# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending October 1, 2021

Published: 1 October 2021
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-october-1-2021

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, the Nag Metric is one of the more obscure ones. This one is fun (but not for everyone). A call to action within a site or customer journey is kinda like a parent trying to get their kid to clean up their mess. It just gets a bit naggy after a while. This can impact your brand/NPS over time or just irritate people into churn. The *Nag Score* - [outlined in detail here](https://lg.substack.com/p/the-nag-metric), is an attempt to quantify this.

Link: https://lg.substack.com/p/the-nag-metric

## 2. VALUATIONS

Inflation concerns are once again [making the stock market jittery](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/-stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html) for tech this week and Tomasz Tunguz got into this a while back looking at the [Inflationary pressures within the Tech Industry regarding valuations](https://tomtunguz.com/2021-environment/). It's quite a wild valuation ride and the market is making it clear that valuations need a cool off. [This new article in Tech Crunch](https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/17/the-value-of-software-revenue-may-have-finally-stopped-rising/) is following the same theme tracking the evolution of valuations from 5x valuations in 2016 to this week where the median [SaaS valuation multiple for public companies stands at 22.8x](https://cloudindex.bvp.com/)! I say this week because it was 21.1 x when [I referenced it not even a month ago](https://www.top10in.tech/top-10-in-tech/top-10-in-tech-what-to-know-for-week-ending-september-3-2021).

Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/27/-stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html

## 3. PRODUCT LEAD GROWTH

You may have heard me talk about this category from time to time. But here is a sub-category term for you: Product-Led Storytelling. PLG isn’t for everyone, some people, like the author of this article, call it hype, but probably so he can hammer home his agenda/story: [That Product-Led Storytelling is way cooler.](https://victoreduoh.com/product-led-storytelling-trumps-product-led-growth/)

Link: https://victoreduoh.com/product-led-storytelling-trumps-product-led-growth/

## 4. PRODUCT MARKETING

Marketing is a very broad practice, see [here for a list of the separate marketing functions that can exist](https://mkt1.substack.com/p/marketing-org-chart). So [here is a very helpful dive into Product Marketing](https://setapp.com/business/what-is-product-marketing)and specifically what the roles and responsibilities are of a Product Marketing Manager.

Link: https://mkt1.substack.com/p/marketing-org-chart

## 5. RENEWALS

Existing customers are the lifeblood of growth in a SaaS business, so making sure they renew is an exercise in revenue efficiency. New customer acquisition [costs average about $1.10+ per $1 of ARR](https://www.gainsight.com/blog/acquiring-customers-isnt-enough-heres-why-you-need-to-focus-on-retention/). Compare that to the cost of retaining or up-selling existing customers (about 12c-15c per $1ARR) - that’s 8 times cheaper. So [take a peep at this article that not only lists 5 SaaS Renewal Best Practices](https://www.process.st/saas-renewal-best-practices/) but also explains how best to go about calculating renewal rates.

Link: https://www.gainsight.com/blog/acquiring-customers-isnt-enough-heres-why-you-need-to-focus-on-retention/

## 6. SDR RAMP

According to [past studies](https://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/hubfs/resources/SDRMetricsReport_TheBridgeGroup.pdf), time-to-ramp for an SDR [averages about 3.2 months](https://medium.com/north-america-tech-for-kiwis/2018-sdr-metrics-report-from-the-bridge-group-f7fee0ad46df). From Saleshacker [here are some tips and tricks](https://www.saleshacker.com/5-sdr-onboarding-ramp-hacks-sales-managers/) to make this ramp time as effective and successful as possible.

Link: https://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/hubfs/resources/SDRMetricsReport_TheBridgeGroup.pdf

## 7. CSM ATTRIBUTION

How do you account for or budget the cost of a Customer Success team? The team at Gainsight dive [deep into this question](https://www.gainsight.com/2016/01/29/how-do-you-account-for-the-costs-customer-success-team/) and come up with some fantastic insights - even though the question itself is complicated and the answers end up being more non-monetary than you would probably like. Owning the renewal, up-sell, cross-sell are key delineation points between expense attribution to different departments who CSM teams may sit under.

Link: https://www.gainsight.com/2016/01/29/how-do-you-account-for-the-costs-customer-success-team/

## 8. BUYERS vs USERS

The person writing you a check is not necessarily the same person getting value out of your business. So take a read of [this insightful article from HeavyBit](https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/messaging-to-the-user-vs-the-buyer-is-there-a-difference/) on differentiating messaging based on this premise and [the different profiles](https://blog.hubspot.com/customers/ideal-customer-profiles-and-buyer-personas-are-they-different).

Link: https://www.heavybit.com/library/blog/messaging-to-the-user-vs-the-buyer-is-there-a-difference/

## 9. SAAS ELDERLY

Fun facts to help determine those SaaS companies that are on the elderly side of startup land: 1. [The average SaaS IPO takes 12 years](https://sapphireventures.com/blog/long-live-the-tech-ipo) and 2. It took on average [10 years to get to a $1B+ acquisition/exit](https://www.saastr.com/it-takes-about-10-years-to-get-to-a-billion-acquisition/) in SaaS.

Link: https://sapphireventures.com/blog/long-live-the-tech-ipo

## 10. CASE STUDY

SaaStr 2021 is underway! So be prepared for an upcoming onslaught of SaaStr links starting right here with a great [10-learnings deep-dive on Vimeo at $330m+ in ARR](https://www.saastr.com/10-learnings-from-anjali-sud-ceo-of-vimeo/), and especially, on how they do self-serve and enterprise at the same time.

Link: https://www.saastr.com/10-learnings-from-anjali-sud-ceo-of-vimeo/

## POD OF THE WEEK

The [video version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7YefIm_hN0&t=4s) of #10 above on how to run a SaaS business that has both a large self-serve component and a free edition (ironically a story about Vimeo hosted on YouTube).

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7YefIm_hN0&t=4s