# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending July 31, 2020

Published: 31 July 2020
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-july-31-2020

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

Product-Market-Fit. Wait it’s a metric? According to Jeff Chang - you betcha: [The best metric for determining quantitative product market fit](https://www.growthengblog.com/blog/the-best-metric-for-determining-quantitative-product-market-fit).

Link: https://www.growthengblog.com/blog/the-best-metric-for-determining-quantitative-product-market-fit

## 2. MARKETING

In early-stage start-up land, often time marketing is an after-thought. The Founder Coach lists [seven things he wished he knew about Marketing](https://medium.dave-bailey.com/the-secret-formulas-behind-great-marketing-da190571d459) early on and HeavyBit have a great article and video on [early-stage positioning](https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/early-stage-positioning-for-b2b-startups-with-justin-warren/) - one of the best things you can do starting out. Not sure how you rank? [Go take the Tomasz Tunguz Marketing Scorecard](https://tomtunguz.com/saas-marketing-scorecard/).

Link: https://medium.dave-bailey.com/the-secret-formulas-behind-great-marketing-da190571d459

## 3. SALES

McKinsey discuss [strategies companies can leverage to boost the resiliency and sense of urgency of their sales teams](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/five-actions-to-boost-your-sales-organizations-resilience) to try to recapture lost revenues. Also you o

Link: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/five-actions-to-boost-your-sales-organizations-resilience

## 4. SDR RAMP

According to [past studies](https://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/hubfs/resources/SDRMetricsReport_TheBridgeGroup.pdf), time to ramp for an SDR [averages about 3.2 months](https://medium.com/north-america-tech-for-kiwis/2018-sdr-metrics-report-from-the-bridge-group-f7fee0ad46df). From Saleshacker [here are some tips and tricks](https://www.saleshacker.com/5-sdr-onboarding-ramp-hacks-sales-managers/) to make this ramp time as effective and successful as possible.

Link: https://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/hubfs/resources/SDRMetricsReport_TheBridgeGroup.pdf

## 5. PRICING

Ah! The ever continual experiment of never-quite-right. Chargify has a [list of 5 pricing scenarios to test as a SaaS company](https://www.chargify.com/blog/5-pricing-scenarios-to-test-for-saas-companies/), with real examples to compare and Point Nine Capital has [9 awesome pricing strategy experiments](https://medium.com/point-nine-news/9-tricks-to-experiment-with-your-pricing-strategy-329b07a5b171) - including just straight-up [charging more](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2006/08/14/you-can-probably-stand-to-charge-more/), try that one asap. Jon Lemkin also asks - [what’s better, monthly or annual pricing](https://www.saastr.com/annual-price-or-monthly-price/)? (TL;DR - the answer is yes!)

Link: https://www.chargify.com/blog/5-pricing-scenarios-to-test-for-saas-companies/

## 6. CAPITAL

We’re two quarters into Covid and from a VC lens, [Tomasz Tunguz observes that the Seed, Series B, and Series C markets are all down](https://tomtunguz.com/fundraising-market-corona-two-quarters-in/) (37%, 23%, and 29%, respectively) and the total number of rounds are also down across the board. VC’s are currently well-funded still, but holding tight to those purse strings. Which is interesting as Jason Lemkin points out - [Many SaaS Companies are beneficiaries of the pandemic, in usage and growth](https://www.saastr.com/why-covid-19-has-been-great-for-saas-vcs), which means, hypothetically, that VC’s portfolios (even factoring in the attraction of certain industries such as Travel Tech) should be thriving.

Link: https://tomtunguz.com/fundraising-market-corona-two-quarters-in/

## 7. ADJACENT USERS

This is one for your Startup dictionaries. From the Andrew Chen (a16z) blog is [this article that that uses Instagram’s growth to describe the concept](https://andrewchen.co/the-adjacent-user-theory/).

Link: https://andrewchen.co/the-adjacent-user-theory/

## 8. ENTERPRISE

Another bookmark for me! A comprehensive page [dedicated to SaaS businesses targeting enterprise](https://www.enterpriseready.io/#), from how to sell to how to build for the high end of town.

Link: https://www.enterpriseready.io/#

## 9. OKRs

Objectives and Key results. Pioneered by Google a few years back, OKR’s have emerged as a part of the suite of modern product and company best practices (that include Lean, Agile and Jobs-To-Be-Done frameworks). But are they for you? Check [this SVPG overview](https://svpg.com/team-objectives-overview/), then head over to [Heavybit](https://www.heavybit.com/) who have a great article on [steps to get started for the first time within your organization](https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/best-practices-startup-okrs).

Link: https://svpg.com/team-objectives-overview/

## 10. MANAGEMENT

IMO - one of the hardest (and most rewarding) parts of running a Startup? Managing the people. I’ve bookmarked this one post, it’s one I’m going to re-read a lot - [9 people management principles](https://www.shapedlikeat.com/articles/a-few-management-principles). TL;DR - just read it!

Link: https://www.shapedlikeat.com/articles/a-few-management-principles

## POD OF THE WEEK

[Finding Product-Market Fit in the new normal](https://youtu.be/8ZKLHq8LdQU), with Des Traynor from Intercom

**BONUS**: Looking to accelerate your career? Andrew Chen from A16z just announced that applications are now open for the [Reforge](https://www.reforge.com/) 2020 Career Accelerator Programs across a whole bunch of operator roles - cross-functional growth, marketing, and product. [Apply here](https://andrewchen.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=96c185f15d9646d8014b765b7&id=17f0e553c2&e=fefe116a5f).

Link: https://youtu.be/8ZKLHq8LdQU