3 Bites & 1 Track #1

3 knowledge bites and a music track - NDRs, CFOs,150 and Daft Punk is playing at my house.

Welcome to 3 Bites & 1 Track, the new weekly newsletter series where I share 3 links to wisdom: 1 post, 1 article, 1 show (podcast or video), and a music track.

The knowledge landscape is ever-growing and overwhelming. I humbly want to provide you with some pointers that you might find interesting to explore. What you do with that is for you to figure out - abandon, explore, build upon.

The theme’s center of gravity will be Growth, but I’ll inject some mutations to keep things interesting, fresh and insightful.

And then we have 1 music track - an eclectic exploration of what’s spinning around the house.

As always, I see this as an experiment, a challenge, a build-in-public exercise. I don’t know precisely where we’re going or what will work. Let’s discover that along the way. It’s about the journey, they say.

Let’s go!

1 Post

“We need more revenue… that means we need more customers… that means we need more leads. Hey, can you make us go viral???… ” Post link

Elena Verna writes about why we need to focus on the retention and expansion of our customer base to grow a sustainable business.

One of the biggest misconceptions when thinking about growth is to focus on acquisition - seeing the business only from one side - the entry, the dreaded Funnel analogy.

Elena makes the point that sustainable and strong growth, which fuels great business, is predicated on a customer base that is constantly renewing —keeps buying—and expands—buys more.

I would add two more insights for you to consider:

• How much time and talent do you allocate to the customer base? I don’t mean CSMs; I mean executives. 100% of revenue (or gross margin) comes from your existing customers — someone should be accountable for that. As Elena points out, 50 to 80% of new revenue comes from expanding existing accounts. We take it for granted until it doesn’t come.
• How much do you rely on your current customers to get more customers? They can be the best fuel for your acquisition marketing, from insights to referrals. Unless you're betting strongly on a new market segment expansion, most of your customers are the best source of data and insight to inform your go-to-market - the more you know about them, the more you leverage that connection, the more you can get more just like them.

When thinking about growth, I always start with the customer base:

• The customers you have represent a segment where you’re winning. If you want to win more, double down on that segment.
• If you have a churn issue, you have a leaky bucket; don’t put more onto the bucket (acquisition) before you make sure you fix the leaks.

Make sure you read Elena’s post . Elena is a worldwide reference in Growth with extensive experience and a prolific writer. She can be blunt and sarcastic but also fun. She advocates freelance roles like advisors and fractional and is currently leading Dropbox Growth. I suspect she will be a regular here.

1 Article

OnlyCFO , is not only a CFO ??,?but also a prolific and insightful writer on matters concerning CFOs - from regular budgeting processes to markets and trends. The best CFOs (or the ones I like most) are very analytical, have excellent critical thinking, look for patterns, and have a systemic perspective. I can relate.

In one of the latest articles - Winning Software budgets in 2024 - OnlyCFO goes in detail on how CFOs think and evaluate software purchase decisions.

From 2022 onwards, the CFO has become the most important persona for B2B Software products—they became the “chief purchasing officer,” the ultimate budget holder. Software has long promised to streamline processes, but in the last few years, we have witnessed CFOs streamlining (aka slashing) software budgets instead.

In this article, OnlyCFO details how CFOs think and act regarding evaluating and buying software tools. He builds "a “map” that every Growth and go-to-market professional needs to navigate to conquer customers—not only new ones but current ones.

Winning Software budgets in 2024 - This is a must-read if you’re in the B2B Software business.

1 Show

Robin Dunbar - Optimizing Human Connection (Podcast episode)

You probably heard about Dunbar number: 150.

The Dunbar number suggests that you can only have about 150 close relationships. Extending this number makes personal connections harder in organizations, leading to more formal structures, communication challenges, and potential decreases in trust and cooperation.

There’s nothing like hearing it from the source, the author—Dunbar the man! As always, Patrick O'Shaughnessy does a great job conducting this interview, exploring the origins and implications of his discovery of Dunbar's number, the evolutionary basis behind our need for social groups, and what primates teach us about spending quality time with each other. It's fascinating.

Besides this episode, I highly recommend his podcast - Invest Like the Best .

1 Track

I’ve been revisiting old Daft Punk music. Starting with their debut in 1997, 27 years ago when I was entering my first job! and culminated with the ALIVE 2007 album recorded live which marks the first half of their career, before “Get Lucky”/Random Access Memories.

It’s impressive the number of hits they have even by then - Around the World, One More Time, Harder/Better/Faster/Stronger, Da Funk,…

And then there’s the visual aspect, the characters, the personas, of the robots. They take us into the future, making us wonder about the human-machine symbiosis. It couldn't be more pertinent as we’re witnessing the explosion of AI applications and all the questions they bring.

I converge down to the 2007 live album. It combines the vibe of their first four albums with what they can do live, mixing and matching their tracks and leveraging all their DJ tricks.

Warning: This is house music played in an arena, so get into the groove, feel the power, and let yourself go. If not today, then tonight.

YouTube video

or listen on Spotify

That’s all for this week. See you next week.

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