# February 05th, 2021

Published: 5 February 2021
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/february-05th-2021

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

Retention. Long-term retention is the foundation of sustainable product growth. Retention is viewed differently in different industries. Gaming companies have [1, 7, and 30-day retention rate metrics](https://gopractice.io/blog/long-term-retention) and Segment has a great guide on [how to measure and improve customer retention](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gz42em1qqw4327e/customer-retention-guide-segment.pdf?dl=0)

Link: https://gopractice.io/blog/long-term-retention

## 2. COLD CALLS

2% of today’s cold calls actually result in meetings and 63% of sales professionals say it’s what they dislike most about their jobs. However - 78% of decision-makers have taken an appointment or attended an event as a result of a cold call - so how do you be the latter not the former? [ZoomInfo has a download for you](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ctf3lpyuho4i38/ZoomInfo_ColdCallingTips_eBook.pdf?dl=0). Jason Bay also has some [methods to optimize response](https://blissfulprospecting.com/reply-method/)rates and Gong has some additional [recommendations on cold calling](https://www.gong.io/blog/is-cold-calling-dead/).

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ctf3lpyuho4i38/ZoomInfo_ColdCallingTips_eBook.pdf?dl=0

## 3. FEEDBACK

No-one likes to be told they are doing a poor job. Delivering this news can be pretty anxiety-ridden. But we all have to do it. [Here are some great tips for delivering that news well](https://medium.com/small-business-strong/how-to-tell-an-employee-theyre-not-meeting-expectations-b419d9178452) and when it comes to management - I love some thought-provoking rules - so [here are 6 counterintuitive ones](https://firstround.com/review/6-counterintuitive-rules-for-being-a-better-manager-advice-from-lambda-school-quip-and-facebook/) from First Round Capital.

Link: https://medium.com/small-business-strong/how-to-tell-an-employee-theyre-not-meeting-expectations-b419d9178452

## 4. CAPITAL

In the current/post COVID tech world, it doesn’t have to always be about Venture Capital or equity (and dilution) when looking to finance. Revenue-based financing is quickly becoming a popular way for startups to raise funds without sacrificing equity, with the rise of significant services such as [Lighter Capital](https://www.lightercapital.com/) and [The 20-Minute Term Sheet](https://www.20mintermsheet.com/) in the past couple of years. [Here is how it works and what these financiers care about](https://blog.chartmogul.com/revenue-based-financing/). HINT: It’s ARR and growth. From the SaaS CFO here is the [Founder’s Guide to Venture Debt](https://www.thesaascfo.com/founders-guide-to-venture-debt) with advantages vs disadvantages of Debt vs Equity.

Link: https://www.lightercapital.com/

## 5. FREEMIUM

It's a new year and a new Freemium posting. This is extensive, so definitely bookmark-able as it covers a lot of detail on [how to make Freemium models work](https://www.trychameleon.com/blog/making-freemium-models-work).

Link: https://www.trychameleon.com/blog/making-freemium-models-work

## 6. PREDICTABLE REVENUE

It's the #1 reason investors love SaaS. I may give Salesforce a hard time occasionally - but almost 20 years ago, they launched the methodology of Predictable Revenue - which then became a sales guide published way back in 2011 by Aaron Ross - [Crib Notes PDF pf that book is downloadable here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctl93ikg24t7siz/Predictable-Revenue-Methodology.pdf?dl=0.).

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ctl93ikg24t7siz/Predictable-Revenue-Methodology.pdf?dl=0.

## 7. REVENUE MANAGEMENT

Tagging on to #6 above - revenue management is [the system of setting prices and adjusting them based on supply and demand](https://www.chargify.com/blog/infographic-the-evolution-of-revenue-management/?ref=saas-weekly) (thanks for the infographic Chargify). In SaaS, which is all about predictability, this is really important, with RevOps being a new category of practice within maturing SaaS companies.

Link: https://www.chargify.com/blog/infographic-the-evolution-of-revenue-management/?ref=saas-weekly

## 8. SECURITY

Back-of-the-napkin Math tells us that about [88% of all SaaS](https://dskok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/img_5d9cb4f575998-e1570551047347.png) is now sitting on public-cloud. But building on a major cloud provider’s platform doesn’t make your products secure. [This is a great video and transcript hosted by HeavyBit](https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/essential-cloud-infrastructure-security/) covering the core tenets of modern cloud infrastructure security.

Link: https://dskok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/img_5d9cb4f575998-e1570551047347.png

## 9. SILICON CLOUD

Here is a concept for you - (as I predicted [daaaaaays ago](https://www.top10in.tech/top-10-in-tech/top-10-2021-predictions-in-tech-what-to-know-for-week-ending-january-1-2021)) Geography is becoming way less of a thing. In the current portfolio of [Initialized Capital](https://initialized.com/)(who I actually am not quite sure why they call themselves "the honeybadgers of Venture") fewer than one-third of the companies are based in the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. [In this survey](https://blog.initialized.com/2021/01/data-post-pandemic-silicon-valley-isnt-a-place/?fbclid=IwAR2cwbmGHg77U9IuTps120D9l9GU6ClSJvQf8lhlx-AkPyTWczFhz06Evvo), more than 40 percent of founders say that the best place to start a company will be in the cloud.

Link: https://www.top10in.tech/top-10-in-tech/top-10-2021-predictions-in-tech-what-to-know-for-week-ending-january-1-2021

## 10. SEO

For many SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is some otherworldly voodoo - But discoverability trumps content marketing and needs to be an endless-part of any modern business strategy. So sign up to [Notion's SEO MBA class](https://www.notion.so/The-SaaS-SEO-MBA-2e4dbb15e24b4d6c9ffe5a98a788bc6a) and get learning! The resources linked are meant to be a comprehensive curriculum on everything you need to know about SEO for SaaS companies.

Link: https://www.notion.so/The-SaaS-SEO-MBA-2e4dbb15e24b4d6c9ffe5a98a788bc6a

## POD OF THE WEEK

Complimenting #6 above - for some, the concept of ’salesperson’ is cringe - so [listen to this podcast from Predictable Revenue that explores the idea of social selling](https://predictablerevenue.com/podcast/170-social-selling-and-reversing-the-hatred-of-salespeople-with-ari-levine) and bringing back the human element of sales.

Link: https://predictablerevenue.com/podcast/170-social-selling-and-reversing-the-hatred-of-salespeople-with-ari-levine