ConversionXL

AUGUST 13, 2019

SaaS sales and marketing teams can get overwhelmed by metrics. But without any metrics, it’s impossible to track growth. If growth is the best way to get out alive, marketing metrics do little unless they correlate with sales. According to Gartner , three metrics form the foundation for those growth levers: (Image source).

Metrics 117

Metrics SQL Retention Churn Rate 117

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2019

I have friends who are execs or shareholders of the company, but I have no stake in Slack nor intent to invest in the IPO. A somewhat unique thing about the Slack IPO is that they’re pursuing a direct listing on the NYSE. You can see this both by looking at a cohort “layer cake” graph or by examining the net dollar retention.

Lock-up Period 100

Lock-up Period Retention Azure .Net 100

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2013

They’re using metrics that are often unworkable in the current business environment, causing growing businesses to look elsewhere for capital and increasingly towards alternative forms of financing. Case in point: It took Amazon six years to earn a dime, during which it consumed huge amounts of venture funding and issued an IPO.

Advisory Board 249

Advisory Board Entrepreneur Portland Oregon 249

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

The net result: we sold exactly zero presidential debate avatars. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. We finally settled on a $1.99 Nothing made any difference.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 26, 2022

You’d like to believe the world is completely meritocratic—that you’ll put your heads down to work on your company, hit all your metrics, and just show up on the doorstep of a VC firm who will just be bowled over at the fantastic little company you’ve created. Well, at 125 words per minute, 48 minutes of podcasting will net you a chapter.

Founder 103

Founder .Net Term Sheet Aggregator 103

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 6, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Agile 76

Agile San Francisco Software Review Continuous Deployment 76

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

Growth - when you have existing customers, the pressure is on to grow your key metrics day-in day-out. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 88

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 88

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 4, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Lean 102

Lean San Francisco Agile Continuous Deployment 102

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008

Some techniques that Ive found especially helpful: Build your own tracking survey, using a methodology like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to identify and get a regular check-up from promoters (and to screen out detractors). You need to foster situations where you - and everyone you work with - is likely to see feedback that matters.

San Francisco 131

San Francisco Customer Lean Continuous Deployment 131

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidation preferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 26, 2009

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned quite a few of these, including these most important ones: having engineers post on the forums in their own name when they make a change routinely split-testing new changes routinely conducting in-person usability tests and interviews Net Promoter Score Each of these techniques is fundamentally bottoms-up.

Advisory Board 151

Advisory Board Customer San Francisco Lean 151

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 8, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Customer Development 168

Customer Development Developer San Francisco Customer 168

Occam's Razor

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Leaders (company is leaving China, our IPO is next week, 1,800 new stores are being opened in 180 days, our new IRR is 8%). Conversion rate is one of those metrics that I strongly encourage you only create benchmarks for from your own data. You have the standard metrics like Time on Site, Pages/Visit and Bounce Rate.

Analytics 133

Analytics Vertical Metrics Web 133

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 8, 2009

A wide net from the start, and gradual elimination of weaker solutions, makes finding the best or better solutions more likely. There's lots of information about performance and metrics out there, as well as a peer expectation that being concerned about those things is an important part of being a competent engineer.

Software Review 87

Software Review Design Software San Francisco 87

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 26, 2009

The net result was powerful: within six months of starting the company, we were able to get a basic version of our product into open beta. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Product Development 88

Product Development Developer San Francisco Product 88

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 18, 2010

With staged releases, time provides a (somewhat illusory) safety net. With staged releases, time provides a (somewhat illusory) safety net. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

Continuous Deployment 151

Continuous Deployment San Francisco Lean Wiki 151

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 4, 2009

Thanks to those of you who were willing to fill out the survey, I learned my net promoter score (about 25) as well as some clear other segmentation insights: about 80% of you are founders of or work at a startup, you read many of the same other blogs, and many of you would like to engage with Lessons Learned in formats and venues beyond this blog.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Up and Running

MAY 1, 2014

Milestones and Metrics. Milestones and Metrics. While the Milestones and Metrics chapter of your business plan may not be long, it’s critical that you take the time to look forward and schedule the next critical steps for your business. Net Profit. Read more ». Marketing and Sales Plan. Read more ». Read more ».

Business Plan 163

Business Plan Forecast Balance Sheet Distribution 163

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 5, 2008

You also need to know what each one cares about, which metrics they look at (or studiously ignore). ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Lo, my 1032 subscribers, who are you?

Advertising 60

Advertising San Francisco Media Continuous Deployment 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 22, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, November 22, 2008 Net Promoter Score: an operational tool to measure customer satisfaction Ive mentioned Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a few previous posts, but havent had a chance to describe it in detail yet. Net Promoter Score NPS is a methodology that comes out of the service industry.

.Net 158

.Net Operations San Francisco Lean 158

ConversionXL

JUNE 2, 2022

If leads-based B2B marketing is fishing with a net, ABM is using a harpoon. 2,320 sign-ups; 39% of attendees were net new accounts; 34 sales-qualified opportunities; 5 new customers immediately converted with LTV of over $100k each (normally a 9 to 12 month sales cycle). Results from Snowflake’s ABM efforts post-IPO.

Marketing 105

Marketing Campaign Artificial Inteligence Sales Cycle 105

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 9, 2009

Almost all of them got scooped up by pre-IPO Google this time. That year, right before the IPO, those months mattered a great deal in terms of financial outcomes. Of course, those were the days when 12 year old, 80% market share, $200mm, 30% net profit companies were the ones going public. July 9, 2009 8:49 PM Anonymoussaid.

San Francisco 94

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 94

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

The pressures of lofty paper valuations, massive burn rates (and the subsequent need for more cash), and unprecedented low levels of IPOs and M&A, have created a complex and unique circumstance which many Unicorn CEOs and investors are ill-prepared to navigate. In Q1 of 2016 there were zero VC-backed technology IPOs.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 19, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 60

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

Silicon Valley 68

Silicon Valley San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Ben's Blog

MARCH 24, 2011

To find out whether or not today’s public technology companies have hit bubble valuations, let’s compare some companies that survived the great bubble with their bubble era valuations: The Enterprise Value-to-Revenue multiple (EV/Rev) and Price-to-Earnings multiple (PE) are commonly used metrics to tell the valuation:value story.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Database 78

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 2, 2009

The net effect of all this was to make new engineers incredibly productive right away – in most cases, we’d have them deliver code to production on their very first day. So far, it's been a net win to keep supporting it. We never set out to build a world-class engineering-training process.

San Francisco 164

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Software Review 164

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Luckily, the metrics helped us figure out the difference. Question 2: If your product has areas where people read and then different areas where people interact, are there ways to do metrics to determine where people spend their time? Were looking to metrics to determine how users interact with our product.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 27, 2009

Even if it helps optimize one stage, if it slows you down somewhere else, it might not be a net win. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th.

San Francisco 117

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 117

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Because five whys kept turning up a few key metrics that were hard to set static thresholds for, we even had a dynamic prediction algorithm that would make forecasts based on past data, and fire alerts if the metric ever went out of its normal bounds. You can even read a cool paper one of our engineers wrote on this approach).

Software Review 167

Software Review Technical Review San Francisco Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

Since we were only paying per click, it didnt cost us anything to cast a wide net. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. We tried obvious competitors as well as long-shots.

SEM 164

SEM San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 164

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 29, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 146

San Francisco Lean Agile Java 146

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? Startup Lessons Learned - the Conference (April 23.

San Francisco 79

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 79

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Save Asia for post-IPO Single instance, multi-tenant, single datacenter - Have only one version of the code in production. Effectively measuring and understanding your CAC and CLTV metrics are key to future success. Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

You see every day these IPOs coming out of companies that we work, for example. Just had an IPO and last quarter they lost $700 million. I love looking at cost per account acquired as a key metric to share with potential acquirers. John Jantsch: So you mentioned the idea of growth potential. John Warrillow: Right.

Entrepreneur 49

Entrepreneur Switzerland Revenue Differentiation 49

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. Lets look at a specific example, and start to think through what the metrics might look like if we attempted to measure it: Customer gets a synthetic message saying: "upload some photos!" Levers of engagement Lets start with the levers of engagement.

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140