Metrics that Measure Up

Poya Osgouei has been responsible for securing sponsorships for some of the largest B2B events including SaaStr, Lenny's and Friends Summit, Elevate by Plato and shares his insights on the future of B2B tech events.During this episode, Poya and Ray discuss the following topics:The state of B2B tech eventsThe future of B2B tech eventsCommunity, Brand or Revenue - the "why" behind B2B tech eventsThe Power of NetworkingThe ROI of B2B tech eventsIf you are considering hosting a b2b tech event, sponsoring a b2b tech event or attending a b2b tech event, this episode is chalked full of insights, perspectives and the return on investment thesis to consider.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Apurv Bansal, Founder and CEO of Zenskar, a cutting-edge billing platform, discusses the shift towards variable pricing models like Usage-Based and Value-Based Pricing. He highlights the complexities these models introduce to billing, emphasizing the need for real-time integration of usage data to ensure transparency and customer trust. Apurv also shares insights on revenue management, the importance of customer experience, and challenges for early-stage SaaS companies. Additionally, he provides valuable advice for aspiring B2B tech founders, stressing passion and patience in entrepreneurship.

J.T. Cecchini, CEO of LevelUp Finance, brings his expertise in financial reporting for SaaS companies to the discussion. He delves into the complexities of B2B SaaS reporting systems as firms scale beyond $20M. The talk emphasizes the importance of accurate metrics like ARR and a unified data strategy to attract investors. J.T. also introduces the 5x5 Reporting Matrix and a Valuation Framework tailored for SaaS, highlighting how these tools can enhance investor confidence and streamline financial decision-making.

Godard Abel, CEO of G2 and Chad Gold, CFO at G2 led a session at SaaS Metrics Palooza 24'. This is an audio only version of their fireside chat with Metrics that Measure Up host, Ray Rike.During this episode, Godard, Chad and Ray discuss the following topics:When does a company need to hire a CFOWhat is the partnership dynamics between a CEO and CFOWhat are the investor and board responsibilities for a CEO vs CFO at G2What metrics become more important as a company scales to $100M ARR and aboveIf you are a B2B SaaS company, you already know G2 and this conversation is a great opportunity to learn how they use metrics to lead the company to the next level of success!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine a career journey starting as a software developer at NASA, then a B2C video service developer, moving on to the role of a general manager at game developer Zynga, and next heading to be the Head of Growth at Postmates - an early to food delivery service and now founding an FP&A platform company for the Office of Finance - that is the journey of Siqi Chen, Founder and CEO at Runway!During this conversation, we cover three topics with Siqi including:The catalyst for founding a B2B FP&A software companyThe evolution of the Office of FinanceThe importance of User Experience for B2B SoftwareSiqi highlighted his lack of comfort with company financials as a primary catalyst for founding a Financial Planning and Analysis software company. During Covid, Siqi was required to quickly "re-plan" his company financials to present to his VC investor, Andreessen Horowitz and began to understand the pain of existing financial planning processes and the associated software.One of the primary beliefs that Siqi brings to FP&A is that finance has historically been about reporting, but going into the future will become a strategic function and requires a deeper level of business understanding and the ability to model multiple possible scenarios to develop clarity of the path forward.Siqi highlighted the importance of providing the board a solid forward-looking plan, but also the ability to leverage real-time data across multiple systems to aid the decision-making process.  As a company evolves, the number of business systems increases materially and creates a real challenge in using spreadsheets to model business scenarios that depend upon data from multiple systems.Viewing a model as a "business simulation", using strategies from game development is a unique perspective that Siqi's experience in gaming company Zynga. One of the barriers in moving beyond Excel is that as companies scale, it is not about eliminating the use of Excel, it is about highlighting the existing pains of using Excel for financial modeling including the increasing challenges of ingesting data from multiple systems, collaboration across multiple departments and being able to plan on a segment by segment basis.Another challenge in growing companies is that every department has its own "excel model" to plan its function, which is great for a smaller company, but makes it almost impossible to bring 4 - 5 different department models together into one master "company plan".  Hence the requirement for a company-wide FP&A solution that can facilitate collaboration between every department in building a company-wide plan.Finally, we discussed how the learnings from the B2C world help in running a B2B company. First, Siqi highlighted that "unlearning" is a key trait as some strategies that work for building a consumer product do not easily translate into a B2B business. One of the key insights is the importance of speaking to the target users versus using your intuition. Another key un-learning is that the "users" of B2B software are typically NOT the buyers of the software, so the approach to both user experience and messaging must reflect the needs of the economic buyer and the users.If you care about measurements, care about data and are looking for a better way to manage business modeling and having real-time data available to facilitate decision making - this conversation with Siqi is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bill MaCaitis, former CMO at Slack, Zendesk, and Salesforce, shares his wealth of knowledge on B2B marketing metrics. He discusses lessons learned from leading brands and the importance of integrating brand building with lead generation. Bill emphasizes a shift from traditional metrics to a more nuanced approach that values brand awareness and customer-centric metrics. He also explores the impact of AI on marketing metrics and product-led growth strategies, emphasizing a cohesive customer experience and the significance of technology skills in advancing careers.

Brad van Leeuwen, Co-Founder and COO- Cledara has built a business helping 1,000 customers in over 30 countries manage their SaaS expenses. This provides Brad with a very unique insight into the state of the total spend in SaaS and the most recent SaaS purchasing trends.During today's episode, we cover four primary topics with Brad:State of SaaS Spend ManagementThe Impact of AI Native Software on SaaSThe Top AI Native CompaniesThe Impact on AI on Sales and MarketingThe first point Brad shared is that buyers are focused on increasing the relationships with their current vendors and the number of new SaaS solutions purchased has decreased by 50% over the last two years. In addition, existing buyers are looking to renew for longer periods and are looking to extend the agreement term in consideration of lower pricing. Thirdly, buyers are being much more discerning in what products they keep, and which they do not renew which increases the churn rate many SaaS vendors are experiencing.One data point Cledara captures is the SaaS momentum index which measures if companies are spending more or less on SaaS in the current year versus the previous year. For the 1H-24 the Index has stayed level at around 100 which means most buyers are not increasing their spend on SaaS products. This is confirmed by the lower growth guidance that many public SaaS companies are providing to the market.Is SaaS consolidation of point solutions happening in companies? The data says yes, companies are looking to consolidate multiple SaaS solutions into larger platforms, except native AI products which are leaning heavily towards point solutions.Next, we asked Brad how "AI purchasing" trends are evolving. Brad says the headlines are that companies are buying lots of different AI products, but when looking at what teams are really buying it starts with Marketing which is allocating 5% of their software purchases to AI. Sales is allocating about 1.3% of their budget to AI tools, but this is increasing quickly having increased from .3% in January 2024.Who is the primary decision maker when buying AI products? Based upon a survey of over 300 company CFOs, AI software is viewed as experimentation, and no tangible ROI has been delivered yet. At the same time, Cledara data shows that user adoption is increasing dramatically being primarily driven by individual contributors which is not seen by the CFO.What are some of the most popular native AI solutions being purchased in 2024? Brad highlighted that Cledara customers are adopting 30-40 new vendors per month across their 1,000+ customers. Once the first customer adopts a particular AI native solution, Brad sees the virality happening very quickly across the customer base...but the issue is churn is happening almost as fast as new solution adoption.AI spend now comprises about 3.5% - 4% of total software spend to AI point solutions, which includes ChatGPT/OpenAI.What is the primary benefit of AI solutions? Brad highlighted that many of the tools bring everyone in a department up to the same level of capabilities. The challenge is when users are forced to increase their productivity/effectiveness beyond the baseline created by everyone using similar tools.Brad highlighted how he used ChatGPT to write an article on the top 100 AI solutions in less than 60 minutes, on a task that would have traditionally taken days. Finally, we asked Brad his perspective on how AI solutions can decrease the staff required to produce the same level of output. Brad believes that the increase in productivity delivered by using AI tools will not primarily lead to a decrease in the amount of employees - rather it will result in more output from the current staff leading to faster revenue growth or growth efficiency.If you are interested in how total SaaS spend is being impacted by the emergence of AI point solutions and/or how AI will impact productivity as measured by increased efficiency and effectiveness - this episode is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kris Rudeegraap, co-founder and co-CEO at Sendoso viewed the emergence of Sales Engagement Platform technology as the beginning of the end for email based outbound demand generation for B2B Sales professionals. This catalyzed him to take the leap to cfound Sendoso, a next-generation direct mail and corporate gifting platform. In today's conversation, we will discuss the history and business impact of Sendoso and corporate gifting including:The catalyst for founding SendosoThe current State of Pipeline GenerationThe impact of corporate gifting on Pipeline GenerationThe impact of corporate gifting on Customer RetentionThe first question we discussed was the most surprising learning Kris has had as a first-time founder and CEO. Kris highlighted that even after 8 years he is still as passionate about the business and vision as ever, and he found that his background in Sales has been extremely valuable in both recruiting employees and raising over $150M in Venture Capital funding. Kris highlighted that there were several similarities between conducting a fundraising effort and enterprise-class sales. One of the advantages Kris felt he had due to his background in sales and that his "founder-led sales" efforts became direct inputs to the product roadmap.Next we pivoted to the reality of today's pipeline generation. First, Kris highlighted that with so many email sequencing tools and now AI tools to send emails that buyers are becoming numb to demand generation emails, as their inboxes become saturated.A common recommendation that Kris provided to any B2B Sales professional is to make every outreach, be it email or a corporate gift to ensure it is personalized to the target buyer. One advantage of corporate gifting is due to it being more expensive than sending an email, the majority of organizations and sales professionals are much more targeted and personalized when sending a "physical gift" to a target prospect.Kris shared that they use the power of AI to determine what type of physical gift would most resonate with different buyer types based upon function and/or title. Next we move onto the performance metrics behind the use of corporate gifting as a key component of pipeline generation programs.Kris shared that corporate gifting programs increase pipeline generation programs as measured by the following benchmarks from research by HockeyStack:3x increase in meeting rates6x increase in second-call rates1.84x increased win rates13% larger deals29% faster sales cycle lengthIf you are responsible for generating pipeline in your company, or for managing the budget allocation to grow revenue profitably, this conversation with Kris provides a lot of great insight into the Return on Investment of integrating corporate gifting into your new customer acquisition and customer retention programs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How have product demonstrations evolved in today's buyer self-directed buying process? Andrea Wunderlich leads the product and customer marketing function at Maxio and recently introduced their virtual product tour. In today's self-directed buyer journey, it's good to break down how virtual product tours can be leveraged to serve the buyer, when and where they prefer.During this episode, several topics regarding launching a virtual product tour center include:The Genesis of the Maxio Virtual Tour CenterOvercoming concerns of competitors knowing about your product feature/functionThe opportunities and challenges of leveraging “open source” demonstration venues and channelsMeasuring the impact of buyer self-directed solution toursWhen should a product demonstration be used in a considered B2B selling environment? Andrea highlighted the commonly used process of first doing a discovery call and then moving into a demonstration call. Over the past two years, corporate buyers have wanted a more "B2C" buying experience and the sooner the better is the time to show the basics of the software and then move into a more tailored demonstration once the vendor better understands the unique requirements of a specific customer. If 65% - 70% of the buyer's journey is completed before they speak to a salesperson - why not ensure the potential buyers can understand the basic feature/function of your software?The genesis of the Maxio Virtual Tour Center was introduced by a new marketing hire who highlighted the trend for B2B SaaS companies to offer a virtual product tour to ensure potential buyers do not "self-qualify out" before they see the details of the product's capability. Using video is an expensive option, and in addition as products evolve quickly the entire video often needs to be recorded again and again. A virtual product tour platform primarily uses product screen shots and if a feature evolves, only one screenshot needs to be updated, and it is automatically inserted into the existing virtual product tour.  A KEY criteria to make the virtual product tour successful was having a champion who was passionate about making the virtual environment a reality.Gated or non-gated virtual product tours? Andrea strongly believes that removing all friction to get potential buyers to engage early in the buying process is critical to ensure that many companies can understand the product's features and function. Experiencing the Maxio solution without having to engage with sales was a key criterion to providing a low-friction, non gated approach to the virtual product experience.One of the interesting findings was the product tour center is used more in the middle of the funnel, versus a top of funnel first-time experience. Maxio has found that the tour center is used and then shared more by potential customers after a first sales call. With the target buyers of both the CFO and the product leader thinking about how to monetize (bill) their product, the virtual tour center was a better way to get the majority of the buying committee members to understand the capabilities of the product.How to measure the business impact and value of a virtual product tour center? One of the hard things about trying something new is the long tail aspect of the virtual product tour. Andrea highlighted that expectations were set that this would be at least a six-month timeframe before the ROI could be validated and that with the virtual product tour being a lower-cost initiative, the longer term ROI was acceptable. Initially, the engagement rate was the primary measurement, and then over time (6+ months), they could look into their attribution tool to see how the virtual product tour users were converting into qualified pipeline and new ARR.If you have a SaaS product and you are looking for new, innovative ways to get the potential target buyers to understand how your product aligns with their unique requirements - this is a great conversation to hear!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Greg Galant, Founder and CEO at Muck Rack created the industry's first Public Relations (PR) marketplace for journalists looking for great articles and for the companies producing those topics interesting to a target audience.The catalyst for creating Muck RackOvercoming Friction between Marketing, PR Agencies, and the PressWhat role does the Press play in a Content Marketing Strategy The future of PR in the “AI” eraGreg's journey started in 2005 when he launched the Venture Voice podcast with amazing guests including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Yelp Founder, and many more including Ed Williams, Founder Odeo - a first-generation podcast directory. The catalyst for starting a podcast was Greg's experience at CNN.com as an associate producer where he was looking for ways to download news stories from CNN onto his iPod.  In fact, the term podcast emanated from Apple and the iPod using RSS feeds to link to an audio clip.The above experience at CNN.com was the catalyst for creating his own podcast to highlight the stories of successful entrepreneurs. Venture Voice continued 2005 -2010 and Greg discontinued producing new episodes until Covid hit in 2020, and the additional free time created by being locked into his apartment stimulated Greg to restart the podcast with the first new episode guest - Mark Cuban!This experience highlighted the need for a website that could amplify those social media influencers that people should be following and an associated event named "The Shorty Awards".In 2009, Greg and his co-founder launched Muck Rack to help journalists find interesting founders and topics that would be great for their publications. At the same time, businesses started to use Muck Rack to identify those journalists they could pitch for an article that supported their business and increased their brand awareness.Today, Fortune 500 companies, publications, and journalists alike use Muck Rack as a match-making platform for public relations-centric content.If you are a fellow entrepreneur and love learning about other founders' journey to creating a new company or media asset, this conversation with Greg is a great listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.