Here are the links to all my posts in this series. Latest on top.
[ For posts 1-100 go to https://bit.ly/2T5sI2Z, posts 101-200 go to https://bit.ly/2KmLAc9, posts 201-300 go to https://bit.ly/2XV79s9 , 301-400 go to https://bit.ly/36lrUgB and 401... https://bit.ly/382uHwv]
What I Learnt Today #400 I Startup Mondays
Pivot
Sometimes it is the only plausible way to make it. Everyone knows the Slack story - Slack is the outcome of a Pivot the team headed by Stewart Butterfield made while trying to develop a successful video game titled 'Glitch'.
Angela Yee, co-host of The Breakfast Club has her story to share which should make you consider a Pivot if your current plan is not making a headway.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-pivot-activity-6630087478328029184-NMPB
What I Learnt Today #399 I Privacy Sundays
Is GDPR working?
Not really, according to Midas Nouwens and Michael Veale both contributing authors to the recently released study by researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University - “Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence,” and quoted in TechCrunch.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-gdpr-activity-6629785575400542208-pT1S
What I Learnt Today #398 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
What drives Founders?
In this very inspiring interview with Vlad Magdalin of Webflow where he talks about his story from a two member (with his brother) team, maxing out their credit card at the brink of bankruptcy to a multimillion dollar company with 150+ employees (WebFlow) he talks about taking principled decisions and that journey being squarely inspired by Bret Victor and his lecture ‘Inventing on Principle.’
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_bret-victor-inventing-on-principle-activity-6629423620353552384-iSU_
What I Learnt Today #397 I Biz / Tech Friday
The Value of Venture Capital
In a well argued article in The New Yorker Nathan Heller questions the very core of VC claims. With reference to the book“VC: An American History” by Harvard Business School professor Tom Nicolas (I wrote about this and Fred Wilson’s article on this - post #196 - Whales. Not Unicorns) where the narrative starts with Whaling and its funding in the early 19th century.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-vc-biz-activity-6628969606923030528-E6Gy
What I Learnt Today #396 I Sales Thursday
Future of Sales
Sales 3.0 - one of the most respected conferences on Sales, Produced by Selling Power - just released “The Future of Sales: How Technology os Impacting Sales Performance” report. Here are the highlights -
1. More than two decades since the inception of Sales Automation technology continues to impact B2B selling.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-future-activity-6629428816261550080-4M9U
What I Learnt Today #395 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Hustle is the most important word in the world
Like him or hate him, Gary Vaynerchuk is a force of nature. I have never seen anyone push the idea of hard work so much. He has been consistent over the years and it is quite amazing to see how he walks the talk. I came across this 4 minute video that I watch now and then, specially when things are not necessarily moving at a pace I want.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_youve-got-to-put-in-the-work-gary-vaynerchuck-activity-6628302577744343040-ceXu
What I Learnt Today #394 I SAAS Tuesdays
Do you Trust your Customer?
Did you ever wonder why TRUST by the consumers contribute 25% of Apple’s Market Cap - which is like $205B? Tomasz Tunguz wrote on what trust means in business - "Brands are so valuable because they are the encapsulation of years long efforts to engender trust. …. Trust accelerates sales cycles, creates long term defensibility, and increases the value of a business overall. It’s the core purpose of marketing.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-trust-activity-6628123615076339712-niJb
What I Learnt Today #393 I Startup Mondays
10 metrics to track for your startup
Data is super critical and one person who knows all about data and starting up is Tomasz Tunguz. Last March he wrote this piece on the key metrics that you need to track (and that with the available tools it is indeed possible and easy to do that). The list includes items like:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-measure-activity-6641153223128379392-gzcv
What I Learnt Today #392 I Privacy Sundays
Spyware and WhatsApp
So one issue around privacy is that bad actors get access to your data through commercial or spurious routes. Manipulation through coercive commerce is real. And all the data gatherers are guilty of it.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-whatsapp-activity-6631192965857542144-flVJ
What I Learnt Today #391 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
The Cherry on the Cloud
At the SaaSBooMi session this afternoon Vinod Muthukrishnan the Co-Founder and CEO of Cloud Cherry a customer analytics company - gave a ring side view of the learnings, difficult path to growth and rise, and the eventual acquisition by Cisco.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-founder-saas-activity-6627987678682021888-_kzl
What I Learnt Today #390 I Biz / Tech Friday
State of Product Leadership
Pendo.io and Product Collective released their 3rd Annual The State of Product Leadership Report was based on a Survey of over 600 companies with 69% being in the B2B space, of which 33% are SaaS and 27% Hybrid SaaS provider. Here are some of the highlights:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6627974641828888576-i5t9
What I Learnt Today #389 I Sales Thursday
Making buying Easy
Strangely this motto of PitchLink - our buyer seller engagement platform, jumps right out of the new Gartner CSO Update on the new B2B buying journey. Gartner is calling it ‘Buyer Enablement’ - a term that is gaining traction over the past couple of years. So what do you enable? According to Brent Adamson (check out his entertaining and educative video in the link below) the buyer needs to complete 6 jobs and selling organisations need to focus on information excellence at each stage to assist the buyer ‘complete’ her jobs at each stage to be able to complete the sales process.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-b2b-activity-6625981078870028288-sOz3
What I Learnt Today #388 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Distraction free 200 productive hours
Last week I promised to write about this article by Ivan Mir, a former game designer and indie software creator on his personal quest and thus the formula he arrived at to get work done.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-activity-6625783037198155777-ardH
What I Learnt Today #387 I SAAS Tuesdays
If you can not measure it, you cannot improve it - Lord Kelvin
David Skok in this lecture at the Web Summit, summarizes the key metrics that you need to track to ensure success and growth of your Saas business. This is hands down one of the simplest presentations you will find on the topic.
Here is what he covers.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-metrics-activity-6625396830832287744-uEnH
What I Learnt Today #386 I Startup Mondays
4 point formula to get attention from a VC
Girish Mathrubootham is the Poster Child of VC funded Indian SaaS industry. He raised $400m from marque investors like Sequoia, Accel, Google and Tiger Global. SaaSBooMi, the Asian Saas meet for founders is, well, booming. This year it is slated for 24 & 25 Jan and yours truly will be there (thanks to Suresh Sambandam, CEO Kissflow).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-funding-activity-6624965791819370496-fQX1
What I Learnt Today #385 I Privacy Sundays
Who is profiting from our data? - 2
It is important to understand Who and How they are profiting from our personal data. Gregory Barber a staff writer of Wired tried to sell his own data through sites like Datum, Doc.ai and Wibson amongst others. He made precisely 0.3 cents.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-data-activity-6624608039255269376-SFJC
So how does this work?
What I Learnt Today #384 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
What Founders read
Well a lot of diverse stuff. I found this interesting list by Amr Kafina a indie web developer who sourced the list from mostly public domain and aggregated the public recommendations from founders. Then he built a site where you can search these by Title, Author or the Founder who recommended that book and a link to the Amazon page for the book.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-founders-startup-activity-6624590663054921728-s-qe
What I Learnt Today #383 I Biz / Tech Friday
Amazon’s Product building Secret : Write a Press Release.
Is there a method in the sky high ambition of Jeff Bezos? Apparently yes. It's called ‘Working Backwards’ writes Justin Bariso in Inc. citing Ian McAllister on Quora detailing 'Amazon’s approach for product development'.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-is-amazons-approach-to-product-development-activity-6624743370126389248-nxfc
What I Learnt Today #382 I Sales Thursday
Selling SAAS
We all know it. Building a product is relatively easier than selling it. One of the reasons founders keep pushing, first - the face to face with customers and after that asking for money from them - is because we want to keep the fantasy rolling. In many guises - the product is not ready, we need to add those two features, our market it elsewhere and so on.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_sales-mistakes-that-can-kill-your-saas-business-activity-6624633340735651840-BBAp
What I Learnt Today #381 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Managing your inbox
I have about 60 folders. 22 Favourites. How many mails are in your inbox? How many mails come in each day and how many are critical ? How may do you look at partially and revisit many times. How many distributed amongst multiple mail ids you have - which you thought would help manage your inbox?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6623224383638999040-mdxX
What I Learnt Today #380 I SAAS Tuesdays
Email is still the best ROI
Saastr Founder Jason M. Lemkin shared lessons learned from focusing on Social growth and here are the highlights.
1. For anything to make a difference you need to put it on your top 5 (or Top 3) priorities.
2. While repurposing content is a great idea (GaryV) Channels behave differently. Some of them will plateau. Instagram or Snapchat may not be really that critical for B2B growth.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-saastr-activity-6622895135652970496-X2ls
What I Learnt Today #379 I Startup Mondays
The State of VC
A good place to start reflecting on the state of startups is to analyze the state of VC investments in 2019. As expected possibly the most succinct and comprehensive overview is available in this post by Tomasz Tunguz. The investment in quantum and the number of rounds have declined in Q4 - although it is possible that all deals have not been announced yet.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-vc-activity-6622659812310216704-rp4m
What I Learnt Today #378 I Our World Sundays
Who is profiting from our data? - 1
Car makers. Wondering ‘What?’ Well you better believe it. And this is not recent development but from a WSJ article by Christina Rogers, August 2018.
“General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and other major car makers are hoping these connected-car services will generate new revenue streams ...McKinsey & Co. estimates monetizing data from connected cars will be worth up to $750 billion by 2030..”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_infographic-data-and-the-connected-car-activity-6622163068048732160-cQD1
What I Learnt Today #377 I Founder’s Life Saturdays
Elon Musk on a Chart
Although it is about 4 years old I found this infographic on Elon Musk by Anna Vital in Business Insider, which was an interesting way to navigate the life of someone who is impacting the world. The key is to note that he did not do anything with inherited wealth but with what he made for himself. I am not going to go into any eulogy, but simply point to the infographic for you to explore and enjoy.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-founder-inspiration-activity-6622085547903025152-4r60
What I Learnt Today #376 I Biz / Tech Friday
Looking ahead in 2020
Looking for predictions for 2020 this compilation of 25 forecasts by Christina DesMarais lept out at me for the very first point : 1. Consumers will increasingly demand more privacy - predicted by Thibaud Clément CEO of Loomly.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6621330400428032001-AnFB
What I Learnt Today #375 I Sales Thursday
Sales Pay
The Betts Recruiting Compensation Guide 2019 shows the current hiring pay for all levels of Sales, Marketing and People positions in the Tech Industry.
The typical compensation structure (Base + Commission) was 100% Salary + bonus for a Sales Ops role to a 50:50 (B+C) split for Enterprise sales. Typical SDR had a 60:40 split between salary and commissions.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-activity-6620927871286378496-0nc2
What I Learnt Today #374 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Why you need to write
“Finally writing makes you smarter. Our working memories are incredibly limited. Writing opens a canvas that can allow you to form more complex thoughts, allowing you to understand harder ideas and solve tougher problems.” - writes Scott H Young author of the Book Ultralearning.
What I Learnt Today #373 I SAAS Tuesdays
13 Questions you should ask
Tomasz Tunguz wrote this piece last year and it is a great place to start 2020 for all of us working on a SAAS product. In multiple forums and columns one key learning has been developing the ability to ask the right questions at various times in your business lifecycle. If the answers surprise you - which most likely it will - you have your work cut out. Consider these 8 questions (of 13) focused on the customer any PMM should be asking -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-customer-activity-6620307062905765888-CyqE
What I Learnt Today #372 I Startup Mondays
Who raised Series A?
YouTeam, a YC company listed out the VC’s making Series A investments and the companies that garnered them. Seems like Biotech and Pharma are the largest beneficiaries (in terms of number of companies in top 25 - which is what they listed - as well as the $ raised). All data was sourced from Crunchbase.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslerning-startups-seriesa-activity-6619839659382009856-4g24
What I Learnt Today #371 I Our World Sundays
You are being tracked. And it is not anonymous.
“IF YOU OWN A MOBILE PHONE, its' every move is logged and tracked by dozens of companies. No one is beyond the reach of this constant digital surveillance. Not even the president of the United States.” starts the Opinion piece in The New York Times written by Stuart A Thompson and Charlie Warzel.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-ourworld-activity-6619519121841315840-2DJi
What I Learnt Today #370 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Inspiration in 19 mins
Writing about Art is my Saturday thing. Most of 2019 I wrote about Artists, sometimes on culture or exhibitions. But never on a Graduation speech. I found this one by Author and Screenwriter Neil Gaiman which he delivered to the Class of 2012 at the University of Arts. And it is a great listen. 19 minutes of refreshing views by a non conformist who made it by all the usual yardsticks (money / fame etc).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_neil-gaiman-inspirational-commencement-activity-6619149427582038016-7s1R
What I Learnt Today #369 I Biz / Tech Friday
Great ideas fail at first
Look around and you see things you take for granted. Today I will share two articles that I read recently - one on the invention of the Zipper - its initial failure and ultimate world domination - the other listing 19 inventions by Women.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-business-activity-6618818527841345536-ziCK
What I Learnt Today #368 I Sales Thursday
7 lessons from the sales trenches
One surprising trend of our times is the openness with which people share strategies and learnings. Through my 366 posts in 2019 that has been one constant source of joy. That's not all. Whenever I reached out to the writers I almost always found genuine interest to share more.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6618405833803948032-fBNT
What I Learnt Today #367 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Apply the Power of ‘No’ to 2020 (and beyond)
This is nothing new. And there are variations of this that we all read over the years. It is hard to say No - to friends demanding time, to that extra bit of work you think you should finish before going to bed, to watching that movie that you really are not liking, , eating that muffin that you thought you would like but - well - not that much. You get the drift. And then there are bigger ones - No to refined sugar, No to binge watching TV (and eating junk food while at it) No to a boss who insists you need to work late to prove you are with it.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-bebetter-activity-6618100025203494912-AUsb
What I Learnt Today #366 I It's a Wrap!
It’s possible!
End of 2018 while enjoying the holidays with family I had this urge that 2019 needs some change. Don’t blame me, it was that time of the year. I thought - “how about sharing what I read and learn every day?” To set the perspective, at the time I was neck deep in Pitch.Link and all previous attempts to write regularly had failed. But strangely I wanted to make this impossible commitment (personal BHAG) to write a post everyday of 2019 sharing my daily learnings.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-activity-6617735675938734080-TCcZ
What I Learnt Today #365 I SAAS Tuesdays
Do you have a 3 decade plan for your SaaS?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-activity-6617852544641273857-pe1e
What I Learnt Today #364 I Startup Mondays
Starting up in 2020
This is the last post on Startups in 2019 and what a wonderful journey it has been in sharing my learning s everyday for this entire year. So as you brace yourself for the next let me share a post from 2018 by Y Combinator where they listed areas of interest with their own RFS - Request for Startups. Y Combinator is in a unique position to see hundreds of ideas taking shape and the gaps that remain.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-yc-activity-6617330243596320768-G2kL
What I Learnt Today #363 I Our World Sundays
Of Surveillance and Dictators
What follows are two excerpts from two articles one about the new book from Shoshana Zuboff - The Age or Surveillence Capitalism and the other on Frank Dik?tter’s “How to Be a Dictator" and Daniel Kalder’s “The Infernal Library". The three books, between them, sums up some of the most pressing issues and ideas we face today.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6616988890953801728-3QY-
What I Learnt Today #362 I Art & Culture Saturday
Readymade Art
Marcel Duchamp with his Bicycle Wheel brought everyday objects into the world of art which he branded as his Readymade series. I have been looking at his work and also those of Jeff Koons - a completely audacious take on the same elements around us - yet this unreal shiny monochrome versions. Both have roots in the Dada, Surrealism and futurist movements - Duchamp nearly 100 years before Jeff Koons. Duchamp using urinals and bicycle wheels while Jeff Koons works on “floating basketballs, Plexiglas-boxed household appliances, and elaborately produced jumbo-sized versions of sundry“ these are our every day world to explore with wondrous eyes.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6616964616218083328-cQ9a
What I Learnt Today #361 I Biz / Tech Friday
Management Tips from 2019
HBR published its list of management lessons from 2019. Here is a quick peek:
1. Timebox your to do list : "convert your to-do list into blocks of time on your calendar, so you have a plan for what to do and when".
2. Develop critical thinking abilities - "there are several things you can do to hone your critical thinking skills. First, question your assumptions,Second, poke at the logic, Third, seek out fresh perspectives".
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-business-technology-activity-6616467336180391936-sk-D
What I Learnt Today #360 I Sales Thursday
Sales-land Status Update 2019
Like Startups and SaaS, today we review the State of Conversation Intelligence 2020. What’s unique about this Chorus.ai report is that you can customize your view based on your deal size and sales cycle.
- 91 days is average Sales cycle. 30% time spend on cold calling, 10% on Discovery and 60% time in late stages. Yet, Closed lost deals take 76 days as against 96 days for a closed Won deal.
What I Learnt Today #359 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Think ‘Who’ not ‘How'
I did this test. Close your eyes and think of something you are planning to do. Say 'Get more sales'. The mind trudges towards “how” first, and then possibly as a part of the how, “who”. What about you?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-359-i-managing-self-activity-6615548247668817920-7fCr
What I Learnt Today #358 I SAAS Tuesdays
SaaSland Status Update 2019
I was looking at the 2019 update on SaaS industry - highlights written by Myya Daigle, published in 'For Entrepreneurs' blog by David Skok. The report is by KBCM Technology Group and headed by David Spitz. Highlights: 424 companies participated with a median $8.7 ARR and 97 companies above $25m.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-activity-6615150621530120192-W7pG
What I Learnt Today #357 I Startup Mondays
Startupland Status Update 2019 : Real problem is sales.
First Round Capital released their State of Startups 2019 Report with 3600 submissions of information creating 190,000 + data points. This year’s survey included employees besides Founders covering 950 companies.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-activity-6614779342159474688-yURU
What I Learnt Today #356 I Our World Sundays
Information Warfare 2020 : We are in it
“Guns and bombs are replaced by rumour, digital fakery and social engineering.”..“and control can me imposed with little physical violence”.
Today:
- Political-bot armies are targeting social news feeds to computationally spread propaganda.
- AI researchers are developing technologies that can make it extremely easy to create high-quality undetectable fake audio, video and digital deceptions whose authenticity cannot be easily verified.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6614372499692056577-r_4a
What I Learnt Today #355 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Art Humanises
“There’s this idea that people are anti-American and in some ways extreme in their beliefs but the truth is that, just like any religion or culture, there are very liberal people and very conservative people. What I wanted to portray in this series is that this place that no one visits is beautiful and welcoming,” is how Sabreen Jafry first generation Pakistani American artist talks about her photography project “Ghalat Femi”.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6614022949278187520-z7IV
What I Learnt Today #354 I Biz / Tech Friday
World Changing Technology Coming in 2020
CBInsights has this new report on 36 startups in 12 categories that could potentially help the world in ways that would have far reaching impact. These companies are working on technologies ranging from Quantum Cryptography, to Speed-of-light chips, AI Transparency to mind altering medicines.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6613493852974219264-VVVs
What I Learnt Today #353 I Sales Thursday
What tale can Sales Team Churn tell?
Vik Singh, cofounder of Infer wrote about STC in his post in Latka B2B SAAS Blog and it brings a simple yet arguably a very effective way to assess the health and state of a startup (or any company for that matter) and apparently VC’s are paying a lot of attention to what Vik calls “STC”.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-sales-activity-6613260453114150912-ff7b
What I Learnt Today #352 I Managing / Self Wednesday
One thing at a time
Try focus for a change in 2020. I have written multiple times on these ideas and the need for ‘one thing at a time’ mantra and thought of reiterating it for myself and sharing this succinct piece by Darius Foroux (see my post #149 for more from Darius) as we start thinking of the next year and our goals and objectives. He quotes from Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, authors of The One thing - ““Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too...Success is sequential, not simultaneous.””
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-managing-activity-6612901713114435584-oP2s
What I Learnt Today #351 I SAAS Tuesdays
The question about CAC. Or was it CPA?
Most of us use CAC and CPA interchangeably - but according to Brian Balfour, founder of Reforge that would be wrong at the least and it could be very expensive mistake. Glossing over details can become a way of life at startups and we all know where the devil lives.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-cac-activity-6612540762498400256-hFht
What I Learnt Today #350 I Startup Mondays
Super Slides
We all make them every day. And most of them are ugly (browse Slideshare for a bit and you will see). I speak with companies and founders, head of sales and CEO’s they all lament about how difficult it is to turn around a slide deck yet Guy Kawasaki gave the formula long back. 10/20/30. 10 slides, 20 mins and 30 point font size. Who is listening?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-pitch-activity-6612011207777968128-2U04
What I Learnt Today #349 I Our World Sundays
Who can you trust with your data?
It's time to think actively about our personal data and how we manage, store and share it. Many times when I talk to my friends about the continuous violation of privacy, intrusive nature of lots of new technologies like the Smart Speakers - Voice controlled devices like Alexa and Google home pods and the vulnerabilities at multiple levels the reaction is mostly of amusement. It is anything but.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-databreach-activity-6611811157693038592-wnyP
What I Learnt Today #348 I Art & Culture Saturday
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
Married for 25 years till her death, Frida Kahlo wrote a astonishing piece as an introduction to Diego Rivera, her husband and Maria Popova of Brain pickings presents it to provide perspective to those of us not so initiated in the minds of artists, mostly focusing on their art which is easier to access than understanding their mind.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6611444161994420224-3F6N
What I Learnt Today #347 I Biz / Tech Friday
Privacy or data?
I was not aware of Cliqz, the initiative from Europe to build a new search engine and browser from scratch headed by Jean-Paul Schmetz (and not riding on Google or Bing or Yandex for example).
On 1st December Cliqz wrote on the state of search and why a new independent search engine with privacy as core was a necessity (I agree). They argued on the position of Google as the behemoth with 93% of search traffic and as recent studies show have now been successful to retain 50% of the traffic on its own site (so that people would not leave Google and the dangerous implications that might have).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-business-tech-activity-6611090366231875584-pSFm
What I Learnt Today #346 I Sales Thursday
Sales in Early days: Founder is the key
There is no question that in the pre product market fit days the Founder has to do the selling, however the problem is much more complex than we give credit for. I found this series of articles by Martin Casado, General Partner at A16Z, which is absolute gold. Do you remember prepping for questions like “why is your solution better than everyone else?”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-founders-activity-6610753690984910848-9R7L
What I Learnt Today #345 I Managing / Self Wednesday
13 Steps to Sales Nirvana
When you look for ideas to increase productivity you find a lot of instructions, some contradictory. Most not very easy to follow through. Andrew Quinn listed 13 ideas you can implement right away. As a sales professional or as a founder tasked with sales, remember a 1% improvement every day can compound to a huge change by EOY.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6610348196533235712-2Q5y
What I Learnt Today #344 I SAAS Tuesdays
Is SaaS selling software?
Dharmesh Shah knows a thing or two about SaaS. And it takes a lot of wisdom to distill complex ideas into simple truths. I found a 2017 post by him recently where he talks about what is the secret to SAAS success. And it is so simple that once you get it straightened in your mind your entire go to market strategy could follow from there.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-success-activity-6610006312866668544-ujTB
What I Learnt Today #343 I Startup Mondays
10K RR today = 800k Enterprise value in 3 years
That’s the math that David Cummings wrote about in his post of November 23rd. It is quite simple. If you have $1m of new recurring revenue you are likely looking at a 800k gross margin. Invest half in Marketing and half in hiring two sales people. They will add $1m in new recurring revenue. Rinse and repeat.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-revenue-activity-6609843615277637632-U45J/
What I Learnt Today #342 I Our World Sundays
To AI or not to AI, that is the question.
Well, grammatically the headline makes no sense but I am sure you get the drift. AI is becoming all pervasive. From your Car to your bank to your next meal, modern warfare to AI Nationalism. Collectively as mankind we need to define how we intend to develop and apply AI to our lives. We have limited understanding of what AI can do. This report by CBInsights featuring 52 experts gives you an overview of the range of issues that matter.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6609692854728085504-Xesw
What I Learnt Today #341 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Teletext art
Teletext was a revolutionary technology developed by Philips in the UK in the early 70’s. The teletext service could broadcast pages of content retrievable using 3 digit codes and serve up realtime news, travel and other data. Teletext also produced the idea of a subtitle - “.developed in the US at Boston’s WGBH TV station as “closed-captioning” for deaf and hard of hearing viewers, the BBC developed a system that could subtitle live programmes.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6609039161443880960-mRBS
What I Learnt Today #340 I Biz / Tech Friday
The inversion of the Internet
How many times do you routinely prove that you are human? Retyping texts, matching photos of motorcycles and traffic lights. Ot some such ridiculous things? Have you wondered why? Because most of the Internet we encounter today is Fake.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_matthew-brennan-on-twitter-activity-6608695546095992832-I_p9
What I Learnt Today #339 I Sales Thursday
Content Marketing - are you paying attention?
SEMRush hosted their maiden marketing show in Bangalore which was surprisingly well attended despite being a fully paid event. The very first presentation was by Olga Andrienko, Head of Global Marketing on The State of Content Marketing Report 2019.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-semrush2019-activity-6608588103600922624-R4BH
Here are the key takeaways from the talk :
What I Learnt Today #338 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Letter from two founders
Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from their executive roles at Alphabet the parent company of Google. Like their now legendary letter to prospective shareholders in their S-1 filing in 2004, this one is worth a read for all founders.
"We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6608004313363120129-AlJr
What I Learnt Today #337 I SAAS Tuesdays
The Chatbot story till now
2016 saw rise of the Chatbots that would solve practically everything. Millions were invested by VC’s and all tech majors announced their own plans. However it has turned out to be a much harder problem than envisaged. Google admitted that 70% of its bot assisted conversations needed human support. Microsoft has to roll back 'Tay' its Twitter bot.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-chatbots-activity-6607880299537891329-RT96
What I Learnt Today #336 I Startup Mondays
Startup CEO pay/package
Sammy Abdullah Co-Founder of Blossom Street Ventures wrote this overview of Startup CEO salaries which is educative as well as indicative of some trends. He painstakingly gathered and analyzed data as disclosed by companies while filing for their IPO’s and this is what it revealed:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6607097835622100992-95nD
What I Learnt Today #335 I Our World Sundays
Making sense of the world. One Map at a time.
There is so much going on in the world that sometimes it is difficult to keep track of facts, news and more. Twisted Sifter shared this post about 6 years back which featured 40 maps that summarizes a lot of data and makes it delightfully easy to comprehend. The post points to some regular sources to follow for similar informations and maps. It will probably take you 5 mins to scheme through these 40 and you will suddenly figure the value. No wonder we all remember the memorable presentation by Hans Rosling on the growth of world population.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-activity-6607089249646931969-l-v4
What I Learnt Today #334 I Art & Culture Saturdays
The ideas Report
Those who follow my Saturday posts on Art and Culture know that I am a big fan of WePresent, the WeTransfer initiative on creativity. They published The WeTransfer Ideas Report 2019 where they asked over 20000 creative people from all over the world how their ideas grow.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6606468299800829952-RBwY
What I Learnt Today #333 I Biz / Tech Friday
Spyware and their all pervasiveness
This is a big business fueled by authoritarian regimes world over. Hacking Team, the infamous Italian company which was exposed after wide scaled human rights abuse using its technology and tools like RCS has now reemerged as Memento Labs.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-biz-activity-6606182194459316224-QzCv
What I Learnt Today #332 I Sales Thursday
50 to 1000 customers using data
How do you go from 50 customers to a 1000? Let’s make it more interesting - how do you go from 50 customers to 1000 in 18 months?
Now that I got your attention I would love to point you to this great session at Saastr 2019 by Romain Lapeyre, Founder & CEO of Gorgias - a customer service platform for e-commerce stores. I will not dilute the focus of this piece by talking about the $14m round they just raised, but would rather focus on the task at hand.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-startups-activity-6605826900826910720-i-Ul
What I Learnt Today #331 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Empathy is the key
At work, in life, what makes for a lasting relationship the bedrock for happy productive associations? When you interview a new potential coworker what is likely to indicate that this person will not be a jerk. What personal friendships worked and why did they work? Which ones failed and why?
Thomas Koulopoulos, Founder of the Delphi group writes about this very complex problem and suggests a very simple solution.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-activity-6605452283864018944-Q0K8
What I Learnt Today #330 I SAAS Tuesdays
Did you hear about WebPT?
Heidi Jannenga, founded WebPT way back in 2006 - a cloud based saas platform for the rehab industry. Today WebPT has over 30% market share and 13000 + customers with 99% retention and not CRM pipeline. She appeared for a session at Saastr 2019 along side Nancy Ham, CEO WebPT and Rebecca Buckman, VP, Marketing Communication Battery Ventures. The discussion is an eye opener.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_8-tough-lessons-from-closing-12000-customers-activity-6604983483498631168-MdmV
What I Learnt Today #329 I Startup Mondays
People and Culture
Do you spend time thinking about your startup’s culture, your managerial priorities and how to deal with people?
Kim Malone Scott is the author of Radical Candor and led products like AdSense, YouTube and Double click online sales and ops at Google. She recounted her management lessons from her work at Google, Apple, Dropbox Twitter and 3 failed startups in her post in the First Round Capital blog.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-people-activity-6604684098424401920-4fTC
What I Learnt Today #328 I Our World Sundays
Sea level rise and impact on Earth
Daniel Grossman interviewed Jerry Mitrovica for Nautilus and brought out a bunch of wrong ideas we have about how melting glaciers impact our shorelines. how it has been over the past several thousands of years and how the movement of the glaciers and water from the poles to the equator is already showing the earth down and will further show it down.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-ourworld-sealevel-activity-6604600611952529408-1NfZ
What I Learnt Today #327 I Art & Culture Saturdays
Playing the piano without a piano
This is the story of Andrew Garrido. In 2010 when he was 11 he was taken by the idea of learning to play the piano. However hit by the recession his mother was unable to get him one. What did Andrew do? He Googled the dimensions of the keyboard, drew the keys on a piece of paper and stuck it on his desk. He would then listen to the notes on a online keyboard, memorize it as he practiced on his paper drawing of a keyboard - hearing the notes in his head. In this inspiring piece in The Guardian he writes - “I spent six months playing scales and chord sequences without touching a real piano.” His mother borrowed to buy him 10 lessons seeing his dedication.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-art-culture-activity-6604020093716393984-WJi4
What I Learnt Today #326 I Biz / Tech Friday
Barriers to Entry
Every time a founder or founding team pitches a VC inevitably the question of entry barrier comes up. David Cummings wrote this short but very meaningful piece on this very question and how it came up time and again while trying to raise money for Pardot. “What’s stopping Google from assigning 100 engineers to this market and crushing you?”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-biz-activity-6603675571463516160-60E4
What I Learnt Today #325 I Sales Thursday
3 Journeys of the buyer
Marisa Kopec of SiriusDecisions produced a report in 2015 where she analyzed inputs from over 1300 B2B buying executives across North America and Europe. The study shows that there are three distinct buyer journeys and they call it committee, consensus and independent. $B companies making purchases that are upwards of 100K up to a million will engage in this process that could stretch over 6 months and 18 touch points. I would like to believe it is likely to be a lot more.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-buyersjourney-activity-6603248687697231872-nsWx
What I Learnt Today #324 I Managing / Self Wednesday
We know what to do. But we don’t. Why?
I have been pondering about it for a while. We know we need to talk to target customers as soon as we can, but we don’t. We know we need to track key metrics - but we don’t. We know we need to reach out to mentors and founders who have been there and done that - we don’t. We know we need to engage with the press and basically invest in marketing (time, not necessarily money) but we don’t.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6602922165991993345-tPTs
What I Learnt Today #323 I SAAS Tuesdays
Saas Metrics that Matter
David Skok writes some of the most informative and educative articles that you can find. If you are serious about tracking what matters for your saas, this is one blog post you need to print out and pin on your board.
“There are 3 key elements in running a saas business.
* Acquiring customers * Retaining customers * Monetizing your customers”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-metrics-activity-6602566639781277696-YBgX
What I Learnt Today #322 I Startup Mondays
8X your price, anyone?
I have referred to Jason Cohen a few times this year as I read his blog at asmartbear.com. Jason is the founder of WP Engine and has quite a track record. As we try to fine tune our pricing in this piece in reference he talks about the pricing positioning - one that could potentially help you 8X your price. Super tempting.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-pricing-activity-6602232974748545024-jtYi
What I Learnt Today #321 I Our World Sundays
How I Got Interested In Mathematics
“James Harris Simons is an American mathematician, billionaire hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is known as a quantitative investor and in 1982 founded Renaissance Technologies, a private hedge fund based in Setauket-East Setauket, New York. Due to the success of Renaissance in general and its Medallion Fund in particular, Simons has been described as the greatest investor on Wall Street. As reported by Forbes, his net worth as of October 2019 is estimated to be $21.6 billion.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_dr-james-simons-s-donald-sussman-fellowship-activity-6601786664555773952-YcNr
What I Learnt Today #319 I Biz / Tech Friday
Are we in the 'Not-com' bubble?
Who ever has been watching the WeWork story unfold with the valuation going from 75B at IPO filing to 8B and no IPO or ’sinking IPOs of Uber, Lyft and Peloton’ may be reminded of the dot com bubble in 2000. According to Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic, host of podcast Crazy/Genius, it is actually ‘The Not-Com bubble’ popping.
So why do they look similar?
Both times B2C companies spent a boat load of cash trying to get to profitability, valuations plummeted in a matter of weeks, leading to massive cut in jobs and joblessness.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-biz-tech-activity-6601063883929149440-dFc5
What I Learnt Today #318 I Sales Thursday
Startup (sales) troubles
I spend a lot of time meeting and talking to startups. Not only because they are a potential target group for our Buyer Seller Engagement platform Pitch.Link, but because as a product startup I naturally spend time continuously in the ecosystem, be it Canada or India. I love to see how people pitch their business ideas and figure solvable pain points. One universal one, Sales.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-startup-activity-6600786847008423936--7y9
What I Learnt Today #317 I Managing / Self Wednesday
How we get conned
Alexis Conran hosted the show 'The Real Hustle' on BBC where he and his team ran elaborate scams on people. In this hugely entertaining TEDXBerlin talk he presents the 5 tactics used by conmen to fool us. Well the crux is that we mostly fool ourselves. Politicians, businesses and folks who want to sell their story to us routinely use these 5 tactics to get us to do what they want. People believing fake news spread by politicians or got into Bernie Madoff’s elaborate scams - eventually fall prey to the same techniques. When we are building our businesses how many times are we fooling ourselves?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_the-superpower-of-the-conman-alexis-conran-activity-6600223848698867712-faXB
What I Learnt Today #316 I SAAS Tuesdays
So what’s going on with the Martech scene?
The recent BDO report has pegged the global Martech business at $121Bn (more on this later.). That made me revisit the 2019 Martech Landscape which saw the lowest annual growth rate (3%) vis a vis the previous 7 years when the landscape grew from 150 (2011) to 6800 (2018) products. In the accompanying article Scott Brinker explains the evolution of the space.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-martech-activity-6599876803492438016-XCsO
What I Learnt Today #315 I Startup Mondays
How VC’s decide to invest
At the Nasscom Product Conclave I attended a workshop by Shekhar Kirani, Partner Accel and Prasanna Krishnamoorthy, Partner Upekkha Catalyst, on how to build a ‘Venture Backable Startup’ - the Holy Grail of Startupland!
According to Shekhar the first thing to understand is that there are two paths to glory in Startup land. Bootstrap your way or raise VC money. If you choose the later here is what is required.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-vc-activity-6599480375490207744-69QF/
What I Learnt Today #311 I Sales Thursday
Why buy, Why you, Why now?
Product led growth and self selling self serving saas can go only so far - $50 to $100mn but rarely beyond in the same manner. Enterprise sales needs to kick in for hyper growth and this article by Mark Cranney in the A16Z blog of 2014 has some interesting insights. Mark headed OpsWare - a data center automation services company it outlines a model for attempting Enterprise sales. True job of sales people is not to communicate value to customers but to create new value for them.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6598308611007578112-so0o
