The Angel VC

DECEMBER 20, 2013

[Update 01/17/2015: There's a new company called ChartMogul ( which we invested in ) which makes it easy to get a real-time dashboard similar to the template below. Check it out! ] [Note: This post first appeared as a guest post on the blog of Totango. In case you don't know Totango, it is a powerful analytics product which gives online services the information they need to increase user engagement, conversion and retention.

Startup 199

Startup Customer Lifetime Value SaaS Metrics 199

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 5, 2013

Bitcoin has captivated the imaginations of many with its quasi-anonymous, hyper cost-efficient payment network. The potential for Bitcoin to change foreign exchange is hard to overstate. In the same vein, the technologies that enable the internet of things (IoT) like Bluetooth Low Energy and Apple’s Beacons and Electric Imp’s infrastructure will transform the way we interact with the physical world to something akin to the mall in Minority Report.

Startup 196

Startup Payment Methods Payment Services Banking 196

Incredo

DECEMBER 30, 2013

There are too many mobile applications now, but in this article we’ve narrowed them down for you to a list of 5 must-have apps. We want you to enjoy your business, without the hassle of going to look for apps in your time, so here they are. 1. Track your calls with LogMyCalls. This mobile marketing app is not only a call tracking web application, it’s so much more.

Mobile 100

Mobile Marketing Business SaaS 100

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

DECEMBER 3, 2013

I'll start by apologizing. I know you’re up to your eyeballs already with your 2014 planning, but I’m going to add another chore to your “to do” list. Sorry. Besides working through your budget, marketing programs, headcount, and whatever else you need to have in place when the new year rolls around, I’d suggest you add another item: Review your value proposition and messages.

Headcount 100

Headcount Social Media Interviewing Mobile 100

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Payments

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 5, 2013

We’re excited to announce the launching of “Bulk Email” today! This new feature should save you lots of time if you are a heavy user of email templates in Close! Currently this feature requires the Close Business plan.

Business 52

Business 52

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Raising money for a startup is expensive. The typical legal fees for a Series A are about 1% of the total money raised: roughly $40k on $4M. Of course, this doesn’t factor in the time for the process and the dilution of the investment. But if your startup is considering an IPO be prepared to pay eight times as much in fees. Across 360 venture backed technology IPOs in the last 10+ years which on average raised $107M, 8.8% of the dollars the startup raises in the initial public offering is

Startup 113

Startup Banking Investment Technology 113

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 31, 2013

Do you accept guest posts? Sorry, I don’t. May I use one of your charts? Yes, if you link back. Thanks! How do you make your charts? With R and ggplot2. There are instructions here. May I advertise on your site? Sorry, I don’t run ads. May I copy your content? Feel free to use the first 2-3 sentences of a post, but please do not copy the entirety.

Advertising 100

Advertising 100

Incredo

DECEMBER 30, 2013

The end of the year is here and what’s better than watching the 13 most shared video ads of 2013? I have some favorites on this list, but I am going to let you decide for yourself! 1. Dove: Real beauty sketches with 4.24 million shares. Dove altered their marketing game plan to a completely different avenue. They decided to focus more on building self-esteem and celebrating REAL women with their advertising.

Advertising 100

Advertising Marketing SaaS 100

Incredo

DECEMBER 29, 2013

According to statistics, small business marketers are most likely to outsource TV/radio advertising (40%) and SEO (35%); they are least likely to outsource email newsletter and social media marketing management (less than 5% each). Normal. 0. false. false. false. EN-ZA. X-NONE. X-NONE. Are you interested to outsource your social media? There are many ways for effective social media, but the truth is that it takes time and you might not have that time.

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Outsourcing Services Social Media Communication Advertising 100

Speaker: Timothy Chan, PhD., Head of Data Science

Are you ready to move beyond the basics and take a deep dive into the cutting-edge techniques that are reshaping the landscape of experimentation? 🌐 From Sequential Testing to Multi-Armed Bandits, Switchback Experiments to Stratified Sampling, Timothy Chan, Data Science Lead, is here to unravel the mysteries of these powerful methodologies that are revolutionizing how we approach testing.

Innovation

Incredo

DECEMBER 28, 2013

Agile marketing has had many names over the years, but what exactly is it? The creativity comes from the agile development and its ethics: When following a plan, then answer to change. Big-Bang campaigns=Rapid Iterations. Testing and data over opinions and conventions. S mall experiments over large bets. In teractions over target markets. Collaboration over silos and hierarchy.

Marketing 100

Marketing Social Media Branding Development 100

Incredo

DECEMBER 28, 2013

In today’s busy life, few of us have time for the ‘nitty-gritty’ admin tasks, but we put together a list of top apps for serious entrepreneurs and CEO’s. Any.Do. Most of us are masters at forgetting appointments, but with Any.Do those days are gone! This free and simple top app lets you organize your calendar. Scheduling important meetings has never been this easy and it’s at your fingertips.

Payment Solutions 100

Payment Solutions Payment Methods Mobile Payments Travel 100

Incredo

DECEMBER 28, 2013

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes get really irritated when someone comes to knock on my door trying to sell me something that I don’t need. Your question might be, what marketing tips are out there to help you target your neighborhood? And by marketing tips, I don’t mean door-to-door, there are other ways of reaching your neighbors. We’re going to take you through 3 powerful marketing tips to target your neighborhood in the New Year. 1.

Entertainment 100

Entertainment Marketing Business Sales 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 19, 2013

You’re walking down the hallway at work from one meeting to the next. A colleague or report stops you en route, asks for a minute and presents an important problem. It’s easy to respond with “let me think about it” and duck into the meeting. In that half-second, all the responsibility of the decision has been transferred. Unlike a minute ago, you have the monkey on your back.

Startup 100

Startup Management Development Strategy 100

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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.

Payments

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 16, 2013

One way of measuring the efficiency of a company’s revenue model is to benchmark revenue per employee. Google and Facebook, the two most efficient companies, generate $1M per revenue per employee per year. Setting aside those exceptional cases and focusing instead on SaaS companies, the typical average revenue per employee is about $190k to $210k per year.

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Benchmarks Revenue Scale Sales Hiring 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 12, 2013

On January 8, 1966, the New Yorker profiled Buckminster Fuller for the first time. During a trip to a Maine island with the journalist Calvin Tomkins, Fuller said something tremendously prescient: Fuller proposed a worldwide technological revolution…[that] would take place quite independently of politics or ideology; it would be carried out by what he calls “comprehensive designers” who would coordinate resources and technology on a world scale for the benefit of all mankind,

Transportation 100

Transportation Innovation Education Technology 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 8, 2013

When startups are acquired, there are many considerations in accepting an offer. Does the vision of the acquirer fit the startup? Will the startup operate independently or be integrated? What is the price and structure of the transaction? Most of these questions have to be answered through extensive conversations with suitors. As for the structure of the acquisition, there’s data that can be used for benchmarking.

Acquisition 100

Acquisition Startup Government Benchmarks 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 4, 2013

Credit: National Geographic. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Monica Adractas, a former McKinsey partner who is now Churn Czar at Box. She and I chatted about the challenges in managing churn and her view on how to handle it. I thought she had some terrific insights and a clear understanding of the methods to reduce churn from her experiences.

Sales Hiring 100

Sales Hiring Customer Success Startup Churn 100

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Revenue

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 3, 2013

Sam Altman argues in How to Grow Huge that the only way for a startup to grow really large is to create products that people love and promote. As the user base grows, users attract ever larger numbers of users to the product, producing compounding growth. The point is a terrific one and I think it can be generalized. To grow really large, startups have to create proprietary distribution channels.

Startup 100

Startup Acquisition Scaling Pricing 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 2, 2013

A key component in a startup’s formula for success is educating customers about the product and driving sales. The sales and marketing teams of a startup are responsible for this. There are many ways to structure sales and marketing teams. The diagram above outlines a sales and marketing team structure that I’ve observed across many startups.

Startup 100

Startup Management Marketing Sales 100

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 1, 2013

For retailers of any size from startup to Fortune 50, the tablet application has become more important than the mobile application. IBM’s annual Black Friday ecommerce report , which tracks 800 internet retailers proves the point. Tablet users buy at a conversion rate which is 300% greater than mobile phones and despite generating only 60% of smart phone traffic, drive 65% more transactions at 14% larger basket sizes.

Startup 100

Startup Scale Mobile Scaling 100

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 16, 2013

What did you use before Close? Why did it suck specifically? We used Base. They had a pre-configured workflow that you were supposed to use that just didn’t work for us.

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

Pricing

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 13, 2013

One of the easiest ways to convert more free trial users into paying customers is by using automated (drip) emails.

Sales 52

Sales 52

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Check out the recent interview Steli gave on Mixergy about B2B sales and the entrepreneurial hustle!

Interviewing 52

Interviewing B2B Sales 52

CloseSaaS

DECEMBER 4, 2013

What do you think is the most important thing when doing sales for a startup?

Startup 52

Startup Sales 52

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 15, 2013

Financial statements are a Rosetta Stone for startups. They reveal the strategies and the tactics of how to bring a product to market. These are the ten metrics I look at when sifting through a startup’s operational model, whether when considering an investment or in a board meeting. Revenue growth indicates how quickly a company can grow under the current way of doing business.

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Startup Metrics Acquisition Churn 164

Advertiser: Data Robot

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.

Generative AI

Tom Tunguz

DECEMBER 10, 2013

The traditional theoretical price demand curve is often drawn like this. The chart makes two points: there is some relationship between price and demand / revenue opportunity, and customer segments underpin that relationship. Each segment demands different products to satisfy different needs and presents a different revenue/profit opportunity. Even if the details are very hazy, price demand curves are useful tools to inform product strategy and prioritization.

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Pricing Startup SMB Market Research 100