Slides from SaaS Metrics Palooza 2023: How To Present SaaS Metrics Like a Pro

Posted on October 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Last month I spoke at SaaStr Annual 2023 on The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics (video here). When I wrote that presentation I found myself with something of a content blivit on my hands. I had a bunch of strategic things I wanted to say, but darn it, I had a lot of tactical things I wanted to say as well.

While the strategic use of metrics is key, poor tactical presentation of metrics can lead to anything from obsfucation to disaster. Never forget Edwin Tufte’s reminder that tactical presentation mistakes can lead to quite strategic problems, demonstrated via his analysis of a Powerpoint deck that was used in a discussion of the Columbia re-entry decision.

So, instead of trying to jam everything into a single deck, I decided to write two different presentations:

While there is a touch of overlap between the two presentations (e.g., piecemealing), they are designed to be consumed together and reinforce each other, so please take a look at them both.

I have discovered a new mantra in building these decks. Because so many SaaS metrics problems are ultimately driven by a lack of trust, and because templates can do so much to build both trust and alignment, I am now in the habit of repeating:

Templates build trust. Templates build trust. Templates build trust.

I also have a new theme song (and walk-on music) for mistake number seven, excessive use of smoothing. Don’t be a Smooth (metrics) Operator.

I’ve embedded the slides of the SaaS Metrics Palooza presentation below. You can download a PDF of them as well. You can find a video of the presentation at the SaaS Metrics Palooza Website (registration required, but free.)

Thanks to those who attended the presentation and thanks to BenchmarkIt and my SaaS Talk podcast partner, metrics brother Ray Rike, for inviting me.

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Video of my SaaStr 2023 Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics

Posted on September 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

At some point the folks at SaaStr will release the official video of my SaaStr Annual 2023 presentation, but for now they have posted the livestream from the room, done with some nice edits that cut back and forth between the stage and the slides. It even includes the Q&A at the end.

So, since it’s certainly “good enough” in the current format, I am posting a link to the video and embedding it below. Note that if you somehow end up at the start, you want to advance to 03:42 where the presentation actually begins. The slides are available on Kellblog here.

Thanks to Jason Lemkin and the SaaStr team for having me and thanks to everyone who attended. Enjoy! It’s a fun one.

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Posted in Metrics, SaaS, SaaStr

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The Keys to Nailing and Scaling Go-To-Market: Slides from my 10X CEO Accelerate Presentation

Posted on September 12, 2023 | 2 comments

It’s fun when the person who ran marketing at one of your rivals asks you some 20 years later to speak at their annual conference. It’s even more fun when it’s a fellow CMO-turned-CEO and he’s assembled quite an amazing group of people to address. I’m speaking of Brian Gentile managing director of 10X CEO, an accelerated learning environment for high-performing, venture-backed CEOs — or what I might simply call a CEO peer-networking, support, and learning group.

I’m familiar with several of these groups, know many CEOs who swear by them, and have tried a few myself. The core idea is simple:

  • A lot of CEOs are first-time founders and could certainly use some help in doing their job. (Heck, first-timer or not, founder or not, it’s useful to have such a peer network.)
  • The CEO job is indeed a lonely one — virtually everyone around you has an agenda of some sort, from the board to the e-staff to the rank-and-file employees.
  • So it’s enormously helpful to meet with peers, outside the company, who are truly neutral when it comes to matters affecting your business.
  • All the better if the organizational structure is individual peer groups that convene in an annual summit — and if they provide coaching and learning resources to boot.

I know at least a half-dozen members of 10X CEO and to a person they rate their experience highly. If you’re CEO of a fast-growing company that’s $10M+ in ARR, you might contact them to learn more.

Long story short, I was happy to hear from Brian and be invited to speak. The topic I spoke on was The Keys to Nailing and Scaling Go-To-Market. In my speech, we drill into two things:

My thoughts on scaling a startup in general:

  • It’s about growth engines. The more, the better.
  • It’s about people. Some jobs are harder to stay in than others as a company scales. Pay attention to that.
  • And it’s about abstraction. When you start go-to-market, it’s about people and deals. When you scale go-to-market, it’s about numbers and models.

The five keys to scaling go-to-market:

  • Design good experiments, so you can be pretty darn sure that something works before scaling. (Note: were you pretty darn sure the last time you scaled something that didn’t work?)
  • Run a systematic expansion strategy, where you’re crossing the pond by hopping a series of lily pads, instead of trying one big, dangerous leap. (It’s not just boiling for which frogs are useful in business metaphors.)
  • Model-driven scaling, breaking down go-to-market into a series of models, each of which is defined by goals, roles, and ratios. You can compare these models by calculating contribution margins for each of them.
  • Metrics-driven execution, building a data-driven culture where you spend a lot of time reviewing and discussing shared data in a standard template. (See my SaaStr 2023 talk for more.)
  • Dance with who brung ya, one of my more contrarian positions. Silicon Valley is obsessed with the next big thing to the point of sometimes forgetting the last. When scaling, I think it’s key to not forget the people, product, and customers that brought you to the dance.

I’ve embedded the slides below. If they’re too hard to read, go to the PDF here.

Thanks again to Brian, the 10X CEO team, and the CEOs in the audience for having me.

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Posted in CEO, Startups, Uncategorized

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Slides From SaaStr 2023 Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics

Posted on September 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

This is a quick post to share the slides from my SaaStr Annual 2023 presentation entitled The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS metrics. Thanks to everyone who attended the session, laughed at my jokes (yes, there were jokes in a SaaS metrics presentation), asked questions in the session, and who stuck around afterwards to dive deeper into more Q&A.

The slides are available on Google Drive and I’ve embedded them below as well. To see the live video, go here.

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Posted in Metrics, SaaS

Balderton Post on European vs. American Board Meeting Minutes

Posted on September 5, 2023 | 1 comment

It all began with a simple question: why do European board meeting minutes look so different from American ones?

The first time you read the typical minutes from an American board of directors meeting, you freak out because they feel so devoid of content. After a while, you get used to reading them and seeing a lot of language that looks like this:

Ms. Jones, the Company’s CMO, presented an update on marketing including demand generation, product marketing, and communications. The board asked Ms. Jones several questions. A discussion ensued.

This, in turn, begs the question: why do American board meeting minutes look the way they do? Why are they so process-oriented as opposed to content-oriented? Let’s face it, they tell you relatively little about the actual discussions that transpire in a meeting.

These two questions led me on a multi-month journey. As it turns out there are no hard-and-fast requirements, simply litigation preferences and some usually non-codified rules (e.g., the business judgment rule) that are pretty clear in the USA, but vary widely across Europe.

All of this led me to write a post for the Balderton blog, The Why and How of Good Board Meeting Minutes, that dives into these issues. Please check it out. You’ll find some interesting examples — including excerpts from a legal case — that show the why behind the how of good board meeting minutes.

While you’re at it, be sure to see On Board with Balderton, a guide we published for CEOs on how to manage the board and board meetings. Reviewing this (excellent) piece also served as inspiration for me to question board minutes practices.

Thanks to my friends Bob Clarkson, partner emeritus at Jones Day, and Jeff Higgins, partner at Gunderson Dettmer, for their patient education on these issues. Thanks to my supporting authors at Balderton, EIR Andrew Wigfall and associate (and author of the On Board with Balderton guide) Laura McGinnis.

And, as a reminder and disclaimer, the post is not legal advice and you should decide what style of board minutes is best for your company by talking with your corporate counsel. My hope is simply to make that conversation a bit more interesting.

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