Organ: Fire or reallocate engineers lacking a six-month payback during crises
Mark Organ · 1717 3 Genius Ways To Conserve SaaS Cash To Survive Virus From Eloqua Founder Who Survived 9/11 · Apr 6, 2020 · at 22:31
Eloqua founder Mark Organ outlines strict engineering payback thresholds for SaaS companies navigating downturns.
0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.5s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“If the engineers aren't working on stuff that is going to generate a payback within six months, then they need to be reallocated or they're gone. So that's what it's all about. It's all about how do I get payback within six months, and I want to get at least a three times return within 12 months.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Mark Organ
Organ: Venture-backed software jobs are more important than serving food
“You know, the restaurant business is not actually one that is sustainable. That doesn't sustainably create lots of, you know, lots of, you know, high tech Innovative jobs. Whereas I think what I'm doing does. So I know that might sound selfish, but I don't thi…”
Raising quotas to offset salary inflation drives out top sales reps
“There's inflation, there's salary inflation in the market companies are responding by increasing quotas and it's just not possible. It's not possible for sales reps to hit their, hit those numbers, and I think that sets up I think that sets up, you know some, …”
Organ: Founders should take available government stimulus cash
“I would say that as a founder, if you have an opportunity to get cash from the government at this point, like I try to do it. And you're certainly going to pay enough in taxes over your lifetime. So if this is your one opportunity to get a little bit, then sur…”
Organ: Junior Eloqua employees made $10M+ when Eloqua went public
“And so we gave a lot of stock, and as a result, there's, you know, a number of you know, there are some pretty junior folks at Eloqua that are, you know, made ten million dollars plus when Eloqua went public.”
Organ: SaaS companies can charge $10,000 for upfront needs analysis proposals
“If you're the expert, you can actually charge someone 10,000 dollars to understand their needs in great detail and give them a proposal that they can then use to, they can hire you and your software, or they can go to your competitor. But most likely they're g…”
Organ: Founders should cut ramping sales reps first during a crisis
“In a time of crisis, your cost of capital is enormous, which means that you need to get payback very quickly with a high level of certainty. So a new sales rep is going to be a very uncertain investment. It's going to take too long. So if you've got four reps …”