Intercom, Inc.

MAY 31, 2018

To build a great product, you have to intimately understand the problem it’s built to solve. To build a great business, as Steli Efti has learned, your customers must feel the pain of that problem too. Steli is the CEO of Close.io , an inside sales CRM that helps startups and SMBs generate high-quality leads and close more deals. When he’s not building software, Steli’s sharing content with the wider sales community through the Close.io blog , books on everything from product demos t

Startup 223

Startup Forecasting Sales Communication 223

Tom Tunguz

MAY 19, 2018

Technology innovations swing to a pendulum’s cadence. Sometimes innovations begin with infrastructure changes and reverberate up the stack. Other times, front-end engineers innovate at the application layer, which demand downstream changes in the infrastructure to scale. The last major epoch of front end evolution has celebrated its ten year anniversary.

DevOps as a Service 208

DevOps as a Service Blockchain Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence 208

The Angel VC

MAY 12, 2018

In last week's post I shared some thoughts about Dropbox and why, although Dropbox is unquestionably one of the most amazing SaaS companies ever built, I am a tad less confident in the company's long-term future than I am in other SaaS leaders such as Salesforce.com, Zendesk, or Shopify. As mentioned in the first part of the post, I took a closer look at Dropbox’s recent IPO filing and would like to share some tidbits, along with a few observations. #1 – Dropbox on consumerization "Individual us

AWS 187

AWS Scale Payment Features Subscription 187

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

MAY 4, 2018

Everybody’s got a story about bad customers. In case you can’t get your fill, a Google search on “customers from hell” fetched 33,100,000 results. These customers can be infuriating, frustrating, and just plain rude. But if you’re a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, bad customers can be much worse than that. They can be downright dangerous. No way to recover your costs For one thing, these bad customers are likely to cost you money, not make you money.

Underperforming Technical Team 122

Underperforming Technical Team SaaS Business Acquisition 122

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Think Strategies

MAY 21, 2018

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of becoming affiliated with the rapidly growing Catalant expert network which has enabled me to extend my consulting services to a wider assortment of enterprises seeking help with their Cloud strategies. Catalant recently gave me an opportunity to provide my perspectives regarding the state of the Cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketplace, as well as the new business opportunities and challenges which these unprecedented technological de

Cloud 100

Cloud Marketplace as a Service SaaS Consulting 100

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 14, 2018

There are few functions where the phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” rings truer than in marketing. For instance, the fundamentals of good marketing haven’t changed: crisp writing, a compelling story, strong brand, and of course, a great product to market. At the end of the day, nothing you do as a marketer will land without those elements; as Copy Hacker’s Joanna Wiebe once told us , “People will not read anything, anywhere that is boring, ever.

Social Media 223

Social Media Artificial Intelligence Scale Marketing 223

Tom Tunguz

MAY 28, 2018

Imagine you came across this ad. Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes.

Sales Hiring 206

Sales Hiring Software Engineering Investment Engineering 206

The Angel VC

MAY 4, 2018

I’m late to the party here, I know. Dropbox went public a bit more than a month ago and I’ve finally had a chance to take a close look at the company’s S1. I’ll be sharing a few specific observations from the S1 review, but let’s start with some more general thoughts about the company. The mighty king of Freemium Like Zendesk, Yammer, and a few other SaaS companies that were all founded around 2007-2008, Dropbox was one of the early champions of the "consumerization of the enterprise" movement.

Underperforming Technical Team 143

Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review Systems Review Software Review 143

Chargebee

MAY 17, 2018

There are three strategies you can use to turn good questions into good asks—gradual engagement, information priming, and immediate impact delivery.

Onboarding 107

Onboarding Engagement Strategy 107

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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.

Payments

Sales Hacker

MAY 17, 2018

Let’s take a minute to ensure the most important factors that affect the bottom line have a spotlight on them. Specifically, we’re focusing on the sales development process and how to build a sales pipeline—all from a high level. We’re charging forward with 6 simple steps to ensure that the focus is not lost along the path to accurate sales forecasting and predictive revenue.

Sales 90

Sales Forecasting Engineering Mobile 90

Neil Patel

MAY 29, 2018

You can attribute a lot of great relationships to perfect timing. When you connect with the right person at the right time, everything seems to just fit. This is especially true for sales. Connecting with your lead too early means they won’t be ready to buy. But if you wait too long, they may have moved on to a competitor. Unfortunately, finding the perfect time to connect with a customer is complicated.

Scale 101

Scale Sales Hiring Sales Pricing 101

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 16, 2018

Despite the mountain of evidence contradicting the mantra of “if you build it, they will come”, it’s still extremely prevalent among product-first companies. Why? First, most founders don’t have a background in either sales or marketing, and even though they’re told to “ start marketing the day you start coding ”, they just don’t know where to begin, or they’re incredibly overconfident.

Product Marketing 223

Product Marketing Strategy Marketing Sales Hiring 223

Tom Tunguz

MAY 1, 2018

“Don’t be so hard on yourself when things go badly and don’t be so proud of yourself when they go well.” I think this is one of the hardest pieces of advice to follow. Chance is an important contributor to any outcome. sometimes we just get lucky. That recent crypto trade in which you made 25% in an hour. The time you met your significant other for the first time.

Interviewing 173

Interviewing Startup Metrics Business 173

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

Revenue

Baremetrics

MAY 9, 2018

As founders, a lot of our identities get wrapped up in our companies. Certainly within our industries, but even to family and friends it’s how people know us. And over time, we sort of become our companies. Most founders or CEOs are the “face” of their businesses and eventually they’re inseparable. Maybe that’s fine in the short run if you’re trying to go hard for 2-3 years then bank on some big exit, but if you’re in the business of businessing (i.e. an entrepreneur), you just can’t do that lon

Artificial Intelligence 81

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Travel Banking 81

Chargebee

MAY 3, 2018

The tiny details in user onboarding make the difference between good and great. It’s important we think about them and take time to get them right. Here’s something that can help.

Onboarding 89

Onboarding 89

Sixteen Ventures

MAY 15, 2018

Customer Success is when your customers achieve their Desired Outcome through their interactions with your company. If you focus on Customer Success , churn will not be an issue. At least in theory. To take that from a simple theory to your Operating Model , you need to put systems in place, be able to monitor their effectiveness, and routinely perform root cause analysis when things go wrong (and also when things go well so you can replicate, right?).

Churn 81

Churn Customer Success Management Systems Review 81

Chart Mogul

MAY 17, 2018

I spoke to Max about his experience with complete transparency at Buffer and how he managed to get his first paying customers for his side project PixelMe. A lesson in early-stage B2B growth. “You just have to think about what you really want to achieve with a side project…I really wanted to have a sort of laboratory to be able to experiment with ideas…” Today really excited to share this conversation with Maxime Berthelot ( @Maxberthelot ).

Software Review 74

Software Review Social Media B2B Scaling 74

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Intercom, Inc.

MAY 10, 2018

What do Dropbox, Uber, AngelList, Front, Gusto and Boba Guys have in common? All have benefited from the sage advice of growth expert and Andreessen Horowitz general partner Andrew Chen. Andrew’s been an angel investor and advisor for a slew of name-brand startups; however, he’s most widely known for his invaluable essays on growth. He’s written more than 650 of them over the past decade and has been featured and quoted in The New York Times, Fortune, Wired and Wall Street Journal.

Acquisition 224

Acquisition Marketplace as a Service Retention Startup 224

Tom Tunguz

MAY 3, 2018

There’s the challenge of dealing with uncertainty, where you’re operating in the weird zone that you’re making decisions that have significant long term impact or that are difficult to reverse or course-correct in the face of great uncertainty. Uncertainty is often unnecessary in the sense that you could, in principle, reduce the uncertainty. You could go research the question more.

Interviewing 172

Interviewing Startup Leadership Management 172

FastSpring

MAY 7, 2018

The impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deadline is a hot topic on everyone’s mind these days. However, these regulations are a small step forward in the data privacy movement.

Data 61

Data 61

The SaaS CFO

MAY 10, 2018

What is Monthly Recurring Revenue in SaaS? There is no shortage of terms and acronyms in SaaS, and monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is one of them. SaaS revenue terms can be quite confusing, especially around revenue. Is it MRR, ARR, ARPA, or bookings? In this post, I’ll define monthly recurring revenue and how you calculate […]. The post What is Monthly Recurring Revenue?

Revenue 72

Revenue SaaS 72

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.

Trends

Casey Accidental

MAY 29, 2018

Many people are familiar with Dan Pink’s work in Drive that to be the most productive, happy at work, etc., you need to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose. While a lot has been written about how to create purpose inside companies and crafting compelling missions, I would like to spend some time to dig into the details on autonomy. As founders and senior leaders of companies, it can be tough to understand how to give autonomy to employees and also drive toward a singular vision and commit to thi

Leadership 70

Leadership Scale Communication Startup 70

Sales Hacker

MAY 15, 2018

On this episode of the Sales Hacker podcast, we talk with Andrea Kayal , Chief Marketing Officer at Upserve and most recently Chief Marketing Officer at Signpost. We talk about how to align marketing and sales with demand generation to drive scale. Author’s note: When this interview was recorded, Andrea served as the CMO of Signpost. As of May 2018, she serves as the CMO of Upserve.

Scale 65

Scale Sales Hiring Marketing Sales 65

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 1, 2018

Convincing potential users to sign up for your product isn’t easy. But what happens next is far more important. The latest batch of billion-dollar companies are built on high customer retention. They help their users be successful, and that means providing great onboarding. At Traction Conference, an event all about how to keep and grow customers and revenue at scale, I explained how to build onboarding based on your customers’ goals, and why when your product improves, your onboardi

Retention 223

Retention Payment Methods Onboarding Payment Solutions 223

Tom Tunguz

MAY 5, 2018

At Redpoint’s annual investor meeting earlier this year, I quipped, “The day-trading taxi drivers of the dotcom era have been replaced by crypto-trading Uber drivers.” But over the weekend, a grizzled Uber driver with a mane of grey hair and wind-and-sunburnt cheeks asked me about crypto. “Can you explain to me why public key/private key technology is important on the Blockchain?

Blockchain 120

Blockchain Strategy Innovation Investment 120

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.

Artificial Intelligence

FastSpring

MAY 2, 2018

The impending General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deadline is a hot topic on everyone’s mind these days. However, these regulations are a small step forward in the data privacy movement.

Data 60

Data Trends 60

Chart Mogul

MAY 8, 2018

Putting customer feedback to work in your business means having well-defined frameworks for capturing, cataloging and analyzing input from your users. Effectively handling customer feedback is a vital ingredient in reducing churn for subscription businesses. For a growing startup, customer feedback exists in so many different forms, it can often be hard to nail down: A passing comment from a customer at a conference.

Scale 65

Scale Technical Review Subscription Payment Features 65

The SaaS Garage

MAY 16, 2018

A nice article about two experienced founders, who I met first time in 2012, just when they started to kick of riskmethods. Indeed, like mentioned in the article, “ klassische Start-upler sind Schwarz, 41 Jahre, und Zimmer, 46 Jahre, laengst nicht mehr “, but that made the whole story particulaly interesting to me as a mentor and business angel, used to take risk on all fronts but not on lack of domain market know-how!

Government 60

Government Finance Enterprise Development 60