When I launched my company Clarity.fm in 2010, I gave a live demo to an audience showing how the service works. It was my Steve Jobs moment.
Many founders throw money at new employees hoping their business will grow... Only to find they don't know where to ‘put’ their new employees, and they end up wasting cash on salaries for an under-utilized team. Ever experienced this before? I definitely have. See, I believe a successful founder doesn’t just build a business...
Let’s pop the hood of your SaaS retention engine. The machine that creates your revenue, that turns new customers into long term LTV... Pry apart each leaky valve, tighten each bolt and make sure you’re running a fine-tuned growth-maximizing machine. I’ll give you the 3 tools I recommend to improve EACH of the 8 key parts.
How fast can you scale a software business? 0 - 150 employees in 12 months...? How would you even manage that?! For Elias Torres, the CTO and co-founder of Drift, and my latest guest on the Escape Velocity podcast… it was easy. Elias is the stuff of legends. He’s a machine. He’s been either the founder, CTO or VP of engineering at: Hubspot Performable Lookery And now Drift. He’s very technical, a coder at heart, but he’s mastered how to
Do you have your dream sales team yet? A team of high-converting closers who effortlessly book new accounts and funnel cash into your pockets until your revenue-pants are splitting at the seams? No? Neither did I.
I have a confession... In my mid-20s, I was the worst leader. I was trying to run a team and was wildly out-of-touch with so-called “good leadership”. I just didn’t know it yet. I held a team offsite, a getaway with the executive team to reflect on the quarter, set goals and come away reinvigorated. It didn’t work. My fault. I tried to force passion on the team, crack the whip on our productivity and focus on project management. In
When I was 24, I started my company Spheric. It nearly killed me. As an ambitious entrepreneur, I had to make it work and wouldn’t stop at anything. Before I knew it, I was pulling 100+ hour work weeks. That’s 14 hours per day, 7 days per week. (Sound familiar? Don’t lie… I bet you check in on your business on the weekend too.) There is NO WAY I would ever recommend doing that again!
I’ve seen it too many times... Agencies that screw a business like yours out of your hard-earned cash. You hire an agency wanting quick results but end up with a hole in your bank account and a laughable ROI to show for it. Whenever I see this, I don’t blame the agency. I blame the business that hired them. Harsh? Yes. But it’s true. Agencies can get you GREAT results (and I’ve worked with many over the years)... ...but ONLY
I nearly screamed at my lawyer… “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Years ago, I was finishing up a real estate deal when my lawyer told me that I had to notarize a document. No signature, no deal. But that signature had to be from a notary, someone that’s earned the authority of the state to approve that I actually was who I said I was.
Over 10 years ago, I nearly had a breakdown that cost me my engagement to my fiancée. So, what happened? I was working waaaaay too much. I was afraid that if I didn’t pull 70 - 80+ hour weeks, my business would come crashing down. In reality, I sucked at hiring people.
