#askavc with ryan floyd by Ryan Floyd

In this episode of 'Ask a VC', Storm Ventures Managing Director Ryan Floyd and Go-to-Market Consultant Mark Stephenson discuss the pivotal role of customer success in B2B SaaS companies. They delve into the critical importance of transitioning customer success strategies from a defensive to an offensive mindset, emphasizing the importance of net dollar retention (NDR), and the need for a mentality shift within organizations. Topics covered include the significance of Net Dollar Retention (NDR), aligning customer success with revenue goals, and the value of expanding customer relationships post-sale. The conversation highlights best practices for driving growth and retaining customers, ensuring long-term success in the competitive SaaS market.00:00 Introduction00:51 The Importance of Customer Success02:11 Revenue and Customer Success04:14 Net Dollar Retention (NDR) and Metrics05:42 Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Expansion08:18 Sales and Customer Success Alignment12:09 Customer Success Quotas and Roles21:46 Onboarding and Achieving Value One06:57 Aligning Marketing and Sales with Customer Success27:18 Best Practices and Final ThoughtsMake sure to also:- Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanFloyd for more content on building SaaS B2B startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship in general- Subscribe to Ryan’s blog at https://ryanfloyd.org, where he talks about why he invests in certain companies and broader tech industry issues- Connect with Mark on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/markstephenson-consultant/- Check out the #AskAVC​​​ podcast based on this channel - https://anchor.fm/ask-a-vcAbout Ryan Floyd:Ryan is a founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures, where he invests in, and works with, early-stage enterprise SaaS startups. His primary focus is applications and cloud infrastructure-related companies. He is always interested in hearing from passionate technology entrepreneurs. Ryan is a skilled writer and commentator on all things SaaS. He's written for TechCrunch, Sifted, Thrive Global and regularly contributes to The UK Newspaper. He's the host of the recently launched #AskAVC​​​ YouTube channel aimed at enterprise entrepreneurs. In each episode, he tackles a different issue relating to building and scaling B2B startups - topics such as pitching to an investor and tackling sales churn. When he's not working with his portfolio founders, Ryan is active with Code2040, a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities. And occasionally, he finds time for surfing!About Mark Stephenson:Mark has over 30 years of solution sales GTM leadership experience with high-growth venture backed Series A through E SaaS modern software disruptors such as Evisort, Avi Networks as well as large matrix sales organizations such as HP and Cisco. Mark started sales at Xerox. Over the years as a strategic go-to-market executive, he has developed a four-pronged growth approach to drive consistent exceptional results delivering above quota performance in 24 of 27 operating years. Mark loves building teams that work well together and has a proven ability to lead direct and indirect sales teams at the 3rd and 4th line level as well as Marketing and Customer Success Orgs. He is a high-energy, cross-functional business partner known as a creative thinker with a method for aligning GTM with the business, who has a passion for finding and developing talent, and building repeatable customer engagement and growth process that leverages the team for impact. Great results come from great teams -- Mark can help you hire great GTM team members, put them to work on the right things to scale results.

Storm Ventures Managing Director Ryan Floyd and Go-to-Market Consultant Mark Stephenson discuss how early-stage companies can hire the right VP of Sales using a few essential strategies. #b2bsaas #venturecapital #hiring #salesexecutive #gotomarket Here's what's covered: 0:00 Intros: Ryan & Mark 1:13 Hiring the Right VP of Sales 2:58 Preparing with a Strategic Plan 4:55 Importance of Defining the Spec (Functional Experience, Domain Experience, and Customer Experience) 6:00 Functional Experience 8:02 Domain Experience 10:39 Customer Experience 11:34 Should Be Stage-Appropriate for the Company 12:34 Hypothetical Situation — Business with $1m ARR 14:25 The Interview Process 21:39 Questions to Ask the Candidate 23:06 Sales is a Systematic Process 25:18 Set Objective Criteria — How to See Green, Yellow, and Red Flags 27:13 How Important is Culture? 33:23 What About Diversity? 37:15 Three Es for Top Sales Hires (Ego, Empathy, Energy) 38:57 Take Your Time to Hire Well 40:08 Importance of References 44:55 Thanks! Make sure to also:

Will every SaaS company become an AI company? Will AI unlock guaranteed ROI? Is the promise of AI real and what’s the hype anyway? Storm Ventures Managing Director Ryan Floyd and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Ajay Awatramani answer these questions and more in the latest episode of Ask A VC! #b2bsaas #AI #venturecapital Make sure to also: - Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanFloyd for more content on building SaaS B2B startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship in general - Subscribe to Ryan’s blog, where he talks about why he invests in certain companies and broader tech industry issues - Connect with Ryan & Ajay on LinkedIn - Find prior Ask a VC podcast episodes to listen to! About Ryan Floyd: Ryan is a founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures, where he invests in, and works with, early-stage enterprise SaaS startups. His primary focus is applications and cloud infrastructure-related companies. He is always interested in hearing from passionate technology entrepreneurs. Ryan is a skilled writer and commentator on all things SaaS. He's written for TechCrunch, Sifted, Thrive Global and regularly contributes to The UK Newspaper. He's the host of the recently launched #AskAVC​​​ YouTube channel aimed at enterprise entrepreneurs. In each episode, he tackles a different issue relating to building and scaling B2B startups - topics such as pitching to an investor and tackling sales churn. When he's not working with his portfolio founders, Ryan is active with Code2040, a nonprofit organization that creates pathways to educational, professional, and entrepreneurial success in technology for underrepresented minorities. And occasionally, he finds time for surfing! About Ajay Awatramani: ✔ 23 years of growth leadership experience at Adobe, Marketo, Siebel, Oracle and Sun. And transformation experience at Cornerstone. Venture capital and Private equity deal and industry advisorship. Board role at 150M+ portco. 4+ buy-side and 3+ sell-side txns experience. ✔ Accelerated Marketo growth under public, Vista and Adobe ownership through enterprise transformation incl. platform retrofit for scale, multi-product evolution and TAM expansion into ABX. The 3B$ equity value creation in 2.5 years is the largest exit for Vista in 18 years of existence. Co-led acquisition of Bizible, and integrated Toutapp. ✔ Expanded the TAM at Cornerstone beyond mandatory training/certifications/compliance into a Talent Experience Platform. Created value through platform transformation, operational excellence and add-on acquisition of Edcast (strategic) and SumTotal (EBITDA). Added content business responsibility in '22. ✔ Build a business around Hyperion apps for Sales within Oracle ✔ Founding member of industry's #1 Field Service Automation enterprise solution at Siebel

Remote work is here to stay. But it’s not what you think. Storm Ventures’ managing director Ryan Floyd reflects upon the new way people work and what that means for founders and investors going forward.

The venture capital world is notoriously elusive - even for the founders seeking investments. But the process isn't intended to be secretive. Venture Capital investor Ryan Floyd and fellow partner at Storm Ventures, Pascale Diaine take you behind the scenes, revealing their firm's process step-by-step.  Find out what happens after your initial pitch, what to note when talking to different VC firms, and the importance of culture & aligned values. Ryan and Pascale will leave you ready, confident and ready to impress at your next investment meeting.

The only certainty in business is uncertainty! No founder or investor could have predicted events like the Covid-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine - both of which had profound effects on the economy, and therefore SaaS and the venture capital investment trends. But there are ways that startups can prepare for unforeseen ups and downs. Venture Capital investor Ryan Floyd shares his advice on how SaaS starutps specifically can plan for, adapt to and thrive in times of economic uncertainty.

Net dollar retention and customer experience are highly critical for the success of your SaaS business. I had a chance to connect recently with Gaby Moran, director of customer experience at Workato. Before her current role, Gaby spent quite a few years at Medallia, customer experience management software with a world-class NPS of 60+.

In this episode, I talk about the latest cybersecurity threats you should be aware of as a founder of a small business (what your startup essentially is). Alastair Paterson, Co-founder and CEO of a cybersecurity company Digital Shadows, joined me to answer your questions about the dark web and more. 

Net dollar retention (NDR) is critical to your SaaS startup's success. I talked quite a bit about churn in the early days of this channel. Mastering NDR is the next logical step you should consider as you continue to grow your startup. In this episode, I am sharing 4 tips that will help you take control of your net dollar retention metric - and take it to the next level:  

In the latest #AskAVC episode, we talk about understanding and the importance of diversity, inclusion, and equity in startups. I am joined by Aubrey Blanche, Director of Equitable Design at Culture Amp, The Mathpath (Math Nerd + Empath), and a startup investor and advisor. Aubrey is a recognized thought leader when it comes to building more equitable businesses - and our conversation is full of actionable insights that any startup founder can utilize right away.   

In this episode, I share with you 8 ways to finance your startup - and that doesn't include venture capital! It might seem odd coming from a VC investor. However, my goal for you as a startup founder is to be aware of all the options that are available to finance your business - along with their respective pros and cons. When you do partner with a VC like myself, you need to be sure that it is, in fact, the best way forward for your startup.   

As you grow your enterprise SaaS startup, opportunities to engage various sales channel partners will most certainly come your way. The prospect of partnering with a leading telco or some other big corporation might seem very appealing. However, there is a lot you need to know before entering any agreements - and to make sure it works out well in the end.   

Startup equity and convertible notes are about to be fully explained! Early-stage entrepreneurs have to learn a lot of new vocabulary, technical & legal details, to ensure their initial rounds of outside financing go well. In this video I am being interviewed by Fellows at ASIF Ventures, European micro-VC, focused on student-led startups, and we do a deep dive into:  

"How much to pay startup advisors" is the question I often get asked by even experienced entrepreneurs. In one of my previous episodes, I gave an intro to the topic of startup advisors - what do they do, how to find them, etc. In this one, I dive deeper into the specifics:  

This episode is something I have not tried on my channel before. This is a deep dive into a specific concept - in this case, enterprise automation - from a technical point of view. We dive deep into the idea of workflows automation, talking about its definition and benefits, as well as giving specific examples. In the 24th episode of the #AskAVC

As your startup company will become more successful, naturally there will be more and more people eager to share their advice with you. It's a smart strategy to surround yourself with people who know more than you in various business areas - be it sales or security. There are a few things any founder needs to keep in mind, however, to make sure that taking advice will help their company as opposed to hurting it. As a startup CEO, you must figure out:  

In this video, I talk about the biggest enemy of all SaaS businesses - customer churn. It is safe to say that nearly every single startup faces this problem at some point or another. As scary and uncomfortable it might be, having customer churn is not the end of the world - but you do need a war plan. Have you asked yourself:   

There is so much content out there about the legal language of term sheets, valuations, etc. However, it would be a mistake to see your interactions with potential investors as purely transactional. The key is to build a relationship with a person on the other side of the table. And a lot of goes into it:   

When you are ready to raise some outside capital to scale your business, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered to make the process successful. For example, there are many different types of investors you can turn to. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is - what is the difference between angel investing and venture capital? In this episode I address topics like: What do angel investors look for? Are angel investors a good idea? How much do angel investors invest? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

The prospect of asking for multi-million dollar investment in a cold email to someone you never met is undoubtedly daunting. Do cold emails even work? Believe it or not, but that's how we met one of the most valuable investments in Storm Ventures' portfolio! Even if you do manage to get a warm introduction to a potential investor, principles and techniques outlined in this video will still be very valuable to you. Crafting effective cold emails is not easy, but absolutely doable!  What three elements are critical to include in your cold email? Which service you should never use while sending out cold emails? How to follow-up properly? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

Digital transformation might easily be one of the most hyped terms in the IT industry in the past couple of years. Separating myth from reality could be easier said than done. After all, it's something that many companies have invested millions of dollars in - and the results are not always there. Is digital transformation was truly dead on arrival? Find out in the second part of my interview with Tim Crawford, one of the Top 100 Most Influential Chief Information Technology Officers (#4), and the host of the CIO In The Know (CIOitk) podcast.

In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I "sat down" with Tim Crawford, one of the Top 100 Most Influential Chief Information Technology Officers (#4), and the host of the CIO In The Know (CIOitk) podcast. For SaaS founders, dealing with repercussions of the ongoing global pandemic while selling into the enterprise, this interview offers invaluable insights into the minds of modern CIOs. How CIOs make purchasing decisions these days? How can you as a founder "play offense" in the current environment - and help your customers to do the same? What is the difference between selling your product to a traditional vs. a transformational CIO? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

Being a first-time founder & CEO presents a unique set of challenges. Thinking you might be able to avoid mistakes altogether is, of course, unrealistic - even geniuses have flaws! It doesn't mean, however, that tried-and-true advice is not available to you - and some of it might just make or break your business. In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I talk to Anshu Sharma, a founder of Skyflow, who both worked under the reign of a first-time CEO, as well as a first-time CEO himself. How to build a team of co-founders to complement your strengths and weaknesses? How role models can help you navigate the challenging daily reality of being a leader of a startup? How to make the right decisions about investors you will be working with? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

The past few weeks have been crazy for everyone in the world, not just me - hence, the pause I took with putting out the new episodes. Now I am back with the latest from my makeshift studio in the dining room. In this episode, I reflect on how the ongoing pandemic changed things for the entire venture capital ecosystem - both from an investor, as well as an entrepreneur's standpoint. How the next couple of quarters might look like? Is it possible to get funding right now? Is this downturn any different from the 2008 meltdown and the dot-com bubble burst? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

Remote teams are all the rage these days, especially in the tech industry. You get to hire the best people everywhere, and maybe even realize cost savings through salary arbitrage. However, as this trend is still relatively new, there is a lot you need to know if you'd like to leverage it for your business. In this episode of #AskAVC podcast, I talk to Anshu Sharma, a founder of Skyflow, who also has many years of experience in managing and acquiring remote teams in companies like Oracle and Salesforce. What's the difference between remote and fully distributed teams? How to manage employees across various time zones? What are the cultural and technical challenges presented by having a remote workforce? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

Did you know that the average tenure of a VP of sales across businesses is 18 months? Imagine all the time and money spent on finding this person, investing in them building a team - only to have it all go out of the window a couple of months later. In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I share 3 ingredients critical for successful VP of sales hiring. Do you have to be good at sales yourself as a founder? How good your product needs to be before you can really scale sales? What do you need to know about your customers before you hire your first VP of sales? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

Finding an investor and securing their commitment is just the beginning of the journey. If you are a first-time founder, negotiating a term sheet can be a daunting task. In this episode, I will walk you through the key terms and techniques to make sure that the deal will be closed successfully. Why knowing the basic difference between pre-money and post-money valuation is not enough? What to do if you are being asked to pay your investor's expenses? What does your company's governance structure have to do with your future? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more! 

In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I give entrepreneurs advice on researching potential investors in their business. Due diligence is the mutual process! How to get to know your future partners? How to "test drive" an investor with thoughtful questions? How to look for clues in an investor's past? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and more!

In the latest episode of #AskAVC podcast, I and Dominique Levin, co-CEO of Winning by Design that helps B2B companies grow by turning sales into a science, talk about common pitfalls and the successful strategies for customer onboarding. Turns out, onboarding customers is not just a technical challenge! What role customer expectations play in the successful onboarding process? How to make sure that the kick-off meeting will go well? Why it's important to share your best practices with customers? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - plus an extra proven technique to increase your customer retention rate!

In the previous episode of #AskAVC podcast, I and Dominique Levin, co-CEO of Winning by Design that helps B2B companies grow by turning sales into a science, did a deep dive on how to generate more B2B sales leads. As we learned, however, not all leads are created equal - and you must optimize your lead generation strategy to ensure good conversion rates at each stage of the sales funnel. What is the difference between good and bad customers? How to build an ideal customer profile? How to prioritize between different leads? How to keep selling even after you closed a deal? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and much more!

Welcome to the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast - and the first in the series of interviews with Dominique Levin, co-CEO of Winning by Design that helps B2B companies grow by turning sales into a science. What are leads and how they are different from opportunities? What is the role of marketing in generating leads? How the type of market you are in and the stage of your business impact your lead-generation strategy? What tools should you use for attacking an existing market versus creating demand in a brand new one? What is the difference between inbound & outbound strategies? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and much more! Here are the links that were mentioned in the discussion: Glengarry Glen Ross;  How to start a movement

In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I go back to basics and dive deeper into some of the core concepts behind software as a service (or SaaS).  Why this term should not be confused with "subscriptions"?  What do you need to know about the market size for SaaS businesses?  What are some of the technical challenges you might run into when building a SaaS company? What business models might work for you? Listen to the episode to get answers to all these questions - and much more!

In the latest episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I give founders and entrepreneurs tips on how to deal with acquisition interest. While it's undeniably a great problem to have, there are a few things you need to know to make the most out of the situation. How to make sure you take the right meetings with the right people and don't waste your time? How to build relationships that would help you and your company many years later down the road? What homework needs to be done? All that and much more - in episode 6 of the #AskAVC podcast.

Startup life is inherently complex and unpredictable and no matter how hard we try, failures - small and large - are inevitable. Yet, delivering bad news could be very uncomfortable. In episode #5 of the #AskAVC podcast, I give techniques and tips for leaders, founders - and anyone, really - that, in my experience, make those unpleasant moments easier to deal with.

Your business might be in great shape, but still, you might be having a hard time delivering your story and convincing potential investors to join you on your journey. What are the components of the successful presentation? How to tell your story? How to keep people's attention? In the new episode of the #AskaVC podcast, I am sharing the best practices I've learned after 20 years of investing in tech startups.

In the previous episode of the #AskaVC podcast, we defined churn and looked at ways to measure it. Losing customers is never fun, but it's not the end of the world! In this video, we are going to figure out how to fix churn if your business metrics are not looking so good. 

One of the advantages of SaaS businesses is that you build a customer base that should not only continue to renew over time but also expand if you are delivering value. The opposite is the dreaded revenue churn. What is it and how to measure it is the topic of episode #2 of the #AskAVC podcast. You can also check out the blog post based on this video, on my personal website. 

In the first episode of the #AskAVC podcast, I talk about sales efficiency - the magic number that, if calculated right, helps tech startups to scale and unlock growth. How it's different from CAC and LTV, the relationship between sales efficiency and go-to-market fit - all this and much more I tackle in this video. For a deep dive, make sure also to check out my TechCrunch post on the same topic.