If you’re a $1M+ annual recurring revenue SaaS company, you probably had a pretty great idea. You also likely had at least a passable strategy to get to that first milestone of success. And you must have had some semblance of a product. But the odds remain very low that your $1M+ ARR will scale […]
Strategy
Sales and Marketing for SaaS: How Does Your Spending Stack Up?
Creating a successful SaaS company involves alot of trial and error, even if your product is amazing. Without an innovative marketing team and a dedicated sales staff, customers aren’t going to know how great your solution is. However, for strapped-for-cash SaaS companies, especially those just starting out, it can be really difficult to know how […]
The Customer Success Team Can’t be Responsible for SaaS Customer Churn
There, I said it. As a SaaS founder who led sales, customer success, product support, and professional services, I fully believed every customer retention issue was squarely on my shoulders. And every customer retention win was because of the product. I LOVED our product and the value it brought to our enterprise customers. I passionately […]
Here’s Why Vertical SaaS Makes Sales a Lot Simpler
It’s safe to say that in the last few years, the SaaS industry has experienced unprecedented growth. According to OpenView Labs, the industry is on track to close 2018 with a 21.5% increase to $71.2 billion. But with that growth comes some pretty serious competition. In 2013, SaaS companies reported, on average, having just two […]
The 4 Legs of Your SaaS Bench
Product, marketing, sales, customer success. All four legs of your SaaS bench are necessary and have to function together as a single unit. When something isn’t working, don’t look at one area myopically, look at all four together.
Should You Let Customers Pause a SaaS Subscription?
What happens if a customer asks to pause their subscription? It’s something founders and executives don’t normally think about as they plan their SaaS pricing, packaging, terms & conditions, and cancellation processes. A request to pause a customer’s subscription is a bummer, of course. It’s a ding to your MRR, and who even knows how to […]
How to Execute a SaaS Land and Expand Strategy
In sales “Land and expand” usually refers to a strategy to land a customer with a small deal, and then sell into the organization to expand your footprint to more seats, additional departments or more products & services. Nowhere does this make more sense than in SaaS. In a typical low-touch SaaS “sale,” an individual […]
Active SaaS, Passive SaaS, Value and Churn
Active SaaS Product Strategy Proves Value We’ve all subscribed to passive SaaS products that may be cool, but never become indispensable. It’s likely you’ve also used at least one active SaaS product that goes out of its way to shove its value in your face. And if that active SaaS was actually valuable, then it’s […]
Anatomy of My SaaS CEO Dashboard
I spent the last eleven years or so as a SaaS CEO — growing from $1M in ARR to $10M+. I’ve always been data-driven, but when I discovered live dashboards, it changed my day-to-day life. Metrics are important, but access to and visualization of key data are much harder to come by. So here’s the anatomy […]
Real SaaS Sales Problems, And What To Do About Them
Let me start by saying that I LOVE SaaS. I love using SaaS. I love helping SaaS companies. I love running my own SaaS company. And I really, really love building SaaS sales teams. It’s an exciting time to be in SaaS, and opportunity is everywhere. But there are also a lot of uniquely modern […]
