December, 2014

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A toast to all the great ones that we've missed

The Angel VC

Picture taken by "nlmAdestiny" One of the things that inevitably happens when you're in the angel or VC investing business for a couple of years is that besides a hopefully healthy portfolio, you're also building a growing anti-portfolio. As far as I know, the term "anti-portfolio" has been coined by Bessemer. Its meaning is described very well on Bessemer's website , and because it's so hilarious I want to quote it in its entirety: "Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest ventu

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Brutal Intellectual Honesty

Tom Tunguz

I’ve been reading a book called Legacy Of Ashes, which is an exhaustive history of the CIA since its founding more than 50 years ago through to 2007. Reading spy stories is always enthralling, but surprisingly, the book is a fascinating case study in management. The major theme of the book is the value of intellectual honesty, a principle which was often forgotten according to the research compiled by the author.

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SaaS Buyers are Quick to Buy

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

Most SaaS buyers make their purchase decision quickly. When they need a solution, they do some online research, maybe ask a colleague, try the solution or watch a demo, and then buy. The whole process might take a few days, maybe a few hours. There’s no long, drawn out sales engagements, RFIs and RFPs, head-to-head “bake-offs,” contract negotiations, blah, blah, blah.

SaaS 100
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Lean Startup Conference 2014: "Will they buy?"

CloseSaaS

If you’re a B2B business idea and want to find out whether it's valid and worth pursuing, there is one question that you should ask above all others: Will they buy? Don't just ask prospective customers "Will you buy it if I build it?

Startup 52
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How Investors & Strategic Buyers Evaluate Integrated Payment Strategies

Explore how integrated payment strategies impact investor and buyer evaluations. Payments are more than a feature — they’re a key to long-term success and market differentiation. They help SaaS companies offer seamless user experiences and efficient operations. Investors and strategic buyers assess these integrated payment strategies as a measure of a company's growth potential and sustainability.

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Introducing: The One-Slide Update Deck

The Angel VC

When we start to work with a new portfolio company, one of the things we always suggest is that in addition to (sometimes lots of ) ad hoc communication via eMail, Skype, Basecamp, etc. we set up a standing meeting or call, at least during the first 9-12 months following our investment. Typically it's a one-hour monthly call, and the purpose of these calls is to get us updated and to talk through current issues.

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A Surprising Source of Traffic for Breakout Content Marketing

Tom Tunguz

Each year, I do a retrospective analysis of this blog. This year, I found something unexpected. Like many other content sites, just a handful of posts on this blog generate the majority of the traffic. I’ve plotted the distribution of traffic by post above; it’s clearly governed by a power law. The top 2% of posts generated 19% of traffic, the top 10% account for 48% and the top 20% attracted 69% ( Pareto would be vindicated ).

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How Customer Success Meaningfully Reduces Cost of Customer Acquisition

Tom Tunguz

Thanks to Bill Macaitis , current CMO at Slack and former CMO of Zendesk, who inspired and co-authored this post. When discussing customer success for SaaS startups, the conversation focuses mostly on retaining customers and reducing churn. These are two fantastic benefits with meaningful return-on-investment. But great customer success organizations can meaningfully impact another critical part of the customer lifecycle, customer acquisition, by catalyzing evangelists to refer new customers.

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Why the Time to $1B in Valuation for Startups is Decreasing

Tom Tunguz

Are startups growing much faster than they have in the past? The chart above plots the time required for startups to raise rounds at $1B or greater valuation, over the past ten years. The blue line is a logarithmic regression demonstrating the decrease from about 7.5 years to less than 2.5 years. The answer seems to be an unequivocal yes. Let’s break this chart down by type of company: B2B and B2C.

Startup 100
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The Importance of Segmentation for Your SaaS Startup

Tom Tunguz

Are you a Barry, Jill, Buzz, Angel or a Devil? This is the question Best Buy store managers posed each time a potential customer walked into one of its stores when the company decided to segment its customer base in 2005. Barrys are high-income family men. Jills are soccer moms. Buzzes are gadget lovers. Angels are the best, most-profitable, customers and buy new products at full price.

Startup 100
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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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The Importance of Mindfulness When Managing a Startup

Tom Tunguz

Crisis in startups is inevitable. Products break, deadlines are missed, legal issues arise, customers raise issue, employees quit, bad press circulates. To survive, founders and management teams have to respond well and quickly. In Managing the Unexpected, two University of Michigan Professors examine the characteristics and behaviors of great teams during crisis.

Startup 100
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Benchmarking Box's Updated S-1 - How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up

Tom Tunguz

This post is part of a continuing series evaluating the S-1s of publicly traded SaaS companies in order to better understand the core business and build a library of benchmarks that might be useful to founders. Box is a 1000+ person company providing collaboration and document sharing software. We had previously analyzed the business when the company filed their first S-1.

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The Acquisition Environment for Startups in 2015

Tom Tunguz

Growth is king in today’s public markets. Most of the SaaS IPOs we’ve analyzed have traded growth for profitability and they have been rewarded handsomely for it. For the large tech companies, this trend is no different. The public market prizes growth. Some public tech companies sustain growth through internal efforts, but many use their cash reserves to acquire fast-growing startups.

Startup 100
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The Technology Sectors that Create the Most Value

Tom Tunguz

In which sectors have software companies created the most financial value? I asked myself this question over the weekend. I categorized the top 250 IT companies which spans $675B in market cap (AAPL) to $3B in market cap (ASOS) and created the chart above. B2B Software, which includes Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and SAP among others represents about 30% of the total IT market cap today.

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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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When Will the Tech Bull Market End?

Tom Tunguz

When will the tech bull market end? It’s a question that I’m asked with some frequency. There are three fundamental reasons for the bull market. First, technology is changing nearly every part of the economy. Consequently, there are many huge opportunities for entrepreneurs to seize. Our internal analysis shows that only 2% of IT budgets are spent on cloud today.

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The 2014 Class of SaaS IPOs

Tom Tunguz

2014 has been a great year for SaaS companies. By my count, 9 of them will have gone public. Meanwhile, SaaS companies in both the public and private markets continue to fetch premium valuations. To illustrate the rapid appreciation in the value of these SaaS companies, I’ve plotted the share price by round of each business. The color bars in the chart represent Series A, B… through to IPO.

SaaS 100
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Got kids? They can make you awesome at sales!

CloseSaaS

Want to witness true sales mastery in action? Just watch a kid that craves a snack. They'll relentlessly try a series of different approaches and tactics. Resolute rejection won't deter them, they'll unwaveringly keep their eyes on the target.

Sales 52
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Feature: Manually log calls

CloseSaaS

One of the best parts of Close is letting you make calls with one-click through our built in VoIP system and those calls are logged automatically for your team to see. However, we know that sometimes you end up making calls outside of Close.

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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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Hustle Hard: Pioneers 2014 startup sales talk

CloseSaaS

Pioneers Festival is one of the most exciting and fun events on entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe, and it was great to speak there again the second year in a row.

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The sales rep onboarding hack

CloseSaaS

A lot of companies selling complex, technical products spend weeks, or even months, training new sales reps before they let them interact with real prospects.

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Wolf or lamb in SaaS sales?

CloseSaaS

What's the right attitude, mindset and energy to sell SaaS products? Many people, particularly those whose first profession isn't sales, get this wrong.

Sales 52
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Launched: Send HTML formatted email from Close

CloseSaaS

We wanted to end 2014 strong with one more feature launch, one that's been veryheavily requested.Close now lets you send HTML formatted emails!

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Building User-Centric and Responsible Generative AI Products

Speaker: Shyvee Shi - Product Lead and Learning Instructor at LinkedIn

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, Generative AI products stand at the cutting edge. These products, with their unique capabilities, bring fresh opportunities and challenges that demand a fresh approach to product management. This presentation unveils a comprehensive 7-step framework designed to navigate the complexities of developing, launching, and scaling Generative AI products.

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Top 10 Close blog posts of 2014

CloseSaaS

2014 was the year we focused on sharing the lessons we've learned from building and scaling sales for more than 200 venture-backed startups.

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Managing sales team morale when your reps have lost faith

CloseSaaS

Managing a sales team has its own set of challenges, one of them being sales reps who don’t believe in your sales strategy anymore.

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Lean sales: How to get people's attention to validate your idea?

CloseSaaS

I just spoke at Eric Ries’ Lean Startup Conference, and I can tell you it was a great event with lots of amazing people.

Startup 52
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Startup sales: Upselling 101

CloseSaaS

Your current customers are the best prospects for future sales. Yet, very few startups act that way.

Startup 52
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Brick & Mortar Retail Relevance: How to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Speaker: Jay Black, Senior Account Executive

Let's set the record straight: in-store retail isn't dead - it's evolving! Faced with the digital age and the demands of omnichannel shopping, some retailers are thriving while others are struggling to adapt. Join Jay Black in this exclusive session as he explores the strategies that set successful stores apart, including: Crafting unique and unforgettable in-store experiences 🛍️ Mastering the art of retail demands 🛒 Navigating inventory challenges in today's climate 📦 an

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2014 in the numbers – fun stats from the #P9Family

The Angel VC

It's that time of the year again, the blogosphere is full of reviews of the year that is coming to a close and predictions for the coming year. When it comes to predictions, I agree with Niels Bohr (or Mark Twain or various other people who the quote got attributed to): Prediction is difficult, especially about the future. Seriously, as Paul Graham just wrote in his latest essay , change is notoriously (and tautologically) hard to predict.

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