Tag: alwayslearning

Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Seeking Silence

What I Learnt Today, Managing yourself 0

Like most of the people I know, across geographies, distraction has reached alarming proportions. I have multiple tabs open when I work. Multiple notifications, phone, at least 4 different VOIP apps any of which can ring at any time breaking me off from whatever I am doing. The distracted mind also does its tricks. Things I need to do pop up at times when I am focused on something else. The urge to finish those breaks the momentum. The ability to read anything beyond 500 words is interrupted. Pop ups, download and update notifications from numerous softwares and browser extensions – all essential for work, keep jerking the mind around.

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Pay-per-user or pay-per-use?

SAAS, What I Learnt Today 0

Jason Lemkin, Founder SaaStr in a recent Q&A addressed this question. The pro for the selling organisation is obvious. Predictable revenue – irrespective of usage. But is it sustainable and will users continue to pay based on this model? He raises important questions like : “….

  • Can’t a customer pay in part based on usage, if they want to?
  • Does my price automatically go up, even if I just add 1 or 2 users to my account?
  • Does every type of user “cost money”?
  • Do I have to figure out now how many users I need for the best pricing, when I don’t really know? “

….and more. 

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Discover MVV (Minimum Viable Value)

What I Learnt Today, Startup 0

I am thinking a lot about Startups and the new generation business and how today we can so easily jump start. The cloud, open source, gig economy, co-working spaces. They all make it easier than ever to get us started. You get the drift. That’s quite obvious as I am in the middle of one with Pitch.Link. The challenges of something new that in turn challenges the status quo is for another discussion. Today let’s talk about Value. The Value that we need to deliver to our prospective customers which in turn helps us get to sustainable revenue. That sounds simple, right? It could be the route to Startup Success Rate going from the current 10% to, say 50%. Occam’s Razor!

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Following the Superhuman saga? Ignore users right to privacy at your own peril.

What I Learnt Today, Biz Tech 1

I will keep it brief. What are the Lessons from SuperHuman saga? Surreptitious tracking of users – call them prospects, call them customers, call them MQL, SQL or PQL – is not acceptable and will come back to bite you no matter what perceived benefits you think you get. Most Sales Tech that offers analytics of user engagement does it without explicit permission of the end user. Whether it is using pixels (99% users do not know of this technology and do not have image downloads disabled by default) and this is not the Wild West Coast anymore that we will hide behind the Buyer Beware signage.

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Storytelling vs Detail-telling

What I Learnt Today, Sales 0

Can you really learn from peers? From reading, from books, form Webinars and podcasts? If you can distill, you can. It is difficult to retain details but the broad idea stays. That’s why mental models are useful for success (Charlie Munger) and storytelling is so effective. The first time I heard Brian Chesky on Masters of Scale talking about customer experience rating and imagining what a 11star experience would be like – it stayed with me. Through numerous retelling (exactly like stories – the ones we like we tell others) it went deeper into my consciousness.

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Retention is the new Acquisition.

SAAS, What I Learnt Today 0

At Collision, one of the largest tech conferences in the world which shifted its latest version to Toronto, Des Traynor, C0 Founder Intercom – focused on Retention being more important than conversion. This resonates with me because we have been talking about “Buying is the new Selling” for a while and it sort of dovetails into this major shift happening in today’s transaction ecosystem. Traynor reiterates some known points and makes some new connections :

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Are you getting the word out?

What I Learnt Today, Startup 0

Getting press and coverage, and in turn building links back to your site is a big challenge startups face. While you are busy building, validating your product, trying to get the first 10 paying customers you are following Paul Graham’s advice and doing things that don’t scale. Add to this for tactical measures as many of them will provide a big pay back.

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Little Data

What I Learnt Today, Biz Tech 0

So what is big data? This is what companies know about us. Aggregated from numerous sources and analyzed for patterns. Big data is what helps banks predict and flag credit card frauds. Little data on the other hand is what we know about ourselves. “What we buy. Who we know. Where we go. How we spend our time. We’ve always had a sense for these things — after all, it’s our lives. But thanks to the combination of mobile, social, and cloud technologies, it’s easier than ever to gain insight into our own behavior” writes Mark Bonchek in this HBR article. 

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Posted by Subhanjan Sarkar

Is your Sales and Marketing aligned?

What I Learnt Today, Sales 1

An IDC Survey found that up to 80% of marketing generated content goes unused by sales teams. While building Pitch.Link one key issue we wanted to address was sales and marketing alignment. This we did by ensuring that while Marketing is building entire pitches (not only a particular collateral – but the flow where they envisage it will be used) they could ask for feedback from the sales team and fine tune the messaging and narrative to make it most useful for the value communication process. 

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