With Super Bowl 50 in the books, the next thing to talk about is the commercials. As always, the commercials were varied from the way-out-in-left-field ones to the more mainstream brand ones. From the ones I saw, here were my five favorites:
Congrats to Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos for winning Super Bowl 50.
What else? What were your favorite Super Bowl 50 commercials?
Clearly my post on Thursday titled SaaS Public Company Valuations Q1 2016 was bizarrely timed as less than 24 hours later the companies in the category lost $28 billion in market cap value that day. Here are a few notes from the Re/Code article:
Long term, I believe we’ll see SaaS companies trade at 4-6x revenue unless they have an exceptional growth rate (see also Quantifying the SaaS Growth Rate Multiplier). While the market likely overcorrected on SaaS valuations, I still see the long-term future of SaaS as incredibly promising.
What else? What are some more thoughts on public SaaS valuations being hit hard?
Ben Horowitz wrote the best-selling book The Hard Thing About Hard Things and has a ton of great content on his blog. For our video of the week, hear Ben Horowitz Of Andreessen Horowitz On What He Looks For In A Pitch. Enjoy!
From YouTube: The latest episode of Kevin Rose’s Foundation video series comes to you filmed live from the Google Ventures Founder & CEO Summit last week. Kevin sits down with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Opsware and now General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
Eleven months ago I wrote about the SaaS Public Company Valuations Q1 2015 and times have changed. Before, SaaS companies were trading at higher multiples and now, most, but not all have come down. Let’s look at the public SaaS company valuations and compare them to last year.
Fast-growing SaaS companies still trade at solid multiples but for ones where the growth has slowed, the multiples have lowered even more.
What else? What are some more thoughts on public SaaS company valuations?
Over the last few months I’ve been playing with our Amazon Echo and it’s amazing. When a song pops in my head, I just ask Alexa to play it. When I need to set a timer in the kitchen, I just tell Alexa to set it. This concept of interacting with an app with no visual interface isn’t new. What is new is that it works well, very well.
Here are a few examples of limited/no visual interface app interaction:
Look for this trend of limited/no visual interface app interaction to grow and become more commonplace.
What else? What are some more examples of limited/no visual interface app interaction?
While it’s awesome to read about companies like Atlassian getting to $100 million in revenue with no salespeople, the reality is that almost all B2B tech startups require salespeople. Why is that? Well, 9 out of 10 times it’s a new product category and new product categories, by their very definition, don’t have an existing base of buyers that are actively seeking out a solution. While the potential buyers might have a problem or opportunity, if they don’t know what the product or category is called, or the latent demand hasn’t been magnified, they won’t go shopping for a system (it’s the same reason inbound marketing doesn’t work for new markets). Salespeople are needed to take new buyers through the purchasing process.
Here are a few thoughts on new product categories requiring salespeople:
New product categories, like Pardot with marketing automation almost 10 years ago, are challenging and exciting at the same time. Assuming the market timing is right (the most important consideration), new product categories are the most fun, and require the help of great salespeople.
What else? What are some more thoughts on the idea that new product categories require salespeople?
Recently I was talking with an entrepreneur about product pricing and positioning ideas. Only, this startup was pre product/market fit and didn’t have 10 passionate customers. My advice: product pricing doesn’t matter when searching for product/market fit. What matters is getting the product in the hands of as many potential customers as possible and iterating based on feedback.
Here are a few thoughts on product pricing pre product/market fit:
When debating product pricing pre product/market fit, ignore coming up with a perfect price and instead focus on customer delight.
What else? What are some more thoughts on product pricing pre product/market fit?
After seeing dozens of Simplified One Page Strategic Plans, it became apparent that there are two metrics that most startups aren’t tracking and need to add to their main KPIs. But first, let’s back up. What’s the lifeblood of every business? Answer: employees and customers. If those are at the core, then their happiness should be tracked.
Startups need to start tracking these two metrics:
Entrepreneurs would do well to start tracking employee and customer satisfaction as part of their key metrics. Happy employees and happy customers are the core to every successful business.
What else? What are some more thoughts on tracking employee and customer satisfaction scores?
One of my favorite lines from yesterday’s video of the week of Elon Musk being interview by Steve Jurvetson was mid-way through. Elon was talking about Tesla building an electric car for a variety of reasons including no emissions, more power, etc.. Major auto manufacturers would have eventually gotten around to producing something similar, but it could have been another 10 – 20 years. Musk emphasizes that Tesla was a way to “accelerate the inevitable.”
Think about that for a second: accelerate the inevitable.
What do you see that’s going to happen in the future but the pace of progress is slow? What change do you expect to see? How can you accelerate the inevitable?
The next time you’re searching for potential startup ideas, use the concept of “accelerating the inevitable” as a framework.
What else? What are some more thoughts on accelerating the inevitable?
For our video of the week, hear from one of the top entrepreneurs of our era: Elon Musk. From Tesla to SpaceX to SolarCity, the level of success is astounding. Enjoy!
David Cummings on Startups 