Sat.Feb 12, 2022 - Fri.Feb 18, 2022

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The $2 Million Dollar Man/Woman: How to Think About Scaling Your Customer Success Team

SaaStr

In SaaS, there are a lot of great “rules” that do make sense overall but can be confusing or borderline misleading at times. E.g., Sales +Marketing Expenses < First Year ACV = Success ? I.e., keeping the Magic Number at or above 1.0. Great rule — if you have the capital to fund it. But maybe not while you are scaling, you can often afford to invest more if you have funding.

Scale 264
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Why You Should Always Create Sales Opportunities at Zero Dollar Value

Kellblog

Quiz : Your marketing team generates an MQL. It’s passed to an SDR , who does basic BANT -style qualification it and decides it’s real. They create a sales opportunity in your pipeline and pass it to a seller. What number is in the opportunity’s value field at this time? Four answers I hear frequently: I don’t know. C’mon Dave, that’s a detail, why would I care about that?

Sales 136
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How to Apply The 5 Love Languages to Customer Success

Totango

Do you know your love language ? According to Dr. Gary Chapman, every person has a primary love language in which they need to be spoken to in order to feel cared for and loved. The five love languages include: Receiving Gifts. Quality Time. Words of Affirmation. Physical Touch. Acts of Service. While Dr. Chapman’s original research on this topic was intended for use in romantic relationships, it has since been expanded to apply to any type of relationship – including between an organization and

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The Sales Sandwich

Tom Tunguz

The most consistent sales leader I’ve worked with hit plan 27 consecutive quarters. How can a sales leader develop similar repeatability? Much goes into it here are the reports he used to manage his team at the board level. The PQR (pipeline-to-quota) funnel is first. Pipeline is the total value of the accounts within a stage or later. Quota is the aggregate quota on the street for the quarter.

Scale 330
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SaaS Essentials: Failed Payment Solution Guide

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.

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As You Scale, About Half Your Team Will Be in Sales and Marketing

SaaStr

Sales-driven SaaS startups end up with about half their headcount in sales and marketing. It sounds high at first, until you realize that's just how the math works. Software itself and other departments get leverage. Sales doesn't. — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) February 17, 2022. One thing that sneaks up on you in SaaS is just how many sales, marketing and revenue professionals you are going to need: First it sneaks up on you in the early days because the initial tiny team becom

Scale 352

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Infrastructure at speed: 5 lessons learned from building Intercom in Europe

Intercom, Inc.

In December, we announced European data hosting , the result of one of Intercom’s biggest ever infrastructure projects. We’re continuing to expand Intercom globally, and the lessons we learned while building out the infrastructure will be invaluable. Until now, Intercom has been a multitenant application hosted in a single region in AWS.

Scale 234
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10 Lessons Learned after $5B of M&A

Tom Tunguz

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky to work with founders and management teams to sell about $5b of startups. During that time, I’ve observed a few things about M&A. Here are 10 of my learnings: Most acquirers have built a relationship with the acquisition target. Suitors introduced during a sale process wrestle with doubts of understanding what they don’t know about the space, the team, and the business.

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Building A $5.6b Company With A Product-Led Flywheel With Postman’s CEO Abhinav Asthana (Pod 528 + Video)

SaaStr

Product-led companies face a long road as they attempt to manifest themselves from having abstract vision to millions in revenue. Abhinav Asthana , founder and CEO of Postman , knows that journey very well, having started Postman as a mere side project in 2012, only to launch it as an enterprise platform almost a decade later. Over the years, though, Asthana has learned a lot about what can go wrong while building a market-leading company and how to avoid those missteps before they happen.

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How To Close The Deal With Sales Presentations

Predictable Revenue

AlexAnndra Ontra joins the Predictable Revenue podcast to discuss the role of presentations in the outbound sales process and how to use them to close the deal. The post How To Close The Deal With Sales Presentations appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Sales 278
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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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Velocity’s Doug Kessler on bringing the mojo back to content marketing

Intercom, Inc.

And no, we’re not talking about Austin Powers! Doug Kessler is the co-founder and creative director at Velocity Partners , a B2B Marketing Agency with a laser-sharp focus on content strategy, and the writer of articles such as The Search for Meaning in B2B , Crap , and Insane Honesty. Although he started his career as a suit on Ogilvy & Mather in Madison Avenue back in the 80s, it wasn’t until he shifted to B2B that he found his true calling.

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Will Your Startup Borrow More in 2022?

Tom Tunguz

In 1968, Milton Friedman argued “ In the Price of Money, ” that higher interest rates don’t mean less borrowing. He would echo this sentiment in an article Reviving Japan. “After the U.S. experience during the Great Depression, and after inflation and rising interest rates in the 1970s and disinflation and falling interest rates in the 1980s, I thought the fallacy of identifying tight money with high-interest rates and easy money with low-interest rates was dead.

Startup 271
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Who’s Coming to SaaStr Miami Meetup March 3rd?

SaaStr

SaaStr’s first IRL event of 2022 will be in Miami on March 3. We’re taking over Veza Sur Brewing for an evening of AMAs and networking with 200+ SaaS VCs, CEOs, Founders, and Senior-level leaders! Aside from the amazing speakers, who else will you meet there? 305 ventures. 500 Global. 71lbs. Accelevents. Acronym Venture Capital. Addigy. Altigroup.

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Building for the 99% Developers

Andreessen Horowitz

Should you move to serverless? Is GraphQL the answer to your API woes? Should you follow the latest DevOps playbook to increase your system reliability? In the world of tech tools, there’s a lot of buzz. But it doesn’t always reflect the daily reality of programmers. As the founder of a developer tools startup, I’ve. Read More. The post Building for the 99% Developers appeared first on Future.

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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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What Your Marketing Needs is a Bad Guy

Sparktoro

If you’re a big brand, already established, conservative in your ways and happy with your performance, this advice isn’t for you. But, if you’re a startup, an underdog, a challenger, you need to hear this. Villains are a good thing. Stories with villains make sense. They can be memorable. They can have depth and purpose.

Marketing 144
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7 Examples Of Creative Advertising To Inspire Your Marketing Campaigns

Unbounce

As a digital marketer or business, standing out from the crowd has never been more difficult. How do you surprise and delight your audience when there are six ads out there just like yours, all vying for attention? At a time when people are watching, reading, and interacting with media across multiple devices, creating a new campaign can seem like a losing battle.

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10 Things Changing Now in the World of Customer Success with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta (Pod 529 + Video)

SaaStr

What does success look like for your customers? . The definition of success will vary from business to business, from customer to customer. That said, customer success is evolving, and the importance of customer success continues to grow. Nick Mehta , CEO at Gainsight , discusses ten ways customer success is changing and how you can help your business catch up if you’re still a bit behind. . 1.

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The Missing Link Between Web2 and Web3: Custody

Andreessen Horowitz

Crypto faces a major barrier when it comes to mainstream adoption: The user journey is complicated and not yet built-out, and it’s not at all easy or intuitive for people new to crypto to even do the simplest possible thing — hold complete control over their own digital assets. Of course, it’s not required that. Read More. The post The Missing Link Between Web2 and Web3: Custody appeared first on Future.

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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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Guide to Customer Retention (Definition, Rates, Strategies & More)

Groove HQ

It's cheaper to keep an old customer than to acquire a new one—with that in mind, we'll walk you through customer retention strategies and ideas. The post Guide to Customer Retention (Definition, Rates, Strategies & More) appeared first on Groove Blog.

Retention 126
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11 Black-Hosted Business Podcasts That You Need to Listen To

Nimble - Sales

This Black History Month, we want to commemorate and show some love for our favorite Black-hosted podcasts! Expanding your perspective by getting educated on black professionals’ experiences in marketing, sales, and business is an amazing way to celebrate Black History and recognize the powerful achievements and perseverance of the Black community.

Business 126
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30+ SaaS CEOs Share The Signs Their First VP of Sales … Just Wasn’t Going to Work Out

SaaStr

What was the first warning sign your VP of Sales wasn't going to work out? — Jason BeKind Lemkin (@jasonlk) February 11, 2022. So perhaps the first SaaStr post that generated a lot of controversy was “If Your VP of Sales Isn’t Going to Work Out — You’ll Know in 30 Days” The point of the post wasn’t that a new VP of Sales can get everything done in 4 weeks.

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Why SQL Needs Software Libraries

Andreessen Horowitz

Try as they may, critics of SQL (syntax query language) have never really been able to dent its popularity. Decades after its creation, the majority of the world’s databases still run on SQL, and the majority of data analysis still happens via SQL queries. It’s not too big a stretch to say that the digital. Read More. The post Why SQL Needs Software Libraries appeared first on Future.

Software 138
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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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Who did I just hire!?

IT World

These days it’s not uncommon to interview someone over Zoom and never actually meet them in person. A friend recently told me they hired a great candidate for their Kubernetes senior engineer position. This was a big deal. Kubernetes-savvy people are rarer than hen’s teeth. The person they hired showed he had the technical chops they needed and made it through three rounds of interviews with flying colors.

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Everything I’ve Learned About Recruiting and Interviewing

Kellblog

The other day a founder asked me about interviewing because a candidate had described me as “a great interviewer,” and she wanted to know why. (And for that matter, so did I.). Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing and recruiting, a topic about which I am passionate not because I think I am good it, but because I think I am not.

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Secrets to Building Your Marketing Engine To Drive Scale with Airtable CMO Archana Agrawal (Video)

SaaStr

People do not want to buy one-size-fits-all solutions. Rather, they are looking for something flexible and adaptable to their unique needs. . When marketing teams spend the bulk of their time completing manual tasks, data gets siloed, workflows break down, and leaders do not have the visibility they need to make customer-focused decisions. Airtable ’s CMO Archana Agrawal shares how marketers can tackle these challenges to develop solid marketing foundations for rapid customer acquisition and gro

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Getting SaaS Accounting and Financial Operations Right in 2022

SaaSOptics

Getting SaaS Accounting and Financial Operations Right in 2022. According to Gartner, the SaaS industry is projected to grow to a staggering $121B in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020. And this trend will continue. Based on a 2019 survey, Gartner forecasts that eighty-four percent of new software will be delivered as SaaS , and this percentage is expected to increase as existing providers transition to a subscription-based model.

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Evaluating Embedded Payment Providers For Your Software? Get The Evaluation Scorecard Today

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

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New VA CIO focuses on digital transformation, EHR changeout

IT World

The new CIO of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said the agency plans to focus heavily on digital transformation efforts, rely on more cloud-based applications, continue its push into telehealth, and build out its internal IT staff. During a media roundtable Thursday, VA CIO Kurt DelBene said his goal is to transform agency's technology landscape to help drive a seamless, unified experience for veterans through digital transformation.

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[Podcast] SaaS Observability Done Right

Frontegg

When we talk about next-gen SaaS products, Product-Led Growth (PLG) and bottom-up terms come to mind. What are these all about? What do developers need to look out for? Aviad Mizrachi, co-founder and CTO at Frontegg and Dotan Horovits, Technology Evangelist at Logz.io, converged to discuss the crucial SaaS Observability aspect. Here’s a quick recap.

SaaS 98
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Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias CEO Romain Lapeyre (Pod 527 + Video)

SaaStr

Scaling a business is difficult, and scaling a SaaS business can be even more of a challenge. However, there are practical methods you can use to acquire new customers, drive higher retention, and grow your company. . Gorgias CEO Romain Lapeyre has successfully scaled the Gorgias SMB customer base from 1,000 to 10,000 by relying on data. Lapeyre shares advice on how to use data to acquire more customers and increase ARR. .

SMB 246