Category: Startup

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Entrepreneurship SaaS Sales Startup

Pain Killer Vs Vitamin

Is exercising a pain killer or a vitamin? 🏋️‍♂️

Is a reading book a pain killer or a vitamin? 📖

Is eating nutritious food a pain killer or a vitamin? 🥗

Is playing sports a pain killer or a vitamin? ⛹️‍♂️

Is meditating a pain killer or a vitamin? 🧘‍♂️

All things that are essential to living a happy and healthy life don’t seem to be a pain killer. 🤔

Then why the heck while running a business, everyone advises buying only a pain killer? 🧐

Isn’t it too late to buy a pain killer to fix your broken organization?🤦‍♂️

Shouldn’t you actually be investing in running a better organization and making sure it doesn’t break all the time? 🤔

Of course, you can still buy a pain killer (or a band-aid) occasionally when the organization breaks. 💊🩹

But why be reactive when you can be proactive? 🤷‍♂️

Categories
SaaS Startup

Replying to Customer Support Issues as a CEO

As a CEO of a SaaS company, one of the most gratifying things I enjoy is – replying to Customer Support issues.

It helps me to stay grounded.

It helps me to be empathetic.

It helps me to understand what they truly care about.

It helps me to work harder to fix issues in our product, messaging, documentation, and more.

Categories
Productivity Startup

Slack Etiquettes

With remote work, I’m worried if we’re spending more time Slacking vs doing uninterrupted high-quality work.

Here are some Slack etiquettes:

1. Fewer messages mean fewer notifications

Never send a one-word message like hey, hmm even if you immediately follow up with your real message.

2. Use Reactions vs sending one-word messages

For acknowledgment, use Reactions instead of one-word messages (Thanks, lol).

3. Use formatting for longer messages

Use bulleted lists, bold, and italic text styling to make your titles and key points stand out.

4. Use threads to reply and comment

Use threads every time to keep an ongoing conversation with replies and keep the main channel clear.

5. Default to public channels

Use @username mention for specific requests or urgent matters. DMs are for confidential conversations.

6. Set prefixes to indicate message purpose

BUG: someone needs to look into it
FYI: no one needs to reply
CUSTOMER ISSUE: a high priority issue

7. Disable Notifications

Disable all Slack group notifications sounds and alerts. Keep only personal DM or @mention notifications.

8. Praise publicly, criticize privately

9. Know when to Slack vs to meet

If you’re furiously Slacking in channel, consider having a meeting/call. Share discussion points & decisions for others.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Product Management SaaS Sales Startup

Business Strategy Framework

“Business Strategy Framework” is a framework about how you think about your focus and strategy for Engineering Platform, Product, and your Go-To-Market.

a close up of text on a white background

Let’s consider an example. At Avoma, we’re building an AI-meeting assistant.

From a use-cases perspective, there are many different kinds of meetings. Everyone’s workflows, pain points, and needs are very different.

When we decided to build Avoma, obviously, we could have built a horizontal AI meeting assistant to serve every single meeting use case.

But that would have been a bad business strategy, especially when you’re a startup and just starting out 😀.

Instead,
• We built the engineering platform and AI tech in the most scalable way to evolve into future use cases

• From the product perspective, we decided to focus on only customer-facing (Sales & Customer Success) external meetings

• From the GTM perspective, we reach out to the VP of Sales and Customer Success persona

Hope you’ll find this framework helpful when you make strategy and prioritization decisions in your company.

Categories
SaaS Sales Startup

Relevant, not Personalized Email Outreach

Sending “personalized” email outreach is a thing of the past. Sending “relevant” email outreach is what we need in the industry.

The current way of outreach using prospect’s first name, company name, school, etc. is not personalization. It is a table stakes.

The right way of outreach using prospect’s needs, responsibilities, future aspirations, etc. is a true personalization. It is being relevant and helpful.

Categories
SaaS Sales Startup

Happy Planning 2020!

As we’re preparing for the new year, it’s a good reminder for everyone –

Do not overestimate “planning” 🎯and do not underestimate “constant corrections” 🧭.

Planning is essential, but constant corrections are inevitable.

Happy planning 2020! 📈