Product Led Growth and Usage-Based Pricing are two of the hottest trends in the B2B SaaS and Cloud industry. Annual subscription pricing has been a hallmark of the financial model for SaaS companies. Lately, the move to Usage-Based pricing has attracted investor demand that is pushing Enterprise Value to Revenue multiples up to 15x-25x. Chris Mele, CEO of Software Pricing Partners discussed the caution around moving too quickly to Usage-Based pricing, and provides advice developed from consultin...
Apr 07, 2021•41 min
Imagine being asked by Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce to ensure that every member of your sales organization can effectively deliver and communicate the latest presentation and messaging that he had just developed. Then after traveling around the world to execute this directive, Marc informs you that the messaging and presentation has been updated, and you need to do it all over again! Our guest, Elay Cohen founder and CEO of SalesHood experienced that exact situation when he was Vi...
Mar 30, 2021•36 min
Experience is the best teacher. In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up with Scott Leese we take a deep dive into how experience has informed his career journey. Scott has over twenty years of experience as a six time SaaS VP of Sales, and most amazingly, his average tenure for each role was greater than 3 years in a role that typically experiences a 14-18 month tenure. Scott shares some of his lessons learned and secrets to his sustained success. First, Scott highlighted how critical a S...
Mar 23, 2021•34 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, we speak with Alex Theuma, the founder and CEO of SaaStock and the SaaS Revolution podcast. Alex started his career as an enterprise sales professional, and identified his passion for SaaS as he started to write a blog on all things SaaS, called SaaScribe. SaaScribe quickly morphed into a community blog, and enabled Alex to build deep and broad connections across the SaaS ecosystem. Based upon the community of SaaS entrepreneurs that develo...
Mar 16, 2021•32 min
In this episode, we discuss the revolutionary concepts of Revenue Intelligence and Advanced Sales Math with Todd Abbott, CEO at InsightSquared. Revenue Intelligence and Advanced Sales Math are critical competencies to successfully maneuver in todays B2B SaaS reality of compressed sales cycle and the changing customer buying journey. The good news - traditional metrics including lead conversion rates, close rates, pipeline coverage ratio, and sales rep productivity still are helpful to calculate ...
Mar 01, 2021•39 min
If you are contemplating VC funding, this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast is like receiving a master's degree in pitching to VCs from Bill Reichert and his book "Getting to Wow" Key concepts covered include: Ensure your pitch follows the three C's - Clear - Compelling - Credible CLEAR is removing the complexity Do not fall into the "experts curse" - only you have the depth of expertise on the topic - Ensure anyone can understand what you do in 1-2 sentences - Test your message wit...
Feb 23, 2021•40 min
Imagine the experiences gained and lessons learned from founding your own SaaS company, selling it to Saleforce and then becoming the CEO of a Salesforce Business Unit. That was the journey Mike Micucci, who recently left Salesforce eleven years after selling his start-up to Salesforce in 2009 and ultimately rose through the ranks to be the CEO of the Commerce Cloud business. Mike shares the story behind founding GroupSwim, an early B2B collaboration platform that became the foundation for Sales...
Feb 23, 2021•36 min
Breaking into B2B Sales, especially Enterprise level B2B sales is still a challenge for many in todays Cloud and SaaS industry. Even more difficult for those who do not have relevant experience, ore connections and thus the access and opportunity that comes with many forms of inherent privilege. Gidget Pugh broke through those barriers, not in 2021 but beginning in 1998 with the power of self-confidence, drive and often the most important stimulus of all - a compelling reason to bet on yourself....
Feb 16, 2021•22 min
M.R. Rangaswami is an enterprise software executive, angel investor, entrepreneur, corporate eco-strategy expert, community builder, and philanthropist. Wow, is right as his accomplishments are admirable. M.R., as he is known across the software and Cloud/SaaS industry, and around the globe founded the Sandhill Group and sandhill.com in 1997. In fact, the Wall Street Journal placed MR on their front page to highlight his early commitment and success as a leading angel investor in the early days ...
Feb 08, 2021•28 min
If you are responsible for driving revenue growth at a SaaS company that is preparing to raise Series A or Series B funding, what are the key metrics investors will expect you to know cold? That is exactly what Doug Landis, Growth Partner at Emergence Capital shares on this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast. Doug's journey to becoming Growth Partner at Emergence Capital, the first Venture Capital firm created specifically to invest in SaaS companies, is one of pedigree. Starting at ...
Feb 02, 2021•36 min
As businesses shift towards the Cloud, SaaS has become the de facto distribution method for modern day software solutions across the US and increasingly so in Europe. Joyce Mackenzie Liu, Founder of Pegafund which provides go-to market strategy and financial planning services to early stage, high growth B2B SaaS companies shares her perspective on the European ecosystem. In this episode, Joyce shares that the majority of investment volume in European SaaS companies occurs in the pre-seed, seed a...
Jan 19, 2021•46 min
Have you ever thought it would be cool to see a website from 5 years ago, 10 years ago, even 20 years ago? That is exactly the vision that Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and The Wayback Machine first started to develop in the late 1990's! In fact, Brewster was developing the Wayback Machine simultaneously to running Alexa Internet, one of the first internet browser plug-ins to track user web activity, which was ultimately sold to Amazon in 1999 for $250M in Amazon stock! Over th...
Jan 19, 2021•37 min
The most interesting dilemma for a CEO? The decision that comes with having the option to go public or accept a strategic acquisition offer. Tom Reilly, former CEO at Cloudera has been a CEO with the experience of selling a company to IBM, another company to HP and then taking Cloudera public after raising $766.5M from strategic partner, Intel. Tom says a CEO should invest 20% - 30% of their time working with strategic partners - do not outsource to your partnership team. In fact, this advice co...
Jan 12, 2021•33 min
B2B Communities caught fire in 2020 - especially B2B sales communities. Revenue Collective, Sales Hacker, Modern Sales Pros, RevGenuis, and Bravado all dramatically increased their membership and levels of engagement following the onset of COVID. Who better to discuss the trend of B2B communities, than a founder of the world's largest B2B network, LinkedIn. Konstantin shares the key differences between a B2B community and a B2B network Konstantin shares the four variables that are required to bu...
Jan 05, 2021•40 min
Mike Smerklo is by any measure a story of entrepreneurial success. Mike founded a search fund which led to the early stage acquisition of ServiceSource, and he took it to over $300M in revenue, took the company public, and was the CEO for over 13 years. Then Mike followed his passion to help fellow entrepreneurs and founded Next Coast Ventures in Austin, Texas long before Austin was being heralded as the next Silicon Valley for software. His secret, which threatened his success throughout his fo...
Dec 29, 2020•25 min
In this episode, we continue the discussion with the authors of Selling the Cloud. Building upon the first half of our conversation where we discussed the need for grit and passion to be success full in Enterprise sales, we move into several new topics. The Power of No is a key skill to develop. A great enterprise sales professional is qualifying prospects out every step of the process to reduce time investment on low probability to close opportunities. Often the most important "no" is to walk a...
Dec 23, 2020•33 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Paul Melchiorre and Mark Petruzzi - authors of Selling the Cloud. Paul has over 30 years of experience in enterprise sales leadership, at leading companies including Anaplan, Ariba, SAP, and now in Private Equity. Mark brings over 30 years of experience in strategic consulting firms including Deloitte, N3, Accenture and operating roles at Oracle, and Ultimate Software. GRIT was the first topic we covered as a required attrib...
Dec 21, 2020•33 min
B2B Sales communities are all the rage in 2020. Sales Hacker, Modern Sales Pro, Bravado, Revenue Collective and now RevGenius are building B2B sales communities to provide experiences, connections, ideas, and research. Jared Robin, co-founder at RevGenius recently joined the podcast to share the story behind Rev Genius and his vision for the community. "Necessity is the mother of invention" a catalyst for RevGenius as Jared contemplated the next step in his career journey due to the impact of CO...
Dec 15, 2020•25 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast we are joined by Howard Brown, Founder and CEO of ringDNA. How does being a clinical psychologist lead to founding a Sales Engagement Platform company? Howard shares the common theme - helping individuals and companies overcome THEIR challenges Key topics discussed include that if B2B companies are too focused on internal processes leading versus the customer's motivation to buy. Sales training represents a major opportunity to improve align...
Dec 08, 2020•32 min
Founding a B2B SaaS company is an exhilarating, yet high-risk experience. Creating a new market category at the same time even higher risk and often serves primarily to pave the path for second-generation market entrants who learn from the successes and failures of the first generation. Anurag Khemka, is a founding father of B2B Marketing Automation. Back in 1996, when the internet was first being commercialized, most B2B marketers were just starting to think about how to develop more personal, ...
Dec 02, 2020•34 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - Court Lorenzini, Founding CEO at DocuSign discusses his journey to co-Founding DocuSign and then his decision to leave after five years to found two more companies. During our conversation, Court shared his unique path to DocuSign, including his father's legacy as a founding father of Silicon Valley and his habit of recording his observations of how people managed difficult situations starting at the age of 13. Court shares his belief that...
Nov 18, 2020•33 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast - David Appel, Head of the SaaS Vertical at Sage Intacct shares his insights and lessons learned from over 1,500+ SaaS financial solution implementations. During our conversation, David and Ray discuss several key attributes and approaches that SaaS CFOs take to ensure the data, metrics and KPIs they collect can tell the story of what the "financial data" is telling. Great finance leaders make sure financial information and KPIs get out to e...
Nov 06, 2020•28 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, we talk with Jon Miller , co-founder of Marketo and Engagio, and now Chief Product Officer at Demandbase is a MarTech visionary. Marketo was purchased in 2018 by Adobe for $4.75B, and Engagio was recently acquired by Demandbase. Jon shared the B2B Marketing metrics that matter and the lessons learned in his personal career journey as a founding father and leading MarTech visionary. Jon shared how 1st gen Marketing Automation was designed to...
Oct 28, 2020•31 min
In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, Thomas Stewart, Executive Director for the National Center for the Middle Market shares some very interesting insights into the 200,000 companies that represent 1/3 of the American economy. Highlights included that 85% of Mid-market companies are private, 33% are family owned and 17% are in the manufacturing industry. On average, middle-market companies grow an average of 6.5% per year, 3% faster than the average S&P 500 company. Mid...
Oct 27, 2020•32 min
In today's episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer at The Bridge Grop discussed the findings from their Sales Compensation research conducted in August, 2020 in partnership with the Silicon Valley Vice President Sales Group. Sally shares benchmarks and compensation trends across a wide variety of roles including Chief Revenue Officer, Field Sales - Account Executive, Inside Sales - Account Executive, Sales Development Representative, Sales Operations and Sales Ena...
Oct 20, 2020•40 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up podcast, William Cordes, Founder and CEO of KPI Sense share the insights and perspectives gained from providing CFO and finance advisory services to SaaS companies. One interesting insight was when William shared that Days Sales Outstanding - the time from invoice to payment is the financial metric that has been impacted the most at B2B SaaS companies since COVID. Other key insights discussed include why detailed monthly financial reviews have incre...
Oct 16, 2020•28 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Kristopher Beible, Vice President at Software Equity Group discusses the importance of Net Dollar Retention on SaaS company enterprise value, both for public and private companies. Based upon insights gained from over 100 private B2B SaaS company acquisitions, Kris shares how Net Dollar Retention & Gross Dollar Retention have become the top KPI that acquirers ask about in the early stage of private SaaS company acquisition due diligence Other t...
Oct 13, 2020•26 min
In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, Kyle Poyar, Vice President of Growth at OpenView Partners discusses a Product Led Growth Go-To-Market motion for B2B SaaS companies. High growth B2B SaaS companies like Zoom, Twilio, DataDog, Box and DocuSign have used a product-led go-to-market motion to decrease initial customer acquisition costs, expand the total addressable market and reduce dependency that an Enterprise sales led motion can have on getting executive buyers to engage. Topics di...
Oct 06, 2020•45 min
In this episode of Metrics that Measure Up, we are joined by Byron Deeter, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and one of the founding fathers of SaaS and Cloud Metrics. Byron first published the 10 Laws of being SaaSy in 2008. Over the years, B2B SaaS metrics evolved, and Byron subsequently published the 10 Laws of Cloud in 2019, which include the 6 C's of Cloud Finance. Over the years, BVP has led investments in leading Cloud Companies including DocuSign, Twilio, SendGrid, Eloqua, Shopify an...
Sep 28, 2020•45 min
In this episode of Metrics that Measure Up, Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectandSell shares a wide variety of Key Performance Indicators and Benchmarks gained from over 10 million dials and over 500,000 B2B sales conversations - just in 2020! Chris, a Physicist by education, and self-professed data junkie provide a deeply analytical perspective into how to turn dials into conversations, and conversations into sales meetings. Chris even invokes the expertise of Chris Voss, formerly the FBI's top hostag...
Sep 22, 2020•40 min
