
Why your software business isn't as good as it could be, and what you can do about it.
This was a challenge we addressed in today’s live CEO Mastermind session.
With an economic downturn looming, the big question is: How are the priorities of your ideal customer profile changing? What are the macro-economic factors that are changing for your customers? And what does this mean to the perspectives of your business?
The problem with uncertainty is:
What’s at stake?
The urgency
Here’s the thing:
Your positioning doesn’t necessarily change in a downturn, but your USP likely will. As your customers’ priorities are shifting, so will their perspective about what problems are highly valuable AND critical to solving. That’s where your opportunity is. Reassess the longlist of what keeps your customers up at night, and rate each challenge around two angles:
Zoom in to those challenges where you know you can exceed expectations, i.e., the challenges that have become more valuable and critical. Refocus on those customers.
The question for you to reflect upon:
If you assess your target market – which niche will you be able to be ultra-relevant for when a recession becomes a reality?
What’s slowing your SaaS Business down. This was the big question we addressed in last week’s live CEO Mastermind session.
Why? Here’s the thing
Because too often we’re only looking at the opposite question: What can we do to go faster?
The problem with this:
More often than not that’s about doing more, spending more, and working harder
What’s at stake
We push and push and push and wear people out along the way
We still don’t meet our aspired growth because we don’t have an eye for the fundamental roadblocks that we should actually remove
The difficulty
Taking a 30000 ft view and seeing the big picture
Connecting the dots and being open to killing hobby horses
Here are some outcomes from our breakout session
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What’s slowing down the SaaS business you own, run or work for? What could you start today to make it 10% faster?
This was one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
“I’ve got to be very conscious of the competitive situation at the moment. More competition is entering the market, kicking off what in the category creation world would be the two-year war to see who will win.”
The urgency
What’s at stake /the fear
The problem
Here’s the thing:
It’s a real dilemma: Choosing between valuation and speed, or creating value and building a sustainable business around a meaningful mission. You can feel torn between sub-optimal decisions. It’s where true leaders rise to the table – and make the right decision – whatever that is.
The question for you to reflect upon:
Imagine the dynamics in your market would change overnight and create a category war: what would you double down on, and what would you be willing to give up?
“We have traction (+7000 installs) for the free app (an app in the mental health/wellness space) – and now need to scale towards 20K paid subscribers. With a runway of 7 months, so my strategic challenge is – which channel do we bet our efforts on: B2C, partners (f.ex. professional coaches) or B2B?”
This was one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session
The problem/struggle
What’s at stake /the fear
The difficulty
Here’s the thing:
A discussion about ‘channel’ is meaningless if it’s not 100% crystal clear what ‘expensive’ problem is solved. And for each target audience in this case that’s different.
The art is to get super specific on the ‘Why’, instead of sticking to the ‘What’.
How? By creating a list of the problems potential customers struggle with – and then quantify the size of the problem ( on a scale of 1-10: how valuable is it to solve and how critical/urgent is it on their agenda). Then lastly quantify (1-10) on per problem where can your app exceed expectations.
That gives focus. This creates resourcefulness – and most likely, the clarity which channel will be most obvious to focus on.
With respect to this, these quotes might be of value to you:
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
If you’d ask your ideal customers to visit your website – would they be able to articulate in <7 seconds what’s the exact problem you could help them solve? If not – what if they could?
This is one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s live CEO Mastermind session.
“We’re still relatively small, just close a multi-year $1M a year deal, and have a healthy pipeline. However, I am not a ‘COO’ type person and have no background selling software. My question is: Should I try to raise as much as I can and bring in the team, or should I stay lean right now?”
The problem/struggle
What’s at stake /the fear
The urgency
Here’s the thing:
It’s such a common conversation. Fundraise ….bootstrap. The lessons I have learned from all the hundreds of SaaS CEOs that I’ve interviewed and worked with is: Traction before funding. Period. Find the product-market-fit.
Get some larger fires burning (discount your whale account – create genuine pull around your product) and do things that don’t scale yourself (even if it’s for 6 months) to deeply understand what works and what doesn’t. Then decide.
That way you have a much stronger negotiation position (IF you consider funding). And you can properly target where you invest your funding to make those fires big fires.
With respect to this, these quotes might be of value to you:
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
The question about raising will come up sooner rather than later. If you could grow as fast (or even faster) by continuing to be bootstrapped – would you take that shot? What would have to be true to do so?
In relation to the blog I posted last week exploring the question “How can you turn a market downturn into your tailwind,” we focused our CEO Mastermind last week on the importance of ROI in B2B SaaS Sales. This revealed some interesting insights.
One participant summarized the challenge around ROI nicely
“I understand that sometimes ROI needs to have like $ value to it, but I think that shouldn’t be like a generalized rule of evaluation”
The problem?
It all depends on who you are selling to.
What’s at stake?
The urgency?
Here’s the thing:
As they say: ‘Not everything that can be counted, counts. And not everything that counts can be counted.’ Having extremely fast ROI can be an accelerator – but it can also lead you in the completely wrong direction – and hence be counterproductive in a deal.
This goes back again to truly understanding your customers and how external factors influence their decision-making. Getting crystal clear what’s changing and what’s become most challenging?
Find the areas where your solution can exceed expectations around mission-critical situations. Only then – decide if there’s anything in the way that could delay a deal. That can be ROI – but it can very well also be the way you communicate about your value.
With respect to this, this one participant shared this:
“We’ve repositioned the entire business off the back of that. With first Brexit, then COVID, and now the Ukraine war we shifted from being very advertising/marketing lead to being sales lead. Because budgets are just completely different.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What is currently shifting for your customers, and how is this affecting how you are positioned in their eyes?
One of the challenges we addressed in the live CEO Mastermind session last Thursday.
We focused on a tedious positioning use case from the Cyber Security space. All the ingredients were ideal. The product…
Still – not enough traction.
The problem/struggle?
What’s at stake /the fear?
The difficulty?
Here’s the thing:
it’s a dream for any company to solve an extremely valuable problem in a way no one can. Still, it’s not always the best technology or product that wins. Often it’s positioning or packaging that sits in the way. And that’s the case here.
The problem to overcome is a psychological one rather than a business issue. And that starts by finding a way that will make your biggest ambassador feel like a hero. Until that’s the case – the door will be smashed in your face.
Here are some ways to go about that
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Looking at this case, a dream case on paper – could it be you are leaving money on the table with your SaaS solution? If so, what positioning change could you consider to find the maze to that hidden tipping point?
“How do I create a partner ecosystem that’s rewarding enough to enroll in, but also drives loyalty and doesn’t detract quality?”
This was one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session..
The problem/struggle?
What’s at stake /the fear?
The urgency?
Here’s the thing:
Scaling a SaaS business has many facets, and leveraging the ecosystem can be a fundamental one. The big question is, how can you make it a flywheel that accelerates momentum. An often-made mistake is that the motivation for leveraging partners is an internal one. We forget to articulate what would make it irresistible for ‘the other side’. This doesn’t mean we have to give everything away. It means we offer something valuable and desirable.
In respect to this here are some ideas to consider
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What would have to be true to 10x the size of your SaaS business by going all-in on an Ecosystem strategy?
“We’ve grown fantastically over the past two years and built a multi-million dollar business based on my network and connections in the industry. However, entering the next phase of scale, my ‘fabulous network’ can’t keep up with the demands of the funnel.”
The problem?
What’s at stake?
The urgency?
Here’s the thing:
To grow enough traction, constantly fueling the top of the funnel every is critical for every B2B SaaS company. The question is: with how many leads? Answering that question depends on basically 3 components: your topline target, your average win rate, and the velocity of your sales cycle. This is where clarity around segmentation, positioning, and value proposition (i.e. your value foundation) becomes a critical lever.
The better you define who you’re for (and not for), the better you’ll be able to attract the right leads, speed up deal velocity and increase win rates. I’ve seen companies transform from winning 2 out of 10 to winning 8 out of 10. Suddenly you don’t need 100 leads per month (to win 20), but just 25. Suddenly the problem becomes much more manageable.
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“Having a clear value proposition really helped us in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. Everything that I expected to happen from investing in this, happened, which is a bit strange, cause that rarely happens. The best thing: Focus. Focus on the things that we’re actually good at. Focus on the things the market should know us for. But beyond that: the ability to standardize things, and the ease of explaining what we’re doing in a way that resonates both internally and externally. Lastly – it helps with capital fundraising. What was missing was a simple way to explain how we are going to catch the market. The value foundation gave is the three pillars.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What’s the quality of the leads at the top of your SaaS funnel? How much does really this cost your business in marketing, sales, and eventually services and development?
This was one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
The struggle
What’s at stake
The urgency
Here’s the thing:
The difficulty of achieving multiple X growth varies where you are on your journey in terms of ARR. That said, poor product-market fit, too broad segmentation, unclear positioning, or a generic value proposition complicates things in all stages.
This leads to a vicious circle: Short-term runway challenges. A need to fund the business when it’s not ideal. Unfavorable funding conditions. Unwanted pressure from external investors to meet their expectations. And so on…..
The odd thing is when we’re experiencing challenges to create traction or see growth stagnation, 9 out of 10 start/scaleups decide to shoot wider, instead of focusing on the essence.
Here are some gems from the call that might help you to overcome this:
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What’s standing in the way of your startup to sustain multiple X growth? What’s the one thing you can start tomorrow to change that?
“It’s tempting for me as a new entrepreneur to start thinking about hiring veterans. But when is the right moment – and why?”
This was one of the questions we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind case study.
“We bootstrapped up to about $3M ARR and about 30FTE (no veterans) and did our Series A. One year after… we crashed. In hindsight, we didn’t have a repeatable, go-to-market engine. If you cannot repeatedly close X amount of deals in a certain period with almost the same type of funnel metrics then I would never hire a senior exec team at that stage anymore.”
The problem?
What’s at stake?
Here’s the thing:
Too often we start scaling too early. There’s barely a product-market fit. Segmentation is off, positioning isn’t crystal clear, and the value proposition is not compelling enough. Still we make the bet, often through a VC funding round. And this is where problems exponentially grow. Expectations about growth trajectory are unrealistic and wrong choices are made about where and how to invest the money. This drives unnecessary stress (not even talking about the unnecessary dilution at this early stage)
There’s nothing wrong with VC funding as long as it can be spent on amplifying a fire that’s already burning strongly.
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“We were selling to 20 different industries. It wasn’t sustainable. Too many different sales motions, and product roadmap requests. We decided to double down on 1 industry where we could leverage a big market trend. In 2 years we grew that segment to half the revenue of the company (from just 4%). It’s the reason we got acquired. It accounted for 75% of our valuation. That’s the power of focus and positioning.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Does your SaaS business has a strong repeatable go-to-market engine? If not – What if you narrowed your focus and leverage positioning to become a vendor no one can ignore?
This was one of the challenges we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session
The problem/struggle
What’s at stake /the fear
The urgency / difficulty
Here’s the thing:
Exclusivity deals in SaaS can be a very effective way to gain rapid traction in specific niche markets that are dominated by aggregators, especially when you’re an “embedded play” with an API. Doing exclusive deals (as opposed to selling through a traditional OEM/Partner model) can dramatically reduce your variable costs and Opex, and help you gain momentum fast through specific verticals simply because of the rules and commitment around such a deal.
The big question is: Given the ‘exclusivity’ aspect – how do you structure the commercial side of the deal? How do you prevent undercharging / giving away too much margin? Cause once the deal is a deal, that’s your only route to market in that niche – and success is in their hands.
So, one tip: keep your options open by tying exclusivity to performance – and incorporating critical milestone review moments in your contract.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
In what areas of your SaaS business could you spark momentum through an exclusive deal? What would be the go/no go conditions for such a deal?
“We all know that 10x a year is not necessarily the best or most sustainable, but how do you go about defining your optimal growth trajectory?”
This was the challenge we addressed during last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
The problem:
The fear:
The difficulty: Being stretched
Here’s the thing:
Just because the market is billions in size, and growing with +20% a year doesn’t mean you’re going to dominate, let alone win in it. Zooming into the niche within that massive market where you can gain rapid traction – winning 8 out of 10 and selling to people who are prepared to pay a premium just makes everything easier.
In respect to this, this comment might be of value to you:
“When we get into a new market we have a gated process to define if this market is great for us. We score three questions:
This becomes a formula. If the score is good we’ll make the plan – so it’s not purely based on the addressable market”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Is your SaaS business optimized around the best quality growth for the stage you’re at? What if it was?
This is the key question we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
“The biggest challenge was that we operate in this space, which requires a lot of investment, especially on the r&d side. There is no place for number five or six in the market, you need to be in the top three if you want to be successful and profitable in the longer term.”
The problem/struggle
What’s at stake /the fear
The urgency / difficulty
Some of the key lessons and Aha! moments:
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
How well are you positioned to become a dominant force in your market? What could you do differently to accelerate this process?
This was the topic we dug into in last week’s CEO Mastermind.
The problem
The difficulty/doubt
What’s at stake
Recently what we’ve done is try to break down the human. We broke it down into two phases, a utility and an emotion. As human beings, we have a purpose that is useful. That’s a utility. And then we have a purpose as an emotional, right, which is the connection, the love, and these things. So how do we put that into the product and into the marketing? And basically, that’s our r&d. Literally, our r&d is the marketing.
Here’s the thing:
We always look up to those companies that have their advocates spread the word for them. What we forget however is that all those companies all started at some point as well. This is much more a mindset issue, than a budget issue.
In respect to this, these quotes might be of value to you:
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
“How can you 10x the number of advocates for your SaaS products without wearing out your scarce resources?
This was a core challenge we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
The dilemma
The urgency
The fear
Here’s the thing:
It’s a fantastic situation to be in if two companies are fighting over exclusivity. In this scenario, this type of deal was never the setup. So how do you deal with it? Especially when the pressure is on. The way to approach this is by getting a solid understanding of:
For Exclusives your normal pricelist don’t work. Throw them out of the window. This is value pricing. And the risk is you underplay what’s really behind this.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Extreme deal situations like this can be eye-openers. So if you look at the essence of your SaaS business – could it be that you’re undercutting the true value of your solution?
Acquiring a company is one, merging it is something different. So what are the mistakes to avoid? This was a topic we addressed in last week’s Mastermind session.
The problem
Too often we get too excited about the process to close the deal and forget about the fact a lot of the potential is dependent on how successfully we merge the new entity
What’s at stake
Failing to successfully merge a newly acquired SaaS business can drag the entire business down
The difficulty
When you acquire another business, 9 out of 10 you end up with two entirely different businesses – with two entirely different cultures, products, and go-to-market approaches.
Here’s the thing:
I’ve been involved in many acquisition processes when I worked at Unit4. Many succeeded because they were deliberately not merged: they were acquired for a different reason: Market access, profitability, a legacy installed base.
When we switched to acquiring for technology everything changed. We had to merge to obtain the value. A very painful process – and only after the third acquisition we’d learned some tough lessons.
The biggest lesson: make sure you’ve got the full plan ready AT the moment of the acquisition: Technology Integration approach and GTM approach i.e. who’ll you’ll sell this to (and who not), joined-up positioning, joined-up value proposition, packaging, pricing, the narrative to the market (to counter competitive FUD), etcetera
It’s a very valuable exercise to do upfront. Not only because it will optimally prepare you for success – but you’ll also learn a lot about what it will be like to work together.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Could making a strategic acquisition accelerate the momentum of your business? If so, what would need to be true?
Last week we focused the live CEO Mastermind session on this situation:
“Imagine your product would be replaced with another (similar) product. If we’d interview all your customers in 3 months and ask: What do you miss most? How would they respond?”
Some reactions from the reflections:
Here’s the thing:
Far too often this is an afterthought. We’re too busy getting our solution out, pushing to build traction, and then doing whatever we can to try to make and keep our customers happy. We end up with ‘so so’ answers to this question, realizing our customers won’t miss our solution as much as we think they would.
So, what if we’d design with this in mind? Wouldn’t that make everything easier? It’s those things that create the equity around our solutions – giving it defensible differentiation.
In respect to this, you’d possibly value this
An article from HBR on Bains’ 40 elements of value in B2B model. The more boxes you ‘tick’ the more your customers would miss if it if you’d take it away from them.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
How would your ideal customers respond if you’d ask them the question: ‘What would you miss if we’d take it away from you?’
“We did a long and hard exercise recently about: What is the value we deliver to our customers? Part of the was inspired reading ‘The Remarkable Effect.’ And I’m the first to admit: I was shocked…. whatever we thought was the value we’re delivering wasn’t the reasons our customers were buying our product….”
This was one of the challenges we discussed during last week’s CEO Mastermind session
The problem?
“How do we make the sales cycle leaner, that will enable us to scale faster?”
The urgency
Continue to meet renewed expectations around traction (on the back of Series A)
Here’s the thing
We can think we’re growing ‘just fine’ – but the big question is: Can we sustain it? Growing 3x from $500K to $2million is solid. But with renewed funding the pressure is on – so the next 12 months you have to do it again (and possibly even more) i.e. +$6Million. And again… that’s super hard if there’s a mismatch around what you think is the value you deliver, and what your customers think it is.
In respect to this, this quote might inspire you:
“I have 35 people on my team, but this is something I wanted to do myself. As an entrepreneur you strive for two things: You strive to build something that’s solving a problem and making a valuable impact. The other thing is delivering that with that value with impact. So I interviewed our top 25 customers about what they thought was most valuable. It was a fantastic investment of my time. This changed everything. And it accelerated our growth immensely.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
How confident are you that what you believe is the value of your SaaS business is delivering is what your customers think it is? If not – what damage is that causing?
This was the essence of the question we addressed in last week’s CEO Mastermind hotseat.
The situation is like this: There’s a platform (SDK) play (broad, not deep) that’s revenue- and profit-generating, and there’s a B2C product play (deep, not broad) that is still in MPV mode, still requires heavy investments and has a higher risk profile
The problem/struggle: “Should we go broad, or deep – or both?
What’s at stake /the fear: “Continuing on both reduces focus – and could become suicidal”
The urgency / difficulty / doubt
Here’s the thing:
These decisions aren’t easy. They are loaded with emotion, to begin with. Obviously focus is key. Trying to do too many things at the same time, often leads to failure on either side.
Going with the product that brings ‘the easy revenue’, can also be dangerous. Think about questions like this:
And then there’s something else that’s important (and often overlooked): Passion
In respect to this, this quote from one of the participants might make you think:
“6 months ago I completely restructured my business. We could do three things with our platform and split it up in three companies. The third option was by far the most difficult route of the three of them,
What I learned was this: I have overlooked the importance of passion and dedication. And I very much overlooked the uninteresting side of the direct financial results. If I would be waking up to a VC who’s pushing me into an area that I am not passionate about, I won’t say I’d kill myself, but it will quickly start doing something else.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What in your SaaS business could you change to deliver the biggest possible value to your customers, create the strongest defensible differentiation, and gain the most energy?
Last week’s live CEO Mastermind session we celebrated progress on top priorities and shared the key learnings. Here are a couple
A quote that caught my attention:
“We let go of our CTO. Making the decision created a lot of anxiety in our management team and but actually, to me, it created a lot of opportunity.
The key learning: the learning: It took me too long since I didn’t trust my gut.
I’m normally a guy who rips the band-aid off. But we’re also in a human business, so there is also an element of empathy. But in the end, what you always need to realize is: It’s great that you work with very talented people and with people that are nice, but in the end, you have a business to run. And if the business is being pulled down by somebody, and you can’t coach them to go to that next level, then you need to let them go.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Who or what are the stress creators in your SaaS business? Could it be you’re hiding from making the decision your business needs to move forward?
One was the essence of the hot seat track we had in last weeks’ CEO Mastermind session.
The problem?
What’s at stake?
The difficulty
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“There are kind of two pieces in play. One is obviously you guys are in different weight classes and they’re in a stronger position. And the other is you’re the one trying to solve all the puzzles and problems. And so is there a way that you can get them to make decisions?
This means you come in with strength and respect and say ‘Here’s the situation I’m in, I am a builder, I want to ensure sustainable growth, and you guys can lock me out of entire regions and screw my business. So I have to do something about that. I have to diversify my opportunities, but I want to keep a good relationship with you. So help me solve this problem.”
So, change your mindset and remove the emotion from the conversation. Instead of turning you into a negotiation with them, figure out a way to pull them onto your side of the table, so that you guys are solving the same problem.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Are there areas in your business where you’re undermining your potential? What if you’d remove the emotion from the situation and have an objective conversation about it?
Last week’s CEO Mastermind session we focused 100% on exploring the big lessons learned in an attempt to embrace Product-Led Growth (with a product that’s high touch)
The problem to solve:
Some of the key takeaways worth sharing:
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
Rather than targeting key decision-makers, have you thought about going bottom-up?
We originally targeted CIOs or heads of IT. What we actually found was that by talking to architects who are battling with transformation challenges day in day out, and getting them to try the product, understanding the pains, we actually turned them into internal champions and advocates. That drove the engagement upwards.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What component of Product Led Growth could you use to grow your SaaS pipeline with highly relevant leads?
The core topic of last week’s live Hot Seat session as part of our CEO Mastermind was: Gross Margin.
The problem/struggle?
What’s at stake?
The difficulty
With respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“It seems to me that what’s missing is your customer’s return on ‘investment’ i.e. the value you bring. I’m sure your customers know what this is, but it sounds like you don’t know, or at least that you don’t know what their ROI is relative to your customers.
It seems obvious that it’s best to move away from price per message and towards price per result achieved. Assuming you can’t lower your direct cost, all you can do is increase price. To do so, you need to leverage the ROI you achieve. You can only do this if your ROI is higher than your competitors.
So: Can you find out what the ROI is from your product, how this compares to your competitors, and then propose a new pricing model that is directly linked to ROI?”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Does your SaaS pricing model have a direct relationship to the ROI your customers obtain? If not – what if it would? How can you change your pricing model in a way it drives higher Gross Margin, while at the same time your customers would say ‘Thank you’?
Last week’s CEO Mastermind was about reflecting on the key takeaways from 2021.
What I saw was this: Everyone grew – ranging from 30% to 3x. Obviously great, but what I pushed for was not the growth stories, but what was hard – and what did we learn from that. Here’s are just a few insights:
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“What I’ve learned is to put in place retention schemes for your top talent. Because we’re all startups because we’re all small companies. So every employee makes a dent, and it makes a big impact. So if it’s a bad hire, it makes a big impact. And if it’s a great hire, it makes an even bigger impact if they leave.
The knowledge they bring and develop while they’re with your company is, to some extent, almost irreplaceable. It becomes really difficult to replace and retrain somebody and get them into the vibe. A lot of business books will tell you startups should shuffle people around to keep on getting new blood, etc. I’m finding the opposite. You get the most out of your top talent by retaining them and getting them to go on and build this journey with you.
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What’s been the hardest nut to crack for you in 2021 – and how can you leverage that to your advantage in 2022?
First of all: Happy New Year – I truly hope the next 12 months will be remarkable, both for you personally and for your SaaS business.
And the topic in the headline could be one of value for you: Scaling Deep. It was the topic for the hot seat track I ran the last day before Christmas part of the CEO Mastermind program. Fascinating topic – here’s why:
Wikipedia: Although scaling is often associated only with “more, better, bigger” it is important to consider that it has three dimensions:
I agree, virtually every B2B SaaS business is always occupied with Scaling Out and Up – Scaling Deep is often forgotten. And it’s in this domain where we can fire up the flywheel.
Scaling deep is about creating a movement behind our software business. This is about creating fans and ambassadors. This is about creating leverage by enabling the people that believe what we believe, that see what we see to spread the word for us
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What can you do differently in 2022 to leverage the power of Scaling Deep to accelerate your momentum?
This was the challenge we addressed during the Hot-seat session in last weeks’ CEO Mastermind session
The problem
What’s the difficulty
What’s at stake?
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
I know an amazing leader, David Novak, author of “Taking People with you”. He transformed Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza hut. His secret: Sincere curiosity. When a leader shows curiosity, and sincerely cares about people, amazing things happen. I remember listening to a guy saying, ‘for that man, I would walk through fire, because he cares about me.’ And so as soon as you’re growing a company to the size, where salespeople feel disconnected from the leadership, theor ego makes it real easy for them to give you the finger and do things their way. But as soon as they believe you care, and you’re showing up with sincere questions about them and their life, that does a lot for pedaling the bike.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
Beyond bringing disparate sales teams together digitally (via slack or platforms like SalesScreen), what can you do differently to make people walk through fire for you?
This was the topic of the hot-seat track in last week’s CEO Mastermind session.
The struggle
What’s at stake?
The urgency?
Here are some of the routes explored:
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“All VCs care about is a monthly recurring revenue arbitrage. If you say, ‘our customer acquisition costs is this, we currently have a waiting list of this, and our lifetime value of a customer is that,’ they’ll plug that into an Excel spreadsheet, and they tell you how much money they’re going to give you.”
“And what if you’d use the fact you’re giving away equity in the company to get people onboarded faster? From a story perspective, it would make your company look incredible (not only to investors). It would make your service look valuable to the people on the waiting list, It would create a buzz in PR. And all of a sudden, more people would want to work for you.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What if you’d turn your sales pipeline into a buzzing waitlist?
In last week’s live CEO Mastermind session we launched the new monthly theme: Remarkable Software companies surprise and hit the right nerve. When I asked for some critical challenges in relation to this, this came to the table:
The struggle
What’s at stake?
For all the challenges above what’s at stake is: The fear of losing out on the right deals with customers, partners, venture capitalists, and even employees.
The urgency
“Time – We’re grinding our way forward, dodging enough bullets to stay alive, and running as fast as we can to get towards our goal”
With respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“In the last in this month we created a “cookbook” with an X amount of recipes, which we can use whenever we want and wherever we think it’s right to take. It’s a cookbook dedicated to us, to our teams, to our capabilities, to our products to our market.”
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
What could you do differently in your organization to enable everyone to surprise, and hit the right nerve?
One of the challenges we addressed in last weeks live CEO Mastermind session was this: “How do you triple the size of your business year-on-year without breaking it”
The struggles
The dilemmas
The fear
In respect to this, this quote might be of value to you:
“At the end of day, how the product is actually implemented is where the customers get the value. So if you outsource that you actually outsource the success of your platform.
If you got a high churn business, no one’s paying attention to you. If you’ve got a low churn business you’ve got a quality product. But there’s always going to be that urge for quick win optimization, improving, or speeding up onboarding. Fact is: if you don’t have that retention, if you don’t have that proof of quality product, you don’t get your reviews.
At the end of the day, it’s the reviews that are actually positioning us on the grids. The better our reviews, then the more organic we can actually get review site traffic versus having to pay for it.“
The question I want to leave you with to reflect upon:
How do you ensure your SaaS business can rapidly scale – without breaking things?
This single line set the scene for the CEO Mastermind hot seat last week – and although Runway obviously ebbs and flows constantly, this was a special one:
The struggles:
The dilemmas:
The fear:
“Running out of money before we get even close to revenue”
The hot seat highlighted many solution directions – some obvious, some eye-opening.
Most value came from active reflection though – on responses like this:
“Survival as a strategic goal has never worked for me. Usually, when you just focus on that survival, your stress level goes through the roof, you barely make it. Sometimes you don’t.
There’s a number of different routes you can take.
But all of them depend on what you want.
Do you have lots of IP, and there’s one thing you’re really passionate about?
Are you’re willing to let other things go? Do you have a desire to be the person running it?
Are you more interested in seeing the product itself take off and grow than you are having yourself be the one at the head?”
As such, the reflective question I want to leave you with is:
Imagine a setback like this hits your desk: How do you take out emotions and get to clarity?
In last week’s live CEO Mastermind session, we addressed a bunch of strategic, but also emotionally drained topics:
One key takeaway worth sharing on this key question: How do you deal with people who feel they only contribute a little bit to the vision by virtue of their role?
“Well, there are basically two options: Either you or they are going to find some way to better contribute or they’re going to leave the company. I think it can it boils down to you’re either aligned, or you’re not aligned with the vision. And if you’re not aligned – and honestly I had a lot of struggle with this – but one person in this call beginning of this summer said: ‘if you’re misaligned, nip it in the bud.’ That’s exactly what I did over the summer, and I think that’s been something super important.”
That leaves me to give you a question to reflect upon for yourself:
How do you enable anyone in your business to live and breath the vision as your business doubles or triples year on year?
This was one of the quotes that set the tone in our CEO Mastermind session on Thursday. Beyond this, we addressed a bunch of strategic topics like:
One key takeaway worth sharing:
“We have a good vision. And as long as we have a very clear mechanism in place that says: ‘As long as people use our product, we make money with good margins.’ Then the real thing that we need to measure is how many people are using it? It’s much more motivating for the team as well.”
In yesterday’s and Thursday’s live CEO Masterminds, this quote came up three times.
We addressed a bunch of strategic topics that I believe could be relevant to you as well:
One of the Aha-moments worth sharing (in relation to point 1):
“It’s critical to get crystal clear about the big picture (our vision) and connect the dots to how you translate this into a believable go-to-market approach. Being a purpose-driven business it’s too easy to stay at “the dream” level. Investors need to believe in the vision – but even more in how we’ll practically make it happen.”
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