Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending September 24, 2021

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: Landing Page Metrics - you may not need 25,000 landing pages as Zapier does, but a well-designed and personalized landing page can make a huge impact. ConvertKit lists the 5 key metrics for measuring the success of landing pages (and how to track them). To back that up, IceBreakerVC lists best practices for good landing page planning and strategy and Google is always up for listing ways to optimize website landing pages for lead generation this page also has some good inspiration.
2. WEBSITE: To compliment #1 above, optimizing the user experience (especially on mobile) can significantly boost the bottom line of a business, for example, improving site load times by just 0.1 seconds can increase conversion rates by up to 8%. Check this page from Google to review your site (and also your competitors' sites) to see how you measure up and review what changes can be made.
3. CONTENT MARKETING: Heavy Bit makes the case that now more than ever is the time to double down on content. 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).
4. MVT: Here is another one for your tech dictionaries: MVT or Minimum Viable Testing which is about creating hypotheses and conducting tests that allowed you to predict if a market is going to appreciate a product before even launching an MVP.
5. MARKET SIZING: The dreaded slide on everyone's pitch deck. What's the size of the market. TL;DR if the market is not huge, same with your startup. Understanding the nuances of TAM, TOM and SOM is a great way to get started understanding market sizes as it applies to your business and the business problem your startup solves. 
6. COOKIES: Love them or hate them, the reality is that browser cookies have headed the way of the Dodo. This means that conversion tracking via cookies being phased out has created new attribution problems to solve in people's sales and marketing funnels. So check out this article on advances in ad-tech in a post-cookie world - or the PDF of the report here. Conversion modeling is a way forward, so if attribution is a necessary part of your business or your channel/partners Business, take a read of this article from Google on why conversion modeling will be crucial in a world without cookies and Advances in ad tech
7. STORYTELLING: Last month I made a popular post discussing Emotional Moats as a competitive advantage: And anecdotally I feel like my way of storytelling has shifted from my pre-pandemic ways and Google seems to agree with my sentiment suggesting a reboot of our storytelling fundamentals.
8. PRODUCT ANALYTICS: Product Analytics enables teams to develop a holistic, well-rounded understanding of how users engage with their digital products and experiences and totally complements Google Analytics. Check this article for a deeper than deep dive.
9. ZERO TRUST: An emerging phrase for your cybersecurity dictionaries - heck it's even an Executive Order for the US via President Biden. With 2020’s widespread shift to #WFH life, successful IT and security teams have leveraged Zero Trust initiatives to address some coarse-grain and fine-grain access control challenges - all at the edge because that is where we all are these days, and perimeter/fence based protection just won't work. Identify based and zero-trust strategies and architecture are where we need to be so start with this primer on Zero trust from ZDNet and move here with this State of Zero Trust Security report from OKTA for the APAC region.
10. CASE STUDY: Zapier. I like 'em and I use 'em. Zapier is now a $5 billion company based on the premise that we should all just get along because we are greater together. This is why they have the astronomical number of landing pages I reference above in #1. Integrating into and between apps using clicks is a strategy that put Zapier on the top of the No-Code/Low-Code movement and was fully remote long before the pandemic made it fashionable.

POD OF THE WEEK: The podcast version of #10 above. No-Code wasn't a thing when Zapier started, so they kinda created the category and only raised $1.3 million in VC capital.

BONUS: Its SaaStr next week and for those of us with no intention to travel they are hosting a streaming version - sign up here.