Dave Kellogg
CEO, HostAnalytics, a leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM).
Previously Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce , CEO at MarkLogic and CMO at Business Objects for nearly a decade as it grew from $30M to over $1B. See Dave's disclaimers at Kellblog.
Lost and Founder: A Painful Yet Valuable Read
Some books are almost too honest. Some books give you too much information (TMI). Some books can be hard to read at times. Lost and Founder is all three. But it’s one of the best looks I’ve seen when it comes to giving the reader a realistic look at the inside of Silicon Valley startups. […]
How To Present a Quarterly Sales Forecast to Your SaaS Company Board
While most companies put real thought into how they present numbers in their post-quarter board decks and other management reports, one area in which you’ll find a lack of discipline is in how they present quarterly sales forecasts to the board. They’re typically done as a quick update email to the board. They’ll usually mention […]
Using “Win Themes” to Improve Your Sales Management and Increase Win Rates
At most sales review meetings what do you hear sales management asking the reps? Questions like these: What stage is this opportunity in? What value do you have it at in the pipeline? Is there upside to that value? What forecast category is it in? In what quarter will it close? What competitors are in […]
The Three Types of Customer Success Manager
Since we’re now officially in 2019 planning season, I’ve been thinking about — among other things — our Customer Success model for next year and talking with friends in my network about that. Since Customer Success is (sadly, perhaps) still a relatively new discipline in enterprise software companies, I’d say the whole field is evolving […]
Video of my SaaStr 2018 Presentation: Ten Non-Obvious Things About Scaling SaaS
While I’ve blogged about this presentation before, I only recently stumbled into this full-length video of this very popular session — a 30-minute blaze through some subtle SaaS basics. Enjoy! I look forward to seeing everyone again at SaaStr Annual 2019. (Cross-posted @ Kellblog)
The New Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrants for Cloud Financial Planning & Analysis and Cloud Financial Close Solutions
If all you’re looking for is the free download link, let’s cut to the chase: here’s where you can download the new 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning and Analysis Solutions and the new 2018 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Financial Close Solutions. These MQs are written jointly by John Van Decker and Chris Iervolino […]
The Big Mistake You Might Be Making In Calculating Churn: Failing to Annualize Multi-Year ATR Churn Rates
Most of thinking, definitions, and formulas regarding SaaS unit economics is based on assumptions that no longer reflect the reality of the enterprise SaaS environment. For example, thinking in terms of MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is outdated because most enterprise SaaS companies run on annual contracts and thus we should think in terms of ARR […]
The Use of Ramped Rep Equivalents (RREs) in Sales Analytics and Modeling
How many times have you heard this conversation? VC: how many sales reps do you have? CEO: Uh, 15. But not really. VC: What do you mean, not really? CEO: Well, some of them are new and not fully productive yet. VC: How long does it take for them to fully ramp? CEO: Well, to […]
How To Sales Manage Upside and Unlikely Deals
If your sales organization is like most, you classify sales opportunities in about four categories, such as: Commit, which are 90% likely to close Forecast, which are 70% likely to close Upside, which are 33% likely to close Unlikely, which are 5% likely to close And then, provided you have sufficient pipeline, your sales management […]
Important Subtleties in Calculating Quarterly, Annual, and ATR-based Churn Rates
This post won’t save your life, or your company. But it might save you a few precious hours at 2:00 AM if you’re working on your company’s SaaS metrics and can’t foot your quarterly and annual churn rates while preparing a board or investor deck. The generic issue is a lot of SaaS metrics gurus […]
