Metrics that Measure Up

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- CredibleCLEAR is removing the complexityDo 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 with fresh brains before your pitch to VCsCOMPELLING - Investors are human - they invest with their "heart" - not just their "head"Ensure your pitch invokes emotional engagement- Go beyond the facts and use short stories ofhow customers are being positively impacted- Imagine if..."CREDIBLE - phrases like "disrupt the entire health care industry" or "we can capture 10% of the market and have $1B in revenue" - can negatively impact your credibility- real life customer stories and proof points go much fartherPITCH DECK - their is no template that fits every pitch but a common theme is - LESS slides is much better (15 or fewer)STORY TELLING - Do not use a single story arc or start with a personal story that led to your creation-use small stories to highlight key pointsEnsure you highlight the SPEED and EFFICIENCY of your Customer Acquisition to highlight your customer acquisition process is repeatable and scalable.  Key metrics go beyond just sales cycle length and customer acquisition cost, but also efficiency metrics like Customer Lifetime Value to CAC ratio and your gross margin.Getting to WOW is based upon observing and participating in thousands of entrepreneur pitches to VC's and has been distilled into a guide for any first time or even experienced founder evaluating VC funding.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Salesforce Chatter.  Then Mike shares the story behind how community cloud and commerce cloud came together, with both a B2B and B2C - or even a B2B2C offering.  Over the last 10 years, Commerce Cloud has grown to be over a $1B business  and you can rest assured that Metrics were at the heart of most of Mike's strategic decisions.Mike's experiences started when I first met Mike in the initial "vortex" of B2B eCommerce in 1997 - 2001  where he was an integral part of the product management senior leadership teams at Netscape and Commerce One.  Then in 2005 he founded GroupSwim, and had firmly established Product Market Fit by the beginning of 2009 when he received two different offers to purchase GroupSwim.Following the GroupSwim acquisition, Mike decided to accept the opportunity to be part of the Corporate Social Network initiative within Salesforce - yes Chatter which launched in 2010.  From that experience, Mike pitched the concept of "Community Cloud" to Marc Benioff and Parker Harris. The vision was to build a solution to connect the different "communities" within Salesforce to other communities and companies.By 2020, Community Cloud had reached 650 million users.  Interesting that Community Cloud is measured by usage, growth and how much revenue they influence on the other core clouds. Mike shares the Salesforce relentless focus on customer input and feedback into the product lifecycle, especially through the use of Customer Advisory Boards (CAB's) which provides a primary to the product roadmap.  In fact, the concept of Commerce Cloud was originally stimulated by a customer who had built their own commerce capability into Community Cloud in 2014.Later in 2014 Salesforce launched Commerce Cloud at Dreamforce.  By 2016 Community Cloud and Commerce Cloud became one Salesforce Cloud business unit.  Mike share how Digital Commerce grew more in 2020 then in the past few years combined.  When COVID first hit, Mike saw his dashboards showing how volume on Commerce Cloud spiked starting in March. Finally, Mike shared he segments metrics into usage metrics and operational metrics.  Operational metrics on commerce starts with GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)  which hit over $50B GMV in 2020.  DAU/MAU  (Daily Average Users/Monthly Average Users) was a key metric used to evaluate the health of his business unit.  ACV (Annual  Contract Value), AOV (Average Order Value)  and churn was also tracked daily as key operational metrics.   Mike also shares why "branding" and "pricing" are the two hardest aspects of building a Cloud business.  In fact, he went into detail on the benefit of a blended pricing model that uses both a  subscription model plus usage based pricing levers.  One of the hardest parts of a variable usage based pricing model is how best to forecast variable revenue.Mike's story reflects the opportunity, reality and journey that so many corporate leaders in the Cloud have experienced over the last 20+ years.  If you are looking for inspiration coupled with detailed insights into how an entrepreneur's journey can evolve from the corporate world to being a founder and then on to the CEO of a $1B+ cloud business, this 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.

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.In this episode of the Metrics that Measure Up, we speak with Gidget Pugh a 20+ year veteran in B2B sales who has recently transitioned into founding and launching her own social media agency focused on the community that she is so passionate about - small business - starting in the town that made Gidget who she is - Oakland, California.Gidget shares her journey from mortician - yes a mortician to her first role in B2B Sales at QRS.  QRS was the world's largest subscription platform for sharing UPC codes in their product catalogue across the retail industry supply chain in 1998. Then she leverage that experience to working at household technology brand names including Oracle and Facebook.One of the main topics we discussed was how Gidget maneuvered within an industry and companies where often she was the only female, African American in the sales organization if not in the entire company.  A recurring theme of "self-confidence" and "color blindness" were critical to her in every environment she entered.We then move on to her decision to leave the corporate world to launch her own social media agency, Socially Focused to help small and medium size businesses to harness the power of social media and on-line engagement building to counter the impact of COVID on their physical presence business and prepare them for the world of digital commerce that has been accelerated by the experiences and resultant digital transformations of every industry.This is an amazing story of drive, determination and self-confidence that provides everyone looking to move beyond the environment of their current state into the future of opportunity a great story of inspiration and reality all in one.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 of the Enterprise software movement in Silicon Valley.  With over forty years in Silicon Valley,  M.R.  is probably the most networked person in the industry, through his experiences and connections from founding the Enterprise Software Conference, the Enterprise Retreat for the top SaaS CEOs, the Eco-Forum which is a membership only community of the top 100 executives responsible for driving sustainable green initiatives in Fortune 500 companies, and most recently, Indiaspora to transform the success of Indian American's into meaningful impact worldwide.In this episode, MR discusses the secrets to building his network in Silicon Valley and beyond.  He highlights the importance of understanding the difference in building your network versus networking.  A key attribute to building a strong, lasting network is to have no expectations beyond helping those in your professional network.  Don't sell, don's solicit business, just identify how you can help each person in your network and watch the dividends pay back over the long term.MR and I cover the evolution of the Enterprise software industy to the Enterprise Cloud/SaaS market, the impact that leading cloud and technology companies are having on energy efficiency and green initiatives.  If you are a fan of the Silicon Valley experience, and curious to understand how one of the industry's best and most well respected connectors has built his network and reputation, this is a must listen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 Google as a skills productivity manager, then on to corporate sales productivity at Salesforce, followed by the position of Chief Story teller at Box and now, Growth Partner at Emergence Capital.During this episode, we discuss a wide variety of topics including the top metrics that every Chief Revenue Officer and SVP Sales should now before having a meeting with a growth stage fund, when trying to raise a Series A or Series B round of financing.The conversation moves on to the importance of understanding your customer acquisition and retention metrics on a cohort by cohort basis.  Sales and Marketing integration versus alignment became a critical topic, and one that directly impacts the role of the CRO and the performance of the key customer acquisition performance metrics.Finally, we discuss the concept of pattern recognition, which is a key skill that VC's and experiences revenue leaders alike must develop to be successful.  An element of pattern recognition is that it is critical to understand industry benchmarks that are relevant and appropriate for your company, including stage, size, annual contract value and distribution model.This is a fast moving, high energy discussion that highlights why Doug is known as an excellent story teller!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 and Series A stages of funding in large part thanks to generous government support. European and country-specific governments remain the largest investor in technology and entrepreneurship, providing direct and indirect funding in the form of individual tax credits, startup grants, and VC equity and debt fund managers.The beauty and challenge of scaling an European SaaS company is the fragmentation of the continent and the distinct business cultures in each region. Europe can be broken down into 8 smaller "target markets" : 1) UK and Ireland; 2) Scandinavia/Nordics; 3) Baltics; 4) Germany and DACH; 5) Benelux (Netherlands and Belgium); 6) Spain and Portugal; 7) Italy; and 8) Eastern Europe. Each country within a sub-region has its own legal and tax framework as well as business customs. This market reality requires different go-to market motions for each region, making it more difficult to scale across Europe. This phenomenon encourages more creative and out-of-the-box thinking which Joyce believes leads to a relative higher likelihood of European SaaS companies having successful US expansion when go-to market fit has been achieved across Europe.The main KPI's for SaaS companies across Europe are very similar to the U.S.; the metrics also evolve in tandem at each stage of business maturity: < $2M ARR, $2-5M ARR, $5-10M ARR and > $10M ARR. In order to get to the right metrics, it requires a business, its leaders and Board members to invest early into data quality and SaaS reporting & metrics, ideally before raising an institutional Series A funding round.We also talked through some examples of private and public B2B software companies in Europe and the US, and how those with impressive growth metrics and unit economics command much higher valuations from investors and buyers alike. In fact, at over $400 million in ARR, UiPath, a business founded in Romania, is one of the fastest growing global enterprise software companies today.The episode closes off with some tips and best practices for European SaaS companies launching and expanding into the U.S. market.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 the last 20 years, the Internet Archive has built the worlds largest archive of internet content - think the LIBRARY of the Internet.  The magnitude is incredible:- 516 Billion Web Pages- 70 Petabytes of Storage- 6 Million Movies and Videos- 600,000 Software Programs- 1.5 Million Audio Files- 1.5M Daily UsersBrewster was voted into the Internet Hall of Fame (yes, their is an Internet Hall of Fame), and is one of the most visionary, insightful and visionaries in the Internet ecosystem.Listen to this 30 minute session with Brewster and you will come away with a sense of excitement and possibilities that we have not yet realized in the internet economy!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 comes from the experience of Tom working closely with the CEO at Intel which led to their strategic investment in Cloudera.Strategic buyers use partnerships to evaluate the value and fit of a strategic acquisition.  It is critical to have well defined performance metrics for strategic partnerships, including close rates, annual contract value, gross and net dollar retention rate and CAC payback period to highlight the financial performance and efficiency of strategic partnerships.We then turned to discuss the decision to go public versus accepting a strategic acquisition offer.  Tom shares that IPOs  and being a public company do have their challenges - and that there are many great options including Private Equity, Growth Equity and now SPACS!Being public comes with heightened scrutiny on quarterly performance and transparency - which can be distracting.  Developing the capability and culture of being able to accurately forecast quarterly revenue, margins and provide longer term guidance needs to a be a focus and competency developed three to four quarters before an IPOHot take #1 - being capital constrained can led to learning how to operate more efficiently - it may not always be best to take a lot more capital than needed OR at least ensure the culture of efficiency is maintained even after taking a large sum of investmentHot take #2 - companies have to start early to instrument, capture, analyze and make metrics informed decisions earlier and faster - numbers do not lie!!!#IPO #SaaS #cloud See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 networkKonstantin shares the four variables that are required to build a scalable, sustainable and engaging B2B network.  He also discusses the techniques that LinkedIn used to quickly reach 1M+ members, and how "Social Capital" was key to gaining initial momentum.Did you know that Inmails used to cost $10 each, or that the only way to join LinkedIn initially was through a referral?In a classic entrepreneurial pivot, we moved quickly from the back story of LinkedIn's early success to how walking meetings were a hallmark of the early days at LinkedIn, and have retained their allure to Konstantin as he mentors and advises new entrepreneurs.Lastly, we discuss Konstantin's founders' journey and he shares some advice based upon his own experiences at LinkedIn.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 founder's journey is now out in the open,  in his book, Mr. Monkey and Me.  Mr. Monkey is a symbol for the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that every entrepreneur and founding CEO will face.During the podcast, Mike shares his "SHAPE" framework, to help fellow entreprenuers understand and mitigate that inner voice of doubt...the imposter syndrome.  SHAPE is an acronym for Self-Awareness, Help, Authenticity, Persistence, and Expectations.During our conversation, we also talk about the "strength" of showing vulnerability by asking for help, even when you think as the CEO you need to always portray strength by having the answer to any problem...an impossible expectation.Mike shares that you are not alone with those private thoughts of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that comes with the entrepreneurial and CEO journey, and provides some helpful advice and even a framework to make your "Mr. Monkey" for favorite frienemy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.