as key players in the rapidly evolving digital transformation efforts within the

More Trending

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Building a Growth Framework Towards a $100 Million Product

Brian Balfour

This post is the HubSpot Sales case study that illustrates the concepts of the 4-Fits Framework, a 5 post series in which I explain the four frameworks you need to align to grow to a $100M+ company. Subscribe to receive the rest of the series. When I joined HubSpot in January 2014 the mission was clear. One, help build the foundation for a new $100M line of business.

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How to Decide With Speed and Conviction

Tom Tunguz

A startup’s competitive advantage is execution speed. That quickness stems from a CEO’s ability to decide and this ability separates the great from the good. According to a recently published Harvard Business Review article , one of the four key behaviors distinguishing exceptional CEOs is deciding with speed and conviction. [We] discovered that high-performing CEOs do not necessarily stand out for making great decisions all the time; rather, they stand out for being more decisive.

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What is Customer Health Score?

Totango

Customer Health Score takes multiple dimensions of customer data metrics and classifies them into a single representation of green, yellow or red. It is a consolidation of all the information the company has about the customer, from all probes, people and systems, past and current. Companies use customer health to speed up and scale communication, prioritization, decision making and forecasting of their customer success operations.

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The 30+ Most Desirable Sales Skills & Traits You MUST Develop To Become An Unstoppable Rep

Sales Hacker

Modern sales teams need competent professionals with a variety of talents, skills and abilities. But in a hyper changing landscap e, which are the most crucial sales skills and traits that reps must possess (or develop) in order to exceed targets and deliver consistent sales success? We’ve done our research and compiled the top 30 sales skills you need to master if you want to achieve complete sales enlightenment.

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How Clinic Sense Reduced Churn and Unlocked More Revenue

ClinicSense is a SaaS platform that supports over 7,000 massage therapists who use it for appointment management, payments, scheduling, marketing activities and more. Despite having a relatively low payment failure rate, the company discovered that the failures disrupted the customer experience. This often led to churn as customers decided to cancel or abandon their account, preventing ClinicSense from realizing the full lifetime value (LTV) of its users.

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You can have two Big Things, but not three

A Smart Bear

Forget work/life integration for a minute. How much time do you have, regardless of partitioning? From your 24-hour daily allotment, the 1950s-style break-down is 8 hours for work, 8 for home and commute, and 8 for sleep and ablutions. So, “work” and “home” are the two things in which you can spend 40+ hours per week. This is the amount of time it takes to tackle something huge.

Startup 102
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The Four Most Important Skills For Sales Operations Professionals

InsightSquared

Guest blog by Joe Rodden, Sales Systems Manager at Catalant Technologies. I get asked, “What should I look for when hiring someone for Sales Operations?” or “What skills should I have to break into Sales Operations?” a lot. Thinking about the best and worst Sales Operations professionals I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve come up with four skills that the best have and the worst lack.

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5 Must-Have Internet Marketing Tools for SaaS Businesses

FastSpring

You've created a fantastic product, but it's not getting the attention you hoped for after you launched your SaaS business. Why? The intended audience isn't aware of its existence. It's time to examine some potential tools to use in order to gain a better understanding of your online presence. Here are five tools that will help you improve your SaaS's marketing strategy.

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The Implication of Secular Increases in SaaS CAC

Tom Tunguz

One of the major trends facing SaaS companies today is the rising cost of customer acquisition. Data on this trend has been difficult to find. Fortunately, Patrick at ProfitWell sent me his survey results across about 800 companies. The chart above shows the increasing cost of customer acquisition on a per company basis. Those surveyed have observed a ~65% increase in cost of customer acquisition over the last five years.

Scale 184
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Usage-Based Monetization Musts: A Roadmap for Sustainable Revenue Growth

Speaker: David Warren and Kevin O’Neill Stoll

Transitioning to a usage-based business model offers powerful growth opportunities but comes with unique challenges. How do you validate strategies, reduce risks, and ensure alignment with customer value? Join us for a deep dive into designing effective pilots that test the waters and drive success in usage-based revenue. Discover how to develop a pilot that captures real customer feedback, aligns internal teams with usage metrics, and rethinks sales incentives to prioritize lasting customer eng

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Map Customer Success To Your Global Organization With SuccessTeams

Totango

Every company, especially a large enterprise, builds an organizational structure around their customer operations. Whether by region, product, vertical, or any other business parameter they define, Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are broken into teams to give them focus, tailored processes, and specific metrics that make sense for their line of business.

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The Most Comprehensive Guide To Social Selling You’ve Ever Frickin’ Seen

Sales Hacker

Social Selling. It’s a term that divides opinion within the sales world. Some people think it’s simply another buzzword. Others say social selling is going to change the way we do business. No doubt there are also some salespeople out there that have no idea what social selling actually is. Whether you are completely new to the term or you are an experienced social seller it doesn’t matter, you will find value in this post.

Scale 103
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How the ‘Netflix for Mac apps’ plans to beat Apple at subscriptions

Chart Mogul

After several recent high-profile Mac apps pivoted to a subscription model, users are left feeling cheated. Developer MacPaw is planning to solve that, with Setapp - the first all-you-can-eat subscription service for Mac apps. The pitchforks are out. If you want to see a prime example of angry customers, pay a visit to the iOS App Store and look at the reviews for writing app Ulysses.

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Operations problem solving: how to start and finish backwards

InsightSquared

Guest blog by Joe Rodden, Sales Systems Manager at Catalant Technologies. It’s nearing the end of your company’s fiscal year, the sales team is gearing up for another year end close, holiday parties are being planned, and your leadership team is determining 2018 initiatives. These initiatives will likely trickle down into your lap in the form of a whole heaping of new projects, sometimes with little more than a one sentence headline.

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15 Modern Use Cases for Enterprise Business Intelligence

Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

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Superhero Customer Support

FastSpring

Customer support workers are the unsung superheroes of the working world today. So what does a support agent need to become a real-life superhero?

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The Rising Stakes in SaaS

Tom Tunguz

Last week, I participated in two discussions about the changes in the SaaS world. I believe they are fundamental. The most important force shaping the industry today is competition. The level of competition in many core SaaS segments is intense. Why? The SaaS era is about 20 years old. Salesforce was founded in 1999. Since then, many major categories of software have been saasified.

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What is Customer Health Score?

Totango

Customer Health Score takes multiple dimensions of customer data metrics and classifies them into a single representation of green, yellow or red. It is a consolidation of all the information the company has about the customer, from all probes, people and systems, past and current. Companies use customer health to speed up and scale communication, prioritization, decision making and forecasting of their customer success operations.

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5 Psychology Tips From An FBI Hostage Negotiator That Will Make You Sell Better

Sales Hacker

Chris Voss served as a hostage negotiator at the FBI for close to a quarter of a century. During a portion of the time, he was the Bureau’s lead international hostage negotiator. Voss had an epiphany of sorts upon leaving the Bureau; he realized that several of the skills he’d learned and honed ‘in the wild’ during hostage negotiations were directly relevant – and essential – to the business arena.

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Prepare Now: 2025s Must-Know Trends For Product And Data Leaders

Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, and Terrence Sheflin

As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.

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How to build a highly-engaged SaaS audience

Chart Mogul

Weren't able to make it to SaaStock this year? I shared our approach to building a valuable, engaged audience for ChartMogul. Here's the full transcript and slides for you to read. Note: You can also find the full deck on SlideShare – although it’s easier to read the full transcript here on our blog. This is ChartMogul! We’re about 25 people and one Dachshund, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.

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InsightSquared’s Dreamforce 2017 Sessions for Sales & Sales Operations Professionals

InsightSquared

Last week, our CMO Joe Chernov explained why InsightSquared is going “all-in” at Dreamforce 2017. As part of our increased presence this year, we are teaming up with customers, partners and industry experts to host three interactive break-out sessions throughout the week. The sessions will offer sales and sales operations professionals with case studies, lessons learned and the tactical takeaways needed to become even more strategic within their organizations.

SMB 66
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Practical Ways To Strengthen Your Sales and Marketing Strategies

FastSpring

Creating a sales and marketing strategy has changed a lot in the last few years. While it used to focus on print ads, television and radio commercials, or even billboards, now there are many ways to reach potential customers that are not only significantly less expensive but also more impactful. When you're selling a product that's intended for digital use, and that is sold primarily through digital methods, it just makes sense to target your sales and marketing strategy to the digital realm.

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Monte Carlo Simulations of Inside and Outside Sales Teams in a SaaS Startup

Tom Tunguz

Recently, a VP of sales told me about the way he views the dynamic between inside and outside sales. Inside sales is the drumbeat, a highly predictable sales organization whose consistency enables outside sales to swing for the fences. I never heard it expressed quite this way, but I do think there’s some truth to it. To prove it to myself, I ran a Monte Carlo simulation for hypothetical startup.

Scale 144
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Launching LLM-Based Products: From Concept to Cash in 90 Days

Speaker: Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health and Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

Christophe Louvion, Chief Product & Technology Officer of NRC Health, is here to take us through how he guided his company's recent experience of getting from concept to launch and sales of products within 90 days. In this exclusive webinar, Christophe will cover key aspects of his journey, including: LLM Development & Quick Wins 🤖 Understand how LLMs differ from traditional software, identifying opportunities for rapid development and deployment.

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Connect with Totango at TSW Las Vegas!

Totango

The Totango team is headed to Las Vegas to talk customer success at TSIA’s Technology Services World (TSW) October 23-25 at the ARIA Resort & Casino. Don’t miss us at booth #26 and read below for info on our exclusive happy hour and lounge! TSW is a must-attend conference if you’re looking to stay at the forefront of the services industry.

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Sales Metrics 101: How To Find (And Fix) Those Dangerous Cracks In Your Sales Funnel

Sales Hacker

What’s the one number any salesperson knows by heart? That they can tell you within seconds of you asking, any time of day or year? How much revenue did I book? Did I hit quota? Did I hit my number? That number – bookings – is an incredibly useful business metric. It’s the #1 goal your CEO has, what your investors care about, and what makes you a successful salesperson.

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6 SQL Data Warehouse Solutions For Big Data

Rakam

Are you confused about which SQL Query tool is best for your organization? In this technically dynamic world where data is king, many data analysts are faced with making the difficult choice of what querying engines to employ. Beyond that, they are tasked with sifting through the data storage systems these engines support, and weighing what they stand to gain (or lose as the case may be).

Data 66