After taking over our personal lives, mobile products have now made their way into the workplace and mark the future of B2B SaaS. Find out what’s driving that momentum and what challenges lie ahead.

We recently published a report on the 2015 State of B2B Mobile Growth Metrics which was largely data driven. But often, data doesn’t tell the full story, which is why we collaborated with Adam Marchick of Kahuna on the report to add in the entrepreneur’s perspective. To tie it all together, I sat down with our friend Kevin Spain of Emergence Capital who gives an outside investor’s view on current market momentum, obstacles mobile B2B companies need to overcome and the many distinctions between mobile business apps and web-based products.

Listen to the full recording below to hear us speak with Kevin about why mobile is sparking the next revolution in tech.

This Week’s Guest

“When we look at where mobile is starting to make a really interesting impact it’s actually in some of these old line industries that historically have been laggards. The opportunity in the mobile world … is building mobile applications to address the 80% of the global workforce that has never had great technology to do their jobs.”

— Kevin Spain, General Partner at Emergence Capital

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Kevin Spain Podcast

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Key Takeaways

* The shift to mobile is similar to the shift to cloud platforms. When businesses like Salesforce pioneered the cloud, the appeal for buyers and vendors alike was flexibility and ease of use. Mobile offers the same opportunity and opens up entirely new categories of applications. As a result, we’re seeing a lot of opportunity in mobilizing or adding mobile adjuncts to existing cloud products.

* Mobile addresses the needs of an enormous market. Kevin points out that 80% of the global workforce don’t sit at desks. Mobile apps allow software companies to expand into industries like construction, manufacturing, and healthcare and deliver software solutions to users who have not traditionally relied on technology to do their jobs.

* For mobile there is an incredible premium you have to place on focus and simplicity. Of course, going mobile isn’t easy. OpenView’s mobile growth metrics report found that cheap and quick mobile development runs the risk of being ineffective, and Kevin’s experiences haven’t been any different. Product focus and simplicity have always been table stakes in enterprise SaaS, but they’re even more important in mobile.

* The days of being web-only are quickly moving behind us. While “mobile” is a blanket term to describe a wide range of product strategies (supplementary to a web-based product, native mobile, etc.), one truism is universal: we’re reaching the point where SaaS companies can no longer afford not to have a mobile presence.

* Monetization varies by application. Most companies with mobile applications are taking similar approaches to web-based software (per user/per month, etc.), but some are beginning to experiment with in-app purchases. Monetization will evolve as more companies experiment with pricing strategies and platforms like the App Store and Google Play allow for more sophisticated billing.

* There is a need for new mobile-specific metrics. Mobile-focused B2B SaaS companies rely on the same key metrics as trad...