Metrics
I'm pleased to announce that I was recently featured in a six-part SaaS podcast mini-series on SaaShimi hosted by Aznaur Midov, VP at PNC Technology Finance Group, a debt provider who works primarily with private equity (PE) firms for SaaS buyouts, growth capital, and recapitalizations. Let's
Uncategorized
On the podcast, we discuss: * A bit of my career history and background * How COVID-19 will change work in Silicon Valley * Innovation beyond Silicon Valley (one of my favorite topics, given my five years in Europe.) * The one most important SaaS metric. (Hint: LTV/CAC.) * The most misunderstood SaaS metric.
Boards
I'm a SaaS metrics nut and I go to a lot of SaaS board meetings, so I'm constantly thinking about (among other things) how to produce a minimal set of metrics that holistically describe a SaaS company. In a prior post, I made a nice one-slide
Boards
I was talking to a founder friend of mine the other day, and she made a comment about her startup's search for its first non-founder (aka, "professional") CEO. She said the following about the nearly one-year recruiting process: "Because every person in the search process
Leadership
One of the hardest things about running a startup is you're never sure who to listen to. Your board members own big stakes in the company, but that doesn't automatically align them with you. Your late-stage investors want low multiples on big numbers. Your early-stage investors
Management
Many moons ago when I was young product marketing manager, I heard a new VP of Marketing speak at a marketing all-hands meeting. He spoke with a kiwi accent and his name was Chris Greendale. What he said were six words that changed my career: Marketing exists to make sales
Management
I'm amazed by the number of times I see companies performing searches, even for key positions, without a clear idea of what they're looking for. Rephrasing Lewis Carroll, "if you don't know what you're recruiting for, any candidate looks great."
Customer Success
The CEO. Thanks for reading. # # # I was tempted to stop there because I've been writing a lot of long posts lately and because I do believe the answer is that simple. First let me explain the controversy and then I'll explain my view on it. In
SaaS
Some SaaS startups develop a form of zero-sum delusion early in their evolution, characterized by following set of beliefs. Believing that: * A customer has a fixed budget that is 100% fungible between ARR (annual revenue revenue) and services * It is in the company's best interest to turn as
Management
This post in part III in a series. Part I covers the basics of employee communications. Part II provides information on how several leading companies are handling the situation and offers specific thoughts on financial planning. This part, a set of curated links that I have found useful, was formerly
Career
Markets are complex. Customers are complex. Products are complex, sometimes very. Heck, the world is complex. What's a marketer to do? Great marketing is about making things simple. We do that by imposing simplicity on a complex world. We might be attacked for so doing -- people might
Entrepreneurship
I earned my spending money in high school and partially paid for college by working as a lifeguard and water safety instructor. Working at a lovely suburban country club you don't make a lot of saves. One day, working from the deep-end chair, I noticed two little kids