Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 4: Building a Sales Team - Stephanie SchatzDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 1: Intro + First SectionDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 6: Experiences putting Theory into PracticeDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 7: The Role of the CEODavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 5: SaaS Business Model & MetricsDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Get inside your Buyers Head - Improve Funnel Conversion RatesDavid Skok
SaaStock 2018 Dublin.
Everyone wants more sales. In this presentation, David Skok unlocks the secrets to how he has been able to work with company after company and help them discover breakthroughs that drastically improve their conversion rates. The secret behind it all is become a master at understanding how your buyer thinks as they go through their purchasing journey, and as they experience your marketing and sales.
Zero to 100 - Part 3: Founder-led Selling - Pete KazanjyDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 4: Building a Sales Team - Stephanie SchatzDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 1: Intro + First SectionDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 6: Experiences putting Theory into PracticeDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 7: The Role of the CEODavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Zero to 100 - Part 5: SaaS Business Model & MetricsDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
Get inside your Buyers Head - Improve Funnel Conversion RatesDavid Skok
SaaStock 2018 Dublin.
Everyone wants more sales. In this presentation, David Skok unlocks the secrets to how he has been able to work with company after company and help them discover breakthroughs that drastically improve their conversion rates. The secret behind it all is become a master at understanding how your buyer thinks as they go through their purchasing journey, and as they experience your marketing and sales.
Zero to 100 - Part 3: Founder-led Selling - Pete KazanjyDavid Skok
Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major Zero to 100 is a learning program from David Skok. It is a detailed detailed instruction manual for how to take your startup from zero to $100m, with a particular focus on the area of building a go-to-market machine. So many of today’s founders come from a product or technical background, and have never been involved with sales and marketing. Right after starting their venture, they are hit with the huge problem of how to build their go-to-market organization and processes. It breaks the journey down into 9 steps, and explains why it is crucial not to skip steps in this journey in the rush to get ahead. The major emphasis of the course focuses on building a repeatable, scalable and profitable growth machine. Once you have that in place, you are ready to hit the gas and scale like crazy.
To see videos of the presentations, click here: https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/matrix-growth-academy-zero-to-100-videos/
The SaaS Founder’s Journey: What Matters at Each StageDavid Skok
From a talk given at SaaStock 2017 in Dublin, this slide deck covers the three stages of a startup, the most important question founders should be asking to ensure survival/success, and how to build and scale a sales funnel.
Optimize Your Funnel By Getting Inside Your Buyer's HeadDavid Skok
Part of finding product/market fit is turning early wins into repeatable, scalable, and profitable sales. In this talk given as part of the Heavybit speaker series, I discuss how to shorten the time to customer conversion from trials, freemium and open source products.
9 Steps to Repeatable, Scalable, & Profitable GrowthDavid Skok
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Building a Repeatable, Scalable & Profitable Growth ProcessDavid Skok
In a talk I gave at SaaS North 2017 conference in Ottawa, I talk about the fundamentals of building a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process for a startup.
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Outbound prospecting for highly targeted lead flowDavid Skok
This presentation described how and when outbound prospecting (Cold Calling 2.0) can work to provide a predictable flow of leads from highly targeted prospects.
There are seven key stages in a startup’s evolution from $0m to $50m in revenue. Understanding where you are in that evolution, and how to act at each stage is critical for success, as what is appropriate at one stage is not appropriate at another stage. David will lay out the roadmap, and detail the keys to success at each stage. The talk is aimed at technical/product founders plus their sales, marketing & product executives who are responsible for the go-to-market strategy for their company.
Describes the steps required to build a Sales and Marketing Machine that is predictable, scalable, automated, well instrumented, and cost efficient.
This was a presentation that I gave at the Lean Startup Circle in Boston on March 24th, 2011.
This presentation is from my talk at the 2017 SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco. It offers an overview of a simple model to understand a SaaS business and the key levers a CEO can pull to get the most impact. The presentation covers:
Optimizing the SaaS Funnel:
- Get inside your customer’s head
- Break down the funnel into microsteps
- Identify bottlenecks
- Use funnel math to make improvements
12 key levers within the funnel:
1) Product/Market fit
2) Top of the funnel flow
3) Conversion rate
4) CAC (customer acquisition cost)
5) Number of sales people
6) PPR (productivity per rep)
7) Getting enough leads
8) Pricing
9) Customer retention rate
10) Dollar retention rate
11) Months to recover CAC
12) Recruiting, onboarding & management
Sales Impact Academy Coach, Mark Walker gives a preview of this foundational course.
You will learn:
1. How to identify the real pain points in your target market.
2. Which go-to-market model is best suited to your businesses.
3. Learn about the key success metrics you need to track.
Key Points:
1. Don’t be a solution in search of a problem - Consider the demand in the market first and then build a product for that pain.
2. Frame your key competitors as villain’s - it is a great way of identifying a problem and rallying people behind your product.
3. Be a pill not a vitamin - Is your product a ‘must have’ or a ‘nice to have’?
4. Your ICP should be narrow enough that you are able to streamline your entire operation and make your capital more efficient - you will have to say no to people.
5. A genuine go-to-market model considers every stage of the funnel.
WebSummit 2018 - 9 Secrets for Startup SuccessDavid Skok
Lean Startup taught the world how to find product/market fit, but in the B2B world that isn’t enough. B2B founders must then find a way to build repeatable, scalable and profitable growth before they are ready to step on the accelerator and grow at high speed. In this talk, five-time serial entrepreneur and author of the ForEntrepreneurs blog, David Skok, breaks this journey down into 9 distinct stages and explains the playbook at each stage. Warning: trying to force growth by skipping a step is the number one mistake entrepreneurs make, and it is often fatal.
Customer Acquisition & Monetization - Keys to your Business ModelDavid Skok
Presentation describing how Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and Monetization (LTV) are they key elements to get right for a successful business model. Also describes the latest techniques for reducing CAC, including Inbound Marketing, and the author's own methodology: Building a Sales & Marketing Machine.
How Startups Can Build a Recruiting MachineDavid Skok
Something important has changed in the recruiting process: the best people are almost never on the market, and you have to develop recruiting processes to find and sell passive candidates. In many cases, it will take months or years of relationship building with these candidates to find the right moment when they are open to considering a change. Closing them takes greater selling efforts than in the past due to the intense competition over the good candidates. This leads me to believe that there is now a third crucial startup skill that needs to be developed: recruiting.
Looking to scale something up? Depending on how you're going after your market/ acquiring users, you may need to build a sales organization that's optimized for a top-down or bottom-up sales process (or perhaps both).
Watch the video overview at http://a16z.com/2015/03/06/go-to-market-bootcamp/ and then check out this slide deck, which shares some concrete tips and tools for accelerating time to market -- from the go-to-market experts at a16z, led by 'sales savant' Mark Cranney.
Because selling to enterprises is a lot like getting a bill passed through Congress: it can get stuck. And getting stuck -- or going down the wrong path -- can mean death to startups in a competitive market. Here's how to avoid that.
David Skok on The SaaS Founder's Journey || SAAS NORTH 2017L-SPARK
http://www.l-spark.com -- Watch the video of David Skok's keynote over on our blog.
David Skok joined Matrix Partners as a General Partner in May 2001. He has a wealth of experience running companies. David started his first company in 1977 at age 22. Since then David has founded a total of four separate companies and performed one turn-around. Three of these companies went public.
David joined Matrix from SilverStream Software, which he founded in June 1996. Prior to its July 2002 acquisition by Novell, SilverStream was a public company that had reached a revenue run rate in excess of $100M, with approximately 800 employees and offices in more than 20 countries around the world.
David’s work as a value added investor is best known for helping HubSpot, JBoss, AppIQ, Tabblo, Netezza, Diligent Technologies, CloudSwitch, TribeHR, GrabCAD, OpenSpan and Enservio to successful exits. David currently serves on the boards of Atomist, CloudBees, Conductor, Digium (makers of the very popular Asterisk Open Source PBX/telephony software), Meteor, NamelyHR, Salsify, Storiant, VideoIQ and Zaius.
In addition to his broad focus on enterprise software, David is specifically focused on the areas of SaaS (software as a service), cloud, mobility, Open Source, marketing automation, virtualization, storage, and data center automation.
David writes a blog for entrepreneurs and startups on topics such as viral marketing, SaaS metrics, building a sales and marketing machine, techniques for lowering cost of customer acquisition, etc. The blog can be found here: www.forEntrepreneurs.com.
Developing Your Go to Market Strategy - For Startup Founders & EntrepreneursAdam Moalla
How to think about your new business go to market strategy?
In my accelerators mentoring sessions, I try to bring all the knowledge I have built in the last 10 years into a 30min presentation, aiming to inspire entrepreneurs and startups founders and give them hints and tips on how to think and develop their go to market strategy as an essential part of successfully launching and growing their business idea.
These slides are by no mean a go-to-market strategy template but rather an elaboration on the different aspects of what constructs the process of building the sales and marketing activities of a new business.
The slides touch the following topics:
Things that you can control for your idea to be successful
Re-thinking your new business KPIs
Analysing the market objectively
Identifying target customers
Defining the "Minimum Viable Sales Process"
Widening the marketing activities
Tracking and optimisation
In this presentation you will find information about importance of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) for subscription-based (SaaS) Internet startups.
The full list of metrics mentioned in the presentation, exact formulas, and examles you can find at http://datmachine.co/saas_metrics.
If you have any questions, don't be shy to drop me a line on my email: efremov(at)datmachine.co.
The SaaS Founder’s Journey: What Matters at Each StageDavid Skok
From a talk given at SaaStock 2017 in Dublin, this slide deck covers the three stages of a startup, the most important question founders should be asking to ensure survival/success, and how to build and scale a sales funnel.
Optimize Your Funnel By Getting Inside Your Buyer's HeadDavid Skok
Part of finding product/market fit is turning early wins into repeatable, scalable, and profitable sales. In this talk given as part of the Heavybit speaker series, I discuss how to shorten the time to customer conversion from trials, freemium and open source products.
9 Steps to Repeatable, Scalable, & Profitable GrowthDavid Skok
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Building a Repeatable, Scalable & Profitable Growth ProcessDavid Skok
In a talk I gave at SaaS North 2017 conference in Ottawa, I talk about the fundamentals of building a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process for a startup.
In this slide deck, David Skok talks through his 9 step process for B2B startups to get through product/market fit, and to then find a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth process.
In David's experience some of the most fatal and expensive mistakes founders make is trying to skip steps. Understanding this roadmap will save you countless hours and potentially millions of wasted dollars.
Outbound prospecting for highly targeted lead flowDavid Skok
This presentation described how and when outbound prospecting (Cold Calling 2.0) can work to provide a predictable flow of leads from highly targeted prospects.
There are seven key stages in a startup’s evolution from $0m to $50m in revenue. Understanding where you are in that evolution, and how to act at each stage is critical for success, as what is appropriate at one stage is not appropriate at another stage. David will lay out the roadmap, and detail the keys to success at each stage. The talk is aimed at technical/product founders plus their sales, marketing & product executives who are responsible for the go-to-market strategy for their company.
Describes the steps required to build a Sales and Marketing Machine that is predictable, scalable, automated, well instrumented, and cost efficient.
This was a presentation that I gave at the Lean Startup Circle in Boston on March 24th, 2011.
This presentation is from my talk at the 2017 SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco. It offers an overview of a simple model to understand a SaaS business and the key levers a CEO can pull to get the most impact. The presentation covers:
Optimizing the SaaS Funnel:
- Get inside your customer’s head
- Break down the funnel into microsteps
- Identify bottlenecks
- Use funnel math to make improvements
12 key levers within the funnel:
1) Product/Market fit
2) Top of the funnel flow
3) Conversion rate
4) CAC (customer acquisition cost)
5) Number of sales people
6) PPR (productivity per rep)
7) Getting enough leads
8) Pricing
9) Customer retention rate
10) Dollar retention rate
11) Months to recover CAC
12) Recruiting, onboarding & management
Sales Impact Academy Coach, Mark Walker gives a preview of this foundational course.
You will learn:
1. How to identify the real pain points in your target market.
2. Which go-to-market model is best suited to your businesses.
3. Learn about the key success metrics you need to track.
Key Points:
1. Don’t be a solution in search of a problem - Consider the demand in the market first and then build a product for that pain.
2. Frame your key competitors as villain’s - it is a great way of identifying a problem and rallying people behind your product.
3. Be a pill not a vitamin - Is your product a ‘must have’ or a ‘nice to have’?
4. Your ICP should be narrow enough that you are able to streamline your entire operation and make your capital more efficient - you will have to say no to people.
5. A genuine go-to-market model considers every stage of the funnel.
WebSummit 2018 - 9 Secrets for Startup SuccessDavid Skok
Lean Startup taught the world how to find product/market fit, but in the B2B world that isn’t enough. B2B founders must then find a way to build repeatable, scalable and profitable growth before they are ready to step on the accelerator and grow at high speed. In this talk, five-time serial entrepreneur and author of the ForEntrepreneurs blog, David Skok, breaks this journey down into 9 distinct stages and explains the playbook at each stage. Warning: trying to force growth by skipping a step is the number one mistake entrepreneurs make, and it is often fatal.
Customer Acquisition & Monetization - Keys to your Business ModelDavid Skok
Presentation describing how Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) and Monetization (LTV) are they key elements to get right for a successful business model. Also describes the latest techniques for reducing CAC, including Inbound Marketing, and the author's own methodology: Building a Sales & Marketing Machine.
How Startups Can Build a Recruiting MachineDavid Skok
Something important has changed in the recruiting process: the best people are almost never on the market, and you have to develop recruiting processes to find and sell passive candidates. In many cases, it will take months or years of relationship building with these candidates to find the right moment when they are open to considering a change. Closing them takes greater selling efforts than in the past due to the intense competition over the good candidates. This leads me to believe that there is now a third crucial startup skill that needs to be developed: recruiting.
Looking to scale something up? Depending on how you're going after your market/ acquiring users, you may need to build a sales organization that's optimized for a top-down or bottom-up sales process (or perhaps both).
Watch the video overview at http://a16z.com/2015/03/06/go-to-market-bootcamp/ and then check out this slide deck, which shares some concrete tips and tools for accelerating time to market -- from the go-to-market experts at a16z, led by 'sales savant' Mark Cranney.
Because selling to enterprises is a lot like getting a bill passed through Congress: it can get stuck. And getting stuck -- or going down the wrong path -- can mean death to startups in a competitive market. Here's how to avoid that.
David Skok on The SaaS Founder's Journey || SAAS NORTH 2017L-SPARK
http://www.l-spark.com -- Watch the video of David Skok's keynote over on our blog.
David Skok joined Matrix Partners as a General Partner in May 2001. He has a wealth of experience running companies. David started his first company in 1977 at age 22. Since then David has founded a total of four separate companies and performed one turn-around. Three of these companies went public.
David joined Matrix from SilverStream Software, which he founded in June 1996. Prior to its July 2002 acquisition by Novell, SilverStream was a public company that had reached a revenue run rate in excess of $100M, with approximately 800 employees and offices in more than 20 countries around the world.
David’s work as a value added investor is best known for helping HubSpot, JBoss, AppIQ, Tabblo, Netezza, Diligent Technologies, CloudSwitch, TribeHR, GrabCAD, OpenSpan and Enservio to successful exits. David currently serves on the boards of Atomist, CloudBees, Conductor, Digium (makers of the very popular Asterisk Open Source PBX/telephony software), Meteor, NamelyHR, Salsify, Storiant, VideoIQ and Zaius.
In addition to his broad focus on enterprise software, David is specifically focused on the areas of SaaS (software as a service), cloud, mobility, Open Source, marketing automation, virtualization, storage, and data center automation.
David writes a blog for entrepreneurs and startups on topics such as viral marketing, SaaS metrics, building a sales and marketing machine, techniques for lowering cost of customer acquisition, etc. The blog can be found here: www.forEntrepreneurs.com.
Developing Your Go to Market Strategy - For Startup Founders & EntrepreneursAdam Moalla
How to think about your new business go to market strategy?
In my accelerators mentoring sessions, I try to bring all the knowledge I have built in the last 10 years into a 30min presentation, aiming to inspire entrepreneurs and startups founders and give them hints and tips on how to think and develop their go to market strategy as an essential part of successfully launching and growing their business idea.
These slides are by no mean a go-to-market strategy template but rather an elaboration on the different aspects of what constructs the process of building the sales and marketing activities of a new business.
The slides touch the following topics:
Things that you can control for your idea to be successful
Re-thinking your new business KPIs
Analysing the market objectively
Identifying target customers
Defining the "Minimum Viable Sales Process"
Widening the marketing activities
Tracking and optimisation
In this presentation you will find information about importance of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) for subscription-based (SaaS) Internet startups.
The full list of metrics mentioned in the presentation, exact formulas, and examles you can find at http://datmachine.co/saas_metrics.
If you have any questions, don't be shy to drop me a line on my email: efremov(at)datmachine.co.
An overview of startup sales and marketing best practices, frameworks, and thoughts.
This is intended for founders who have little formal experience with sales and marketing practices.
This presentation was delivered to a group of 40 Founders/CEO's and a few salespeople who want to know what they should be thinking about before they hire salespeople.
Broad address of the prevailing thought processes, techniques and methodologies for early adopter sales.
Pick Your Battles - Your Bullseye Target CustomerDonagh Kiernan
You can't win them all, but which customers should you focus on?
Too many companies are afraid to focus on one customer type in case they miss out on opportunities. This "blanding" or diluting down of your message to please a wider audience is stopping you from attracting the best customers for your business.
Your message is not speaking clearly to your Bullseye Target Customers.
Your Bullseye Target Customers don't recognise that your solution is the best option for them.
How much marketing money and effort are you wasting in attracting non-ideal low-probability leads into your pipeline?
● Imagine your pipeline full of ideal customers, Bullseye Target Customers.
● Companies that value your proposition most OR will pay most for your solution?
● AND with whom you beat the Competition?
Remove the noise from your pipeline!
Do you have a clear Qualification Criteria to prioritise the leads in your pipeline, to filter those that you should be spending time on?
Want to understand how your business will benefit very quickly from having a clear customer focus?
Interested in learning more about identifying your Bullseye Target Customer and the Tenego methodology?
Sales is the last function in the enterprise to see significant technological automation and disruption. HR and accounting underwent the revolution in the 50s and again in the 80s, and marketing automation exploded about a decade ago. The sales tech landscape changed when Salesforce landed in the late 90s, but it became massively more complex in the past five years. Quote-to-cash tools, RFP management, video coaching apps, and a giant, nebulous swarm of platforms labeled "sales enablement" or "sales acceleration"....
What are all these tools? How do they play with each other, if they play with each other at all? And what do all these different sales enablement solutions actually offer? This slideshow clarifies, demystifies, and untangles the landscape for you.
Getting funded sometimes seems like a career itself (and indeed it is a big part of the CEO’s responsibilities). In order to succeed, need to understand both the rules of the game and the equipment – without these you may squander some of your most valuable resources - time and relationships. Two keys communication tools are the Executive Summary and the PowerPoint Presentation (Pitch Deck). This forum will help you understand how these tools are used to generate a face-to-face meeting, make a persuasive and memorable presentation, and then follow through with the details needed for investors to begin their due diligence process.
How to Survive and Thrive in the post-Covid EraDavid Skok
This presentation starts by looking at the huge global forces that are currently reshaping the world, triggered by Covid. It then drops down layer by layer, to finally show how you need to react as a SaaS business to set up for success in a changed world.
These are the slides that I used in my presentation at SaaStock Remote 2020 on June 10th.
WebSummit 2018 - The SaaS Business Model & MetricsDavid Skok
SaaS businesses are extremely sensitive to a small number of important variables. If you are running a SaaS company, understanding how these variables drive your business model is crucial to long-term success. In this talk, David Skok, author of the now famous SaaS Metrics 2.0 blog post will talk through those key metrics and their impact on the overall SaaS business model.
A high growth SaaS playbook. 12 metrics to drive success. 2 goals, present a simple model to understand SaaS business and show what levers a CEO can pull to get the most impact
In my talk at the 2017 LAUNCH SCALE conference in San Francisco, I discuss how to get inside your buyer's head to increase funnel conversion rates. In the talk, I cover:
- How to design and build a buyer-centric sales funnel that has low CAC and fast sales cycles.
- How to figure out why your sales funnel isn't working as well as it could be, and how to fix it.
- How to understand the way buyers react to your funnel, and how to use that knowledge to increase funnel conversion rates.
SaaS/subscription businesses are much more complex than traditional businesses, and SaaS performance cannot be measured in the same way as traditional businesses are measured. Based on a talk given at the SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco, this slide deck offers a comprehensive and detailed look at the key metrics that are needed to understand and optimize a SaaS business, and how these can be used to drive SaaS success. This presentation includes information on:
- An intro to SaaS metrics
- Unit economics
- LTV and churn: An in-depth look
- Variable pricing axes
- Months to recover CAC
- The primary unit of growth: Sales
- Understanding public SaaS companies
Building a Sales and Marketing machine for a B2B software company involves many functions working together. This slide deck explores the process of funnel design that is highly buyer centric. It looks at the Buyer journey, and how to successfully construct a buying process that they buyer will enjoy going through, which is very different from the typical sale process that is designed from the vendors standpoint, and fails because the buyer is not motivated to go through the steps.
A detailed look at why SaaS business are so different from traditional software companies, and why traditional ways of looking at their finances fail to understand the business. Provides an alternative set of metrics that show the right way to look at a SaaS business.
For more on the SaaS business model and Metrics, see this blog post:
www.forentrepreneurs.com/saas-metrics-2/
The Application Development Landscape - 2011David Skok
Presentation on the Application Development Landscape given as a keynote to the MassTLC CTO, developer and architect audience on December 15th in Cambridge, MA. Covers the key challenges and architectural decisions faced by developers. Topics include: Mobile, Cloud, SaaS, PaaS, Big Data, Analytics, etc.
The Science behind Viral Marketing is a look at the key factors that drive growth in viral marketing. (Hint, the most important factor is not the one everyone expects.) It also looks at what is needed to get virality to work, and how to create and optimize viral marketing campaigns or viral products.
One part of the presntation shows the key formulae behind viral marketing.
Suitable for marketers or for product designers.
Transform Your Communication with Cloud-Based IVR SolutionsTheSMSPoint
Discover the power of Cloud-Based IVR Solutions to streamline communication processes. Embrace scalability and cost-efficiency while enhancing customer experiences with features like automated call routing and voice recognition. Accessible from anywhere, these solutions integrate seamlessly with existing systems, providing real-time analytics for continuous improvement. Revolutionize your communication strategy today with Cloud-Based IVR Solutions. Learn more at: https://thesmspoint.com/channel/cloud-telephony
Custom Healthcare Software for Managing Chronic Conditions and Remote Patient...Mind IT Systems
Healthcare providers often struggle with the complexities of chronic conditions and remote patient monitoring, as each patient requires personalized care and ongoing monitoring. Off-the-shelf solutions may not meet these diverse needs, leading to inefficiencies and gaps in care. It’s here, custom healthcare software offers a tailored solution, ensuring improved care and effectiveness.
Mobile App Development Company In Noida | Drona InfotechDrona Infotech
Looking for a reliable mobile app development company in Noida? Look no further than Drona Infotech. We specialize in creating customized apps for your business needs.
Visit Us For : https://www.dronainfotech.com/mobile-application-development/
A Study of Variable-Role-based Feature Enrichment in Neural Models of CodeAftab Hussain
Understanding variable roles in code has been found to be helpful by students
in learning programming -- could variable roles help deep neural models in
performing coding tasks? We do an exploratory study.
- These are slides of the talk given at InteNSE'23: The 1st International Workshop on Interpretability and Robustness in Neural Software Engineering, co-located with the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2023, Melbourne Australia
AI Fusion Buddy Review: Brand New, Groundbreaking Gemini-Powered AI AppGoogle
AI Fusion Buddy Review: Brand New, Groundbreaking Gemini-Powered AI App
👉👉 Click Here To Get More Info 👇👇
https://sumonreview.com/ai-fusion-buddy-review
AI Fusion Buddy Review: Key Features
✅Create Stunning AI App Suite Fully Powered By Google's Latest AI technology, Gemini
✅Use Gemini to Build high-converting Converting Sales Video Scripts, ad copies, Trending Articles, blogs, etc.100% unique!
✅Create Ultra-HD graphics with a single keyword or phrase that commands 10x eyeballs!
✅Fully automated AI articles bulk generation!
✅Auto-post or schedule stunning AI content across all your accounts at once—WordPress, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger, and more.
✅With one keyword or URL, generate complete websites, landing pages, and more…
✅Automatically create & sell AI content, graphics, websites, landing pages, & all that gets you paid non-stop 24*7.
✅Pre-built High-Converting 100+ website Templates and 2000+ graphic templates logos, banners, and thumbnail images in Trending Niches.
✅Say goodbye to wasting time logging into multiple Chat GPT & AI Apps once & for all!
✅Save over $5000 per year and kick out dependency on third parties completely!
✅Brand New App: Not available anywhere else!
✅ Beginner-friendly!
✅ZERO upfront cost or any extra expenses
✅Risk-Free: 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee!
✅Commercial License included!
See My Other Reviews Article:
(1) AI Genie Review: https://sumonreview.com/ai-genie-review
(2) SocioWave Review: https://sumonreview.com/sociowave-review
(3) AI Partner & Profit Review: https://sumonreview.com/ai-partner-profit-review
(4) AI Ebook Suite Review: https://sumonreview.com/ai-ebook-suite-review
#AIFusionBuddyReview,
#AIFusionBuddyFeatures,
#AIFusionBuddyPricing,
#AIFusionBuddyProsandCons,
#AIFusionBuddyTutorial,
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#WhatIsAIFusionBuddy?,
#HowDoesAIFusionBuddyWorks
Code reviews are vital for ensuring good code quality. They serve as one of our last lines of defense against bugs and subpar code reaching production.
Yet, they often turn into annoying tasks riddled with frustration, hostility, unclear feedback and lack of standards. How can we improve this crucial process?
In this session we will cover:
- The Art of Effective Code Reviews
- Streamlining the Review Process
- Elevating Reviews with Automated Tools
By the end of this presentation, you'll have the knowledge on how to organize and improve your code review proces
Graspan: A Big Data System for Big Code AnalysisAftab Hussain
We built a disk-based parallel graph system, Graspan, that uses a novel edge-pair centric computation model to compute dynamic transitive closures on very large program graphs.
We implement context-sensitive pointer/alias and dataflow analyses on Graspan. An evaluation of these analyses on large codebases such as Linux shows that their Graspan implementations scale to millions of lines of code and are much simpler than their original implementations.
These analyses were used to augment the existing checkers; these augmented checkers found 132 new NULL pointer bugs and 1308 unnecessary NULL tests in Linux 4.4.0-rc5, PostgreSQL 8.3.9, and Apache httpd 2.2.18.
- Accepted in ASPLOS ‘17, Xi’an, China.
- Featured in the tutorial, Systemized Program Analyses: A Big Data Perspective on Static Analysis Scalability, ASPLOS ‘17.
- Invited for presentation at SoCal PLS ‘16.
- Invited for poster presentation at PLDI SRC ‘16.
AI Genie Review: World’s First Open AI WordPress Website CreatorGoogle
AI Genie Review: World’s First Open AI WordPress Website Creator
👉👉 Click Here To Get More Info 👇👇
https://sumonreview.com/ai-genie-review
AI Genie Review: Key Features
✅Creates Limitless Real-Time Unique Content, auto-publishing Posts, Pages & Images directly from Chat GPT & Open AI on WordPress in any Niche
✅First & Only Google Bard Approved Software That Publishes 100% Original, SEO Friendly Content using Open AI
✅Publish Automated Posts and Pages using AI Genie directly on Your website
✅50 DFY Websites Included Without Adding Any Images, Content Or Doing Anything Yourself
✅Integrated Chat GPT Bot gives Instant Answers on Your Website to Visitors
✅Just Enter the title, and your Content for Pages and Posts will be ready on your website
✅Automatically insert visually appealing images into posts based on keywords and titles.
✅Choose the temperature of the content and control its randomness.
✅Control the length of the content to be generated.
✅Never Worry About Paying Huge Money Monthly To Top Content Creation Platforms
✅100% Easy-to-Use, Newbie-Friendly Technology
✅30-Days Money-Back Guarantee
See My Other Reviews Article:
(1) TubeTrivia AI Review: https://sumonreview.com/tubetrivia-ai-review
(2) SocioWave Review: https://sumonreview.com/sociowave-review
(3) AI Partner & Profit Review: https://sumonreview.com/ai-partner-profit-review
(4) AI Ebook Suite Review: https://sumonreview.com/ai-ebook-suite-review
#AIGenieApp #AIGenieBonus #AIGenieBonuses #AIGenieDemo #AIGenieDownload #AIGenieLegit #AIGenieLiveDemo #AIGenieOTO #AIGeniePreview #AIGenieReview #AIGenieReviewandBonus #AIGenieScamorLegit #AIGenieSoftware #AIGenieUpgrades #AIGenieUpsells #HowDoesAlGenie #HowtoBuyAIGenie #HowtoMakeMoneywithAIGenie #MakeMoneyOnline #MakeMoneywithAIGenie
OpenMetadata Community Meeting - 5th June 2024OpenMetadata
The OpenMetadata Community Meeting was held on June 5th, 2024. In this meeting, we discussed about the data quality capabilities that are integrated with the Incident Manager, providing a complete solution to handle your data observability needs. Watch the end-to-end demo of the data quality features.
* How to run your own data quality framework
* What is the performance impact of running data quality frameworks
* How to run the test cases in your own ETL pipelines
* How the Incident Manager is integrated
* Get notified with alerts when test cases fail
Watch the meeting recording here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbNOje0kf6E
Launch Your Streaming Platforms in MinutesRoshan Dwivedi
The claim of launching a streaming platform in minutes might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there are services that can significantly streamline the process. Here's a breakdown:
Pros of Speedy Streaming Platform Launch Services:
No coding required: These services often use drag-and-drop interfaces or pre-built templates, eliminating the need for programming knowledge.
Faster setup: Compared to building from scratch, these platforms can get you up and running much quicker.
All-in-one solutions: Many services offer features like content management systems (CMS), video players, and monetization tools, reducing the need for multiple integrations.
Things to Consider:
Limited customization: These platforms may offer less flexibility in design and functionality compared to custom-built solutions.
Scalability: As your audience grows, you might need to upgrade to a more robust platform or encounter limitations with the "quick launch" option.
Features: Carefully evaluate which features are included and if they meet your specific needs (e.g., live streaming, subscription options).
Examples of Services for Launching Streaming Platforms:
Muvi [muvi com]
Uscreen [usencreen tv]
Alternatives to Consider:
Existing Streaming platforms: Platforms like YouTube or Twitch might be suitable for basic streaming needs, though monetization options might be limited.
Custom Development: While more time-consuming, custom development offers the most control and flexibility for your platform.
Overall, launching a streaming platform in minutes might not be entirely realistic, but these services can significantly speed up the process compared to building from scratch. Carefully consider your needs and budget when choosing the best option for you.
Do you want Software for your Business? Visit Deuglo
Deuglo has top Software Developers in India. They are experts in software development and help design and create custom Software solutions.
Deuglo follows seven steps methods for delivering their services to their customers. They called it the Software development life cycle process (SDLC).
Requirement — Collecting the Requirements is the first Phase in the SSLC process.
Feasibility Study — after completing the requirement process they move to the design phase.
Design — in this phase, they start designing the software.
Coding — when designing is completed, the developers start coding for the software.
Testing — in this phase when the coding of the software is done the testing team will start testing.
Installation — after completion of testing, the application opens to the live server and launches!
Maintenance — after completing the software development, customers start using the software.
Enterprise Resource Planning System includes various modules that reduce any business's workload. Additionally, it organizes the workflows, which drives towards enhancing productivity. Here are a detailed explanation of the ERP modules. Going through the points will help you understand how the software is changing the work dynamics.
To know more details here: https://blogs.nyggs.com/nyggs/enterprise-resource-planning-erp-system-modules/
Atelier - Innover avec l’IA Générative et les graphes de connaissancesNeo4j
Atelier - Innover avec l’IA Générative et les graphes de connaissances
Allez au-delà du battage médiatique autour de l’IA et découvrez des techniques pratiques pour utiliser l’IA de manière responsable à travers les données de votre organisation. Explorez comment utiliser les graphes de connaissances pour augmenter la précision, la transparence et la capacité d’explication dans les systèmes d’IA générative. Vous partirez avec une expérience pratique combinant les relations entre les données et les LLM pour apporter du contexte spécifique à votre domaine et améliorer votre raisonnement.
Amenez votre ordinateur portable et nous vous guiderons sur la mise en place de votre propre pile d’IA générative, en vous fournissant des exemples pratiques et codés pour démarrer en quelques minutes.
Introducing Crescat - Event Management Software for Venues, Festivals and Eve...Crescat
Crescat is industry-trusted event management software, built by event professionals for event professionals. Founded in 2017, we have three key products tailored for the live event industry.
Crescat Event for concert promoters and event agencies. Crescat Venue for music venues, conference centers, wedding venues, concert halls and more. And Crescat Festival for festivals, conferences and complex events.
With a wide range of popular features such as event scheduling, shift management, volunteer and crew coordination, artist booking and much more, Crescat is designed for customisation and ease-of-use.
Over 125,000 events have been planned in Crescat and with hundreds of customers of all shapes and sizes, from boutique event agencies through to international concert promoters, Crescat is rigged for success. What's more, we highly value feedback from our users and we are constantly improving our software with updates, new features and improvements.
If you plan events, run a venue or produce festivals and you're looking for ways to make your life easier, then we have a solution for you. Try our software for free or schedule a no-obligation demo with one of our product specialists today at crescat.io
2. Building a repeatable, scalable
& profitable growth machine
Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
3. Before we get there, let’s spend a minute on PMF
Search for Product/Market Fit
4. Greatest mistake: Design, Build, Sell
Search for Product/Market Fit
Test hypothesis
“What are we solving? How?”
Prove the Value
“What are we solving?
How?”
Prove it can be sold
“Will someone pay”
Build the MVP
5. Instead: Sell, Design, Build
Search for Product/Market Fit
Test hypothesis
“What are we solving? How?”
Prove the Value
“What are we solving?
How?”
Prove it can be sold
“Will someone pay”
Build the MVP
6. Why this advice is so hard to follow
Founders from technical and product backgrounds not
comfortable with prospecting or cold calling
Solution: LinkedIn (and/or Google Adwords)
7. Credit: Harvard marketing professor Theodore Levitt:
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch
hole.”
8.
9. Don’t be afraid to do a consulting project
• Really understand the
customer’s environment
• Flesh out the “whole product”
requirements
• Make sure it actually works
and delivers the business
benefits
10. Good Evidence of Product Market Fit
• A number of customers have purchased
• Referenceable
• Customers are happy
• Using the product
• Would be very reluctant to give it up
• Realizing the promised benefits
• Evidence of intent to expand usage
• Churn is low
11. Predictable, Repeatable, Scalable, Profitable Growth
Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
12. The key sign that you’re getting there:
Bookings - (NOT Revenue or ARR!)
For SaaS:
Bookings = Net New ARR
(New + Expansion – Churned)
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7
14. Phase 4. and 5.
Find a repeatable Sales Motion
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
4 5
Find
Repeatable
Sales Motion
Prove non-
Founders can
sell
3
Prove it can
be sold
17. What are we trying to learn?
• Which target market?
• Who in the organization to sell to?
• What pain / use case to target?
• What messaging?
• What sales motion?
• What pricing?
• What new product features are needed
19. Example NewCo Sales Process (Playbook)
Definition Activities Milestones
Clearly identify whether the
Opportunity continues through the
Sales Process. Conduct a 2-way
exchange of Prospect’s business
challenges, pain, objectives and
goals.
Document and confirm we
understand Prospect’s goals,
objectives, business challenges
and pain. What is the potential
business impact and value-add
with NewCo.
Justify the specific Newco
solution to the key decision
makers. Justify solution with
business case, ROI, custom demo,
technical review, customer case
studies where applicable.
Agreement / Contract has been
delivered to prospect and
agreement to steps as chosen
vendor to complete procurement
cycle.
Validate next steps in the
evaluation process including the
criteria and decision process.
Present solution to champion and
executive sponsor. Quantify value
and dollarize opportunity in SFDC
Ability to dollarize the solution
Define use case(s) and map solutions value to prospects corporate strategy
Perform demonstration to the Champion that addresses prospects Pain, Goals and
Objectives
Confirm decision criteria, process, budget, timeframe
Present detailed sequence of events / closing plan
Deliver custom demonstration to all relevant stakeholders (PoC)
Collaborate and present business case justification, Identify power user and project
team
Discuss and present standard onboarding document & Integration review and technical
gaps addressed
Engage Legal and Procurement
Update Customer Success section within Opportunity record
Negotiation on legal, price and business terms
Schedule and complete references
Alignment call with customer success team as required
Finalize order document and vendor approval process
Contract signature / Initiate Customer on-boarding process
Identify timeframe, compelling events, current environment
Pitch and present focused on strategic value
Identify executive sponsor to continue evaluation along with additional stakeholders,
technical influencers, budget holder, economic buyer
General pricing & budgeting discussion
Identify prospect is at the influencing level and there’s interest in evaluating NewCo.
Identify Critical Business Issues, other potential influencers. Is the prospect trying to:
- Achieve a Goal
- Solve a Problem
- Satisfy a Need
Framing, Diagnostic and Confirmation Questions
• Solution development / Menu of
goals
• Pre call plan / confirm persona
• Critical Business Issues
• “Get before you give”
• Solution development prompter
• Menu of goals
• Plausible emergency
• Champion letter
• Sphere of Influence
• Sequence of Events / Timeframe
• Customer stories
• Demonstration
• Order Form / Terms of Service
• Technical Documentation
• On boarding documents
• Alignment call
• References
Qualify
Discovery
Validation
Proof
Due
Diligence
1
2
3
4
5
$
“Why Change?”
“Why Now?”
“Who / How?”
“Why us?”
“When?”
Tactics / Tools
Identify Pain and Tactical
Challenges in Organization
Uncover key Metrics and
Strategic Initiatives
Mutual agreement to evaluate
Chosen vendor
Confirm legal complete
Sign order form
Identify Champion
Identify Executive Sponsor
Define, Influence, Confirm the
Decision Criteria
Qualify your Champion
Document the Decision Process
Access to Executive Sponsor,
executive sponsor and confirm
budget
Prospect approves solution
Confirm IT approval & legal process
Confirm access to budget holder &
signer
Mutual agreement on business case
justification
26. Why?
• “Whole Product”
• Features, integrations, and partnerships needed for
each use case are different
• Deciding on one cuts the feature list to a manageable
level
• Prospect targeting becomes far easier
• Salespeople get smarter faster on how to talk
to the customers about their business
27. Messaging is far more powerful
• Example – for Corvana - an AI powered Smart BI system
• Broad messaging:
• Our Smart BI software will automatically surface insights in your data
• Sales use-case messaging:
• Our Smart Sales Intelligence software
• Automatically tracks all of the important funnel indicators
• Will pro-actively warn you as soon as any indicator shows a potential problem.
• Allows you to fix problems early before they affect your bookings number
29. Score Them
Examples of
Target Market Choices
TAM
Pain level / Urgency
and
Willingness & Ability
to pay
Amount of work
required to satisfy
their needs
Enterprises
High score here means
low amount of work
Mid-market
SMB
Venture Backed HiTech
companies
Financial Vertical
Note these target markets are just examples. Your own list of possible targets will vary.
30. Hair on Fire Urgency is key to success
• Buyers resist change
• Without urgency you will have:
many good conversations
but long sales cycles
and few closed deals
31. Ideal Customer Profile - ICP
Ideal Prospect
Characteristics
• Industry:
• eCommerce companies
• Size:
• Mid-market - Revenues: $5m to $100m
• Current tech stack:
• ExactTarget, Responsys, etc.
• Uses Shopify Plus, Magento, etc.
• Other:
• More than 20,000 names in their email list
Negative Characteristics
• Enterprises - likely to have the
following characteristic:
• Separate fiefdoms that will stop
marketing from making an integrated
decision
• Different marketing channels owned by
different teams
• Separate analytics and data science team
that work with their marketers
32. Messaging
• Business benefits, not product features
• Clear
• Simple
• Short
• Explains differentiation from competition
33. Positioning Statement
• For Who?
• Who needs What?
• Our Category?
• Provides: Key Benefits
• Unlike Key Competitors
• We provide Key Differentiators
49. Mismatch:
Sales often handle every lead as though they were in the Purchasing phase
I’m paid to sell. I better be selling.
50. Likely Distribution of Web Site Visitors
Vendor
Web Site
80%
Awareness
15%
Consideration
5%
Purchase
51. Different Dialog and Content for each stage
Awareness Consideration Purchase
• Create Problem & Pain
awareness
• Discuss how people are
solving
• Discuss benefits people are
seeing
• Don’t mention your product
• Don’t sell!
• Help in choosing a particular
solution
• Explain how your Product
can solve their pain
• Free Trial / Demo
• Customer stories
• Nurture with regular content
(Newsletter)
• Case studies
• Results achieved
• How you helped achieve
them
• Other proof points
• Customer references
• ROI data
52. • Just lost my data in hard drive crash
• Backup software/service
• Starting a new software project
• Dev Tools, etc.
• Performance issues with existing app
• APM tools
• Difficulties tracking bugs across multi-tier apps
• Bug tracking software
TRIGGERS
53. Buyer Personae
Who is involved in the buying process?
Champion Economic Buyer
/ Decision Maker
IT required for sign off
54. Getting to know your Buyer Personae
• Identifying Characteristics
• Company Profile (your ICP)
• Any special characteristics relevant to this purchase
• E.g. Developers:
• Don't have a budget
• Prefer Open Source, and don't like to pay for software
• Professional Role
• What does a day in their life look like?
• Key business goals?
• What does their Boss expect of them?
• How does our product help them achieve those?
• Motivations / Aspirations?
• What would make their job easier?
55. Getting to know your Buyer Personae
• What pain do they have that we address?
• Is it latent pain, or obvious pain?
• How do they describe the pain and what they are looking for?
• (Helpful for messaging)
• Is solving this pain a high priority for them?
• If not, what features would make it a higher priority?
• What are the triggers that cause them to buy?
56. Getting to know your Buyer Personae
• Are they searching for a solution?
• If yes, how do they go about doing that?
• Who influences them? (Sites, organizations, and people)
• (Helps us figure out how to market to them)
• Most important features? Decision criteria?
• What are their reactions to our product/company?
• What will they like?
• What will they not like?
• What are the main questions and concerns they have?
• What competitors will they also evaluate?
• What will they like or dislike about each of those?
58. Designing a Growth Process to match Buyer’s Journey
Strangers VisitorsAttract CustomersCloseLeadsConvert PromotersDelight
Awareness PurchaseInterest
Post
Purchase
59. Top of Funnel
Drive the right traffic
that matches your
ICP and convert to
raw leads
Middle of Funnel
Convert raw leads
into MQLs
Sales
Convert MQLs into
closed deals
Customer Success
Onboard, support and
ensure customer
success as measured by
a customer KPI
Designing a Growth Process to match Buyer’s Journey
Strangers VisitorsAttract CustomersCloseLeadsConvert PromotersDelight
Credit: HubSpot
Awareness PurchaseInterest
Post
Purchase
60. Top of Funnel
Inbound Marketing
Paid Marketing
Website
Strangers Conversion
Event
Raw
Lead
Outbound
SDR’s
Account-based Mktg
Targeted
Strangers
Mktg
Qualified
Lead
Qualify?
61. Account Based Marketing
• ICP powers all marketing
• Ideal Customer Profile
• Build lists of matching accounts
• Discover.org, Lead Fox, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, etc.
• Track who is in buying cycles
• Visiting G2 Crowd, Bombora
• Track which companies are on your website
• Targeted outreach
• Aircover from Ads
Thanks to Eric Spett, Terminus
63. Mktg
Qualified
Lead
Sales – Lead Stages
Qualify
Sales
Qualified
Lead
CustomerClose
Discovery
Call
Opportunity
Ready to
buy?
Sales
interaction
Note: Your process will likely be different, and there will be more Opportunity stages in your CRM pipeline
65. Map Buyers Process to Your Steps
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Check
Review Sites
Evaluation
Website Free Trial
BUYER
VENDOR
ROI &
Justification
66. GET INSIDE YOUR BUYERS HEAD
How are they
reacting as they
go through our
funnel steps?
What are they
thinking as they
go through their
process?
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Check
Review Sites
Evaluation
Website Free Trial
BUYER
VENDOR
ROI &
Justification
67. Optimize Your Steps to Fit
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Check
Review Sites
Evaluation
Website
BUYER
VENDOR
ROI &
Justification
Free Trial
ROI
Calculator
Competitive
Features
Matrix
68. Optimize Your growth process to Fit
Research
Shortlist
Vendors
Check
Review Sites
Evaluation
Website
BUYER
VENDOR
ROI &
Justification
Free Trial
ROI
Calculator
Competitive
Features
Matrix
Incent
customers to
do reviews
69. ADDRESS ALL DECISION CRITERIA
Address
Security Concerns
3rd Party
Security Audit &
Whitepaper
BUYER
Is this a safe vendor
to choose?
• Customer Stories
• Safe Channel
Partners
71. Test and Optimize the Funnel Flow
Fix Conversion
Rate Problems
Suspects Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
Suspects
72. Choosing a Go-to-Market Model
Freemium
Viral
No Touch
Self-
Service
Light Touch
Inside
Sales
High Touch
Inside
Sales
Field Sales
Field Sales
with SE’s
74. A rough estimate of CAC versus Sales Complexity
Freemium
No Touch
Self-
Service
Light Touch
Inside
Sales
High Touch
Inside
Sales
Field Sales
Field Sales
with SE’s
$0-
$10
$50 –
$200
$1,000 -
$2,000
$3,000 -
$8,000
$25,000 –
$75,000
$75,000 –
$200,000
Rough Estimates of Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC)
75. The relationship is roughly exponential
Clearly adding
Human Touch
dramatically
increases costs
78. Salesforce
disrupts Siebel
with a lower cost
sales model
due to SaaS
free trials
$1
$10
$100
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
Freemium No Touch Inside Sales Channel Field Sales
Sales Complexity
CAC Logarithmic
79. Long Sales Cycles – Very Tough for Startups
Cycle time for learning is too long,
so very few cycles get executed
80. The Obvious Take-away
• Do everything you can to remove human touch
from sales and onboarding
• Or make the human touch as low cost and efficient
as possible
81. What creates Sales Complexity
• High Price point
• Complicated to evaluate?
• Integration needed with other systems?
• Multiple people involved in purchase decision?
• Risk to business of a bad buying decision?
• E.g. loss of data, business unable to operate if system is down, etc.
• Requires purchase of other products / services to complete the solution?
Freemium
Viral
No Touch
Self-
Service
Light Touch
Inside
Sales
High Touch
Inside
Sales
Field Sales
Field Sales
with SE’s
82. Start with the buyer
Understand the Complexity of your Sale
• Price point
• Larger investments need greater justification, & more levels of sign off
• How complicated to evaluate?
• Single person, or multiple people?
• Integration needed with other systems?
• How many people involved in the purchase decision?
• Risk to their business of a bad buying decision?
• E.g. loss of data, business unable to operate if system is down, etc.
• Does it require other products or services to be purchased to complete the solution?
Freemium
Viral
No Touch
Self-
Service
Light Touch
Inside
Sales
High Touch
Inside
Sales
Field Sales
Field Sales
with SE’s
83. Land & Expand
Much easier to get a large order
once the product is proven
85. PQLs – (Product Qualified Leads)
Thanks to Christopher O’Donnell
conversion rate
1% 100%
86. Product Led Growth – the virtuous cycle
21%
66%
13%
Salesforce
R&D
Sales &
Marketing
G&A
55%
25%
20%
Atlassian
R&D
Sales &
Marketing
G&A
as a percentage of total expenses
87. Product Led Growth –
the virtuous cycle
Atlassian are spending 2.6 x more
of their expense dollars on R&D
88. What model should I pick, and do I need salespeople?
• While you are testing options for a repeatable sales model
• Don’t obsess about which model, as you are too early
• Instead focus on getting some sales, which will give you the data to decide
• When you have some sales
• Look at the complexity of:
• Your product
• Your buyer’s buying process
• Try redesigning
• Evolve to what model is the best fit
• Even in a Freemium model – salespeople can be powerful
• They can increase the average deal size by selling value higher in the organization
“Land and Expand” model
89. Phase 6. Make it scalable
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
6
Make it
Scalable
90. Ideal Initial Sales Staffing
Close early-access sales Find Predictable and
Repeatable Sales Motion
Make it Scalable
Founders
1 more Pathfinder/Trailblazer Salesperson
Sales Director (willing to act as a Pathfinder/Trailblazer
rep for a few months)
2 Reps 2 Reps 2 Reps
Make it Profitable
100. PPR: Sales Training and Onboarding
• Sales people: one of the most expensive resources
• Yet typically little effort put in to sales training in early days
• High payback
• Worth having the founders spend time to develop & deliver a lot of the material
101. Sales Onboarding at the Scaling Phase
• Section Titles
• Company Information
• Case Study & Stats
• Our Products
• Market Landscape
• Battlecards
• Account Executive Role
• MEDDIC Sales Methodolgy
• Customer Success
• Business Development Rep
103. Etc.
Finding Scalable Lead Sources
Facebook Ads
Paid Search
Lead volume
Time
Paid lead sources tend to hit a limit
104. Generating your own traffic Versus SEM
Time
Traffic
Time
Traffic
Pros:
You own the traffic
It builds on itself and becomes
larger than SEM over time
Cons
Requires great content to work
Lower ROI at the start
Pros:
Faster ROI at the start
Predictable costs and volume
No reliance on great content
creating talent
Cons
Much more expensive over
time
Content Driven Traffic SEM Driven Traffic
105. Your first Marketing Hire
• The crucial marketing skill: knowing how to generate leads
• Often referred to as Demand Gen
• Forget branding, marcoms, etc.
• They are secondary to lead generation and funnel optimization
• Great marketing is all about execution
• Ideas are cheap
• Focus on their track record for getting things done
106. Phase 6 – Make it Scalable – Exit Criteria
• Predictable, Repeatable, Scalable
• Consistent growth in Bookings (not just ARR)
• Proof that you can add salespeople, and make them productive in a predictable way
• Proven lead sources that can scale
• Customers are consistently successful and happy
107. Deliverables at the End of the Process
Customer SuccessSalesMiddle of FunnelTop of Funnel
Strangers Visitors Leads Customers PromotersAttract CloseConvert Delight
Marketing Playbook Sales Playbook
Customer Success
Playbook
Sales Enablement
Tools
Onboarding and
Training Tools
Automation and Technology layer
What to say and do
at each stage
Metrics
108. Phase 7.
Ensure Customer Success
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
7
Ensure
Customer
Success
109. Ensure Customer Success
• Has to be done at all phases
• But called out as a separate phase as it’s common to see churn increasing
as sales starts scaling
110. Possible Solutions
• Tighten definition of who is a good customer
• Understand the best and worst segments
• Don’t sell to the wrong customers
• Stop sales from over-promising, or selling when the fit with the customer is
poor
• Adjust sales compensation to reflect whether the customer stays or churns
• Improve the Product to fix areas that are causing customer unhappiness
• Improve onboarding
• And the customer success organization and processes
112. Phase 8.
Make it profitable
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
8
Make it
Profitable
113. Phase 8 – Exit Criteria
• Profitable Unit Economics:
• To be discussed later
114. Phase 9.
Hit the Gas and Scale!
Scaling the Business
9
Hit the Gas
and Scale
115. Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
Conserve Cash until the Scaling Phase
Cash Burn
116. Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
A common mistake…
• Not hiring enough sales
people in the Scaling phase
• Founders remain in burn
avoidance mode
117. Why Scale as fast as you can?
• Most tech markets are “Winner takes all”
• As soon as one company shows it can grow there will be fast followers
• You need to grow like crazy to become that winner
• You have a proven cash making machine, so can raise the funds needed
118. The Winner Takes All Flywheel
• Free traffic increases
• Word of mouth grows
• The leader gets attention from media
• Decision becomes “Why am I not buying from the leader?”
• Increasing integrations make the product more functional
• Barrier to entry for competitors
• Able to invest more in Sales & Marketing + Product
• Feeds the flywheel
120. Recognize where you are in the lifecycle
Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Test
Hypothesis
Prove the
Value
Prove it can
be sold
Find
Repeatable
Sales Motion
Prove non-
Founders can
sell
Make it
Scalable
Ensure
Customer
Success
Make it
Profitable
Hit the Gas
and Scale
Scale the org &
its processes
10
Etc.
11
121. Scaling the Business
Search for Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
Prioritize what to do based on your stage
• Don’t jump ahead:
• Hiring too many sales people before the sales process is repeatable
• Expand internationally before you have nailed scaling profitably in the US
• Etc.
129. MOTIVATIONS
FRICTION CONCERNS
We try to motivate with good content
But frequently irritate the buyer with the barrier that stops them
from getting at the content, and lose them at that step
135. Redesign
Cold Outreach
Invitation to…
(something of
value)
• Educational Event
• Meet their peers
• See data that is of value
• See their own data in a new way
• Etc.
Build
Relationship
Build Trust
136. Use publicly accessible Data to build personalized assessments
Hi Barbara,
In doing a bit of research on fortinet.com, I noticed
that you’ve lost a significant amount of traffic to the
site (4,400 visits) over the past month. Is this
something the team is aware of or have any idea what
could have contributed to it? I also noticed while you
folks dropped off the 1stpage of Google in 11 searches,
there are tons of opportunities for your team (916
search opportunities!)
See below:
138. CLEARBIT LEADS + DATA ENRICHMENT
New Leads
Enrich Existing
Leads
139. CLEARBIT
• Data Quality
• Highly skeptical
• Seen lots of products like this before
• Enrichment data wasn’t good
• Data Coverage
• Skeptical
• What % of our leads would be covered in this database?
Buyer’s Key Concerns
140. I have to go through IT to
get Salesforce connected
FREE TRIAL BLOCKAGE POINT
Connect to
Salesforce
146. WHAT IS YOUR TIME TO
WOW! ?
Thanks to Gail Goodman of Constant Contact
147. DEFINING WOW!
Thanks to Gail Goodman of Constant Contact
A moment where your buyer sees
something cool and exciting
• Motivates them to continue exploring
The moment when your buyer
gets excited enough to want to buy
Mini Wow!
Full Wow!
148. TIME TO WOW!
• How many steps?
• How much time does it take?
• How much FRICTION is involved
154. Salsify’s Original Trial Experience
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
157. Sign In… Now What?
• Lots of work still required
158. Get Inside your Buyers Head and Analyze for
Problems
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
159. Redesign Trial Steps for Problems (Friction, Concerns,
& Motivations)
Sign up
Wait for
email with
Account
Open the
App
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Delay causing
major drop off
160. First Step in the Redesign
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Sign up
Learn the
UI
163. Still leaves a problem:
• Locate & Export Content
• Then import to Salsify to have
something to play with
Then:
Land directly in App
164. Major Friction + Other people involved = Long Delays
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Sign up
Learn the
UI
165. Offer a chance to
start with Sample
Data
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
They now have the
MOTIVATION to
import their own data
Play with
Sample
Data
Mini Wow!
Learn the
UI
166.
167. Eliminate the risk that they won’t find the path to Wow!
Learn the
UI
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
• High friction
• Too much risk they
won’t find the path
to Wow!
Sign up
169. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Before After
Trial Request ->
Logged into App
Trial Request ->
Product Page
Trial Request ->
Taking action 3x Overall Improvement
Uplift - % Conversion, Before and After
170. Next Problem Area…
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Export to
new
Retailer
Sign up
with new
Retailer
Play with
Sample
Data
• High Friction
• Long Delay
174. Problem Solved – Export to Google Manufacturer
Center
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
175. Last Remaining Problem Area…
Sign up
Import
Content
Locate &
Export
Content
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
• Huge Friction & Delay
• Other People involved
176. Scrape publicly available data from existing retailer’s
pages
Sign up
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
No import
needed
Scrape
Content
for them
• They have my content in here already
• They’re showing me all the issues
Mini Wow!
177. Eliminates Need for Sample Data
Sign up
Play with
Sample
Data
Export to
Google
See their
own Data
Scrape
Content
for them
178. Final Redesigned Process • Fast Time to Wow!
• High conversion rates
Sign up
Export to
Google
See and solve
problems with
their own Data
Scrape
Content
for them