Cameron Deatsch

A poorly executed #customersuccess strategy will kill your #NRR for years to come. I've seen it first-hand too many times over the years. Here is how you deliver a well-executed CS strategy to drive great NRR and ultimately, business growth: 🛣️ 𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 & 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐲 The first step in any customer success strategy is understanding the full & dynamic revenue & customer journey. This means not just knowing what your customers do, but why they do it. How and why did they buy your services? How do they move through their journey with you (rarely ina straight line!)? By understanding their motivations, you can better anticipate their needs and deliver solutions that truly add value. And don't forget, the old-school customer journey is not the standard anymore, you need to use the full, dynamic revenue & customer journey to get the full picture. This stretches from pre-sale to post-sale and allows for the customer to move in and out of journey phases/stages dynamically. 📈 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 Customer success is not a reactive function. It's about being proactive, anticipating customer needs, and addressing them before they become issues. You have to ensure that your strategy is aligned around, and fosters, a proactive CS culture and process that allows your team to execute effectively. This not only improves customer satisfaction, but also reduces churn, and creates more expansion opportunities. Both key factors in improving NRR. 📊 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚-𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 In the #SaaS & #CS world, we have access to a wealth of data. By leveraging this data, we can make informed decisions that drive customer success. This could be anything from identifying usage patterns to predict churn, to understanding which features drive the most value for customers and beyond. And it needs to go beyond telemetry, usage etc. Also capture, track and understand customer goals and other qualitative data points. One problem is that this data is often siloed or hard to access, so make sure you have systems (like RevSetter) that can bridge that gap and allows CSMs to effectively action the data & insights. 🤝 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫-𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 Customer success should not be the responsibility of a single department. It should be ingrained in the company culture. When everyone in the organization understands the value of customer success, it becomes a strategic priority that drives business growth. This is why the dynamic revenue & customer journey, the engagement focus, and the proactive mindset are so important. When those are present - and a strategic & customer-centric approach is adopted by the CEO & leadership - the sky is the limit. Leverage these four building blocks and your CS strategy and execution will thank you for it ✅ *** 🛎️ If you enjoy my content, follow me for more ♻️ Repost to share with your network

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In vertical SaaS, the very best companies landed with a product solving a specific, burning pain point that horizontal solutions solved badly and then became broad product suites over time (ServiceTitan, Veeva Systems, Doximity, etc). My partner Gordon Ritter calls this “layering the cake”. In vertical AI, the landing wedges are much more brittle. While the painpoints they solve are very real (and often unaddressable by SaaS alone), they’re also much more likely to commodotize in the near term as the tech advances. 👀 Therefore, the need to layer the cake in vertical AI is much more urgent than in vertical SaaS. 👀 The best vertical AI CEOs not only recognize the dynamic, but talk about it openly. Helps those around them keep up the speed of innovation and their eyes on the bigger prize.

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Amplitude Announces Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results: - Third quarter revenue was $75.2M, up 6% year-over-year - ARR was $298M, up $8M from the end of the second quarter - We now have almost 3,500 paying customers, with 567 of those representing more than $100k or more per year Q3 was all about winning the enterprise. We are starting customer conversations differently, reaching key decision-makers, and demonstrating fast value in ways we weren’t before. The result is a higher-quality book of business, with better attach rates, longer contracts, and bigger expansions (we had multiple expansions exceeding 7 figures in Q3). Consolidation is another big theme that's been playing out for several quarters. It’s clear that our customers are looking for an all-in-one platform, and they are finding that in Amplitude. And we've continued to make our platform better. In Q3, we launched Amplitude Made Easy, our completely redesigned platform experience that takes the difficulty out of analytics. We also deepened our partnership with our friends at HubSpot, launched Web Experimentation, and acquired Command AI (fka CommandBar). To our Ampliteers, partners, and customers—we couldn’t do it without you! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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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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SaaStrAnnual.com 2024 is ALMOST HERE!! Sep 10-12 SF Bay CEO Klaviyo CEO Bill CEO Apollo CEO Attentive CEO Vimeo CEO Ironclad CEO Jasper CBO Stripe President Brex President Plaid CPO Rubrik CPO Webflow CPO Procore CPO Loom CPO GitHub CPO Buffer CPO Onfleet CRO Rippling CRO Notion CRO GitHub CRO DeepL CRO Carta CRO Owner CRO One Paper Lane COO Checkr CMO Seismic CMO Sprout Social CMO Deepgram CTO AI Five9 CTO AI Zoom CTO Gorgias SVP Slack VPM OpenAi VPM Cohere VP Pricing Splunk VP Pricing Miro VP AI Freshworks and 100s more!! See. You. There!! It's Where the Cloud Meet

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Last Friday, Vinay Hiremath, founder of Loom (USD 900M exit to Atlassian), shared on his blog about leaving Loom, leaving $60M payout, breaking up with his girlfriend, dealing with insecurities, a brief stint at DOGE, and how he is now in Hawaii self-studying physics. I, along with a few founders I know who had substantial exits at a fairly young age (late 20s to early 30s), experienced something similar. Post-acquisition, most of us underwent—and many are still going through—a self-discovery phase largely centered on finding a 'purpose' and determining the best possible use of our time at this point in life. Does it mean taking risks that nobody else can, building more companies, accumulating more wealth, reaching the pinnacle of mental and physical health, building a family, getting involved in social impact, or leaving everything behind to sit on an isolated island? Capital does give you freedom and excessive optionality in life choices, especially if you're still unmarried. However, it is difficult to find your anchor, and most of the time, the abundance of choices becomes overwhelming. I was fortunate to meet a few exited founders who had gone through the acquisition process, and they were kind enough to share what worked for them. In one of my conversations with David Haber, he said: "As entrepreneurs, we build companies, but while we do that, we can't discount life. And life is what happens outside our companies." That thought has stuck with me. Today, three years after exiting Recko | A Stripe company to Stripe, I feel there are multiple ways to make life more fulfilling. It is not just the single-minded, unidirectional professional pursuit, which more often than not is driven by a chase for external validation rather than an internal desire to become better at your craft or to do something that uplifts people around you. Until the time you find that burning desire, restlessness, or drive to pick up the shovel again, take that family trip, get in shape, try something that you always wanted but never could, embrace the nothingness, enjoy the boredom, and keep exploring!

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Forging pipeline made easy: Salesforge 🔥 takes care of managing your sequences Mailforge - Cold Email Infrastructure 📈 & Infraforge - Private Email Infrastructure 🔷 cover email infrastructure Warmforge - Land In The Primary 🎯 boosts your deliverability Agent Frank takes on autonomous prospecting, outreach and booking meetings & more to come! Get ready for what’s next 😈

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

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Are you going to re:Invent this year? Is AI strategy top of mind? I’m carving out time for 1:1 conversations with technology and business leaders who are ready to run. Whether you're building, scaling, or strategizing, let's discuss. 🎲 Also open to discussing best practices to identify and exploit +EV table games without getting banned 🎲

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Congrats to ZoomInfo on their launch of Copilot – a new solution for B2B sellers powered by AI & G2 data. 🎉🎉🎉 I enjoyed chatting with Calen Holbrooks during today’s launch event, discussing the challenges B2B sellers face and how solutions like Copilot are helping to change the game. Here are some of the points we covered: ⚡It's time for B2B selling to catch up to B2C – providing the type of personalization we see with Instagram ads. ⚡Sales teams are often relying on the ineffective spray & pray approach -- wasting time, money & frustrating those being targeted with irrelevant outreach. ⚡With only 5% of a B2B business’ ICP actively in market at a given time, a more tailored, targeted approach is required. ⚡AI-powered solutions like Copilot can help – with accurate data from G2 & ZoomInfo, so sellers can reach the right in-market prospect with the right message at the right time. ⚡This is just one example of how AI will shape the future of go-to-market. Another is connecting software buyers and sellers more seamlessly, pairing up the perfect match. At G2, we are doing this with our #AI assistant Monty. Congrats to our partners Henry Schuck, Bryan Law, & team, and thanks for having me today! If you missed it, you can catch the event on-demand & learn more about Copilot from Henry at the links below. 👇

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Hot Take… RIP #PLG, Long Live #SLG But before you throw shade, let me explain… 🔹 There are undoubtedly exceptions, I’m sure many will highlight monday.com, Freshworks, etc. 🔹 PLG works well for low ACV deals with low CAC… think SMB and mid-market customers. Target CAC payback <12 months 🔹 PLG is a fantastic top of funnel marketing channel for enterprise sales ⭐ But for 6-figure enterprise sales, you need enterprise salespeople pressing the flesh with customers

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Salesforce is getting pummeled in the markets (-5%) on the announcement of late-stage acquisition discussions with Informatica, a cloud data management platform with a market cap of about $11B. With $1.6B of revenue at a 77% gross margin growing 12% YoY (ARR growing 30%+ YoY), Informatica is a very healthy business that seems well positioned from a market perspective with a product focus on Data and AI, two of the biggest buzzwords in tech today. In the last year, Salesforce has been pushing its Data Cloud product, repositioning the company away from traditional CRM and towards the data layer at the foundation of an enterprise's entire business. Informatica definitely adds to this narrative, focused on the ETL side of data movement and processing and comes with tight relationships with data warehouse players like Snowflake and Databricks, as well as the large cloud providers. Data Cloud is Salesforce's fastest-growing segment by far, up 90% YoY. It's surprising to see the stock getting beat up this bad on the news. Informatica seems like a solid acquisition consistent with company strategy and at a current trading price 7.2x revenue, not overly expensive given the solid margin profile of the business. We'll see if these two move towards a deal and where the price lands, but overall this seems like a good get for #CRM

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A lot of tools are leaving the self-hosted space, but we're choosing to double down on it. Going fully SaaS and not supporting on-prem/private cloud feels like missing out on something that’s objectively important for lots of teams. There's been a massive shift to the cloud for a long time, but there’s also a quiet shift back from SaaS to private cloud/on-prem. People are bringing things back into their infrastructure because they need security, resiliency and control over the tools they use. e.g. Flagsmith is tied to release management, so control over infrastructure is so important. Our goal from day one has been to make Flagsmith really flexible and simple to deploy, so people can choose how they set it up. This means keeping self-hosting. How? Intentionally building a simpler tech stack to support things like on-prem. A lot of companies have tech stacks that are too diverse to spin up a cluster for, so we’re lucky we can do it!

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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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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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Thank you so much for this great writeup of the PMM role in SMB/MM and Enterprise! Out of curiosity, how do you know if you've accomplished the metrics for success in Enterprise you set out in (3)? Do PMMs in developer/infra focused companies need to be technical to get beyond 'the core?' I'll use an example relative to me. I've used CloudFormation and have some very specific opinions on that product. As such I can semi-credibly outline a customer value prop and highlight use cases for an IaaC solution from Pulumi or HashiCorp. But that clearly can't be what proficiency means to you because then I (or anyone else) would need how to deploy and manage containers to work at Docker, Inc or any company using Kubernetes. So how do you think of what it means to be proficient and how have you gone about getting there throughout your career? Thanks again for the post and for any thoughts you can offer.

"System of Intelligence" is the category I’m most interested in right now (and have been, for the last 5 years). It's the biggest opportunity in GTM tech. AI only exacerbates the need (and likelihood) of a “System of Intelligence” being built and adopted in GTM teams around the world. (Think: no more data silos, ability to use unstructured data, ai agents to do autonomous research, and so much more)  → Where does it sit in the current tech stack? I put together a simple visual to show how I see a “System of Intelligence” fits into the existing tech stack — see image below. (In fact, I think it has the opportunity to dethrone CRM.) The question a “System of Intelligence” answers is what humans do today—knowledge work. But, slowly… when I squint—I can start to see a path for AI to actually start making 6-figure jobs obsolete. SDRs? Yes. CSMs? Yes. BUT, I don’t think AI replaces the best reps. I do think reps using AI will replace reps. Imho, the most important question a GTM Leader can ask is the following: “What Company/Person are you reaching out to this week?” Ask 20 reps at the same company that question. You’ll get 20 different answers. This is obviously not efficient, or scientific. Everyone knows it. But there still isn’t a solution. Sales engagement was an attempt to OpErAtIoNaLiZe a reps workflow. But, SEPs don’t have all the data required to train a model to be “intelligent” (sorry SEPs). CRM (sorta) and data warehouses (increasingly so) have the most data in them. GTM teams need a “System of Intelligence” (a machine) that answers this question for them. Magically. I don’t want to go into “solution mode.” (If I knew the right solution, I’d be building that right now — I don’t). But, I do have incredibly strong (and increasing) conviction that this is the biggest opportunity in GTM tech. How to execute those actions is a whole other can of worms. I think there will be several ways that emerge — when it comes to the execution/workflows. (See also: The New Playbook for Pipeline Generation is Emerging)  → How will AI impact this space? Tomasz Tonguz recently published a piece that speaks to this concept a little bit. His focus is on the CRM being disrupted based on the new workflows of AI agents, compared to humans. In the article he says: > "When AI products are sold as services, they replace in-house labor. This changes internal processes. When the internal processes change, the opportunity to replace the system of record arises because the existing workflows are no longer relevant. I think this is right. As AI Agents become more prevalent, there will be a need/opportunity to rethink the CRM and the applications."  →Who is building this? Innovation will happen in this space, and I’m excited to see who is building here. I’m always trying to learn. Reach out if you’re using a product that you think is a “System of Intelligence.”

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