The Angel VC

FEBRUARY 22, 2015

If you've followed my blog for a while, you know that I have a bit of an obsession with churn. Having significant account churn doesn't necessarily have to be a big problem and can't be avoided completely anyway. MRR churn sucks the blood out of your business though. That's why I think that SaaS companies should work very hard to get MRR churn down, as close to zero as possible, or even better achieve negative MRR churn.

Churn 161

Churn Startup SaaS Software Review 161

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

In “The Rule of 40% for a Healthy SaaS Company,” Brad Feld shared a simple rule of thumb growth investors often apply to judge the attractiveness of a $50M business. “The 40% rule is that your growth rate + your profit should add up to 40%.” I was curious if this theory were broadly true, applicable for growth stage companies Brad mentioned, but also early stage companies.

Data 121

Data Metrics Acquisition Trends 121

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

After months or years of development, your software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution is finally ready. Now you just need to find customers. So you put up a website, attend a tradeshow, and produce a video. Then you host a webinar and post to a blog. On top of that, you toss in a bit of search engine marketing and prepare a couple of press announcements.

Marketing 113

Marketing Acquisition Business Model SaaS 113

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

It's common advice that you should keep your emails short, and in most cases, I agree with it. For example, if you're sending out cold emails, be concise and have a clear call to action.

Marketing 72

Marketing 72

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

ReSci

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

US consumers spent slightly more in fashion for 2014, but increases were driven by athleisure brands like Nike, Under Armour, and Lululemon. NPD…. The post Millennials, Yoga Pants, and the Future of Retail appeared first on ReSci.

Branding 40

Branding 40

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

In 2011, a team of researchers from Stanford and Harvard led by Teresa Amabile collected daily work journals from more than 250 people at large and small companies in a variety of roles. In each journal entry, an employee described one work event that stood out that day. Over the course of a few months, the study received more than 12,000 responses.

Management 108

Management Government Data Sales 108

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

In The Shape of Things to Come , the New Yorker profiles Sir Jony Ive, the man they call Apple’s greatest product. Ive is iconic. His products have been sold 1.5 billion times. For all of his success, Ive’s personality isn’t well known. Neither is his personal history. Or how he manages the Apple Design Lab. The New Yorker article reveals some of these three things.

Communication 100

Communication Technology Management Marketing 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

If I were asked to create a content marketing strategy for a person or a business from scratch, I would craft a strategy with three dimensions: customer segments, customer lifecycle stage and content type. **Customer Segments: **Product managers/marketers are responsible for identifying the most important customer segments a startup will pursue. Picking the right customer segments increases profitability , maximizes market size and prioritize the most attractive customer for the business.

Content Marketing 100

Content Marketing Startup Strategy Marketing 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

In 2009, the Corporate Executive Board, a consultancy providing expertise to some of the world’s largest companies, studied the distinguishing characteristics of great sales people and well-run sales processes. They surveyed more than 6,000 sales reps across 90+ businesses. The analysis revealed three interesting things. First, most customers don’t perceive a difference between competitive products.

Sales 100

Sales Startup SaaS Consulting 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

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

It’s becoming more and more expensive to scale a startup in San Francisco. In fact, it’s twice as costly to operate a startup in 2014 as it was in 2009. According to data from Jones Lang LaSalle, office prices in San Francisco have nearly doubled in five years from $36 per square foot per year to $63. Typically businesses allocate about 150 square feet of office space per employee.

Startup 100

Startup Scaling Cloud Technology 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

SaaS companies are marvelous businesses. They are more predictable than most other kinds of companies and in addition they demonstrate leverage from technology. The best SaaS companies are able to build strong brands, develop scalable products and hire teams to bring those products to market effectively. To show the power of the convergence of these forces, I’ve analyzed the employee productivity patterns of the 50+ publicly traded SaaS companies.

Headcount 100

Headcount Sales Hiring SaaS Benchmarks 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Each quarter, Zendesk releases a Customer Satisfaction Benchmark to help companies build more effective customer support teams. The Q4 2014 differs from the previous in an important way. Instead of comparing companies in the same industry, for example, Education, Zendesk clustered companies with similar customer support characteristics, including ticket volumes, product support complexity and a few others, which revealed some important conclusions.

Customer Success 100

Customer Success Benchmarks Customer Support Startup 100

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 2, 2015

At Google, Product Reviews were held on Fridays at 130pm in a big room with a long table, two projection screens at one end and red couches along the walls called Marrakesh in Building 42. Each week, Eric, Larry and Sergey invited three product and engineering teams to present their progress each for about 30 minutes. On several occasions, I updated the executive team on the status of our team’s project, social network monetization.

Engineering 100

Engineering Data Management Sales 100

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Development

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

How much should your startup budget for its employee stock option pool? One way of answering this question is a blanket addition per year, say a 2% renewal. Another way is to look at the cash based cost of the stock based compensation. We’re going to examine the second one today by looking at the basket of 50+ SaaS companies. The chart above shows the average stock-based compensation (SBC) per employee by years since founding across the basket of publicly traded SaaS companies.

Compensation 100

Compensation Benchmarks Startup SaaS 100

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

About us. At Close, we’re building the sales communication platform of the future. We’ve built a next-generation CRM that eliminates manual data entry and helps sales teams close more deals.

Sales Hiring 59

Sales Hiring Communication Data Sales 59

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

This post is part of a new series featuring 3rd-party integrations with Close. Want to build a Close integration into your own app? Check out our API. Drip is lightweight marketing automation built for startups.

Marketing 52

Marketing Software Startup 52

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

There are a lot of great resources to learn about drip emails, but one of the best ways to see what’s working now is to steal fromstudy what successful, fast-growing companies are doing now.

Startup 52

Startup Sales 52

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User Experience

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

Here's an interview I did with Noah Kagan, one of my favorite hustlers on the world wide web. We talk about sales and marketing tactics, business strategies, regrets and most importantly: the inner game of hustling.

Marketing 52

Marketing Sales Interviewing Strategy 52

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 5, 2015

Do you know these prospects that are great fit for your offer, yet they don't buy? They're engaged during the sales process. There are no insuperable objections in the way of closing the deal. Yet, they postpone their buying decision until next quarter. again and again.

Engagement 52

Engagement Sales 52

CloseSaaS

FEBRUARY 4, 2015

We had just completed Y Combinator and were flying high during Demo Day. Investors lined up in front of our proverbial door, eager to invest in Swipegood, the name of our startup at the time.

Marketing 52

Marketing Startup Investment 52

ReSci

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

Who cares what color you see? We care about what color you like. The Dress. Dressgate. The dress that broke the Internet. Ruiner of friendships and starter of fights. Whatever you're calling it, and whatever colors you see, The Dress has set the Internet ablaze. It's a testament to…. The post What retailers can learn about personalization from #TheDress appeared first on ReSci.

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40

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

Product Marketing

ReSci

FEBRUARY 26, 2015

The Bronto Summit starts next Monday, and we're so excited to participate - in Miami, no less! Our partners at Bronto have put together a jam-packed four days of speakers, workshops, and keynotes that will engage and inspire. We had a hard time not picking every session to highlight, but here are…. The post Marketer’s Guide: Top Picks for the 2015 Bronto Summit appeared first on ReSci.

Engagement 40

Engagement Marketing 40

ReSci

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

This article first appeared on Forbes.com on November 19, 2014, where our CEO Jerry Jao is a regular contributor. You can find the original version as well as his other pieces here.…. The post Why Customer Retention Is King: The Evolution Of Retention Marketing appeared first on ReSci.

Retention 40

Retention Marketing 40

ReSci

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

Happy Lunar New Year! While there's been some debate on whether it's the year of the Sheep or the Goat, we're calling it as irrelevant: in our book, it's definitely the year of mobile. 58% of American adults…. The post Move aside, Sheep/Goat – 2015 is the Year of Mobile appeared first on ReSci.

Mobile 40

Mobile 40

ReSci

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Move over, Content Marketing - the new buzzword for 2015 is Contextual Marketing. While Big Data and Content Marketing reigned as the top marketing topics last year,…. The post Why You Should Optimize Content to Get More Sales appeared first on ReSci.

Sales 40

Sales Content Marketing Data Marketing 40

Advertiser: Data Robot

As technology transforms the global business landscape, companies need to examine and update their internal processes for innovation to keep pace. Ultimately, organizations will have to improve the velocity of innovation by creating repeatable processes that support ideation, exploration, and incubation, essential to capturing an idea’s full value.

Innovation

ReSci

FEBRUARY 17, 2015

In just one week, Retention Science will be exhibiting at the Marketing Sherpa Email Summit in sunny Las Vegas! It will be held at the swanky Aria convention center from Monday, February 22nd through Thursday…. The post What not to miss at the Marketing Sherpa 2015 Email Summit appeared first on ReSci.

Marketing 40

Marketing Retention 40

ReSci

FEBRUARY 13, 2015

This weekend is a tricky one for retailers: so much to promote, so little time. Valentine's Day is always February 14th, but Presidents' Day shifts around as the third Monday of the month. This year, they've landed on the same weekend: Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and Presidents' Day is on Monday.…. The post True Love, Dead Presidents, or 50 Shades?

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40

ReSci

FEBRUARY 6, 2015

It's been a busy week for Twitter. Concerning user growth figures, a slew of new product features, and news of expansion towards more effective monetizing and advertising were just a few of the buzz items surrounding the social media giant in the past few days. Let's break it down. Here are…. The post Twitter’s Mixed Signals: S-commerce potential rises as user growth lags appeared first on ReSci.

Social Media 40

Social Media Advertising Business 40