AI to ROI (fka Metrics that Measure Up)

Dave Gerhardt, the founder and CEO of Exit Five, former Chief Marketing Officer at Privy, and Chief Brand Officer at Drift discusses the challenges, opportunities, and success strategies for building a Community for B2B Marketers.In 2021, Dave started Exit Five as a community for B2B Marketers as a side project while at Privy. it started by posting on LinkedIn and launching a podcast building a following and then creating a community at $10 per month. Within the first 60 days, over 1,000 members joined the community and now the community includes over 3,000 B2B Marketers.Dave defines Exit Five as a media company focused on B2B Marketing. With over 3,000 members Dave has a unique perspective on the role of Chief Marketing Officers and their organizations.  Over the past 2-3 years, the environment has changed resulting in much greater scrutiny on Marketing expenses and thus rigor has returned. Moreover, the market conditions have forced CMOs to ensure Marketing and Sales are more tightly aligned - especially as Dave Kellogg says if the CEO goes right and the CRO goes left - the best CMOs stay close to the CRO by going left.What does Dave think about measuring ROI on evolving trends such as community-led growth or media-led growth? Dave highlighted this is a common problem, and part of the reality is that good marketers just need to know that these are critical "long-term" strategies, that need to be blended with up to 70% of the investments being more short-focused, but having the courage to help the CFO and CEO understand the strategic, long-term value of the other 30% of Marketing investment. Bottom line, getting the CEO and CFO to understand the strategic value of Marketing is a key skill of those most successful CMOs who can see the return over multiple years, not just a few quarters.Another point Dave highlighted was that over time members of your community will self-identify how they heard about your solutions and why they decided to "raise their hand" to buy something. Community is even more important when the deals are bigger and the risks are heightened. If you are thinking about or modeling the investment and returns of building a B2B community, this conversation with Dave Gerhardt is full of great ideas and critical insights into what turns an audience into a community.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Becky Lawlor is the founder, of Redpoint Content, which advises and assists technology companies by providing original research services and content marketing servicesEvolution of Content MarketingRole of Research in a Content Marketing StrategyOriginal Research Content ChallengesOver the past 3-5 years, content marketing has evolved from a "nice to have" versus a "must have". The primary goals include increasing brand awareness, enhancing demand creation, and ultimately generating pipeline. Over the past 12 - 18 months in an environment of increased efficiency and reduced expenses, the quality of content is trumping content quantity. The benefit of AI is as much about quality as it is about producing more content with fewer resources.Becky started by sharing that a good content marketing strategy and even organizational structure begins with understanding what the target audience is looking for and reflects a high level of engagement. Becky's findings are that "original research" is consistently one of the highest-performing content marketing assets, in fact, many of Becky's clients report that original research-based content performs 2x - 3x higher, as measured by downloads" as other types of content, such as how to guides.Becky highlighted that while industry analysts provide a valuable service, most technology buyers understand there is a certain "pay to play" aspect to analyst-published research which increases the value of a brand's own "primary research". One key caveat is that when a whitepaper is a "funded project" for a brand - that an analyst report is not that much more valuable than a brand conducting its own "original research".If you are responsible or depend on pipeline creation, or have direct responsibility for identifying, creating, and publishing content that increases brand awareness and drives demand creation, this is a great listen!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jake Stein, Founder and CEO Common Paper is a multiple time founder of B2B SaaS companies including his third with the goal to help standardize Master Service Agreements across the Cloud industry.In today's episode we will be covering three main topics:Vision behind standardizing Cloud Service AgreementsCloud Service Agreement BenchmarksChallenges and Advantages of being a multiple time B2B SaaS founderWhat was the catalyst behind founding Common Paper? Jake highlighted that everything regarding contracts in his previous two start-ups was just too hard! Starting a partnership with the debate and sometimes misalignment that goes with contract negotiation is not consistent to a mutually beneficial partnership. Jake highlighted that when you buy a house - almost every state has a standard real estate purchase agreement. Even the B2B Tech industry has standardized some fund raising agreements, such as the SAFE agreement.The first participants are often early stage SaaS companies, who have a strong desire to remove the friction and resources required for new customer agreements. Currently 20,000 different companies have downloaded the standardized agreement, and 1,000+ companies have used the Common Paper platform to sign the standardized agreements with their customers.As a by product of having 1,000+ companies using the Common Paper standard Cloud Service Agreement - this provides unique access to the data and metrics associated with all the contracts being signed on their platform. Some of the interesting benchmarks include:90% of Cloud Service Agreements have an auto renewal clause29% of Cloud Service Agreements have built in price increases (averaging 5% - 8% per year)70% of Cloud Service Agreements are annual subscriptions48% invoice monthly and 40% invoice once annually85% of Cloud Service Agreements cap "Limitation of Liability" at 1x fees paid in previous 12 monthsThe presence of Data Privacy and AI increased 10x over past 12 months (2.5% to 25%)To see the rest of the benchmarks from the Common Paper Cloud Service Agreement click here.If you are responsible for writing, negotiating or signing Master Service Agreements with SaaS and Cloud companies, this conversation with Jake is chalked full of hard to find insights and benchmarks for the terms and conditions being used today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jamie Davidson is a two-time Chief Technology and after his stint as a first Chief Customer Officer decided that Customer Success technology needed a next-generation platform with over 500 customers and funding by A16Z. As a result, Vitally.io was born!Impact of Catalyst and Totango on the Customer Success Technology IndustryThe Future of Customer SuccessThe Evolution of Customer Success MetricsThe Challenges of a Founder in Customer Success TechnologyRecently, two leading players in the Customer Success Platform category, Totango and Catalyst announced their plans to merge. Jamie's perspective is that it could be problematic for category momentum in the short term, but was simply a business decision by two companies that were in no way indicative of the Customer Success platform category as a whole or the Customer Success procession.How is Customer Success going to evolve over the next few years? Jamie sees Customer Success becoming more strategic, especially with the help of additional data, insights, and AI. Ultimately, a balance of the existing role as the primary customer relationship manager, while becoming more strategic as the "voice of the customer" to better inform product roadmap, marketing messaging, and new customer sales.Customer Success, coupled with better tooling has the potential to materially increase the strategic impact that Customer Success delivers. The evolution of Customer Success technology will move beyond the goal of serving the Customer Success leader and will surface insights and data important to other executive leaders beyond the CS leader, including the other GTM leaders and product leaders.If you are leading a Customer Success team, making budget allocation decisions for Customer Success, or are just interested in understanding and helping to determine the future of Customer Success in your company, this conversation with Jamie is a very helpful listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Craig Walker, Founder and CEO of Dialpad has trained their artificial intelligence foundational model using over 6 Billion minutes of customer conversations. If you are interested in how AI is currently and will positively impact the value, efficiency, and effectiveness of customer communications for Sales, Customer Service, and beyond this is a must-listen episode of the Metrics that Measure Up Podcast.During this episode, we cover a wide-ranging set of topics on how AI (Artificial Intelligence) and specifically generative AI will transform the productivity and business impact of customer communications including:The importance of large amounts of data in training AI modelsThe future of Customer Service in an AI-empowered environmentThe potential to materially increase the productivity of a sales process with AIWhat is the difference between "customer intelligence" and "conversational intelligence"? First, customer intelligence is built into the foundation of a company's communications infrastructure - think phone system platform. Because of this, in real time a customer intelligence platform can guide customer service and/or sales reps in real-time to increase the efficacy of every customer interaction. Moreover, any external communication can now be enhanced across every function and every conversation.Artificial Intelligence is not new, but generative AI is new with the catalyst of OpenAI and ChatGPT in November 2022. Dialpad has been capturing customer conversations to score performance measurements like customer satisfaction and analyze if the customer was satisfied - all before the emergence of generative AI. Once generative emerged, Dialpad unleased their 15 Data Science PhDs to build their own large language model to better understand every customer conversation and in real-time offer up the appropriate response or next step action!Now, think about the opportunities uncovered by taking every minute of your company's customer and prospect communications, and customize the large language model specific to your company, your company terms, product names and every other unique "variable" specific to your business?!If you are responsible for customer-facing functions and are interested in better understanding how AI can dramatically increase the efficacy of every customer and/or prospect communication, this conversation with Craig Walker, founder and CEO of Dialpad is full of unique insights, ideas, and recommendations that have been formed from over 6 Billion minutes of customer communications.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ecosystem-Led Growth is an evolution of Partner-Led Growth and is the vision of Bob Moore, Founder and CEO of Crossbeam and the author of Ecosystem-Led Growth.Bob started his tech career as an investor at Insight Partners, and then founded RJ Metrics which was acquired by Magento in 2016, now part of Adobe, and then Bob co-founded Stitch Data which was ultimately acquired by Talend and is now part of Click.Crossbeam was founded to unlock the modern platform's architecture and data layer enabling companies to collaborate by making it much easier to share data across multiple partner companies. The catalyst to Bob founding Crossbeam was a $2.6B mistake! That mistake was one Bob made at RJ Metrics where they found and then fell out of product-market fit as evidenced by lower growth. When they analyzed the factor leading to the reduced growth, they identified the emergence of the API economy and how buyers wanted to be able to buy point solutions that were easy to integrate with other point solutions - which was the inspiration to build a product that fully leverages the modern data stack and open API ecosystem.What is Ecosystem-Led Growth? It is the ability to leverage a network of partners who can easily share insights with partners who sell complimentary products to the same target buyers. Simple questions like do we have customers or prospects in common, or do you have an active sales cycle going on that we could partner on to build a joint solution for the customer?What is the difference between building an "app ecosystem" such as the Salesforce App Exchange and a "partner ecosystem"? It starts with a foundation built upon an open system architecture that enables the sharing of data to collaborate on common target customers, and those companies in the ecosystem are willing to share specific data with partners to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.Why are most B2B SaaS companies still using a traditional direct sales model versus focusing more on partner ecosystems as a primary lead source? The answer starts with the negative reputation of how partnership models were implemented, managed, and operated historically. Partnerships were viewed as encroaching on sales rep opportunities and having a partner damage the reputation of their partners by not adequately communicating the value, feature, and function of their partner's solution.Modern Ecosystem-Led growth does not rely upon an army of partnership reps, it leverages the data that already exists in each partnership infrastructure, such as their CRM system. Now, based upon corporate policy, rules, and intercompany workflows, an existing partner can share the relevant data with their partner(s) which will enable that sales rep to have access to data that will make approaching a new potential customer armed with relevant data regarding the tech stack and preferences of a potential customer.If you are looking for new ways to increase revenue growth efficiency, decrease customer acquisition costs, and identify "best fit" potential customers by participating in an ecosystem with partners who share those goals and understand the concept of "give to get" this episode is chalked full of ideas, insights and applicable steps to leverage the emerging growth strategy of Ecosystem-Led Growth!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mark Petruzzi, best-selling author of Selling the Cloud has just released his newest book "Data and Diagnosis-Driven Selling" in collaboration with co-authors Bob Scarperi, Paul Melchiorre, and your host of the Metrics that Measure Up Podcast!In this episode, we discuss the primary concepts of the book, and the unique approach to including multiple titans in the B2B technology industry as contributors to the bookThe "Data and Diagnosis-Driven Selling" book covers each stage of the Sales process and how following the process dramatically increases sales productivity and revenue growth efficiency. The process steps and associated chapters discussed include:Ideal Customer Profile - which accounts will buyBuyer Personas - which decision-makers can buyBusiness Diagnosis - uncovering the valueFunctional Diagnosis - understanding the winsSolution Design - validating the valueData-Driven Funnel Analytics - the end-to-end viewHow to Measure a Data and Diagnosis-Driven Selling ProcessThe Predictive and Generative AI power moveIf you are a B2B sales professional, sales team leader, or a senior executive looking for ideas to generate more efficient revenue growth - this conversation and the "Data and Diagnosis-Driven Selling" process and book provide great insights, success stories, and applicable steps to take.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hayden Stafford is the President and Chief Revenue Officer of Seismic, a leading Sales Enablement Platform. He recently dropped by the Metrics that Measure Up Podcast studio to discuss the state of B2B Sales.We covered a wide-ranging list of topics and insights including:The State of B2B SalesAccelerating Growth in an “efficient capital” environmentGrowth is more than metrics…but metrics matter tooSales Process vs Customer Journey - how do they co-existFirst, Hayden shared how he has seen B2B Sales evolve over the past 12-18 months. Though the fundamentals of B2B Sales success have not changed, they have become more important. With reduced win rates, longer sales cycles, and more people in the buying process it requires B2B Sales organizations to become more effective and efficient. How to make B2B Sales professionals more effective - a recent McKinsey survey said better preparing sales professionals with better enablement and enhanced sales intelligence.Many buyers are looking to "consolidate" their SaaS investments, including RevTech into fewer vendors. A key to helping B2B SaaS salespeople be more efficient, one corporate strategy is to expand the product portfolio to become a "platform" versus a "point solution".Common measurements to justify Revenue Technology investments include:Go-to-Market EfficiencyBuyer ExperienceOperational OptimizationTime to Market / Agility to Market ChangesIf you are directly responsible for a B2B Sales team or have a B2B Sales team that is primarily responsible for your customer acquisition and/or expansion performance, this conversation is full of great ideas and insights!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaking to Jacco van der Kooij, Founder and CEO, Winning by Design is like drinking a shot of espresso first thing in the morning.During this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, our host Ray Rike covers a wide array of topics that essentially asks the question - "Has SaaS lost Go-to-Market Fit?" and if so "What to do about it". Topics covered include:Data that highlights the need to change Go-to-Market tactics in SaaSThe concept and reality of the need to "Cut to Grow"The importance of Unit EconomicsGo-to-Market Fit - What is it?ScaleUp Fit - when is the right timeGTM Efficiency Metrics that Matter more in 2024 and beyondIf you are responsible for the Go-to-Market functions in a B2B SaaS company, or as the CEO and CFO depend on the GTM functions to delivery efficient revenue growth, this conversation is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Customer Subscription financing is an innovative way to increase cash reserves in a non equity dilutive manner and not incurring the high interest rates associated with revenue credit facilities. Alex Sandkuhl, Founder and CEO of Keystone Growth provides several examples of company use cases and the benefits of the customer subscription financing model.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kelly Hopping recently assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Demandbase discusses a wide variety of topics that are critical to the modern B2B SaaS CMO in this wide-ranging, fast-moving discussion:Marketing Focus on Pipeline GenerationAccount Based + Intent data = Efficient GrowthTop CMO Metrics in 2024Thriving in a corporate career while staying true to yourselfEvery single dollar matters in the new reality for B2B SaaS companies, how does this impact B2B Marketing? Focus is the number one strategy in 2024 and beyond, which means ensuring you have a very targeted Ideal Customer Profile, which demands focus on the highest intent potential customers. Using intent data is one tactic to be deployed to increase the ROI on marketing investments. Specifically, less than 5% of the total ICP is in market for your product at any given point in time, so being able to read and act upon the most predictive intent data signals is a core competency for the modern B2B marketing organization.Next, we discussed how to best prioritize even inbound, hand raisers who come to a company's website. Understanding how the inbound lead has interacted with other digital assets, and confirming they are a good fit into the target ICP based upon firmographic and even technographic data. Another key capability for the most efficient revenue growth is ensuring that the right leads get into the right hands as quickly as possible.Kelly highlighted that having the "right people" in place is a precursor to having the right processes and technology in place. Another key requirement is to ensure Marketing and Sales are aligned and eliminate finger-pointing by having the same, shared KPIs focused on revenue and pipeline growth.What are the Metrics that Matter to the Chief Marketing Officer cares about in 2024 and beyond? Kelly highlighted that revenue is the top shared goal for executive team members. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and the CAC Ratio + CAC Payback Period is an important metric to measure the efficiency of acquiring new customers. Beyond acquiring customers, Kelly highlighted that retaining customers is also important to ensure the investment in acquiring customers is best measured over the customer's lifetime and the associated Customer Lifetime Value.In today's more cautious capital reality, customers are focusing on not adding more vendors, thus the role of customer satisfaction is a role that Marketing is more focused on today and tomorrow to acquire, retain, and then EXPAND existing customer relationships. Kelly even highlighted that Net Revenue Retention is another important metric to both drive efficient revenue growth, but also to help identify and confirm the best ICP.How to measure the ROI on brand investment? One, is to see how organic "brand searches" are trending on Google + is inbound, click-through rates increasing. Then looking at down stream metrics like conversion rates, win rates and sales cycle time should be trending positively with an increased investment in brand - however it is important to note that some brand investments will be maximized over a longer term, but can be evaluated near term on some of the aforementioned leading indicator metrics.If you are interested in learning best practices on how a Chief Marketing Officer uses metrics to optimize the return on marketing investment in customer acquisition and customer expansion, this conversation with Kelly Hopping, Chief Marketing Officer at Demandbase is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Philip Watson, the CFO at Paddle and formerly the head of FP&A at ZoomInfo discusses how the role of FP&A evolved at ZoomInfo from the early days up to and after their IPO.In addition, we cover a wide array of topics with Philip including:The evolution of FP&A at ZoomInfoHow the role of FP&A changes at different stages of growthFP&A as a foundation to the path of CFOIf you are interested in a financial executives view of a B2B technology company's evolution to IPO, and the role that a world class FP&A function plays in each stage of growth, this conversation with Philip Watson is chalked full of interesting insights and ideas!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Manny Medina, the founder and CEO of Outreach discusses the state of B2B Sales, the future of sales execution software and how AI will impact both.Manny shares the Outreach vision is to unlock the full potential of B2B Sales professionals and to unlock the selling potential of every seller.During this episode, we discuss the following topics:State of B2B Sales and productivity heading into 2024The increased need for adding value in each buyer interactionThe metrics to measure sales productivity increaseThe potential impact of AI on B2B SalesManny highlighted that it is very tough out there for sales reps, and the need to be laser focused on the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) which will lead to increased sales efficiency. Investing a sales professional's time on the target customer segments with the highest potential to become a customer is key to efficient revenue growth. Marketing is having a much harder time on cutting through the noise, and as such Sales needs to be much more focused in which leads and opportunities they pursue.Cold calling or emailing will fail if not of high value to the target prospect. For any considered purchase, the number of people in the buying process has increased, as such the number of people a sales rep must reach out to has materially increased, and the sales rep with a strong and high value point of value will stand out! As an example, Outreach focuses on the sales outreach process during customer on-boarding to increase the chances for increased sales outreach productivity for their customers.What are the Return on Investment metrics to use when investing in a piece of sales technology? Manny answered by looking at the entire sales process and the need to identify the specific steps in the sales process that is not working. Often, when companies assessment the problem in the sales process, it is critical to be very specific in the "problem" and start by focusing there, and determining the metric(s) that best measure the current state of that specific step.Manny expanded this topic by highlighting that we are asking sales managers to do even more work due to the increased number of sales technologies used, highlight the need to listen to "recorded calls" due to the pervasive use of conversational intelligence. This is an example of an area that needs to be evaluated so sales managers can spend more time coaching.Where is AI going to have the largest impact on sales productivity? Manny predicts there is no future without every sales professional having a AI assistant. The "AI assistant" will help the sales professional optimize how and where they invest their time, essentially reducing the amount of wasted effort spent on low value activities and opportunities.Another key area to benefit from AI will be predicting customer churn and then providing insights into how best to mitigate churn on an account by account basis. This led to the use of AI to increase forecast accuracy - which Manny started by highlighting that predictive forecasting is very hard due to the fast moving dynamics in the market. Using historical information to forecast can provided false positives due to changing market dynamics today. A better approach to use AI to analyze each opportunity today, and by using opportunity variables coupled with AI using large language models will increase forecasting accuracy.If you have a B2B sales organization and you are looking for opportunities to increase their sales productivity, this conversation with Manny Medina, Founder and CEO of Outreach is a great listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You Mon Tsang is the founder and CEO of ChurnZero. During this episode, You Mon and our host, Ray Rike discuss the following topics:How the role of Customer Success has evolved over the past 12 - 24 monthsHow the measurements used to determine CS ROI have evolvedThe top three metrics that You Mon recommends for Customer Success teamsThe catalyst for founding ChurnZero began when he was a Marketing leader and had a large selection of technologies to automate, manage, and measure marketing performance. When You Mon assumed responsibility for Customer Success, he quickly realized that there was not a large number of options to automate, manage, and measure Customer Success.One of the major changes in Customer Success is the evolution of focusing primarily on Net Revenue Retention (NRR), which is a top two company-level metric. During the SaaS recession of 2022-2023, You Mon was an increased focus on Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) which measures a company's ability to retain a customer on an ARR basis, independent of including expansion ARR. Retaining customers today is the key to a strong foundation for growth in the future.What leading indicators are most predictive of GRR? You Mon highlighted NPS, Customer Health Score, and product utilization as good leading indicators...however, the "health" of the customer is an important external variable that is harder to know but is still highly impactful to Gross Revenue Retention.  How does a CS organization's ability to determine "customer-verified outcomes" impact customer retention? You mentioned that verifying customer outcomes is very hard to measure. It is an admirable goal, and when your product natively impacts direct outcomes it is much easier.Is Customer Success a cost center or a profit center? Often this is associated with where Customer Success expenses are recorded...Cost of Goods Sold or Operating Expense? You Mon highlighted that the majority of his customers place CS expenses in Operating Expenses and thus should be measured by expense vs revenue retained and expanded.If you are a CEO, CFO, or CRO responsible for maximizing the return on investment for Customer Success, this is a great episode. If you are a Customer Success professional, You Mon shares some unique ideas and a vision for the future of Customer Success which will be a great addition to how you currently view Customer Success.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Helen Lin is the founder and CEO of Discern. As a business end-user of business performance data, she discovered that the data required for analysis was locked in the system of records, such as the CRM, ERP, or HCM. This required a dedicated team of analysts to identify the source of the required data, a process to extract the data from the system of records before they could even begin the process of analyzing the data.  During this episode, we cover three main areas with Helen:The challenges with managing the customer acquisition funnel in 2023How full-funnel analytics impacts GTM efficiencyWhat is the future of full-funnel analytics2023 was the year of efficiency, especially in the Go-to-Market functions. One of the key GTM efficiency metrics is the CAC Payback Period which measures how many months are required to payback the cost of acquiring a customer, after factoring in the Gross Margin. Marketing departments focused on the cost per lead, coupled with the associated conversion rates while Sales departments were laser-focused on productivity per sales rep, including an enhanced focus on average sales price per deal.Helen dove into the challenges of measuring "cost per x" due to the difficulty in assessing the cost data which is often locked in the human capital management and/or core financial platforms.A key point that Helen highlighted is that "growth" has re-emerged as the number one factor in enterprise value to revenue multiples, which suggests a heightened focus on Sales and Marketing investments and the associated returns.Full funnel analytics goes beyond new customer opportunity inspection or pipeline inspection, and provides a full picture of how the end-to-end funnel is performing from initial lead creation to Closed-Won ARR through customer retention and expansion. The role of management and Revenue Operations is to identify the areas, often the bottlenecks that negatively impact funnel conversion performance.Helen provided a customer example that assessed the profitability of each customer segment. The analysis went beyond measuring just customer acquisition performance and extended the analysis to include both churn rates and expansion ARR by segment. That analysis resulted in identifying a customer that was not profitable and thus ended all future investments in acquiring customers in that segment.  Marketing and Sales currently have a difficult time assessing the data that highlights how each unique stage of the customer acquisition process performs as measured by conversion rates to the next stage and simultaneously how much time a lead or opportunity remains in the same stage. One primary example is that many companies experience 80% of deals forecasted to close in the current quarter being pushed to a subsequent quarter. Another key metric is "Win-Rate" which is not a point-in-time measurement, rather it is a range that evolves over the period that opportunities remain in the pipeline.IF you are a Go-to-Market leader or the CEO or CFO of a B2B SaaS company, this discussion with Helen on the need and approaches to better understand the entire customer's journey from acquisition to retention to expansion + customer segment profitability, this conversation with Helen Lin, Founder and CEO of Discern.io is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Randy Wootton, the CEO of Maxio is a multiple-time B2B SaaS CEO. However, his current role is unique in that within six months of taking on the role, the existing company which was the combination of two well-known companies (SaaS Optics and Chargify) decided to rebrand as Maxio and doing this during the great SaaS market correction started in the 2H-22.During this episode shared his experienced-based insights as a multiple-time B2B SaaS CEO including:Re-branding two combined B2B SaaS companies into a new single brandInsights into Achieving Efficient Growth During Uncertain TimesBalancing Growth and ProfitabilityMetrics Operators and Investors Can Agree UponMaxio is a combination of SaaS Optics and Chargify. Each company was very similar as measured by size, and number of customers and was viewed as a "Merger of Equals". As such, when combining these two companies neither was viewed as the acquiring company, so Randy needed to chart the course to combine two very equal companies, to gain both operating efficiency and market scale.Randy's first introduction was being a Maxio customer and appreciated how it made him more prepared to manage the business in near real-time, close the books, and then prepare the financial reports for the board without the stress of last-minute, manual processes. In Randy's words, Maxio provided him with a business radar, calling upon his experience as a naval aviator...and was the perfect foundation to become the Maxio CEO.On the topic of launching a new brand, Randy shared the jury is still out on whether this was the best strategy versus doubling down on one of the existing brands. One of the biggest challenges is building back and upon the SaaS Optics and Chargify brand awareness.The next topic Randy and I covered was the simultaneous challenge of balancing profitability and growth amid the great B2B SaaS recession over the last 18 months. Randy started by discussing their core target market is other B2B SaaS companies, primarily in the SMB market segment, which has been the segment most impacted by the current trends in growth and capital availability for SMB companies. Initially, Randy had to pivot to get the company profitable, and then be focused on determining which ICP(s) to target and what is the optimal Customer Acquisition Cost investment, while balancing growth and profitability.Randy highlighted that while growth is still a priority over profitability, it is critical to reach profitability to control your destiny versus being beholden to external capital sources. This is especially important during a lower growth external environment, which allows the strongest and most well-prepared companies to begin accelerating growth investments in alignment with external market conditions.Lastly, Randy highlighted the two SaaS Metrics that Maxio and Battery Ventures use to collaborate on analyzing efficient growth metrics and their trends. One is the Blended CAC Ratio which measures the expenses in Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success divided by New ARR from both new name customers and existing customers expansion. Trying to get to a Blended CAC Ratio of 1 - which means $1 of Sales and Marketing Expenses to acquirSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Berg, Managing Partner at M12 - the Microsoft corporate venture capital arm joins our host, Ray Rike to discuss the trends and measurements of success in venture capital inside Microsoft.Topics that Peter provide deep insights into included:The role of Corporate Venture Capital - insight from Visa and MicrosoftThe evolution of venture investing in 2024 and beyondMega-trends that will shape the future of technology investing Top 3 Cloud/SaaS Industry forecasts for 2024If you are interested in how large technology companies use a captive internal VC organization to drive strategy, ecosystem reach and financial returns simultaneously this conversation with Peter Berg, Managing Partner at M12 - the VC arm of Microsoft is highly educational and entertaining!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevan Savage, Principal of the Marketing practice at the Alexander Group shares the results of the research and associated report from the Alexander Group - Unveiling Pipeline to Profits with our host, Ray Rike. The report highlights the trends in demand generation and the associated return on investment of those changes. Key topics discussed during this episode include:Marketing expense trends as a % of RevenueAllocation of Marketing investments for Demand GenerationPipeline contribution by sourceFull conversion benchmarks from Marketing Qualified Leads to RevenueAs companies model and plan for next year - this episode is chalked full of the latest trends, budgets and Return on Investment by company size and is a great listen for CMOs, CEOs and CFOs as they focus on efficiency growth strategies, and tactics.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Phil Pergola, CEO at CloudZero shares his unique insights into how to better understand, manage, and reduce the Cost of Goods Sold associated with using Cloud Computing infrastructure for B2B SaaS applications. During this episode Phil and our host, Ray Rike discuss the following topics:Cloud Cost Trends as a percentage of the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)Reducing Cloud costs techniques beyond vendor negotiationHow to identify Cloud cost-saving opportunitiesGross Margins in the B2B SaaS industry have remained fairly stable over the past 10 years - so why focus on Cloud costs? The second largest expense for most B2B SaaS companies are human resource costs (#1) and then cloud delivery costs which are continuing to increase as the number of cloud infrastructure vendors is expanding to new tools like observability, data analytics, and security tools.There are three things that primarily drive cloud costs: 1) SW Architecture; 2) Pricing model(s) offered by vendors and used by customers; and 3) Actual Cloud usage which is directly driven by engineering decisions and customer utilization patterns. Taking a closer look at #1 and #3 is a missed opportunity in the majority of digital product providers.Why is it that COGS is often a secondary expense item that CEOs and CFOs focus on? First, it is typically seen as the domain of the CTO and engineering teams, and it is very hard to allocate discrete costs in the product infrastructure which contribute to non-optimized cloud consumption patterns.If you are looking for new and innovative ways to increase efficiency in those areas which can result in increased Gross Profit - then this is a great listen to understand the most recent trends and techniques for controlling your ever-growing Cloud costs!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode, we are joined by Udi Ledergor, the Chief Marketing Officer at GONG responsible for first creating the Conversational Intelligence category and then again in creating the Revenue Intelligence category resulting in one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies in history.In this episode, Udi highlights the evolving strategy and measurements for the Marketing organization at Gong along the growth journey to greater than $100M ARR and a $6B+ in company value!Creating a category builds the overall Target Addressable Market (TAM) - creating a brand increases the percentage of the TAM the category leader captures. Gong's journey and Udi's role in building their success is a valuable lesson chalked full of great ideas, insights and experiences!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave Kellogg is the author of Kellblog, Executive in Residence at Balderton Capital, multiple time SaaS CEO, investor and an OG for all things SaaS Metrics. During this episode, which is from his presentation at SaaS Metrics Palooza 23', Dave shares his insights and best practices on presenting SaaS metrics like a pro - especially to board members and investors. Ten mistakes that many make in presenting SaaS Metrics include:Amateur presentationCherry-picking Mis-benchmarkingOmitting contextPiecemealingDumping Smooth operatorForgetting questionMissing investor point of viewRetinal burnThis episode is chalked full of details, nuances and insight. If you would like to see the slides that Dave uses to guide this session at SaaS Metrics Palooza 23' you can download them at:benchmarkit.ai/saas-metrics-palooza-23-1/how-to-present-and-analyze-saas-metrics-like-a-proSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Science of Scaling, was a session delivered by Mark Roberge at SaaS Metrics Palooza 23'. In this episode, Mark discusses a math centric approach to determine if Product-Market Fit has been achieved, when to scale GTM investment and how much to invest in growth.Key concepts introduced include:How to use a mathematical formula to determine if Product-Market Fit is achieved (PET Metric)The leading indicators (unit economics) that inform increasing investment in customer acquisitionNorth Star metrics used by leading B2B SaaS companies to measure Product-Market FitThe power and competitive advantage of capturing daily leading indicators to scale economicsIf you prefer to watch the entire session and see the associated slides - the video can be seen at:https://bit.ly/SaaSMetricsPaloozaMarkRobergeIf you are asking questions such as: 1) Have we reached product-market fit; 2) Should we invest more to scale customer acquisition; 3) How much and how quickly should we invest more capital to accelerate growth then this episode is a must listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chad Gold, the CFO at B2B SaaS Sales Engagement Platform leader Salesloft, shares how the role of a SaaS CFO has evolved over the last few years.Chad and the Metrics that Measure Up podcast host, Ray Rike discuss the following topics during this episode:How the B2B SaaS CFO role has evolvedHow performance metrics are used to manage and report on the businessHow performance metrics are used for budgeting and planningHow the B2B SaaS CFO Role will evolve over the next few yearsChad started his career as a corporate finance analyst at Ernst and Young (EY) and then migrated to the Home Depot in a variety of financial roles that built his foundation into the strategic side of finance. Chad's first B2B technology job was at Ariba, a division of SAP where he was able to apply his FP&A experience in a technology company. Chad has been the Salesloft CFO for 5 years and has seen the company grow by 10x including a majority investment by Vista Equity.Chad shared his "lines not dots" which means the ability to meet people and then foster relationships with them over time is a key to being exposed to different opportunities which is how Chad transitioned into the B2B Technology industry.Chad highlighted that his role as a CFO has not evolved that much over the last couple of years, beyond being asked to help identify those aspects of the business that are best positioned to drive efficient growth especially now that capital is more difficult to secure, and thus difficult capital allocation decisions are more important in 2023 than they were in 2020 - 2022.What are "Chad's" go-to metrics? He started at a high level with momentum and velocity metrics like the ARR funnel, new booking, churn, expansions, and the leading indicators of pipeline and customer health. Chad highlighted the importance of the number of integrations to other systems which is a great indicator of retention!He also highlighted his engagement with the key GTM functions, such as the Customer Success function to understand product engagement and utilization as an early indicator of churn and/or expansion - thus providing early visibility into making better forecasts. Chad used the term "you can read the news or make the news" which is how he approaches partnering with the other members of the executive team to ensure how the leading indicators metrics are performing, and even how to enhance their performance which will lead to better financial metrics outcomes.If you work with a CFO in your business, would like to become a CFO or even just want to better understand CFO best practices to drive better financial results through cross-functional collaboration and of course...metrics this conversation with Chad Gold is a great listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michael DiFilippo, Chief Financial Officer at Invoca shares his journey to becoming a B2B SaaS CFO and how the role has evolved over the last ten years, During this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, Michael and I discussed the following items:How the B2B SaaS CFO role has evolved over the last few yearsHow Michael uses Performance Metrics to manage the businessHow the B2B SaaS CFO role will evolve over the next few yearsMichael started his journey to becoming a SaaS CFO in accounting, treasury, internal audit, and ultimately FP&A roles in the industry goods and then consumer food industry. In 2008, Michael secured his first CFO role in a B2B SaaS company with MuleSoft - ultimately acquired by Salesforce. This cross-functional foundation was so valuable to Michael that he continues to try and provide members in his organization the same opportunities.Michael credits DuPont with his broad orientation to finance through their rotational program, and ultimately he landed in a division producing LED screens. Then, when his former boss went to Symbol Technologies, he was recruited to join him and that was the start of his finance experience in a technology company.We pivoted to how the B2B SaaS role has evolved since Michael first became a SaaS CFO in 2008. First, he has seen the role evolve to a more strategic, growth partner in an advisory role to the executive team, and sees the same "strategic" focus of CFOs from executive recruiters. Michael says part of the evolution to a strategic CFO role is partially based upon his base of experience, and being invited into those discussions. In parallel, Michael has seen the scope of the CFO role expand into including other functions like Legal, Human Resources, IT, and even operations in some companies. Bottom line - the modern SaaS CFO is no longer primarily focused on the accounting side of the equation.Another key focus is how Finance ensures they have access to all of the operational data required to have better insights into how the business, especially the leading indicators is performing. At Invoca, The FP&A team is the primary liaison to the Sales operations team to ensure the data from the CRM system is flowing efficiently into the financial reporting process.Michael next focused on the primary measurements and metrics he uses to help manage the operational side of the business, its primary forward-looking metrics like pipeline performance trends, Sales Development meetings, and top opportunities trending. As Michael said, ARR growth is the #1 metric using a metaphor of book more and churn less!At the board level, the operational metrics include top-level metrics including Rule of 40, Gross Retention, Net Revenue Retention, Total Sales and Marketing Efficiency, CAC Payback Period, Actual versus Plan, New ARR booked, and New Customers which will then expand into the leading indicator trends that will impact those outcome metrics in the future quarter(s).Michael shared his vision for the future evolution of the B2B SaaS CFO which he agreed with our host will become one of the more common paths for Chief Executive Officers in the future!If you are in Finance and/or have a goal to become a B2B SaaS CFO - this conversation with Michael DiFilippo is a must listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Aidan Shaw, founded Myst Marketing to help B2C and B2B companies take advantage of the global pool of SEO resources around the world, while also experiencing the life of a digital nomad while building a great virtual company.During this episode, Aidan dives deep into the below SEO topics relevant today and in the future as Search Engines evolve in age of generative AI.The ROI of SEO: "Many businesses are divided over the tangible benefits of investing in SEO. Can you shed some light on the potential return on investment (ROI) for businesses that prioritize SEO, and provide some success stories or case studies that highlight its impact?"SEO vs. Paid Advertising: "There's always been a debate between the organic reach through SEO and the instant visibility offered by paid advertising. Can you discuss the pros and cons of each and why a business might choose to focus on one over the other, or perhaps a blend of both?"The Role of Content in SEO: "Content is often said to be king when it comes to SEO. How has the role of content in SEO strategies evolved over time, and what are the best practices businesses should consider when developing content with SEO in mind?"Future of SEO: "With advancements in technology, changing algorithms, and the rise of voice search and AI, where do you see the future of SEO heading? What should businesses be preparing for in the next 5-10 years to ensure they remain at the top of search resultContent Creation and AI: "There's a buzz about AI-generated content in the digital marketing space. How effective is AI-generated content for SEO, and what are the ethical considerations around using such content?"Challenges with AI in SEO: "While AI presents numerous opportunities in the SEO realm, what are some potential challenges or pitfalls businesses should be aware of?"See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

CJ Gustafson, CFO at PartsTech and the creator of the Mostly Metrics Newsletter and Run the Numbers podcast joins our host Ray Rike on this episode to discussVanity Metrics and why they are so dangerousSaaS Metrics that might not be that valuableCautions when using a Usage-Based Pricing modelThe motivation of being a social media creator for B2B SaaSThe challenges of being a social media creatorCJ and Ray share several interesting insights and sole disclosing perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of creating content on all things SaaS MetricsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Eric Mersch is the author of "Hacking SaaS" and a partner at FLG Partners. Eric joined our host, Ray Rike to discuss the details behind the thought process of writing the book and why he segmented it into discrete sections and chapters based upon the following:SMB to Mid-Market B2BEnterprise B2BB2CVertical Industry SolutionsHorizontal SolutionsDuring this episode, Eric and Ray will dive into several of the B2B SaaS Metrics that Eric wrote about including:Customer Lifetime Value to CAC (CLTV:CAC Ratio)Net Revenue Retention (aka Dollar Based Net Retention in the book)Gross Churn (aka Gross Revenue Retention - GRR)Contribution Margin - why it's important to understand the value of adding more ARR...at a costHacking SaaS is one of the first books written to share the details behind the majority of metrics that make the recurring revenue business model of SaaS and Cloud companies so attractive that Enterprise Values are measured as a multiple of revenues VS profits.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Caleb Avery, Founder and CEO at Tilled shares how B2B SaaS companies can turn credit card payment processing fees from an operating expense into revenue as a Payment Facilitator (PayFac).See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bill Kantor, the founder, and CEO of Funnelcast is applying the lessons he learned about statistical process controls in the hardware industry to the art and science of measuring and managing the opportunity funnel and then optimizing forecasting for B2B technology companies.The end-to-end Customer Acquisition process is still quite manual today, due to B2B Sales being such a human-centric endeavor. However, with a sufficient amount of opportunity data, the science behind statistical process controls in the manufacturing and consumer-facing industries is now available to B2B revenue leaders.But why are we will still using manual tasks to manage the B2B opportunity funnel? It starts with companies and their leaders not investing the time required to take a more data-centric, holistic view of even the most basic metrics - such as win rate. Yes, the win rate which is NOT a point-in-time measurement, rather it is a curve that includes different win rates along the time continuum being measured. As an example, the win rate on Day 75 is NOT the same as the win rate on Day 120. Moreover, if you simply use total deals won / total deals closed to calculate the win rate it excludes all of those opportunities that are still open and in process.What are the TOP metrics that are most predictive of a B2B company's sales success? Bill suggests there are only 3 sales metrics that matter, which include:Win RateOpportunity Creation RateAverage Contract ValueBut what about the more detailed, nuanced measurements such as "stage by stage" conversion rates which provides additional signals as to whether a deal is at risk of becoming "stale" and thus the probability to win reduces materially? They are critical to increasing the accuracy of forecasting - as those deals that are stalled are highly correlated to sales rep storytelling and the "exception status" of a single deal becoming the "outlier" reason for multiple deals - effectively eliminating the category of outlier to the norm.If you are responsible for managing the new customer acquisition forecast, and/or are responsible for financial performance metrics that are a direct result of win rates, opportunity creation and thus hitting the forecast and the plan - this is a highly instructive episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alok Goel, Founder and CEO of Drivetrain.ai shares how his roles as a product manager at Google and then a Venture Capitalist informed his journey as a B2B SaaS entrepreneur.As a VC, Alok would meet 15 - 20 companies per week, which provides a unique opportunity to identify specific trends across a large number of companies using pattern recognition. One trend Alok identified, was what differentiated those companies that would consistently, quarter over quarter meet and exceed their stated financial goals from those that missed their financial goals? It was the pursuit to answer this question that lead to Alok's founding of Drivetrain.aiThe first question Alok answered was what were his experiences as a product manager at Google that informed his entrepreneurial journey. Google encouraged product managers to determine the best solution for a user without any constraints - which leads to the best solution for the audience. Then, think about how to deliver the solution with the constraints that do exist, both inside the company and in the market.Next, Alok shared the importance for a company to identify the data they have internally to gain insights into future growth efficiency, they should first identify what insights they wished they had about their business and then identify what instrumentation is required to achieve those insights.Alok shared the importance of never being too committed to one "way of thinking" that is not in alignment with the insights they are being provided from the market, from the internal metrics and data that is highlighting change is needed. In today's world, the external reality is changing so quickly, a company must change before the competitive market takes advantage of its resistance to change and evolution.Understanding that the insights you gain today are not going to change your business today - it will take some time. This is why having a continuous process that surfaces insights that can be quickly converted into actions that can be measured on their impact over time - this is why it is so important to understand the leading indicators (signals) and lagging indicators that are inter-dependant and predictive of future outcomes!If you are interested in how to develop a more predictive, holistic process that can capture the most important signals (leading indicators) that can be improved to ensure the ultimate lagging indicators such as Net Revenue Retention, CAC Payback Period and Revenue Growth rates are highly predictive and achieved consistently - this conversation with Alok Goel is a great listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta the industry-leading Equity Management Platform shares equity valuation insights and data from the 36,000+ customers and $2.5T in equity value running on their platform. Peter's goal is to make the data Carta has in their platform useful for CEOs and CFOs to inform decision-making.Start-up valuations trends increased dramatically in the 2020 - early 2022 timeframe - creating a valuation bubble. A few highlights from Peter included:Seed Stage:Q1-23: $13M pre-money (median)Q2-23: $12.7M pre-money (median)Series A: Q1-23: $40M pre-money (median)Q2-23: $39M pre-money (median)Series C: Q1-23:$300M pre-money (median)Q2-23 $250M pre-money (median)The ~ 20% decrease in pre-money valuations for Series C companies highlights the lack of a short-term IPO exit option and begins to normalize back to more historic valuations.Overall VC investment trends also highlight a material decrease in the amount of Venture Capital investments being made:Q4-21: $66B investment recorded on Carta (all-time high)Q1-23: $10B investment recorded on CartaQ2-23: $10B investment recorded on Carta - estimate onlyPeter highlighted the "SAFE" market held up better than most other price equity markets. Specifically, SAFE's over $500,000 were priced fairly equivalent to price equity seed rounds. Because of the ease of use of a SAFE, it has become the most common fundraising vehicle for pre-seed and seed rounds.Peter also highlighted that AI is a "hot space" for investors. The median cash raised for an AI company was $13M versus $8M for non AI companies in Q2-23.Next during the conversation, we discussed the trends on staffing and operating expense trends. Carta tracks terminations and the trends are quite insightful:January was the highest month for lay-offs ever for companies on Carta, numbering 17,000 lay-offs representing about 2% for the month (24% annualized) versus the norm of .5% - 1% per month. This number was reduced to 10,000 lay-offs in May. The other insight is that people are not leaving for voluntary termination reasons - highlighting the desire to not switch jobs in this market.One other topic we discussed was the compensation trends in early-stage companies. The rapid increases in salaries experienced in 2020 through the first half of 2022 have changed dramatically. Even software engineering roles saw a -.3% decrease over the past 6+ months, which is not material, but much different than the 10%+ increases experienced in 2020 - 2021. Sales were the most impacted function as measured by compensation decreases, followed closely by recruiter compensation.We also discussed the emerging trend of "down-rounds" which represented 20% of equity rounds in Q2-23. Moreover, the velocity of "angel investments" is down dramatically in 2023. After the explosion in angel investments in January 2020 - March 2023. Since then the # of angel investments is down by ~ one-third over the last six months - however, that is still above the historic levels of angel investments previous to 2021.One last data point is that Silicon Valley and the Bay area is still the #1 geographic region for VC investment when compared to New York (79% in Northern California and 21% in New York). However, when looking at NYC versus San Francisco the mix is much more equal with an ~ 50% to 50% mix in equity rounds raised.If you share my passion for all things metrics and data for B2B SaaS companies, this conversation with Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta is illuminating!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is viewed as a new Go-to-Market motion by many - but to Carilu Dietrich it was her reality as the Chief Marketing Officer for a pioneer in PLG - Atlassian, developer of JIRA.Carilu was the driving force behind making developer products cool while helping to scale Atlassian from $50M ARR to over $400M leading to an IPO!Before Atlassian, Carilu started as an enterprise sales professional, and then started cross-training, including being responsible for the initial digital advertising for the launch of the iPad. Today's discussion centered on the journey of scaling a PLG company from $50M ARR to $500M ARR.What's the role of Marketing in a PLG company? It's much more of a B2C model, which included Atlassian's strategy to invest one-half less on Sales and Marketing and invest that saving in building the world's best product that sells itself! By hanging out in communities where the target buyer personas discuss the benefits of using the product, the primary source of new customers is inbound, versus requiring the expense of outbound sales investments.Atlassian was boot-strapped, which enabled the executive team to continue their "PLG" Go-to-Market motion even when others were strongly encouraging them to add in an enterprise Sales led motion. The real challenge is how to add in sales while maintaining the core focus of Product-Led Growth. The two models will inherently compete for constrained resources, especially financial and human capital.In a focused "PLG" environment, the primary goal is to ensure new users can experience the core value of the product, and translate their initial experience in a trial environment to a paying user.At Atlassian, Marketing was primarily responsible for awareness and top-of-funnel development while the "Growth" team was responsible for points of user engagement following hitting the "trial button" and nurturing new customers and converting them into paid users and ultimately paid enterprise customers. Initially, Atlassian focused on the "individual users", and progressing them from free users to paid users through up-sells and cross-sells which was primarily driven by Marketing. Sales was primarily responsible for paid user renewals, and over time sales then expanded their focus on converting a group of individual users to a company-wide, enterprise agreement.Next, we discussed hyper-growth at scale from the $50M to $500M level. As a small, early-stage company it is hard and even not advisable to hire people who have "seen" the movie at a higher level of scale. In the early stages, companies are looking for Product Market Fit and then in the next stage after they have repeatable sales they increase investment in Marketing to generate more top-of-funnel demand. Ultimately, the goal is to look for "step-ups" such as new product introduction, expanding into new global markets or even changing financial models to prepare for a larger financial return. At each step of the journey, executive leadership needs to continuously review and evolve the corporate strategy that provides the north star for the next phase of the journey.One of the techniques that Atlassian used was continuous experimentation. Beyond A/B testing for tactical enhancements, the need for additional market research to understand how the market is evolving, including competitive presence and user expectations.If you are preparing for the next stage of growth, and on the path to maintaining hyper-growth at scale, this conversation with Carilus is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anthony Kennada, is the founder and CEO of AudiencePlus and formerly the Chief Marketing Officer at Hopin and Gainsight...quite the pedigree!Anthony joined our host, Ray Rike to discuss the evolving nature of community and content led-growth, which is a strategy and topic trending across every B2B SaaS CMO. Anthony takes the topic a step further and highlights why "Owned Media" is a critical component in every B2B SaaS CMOs Go-to-Market strategy.Anthony's experience in using content and community at Gainsight serves as the foundation for Anthony's vision for AudiencePlus and its customers. Over the past few years, community development has traditionally been focused on the customer, but over the last few years expanding the reach of the content and the inclusion of all stakeholders interested in the topics the brand is creating and evangelizing has become a key part of the Marketing strategy to create a "halo" effect around the brand.Anthony was involved in building the Gainsight "Pulse" community from the ground up. During the early days, Gainsight took the role of building the stage for the leading thinkers in Customer Success, but not being at the center of the stage which developed an authenticity of helping to build a profession, not just a company.Second, Gainsight did not focus much on its product - but rather on the information on how to build, manage and scale a Customer Success team. Over time, as the market evolved and matured - then the opportunity to gradually introduce more about the Gainsight Customer Success Platform as the community grew.Lastly, when Gainsight first started hosting events - they did not measure the ROI by the revenue generated from the annual Pulse event - but by the pipeline and ultimate revenue generated as a by product of the event.Over the past few years - the event landscape has changed and building community is facing new headwinds. First, there is so much noise in the market that it is much harder to break through the noise. The second challenge is the distribution of content, as budgets have decreased and the cost of "paid media" continues to increase. The third challenge is that the rules of social media continue to evolve and change...as an example the recent decision by Twitter to not allow links to content on Substack.AudiencePlus is positioned as the first "owned-media platform for marketers". Anthony defines owned media as using a more rich editorial format of content beyond blog posts to break through the noise. One example is taking a podcast and breaking it into multiple clips, both audio and video to create more audience engagement. The "owned" media component is creating rich, educational, and engaging content that motivates the audience to view a company's content and community as a destination for people who are like-minded and they feel like they belong to something bigger - a community of their peers.If you are a CEO, CRO, or CMO exploring how to leverage content, media, and community to engage your target audience, and establish a thought leadership role for the community of buyers you seek to serve, this conversation with Anthony Kennada, Founder and CEO of AudiencePlus is a must listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What a Unicorn Knows is a best selling book by Pablo Dominguez, Operating Partner at Insight Partners on how leading entrepreneurs use lean principles to drive sustainable growthSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Matthew Dixon is the author of The Challenger Sale, The Challenger Customer, and now he adds The JOLT Effect to his list of best-selling books for B2B Sales professionals.During this episode, Matt shares his insights on how B2B Sales professionals can help buyers to avoid the risk of the dreaded "no decision" which represents how 40% - 60% of qualified B2B opportunities end.Matt considers himself a "sales anthropologist" which highlights his deep research-based approach to understanding why buyers buy, and how the best B2B Sales professionals help their buyers become customers.The basis of The JOLT Effect was listening to 2.5 Million sales conversations using conversational intelligence to identify common themes in the buying process. Those predictive signals were segmented into which were most predictive of a "Win" versus a "Closed-Lost No Decision". This was made possible as COVID required the majority of B2B Sales conversations to be virtual, and that made it much easier to capture sales calls in a digital format to apply Machine Learning to those 2.5M sales conversations.The research identified three major reasons that buyers end up in "indecision" which represents 56% of deals that end in "No Decision". Those primary reasons include:Valuation ProblemsLack of InformationOutcome UncertaintyValuation Problems are highlighted by having too many choices and it being hard to determine which solution is best positioned to address the challenges of the current state and have the highest probability of achieving the outcomes that were used as the basis for the purchase decision and investmentLack of Information is the buyer continues to think they need more information before they can make a decision that is most likely to end in success versus failure, where failure is the #1 concern of most buyers. This invokes the fear of "omission bias" which is a powerful human need not to experience blame because of a decision they make. "FOMU" which stands for Fear of Messing Up is a much more powerful emotion that Fear of Missing Out which is often the tactic that B2B Sales professionals use to incent a positive purchase decision.Outcome Uncertainty is when the buyer is concerned that the actual return on investment will be hard to achieve, and they are better served to maintain the "status quo" versus not achieving the ROI they projected to justify the purchase. FOMUOne interesting aspect of "outcome uncertainty", is that sales professionals that effectively "set expectations" that are not overwhelming or hard to believe by the buyer. Using the simple concept of under promise and over deliver, and being able to balance expectations leads to an increased win rate from 20% to 51% when B2B Sales professionals can effectively set expectations that the buyer believes are achievable.Another learning was how to determine the reason for "buyer indecision". JOLT stands for: 1) Judge the reason for indecision; 2) Offer a recommendation on how to move forward; 3) Limit the exploration and Take Risks off the table.87% of sales calls have buyers who exhibit some level of moderate to severe indecision. How to judge the reason for indecision first requires "active listening". Then the technique of "ping and echos" by offering potential reasons for indecision (the fear) to the buyer to uncover potential reasons for a sales cycle resulting in no decision.When it comes to "Offering" a recommendation, the research shows an increase in win rates from 14% to 36% when a B2B Sales professional diagnoses the needs, problems, and/or concerns and then offers a recommendation versus not providing solutions to address the uncovered reasons for purchasing or not purchasing.If you are a B2B Sales professional or lead a company or function that is responsible for converting prospects into customers, this conversation with Matt Dixon, the author of The JOLT effect is a high-value listen!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a hot topic in almost every early-stage B2B SaaS company. It begins with some assumptions and then is refined over time based on the acquired customer profile that represents those early customers who purchase a company's solution. This evolves to which customer profile cohort has the best customer acquisition metrics such as average annual contract value, win rate, and sales cycle length.Dan Sperring, the founder and CEO Align has a different perspective...the best ideal customer profile cohort is determined by the segment(s) that have the best Net Revenue Retention (NRR) rate. Since NRR measures both customer retention rates in dollars (Gross Dollar Retention) + Expansion ARR in dollars, it is the ultimate compound metric to determine if a customer will buy, stick around, and expand their relationship over time.If you are considering how best to define and/or refine your ideal customer profile cohort(s) - this conversation with Dan is thought-provoking and insightful as to why NRR can best guide which prospects to pursueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are at the forefront of the majority of strategic discussions across the B2B SaaS and Cloud industry.Paul Roetzer started as a journalist and then leveraged that writing expertise into founding a marketing agency. Due to the launch of Watson by IBM, Paul's curiosity about how AI could impact Marketing started his journey to becoming an industry expert in how B2B companies are and could leverage AI to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Marketing. In 2016 Paul founded and launched the Marketing AI Institute within his agency, and then spun it off as a separate company in 2019.How has the use of AI by B2B marketers changed over the past couple of years? Paul believes the inflection point started in the spring of 2021. First, Sam Altman - CEO of OpenAI/ChatGPT published the seminal article - Moore's Law for Everything. Then, Genius Makers, a book by Cade Metz, a writer for the New York Times was published.Paul was confused why AI did not take off earlier in 2011 when AI teams at Google, Facebook, and Microsoft were first formed. He concludes that he overestimated how quickly AI would go mainstream and underestimated the impact it was going to have on the industry, the economy, and the world. The public release of ChatGPT was the catalytic moment for AI awareness to become mainstream.Why has AI taken so long to be adopted by industry? Paul discusses hundreds of use cases that have been in place for 5+ years, around strategy and personalization. The challenge was the majority of marketing leaders did not know how to best leverage the power of AI, nor the accessibility which was still difficult to access, leverage, and exploit previous to the public release of ChatGPT.In the Bessemer Venture Partners "State of the Cloud 2023" one of their 5 predictions is that the initial value of AI will accrue to the individual users not to the entire company. In the spring, of 2023 Paul wrote an article entitled " The law of uneven AI distribution". The perspective shared in the article is that until C-Level executives begin to understand the full value of AI they will not lead the adoption across their department. A second point is that access will need to be granted to employees as in many industries and regions of the world access is still limited. Paul's third point is that executives will need to understand the risk, reward, and investment trade-offs required before they will fully support a broad-based roll-out of AI across their companies - especially in regulated industries.The "HOT TAKE" moment in the episode was at minute 12:40 when Paul shared that he believes many B2B SaaS companies will become obsolete quickly, It's hard to know what the "moats" are for many B2B SaaS providers beyond data and distribution. B2B SaaS organizations that have proprietary data to help tune generative, LLM-based models will have an unfair advantage, and a large customer base is best positioned to ride the AI wave and further differentiate and protect themselves from traditional B2B SaaS competitors.A highly defensible moat is that the companies that have the most data to train and tune AI models, such as the 4 Billion+ miles of training data that Tesla has amassed over the last 10 years. Salesforce is a great example of a company with large datasets that could form the foundation for the highly defensible application of AI.Paul believes that a B2B technology company that does not have a roadmap for AI, and resources to build or integrated into their core product will not be VC fundable in the future - if not already. The ability to quickly develop, deploy and refine AI-centric functionality will be table stakes for legacy Saas vendors or early-stage companies will be able to quickly eclipse incumbent vendors UNLESS they have applied AI to their data and distribution assets.How do Marketers being to embrace and utilize AI for their department? First, in a problem-based model, Marketers need to identify those problems/challenges that are most prominent in their department, the benefits of solving those issues, and then assess if there is smarter "AI" technology to address the top challenges in a prioritized, rank order.The second approach is to use a "task-based" approach and identify those activities their marketing team is executing daily, and how can AI increase their efficiency. Paul shared the 21-step process he uses to publish their podcast, how they use AI tools for half of the steps, and reduced time spent per episode from 15 - 20 hours to 3 -5 hours.Paul's closing advice to early career professionals - raise your hand in your organization and take the lead on building or being a leader in an "AI Council" in your company. Simultaneously become a student of AI and specifically how it can be used to increase personal efficiency, and company effectiveness and create your position as a future leader for the company.If you are a B2B Go-to-Market executive, work for a B2B GTM executive,

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 GrowthCustomer ChurnBurn RateCash runwayTop Leading Indicators Used:Product UsageCustomer Acquisition CostCustomer Lifetime ValueCAC 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!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Over the past two months, we have hosted the founders and CEOs of the leading SaaS Spend Management vendors.Sid Sridharan, the founder of Spendflo was formerly an executive in an "electric vehicle" charging infrastructure company and experienced the challenges of controlling SaaS spend in an early-stage, fast growing company. Sid's interaction (not all positive) with his own CFO regarding their SaaS spend inspired Sid to found a company that was purpose-built to address the very challenge his CFO presented Sid.How does Sid define SaaS Spend Management? Sid responded that Payroll is the number one spend in a company, and it has already been automated. Over the last few years, SaaS has become a top 3 spend, and is an area that is still not automated in the majority of companies - and most early-stage companies do not have the resources or time to manage it internally.Another topic we discussed was "How does SaaS Spend Management support and embrace the decentralized nature of SaaS purchases?" Sid first offered a CFOs perspective, which is when SaaS purchasing is decentralized and the associated expense is growing 25% per year, centralized control is required. Moreover, since the average SaaS tool has 9 competitors, the amount of time it takes to truly evaluate all the alternatives is greater than any one company can resource - thus they may be missing some great options for their requirements.Sid shared that they take a holistic approach to SaaS Spend Management starting with the discovery of existing SaaS Tools used, facilitating the purchasing of new SaaS tools, renewing existing SaaS tools, and managing overall SaaS Spend and utilization.One of the primary differences that Spendflo provides is the first-party data across their ecosystem, using a single platform to understand SaaS tool utilization and user sentiment. When we double-clicked on "user sentiment", Sid highlighted that once a customer invests time selecting a SaaS tool, it is hard to measure ROI, which is a key area that Spendflo focuses on, which is especially important in preparing for renewal decisions. By running usage and sentiment data continuously over the term of the agreement, it empowers the leaders to understand how users feel about the tool, including user satisfaction and user sentiment across two variables; 1) How important is the tool to business value and; 2) Would you be upset if this tool was taken awayWhen is the best stage of evolution to introduce a SaaS Spend Management Solution? Sid highlighted 50 - 60 people with the expectation to grow to 100 - 200 people, as the growth in SaaS spend will increase materially during this stage of growth. Sid also highlighted that $250K in SaaS spend is another inflection point to deploy a centralized SaaS Spend Management process.If you are responsible for any SaaS tool purchasing, management, and/or the budget, this conversation with Sid is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

State of the Cloud 2023: Top Five Predictions:#1: Efficient GrowthAdopt 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 TransitionWith 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 userThe 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 firstDue 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 companiesBessemer 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!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Former VP of Marketing at Hopin and event industry thought leader Julius Solaris joined me on the latest episode of the Metrics that Measure Up Podcast. Julius has been involved in the event industry for over two decades, and has been involved in the creation and successful exits of two different event technology platforms - so provides a very unique perspective on where the event industry has been and where it is headed...First, we discussed the evolution of events in B2B Marketing. Events are often the first variable marketing program to be reduced during uncertain economic times. Covid introduced a new dynamic, with the growth of virtual events as the only way for people to gather. This created a tidal wave of virtual event platforms, events, and associated content. In 2023, the pendulum is aggressively swinging back to in-person events, including over $6.2B of acquisitions of event companies in the first quarter of 2023 alone.The definition of "events" has never been more fluid, with virtual, hybrid, physical, asynchronous, and recorded events. Then we introduced the concept of "Event-Led Growth", which Julius defines as a Go-to-Market strategy that sees the full spectrum of events at the core of your GTM and customer engagement strategy. This concept is gaining speed because the future of social media is in flux around the world, AI is a new and unknown factor, and events are the most personal, human mode of interacting with a brand and engagement at the individual level.Event-Led growth also provides an opportunity for "content creation" to take the forefront of target market engagement. Where does "community" play in the event-led growth model? Professional associations are a great example of an industry community, and they often come together once a year at an event. Today, virtual communities can form quickly, as exhibited by the grassroots "AI Community" of 1,000+ people that came together in San Francisco - all stimulated by one tweet from an AI thought leader. In fact, in strong communities, event marketing is not a large requirement, as those community members will attend based on the strength of the community bonds that form from previous in-person and virtual events.Julius mentioned the importance of ongoing virtual gatherings, like the SaaStr weekly webinar to build upon and nurture the relationships developed at the annual in-person event - a case study of the importance of continuous community engagement through a combinate of virtual and in-person events.Over time, Julius believes that the event industry will evolve to "company-owned events" versus the larger, mega-industry events that defined the previous generation of events. Due to the saturation of "content" available on digital media, people are craving an opportunity for connection that is only achieved at events with a shared asset - communities with a common interest.One topic we discussed was what happens when events become "too big" to foster intimate, personal interactions. Mass customization becomes harder over time, which is why satellite events and vendor-sponsored satellite events become the "smaller, intimate" venue for personal relationships to be formed and nurtured. One strategy for vendors is to secure a small booth at the event itself and create a satellite experience outside of the main venue.Julius provided advice on how to be a company's event-led growth strategy. Virtual events provide a low-cost way to being building a community through events. This is especially attractive due to the availability of technology platforms for virtual events. This creates the foundation for building a community and then provides a platform for creating multiple "individual digital assets" that can be re-purposed across multiple channels to maximize reach and engagement from a single virtual event.I had to ask Julius about how to engage virtual event attendees in tactics, like virtual booths and lounges. This has not worked very well in the early days of virtual events, primarily because event sponsors did not invest enough time on this topic. Activation of virtual event attendees needs to be "content-led", supported by a strategic communications strategy, pre, and post-event by the event host and the sponsors.If you are considering leveraging an "event-led" strategy to create awareness, build engagement, and develop a community of your own, this conversation with Julius Solaris is chalked full of great insights and ideas.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 companiesCost 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 measurementNext, 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 yearsSaaS spend has been increasing by over 20% per year for several yearsTotal SaaS spend is underreported by 50% due to decentralized purchasing The average company has over 300 "paid" SaaS subscriptionsThis increases to > 1,000 in Enterprise companiesInterestingly, 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!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 depositsMarch 8th: SVB disclosed a $1.8B loss on the fire sale of $21B in long-term assetsMarch 8th - 10th: ~ $42B in deposit withdraws were made by SVB customersFriday, March 10th: SVB was declared insolvent and closed by U.S regulatorsSunday, 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 CreditHaving 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 possibleIf 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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.