SaaStr

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Mandy Cole, Partner at Stage 2 Capital, shared the five steps every company needs to take to build their first GTM playbook centered around the buyer. Let’s start at the beginning — with the customer. Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Who are you selling to? What is your Ideal Customer Profile?

Point of Sale 236

Point of Sale Forecasting Technical Review SMB 236

OpenView Labs

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

In a pure consumption-based or pay-as-you-go model, every day the customer is making a decision about whether to use a product. That’s why top usage-based SaaS companies instill a customer success mindset across every team. Here’s what that means for Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Pricing, and Finance.

Pricing 64

Pricing Customer Success Scale Compensation 64

SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2023

So there’s a perhaps obvious conversation everyone should be having, but isn’t: “Look, in 2023 we basically hid inside our existing customer base. It literally added no new customers last year and basically none the past 2 years. We saw Cloud and SaaS leaders sending unsolicited 3 year binding contacts to month-to-month customers.

Cloud 288

Cloud Pricing Customer Success Metrics 288

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2024

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Thing Is, Maybe 10%-15% of Venture-Backed Startups Are Still Running the 2021 Playbook. SaaStr 724: CRO Confidential: Bringing Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth Together For Go-To-Market Success with Giancarlo Lionetti, CRO of Zapier.

AI 209

AI Startup Trends Customer Success 209

SaaStr

AUGUST 8, 2022

Visit investors and customers. We want you to be successful, bring your team – we mean it!). >>>Team Your Sales leaders get the playbook from Lattice, Calendly, Snowflake, Confluent, Brex and So. The Playbook to Building Your SDR Growth Engine. With sessions like… The Playbook of Product Pivot .

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) 221

VPCs (Virtual Private Cloud) Scale Sales Hiring Scaling 221

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 3, 2023

Customer Success Managers are at the heart of retaining and growing customer accounts. This is tied back to increased revenue and customer loyalty. Yet, despite its importance, Customer Success Management often lacks the structure and standardization found in other roles like sales and marketing.

Customer Success 19

Customer Success Management Scale Technical Review 19

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2023

Many people at this year’s SaaStr Europa wondered about the future of customer success, motivation during hard times, and how to grow in this new era of efficiency. Q: How Do You Think The Founder Playbook Has Changed For Bootstrapped Founders In 2023? “The Big customers want a solution. So here’s the conundrum.

Sales Hiring 226

Sales Hiring Scale Customer Success SaaS 226

SaaStr

JULY 28, 2023

They aren’t on the management team, they aren’t selling or building product or running a growth playbook. If you get Eric Yuan or Marc Benioff to be an active advisor — well, then, you get some more attention. But that’s about it. It’s tablestakes. You’re expected to attract some great advisors over time.

Enterprise 226

Enterprise Management Leadership 226

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

You won’t be able to scale this far without a full management team — VPs of Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Customer Success at least. You have to let go of the many mistakes that will be made — so long as you hire great VPs to run the playbooks. But the toughest personal challenge for many CEOs is letting go.

Sales Hiring 265

Sales Hiring Startup Scale Scaling 265

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 5, 2022

Why Customer Success and Product Should be Best Friends. Why Customer Success and Product Should be Best Friends: Lessons Learned with AWS’ Head of Customer Success Harini Gokul. Customer Success is a team sport – we play well with Sales and Solution Architecture.

AWS 215

AWS Customer Success Scale Sales Hiring 215

SmartKarrot

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

In the ever-evolving landscape of the business world, customer success has become an essential component for sustainable growth of business and long-term prosperity. Today, we will dive into the Top 7 Must-Have Customer Success Playbooks , which are indispensable for business growth.

Customer Success 10

Customer Success Marketplace as a Service Churn Onboarding 10

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

After finding success in their home country, many SaaS founders begin to think globally, considering expansion into the international markets. Before pursuing the market in another country, you must ensure optimal success in your current market. Data and trackable metrics are critical to understanding your success. Be prepared!

Scale 196

Scale Scaling Sales Hiring Marketing 196

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 4, 2022

At first, she was performance-focused, but over time she learned more and more about the value of brand and customer marketing, especially when you’re growing—and growing fast. She details her six steps to manage successful marketing at scale. Step 3: Be the customer whisperer. Step 5: Discard your playbook and create a new one.

Scaling 195

Scaling Marketing Management Branding 195

SaaStr

AUGUST 15, 2023

So two discussions this week were reminders to me of how much marketing has changed in the early and “pre-brand” stages: Two very successful founders ($1B+ exits) with new startups pushed me really hard to promote their new startup you’ve never heard of our our podcast + at SaaStr Annual. No one cares you have a new or new-ish app.

Startup 169

Startup Sales Hiring AI Content Marketing 169

User Pilot

APRIL 22, 2024

In SaaS, it’s advised to follow customer success best practices to ensure that users achieve their desired outcomes with your product and become loyal advocates for your brand. TL;DR Customer success builds long-lasting relationships, increases customer retention , lifetime value , and advocacy, and informs product development.

Customer Success 84

Customer Success Retention Software Review Customer Lifetime Value 84

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 13, 2023

In the world of customer success, achieving compliance is a critical goal for businesses across industries. Compliance ensures that organizations adhere to legal regulations and industry standards, protecting both themselves and their customers. That’s where digital playbooks come into play.

compliance 10

compliance Customer Success Technical Review Systems Review 10

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

A classic but updated post that now has become part of the SaaS playbook. How To (Successfully) Source Your First 2 Sales Reps Ok, you’ve closed 10+ customers yourself, and you’re ready to hire your first 2 reps. TL;DR: close at least 10 customers yourself. But where do you find them?

Sales Hiring 212

Sales Hiring Scale Sales Startup 212

SaaStr

MAY 17, 2023

The point of CRO Confidential is to help startups acquire customers, and Cassidy provides a unique perspective on founder-led sales as a current founder and highly talented sales leader. So what secrets has Cassidy learned over the past decades of building businesses and acquiring customers? Let’s find out.

Startup 171

Startup Pricing Sales Trends 171

SaaStr

MARCH 10, 2022

The most successful companies of the last decade from Amazon to Netflix, Microsoft, and Atlassian continue to win despite the competition because have embraced transformational changes. In this session, Atlassian’s Chief Operating Officer, Anu Bharadwaj, joins us to share the company’s playbook.

Scale 194

Scale SMB Scaling Startup 194

User Pilot

APRIL 8, 2024

Product-led growth is a well-known bottom-up approach that relies on the product for customer acquisition and revenue expansion. Free trials and freemium enable the users to explore the product and experience its value to convert them into paying customers. In the long run, they might also play a role in new customer acquisition.

Strategy 85

Strategy Business SaaS Customer Lifetime Value 85

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 1, 2023

Join Lars Nilsson and GTMfund to learn how to implement Account-based Sales Development (ABSD) strategies in your sales playbook – foster meaningful customer relationships while delivering real measurable returns through ABSD. What factors define ABSD success. How to implement ABSD in your sales playbook. Implementation.

Development 105

Development Sales Technology Strategy 105

SaaStr

JULY 23, 2023

Check out this week’s top blog posts, podcasts, and videos: Top Blog Posts This Week: The Cold Hard Truths About SaaS in 2023 with Jason Lemkin The Cold Hard Truths About SaaS in 2023 with Jason Lemkin Part 2 Want To Steal a Customer from the Competition? You Gotta Do The Work Customer Success: Do They Need to Be Product Experts?

Retention 201

Retention Revenue SaaS Customer Success 201

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 10, 2023

Customer success has evolved significantly over the past decade. As businesses strive to provide unparalleled user experiences and support, personalizing your customer success playbooks has emerged as a pivotal strategy. When customers recognize this effort, they are more likely to reciprocate with loyalty.

User Experience 10

User Experience Customer Success Engagement Strategy 10

SmartKarrot

OCTOBER 2, 2023

In the outcome-driven world, creating a customer success playbook that resonates is not merely a strategy; it’s an art. It requires vision, knowledge, determination, and iterations to get a highly effective playbook. Playbooks are closely aligned to the customer journey leading to a timely impact on customers.

Customer Success 10

Customer Success Innovation Construction Communication 10

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

2: Product As an operator, you’re given a playbook. Whether you’re joining at Series A, B, C, pre-public, or post-public, you have to figure out how to scale the operations of getting your product to market and in the hands of as many customers as possible and then making those customers successful.

Headcount 195

Headcount Scaling Finance Engineering 195

SaaStr

MAY 19, 2023

That’s … low: And one problem I see is too many founders using a dated playbook for venture fundraising. Let me just share 10 Simple Suggestions on How to Make Fundraising a Smidge More Successful in 2023: #1. Another month of progress, another set of new customers, etc. Share customer testimonials.

New CTO 240

New CTO CTO Banking Cloud 240

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 15, 2022

Metrics are the key to evaluating success and setting goals, but not every SaaS business should orient itself around the same one-size-fits-all numbers. However, now there is an expansion of playbooks for SaaS, not another new model that requires everyone to follow it. This is important for unit efficiency.

Metrics 205

Metrics Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Technical Review 205

SaaStr

MAY 26, 2022

If appropriately discussed and embedded, a values playbook can be the hallmark of your organization and one of the most strategic tools founders and managers have. Ask your team members what precise words they would use to describe what’s important to the organization and how successful it is at putting these values into action.

Company Culture 203

Company Culture Benchmarks Startup Management 203

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

He’ll be joined by SaaStr CEO, Jason Lemkin at Build for a powerhouse session on how he re-ignited growth at Segment, and what steps he took along the way that led them to an eventual, successful acquisition. In this session, Atlassian’s Chief Operating Officer, Anu Bharadwaj, joins us to share the company’s playbook.

Scale 200

Scale Innovation Leadership Acquisition 200

SaaStr

MAY 23, 2023

But simply sending out a few press releases isn’t enough –– you need a strategy to reach customers and prospects. Sprig CMO Elizabeth Walton Egan believes that simply putting your product out there won’t attract customers: “If you build it, they will come does not work. Ready to network, learn, and level up?

Scale 202

Scale Marketing Social Media Advertising 202

User Pilot

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

Even the most successful ones have sales teams to close deals with high-value customers. A successful PLG motion allows organizations to reduce customer acquisition and support costs while continuously driving growth by leveraging WOM , product virality , and referral schemes. No companies are 100% PLG. A PLG motion.

Acquisition 101

Acquisition AI Search Onboarding Churn 101

SaaStr

JUNE 25, 2023

Customer Success Has Gone from The Customer’s Ally To Its Nemesis The Era of Efficient Growth in SaaS is Here with SaaStr’s Jason Lemkin 10 Tips To Avoid SaaS Burnout The 10 Things I’d Tell My Younger CEO Self to Do Better Next Time Top Podcasts This Week: 1. Is That a Good Thing?

Startup 189

Startup Scaling Customer Success SaaS 189

SmartKarrot

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

Customer renewals are the benchmark for successful customer relationships and the cherry on top of every business’s revenue sundae. This blog is a playbook for successful customer renewals; it provides steps for you to organize your efforts in ways leading to successful customer renewals.

Scale 10

Scale Education Customer Success Communication 10

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

At SaaStr Miami, former Founder’s Fund Partner and CRO of Brex Sam Blond — host of the SaaStr CRO Confidential Podcast — sat down with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin for a fireside chat about finding success as a SaaS company in 2024. What works well from the classic playbook in 2024, and what should we walk back or modify?

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Headcount 245

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2021

Patrick Collision, CEO and co-founder of mammothly successful Stripe, a while back put together a list of things to do from age 10 to 20 to be a successful entrepreneur. In a small way, a few of those age 10-20 skills I did acquire from starting a tiny software company then were what carried through to whatever success I’ve had.

Sales Recruiting 311

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring Scale Branding 311