Ben Hatten

Scoop: Salesforce is already planning layoffs for the staff of Own, a startup it finished acquiring yesterday for about $2 billion. Mergers often lead to job losses - but not usually this fast. After company integration (or "harmonization", as Salesforce calls it), a chunk of Own's staff will be cut in January or kept on short-term contracts to help with the integration. Salesforce picked up thousands of workers through acquisitions like Slack in 2021 or Tableau in 2019. That came under fire from investors in recent years, leading the company to tighten its merger style. https://lnkd.in/eUTFmTQ7

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As we move deeper into 2024, tracking the right metrics is critical for scaling a SaaS business. This insightful guide outlines the top metrics to watch and includes valuable benchmarks to keep you on track. Whether you’re focused on ARR, CAC, or CLTV, understanding where your company stands is key to driving sustainable growth. Check out the article for a comprehensive look into the latest SaaS trends and metrics! #SaaS #BusinessGrowth #Metrics

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AI-native companies need to embrace new pricing paradigms (price based on work done, on outcome vs hours, etc). Inevitably, new pricing models are accompanied by new workflows, new ways of invoicing, and new challenges around billing. This makes Sequence's modern billing platform particularly relevant: Sequence helps finance and commercial teams automate manual billing and stop revenue leakage. Sequence has just launched their CPQ Product for B2B software businesses with hybrid pricing, designed specifically for AI, B2B SaaS and Fintech startups. This release empowers B2B teams to create flexible pricing proposals or contracts, including teams selling custom deals with usage tiers, minimum commitments, or ramped pricing, Sequence CPQ works for any pricing model or deal term. As a customer says: "Sequence is like a notion page supercharged with pricing tools." Excited for Sequence to build the critical infrastructure needed to enable new, flexible paradigms that are critical for the AI revolution.

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Looking forward to tomorrow's PeakSpan Capital Master Class with Rashaqa Rahman and Karen A Chiang from Ibbaka. In a difficult economic environment for SaaS companies (see Kyle Poyar's recent post of SFDC's results) being able to measure value is a core skill. Karen and Rahaqa do this every day and have built the value models used by many otp companies. They will show how it is really done. https://lnkd.in/gjsAWhSq #SaaS #pricing #growth #valuemodeling #valuebasedpricing

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Josh & I get to have insightful discussions with RevOps leaders each week. We want to give back by sharing this wisdom more broadly. We are launching our webinar series, Aim for Excellence (see what we did there?). Each episode is an interview with RevOps and GTM leaders we admire about their advice on GTM ops, strategy, and career paths. We had the great pleasure to kick this off with Katherine Zhang recently. Katherine has led RevOps teams at sizable companies like Project44, Relativity, Cognex, and Dell EMC. A few of my favorite highlights from our conversation: - A clarifying definition of RevOps that helps teams ensure they are always working on impactful initiatives - How to turn RevOps from being “order takers” into a strategic function - The importance of trusted (but not perfect!) data - How to get a seat at the table as a RevOps leader Take a listen to our discussion (links in comments) and let us know what you think!

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⏰ ICYMI: Our Book is Coming Soon! Accelerating Revenue: Your Definitive Guide to the Theory and Practice of Go-To-Market Enablement is designed for those looking to master the core of GTM Enablement. Whether you're new to the field or a revenue leader aiming to boost team productivity, this book offers practical insights and proven strategies. Curious to learn more about transforming your approach to Enablement? 👉 Head to the Level213 website for more details! www.level213.com/services #book #revenue #enablement #GTM

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The engineering team at SaaSGrid pumps out features faster than I can write about them, but I wanted to highlight one thing we released recently that has made a big impact for our customers. SaaS leaders are used to looking at monthly ARR, but that can leave them in the dark to the day-in-day-out changes in their customer base. Are new customers getting signed? Are renewals happening (and happening on time?) Is there organic expansion or contraction? Our new ARR Movements timeline gives day level granularity for every change in ARR, down to the specific products and quantities that were updated. Keeping track of data in real time lets our users move from reactive proactive, and never get surprised at the end of the month. If you're a SaaS leader, you're constantly faced with hard decisions about how to grow your business. SaaSGrid can't make those decisions for you, but everything we build is designed to deliver you the right data at the right time, and hopefully make those decisions a little easier.

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In this episode of Madrona's Founded & Funded, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Pradeep Rathinam, founder of AnswerIQ and former chief customer officer and CRO at Freshworks, to dive deep into efficient growth strategies and hard-earned lessons from scaling GTM at small and large companies.   Three lessons for founders to navigate GTM and growth: /1/ Focus. Paddy’s decision to focus on the core product with the greatest momentum — IT — led to increased growth and efficiency. His advice? Don’t push uphill. Double down on what's working and eliminate less effective initiatives. /2/ Dig into your data. In recalibrating Freshworks' go-to-market approach, Paddy shifted the team’s focus to landing deals over $30K, eliminating the sub-$10K deals that were draining resources. The lesson? Understand your metrics deeply to know where to place your bets. /3/ Retention = Adoption + Engagement + Advocacy. Success in SaaS comes from understanding product telemetry, creating seamless onboarding experiences, and fostering executive engagement with customers. For founders in the early stages, these lessons can help steer your company toward sustainable and efficient growth. Tune in to the episode for more incredibly actionable insights from Paddy’s journey: YouTube:  https://lnkd.in/gMDijmPB Madrona (Full Transcript): https://lnkd.in/gjnCsYTQ

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The GTM Podcast just hit the top 1% of podcasts! I'm honored to be among their top 25 listened to episodes, particularly humbling when listed among names of so many world class GTM minds like Lars Nilsson, Eric Gilpin, Samantha McKenna, Katrina Wong, Ang McManamon, Adam Schoenfeld, and so many more. GTMfund has assembled some of the best minds in GTM, be sure to check out GTMnow to learn from their experiences. If interested, I talk about building teams and cultures and managing through different stages of growth —— you can find a link to the podcast in the comments below.

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Thanks to Dave Rigotti and team for a wonderful #PLGTM conference in SF. I had great discussions with sales and marketing leaders and here are some observations on how PLG has evolved. Part 1: Time to rethink PLG practice ✔ While the core idea of PLG revolves around self-service adoption and user-driven growth, the practice has evolved, and companies are recognizing the need for a hybrid approach. ✔ For a lot of practitioners, PLG means self-service and users adopt the product without sales support. In practice, PLG leads to increases S&M costs increasing CAC. So, it no more just about building a product but putting the marketing $ behind it. ✔ Enterprise buyers are researching on their own and have good information before they come to the call. Huge number of prospects want sales help in navigating the value prop but want to try out themselves. ✔ PLG does lead to execution speed driving the awareness, showing the value, decreasing sales cycles and enabling simple and faster expansion. ✔ There is a myth that only startups or B2C companies use PLG and has to be bottom-up approach. While many of the companies we know and products we use might be B2C, lot of enterprise B2B companies are PLG as well. e.g. users can simply signup and start using Calendly, Canva or Airtable. teams can start using the products like loom, figma and datadog. ✔ Bringing customers need a hybrid approach in 2024. You need to provide user value created by the product and buyer value created by sales teams. Think about product market fit and product customer fit - leading to greater number of happy customers ✔ Every KPI you are measuring should drive an outcome. If you collect data, ask "what is it used for? " and "how does it help customer or adoption?" ✔ As the PLG model continues to evolve, companies must adapt and embrace a balanced approach that leverages the power of self-service adoption while providing sales support to drive customer success and long-term growth. Thanks to David Yockelson and Dave Boyce for providing engaging discussion on the core of PLG. #productledgrowth #productledsales #salesledgrowth #startups #salesleadership #productmanagement

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I like money. A lot. I also like saving money. (So I can spend more of it later 😂). So when looking at what SaaS to integrate into our marketing and sales stack, Total Cost of Ownership is a pretty huge metric for us. https://buff.ly/3SexH1J #salesforce #hubspot #finance #marketing

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Forrester has an entire practice area dedicated to Revenue Operations - wouldn't it be cool if their practice leader came to speak at RevOpsAF 2025? 🤔 Well, that's kind of exactly what we've got planned. 😏 Cristina De Martini is the VP and Research Director at Forrester who leads this practice group, And I'm pumped to announce she'll be speaking at RevOpsAF 2025 in New Orleans. 🙌🏻 She'll be joined by some other incredible folks like: Ali Rastiello, VP of RevOps at Health Catalyst ☁️ Cliff Simon, CRO at Carabiner Group, a part of SBI Growth and Darrell Alfonso, Director of Marketing Strategy and Ops at Indeed Plus we've got some pretty incredible things happening outside of sessions, like: A RevOps AF/ter party at the House of Blues 🎷 A NOLA inspired cooking class (sponsored by our friends at Scratchpad) 🧑‍🍳 A city-wide scavenger hunt 🔎 And more. Operators from companies like Cisco and Zoom have already snagged their tickets, So what are you waiting for? Snag yours and learn more at the link below. 👇🏻 🎫 www(.)revopsaf(.)com #revops #revenueoperations #revenueops #salesops #salesoperations #sops #marketingoperations #marketingops #mops #csops #cxops #gtmops #alltheops #conference

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🎧 Plug into the world of #CPQ with Argano Revenue Transformation expert, Derik Quinn, in a must-listen 30-minute podcast! Explore how AI is reshaping revenue operations and get a sneak peek of Argano's POV on Salesforce Revenue Lifecycle Management. #Argano #AI #RevenueOperations #RevenueTransformation #Salesforce 

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Our partnership with Brex now gives us unparalleled insight and breadth in SaaS purchasing reports

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Simon Gregory, I'm glad we were able to discuss this topic in detail during this portion of our conversation. A value-centered GTM process has been deeply important to me over the years, however, in the last 12+ months it's importance has significantly grown. The Winning by Design team was able to integrate our Value Realization Plan approach into their existing methodology that stresses a focus on identifying and measuring "Impact" to the customer. Carrying that methodology from initial steps in the sales cycle through onboarding and deep into the renewal/expansion lifecycle delivered fantastic results. #valueselling #Salesprocess #GTM

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Incredibly proud of our team for this magical release 👏 🚀 Sequence has just launched our CPQ Product for B2B software businesses with hybrid pricing, designed specifically for Fintech, AI, and B2B SaaS startups. Alongside our billing and invoicing engine, this enables businesses to automate their full revenue collection workflow from contract to revenue. This release powers B2B teams to: 📃 Build and e-sign flexible pricing proposals or contracts: For teams selling custom deals with usage tiers, minimum commitments, or ramped pricing, Sequence CPQ works for any pricing model or deal term. 💸 Implement an intuitive product (synced with the CRM) to power sales productivity: "Sequence is like a notion page supercharged with pricing tools." 📈 Automate finance: Once a quote is executed teams can automate all downstream billing, invoicing and revenue collection workflows. Check out the demo - link in the comments!

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🚨 Last Call for the Nektar Buzz Boat: Just 2 Days to Go! 🚨 Nektar.ai, DocketAI and RevOps Co-op are bringing you an exclusive GTM leaders Cruise in NYC(5th Sep), Boston(10th Sep), Chicago(12th Sep). Our GTM Leaders NYC Cruise is setting sail in just 48 hours, and we’ve got a couple of exclusive passes left. Don’t miss your chance to join an elite group of GTM pioneers for an evening of strategic insights and high-impact networking—right on the water! 🌊 Here’s why you need to be there: 🎯 Cutting-Edge Discussions: We’ll be diving into how AI is transforming sales, how to turn customer engagement into actionable data, and the latest GTM tactics that are driving real growth. 💡Discover how to operationalize Buying Groups: We’ll be diving into how AI automates capturing & tracking engagement with your buying groups on auto-pilot at scale. 🤝 High-Caliber Connections: This is your chance to network with fellow leaders who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the GTM space. 🍸 Unwind & Recharge: Kick back with some great drinks, delicious bites, and amazing views on the cruise while you chat and chill with fellow leaders in a laid-back, exclusive vibe. With only a couple of spots left, this is your last chance to secure a seat on the Nektar Buzz Boat. If you’re serious about elevating your GTM strategy, you won’t want to miss this. Register on the link or DM me to grab one of the final passes. Let’s make waves together! 🐝🚢 #GTM #Sales #AI #Networking #Leadership #Nektar #BuzzBoat https://lnkd.in/g59Sxa6Z

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Helping clients define and achieve their goals is an effective way for advisors to build trust and foster long-term partnerships 🤝 Check out the post below to learn more about how interVal empowers advisors and their clients to set and track milestones—making client success both visible and actionable! #BusinessGrowth #Partnerships

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I am super excited to be joining forces with Mike Groeneveld from Everstage and Joshua Janes from Addi next week to unlock the secrets on how RevOps professionals can evolve from being tactical do-ers to consultative, strategic partners. If you're a Revenue Operations professional looking to elevate your strategy skills then this one's for you! Join us on May 22, 12 Noon PT as we delve into: ✅ The current challenges of RevOps and what limits its potential ✅ Actionable plans for RevOps to move to a strategic role ✅ How to get a seat at the table and influence decision-making Head over to the link in the comments to join us. 🔗 #revenueoperations #revops #strategy

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