Susanne Klepsch

Learn how to fine-tune your product to meet market demands with strategic customer conversations and data-driven feedback mechanisms 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Brian Long, CEO & Co-Founder at Attentive 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Nick Moran, General Partner at New Stack Ventures and Nate Pierotti, Principal at New Stack Ventures ✏ “The Playbook to Finding Product-Market Fit, When Founders Should Begin to Scale, and Lessons from Building Attentive” ⭐ 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀: 💬 "I think that what we got right were two things. One, I think that we talked to a tremendous amount of customers, before we started building things. So we learned to hear their problems, hear their issues, and then start building and assaulting those, you know, rather than kind of just jumping right into build-build-build, so that saved us a lot of time." ⭐ 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸, 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀: 💬 "I think you're also looking at things like NPS, you know… because if that number starts dropping, it's often because you're no longer solving the problem." ⭐ 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗺 𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆: 💬 "I think that we've taken an even longer term focus. We know what can be big. And we know it's dangerous to start getting an ego to think you can do things because it's always very hard. You've always got to think towards taking a longer term view, having a thesis around that view, and then understand how the pieces can come together for success." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Most startups measure Time to Value in the wrong perspective When is your customer receiving value? TTV can vary greatly. I suggest kicking off the client engagement by asking them to agree on a joint success plan. For example: if you load data on day 1, and they suddenly have better insights than they had before your purchasing your product, aren't they receiving value? This could only be the first of 5 modules that they need to get started with, but now they are receiving value at the beginning, instead of waiting until the end of implementation. This thinking will reset the conversation from "having all the features live by x day" to customers seeing value from the beginning. At the kickoff call, ask the 3 most important outcomes that they are looking for by using your software. When you achieve outcome 1, celebrate it. Rinse and repeat

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Blueprints of a $4B success story: How focusing on the right team, structured employee integration, and a strong cultural foundation can propel your startup 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Garrett Langley, Founder & CEO of Flock Safety 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Logan Bartlett, Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures ✏ “The $4B Tech Startup Solving Crime with AI” ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺, 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀: "I am a staunch believer that people and products trump market. I think great teams build great products and find great markets. I don't know any other way to do it... And so I've just always believed if you have a great team, the rest comes with that." ⭐ 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝟵𝟬-𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟯𝟬 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀: "What we tend to do is put together a very actionable 90-day plan for every new employee. Are people actually gonna make an impact? Is the plan actionable? And what that does is it drives this deep level of alignment between a new employee. Because you're effectively telling them this is how I'm going to keep score…" ⭐ 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀, 𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: "If you don't write your culture down, it is inherently weak. In the absence of a written culture, your culture will just fade away. And in a remote environment, even harder, right? Because you don't see these people, you don't interact with people." ⭐ 𝗘𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗢𝗞𝗥𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀: "I expect anyone pretty much VP and above to own at least one if not two OKRs. One of the ways we're able to do that is every two weeks when we do a check-in, whoever is the owner is actually the one writing the update and it goes to the entire team." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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At our VC firm, we don't just fund companies, we fund your existential crises. Every investment comes with a complimentary philosophy book. #vc #startups #investment

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Running a startup is lonely. I just joined @Intro as an Expert. Happy to talk about the stuff you can't google ⤵️ ✔️ How to launch an MVP ✔️ Finding product-market fit ✔️ Early-stage fundraising ✔️ All things product ✔️ ... and more No fluff. Just actionable insights from my experiences as 3x venture-backed founder (w/ 2 exits).

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A big thing I disliked about embedded wallet (and WaaS) pricing when I was looking at solutions from the customer point-of-view was the set of hidden costs and general misalignment with our core business success metrics. 1. "Monthly Active Users" are rarely an accurate representation of the user base segment that does contribute meaningfully to revenue growth for the app or platform. Few users activate, an even fewer users drive businesses forward (80-20 Rule). 2. Hidden costs: the bill gets pretty $$$ when you start layering AML & sanctions screening on deposits & withdrawals to comply with US regulations, acceptable SLAs & support, white labeling, custom auth methods, RPC node provider, spam users creation, etc.. Time to change this broken model! 📖⤵️ https://lnkd.in/ew83TxRh

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💸 ➡️ 🧠 Time to dive back into some REAL work, after a fun week chasing LP in Berlin. Look forward to connecting with AI experts, founders, and corporates to discuss "Autonomous Transformation" for legacy industries. #ai #automaton #aisummit

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[new investment] A bit late...but stoked to participate in the $6Mn seed round of Loop AI - Delivery Intelligence Platform alongside Base10 and Afore Capital. Loop's AI-powered platform helps multi-location food chains manage their operations via data-driven workflows including managing store availability, insights-driven marketing, delivery accounting reconciliation, financial intelligence, and driving store performance. Anand Karthik T. is one of the most intense founders I have met, who is also executing like a beast. This was one of those cases where I committed to invest in the first meeting and was also (I think!) one of the first investors to commit. Looking forward to partnering in the trenches to build this out! PS: after a bit of a gap, will be announcing 2 more investments soon. Stay tuned! https://lnkd.in/dkvNai2W

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📰 Solo VCs are rising in popularity once again. This means only one General Partner is leading the firm, versus multiples. 💔 Why? There are GP breakups going on all around us after partnerships have been tested by the market for years now. The bar to co-found a venture firm with a partner is very high. Those GPs that thought they might graft another one on in the short term to share the load are stopping in their tracks to deeply consider those implications. 🌱 Many are opting to bring in more junior talent and grow them into Partner roles instead. It’ll take time and capital to be able to do that as the firm grows. Talked to 3 diff GPs about this at dinner last night and we’re all leaning toward that approach in our short and long term planning. 💡 FYI - this is just an observation of the moment we’re in. There are plenty of firms thriving with full partnerships as well as solo GPs. But it’s worth calling out that new partnerships are particularly risky right now, especially if the partners haven’t worked with each other for a long time.

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Stripe's decoupling of their value-added services from payment processing is commendable. Clayton Christensen would tell you: “When there is a performance gap — when product functionality and reliability are not yet good enough to address the needs of customers in a given tier of the market — companies must compete by making the best possible products. In the race to do this, firms that build their products around proprietary, interdependent architectures enjoy an important competitive advantage against competitors whose product architectures are modular, because the standardization inherent in modularity takes too many degrees of design freedom away from engineers, and they cannot not optimize performance.” Digital payments had significant performance gaps and both Stripe and Adyen saw this and approached it with a similar mindset back when they launched 10 + years ago. But a lot has happened in 10 years to close that performance gap. Again, from Christensen: “Once their requirements for functionality and reliability have been met, customers begin to redefine what is not good enough. What becomes not good enough is that customers can’t get exactly what they want exactly when they need it, as conveniently as possible. Customers become willing to pay premium prices for improved performance along this new trajectory of innovation in speed, convenience, and customization.” At Spreedly, we saw this change occur somewhere between 2017 - 2018. We went from a fringe idea (why would you want to work with multiple providers?) to hearing “Even the best provider places restraint on our product roadmap and growth. We need to build in flexibility from the get-go/now" I’m sure Stripe has known this for the last couple of years. This would be a gigantic engineering task to make happen though - a very impressive accomplishment. For existing PSPs and payment platforms like Spreedly that have always had an open platform mindset, this is excellent validation via a major market participant. And for merchants, there is more choice than ever when building the ultimate payment stack.

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Imagine you’re meeting a VC today and pitching your company. Now, also imagine the VC goes home tonight and tells his or her spouse about the meeting with you. How do you think the VC would (or should) describe your product to the spouse? Remember, this is for someone who doesn’t have any context, and probably doesn’t have time to listen the whole story. If you can think of a story version that's plain and simple -- how you want the VC to describe your product to the spouse -- perhaps that version should be your pitch in the first place?

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Check out the new investor report of Startup Insider - with interesting input for startups and VCs. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eM4cRnNa .

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Very interesting thoughts Vincent Zhu From my time here in NYC, I experienced: Culture: The conversations can be about whatever you want it to be about. At founder / investor networking events, I have heard people start conversations anything from: "So what trends are you seeing in the cybersecurity space right now?" (VC to VC) "Are you in NY only for Fintech Week? If so, where are you from originally?" (VC to Founder) "What does your fund focus on?" (Founder to VC) Connectivity: I feel surprised. I find that the only people I know in the entire city are industry people (in my case, I just keep running into #VCs) History: I don't know - I am new here so perhaps when people name drop, it is possible I just don't know who they are sometimes. I do agree that NYC is such a land of opportunity and I am excited to see your series!

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A recent conversation with a founder: His company developed a B2B SaaS product. They showed some initial promise but ultimately couldn’t achieve meaningful growth. They didn’t reach product/market fit. Then they kept developing more features. And some more features. All of a sudden, they had a product with 12 different main features, none of which was a killer differentiator. The product surface area was so large that the engineering team was always busy just maintaining the codebase. As founders, we all know this isn’t the best way to go. But avoiding this trap is easier said than done — it's just how human psychology works. We get backed into a corner, and our instinct is to work harder and do more things. Occasionally, in the history of products, there have been those that were stuck but finally achieved breakthrough growth with that one key feature. We feel we have to keep the team busy; we can’t have them idle. The list goes on. That’s why, when stuck, sometimes the team needs to slow down at least a little bit and use their brains more than their bodies (i.e., building more features). Startups don’t have abundant resources, so the only edge they can have is to do one thing (which will turn out to be the game changer) really well. It’s about finding that one game-changing thing, not doing more things.

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"You can have a great product, but a compelling story puts the company into motion" - This quote from well-known VC Ben Horowitz hits hard.... Crafting a compelling narrative is pivotal for both written and verbal communication with investors, and here’s why: Connection and Engagement: A well-told story creates an emotional connection with investors, making your pitch memorable. Facts and figures are essential, but it is the narrative that stays with the audience and lands your message with impact. Be authentic and make sure to connect and understand your audience rather than bombard with facts straight off the bat. Clarity of Vision: Storytelling helps articulate the vision and mission of your startup in a clear and relatable manner. It allows investors to see the bigger picture and understand the long-term goals and potential impact of your venture. This is SO useful in highly scientific fields that the generalist will struggle to grasp. They must understand the size and scale of this opportunity which then adds context to the detail on "the how" Simplifying Complexity: High-growth startups most likely deal with complex technologies and markets. A good story breaks down these complexities into digestible and engaging elements, making it easier for investors to grasp your concept and its viability. Simon Sinek's famous 'Start With Why' Ted talk sums this up expertly. Explain your secret sauce as if you are giving a talk to a primary school audience and start with your Why! Building Trust: A compelling narrative builds credibility and trust. It demonstrates your passion, commitment, and depth of understanding - crucial for gaining investor confidence who are often too busy to understand detailed complexities. A calm narrative told in a structured fashion gives a feeling of control and knowledge. As founders and technical operators, mastering the art of storytelling is a highly underrated skill. It is the story that breathes life into your numbers and strategies, making your pitch not just a presentation, but an invitation to join a journey to scale!! #vcfundraising #fundraising #venturecapital #startup #scaleup #venturecapital #investors #seed #seriesa #funding

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#1 Rule for Scaling Founders: Never Delegate Product Market Fit. I once delegated product market fit. Over my dead body will I ever do it again. "Experts", VCs & big company operators will relentlessly pressure to delegate you to more experienced hands. Resist the smooth appeal of "executive function" to manage at a high level. Do the opposite. Hold everything as close as you can. Ultimately, you will need to delegate, and when you do, do so roughly in the below order. Your own order may change a little bit based on your exact business skillset. Delegate functions in this order: -Legal -Accounting -HR Administration -Strategic Finance -Operations -Demand Generation -Sales -Customer Success -Engineering -Storytelling -Recruiting **Product Market Fit** (never delegate) Product Market fit is the job of the founder. It's different by channel and segment and changes over time.

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The journey from $1 to $10M in ARR is typically an exercise in finding your first channel-market fit as a GTM/Marketing leader and/or founder. After prioritizing the top 1-3 channels you believe are most likely to be a fit for your product, finding channel-market fit is typically an exercise in experiments and iterations. If you’re flying blind bc you don’t have the systems, processes, and data hygiene setup to measure and test quickly inside a framework, it’s going to be a difficult journey. Check out the podcast I did with the team at Evron for more mistakes to avoid on your journey from $1M to $10M ARR.

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If your SaaS *still* processes subscription cancelations manually, I... don't know what to tell you. Most startups are built for scale. The administrative cost of having someone follow up with every customer and process their cancelation manually? It adds up. Fast. Moreover, many cancelations happen near the date of renewal. Meaning, once your startups experiences moderate growth, you'll find yourself refunding payments to upset customers who were charged for an extra term... ... unless, that is, you hire a full-time person to deal with this. This begs the question: is this what you had in mind when you first launched your startup? There are better ways to deal with Active Churn — ways that don't add five figures to your payroll, ways that aren't cumbersome and frustrating for customers, ways that are proven to increase retention by up to 39% *without* more than a few lines of code. Curious to see how it looks? Comment here (or shoot me a DM) and I'd be happy to give you a demo! #b2b #saas #churn #startups #revenuegrowth

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