Kyle Poyar’s Post

The old startup playbook: - Build an MVP - Launch with PR - Push hard on cold outbound - Write SEO-bait content for "organic" - First $1M in ARR = PMF - Keep growing by hiring more reps - Raise $$$ for external signaling The *emerging* startup playbook: - Build a minimum remarkable product that cuts through the noise - Founder storytelling to build an audience  - Hire ops early to test/grow potential channels - Lead with the product (free, lead magnets, interactive demos) - Strong retention & word of mouth = PMF - Stay lean through automation & AI - Raise a right-sized round & be in control of your destiny — 🎁 I’ve been unpacking the zero to one journeys of the next breakthrough startups in my weekly newsletter, Growth Unhinged. Follow along: https://lnkd.in/gWDrzqh8 #startup

How AI apps make money ⤵ Palle Broe and I explore the state of AI pricing at 40 leading AI startups. Here's what we learned. See the full results here: https://lnkd.in/eC8CSeYD 1️⃣ Limited pricing innovation—70% have a subscription model and very few offer pure usage-based or pay-as-you-go pricing. These startups are surprisingly *less* innovative than behemoths like Microsoft, which is offering pay-as-you-go pricing for their new AI Copilot for Security. 2️⃣ Most companies are charging based on the number of users—consistent with the notion of AI apps as “copilots” (assist people) rather than "agents" (generate new work products). If these AI apps work as advertised, their revenue will literally shrink as they add more value. Let that sink in. 3️⃣ Free versions are extremely popular for initial adoption—50% have a free plan, another 20% offer a free trial. PLG and AI go well together. It doesn't hurt that AI apps tend to have a very fast time to value & typically need to be experienced in order for folks to fully believe the value proposition. 4️⃣ There's a "Good-Better-Best" paradigm in terms of packages/tiers. Again, fairly vanilla. But it allows a company to create a clear upsell path and keeps things simple for the customer. 5️⃣ Varying degrees of pricing transparency—64% have public pricing. The enterprise AI apps rarely shared details around pricing. They're likely giving themselves optionality to change pricing in the future, see where the upper bar is, and keep competitors guessing. (Of course, this info will likely become public anyway given the rise of benchmarking tools like Vendr.) -- The TL;DR: AI products are often mind-blowing. But their pricing? Meh... I think this opens the door for a *second wave* of AI apps that will innovate on both their products AND how they monetize them. 🍿 #AI #startups #pricing #monetization

Who owns which KPIs? Here's what the data shows 👇 MARKETING - Owns new sign-ups/leads (>50% of the time) - May own self-serve revenue at PLG companies (16% of the time) GROWTH - Has the broadest mandate, but is rarely the primary owner of any single KPI (with the possible exception of free-to-paid conversion) - Influences across the funnel including new sign-ups/leads, product activation, and self-serve revenue - Doesn't have a clear swim lane at non-PLG companies PRODUCT - Owns product activation (45% of the time) and self-serve revenue (36% of the time) at PLG companies - Doesn't tend to have clear growth KPI ownership at sales-led companies (missed opportunity?) SALES - Owns sales-assisted revenue (>50% of the time) - Highly influential across other KPIs at sales-led companies CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE - Owns retention, especially at sales-led companies (67% of the time) - Likely to own onboarding & activation at sales-led companies (39% of the time) with an assist from product --- My reaction to the data: 1. Let's elevate the role of product in driving growth even if you don't see yourself as a PLG biz. 2. Growth is a tough team. It's asked to improve KPIs across the funnel, but lacks clear ownership/resources to have an impact. Impact is all about influence. 3. If product owns a revenue number, will we start seeing PM comp look more like sales comp? Revenue impact --> $$$. What's your take? — 🎁 For more growth insights, subscribe to my free weekly newsletter: https://lnkd.in/exTbjKaM #saas #growth #orgstructure #marketing

This week I interviewed 20 🔥 operators about quick wins — small changes to make an impact in your first 90 days. What I left out: MY go-to quick wins. Here they are in no particular order ⤵ 1️⃣ Warm intros Figure out your dream prospects (company & persona). Then ask your network for intros to specific named people who meet those criteria. This is your best time to ask for a favor -- and people are often willing to help. 2️⃣ Cancel the auto-renewals There's software & vendor sprawl in nearly any org. I once inherited $2,000 per month for social copywriting (that got moved to AI). And a bunch of tools that the team couldn't even log into. Change the default to "cancel", then ask the team to advocate for what they want to keep. 3️⃣ Edit the onboarding copy to explain WHY Most user onboarding emphasizes what to do. Good ones explain how to do it. But few have compelling copy for WHY to do it -- what's in it for me. Small copy edits can add the right level of polish. 4️⃣ Refresh older content that's still getting traffic Odds are that you have some gems from 12-24 months ago that already rank well on SEO. Small updates (new info, videos, etc.) to the best can make a surprising difference to web traffic. And you can do this in <1 week. 5️⃣ Test an interactive demo There are new product categories that quickly become hygiene factors because they're just... better. Interactive demos fall into this category for me. I bet 50%+ of software companies still don't have one. 6️⃣ Do a retro analysis on the last pricing change Almost nobody studies what *actually* happened after the last pricing change. Did it impact signups, conversion, win rate, deal size, retention, expansion, something else? (Odds are that it lifted revenue & didn't hurt conversion, which means there's more optimization to be done.) 7️⃣ Move from 'hard gate' to 'soft gate' I find that plan limitations like user seats are 'hard gates' that require explicit admin approval to exceed. My preference: shifting 1-2 of these to 'soft gates'. Let users invite others for free, then true up later. (Figma does this brilliantly.) 8️⃣ Add a price escalator clause & onboarding fee in enterprise contracts In both cases, it's OK to initially offer reps flexibility to waive / discount these to win a deal. But you'd be surprised how often they're kept in and lead to immediate $$$ impact. 9️⃣ Run a 'patient zero' analysis We tend to study why we lost a deal or a customer. We don't look at how our BEST customers got to where they are today. I'll take the top 20 accounts who've expanded the most and revisit their exact journey from day 1. Usually uncovers surprising insights. 1️⃣0️⃣ Ditch signups as a marketing KPI Better: activated signups. Even better: expected LTV based on firmographics + product usage. PS: Don't miss the full story in Lenny's Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ee-JfpS7 #growth #quickwins #marketing

Certain startup ideas are called graveyards, tar pits, or -- in Matthew Achariam's case -- "a waste of the most productive years of your life". I've profiled fast-growing startups like Copy.ai, Limitless (formerly Rewind AI), Warmly, and Jam.dev on their zero to one journey. Most pivoted at least once to pursue a different & better idea. Matthew didn't. He spent 2020 interviewing 800 people (🤯) including almost every failed company in the space. He categorized every piece of feedback in a big Notion doc. He then spent more than a year building a large "MRP" -- minimum remarkable product -- before launching. The result is Clay. And it became a hit, winning a Golden Kitty on Product Hunt, two Webby awards, and being called "the Superhuman for address books" by the New York Times. Matt unpacked Clay's exact journey in Growth Unhinged. Go check it out: https://lnkd.in/eKqzNg2K Also in the post: - A new onboarding flow that increased activation by 70% - Turning VC conversations into a growth hack - Throwing away the roadmap to go after teams Can't wait to hear what you think. #startups #entrepreneurship #growth #product

Your first 90 days at a new job have an outsize impact on your next one to two years. It’s your chance to establish trust, influence, and build a reputation within the org. To do this well, you want to show quick wins: low-effort, high-impact changes that create a sense of “Holy shit, this person is amazing.” Lenny Rachitsky and I asked the sharpest tech operators we know about their most effective early quick wins. These operators have a track record of significant impact and rave reviews from their colleagues, at well-loved brands like Asana, Calendly, Canva, Dropbox, Linktree, Ramp, and Wiz. Even if you’re not starting a new job, most of these ideas can be implemented anytime. Here are 25 quick wins to make an impact: https://lnkd.in/ee-JfpS7 HUGE thank you 🙏🙏 to the folks who shared their 🔥 insights. They’re tagged in the comments. #startup #career #growth #newhire

We’re not quite in the one-person unicorn utopia envisioned by Sam Altman. But SaaS companies really are doing more with less. ARR per employee has increased across the board — especially among companies between $5-50M ARR. But before you over-optimize for this metric: 1️⃣ Adjust expectations based on your future growth Median ARR per FTE for high growth VC-backed companies tends to be $40k to $80k less than counterparts. Venture backed businesses are investing today in growth that they expect to materialize in the future. New sales reps, for example, may need six months of ramp before they’re fully productive. Product managers and engineers build new products that won’t be monetized for some time. 2️⃣ Compare yourself with the right peer set The reality is that not every employee or company is the same. ARR per compensation $ is a more precise way to measure productivity. Unfortunately, that data isn’t usually available. When you’re comparing ARR per FTE against others, adjust based on these factors: - Scale (higher scale → expect higher ARR per FTE) - Growth rate (higher growth → expect lower ARR per FTE) - Gross margin (higher GM% → expect lower ARR per FTE) - Geography (more FTEs in low-cost geos → expect lower ARR per FTE) - Vendor spend (more vendors → expect higher ARR per FTE) Get the full deep dive: https://lnkd.in/eCS_DQS5 #saas #finance #benchmarks

SaaS seems to love complicated metrics. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love a few of them, too. An increasingly important metric is shockingly simple: annual recurring revenue (ARR) per full-time employee (FTE). 👉 It’s a metric you can’t hide from. 👉 There’s no complicated math or financial engineering to do. 👉 You don’t need to be a CFO to calculate it. 👉 You can (relatively) easily compare yourself to peers. Here’s how to tell whether you’re on the right track -- disclaimer: the bar is far higher than last year: 📈 $1-$5 million ARR: - Good: $90k - Great: $150k+ 📈 $5-$20 million ARR: - Good: $150k - Great: $250k+ 📈 $20-$50 million ARR: - Good: $200k - Great: $275k+ 📈 More than $50 million ARR: - Good: $250k - Great: $300k+ Public SaaS companies see a median of $283k ARR per FTE and a top quartile of $369k ARR per FTE based on data powered by the team at Virtua Research. A few examples: - Box: $420k - Splunk: $455k - Adobe: $617k - Twilio: $771k - Dropbox: $799k I unpacked what “good” ARR per employee looks like, how expectations are changing, ways to improve this metric, and common pitfalls to avoid. Dive in, then let me know what you think: https://lnkd.in/eCS_DQS5 #saas #benchmarks #finance #growth

Why we think we have a marketing problem: - Not enough leads - Not enough pipeline - Not enough marketing activity (blogs, social posts, etc) Why we *actually* have a marketing problem: 1. We don’t know our exact target customer 2. We don’t have a compelling message for that customer 3. We don’t have an efficient channel that we can scale 4. We don’t have the resources/expertise to scale the channels that are working 5. We haven’t properly tested new channels that could scale in the future 6. We don’t have alignment between marketing and sales on ^^ The best marketers change the trajectory of the business by finding & deepening product-market fit. Where’s the Webby for that?!? --- 🎁 For weekly growth insights delivered to your inbox, subscribe to Growth Unhinged (it's free): https://lnkd.in/exTbjKaM #marketing #startups #growth

What if PLG vs. sales-led growth is the wrong debate? Miro's Deepina (Dee) Kapila argues that the "either/or" mentality is short-sighted -- and there are gaps in BOTH approaches. She advocates for a new approach. It's called scaled CX, and it's on the rise. (It doesn't hurt that it allows Customer Success teams to stay lean while serving more & more customers.) Dee joined Growth Unhinged to unpack CX at Miro and how to start building your own scaled CX motion. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/evnC9qep What do you think: is scaled CX the missing link we've been looking for? #cx #customersuccess #saas #plg