Monday, 12 April 2021

SaaStr

SaaStr

The Biggest Sales Mistake I Made. And I Made It Again and Again.

Posted: 11 Apr 2021 09:01 AM PDT

Q: What’s the biggest sales mistake you’ve ever made?

I think the biggest sales mistake I've made at the CEO level is not being patient enough. As odd as that sounds.  And I’ve made it at least thrice.

#1.  In my first start-up (and really my second, too, but most importantly the first time) I shipped product way too early to a Very, Very Large Key Prospect / Customer. Just way, way too early to meet the customer's needs. This is always a tough balancing act in a start-up, and as founder, we're biased to action. But if you aren't sure you can ship an enterprise-grade product to the Fortune 100 — maybe don't until you are sure. We closed a small initial deal with the customer but lost out on the seven figure opportunity after that.

#2. I did this again the second time around, just differently. I let a seasoned sales rep push something out to top prospects because there was too much going on and I trusted him. But in this case, the prospect was too large and while I trusted him, I shouldn't have trusted his judgment on a key, early, Year 1 F500 prospect. We lost this key prospect/customer due to a way too aggressive email, and never got it back.

#3.  Again, I almost blew a Top 3 tech customer due to impatience.  After 15+ onsite visits, dozens of demos, 4+ pilots, and 14+ months … procurement cut the annual price from $300k to $10k.  That was a bridge too far at the 11th hour.  Luckily, my new VP of Sales dove in and save the deal.  It ended up $150k a year.

It's a tough trade-off and if I hadn't pushed us to go to market fast, and release fast, and iterate, we would have gone bankrupt and failed — both times. But getting it just right with the very largest customers is tough.

(note: an updated Classic SaaStr answer)

The post The Biggest Sales Mistake I Made. And I Made It Again and Again. appeared first on SaaStr.

Top 10 SaaStr Videos of the Week: Terminus, Zendesk, Twilio, ActiveCampaign, Vanta and More!!

Posted: 11 Apr 2021 07:44 AM PDT

Minutes watched on YouTube were way up this week.  What were we all watching? Let’s dive in!

#1.”The Playbook to Boosting Net Retention (Quickly) with Terminus’s CEO”.  SaaS veteran Tim Kopp takes us through a deep dive on driving up NRR.

#2 “The Secret Sauce to Scaling to $1B: How to Achieve SMB and Mid-Market Success with Zendesk”.  A great session from two top VPs at Zendesk on how to sell and scale to SMBs and mid-market alike.

#3. “A Deeper Dive on How to Collaborate, Manage, and Work with Developers with Twilio’s CEO Jeff Lawson”.  Going deeper with Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson.

#4 “SOC 2 Demystified: The Key to Closing Enterprise Deals with Vanta CEO Christina Cacioppo.”  A deep dive on what SOC-2 really means.  And why and when you should do it sooner.

#5. “How to Exceed $100M ARR: Lessons to Scale with Sustainability with ActiveCampaign’s CEO”.  What if you could grow a successful $100M business in a more sustainable way?

#6. “The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator”.  A SaaStr classic.

#7. “Stop Losing Customers: 5 Steps to Creating Customers for Life with Freshworks”.  A look at how to keep SMBs happy from $3B+ Freshworks.

#8. “Meagen Eisenberg | CMO @ MongoDB | Tips For Getting More Leads”.  A classic session from Tripaction’s current CEO back when she was CMO at MongoDB.

#9. “The 5 Metrics You Should Track to Maximize Your Company's Valuation with Tomasz Tunguz”.  Tomasz’s latest from SaaStr Build 2021.

#10 “Tales of a Modern CEO with Atlassian & CEO of Trello”.  Another SaaStr classic!  Watch a staff meeting live!

The post Top 10 SaaStr Videos of the Week: Terminus, Zendesk, Twilio, ActiveCampaign, Vanta and More!! appeared first on SaaStr.

Top 5 Pieces of Advice for First-Time Founders (Or Anyone Starting Up, Really)

Posted: 11 Apr 2021 06:20 AM PDT

Q:  What is your top advice for a first time young entrepreneur?

My top advice, in order:

  1. Take your time to find a great co-founder. Some of us can do it without a co-founder. If that's you, ignore this point. But if you need one, take your time and don't settle. Find someone great that is as committed as you. No matter how much of a rush you're in.
  2. When you find your co-founder, have 8–10 year vesting, with a 1+ year cliff. This will make sure you're both as committed as it will all take. A bit more here.
  3. Make sure you can go the first 24 months without any real revenue. I know this is hard. But it's supposed to be. It likely will take you 24 months to get any real revenue going in most tech start-ups at least. How will you fund that? A bit more here.
  4. Once you have an idea you are passionate about — interview 20–30 potential customers. For real. Don't just shoot for the hip and guess, at least not in B2B / SaaS. A bit more here.
  5. Be sure you have a 10x "winner" feature — and that folks will pay for it. This is partly related to the prior point. But there are 1000+ vendors in almost every space these days. That doesn't mean you can't win. But it does mean you have to do something important that is 10x better than what those 1000+ vendors do. At least 1 important thing. Make sure you know the market well enough to launch with that 10x feature. And that you are sure customers will pay for it. A bit more here.

The post Top 5 Pieces of Advice for First-Time Founders (Or Anyone Starting Up, Really) appeared first on SaaStr.
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

BREAKING: North Carolina automotive group acquires 7 Upstate dealerships

Breaking news from GSA Business Report Click here to view this message in a browser window. ...