CAC
My ears always perk up when I hear someone say "net new ARR" -- because I'm trying to figure out which, of typically two, ways they are using the term: * To mean ARR from net new customers, in which case, I don't know why they
Boards
Startup boards are complex. While all board members own stock in the company their interests are not necessarily aligned. * Founders may be motivated by a vision to change the world, to hit a certain net worth target, to see their name in an S-1, to make the Forbes 500,
Marketing
Like it or not, once in a while it's appropriate for a vendor to walk away from a prospective deal. Why might you want to do that? * You think your product is a poor fit with the customer's needs. * You believe there is insufficient budget to
Leadership
In an effort to promote my upcoming presentation at SaaStr 2018, which is currently on the agenda for Wednesday, February 7th at 9:00 AM in Studio C, I thought I'd do a quick post sharing what I'll be covering in the presentation, officially titled, "
Demandgen
This post builds on my prior post, Win Rates, Close Rates, and Milestone vs. Flow Analysis. In it, I will take the ideas in that post, expand on them a bit, and then apply them to difficult problem of ensuring you have enough marketing demand generation budget to hit your
Marketing
Hey, what's your win rate? It's another seemingly simple question. But, like most SaaS metrics, when you dig deeper you find it's not. In this post we'll take a look at how to calculate win rates and use win rates to introduce
Management
At many enterprise software companies product management (PM) ends up defaulting into a role that I can’t stand: The Roadmap Guys*. Like a restaurant with one item on the menu, the company defaults into ordering one thing from product management: a roadmap pitch. * “The VP of PM is in
Management
Just a quick post to highlight the fact that last week I was the featured guest on Episode 142 of the Official SaaStr podcast produced by the SaaStr organization run by Jason Lemkin and interviewed by a delightful young Englishman named Harry Stebbings (who also runs his own podcast entitled
Sales
Can you solution sell without selling solutions? Sure. But you have to know the difference between the two.
Career
Most managers, save for true sycophants, want to challenge their boss. Few managers want to be puppet yes-people to the boss. They've worked hard to get where they are. They bring years of wisdom and experience. They want to push and challenge. But many don't
Boards
As someone who has assembled many startup board decks over the years, I thought I'd offer some advice to executives who contribute slides to board decks that should make it easier for the point-person to assemble, improve the deck's appearance, and avoid any painful and/
Sales
After the SaaSacre of early 2016, investors generally backed off a growth-at-all-costs mindset and started to value SaaS companies using an "appropriate" balance of growth and profitability. The question then became, what's appropriate? The answer was: the rule of 40 [1]. What'