saas on saas crime

AuthorAuthor

Jay Nathan & Jeff Breunsbach
August 07, 2024

The Middle from GrowthCurve.io

Three ideas to level up your week.

Hey Reader,

Welcome to The Middle, your midweek rundown of the most interesting things we've read this week.

We're down in the throes of Hurricane Season -- Debby is giving a punch, but so far in Charleston, It's been relatively tame compared to what we've seen before.

But let me tell you, working from home with a couped-up 2-year-old... now that is a real Hurricane.

Let's get into The Middle.

Jeff

Today’s Newsletter is brought to you by Gainsight.

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See why businesses who use Gainsight are 15% more likely to view their customers as a revenue center.
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We call it the Power of One.

SaaS on SaaS Crime

I flagged this tweet from Jason last month… why?

Monday.com is crushing it, and here’s why: they’re not obsessed with selling to fellow tech companies (SaaS on SaaS).

Check this out:

  • $11 Billion market cap

  • Almost $900m in ARR

  • Growing at 34%

That’s not just good. That’s considered great in the market right now.

So what’s the deal? This downturn is weird. It’s not hitting every industry the same way.

IMO, they’re thriving because they’re selling to people outside of tech.

There’s still money to be made in SaaS. You just might need to look outside your usual playground to find it.

Is my price going down?

A customer's dream would be for prices to decrease over time vs increase.

That’s hard for a company to do because nobody wants to create revenue churn for themselves.

The next best option is to add value and offer more (features, higher limits, etc) for the same prices you’re paying today as a surprise gift to customers.

Dropbox and AWS did this.

As technology continues to commoditize, this will be the way to win.

​This week, let’s explore how AI can supercharge your customer discovery process and lead to better-informed product decisions.

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Prompt: Create a comprehensive customer discovery plan for our SaaS product [Product Name], focusing on uncovering deep insights that can drive our product roadmap.
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Include the following elements:

  1. Here is a list of 10 open-ended questions to ask customers, designed to reveal their pain points, goals, and current workflows.

  2. Suggestions for 3 different customer segments to target for interviews.

  3. A framework for analyzing and categorizing the responses we receive.

  4. Ideas for validating the insights we gather through quantitative means (e.g., surveys, usage data analysis).

  5. We need recommendations on how often to conduct these discovery sessions and how to integrate the findings into our product development process.

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If your team is using AI in your day-to-day work, press reply with a specific tool or prompt that you use so we can highlight you.

A Crying Sailor

In the cutthroat world of business (especially venture-backed or private equity-backed companies), we often emphasize hard skills and measurable outcomes.

But today, let’s discuss a softer, yet equally crucial, aspect of leadership: empathy.

“I’ll take a crying sailor over a stoic one any day.”

Justin Nassiri recounts a day during his Navy training. In a world where he thought showing no emotion was the right thing to do, he learned differently.

In his story, the crying sailors were recognized for their ability to show empathy and be vulnerable.

As leaders, we manage products or processes—we guide people, and people respond to empathy.

Think about your own leadership style:

  1. Do you allow space for emotions in your team interactions?

  1. How do you show your team that you care about them beyond their KPIs?

  1. Have you ever been surprised by the positive impact of showing vulnerability?

The ability to feel deeply for others might just make you an exceptional leader.

Jeff Breunsbach

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Jay Nathan

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