Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending September 30, 2022 - A SAASTR SPECIAL

I just spent the last two weeks binge-watching and listening to SaaStr 2022 sessions - so here are some of the binge highlights:

BUYERS

From the CMO at G2 is a really informative presentation on top takeaways from a survey of more than 1,000 B2B global decision makersand buyers about how we can best engage and compete, given the new post-pandemic shifts and new emerging market trends. I can relate to soooooooo much in this presentation. A standalone deck from this presentation can be downloaded here.

CLOUD 2022

Bessemer Ventures always have a great session every year at SaaStr - they usually present their "State of the Cloud" report, which I reference a lot here. This year was slightly different - they launched the Centaur Report- which is a kinda guide on how to grow to $100M ARR. Watch the whole SaaStr session here.

PREDICTIONS

Phew - Bessemer still did my favorite part of their annual presentation - predictions. Starting at the 12:25 mark. FYI - Cloud is selling more Cloud!

GO TO MARKET

From Mark Roberge at Stage 2 Capital, who gives some PLG context on Go To Market Strategies. It's a really great presentation - I've watched it twice :-). The slide deck from the presentation can be found here.

VENTURE

From the 'Money Day; at SaaStr is The Current State of VC discussion with Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures and Jason Lemkin of SaaStr (both are at the early stage of VC). They (obviously!) also read my newsletter because they dig into the FIGMA acquisition and discuss the new Founder's terror of raising the next round in a market like this - which will be hard.

PLG and SALES

I use Grammarly every day - it's awesome. But they also do something else awesome: They now run with a combo of PLG Motions to grow user base and improve product, but also expanded into Enterprise, so had to forge their own sales org. Check how they did both of these things together from their CEO.

DEVOPS

Similar to #6 above, Chief Revenue Officer Kate Ahlering from Calendly - one of the OG PLG Businesses - talks about PLG Companies adding Sales based orgs into their operations and reveals secrets to revolutionizing Enterprise sales growth and how to make RevOps work for you.

SALES

Customers are way savvier in 2022 than they were 10 years ago - so this session from Reprise and Glasswing Ventures beats the drum of don't Sell SaaS Like It's 2012; customers don't want to buy in that way anymore. Their slide deck is the best part of this session - you can find that here.

SMB

No video for this one, just a deck I thought was a great discovery while browsing the SaaStr SlideShare page. It's a really informative 15 slides: The 7 Secrets of Influencing and Winning Over SMB Technology Decision Makers from Shutri Ghatge and Shannon Murphy of Momentum.

EFFICIENCY

From the always-on-point team at Point Nine: Growth vs. Efficiency: How to Weatherproof Your SaaS startup for Tougher Times. I couldn't find the standalone deck, which dives into a bunch of SaaS Metrics, so if anyone has it - let me know!