Paint By Numbers: From Productized Service to SaaS

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

PAINT BY NUMBERS: FROM PRODUCTIZED SERVICE TO SAAS PATRICK MCKENZIE (PATIO11), STRIPE

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

PEOPLE SOME JAPANESE PEOPLE THINK I AM

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

No content

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

No content

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

$1,022,890

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

BRIEF BACKGROUND

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

No content

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

$280,000

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

DON’T START IN SAAS IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY AVOID IT

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

THINGS YOU’LL DO RUNNING A SAAS BUSINESS ▸ Develop an app

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

THINGS YOU’LL DO RUNNING A SAAS BUSINESS ▸ Develop an app ▸ Design ▸ Testing ▸ Server administration ▸ Security ▸ Automated Deploys ▸ DevOps ▸ User management ▸ Customer support ‣ Monitoring ‣ Emails ‣ Invoicing ‣ Bookkeeping ‣ Marketing site ‣ Admin application ‣ Backups ‣ Data import/export ‣ Onboarding

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

REPEATABLE SALES PROCESS

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

BUSINESS FIRST. SOFTWARE LATER.

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

YOUR TARGET FOR NEXT YEAR: $12K/MO

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

SELL TO BUSINESSES (*)

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

PRODUCTIZED CONSULTING THE GLIDE PATH TO SAAS

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

WHAT MAKES GOOD PRODUCTIZED CONSULTING OFFERINGS? ▸ Operations: run a business process for them ▸ Reporting / Analysis: pull the numbers & make recommendations ▸ Training: teach people what you know

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

CHARGE MORE

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

No content

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

WHAT TO CHARGE IF WE HAVE MULTIPLE PACKAGES? ▸ $49: I’ll teach; you do the work. ▸ $99: I’ll teach and inspire; you do the work. ▸ $249: I’ll teach, inspire, and get you started; you do the work.

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

WHAT TO CHARGE FOR TRAINING ▸ On-site: $5k per day, minimum two days, you pay travel. $3k if you record it. ▸ Online (private): $250 a seat (or $5k) + $3k if you want the videos, for 1/2 day ▸ Online (public): $99 for a lecture, $249 a half day

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

$800 A MONTH

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

THINGS TO BUILD, IN ORDER ▸ A landing page ▸ Three artifact to demonstrate expertise ▸ A sales page for the offering ▸ A one month email course which sells offering ▸ A “premium” / “lead magnet” for the email course ▸ The actual offering

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

WHAT’S ACTUAL PRODUCTIZED CONSULTING HEAVY ON? ▸ Your raw brainsweat. You do you, very well, already. ▸ Repeatable outcomes which are visible to clients. ▸ Process, process, process.

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

TURNING A PERFORMANCE INTO A ROUTINE ▸ Do it once by the seat of your pants. ▸ Write down what you did. ▸ Do it according to the script. ▸ Automate parts of the script.

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

SELL THINGS THE MARKET ALREADY BUYS

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

WHAT’S THAT LOOK LIKE FOR A REAL EXAMPLE? (BACKUP CZAR) ▸ 45 minute scoping call. ▸ Request for access to systems/services. ▸ “I’m going to do X for you every month. You will get your ﬁrst X in Y days.” ▸ “I’ve done X. Here’s your beautiful report.” ▸ “Thanks for your business. We will X again next month.”

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

USE REMARQ.IO

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

No content

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

AUTOMATE THE TOILSOME BITS

Slide 33

Slide 33 text

A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE FROM STRIPE (FORUM STATS) ▸ Data Source: Admin login on Discourse. ▸ Value Added Work: Counting. ▸ Reporting: I update a spreadsheet (Google docs).

Slide 34

Slide 34 text

A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE FROM STRIPE (FORUM STATS) ▸ Data Source: A backup of our Discourse database. ▸ Value Added Work: Load database locally. Write SQL queries by hand. ▸ Reporting: I update a spreadsheet (Google docs).

Slide 35

Slide 35 text

A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE FROM STRIPE (FORUM STATS) ▸ Data Source: A backup of our Discourse database. ▸ Value Added Work: Load database locally. Execute a rake task. Output a CSV ﬁle. ▸ Reporting: Copy/paste the CSV ﬁle into a spreadsheet (Google docs).

Slide 36

Slide 36 text

A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE FROM STRIPE (FORUM STATS) ▸ Data Source: Integrate with Discourse via a plugin. ▸ Value Added Work: Load database in a VM. Execute a rake task. Output a CSV ﬁle. Save stats in persistent DB. ▸ Reporting: Output the graph to a URL, behind a login.

Slide 37

Slide 37 text

SEEK THEE OUT INTEGRATIONS

Slide 38

Slide 38 text

FUNDAMENTAL THEORY OF RECURRING REVENUE BUSINESSES

Slide 39

Slide 39 text

RADICALLY MORE VALUE, FASTER, FOR MY BEST CUSTOMERS

Slide 40

Slide 40 text

SOFTWARE IS SOCIAL ▸ Aggressively solicit invitations to colleagues early in onboarding ﬂow. ▸ Write emails designed to be forwarded to other people. ▸ Integrate with Slack.

Slide 41

Slide 41 text

BUSINESSES ARE EXPENSIVE

Slide 42

Slide 42 text

RETURNS ARE BACK-WEIGHTED

Slide 43

Slide 43 text

MAKE FRIENDS. KEEP THEM.

Slide 44

Slide 44 text

I LOVE TALKING TO PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU ▸ @patio11 or [email protected] or [email protected] ▸ bit.ly/atlas-mc17 <— If you want to incorporate with Atlas (and please talk to me!) ▸ bit.ly/patio11-mc17 <— free course about lifecycle emails ▸ https://stripe.com/atlas/guide <— Nuts and bolts of business ▸ https://training.kalzumeus.com <— You all should be on my email list.