SAAS Tend predictions 2019 – How are these playing out for you?

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Last December Openview Partners put out their predictions of SAAS trends they believed will become mainstream in 2019. 4 months into the year I wanted to revisit those and list them out so you can see (and share) how they are playing out for you and in market segments you are watching. Openview is very focused on ‘Product Led’ strategies, and well, products. Their portfolio is evidence to that approach – with products like Calendly, Expensify and Loopio. So no wonder the list started with –

Even Enterprise Companies Will Adopt Product Led Strategies – Liz Cain, Partner– de labour the sales process so sales team can do higher value tasks and leverage product usage data to identify prospects for sales team to spend time on.
Product Engineering Teams will ( Finally) become Data-Driven – Kyle Poyar, Senior Director Market Strategy – Lots of products are available today which are focused on analyzing data to manage “time cost adoption and ROI associated with Building a new product or feature…..Expect to start measuring your product and engineering performance in 2019. After all you can’t manage that you can’t measure.”
Brand Takes Center Stage – Ashley Minogue, Director of Growth. Saas companies have at least 9 competitors. You will not be able to win with SEO or features. A great brand will be the differentiators. Authentic and value added share of voice will be the key to stand out.
Companies Double down on Pricing Successes – Kyle Poyar, Senior Director Market Strategy. Changing and optimizing pricing will be key to success. In many instances higher price will be sustainable ( David Cummings shared about his experiment at Pardot recently; Doubling price boosted the traction.). Tons of information to this effect ( not only increase but tweaks) is being shared regularly bu Patrick Campbell.
The Product Led Growth Index Will Outperform the Market – Sean Fanning, Corporate Development Manager – according to data examined by Openview, companies with PLG strategies were outperforming public SAAS companies.
Startups Proactively Invest in Customer Success – Ashley Minogue, Director of Growth – No banner here – Retention makes better sense than acquisition of customers.
A Demand for Growth-Oriented Talent – Sarah Duffy, Director of Talent – Growth related talent or those who have actually gone through a PLG cycle will be in high demand. Some anecdotal data is evident when you look at the dramatic growth in the number of profiles in Linkedin with a Growth related self title.