Sat.Aug 03, 2019 - Fri.Aug 09, 2019

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SaaS Differentiation: How to Win in a Crowded Market with High Feature Commoditization

OpenView Labs

The other day, I was discussing the inception of Loomly on a podcast, when the host asked me, “Wasn’t it a bit scary to launch a new product in a mature market with substantial competition?” In the same vein, during initial investor calls, the concept of “crowded verticals” almost always comes up. And when we have casual conversations with outsiders, we are sometimes pinged on whether similar tools pre-existed Loomly.

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The ROSE Metric | The Return on Your Most Important SaaS Asset

The SaaS CFO

Measuring Organizational Efficiency There are a ton of SaaS metrics measuring sales efficiency, margins, revenue, and more. These are all important metrics (depending on the stage of your business) that you should be constantly monitoring in your SaaS organization. But I have a gut feel that we are missing an important metric around organizational efficiency. […].

Metrics 94
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Zoom Had a Burn Rate Budget. So Should You.

SaaStr

There was a very curious thing in Zoom’s financials leading up to its IPO that I am surprised no one commented on. But as a founder, it jumped out at me. In 2017, Zoom’s cash burn was exactly equal to its Gross Proft. In other words, it burned exactly $0. It didn’t make a profit that year (although it does now), but nor did it even lose a nickel: .

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Which Categories of Seed Startups are Thriving? Which Aren't?

Tom Tunguz

Which sectors see more startup company formation than others? The answer has changed quite a bit over the last 8 years. Some sectors have hit their apogee and are declining. Others have grown by more than 3x. Yet others are growing geometrically. Let’s take a look. Hot Spaces. Artificial Intelligence - yes, it’s a buzzword but it’s more than that.

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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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The Four-step Pricing Process for Fast-growing SaaS Companies

OpenView Labs

I have spent much of my career in product marketing roles at fast-growing companies. At Glassdoor and Lever, we doubled in size each year; and Reflektive —where I am now Head of Marketing—was recently recognized by Deloitte as the 13th fastest-growing technology company in North America. Over the last five years, I’ve had a lot of experience tackling pricing challenges at companies that were rapidly pole vaulting their way through growth stages.

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2 Cold Emails I Funded For Millions

SaaStr

Cold emails to investors have their detractors. There are so, so many start-ups these days. Everyone with a checkbook is looking for signals which of the 1000s to invest in. Because these days in SaaS, there are just too many. 5 years ago, you could meet many of them. 10 years ago, you could meet all of them. Now there are just too many. So you are looking for signals.

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Slack’s Lane Collins on their ‘radical convenience’ approach to customer experience

Intercom, Inc.

? ? ?. Today, we’re dissecting the customer experience at one of the hottest companies around: Slack. As someone who’s immersed in customer-experience questions and concerns day-in and day-out here at Intercom, I was fascinated to hear how Slack’s entire team dedicated itself to thinking about the end-to-end customer experience. And I was excited to sit down behind the mic with Lane Collins.

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Customer Churn Analysis: Why Analyzing Churn Is So Important - ProfitWell

ProfitWell

There’s no more vital metric for a SaaS company to keep track of than churn : the rate at which customers are leaving your business and taking their subscription dollars elsewhere. Churn can be powered by a number of factors, and even small month-on-month increases in churn percentage can be ruinous to planning, so understanding what churn is and how to analyze it is paramount.

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The 37% Rule: How to Decide When to Stop Wondering and Start Deciding

Tom Tunguz

Earlier this year, I read Algorithms to Live By, a book that explains how to use insights from computer science in daily life. One of the rules is the 37% rule. It’s an important rule because it’s broadly applicable. But I had forgotten about it until I listened to the author on the Software Engineering Daily podcast. The 37% rule says that if you have a decision to make, you should spend 37% of the amount of time you have.

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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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How many people maintain their subscription services after the free trial?

SaaStr

Be a bit wary about raw conversion of free-to-paid as an absolute metric. Driving it up will certain increase revenues in the short term. But perhaps not in the long term. In companies I’ve worked with or invested in, I’ve seen the numbers range from 2% to 30%+. That’s a huge range. And …. 30% sounds better. But is it? Not if you want to maximize the number of folks exposed to your product.

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What the four forces can teach us about the user onboarding experience

Intercom, Inc.

A great onboarding experience is one that proves to new users that your product will help them do the job that they want. To put it another way, the ideal onboarding experience is a short, easy and frictionless path to finding value. Of course, many products have unavoidable complexity. If getting started with your product requires new users to install software, invite colleagues or message customers, then the path to value may not seem as short or straightforward.

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What Is a Squeeze Page, Anyways? (With 4 High-Converting Examples)

Unbounce

As marketers, we love to use fancy words to describe the things we do (and we also like to change ‘em up a lot). Content isn’t long-lasting, it’s evergreen. You don’t need a marketing funnel, you need a flywheel. And don’t even get us started on growth hacking. But as buzzwords come and go, you’re likely to come across an outdated or unusual phrase like “squeeze pages” for the first time and wonder—hey, what the heck does that even mean?

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Google’s Advice for Surviving Algorithm Changes

Neil Patel

In case you missed it, Google just published advice for SEOs on how to continually do well throughout their algorithm changes. Now, what most people don’t know is Google doesn’t just push out a handful of algorithm changes per year. They publish substantially more. Just to give you an idea of how often Google changes, they had 3,200 algorithm changes in just 1 year.

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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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“Land, Expand, Explode: How to Win the Long-Game in SaaS” Egnyte Chief Customer Officer and Co-Founder Rajesh Ram (Video + Transcript)

SaaStr

The SaaS business model has risen to popularity for many reasons – it’s fast-paced, creates residual revenue streams, and well, the multiples are strong. However, while many are flocking to reap the benefits of the SaaS model, truly understanding how it works sustaining success over time is not as easy as some make it look. Rajesh is going to walk you through the key elements of winning the long game in SaaS – how to win customers, how to create long-term relationships, and how to av

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How engineers can make an impact outside the code editor

Intercom, Inc.

Product engineers are experts at identifying, understanding and solving problems. When you talk about the types of problems you tackle, and therefore the impact that you have, the conversation should not be solely limited to the work you do within a text editor or integrated development environment (IDE). Yes, the code that you write and the systems that you build are major contributing factors to the success and growth of a business.

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Why Chatbots Play a Mission-Critical Role in Marketing More Than Ever Before

Nimble - Sales

Chatbots have become an integral part of digital communication across web, social media, and mobile app interfaces. Marketers are increasingly growing fond of chatbots because of effortless, fast-paced, and customer-centric communication in different contexts. With the increasing popularity of chatbots, more and more brands are embracing them. In 2019 and beyond, we can expect chatbots […].

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Ecommerce as Video’s Killer App

Andreessen Horowitz

As online video platforms seek a business model beyond advertising , and short videos start to look more and more like commercials, it turns out that commerce may be video’s killer app.

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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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How Founders Can Take Control of Their Destiny with Tradeshift (video + transcript)

SaaStr

Join Tradeshift founder and CEO as he shows founders how to take control of their destiny. Tradeshift has grown to 650+ people with offices in 12 countries from its start as a mere vision in 2005. Want to see more content like this? Join us at SaaStr Annual 2020. Christian Lanng | Founder and CEO @ Tradeshift. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW. (music) Hey, everyone.

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5 of the Most Revealing SaaS Customer Success Metrics

Cobloom

Whether you're trying to retain more customers or accelerate new customer acquisition, your customer success strategy needs to start with the right performance metrics. Today, I'm taking a look at 5 of the most revealing SaaS customer success metrics - from the ever-present customer churn rate, through to your SaaS product's viral coefficient.

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6 Best Digital Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses

Nimble - Sales

B2B, known as business to business, is a creative and diverse marketing model. It’s quite tricky to leverage your brand in this highly competitive market. So, looking out for strategies which will boost your business and hence revenue is a must. Without following a proper business marketing plan, your business might suffer and would not […]. The post 6 Best Digital Marketing Strategies for B2B Businesses appeared first on Nimble Blog.

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Top 9 B2B Marketing Strategies to Maximize Growth in 2019

ProfitWell

As a B2B marketer, you’re no stranger to the often overwhelming count of tasks on your plate. You’ve got blog posts to write, SEM campaigns to launch — Facebook ads, demand generation tasks, A/B tests , and so much more. How do you choose what’s worth your time and what to ignore as simple noise? The most effective B2B marketers know better than most how to prioritize their workflow, automate tasks, organize their calendars, and invest in marketing channels that pay dividends.

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Buyer’s Guide: Finding The Best Payment Provider For Your Software

Choosing the right Embedded Payments partner can feel overwhelming. This comprehensive buyer’s guide simplifies the process by breaking down seven key criteria to consider, from platform technology to security and growth potential. Learn how to assess partners that align with your goals, offer personalized support, and drive long-term success. This guide equips software companies with the insights to make confident, informed decisions that enhance customer experience and fuel business growth.

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Suppose the CEO of my competitor contacts me, interested in acquiring my app (privately owned). What steps would I take to avoid giving away proprietary information before the sale closes, if ever?

SaaStr

Just meet. Meet all your competitors. You never know where it will go. It may help you head off a stupid conflict later. You might combine the companies. Who knows. Keep the super confidential stuff secret. But anything anyone could find with a Google search, just share it. There’s not as much to hide as you think, and often something to learn. View original question on quora.

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What are the Benefits of Customer-Centricity?

Totango

Imagine if you could give your customers that “day 1” feeling of excitement and potential throughout the entire customer journey. That’s the goal Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has for his customers. In his 2016 letter to Amazon shareholders , Bezos describes the preservation of this day 1 feeling as the biggest driver for pursuing a customer-centric approach.

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What Does the Future of Marketing Automation Hold?

Nimble - Sales

We hear a lot about marketing automation in passing, but the details of how automation will benefit marketers now and in the future are often left unspecified. Here are six marketing automation trends you can expect to see in the near future: Chatbots Will Become Essential in Marketing Automation — Not Just Optional Chatbots are […]. The post What Does the Future of Marketing Automation Hold?

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Reducing Credit Card Declines: How Subscription Billing Management Providers Can Address Business’s Biggest Revenue Threat

Agile Payments

The 2019 payments landscape has inherent risks for any SaaS applications. For example, imagine you are a business owner with 500 customers that you bill $100 per month on a recurring basis. Your business runs and plans based on $50,000 per month coming in the door on a regular basis. It took a long time and a lot of work to get to the point where your business generates that amount of reliable predictable income.

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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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What are some fundamental sales principals entrepreneurs must understand?

SaaStr

Creating urgency is an art. Most founders are great “middlers”. They are great at explaining not just what the product does, but what it can do to solve your problems. No one is better than a founder at this. And then … the deal often never quite closes. The prospect got interested, took the call and the meeting, but … didn’t ask for a contract. Or sign up herself.

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What Is Business Development? (And Why It’s Vital to Sales Success)

Sales Hacker

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with the head of business development for a French logistics company. He was over the moon because in only 5 months he reached his goal of getting 10 qualified opportunities. And, even better, he managed to go beyond the target by closing a €350K deal. The results were shocking. And even more impressive, he got those results in a brand new industry. .

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Video: Growth, Sales, and a New Era of B2B

Andreessen Horowitz

Traditionally, consumer companies have had viral growth and network effects, while enterprise companies have been built brick by brick and sale by sale.

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