# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending February 14, 2020

Published: 14 February 2020
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-february-14-2020

Happy Valentines Day - in the words of [Anand Sanwal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anandsanwal). [I love you](https://www.fastcompany.com/3061344/how-emailing-i-love-you-translated-to-1-million-in-data-analysis-revenue).

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

[MRR (monthly recurring revenue)](https://saasmetrics.co/monthly-recurring-revenue/). In a surprise statement to no-one, this is the most important metric a SaaS company has. But MRR is a nuanced metric with a few flavors and this is something that everyone needs a deeper understanding of. [There are different ways to calculate the metrics and once nailed](https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/zendesk/learn-from-the-past-and-prepare-for-the-future-with-monthly-recurring-revenue-02283508), can then be leveraged to easily forecast where you are going as a business and which types of MRR are performing best.

Link: https://saasmetrics.co/monthly-recurring-revenue/

## 2. PLG

Successful Product Led Growth companies are everywhere and in order to get anything done, it requires Pirates, Shepherds and Sherpas within a team or organization. In the PLG vs non PLG world - [the roles of salespeople is very different, it’s Sherpas vs Shepherds](https://openviewpartners.com/blog/what-is-product-led-growth/).

Link: https://openviewpartners.com/blog/what-is-product-led-growth/

## 3. MANAGE vs LEAD

Not all great leaders are good at a managing (and vice versa) - especially in product teams. Nick Caldwell, VP of Engineering at Reddit [discusses this and how he leveraged leadership to grow his team by over 200%](https://art19.com/shows/inside-intercom/episodes/a5e6fc30-c523-4d71-bf6d-37ebed5e8dec%20).

Link: https://art19.com/shows/inside-intercom/episodes/a5e6fc30-c523-4d71-bf6d-37ebed5e8dec%20

## 4. VC

What's the hottest new sector for VC’s? Automakers, as in they are talking all kinds of tech investments. [Crunchbase take a look at this sectors prolific growth over the last two years](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/automaker-startup-funding-is-fast-and-furious/) with VW and Toyota leading in terms of spend. From ride-hailing apps to driverless car technology.

Link: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/automaker-startup-funding-is-fast-and-furious/

## 5. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Customer loyalty drives the success of a business, and the customer experience (CX) drives loyalty. Zen Desk has published their [CX Trends Report for 2020](https://d1eipm3vz40hy0.cloudfront.net/pdf/cxtrends/cx-trends-2020-full-report.pdf) and its full of great nuggets: 74% of customers feel loyal to a particular brand or company and 52% of customers report going out of their way to buy from their favorite brands.

Link: https://d1eipm3vz40hy0.cloudfront.net/pdf/cxtrends/cx-trends-2020-full-report.pdf

## 6. MARTECH

Whats the best marketing tech stack for your business? [Here is what the Team at Wunderkind recommend](https://www.wunderkindagency.com/post/saas-martech-stack). They say it’s perfect and I have to admit - it’s not bad.

Link: https://www.wunderkindagency.com/post/saas-martech-stack

## 7. REVENUE MANAGEMENT

This 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. FINTECH

Let's see how this plays out with Europe going full Brexit this year. According to [this report](https://www.innovatefinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/innovate-finance-2019-fintech-investment-landscape290120.pdf) (in handy PDF format) from [Innovate Finance](https://www.innovatefinance.com/), global fintech funding declined in 2019 compared with the year before ($35.7 billion, down 28%), but in a clear win for the region in comparison to the US, European fintechs, lead by the soon to be estranged UK ($4.9 billion, up 27%) scooped up more in funding (total $8.5 billion, up nearly 50%).

Link: https://www.innovatefinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/innovate-finance-2019-fintech-investment-landscape290120.pdf

## 10. COMPENSATION

[Betts Recruiting](https://bettsrecruiting.com/) release a compensation guide every year and [the 2020 version is now out](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U7BRuCCLlYHH3BoURFi1EjOs3LTttkr0/view). It covers salaries of some of the most important roles at high growth (mainly tech, mainly sales) companies. Big take home: The Tech industry is very lucrative still and average tech account executive saw a salary increase of more than 4% last year (beating inflation). Also, in order to hire those same executives, companies were willing to offer starting salary increases of 9%.

Link: https://bettsrecruiting.com/

## POD OF THE WEEK

With new hires, onboarding and ramping are incredibly important for a startup to master. The Startup Chat discuss this in detail, [especially on how to get this right for the first 90-days](https://thestartupchat.com/ep483/).

Link: https://thestartupchat.com/ep483/