RevOps Review from Nue

As customer preferences change, we’re seeing a push for product-led growth. But this “push” often comes in the form of executives demanding a shift to PLG — and soon after realizing the transition was ill-conceived, and taking back the change. Perhaps the best way forward is to acknowledge that there are many possible ways to integrate product-led and sales-led growth motions together — and the sales “stack” is less about a linear “stack” and more about a “blend” of technologies and strategies that work for your customers.Sam Levan, CEO of MadKudu, spoke about the state of product-led growth and other key sales motions with Kate McCollough, Nue.io co-founder. They discuss why every company needs to strike a unique balance between hybrid PLG + SLG motions, and what it actually takes to make that happen.- Listen to the podcast, or read the transcript below to learn some key insights about a hybrid strategy, including:- How to promote alignment between product, marketing, and sales departments, including the critical role of KPIs. - The implications of SaaS innovation outpacing what legacy tech stacks can support.- Why it’s best to approach modern sales motions as a spectrum, rather than a choice of several discrete options.

Salesforce is more than just a customer system of record — it’s an infrastructure and a platform-as-a-service. FoundHQ CEO Max Maeder talks with Kate McCullough and Tina Kung, Nue.io cofounders, about the unique value that only Salesforce can provide as a company’s infrastructure matures.In this podcast, the three discuss how Salesforce’s acquisition strategy and AppExchange have equipped the platform to fulfill almost any business need. While product and engineering teams will need to change some strategies to call on Salesforce as a PaaS, doing so can accelerate bringing a product vision to life.The podcast explores how Salesforce can also serve as a data hub, allowing continuity through critical sales processes like quote-to-cash, which benefits both the customer and teams working behind-the-scenes.To learn more about streamlining the quote-to-cash process with Salesforce-native tooling, visit nue.io.

Nue cofounders Kate McCullough and Tina Kung sit down with Peter Lukens on all things usage-based consumption models. They emphasize how usage-based pricing aligns the value of a product with what the customer derives from it,  and look at various scenarios where usage-based pricing is appropriate, highlighting that it's not one-size-fits-all, it depends on how customers consume your products.

Is your tech stack fueling your revenue? Or standing in its way?Cofounder Kate McCullough recently sat down with Art Harding the COO of Tapcart (Formerly People.ai and New Relic—aka a true RevOps expert), to discuss important considerations when tackling your tech stack, no matter what stage company you are. They talk through important frameworks for evaluation (from the Eisenhower model to a standard maturation model and beyond) as well as how to advocate for and implement the right technology. 

Finance teams are built on the accuracy of their data—and the strength of the metrics that get them that data. So it makes sense to focus in on these metrics and really hone the ones that will work for your business. But if your analytics aren’t producing clean, up to the minute numbers, you risk throwing your whole system into chaos. We sat down with Financial wizard and CFO at Freshworks, Tyler Sloat, for an education on the SaaS metrics leadership will ask for, which metrics matter most for exec teams, why it’s so hard to get to them, and how to make sure your data comes back clean and accurate, every time.

Pricing a SaaS (Software as a Service) can be challenging. Add in a recession and that challenge compounds with budget cuts and a more price sensitive market.  However, there are a few strategies you can use to help set a competitive price for your SaaS product during a recession. In short, the best pricing strategy (not the best price) will win long-term, even after the recession is over. But what are your options? And what are best practices along the way? We chatted with Jan Pasternak, VP of Pricing at Docusign, and Maggie Bouscaren, Strategy Director at Docusign on their top strategies to win in this market.

Startups are nimble—they get products to market quickly. As a result, revenue generation often happens before quote-to-cash solutions are fully thought out. Christina Liu, former VP of Zendesk, joins us to assert that startups should focus on getting their sales and billing tools right from the start. She warns about the dangers of piecemeal quote-to-cash tools and keeping sales and finance away from one another:“All of that resulted in dirty data coming to the revenue tool…my team spent a lot of time undoing some of these things to get a quote right,” she remembers. “And so it was like a double-edged sword—we were wasting a lot of internal calories on things that really didn't need to be so hard.”As Zendesk scaled, it added new products, introduced new pricing and packaging structures and moved upmarket to focus on enterprise customers with a direct sales motion—all of which had profound effects on the way Christina views RevOps and its impact on RevRec. So, her key takeaway became: why can’t we (and by we, we mean sales and finance) be friends?