Why Marketing Automation and Problem Solving Should Guide Your Business Strategy Every day entrepreneurs develop new products and services that enable businesses to work smarter, and they’re constantly circling back to the question of how to stay focused and scale. For Danielle Morrill, CEO of Mattermark, this question ties back to streamlining internal operations so her team only works on activities that have an impact and directly align with customer pain points. Here are her four main takeaways about sales teams and product development
From the Investors Neeraj Agrawal of Battery Ventures provides a 42-slide analysis of the software industry, the five forces of software’s accelerating growth, and what it means for software CEOs in “Software 2017 - Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going?” Brad Feld of Foundry Group finds thinking in MRR thresholds instead of ARR thresholds is easier to process and describes questions founders often miss in “The Journey From $1m MRR to $2m MRR” Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures believes the universe of opportunities for unbundling Excel is enormous, and a big trend in workflow software in “The Unbundling Of Excel” Martyn Holman of Forward Partners documents changes in European VC, Applied AI’s position in the Gartner Hype Cycle, and their criteria for qualifying Applied AI investments in “A New Thesis for a New Fund” Ryan Larcom of High Alpha details the "venture studio" model and its benefits over the traditional venture capital model in “Why High Alpha Is a “Venture Studio” SaaS Metrics Survey
Are you ready to raise your next round? Take our survey to help measure and benchmark the metrics vital to a SaaS company’s success. Answers will be compiled and sent to participants this summer. Go here to take the survey. From the Operators John Kinzer of HubSpot explains why HubSpot, at two different times in its history, raised money when it didn't need to and how these decisions impact the growth trajectory of large companies in "Why You Should Raise Money When You Don’t Need To” Scott Middleton of Stratejos chats with Sarah E. Brown and Bill Cushard of ServiceRocket about how AI and bots are shaping the future of project management in “Helping Sells Radio Episode 40” David Appel of Intacct shares tips on how to have a successful Board Meeting, with insights from top investors and Valley CFOs on how to build the narrative and streamline the creation of the deck in “What Makes a Great Board Meeting?” Terry Lee of Panacea conveys how to implement a framework to make decisions with conviction and speed in “How to Avoid Startup Suicide: Indecision” Barry Quinn of Phorest explains how the best way to ensure your new hires work out is to take some un-intuitive steps in "Why You Should Never Call A Reference" Must-Reads From Today's Raise The Bar
Noah Kagan of Sumo lays out how he created a framework to reverse engineer Mint’s growth from zero to 100,000 users in 6 months that ended up in one million users instead in “How I Grew Mint.com from Zero to 1 Million Users” Joe Pairman of Mekon presents 93 slides on the network of rules that can govern navigation links, how to create controlled user choices from a patchwork of information — a kind of “choose your own adventure” for modern digital customer experiences in “Shaping Structured Content for Better User Experience” Raise The Bar is our other newsletter focused on sifting through the mountains of content out there around sales, marketing, and growth to help the community of DOERS who grow companies. Are you a fan of the Mattermark Daily?
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