Top 10 in Tech - What to know for the week ending April 30, 2021

​

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: PQL vs Activations. In my mind the try-before-you-buy approach to software subscriptions are the best way to get to my money - that is pretty much what PLG is - so put away your SQL and MQL metrics for a second and focus on their newer cousin: PQL (Product Qualified Leads) - this tracks potential customer who has exhibited buying intent based on product interest and usage. Now you know that - measuring PQL vs Activations are the two metrics to measure in unison.
2. PRICING SENSITIVITY: I do post about pricing a lot (because a 1% increase in price can generate up to an 11% increase in your profits) So this week lets take a more nuanced approach by looking at different concepts within pricing strategies starting with priced based sensitivity: which is basically a measure of the percentage of sales you will lose or gain at any particular price point relative to another lower or higher price point. Profitwell can explain it much better - so take a read of their article about how to measure and optimize it (check the Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter")
3. WFH (DEEP DIVE): OK - so here is the big question-of-our-time we all want to be answered: Are we more productive or less productive working from home and petting our cat/dog? Upwork reports that the WFH forced experiment IS working but their platform has kinda consisted of WFH people since those golden days pre-Covid - so they may have an agenda - they say 'empirically,' but in more qualitative not quantitive ways. So let's also look at a more trusted and independent source: The Economist (if you have a sub to their site) and Harvard (if you don't). In their study they unearthed a better metric: Productivity sharply rose by 7.5% when workers went remote with no sacrifice in customer satisfaction reviews. Slack takes a bit of a different path on their study: WFH is not for everyone but if you are an employer: People prefer choice (72%). So if you want to hire good people you need to be flexible about where they will work. Ultimately the winning metric is forecasting that the WFH boom will lift productivity in the U.S. economy by 5% (mostly because of savings in commuting time).
4. PR: Getting good PR if you’re an unknown startup is hard (and also can be seen as a low priority in the endless 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 (they call it PR for dummies) on how to get great press coverage. ChartMoguls also have this article late on PR for SaaS - with some sample scripts!
5. SAAS SPEND: This is actually a really good benchmarking report for your spending habits. I (semi-often) joke that SaaS is just a big Ponzi Scheme - because running a SaaS company requires a boatload of money being spent on other SaaS Companies products (Slack! Zoom! HubSpot! AWS! Google! Microsoft! Adobe! Atlassian! etc etc etc). But how much money do SaaS companies spend on everything? Well, check the first chart on SaaS company spend - remarkably to no one bootstrapped companies are being outspent by venture-backed companies - but the average is 80% of ARR to 115% ARR!! (operating at a loss to support growth - because growth is a Moat). Keep scrolling through - way more goodies in there (such as spending by ARR levels).
6. AI TRENDS: Even though we're 1/3 of the way through 2021, this s a fun article on trends in AI for 2021 from Forbes. d\Deep fakes are becoming more and more alarming - but AI for Kids caught my attention the most - but the ones with impressive commercial potential are Advanced Pre-trained Language Models - AI is now writing poetry, you dig??
7. OPEN STARTUPS: Most Startups are very secretive about their metrics but over the last 6 years Baremetrics has been chipping away at this industry norm to get SaaS companies to be more open about performance; Theorizing that radically transparency can actually be beneficial - it works for me to compare and contrast my own business performance.
8. WRITING: Being able to write well is a skill that needs to sit with founders. So here is 3 step guide - Step 1. How to position your startup and achieve your unique value prop; Step 2. how to write well and one more version for good measure; and Step 3 top tips for telling stories.
9. ONBOARDING CHURN: This is the sibling to the post above as abandonment can be a signal of poor onboarding. Here are 3 reasons why users abandon the onboarding process (identify verification, slow onboarding experiences, and being asked for too much data) and AppSee has another 8 reasons in this article (adding Privacy and Ad clutter to the list).
10. CASE STUDY: Datadog - who, you may ask? Well, I use 'em, I bet your platform engineers may too along with a truckload of others because they generate a whopping $700 Million+ in ARR and growing at 61% year-on-year. The top 7% of their customers generate 75% of revenue and 60% of revenue growth comes from existing customers!

POD OF THE WEEK: Scaling Zapier To $140M ARR from The 20 minute VC - it includes 25,000 landing pages you know.