Fynn Glover’s Post

Hey #revops, #product, and #engineering leaders -- we were on a call this week with a RevOps leader, who has super strong insights & instincts on the #packaging problem in B2B SaaS. Will share what is effectively his #tedtalk on much of this in a future post :-). But for today, loved his decoupling of provisioning at initial acquisition vs. lifecycle jobs post-acquisition. We're on zoom, looking at the attached diagram, and discussing the painfulness of these jobs to be done as companies scale. He thinks for a bit, and then says, look, this all makes sense, but packaging infrastructure really needs to be broken into two sub-blocks. 1. There are provisioning jobs at initial acquisition. 2. Then there are long-term lifecycle management jobs: versioning and migrations, usage-based tracking and metering, managing-ons and tracking usage data. Most of the problems don't present themselves when I sign a new customer. The problems present themselves later on after the initial contract. Those post-acquisition life cycle problems are frankly much harder than provisioning at the time of initial customer acquisition.

hey #revops, #product, & #engineering leaders... Last week, I talked about the split between provisioning complexity pre-acquisition vs. post...I also alluded to what is effectively a world-class ted talk with us on this topic. Read on for great insights from Kayvan Dastgheib-Beheshti about the challenge of managing our customers across their lifecycle as... ...our products mature...as our business scales to hundreds & thousands of customers...as customers come to have concurrent contracts... as our billing models evolve... and as we have to continue to couple pricing & packaging logic in our codebases.... ____ "When your company is just starting out, managing customers is straightforward. You know each customer personally, and everyone in the company is aware of their needs and interactions. But as your business grows, the game changes. At sub $1 million in revenue, handling customer data might seem like a breeze. You receive a CSV file, upload it, and voila, you're good to go. Fast forward to $10 million, and you might still get by with a small customer success team. However, the real challenge emerges as you hit that $40-50 million mark. You're dealing with hundreds of customers, some of whom are major enterprises, and you can't keep everything in your head anymore. This is where it gets tricky, especially with concurrent contracts. Picture it like a game of 'Hungry, Hungry Hippos' – you're not sure which ball (contract) goes to which hippo (team). RevOps and DevOps teams are often understaffed at this point, and you haven't invested in data engineering. The problem persists until you hit the $100 million+ mark, and it dawns on you that you should've hired a VP of data engineering ages ago. The initial hands-on approach to managing customers becomes unmanageable at scale. So, what's the solution? You need a crosswalk between your customer management and product environments, but you didn't build it initially, and your processes weren't designed for it. As your customer base grows into the thousands, manually keeping track of who's who becomes impossible. The key takeaway: Start thinking about infrastructure and processes for scaling customer management early on to avoid the chaos that comes with growth."

If there's one industry where "connection" is more than just a buzzword, it's telecom. But let's talk about what happens behind the scenes—because it’s not just about towers and bandwidth; it’s about the product managers who make it all work. Take my friend XXXX, a product manager. Last week, she was juggling five projects, three customer demos, and a team of developers who decided to upgrade their coffee game (leading to some interesting Slack conversations). While everyone else was debating the merits of oat milk vs. almond milk, XXXX was busy orchestrating the launch of a new customer portal. And guess what? It went live without a hitch! In product management, you need to be part therapist, part negotiator, and part fortune teller. You’re the one who connects the dots between what the engineers are building and what the customers need. And in telecom, the stakes are high—because if you get it wrong, everyone loses signal. So here's to the product managers who keep us connected, even when they feel disconnected from sleep. Whether you're brainstorming new features or translating tech jargon into something the rest of us can understand, you're the unsung heroes of the telecom world. As someone leading a team of such PMs- it is imperative we gave them their much needed due. 🙂 Keep those ideas flowing, keep the coffee brewing, and remember: without you, we'd all be stuck playing Snake on our old Nokia phones. 🐍📞 #ProductManagement #TelecomTech #Innovation #Empathy

One thing that I realized while transitioning from Engineering to Product, and then a bit of Sales, is that each segment believes their domain is the most crucial for business success. 👨💻 Engineers think good practices and performance metrics create great products. Example: Google dominated the search engine space in the 2000s with PageRank, despite a very limited UI. 💡 PMs believe that lovable features matter most to users, not the technical implementation. Example: HotOrNot (before Tinder) made matchmaking easier and enjoyable, despite being buggy as hell. 📊 Sales teams focus on client relationships and customer perception over actual product features. Example: Outlook/MS Teams are the go-to for most enterprises, despite the products lacking certain usability principles, and with many technical issues. Thoughts?

Client success, customer service, client support…I've worked with the best, like Beth Yehaskel at Dell, Frank Mendoza, MBA and Elizabeth Loucheur at WorkTango, Seth Snyder at Rabbit, and Kerli Rungi and Summer Weisberg at Testlio.   My number one learning from them? Exceptional B2B service fuels growth and retention by making customers' lives a little less frustrating and their work a little more productive. In my opinion, B2B client success teams are the number one reason companies thrive.   Yesterday I witnessed some of the best customer success in my career. I was invited to see how the client success leadership at SproutVideo performs magic. G2 review data positions them ahead of the pack for service. I'm talking ahead of publicly-traded and freakishly well-funded video hosting companies. After yesterday's behind-the-scenes experience, I see why:   1. They respond to their Zendesk support tickets faster than a speeding bullet.   2. They don't use bots, AI, or automation. Real people quickly responding to real people. 3. No outsourcing, offshoring, or nearshoring. It's all in-house.  4. They care and take the time to research solutions, even if the challenge is outside the scope of what SproutVideo offers.    Thanks, Tom and Derrick for sharing your day-in-the-life and for being excellent at what you do. #clientsuccessstory #video #G2 #zendesk

Ever wondered what sets successful tech products apart? It's all in the Product Strategy! 📈✨ Consider Twilio 📞 Here, we didn't just focus on building features; we embedded compliance into the core product strategy. 🛡️ This move led to a significant increase in customer trust and a notable boost in retention rates. 📊📈 But let's dive deeper. Here’s why a robust product strategy is a game-changer: Market Alignment: Understanding market needs and aligning your product can lead to a ~30% faster adoption rate. 🏃♂️💨 Technical Excellence: Focusing on scalable architecture and robust APIs ensures your product can grow with demand, reducing technical debt by 40%. 🛠️💡 Compliance as a Feature: Integrating compliance can prevent costly fines and enhance user trust. For Twilio, this meant fewer legal headaches and more loyal customers. 🔒📜 A well-thought-out product strategy isn't just about immediate wins; it's about building a foundation for long-term success. 🌍🔑 So, next time you think about your product, remember: strategy isn't just a plan—it's your blueprint for innovation and growth! 🚀✨ #ProductStrategy #TechExcellence #Compliance #Twilio #Innovation #GrowthHacking What strategic elements do you consider crucial for your product's success? Let's discuss! 💬👇

Elevate Your Success with Game-Changing Innovation! Unveiling the Secrets of Success and Strategies for Sustainable Differentiation in Product-Led Growth In today's fast-paced tech landscape, the paradigm of product-led growth has reshaped traditional sales-led approaches. Grammarly, Dropbox, Slack, and Zoom stand as prime examples of how innovation and customer-focused experiences have propelled them to the forefront of their respective industries. This strategic shift challenges the notion that traditional sales tactics are irreplaceable for driving product growth, showcasing the power of freemium models and seamless user onboarding in stimulating subscription upgrades. The benefits of product-led growth are profound, offering high-margin formulas, reduced customer acquisition costs, heightened customer retention, streamlined lead conversion, technological innovation, exceptional user experience, and strategic partnership opportunities. What are your thoughts on product innovation? #productdesign #innovation #growth #productgrowth #productmanagement

What is a Product-Led Company? A product-led company is an organizational approach that prioritizes the product itself as the primary driver of growth, customer acquisition, and success. In a product-led company, the product takes center stage in the company's strategy, and the entire organization is built around creating a valuable and user-centric product. Examples of product-led companies include Dropbox, Slack, Zoom, and HubSpot. These companies have experienced significant success by putting their products at the forefront of their growth strategies and empowering users to become advocates for their brands. #itjobs #productmanagement

CONGRATULATIONS to the Verticalmove, Inc Direct-Hire (FTE) Recruiting team for filling a LEAD PRODUCT MANAGEMENT position within an Innovation Laboratory embedded within a well-known Fortune 50 client. DID YOU KNOW that Verticalmove, Inc leverages an AI-powered digital skills assessment platform, which leverages audio, video, and image proctoring to confirm identity authenticity, location, and overall competency? Our skills assessment platform distills a hiring decision into a simple score and ranking system for our clients, which further helps our team achieve measurable consistency, remove unconscious bias, and improve hiring outcomes. Amazing work team! Are you staffing for your digital transformation project? Please reach out and say hello@verticalmove.com #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #advancedanalytics #spatialcomputing #augmentedreality #virtualreality #cloudcomputing #digitaltransformation #publiccloud #privatecloud #hybridcloud #saasjobs #enterprisesoftware #fintechjobs #financeinnovation #saasstartup #saasplatform #fullstackjobs #fullstackengineer #fullstackdeveloper #healthcare

💼 Last week, during a discussion with one of the product managers, we found ourselves pondering the eternal question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? 🤔 Sales teams crave new products to showcase, while product teams rely on ground insights from Sales to create those very products. It's a delicate dance of collaboration and understanding. 💡 As someone involved in selling to large tech businesses, I've realized there's no one-size-fits-all answer or rigid structure to this dilemma. In the dynamic world of SaaS, particularly for growing companies, the landscape is ever-evolving. With lighter R&D investments compared to traditional industries, we're witnessing a trend: create, implement, fail/success and repeat. 📈 Interestingly, when we delve into the data of successful SaaS companies, the narrative shifts. They allocate ~ 15% to 22% of their revenue to R&D 📊 Personally I see an evolving role of the in-house RnD department in growing SaaS companies to bridge the gap between Sales and Product teams to create newer markets and products respectively. #Sales #Product #saas #rnd