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 10 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
Skok: Annual logo churn above 20% signals missing product-market fit
“Any logo churn number that's greater than 20% per annum is worrying, and it's evidence that you don't have good product market fit in one of your customer segments.”
Skok: Great software often has low engagement but high business value
“So don't focus in on engagement and usage because in all honesty, some of the very best products I've seen actually have very low engagement because you simply do a sign up for them and they simply just start working. And if they have great business benefits a…”
Skok: Namely leads mid-market HR tech while ADP is an easy target
“And to my mind, namely is the leader in that particular segment that we think is an important segment. And then if you look at the space that they're running, which is the 50 to, actually it's 20 to 2000 employees is the size range that they work in. There's r…”
Skok: High retention requires doing work for less capable customers
“Some of them are not going to be actually great at competencies of using the product itself. And if that's the case and you really want to care about getting high retention rates, recognize that you're probably going to have to do some of that for them and wit…”
Skok: Per-seat pricing works for sales software but fails for marketing tools
“And in the marketing area, that's not a great proxy, particularly in small companies, because There aren't really lots of people needed in marketing to make the product work well, and there typically isn't a large organization, not like sales, for example, whe…”
Skok: SaaS startups at $5M ARR should use no more than 2-3 pricing axes
“So I think when you're at five million in ARR, you probably want to have two pricing axes, possibly three, but not, not more than that. And you want your pricing to be simple because the customer, it should be easy for them to buy and easy for them to understa…”
Skok: Early startups should use professional services to discover product fit
“And in particular, in the really early days of a startup, I actually really like having services that are deeply engaged with one or two customers because That's how you really learn whether the product's actually going to work or not work and what are the iss…”
Skok: SoftBank's kingmaker strategy has not disrupted B2B SaaS
“Fortunately, in the B to B space, which is where I focus, we don't see that half as much, and it's much more important than to have a rational strategy for customer acquisition. So we haven't yet seen SoftBank enter into the B to B space and do a kingmaker str…”
Skok: HubSpot originally launched with flat $500/month pricing and no expansion axis
“So in, in HubSpot's case, we started with us with an idea that simplicity was going to be great. And so we had one price point, which was 500 bucks a month, 6000 dollars a year for every single customer, regardless of what was going on. And there was no expans…”
Skok avoids reading startup commentary to keep his writing original
“I'm because of not wanting to pollute my brain with other people's ideas. I'm actually fairly careful to stay away from reading too much of what other people are saying about startups. And that's, it may sound like a really odd thing, but I always want to be w…”