SaaS
Most salespeople are familiar with so-called BANT qualification: does the prospect have Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeframe in order to make a purchase? While Solution Selling purists dislike BANT (arguing that it's great way to find existing deals that have been already rigged for the competition), most
CEO
Thanks to everyone who attended my session today at the amazing -- and huge -- SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose. In this post, I'll share the slides from my presentation, Five Questions SaaS CEOs Wrestle With (and some thoughts on how to answer them). The folks at SaaStr
IPO
Enterprise SaaS companies need a lot of money to grow. The median company spends $1.32 to acquire $1.00 in annual recurring revenue (ARR) [1]. They need to make that investment for 14 years before getting to an IPO. It all adds up to a median of $300M in
Boards
I’m super excited for the upcoming SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose from February 5th through the 7th at the San Jose Convention Center. I hope to see you there -- particularly for my session from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM on Tuesday, February 5th. Last year
Metrics
Thanks to the folks at Piper Jaffray and their recently published 2018 Software Market Review, we can take a look at a recent chart that plots public software company enterprise value (EV) vs. Rule of 40 (R40) score = free cash-flow margin + revenue growth rate. As a reminder, the Rule
Positioning
This morning we announced that Vector Capital has closed the acquisition of Host Analytics. As part of that transaction I have stepped down from my position of CEO at Host Analytics. To borrow a line from The Lone Ranger, “my work is done here.” I’ll consult a bit to
Boards
While most companies put real thought into how they present numbers in their post-quarter board decks and other management reports, one area in which you'll find a lack of discipline is in how they present quarterly sales forecasts to the board. They're typically done as
Churn
Since Customer Success is (sadly, perhaps) still a relatively new discipline in enterprise software companies, I'd say the whole field is evolving quickly, so it's important to keep up with the changes
Churn
While I've blogged about this presentation before, I only recently stumbled into this full-length video of this very popular session -- a 30-minute blaze through some subtle SaaS basics. Enjoy! I look forward to seeing everyone again at SaaStr Annual 2019.
Churn
Most of the thinking, definitions, and formulas regarding SaaS unit economics is based on assumptions that no longer reflect the reality of the enterprise SaaS environment. For example, thinking in terms of MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is outdated because most enterprise SaaS companies run on annual contracts and thus we
Metrics
How many times have you heard this conversation? VC: how many sales reps do you have? CEO: Uh, 25. But not really. VC: What do you mean, not really? CEO: Well, some of them are new and not fully productive yet. VC: How long does it take for them to
Churn
This post won't save your life, or your company. But it might save you a few precious hours at 2:00 AM if you're working on your company's SaaS metrics and can't foot your quarterly and annual churn rates while preparing a