# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending February 12, 2021

Published: 12 February 2021
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-february-12-2021

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Active Users! A

n active user is any user who interacts with your platform in some way during a specific time period that you can identify (depends on your business but can be daily, weekly, monthly). Some consider this a vanity metric but [here is why this is still important](https://www.grow.com/blog/why-are-active-users-important).

Link: https://www.grow.com/blog/why-are-active-users-important

## 2. SALES

Many well-known tech companies (Atlassian, Zoom, SurveyMonkey) "moved upmarket" - which means they started in the Consumer/SMB space and transitioned into a successful enterprise-focused business. The team at SaaStr has [5 tips to closing larger](https://www.saastr.com/5-tips-to-closing-more-bigger-deals) deals more frequently and Tom Hale has a great [case-study on how it was done at SurveyMonkey](https://thenextweb.com/growth-quarters/2020/12/14/3-key-considerations-to-prep-your-saas-offering-to-sell-upmarket/).

Link: https://www.saastr.com/5-tips-to-closing-more-bigger-deals

## 3. PR

Getting PR if you’re an unknown startup is hard (and also can be seen as a low priority in their stable of things-to-get-done)- but it's not as hard as you think without a publicist. [Here is a great 101 article from Point Nine Capital](https://medium.com/point-nine-news/how-to-get-press-coverage-fe9dfb1249c8)(they call it PR for dummies) on how to get great press coverage. The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center also has a webinar coming up on Feb 17 PST on [how to get PR for your business without a publicist](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-to-get-pr-for-your-business-without-a-publicist-with-james-oliver-jr-tickets-138658213449?aff=NSL).

Link: https://medium.com/point-nine-news/how-to-get-press-coverage-fe9dfb1249c8

## 4. VENTURE

The [CBInsights/Money Tree tech report for Q4 2020 is now out](https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwjhnef9os5lnrl/CB-Insights_MoneyTree-Q4-2020.pdf?dl=0) and despite this whole pandemic thing, 2020 investments reach a new annual record (of USD $130B - up 14% YoY) - mostly attributable to the rise of fewer-but-bigger checks with investors consolidating their tech investments into more mega-rounds (reflected by the fact that deal count is down 9% from 2019). IPO's also made a come-back - 147 tech IPO's in 2020 vs 90 in 2019. 2021 is also not messing around with, $40B invested, setting an all-time high record, [according to Crunchbase](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/january-2021-vc-funding-report-record/).

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwjhnef9os5lnrl/CB-Insights_MoneyTree-Q4-2020.pdf?dl=0

## 5. USABILITY TESTING

Creating an intuitive user experience within an application or website takes time, and requires a continual [*process*](https://medium.com/@Sendbird/implementing-a-ux-design-process-from-the-ground-up-for-an-enterprise-saas-product-29d81184a2fd)of design - what may seem obvious to one person may not be for everyone. It's not just about UX - it's about usability testing, [read here for the fundamentals of this concept](https://marvelapp.com/blog/usability-testing/). Once you have that article mastered, head over here on how to elevate your [UX design empathy skills](https://uxdesign.cc/the-secret-sauce-to-elevating-your-design-storytelling-in-4-different-ways-d146c750943).

Link: https://medium.com/@Sendbird/implementing-a-ux-design-process-from-the-ground-up-for-an-enterprise-saas-product-29d81184a2fd

## 6. FRAMEWORKS

Beyond measurements/metrics, a successful business framework can distill complex processes or models to make execution more of a simple recipe (but ones that can build enduring, mass-market businesses). Sarah Tavel has [compiled a great list of compelling Frameworks](https://sarahtavel.medium.com/frameworks-12c220e775eb) covering the 10x model, the hierarchy of engagement, hype cycles, and more!

Link: https://sarahtavel.medium.com/frameworks-12c220e775eb

## 7. SAAS SPEND

The "Covid Boost " is a thing, the speed of digital transformation is going gangbusters - so much so that [Gartner has had to re-forecast their numbers](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-01-25-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-it-spending-to-grow-6-point-2-percent-in-2021) in this report that has increased its estimates for global enterprise and IT spend for 2021 and 2022, with Enterprise Software and SaaS the biggest winners - projected to grow 6.2% and another 4.6% in 2022 - with Enterprise Software really taking the big (forecast) prizes - 8.8% 2021 and 10.2% 2022.

Link: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-01-25-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-it-spending-to-grow-6-point-2-percent-in-2021

## 8. PRICING

In the Software and SaaS world, pricing has always been tricky. With the more recent additional complexity introduced by Data, AI, and Intelligence-based products, it’s getting even harder - how do you price intelligence?. Tomasz Tunguz [breaks down what he has learned](https://tomtunguz.com/pricing-summary) on pricing over the past 10 years and this article [breaks down pricing in Per-seat vs Usage-based scenarios](https://www.saasoperationaltactics.com/post/pricing-in-saas-usage-vs-per-seat-pricing).

Link: https://tomtunguz.com/pricing-summary

## 9. CUSTOMER PROFILE

Here is a great tool for anyone. Sales can be a real uphill battle when revenue teams don't truly understand their ideal customer, building out customer profiles is an incredibly useful way to identify your best customers. So download [this Profiler kit pdf](https://www.dropbox.com/s/0q7aiwkc3ug78jf/icp-checklist.pdf?dl=0%20)and use these [questions and survey generator](https://close.com/resources/ideal-customer-profile-generator/) to quickly generate the ideal questions and template for your customer profiles. The rest is all on you.

Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0q7aiwkc3ug78jf/icp-checklist.pdf?dl=0%20

## 10. CASE STUDY

OTKA - They are an under-the-hood Tech company ("one of those" SOMA 2nd Street Tech Companies is the SF reference) but coming up to almost $1B in ARR!!!! So check [this SaaStr Case Study on the growth of the OKTA business](https://www.saastr.com/5-interesting-learnings-from-okta-at-1b-in-arr) on how they got there.

Link: https://www.saastr.com/5-interesting-learnings-from-okta-at-1b-in-arr

## POD OF THE WEEK

To add some power to #4 above [What It Takes to Really Raise Capital in 2021 with Christoph Janz](https://youtu.be/ta_8RhIZNLg), Co-Founder, and Partner @ Point Nine Capital‬.

Link: https://youtu.be/ta_8RhIZNLg