Silicon Valley: The "Ultimate Meritocracy"
My fellow denizens of Silicon Valley are fond of referring to our happy little ecosystem as the ultimate meritocracy. It’s definitely true that in comparison to the rigid and/or corrupt regimes that prevail in other industries and geographies, Silicon Valley is a meritocracy, but it is far from perfect. I often joke with the female/minority/over-30 [...]
Identifying Pain in the First Step in a Sales Process – Here’s How
In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA. This post is about the “P” or pain. The point of PUCCKA was to develop a common methodology to make sure our whole team approaches sales with the same mindset and to give us a language to talk with [...]
The Real Odds That Your Startup "Succeeds"
Henry Blodget is a smart journalist who knows how to drive pageviews. He certainly got me to click through when he picked the headline, “DEAR ENTREPRENEURS: Here’s How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are” Blodget riffs on a tweet by Paul Graham to estimate the odds of startup success: “Graham says that 37 of the [...]
Your #1 Sales Rep Should Be Driving an M6 Convertible By Month 12. (And Not Buying a Panerai Watch.)
I want to spend a few posts and some time on sales comp plans for early-ish stage SaaS companies (up to say $20m in ARR). Because almost all the sales comp plans you are going to read about, and learn about are great — for SaaS companies that are well post-Scale. They work great for [...]
My Top 10 Year One SaaS Mistakes. Save Yourself Some Pain & Just Don’t Make Them Yourself.
I try to focus on positive things here on SaaStr. I’ll leave negative to the critics. It’s easy to be a critic. It’s much harder to help and see the good in things. The goal as SaaStr is to point
Why Your Startup Needs a Sales Methodology
Like most startup entrepreneurs, when I began my first company in 1999 I had no formal sales experience. I did have the wherewithal to visit potential customers and try to understand the pain points that I thought could be solved with our solution. This is a very important to do when you first start a [...]
Why You Should Give Before You Get
I have a motto in business and life, “give before you get.” It’s a philosophy, really. And it applies to business relationships & networking as much as it does to remuneration in the workplace. It seems we live in an era of “ask.” I see it on Twitter. Lots of asking. I see it on [...]
Here’s What’s Driving Collaborative Consumption and Where the Market May Head Next
I spoke this past week at the LeWeb conference in London, which was a superbly well run event with a very quality production team. Kudos. The 20-minute video of my presentation is here if you’re interested. And it was convenient for me because we also held our annual London board meeting of DataSift, who helps [...]
Prisoners, And Why It Doesn’t Really Matter Your App Is So Hard to Rip Out
There are two things I see SaaS entrepreneurs who are post-Traction and post-Scale say again and again: We’re So Sticky. Once we’re in, it’s so hard to rip us out. Our Churn is Basically Zero in the Enterprise. We’re doing great because No One Leaves. If you’re coming from a Freemium background, or B2C, that [...]
What If There Are No Natural Acquirers (For Your Company)?
I recently had coffee with a very successful VC and we chatted about our views of what’s happening in SaaS. The things we are both interested in are very similar, our thoughts on risks and markets were well aligned. At the end, he noted how the key final thing he looks for in SaaS start-ups [...]
Don’t Confuse Room at the Bottom with Disruption
Recently, a very wise VC asked me what I thought about a small but scrappy competitor in the space of my last company, EchoSign. I told him I didn’t know the company that well, but from what I’d seen, some things might seem appealing. I bet the freemium metrics appeared good, with positive growth and [...]
Why most startups have to fail, and why that’s a good thing
Some people think I’m a pessimist for pointing out the long odds against any particular startup succeeding. It’s not fun to hear that even venture-backed startups have a 90% chance of failure. But startup failure isn’t just reality; it’s also a necessity…and even a benefit. 1) The number of companies getting started far exceeds the [...]
Why Startups Need a Well Articulated Strategy (And How to Think About Yours)
I recommend you read Fred Wilson’s recent blog post about the need for a well articulated business strategy before pushing a particular business model. Since Arrested Development is back I thought I’d resurrect Gob Bluth’s answer when he was told he needed a “business model” – he quickly figured out that he was missing one [...]
What Would it Look Like if Elon Musk Pitched a VC Today?
This week I attended the All Things D Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes. It is always a stellar event. The good and great of the tech industry were there: Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Costolo, Max Levchin, etc. But Elon Musk stole the show. I thought Michael Lazerow’s Tweet best captured the mood of the [...]
Dear Entrepreneur
Like many investors, I was entertained by Andy Dunn’s recent rant, “Dear Dumb VC” His essay lays out his criticism of VCs by citing the following facts: * You don’t realize you are going out of business * You think you can help entrepreneurs * You spend a ton of an entrepreneur’s time before deciding [...]
