Aligning Product and Go-To-Market with Metrics - Kellblog
Some background information on my recent coauthored paper on aligning product and go-to-marketing using customer value metrics| Kellblog
I first met Ian Howells in London long ago, as fellow footsoldiers in the early relational database wars. While you had to be pretty technical to do product marketing in those days, Ian was technical with a capital T, having just sprung from university with a PhD in distributed databases. We fought together on the losing side of the database wars [1], shared many of the same scars from the experience, learned many of the same lessons, and — I’m reasonably sure — both decided to aim our ...| Kellblog
I first met Ian Howells in London long ago, as fellow footsoldiers in the early relational database wars. While you had to be pretty technical to do product marketing in those days, Ian was technical with a capital T, having … Continue reading → The post Smart Conversations by Ian Howells: A Must-Read Book on Where B2B Marketing Strategy Meets Generative AI appeared first on Kellblog.| Kellblog
Some background information on my recent coauthored paper on aligning product and go-to-marketing using customer value metrics| Kellblog
“Well, he’s never been a sales development rep (SDR) manager before, but he has been an SDR for 3 years at another company. The chance to be a manager is why he’d come here.” — Famous Last Words I can’t … Continue reading →| Kellblog
All strategy is a function of situation. Situation varies not only as a function of the individual company and market, but also of time. Remember that classic Silicon Valley strategy books were written in a different time and thus had some implicit assumptions built into them. For example,| Kellblog
The other day I was looking at an ARR bridge [1] with a young finance ace. He made a few comments and concluded with, “and net revenue retention (NRR) is thus 112%, not bad.” I thought, “Wait, stop! You can’t … Continue reading →| Kellblog
I just finished delivering my presentation at SaaStr Annual 2020, dubbed Churn Is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention. The presentation is about understanding SaaS businesses: how to think about them, how to value them, how to use unit economics … Continue reading →| Kellblog
Financial analysts speak a lot about “billings” in a public SaaS companies, but in private VC-backed SaaS companies, you rarely hear discussion of this metric. In this post, we’ll use a model of a private SaaS company (where we know … Continue reading →| Kellblog
KeyBanc Capital Markets (KBCM) recently published their 13th annual private SaaS company survey. This post has three purposes: to let you know it’s out, to provide you with a link so you can get it, and to offer some quick takeaways on skimming through the results.| Kellblog
Every day I hear more and more about the “sea of sameness” from founders, CEOs, CROs, and CMOs. The dialog goes something like this: I believe the first four statements are largely true, though I might challenge statement two. But … Continue reading → The post Navigating the Mythical Sea of Sameness appeared first on Kellblog.| Kellblog
When you're under the gun to get something done, always remember this rule: when in doubt, be clear. That's the first rule of messaging.| Kellblog
Just a quick post to share my slides from today’s presentation at SaaS Metrics Palooza 2024, entitled The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics. The short summary is: In short, to know ARR we used to read contracts. In the … Continue reading →| Kellblog
This is going to sound difficult and run contrary to the industry conventional wisdom, but bear with me. When a B2B SaaS startup is hiring their first salesperson, I think they should look for someone who:| Kellblog
Should you hire raw individual sales talent, a seasoned sales manager, or something in between? In this post, we'll answer that question.| Kellblog
A guy walks into a bar and orders a $17 Martini. Is it MRR (monthly recurring revenue)? The potentially surprising answer: maybe, and often yes. If he’s a tourist who happened to walk in, then no, it’s not MRR. If … Continue reading →| Kellblog
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of big-company HR practices. I’m more of the First Break all the Rules type. Despite my general skepticism of many standard practices, we still do annual performance reviews at my company, though … Continue reading →| Kellblog
Hey, what’s your win rate? It’s another seemingly simple question. But, like most SaaS metrics, when you dig deeper you find it’s not. In this post we’ll take a look at how to calculate win rates and use win rates … Continue reading →| Kellblog
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) space is full of seemingly simple metrics that can quickly slip through your fingers when you try to grasp them. For example, see Measuring SaaS Renewals Rates: Way More Than Meets the Eye for a two-thousand-word post examining the … Continue reading →| Kellblog
Quick, go ask any sales manager or Silicon Valley how much pipeline you need to make your quarter. The answer you will hear: 3x. Always, everywhere, every time. Let’s talk about why that’s true, what it means, and what to … Continue reading →| Kellblog
I was reading a SaaS benchmark report the other day and encountered this line: “Win rates declining [over the two-year period] from 23% to 19% might not seem all that significant. But in terms of required pipeline, it represents a … Continue reading →| Kellblog
I’m always looking for better ways to distill strategy. My favorite strategy author is Richard Rumelt, who wrote Good Strategy, Bad Strategy and the more recent but less acclaimed follow-on, The Crux. I love Rumelt’s work for two reasons: Much … Continue reading →| Kellblog
From the viewpoint of your board, there are founders, operators, investors, and employees. How can you use this to help your career plan?| Kellblog
I said in yesterday’s post, entitled Too Much Money Makes You Stupid, that while I don’t have much of a beef with Domo, that I did want to observe in today’s fund-to-excess environment that any idea — including making a series of Alec … Continue reading →| Kellblog
