On episode 29 of the How To SaaS podcast, Shiv interviews Dave Gray, the former CEO of Daxko and current CEO of the Biso Collective. Dave and Shiv discuss how Daxko deployed a growth by acquisitions strategy to scale its business and the importance of focus in growing companies. Dave also shares the vision for his new initiative, Biso Collective, and how he plans on deploying a buy-and-hold strategy to give founders of mission-critical software companies a third alternative to a liquidity event outside of a strategic or financial buyer.

Listen to the episode here:

Shiv Narayanan spoke at Silicon Y'all organized by Zane Tarence and the Founders Advisors team on why digital marketing is the next big growth lever for Private Equity firms and CEOs.

Video

Slides 

1-on-1s are one of the most overlooked pieces of real estate when it comes to growing your career and growing your business. The one-on-one is incredibly valuable time that is often misused for the wrong topics and both parties lose in that equation. The employee loses because they're not getting enough advice and support to grow their career. And the company loses because the team member is not performing up to their full potential to help the business go forward.

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

One of the best pieces of advice that I've ever heard on this topic came from Harley Finkelstein, who is the COO of Shopify, on Cameron Harold's COO Alliance Podcast, where Harley shared my one-on-one with Toby is my opportunity to get what I need for Toby to have a bigger impact and do my job better.

Let's look at what Harley says once again. He talks about the one on one as his opportunity to get what he needs to help Toby do his job better...

Has your company ever missed its quarterly or annual sales projections? This is one of the top reasons why C-Level executives are let go from growing companies. It often happens inside companies where forecasting is treated more like a math exercise and the underlying growth model for the business isn't strong enough. That's why on this episode of How To SaaS, I talk about how executive teams can forecast sales projections more effectively, while still setting ambitious targets. 

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

This is actually a very common problem that plagues a lot of companies. And the reason is that with investor pressure and funding comes the responsibility of growing the company faster. Quite frankly, however, a lot of that pressure is self-inflicted, because we're incredibly optimistic and bullish on how fast we can grow our company. And we often overestimate how quickly we can get to the next plateau of our growth.

And so this...

What does it take to be a great product leader and what characteristics should you look for when hiring one for your SaaS company? Given that every SaaS company is a product oriented company, this is one of the most important roles that you're going to find inside your business, so it's very important that we think about it in the right way.

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

The intersection of Product Management

A simple way to think about the product management leader is someone who sits at the intersection of user experience, technology and the business. Their job is to drive the customer experience forward so that the product is easy to learn, adopt, and use, to work with technology leaders to ensure that the product is built with the right infrastructure and architecture to solve the problems that we're trying to solve, and to understand the business fundamentals.

Now, this is probably the hardest skill to find inside a product manager...

Are you trying to figure out your content strategy? Are you trying to figure out what type of content you should be creating? I see a lot of companies struggle with this problem. They have phenomenal products, but they just can't seem to figure out what type of content they should be creating, and so their blog looks like a mishmash of different kinds of resources that is not really helping them convert more visitors or prospects into paying users.

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

Here are 6 simple steps that can help you create a massive content backlog:

1. Who are you trying to serve?

This is one of those simple questions that often gets over complicated by people, because they end up using all kinds of frameworks, journey mapping, ideal customer profiles, personas, et cetera, and they lose the plot very quickly. Instead, my recommendation is just to pick one, keep it simple, and attach someone that is a real life person that you know is...

Have you ever been in a meeting where marketing claims that it is generating all these MQLs but sales isn't converting them, while sales claims the MQLs they're receiving are really not that good? On this episode, I talk about how MQLs are completely the wrong metric to use for alignment. Instead Sales Accepted Leads can do a far better job of bringing marketing and sales teams together to work as one unit. 

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

1. Marketing and Sales share the same objective

Here is the most important truth of all: both sales and marketing share the exact same objective, which is to increase the amount of revenue that we bring into the business to help the business grow even further. It just so happens that we're playing different positions on the field.

Marketers want to drive more leads, help the business grow, and grow their careers, and sales people want to close more deals, make their quota, help the business grow, and...

Have you ever tried to get more funding for Content Marketing initiatives or team members, only to have your CEO / CFO / CMO tell you there's not money in the budget for that? On this episode of How To SaaS, I talk about how you can go about making sure Content Marketing gets the funding it deserves to help you drive the business forward.

If you prefer audio, listen to the podcast episode here:

This is actually a very common problem that content marketers face, because the business requires content to be produced across all stages of the funnel, right from top of funnel all the way down through to product marketing, advocacy and thought leadership, so content marketers are often stretched thin, short on resources, and they need more budget to do the things that they need to do to help the business be more successful. Unfortunately, most content marketers can't make a great enough business case to get funding when it comes time to figure out which areas of the...

On Episode 28, Eric Thurston (CEO of Personify) and Shiv discuss how to build a platform SaaS company, including the strategy, process, challenges, learnings and personal growth that come along with it. Eric is the CEO of the company that eventually acquired Wild Apricot.

Notes from the episode:

• Personify's website
• Personify's key acquisition events:
  • Personify acquires a2z
  • Pamlico acquires Personify from Rubicon
  • Personify acquires Wild Apricot
• How To SaaS episode 21, where Shiv talks about the process and strategy behind Personify's acquisition of Wild Apricot

Listen to the episode here: 

On Episode 27, Rand Fishkin (Founder of Moz and SparkToro) and Shiv discuss how to avoid the biggest pitfalls of being a SaaS founder, Rand's journey with Moz, his book "Lost and Founder" and the 5 things he is doing differently as a second time founder.

Notes from the episode:

• Rand's book, Lost & Founder
• Rand's new company, SparkToro
• SparkToro's open-sourced legal documents
• The book Shiv mentioned on the podcast, Small Giants

Listen now: