Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending December 11, 2020

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: EARLY STAGE BENCHMARKS - Metrics are only good if you know what to benchmark yourself against and Chartio has a list of 20 benchmarks for Growing Startups all handily broken down by department (such as Sales, Marketing, Product, Revenue).
2. GROWTH: A strong follow from above - I hear this complaint a lot, and it seems to be (anecdotally) increasing: Companies are expected by investors/shareholders to measure the right things at the wrong stage. The SaaS world is such a metric-heavy industry - we want to measure the things we want to improve. So here is advice for everyone (especially early-stage investors): Don’t focus on metrics like MRR too early on (but qualified leads - for sure!). And here is how to measure product-market fit.
3. QUOTA 1/2: Hands up if you're forecasting or re-forecasting for 2021! Compensating SaaS Sales Reps is complicated and expensive. This blog post from Kyle Racki of Proposify has a pretty comprehensive guide from how to set quotas and commissions. But here is a quick shortcut to make it easy for all you Account Executives: The average annual quota in this report from David Skok and Co was found to be $770K in ACV and on average, the quota was found to be 5.3X OTE. An expanded top10inTech teardown of that report (which admittedly is from 2017 so starting to get a bit long in the tooth) can be found here.
4. FORECASTS: Outside of setting quotas, running a SaaS business has a primary reliance on cashflow - so it is imperative to forecast future revenue to avoid a cash crunch when trying to scale. So check this article covering Sales Forecasts and Pipeline Reviews: Why and How from a cash perspective
5. SALES ENABLEMENT: Now that quotas are sorted thanks to #3 and #4 above: What are the best practices for optimizing performance with revenue teams? Sales Hacker have their 5 Do’s and Don’ts for peak results as well as an infographic (BTW 61% of organizations have a dedicated sales enablement person).
6. SDR RAMP: According to past studies, time to ramp for an SDR averages about 3.2 months. From Saleshacker here are some tips and tricks to make this ramp time as effective and successful as possible.
7. QUOTA 2/2: Thought provoking article from #3, #4 and #5 above. Your Sales Team has a Sales Quota. Your Marketing team has to have a quota too. as they are also part of your revenue team. Getting both sales and marketing teams aligned beyond quota though is a real trick and Tomasz Tunguz has a quick diagnostic to determine if your sales and marketing teams are working well together.
8. SPEED: First Round Capital always a take on speed. This is because top tech companies are top performers and market differentiators in-part due to the fact that they operate at a cadence that is faster than most. It’s all about execution and heartbeat, which requires a fierce focus and prioritization. 
9. SECURITY: There is an ever-increasing value seen in good security practices when investors evaluate startups. Especially when evaluating mid-market and (especially) enterprise targeted tech. Here are a couple of great articles from HeavyBit discussing this in detail - from what investors are looking for in a team's response to security to how to pass those awkward, sales-friction-inducing, Enterprise Security Reviews….and also how to get started.
10. MOBILE: AppAnnie has compiled 5 key (data informed) post-COVID trends you need to know about mobile for 2021: TikTok is forecast 1.2 BILLION (yes billion)MAU for next year. Thats bonkers! Also "Couch commerce" is the new phrase I cant get enough of now that being more at home is the new normal.

POD OF THE WEEK: Reid Hoffman pretty much talks about everything in this podcast (he already talks at 1.5 speed, so keep the speed settings at normal on your Pod App): Starting LinkedIn, investing in Airbnb, passing on Stripe, the different styles of Leaders, how to think through price in Venture, the power of a learning mindsets, etc, etc...