#startups
For something that startups pay little attention to, pricing greatly impacts business outcomes like growth, revenue, profitability, and viability. But, some second-order consequences are just as important. This week, we explore how great pricing models can make it easy to prioritise initiatives within your startup.
Every startup needs a repeatable and sustainable sales model. This week, we explore the various strategies that work for SaaS products.
Startup leaders want to integrate AI into their products. Prospective founders want to build businesses on top of AI. Investors wish to create alpha. Today, we explore how startups can capture value when deploying AI.
Tough economic conditions have a way of forcing us to do what we should have always been doing. This year, startup leaders need to make sure their teams are focused on the right things.
I would frame this the other way: all software development should be seen as maintenance. A maintenance-first mindset of incremental improvements that compound into great value is the best way to build product. Especially after you’ve achieved product-market fit.
Today, we cover the two most tempting (and fraught) pivots for B2B startup founders: moving down-market, and adding additional product lines. We explore why these shifts are so difficult to pull off, and how to get them right.
SaaS startups should aim for the recurring revenue they earn from each customer to grow over time. This week, we cover the foundational strategies for achieving recurring revenue expansion.
As B2B SaaS startups achieve scale, they gain the ability to achieve massive revenue growth by simply better monetising existing customers. This week, we explore some pricing strategies that make this type of revenue growth easy.
A self-service experience, including a free trial or freemium plan, is a cost-effective way to sell a product that is capable of selling itself. Many startup leaders underestimate how much work it takes to truly make this work, though. This week, we explore how to deliver a self-service SaaS experience, and how to decide whether this strategy for growth is right for you.
For many SaaS companies and startup leaders, the 2022-2023 recession will be their first. This week, we look at how SaaS companies can optimise costs, adjust their value proposition, and build a strong business during a recession.
As startups achieve product-market fit, product strategy simultaneously becomes more important and more difficult. Startups become unfocused by chasing new opportunities when they should be optimising what they’ve already brought to market. This week, explore the importance of focus as you scale your SaaS company.
This week, we explore the difference between vertical and horizontal SaaS products and how verticalisation can be the best way to win in the increasingly competitive software-as-a-service market.
As your startup grows, responsibilities that used to belong to a single individual will be owned by teams and, eventually departments. This transition is where startup operations become critical. This week, we explore some of the rituals teams should adopt for continuous improvement.
When you build a startup, it can feel like you’re constantly solving new operational problems within your teams. This week, we explore how by solving each problem in the right place in your business, you can build a simpler and more operationally effective business.
Many early stage startup leaders struggle to accurately calculate the important SaaS-specific business metrics because their profit and loss statement isn’t well-structured for a SaaS business. This week, I’ve compiled some simple tips for aligning your P&L with SaaS norms.
Partnerships can drive growth and augment your product at all startup stages, but getting started is difficult. This week, we explore how partnerships typically work for B2B SaaS startups and how to start utilising them.
Some great quotes from Jeff Bezos in this old interview. The takeaway for me: experimenting (and failing) now ensures that you don’t end up counting on a Hail Mary in the future. Amazon once looked pretty goofy for some of these bets, but look at where that has gotten them.
As your startup grows, your team will get busier. More customers means more onboarding tasks, professional services projects, and support tickets. While this is a great problem to have, many startup leaders find it difficult to determine how many people they need in each team. Fortunately, some simple capacity modelling can simplify this process.
This study suggests that the further you stray from your comfort zone as an investor, the worse you perform. Seems like common sense, but valuable advice nonetheless. Note that it’s worth being cautious when looking at any studies on the VC industry: the goal of VC is to be an outlier, so aggregate data studies like this aren’t always valuable.
One thing I’ve noticed when talking to startups is how DevOps and product management are adopted to solve many of the same problems. While I think most companies will eventually require both, I’ve come to believe that it is more valuable to invest early in DevOps than product management.
By being intentional about what types of experience are most important for each role, and considering team-wide capability rather than individual capability, leaders and founders can create powerful teams and nail the first and most crucial step of startup building.
Many leaders view their responsibilities as a list of leadership and management tasks they need to complete. This mindset ignores that the best way for a team to get most things done is through shared ownership and leadership. This week, we explore why leaders should delegate to shared responsibilities rather than individuals.
While many product development leaders obsess over the positive habits their teams should adopt, they rarely pay enough attention to the downside of bad habits and over operationalisation.
Assembling your team is one of the most important responsibilities for any founder or leader. But, most startups I’ve worked with fail at effectively onboarding new staff, which can lead to false starts and failure.
This week we explore a versatile research exercise that can help you to pivot or improve your product based on the needs of your users.