About David Skok
David is a serial entrepreneur who founded a total of four companies, and did one turn-around. In 2001, he joined Matrix Partners, who had backed his last two startups, as a VC investor. Successful exits as a VC include: HubSpot, JBoss, AppIQ, Tabblo, Netezza, Diligent Technologies, CloudSwitch, TribeHR, GrabCAD, OpenSpan and Enservio. David currently serves on the boards of Atomist, Apollo GraphQL, CloudBees, Namely, and Salsify.
Find more about me on:
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TwitterGrowth Hacking: Creating a Wow Moment
This article is part of a series titled “The Art & Science of Growth Hacking” that will be published over time. My thanks to Gail Goodman, the founder and CEO of Constant Contact for introducing me to this concept.
(In …
That’s a nice little $40M ecommerce company. Call me when it scales
It will surprise a lot of entrepreneurs to learn that building an e-commerce business with $10 million to $20 million in revenues is not that hard. It also surprises many to learn that it’s not actually that valuable. This is …
The Key to Building Smarter Software: Deliver Insights
Three years ago I spent a lot of time looking at SaaS business intelligence companies. I loved what I saw in the demos: easy data connections, slick looking graphs, powerful drill down tools and custom dashboards made the tools look …
Managing Customer Success to Reduce Churn
The health of a SaaS business is directly tied to its ability to retain its customers and prevent churn. To do this, they have to ensure that their customers are happy. That means making sure they get the promised business …
SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” – Lord Kelvin
This article is a comprehensive and detailed look at the key metrics that are needed to understand and optimize a SaaS business. It is a completely updated rewrite …
SaaS Dashboard Example – For annual contracts using ACV
This page is a supplement to the SaaS Metrics 2.0 blog post that provides a comprehensive study of the key metrics to understand and optimize a SaaS business. It is designed to be read in conjunction with that post.
You …
SaaS Inside Sales: What you need to know
The Bridge Group have recently published a report titled:
Inside Sales for SaaS
Metrics and Compensation Report for B2B technology companies
The report is based on a survey of 197 B2B technology companies, and covers topics such as:
- Ramp
Unlocking the Path to Negative Churn
Summary: Illustrates graphically why churn is a huge problem as a SaaS company gets larger. It also looks at a very surprising factor that can massively accelerate SaaS growth: negative churn. (This article is applicable to any recurring revenue …
An Argument for Specialized Sales Teams — An Interview with Aaron Ross
In this article I interview Aaron Ross, co-author of a new book, Predictable Revenue. Aaron discusses his experience at Salesforce.com starting a new group that used an innovative outbound prospecting approach (involving no cold calls) to create new leads. …
Do you know your Customer? Buying Cycle & Triggers
This article looks at why customers expect different interactions with you depending on where they are in the buying cycle. It also examines how specific events trigger them into a buying mode. It then explains how you can use this
…The State of App Development
Today’s application developers are faced with a broad set of architectural decisions that can make or break their company going forward. This presentation, which was given as a keynote for the MassTLC application development conference, highlights the major changes that …
Inside Sales Best Practices: HubSpot – A Case Study
Best practices for inside sales managers. An interview with Mark Roberge, VP of Sales at HubSpot, discussing how he blends science and process with the art of selling.
HubSpot is a SaaS company selling Inbound Marketing software. HubSpot has grown …
When Selling is the Worst Way to Win Customers
Customers hate being sold to.
Customers hate being sold to. They don’t mind getting expert help when they want to buy something. But much of the time they are not ready to buy, and one of the most irritating things …
Scalable Pricing: A Key Tool For SaaS Success
Scalable pricing is a powerful tool to grow revenue in a SaaS or software business. It allows you to capture more of the revenue that your customers are willing to pay, without putting off smaller customers that are not able …
Measure Customer Engagement: Increase Conversion and Lower Churn
The goal of a SaaS CEO should be to increase the profit they make from each customer (LTV), and lower the costs in sales and marketing that it takes to acquire each customer (CAC). Measuring Customer Engagement is a key …
