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 [...]
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 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 [...]
Enterprise startups: Richard Branson’s expansive and practical advice
I talk with many enterprise startups who want advice or a write-up here. Virtually all these entrepreneurs radiate passion and enthusiasm for their product, company, and prospects for success. Unfortunately, too many of these companies do not possess a vision that is simultaneously expansive and intensely practical. With this in mind, I read with great interest [...]
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 [...]
8 Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Investors and Board
Rob Bailey is the CEO of DataSift. He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. You should read it. More importantly if you don’t know DataSift but have the need to process real-time social data or historic data it’s worth checking them out. It’s valuable to any business for [...]
As Populist as it May Feel, 98% of VCs Aren’t Dumb
By now you will likely have read Andy Dunn’s scathing post about Venture Capitalists in which he decries the industry’s masses. I read Andy’s post with a knowing smile on my face. After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in [...]
The Bloomberg Scandal and SaaS. Don’t Let It Be You. Trust is Lost in a Heartbeat.
We have a no politics rule here. I’m not going to talk about the IRS stuff, or SAC Capital, let alone other headline topics from the right, left or center. But one scandal did really get my eye from a SaaS perspective. It’s the absolute disaster of what Bloomberg did with its customers’ confidential data. [...]
