Stopping Inception Churn: The Prospective Customer Success Review
I think for many sales-aggressive enterprise SaaS startups, a fair amount of churn actually happens at inception. For example, back in 2013, shortly after I joined Host Analytics, I discovered that there were a number of deals that sales had signed with customers that our professional services (PS) team had flat refused to implement. (Huh?) […]
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 […]
Champion Change: You Gotta Jump On It
One of the most subtly stressful parts of running a SaaS company, or any company with larger customers, is Champion Change. When the key stakeholder at your customer who brought you in, shepparded the deal, baked you into their business process … leaves. Your champions may on average stay ~24 months (I’m making this average […]
SaaStr Podcast #179: Dave Kellogg, CEO @ Host Analytics On The Most Commonly Misunderstood SaaS Metrics
Welcome to Episode 179! Dave Kellogg is the CEO @ Host Analytics, the leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM). Previously, Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CEO at unstructured big data provider MarkLogic. Before that, Dave was CMO at Business Objects for nearly a decade as the company grew from $30M […]
When to Add a European (or Other International) Office
SaaS has been global from the earliest days, although how and when you go global can vary. Salesforce went very early into Japan (it takes a lot longer to add a lot of Japanese customers for most of us), which quickly accounted for almost 10% of their revenue in the early days. I had 15% […]
SaaStr Podcast #142: Dave Kellogg, CEO @ Host Analytics On Why CAC/LTV Is The Most Important Metric In SaaS
Dave Kellogg is the CEO @ Host Analytics, the leader in cloud-based enterprise performance management (EPM). Previously, Dave was SVP/GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce and CEO at unstructured big data provider MarkLogic. Before that, Dave was CMO at Business Objects for nearly a decade as the company grew from $30M to over $1B. […]
Big Companies Don’t Churn. They Quit You.
“Churn” is a term we all use in SaaS as a core metric, but its roots, as near as I remember and can tell, come from our B2C colleagues. In a low-end subscription model for a tool, not a solution (e.g., semi-commodity storage, semi-commodity hosting, etc. etc.), individuals and small businesses, often paying on their […]
The Secrets of Net Negative Churn: Customer Advocacy (Video + Transcript)
Nick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight, moderates this panel with what he calls three of the sharpest people in customer success: Catherine Blackmore, GVP Customer Success at Oracle Marketing Cloud; Maria Pergolino, Senior VP Marketing at Apttus; and Emilia D’Anzica, VP Customer Engagement at WalkMe. Through their professional experience in companies of all different sizes, they’ve […]
Claire Hughes-Johnson: Build, Break, Stretch, Repeat Lessons from Scaling Google & Stripe (Video + Transcript)
Jason Lemkin sits down with Stripe COO Claire Hughes-Johnson to discuss what it’s like to scale a fast-growing company and how to manage hypergrowth. Having over 10 years of experience with Google and being intrinsically motivated by Stripe’s mission certainly helps. When you’re the COO of a global company that only continues to expand across […]
Why I Usually (Not Always) Prefer Customer Success to Report to the CEO
Ah, who should Customer Success report to? It’s not super simple. There are generally 3 options in the early and middle days: CEO VP of Sales (once you have one) VP of Something Else. Finance sometimes. Product on occasion. Other “business” co-founder. There are clear Pros and Cons to reporting to a VP of Sales. […]
