Insights from attending SaaStr - commented by my very own founders' learnings

No fluff. This is what SaaStr – the world’s largest SaaS founders conference – promises. Three days, more than 250 speakers and 10.000 founders from all over their world share their best practices and playbooks. Attracted by the very good feedback I got from other entrepreneurs, I flew over to San Francisco to attend the conference myself this year.

I want to share some of the impulses that have stuck with me. Disclaimer: we at POSpulse are not a SaaS company but a service based technology company. Rather, we strive to become more SaaS-like which is why draining insights from thriving SaaS company seemed the more attractive to me.

HR

It’s “people, people, people” that are the key success driver number one. We all know that, right? By far, the biggest emphasis has been on people and how to successfully recruit and retain talent as well as build a culture that allows for everyone to thrive. 

If we all know how important great talent really is, how come many (startup) companies still fail because of this very point? If I match both, my conversations with other founders as well as the learnings from SaaStr, there are a few hypotheses I have.

We suck at HR

One could put it in more flowery terms, but in short, its that – we suck at HR. In an employee lifecycle, there are three key drivers in maximizing effectiveness for the organization: 1) Hiring 2) Onboarding 3) Management and Development. Hiring is an obvious one; the better and more “suited-for-the-job” people we hire, the better they will be at the job and hence, the higher their impact will be. Onboarding – this is what gets people ramped up faster. Often however, this is where companies fall short. The new hire is often left alone, no guidance provided, no best practices shared. There is no greater killer to motivation and enthusiasm for a job (and company) than the feeling of a lack of appreciation of ones contribution that is conveyed by not having a proper onboarding plan (experienced this myself early in my career when working for a large German conglomerate). Management and Development – this contributes both to how long people stay and how “high” they can go (see chart below). Startups may have hiring processes and onboarding procedures, but I have rarely seen truly effective and sustainable (!) training programs. Either because of inexperienced managers / leaders (causing employees to quit) or because of a lack of training measures altogether. If done right, employee productivity can be doubled through the lifespan of a company. Sure, this is difficult to measure but unfortunately, we painfully feel it if not done right.

“At some point the bar is lowered”

There is another common pitfall to hiring. At some point, the bar is lowered. What does this mean? Especially in high growth phases within the first couple of years of starting the company, there is a high demand for talent that is needed on relatively short notice. Due to a lack of sufficiently qualified candidates, at some point it happens – people are brought on board that do not fit the requirements or the culture 100%. This is deadly dangerous as it screws up both culture and performance level. The first one is probably by far more dangerous. Try to go and fix your culture – it’s lengthy, energy-sucking and nerve-wrecking (good luck with that). In short – we shall never lower the bar. Rather leave a position unfilled (though it may hurt) than bringing on somebody that does not match the requirements. Yes, the work will get done or things will have to be prioritized (neither one nor the other is a bad thing, especially in the short run). Again, we also fully stepped into this one as we, unfortunately, did lower the bar (while having started to fix this a year ago).

Ironically, it is especially in this phase – seed to series A or close to series A – that startups hesitate in bringing on an experienced HR person (since they do not add to revenue growth or product development, right?). We have done the same mistake – how twisted this thinking is. As talent and organizational health is of utmost importance and culture is built from day one, it takes a good HR person to establish recruiting, onboarding and development processes. Personally, HR will be among my first 5 hires in my next venture.

My take-aways for POSpulse

Recruiting – last year, we have defined values for POSpulse after a process that involved the entire team (7C like #CURIOUSITY, #CONFIDENCE, #CONSIDERATION, see here). Some are core values, some aspirational. We are now including the core values in the interview process by defining questions and behaviors that represent those values. Also, besides having the HR and team lead be involved in the process, we are involving a “committee” of representative POSpulse employees to interview the candidate focused on cultural fit (and our values). If there is a sound objection from one of us, the candidate will not be brought on board. Keep in mind that values need to be such that are truly engrained in the company (often founder) DNA for otherwise they are meaningless.

Onboarding – for every new hire there will be a founder session with me where we dive into the “WHY” we do what we do and what our vision really is (see Simon Sinek, the power of WHY). There is no trade-off from hearing it from the horse’s mouth. Plus, this is a relative simple yet impactful signal of appreciation towards every new team member. Also, every team lead will share a specific onboarding plan with the new hire that shows a more detailed schedule of the first 2 weeks and an outline for the first 6 months including review / expectation meetings after the first week, month 1, 3 and 5. The first two weeks also include getting-to know meetings with key stakeholders from other departments within the company. A POSpulse “buddy”, previously defined for each new hire, is responsible for introducing the new hire to everyone within the company and acts as the go to person especially in the first few weeks.

Quick side note on sales hires: authenticity, curiosity and helpfulness stood out as key traits to look for in a new sales hire. There is one I would add based on my experience that goes along the way of curiosity – “learnability” (the willingness to learn). Also, ask yourself: who do customers want to talk to? Would YOU be willing to spend a day with that person? No? Well, probably not the right fit for your company.

 Sales and Customer Success

We at POSpulse are a B2B Startup with relatively high touch sales (though we are looking to reduce the high touch). Throughout the conference there have been many talks on customer success and how to drive customer happiness and loyalty.

“53% say it is the sales experience that drives the decision-making process!”

This is a stat I liked very much. Yes, it would be nice to have products that sell themselves via a low-touch process via the website with zero interaction. Truth is, many companies just don’t have products that fit this scenario. And the stat above shows that having a direct sales team does not have to be bad thing. On the contrary, how they interact with customers can be a main factor of differentiation. Considering that 61% of decisions are already made by customers when they interact with us (in the informed online society that we live in), it is more and more about “helping” customers to buy. There are even low hanging fruits here – follow up with customers in a professional, timely and courteous manner (always communicating in terms of what benefits they can derive), respond quickly, commit to deadlines, do not be an asshole.

Fun fact - today about 7 stakeholders are involved in a decision-making process. Do your sales know who these people are?

In terms of customer fanship and loyalty. Where many companies drop the ball is right after closing a deal. While customers are on a high having decided to go with you as a provider, it is important to engage with them and get them onboarded as quickly as possible. But its not just about onboarding but about “wowing” them as quickly as possible. What can be done, what can customers be given asap that really gets them enthusiastic? Whatever it is, the time from closing to this moment should be reduced as much as possible. The probability for internal referrals and external references seems to be so much higher (e.g. in our case it is giving them access to our reporting platform that shows live photos from their products taken from real shoppers “in action” as emotional appeal). Working on this should be a joint initiative by both sales and customer success.

One speaker reported on a best practice that has allowed them significantly increase fanship of their customers. Right after closing, marketing approaches the customer and asks for a quote as to why they have decided to go with them as a company. This feedback is shown on the company blog (also great for the network effect). During this process they also ask for developing a joint case study (high quality) after completion of the product. Supposedly, this level of involvement drives loyalty for them threefold.

Side note on the role of CMO: in our effort of shifting toward inbound marketing and marketing automation, marketing has gained a completely new role – lead generation for sales. Hence, it is suggested for the CMO’s compensation to be tied to sales qualified or accepted leads. In our case, any future CMO would need to know lead generation, inbound marketing and demand generation in general. Pipeline management of such as well as customer marketing become critical requirements (much more so than knowing industry lingo).

Product 

Just sharing a couple of quick insights that I liked myself: 

“Prioritize problems for new users over problems for power users”.

“Have faith in your customers, but not in the first 15 seconds”. Hits on the similar point as the first one. We shall be grounded by the experience of our new users. For only if the experience is seamless and enjoyable for them is it that a product (especially B2C) builds the basis for organic growth via referrals and LOVE for the product.

“Transformational products are: 90% accommodating, 10% retraining”. Basically, this means that products should only force new behaviors that truly (!) power a unique value. Otherwise it is just so incredibly hard to train new behaviors. Even industry defining products employ a vast majority of features (and behaviors) we are used it.

“It’s a struggle and hard for all of us”

No, you are not alone and success is never linear. Even experienced founder teams suffer from unexpected fuck-ups and road-blocks. These cannot be eliminated. What can be changed, however, is the way our organizations react to and learn from them (this again is both team and culture). It’s a rollercoaster you just got to love. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Please note: photos and stats shown were taken at SaaStr (quotation marks indicate statements for which other people deserve credit). I merely mixed in insights from presentations with my very own experiences and learnings.

For more information on POSpulse and how we fundamentally change insights generation in retail, please see POSpulse.

p.s. we are currently HIRING! Please pm me or apply if you want to join the journey and can identify with the above stated.