August, 2019

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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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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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“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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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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How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics

Just by embedding analytics, app owners can charge 24% more for their product. How much value could you add? This framework from Software Pricing Partners explains how application enhancements can extend your product offerings. You’ll learn: How to take a disciplined approach to pricing The three elements of the Packaging Decision Framework Ways to structure your new embedded analytics offering Download the White Paper to learn about How To Package & Price Embedded Analytics.

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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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Automated customer service should be personal

Intercom, Inc.

Automated customer service isn’t a new concept. We’ve all navigated our fair share of automated phone menus or interacted with support bots to get help. But much has changed, both in usability and customer perception. Voice recognition technology has improved, AI solutions can interpret customer feedback, and chatbots have started to answer the questions they receive, not just pass them off to a human.

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How to Drive Traffic through Organic and Paid Channels

The Daily Egg

Traffic is something we all strive for in digital marketing. Without traffic, there are no leads and without leads, there won’t be any conversions. There are a ton of options to drive traffic to your website, but you have to make sure that the traffic is relevant and of high quality. Otherwise, you’ll just be […]. The post How to Drive Traffic through Organic and Paid Channels appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Marketing 279
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The power of positivity: how to inspire your team to leave their limiting beliefs behind

Predictable Revenue

Learn how to empower your teams to not only crush their numbers but cultivate a mindset that will empower them in all areas of their life. The post The power of positivity: how to inspire your team to leave their limiting beliefs behind appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Revenue 133
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One Call to Make Before Picking Your Startup's Headquarters

Tom Tunguz

If you must choose a long term headquarters for your startup, call an executive recruiter who focuses in that city. Ask her about each of the key roles your company will need to hire in the next 2 to 3 years. VP Engineering, VP Product, VP Sales, VP Customer Success, VP Marketing, or VP Operations. How large is the candidate pool for each search? Which are the hardest searches to complete in this geography?

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6 Reasons Why Your Integrated Payments Strategy Could Fail

If you're in the software industry grappling with integrating payments into your business model, understanding where others have stumbled can be a game-changer for your revenue goals. Discover 6 key reasons behind the struggles many face. The challenge goes beyond the technicalities of integrating a payment system; it delves into the strategic oversight of revenue shares, negotiations with payment providers, and the full exploitation of potential revenue streams.

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Here’s How the Cartoon Design Trend Caught Fire and Why Every SaaS Is Rebranding

Unbounce

I’m sure you’ve noticed this ubiquitous illustration style by now. Depending on who you ask, these cartoons are either fun and whimsical, or strange and faceless. Maybe you see them as friendly-looking doodles … or maybe you see them as just plain weird. Whatever your opinion, one thing is for sure: these little buddies are everywhere right now. For better or worse, they have completely taken over the visual identities of many high-profile SaaS brands.

Trends 111
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The Customer That Needs a Champion: Your Free Customers

SaaStr

I am a big believe in Free editions — when they work. At EchoSign, we launched not only with a Free edition, but we launched 100% Free. We thought it was a great marketing strategy, back in the day. It really wasn’t for a B2B product. At least, not at first. Just having a “Free” version doesn’t get millions of folks to use 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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Low Traffic? No Problem! How To Improve Your Website And Increase Sales

The Daily Egg

A common refrain we’ve heard is that people’s businesses are too small to use any sort of CRO tool that tells them what their visitors are up to. That their website traffic is too low. That they need to increase their revenue or traffic first before they can think about improving their website for those […]. The post Low Traffic? No Problem!

Sales 279
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People, Passion & Perfection: The Key Ingredients for an Awesome Product

Need help launching innovative software quickly? Dive into "People, Passion, and Perfection" and unlock the secrets to building excellent products in the digital age. Fast-track your journey with Tech Accelerator: Agile and Cloud-Native for flexibility & scalability AI-powered innovation for faster results Quality at every step for a flawless user experience See real impact across industries: Healthcare: Empower patients and medical professionals with intuitive solutions Education: Transform cla

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Ubersuggest 5.0: Generate 1 Million Keyword Suggestions in 7 Seconds (Seriously)

Neil Patel

Ubersuggest started out as a tool that provided suggestions through Google Suggest. And although that’s great, everyone these days is using Google Suggest to come up with keyword ideas. There have to be more keyword ideas out there that get more search volume and aren’t competitive, right? Well, there are, and now with the new Ubersuggest , you’ll get access to them.

Marketing 112
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Benchmarking DataDog's S-1: How 7 Key Metrics Stack up

Tom Tunguz

Recently, we’ve seen a series of product-driven companies building huge customer bases with tremendous account expansion and terrific sales efficiency. DataDog is no exception. DataDog provides a very popular IT monitoring solution that has grown from its founding in 2010 to a huge business. During that time the product has grown from infrastructure monitoring to application performance management, logging and user experience products.

Metrics 189
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This SaaS Collected 100k+ Leads Using Gated Content & Landing Pages

Unbounce

Taylor Loren knows it better than anyone: SaaS is a tough almond to milk. It’s not just the complexity of building a valuable product that stands out from your competitors. The nature of the software as a service (SaaS) model is that your customers need to resubscribe every month (or year, depending). And no matter how great your platform is, that’ll inevitably mean churn.

SaaS 111
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What were the signs you missed before you lost a major customer?

SaaStr

I remember the first time I lost a six figure customer. It was a surprise: They used the product every day, and constantly. They had done a case study for us. In fact, they were on our homepage. They renewed the contract and added additional seats. And then one day, we got a call. Our competitor had been there, on site. And convinced them they had a better solution for a few critical 10x features.

Metrics 202
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Driving Growth, Customer Satisfaction, and Retention through Usage-Based Pricing

As companies strive to boost revenue, deliver customer value, and stay competitive, they are increasingly embracing the potential of usage-based pricing.

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Intercom’s Jonathon Colman on why content designers should do less

Intercom, Inc.

I’m excited to be joined today by Intercom’s own Jonathon Colman, a senior designer who came to us by way of the Nature Conservancy, REI and five and a half years at Facebook, where he most recently worked as a UX Content Strategy Lead for Marketplace. Since coming aboard in December, he’s influenced us with his thinking about the possibilities within the nascent field of content design.

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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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SEO Doesn’t Have to be a Long-Term Game: There Are Quicker Ways to Get Results

Neil Patel

Everyone thinks SEO is a long-term game… that you have to wait months if not years to see results. And, maybe that was the case a few years ago when content was still king. With Google making 3200 algorithm changes in just one year , their goal isn’t to make a website wait a year or two before they are able to achieve a top spot. Instead, they want to show the user the right site as quick as possible.

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Why We Dropped “Fun” as a Core Value

Groove HQ

And how, as a result, we’re having more fun than ever. “Have fun.” She stared at me. “Go ahead. Just have fun.” I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Having fun yet?” I was talking with my sister, Elizabeth, and she was helping me come to an embarrassing realization. Groove’s “Core Values”—the ones I had so […]. The post Why We Dropped “Fun” as a Core Value appeared first on Groove Blog.

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How to Achieve Product-Market Fit

Speaker: Dan Olsen - Product Management Trainer and Consultant, Author, and Speaker

Everyone working on a product is trying to achieve the same goal: product-market fit. But most products fail to do so. In this webinar, product management expert Dan Olsen will share his simple but effective framework for achieving product-market fit from his book The Lean Product Playbook. He will explain his Product-Market Fit Pyramid and The Lean Product Process, a 6-step methodology that guides you through how to: Determine your target customer Identify underserved customer needs Define your

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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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Do successful SaaS companies have “transformational” opportunities beyond selling more and more of their core product?

SaaStr

Many do and have. As we see more and more SaaS companies cross $1b+ in ARR (wow!), Twilio being the latest, we see more and more adding new core products to their existing core products. Twilio started with SMS. Now that’s just a piece of Twilio, and its 81%+ growth at $1b (double wow!) was fueled by its entry into email marketing by buying Sendgrid: Twilio Crossed $1 Billion in ARR Growing 81%.

SaaS 198
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Lean UX author Jeff Gothelf on why design must have a seat at the table

Intercom, Inc.

? ?. If an organization’s founders aren’t designers and don’t come from a background where well-designed products played a key role in their lives, it can often be the last discipline to be brought onboard the team. Author Jeff Gothelf sees this all the time in his work as a consultant for medium- and large-sized companies, and it inevitably leads to a culture clash where designers feel unvalued.

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How to Collaborate With Your Team More Effectively Than Ever

Nimble - Sales

Collaboration is hard in itself. Every time your team grows, the team members start working in silos. This means two teams are working on the same project, but neither of them is aware of what the other is doing. They don’t communicate effectively with each other – and productivity suffers. Organizations are finding it increasingly […]. The post How to Collaborate With Your Team More Effectively Than Ever appeared first on Nimble Blog.

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Addressing Top Enterprise Challenges in Generative AI with DataRobot

The buzz around generative AI shows no sign of abating in the foreseeable future. Enterprise interest in the technology is high, and the market is expected to gain momentum as organizations move from prototypes to actual project deployments. Ultimately, the market will demand an extensive ecosystem, and tools will need to streamline data and model utilization and management across multiple environments.

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How to Generate More Traffic with Google’s New Features

Neil Patel

You’re probably already familiar with Google My Business. If you aren’t, as a quick recap, Google My Business is a simple way to claim your office address or storefront on Google. That way, when someone searches for your business, you’ll show up on the right side of a Google search like the image above. Or better yet, when someone searches for a product or service you’ll offer, you’ll show up in the local pack.

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How to Deal With Angry Customers: Examples, Research, and Field-Proven Best Practices

Groove HQ

What’s the best way to respond to an angry customer? It’s one of the most stressful parts of working in customer service. It’s also an issue that came up repeatedly in a recent survey we conducted of 2,300+ customer service professionals and businesspeople. When we asked about your biggest challenges, we heard answers like this: […]. The post How to Deal With Angry Customers: Examples, Research, and Field-Proven Best Practices appeared first on Groove Blog.

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Your 7-Step Essential User Onboarding Checklist

Cobloom

Your user onboarding process can make-or-break your SaaS business. Done well, it positions your service as the ideal solution to a problem your user is experiencing by providing real, demonstrable value from first use. Done poorly, it fails to show the value of your service, by focusing on all the different functionality your service offers instead of what the new user can achieve with it.