Blue Horizon’s reading list is a curated collection of articles for SaaS founders and management teams. We are entrepreneurs and operators who have lived through the process of founding and scaling software companies. Here are the articles and resources we found useful this week.
3 Ways SaaS CFOs can Prepare for Hypergrowth in 2022
on OPEXEngine.com
Compared to 2020, the number of SaaS enterprises that IPOed in 2021 has surged by a whopping 121%, and there is little doubt why Saas companies are getting so much investor interest. According to Gartner, the SaaS industry has grown from $35 billion in 2015 to $145 billion in 2021. That’s a 5x growth in six years, and it is estimated to reach $171 billion in 2022, continuing to dominate the cloud services market.
15-Minute Summary of Predictable Revenue
by PredictableRevenue.com
Cold Calling 2.0 is part of a five-step process for successful sales development:
Build your ideal customer profile (ICP): Define the key criteria of your ICP so you can focus your efforts on the most qualified prospects. Outbound targets with larger deal sizes provide a larger ROI for sales teams.
Build your list: Target prospects who fit your ICP and can refer you to decision-makers.
Run outbound email campaigns: The goal here is to receive an internal referral. Start by sending 50-100 prospecting emails per day, aiming for a 10% response rate.
Sell the dream: On the call, you first need to ask questions to determine if the prospect is a good fit. If they are, then you can begin to paint a picture of how to solve their business problem.
Pass the baton: Once you have an interested and qualified lead, they can be passed to an account executive (AE) to nurture the relationship and close the deal.
How to Guide Your Team and Customers Through the Customer Change Management Process
by ChurnZero
Not only do we resist change because it threatens our sense of control, normalcy, competency, and ego (just a few of our favorite things), but also because it creates more work. Even if that additional upfront work makes us happier or more successful in the end, we would rather not make ourselves vulnerable to the unknowns of change.
20 Interesting PLG Learnings from The Leaders in SaaS
by Jason Lemkin, saastr.com
60% of Asana’s customers come from self-service, 40% from sales.
80% of Datadog’s revenue at $1.2B revenue comes from its $100k+ customers — but its Free edition is still core to its lead gen.
Toast’s SMB NRR is 114% today — but it took 4 full years just to get to 100%.
38% of Freshworks customers still pay monthly, even at $400m+ ARR.
Word-of-mouth remains HubSpot’s #1 source of new customers — even at $1.5B ARR.
Why You Should Always Create Sales Opportunities at Zero Dollar Value
by Dave Kellogg, kellblog.com
In a typical funnel, by the time you get to stage 3 or 4 of your sales process you may have weeded out half your pipeline. Now imagine it’s early in a quarter and your pipeline is loaded with stage 2 and stage 3 opportunities, all valued at your enterprise ASP of $100K. You may have a big air bubble in your pipe.
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