Customer Success is a relatively new discipline in the Software-as-a-Service world. Consequently, there are many unanswered questions about how best to build and manage great Customer Success teams for SaaS companies. Because the financial impact of a great CS team is compounded monthly and can meaningfully increase the growth and decrease the cash needs of SaaS startups, it’s critical for CS leaders to get it right.
One of the most important changes is the workplace in the last 20 years is the notion that most employees are free agents. We are hired and fired and resign at will. It’s a markedly different era than the career salarymen of IBM’s heyday who remained with the company for decades from college graduation through retirement. In this highly-competitive talent market, where every employee is a free agent, hiring and retaining talent has become a key strategic advantage.
I’ve never paid much attention to earnings reports in the past. But as I’ve been analyzing the tech industry more and more, and the stock market has begun to surpass record highs, I’ve been wondering whether the persistent bull market in tech is healthy. Or at the very least, whether the companies pushing the industry forward are able to understand the environment and their businesses well enough to meet the commitments they make to public market investors.
“Advice is one person’s experience generalized”, an entrepreneur told me once. “It’s a single point of view with all kinds of survivorship and attribution bias. Advice can be a terribly dangerous thing, because it can be used as a shortcut for thinking.”
When I asked how he responded to requests for advice, because as a successful entrepreneur he was often solicited for it, he replied that he first shared the structure and the framework he used to look at the problem. Only after discussing that, did he reveal the details about he and his team had arrived at a decision.
How much is my business worth? It’s a question every entrepreneur, founder and business owner asks themselves. This is particularly true during acquisition conversations with a prospective buyer. Because most companies are privately held, the acquisition details of the roughly 10,000 businesses who sell themselves for less than $500M each year in the US remain hidden. There are enormous forces at play in the M&A market that indicate M&A activity will increase substantially in the next few years. Consequently, every business leader ought to develop and maintain a good understanding of their business’ market value.
Through the first six months of 2014, VCs have raised about as much as all of 2013. If this pace of fund raising continues, 2014 would mark the biggest year for VCs since 2001, when the industry raised about $38B. This new money hasn’t yet hit the startup fundraising market in earnest, as the chart above shows. The second quarter of 2014 is the sixteenth largest by capital deployed sinced 1995, making it a top quartile quarter, but to break into the top five, that figure would need to triple.
In 2008, when I started working at Redpoint I knew very little about how the venture business worked, and before I started at the firm, I wanted to prepare by learning as much as I could about the industry. Unfortunately, not much was written about venture capital at the time.
In fact, I found only two books: a textbook on private equity and venture capital by HBS professor Joshua Lerner, and an out-of-print collection of 32 VC interviews called “Done Deals,” published in September 2000. I bought a second-hand copy on Amazon and read it cover to cover.
I see a recurring three step pattern with data waves:
First data collected.
Then it’s presented.
Last it is made actionable.
In every data wave, the companies that transform data into actionable insights are the most valuable because their products not only identify but solve problems. Knowing about an issue without understanding the mechanics required to fix it causes paralysis.
Quantified self tools like FitBit and JawboneUp and Nike Fuel capture and display sleep data and while these devices confirm that I wake at 130am every night, they can’t help me sleep through the night. This user experience induces neurosis. The same is true for the pedometer function - I can measure the steps I walk but not how much healthier I become (how much longer I’ll live date: 2013-01-24 ---
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Last week, Twitter released a feature enabling users to download organic tweet data. Naturally, I put my data through its paces to see if I could find any best practices for this blog. Below are the conclusions, which are tested to 95% confidence. I’ve also linked below to the code for recreating this analysis for your audience.
In summary, the best time for me to tweet is between 8-10 am every day and then from 3-5pm. I’m going to change my Buffer schedule to reflect this data. I’m also going to recirculate Tweets more aggressively.
Listening is hard, as my friend once said, because you run the risk of having to change the way you see the world.
That line stopped me cold when I was reading In the Light of What We Know because it’s so true. To set aside the way we’ve thought about an idea in the past and consider it as if it were a totally new concept is what a Buddhist might call Beginner’s Mind. It means taking the time to reflect and consider new perspectives. Consequently, listening is one of the greatest opportunities to learn.