Top 10 in Tech A WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending March 27, 2020

3/27/2020

SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: CPA - cost per acquisition. This is often conflated with Cost of acquisition, but they are different. Andrew Chen dives into the details as to why (and also how to calculate e CAC accurately).
MARKETS: Here we go - the first report of Q1 2020 from Pitchbook, it's jammed with Pandemic and Stock Market news, so it ain’t a pretty picture for what’s in store for PE and VC firms but they look at past downturns as a perspective of this new market. Crunchbase is also noting that the 2020 VC slowdown hasn't happened, yet, but Angular VC is saying that they have (completely)
IoT: Whats in store for the Internet of Things in 2020? Business Insider have a (pre-Covid) report for you focused on IoT in the Enterprise. Forecasting $2.4 trillion in investments by 2027 and 41 billion IoT devices in use worldwide.
BITCOIN: It’s been a while since we have referenced anything Crypto in this newsletter - but times are changing and Crypto may well come out of this recession/pandemic thriving. Two things to note: 1. Bitcoin is currently very expensive, not to buy, but to mine. Billy Bambrough from Forbes is also forecasting that the $2 Trillion US stimulus package will also mean a surge in bitcoin and crypto interest (the argument is that with this much money being pumped into the economy, there is no way the USD can hold it’s value).
MARGINS: Sammy Abdullah takes a look at publicly traded SaaS companies reporting in comparison to the SaaS-rule-of-thumb of spend: The 40/40/20 rule, (where 40% of spend should be on research and development, 40% on Sales and Marketing and 20% on Admin). The takeaway is that the rule looks, in reality, more of a 30/50/20 split. Yup - HALF of spend is on Sales and Marketing (unless you are Zoom, then it’s 73%!!!!)
AUTOMATION: Lockdown and work-from-home scrambling has lead to a massive uptick in Tech Automation demand. Increased automation was always something the tech industry touted AI would bring, but there is apparently nothing like a pandemic to accelerate that claim.
AI: So given the observations in the above article - that we all now need to accelerate our knowledge of all things AI - here (with a Google spin) is all the things, from A-Z that you need to know.
TRENDS: The search term for “how to make hand sanitizer” has grown by 4,950% worldwide in this past month. How, as an entrepreneur, can we track these kind of rapid trends? Google lays down the lesson on how to stay on top of market trends leveraging…..you guessed it: Google Trends.
OUTBOUND: LinkedIn a pretty good source to secure outbound opportunties. From the Predictable Revenue team is a great article on how SDR’s can turn 100 LinkedIn profiles into 10 meetings and Forbes give a view on the pros and cons of cold calling.
PRICING: : It’s never right and we are all not charging enough - HubSpot have a quick read on 5 key steps you can use to find the sweet spot in your product pricing. And also a neat downloadable sales pricing strategy calculator.

POD OF THE WEEK: Product Lead Growth: The Podcast. With examples of SaaS companies that have successfully implemented product-led growth tactics.

BONUS: Just because you are Sheltering In Place - doesn't mean you can’t attend conferences. SaaStock have launched their remote conference - June 10-11

Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending March 20, 2020

3/20/2020

SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: NPS - it’s a metric that allows a company to understand customer loyalty and there is a massive correlation of NPS to growth If you are looking to become a practitioner (or improve as one) this article from Andrew Chen of a16z really covers all the fundamentals of NPS and why you should care (also - quick plug for my peeps at Ask Nicely if you need a good NPS platform that provides all of the survey and analysis tools you need).
ONE-ON-ONES: Deep Dive - If you are running a team and need to have frequent 1:1’s, (especially as remote work rises) you probably need to bookmark this page right now (I did!). It’s a Question Bank for Better 1:1s and if you still need to raise your game by holding more impactful 1:1s (I do!) - check this article (which lists 6 other must-read articles) from FirstRound Capital.
PITCH: There is a lot to learn about what to say in under 3 minutes. Here are 11 really helpful and actionable tips for a good pitch, which is obviously missing one that I think is important - TIME!
GROWTH: How the heck does a business double revenues in a year? I love users stories and here is a great one from Supermetrics on how they went from €10m to €20m ARR in 12 months.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: Are not just the realm of SaaS. More and more B2C businesses are offering subscription-based models (from Spotify to Les Mills online to Stitch Fix). Customer preference and predictable revenue are great outcomes so check out this deep dive PDF report from the always awesome team at Business Insider.
WFH: The acronym we all suddenly know: Work From Home. I run a 100% remote team, so this topic is always top of mind. But Covid-19 means I’m not going to be alone, being alone. Twist has all the guides you can possibly need in this one central spot. For many there is a trust issue sending the employees home - here is how to make that and how to optimize for productivity.
PRE-MVP: Sounds like you? This is definitely worth a watch and read, complete with a video on a process for finding SaaS-solvable problems.
TEAMS: (luckily not the Microsoft kind). Just how important is a founding startup team? From an investor’s perspective it’s no 3 in the top 20 - here is why.
ENTERPRISE: Selling into this market is serious stuff that requires serious strategy and readiness. Openview partners have a great article that dives deep into evaluation criteria Enterprise customers use and Octopus Ventures discusses why your deal didn't close.
VERTICAL SAAS: Not AgTech, but this article argues that building entire verticals within SaaS for SMB and Mid-Size customers is a winning strategy in the upcoming years, using Shopify as a clear, and very understandable, example.

POD OF THE WEEK: Mark Roberge shares his framework for scaling a SaaS startup including reaching product/market fit, transitioning from product/market fit to go-to-market fit, and growth and moat.

Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending March 13, 2020

3/12/2020

SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Light reading this week (jk, jk, lol) from Andrew Chen of a16z: An 80-page slide deck of the red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics. The article is the better read due to Andrew’s notes - but if you just want the PDF, I got ya, just click here.
CONTENT MARKETING: Which this newsletter is packed with, has become a vital piece of tech companies growth strategies and it's bigger than just content now – it's evolved into full sales enablement.
E-COMMERCE: E-commerce sales surpassed 10% of total retail sales in last Q 2019 for the first time ever ($187 billion of almost $1.5 trillion in sales)
SALES: ...of the outbound kind require some serious planning and strategy. Saleshacker are pros in this realm and list 4 elements needed to execute in this article.
PODCASTS: Have we reached peak podcast yet? According to this report from Business Insider, probably not, and podcasting will be a $1 billion industry by 2021. With US listenership having doubled since 2015 and the biggest players being Apple, YouTube, and Spotify. Interesting recycled side-fact: The listening market is a much bigger market for Apple though - their AirPods division alone (so not including Beats or any other audio product) is estimated to make more money than Spotify, Twitter, Snapchat, and Shopify COMBINED (thats $12 billion of revenue, 125%+ YoY revenue growth, and gross margins of 30-50% if you don't want to click).
JOBS AND AI: Tricked you - this is not about robots coming for your job. It’s kind of the opposite. According to a recent report from Zip Recruiter, AI jobs accounted for four out of every 1,000 job postings last year. This is waaaaaay up from 2016, when it was one in 1,000. The downside is (and this is a US-centric report) that they are all concentrated in only four U.S. states, the obvious ones: California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts. Fun Bonus: From CB Insights their list of the top 100 AI companies.
FAIL: Failure is a skill. Prove me wrong, and it’s also a culture of safety and permission to be wrong. As many organizations look to best practices from the tech industry, one hard lesson is that innovation needs a lot of failure before success, something they often do not configure culturally (cold hard fact: NZ Tall-Poppy syndrome does not help)
PLG: Another week another Product Lead Growth reference 🙂 Reading this article, I had to take a bit of side-dive into First Principles Thinking - here is how Elon does it for example. It made my brain hurt. Now that you are an expert on this principle, here is First Principle Thinking approach to being a successful Product Lead Growth business.
MARKETING: From SaaStock here is a great guide to SaaS Marketing. It’s simple but comprehensive if you are an early/growth stage SaaS founder just getting started with marketing efforts.
SaaStr: Sadly SaaStr 2020 had to be canceled due to Covid-19 concerns. It’s a wonderful conference full of all kinds of amazing SaaS Content and speakers. So as a shout out to the conference that should-have-been this week here are is a Massive repository of all the slides presented at SaaStr Annual last year.

POD OF THE WEEK: As an extension of # 8 above, its First Principle Thinking. Great intro podcast from Scale or Die. (Skip the first 2 minutes). The iPhone vs Blackberry analogy was the tipping point example for my brain .

BONUS: Is your business looking to hire US Staff some time soon? Check this webinar from Vistra on employer HR obligations. All of the head scratching stuff; From benefits and insurance to NO legally mandated Sick Leave or Vacation Days. 1pm Eastern 7am NZDT.

Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending March 6, 2020

3/6/2020

SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Lets take this week to 11 (if you are a B2B business) - 11 key GTM Metrics for B2B Startups from the team at a16z (with the handy addition of explaining why they are important…….to a board).
DEBT: As mentioned in previous articles, some VC Firms are turning to debt as a non-dilutive financing alternative, especially as startups are staying private longer and supply/demand pressures are more skewed than ever. Debt is coming to the tech industry - here is a great article on what this all may mean.
QUANTUM: I think Quantum computers are a thing of cyber-punk beauty and I gleefully don't really understand exactly how Quantum Computers work - admit it, you don't either. But whatever, these machines from the future have already arrived and in the next five-years there are some industries (pharmaceutical, finance, transportation, and cybersecurity) that can really see some powerful gains from Quantum computing. McKinsey have a game plan (of course they do) and have outlined some great use cases for Quantum.
PRODUCT MARKET FIT: Everyone thinks they have it (when they don’t). Andrew Chen from a16z is awesome and his PDF on going from zero to Product Market Fit is excellent (For SaaS he calls this as 5% conversion rate from free-to-paid, or 3X CPA to LTV ratio or <2% monthly churn rate or just a clear path to $100k MRR). He also has an accompanying article with notes
BRANDING: This is a bit of a confusing deep-dive as it's all about perspective. A16z argue why brand marketing is mostly useless for consumer startups (they argue that a great brand is the lagging indicator of success - which is all about hard work and effort). Point Nine discuss why branding matters for VC's
PRESENTATION: I never say the word “Deck" with my NZ accent to Americans, because it sounds inappropriate. But the team at Front are making public (again) the deck they used to raise their latest round of funding. It’s a great presentation and the notes within the article really summarize the narrative (and questions) they were trying to convey well.
CUSTOMER DATA: Customer data management is a practice, not a technology. I love that simple message. Bluconic give the crib notes/5-steps in this article about how to develop a strategy to optimize and improve customer experience using good data management practices.
TEAM: At the early/seed stage of life, a startup needs doers and wearers of multiple hats: T-shaped people, not specialists. Andrew Chen of a16z gets a second appearance in this weeks newsletter and discusses how to hire these kind of team members at early stage (hiring those first 4-6 people).
EMPATHY: The ability to cognitively and emotionally understand another person's experience is a skill that can be practiced and sharpened. Inc Magazine maps out 4 areas within a startup where leveraging empathy can be very advantageous. (Hint - it’s in Sales, Marketing, and Hiring)
CORONAVIRUS: Fine, I’ll jump on that bandwagon - channeling the lens of a VC. Tomasz Tunguz looks this week how Forward Multiples have been impacted by this global event - down about 12% at time of publication. Overall tech stocks have taken a huge hit but there have also been big upsides for certain tech stock such as Zoom, where isolated/remote work is their jam.

POD OF THE WEEK: This is to support #4 above. Every now and then I have to drop a David Skok bomb to highlight the various stages of a startup as they progress from validating a product in a market to becoming a rocket ship. In this Podcast Mr Skok charmingly explains how to navigate a business successfully through product/market fit.

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