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.
The Genius With 1,000 Helpers
By: TJ Thinakaran on OpenView Partners
The challenge of running and growing a business hasn’t gotten any easier. Scaling a founder remains the biggest challenge of all…The fact is that if your company is to grow, you have to delegate. The journey is an incredibly personal one, and one that will play out in the open. People around you will see all the improvements you’ve made—along with all the pitfalls. It’s going to be emotional and exhausting. The biggest challenge will be working through your fear—the fear of not knowing the details, the fear of not being there when things are going wrong, the fear of screwing up. The fear of losing control of your brainchild.
The 8 KPIs That Actually Matter—And How To Measure Them
By: Sam Richard, OpenView Partners
1. Churn Rate
2. Annual Growth Rate
3. Natural Rate of Growth (NRG)
4. Net Dollar Retention (NDR)
5. Cash Burn Rate
6. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
7. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
8. Cash
What superpowers should a “product founder” possess?
By Micah Rosenbloom on Founder Collective
Point of view
Editorial mindset
Domain knowledge
Humility
Stats sans snobbery
Psychic powers
Business acumen
What Does Product Management in Fintech Look Like in 2021
By: Kent McDonald, airfocus
Regulations provide the opportunity for fintechs to develop products to help financial services deal with regulations that aren’t likely to change soon. As an example, there’s an entire ecosystem that has built up around providing lenders with services to collect and organize the information necessary for meeting regulations from organizations such as the CFPB or the SEC in the United States.
Even A Slightly Too High Burn Rate Can Get Out of Control
by Jason Lemkin on SaaStr
Make sure you know how much you are spending. So many founders really aren’t 100% sure. Not really. Make sure you have someone in finance, even if they are part-time, that can model your burn rate and report on it monthly (or faster). And make sure they have SaaS experience, or they won’t understand how cash flows in a recurring revenue model. Make sure your collections are equal to or ahead of your MRR. So many startups that invoice customers get in trouble on collections, and fall too far behind actually get paid. More on that here. Make sure — you know. If you take your eye off the ball on cash, you almost always end up spending more than you think you are spending.
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Blue Horizon acquires and invests in profitable software businesses with stable recurring revenue streams. The Blue Horizon platform combines long-term capital and industry expertise with an operating model that enables businesses and their leaders to focus on growth and profitability.