Churn
The other day I was looking at an ARR bridge [1] with a young finance ace. He made a few comments and concluded with, “and net revenue retention (NRR) is thus 112%, not bad.” I thought, “Wait, stop! You can’t calculate NRR from an ARR bridge [2].” It’s
Management
Just a quick post to share the slides I used at a recent SaaStock member workshop on Rising to the Challenges of US Expansion. Thanks to those who attended -- everyone had great questions and feedback. My favorite was roughly: "listen to Dave, I literally have made every one
Boards
[Restructured. See notes.] I think board meetings should have more discussions and fewer proposals. Why? * The hardest questions often don't lend themselves well to proposals. Think: global warming, cultural divisiveness. Or, in business: investor alignment, exit strategy, or a flawed corporate strategy. You're not going to
Leadership
To adapt Julius Caesar's famous opening line of the Gallic Wars: marketing as a whole is divided in three parts. * Product marketing (prodmkt), responsible in a word, for the message and how well it resonates with customers in the market [1]. * Demand generation (demandgen), responsible in a word,
Management
"I'm an CMO and it's 2018. Of course I've read Play Bigger. Duh. Do you think I live under a rock?" -- Anonymous repeat CMO Play Bigger hit the Sand Hill Road scene in a big way after its publication in 2016.
Growth
Question: what do you call a 10-year old startup with $10M in ARR? Answer: a small business [1]. When you make a list of key SaaS metrics, you'll rarely find age listed among them. That's correct in the sense that age by itself tells you little,
Management
You've decided you need to replace one of your executives. Hopefully, the executive already knows things aren't going great and that you've already had several conversations about performance. Hopefully, you've also already had several conversations with the board and they either are
Management
The plot of so-called backstage musicals usually centers around the production of a show, often created to avoid imminent financial peril, as you’d find in many of the depression-era Our Gang movies. Invariably, as the characters realize their predicament, someone shouts the solution, “Hey, we can put on a
SaaS
Just a quick post to highlight that SaaStr has posted the official video of my SaaStr Europa 2022 presentation entitled, The Top 5 Scale-Up Mistakes, that I gave in Barcelona in June. They also published a blog on the session and packaged it into a podcast episode. The video includes
Management
I had a chat with a CMO a while back. DK: How's the relationship with your CRO going? CMO: Solid. We collaborate really well. DK: I've heard you've had some trouble hitting sales targets. CMO: Yes, well you know the targets are pretty aggressive
Marketing
Who are we? What does our brand stand for? What promise does our brand make? These are some of the questions that quickly come up when thinking about branding. In general, I think branding is a potential marketing rathole for startups, particularly early-stage ones. See my post entitled, If Rebranding&
Startups
This is a cross-post to Kellblog of the first post in a six-part series that I wrote for Balderton Capital as part of my work there. The first two posts are already up on Balderton's website, while the remaining four will be rolling out at the rate of