Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending January 28, 2022

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: The nag Metric - This one is fun (but not for everyone). A call to action within a website or customer journey is kinda like a parent trying to get their kid to clean up their mess. It just gets a bit naggy after a while and gets mentally filtered out. Over time, this can impact your brand/NPS or irritate people into churn. The Nag Score - outlined in detail here, is an attempt to quantify this.
2. PLG: 2021 was a massive year for product-led growth (especially according to this newsletter). But where is it headed in 2022? The team at ProductLed takes a good look at what this year may have in store. Adding Outbound Sales and Marketing is a start.
3. NETWORK EFFECTS: Last week's podcast on network effects was popular enough to warrant another post this week. Building and scaling products like Slack and Zoom is still quite a challenge so take a read of this conversation between Andrew Chen and Des Traynor on building networks that make your product thrive.
4. OPS: I've skimped lightly on all things Ops and Finances lately - so here is a comprehensive benchmark report for Financials and Ops for 2021 with all the REALLY good metrics to compare - YoY growth, employee headcount, CAC, NDR, Diversity.
5. GROWTH: 2022 has not been kind to publicly traded SaaS. These Businesses have been on a bull market for well over a decade though. During this bullish time, it has all been about growth metrics and not necessarily profits (which is partly why the Public Markets have been hit lately with inflation concerns). A16z makes the case that SaaS companies should be focused on efficient growth strategies and metrics to weather this downturn. NfX compliments this by discussing the new historic growth vs. profitability tension rules in SaaS.
6. IDEAS: here is a framework for managing them - I found this a helpful article with a template that is now on my wall! An HD version of it is here. A little bonus is a compilation of mental models that entrepreneurs and investors leverage to develop new startup ideas & venture theses from the same author.
7. TEAM ONBOARDING: Successful onboarding is challenging in person - it's 10x harder in today's remote work environments. Here is how Zapier does it (and leverage their own product to use automation to do it), and here are some lessons learned from Slack. 
8. CONTENT MARKETING: Heavy Bit makes the case that now is the best time to double down on content - so get writing!. Also, spot quiz hotshot - how long should a Blog Post be? Hypothetically this long (but also literally not that long - it's a long-ass blog post).
9. DO IT!: Finding it hard to get back into the swing of productivity after the holidays? I did. It's easy to get caught up in the backlog, debates, details, and troubles that work or projects throw our way. Keeping the beat and progressing the business forward takes some help as a leader. So read this from Henry Ward from Carta on creating a continued Bias for Action.
10. CASE STUDY: Spotify and its Squads. A few years ago, an inspiring and memorable video circulated (you know, in one of those cutesy handwritten animation styles) describing the Agile Squads that Spotify employs in its cooler than cool Utopian Developer department. Well, guess what, sorry to burst your Spotify bubble; they abandoned it. (How Agile of them)…. In this post mortem assessment, the most significant critical failure was such a SaaS-based one: It was solving the wrong problem.

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POD OF THE WEEK: The Video version of #7 - Employee onboarding secrets from Zapier founder Wade Foster.

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