The Angel VC
OCTOBER 3, 2017
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.
Tom Tunguz
OCTOBER 28, 2017
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.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
OCTOBER 7, 2017
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
Brian Balfour
OCTOBER 13, 2017
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.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.
Sales Hacker
OCTOBER 25, 2017
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.
SaaS Brief brings together the best content for SaaS professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
A Smart Bear
OCTOBER 17, 2017
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.
Tom Tunguz
OCTOBER 14, 2017
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.
Think Strategies
OCTOBER 23, 2017
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
Sales Enablement, SaaS and Growth
OCTOBER 16, 2017
The sales enablement industry has taken tremendous strides in recent years, but by most measures, it's still a relatively immature function. While there’s a talented and growing body of practitioners that are doing sterling work to advance the industry and sales performance, for the most part, there’s a distinct lack of standardised sales enablement best practices, planning models and frameworks.
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.
Sales Hacker
OCTOBER 22, 2017
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.
FastSpring
OCTOBER 25, 2017
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?
InsightSquared
OCTOBER 16, 2017
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.
Tom Tunguz
OCTOBER 8, 2017
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.
Speaker: Ben Epstein, Stealth Founder & CTO | Tony Karrer, Founder & CTO, Aggregage
When tasked with building a fundamentally new product line with deeper insights than previously achievable for a high-value client, Ben Epstein and his team faced a significant challenge: how to harness LLMs to produce consistent, high-accuracy outputs at scale. In this new session, Ben will share how he and his team engineered a system (based on proven software engineering approaches) that employs reproducible test variations (via temperature 0 and fixed seeds), and enables non-LLM evaluation m
Totango
OCTOBER 2, 2017
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.
Chart Mogul
OCTOBER 12, 2017
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.
Sales Hacker
OCTOBER 24, 2017
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.
FastSpring
OCTOBER 6, 2017
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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For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.
InsightSquared
OCTOBER 4, 2017
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.
Tom Tunguz
OCTOBER 31, 2017
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.
Totango
OCTOBER 14, 2017
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.
Chart Mogul
OCTOBER 4, 2017
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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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.
Sales Hacker
OCTOBER 30, 2017
Have you ever been misunderstood? Even in a time when you were 1,000% sure you explained yourself clearly? Of course you have, and it can feel maddening. But still, it happens. Unfortunately, the same thing is happening to your customers. You think you know exactly what they’re thinking and feeling… H ave you asked them? If not, you don’t fully understand the reasons why they’re buying.
FastSpring
OCTOBER 2, 2017
From 2015 to 2016 total U.S. retail ecommerce sales increased from $294.45 billion to $322.17 billion. Trends suggest 2017 will top off somewhere around $353.68 billion. For perspective, total estimated retail sales in the U.S. came in around $5 trillion. Ecommerce grew faster in 2016 than ever before, booming by 15.6%. In other words, ecommerce is here to stay.
Rakam
OCTOBER 11, 2017
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).
Tom Tunguz
OCTOBER 21, 2017
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.
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
Totango
OCTOBER 12, 2017
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.
InsightSquared
OCTOBER 11, 2017
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.
Sales Hacker
OCTOBER 25, 2017
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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