# Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending October 30, 2020

Published: 30 October 2020
Canonical: https://www.top10in.tech/posts/week-ending-october-30-2020

## 1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK

Net Dollar Retention - Sammy Abdullah of Blossom Street Ventures backs up my [on-going opinion](https://www.inc.com/guides/2010/08/get-more-sales-from-existing-customers.html) that net dollar retention (and by-proxy Up-sell) is [the most important metric in SaaS](https://blossomstreetventures.com/2019/06/06/upsells-are-critical-to-saas-growth). NDR comes in a variety of different efforts though so take a read of this article to get a better grip of the nuance and then ask yourself: "*Does my startup need to increase customer acquisition/marketing spend*?" [Tomasz Tunguz writes in detail about this](https://tomtunguz.com/does-better-ndr-imply-greater-tolerance-for-higher-cac/) and Crunchbase do the work to calculate what [good NDR benchmarks should look like](https://about.crunchbase.com/blog/net-dollar-retention).

Link: https://www.inc.com/guides/2010/08/get-more-sales-from-existing-customers.html

## 2. CUSTOMER SERVICE

In this current age of the customer, enhanced by COVID, SaaSx make the argument that [Customer Success is actually the product](https://saasx.com/2019/10/06/customer-success-is-product/). Want to start building out that product? Check the HubSpot guide on [getting started](https://blog.hubspot.com/service/saas-customer-service-team) with your customer team.

Link: https://saasx.com/2019/10/06/customer-success-is-product/

## 3. HANDOFF

To add onto above, the customer journey will have plenty of touch points and handoffs. Chartmogul provide some [great tips on customer handoff](https://blog.chartmogul.com/sales-customer-success-handoff) from sales to Customer Success teams.

Link: https://blog.chartmogul.com/sales-customer-success-handoff

## 4. NPS

To add onto the add on above. [Customer Service and Success have many metrics to track](https://www.parlor.io/blog/top-saas-customer-success-metrics) and NPS makes the top of the list. [This White Paper](https://www.asknicely.com/blog/customer-experience-metrics-understanding-csat-ces-nps-5-star) from Ask Nicely reviews NPS (among with other common customer experience metrics) and explains how to measure and calculate NPS. Neil Patel then gets into [a 3 step program](http://eilpatel.com/blog/how-to-use-nps-for-saas) of how to leverage NPS for your business.

Link: https://www.parlor.io/blog/top-saas-customer-success-metrics

## 5. ANALYTICS

Being a "growth hacker" is just putting a shiny label on high fidelity analytics mastery but [many analytics efforts result in failure](https://www.reforge.com/blog/why-most-analytics-efforts-fail) - it’s all about the data, not the tools, [check this primer on the topic](http://yesoptimist.com/growth-hacking/). McKinsey provide[five pointers on how to make analytics work in B2B Sales](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-five-lessons-b2b-sales-leaders-should-learn-to-make-analytics-work). And once you get good at collecting the cold hard data, [check the following article on how to perform a sales analysis](https://blog.close.com/sales-analysis) (step by step).

Link: https://www.reforge.com/blog/why-most-analytics-efforts-fail

## 6. PERSONALIZATION

Did you know that personalization can [reduce acquisition costs as much as 50%](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/marketings-holy-grail-digital-personalization-at-scale) and [87% of companies see a lift in key growth metrics](https://venturebeat.com/2015/09/23/new-vb-insight-research-shows-web-personalization-is-not-just-for-amazon/) when they employ personalization? SaaS marketers have been leveraging personalization to increase conversion rates, improve customer success, and increase the quality of sales/marketing funnels for some time so here is a [great article from Chart Mogul](https://blog.chartmogul.com/saas-guide-website-personalization)on the (modern day) personalization fundamentals.

Link: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/marketings-holy-grail-digital-personalization-at-scale

## 7. PRIVACY

The Debbie downer from above, let's not get too personal. Privacy concerns are rightfully growing and rules around the globe are tightening (FYI the [California Consumer Privacy Act](https://www.delphix.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/WEB_solution-brief_delphix-for-ccpa_%281%29.pdf) goes into effect in 2020). This is creating significant challenges in the digital advertising industry, so [Google has created a playbook](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/privacy-and-trust/marketing-privacy-playbook/), collecting best practices and case studies from this forward-thinking, privacy optimized, group of marketers.

Link: https://www.delphix.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/WEB_solution-brief_delphix-for-ccpa_%281%29.pdf

## 8. FIRST PRINCIPLE THINKING

Want to be more like Elon? Take a read here on the concept of [First Principles Thinking](https://fs.blog/2018/04/first-principles). Not gonna lie, I've re-read it again this week and it still makes my brain hurt. Want more? Fine. [Here is a full guide/website](https://fpt.guide/). Now that you are an expert on this principle, [here is how First Principle Thinking can be applied IRL - in this example towards a Product Lead Growth business](https://productled.com/first-principles-of-a-successful-product-led-growth-strategy).

Link: https://fs.blog/2018/04/first-principles

## 9. ROADMAPS

Always seem a bit too waterfall-y for Agile teams - old-school, clunky and rigid. But Agile teams absolutely need them as the teams still need some overarching direction and sense of what’s to come beyond Sprint cycles. [Read here on the reasoning why](https://www.productplan.com/roadmap-templates-agile-teams) along with 5 roadmap templates to use. I'm personally a fan of how Atlassian have designed their [public access roadmap](https://trello.com/b/8XBuIeIu/atlassian-platform-for-developers-roadmap) - it gives me hope.

Link: https://www.productplan.com/roadmap-templates-agile-teams

## 10. DEATH

Of the SaaS kind. Y-Combinator (via the SaaStr Blog) lists [5 things that kill startups](https://www.saastr.com/5-things-that-kill-startups-with-y-combinator) (and what to do about it). It's a way deeper article than it sounds (and it ain't just 5 things)

**BONUS**: There is no real category for this post, but I think it's awesome. Entitled '[A Few Rules](https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/a-few-rules/)'

Link: https://www.saastr.com/5-things-that-kill-startups-with-y-combinator

## POD OF THE WEEK

Expanding on #5 above, just having data is not enough: it takes an entire system of tools and technology to extract value from data. [a16z explore the evolution of data architectures.](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711?i=1000495730381)

Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711?i=1000495730381