Pricing, SaaS, Venture Capital, Biz Dev, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Growth Hacking, and more, Weekend Roundup Must Read Sept 7 2013
Startup Management is a manual selection from the hundreds of weekly articles being curated. Previous issues are available here. There are 21 links in this edition, and please feel free to FORWARD to a friend, so they can sign-up and benefit too. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Product Management One of the factors in startup failure is when the product roadmap drifts away from the core value proposition. In Introducing Product/Value Alignment: What Comes After Product/Market Fit, I go over the steps to define a strong value proposition so you can align it with your product roadmap to facilitate the realization of your business model. And Gojko Adzic explains how to avoid a common mistake product teams make when they confuse themselves with their customers, in How we solved our #1 product management problem. Venture Capital Semil Shah puts into question the Demo Day rituals, and names VCs, Accelerators and Startups as accomplices. This will not be the last discussion on this topic, in Unlearn. Business Development In From 0 to 2 Million DAU’s: The Guide to Growing Your Startup via Partnerships, Brian Balfour lays out a detailed process for developing B2B2C partnerships. One of his first rules: “never consider B2B2C partnerships prior to Product/Market fit.” This is a must read. Advertising In
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Pricing, SaaS, Venture Capital, Biz Dev, Product Management, Sales, Marketing, Growth Hacking, and more, Weekend Roundup Must Read Sept 7 2013
Startup Management is a manual selection from the hundreds of weekly articles being curated. Previous issues are available here. There are 21 links in this edition, and please feel free to FORWARD to a friend, so they can sign-up and benefit too. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Product Management One of the factors in startup failure is when the product roadmap drifts away from the core value proposition. In Introducing Product/Value Alignment: What Comes After Product/Market Fit, I go over the steps to define a strong value proposition so you can align it with your product roadmap to facilitate the realization of your business model. And Gojko Adzic explains how to avoid a common mistake product teams make when they confuse themselves with their customers, in How we solved our #1 product management problem. Venture Capital Semil Shah puts into question the Demo Day rituals, and names VCs, Accelerators and Startups as accomplices. This will not be the last discussion on this topic, in Unlearn. Business Development In From 0 to 2 Million DAU’s: The Guide to Growing Your Startup via Partnerships, Brian Balfour lays out a detailed process for developing B2B2C partnerships. One of his first rules: “never consider B2B2C partnerships prior to Product/Market fit.” This is a must read. Advertising In
is a long post that chronicled the high and lows of Flowtab who seemed to have done the right thing. It ends with “we believe the real failure would be not sharing our story with the world.” This post generated 226 comments.
he has been receiving, because “you don’t know what you don’t know”. And keeping with that same theme, there is some good advice from a New York Times interview with Francisco D’Souza, CEO of Cognizant in
, a must read (and keep) for anyone involved in SaaS. Some highlights: average growth: 47% vs. 41% in 2012, 90% growth if via Internet sales. 92 cents on the dollar is the average cost of acquiring a customer, but it drops to 17 cents for existing customers. “Try before you buy” has much higher conversion rates than Freemium. Median churn: 9%. Median capital raise: $9MM.
, analyzing four of the most common SaaS pricing models: Freemium, Consumption, Tiered, and Perpetual License. It includes case studies from HubSpot, Assistly, ZipCar, Twilio, Oracle and others. Must read. Here’s the
, where he lays out a horizontal row of knowledge areas where you can have a broad array of skills, versus a vertical column where you have deep knowledge/ability in one, or a few areas. And I compare and contrast
, where he wonders if there’s an “innovators dilemma amongst users”. My viewpoint is that early adopters represent a small, early market. As the startup grows, it then needs to serve a larger market, and not just the early adopters.
SEO
For a quick checkup on the state of your SEO, look no further than Rand Fishkin’s whiteboard session on
, where he lists the top 9. Not surprisingly, links are still a big deal, but brand metrics are on the rise. Social is still minor. Take-away: look at your own segments and compare. That SUMs it up! Don’t forget to
is a long post that chronicled the high and lows of Flowtab who seemed to have done the right thing. It ends with “we believe the real failure would be not sharing our story with the world.” This post generated 226 comments.
he has been receiving, because “you don’t know what you don’t know”. And keeping with that same theme, there is some good advice from a New York Times interview with Francisco D’Souza, CEO of Cognizant in
, a must read (and keep) for anyone involved in SaaS. Some highlights: average growth: 47% vs. 41% in 2012, 90% growth if via Internet sales. 92 cents on the dollar is the average cost of acquiring a customer, but it drops to 17 cents for existing customers. “Try before you buy” has much higher conversion rates than Freemium. Median churn: 9%. Median capital raise: $9MM.
, analyzing four of the most common SaaS pricing models: Freemium, Consumption, Tiered, and Perpetual License. It includes case studies from HubSpot, Assistly, ZipCar, Twilio, Oracle and others. Must read. Here’s the
, where he lays out a horizontal row of knowledge areas where you can have a broad array of skills, versus a vertical column where you have deep knowledge/ability in one, or a few areas. And I compare and contrast
, where he wonders if there’s an “innovators dilemma amongst users”. My viewpoint is that early adopters represent a small, early market. As the startup grows, it then needs to serve a larger market, and not just the early adopters.
SEO
For a quick checkup on the state of your SEO, look no further than Rand Fishkin’s whiteboard session on
, where he lists the top 9. Not surprisingly, links are still a big deal, but brand metrics are on the rise. Social is still minor. Take-away: look at your own segments and compare. That SUMs it up! Don’t forget to
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