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Made Not Found
In SaaS businesses, operating results are earned every single day; and good businesses are made, not found. Writing here about building organizations, learning from the experience, and appreciating the ride.
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Lock 8 Partners
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Tips for Supporting First Time CEOs
Tips for Supporting First Time CEOs
A prior post made the case in favor of hiring first time CEOs to lead small-scale SaaS businesses; and this piece picks up where that one…
Todd Gibby
Jun 28
The SaaS CEO Path Should Be Wider
The SaaS CEO Path Should Be Wider
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with three different SaaS execs about their careers. Each had valuable experience within…
Todd Gibby
May 10
P.S. On the Purpose of Dashboards
P.S. On the Purpose of Dashboards
I recently wrote that business dashboards are instruments of control. That observation and the related post, while hopefully helpful, made…
Todd Gibby
Apr 26
The Irony of Dashboards
The Irony of Dashboards
I’ll admit that I love a good dashboard. As an aid to SaaS operators seeking to optimize business performance, dashboards can be…
Todd Gibby
Apr 8
10 Tips Toward Messaging Clarity
10 Tips Toward Messaging Clarity
As he does in his blog with astonishing frequency, David Cummings last week put his finger on a pervasive problem in startups: complexity…
Todd Gibby
Mar 22
SaaStr Build: 5 + 5 Takeaways in 5 Minutes
SaaStr Build: 5 + 5 Takeaways in 5 Minutes
Bullishness and optimism in the air at SaaStr Build. Here’s to another year of sustained market strength.
Todd Gibby
Mar 12
The 10X Club + 10 Years
The 10X Club + 10 Years
Valuations for publicly traded SaaS businesses are bananas right now. At the time of this post, Zoom’s enterprise value relative to its…
Todd Gibby
Dec 28, 2020
When Setting Top-line Goals, 3 Perspectives are Better than One
When Setting Top-line Goals, 3 Perspectives are Better than One
Tis the season…not for jolliness…but for annual forecasting. Countless companies spend the month of December frantically closing out the…
Todd Gibby
Dec 17, 2020
Pulling Up from the Weeds of “I Can Do that”
Pulling Up from the Weeds of “I Can Do that”
Note: This is a loosely defined “Part 2” to a prior post entitled: “Pulling Up from the Weeds of Cash Conservation.”
Todd Gibby
Nov 18, 2020
Three of the Most Empowering Words a Boss Can Say
Three of the Most Empowering Words a Boss Can Say
It was 2001; and my boss was impressive — some would say intimidating. A whiz-kid founder and CEO of a fast-growing start-up that had…
Todd Gibby
Nov 4, 2020
5 Themes from the TOPO Virtual Summit (with a Little Help from my Friends)
5 Themes from the TOPO Virtual Summit (with a Little Help from my Friends)
From time to time, we use this forum to share observations and trends from webinars or virtual conferences (here); and sometimes we invite…
Todd Gibby
Oct 15, 2020
Walking a Mile: Guideposts on the Customer Journey
Walking a Mile: Guideposts on the Customer Journey
The television series Undercover Boss has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years. Now entering its eleventh season, the show features…
Todd Gibby
Sep 23, 2020
SaaStr Annual at Home: 10 Quick Takeaways
SaaStr Annual at Home: 10 Quick Takeaways
As a card-carrying introvert, I’ve always found industry conferences to be exhausting. Likewise, over recent months, Zoom Fatigue…
Todd Gibby
Sep 4, 2020
Exec Coaching for Coachable Execs
Exec Coaching for Coachable Execs
It is a good thing to be “coachable,” meaning capable of being easily taught and trained to do something better. It’s easy to understand…
Todd Gibby
Sep 2, 2020
Customer Effort > Customer Satisfaction? Not So Fast…
Customer Effort > Customer Satisfaction? Not So Fast…
A prior post explored the concept of customer effort as a critical driver of customer loyalty. That piece referenced Gartner research /…
Todd Gibby
Aug 14, 2020
Exceeding Customer Expectations is…the Wrong Goal?
Exceeding Customer Expectations is…the Wrong Goal?
“The key to customer loyalty is an effortless customer service experience.” These seemingly innocuous words caught me flat-footed and…
Todd Gibby
Aug 12, 2020
Operational Readiness: The Overlooked “Other Stuff”
Operational Readiness: The Overlooked “Other Stuff”
A previous post on this blog shared observations about high-stakes SaaS product development initiatives; and a follow-on piece took a…
Todd Gibby
Jul 2, 2020
Variety is the Spice of Life When it Comes to Operator-Investor Interactions
Variety is the Spice of Life When it Comes to Operator-Investor Interactions
This blog typically focuses on sharing observations from the twenty years I spent operating small-scale SaaS businesses. This post takes a…
Todd Gibby
Jun 24, 2020
Who Should be on the Bus: A Shortcut to Getting There
Who Should be on the Bus: A Shortcut to Getting There
It’s easy for leaders to get caught up in the day-to-day of running small-scale businesses. Particularly during challenging times, it can…
Todd Gibby
Jun 4, 2020
Just Say No to Being an “X-led” Company
Just Say No to Being an “X-led” Company
People say it all the time, usually with great pride: “We are a sales-led company.” Or, in businesses with deep technical roots, it might…
Todd Gibby
May 20, 2020
8 Steps for “Making the Most of a Good Crisis”
8 Steps for “Making the Most of a Good Crisis”
There’s some debate about who first said, “Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis.” (N. Machiavelli, W. Churchill, R…
Todd Gibby
Apr 29, 2020
They Can Handle the Truth: Communications Tips for Leaders during Crisis
They Can Handle the Truth: Communications Tips for Leaders during Crisis
In the 1992 legal drama film “A Few Good Men,” Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) barks an iconic and scathing reproach to Lieutenant…
Todd Gibby
Apr 15, 2020
Pulling up from the Weeds of Cash Preservation
Pulling up from the Weeds of Cash Preservation
I remember being trapped for days in forecast models, repeatedly scouring a laundry-list of line-items to be considered for cost-cutting.
Todd Gibby
Mar 26, 2020
Rule of Holes (Part 2): More Thoughts on Answering Deceptively Difficult Questions
Rule of Holes (Part 2): More Thoughts on Answering Deceptively Difficult Questions
This blog recently featured a post that invoked the First Rule of Holes (“Stop Digging!”). That piece had been triggered by some…
Todd Gibby
Mar 20, 2020
The Case for Drop Allowance: An Under-Used SaaS Metric
The Case for Drop Allowance: An Under-Used SaaS Metric
When I joined my first subscription-based software business in 1999, the term Software-as-a-Service wasn’t even a thing. Since then, SaaS…
Todd Gibby
Mar 4, 2020
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