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]
Missing 418, 425, 426, 448, (up to 17th May 2020)
What I Learnt Today #500 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Getting to 500
When I decided to write a daily post in Linkedin late 2018 it was ambitious at least. Audacious is more like it. My history of writing regularly, if one had to take that into account as proof of intent or probability of success, should have been a dampener. However looking back at the last 499 days it proves that nothing is permanent. Your past is not necessarily an indicator of the future. You can do what you want, if you are committed 100%.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6666336515171459073-U9L4
What I Learnt Today #499 I SAAS Tuesdays
How to Value your SaaS company
On the back of yesterday’s post on the state of funding for startups I found this white paper from SaaSCapital a SaaS focused debt fund providing funding to over 60 SaaS companies across 3 funds. The need for clarity of how your SaaS company will be valued is crucial if you are in the market to raise money. “The intent of the paper is to describe the approach used by most professional investors and strategic buyers to value a SaaS company.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-valuation-activity-6665803747911958528-pl73
What I Learnt Today #498 I Startup Mondays
Funding Trends
If you are wondering what’s up with Startup funding the losers are clear. Early stage/Seed, Series A have dipped by as much as 15% but the Series B and C are flat to up. Tomasz Tunguz writes in his latest post about the trends and analyses why this is so.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-funding-activity-6665794621081292801-tt51
What I Learnt Today #497 I Privacy Sundays
Remote work and Privacy
The threat to privacy sis not only from unknown actors trying to get your data or large social and internet applications that make violation of privacy a feature. Lot has been written about various practices at Google, Facebook, issues with Superhuman and more recently Zoom. Till early April Zoom allowed meeting hosts to monitor if participants were paying attention.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-remotework-activity-6665076645411590144-DXNp
What I Learnt Today #496 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Do you know of Brooke Sinclair?
Founders Unfound focuses on finding startups and founders you have possibly not hear of. I didn’t know of Brooke Sinclair and her venture Velor Imports. In the highly regulated alcohol market Velour is developing an online marketplace of beverages for the wholesale community targeted at the LAT AM market.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-founders-activity-6665110424649891840-gqOG
What I Learnt Today #495 I Biz / Tech Friday
Innovation frameworks in times of crisis
We cannot say for certain if this Covid induced state of the world is for keeps. There is no doubt that this is one of the black swan moments in history and the key would be to innovate out of this situation. Will that take us back to where we were. Most certainly not. Will there be a new way of life? For many yes.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-innovation-activity-6665098339652116480-3xpj
What I Learnt Today #494 I Sales Thursday
So you think you don’t sell?
A good friend of mine Amit Agarwal wrote a bestseller - The Ultimate Sales Accelerator. When I interviewed him for my Podcast - Bits About Books (https://bit.ly/2A8tgAl) he told me something very interesting. We are always selling. Not only when we are at work. But when we are with family and friends. Either it is your product or service. Or your views, ideas or desires.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-activity-6664527998496178178-tm2c
What I Learnt Today #493 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Your Personal Brand - Why it matters now more than anytime else
The crisis we all are facing is unlike any - no matter how many comparisons are made with the Great Depression or those closer home - the 2000 Dot com crash and the 2008 Sub prime crisis that rippled through the entire world. This is one crisis that is impacting not only the economy but lives in unprecedented ways.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6663680216948441088-3ZvX
What I Learnt Today #492 I SAAS Tuesdays
Lessons from Yammer
Way back in 2010 Mashable wrote a report on how Yammer (now part ofOffice 365 suite) was winning over 80% of the Fortune 500 companies. There were three nuggets that I discovered and hence this post.
a) Before Product Led Growth was a thing CEO David Sacks spoke about Yammer as “A product that markets itself”. "Because of the viral nature of our product, we do not have to do a lot of traditional marketing," Sacks was quoted.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-plg-activity-6663860912262393857-WWXa
What I Learnt Today #491 I Startup Mondays
Learning from Investors
What can you, a startup Founder learn from a venture capital investors advice to angel investors who are starting out? A lot.
Roy Bahat is the Head of Bloomberg Beta managing a $75Mn fund. He wrote a open letter to would be Angel investors and his advice can be reverse engineered into lessons for Founders who are looking to engage with Angel investors and raising capital.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6662967650991378433-4RAT
What I Learnt Today #490 I Privacy Sundays
Auto Suggests and Privacy
How often have you encountered auto suggests inside Gmail or your phone keyboard. How many times have you inadvertently sent a message or a mail with words that were not intended? And what is the underlying AI assisted suggestion engines doing to your ability to express yourself to the recipient of your message?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-activity-6662572072776146944-5xz0
What I Learnt Today #489 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Throwback Review
I came across this listing by TechInAsia of the top 30 Startup Founders in India who have raised big $’s . The interesting part is an overwhelming number of them have survived and are thriving. Some exited well for their founders and investors (Flipkart, Redbus, FreeCharge, FirstCry) some are in trouble now (OYO, Urban Ladder, Housing.com) and some hanging in there. A good number is thriving (InMobi, Ola, BigBasket, Zomato). It is an interesting list to look at and see how far the Founders and their ventures have traveled in just 4 years
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-activity-6662231973601390592-d6fv
What I Learnt Today #488 I Biz / Tech Friday
Internet business is heading to Zero Sum era
I came across this article written by John Luttig ( thank you Advait Sarkar for pointing me to this piece) and it provides a lot of food for thought on where is the internet focused business headed. It is a detailed analysis of what got us here and that the next phase will possibly need different skills, business models, matrices and tools. First some observations:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-business-activity-6661844223744188416-Z_SD
What I Learnt Today #487 I Sales Thursday
Marketing during a downturn
In April 2009 HBR published an Article on how to market during a downturn. It called our 2008-9 as the worst since the Great Depression ( what shall we call this one?) and it goes in-depth as to the changing behaviors of the 4 segments of the population and the story is primarily about B2C brands.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-marketing-downturn-activity-6661543972659429376-mB3o
What I Learnt Today #486 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Working better from home
“The most challenging times bring us the most empowering lessons.” - Karen Salmansohn
Working from home is a challenge. All households are not suitable for sustained work, day after day. If you have small kids it could be even more difficult. You need to stay motivated, stay focused, suffer from screen and online meeting fatigues…
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6661323978528878592-pUvO
What I Learnt Today #485 I SAAS Tuesdays
Selling your SAAS
The Atlassian story of 19% as cost of Sales drove the idea that that is the Australian model of selling saas - self serve and product led. However Elicia McDonald, investment associate of Airtree Ventures wrote this comprehensive piece on what all should go into consideration for you to fix your sales approach.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-sales-activity-6661251739313930240-7W53
What I Learnt Today #484 I Startup Mondays
Competitor Analysis
More than ever, analyzing what your competition is doing is coming centerstage. Normal times if you are in a commodities business (and we are all in commodities business - for example there are over 100 Chat bot companies who all facilitate ‘’Conversational Marketing’) learning from your competitors, finding gaps in their offerings, going after their customers who are churning are all legitimate strategies.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6660935215340490752-sZoK
What I Learnt Today #483 I Privacy Sundays
Privacy debt
I wrote about the State of the Cloud 2020 Report by BVP and I wanted to touch upon one key predictions it made. So much sho it is in No.2 in a 6 pointer.
Prediction 2: Privacy debt is the new technical debt.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-databreach-activity-6660072143369437184-nEnK
What I Learnt Today #482 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Confessions of a Founder
When you raise $118m and are on the cover of Inc and you are a woman you have very much arrived. She may well have been riding on the coattails of the WeWork created euphoria around shared spaces and the moral imperative that VC’s wanted to address - that only 3% of their capital is going to Female founders. What ever it is the achievements were commendable. In the same cover story for which she appeared on the cover, visibly pregnant, celebrating woman power with a fan club that included Maryl Streep - it was courageous to say the least for Audrey Gelman to write this piece for Fast Company.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-founders-activity-6660761026973306880-Ys1o
What I Learnt Today #481 I Biz / Tech Friday
Cloud is eating software
And it will eat it entirely by 2032 according to the Bessemer Venture Partners State if the Cloud 2020 Report.
How has the space evolved? In the past 20 years starting with practically 10’s of companies there were not a single one that had anything near a billion dollar valuation we have now come to literally thousands of companies with 86 valued at more than a billion 54 of them public. The top 5 Cloud companies have a valuation exceeding 600B a 40X growth in the past 12 years (2008 combined market cap was $13.8 B). Sales force is the only one that has remained in the top 5 all through. In fact it was at the beginning of the cloud story. The 2nd one to go public in 2004 after NetSuite.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_bessemers-state-of-the-cloud-2020-activity-6659706074612006912-j_m0
What I Learnt Today #480 I Sales Thursday
Sales response
We are all at home. Even if you were quota crushing territory king - you are at home. And make no mistake that changes in various business processes will now be accelerated - and this includes sales.
Bob Apollo finds great reads and shares then many times a day and I found this HBR article thanks to him. The authors Andris A. Zoltners , PK Sinha and Sally E. Lorimer write about the four attributes that will determine where you stand when the dust settles.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-future-activity-6659295685873152001-i2zi
What I Learnt Today #479 I Managing / Self Wednesday
What comes first - Motivation or Habit?
This is the quintessential chicken or egg question. Motivation helps form habits or the other way round. Most people I speak with believe it starts with (self)motivation and that leads to habits with loop back to motivate you more. It seems logical. You motivate yourself to exercise, endorphins is released and you stay motivated to exercise again and so on.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6658686965384388608-YC1M
What I Learnt Today #478 I SAAS Tuesdays
8 steps to $B club
This is one (still) very interesting talk on SaaS by Nathan Latka - the SaaS data-man delivered at SaaStock 2018. He has interviewed several thousand SaaS founders and CEO’s and got them to speak numbers - possibly more than anyone else. SaaS is big - slated to top $200B by 2022 as the overall cloud business grows to over half a $Trillion.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_nathan-latka-headlines-3000-saas-ceo-and-activity-6658564431192162304-o_Cc
What I Learnt Today #477 I Startup Mondays
What will you build?
Marc Andreessen wrote this passionate piece in the a16z blog last Saturday and it is thought provoking to say the least. Although it is primarily targeted at the American polity and people it makes sense in context for all countries. Specially the Western developed world.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-build-activity-6657834044857913344-HPUz
What I Learnt Today #476 I Privacy Sundays
More on Zoom
I must be clear on one thing. I love Zoom. And that is the problem. I found it much more responsive to customer needs. constantly innovating and pushing the tech envelop to develop features that make a difference. I have use Zoom and marveled how a simple idea like a breakout room during a webinar or online session makes for such a compelling feature.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-i-learnt-today-476-i-privacy-sundays-activity-6657446310708375553-DRri
What I Learnt Today #475 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
The Stockdale Paradox
Robert Glazer is known for his hugely inspirational emails sent out every Friday primarily talking about Human virtues. I am one of the beneficiaries of his efforts to share leadership notes originally meant for his 30 employees that now reaches 100,000 people around the world. His latest mail pointed to this video by Jim Collins the author of Good to Great and what he refers to the Stokdale Paradox - something he learnt from Admiral Jim Stockdale - the ability to deal with the present while retaining faith in a future that would be better. A trait he discovered that was part of the personality of the 11 CEO’s he chose to write about in the book from the 1400 odd he started the research journey with.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_stockdale-paradox-a-message-for-uncertain-activity-6657098011807707136-GyM0
What I Learnt Today #474 I Biz / Tech Friday
How is Covid changing our internet habits?
The New York Times reports findings from Similarweb and Apptopia indicate while consumption of content and time spend on sites like Youtube, Netflix and Facebook has increased dramatically the usage of the phone to do it has seen a sharp decline.
We are using more video chats and are engaging in local news and are more interested in our immediate surroundings. The reliance on established media is higher and partisan or non credible sources have declined or remained flat.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-internet-activity-6656772564968402944-UZwB
What I Learnt Today #473 I Sales Thursday
Understanding Sales Leaders Response to COVID crisis
The question I most often come across as I intensify my communication with peers and friends is the impact they see and try to forecast on and for their businesses. For most the immediacy of the slowdown is real. Very few people actually believe that things will go back to normal. They could be outliers and I hope they are right. The rest of the indicators are clear. Its tough times for most - uncertainly is the only certainty.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6656739185891872769-L1PC
What I Learnt Today #472 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Power to imagine better
For the Class of 2008 at Harvard, J K Rowling delivered the Commencement (graduation) speech. Starting with some typical self deprecating humor talking about her relationship with her parents (there is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction) she moved on to the two points she wanted to make -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_jk-rowling-speaks-at-harvard-commencement-activity-6656411148298096640-8ARv
What I Learnt Today #471 I SAAS Tuesdays
Mastering the Marketing Puzzle
You are building a new SaaS. You have identified a market gap and built a product. Now you need to get prospects to buy it. So Sales first or Marketing first,
You are smart, you know which came first - Chicken or Egg. So you go for marketing. You get a Chatbot to get onto Conversational marketing. You use tools like Sparktoro to identify where your audience is and SEMRush to optimize SEO and Keyword optimization. And you know you are missing out on the big picture. Building the brand. You read a lot and come out more confused than when you began. In the meanwhile all your efforts look like a rag tag team. And you start wondering.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_slack-cmo-bill-macaitis-marketing-the-fastest-activity-6656244448843927553-moL3
What I Learnt Today #470 I Startup Mondays
Why Startups Succeed?
There are 1.2 million results if you put that question into Google. Well, there are no clear answers. However this TEDTALK by Bill Gross comes as close as you can to a explanation why so many promising ideas and solutions finally had to be given up on.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_the-single-biggest-reason-why-start-ups-succeed-activity-6655731392573476864-pUf-
What I Learnt Today #469 I Privacy Sundays
Zoom and Privacy
So what does Zoom’s privacy policy state? “Zoom’s privacy policy had been extremely broad. As Consumer Reports noted, the company could store and collect personal data and share it with third parties (including advertisers). That’s not completely unusual, except that personal data included video sessions, automatically generated transcripts, the contents of shared whiteboards, uploaded documents, instant messages and chat sessions, the names of everyone on a call, and the contents of cloud storage.” writes Glenn Fleishman in his article.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-activity-6657469053252272128-Y9FK
What I Learnt Today #468 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Save lives or save jobs?
Well this seems to be an ongoing debate all over the world. And this is what folks at the top are discussing in the organised sectors. And as we all know global GDP is going down between 20 - 50%. That is a lot. Companies will close. Sectors decimated. Very successful and iconic companies like AirBnB, Uber, Marriott (see my post last Saturday #461) all are looking at major crisis. And I was looking around for some hope.
I found three articles that give us hope and a view into the future. The trends and possible shifts that you may see.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-activity-6655151535447728128-Boih
What I Learnt Today #467 I Biz / Tech Friday
Zoom-ing out of Privacy
Privacy and security go hand in hand and Zoom is on the dock on both counts. As reported by Glen Fleishman in Tidbits.com,…” in the mid-2019, security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh posted a lengthy report on Medium about security flaws and undesirable behavior by Zoom software for macOS:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-zoombombing-activity-6654718472678932480--jBE
What I Learnt Today #466 I Sales Thursday
Are you tracking your sales funnel metrics?
As goes the saying - you can only improve what you can measure.Irrespective of your stage you need to measure and act upon your sales funnel metrics. This 2018 article in Startup Daily by Elicia McDonald, Principal at AirTree Ventures, Australia elaborates on the numbers you should be tracking, why and the how. As overall business slows down globally one sector that is supposed to actually come out shining are ventures which are Cloud based. SaaS by definition is that. So, chop chop…get to work.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6654361232969170944-fUcu/
What I Learnt Today #465 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Becoming a Learning Machine
“The most challenging times bring us the most empowering lessons.” Karen Salmansohn
The point is that there is no way to predict when this phase of our lives around the world is likely to come to an end. We do not know what would be the new way of life and work. However one thing is clear we need to be able to learn fast and adapt. Agility of mind and body would be key. ( So run that marathon in your balcony).
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6653500878147936256-CZME
What I Learnt Today #464 I SAAS Tuesdays
Webinar 101 anyone?
During these times of WFH one tool that SaaS companies are reaching out for is Webinars. There is no need for explanation and if you are new to this here is one post by Victoria Rudi in the Demio blog. It is one very well researched and exhaustively written piece embellished with screen shots and explanations as it covers a lot of ground.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-webinars-activity-6653123466293809152-cnyY
What I Learnt Today #463 I Startup Monday
Startups and Recession
So who will survive? The news is full of stories of increasing unemployment (10 million+ in the US in less than a month), employees being sent on a furlough, massive industries like Hospitality, travel, airlines being brought to their knees - loosing as much as 75% of their business in the span of 3-4 weeks as well as staring at bankruptcy.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-recession-activity-6652939688082530304-GUwd
What I Learnt Today #462 I Privacy Sundays
The other side of this pandemic
Very definitely a separate story is unfolding around the world and I wanted to touch upon that here. Governments around the world are using mobile phones to track the Coronavirus speed within its populations. Some are doing it through specific apps that citizens are installing voluntarily giving their government the data of their movement or otherwise. Many countries are getting the data from the Telco’s through executive orders.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_100000-cameras-moscow-uses-facial-recognition-activity-6653109476268310528-jaJP
What I Learnt Today #461 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Authentic leadership
Arne Sorenson, President and CEO of Marriott International shared a deeply personal, emotional and frankly truthful video on twitter with his employees, associates and various other stakeholder in the wake of the unprecedented impact of Covid 19 (business is down 75% for Mariott said Sorenson in the video address) yet he managed to end in an optimistic hopeful note.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_covid-19-a-message-to-marriott-international-activity-6652932207868506112-oQC8/
What I Learnt Today #460 I Biz / Tech Friday
Battery breakthrough on the anvil?
The need for us to conserve energy does not need any explanation. We are using more batteries than ever. Lot of dependence on the future electrical energy intensive shift like cars are dependent on Battery technologies. The current key is Lithium- Ion batteries which has served us well. Yet the problem with that is Lithium is not really an abundant mineral, very damaging to the environment while it is mined and tends to blow up sometimes.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-battery-activity-6652809713283100672-MU5E
What I Learnt Today #459 I Sales Thursday
Are you selling the problem or the solution?
Steve Jobs famously said “start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology” and not the other way around. How may times have you heard that “ x was a product in search of a market” or “this is a solution in search of a problem”. You get the drift.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_steve-jobs-insult-response-activity-6652266551665889280-n3zP/
I Learnt Today #458 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Extraordinary challenges call for extraordinary responses
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change.” Paulo Coelho
There is absolutely no question that these are extraordinary times for our generation. Those of us who were born 10 years or later the last global calamity of the WWII when humans caused most of the misery for other humans. This is also a wake up call for the Climate Change nay sayers. So I will rest my references to situations threatening the very existence of Humanity. There is no doubt that we are facing a collective challenge unlike any other whose effect will be felt long long after we get out of the current phase of the threat.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_admiral-mcraven-leaves-the-audience-speechless-activity-6651011615028277248--Xsk/
What I Learnt Today #457 I SAAS Tuesdays
SaaS Marketing
Somewhere in the past I wrote about how marketing should be the first hire for a SaaS company. Unless there is a pipeline there is nothing to work with for Sales folks. If they are spending time prospecting, they are essentially wasting time.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-marketing-activity-6650817113919451136-Jb4u
What I Learnt Today #456 I Startup Mondays
Seed stage funding will take a disproportionate blow
There will be major economic slowdown as an aftermath of the current pandemic caused by Covid-19 but Seed stage funding will see an enormous blow as is projected by the CB Insights assessment in its report on the impact on Startup funding. The decline for first time fund raising will be around 22% in 1 2020 vis a vis Q4 2019. The global deals will decline by 8%.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-seed-activity-6650367432991039488-Yssh
What I Learnt Today #455 I Privacy Sundays
Nothing to hide
A lot of my friends tell this to me. I have nothing to hide so why should I bother about privacy or the lack of it? this 2016 post by Fabio Esteves and he makes some points that I wish my friends thought about. A lot of what the world could be its based on ideology and philosophy. Life without either could ensure the world will devolve quickly into a dystopian order. So when you think about Privacy remember -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-activity-6650351247574560768-tWwQ/
What I Learnt Today #454 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
RIP Leila Janah
Her Inc magazine profile by Mind Zetlin, after her passing is short but enough to inspire you. To spur you to look back at your life and what you are doing to leave this world a better place than you found it in.
Leila was 37 when she passed from complications of Epithelioid Sarcoma, a rare cancer late January 2020. She was diagnosed a few months back in April 2019. But by then, child of Indian Immigrants, she was recognized as an Africa expert and had built Samasource into a powerhouse of good. Her guiding insight - Poor people in African nations are not just in need of philanthropic help, they can also be a resource for companies needing remote work, particularly data input for training AI.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-founders-activity-6650339894067585024-INcL/
What I Learnt Today #453 I Biz / Tech Friday
So why building a Zebra company so hard?
There is not doubt that the cost of 90% failure is very high. For the society. Then why are we not seeing more Zebra’s. Why is building Sustainable and socially conscious businesses so difficult. The founder of the movement (check my post #446) spoke with numerous founders, investors and other stakeholders in the startup ecosystem and they came away with the following learnings:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-zebra-activity-6649351001520345088-wIYq/
What I Learnt Today #452 I Sales Thursday
Collect your cash
So while you may wonder if I am somewhat obsessed with revenue and cash let me tell the truth. I am. Tomasz Tunguz pointed to this in a post of SIX STARTUP DISCIPLINES FOR CHALLENGING TIMES and one of them (the 4th in fact) is elongating your runway by collecting your dues.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6648956075754258432-ArFx/
?What I Learnt Today #451 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Time to rethink why well intentioned plans fail
As you sit at home and reflect, as you would often do when you have time on hand, you look back at all the plans you had drawn up after listening to that podcast or reading that book or watching that video. And you wonder why most of them did not pan out as you wanted. Well Brianna Wiest has the answer in her recent post - ‘Here’s Why You Give Up on Most of Your Goals After Two Weeks’.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6650613280622641152-IyoN
What I Learnt Today #450 I SAAS Tuesdays
Lessons from the last downturn
Are there lessons from the 2008-9 meltdown that one can draw upon to counter and restore some semblance of normalcy for oneself? Well Jason Lemkin has launched a free course in SaastrUniversity on Bridging the Gaps: Ideas for Tougher Times.
As you wonder and try to project where this is possibly headed be clear that crisis is different. It will be much deeper and unsparing than the sub prime led meltdown. So what can you draw from the past?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_webinar-what-it-was-like-in-08-09-and-activity-6648416502313783296-VCLh/
What I Learnt Today #449 I Startup Mondays
Cash and Crisis
There is not doubt that flow of cash will slow down as VC’s conserve to keep backing the winners in their portfolio and lesser funds will be made available for new bets. if you have raised some cash - an angel round or a Series A, it is time to rethinking how you spend it and how much runway you need to squeeze out of the available cash. David Cummings pointed to a post by Steve Blank pointing to a memo Jeff Epstein Operating Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners sent out to CFO’s of his companies a few days back -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6648303253819887616-k--G/
What I Learnt Today #447 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Dan Price of Gravity and the minimum 70K salary story
Dan Price was called a communist when he announced 5 years back that he is raising the salary of his then 120 staff to 70K USD in the process taking a huge pay cut to make it happen. And it was predicted to be a colossal mistake. So how did it really pan out?
BBC did a follow up this year and this is what they found:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_dan-price-media-reel-2017-activity-6647202796997304320-3ZtK
What I Learnt Today #446 I Biz / Tech Friday
Zebras or Unicorns?
I was not aware of the ‘Zebra’ companies. A lot of what they stand for are part of my daily posts so when I read about it in the About Us page of Sparktoro and I was excited. There is increasing data that questions the current model of Venture Capital and the way it functions. The whole premise that 90% of startups will fail, and that is OK to get some gigantic success. Surely it is working for Venture capitalists. How is it working for the rest of the eco system?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-zebras-activity-6646783874309423104-_4KX
What I Learnt Today #445 I Sales Thursday
Go Narrow Go Deep
Often the question on the mind of founders is whether you build your brand or sell or both. The recent successes like Intercom and Drift in the SaaS world points towards the value of a distinct brand voice and the ability to position your self as a thought leader in the plethora of similar products that the prospect has the luxury to choose between. However all these efforts - visible or other wise is backed up by intense sales ops.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-ycombinator-activity-6646374207280201728-p603
What I Learnt Today #444 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Learning from Seth
There is no doubt about Seth Godin’s contribution to business creativity and marketing wisdom. He has written 139 books (possibly more now) five of them entirely on airplanes. It is fascinating how much you can pick up from an encounter with Seth Godin and that’s exactly what Dan Shipper set out to do. His recounting of his learnings were shared in his article in Superorganizers is a great read for everyone wanting to get a hold of conflicting priorities and living with the constant dread that not enough is getting done.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6646051013289709568-l_G7
What I Learnt Today #443 I SAAS Tuesdays
UX Research - Great time to start is now
UX is what Marketing should manage. Actually it is a Business requirement. In SaaS your lead generation is dependent on UX - specially if you are focusing on PLG - product led growth. Also if your leads are dependent on inbound leads UX becomes super critical. That’s what I learnt from this informative 2017 article by Gaetano now the Director of Demand Gen at Nextiva.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-ux-activity-6645747272200089600-aB46
What I Learnt Today #442 I Startup Mondays
To plan or not to plan?
What is the real job of a Startup? To deliver value to your customer. Everything else is meaningless if this is not happening, So if you are not building and not speaking with your customers simultaneously you are wasting your time. Definitely so if you are pouring over a detailed business plan for the next 5 years. You know, as do the investors, you are unlikely to meet the projections.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6645376600907059200-ohMj
What I Learnt Today #441 I Privacy Sundays
Privacy as a differentiator in SaaS
I have been looking around for information and data on SaaS and privacy. How do we, founders and providers of SaaS products look at privacy of our customers data? Strangely I found one by Sven R, UX writing and localization at Userlike a user chat company written way back in 2016.
He referes to an article in Betanews on a paper produced by the University of Pennsylvania which found “that internet users are unhappy with the way their privacy is undermined by advertisers and online companies, yet feel there is nothing they can do about it.”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-activity-6644944012388196352-atDQ
What I Learnt Today #440 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Payal Kadakia’s passion
I like to find stories of founders who achieved seemingly unachievable through seer grit, passion and imagination. One such story is of Payal Kadakia the founder of Classpass the service that is changing lives of thousands making it easy to workout and stay healthy. It made it easy to find the type of workout you wanted at the moment you wanted nearby.
A Forbes profile writes “ClassPass is the world’s largest health club aggregator and provides access to fitness classes via a flat-rate monthly subscription service. The company has raised an impressive $264 million to date, operates in 2,500 cities worldwide and in more than 20 countries, and has partnerships with 22,000 studios and gyms.” All this took her a decade. Did she suffer from self doubt at any time? Was she always sure?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_classpass-payal-kadakias-risk-that-changed-activity-6656862193096716288-kS9G
What I Learnt Today #439 I Biz / Tech Friday
The Sequoia Memo
Sequoia sent out a memo on Corona Virus to its founders and made it public on their Medium page. All early stage Founders would do well to pay heed to this one. It is not out of place to say that they sent out similar memo post the 2008 meltdown. It is needless to say that the firm has a ring side view with its presence and investment around the world and can draw from their experience facing similar situations over the past 50 years. Like in all such situations some companies will find themselves looking at a bonanza yet most of the rest will have to size up their job and brace for impact. Time to take corrective measures is now.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-sequoia-activity-6644224868160241664-Clob/
What I Learnt Today #438 I Sales Thursday
You have got leads. And they are not a fit.
You crafted a ICP. And you put your marketing machine in motion. Heck you also bought into a bunch of data selling companies. But why do you not get conversion? Meg Kawalkowska a marketing specialist at Woodpecker wrote this insightful yet simple post on figuring out if a lead is really worth your while.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6650387342441971712-f9Je
What I Learnt Today #437 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Selfless Service, Anyone?
The topic somewhat is a cross between self management and business development. But so be it. We hear a lot about efficiency. Hours we have. Hours we loose. But not much about attitude and the softer side of the being human business. Empathy for example.
I just read this excerpt of Jonathan Keyser’s book You Don’t have to b Ruthless to Win and he talks about “Three levels of Reinvention” and “15 Core operating principles”. Can selflessness lead to profit? Keyser a commercial Real Estate broker voted at a young age that he will never be poor and his go to formula was to be cut throat ‘What is in it for me’ self. But he did a 180 degrees turn to find your business will sell itself if you commit to serving others.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6643475485223415809-jQkn
What I Learnt Today #436 I SAAS Tuesdays
Don’t get Corona’red. Focus on your Cash.
No one can really predict where this Corona virus challenge is headed. Specially the financial impact it will have on business, specially the ones starting off. How will it influence VC’s and customers alike.
I have lived through 9/11 and the 2008 meltdown and neither were pretty pictures, those. By any stretch. If you are a SaaS founder you need to apply mind to your cash runway and need to double down on your revenue. This is my true passion (sales that is) and this morning the email from Ben Murray touched a chord unlike any other.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-finance-activity-6643161409360355328-sq9a
What I Learnt Today #435 I Startup Mondays
5 reasons your Startup could fail
Sean Sheppard, founder of Growthx VC and Market Acceleration Program (this is now open source and available to anyone on the GrowthX website for free) outlined 5 issues that typically trip Startups during their ascent.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-sales-activity-6642766198406774786-5hge
What I Learnt Today #434 I Privacy Sundays
The Facial Recognition threat is getting very real
A recent investigation by the New York times into the use of an app called Clearview AI and its database of over 3 billion pictures is sending shockwaves around the internet. While common users continue to be callous about their privacy and the extent to which it can be abused by anyone who intends to do so, we would do well to make up our minds about the boundaries we will traverse as businesses while violating the privacy of those we deal with - our customers and employees.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_what-facial-recognition-steals-from-us-activity-6642406522234208256-XURR
What I Learnt Today #433 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
The story of Pocket
Success stories of products are evidently stories of their founders as well. Just like the failures - which we do not write about often enough. This one is about Read it Later or what you possibly know and use as Pocket. Nate Weiner’s side project of a bookmarklet has became this giant content tracking tool for the world. How did he get to where it is? Some really early story comes through this article by Casey Newton written for The Verge way back in 2013 and provides context to what was to come later.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-pocket-activity-6642386267290071040-nnHS
What I Learnt Today #432 I Biz / Tech Friday
Tech Response to Corona
For years technologies have been working on robots, drones and the like to handle the next pandemic. And the moment of truth is upon us. China it seems is using all of these along side infrared thermometers (reliability in question) to tackle the mammoth challenge posed by this deadly new virus.
Robots are being used all over the world. ‘..to disinfect rooms, communicate with isolated people, take vital information, and deliver medications (and anything else someone might need).” says a report by Rebecca Heilwell in Vox Recode.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-corona-activity-6641666286919217153-1tjp
What I Learnt Today #431 I Sales Thursday
Formula to make your revenue target
Finding a sure shot model to deliver on revenue targets is a holy grail for sales. Ethan Teng is heading growth at Recurly and has delivered some spectacular success. He discussed his co-horted growth model to measure the end to end customer lifecycle - “ from acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, monetization, and resurrection - and identify the biggest opportunities and points of leverage” in the GrowthTL;DR podcast.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6641139366263644160-RhGD
What I Learnt Today #430 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Training the World how to treat you
Benjamin Hardy, PhD starts with this quote : “Be careful what you tolerate, you are teaching people how to treat you.”—Unknown, and sucks you right into this piece. Most of what we are today are results of all the decisions we have taken in our lives and similarly what we will be in the future will also be dependent on what we decide and do today.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6641127433753985024-JnTE
What I Learnt Today #429 I SAAS Tuesdays
Promoting your SaaS blog
Content marketing is the lifeline for any SaaS company. And blogs are a critical component in the lineup. Somehow we are more focused on the 'Content' part of 'Content Marketing'. The 'Marketing' part languishes or gets sporadic attention. I have spent a lot of time in the past year writing in Linkedin but even after paying for various tools I am not focused on the ‘marketing’ part. Every time I attend a meet of companies like SEMRush I come back wanting to implement ideas but they falter. Learning No.1. Nothing that needs real attention can move forward without a dedicated person who is doing that on an everyday basis.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-marketing-activity-6640498327660130304-qjzc
What I Learnt Today #428 I Startup Mondays
Why we do not focus on Sales?
If you are following the startup discourse on the net with many very knowledgeable founders and VCs and others weighing in for revenue, the primary obsession seems to be with funding. Yet anyone who has raised and spent knows that money in the bank runs out at some point unless it is backed by revenue.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-sales-activity-6640164123604803584-m5qt
What I Learnt Today #427 I Privacy Sundays
Loosing battle to control our personal data?
The PEW Research Center report released late last year shows that Americans are concerned, confused and finds themselves with lack of control over their own data. This is important since what happens in the US will finally be manifested around the world. In worse shape in the developing world where still 2 billion illiterate and impoverished people live.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-activity-6640169198779752448-gf1l
What I Learnt Today #424 I Sales Thursday
SaaS Marketing. Before you sell.
There is no question that you need to hone your marketing game before you start selling at scale. The quality of channel that drives quality traffic is indicated by not only in terms of number of visitors but “in terms of (1) how quickly it can generate leads once you start investing, (2) scalability, and/or (3) potential return on investment (ROI).”
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6639139905685549056-ELzl
What I Learnt Today #423 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Honing your mental strength
A founders life is fraught with pressures and unexpected setbacks. Rarely, if ever is life smooth going for long stretches and this impacts many more than we would like to believe.
Christina DesMarais writes about 8 Habits of mentally strong people in Inc. They include some expected ideas. Some, not so much. Samples:
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6638509086512123904-Peza
What I Learnt Today #422 I SAAS Tuesdays
Customers on Customer Service
How do Customers define satisfaction? Which channels do they turn for support? When do they want self-service? Answers to these and other questions were attempted by Groove in their recently published report ”80 Customer Service Statistics” with data sourced from multiple companies and arranged under 8 segments like Customer Satisfaction, Customer Support Channels, Customer Self Service etc.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-customerservice-activity-6638141087313690624-cFoD
What I Learnt Today #421 I Startup Mondays
Using Quora to promote your Startup
You are the founder of a novel new Startup. What is the best way to get the word around. Because you need to be visible and known. Of course you can spend investors money (or your own) run PPC ads, buy booths in conferences etc. But what if you do not have a lot of cash? Content marketing could be your answer. Hubspot has championed this idea and branded this as Inbound to great success. Where does one get started?
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6637576554035671040-O_CY
What I Learnt Today #420 I Privacy Sundays
Putting words into any mouth
The ability to realistically put words into your mouth could be a serious invasion of privacy and new technology is capable of pulling off astonishing level of originality. Samantha Cole wrote this piece for Vice describing the alarming progress in AI assisted deepfake capabilities now accessible to any one.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_everybodys-talkin-let-me-talk-as-you-want-activity-6637186443708063744-DyML
What I Learnt Today #419 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
The Youngest (Self made) Billionaire ever
That’s right. Earlier than Bill, earlier than Marc, she is undoubtedly a child of the technology era. Yet she has nothing to do with tech.
This is a fascinating story of a 18 year old who leveraged her 175m followers between instagram, twitter and snapchat to build a LipKit line and a cosmetics giant - that’s Kylie Jenner. The key according to the July'18 article in Forbes by Natalie Robehmed was that, she ran an ultra light organisation.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-activity-6637194159327404032-hGab
418 MISSING
What I Learnt Today #417 I Sales Thursday
Mental Models for your sales hiring
Tomasz Tunguz wrote this lucid post on using mental models for Sales hiring at Startups. The first is that of looking at the experience of the sales person through the lens of Market Leader or Market Challenger. Selling for a Market leader is considerably easier and allows sales people to leverage the brand. However selling for a startup is very different and involves educating the market and convincing the buyer to abandon the market leader in the process of buying the challenging solution,
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6636272705907843072-GMI_
What I Learnt Today #416 I Managing / Self Wednesday
Developing a Resilient Mindset
Pressure in work life is a given today and how you manage pressure could make the difference between a healthy and happy life or otherwise. The best leaders, according to Kate Snowise, “adapt promptly without thrown off course by the uncertainty” pressure brings.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-valuation-activity-6636627252023005184-y5ku
What I Learnt Today #415 I SAAS Tuesdays
Valuing your SaaS
This is a complex and often opaque process. There has been a lot written about and discussed. The rule of thumb is that a SaaS that shows definite growth trajectory can expect a 10X revenue x rate of growth x net renewal rate, as post money value, give and take.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-valuation-activity-6636627252023005184-y5ku
What I Learnt Today #414 I Startup Mondays
How did Unicorns look like as startups?
This is a question that comes up often and Ali Tamaseb, partner DCVC, spent 300 hours analyzing public data, talking to founders and combing through Crunchbase and PitchBook on exaclty this topic .
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startup-activity-6636200690542841856-pMmM
What I Learnt Today #413 I Privacy Sundays
Start by stopping free giveaway of your own data
One misconception many of us carry is that when in Incognito mode our browsing is private and not tracked. This is totally incorrect. What it does is that it doesn’t keep any record on the computer where it is being used. But the ISP’s and sites like Google and Facebook can see exactly what we are doing even if we are in the incognito window.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-privacy-browser-activity-6634779868649349120-MCst
What I Learnt Today #412 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Sarah Lacy’s ‘good bye' post
Sarah Lacy wrote the much read and celebrated cover story on Kevin Rose of Digg.com for Business Week. From there she went on to launch one of the early experiments of independent investigative journalism with her site Pando breaking a lot of journalistic ground.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-startups-activity-6634906007619366912-pF3a
What I Learnt Today #411 I Biz / Tech Friday
Get upto speed with AI
“Benedict Evans, another VC strategist, compares machine learning to relational databases, a type of enterprise software that made fortunes in the ‘90s and revolutionized whole industries, but that’s so mundane your eyes probably glazed over just reading those two words. The point …. is that we’re now at the point where AI is going to get normal fast. “Eventually, pretty much everything will have [machine learning] somewhere inside and no-one will care,” says Evans.”… So writes James Vincent in The State of AI in 2019 report in The Verge.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-tech-ai-activity-6634039264281751553-B7sq
What I Learnt Today #410 I Sales Thursday
Content for growth
Reforge published this piece by Lauren Bass on what growth practitioners in top companies are reading and I wrote about the list they shared few weeks back. There is not running away from the fact that there is a lot more content out there than we can possibly consume. Even sifting through is a major challenge. While 300% more content, with 100% longer by word count, sharing of content has decreased by 90% in the past two years - the piece quotes a Profit well study.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-saas-activity-6633792747830632448-z58n
What I Learnt Today #409 I Managing / Self Wednesday
About reaching full potential
Many advice that you read or listen to that promises to make you more efficient or put you on track to self improvement seems repetitive. In many ways they are as there is only so many things that can change you for the better - utilisation of time, managing your habits, eating healthy, sleeping well, managing relations et all.
I like how Benjamin Hardy, PhD labors to find references and substantiates many of these into easily understandable ideas like in this piece where he lists 30 behaviors that can make you unstoppable.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6633419508189106176-A48m
What I Learnt Today #408 I SAAS Tuesdays
Sizing up the market
Undoubtedly one of the most critical slides in your pitch deck (not your pitch) is your TAM slide and there are confusions around how to estimate one. For starters it needs hard work unless you want to go for the Top Down model relying on industry reports and external estimates and simply aim for 1-2% of market share.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-tam-activity-6633035218519461888-f1O8
What I Learnt Today #407 I Startup Mondays
When Netflix started up
Startup stories, specially of the big ubiquitous brands like Netflix it makes for a great read. Co-Founder and first CEO Marc Randolph wrote ‘That Will Never Work’ - the behind the scenes account beyond the popular legend that Reed Hastings founded Netflix after Blockbuster charged him a $40 late fee.
https://bit.ly/39rs6MT
What I Learnt Today #406 I Privacy Sundays
Did you know about Dark Pattern Design?
In my post last week I shared a study on how software companies are designing ways to circumvent laws that prohibit tracking of users without explicit permission. We all have encountered the permission popups that give you no options. I wanted to point you to this immensely well researched article on Dark Pattern Design by Natasha Lomas.
https://bit.ly/2tOQ9pQ
What I Learnt Today #405 I Founder’s Story Saturdays
Learnings from Steve
Steve Jobs was the Founder’s Founder and continuing my post earlier this week about Guy Kawasaki here is another article by him in Cnet from way back in 2011 where he writes about his learnings from Steve Jobs. Here goes (and I love the way he launches into the list with one you can practically imagine Jobs speaking out loud).
https://bit.ly/37kxYpP
What I Learnt Today #404 I Biz / Tech Friday
Emissions from Data Centers = Global Aviation industry
While we try to take more trains to help the environment and use that time to watch more videos on our streaming devices, we need to think.
According to Tyler Hamilton and his post in MaRS DD website Cisco states that 80% of all data flowing through the internet comes from videos - Youtube, Netflix, Prime Video, WhatsApp et all. Not only that with IOT becoming all pervasive - machines talking to machines all the time that is “tens of billions of devices and the infrastructure required to store, manage and transmit trillions of gigabytes of data.”
https://bit.ly/3bskaNc
What I Learnt Today #403 I Sales Thursday
Anatomy of a Successful Sales Call
Steli Efti is one entertaining speaker and I had the opportunity to listen to him at Hypergrpwth SFO a few years back. He spoke at SaaStock last year and (profanity alert) he spoke on designing a sales call. His 5 point formula -
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-sales-salescall-activity-6631027574019584000-j279
What I Learnt Today #402 I Managing / Self Wednesday
How to be remarkable
My most recent encounter with Guy Kawasaki was at the Elevate festival at Toronto last September where he was the closing Key note. My first was in 2009 at the CES at Las Vegas and what you always come back after meeting or seeing him is the level of energy he brings to what ever he does and his fundamental enthusiasm to share.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-self-management-activity-6630743808923533312-Mb2q
What I Learnt Today #401 I SAAS Tuesdays
Whats wrong with your Onboarding
Userpilot recently released an infographic “The 2020 State of SaaS Product Onboarding”. They looked at 1000 SaaS products and covered a lot of ground. Here are some telling stats (that you could benchmark your SaaS against)
- 86% B2B brands offered Free Trail (73% B2C offered freemium)
- 40% SaaS products did not have a welcome screen for new users
- only 16% SaaS products used video messaging in their app, only 24% included interactive walkthrough and 29% used a product tour to show users around.
https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/subhanjansarkar_alwayslearning-saas-onboarding-activity-6630423182010605568-J4A-
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