Come to the SaaStr Annual and Make a Week of It
It’s not often you get an opportunity to join 5,000 of your peers in SaaS in one location for a week. Sure we gather at Dreamforce, wave as we run across Moscone to our next customer meeting or maybe catch up for 5 minutes at one of the 17 parties that night, but rarely do […]
Twitter, DataSift, platforms
Twitter, DataSift, platforms: Many of you will know that Twitter unexpectedly cancelled it’s [sic] contract to allow DataSift to resell Twitter data to 3rd parties. I read the declarations by industry analysts on Twitter that this was “proof that you can’t build a business on somebody else’s platform” and perhaps DataSift should have known better. […]
Help Us Pick 1 or 2 of the SaaStr Annual ’16 Speakers!
We’ll start to roll out the SaaStr Annual ’16 speakers in the coming weeks. It will be tough to top the ’15 speakers — from Aaron Levie to Bob Tinker, from Stewart Butterfield to David Sacks, from David Ulevitch to Parker Conrad, etc. etc. But we will find a way! We’ll also have three full […]
Disruptive Enterprise Platform Sales: Why Buy Anything, Buy Mine, Buy Now – Part I
I think of enterprise software into two broad categories – products or solutions and platform. The simplest definition of platform is you use that to make a solution that you need. While largely I have been a product person I have had significant exposure to enterprise platform sales process. I have worked with many sales […]
I’m Presenting at Dreamforce. Right Before Marissa Mayer. Come See the Hottest Two Speakers at Dreamforce ’13.
OK maybe SaaStr doesn’t quite have the following of Marissa Mayer. But it’s a solid pairing, don’t you think? In any event … If you are in SaaS and haven’t been to Dreamforce before, let’s stop the discussion here: You Should Go to Dreamforce. You need to Go. Why? Dreamforce is the #1 largest SaaS […]
Startup Grind Turns the Tables on Mark Suster
One of my favorite events last year was attending Startup Grind where I got to interview Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. Not just because meeting Clayton was influential in shaping my thinking about markets but also because Derek Andersen (who founded Startup Grind) is such an awesome host and runs a very informative […]
Start-Up Success in SaaS? You Have to Bend the Odds In Your Favor. Some Thoughts on How to Do It.
Mark Suster put together a presentation (and a blog post) a few weeks ago that has really stuck with me me. I never, perhaps intentionally, looked at the odds of achieving a solid exit in a start-up. Actually it’s just this one slide that has really stayed with me … It turns out the odds of […]
Heading into 2013: Thoughts on Ways The Start-Up World is Just So Much Better Now
I came of age in the tech/venture start-up world in the late ’90s. As we go into 2013, I’ve reflected a bit on just how much better things are for founders and entrepreneurs now than they used to be, even just in 2005, when we started EchoSign, let alone the old days of Web 1.0. […]
How Does the Web See You? Find Your Internet Persona.
The other day I was watching a movie of my life. Well, sort of. Courtesy of Peter Kim who pointed to this experiment by MIT PhD student Aaron Zinman, I got to peek into the process of how his algorithm analyses my digital footprint: Wow, a lot of old activity, and I’m really surprised […]
What Should You Do with Your Crappy Little Services Business?
There’s a line of thinking in Silicon Valley that you should build product businesses rather than services businesses. This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. You’re small fish.
VC’s Gone Wild: Yes, Sometimes it is the Product
It’s not easy disagreeing with one of the most respected VC’s. In fact a lot of what Mark Suster writes in his Salespeople excuses post (also featured at TechCrunch) is accurate. But it’s what I call a Swiss cheese article. It looks good but is full of holes. Blaming the sales team is usually the […]
The Top 30 Most Respected Venture Capitalists (infographic)
A guide for Entrepreneurs There is a lot of content created by the Venture Capital community that has helped countless entrepreneurs. In fact, one of my favorites is How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs. I recently stumbled upon the article again and it reminded me of an article I’ve been meaning to write for my entrepreneurial […]
The Case of the Disappearing Posts – No Malware Here
Well, isn’t it funny Ben just wrote about crutches, and this morning we almost needed them here @ CloudAve… Earlier readers who used the Chrome browser may have been greeted by this warning: Our support team @ Zoho (thanks, guys!) quickly jumped on the case and determined that the CloudAve itself does not contain malware, […]
Congratulations to Mark Suster, No 2. Top-rated VC Partner
Image by GRP Partners via CrunchBase Our readers know Mark Suster for his popular series on startups, getting funded, generally dealing with VCs but also on strategy, sales, management, presentations ..etc. In short as the very accessible all-around startup guy. I first met him as CEO of Koral, a startup later acquired by Salesforce.com. Considering […]
Mark Suster & Jason Calacanis on Live Video
Startup-CEO-turned-VC Mark Suster is no stranger to our readers: his series on Entrepreneurship, Startups, the VC Business, and sometimes Twitter is a most popular read @ CloudAve. And Jason Calacanis needs no introduction, either.. he is well.. @Jason. 🙂 Today at 1pm PST they will talk on live video, courtesy of This Week in Startups. […]
