Why I joined m3ter

Back in July, I announced I was joining m3ter’s journey to help companies successfully operationalize usage-based pricing (UBP). In 10+ years of SaaS pricing advisory, I have seen firsthand how a pricing strategy can make or break a company’s longevity. That’s more true now than ever before.?

But what gets me really excited is seeing all of the pricing innovation happening in SaaS. Subscription is no longer the only way to charge your customers – there is a whole spectrum of pricing, from usage-based to hybrid and more – that means software companies are better aligning their product value to price.?

UBP is not without its operational and GTM challenges, and I believe m3ter is best poised to solve them. After the last 6 months of advising, I knew I had to be more involved. I’m excited to share that I have joined the team full-time as HeadVP of Product!?

Why now?

Across years of software pricing projects as both an advisor and an operator, a few things frequently stood out to me:

?? Companies that price effectively strive to align how they charge customers with how customers receive value from their products.

?? For a lot of companies, the right metric is directly tied to usage or outcomes, and traditional license models were holding these companies back.

?? Even now, companies who have adopted elements of usage-based pricing (UBP) have major challenges with effectively operating.

During my career, I’ve experienced firsthand these challenges of UBP adoption:

• Deal desks rejecting custom pricing from Sales when they lack the ability to monetize the contracts
• Slow or manual account billing of some or all accounts
• Difficulty auditing or correcting billing mistakes
• Difficulty billing (or inability to bill) for all or some revenue, usage or otherwise
• Lack of visibility into how customers’ usage compares to their contract, hindering the ability to proactively upsell or renegotiate

It’s well-known by now that UBP – in its pure form or, more commonly, as part of a hybrid pricing strategy – can have transformative effects on a business when it’s 1) the right fit and 2) implemented and maintained properly. But to do it right and reap the rewards, companies must find a way to overcome the challenges above.

After getting to know the m3ter team during my time at Insight Partners, I knew I had to be a part of the journey to solve these problems and many more. The opportunity is one I couldn’t pass up!

Why m3ter?

1?? The people – The m3ter team is made up of experts from AWS, Salesforce, and a number of billing platforms, and they’re also friendly, accommodating, and wholly driven to giving our customers the best possible experience.

2?? Nobody else does this – The platform has been built from the ground up to give customers full choice over their pricing models and business processes. You can set up any pricing model you can dream up, and operate with the flexibility, automation and scale that your business needs in a dynamic market. I truly believe that m3ter’s vision for the product from the very beginning – and the roadmap we’ve set out going forward – will change pricing forever: not only automating billing, but helping our customers make continuous, smart pricing decisions and execute on them flawlessly.

3?? I’m working on the intersection of product and pricing - My past lives have all been driving companies to 1) make product that customers love to use and see value in, and 2) utilize that value to effectively grow revenue. To be able to work on this with not only the m3ter team but all of our customers is a dream come true!

What’s next?

In the last month, I've been incredibly lucky to attend our m33tup (a quarterly offsite for the full team) and our CFO dinner in New York (more on that in a future blog). I’ve talked to customers and prospects about their UBP challenges and how they’re solving them. And I’m thrilled to be working with the brilliant m3ter team to deliver on a truly differentiated product vision.

Moving forward, I’m planning to be much more active on LinkedIn as I speak with more companies, connect with more of our customers and prospects, and find out which pricing strategy and operational insights can be most helpful. I know there’s always conversation happening around pricing topics here, and I look forward to joining more of them and learning from all of you.

If anyone wants to learn more about what we’re doing and where we’re going ??please reach out!