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All About Change


1 Professional football player Jonathan Jones: Mentorship and Making an Impact in Your Community 22:49
Jonathan Jones is an NFL cornerback for the Washington Commanders who rose from the undrafted ranks to become two-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, a businessman, philanthropist, and licensed pilot. In 2019, Jonathan founded the Jonathan Jones Next Step Foundation in 2019, a platform dedicated to empowering youth through education, professional development, and mentorship. The foundation works to alleviate food insecurity, promote women in stem and sports, and to promote professional development in the communities where he lives. Jay and Jonathan talk about investing in the communities they live in, acknowledging the people who helped you become the person you are, and paying that same investment forward to the next generation. Episode Chapters 0:00 intro 1:24 Building local connections 4:25 Jonathan’s mentors and mentees 10:54 Jonathan’s pride in his mentees’ successes 13:04 how Jonathan chooses his causes 14:08 Jonathan’s support for girls and young women 17:19: Jonathan’s passion for flying 19:40 The Next Step Foundation 20:29 Goodbye For video episodes, watch on www.youtube.com/@therudermanfamilyfoundation Stay in touch: X: @JayRuderman | @RudermanFdn LinkedIn: Jay Ruderman | Ruderman Family Foundation Instagram: All About Change Podcast | Ruderman Family Foundation To learn more about the podcast, visit https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/ Looking for more insights into the world of activism? Be sure to check out Jay’s brand new book, Find Your Fight , in which Jay teaches the next generation of activists and advocates how to step up and bring about lasting change. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy your books, and you can learn more about it at www.jayruderman.com .…
Metrics that Measure Up
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Contenuto fornito da Ray Rike. Tutti i contenuti dei podcast, inclusi episodi, grafica e descrizioni dei podcast, vengono caricati e forniti direttamente da Ray Rike o dal partner della piattaforma podcast. Se ritieni che qualcuno stia utilizzando la tua opera protetta da copyright senza la tua autorizzazione, puoi seguire la procedura descritta qui https://it.player.fm/legal.
B2B SaaS and Cloud founders, CEOs, and Go-To-Market operating executives share their journey as they scaled their business from $0M ARR to $100M and beyond. The guests share their insights on measurements of success, performance metrics, and benchmarks they use to guide and inform their decision-making and growth journey.Guests include founders and CEOs of amazing success stories such as LinkedIn, DocuSign, Marketo, Gainsight, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, ringDNA, InsightSquared, Cloudera and Gong. Beyond founders and CEOs, we also speak with leading Venture Capitalists, Go-To-Market executives and industry thought leaders who share their experience and insights into customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer expansion best practices.
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128 episodi
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Manage series 2842419
Contenuto fornito da Ray Rike. Tutti i contenuti dei podcast, inclusi episodi, grafica e descrizioni dei podcast, vengono caricati e forniti direttamente da Ray Rike o dal partner della piattaforma podcast. Se ritieni che qualcuno stia utilizzando la tua opera protetta da copyright senza la tua autorizzazione, puoi seguire la procedura descritta qui https://it.player.fm/legal.
B2B SaaS and Cloud founders, CEOs, and Go-To-Market operating executives share their journey as they scaled their business from $0M ARR to $100M and beyond. The guests share their insights on measurements of success, performance metrics, and benchmarks they use to guide and inform their decision-making and growth journey.Guests include founders and CEOs of amazing success stories such as LinkedIn, DocuSign, Marketo, Gainsight, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, ringDNA, InsightSquared, Cloudera and Gong. Beyond founders and CEOs, we also speak with leading Venture Capitalists, Go-To-Market executives and industry thought leaders who share their experience and insights into customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer expansion best practices.
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128 episodi
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×Imagine being a senior product leader at Microsoft for one of the leading "cloud products" in the industry, Azure Data Factory, and deciding to leave the stability, security, and prestige behind to launch your own B2B SaaS company. This is exactly the decision and journey that Anand Subbaraj began five years ago. Anand spent 13 years at Microsoft but was fortunate to be involved with five different product launches (V1) over 13 years, with a primary focus on understanding the market and customer requirements. By being part of the founding team at Azure Data Factory, Anand learned what it took to take on established industry leaders, with a product that had not previously been introduced to the market. Anand's experience with new product introductions at Microsoft, Anand had a personal experience in servicing his refrigerator at home, which served as the catalyst that customer service was ripe for transformation. After having three different service technicians have to make six visits to fix the issue, Anand was sure there had to be a better way to leverage automation to transform field service. As a result, Zuper was launched. What learnings has Anand had starting, growing, and leading his own company? First, Anand gained an understanding that Marketing is about investing to build a brand and market awareness, and is more science than art. Anand also learned a lot about cold calling, and what is required to make the first sales in a newly formed B2B SaaS company. By taking the lead on all initial outreach for Zuper, Anand was able to directly hear from the market on what they wanted and/or needed to consider transforming how they were managing the field service process. Anand also learned that without the "Microsoft" brand, that persistence in cold calling was critical to gaining early traction. Anand executive the "founder-led sales" model from $0 to $1M ARR. By taking this responsibility himself, not only did he have direct access to product requirement input from the market, but he could also hand over a "sales process" that worked to acquire the first $1M ARR. Anand leaned on "Marketing" first to create awareness and demand before hiring his first professional Sale resource. Identifying a gap in the marketplace is a key ingredient to the idea to launch a new company. At Zuper, Anand identified that many companies were viewing field service management automation as an extension of CRM. Second, consumers now expect a seamless experience like Uber, while companies require the ability to configure their processes within an automation platform, not to force their process to adapt to take advantage of the B2B SaaS platform. Understanding and being able to measure the business value delivered to the customer is critical for early-stage B2B SaaS companies. First, the ability to improve efficiency in the business process being automated, second is improving the productivity of the field service workforce, such as spending less time on driving to the next appointment and more time on fixing the customer's issue. In the Zuper example, measuring the "first-time fix rate" of new service tickets is a key benefit, and the Zuper customers see a 30% increase in the first-time fix rate by having the right technician, the right parts, and the right tools. When asked what "SaaS metrics" Anand uses, here is what he shared: Top Lagging Indicators Used: ARR and ARR Growth Customer Churn Burn Rate Cash runway Top Leading Indicators Used: Product Usage Customer Acquisition Cost Customer Lifetime Value CAC Payback Period (new) If you are a product leader or in a large stable company today, but considering launching your own B2B Saas company, this conversation with Anand Subbaraj is a great listen!…

1 Evolving from Excel for SaaS Financial and Metrics Reporting - with Ali Rizvi Founder and CEO, TrueRev 28:12
Excel is the #1 tool B2B SaaS companies use for many financial tasks, including calculating SaaS metrics to surface insights for operating decisions and investor updates. Ali started his career in tech as an auditor at Ernst and Young, with a priority focus on revenue recognition and reporting. While auditing a top tier B2B SaaS company, he was provided multiple spreadsheets with thousands of rows of data, and it even required almost 10 minutes to just open the Excel file, and almost 6 months to complete the audit. The primary challenge, finding all of the data required for the audit in an extremely large and poorly structured Excel model. What are the top signs that a founder/CEO will see to know it might be time to move beyond Excel? Ali suggests at $1M and above that Quickbooks is a fine General Ledger, but the initial issues are associated with revenue recognition and the associated reporting. Often, this is due to not having the right human resources who truly understand revenue recognition policy, and then the manual required to create a model and the appropriate formulas for revenue recognition. One sign that Excel might not be doing the job, is if revenue is being recognized on a cash basis. Another sign might be when an investor asks what your "MRR or ARR" is, and you realize it includes professional services or one-time fees. Why is getting revenue recognition important to an early-stage company? It becomes important when external stakeholders, like existing or potential investors, ask for things like GAAP revenue growth rates, and ARR growth rates and you cannot provide the answers because the financial foundation and reporting infrastructure have not been established. Inevitably if you are quickly heading to $1M ARR or already above that level, founders and CEOs are expected to know their numbers. One common tactic is to hire an external accountant, and ask them to set up revenue recognition and other financial reporting in Excel - the challenge with this is that it is not scalable, and if the "rent an accountant" goes away, it is hard for the next resource to understand the excel model. Next, we discussed the reality of ASC 606 (GAAP accounting policy), and how it impacts the need for more advanced financial reporting capabilities. ASC 606 includes very complex and nuanced accounting rules that Excel is just not well positioned to be the primary solution for modeling and reporting GAAP revenue and the associated financial metrics such as Gross Profit, EBITDA, and Net Income. The most important initial SaaS metric is Contracted ARR, and ARR including growth rates. Quickly following is the ability to understand Sales and Marketing expenses and the associated customer acquisition cost efficiency metrics including Customer Acquisition Cost, and CAC Payback Period. Cash burn and cash runway are other critical insights that a founder/CEO needs to ensure are available and accurate early on. When I asked Ali about other SaaS Metrics, he highlighted a recent example where a company wanted to start reporting their CARR and ARR, and they close a majority of deals mid-month. They were confused about how they report ARR for the month the contract was signed, and how those decisions impact the associated recognized revenue (GAAP revenue). If you are an early-stage SaaS company and are having challenges with Excel to capture, calculate and report basis SaaS financials including GAAP revenue, CARR, ARR and the associated SaaS performance metrics the conversation with Ali Rizvi is highly informative.…
In Episode #1 of this 2-episode conversation, Ray discusses the key findings from the Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) annual "State of the Cloud" report for 2023 with Janelle Teng, Vice President and co-author of this year's report. Janelle is involved in many different research programs at BVP, including the "State of the Cloud" and the "Scaling to $100M ARR" reports. In this first episode of the "State of the Cloud 2023" report, we focus on the change in B2B Cloud company valuations in 2022 and the current state of the industry. Public cloud companies experienced the "SaaSacre" of 2022. Interest rates shocked the cloud industry in 2022 resulting in a greater than 40% reduction in public cloud company value. The forward trading multiple of public cloud companies is now below the long-term average and were halved in 2022. There are glimmers of hope from the Q123 timeframe. One example is Microsoft reported better than expected earnings in Q1, fueled by the interest in AI. These large tech companies are a great index for the smaller, private Cloud companies. The Cloud index is up about 5% in Q123, which provides hope for the re-emergence of Cloud valuations. Even with the aggressive pullback in public cloud company valuations, the average BVP Index cloud company has grown 50% faster than a traditional company - over a 10-year horizon. When will "Venture Capital" funding return to a more normalized state? Janelle asked the 60 investment professionals at BVP when will be the best time for a founder to raise VC money? The top timeframe forecasted was 2H24' with 1H24' being the second forecasted period for raising a round from Venture Capital. However, 1H23' was still in the running - highlighting the excitement around the current AI boom. The number of VC deals and the amount of VC funding in Q123 was down from the previous year and the previous quarter, so the turnaround in VC deal velocity is still in front of us. In the second half of my conversation, Episode 2 with Janelle, she shares the TOP 5 predictions for the Cloud in 2023!…

1 State of the Cloud 2023 - Top Five Predictions with Janelle Teng, Bessemer Venture Partners (Episode #2) 25:51
State of the Cloud 2023: Top Five Predictions: #1: Efficient Growth Adopt new solutions to gain control of their Cloud and SaaS spend, including the infrastructure cost to deliver SaaS Solutions. Tools include Cloud FinOps tools, SaaS Spend Solutions, and engineering productivity tools to improve R&D processes. One of the areas of focus is on Cloud Spend as a way to manage the Cost of Goods Sold and thus increase Gross Margin which sets the ceiling for Saas profitability. Public SaaS companies with Gross Margins under 50% have a hard time driving Free Cash Flow of 20% or greater which is critical to enterprise value multiples. Some examples of tools to gain control of Cloud Spend are included in the Bessemer Ventures technical playbook of 40 tactics to drive profitable growth - this playbook can be found on Atlas on the BVP.com website - the report is called the "CEOs tactical guide to drive profitable growth". #2: Climate Software will drive the Green Energy Transition With the increase in consumer activism and government regulation, the green energy revolution is here. To support this green economy, cloud software that is tailored made to power the transition to green energy will explode. Examples are software dedicated to solar, infrastructure, sustainable design, and fossil fuel infrastructure transition. #3: Initial value of AI will be to the user The AI and Large Language Model business ecosystems are evolving quickly. Bessemer believes the ultimate winner is the user to increase individual productivity at work and in their personal lives. AI research is now democratized so end users can have access to and build upon the latest AI capabilities. One example is ChatGPT being released to the general public and acquiring over 100 million users in the first three months - the faster-growing internet site ever!!! Bessemer calls the current AI revolution a B2C2B motion. This highlights the consumer excitement about the benefits of AI, which will in return bring these tools and techniques to the corporate workplace. #4: The application layer is where the most impact from AI will happen first Due to the democratization of access to AI, the power of AI will be available to any company, that can embed AI without their own AI team. This will make horizontal B2B SaaS companies to provide AI driven workflows and processes without the need for a large internal AI development team. With the number of transactions in many SaaS platforms, the opportunity to accelerate the insights to enhance business process efficiency. #5: AI companies will grow twice as fast as traditional B2B Cloud companies Bessemer predicts the time the best AI companies will require to grow from $100M to $1B will be 50% faster than the historic fastest growers like Canva, Zoom, and Twilio. That is truly impressive as these companies scaled from $100M to $1B in four years or less! If you are a student of the Cloud industry or just SaaS-curious about where the industry is heading - the Bessemer Venture Partners "State of the Cloud 2023" is a great read and this podcast discussing the top five predictions is a must-listen!…
The Alexander Group works with many of the leading companies in the B2B SaaS industry, and I was recently joined by Ted Grossman, their co-lead of the technology industry practice, and Davis Giedt, Director of Research and Analytics. Based upon Ted and Davis' unique insights and understanding of B2B SaaS due to the discussions and data from over one hundred customers, coupled with their historic Sales Compensation research and benchmarks with has become an industry standard. My first question was how has the use of SaaS metrics evolved. Ted's perspective is the core metrics have not changed that much over the past few years - rather it is the weight that is placed on specific metrics, especially growth vs profitability. As an example in 2021 and the first half of 2022, the weight was much higher on growth rate versus profitability metrics. One example is the Rule of 40 has increased in importance as measured by R-Squared by 3x over the last 6 months. As such "Margin + Growth" is much more balanced in 2023. Ted highlighted "expense to revenue" as a top priority at the macro level. This is also a very easy metric to benchmark against the industry. Then you can dive down into more granular revenue growth efficiency metrics such as "Profitability by Sales rep. Other things like the CAC Payback Period which measures the amount of time to pay back the acquisition of a new customer. Net and Gross Retention Rates are also high-priority metrics to understand the efficacy of retaining and expanding revenue with existing customers. What about the importance of changing the mix of revenue growth from new customers versus existing customers? The story varies in every company and depends on company-specific attributes such as do they have multiple products, or do they have a product that can expand usage to additional users, departments, or business units within an existing customer. When I asked Davis the "top" metrics he prefers, they included: Sales and Marketing expense to revenue which tests for every dollar invested in revenue growth, how much is returned on both a new and top-line revenue basis. Davis shared a 35% - 40% S&M expense to revenue as a good benchmark for growth companies Cost of Growth, sometimes known as the SaaS Magic number measures the top-line revenue growth versus Sales and Marketing investment, which has a range of .5 (poor), .75 - 1 (good), and > 1 (best) CLTV:CAC measures the amount of Gross Profit (or Revenue minus Cost of Goods Sold) generated against the revenue a new customer generates over the life of a customer. A CLTV:CAC ratio of 3x is good, though has been increasing over the past 2-3 years. CLTV:CAC ratio is a long-term ROI measurement Next, we discussed the topic of "consistency of metric calculation" when using industry benchmarks. Davis highlighted that for their clients they use one standard metric calculation formula to ensure when they are benchmarking it is an apples-to-apples comparison. One specific example was if you are trying to measure the efficiency of growing new customer ARR versus existing customer growth ARR, things like a "time study" may need to be conducted to properly allocate expenses to the pursuit of each growth ARR type. If you are a B2B SaaS company leader, the discussion with Ted and Davis provides some unique insights and perspectives that only come with the unique visibility they have across hundreds of leading B2B companies.…
Matt Wolach is the founder of Xsellus and host of the Scale your SaaS podcast. Matt is one of those guests that have taken over a year to be on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast. Matt has hosted over 250 episodes of "Scale your SaaS" and was one of the inspirations for this podcast. The first question I asked Matt was about the common attributes that successful SaaS founders exhibited. By being a podcast host, Matt found he often learned more than he shares. However, one of the common themes of the most successful founders was the amount of time they invest in getting to know and understand their potential customers. Those discussions to dive into the mind of their potential customers was a key to success, and Matt recommends the goal should be to have about 50 of those discussions, versus the 3-5 that far too many founders conduct. What are the top three challenges that Matt sees early-stage companies face: 1) Lead generation/Pipeline which often early-stage companies over-index on one or two channels. Matt recommends finding 4 - 5 channels that work, and then continuously optimize each channel. Matt says there are 18 ways to generate leads in a B2B Saa company, including commonly missed lead sources such as a defined lead referral process with current customers. Other missed lead sources such as influencers and affiliate programs are undervalued. 2) Ability to close qualified leads is another inconsistent competency of many early-stage companies, which is especially dangerous if significant money is being invested in Marketing and lead generation activities. Matt suggests fixing the qualified lead to Closed-Won process before investing more in additional lead generation. 3) Lead form/demo form to demo completed is surprisingly a big leak for many early-stage companies. Matt shared the story that one of his new customers did not even measure the number of people requesting to be contacted or have a demo. The inbound demo request-to-demo completed ratio is a critical conversion rate that far too many companies do not measure. Matt said that an average of 42% of people who request a meeting or demo actually end up having a meeting with the vendor - meaning 58% of high-intent leads are not actually being followed up with timely. What metric does Matt like for B2B Saas companies in the $1M - $5M ARR range? Matt said the Customer Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost Ratio (CLTV:CAC Ratio) is one of his favorite metrics. Essentially with the industry standards that Matt shared a 3:1 CLTV:CAC ratio is a good goal, it means that for every dollar you invest in Sales and Marketing, $3 of gross profit is generated. The latest RevOps Squared benchmarks show that a 4:1 CLTV:CAC Ratio is the new benchmark. If you are an early-stage B2B SaaS company, this conversation with Matt Wolach, the founder of Xsellus is a great listen…
In 2023 many SaaS companies are searching for what market(s) are going to drive their next phase of growth - and international markets, especially English-speaking countries are often considered by U.S. B2B SaaS companies. Rick Pizzoli, moved to Europe over 25 years ago to launch the European presence for U.S. based software companies. Based upon that experience, Rick and Sales Force Europe has helped over 500 companies enter and/or expand their presence beyond the United States or a single country in Europe. Rick shared that the majority of U.S. companies first start to consider entering the European market in the $5M - $10M ARR range. European companies begin to expand beyond their home country a little earlier, often in the $2M - $3M ARR range due to the more limited breadth of each country in Europe. Understanding your positioning, messaging, value proposition, and efficiency of your "home market" customer acquisition motion as measured by metrics are critical foundational elements to planning for an entry into a new country. If a company has not captured and documented the keys to success in its home country, it will be impossible to be successful in a new country. Another key factor to consider when entering into the European market is do you have a "lighthouse" account in a country you can build upon, and/or do you have a product that is localized for countries beyond English speaking? Rick's perspective is conducting market research to determine the "best" initial country is a better strategy than just saying let's just go to the United Kingdom, as it is the most like the US market and they speak English. At the same time, the UK market, especially in London is probably the most competitive market to enter, as so many U.S. based companies use the same "we similar" mentality. Bringing on local talent that understands the local market, has relationships in the local market, and can translate the "messaging and positioning" that works well in the U.S. to the local European country. There are nuances of the "talent profile" that works in one country versus another, which suggests having a local team with local leadership will yield a faster return on investment than parachuting in one or two resources from the home country. One key to success is seeding the market awareness and engagement with top-of-funnel activities beginning with a digital marketing strategy 3-6 months before having a local, on-the-ground presence. Having local Sales Development resources in place for at least 3 months before having a local Account Executive will also increase the productivity of those first 1-2 AEs. Having a local presence shows a true "commitment" to the local market and will make the majority of in-country buyers more comfortable with purchasing from a recent entrant to the local market. Should a company start with a single or at least two resources when first entering into a new country? Two resources are always better, and could also allow for additional language skills for the second target country that is being considered in a pan-European presence. It also eliminates the "resource" vs "market" specific challenges. If you are considering or just beginning the evaluation process to expand your U.S. or single European country B2B SaaS company into or across Europe, this conversation with Rick Pizzoli and Sales Force Europe is highly informative.…
Eric Christopher, the founder, and CEO of Zylo is sitting on top of one of the industry's largest SaaS spend data repositories and thus benchmarks, a key reason I knew I needed to have Eric as a guest on the podcast. What was the catalyst for founding Zylo? It started with Eric's experience as a revenue leader in two social media platform companies. Eric realized that by introducing new solutions directly to the Marketing department, it was becoming difficult for companies to manage and govern SaaS spend. "A business idea with complexity is worth pursuing" - the words an advisor shared with Eric which was part of the motivation to founding Zylo! Since anyone in a company can be a buyer of a SaaS solution, coupled with the existence of thousands of vendors with very different features and pricing, buying a SaaS product is complex. Moreover, measuring the value is very difficult and often, ill-defined. How does Eric define SaaS Spend Management? "Helping companies manage, measure and maximize value from every SaaS application purchased". The lifecycle of a SaaS solution starts with understanding how to receive the best price, and then how to optimize the value received. Questions to ask include, are employees using the product, are they receiving value, and how does the value compare to other solutions with similar functionality? Zylo uses a "value framework" that starts with understanding every application being used through a discovery process. Next, is being able to manage adoption and usage, which may be as much about maximizing value versus reducing costs. Next, identify opportunities for cost avoidance, while considering the renewal process to know the best terms based on the current utilization rates. Finally, gaining visibility into the existence and usage of every SaaS product in a company materially increases the ability to have the governance and controls in place to purchase, utilize, renew, and purchase the right products in the future. One surprising aspect of SaaS sprawl is that many organizations do not know what SaaS solutions are being used by their employees and the associated expenses! The best SaaS Spend management programs start with the ability to conduct "discovery" to identify all the SaaS tools being used in a company....but when is it the right time to consider implementing a SaaS Spend Management solution? Eric highlighted that when you are hitting $1M - $2M in annual SaaS spend is one milestone. Another milestone is that at 500 employees if you do not have a SaaS Spend Management program in place - alarms should be sounding. ...however, Eric shared that it is never too early to introduce a more structured SaaS purchasing, management, and governance process. Zylo is sitting on a treasure trove of "SaaS Spend Management" data from over $30B in annual SaaS spending across industries including a few of the below : SaaS spend by employee has increased by 50% over the last 2 years SaaS spend has been increasing by over 20% per year for several years Total SaaS spend is underreported by 50% due to decentralized purchasing The average company has over 300 "paid" SaaS subscriptions This increases to > 1,000 in Enterprise companies Interestingly, the cost of the SaaS spend may not be the primary opportunity for many companies, it may be minimizing the risk of not managing and governing the flow of data outside of the company! Several new trends in SaaS spend will be disclosed in the Zylo Benchmark report being published on April 4th, 2023! If you are interested in the evolution of purchasing and managing SaaS spend in your company, this product with Eric is a great listen!…
SaaS Spend Management is an emerging and rapidly evolving category - yet Ryan Neu, Co-Founder, and CEO of Vendr has a unique vision for how the category needs to evolve. Ryan has a background in public accounting, and then transitioned to software sales, including a role in the early days at Hubspot. During his career selling, he realized that selling great products is hard, takes too much time and the distribution is quite inefficient - thus the catalyst to founding Vendr in 2018. Vendr was created as a new way to buy and sell software....and it is the "SELL" comment that is unique amongst SaaS Spend Management…
If you have ever been frustrated with the forecasting process and accuracy at your company - this episode is for you! Guy Rubin is the founder and CEO of ebsta, a leading provider of Revenue Intelligence - the next generation of forecast management. Guy founded ebsta to automate the logging of sales rep activity directly into their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) like Salesforce and Hubspot. Over 50,000 companies have used ebsta in this environment which is when the breakthrough happened to begin scoring target buyer relationships - essentially a "relationship score". The strength of relationships is a key factor in an opportunity's probability to convert into a new customer....and thus making the revenue forecast more accurate. More on that later in the episode. Back to the core problem, ebsta has been solving for years - having timely and accurate account, contact, and opportunity data in their CRM. Since most of this data is captured in their email, and/or calendar. By using technology to capture every email, event, and meeting with an account or opportunity, it can be automatically imported into the CRM. Then, a company can use AI to determine the frequency of communications with an opportunity and begin to create an "opportunity score" based on the recency, frequency, and level of activities with specific opportunities. What about including insights from "conversational intelligence" platforms? This is another signal that ebsta uses to evolve the "engagement score", but Guy highlighted that CI is only one signal that informs their platform. Intent data is another signal that ebsta uses to inform and evolve their engagement and thus opportunity score. In a recent research report that ebsta published, one of the challenges is to determine what is the actual impact of intent data on the opportunity "win rate". In this report, ebsta was able to identify the level of influence that intent data has on win rates. Forecast accuracy is a challenge for every company. Initially, Guy felt the "ebsta" internal forecasts were superior to those of a "bottoms-up" process that begins with the AE or front-line sales manager. Those customers still require the ability to include the sales "bottoms-up" forecast, the ebsta automated forecast is typically within a +/- 5% error of margin - which is superior to the 69% of companies that miss the forecast by +/- 10% or greater. If you are involved in your company's "forecasting process" this conversation with Guy provides great insights and ideas to enhance your forecast accuracy!!!…
Friday, March 10th, 2023 - a moment in B2B Technology and Start-Up ecosystem history that many will never forget and hopefully provides a foundation for learning the risks and rewards of venture-backed, early-stage entrepreneurship. Todd Gardner founded SaaS Capital in 2007, the industry's first "recurring revenue credit facility". Before names like Salesforce, Workday, and Snowflake were well-known names, Todd experienced the financial crisis of 2008 and experienced firsthand the impact of a systemic banking issue including the meltdown of his financial partners. Our goal for this episode of the podcast is to provide practical insights and advice that SaaS founders, CEOs, and CFOs can apply to decrease the risks associated with their financial related decisions and banking decisions. We started with the basic, summary facts surrounding the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB): December 31, 2022 , SVB financial disclosure: - $209 B in total assets - $175.4B in total deposits March 8th: SVB disclosed a $1.8B loss on the fire sale of $21B in long-term assets March 8th - 10th: ~ $42B in deposit withdraws were made by SVB customers Friday, March 10th: SVB was declared insolvent and closed by U.S regulators Sunday, March 12th: U.S. government including the FDIC, US Treasury, and Federal Reserve announced that all deposits (100%) would be backstopped - made good because SVB had more than enough assets to cover the outstanding liabilities, primarily customer deposits. Essentially the US government is managing the risk which is primarily a "time-based" issue versus a balance sheet issue. Todd next provided an industry backdrop that lead to the run on SVB. Due to the accelerated ramp of venture capital investing in 2020 - 2021, the deposits on hand at SVB doubles. As standard bank operating practice, SVB invested a significant portion of those deposits in long-term bonds and treasuries, which had a low return due to the low-interest rates of the moment. During the second half of 2022, interest rates began to increase dramatically, and the result was that the value of the long-term bonds decreased in value. Simultaneously many customers were moving their deposits at SVB into higher interest-rate instruments outside of SVB - forcing SVB to sell some long-term assets to support the decrease in deposits. Due to the above macroeconomic interest rate dynamics, coupled with the short-term issues created by a handful of Venture Capital firms quietly recommending their portfolio companies move their deposits out of SVB. We next discussed the "financial ecosystem" that has been the foundation that fueled the amazing growth of the technology industry which includes: - Over half of the technology start-ups banked with SVB - Over half of Venture Capital firms in technology banked with SVB for Capital Call - Line of Credit Having the primary source of assets and liabilities from the same industry ultimately becomes a material issue for SVB. The above is a backdrop to the insights and advice that Todd shared for how this experience can inform future financial and banking decisions by SaaS founders, CEOs, and CFOs which include: #1: Diversify banking relationships including checking, savings, and credit facilities - have at least 2 banks and/or treasury based money-market account #2: Understand the banking relationships that your payables and payroll firms use #3. Maintain fiscal discipline throughout the start-up journey to change the narrative from "cash runway" to ongoing operating profit as early as possible If you are interested in learning more about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and what it means to the financial strategy of SaaS CEOs and CFOs going forward, this conversation with Todd is a great listen.…
Over February and March 2023, we spoke with several founders, CEOs, and executives at SaaS Spend Management vendors. In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, we discussed the evolution, best practices, and ideas on how to introduce a SaaS Spend Management program with Brad Van Leeuwen, Co-Founder and COO at Cledara. Brad stated that his own experience as an entrepreneur with the challenges associated with SaaS spend was the catalyst to founding Cledara. When a company is small, a manual process such as using the founders' credit card for all expenses is fine, but when you scale to 100+ employees that process does not provide the level of control and capital efficiency required to build a sustainable, durable growth company. Spend management solutions have been around for 20+ years - why is SaaS Spend Management so popular in 2023? First, the technology solutions have evolved significantly, and are much easier to use. Secondly, almost every company requires technology (software) to operate efficiently so the demand for SaaS solutions has exploded. Third, no longer is IT guarding the "data center or servers" so the procurement of software has become a decentralized process. SaaS Spend Management goes far beyond issuing a "corporate credit card" for all purchases, and includes a more proactive identification and then usage monitoring of the most relevant and used SaaS solutions in a company - thus providing centralized visibility and control. When should a company evaluate introducing a SaaS Spend Management solution - early on the focus needs to be 100% focused on developing and selling your product to establish Product Market Fit. Then, as a company evolves to 30 -50 companies, a general spend management tool centered on corporate credit cards is a good place to start. Once a company hits 50 - 100 employees, the SaaS Spend sprawl becomes harder to control and is a good time to consider introducing a corporate SaaS Spend Management solution. One of the key benefits of a SaaS Spend Management solution is that decentralized buyers can now have access to a pre-approved list of solutions. This empowers the employee to engage with the solution category of their choice, and the approved vendors without having to deal with a difficult procurement process. One of the trends in SaaS pricing and billing is the increased use of "Usage-Based Billing". One of the benefits of using a SaaS spend management solution is to have real-time insights into billing trends measured against budget and provide an early warning signal or even stop the use of a specific solution when the costs exceed the budgeted or contracted amount. One other benefit of SaaS Spend Management is to provide a pre-vetted list of vendors and the associated "realized pricing" that should guide a new solution purchase and/or renewal. If you are interested in learning more about how your company could gain increased visibility, control and reduced costs of your SaaS Spend while improving your employee experience in buying new SaaS software - this discussion with Brad Van Leeuwen is a great listen.…
Planning in 2020 continues to be chalked full of uncertainty based on the current macroeconomic reality. Assuch, being a finance leader in 2023 is even more challenging, and unpredictable - but developing an operating plan and budget is an important and critical component of the CFO's job. First, is being "hyper-realistic" is the theme of the year, especially on top-line revenue. Understanding revenue drivers like pipeline generation and conversion is critical to informing the 23' budget and operating plan. Factoring in longer sales cycles closed lost - no decision and buyer hesitancy is part of the art in building the 23' plan. Second is being "hyper-responsible" in managing costs. Third is "running multiple scenarios" highlighting the goal of profitable growth, which should always be in style, but even more imperative in 2023. Though Net Income is always interesting, in the B2B SaaS industry revenue growth is still a key driver, while EBITDA and Free Cash Flow are key indicators of profitable growth. Fourth is "obsessing on the leading indicators" impacting revenue trends. How have the relationships between CFOs and CROs changed heading into 2023? Dan highlighted he is lucky as both his head of revenue and head of customer success are metrics focused, and they collaborate closely on planning and forecasting - using over 80 metrics to continuously monitor their progress toward their operating plan. Next, we discussed the challenges of forecasting - especially in today's uncertain environment. Dan shared that hitting a +/- 5% accuracy is probably best in class, while Planful targets 3% - 5% forecast accuracy. Then we discussed the "triangulation methodology" which evolved into using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. However, Dan started by ensuring front-line sales professionals need to see forecast accuracy as a priority. Dan shared a few tips to improve forecast accuracy. First, sales managers should provide a weekly forecast update as they are the closest to the pipeline, Second, Finance should be monitoring pipeline generation and conversion rates to continuously update the forecast. Third, using AI to capture the signals that impact opportunity conversion rates to provide an automated forecast to be combined with the first and second manual forecast management processes. What are the top 3-5 performance metrics that Dan is focusing on in 2023? Dan highlighted ARR growth is still a top metric. However, Dan focused on "leading indicators" including outbound pipeline development trends - including the pipeline from SDRs. Other leading indicators Dan tracks include outbound connect rates, conversation rates, opportunity conversion rates, and sales team acceptance rates. Start by looking for "trends" which can serve as very important pipeline trend insights. Next, looking at the opportunity funnel conversion rates in concert with analyzing conversational intelligence insights is very helpful to understanding "early signals" impacting revenue growth. A strong financial operations capability starts with instrumenting the infrastructure that can quickly surface leading and lagging indicators to inform decision-making. Dan highlighted the importance of technology to compress time from activity to insights to a decision. Being buttoned up on the CRM infrastructure and data are table stakes to fully leverage automated planning, forecasting and reporting. At what stage of company evolution should a SaaS company start the "instrumentation and automation" journey for planning, forecasting, and metrics reporting. "Complexity" of business operations is a critical factor to determine when to begin the automation journey. If you are considering how to increase your planning and forecasting accuracy, the conversation with Dan is very insightful and full of great ideas…
How does writing a 400-page novel lead to founding a SaaS Spend Management company? It was the start of David Campbell's journey which including breaking into B2B technology sales where he saw the challenges companies of all sizes have with buying technology. What is the definition of "SaaS Spend Management" according to David? David defines it as "spend management for the most important asset category in business today and tomorrow". Most companies are becoming software companies, and thus why SaaS spend management will become the top spend in most companies. Where investors focused primarily on revenue growth over the last few years, today the focus is now on efficiency and profitability, and as such "procurement and efficiency is the new Sales". A hot take, but a comment that is intentionally provocative to move the pendulum closing to an equal balance of revenue growth and profitability. Over the past 12 months, Tropic has grown over 3x, due to the outsized demand for "efficiency levels" beginning in 2022 and continuing into 2023. One of the trends David has seen, is that company CEOs and CFOs were so focused on revenue growth, that they were comfortable with outsourcing SaaS procurement management to a third party. There are three components to a successful SaaS Spend Management deployment: 1. Identify SaaS products in use today and optimize current spend 2. Deploy an infrastructure and process to increase visibility and control 3. Ensure the process uses automation to make the SaaS procurement process easier not more difficult for employees Making the process of buying a SaaS tool needs to continue to be decentralized and easy, but powered by a process and infrastructure that also centralizes control and visibility into the SaaS purchase and usage analytics. When should a company implement a SaaS Spend Management program? David suggests 100 employees is a good place to start. By implementing a solution early, the culture of a structured SaaS procurement process is much easier to scale as companies hit 500 and 1000 employees. Attempting to introduce a formal SaaS Spend Management below 50 employees is most likely to meet significant resistance.. In today's evolving world, software is often either the number two or number three expense category after compensation and benefits. For companies in this category, introducing a SaaS spend program prior to a full fledge "procurement function" can provide early financial wins without needed to invest in a larger purchasing infrastructure and organization. SaaS spend management does often include a "managed buying service" and technology to automate SaaS purchasing while simulatenousy increasing ease of purchasing and control the on-going expense and risk of SaaS sprawl. Procurement Paradise is the primary goal of Tropic.ai and is a unique approach to gaining company wide adoption of a process targetted at providing greater control of the SaaS spend, while empowering every employee to purchase sofware that increased their job productivity within the approved framework and process of a well defined SaaS Spend Management program. If you are responsible or interested in controlling SaaS spend in your company, or a B2B SaaS sales professionals looking to sell into companies with a formal SaaS Spending Management program in place - this conversation with David Campbell provdies a good lens into procurement paradise.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Have you ever looked at all of the reports, dashboards, and data presented across your company and felt overwhelmed and under-informed? Today's data-driven world far too often results in a lot of data but not better decision-making or company performance. Scott Stouffer founded his first company in 1993 and has lived the reality of how Go-to-Market Strategy is not a one-time thing, but a series of iterations over time. Scott compares today's need to continuously evolve your GTM strategy much as Agile did for software development. Basically an "Agile Go-to-Market" model. The above reduces the amount of investment wasted on strategies and tactics that never provide the required return. By definition, the majority of companies will not nail the Go-to-Market motion on the first try. Examples include identifying the top Ideal Customer Profile, creating the perfect messaging and positioning strategy, or even the best sales motion to engage, interest and acquire new customers. One key to successfully using an "agile" GTM model is to limit the number of new variables you introduce at any given time. One example Scott provided was an experiment that uses "new messaging" as the only new variable and measures how that performs as measured by activity to conversation to meeting to opportunities. A key to identifying which GTM motion is working is to ensure you instrument and measure the performance metrics that provide real market feedback on the efficacy of your GTM tactic(s). This applies not only when you first enter a market with a new product, but when you enter a new market with an existing product that was successful in a different market. The next topic we covered was the "DEFINING" moment in the podcast (11:40 in the podcast). Scott started with an analogy on how a cholesterol measurement of 50 is meaningless without context, but if you know the measurement was 45 six months ago AND the appropriate benchmark for the patient is 20-35 there is CONTEXT to the measurement (metric) and requires attention. Scott's point on "Go-To-Market Metrics Require Context" was defined by using one if not all of the following variables: 1. Time - how is the metric trending over time 2. Plan - how is the metric performing against the plan 3. Causality - what variable(s) impacts the metric 4. Significance - How does this impact our business 5. External Industry Benchmarks - how do I compare to the external market Another topic we discussed was WHEN and HOW to instrument your Go-To-Market systems to capture and then use the GTM metrics to inform decisions. Scott suggested that when a company moves beyond "Founder Led Growth" into Sales Led Growth is the time to instrument GTM metrics. One caveat was metrics become more instructive once Product Market Fit is established, and it is appropriate to scale Marketing and Sales investment. Growth efficiency, a trending topic in 2022 becomes more important once Product Market Fit is achieved and the investment in Marketing and Sales continues to increase..even in $1M - $5M ARR companies. If you are looking for ways to increase Go-to-Market efficiency and increase the value of metrics in decision-making, this conversation with Scott is amazingly informative for first-time founders and the most experienced GTM leaders.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Bill Binch has led revenue teams at highly successful B2B SaaS category creators, including Marketo and Pendo. Having real-life, applied experience and success at scaling high-growth companies, while also having broad insights into several Battery Ventures portfolio companies provides Bill with a unique perspective on how Chief Revenue Officers use metrics to inform their journey. Bill's journey over 29 years has informed how his use of metrics to lead a revenue team has evolved, alongside the advancement of revenue technology options. Though Sales has always been the ultimate function to be measured by metrics (quota achievement), today's CRO can have much better insight into the "signals" or "leading indicators" that directly impact quota achievement. Today's Sales leaders are reviewing and asking deep conversations about pipeline trends, which sources are delivering the most, and highest quality leads that result in Closed-Won revenue. But what metrics does Bill think are most important for each stage of a B2B SaaS company's growth: $𝟬 - $𝟭𝟬𝗠 𝗔𝗥𝗥: - Customer logo count which provides Sales team confidence and future customer confidence - Average Contract Value - Average Sales Cycle > $ 𝟭𝟬𝗠 𝗔𝗥𝗥 - Net Revenue Retention (NRR) measures how much ARR a current customer delivers year over year. Example if $50K ARR this year and $60K ARR next year = 120% NRR - Predictive metrics that forecast future revenue performance including Pipeline Performance and Quota Capacity How does Bill define the CRO's responsibility? Bill's perspective is the word "REVENUE" defines the CRO's responsiblity to including: 1) New Revenue; 2) Expansion Revenue; 3) Retention Revenue. Bill does not believe that the CRO should include the Marketing function. Bill firmly believes that Sales and Marketing should co-own the qualified pipeline goal, not just leads, Marketing Qualified Leads, or other Marketing centric objectives that do not directly impact the pipeline. The "intersection" of Marketing and Sales is PIPELINE. Far too often in board meetings, Bill sees Marketing and Sales present data, metrics, and reports that have little to no direct correlation and definitely no causation. What are the "pipeline metrics" Bill thinks are most important? Bill likes "Pipeline Coverage Ratio" which calculates how much qualified pipeline is required to achieve $X in revenue. Bill also introduced his pipeline "MOJO" dashboard which includes a dashboard that tracks daily pipeline trends including: 1. Deals created 2. Deals lost 3. Deals expanded 4. Deals decreased 5. Deals pulled forward 6. Deals pushed back Bill shared that since the CRO should own all revenue inputs, including acquisition, retention and expansion they should also be responsible for the Customer Success function. However, once a company scales to greater than $50M - $100M the role of the Chief Customer Officer should report directly to the CEO and not the CRO. I also asked Bill if the CRO should own revenue efficiency metrics, such as CAC Payback Period or Customer Lifetime Value? Bill's perspective is that the CRO should be aware of how their performance metrics impact company level metrics that the CFO should own, including CAC Payback Period, Customer Lifetime Value and Rule o 40 (as examples). Lastly, I asked Bill what are the core metrics that the CRO should report to the board. They include: 1) ARR Growth - trend over 5 quarters; 2) ACV - 5 Qtr trend; 3) Average Sales Cycle - 5 Qtr trend; 4) New vs expansion split - 5 Qtr trend; 5) Average Revenue Per Account - 5 Qtr trends; 6) Logo adds - 5 Qtr trend; 7) Segmented based metrics as a company scales Bill's experience as the CRO that led growth at two incredibly successful and market creating SaaS companies and now as an Operating Partner at Battery Ventures makes this a must listen con…
It's hard to imagine being a key part of three industry-defining product categories, which is exactly what Bruce Cleveland has experienced in his Silicon Valley software career. First, Bruce was an early executive leader at Oracle (first 100+ employees) as they re-defined relational databases, then on to Apple where he led the object-oriented engineering division, next he led the business development and alliances team at Siebel Systems before he took over products as they defined Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and then again at C3.ai in defining Enterprise AI. Three of those experiences resulted in IPOs. Bruce then became a VC, first at InterWest Partners where he invested in early-stage B2B SaaS startups such as Marketo (acquired by Adobe), and then he started Wildcat Venture Partners with two other people, again focused on early-stage startups such as Vlocity (acquired by Salesforce). Based uponthe above experiences, Bruce wanted to create an easy-to-understand and prescriptive framework to help entrepreneurs move through each stage of a start-up's journey. The result was the Traction Gap Framework. The different stages of the Traction Gap Framework include: Minimum Viable Category (MVC): Does the market segment already exist or is there an opportunity to create and lead a new product category - creating your own category (e.g., Gainsight) presents more risk but the returns are much higher. Initial Product Release (IPR): The first version of the product beyond prototypes and wireframes that serves as the feedback mechanism to refine and evolve the product to present to multiple new customers. Minimum Viable Product (MVP): The product state that is required to acquire several new customers and provide tangible value while using early customers feedback to prioritize feature/function refinement and enhancement Minimum Viable Repeatability (MVR): This is the point where external investors (VCs) are most interested in investing in an early-stage SaaS/Cloud company and become seriously interested as the initial referenceable customers are in place, and the ability to leverage the learnings from early customers can now be used to rinse and repeat the customer acquisition process Minimum Viable Traction(MVT): This is after a company has “crossed the chasm” and is ready to materially scale a business to $20M - $50M while establishing market leadership. I asked Bruce about the secrets to creating a new product category. Bruce highlighted that not everyone wants to be the spokesperson leading the creation of a new category. He used the example of Marketo, where the founders decided that Jon Miller, a co-founder, would be positioned as "the father of marketing automation" while the other co-founder and CEO, Phil Fernandez chose to primarily focus on leading strategy and operations. Bruce coined the term "Market Engineering" to help frame the content in his book. The basic concept is developing the positioning and messaging of the company to a few innovative and provocative concepts that everyone can easily understand and clearly differentiates the company from others. Steve Jobs at Apple is a great example of a category creator. Bruce shared the four pillars the Traction Gap Framework including: 1) Team; 2) Product; 3) Revenue; 4) Systems. Each pillar takes a point of prominence at various stages when traversing the Traction Gap - though TEAM is the common foundation at each stage across the journey If you are a student of Silicon Valley and the SaaS start-up world, starting or already on your own entrepreneurial journey, this discussion with Bruce Cleveland, who has been there and done that is a must listen.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

You may have heard the acronym FP&A many times, but always wondered what it stood for? Financial Planning and Analysis is the function, typically present in more mature companies responsible that is responsible for financial planning, modeling and analysis. Paul has a summarized view of what FP&A professionals are responsible for which is: "FP&A is responsible to maximize shareholder return by helping businesses to best deploy and allocate future dollars". Where does FP&A start and end, versus the Revenue Operations function? Well, the answer was clear as mud. Paul shared that each company defines FP&A and RevOps differently, Some companies have "operations" report to the CFO and some to the Chief Revenue Officer. The primary answer was "planning and modeling" goes into FP&A, and the rest of operations depends on the culture and competency within a company. Forecasting was another topic that is sometimes responsible for forecasting and others FP&A simply validates the Sales provided forecast, but not to create and share the forecast. Basically, can FP&A use historical financial data toreview and validate the forecast. I drilled down into how FP&A departments become involved with "SaaS Metrics" in the SaaS industry. Paul likes to see CFOs as the primary owner of the data that drives SaaS Metrics to ensure that the input data and the enterprise value creating metrics are standardized. Basically, not having the Go-to-Market functions own the SaaS Metrics formula definition, but can collaborate with FP&A in the calculation of the metrics using the "Finance" approved definition and calculation formula. If you are involved in the financial planning, modeling and reporting process in your SaaS company, and already have or are evaluating introducing a FP&A function that will work closely with the GTM operations teams (Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, CS Ops and/or RevOps) this conversation is a great listen!…
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Metrics that Measure Up

1 Evolution of Customer Success by the Numbers - Kellie Capote, Chief Customer Officer Gainsight 36:35
How has Customer Success evolved over the past ten years? What better place to start than discussing the latest Customer Success Benchmarking Index with Kellie Capote, Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight. Kellie has invested the last five years developing her perspectives on Customer Success at Gainsight in a broad array of Customer Success leadership roles, including becoming the Chief Customer Officer in 2021. What were some of the top findings from the 2022 CS Benchmarking Index? Kellie first highlighted that 41% of companies recently invested in forming a Customer Success Operations function and is currently present in 61% of companies. This highlights the operational rigor and excellence being developed in Customer Success. 63% of Customer Success organizations are tracking Net Revenue Retention (NRR), proving that CS is being viewed as a revenue growth engine, not just a churn reduction department. 45% of CS organizations have subscription renewal responsibilities and will continue to grow as CS departments mature. One interesting topic discussed was that only 20% of CS organizations have primary responsibilities for up-sells and cross-sells. Thus how does a CS organization assume responsibility for NRR? Kellie highlighted that even though CS may not own the opportunity management process, 49% of the time, they are responsible for identifying potential up-sell and cross-sell opportunities while also ensuring customer satisfaction and product engagement which will organically impact existing customer expansion ARR. Kellie also highlighted the Customer Success Qualified Lead (SQL) as a sign that CS is actively focused and engaged on existing customer revenue expansion. What tools are the leading CS organizations using to drive customer success? Customer Success plans are used by 63% of companies to facilitate the definition and attainment of customer-specific success. One area of opportunity is to use "customer value measurements," which are a key part of CS plans. The best companies use a "business value framework" during the sales process and then continue to inform how the CS organization engages with customers to continue measuring and reporting the customer value promised and delivered! Whether you are a customer success professional or a SaaS executive investing in Customer Success to drive customer satisfaction, customer value, and increase Net Revenue Retention Rates, this conversion with Kellie is highly informative and instructive.…
How vibrant is the SaaS industry in Canada? Who better to ask that question and discuss how the SaaS industry is trending in Canada other than Lauren Thibodeau, founder and CEO SaaSCan. Saadian is the leading market research and benchmarking company for the SaaS industry across Canada. There are 38 Million people in Canada. Leading SaaS companies like Shopify, OpenText, and Constellation Software are all headquartered in Canada. There is also a growing ecosystem in Canada with 3,170 VC-backed SaaS companies in Canada, and that does not include boot-strapped or angel-funded companies. One of the common challenges for Canadian SaaS companies is expanding distribution beyond Canada to scale the company. The first need is to find avenues to expand its network outside Canada. Secondly, one of the more interesting challenges is that moving into the U.S. can crush a Canadian company that has not prepared its infrastructure for the 10x increase in addressable market that the U.S. represents. I asked Lauren what a U.S. based SaaS company needs to know if they want to enter the Canadian marketplace. Understanding the Canadian business culture is critical to success for U.S. companies selling in Canada. Listen first and talk second, and displaying a sense of humility are crucial aspects of the Canadian business environment. Having a North Star metric specific to your product and your customer's value is a great metric. Lauren suggested the following metrics to help measure and validate Product-Market Fit. The first is customer on-boarding and activating early customers; the second is understanding product usage metrics such as Daily Active Users (DAU)and Monthly Active Users (MAU). Lauren shared a new metric I had not heard before; the Sean Ellis test is a survey-based metric asking, "how disappointed would you be if this product went away ."If 40% or more of companies say they would be disappointed, that is a good proxy for Product-Market Fit. Unit economics, such as CAC Payback Period, Gross and Net Dollar Retention, and CLTV:CAC are good metrics to understand. However, they do not provide much insight or value until a company prepares to scale its investment in Sales and Marketing once a repeatable and scalable customer acquisition motion is established. Lauren recommends prioritizing focus on churn and retention on a dollar basis are a priority. The growth rate is always a key metric, especially if a company is entertaining external investment. Lauren also mentioned the "Burn Multiple" which measures how much cash is burned compared to Contracted ARR (CARR). Lauren Thibodeau is a great listen if you are interested in learning more about the Canadian SaaS ecosystem, or just learning more about SaaS metrics for early-stage companies.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Venture Capital - a hallmark of the B2B SaaS start-up industry has evolved over the past twenty years - but how have the primary value and responsibilities evolved? Marcelino Pantoja has had a front-row seat in many positions, starting as an analyst at the investment office at Stanford University. Then Marcelino worked with Greg Sands to help stand-up Costanoa Ventures. These views provided insights over six years from over 500 start-ups founded by Stanford alumni. The most surprising component of our conversation was that Marcelino believes that attaining Product Market Fit is a VC firm's first and primary role. What is Product Market Fit - Marcelino defines it using Andy Rachleff's (Co-Founder Benchmark Ventures) definition, as when you build a product that people desperately want and organic word of mouth is the primary source of new customers. VCs need the skill and experience to help a company during the Customer Development Phase of the journey to find Product Market Fit. Finding Product Market Fit is the most challenging and risky phase of the entrepreneurial journey. I pushed Marcelino on why "VCs" primary role is to help founders find Product Market Fit. He responded that capital has become a commodity and that the best VCs deliver company-building experience and expertise to complement the founder's efforts. Other than that, VCs are like any other capital source and should be viewed as such - HOT TAKE! One fundamental change today versus 10-15 years ago is the amount of accessible information on company building from successful founders. Another fundamental change in the technology start-up ecosystem is the number of start-ups that have scaled to become large enterprises. A by-product of this success is the number of people with the experience to help today's founders build and scale their idea and business...experiential advice is much easier to leverage than conference room theory. Another fundamental difference to starting a B2B SaaS start-up today is the low cost of building and delivering the product. Thus "experience" from proven founders and operators who have been there, done that, and possess their own capital from previous successes are a great source of CAPITAL and KNOWLEDGE at the early stages of a founder's journey. Marcelino's experience and perspectives motivated him to create a Venture Capital Index Fund, which simply stated is applying the concepts of traditional asset management to allow institutional investors access to a portfolio of VC funds. A VC Index fund is especially applicable to "early stage funds" which are harder to access for a traditional Limited Partner (LP), such as a University endowment or family office. The value of a VC Index Fund to the entrepreneur? The primary benefit is to reduce the amount of time a founder needs to invest in fundraising by working with a fund comprised primarily of previous founders, who have the capital and operational experience that many traditional VCs cannot provide. If you are a student of, or founder in the B2B SaaS industry, Marcelino provides a unique perspective on gaining access to two of the primary assets every first-time founder requires - capital and experience...in a single source.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

1 B2B SaaS Cash Management and Metrics - with Brandon Metcalf, Founder and CEO Place Technology 31:51
Cash Management is not one of the top subjects B2B SaaS founders want to discuss, but critical to start-up survival and success. Brandon Metcalf learned the in's and out's of Cash Management as a multiple-time founder and CEO. As a result, he recently founded Place Technology to help early-stage CEOs and CFOs use automation and technology to better manage cash across every stage of growth and every function in a company. "Cautious Capital" is a reality of any capital market that has experienced the momentum and euphoria of the B2B SaaS and Cloud industry over the last five years. Brandon learned the importance of Cash Management and Cash forecasting at Talent Rover, where they had independent P&Ls in eight countries. Cash is always a consideration for strategic decisions in any company. In 2022, growth at any cost is a relic of the past, and today the question is how to optimize every dollar investment to build a sustainable, growth company. An investor's relationship with a founder is built upon confidence and trust, as such, Brandon errors in telling his investors everything and even oversharing what is going on in the company - especially around cash usage, cash burn, and cash forecasts. Brandon prefers to raise capital in smaller tranches to ensure he and the investors feel comfortable with the previous capital invested and used to grow the business. Brandon uses an investment analysis firm to gain independent, externally validated company valuation outside the current investors. Then Brandon prefers to raise money at "lower valuations," which provides more comfort to investors and reduces the risks associated with down-round valuations. Cash Burn is a metric that every CEO, CFO, and investor understands. Cash Burn equals the money brought into a company versus the money spent to run the company. In venture-backed companies, the Cash Burn is almost always negative as a company invests in acquiring and growing customers at a rate much higher than possible in a self-funded, bootstrapped model. One of Brandon's favorite metrics is the "Burn Multiple" The Burn Multiple measures net cash burned divided by net new ARR. David Sacks, Craft Ventures first popularized this metric. A burn multiple less than 1x is amazing, greater than 3x is bad, and targeting 1x - 2x is good to great. I asked Brandon, what are the best metrics to track to manage cash management and cash efficiency. Beyond Burn Multiple, # months to cash flow break-even, operating cash burn to forecast/plan, cash to qualified lead - by source, variance analysis on customer payments (contract to actual), cash impact via discounting, cash impact via hiring. If you are a B2B SaaS founder, CEO, or CFO or considering launching a start-up in the future, understanding the importance and techniques to optimize cash management is a concept that Brandon provides excellent ideas and insights throughout our conversation.…
Incentive Compensation and Sales Performance Management - two key ingredients to scaling a successful B2B SaaS company. Is Intelligent Revenue the next key ingredient to growth? Chris Cabrera, founder, and CEO of Xactly, built a very successful company by helping companies to automate and optimize those two disciplines. The result was an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2015 and a $564M acquisition by Vista Equity in 2017...but Chris's and Xactly's story did not stop there and continues to evolve. Currently Xactly is evolving to provide an Intelligent Revenue Platform that enables companies to scale revenue predictably more effectively. Chris defines Intelligent Revenue as the combination of Revenue Planning, Incentive Compensation Management, Pipeline Management, and Revenue Forecasting Revenue Operations and Intelligence is an evolving category still yet to be defined. Why the world is waking up that "siloed" apps are not an efficient or effective way to optimize revenue performance. Moreover, to leverage real intelligence across the entire customer journey requires consistent data across every phase of the journey, and a fragmented revenue technology stack does not provide the core foundation required for Intelligent Revenue. Chris's experience suggests that designing an intelligent revenue plan and incentive compensation model will lead to more predictable and profitable revenue growth. Revenue Intelligence does not start with better forecasting; it begins with using the insights and signals from the past to design the right Go-To-Market structures and plans - ultimately leading to better and more intelligent forecasts. Ninety-seven percent of Xactly's customers opt-in to share their data in an anonymous and aggregated fashion to develop benchmarks enabling the entire Xactly customer community to leverage the shared intelligence to build better revenue plans and incentive compensation programs. Who most benefits from Intelligent Revenue? Revenue Operations, often the combination of Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, and Customer Success Ops, directly benefit by being able to develop better territory plans, design incentive compensation plans that drive the right behavior and now provide more intelligent insights into how current pipeline trends will result in more accurate revenue forecasts. An example that Chris shared was how Revenue Operations can use Intelligent Revenue to design a program to reduce the use of discounting in price negotiations. As an example, incentive compensation plans that pay different rates based upon the "discount" that a sales professional negotiates. One of the traditional barriers to paying this way is the challenge of paying different commission rates based upon discount rates which is a complex, multi-variate calculation challenge - but one that can significantly impact profitable revenue growth. If you are responsible for one of the most common challenges that every company leader faces - delivering profitable revenue growth and consistent revenue forecasts, this conversation with Chris is entertaining, enlightening, and makes for a great listen!…
How should we price our new SaaS product? How does our pricing model compare to our competitors? Are there other pricing models that would increase revenue and margin for our SaaS product? These are all some of questions that can be answered by analyzing B2B SaaS industry pricing benchmarks. This is the world that Bryan Belanger lives in everyday, so who better to ask. Bryan has been conducting pricing research for over 10 years at the Technology Business Research company. One of the challenges Bryan identified, was there is no single spot for all size SaaS companies to view the different pricing model options currently being used in the industry. Pricing models in the SaaS industry have started to evolve dramatically over the last few years, and have been further impacted by the growing populating of Product-Led Growth and Usage-Based Pricing. Pricing benchmarks need to cover several core areas of a pricing model including: - Subscription type - Product /Pricing Packaging - Price Levels - Discounting - Pricing Structure - Pricing Pages - Trial vs Freemium usage - Usage Metrics - Usage Metering The typical B2B SaaS company only invest 1-2 days per year in analyzing, enhancing and/or testing new pricing models. Far too often, pricing is still more ad-hoc and not informed by statistically valid research and benchmarks. Subscription pricing - the secret sauce to the B2B SaaS industry is still the primary pricing model for over 80% of B2B SaaS companies. The structures of SaaS subscriptions is evolving, but subscription pricing is still the cornerstone of SaaS pricing models. Usage-Based Pricing is a trendy pricing model in the industry today, due to it's direct impact on Growth Rates and Net Dollar Retention. Based upon the latest XaaS Pricing research, it was identified that just under 50% of a top 125 high-growth PLG company cohort were using a more basic subscription model (seat based). Usage is introduced as a "limiting function by pricing package tier" but not invoicing on usage specific variables. The pricing goal in this model was to convert accounts exceeding the "limit" into the next level pricing tier. If you are evaluating introducing or modifying your B2B SaaS pricing model, Bryan and XaaS Pricing are a great listen and follow.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

1 Transforming Data-Driven Decisions into Success - with Allan Willie, Founder and CEO Klipfolio 32:08
Does being data-driven result in better decision-making and performance results? That was a question we asked Allan Willie, co-founder and CEO of Klipfolio which is enabling thousands of companies to do just that through the dashboards they enable. What are the primary challenges with data-driven decision-making? It starts with the data quality going into the metrics used for decisions. Once the quality, integrity, and even amount of data can drive statistically significant insights, it's important not to go crazy and become the victim of "data overload". Next, we discussed who uses the source data from tools and processes to help analyze the data and then make decisions. At Klipfolio, that is the role of business operations. Other functional operational functions, such as Marketing Operations, manage the data that flows into/out of the marketing automation system and the logic utilized within the platform. Every functional operations team needs to become data quality stewards, but may not be the function that analyzes what the data is saying. Often, business operations or financial operations may be the penultimate operations function that uses the data to help form data-driven decisions and strategies. What metrics are most important for an early-stage SaaS company to capture? Product Market Fit is the first and ONLY goal early on. How to measure product market fit? One is to measure how often a user comes back to use your product; another is to have a proactive outreach strategy to speak directly with the customers. The second category is to introduce growth metrics such as CARR growth, Revenue Growth, and Gross/Net Dollar Retention. Then in the third category come the efficiency metrics that guide profitable growth, such as CAC Payback Period and Customer Lifetime Value to CAC Ratio. Curiosity is a central theme in fostering a data-driven culture. Almost every point solution has basic analytics and reporting capability, and when coupled with excel, most early-stage companies can become data-driven. This approach will limit visualization and the ability to scale but is a great start to a data-driven, metrics-informed decision-making journey. How to ensure the data and metrics being captured are being used to make decisions? Allan highlighted it is very common to introduce metrics that may not stick. Identify those that provide the most insights and have predictive capabilities, and think about getting rid of the less. To scale, having a strategic area of focus for a specific time period that the entire company rallies around is a great way to create a data-driven culture. As an example, maybe for a quarter or two the whole company focuses on a specific category, like Customer Acquisition and identify the top opportunities for improvement as highlighted by the associated metrics, and implement the enhancements (process and/or organizational) before moving to the next strategic area of data-driven, metrics-informed" opportunity. If you are in a business with less < $50M ARR, the discussion with Allan provides many thought-provoking ideas and insights into creating a data-driven culture that translates into accelerated company success.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Marketing as an AMPLIFIER to Sales productivity!!! The quote above was the primary focus of my discussion with Mark Stouse - the CEO of Proof Analytics. Mark self-identifies as a communicator turned marketer turned SaaS CEO. Over this journey, Mark has developed a strong perspective on how to prove ROI, especially for marketing investment. What are the metrics that matter to a Chief Marketing Officer? Mark says this is very straightforward: "Marketing's mission is to help Sales sell more product to more customers faster and more profitably than Sales could do by themselves". Simply stated, it is measured by more deals, bigger deals and faster deals - Deal Velocity! Calculating how marketing measures these should be the primary point of any metric that Marketing captures and reports. When pushed on the top three metrics, Mark responded that KPIs (data) by themselves are not enough. Data is the measurement of what happened in a particular time for a specific place - ALL in the past. Analytics, specifically regression analysis, enables a marketer to predict and forecast how future marketing investments will impact Sales productivity as measured by pipeline and revenue. The B2B SaaS industry is still young when measured against other industries such as manufacturing, retail, or consumer packaged goods. As such, the maturity of using sophisticated analytics to predict the future in the industry is still in its infancy - especially compared to larger, more data-intensive B2B online companies. An example of using data on a more granular level was Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Pipeline Coverage Ratio. By understanding how specific cohorts perform in top of funnel conversion, the marketing ROI can be increased materially through enhanced targeting. Next, we pivoted to Mark's concept of Marketing exponentially impacting Sales productivity. Mark has an interesting take on the concept: Marketing should invest more time helping Sales improve conversion rates in the middle and bottom of the opportunity funnel versus primarily being focused on top of funnel market engagement. Mark used a military analogy where the Air Force provides air cover to the ground troops. Why does Mark believe the above? Marketing has conditioned business leaders to think that Marketing is primarily a brand awareness and engagement function versus a selling process amplifier. Mark highlighted TRUST as a key ingredient to enhancing conversion rates and accelerating deal velocity. What drives a buyer's confidence - trust is a crucial ingredient to building buyer trust. The more confidence a buyer has that a company and their product will impact their buying process, measured by win rate and sales cycle time. As a marketer, a pivotal question is what are we doing to increase the buyer's confidence and trust, resulting in helping Sales close more deals faster! If you are interested in hearing thought-provoking ideas on how Marketing can use data and analytics to enable Marketing to become an exponential multiplier to Sales productivity - this conversation with Mark is fascinating.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Sam Baker, Principal at Scale Venture Partners, has been a venture capitalist for six years. Before that, he gained operational experience at Box in both an Inside Sales role and in a Strategy and Planning role. Scale's culture has a very quantitative-oriented DNA, including having its own benchmarking organization known as Scale Studio. Benchmarking delivers reality to every Scale portfolio company and aligns the founder and the investor on a metrics-oriented approach to decision making. The first topic we approached was what metrics are most important to a Series A and Series B investor? Sam's initial response was not to rattle off a list of metrics but to discuss the importance of "context" in today's investment environment. As an example, Sam shared that the "maturity" of the company is a primary driver of how best to use metrics. Scale has identified and uses four (4) Vital Signs of SaaS that include: 1) Growth; 2)Efficiency; 3) Churn, and; 4)Burn. A small description of the four vital signs below: Growth - How quickly is revenue growing Efficiency - Quantity of revenue compared to Sales and Marketing spend Churn - Do customers stick around and buy more, OR do they leave Burn - What is the rate of cash consumption to grow a SaaS company When asked about a benchmarking framework that Scale uses - he first highlighted it depends on who is consuming the benchmarks (which role) and what is the stage and maturity of the company. Scale's benchmarking framework is very extensible to enable an increased aperture on the metrics being utilized. For example, when a company dramatically increases investment in Sales and Marketing, Customer Acquisition Cost efficiency metrics become more important. Next, Sam recommended avoiding benchmarking and metrics overload, which requires a company to identify the most important and most informative metrics to how the company is currently trending and will be trending in the near term. Moreover, be prepared to add or change metrics that are most relevant to the growth stage. Scale has a couple of unique metrics, including Instantaneous Compound Annual Growth Rate (iCAGR). The benefit of iCAGR is it provides a real-time and is most sensitive to growth or shrinkage today, versus being biased by the average effect of quarterly or annually metrics. As an example, if growth is down in the most recent quarter, but the previous three quarters had higher than normal growth it can identify potential risk or new trend in company performance. Another metric that Scale uses is "Growth Persistence" which investors use to measure the rate of growth over time. For example, if a company grows 100% one year, and then 85% in year two and 72% in year three, it would reflect an 85% median growth persistence. How to avoid "metrics overload"? This is especially important in board meetings when the "metrics creep" can often happen. First, make sure everyone knows the company's "North Star" and how each metric directly impacts the North Star. Second, gain agreement up-front with the investors and board members on those metrics that are most important, that they are presented in a manner that is easy to understand and ensure the metrics tie back to the source systems being used. Sam provides a very insightful and instructive perspective on using metrics and benchmarks to inform a SaaS company's growth journey - especially from an investor's perspective, which is so critical in the 2022 investment environment.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Everyone talks about the "Customer Journey" but often operates in stage-by-stage silos of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. What is the Customer Journey - first, it often depends on if you come from a "Buyer perspective" versus the "Seller perspective." Ultimately, the seller is trying to figure out how to turn the buyer's meandering journey into a more liner, faster buying journey...sounds like an adversarial relationship using this model. One interesting aspect of today's buying journey is how to optimize how Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success collaborate across the customer journey. The early phase can feel disjointed to the customer as they engage with a vendor using multiple "marketing-led" experiences that are not well understood by the Sales Development and/or Sales resource, who often do not know the knowledge and experience the prospect already has from self-directed research. Does having shared goals and metrics across Marketing, Sales and Customer Success impact the customer experience? Having an "Account Energy Score" may assist in aligning the functions across the customer journey. It can also inform the probability of a prospect becoming a customer. The Account Energy score factors in signals at each stage of the journey and weight specific actions such as content engagement or activities based upon the stage of the journey, such as Customer Acquisition vs Customer Retention vs Customer Expansion. Though there is never a "magic bullet" that can guarantee a prospect becoming a customer, being able to dynamically score each point of engagement depending on the latest understanding of how each signal correlates to customer journey progress is a material increase in insights versus today's standard models. In the "tough question category," is it the seller's responsibility to follow the buyer's journey OR to try and help guide and lead the prospect to make the best purchase decision? Carson's perspective is it is better to lead the buyer through the process by understanding the buyer's actual needs and being willing to stop the process IF their solution is not in the best for the buyer. Another key point is there is NO single customer journey or buying process, so it's critical to always be listening to the prospect and align plus help guide the buyer through the process. In today's "land, retain and expand" customer lifecycle process in the SaaS industry, having a 360 degree view that is informed by every signal that impacts the customer journey is a best practice. It is also a best practice that requires tight integration of your Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success team aligned to the customer journey. If you are interested in learning more about today's customer journey, and how to use their engagement as input to your forecast, and to better inform your internal resources on the best next action, this conversation with Carson is highly informative.…
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Metrics that Measure Up

Taft Love's journey to becoming a Revenue Operations leader started in law enforcement, with a pivot to starting his tech career by becoming a Sales Development Representative, on to direct sales, sales leadership and ultimately to Revenue Operations. This journey is exactly the cross-functional experience that builds a strong foundation to being a strategic revenue operations leader. Interestingly, Taft's experience as a sales lead at early stage B2B SaaS company, PandaDoc by identifying and then having to solve operational challenges that impacted his productivity. When should a company consider a RevOps function? Taft's perspective is that RevOps starts with ensuring the revenue technology platforms and processes are aligned and optimized to the need of the front line sales personnel. Simply stated, start the RevOps journey with a RevTech resource and as you grow to $5M - $15M (Series B) start considering a RevOps team that has broader responsibility beyond managing revenue technology platforms. As we discussed the RevOps framework of data, platform, process and analytics Taft doubled down on the "rev tech stack" administration is the initial catalyst to creating a RevOps team. When pressed on the traditional approach to bringing in a Salesforce administrator and then the marketing automation administrator - often positioned as a Sales Ops and Marketing Ops resource, Taft continued to support his belief that RevOps should not be the first ops resource brought into a company. Next we discussed the pro's and con's of starting the RevOps journey with an internal hire versus leveraging the expertise of a RevOps agency. Taft's insights are that no one single RevOps resource can be good at every component of a RevOps function. Examples include trying to have the same single resource be a platform administrator, data guru, business analyst and technical integration expert. Taft's recommendation is to bring in a RevOps leader, who is the RevOps architect and also work with an agency that can bring the right experience and expertise on an "as needed" basis. Next we discussed why Sales Development can benefit the most from a close partnership with Revenue Operations. Sales Development productivity is directly impacted by having the right "target prospect" data, the ability to conduct high quality outreach at scale and ultimately being able to fuel the engine of company growth - pipeline development! Recent research has shown that only 49% of an SDR's time is spent on outbound prospecting because they spend the majority of their time on administrative and operational activities, such as data management, list development and contact enrichment, that are the primary domains of a Revenue Operations function. If you are considering an investment in your first Revenue Operations function or how to leverage your Revenue Operations team to increase revenue activity productivity, Taft is a great listen.…
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