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

1. 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).
2. 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)
3. 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.
4. 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).
5. 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%!!!!)
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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