SaaS buyers complete ~70% of the buying process before they speak to a vendor's sales organization. As a result more and more SaaS companies are leveraging interactive product demonstrations on their website which is the topic of today's episode. Natalie Marcotullio, Head of Growth at Navattic discusses their recent "State of Interactive Product Demonstrations" with our host Ray Rike where they cover multiple topics including:

• The State of Interactive Product Demonstrations
• To Gate or Not to Gate - what is the best practice
• Measuring the Impact of “Self-Directed” Interactive Demonstrations

In 2024, almost 12% of SaaS companies are providing interactive product demonstrations on their website which is an increase from 9.3% in 2023. Surprisingly, 73% of interactive demonstrations are not gated, and one primary reason is that non-gated interactive demonstrations have a 10% higher engagement rate.

How do we measure engagement on interactive demonstrations? Natalie highlighted four: 1) Number of users who get past step one of the demo; 2) Number of users who complete the demo; 3) Users who click at least one CTA to an external resource and; 4) time spent on the interactive demonstration.

Of course, at the end of the day measuring the outcomes from an investment in an interactive demo is critical, and the top two metrics that Natalie recommends include the number of qualified leads and win rate from those leads and users who engaged with the interactive demonstration.

If you are looking for new ways to engage with your target buyers and ensure your product is initially understood and evaluated by potential buyers, this is a great conversation to understand how to introduce and leverage the power of self-guided, interactive demonstrations on your website!

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The possibilities of combining AI with the collective intelligence from hundreds of B2B companies to increase their customer acquisition efficiency are limitless. Stephen Messer, Founder and CEO of Collective[I] shares his unique insights into how the potential is becoming a reality for many B2B companies. During today's episode, Stephen and our host, Ray Rike will cover the following topics:

• The vision behind founding Collective[I] and the Economic Foundation Model
• Why buyer’s historic behavior is more important than a selling process
• The challenges and benefits of a “give to get” collective for go-to-market data sharing

If you have ever used Waze to identify the shortest time from where you are to where you need to go, you understand the value of "collective intelligence". When you start to think about being able to understand which companies are most likely to buy your product and/or to understand why a specific customer buys, and who are the key decision makers you need to engage with, the possibilities that come to mind are limitless!

Stephen shares how a Neural Network (AI) is being applied to Go-to-Market data to help B2B companies materially increase the ROI on their customer acquisition investments.

Stephen shares how his experience founding LinkShare and the concept of affiliate networks is foundational to Collective[I]. Over 10 years ago, Stephen identified that salespeople create a new "roadmap" for every new opportunity. He envisioned building a network where everyone shares their sales process data anonymously so that the collective group can benefit from the collective wisdom generated by the group.

The result was building one large neural network and creating an economic foundation model trained on how buyers buy from real-world processes.

One of the fundamental premises is that companies cannot build their own neural network and thus not build their own foundational model - as they do not have the insights required into how new target companies actually buy.

If you are responsible for leading a B2B Sales team, rely upon a sales team to achieve your financial plan, or are an individual sales professional who would like to know more about how a target customer or existing prospect buys, this conversation is one of the most thought-provoking discussions that we have had on the Metrics that Measure Up podcast.

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SaaS company acquisition velocity will increase in 2025 and the role of marketplaces purpose built for buyer and sellers will become a must visit for both. If you are considering selling or buying a SaaS company, this discussion with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder and CEO at Acquire.com is a must listen. During the episode Andrew and our host, Ray Rike cover the following topics:

• The catalyst for founding Acquire.com
• The trends in B2B SaaS start-up and early stage company acquisitions
• Top lessons learned from the insights of hundreds of B2B SaaS acquisitions

Some of the key insights shared during the episode include:

• The value of preparing for the Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM)
• The importance of a discovery call with buyers prior to the Letter of Intent (LOI)
• The role of international buyers for U.S. companies
• Valuation expectations need to be realistic and reflect the current reality
• EBITDA is key for companies under $5M - know the current ranges
• Deal structures are widely varied - be open to different structures
• Growth Rate, Churn and Quality of Revenue are key metrics to highlight

If you are considering selling your SaaS company or a buyer thinking about buying an existing SaaS company, this conversation with Andrew Gazdecki, Founder and CEO of Acqiure.com is a must listen!

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HubSpot was an early mover in building a media asset inside a B2B SaaS company with the purchase of The Hustle in 2021. Rob Litterst is the Head of Growth for the HubSpot Media Network which has expanded far beyond those early days in building out their media network!

During today's episode, Rob and Ray discuss many aspects of building, growing and measuring the business impact of a media asset within a B2B SaaS company including:

• The vision for building a media asset within a B2B SaaS Company 
• Measuring the business impact of an internal media asset
• Lessons learned from growing the HubSpot media network

If you are a Chief Marketing Officer considering how or if to build a media brand within your B2B SaaS company, or a CFO or CEO considering approving the investment in developing media assets in our SaaS company, this conversation with some who have been involved in doing it at both ProfitWell (acquired by Paddle) and HubSpot provides insights that only come with the experiences of doing it in two of the industry's best examples!!!

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AI Monetization Strategies - Balancing Revenue and Adoption with Gary Survis and Ethan DeSilva, Insight Partners was a top rated session at SaaS Metrics Palooza '24 that is a can't miss conversation for anyone in SaaS interested in how B2B SaaS companies are introducing, pricing and monetizing AI functionality.

Key points covered during this conversation include:

• Is it the time to charge existing customers more
• AI Scalability Gap from individual tasks to cross-functional workflows is a challenge
• Adoption before Monetization
• As value increase the monetization strategy will evolve

If you are considering launching new AI functionality in your SaaS product or already have and are rethinking the pricing strategy this episode is a great listen

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Poya Osgouei has been responsible for securing sponsorships for some of the largest B2B events including SaaStr, Lenny's and Friends Summit, Elevate by Plato and shares his insights on the future of B2B tech events.

During this episode, Poya and Ray discuss the following topics:

• The state of B2B tech events
• The future of B2B tech events
• Community, Brand or Revenue - the "why" behind B2B tech events
• The Power of Networking
• The ROI of B2B tech events

If you are considering hosting a b2b tech event, sponsoring a b2b tech event or attending a b2b tech event, this episode is chalked full of insights, perspectives and the return on investment thesis to consider.

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As SaaS pricing evolves to be more variable in nature, such as in Usage-Based Pricing or Value-Based Pricing the requirements for a more flexible billing platform that also enhances the customer experience and also becomes a foundational component of financial reporting.

Apurv Bansal, founder at Zenskar is converting that evolving need into a next generation billing platform. During this conversation with Apurv, our host Ray Rike covers the following topics with Apurv:

• The evolving nature of Usage-Based pricing and its Impact on Billing Software Requirements
• The role of customer experience in billing -
• Revenue Management - beyond manual processes and platforms
• Revenue Operations - The impact of Billing Platforms

Recent benchmarking research indicates that over 50% of B2B SaaS companies are leveraging some level of variable pricing, such as Usage-Based Pricing and Value-Based Pricing. If a company's billing is not based upon a flat-rate subscription model, such as a "seat-based" model, the vendor knows the # users BEFORE the next months or years invoice is being calculated - because it is based upon the contact.

In a Usage-Based Pricing model - the number of units required to create the bill/invoice needs to come from both the agreement and the "store of usage". This adds a significant level of nuance and complexity to the next generation of SaaS billing.

When monthly invoicing is highly variable and dependent the latest usage - not only is calculating the monthly charges become more complex - the customer now needs a more detailed "customer usage report", which may also may need to be provided by user, by system or by whatever triggers a usage based trigger leading to a charge.

If you are currently using or considering introducing a highly variable pricing model, and are considering both the infrastructure and the customer experience resulting from monthly invoices which vary materially based upon usage - this conversation is a highly informative and educational on the evolution of pricing models and the resultant billing technology required.

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As B2B SaaS companies scale beyond $20M the complexity of their internal process, systems and SaaS metrics calculations become much more complex. As companies begin to consider a next round of financing and/or evaluate the strategic acquisition option, being able to quickly and reliably provide potential investors the metrics that matter to them is a key factor in how investors will determine not only the "if they will invest" but also "what the enterprise value" is.

During this episode, Ray discusses the below topics with J.T. Cecchini, CEO of LevelUp Finance:

• SaaS Reporting RoadMap
• 5x5 Reporting Matrix
• LevelUp Finance Valuation Framework
• A Reporting ScoreCard

If you are a CEO, CFO or Revenue Operations leader who is responsible for ensuring the financial reporting and metrics infrastructure, data and processes are ready to scale and stand up to the scrutiny of potential investors, this episode is a great listen!!!

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Godard Abel, CEO of G2 and Chad Gold, CFO at G2 led a session at SaaS Metrics Palooza 24'. This is an audio only version of their fireside chat with Metrics that Measure Up host, Ray Rike.

During this episode, Godard, Chad and Ray discuss the following topics:

• When does a company need to hire a CFO
• What is the partnership dynamics between a CEO and CFO
• What are the investor and board responsibilities for a CEO vs CFO at G2
• What metrics become more important as a company scales to $100M ARR and above

If you are a B2B SaaS company, you already know G2 and this conversation is a great opportunity to learn how they use metrics to lead the company to the next level of success!

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Imagine a career journey starting as a software developer at NASA, then a B2C video service developer, moving on to the role of a general manager at game developer Zynga, and next heading to be the Head of Growth at Postmates - an early to food delivery service and now founding an FP&A platform company for the Office of Finance - that is the journey of Siqi Chen, Founder and CEO at Runway!

During this conversation, we cover three topics with Siqi including:

• The catalyst for founding a B2B FP&A software company
• The evolution of the Office of Finance
• The importance of User Experience for B2B Software

Siqi highlighted his lack of comfort with company financials as a primary catalyst for founding a Financial Planning and Analysis software company. During Covid, Siqi was required to quickly "re-plan" his company financials to present to his VC investor, Andreessen Horowitz and began to understand the pain of existing financial planning processes and the associated software.

One of the primary beliefs that Siqi brings to FP&A is that finance has historically been about reporting, but going into the future will become a strategic function and requires a deeper level of business understanding and the ability to model multiple possible scenarios to develop clarity of the path forward.

Siqi highlighted the importance of providing the board a solid forward-looking plan, but also the ability to leverage real-time data across multiple systems to aid the decision-making process.  As a company evolves, the number of business systems increases materially and creates a real challenge in using spreadsheets to model business scenarios that depend upon data from multiple systems.

Viewing a model as a "business simulation", using strategies from game development is a unique perspective that Siqi's experience in gaming company Zynga. One of the barriers in moving beyond Excel is that as companies scale, it is not about eliminating the use of Excel, it is about highlighting the existing pains of using Excel for financial modeling including the increasing challenges of ingesting data from multiple systems, collaboration across multiple departments and being able to plan on a segment by segment basis.

Another challenge in growing companies is that every department has its own "excel model" to plan its function, which is great for a smaller company, but makes it almost impossible to bring 4 - 5 different department models together into one master "company plan".  Hence the requirement for a company-wide FP&A solution that can facilitate collaboration between every department in building a company-wide plan.

Finally, we discussed how the learnings from the B2C world help in running a B2B company. First, Siqi highlighted that "unlearning" is a key trait as some strategies that work for building a consumer product do not easily translate into a B2B business. One of the key insights is the importance of speaking to the target users versus using your intuition. Another key un-learning is that the "users" of B2B software are typically NOT the buyers of the software, so the approach to both user experience and messaging must reflect the needs of the economic buyer and the users.

If you care about measurements, care about data and are looking for a better way to manage business modeling and having real-time data available to facilitate decision making - this conversation with Siqi is a great listen!

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