Welcome to another monthly roundup of the must-read articles by the best in our field! A lot has happened this month, the first month of the year, and there’s a lot to catch up on. In order to save you precious time going through the trouble of looking for the right articles to read, I have summarized the 5 most important articles of the month. Enjoy!
6 Explosive Secrets of a Fast Growing SaaS Company
What does it take to build a high-growth SaaS company? Triple, triple, double, double, double (T2D3) is the answer, according to Battery Venture’s Neeraj Agrawal. “Brad Feld describes the 40% rule based on a meeting with a late stage investor. The 40% rule is that your growth rate + your profit should add up to 40%. So, if you are growing at 20%, you should be generating a profit of 20%. If you are growing at 40%, you should be generating a 0% profit. If you are growing at 50%, you can lose 10%. If you are doing better than the 40% rule, that’s awesome, he writes.
The question is, how do you achieve such a growth rate? What constitutes getting to these numbers?” – Read Rahul Varshneya’s article, trying to answer this big question.
Growth Hacking: Irritating Buzzword or Timeless Strategy?
Lately, it seems as if “Growth Hacking” is THE buzzword. But is it just that – a buzzword? Adam Broitman is a bit skeptical of the manner that many up and coming professionals broadly use this phrase as a way to separate themselves from the marketer of the days of yore — but remains supportive of the need for this title as a means to differentiate a specific set of skills within an overarching umbrella that one may refer to as… marketing, in its most purely defined manner.
Growth Hacking: 4 Mistakes to Avoid
One person who believes growth hacking is more than a trending term is Michael Wight, who’ve assembled this list of mistakes we should all avoid, as not every marketer or company does growth hacking right away… One mistake he lists is thinking that growth hacking is appropriate for every company. According to Wight, it is not the best fit for everyone, as strategies depend largely on the environmental dynamics, and not completely on the product.
How to calculate the Discount Rate to use in a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Analysis
In this article, David Skok looks at how to compute the right discount rate to use in a Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis. This details posts can help managers better understand the value in applying discount to future cash flows when calculating the lifetime value of a customer (LTV.) A bit technical, but worth a read.
4 Common Myths about Mobile Cloud Applications
In this chaotic, high-stakes world, it can be difficult to navigate through the folk wisdom, urban myths, and flat out misconceptions that abound. How can you navigate through this metaphorical Scylla and Charybdis? How can you divine the truth from lies? How can you turn your great idea into a profitable app? It may be easier than you think. Here, we share four myths about mobile app development, and the hidden truths.