Read, listen, watch, and use SaaS strategy articles, podcasts, videos, and tools for founders and leaders of growing technology companies from Silicon Y’all.
Apr 09 2019
In my experience, leading a tech company for over ten years, SaaS engineering talent is the hardest to find. I was at a barbecue over the weekend and ended up commiserating with another CEO over the challenges and philosophies around SaaS engineering quality vs. quantity. We all know that demand outstrips supply for software engineers, […]
Mar 12 2019
I’m a huge proponent of agile management being applied to growing technology companies. But there are many ways to execute against those principles. And some agile SaaS management devolves into plain chaos. In fact, in those cases, calling it agile management is a misnomer — and the lack of leadership becomes glaringly apparent. Over the last couple […]
Mar 07 2019
Everything a SaaS CEO does is steeped in urgency. We’re in growing businesses beholden to outpace fast-paced markets. We often run razor thin, allocating as much cash as we can to maximizing our growth rate. But if our outward CEO temperament crosses the line from urgency to stress, bad things happen. Teams lose faith. Investors lose confidence. […]
Feb 28 2019
Sometimes things just fall into place. Like this post. I had nascent inspiration to write it last week, but couldn’t quite find my passion for it. Then I had a couple of clients surface some things that really focused my thoughts on the SaaS CEO role. My personal experience as a tech CEO for 20 years is […]
Feb 26 2019
The last couple of weeks have illustrated how challenging it can be for fast-moving companies to fulfill the right SaaS execution priorities. We have a couple of growth-stage clients struggling with it as well as a couple of earlier stage ones. Pretty much everyone says all the right things about prioritization for the business and opportunity costs. But when it […]
Feb 21 2019
Every SaaS CEO I’ve ever worked with has decreed “do whatever it takes” during an important month or quarter. I’ve applied that same SaaS CEO management tactic more than several times. So I get it. We just get to the point where we feel that “whatever it takes” is the wide-open empowerment needed to motivate people to […]
Feb 14 2019
I think sometimes that founders and leaders of growing SaaS companies forget what’s really important. I’ve seen this recently with some of our clients, and it’s been a good reminder for me on the opportunity cost of making unimportant things important. As the heads on the beast, we decide what’s important. Yes, of course, we get what […]
Feb 07 2019
If you’re a $1M+ annual recurring revenue SaaS company, you probably had a pretty great idea. You also likely had at least a passable strategy to get to that first milestone of success. And you must have had some semblance of a product. But the odds remain very low that your $1M+ ARR will scale […]
Feb 01 2019
It’s common to design a SaaS renewal process that starts about 90 days before the date of renewal. It’s common, but that doesn’t make it right, does it? A great, proactive SaaS renewal process really starts the day the customer signs up. And renewal is just really one huge part of the overall initiative to retain customers. Let’s […]
Sep 19 2018
The reason for my recurring love of the institutional readiness topic is that SaaS companies are often overly confident that their perspective on their performance is enough to drive a high valuation. The truth is the opposite. Many SaaS companies aren’t prepared for institutional capital or strategic acquisition. Their lack of institutional readiness will cost them […]
