# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending December 3, 2021

Published: 3 December 2021
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-december-3-2021

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

ZCP: Repeat this metric five times as fast as you can: "*month zero cash-on-cash payback*"- this tongue twister is best referred to as ZCP. It's a cash-based metric because cash-in-the-bank is THE critical number for a SaaS company to monitor in my experience. ZCP answers the question: [if we invest **$1** in sales costs (such as salaries and commissions), how long does it take to recoup that dollar spent and welcome it back to our bank account](https://tomtunguz.com/month-zero-cash-on-cash/)?

Link: https://tomtunguz.com/month-zero-cash-on-cash/

## 2. BURN RATE

Speaking of #1 - because cash is king in SaaS. [Here is a very bookmarkable link on how to best calculate cash burn rates](https://www.thesaascfo.com/how-to-calculate-your-cash-burn-rate/) - both gross and net - with some great ideas on things you can do to bring that burn rate down.

Link: https://www.thesaascfo.com/how-to-calculate-your-cash-burn-rate/

## 3. WRITING

Being able to write well is a life skill that needs to sit with founders. So here is 3 step guide: Step 1. [How to position your startup](https://firstround.com/review/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right/) and [achieve your unique value prop](https://twitter.com/josberco/status/1301957543594528769?utm_source=indieletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%7B$indieletters%7D&utm_term=); Step 2. [how to write well](https://firstround.com/review/a-founders-guide-to-writing-well/) and [one more version for good measure](https://adamfaliq.com/2020/10/28/write-well/); and Step 3 [top tips for telling stories](https://firstround.com/review/good-leaders-are-great-storytellers-our-6-tips-for-telling-stories-that-resonate/).

Link: https://firstround.com/review/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right/

## 4. SALES

This week, Jason Lemkin lays down a great discussion on how [sales efficiencies in a high growth startup get worse at scale](https://www.saastr.com/why-your-cost-of-sales-often-doubles-as-you-scale/)...........so we all got to plan for it.

Link: https://www.saastr.com/why-your-cost-of-sales-often-doubles-as-you-scale/

## 5. HIRING

#4 above leads into this next question of hiring to succeed in B2B Sales. Transitioning out of founder-led sales - When should you hire your AEs and SDRs to make sure you can deliver on your growth targets? [This article is a little introduction to the tool](https://medium.com/dawn-capital/saas-foundations-hiring-to-succeed-in-b2b-a-tool-to-help-you-know-when-to-hire-aes-2ca6d435c425), and the tool itself is [a Google Worksheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cJdahZ3_4OtcbDjxmtqYdJvwu39OB1j-fqeDvyYg6o4/edit#gid=108165048) and needs your ACV and sales cycle length metrics to work.

Link: https://medium.com/dawn-capital/saas-foundations-hiring-to-succeed-in-b2b-a-tool-to-help-you-know-when-to-hire-aes-2ca6d435c425

## 6. PPG

Grab your tech dictionaries, everyone! I have a new acronym for you: [PPG or People Powered Growth](https://productled.com/people-powered-growth/). PPG is a derivative of Product-led growth consisting of a cross-functional team with both customer-facing and non-customer-facing members. It's a People + Product partnership that develops and tests solutions searching for ways to scale human interactions/intervention with a product. Some examples of PPG companies are Drift, Dropbox, and Loom.

Link: https://productled.com/people-powered-growth/

## 7. CI/CD

Continuous improvement (CI) is not just a process that dev teams use to iterate and ship software quickly. The method [identifies opportunities to reduce waste and streamline work within any department or team](https://flowingly.io/how-to-foster-continuous-improvement). CI can easily be confused with [Continuous Deployment](https://sdtimes.com/cicd/developers-using-ci-cd-report-finds/) and Continuous Delivery - but they are not the same. [This article from Angel.co](https://angel.co/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-continuous-integration) helps clarify the differences and makes the case why CI is the optimal dev strategy for delivering outstanding customer experiences.

Link: https://flowingly.io/how-to-foster-continuous-improvement

## 8. DEMO

This one is interesting to me - as the path to Demo is *precisely* the primary call to action my website is designed around. I assume it is the same for many of you B2B people, so..... "[Should Your Website Drive Prospects to a Demo?](https://kellblog.com/2021/11/21/should-your-website-drive-prospects-to-a-demo/)" Take a read of the article to determine if this is a problem at your startup.

Link: https://kellblog.com/2021/11/21/should-your-website-drive-prospects-to-a-demo/

## 9. PITCH

Pitch Decks won't be replaced anytime soon, even though people are trying some [nifty ways to bypass them](https://www.protocol.com/pitch-deck-not-yet-dead). So, according to TechCrunch, [these are the five most critical pitch deck slides most founders get wrong](https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/16/5-critical-pitch-deck-slides-most-founders-get-wrong/), and here is a monster collection (139!) of [funded pitch decks here](https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/pitch-deck-collection-from-vc-funded-startups) (including the neo-classics: AirBnB, LinkedIn, Intercom, Transferwise, Canva, and Sendgrid).

Link: https://www.protocol.com/pitch-deck-not-yet-dead

## 10. CASE STUDY

[HubSpot's turn](https://www.saastr.com/5-interesting-learnings-from-hubspot-as-it-approaches-1-billion-in-arr) because I use them - this is another SaaS company that has managed to cross $1b in ARR (and growing at about 30%!!) even though I renegotiate lower rates with them YoY :-). They have been around for 14 years but didn't really get started until about 2011. You can watch the $0 revenue to IPO breakdown[here too](https://youtu.be/PE1zLA0R6rA).

**WAIT A MINUTE - BONUS**: This is a cool one sourced from the [FKA Newsletter](https://www.fka.nz/news) focused on [what happens on the internet in a given minute in 2021](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/from-amazon-to-zoom-what-happens-in-an-internet-minute-in-2021/) now that the global internet population is 5.2 billion (up from 4.5 billion last year).

Link: https://www.saastr.com/5-interesting-learnings-from-hubspot-as-it-approaches-1-billion-in-arr

## POD OF THE WEEK

Are you still a bit confused about #6 above? As in" "isn't *that just describing Customer Success?*" Well, no. Take a [listen to this podcast to help clear things up a little by describing PPG](https://soundcloud.com/managing-marketing/nick-keenan-and-darren-discuss-people-powered-growth) from an agency perspective.

Link: https://soundcloud.com/managing-marketing/nick-keenan-and-darren-discuss-people-powered-growth