The numbers are in, and they are hot, hot, hot 🔥!
After (officially) closing the books on 2023, I can start cranking up the heat on this year’s goals. But before we get cooking on the main course for 2024, let’s take one last look back on our journey together in 2023.
Here’s a preview of the rocks we shipped, the numbers we hit, and our top 25 list!
Did your favorite creator make the list?
Not a growth hack you hear every day. Raising at a flashy $350M Series A valuation comes with a lot of publicity. But to juice up those inbound signups, you need to tweet about your round first.
Last year, VCs were on a hunger craze for AI companies, but Rewind’s founder set off a feeding frenzy by publicly tweeting about the company’s pitch deck. The tweet went viral, gaining 2M impressions and attracting 170 offer letters.
But that’s not all folks. Rewind had a PLG engine that used viral loops to sustain its newfound growth momentum.
A new growth lever unlocked! For the companies and creators who host a podcast, you may want to take notes on this marketing hack.
This founder boosted his outreach reply rate and converted more customers by doing this one thing. Here’s the scoop.
After interviewing a podcast guest, Iempire’s founder reaches out to anyone who likes or comments on his Twitter post about it. The key ingredient is the social proof he leverages to extend his reach into the guest’s audience base. An effective way to gain followers and nurture leads. Genius!
Read like a war story…David Sacks recalls his battles with the Sales team during his time on the frontlines of a startup.
Filled with problem after problem, this may read as a dig on Sales, but it’s really a roadmap to avoid potential pitfalls.
The biggest takeaway for me? Fixing incentives is only a partial solution to adjust behavior. Be sure to review your processes, team structure, and culture to lay the right foundation for fruit to bear. It’s true, that people respond to incentives, but they also adapt to the environment they’re in.
Product, price, place, and promotion. What do these all have in common? They put the “P” in “competitive analysis PROcesses“ – told you there was a “p” in there.
(Bad) jokes aside, a competitor analysis helps to optimize your product placements and outlook. By doing a monthly review of what your competitors are up to, you can make decisions about how you go to market and what features you may need to add.
A good place to start is reviewing the content your competitors are writing about. A few questions to look for include, whether there is a common theme or a certain end-market they are catering towards.
Dave keeps himself honest with a review of his 2023 predictions and gives us a peek into this year’s outlook. Unsurprisingly, AI is at the center. He sees AI upleveling vendor solutions, GTM efficiency, and traditional search in 2024. Is he spot on? Only time will tell.
But the hot take that I really heated my pancakes this morning was around outbounding. But the hot take that I really heated my pancakes this morning was around outbounding. More and more CEOs are abandoning the traditional wide-outbound motion and pairing it with a precise ABM target list.
Is the 'Predictable Revenue' playbook dead in the water? Or is outbound a glacier with more under the surface?
It feels like 2023 is a distant memory. If you’re like me and in need of a refresher, Janelle's article is a must-read. It not only recaps the major events of last year but also offers insights into what 2024 might hold.
What really caught my attention, though, is her piece on the four waves of AI. Here's a sneak peek. Janelle outlines the evolution of AI, starting from the foundational work of academics, followed by infrastructure builders, then application developers, and finally the entry of capitalists.
Dive into how this layering influences Janelle’s outlook for this year.
A showdown on top of every marketer’s mind right now. the undisputed champ goes head-to-head with today’s crowdpleaser. This title fight will determine, pound-for-pound, who writes better content and why.
On one side, AI hits hard with efficiency and idea generation, saving marketers time and enabling creativity in the fine print. But the content that really drives engagement are those that rely on experiences and in-house expertise.
Humans have the upper hand here. What do you think?
Friction often has a bad rap when it comes to marketing. The common concern is that the higher the friction, the lower the conversion rate.
But like most sayings, there are two sides to every story. And this CEO’s writeup shows how more friction led to higher growth.
Equals, a data integrated spreadsheet, started off with a freemium model. Post launch, users grew like a hockey stick. But after a few months, growth stalled, and it did for a while. So the company pivoted to a free trial, and things really took off. Bobby’s article is a must read!
2023 was a year spent in the trenches. For many SaaS founders and operators, we overhauled our strategies, tightened our budgets, and sharpened our focus on efficiency.
And SaaS Weekly was there every step of the way. We weren’t there to break the news, but we were there to guide your growth.
We sifted through the noise and surfaced the signal. All to help you discover the strategies and tactics you might have missed otherwise. So, as we close the chapter on the year, we reviewed where readers were finding the most value.
Here’s a roundup of the most clicked-on SaaS reads this year.
In 2023, AI upleveled marketing. Think back to your recent morning reads – it’s likely that generative AI played a role in crafting those headlines.
At SaaS Weekly, I’ve navigated through the fluff to bring you the most relevant information. Sifting out the noise and keeping my ear to the ground to find what’s truly working. Here’s a list of the top marketing reads we’ve seen this year.
How can SaaS founders navigate an AI strategy? This question seems to be top of mind for founders nowadays.
As a wave of new generative AI products enter the market, having an AI strategy seems to be now table stakes. To help you put pen to paper when crafting your own strategy, we’ve curated an essential reading list that offers both insights and direction.
‘Holy shit’ – if one phrase could sum up the SaaS financial scene in 2023, that would be it. From down rounds to SVB’s collapse and shrinking SaaS contract values, this year has been a real rollercoaster.
But throughout these bleak times, there have been those who have acted as a beacon of information. And SaaS Weekly has surfaced those voices out of the dark room. Here are some of the most clicked-on SaaS finance reads we’ve seen in 2023.
Out with the Old, In with the Bold. Kyle Poyar breaks down the growth tactics of some of the most innovative saas companies. Here are three takeaways.
1. Innovate in Product Development – Embrace rapid development cycles and prioritize effectively. Measure user engagement closely to refine the product.
2. Leverage Automation and Influencers in Marketing – Use automation for outreach and capitalize on influencer marketing to extend reach.
3. Optimize the Sales Process – Identify and focus on high-potential accounts, integrate cloud marketplace partnerships, and continuously refine the sales approach to align with evolving market trends.
Elena Verna's article provides clear, actionable strategies for SaaS growth. Here are three key takeaways.
First, use onboarding as a tool for customer profiling to enhance user engagement. Second, leverage reverse trials, begin with full feature access and then scale back, to increase the likelihood of conversion. Third, be sure customers are aware of the features available in higher-tier plans (a bit obvious, but often overlooked).