Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending May 31, 2019

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1. SALES: Time-to-ramp is an important metric for Sales leaders to understand and optimize. Especially in the current job market where sales tenure is short (<18 months on average). Doing it well, as well as fast, is key and this article covers 5 Tips to Speed up Sales Onboarding without Sacrificing Quality.
2. FUNDRAISING: Micheal Lints from Golden Gate Ventures discusses the tactics and strategy of fund raising from building the pipeline to securing the lead investor. It’s not to dissimilar to a Sales Pipeline.
3. CUSTOMER: From Google. Think your company is awesomely customer-centric? Here’s why you’re probably wrong.
4. DUE DILIGENCE: Most SaaS companies will encounter due diligence requests, especially if raising capital. This article from SaaSX outlines what to expect and this one on how to be best prepared for this often brutally honest look under the hood of your Business.
5. CHURN: A practical guide to understanding and reducing SaaS churn (article includes a great chart of acceptable gross revenue churn rates).
6. SDR’S: Companies are beginning to understand the vital role SDRs play in revenue. But measuring their value in meaningful ways can be tricky.
7. ACV: Point Nine Capital and ChartMogul take a look at Annual Contract Values (ACV) and group them into relatable animals (Mice, Rabbits, Deer, Elephants and Whales) as an analogy for what it takes to build a $100m business and how different segments contribute to total revenues over time.
8. PODCASTING: It’s now big business and there are currently over seven hundred thousand podcasts available. This in-depth report from a16z covers the origins and growth of this audio-tech and what their investment philosophy is on this growing market.
9. MARKETING: Modern marketing efforts (combined with advances in Big Data and Machine Learning) have enabled companies to provide marketing experiences that are truly personalized. To do this at scale however requires rigor around collecting data onto a Customer-data platform (CDP) and , according to McKinsey, following the 4 D’s: Data, Decisioning, Design, and Distribution. (Downloadable PDF version here)
10. DIGITAL ADVERTISING: Amazon is siphoning billions of dollars of advertising revenue from Google and Facebook generating $10.1 billion in Ad Revenue, up from 117% YoY. Read all about it in this report from Business Insider.

POD OF THE WEEK: From This Week in Startups: All Things Sales. Everything you ever wanted to know about hiring, compensation, tools, prospecting, and up-selling.

BONUS: Missed the Alexa Live Online conferences last month? No problem, just replay recordings of all sessions plus resources shared during the sessions.