# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending December 20, 2019

Published: 19 December 2019
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-december-20-2019

## 1. FREEMIUM vs FREE TRIAL

Which is better for your SaaS Startup? [Craft ventures take a review](https://medium.com/craft-ventures/freemium-vs-free-trial-which-is-better-for-saas-startups-97b9ac737597), starting with my old alma matter (and one of the original Freemium products) - Yammer. Tomusz Tunguz also [conducted a survey](https://tomtunguz.com/top-10-learnings-from-the-redpoint-free-trial-survey/) on Free Trials last year - My favorite fact: Conversion rates aren't impacted by trial length (so make them shorter).

Link: https://medium.com/craft-ventures/freemium-vs-free-trial-which-is-better-for-saas-startups-97b9ac737597

## 2. MAPPED

Google Maps says that it now [covers 98 percent of the places in the world where people live](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-maps-has-now-photographed-10-million-miles-in-street-view), including 10 million miles of Street View. The product also has 1 billion monthly users.Google obviously have some solid things to say on [driving product usage and retention](https://mixpanel.com/innovators/head-of-growth-at-google-whats-driving-product-usage-retention).

Link: https://www.cnet.com/news/google-maps-has-now-photographed-10-million-miles-in-street-view

## 3. HANDOFF

The customer journey has plenty of touch points and handoffs. Chartmogul provide some [great tips on customer handoff](https://blog.chartmogul.com/sales-customer-success-handoff) from sales to Customer Success teams.

Link: https://blog.chartmogul.com/sales-customer-success-handoff

## 4. CHURN

To understand why customers churn, it’s equally as important to [look at why customers stay](https://gopractice.io/blog/reduce-churn-rate-why-users-stay/). But to get there [the fidelity of the data collected](https://gopractice.io/blog/analytics-without-numbers-viewing-products-through-users-eyes/) to [evaluate this](https://gopractice.io/blog/increase-the-effectiveness-of-the-analysts/) needs to be high

Link: https://gopractice.io/blog/reduce-churn-rate-why-users-stay/

## 5. SALES

What does success look like? The answer is: It depends on your business. [This article interviews sales leaders](https://blog.kluster.com/2019/11/21/how-to-measure-success-in-sales-operations) from a variety of successful companies and how they measure success in their roles.

Link: https://blog.kluster.com/2019/11/21/how-to-measure-success-in-sales-operations

## 6. PRODUCT MARKET FIT

How does an early stage company know if they have PMF? [This article](https://gopractice.io/blog/what-is-product-market-fit-and-how-to-measure-pmf) has some great PMF definitions.

Link: https://gopractice.io/blog/what-is-product-market-fit-and-how-to-measure-pmf

## 7. CYBER CYBER CYBER

Security should be [part of your dev cycle](https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/what-teams-should-know-about-devsecops/) but also know your weak spots. Founder Institute discusses [6 points of vulnerability in a tech stack](https://fi.co/insight/keep-your-startup-safe-from-cyber-attacks-know-your-weak-spots) that may be a bit leaky.

Link: https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/what-teams-should-know-about-devsecops/

## 8. MARGIN

Andreessen Horowitz explores [Enterprise SaaS margin](https://a16z.com/2019/12/13/is-there-an-enterprise-margin-crisis), believing that there is a significant downward pressure on margins for software startups.

Link: https://a16z.com/2019/12/13/is-there-an-enterprise-margin-crisis

## 9. TERM SHEETS

As 2019 and the decade comes to a close there has been a significant disruption in the Venture Capital space, primarily centered around the #metoo movement, diversity in tech, and a shift in expectations on Growth vs profitability. According to Fortune magazine, [Term Sheet readers will have more pragmatic expectations](https://fortune.com/2019/12/17/term-sheet-crystal-ball-predictions-2020/) on valuations and bigger focus on inclusivity and ethics.

Link: https://fortune.com/2019/12/17/term-sheet-crystal-ball-predictions-2020/

## 10. PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Requires [great leaderships](https://www.atlassian.com/agile/product-management/product-manager) - here are interview with [Head of Growth at Reddit](https://gopractice.io/blog/interview-with-vaibhav-sahgal-reddit/) and [Head of Product at Twitter](https://gopractice.io/blog/interview-with-scott-eblen-twitter/) on how to create a good vision and strategy.

Link: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/product-management/product-manager