Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending July 7, 2023

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Consumption-based LTV. If you have a consumption-based model, then, like me, you probably have revenue that is not consistent monthly. Variable revenue is now a big thing in SaaS. Check out How to calculate LTV with variable revenue customers from the SaaS CFO (comes with a template!).


2. CUSTOMER SUCCESS MODELS: Like customers, not all CSMs are built the same. And it depends, based on stage and strategy, as to how your CSM teams will evolve…...but they will. Gainsight proposes five basic kinds of CSM and a corollary org chart. But keep in mind, IRL, they all will be different hues. SaaSx has this model. Which one best resonates with you?


3. MVT: Here is another one for your tech dictionaries: MVT or Minimum Viable Testing, which is about creating hypotheses and conducting tests that allow you to predict if a market will appreciate a product before even launching an MVP.


4. BOTTOMS UP: Bottoms-up adoption is hard to crack😉 (learn more about the bottoms-up model here). For example, according to Gergely Orosz, Hashcorp has 4,300 customers, but only ~800 generate 90% of their annual revenue. 


5. NOLS FRAMEWORK: Not all decisions are made equally - As a former outdoor instructor and part of the National Outdoor Leadership School's (NOLS) network, I was pretty excited to stumble across this article from another alumnus discussing some of the excellent management frameworks to come out of there. This one focused on group decision-making, outlining six different ways to make decisions in a group.


6. AI: This article from Honeycomb discusses the tough challenges of building LLM-based AI products. Context window limitations, slow performance, prompt injection risks, legal compliance concerns, and the limitations of early access programs are all covered - must read if you have LLMs on your product roadmap.


7. AI INVESTMENT: The race is on for AI Investments. Just look at the astronomical Deals chart in this article from Pitchbook. Q1 2023 says $1.7b invested across 46 deals, with an additional $10.7 B announced (but still needs to be closed).


8. FIRST PRINCIPLE THINKING: Want to be more like old-school Elon (the one without all the SEC/Twitter dramas)? Take a read here on the concept of First Principles Thinking. Not gonna lie, I've re-read it for the 15th time this week, and it is a great way to make my brain hurt. Want more? Fine. Here is a full guide/website. Now that you are an expert on this principle, here is how First Principle Thinking can be applied IRL - in this example, towards a Product Lead Growth business.


9. PRODUCT POSITIONING: It's easy for startups to underestimate the significance of product positioning and marketing in the early stages. This article highlighted the importance of understanding the product, customers, and competitors. It had me at the subheader, "A lot of startups suffer after initial growth because they can't figure out what they are building & for whom." 


10. CASE STUDY: Hootsuite migrated from a Sales based to a Product Led strategy with a 6-step process outlined in this article from their head of growth.


POD OF THE WEEK: Complimenting #7 above is a good listen from Bessemer Ventures with Dave Rogenmoser of Jasper discussing mistakes made by building out AI products.