Welcome to Leaps Ahead from FROGED! As we head into the thick of the summer, a notably quieter time of year for many SaaS companies, lets make the most of investigating new technologies, testing different concepts, and, of course, optimizing our existing products and processes. Which is why we’ve pulled together a list of trending topics you need to know about, in order to help you scale this month.
First up, some quick news flashes for you.
Finance Stuff – To SPAC or Not to SPAC
Turkish Mobility App, Marti navigated a deal to become the first Turkish company to list via a SPAC merger – ironically just as Forbes scrapped their plan to go public via SPAC. They had hoped to go public through a blank-check company based in Hong Kong, but stopped after the market flipped. Oh? What’s a SPAC or Special Purpose Acquisition Company – it’s a shell company. Yes, that’s right, we said shell company.
The Street Five
- Rumor is that Canada is creating a bill that would force tech businesses to pay local news publishers for content. This move by the government is supposed to help struggling media companies that have seen online advertising revenue evaporate, going instead to the big guys in Silicon Valley.
- News publishers have made $12M from NFTs since March 2021, led by Time Magazine which accounts for $10M.
- Andreessen Horowitz’s massive crypto-focused fund of $4.5 billion —the firm’s fourth and biggest to focus on crypto—will dedicate $3 billion to venture investments and $1.5 billion to seed investments. This is a big bet, given the instability of the crypto marketplace.
- More than 1.5 billion people watch YouTube Shorts every month – every freakin’ month!
- FROGED Co-Founder and CEO Emily G.-Cebrian Lomban was selected to host a roundtable discussion at TechCrunch’s Disrupt in San Francisco this Fall. The topic “How product success & capital efficiency go hand in hand” – is pretty cool, right?
The Rise of Climate Tech
Make no mistake about it, ClimateTech and CleanTech are two totally different things and the difference is simply time. Mateo Jaramillo, from Form Energy, said it best “During the first wave, part of the question was, how do you get more people involved? But today, we see the effects of a changing climate and the need to do something about it feels visceral.”
Curious as to why in 2021 climate tech exits hit $114B with over 100 exits in the US alone (hey folks, that’s a +70% increase)? Click here for the inside scoop from Silicon Valley Bank.
The Fall of Instagram (For Now)
Can you imagine being on the product team on Instagram right now? With public outcries from The Kardashians, Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri took to Twitter with a video and not a great one to explain. Adam – we miss our photos!!
In just a few hours “make Instagram, Instagram again” had amassed 1.6M likes and a petition. Is Adam under pressure from The Zuck to mimic TikTok – one can only assume the answer is “yes”.
What you Need to Know to Scale:
Eliminate your margin killers! What’s a margin killer, you ask? One example is a product that is not performing and is keeping you from hitting “The Rule of 40” a key performance indicator for investors. Underperforming products also can skew your valuation.
Five Margin Killers
- Holding onto that unprofitable product
- Does your pricing reflect your true costs?
- Failing to manage customer relationships (Hello Churn!)
- Direct & Overhead costs that Grow without Control
- The Balance of Technology
Unprofitable Products
So when do you call it a day with one of your products? Have you laid out the pre-established KPIs for your Sales, Marketing, and Product teams and things just aren’t adding up? Obviously, research, development, and testing play a huge part in making this decision, but oftentimes cutting the cord and starting a new project is best for the health of your company. Sometimes you just need to move onward.
Does Your Pricing Reflect Your True Costs
We recommend applying the stage-gate process, which not only helps you communicate the value of your company from a features and benefits concept, but it also maps out your price point and margin at the onset.
Failing to manage customer relationships – aka Churn
We talk about churn a lot because it is a lagging indicator – i.e. something has already happened. This means you need to have a true customer success and support toolkit that can give you visibility on your onboarding completion and at-risk clients.
New Kid on the block
BeReal, the social media platform that only lets users post once a day at random times, reached the top spot for free apps in Apple’s App Store. But is BeReal the real deal long-term? Only time will tell.
Buzzword(s) of the Month
Black hat vs white hat SEO
Also, referred to as the evil vs good of web positioning. White Hat SEO being the process of following Google’s Guidelines to the letter, playing fair, and waiting the course for organic search results success. Black Hat SEO is cheating (or trying to) cheat and persuade search engines to position your content higher in a very unethical way. (Think invisible text, spam links, keyword stuffing, etc.) But know this: Google has eyes everywhere, and you can be penalized for applying Black Hat techniques.
Collaboration Envy
Shopify has introduced YouTube Shopping, a new integration that allows merchants to pin products to their videos and enables live-shopping experiences.
Must Hear
TL;DR with FOMO? No problem. For a daily 15-minute download of news – listen to The Hustle Daily Show just enough news to make you feel smart or at least to create small talk while you are waiting for that one person to join the Zoom.
Must Read
The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift
Once you read this book, you’ll discover how to transform your business and scale customer-centric growth. Warning: Yes. You will need to rethink your strategies, processes, and organizational charts.
Still not getting how you can scale? We’ll give you a hint: Book A Demo with us and we can show you how to reduce churn and increase conversions.
