Scale MRR
An Introduction
Between Sift Science, Twilio, and AWS, I’ve been fortunate to build revenue from the ground floor for three global cloud platforms.
Through these experiences, I’ve developed a set of go to market principles that I believe are table stakes for any developer or cloud infrastructure business looking to build revenue quickly, predictably, and efficiently.
Through this series of posts, I’ll explore some of the business, sales, and marketing topics I’m frequently asked about.
In the coming weeks, I’ll dive deeper into the following:
North Star
Self Serve Principles For Best In Class Cloud
Self-Serve does not imply your product will sell itself, or you that you won’t need a skilled gtm\sales\customer success organization to drive your business. It is, however, a principle that can fuel sustainable competitive advantages, even with the ‘high touch’ sales driven segments of a business.
Pragmatic Selling
Creating a Market Attack Plan
Building a nascent business requires step wise iteration towards the long term promise of your company. Many businesses stumble by attempting to execute too far ahead of their current strengths and capabilities. This post covers how to create a realistic market attack plan.
SKU to Scale
Accelerating Growth into $100M+
New logos and organic base expansion are not sufficient to build a best in class business. ‘SKU’ing is the process of introducing new features and products your customer base will happily pay for. This not only increases the slope of your growth curve, but can also improve retention.
Enterprise
When, How, and the ‘Ilities’
If you’re executing well in the smb and mid market segments, you should be proactively thinking about how to tackle the enterprise. This post provides a framework for when and how to make this move.
Pricing Principles
Accelerate new logos and overall growth
Pricing will influence how prospects perceive your value, how efficiently you can acquire new leads\customers, how sales teams run their deals, and the cash flow of your business — just to name a few.
Sales Compensation
MRR is King
Hyper-growth businesses should goal on MRR vs. Revenue, as it more accurately reflects a true state of the business. While this can introduce complexities in compensation plans, it drives the right long term behavior.
Hiring Builders
Competencies of Great Candidates
Reflecting on close to 1,000 interviews I’ve done of over the last decade, I’ve identified four specific competencies that can significantly improve the odds of someone succeeding in a hyper growth business. These traits apply to candidates any level in an organization from C-level to IC’s.
Revenue Plan
A How To
A monthly revenue plan segmented by customer type (new vs. existing), customer size (spend), and sales channel (i.e. direct, self-serve, channel), is a critical tool to align your GTM efforts and manage the business. This post walks through how to create this.
‘Use Case’-ing
How to Market and Sell Building Blocks
‘Use Case’-ing is a technique to define, market, and sell what customers are building with your api’s/service/platform. It’s an import technique to (1) focus messaging, positioning, and sales investments beyond technical benefits and (2) helps business personas better recognize your value.
