The Angel VC

JULY 17, 2015

When you look at the landing pages (or homepages or marketing sites, however you want to call them) of today's SaaS companies, they usually look quite beautiful. They typically have a clean, simple and friendly look, with very little text and a lot of images or videos. In many cases, these websites could just as well advertise a consumer product. This doesn't come as a surprise, since the consumerizaton of enterprise software has been one of the most important driving forces in the software worl

SaaS 188

SaaS Software Review B2B Trends 188

Chaotic Flow

JULY 21, 2015

SaaS businesses can be overwhelmingly complex. If the multi-tenant, cloud-based technology isn’t enough, there’s the recurring revenue model which creates all kinds of challenges from accounting to sales compensation to funding. Then, there’s the marketing. Getting noticed on the Internet gets harder every year and almost every SaaS product category has a crowded field of competitors.

Acquisition 133

Acquisition Scale SaaS Pricing 133

Tom Tunguz

JULY 11, 2015

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” This line from Simon Sinek’s TED talk captures the power of a values based marketing campaign. Simon contrasts feature-based marketing - start with what the company is selling continue to how they do it and finishes with why - to value based campaigns which reverse the story-telling order.

Startup 117

Startup Sales Hiring Marketplace as a Service Branding 117

Practical Advice on SaaS marketing

JULY 7, 2015

Content marketing isn't just a good idea. It actually works. I've seen it work for my clients and I've seen it work for my own business. Most folks find me by way of my blog or my newsletter. When it's done well, content marketing can boost visibility, enhance credibility, and generate inbound leads. There's a reason it's sometimes called "inbound marketing.

Content Marketing 113

Content Marketing Marketing Education Acquisition 113

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

CloseSaaS

JULY 28, 2015

Who’s running Foursquare’s sales operations? Eric Friedman, Global Senior Director, Sales and Revenue Operations. You can check out his reflections on five years of working at Foursquare, which makes for an insightful read.

Revenue 52

Revenue Sales 52

ReSci

JULY 29, 2015

Just three years ago, Homejoy had $38 million in the bank thanks to backers like Google Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. The startup, which facilitated on-demand cleaning services…. The post Homejoy’s $38M Lesson: Without Customer Retention, “Growth” is a Dirty Word appeared first on ReSci.

Retention 40

Retention Banking Startup 40

Tom Tunguz

JULY 25, 2015

If there’s one notion that will define the decade early 2010s in startupland, it’s the Megaround, the investments of greater than $40M in private companies. Historically, startups needed to trade on public exchanges to access sums of money from $40M to several billion. But today, the private markets are providing this capital. These billions of dollars, which amount to about half of all venture investment, skew substantially towards consumer investments.

Startup 108

Startup Marketing Social Media Travel 108

Tom Tunguz

JULY 22, 2015

As I was researching the theory behind organizational goal-setting , I came across a letter from Hunter Thompson , at the time 20 years old, writing to a friend about goals. Yesterday’s post discussed some frameworks for organizations to craft goals to maximize employee happiness and effectiveness. But Thompson’s advice is for our goals as individuals.

Startup 108

Startup Development Revenue Marketing 108

Tom Tunguz

JULY 14, 2015

When asked why he took Zendesk public this week, CEO Mikkel Svane replied , “At some point you have to move out of your parent’s basement.” It’s a witty quip with some truth to it. Evolving into a public company is a step for about 25-30 venture backed IT companies per year, and it can be a worthwhile, if strenuous, journey. Zendesk went public in the midst of a 30% reduction in SaaS multiples in the public markets , and the company has continued to perform well.

Compensation 108

Compensation Finance Forecasting Communication 108

Advertisement

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

JULY 7, 2015

In every sales process for every SaaS startup, there is one ultimate internal champion advocating the purchasing decision. And it’s their budget that will be used to pay for it. So, which departments within customers spend most on SaaS? One way of looking at this question is to compare the successes of software companies targeting different departments.

Sales Recruiting 108

Sales Recruiting Sales Hiring SaaS Scale 108

Tom Tunguz

JULY 29, 2015

Founded in 1998, Netsuite is worth about $7.7B, making it the sixth largest SaaS compay behind Salesforce, LinkedIn, Workday, ServiceNow and Splunk. Netsuite began developing ERP (enterprise resource planning) tools to help companies manage their finances, expenses and supply chain. Over time, Netsuite has added a few more product lines including ECommerce platform, CRM, business intelligence and a professional services management product.

Benchmarks 101

Benchmarks Outsourced Development Metrics Scale 101

Tom Tunguz

JULY 8, 2015

In the last six months, VCs have invested more than $57B according to Mattermark data , which puts 2015 on pace to exceed 2000 as the year the most venture capital will be deployed, ever. Which sectors are benefitting from all these venture dollars? The chart above contrasts the top 12 sectors receiving venture funding in the US, and plots the relative share of dollars invested by month.

Trends 101

Trends Investment Startup Venture Capital 101

Tom Tunguz

JULY 28, 2015

In response last week’s post on The Fastest Growing Areas of Startup Investment in 2015 , in which Bitcoin topped the list, I received many questions about the underlying dynamics of this startup segment. Which regions? Which stages? How much is going into Bitcoin companies. Using Crunchbase data, I analyzed BTC investment patterns over the past 4 years.

Investment 100

Investment Blockchain Innovation Startup 100

Advertisement

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.

Revenue

Tom Tunguz

JULY 27, 2015

Founders often ask, when is the right time to expand geographically, add a second product or pursue another customer segment? Most of the time, the answer is not yet, not until the company is quite large, perhaps in the hundreds of employees and the main challenges and questions for the business have been answered well. When a startup pursues a new major initiative, the company divides all its key teams by two.

Market Segmentation 100

Market Segmentation Startup Engineering Communication 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 20, 2015

Of late, I’ve been having lots of conversations with founders about setting goals. It’s a really important topic for many founders, because it’s the way that management teams align incentives and focus an organization on a few important areas. It’s their focus that enables startups to move quickly, one of their key competitive advantages in the market.

Compensation 100

Compensation Startup Mobile Engineering 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 19, 2015

I learned to drive a car at age 19 on a warm Santiago de Chile night, in an unusual way. A friend named Jose Pedro resolved to teach me after dinner at his apartment, suprised to learn I didn’t know how. It was past two am, and without anyone on the streets, it would be safe, he assured me. As we sat in the car, he showed me how to manage the three pedals and the gear shift, and explained the how the clutch worked.

Startup 100

Startup Sales Hiring Scale Sales Funnel 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 15, 2015

In Q2 2015, VC investment totaled $16.7B, about a 66% of the $28B deployed in Q2 2000 according to a new report. And the trends shows no sign of stopping. A big contributor to this growth are nontraditional investors including mutual funds and hedge funds, which now account for approximately 40% of dollars invested. And while the market is similar to the dotcom era in some regards, it is substantially different in others.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Startup Investment Trends 100

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

Pricing

Tom Tunguz

JULY 13, 2015

Earlier this week, we examined the trends in the major categories of startup investment including eCommerce, Software, Social Networking and Education. But which lesser known startup sectors are starting to raise venture dollars? Where are founders finding unique opportunities to innovate? Bitcoin is the fastest growing sector followed by photo sharing and physical storage (which includes moving and self storage companies).

Investment 100

Investment Startup Transportation Venture Capital 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 6, 2015

According to ChiefMarTec, in 2015 there are 1875 marketing technology companies, up from 947 last year. If the number of marketing software companies is any indication, there is a huge expansion in the number of SaaS companies in almost every segment including sales tools, engineering productivity, finance, and human resources. This fragmentation trend has been happening for quite some time.

Scale 100

Scale SaaS Finance Consulting 100

Tom Tunguz

JULY 5, 2015

About two years ago, we examined the new Second Seed , a tactic employed by startups who raise an initial seed round, achieve a set of milestones and raise a second seed round, before raising a series A. During the two years since that analysis, this trend has continued. In the last 24 months, Second Seeds have grown From 7.5% to 18% of US technology seed rounds, both in number and in dollars invested according to Crunchbase data.

Marketing 100

Marketing Startup Investment Trends 100

CloseSaaS

JULY 27, 2015

Whenever I ride in an Uber (which happens often), I try to get to know the driver a bit. There are always phone calls to be made or emails to be answered, but you gotta know when to switch all that off. You’ll discover some amazing people and learn valuable lessons if you open yourself up to it.

52

52

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

CloseSaaS

JULY 26, 2015

If you want to learn from some of the best and brightest in sales and marketing, reserve your (free) seat for The Digital Growth Summit - an online conference organized by Eric Siu of Growth Everywhere.

Sales 52

Sales Marketing 52

CloseSaaS

JULY 22, 2015

Pretty much every sales expert will tell you how important it is to build rapport with your prospects. Along with that, they’ll offer you various techniques and strategies to teach you how to do it. I say, screw that.

Strategy 52

Strategy Sales 52

CloseSaaS

JULY 15, 2015

I admit it - sales and mindfulness don’t usually go together. But I believe they should. Practicing presence, meditating and being mindful is one of the secrets of my success. Don’t worry - I won’t go off on a philosophical tangent here.

Sales 52

Sales 52

CloseSaaS

JULY 13, 2015

Whether you are a CEO, an intern, or a solo-founder, you have to rely on others to do their part so you can do your job. Your success depends on how well others cooperate with you. If you manage those relationships well, you'll be able to get a great deal done and make a lot happen.

Management 52

Management Sales 52

Speaker: John Mansour - President, Product Management University

You know that sinking feeling. You’ve come up with a winning product strategy, everyone’s on board and energized, and you’re halfway down the path to execution only to have it submarined by something someone convinced your leadership was more strategic! It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar, and it exemplifies one of the biggest struggles with individual product strategies.

Strategy

Aber Law Firm

JULY 8, 2015

While there are several ways to legally protect your SaaS software, copyright law is the most popular and maybe the easiest way to protect it. Every SaaS executive needs to know a few things about SaaS software and copyright law, so take a quick read of the following. Can you obtain copyright protection for your GUI? . This is an important issue, and one that many vendors do not understand.

Software Review 52

Software Review Software SaaS Education 52

CloseSaaS

JULY 6, 2015

If you’re on a sales call with a qualified prospect that says they will buy your solution soon, what do you do? You’ve probably encountered this many times where a prospect verbally commits to buying. someday in the near future. Prospect: “We’re going to buy this next week.

Sales 52

Sales 52

CloseSaaS

JULY 3, 2015

Here's an interview Steli did with Flavio Rump, who completed a hustle internship at Close a few weeks ago. Flavio is a very successful founder, sold a startup for millions and helped a series of startups with growth and marketing.

Interviewing 52

Interviewing Startup Sales Marketing 52