The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 25 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Çilingir: Growth remains king over capital efficiency and profitability
“At the end of today, even in this, again, macroeconomic environment, where people are starting to look for also profitability or capital efficiency, still, ladies and gentlemen, growth is the king.”
Cilingir: Remote work and online communication have destroyed essential human interaction
“I'm a big enemy of the Online. I mean, online communication. I believe that world has lost a lot of things due to like, you know, work, working from home concept, the human interaction, and many things. It's not about only business.”
Çilingir: Top reps from Adobe or Salesforce often fail at startups
“Being able to sell this product of Adobe or Salesforce type companies doesn't mean that they can be also successful salespeople in your own organization, because every single product is different.”
Çilingir: Most SaaS companies that fail lack expansion products
“And most of the companies which failed in SaaS, as far as I observe they are actually lack of expansion products.”
Çilingir: Free POCs fail because prospects treat them like unused gym memberships
“We don't give it, like, for free, because if it's going to be free, It's like a free gym membership. If it's going to be free, you will never go there, right?”
Çilingir: Founders should never read business books by non-entrepreneurs
“Never ever read a book from someone who hasn't been, or written by someone who hasn't been an entrepreneur before. Because an entrepreneur can be actually precisely Understood by another entrepreneur.”
Cilingir: Localized community events drive better customer engagement than global conferences
“We decided to have also local reshapes during the year, where we only run this for the local community in our locations, inside those locations like Japan, in Seoul, in Tokyo, in London, and those community events, local community events, which was much more s…”
Çilingir: Insider Reaches 25% of Global Internet Users
“Currently we are reaching 25% of the world's internet users.”
Çilingir: Sales candidates who can't sell founders in roleplay can't sell customers
“Don't forget that if they cannot sell you, they cannot sell also today to your customers.”
Çilingir: Hiring Sales Reps Without a Competitive Background Fails in SaaS
“So in that case, when you hire a sales representative or salespeople, if they are coming from a non-competitive background, trust me, it's not going to work.”
Çilingir: Founder-led sales training is insufficient beyond $5M-$10M ARR
“In the very first days of your sales organization or of your company, you probably teach the salespeople from your own experience, which might be enough that time, but that's not enough after five million dollars of ARR. That's not enough after ten million dol…”
Çilingir: Strong sales enablement cuts enterprise rep ramp time to three months
“Once you have a strong enablement team, then ramp up times will be shorter. In SaaS, if it's like enterprise product, generally we are talking about six to nine months. And you can observe that it's going to become like maybe three months”
Çilingir: Sales reps need dedicated sales ops and deal desk support
“Don't assume that they are item men who can do it all at the same time. So this is why with the sales operations, who can support the sales people about the contracts, about the, you know, whole sales cycle and purchase process. With the deal desk or marketing…”
Çilingir: SaaS founders must track pipeline inputs before focusing on MRR
“If you ask a SaaS founder, what is the most important metric for you, for your sales pipeline, or sales, like, cycle, if they are going to answer, like, of course, MRR, et cetera, it's not right. What is, what are the things that causes MRR? How many leads the…”
Çilingir: Sales managers must add deal value, not just manage dashboards
“Your sales directors or managers who are going to manage your sales team shouldn't be only a dashboard guy, because they should have a positive contribution on the sales processes. If there is, like, enterprise relationship that they need to manage, then they …”
Çilingir reviews sales pipeline metrics bi-weekly despite having a CRO
“Even as a CEO, even I have a CRO who is responsible for the growth, I am running a growth meetings bi-weekly and going through the old sales pipeline metrics to be able to understand What is wrong? What is going, what's going right? What's not going right?”
Çilingir: Expansion revenue should equal at least 30% of acquisition revenue
“And by the way, according to numbers, ideally your expansion revenues should consist at least like, 30% of your new acquisition revenue.”
Çilingir: SaaS pricing must tie vendor revenue directly to client growth metrics
“Trying to find a parameter which is going to be mutual to your product and your clients, or clients use of your product. Once you do that, you will see that and they will feel that it's going to be mutually beneficial and it should be visible to all parties at…”
Insider's global Reshape event drew over 20,000 digital marketing attendees
“I remember that in last year's Reshape, we have more than 20,000 people joining us, digital marketers. By the way, we have an event, global event called Reshape. Every year we define the digital events in the world with the participation of the you know, the t…”
Insider established country-level customer advisory boards specifically to generate referral leads
“For example, we have established a customer advisory board in each country, not just to understand, you know, their needs, not just to understand the dynamics of this market, not just to understand their ideas, also for the referrals. We are trying to also und…”
Cilingir: Word-of-mouth acquired customers yield 16% to 25% higher lifetime value
“Customers acquired through word of mouth have a 16 to 25% higher lifetime value than non-referred customers, ladies and gentlemen.”
Çilingir: Insider's sales team is responsible for expansion revenue
“For us, by the way, our sales function is responsible from the expansion revenue.”
Çilingir: Insider lands with single products rather than full suites
“We land, we don't have the fantasy of selling our products at the same time, just in one time. We land with a specific product, and we expand in time.”
CEO Hande Cilingir personally records custom product demo videos for customer upsells
“This year, I started to, for example, shoot videos for our new products, where I'm using those new features by myself, and start to share them with the customers. I use the, like, you know, control panel. I create the scenarios myself. We are shooting those vi…”