Subscribed Magazine, Spring 2016

Spring 2016

IT’S NOT A SOFTWARE STORY, IT’S A BUSINESS STORY FARADAY FUTURE: MOBILITY AS A SERVICE

THE INDUSTRIALIST’S DILEMMA

CRUNCHYROLL: LESSONS FROM NEW MEDIA

THIS IS THE 21S WE’RE ALL IN THE RELA

ST CENTURY. ATIONSHIP BUSINESS. Subscription business runs on Zuora.

SUBSCRIBED SPRING ‘16

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

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Letter From the Editor

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Executive Editor Gabe Weisert Managing Editor Aarthi Rayapura Sr. Staff Writer Erika Malzberg

Tien Tzuo CEO, Zuora “Companies have woken up to the fact that people want outcomes, not ownership.”

Art Direction & Design Shaun Middlebusher Brand Lead Lauren Glish Copy Editor Emily Bauman

Robert Siegel Lecturer in Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business “It’s hard not to think of an industry that’s not under attack.”

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(800) 425-1281 editorial@zuora.com

Aaron Levie CEO, Box “The future is going to look very different; the only question is how the Industrialists will respond.”

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Want to subscribe?

Send an email to editorial@zuora.com

Reimagining the Physical Photo Feature

The New Retail Photo Feature

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Tomasz Tunguz Venture Capitalist, Redpoint Ventures “Pricing is a moving target and so should be viewed as an ongoing product discovery process.”

Nailing Your Go-To-Market Positioning

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Published

by Zuora, Inc. 1051 East Hillsdale Boulevard #600 Foster City, California 94404

From the Catalog

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CSOs in Conversation

How Do You Price a Connected Device?

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56 © 2016 Zuora, Inc. Proprietary. All Rights Reserved.

Zuora is a trademark of Zuora, Inc.

Judy Loehr Venture Partner with Cloud Apps Capital Partners “Market positioning, at heart, is simply how you tell your story.”

5 Mistakes SaaS Startups Often Make With Pricing

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The Industrialist’s Dilemma

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It’s Not a Software Story - It’s a Business Story It’s not a Software Story, It’s a Business Story

“ The margin ruled

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Faraday Future Mobility as a Service

“ It’ll actually be like your own life has come alive inside the car. ” - Nick Sampson

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Lessons from New Media: Crunchyroll conquers the world

everything (and a little planned obsolescence never hurt).”

- Tien Tzuo

“ A lot of people conflate retention and churn rate.”

- Reid DeRamus

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Do You Believe in Your Own Product?

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2015 CFO Survey Results Infographic

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Podcasts We Like

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Interview: Payal Kadakia, CEO & CoFounder, ClassPass

“ ... it was when we provided the subscription model that things really took off.”

- Payal Kadakia

THE WAY PEOPLE BUY HAS CHANGED FOR GOOD It’s time for your business to change with them

Zuora empowers businesses to build subscription models that keep customers consistently engaged in long-term relationships. Zuora is the world’s largest provider of Relationship Business Management (RBM) services. Our cloud-based technologies help companies create relevant and memorable experiences any time they interact with a customer.

We combine subscription commerce, billing, and finance solutions in one package. On top of it all is an analytical layer that offers realtime insight into each subscriber’s identity, as well as the business’s overall performance.

It’s way more than just subscriptions—it’s the new world of happy business.

a

Letter FROM THE EDITOR

Gabe Weisert Executive Editor Prior to Zuora, he has worked in senior editorial roles at Forbes and Yahoo! Inc.

Welcome to the second issue of Subscribed, the first business periodical dedicated to the Subscription Economy.

If this issue has a recurring theme, it’s one of digital transformation. As Aaron Levie and Robert Siegel point out in their trenchant piece “The Industrialist’s Dilemma,” since the first Fortune 500 ranking was published in 1955, a remarkable 89% of the list has turned over: gone bankrupt, merged, or fallen off the rankings.

Today most of the American post-war corporate giants are gone and, as for the ones who are left, the “systems, management and assets that led to success in the industrial era are holding incumbents back, in some cases fatally.” To make matters worse, several legacy players here in Silicon Valley continue to warn their clients of the perils of the cloud and the evils of multi-tenancy!

Is it reasonable to assume that most of the companies on today’s Fortune 500 won’t be around in 60 years? Of course it is. The average life expectancy of a large multinational firm is around 40 years. Dead companies always start out as successful mediocrities, relentlessly cranking the one lever that works, until it doesn’t.

But many Fortune 500 management teams are starting to respond. General Motors just acquired a 40-person autonomous-vehicle technology company. Walmart

is merging its San Bruno and Bentonville labs. General Electric is moving its corporate headquarters from Fairfield to Boston, to take advantage of the city’s thriving technology sector. SaaS metrics are showing up in annual reports.

In an effort to stay informed and eclectic, we followed an array of stories for this issue. We talked to Faraday Future about cars, Crunchyroll about streaming media, ClassPass about fitness, and Workday about cloud security. We looked at the way subscription services are changing the physical spaces in which we work. We recommend some great podcasts (including our own!).

Last but not least, we’re very proud of the CFO feature we put together, featuring insights from over 100 senior finance executives. Be sure to visit our online Academy for more prescriptive, role-based advice.

Gabe Weisert Executive Editor PS. If you have any feedback or story ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a note any time at gabe.weisert@zuora.com.

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From the Catalog by Erika Malzberg

In a variation on the theme “everything old is new again,” we take a peek into “the catalog” to find old world products subscriptionized for the digital age, in the ongoing shift towards services over products.

Hearing Aids

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Bicycles

Music

THE DATE SAVE

LONDON

PARIS

11/15/16

11/17/16

visit ZUORA.COM/EVENTS

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Nick Sampson SVP, Product Research & Development.

Faraday Future

Faraday Future MOBILITY AS A SERVICE

Faraday Future isn’t just developing unique electric vehicles. They’re reinventing the concept of car ownership.

by Gabe Weisert

The late, great David Bowie made a very prescient observation about the music industry way back in 2002: ‘’Music itself is going to become like running water, or electricity.”

Judging from recent automotive industry headlines, he may have predicted the future of cars as well.

Nick Sampson SVP Product Research & Development

Faraday Future, for example, generated a huge amount of interest at CES this year with its futuristic race car, but a bigger story got lost in all the hype — their business model ideas are just as fluid and innovative as their vehicle designs. We spoke with Nick Sampson, Senior Vice President of Product Research and Development, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

You’ve said before that your business model isn’t based around moving a car out of a dealer. You’ve made an analogy to smart phones, where the revenue starts once you get the device in the owners’ hands. Could you expand on that?

Based in Gardena, California.

Comprised of more than 600 employees of diverse backgrounds spanning the automotive, technology, energy, aerospace and design industries.

Well, there’s two ways to think about that. The first is a traditional ownership model — we sell one of our cars to someone, and the vehicle is theirs to use as they please.

But let’s contrast that with how your phone or your TV works.

Nick Sampson, SVP Product Research and Development, was Former Director of Vehicle & Chassis Engineering at Tesla Motors.

To a mobile phone company, it’s not the money you make on selling a phone that matters, it’s the number of revenue screens that are possible once the product is in the consumer’s hands: apps, music, downloads.

FF has a strategic cooperation with Letv, one of the largest online video companies in China.

Similarly, once a smart TV is in someone’s lounge, there are all sorts of new potential revenue opportunities: movie rentals, on-demand sporting events, games, shopping, etc.

FF’s first manufacturing plant is located in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

So it’s not just about making money by selling someone a product. In fact, you could even make a bit more money down the road by financing that purchase.

Which isn’t how most car manufacturers are operating today.

That’s right. They’re making their money on the margin of the big up-front purchase, as well as a few secondary streams like maintenance plans. But basically all the money is made at the point of sale.

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“

We want to be able to respond quickly to the coming demands of the consumers.

”

Contrast that with a phone or TV, where the business model is just constantly changing. Constantly. There’s no predefined pact or how many movies you download on demand. Things you decide to watch. It just varies.

Secondly, we think that in the future a significant portion of the population may not be interested in owning a vehicle — they’ll just want to have access to mobility. They’ll want to subscribe to a mobility service.

We’re already starting to see that with Uber and Lyft.

That’s right. We also get a lot of online comments with the same sentiment: I’m going to get rid of my car, I don’t need to have it sitting there. I live in an urban environment where it takes up space. It’s difficult to use. All I really want is mobility.

So you could sign up for Faraday, the same way you would sign up for Spotify, or Netflix?

That’s very well the idea. Only a portion of the population may want that at first. But over time, perhaps more and more will.

Do you think that there’s a generational aspect to that trend?

I think partly it’s that, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily exclusive to younger people. I think that over time, we’ll find that people who are older will have the same inclinations.

...

It’ll actually be like your own life has come alive inside the car.

�

Perhaps they don’t get to travel around too much right now, and they’d like to, but they don’t feel safe or comfortable driving. I know my parents as they get older, they don’t like driving into city center. They find it stressful and inconvenient, and the quality of public transport can vary.

Going back to the phone analogy — aren’t you also talking about connected lifestyles in general?

Yes. Look, your phone looks very similar to my phone, but what makes it yours is that it has all your things in it — your apps, your contacts, your background picture.

“

We think that in the future a significant portion of the population may not be interested in owning a vehicle — they’ll want to just have access to mobility.

”

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Now we can have that same situation with vehicles. If you’re signing up for our mobility service, we’ll make sure that we design the cars in ways that help them feel personal to you. Even though it’s only just turned up for you, and that’s the first time you’ve ever actually been in that particular vehicle, it will feel like that’s the one you get into every day.

Why? Because the dashboard screens will look familiar.

You’ll be looking at your own content layer, just like with your phone. The seat positioning will feel familiar, as well as the mirrors, the air conditioning, the maps, your driving history. It’ll actually be like as if your own life has suddenly come alive inside the car.

That particular car may be new to you, but it’ll feel instantly friendly and familiar.

Faraday will be making all sorts of vehicles, correct?

Yes. The platform concept has enabled us to deliver a variety of vehicles in the future. We’ve got to get the first one out, then people will gain trust and confidence and interest in the company. We want to be able to respond quickly to the coming demands of the consumers.

And in a subscription-based model, we’ll be able to determine those customer demands very quickly — it may just be a particular style of car. And we’ll be able to respond to those preferences very quickly as well.

Fascinating. Good luck!

Thank you.

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Nailing Your GoTo-Market Positioning

Judy Loehr Venture Partner with Cloud Apps Capital Partners

Nailing your go-to-market positioning is really, really hard.

Fortunately, there are helpful frameworks and tools you can use to capture your market positioning and refine your message. Judy Loehr, Venture Partner with Cloud Apps Capital Partners, distills her 15 years of go-to-market experience to provide a guided messaging structure that will help you with go-to-market positioning.

5 GO-TO-MARKET CONSIDERATIONS Market positioning, at heart, is simply how you tell your story. It’s a forcing function that helps you to crystallize your strategy which can have a magnitude effect across the whole company. It’s a great way to get company alignment, to ensure that everyone throughout all of your go-to-market functions is following the same road map and driving towards a shared goal.

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To pin down your positioning, you need to consider:

1 Audience This is first and foremost. Fully understanding your unique target segments - and the nuanced differences amongst them - is the most important foundational piece of your go-to-market strategy. Use the target audience matrix to identify and clarify your unique target segments.

2 Channels Once you know your audience, you need to know where they are looking and where they are learning. This will help you to understand how to best reach and engage your target audience.

3 Pricing & Packaging You can’t just try to copy what other companies are doing in terms of pricing and packaging. You need to “right size” for your segments, your strengths and your model.

4 Customer acquisition cost (CAC) model Work through your acquisition model and costs.

5

Messaging

Messaging comes last. You can only solidify your messaging within the context of everything else.

THE “THREE ROOMS” FRAMEWORK To help structure messaging, one framework that works well is called “the three rooms” conceived by Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora. Imagine three rooms - like in IKEA. In these three rooms, you are taken on a very specific path through the store, first to the living rooms, then the bedrooms, then the kitchen. It’s a very curated, structured experience. The rules for these rooms are defined: you won’t ever find a sink in a living room in IKEA. So too the “rooms” in this messaging framework are equally well-defined.

Here’s how:

Room 1: Context PRIMARY AUDIENCE: PRESS AND INVESTORS In the first room, you’re developing a compelling context for your company, approaching the question of “why,” and, even more specifically, “why now?”

What’s going on in your market? What

are the shifts? How are you relevant to what’s happening in the market? In room one, you do not talk about your product.

You don’t even say your company’s name. Room one isn’t about you; it’s your context. What is happening in your space and why is this important right now?

Room 2: Value PRIMARY AUDIENCE: PROSPECTS In room two you clearly articulate your value proposition for your target customers. The focus is on your target customer segments: how the “why now” context is affecting them, and the impact you could help them make on their business. What’s stopping your audience and what pressures are they under? What are their top priorities? What’s their biggest use case? If your top use case aligns with the company’s top three strategic priorities or your buyer’s top three priorities, you’re golden. Your goal is to connect with your target audience and their needs by focusing on the impact they want to make on their business.

Room 3: Product PRIMARY AUDIENCE: EVALUATORS Here’s where you first introduce your product, with a structure that reinforces your value. Your audience is prospects, but it’s really evaluators: those people who are considering your solution and evaluating how it may satisfy their needs. Rather than go into great product detail with endless feature lists, simply introduce your product within the context of your market and your value.

When you have a ton of features, I like to do something called the “52 card pickup.”

Take all of your features, however they’re organized, and start reshuffling them to fall into different possible products or modules. Each module should focus on a specific value. This is an iterative process, so keep shuffling. For the 52 card pick-up, I recommend using the product module matrix.

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BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: YOUR COMPANY NARRATIVE Great positioning gives you a structured way to talk about your product and your value proposition, but most importantly it’s a way to connect with real people. After you travel from room one to room three, you’ll have your core end-to-end story that you can leverage on your website, in your product messaging, in your sales presentation, in your marketing collateral - everywhere! Company alignment around one story will help accelerate your business.

FACING SOME HARD TRUTHS ABOUT YOUR MARKET POSITIONING Hard truth #1 No one cares. No one cares about your belly button, and no one cares about your product. Your go-to-market positioning should never start with your product.

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Hard truth #2

Hard truth #3

You’re not as aligned as you think you are. Even a 5% lack of alignment can sink an early-stage company and significantly stall the growth of later-stage companies. You need to be aligned 100%. Going through this process of nailing your go-to-market positioning helps align all of your go-to-market teams.

You’re getting bad advice. What works for other companies may not work for you - in fact it probably won’t. Focus on the right business model, pricing, and go-to-market tactics for your market, your product, and your prospects.

Tien Tzuo Founder and CEO Zuora

It’s Not a Software Story It’s a Business Story Ultimately it isn’t just about shipping units anymore. It’s about growing and monetizing a dedicated customer base.

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We all recognize that over the last 15 years, SaaS has become the dominant model for distributing and consuming software. Who wants to own software, and deal with the headaches of buying the hardware, installing the software, backing it up, dealing with upgrades, and getting calls in the middle of the night when it breaks? Once you try Salesforce. com, there is no going back to Siebel.

But while most people think of SaaS as strictly a technology vehicle, it’s given rise to a far more fundamental change, and

Tien Tzuo CEO of Zuora. Prior to Zuora he served as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Salesforce.com.

that’s the birth of a new business model — subscriptions.

This business model isn’t limited to SaaS — it’s actually in every part of your life. To see how this happening, indulge me in a little history lesson.

For basically the entire 20th century, we lived in a product economy.

Companies designed, built, sold, and shipped physical things under an “asset transfer” model. Business was about inventory, shelving, and cost plus pricing. The relationship between seller and buyer was based on discrete, often anonymous transactions.

The sign by the cash register summed it up: “All Sales Final.” Early retail pioneers like Sears Roebuck and Macy’s had minimal insight into who was actually buying their products, or how they were using them.

Ts only came in black because with one automobile coming off the line every three minutes, that was the only color that would dry fast enough.

Then once they established market share, the thinking went, companies could start to gently raise their prices, and make money off the difference, or the margin. The margin ruled everything (and a little planned obsolescence never hurt).

It’s difficult to overstate the power that big post-war American corporations had. They organized themselves around strictly delineated product divisions, and didn’t have to answer to anyone. There were no call centers, no customer service reps, and in many cases, no returns, period. This model didn’t work particularly well when it came to customers like you or myself, but it shipped units and kept board rooms happy.

...

The margin ruled everything (and a little planned obsolescence never hurt).

”

When Henry Ford’s first moving assembly line went into operation in 1913, it was really just an extension of manufacturing principles first put in place during the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. The assembly line wasn’t just about maximizing efficiency through discrete repetitive tasks, it was a metaphor for how a company’s product can dictate its supply chains, manufacturing processes, distribution channels, and management layer.

The product was the only governing principle — it organized everything across a perfectly straight line. The actual people involved in making, buying, and selling the product were entirely disposable. Henry Ford’s customers could famously pick any Model T color they wanted, as long as it was black.

The result of all this relentless efficiency was that Henry Ford’s cost per unit dropped precipitously, allowing him to flood the market with cheap but durably made cars. Model

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The emergence of Oracle ERP systems in the eighties only exacerbated this problem.

These systems did a good job of measuring operational efficiency: raw materials, inventory, purchase orders, shipping, payroll. They did a lousy job of measuring actual customer experience.

But companies tend to manage what they can measure, and so executive teams became hopelessly product-focused, both organizationally and strategically.

This decade also saw the ascendance of supply chain economics. The goal was to match supply and demand with the least inventory possible. It was nirvana for engineers and management consultants, who were threatened by the new electronic products and efficiencies coming out of Japan.

“Just In Time Inventory” meant that warehouses full of stuff just sitting around were the ultimate enemy. “Total Quality Initiative” meant that the work of improving processes was never over.

Michael Dell built an empire based around this discipline.

Then around twenty years ago, corporate America woke up to the realization that all this relentless focus on productivity was coming at a cost, namely the relationship between the vendor and the customer. The customer was a complete unknown, a receptacle at the end of a distribution chain whose sole purpose was to “consume” the products companies made.

But as it turned out, many of these new consumers were

having difficulty getting their new products to work. And how did corporate America discover this? Their receptionists were getting angry phone calls. So what did the big companies do to address this problem? They set up customer service departments!

When in doubt, build another vertical silo — they launched market services, technical support lines, warranty contracts, and maintenance groups. The customer had truly arrived — she had her own department now. And that department was located way down at the far end of the supply chain, just past the loading dock.

The nascent software industry was no exception to this mindset.

As we approached the turn of the century, companies like Oracle, Siebel, and others were creating a needlessly complicated product that was sold by a mercenary sales force and promoted by a parasitic systems integration industry. Everyone made money — that is, everyone except the customer!

Half the installations would never see the light of day, and even those that were deemed a “success” were hated by the end users. The industry had completely lost sight of their customers: who they were, what they did on a daily basis, what they liked about their work systems, and what pissed them off. It was time for a change.

At the same time, many of us looked on in wonder at this new experience being introduced by the Internet. This is what we wanted, to build a new kind of user experience, where using software would be as easy as buying a book on Amazon.

But as we started building business plans on the Internet, we realized this required us to change our way of thinking. We had to reevaluate the whole purpose of a software company, changing the fundamental question from “How many products can I sell?” to “What does my customer want, and how can I deliver that as an intuitive service?” It wasn’t just about just shifting units anymore. It was about growing and monetizing a dedicated customer base.

What about the SaaS model forced us to think of customers?

Sure, technology drove us to offer what we did over the Internet.

But that required us to think of what we did as a service, something that people subscribed to, and that forced us to put ourselves in a position where we were always pleasing the customer. All of a sudden, we cared less about what product features sounded cool; we focused on what customers were using, what they needed.

Over the past decade, the Internet, spread by mobile technologies, has forced more and more businesses to start thinking the same way, to take a “customer first” mindset.

Amazon, Netflix, Zipcar, all reinvented what they did as a service.

They tracked customer preferences, tailored their offering to

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individual needs, and always took the long-term view of creating lifetime customer value. The focus shifted from the transaction, to the customer.

So instead of selling static products that evaporated after check-out (along with their customers), or “set it and forget it” on-premise installations, they could offer ongoing services that resulted in smart, responsive relationships.

Running on a subscription model, they could offer lower up-front costs, continuously improve their offering, and learn way more about their customers through usage and behavior analytics.

Today everything is moving to a Subscription Economy: media, transportation, agriculture, health care, consumer goods, education.

Consumers want customized experiences. And they want continuous improvement, not planned obsolescence.

One simple but effective way of looking at this is that companies have started to sell outcomes, using their product as a means to an end. Uber and Lyft sell you the ride, not the car. Caterpillar used to sell movers to construction companies. Now they ask them how much dirt they need moved. Health trackers are throwing in their actual product for free, in return for a 12-month subscription to their analytics platform. Teslas update themselves with the latest technologies and become smarter over time, so you don’t need to buy another car.

To sum up — this isn’t a software story anymore, it’s a business story.

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“The customer was a complete unknown, a receptacle at the end of a distribution chain whose sole purpose was to “consume” the products companies made.”

”

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Reimagining the Physical Physical spaces are no longer just personal or commercial. Many are combining the two realms and redefining the term. We can now use a commercial space to fulfill a personal need such as solitude, pursuing a hobby, or even exploring them for unintended uses such as dining in a parking lot! Here are our picks of innovative ways to use ‘space’:

by Aarthi Rayapura

PHYSICAL SPACES

Understanding the consumer mind is an ongoing endeavour for all businesses. We spoke to Professor Baba Shiv who has done extensive work on the emotional brain, documenting its powerful role in shaping decisions and experiences. subscribed

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RocketSpace is a technology campus located in the heart of San Francisco helping tech entrepreneurs, startups, and corporate professionals bring the future to market. The company’s membership program offers services such as programming, consulting, events, and office-as-a-service, which together create the perfect ecosystem and community for innovation to thrive.

www.rocketspace.com

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Servcorp is a subscription-based executive suites and virtual office provider. Serviced offices are fully-managed, fully-furnished central business district (CBD) office suites with a receptionist, meeting rooms, and IT infrastructure and support services. Virtual Offices provide the services, facilities, and IT to businesses without the cost of a physical office. The service is available in nearly 140 locations worldwide.

www.servcorp.com

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Breather creates private, practical spaces where you can work, meet, or simply relax.

Available on足demand, they can be rented by the hour. Breather for Teams is a membership program for companies to offer the service to their employees with discounts, flexible payments, and recurring bookings. The service is available in select cities in the US and Canada.

www.breather.com

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TechShop is a membership-based, do-ityourself (DIY) workshop and fabrication studio that provides access to a vibrant community of creative makers and more than $1 million worth of equipment, tools, and software.

With locations across the US, TechShop offers classes, workshops, instruction, and training for people of all ages and skill levels to build whatever they can dream.

www.techshop.com

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A membership-based social dining experience, Dinner Lab unites undiscovered chefs with adventurous diners who want something different from the traditional restaurant experience.

Events are held in unique spaces that exist for only 24 hours and venues are kept secret until the day before the dinner. The service is available in cities across the US.

www.dinnerlab.com

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LESSONS FROM

New Media Crunchyroll Conquers the World by Gabe Weisert

Crunchyroll is crushing it. The Japanese anime streaming media service currently has over 750,000 paying subscribers, making it one of the top 10 SVOD providers in the world. What lessons can

It’s more like this is just a great deal, there’s a ton of great content there. It’s a no-brainer compared to the traditional cable bundle, especially if you’ve never been a cable subscriber before. Do I call Comcast and get this $150 subscription, or do I get Internet and $10 Netflix?

But we still think there’s a big gap in the current market, where you can provide a more enriched experience. We’ve certainly seen that through the anime community. You have conventions, you have an active forum, and there’s just that much more engagement across the board. You’re seeing that across other “niche” SVOD providers as well: horror, comedy, Bollywood, etc.

Where do you think the industry is headed long-term?

Well, when you unbundle cable, and I think that’s what’s going on right now, you ultimately will have lots of individual channels, but that’s not sustainable from a consumer perspective. You’re just not going to subscribe to 100 different channels and have 100 different billing relationships.

So there has to be some form of aggregation. I think that’ll be the next phase.

There’s that popular quote, which is that the only way to make money is to either bundle or unbundle, and I think right now we’re in the unbundling phase. You have everybody who’s creating content trying to launch their own subscription channel, and figure out a way to monetize in this new environment.

Crunchyroll teach us about international expansion, subscription metric fundamentals, and the value of focused markets? We met up with Marketing Lead (and former Senior Analyst at Hulu) Reid DeRamus at Crunchyroll HQ in downtown San Francisco for a pointed, informative discussion.

Where do you see the state of OTT right now?

Well, you have Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, the three big guys who were the first movers, and they’re all playing in the same arena, where you’re going for more broad-market, general-appealing content. You’re going for breadth.

As far as user experience though, it’s relatively shallow: you pop in there, you watch what you want to watch, and then you pop out. You’re not really directly communicating with anybody, and it’s not really a lifestyle brand. You don’t feel as much affinity towards it.

But ultimately, from a consumer perspective that’s just not a sustainable road map. You’ll have everything fall apart, and then people will bundle back up, and some channels may not be included in that rebundling, but it’s an exciting time to be in this space.

Sometimes it feels like Amazon and Netflix got into original content to mask that mile-wide, inch-deep aspect to the business. They’re trying to avoid being commodified.

Yeah. They’re definitely investing methodically. I think they’re seeing viewership behavior and then they’re looking at the investment relative to where we have seen successful engagement in the past. Like Bojack Horseman, or F is for Family, they’re getting into the adult animation type arena and they’ve probably seen that work historically. So now they’re starting to invest in that as an original series.

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In our case, as a result of the construct of our partnerships with our content partners, the majority of the money that we make we send back over to Japan to fuel the growth of the Japanese anime business. So we’re definitely in the original content game as well.

How would you describe the Crunchyroll audience?

We skew male a little bit. We’re definitely a little younger than most of the other services. There’s a lot of overlap in gaming, Twitch, e-sports, Comicon, a lot of overlap with that kind of crowd. We have a lot of hardcore anime fans on our site, who drove the growth of Crunchyroll initially, but we have a lot of titles that also appeal to the broader audience. It’s not just die-hard anime fans anymore. It’s like a beautiful blend of all of them.

So the challenge is talking to those people in a way they want to be talked to, and reaching them where they live?

Yeah, it’s so important. The more niche you are, the more you have to differentiate through some kind of aspect, and we do that through community. We have a very big brand team who focuses on engaging our audience. They go to conventions all year long. There’s an absurd amount of anime conventions. We all went down to Anime Expo, that’s the big one in LA. Over 100,000 people went last year, which is just crazy to think about.

As a marketing team, we have a lot of promotions and giveaways for existing and new subscribers. We’ve worked closely with LootCrate and these other subscription box providers.

We’ve taken a very active role in trying to build the best possible relationship with our community as possible.

That’s also traditionally an audience that gets bombarded with advertisements. What are the pluses and minuses of pure ad plays versus asking someone for $8 a month up front?

I think it really depends on the type of content. It’s just really hard to monetize purely on ads, enough to pay for the content investment. In addition, it’s not the best consumer experience. I think the other element is if you’re successful in building a great product and a great content offering, people are willing to pay. It’s not unreasonable to ask for $8 if what you’re providing is perceived as at least that valuable.

Crunchyroll is case in point where you have 750,000 paying subscribers at roughly $7 a month, just for Japanese anime. I think it’s largely dependent upon what kind of content you’re

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You’re just not going to subscribe to 100 different channels and have 100 different billing relationships. So there has to be some form of aggregation. I think that’ll be the next phase.

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putting out there, and how well you’re able to execute that from a product perspective.

Levelling up into subscription business models, you’ve written some interesting blog posts on some of the inherent masking effects of commonly used churn metrics.

Can you expand on that?

Sure, we’ve worked with a lot of people in this space, and there’s a fundamental misunderstanding around how to measure retention. When we talk about retention we’re asking a simple question: If I have an individual subscriber, on average, how long are they staying on the service? A lot of people conflate retention and churn rate. Churn rate is an aggregate measure of on average, within a given period of time, of how many people are canceling the service.

Typically, when you get metrics on an aggregate level they can be helpful monitoring the heartbeat of the business, but they’re not really as meaningful as individual-level metrics. The core metric that you should be optimizing towards is customer lifetime value, and the backbone of that is customer lifetime and that’s retention. How long, on average, are you getting people to stay on the service as a paying sub?

Crunchyroll has a lot of subscribers outside the US. I think a lot of people quite rightly associate us with Japan, but we actually don’t have any subscribers there. Our content deals exclude that area. We’re seeing a lot of activity in Brazil, Mexico, Germany, France, and the English-speaking countries.

Once you start getting into international markets you get some really interesting challenges, and payments is the fundamental first thing you have to address. If you can’t monetize your users, you can’t justify making any type of investment in that market.

It’s like having a faulty business plan, so you’re undercutting yourself from the start.

With Crunchyroll, at first the only thing that we really addressed in terms of international markets was subtitling. That was really our way of translating the product to those local markets, and it’s worked out pretty well for us.

...

A lot of people conflate retention and churn rate.

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Churn rate doesn’t really do that.

There’s an over-simplified way of looking at customer lifetime value where you do “1 divided by the churn rate” and that’s just a crazy way of calculating it. You can have churn rate improving over time, as the company grows, but it’s more just a byproduct of your denominator growing at a faster clip than your numerator.

It’s not at all related to, on a per subscriber basis, how long they’re staying on the service. I think a lot of people just conflate the two.

Or think that they’re somehow joined at the hip.

Right. They’re not, they’re completely independent.

Let’s talk about overseas expansion. Crunchyroll is in over 180 countries and climbing. What have you learned?

But at a certain point we hit a brick wall. We were running these credit cards across borders, and that was just really hard. We offered some local payments, but not to the degree that we needed.

For example, South America’s a predominantly cash-based market. They just don’t have the credit card penetration that we do up here. On top of that, they don’t have as many people using credit cards online. If you think back to the early days of the Internet, not everybody was comfortable putting their information online and buying stuff.

That doesn’t necessarily speak to any kind of market sophistication. It can just be a cultural thing.

Precisely. I was talking to somebody who worked at HBO about the same issue, and I really think that US businesses in general are somewhat naïve in thinking that you can just go and do a new international market and everything will be rosy.

So handling international payments is very important. We break it down into two parts — you have local acquiring, which you need to set up either through a partnership or establishing some kind of presence. You’re able to build relationships with the banks in those markets, and that’ll really maximize your ability to process credit cards.

The other side is alternative forms of payment. Boleto in South America’s a big one. There’s some crazy German ones that are really hard to pronounce, that are like eighteen characters long. Direct Debit in Europe is really big as well.

The e-wallets. Gift cards are really huge. Netflix has alluded to the success of gift cards in Latin America, so that’s something that we’re really interested in doing.

So you have two ways of maximizing your efficiency there, through local acquiring, which takes a little more effort, and then alternative forms of payment.

It sounds obvious, but nailing payments is a real foundational turnkey for any subscription business.

Yes. It impacts three important areas of your business. If you’re offering alternative forms of payment or localized forms of payment, you’re maximizing your acquisition. You’re expanding the pool of potential subscribers that can pay you.

...

Once you start getting into international markets you get some really interesting challenges, and payments is the fundamental first thing you have to address.

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The second element is retention. A big portion of our cancels are from involuntary churn, and I know this happens across the board for not only digital subscriptions, but stuff like gaming, like the Xbox Live stuff. It’s not an uncommon problem.

You can do really smart things around trying to update credit cards through account updaters and intelligent retry schedules. Messaging is really key, so if you have a payment fail, you want to message them cross-platform: in the app, desktop, and email is really critical. We see a large portion of our saves come through active messaging and having people proactively update their card information. All those measures greatly reduce involuntary churn, which is critical to sub growth and extending that customer lifetime.

The last element is cost. Our biggest variable cost is processing payments. You always want to minimize your transaction volume, so you want to be able to have a high success rate, and the way you do that is more intelligent recycling and figuring out what’s the best way to try to invoice cards and successfully charge them.

So all three of them are pretty interrelated. For example, if we’re thinking about partnering with a payment specialist in South America, we would make the argument that they’re going to provide us a greater pool of subscribers to access.

They’re going to help us extend customer lifetime there, because we’re not trying to inefficiently charge cross border credit cards, and they’re going to ultimately lower our costs because of operational efficiency.

Unlike retention rate and churn, you can’t really talk about one of those three elements in isolation.

That’s right.

Thanks for the chat, Reid!

Thank you.

Communication

Music

Internet of Things

Consumer goods

Technology

Education

Healthcare

Every Industry is Shifting.

Media

The New Retail

The future of retail isn’t segmented. The new retail focuses on a seamless customer experience through multiple channels: online, brick-and-mortar stores, AND subscriptions - ch-ching, ch-ching, ch-ching! Businesses that can master this trifecta, and create delightful customer experiences, will reap the rewards. Here are a few companies who clearly get it: by Erika Malzberg

ONLINE SUBSCRIPTIONS

IN-STORE SUBSCRIPTIONS

Target isn’t just the second-largest discount retailer in the US. It’s a cutting-edge retail company that’s built strong brand loyalty with a focus on great style at a great price. In addition to Target Subscriptions, which offers everyday essentials - from diapers to trash bags - delivered on a set schedule, Target also offers a popular monthly Beauty Box. And Target Open House, recently opened in San Francisco, is a cutting-edge showcase and retail space for connected home technology. www.target.com

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What started out as a clothing supplier for men who hate to shop, has grown into a highly personalized shopping experience for men and women, online and in stores. Since Nordstrom’s acquisition in 2014, Trunk Club has continued to deliver on their promise of hand-picked premium clothing.

Order a trunk, and your personal stylist will make sure it’s packed with the best clothes for your personal style. www.trunkclub.com

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The cult beauty supply store SEPHORA expanded their brand last year with the introduction of PLAY! by SEPHORA, an innovative monthly subscription box that takes product discovery to a new level.

By delivering the hottest prestige brands and products directly to subscribers’ doors for just $10 per month, PLAY! by SEPHORA gives beauty lovers increased access to the customized expertise — and fun — that SEPHORA is known for. www.sephora.com

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Adidas, one of the coolest sneaker and fashion brands, just announced its foray into the world of subscription boxes with Avenue A. Once a quarter, subscribers will receive a curated box filled with sneakers and other workout apparel. The adidas Group hopes to drive excitement to their brand by delighting women athletes with workout gear that surprises as much as it inspires. www.adidasavenuea.com

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For those who don’t want to make the trek to one of the 23,000+ Starbucks stores worldwide to get their coffee fix, the Seattle-based coffee brand gives you the option to order online and now even offers a subscription service.

Join the Starbucks Reserve (R) Roastery Subscription for a monthly delivery of a handselected small-lot coffee or build your own order to select your favorite coffees and teas to be delivered on your set schedule. www.starbucks.com/reserve

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Energize or relax without drinks or pills.

How good feels

CSOs in Conversation by Aarthi Rayapura

Pritesh Parekh: Thank you for joining me today, Niall. I want to begin by talking about the benefits and struggles of SaaS cloud security. Let’s start with the positive. What would you say are the benefits?

Niall Browne: There are numerous benefits. I think most organizations have realized the tremendous business benefits provided by secure cloud services. One key benefit is — “the Power of One” — it’s one technology stack, one version of the software, one operations model, and one security model across the board. Its homogenous nature means that security is now — for the first time — able to focus on protecting a single platform, rather than draining critical resources to support multiple versions of the application and platform. Additionally, if there is a new industry security vulnerability discovered, then the fix only has to be rolled out once across the entire platform. Hence all customers simultaneously benefit when security improvements are made at the request of one. This cloud “Power of One“ delivery model provides tremendous economies of scale and agility.

Leading SaaS CSOs Pritesh Parekh, VP & Chief Security Officer at Zuora and Niall Browne, VP & Chief Trust Officer at Workday talk about their favorite topics. Read on to find out what they think about security strategy, the need for DevSecOps and lots more!

Another major benefit is the interoperability of standards based models. The technology stack for enterprise cloud

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providers is based largely on open industry standards, and their cloud is audited against well-known security standards such as IS0 27001, ISO 27018, SOC I, SOC II. This open, transparent model allows enterprise customers to quickly understand, review, and validate the controls in place.

And of course there’s the undeniable benefit of increased transparency. Traditional, legacy on-premise software oftentimes does not support the ability for a customer to see into what is happening to their data in real time.

On the other hand, cloud is driven by open APIs. This API model enables customers to monitor changes, user activities, and potential security threats in real-time, and indeed integrate the cloud directly into their Security Operations Center (SOC) through these extensive API’s.

It really gives businesses an unprecedented level of visibility, control, and transparency, which they would never have with a legacy on-premise software stack.

Pritesh Parekh: Absolutely right, the benefits from cloud applications are far superior to legacy systems.

However, cloud systems also pose challenges to businesses. For instance, embedding security as part of the

product lifecycle hasn’t been easy for companies. The traditional mindset around security views it as the gatekeeper and only considers it towards the end of the product lifecycle.

Companies struggle with the question of how do we embed security at every stage of the lifecycle? How do we empower developers and product managers with the tools and processes they need to make the security decisions?

many enterprise companies require their vendors to comply with a certain level of security requirements, so that’s another criteria. In some cases, these can have significant impacts on the budget.

Another issue is overloading the security stack. Most companies have realized that security is really important and are constantly adding tools. But few pause to consider if it’s really adding value to the security program.

Is it really generating the right set of security alerts?

Start with the highest risk and figure out how you can protect that information. For example, a mid-size SaaS company can segment the security program in four pillars. The first pillar is your infrastructure pillar that hosts your customer information — protecting the systems and networks that runs your product or services.

The second pillar is your product or services. As much as possible, embed security considerations into the product lifecycle process itself. The third pillar is corporate and personnel security — these are your internal business systems, applications, and endpoints. The final pillar is compliance — the laws, regulation, and industry requirements you need to follow.

Lastly, CSOs around the industry are finding that hiring skilled security personnel is a big challenge. Speaking of which, how much do you think organizations should invest in security and what should be the determining criteria for investments?

Niall Browne: Organizations now realize that security is an integral part of their business, and are treating it as such. I would consider the investment from two perspectives. The first is the level of risk for the organization.

If there is a security breach, what would be the monetary cost and the reputation cost to the company? That should help you begin to identify what percentage of the IT budget you should spend on security. Luckily there are many risk versus spend formulas and models available that can help you.

Secondly, I strongly believe that security is a key business differentiator and enabler. It can allow a company to win a larger market share or close a deal quicker with customers. Companies want to work with providers that they can trust. Investing in security not only helps protect your business and reduce your risk, it can also help you succeed as a business. Both of these factors should be taken into consideration when determining the appropriate security budget for your organization.

Pritesh Parekh: I’d add that they should also consider the laws around regulation and compliance in the geos they operate in. Also,

Once companies decide on the investment, they need a strategy to build a security program. Your security program vision and mission needs to be aligned with the business. Segmenting your security program into different pillars helps.

...

Successful security teams align security goals with the organization’s business goals. This ensures that security is supporting the business and working on the right priorities.

”

A common framework of policy and procedures can govern all the pillars. Approach all of them in terms of progression from a base of the absolute minimum through maturity to best-in-class. You can’t achieve everything at once, so breaking it down into phases is advisable. Would you agree, Niall?

Niall Browne: Certainly. Successful security teams align security goals with the organization’s business goals. This ensures that security is supporting the business and working on the right priorities. To be successful, it’s imperative that a culture of security and shared responsibility is fostered throughout the company. This helps ensure that the entire organization is collectively working together to make the right decisions that protect the organization.

Pritesh Parekh: What would you say are the key considerations for building a security program?

Niall Browne: The most important thing is to understand the business — What is the business trying to achieve? What are the risks? How can security help? The first step is to speak to all the key business leaders and all the technology lead-

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ers in the first months, and understand what they’re working on, what do they perceive as the security weaknesses and threats, what are the opportunities. Their insights are critical and will help you tremendously in creating your road-map.

At the end of this exercise, you will have achieved three things.

Firstly you will have met and begun building those key relationships with all the stakeholders. Secondly, you will understand the business. Lastly, you now have an invaluable list of the risks which you can categorize into high, medium and low level risks.

and shared responsibility. It’s a highly effective cohesive model and can offer tremendous benefits to an organization.

Pritesh Parekh: I completely agree with you. The security as a gatekeeper model is simply not scalable. The goal should be to empower the development and operations teams with the right tools, processes, and training so they can make security decisions. It goes with the fundamental rule of security that it really is everyone’s responsibility.

Thanks for joining me today, Niall. It was great chatting with you.

Niall Browne: Thanks for having me. Always fun to talk about security!

Bear in mind that no company can remove all risk. As such, ruthless prioritization is needed, as well as detailed budget and resource analysis. As you add new risks to the list, continually review the residual level of risk - is that increasing or decreasing across the board, and why?

Pritesh Parekh: That’s great advice. I’d also like to suggest proactive hunting, i.e. detecting security gaps before hackers do. And on the other side is breach preparedness and cyber security insurance. You’ve done everything you can but there’s a data breach — what do you do? You need to have a plan. I’d also urge companies to consider the continuous integration of security as part of the product life cycle. I cannot stress the importance of this enough.

Niall, What are your thoughts about DevOps transforming into DevSecOps? How feasible is it for companies to make the switch?

Niall Browne: If you examine the traditional model - development writes the code, then hands it off to operations, with security having periodic checkpoints. That model never really worked effectively as there wasn’t a sense of shared responsibility, and none of the teams truly understood what the other teams did. To help counteract these problems, Dev and Ops have begun to merge over the past few years, which has proven to be hugely beneficial.

Now, we are looking at a model where shipping a codeline and shipping a technology stack has almost become the same thing across the board. Dev and Ops are working in tandem to troubleshoot and resolve issues. This results in much better quality of product and service, which benefits everyone. But in many organizations, security is still seen as a gatekeeper. If you merge Security into the DevOps cycle, it means that you’re now shipping code as well as your technology stack and security in one cohesive model.

Having development, operations, and security aligned helps build that critical culture of knowledge sharing, agility, security,

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The security as a gatekeeper model is simply not scalable.

The goal should be to empower the development and operations teams with the right tools, processes, and training so they can make security decisions.

It goes with the fundamental rule of security that it really is everyone’s responsibility.

”

WARNING :

Lucy suffers from MSTS. Manual Sales Tax Syndrome (MSTS) is treatable.

Ask your accountant about AvaTax today.

Find out if Avalara AvaTax™ is right for you: www.avalara.com/BlythecoMSTS

1-855-562-6874

Some side effects of AvaTax implementation are common and well documented. These include, but are not limited to: greater sense of ease and wellbeing, significantly reduced risk of penalties and interest in the event of an audit, greater focus on profit-making activities, more free time to enjoy the things you love — including family and friends. If you experience any of these very common side effects, contact your accountant immediately.

How Do You Price a Connected Device?

How do you price a connected device?

Selling a stand-alone physical device is a fairly straightforward exercise. There is a discrete transfer of assets. You determine a price, and your customer decides whether to accept it or not and done.

But when that device is connected, suddenly there’s data involved, which means you can sell the same device to several different kinds of customers: consumers, advertisers, resellers, industry groups, etc. Multiple beneficiaries gives you lots more flexibility in terms of pricing and packaging.

Guillaume Vives Former Head of Product Zuora

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buy the thermostat outright, buy it for a lower price with a small monthly subscription, or buy it as part of a discounted bundle with an energy provider.

More than half of Ngenic customers wind up saving over 10% of their heating costs over the course of a year. The device monitors their home energy usage by taking into account variables like sunlight, occupancy, and (this is where it gets really interesting) favorable electricity rates.

Let’s look at Ngenic as a case study. I recently had a great discussion with their Chairman of the Board, Bjorn Berg.

Unlike here in the United States, Sweden has an extraordinarily deregulated energy market.

There are over 150 energy wholesellers, and most customers have rate agreements that can change on an hourly basis relative to supply and demand.

Based in Upsalla, Sweden, Ngenic sells a smart thermostat, or an “extra brain used to heat up your house.” Ngenic offers three basic purchase plans:

Ngenic’s physical asset is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and assemble. And thanks to all this rampant free market activity in “Socialist” Sweden

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$ $

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The physical device is just an enabler. Your value lies in your IP, and your ability to trade information across multiple markets.

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(most kilowatt hours are bought and sold at least six times before reaching the end customer), electricity there is really cheap.

So how does Ngenic create value?

• It sells to consumers to help them save energy and protect the environment.

• It partners with suppliers to add “green intelligence” and differentiation to their value proposition.

• Its devices conduct arbitrage with wholesellers (sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis) to buy more electricity when it’s cheaper, and less when it’s more expensive.

The lesson here is that in IoT, there’s no such thing as a straightforward B-to-C market approach. The physical device is just an enabler. Your value lies in your IP and your ability to trade information across multiple markets.

As Bjorn told me, “You have to think a little bit like Google and search. Nobody pays for the search itself. But everybody knows that Google profits on you searching. And the benefits you receive are worth more than the information you’re giving away. That’s the model you have to pursue.

What’s the value I can create from the information generated by my connected device? That’s where you should focus.”

If Zuora is in the “Software as a Service” industry, then Ngenic is in the “Information as a Service” industry. They’re helping themselves (and others) succeed by providing value in a crowded market, and offering different pricing and packaging bundles to different kinds of clients. That’s a lesson for all of us.

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“ You

only learn by doing

�

Payal Kadakia, CEO of ClassPass by Aarthi Rayapura

A simple search for a ballet class in New York City led to ClassPass, a company that has disrupted the fitness industry.

Founder and CEO Payal Kadakia founded ClassPass in 2013 after being frustrated at her inability to find a ballet class to attend. The company aims to make working out “more engaging, accessible, and affordable.” It’s membership program is unique in that it doesn’t tie you down to a single studio/gym or even type of workout. Instead, a monthly fee allows members to try out various classes in its extensive network of gyms and fitness studios — over 7500 of them in 39 cities across the US, Canada, and Australia.

The only caveat? Members can use the same location for a maximum of three times a month. In turn, studio owners benefit by attracting new customers, and don’t have to offer their entire roster of classes to ClassPass users. So far, over 13 million reservations have been made on the platform and the company is valued at $400 million.

Kadakia has had an interesting, enviable career. After graduating from MIT with a degree in Operations Research and briefly working in management consulting, she decided to pursue her passion — dance. A dancer since the age of three, Kadakia has trained in various forms of Indian classical and folk dance traditions.

She’s also the Founder and Artistic Director of the Sa Dance Company which serves as a platform for expressing the Indian-American identity through movement. It was her passion for dance, entrepreneurship, and making the world a more active, happy place that led to the founding of Classpass.

for ways to add value and to help them optimize and grow their businesses.

The service has evolved from its roots in Classtivity and the acquisition of FitMob. What prompts you to continually change your service?

The goal has always been to motivate people towards taking action - when we first launched Classtivity, people were engaging with the site but they weren’t actually booking classes. As we continued to iterate and try new things, it was when we provided the subscription model that things really took off. At the end of the day, you have to listen to your customers and adjust accordingly.

What made you opt for the subscription business model for ClassPass?

It was really a decision driven by our customers. We had

As we continued to iterate and try new things, it was when we provided the subscription model that things really took off.

I had a few questions for her: How would you describe the ClassPass user?

I think the great thing about our product is that it’s for everyone.

A huge portion of our users were not prior regular boutique fitness users. It has been amazing to see so many people try something new. We are constantly getting emails from people saying that ClassPass has changed their life, so we hope to continue to motivate people to find that time for themselves.

What’s your relationship with the studios and gyms?

We consider the studios and gyms our true partners and that’s largely been mutual. We have a 97% retention rate with the studios and gyms that we work with, and we are constantly looking

”

previously released something called a Passport that allowed people to try a handful of classes at a flat rate each month, and we noticed people were signing up with mutiple emails so that they could keep using it. At that moment, we realized we were on to something and so it was an easy decision to iterate. At the heart of things, it’s always about our mission and the why, and so our team was excited about adjusting the product to fulfill that.

ClassPass is growing very fast - what are the challenges that come with it and how is the company managing them?

We’ve seen great success in the past few years, but now it’s about refining and evolving the product and adding features that enhance the user experience for both our members and studio partners.

We’ve realized that our users are varied in the way that they work out and interact with the platform. So we’ll continue to explore and evaluate ways to make sure our users are getting the most value for their membership. It’s really about the lifecycle of membership people need different things at different points in their life.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned as a dancer and entrepreneur?

My passion for dance and wanting to keep it in my life is essentially how ClassPass was born. And in the same way that I have had to practice to become a good dancer, becoming a good entrepreneur has taken practice as well, but you only learn by doing.

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5

Mistakes SaaS Startups Often Make With Pricing 56

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The purpose of a price is to tax usage of a product. That’s how companies generate revenue. Discovering how to tax a product properly is a perpetual challenge. It’s a moving target and so it requires an ongoing discovery process as the company and market evolve together. These are some mistakes I’ve noticed.

Complex or unintuitive pricing model.

A good pricing model appears simple and logical to the customer. It may be complex behind the scenes, with different prices for varying customer sizes, product complexity, and add ons, but the tax aligns itself to the customer’s perception of ROI clearly. Customers have their own unit of measure. Often for applications, it’s people - hence a pricing model by seats. Other times for infrastructure, it’s bytes for storage or cycles for compute.

But mixing these models by charging for a people-based product in units like bytes doesn’t work. A pricing model for Slack that charges based on the number of bytes sent by the team in a month works conceptually, but is intangible, hard to understand, and also impossible to predict the ultimate cost for the buyer.

Move to annual prepay too late.

Salesforce popularized the annual prepay idea, and for good reason. Annual prepay

generates cash flow to accelerate growth. Customers effectively lend the startup money to grow. It can be intimidating to push a customer toward annual prepay, or to demand it from an account executive, especially when a startup is young and the product immature. But it’s worth pushing as early as possible. Your startup will grow faster and need less capital to grow.

Tomasz Tunguz is a venture capitalist at Redpoint and writes about startups, fund raising, SaaS companies, and best practices for founders.

You can read his blog at tomtunguz.com

Employ static pricing.

The optimal price for a subscription product is the one that maximizes the revenue on the supply/demand curve. But unlike the charts my Economics professor drew on the blackboard, startup price demand curves aren’t static. They change with time.

In fact, the marketing team exists to improve the demand curve by building a brand, developing reference customers, building strong return on investment case studies, building the lead funnel. As a startup becomes better known, the demand for the product increases, lifting the price demand curve, and with it the optimal price point. These effects can be dramatic.

Fail to embed concessions in the proposal.

When selling to mid-market companies who buy software with purchase orders, not credit cards, startups will need to survive the procurement gauntlet.

Procurement teams are often compensated on their

success negotiating lower prices from vendors.

Structuring proposals with this in mind is key to achieving the ultimate price target for your product.

Using the wrong price discovery questions.

When asking a customer or potential customer how much they are willing to pay for a product, the customer will almost never be forthright. And for good reason - it’s against their economic interest to reveal their maximum willingness to pay.

It’s much easier to ask a customer to think about relative price. How much is the customer willing to pay compared to another product? In the sales SaaS world, buyers think of the cost of new tools as a function of the cost of a Salesforce seat. 10-20% of a Salesforce seat for a productivity tool seems reasonable. But is this new lead generation product equally as valuable as Salesforce?

Pricing is a moving target and so should be viewed as an ongoing product discovery process. Pricing should be re-evaluated regularly. Monthly, at the very beginning stages of commercialization, and then less frequently as the company approaches the local maximum when a product matures and the company establishes itself as a leader. Beware of the pitfalls above and you’ll reach that optimal pricing mechanism faster.

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Ford made headlines at CES this week when it announced a major partnership that will integrate Amazon’s technology into its cars, also following rumors that the company is working with Google to develop and manufacture self-driving cars.

BACKSTORY Robert Siegel and Aaron Levie taught “The Industrialist’s Dilemma“ as an elective course at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Winter 2016, with advisement from Max Wessel of Sapphire Ventures.

Even a couple of years ago, these combinations would have seemed shockingly strange, but today the only thing remotely surprising is that it took so long. Ford, to its credit, is barreling into a digital future with a Silicon Valley innovation lab, self-driving car investments, car sharing programs, and more.

This article originally appeared in Tech Crunch on January 10, 2016.

After surviving world wars, tectonic shifts in the economy, onslaughts from foreign competitors, and more, Ford knows all too well how difficult survival is in the Fortune 500.

Since the first rankings of the Fortune 500 was published in 1955, a whopping 89% of the list has turned over. That’s astonishing: in less than one lifetime, the dominant players in the global economy have almost completely changed.

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...the challenge of making self-driving cars requires a fundamentally different skill-set...

”

Aaron Levie is Chief Executive Officer, Cofounder and Chairman at Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO and cofounder, Dylan Smith. Aaron leads the company in its mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions.

Technologically speaking, 1955 and most of the decades since, were the dark ages. Today, clever entrepreneurs are benefited by the increased ability to use the power of emerging technologies and shifting capital markets to disrupt any business – and every business – quicker than ever before. With billions of smartphones, near-limitless computing power available on-demand, and contract manufacturing, the same forces that have shaken up the technology industry are causing upheaval for every other industry as well.

It is hard to think of an industry that is not under attack.

Media, retail, life sciences, healthcare, transportation, hospitality and agriculture are all under siege by new products that blur the boundaries of the physical and virtual. And these new digital experiences are inspiring customers to put major pressure on established analog peers.

Most traditional players are not prepared to answer these calls. Slowed by heavy regulation, years of codified processes and aging technology, incumbents are burdened to the point where it is nearly impossible to move quickly enough against an unencumbered challenger.

This is the Industrialist’s Dilemma: the systems, management and assets that led to success in the industrial era are holding incumbents back today, in some cases fatally.

Robert Siegel is a Lecturer in Management where he has led primary research and written cases on Google, Box, AngelList, SurveyMonkey, Medium, Wikimedia Foundation, Zuora, PayPal, General Electric, and Starbucks (La Boulange) amongst others.

As we learned with the Innovator’s Dilemma, new forms of disruption make it hard for managers in existing businesses to respond gracefully to these attacks; however, today we see that the move from the industrial world to a digital one is far more of a nonlinear shift than even the most innovative incumbents are used to.

It’s one thing for a car company to react to a more reliable or more affordable car maker, as US automakers dealt with in the 1970’s. It’s another to respond to the very threat of car ownership going away forever, or the challenge that making self-driving cars requires a fundamentally different skill-set from what you’ve invested in over a century. So what can the established players do?

Out of fear, or denial, most will choose to sit back and wait until the shift is so profound that their moves become as limited as the taxi industry’s are today. The rare exception in the Fortune 500, however, will employ a mix of tech acquisitions, investments in startups,

building out talent and operations in Silicon Valley, and driving partnerships to transform their companies.

Ford is hedging their bets by developing self-driving car technology directly and partnering with Amazon and potentially Google, while considering the business model implications of a world where cars are managed in fleets, not parked in our garage. Charles Schwab is taking a hint from automated online advisers like Wealthfront and FutureAdvisor, attempting to leverage its customer relationships to stave off an attack, while also entering a new market it never served previously.

And Kaiser, realizing that providing virtual care lowers its costs and offers better convenience for patients, has built out an own array of technology and invests in startups to bring personalized, digital healthcare to life.

Ultimately, no two digital strategies are the same, but all must start with the incumbent’s core competency at the center of the effort.

For years, GE has been one of the best examples of an industrial giant that’s going digital. Recognizing earlier than most that in a connected world, through the crunching of big data and constant optimization of its services, GE can move to providing solutions as opposed to products (e.g. selling energy savings vs. wind turbines).

To get there, they needed each of their business units to think like a digital business, as well as build out a centralized software and computing effort to standardize approaches across the conglomerate. Today, their successful software efforts have led them to going on the offensive in the internet of things, launching GE Digital as a standalone unit with the goal of becoming a top-10 software company by revenue by 2020.

The retail industry offers emerging examples of brickand-mortar players using partnerships with startups to turn a former weakness into a weapon. With online commerce offering infinite selection at unbeatable prices –enabled by centralized warehouses instead of thousands of locations– it looked as if nearly every retailer was doomed to face the same fate as Borders or Blockbuster going against Amazon.

But as more consumers are getting hooked on on-demand experiences, physical retailers may have the upper hand, as they are able to deliver both online and offline shopping which offers better convenience than their online-only rivals.

To get there, a plethora of on-demand delivery part-

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nerships are being struck between the likes of Walgreens, Best Buy, Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and Postmates, DoorDash, and Deliv, with Uber expected to get in the ring soon.

In many cases, M&A will be the industrialist’s fastest path to the right digital experiences. Monsanto, Nordstrom, and Under Armour have acquired their way into digital expertise, buying would-be disruptors and incorporating their capabilities into their core businesses. Startups like Climate Corporation, Trunk Club, and MyFitnessPal have given these acquirers an edge in emerging categories, bringing in fresh talent, modern technology stacks, and new business models.

Just as Tesla can both build cars at scale and update them with regular software upgrades – two very different operational paradigms and capabilities – companies will also need to learn how to evolve to flex both of these traits.

While acquisitions turbocharge entry into a new market, retaining the talent and DNA that made the startup so effective becomes the most important task for sustained innovation.

Most incumbents outside of the technology world (and many within it) are not prepared for this kind of future, and every day that goes by reduces their ability to adapt in time.

With over $1.4 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of the S&P 500, and demand for liquidity among venture capitalists, we can expect the industrialists to become far bigger acquirers in the tech world over the coming years, perhaps even outpacing traditional technology companies in tech M&A.

The coming years will be crucial for any blue chip firm looking to keep its leadership spot.

Of course, none of these efforts will matter if organizational change, and significant shifts in how the companies are run, don’t accompany them. It is not enough to have the right products and technology, as those will only solve the problem for a single point in time.

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Organizations themselves need to adapt to ensure long-term competitiveness and innovation. The ability to separate the organizational structures and cultural dynamics that were developed for slower, industrial-age processes (like manufacturing) from the fast moving ones required for more digital-based experiences will be critical.

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Consumers are not going to accept friction in their retail experiences when Amazon is an alternative. Banks will have to contend with increased choices and a world where their physical sprawl matters little to consumers.

And owning cars may very well be a thing of the past if Google and Uber have their way.

The future is going to look very different; the only question is how the Industrialists will respond.

Do You Believe in Your Own Product?

By Alvina Antar CIO at Zuora

As CIO, you are the primary decision maker on technology purchases.

The first question you ask a company when assessing their technology is “How do you use your product internally?” This is a question any technology company’s CIO should have a clear answer to. But, they may dread having to answer this because they don’t effectively use their own product. If you’re lucky, the awkward moments pass quickly. If not, you’ve raised more questions than answers.

As technology becomes more entrenched in every aspect of our lives, the role of the CIO continues to expand. Forward-looking companies have realized that IT must play a key role in strategic acceleration and constant reinvention. CIOs have a mandate to balance business enablement with the traditional role of IT operational excellence — table stakes for any IT leader. Too little change will generate missed opportunities. Too much change too fast could wreck a company’s momentum, brand, and bottom line.

I’ve seen enterprise businesses spend years and millions of dollars attempting to implement a solution using the wrong technology, as they were unwilling to let go of existing investments. As an IT leader, you have to stay current with evolving business and technology trends, and have confidence to take calculated risks while embracing change.

Dell needed to streamline subscription billing and fast-track onboarding of 10-12 acquisitions per year to drive the evolution from a hardware to a software solutions company. This subscription shift is

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As the Mergers & Acquisitions IT leader at Dell, I knew the significance of Zuora’s value proposition and championed the purchase, implementation, and adoption of Dell on Demand, the new Quote to Cash architecture for Dell’s recurring revenue offerings.

Zuora on Zuora

...

I wanted to internalize our customer’s experience.

Zuora champion at Dell

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likened to changing the tires on a car that is going 100 miles per hour.

I saw firsthand Zuora’s vision realized, The World Subscribed, and joined Zuora with conviction. As soon as I came onboard, I was determined to understand how our value proposition was being realized internally. Our business needed to evolve. As an organization, we needed to optimize business and system processes for operational maturity. Zuora was at our core; however, we needed to deepen our use to achieve an end-to-end ecosystem to enable compliance and governance required for a scaling global organization.

I committed to advancing the use of our own technology, Zuora on Zuora — a strategic program designed to become our best reference account. The journey began by asking basic questions. “How are we using our product today?” “What are our business growth initiatives?” The answers highlighted the fact that we have a rapidly growing subscription-based business that needed to establish process consistency in order to scale. We saw opportunities to extend the use of our product and mature our processes to meet these needs.

Rather than taking an insider’s view of positioning the benefits, I initiated a full sales cycle as a live customer. I wanted to internalize our customers' experience. Our first step was to gain executive sponsorship while confirming business value.

who saw inherent value and believed in my vision. And for those who weren’t completely on board, I had one simple question, “Would you say the same to a customer?”. That always turned things around.

Benefits

The initial sales discovery workshop began with an introduction of The Buyers and The Sellers. From the get-go, it was strictly business for both sides. Our executive team was in full attendance and further reinforced the significance of this initiative. It was followed by a review of our value pyramid centering around speed, scale, and customer success by fully utilizing Zuora’s software for recurring billing, payments, and analytics.

After insightful demos of as-is/to-be processes and a detailed design blueprint, I agreed to proceed.

Implementation As the executive sponsor, I identified the core team and evangelized the significance of this program. The key here was to make this a companywide initiative and not minimize the focus and contribution to it. We started with detailed design, and phased rollout recommendations provided by a solutions architect from our professional services organization with expertise in taking customers live. This framed the level of investment and skillset required to proceed with implementation and deployment.

I then provided firm commitments on delivery dates, as with any strategic program, to ensure that this was given the proper priority. But that wasn’t enough. Revenue generating customers and partners will always beat you to it. And rightfully so. Proper expectations were set that investing in your own technology requires agility and dedication to stay current with your ever-evolving product.

Personally for me and my team, the biggest benefit has been the meaningful relationships it has created within the company. We are now viewed as trusted advisors and our inputs sought after. Zuora on Zuora serves as an unbiased eye of a customer, providing feedback with priorities to our Product and Engineering teams. This is an expectation for every single CIO out there. Let’s force our seat at the table!

As CIO, I am a key member of our Product Council providing direct input on product strategy as a voice of the customer. Seeing how the product is used in real-time has benefitted the entire company.

We have a direct, unfiltered view of usage patterns, requirements, and performance and are now our own testbed for alpha releases — customer zero. We understand implementation and user hurdles from the inside. Today, we are highlighting the journey and results as a credible reference for Zuora. I am now a trusted CIO-to-CIO reference.

Key takeaway Always be positioned to share your own implementation with pride. This is the power of transparency. What better sales tool than an incredibly successful implementation of your own product! Prioritize building functional and technical expertise in your own products and you are guaranteed to have a profound impact on your business transformation.

Exploit your genuine passion for your own technology and insights on best practices, design principles, and implementation strategies.

I’m betting on the power of investing in our own technology. Are you?

I was fortunate to have strong advocates spanning the organization

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2015

RESULTS In 2015 we surveyed 100+ CFOs to identify market trends, operational benchmarks, and how they are transforming their businesses.

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Tyler Sloat CFO at Zuora.

With more than fifteen years of professional experience, Sloat has held executive finance roles for payment, software and hardware technology companies varying from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

When companies talk about innovation, most

making role. It’s not just about balancing the

of the discussion centers around products and

books anymore. This spring I surveyed over 100

services. But a lot of it is happening in the back

senior finance executives in an effort to provide

office. Companies are finding new answers to

transparency among like-minded subscription

the fundamental question: how do we make

businesses, as well as define some best practices

money?

and hopefully create a network for ongoing collaboration. Here are some highlights of

Increasingly, we’re finding that they view

that study — I hope you find them useful and

their finance operation as a strategic business

inspiring.

partner, placing the CFO in a top-level decision

1

2

THE SURVEY

THE RESPONDENTS

Almost half of the companies that responded to the survey are growing over 50% a year, a remarkable achievement. The following data represents some highlights from the survey, focusing primarily around Pipeline and Acquisition.

The majority of the companies represented in the survey are established SaaS ventures focused on growth and market share.

100% 90%

90%

80% 70%

100 +

60%

survey questions

50%

100 + survey respondents

10,000 +

40%

points of data

30% 20%

62%

34%

40%

10% 0%

> $50M in TTM Rev

> 200 employees

Software

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Recurring only

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3

THE FRAMEWORK The PADRE acronym defines and operationalizes our business model here at Zuora, and serves as the basis of this survey. We’ll touch on its key concepts throughout the survey.

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p

a

d

PIPELINE

ACQUIRE

DEPLOY

RUN

EXPAND

Web Social AR / PR Events Product Launches

Demand Gen. Field Enablement Business Dev. Emerging Enterprise International Sales Eng.

Self Service Squads Partners Methodology

Tech Ops Support Renewals Account Mgmt.

Adoption Training

Upsell Cross-sell

P

P

M

PRODUCT

PEOPLE

MONEY

PM / PMM R&D Docs

Recruiting Onboarding Training Help Desk

Finance Operations Legal

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r e

4

PIPELINE Our marketing department owns our pipeline strategy, or the total platform of commercial opportunity delivered to the sales group. Here are four key factors to consider when developing your own.

How do you drive pipe?

How much do you need?

Quality vs.

Quantity

How long does it last?

WHAT DOES YOUR FUNNEL LOOK LIKE?

COVERAGE

For the vast majority of our respondents, the top of their sales funnel starts with their website. Online advertising will always be important, but investing in content pays long-term dividends in generating unique inbound leads, as well as turning a “cold” outbound effort into a “warm” one.

Sales revenue will always represent a fraction of your total pipeline number. The real question is what that ratio actually looks like. In other words, if you want to close $100 million in revenue this year, how much pipeline will you need? Almost half of our respondents put their pipeline-to-revenue ratio between 2x and 3x.

Investing in your website pays off – more than 40% of website visits were unique for majority of respondents

2.1x – 3.0x 3.1x – 4.0x

40% Inbound is the largest individual source of pipe (46% listed of primary source)

1.0x – 2.0x

4.1x – 5.0x

> 5.0x

46% 76%

Of those, 76% clarified that as Organic (website, free trials)

12%

47%

24%

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7%

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5 ACQUIRE At Zuora, our sales department owns our acquisition numbers, which we monitor continuously. Here are some key factors we consider when setting up our account executives to succeed.

How do you model?

How do you compensate?

How do you drive efficiency?

WHAT’S YOUR QUOTA BASED ON?

SELLING APPROACH Not surprisingly, product plays a key role in defining sales strategy. While direct outreach still defines large enterprise efforts, many SaaS vendors are taking advantage of self-service models. Free trials or “freemium” models sound tempting on paper, but conversion rates remain stubbornly low for many.

77%

Should you accelerate, digest, or pull back?

In other words, what metric do you use to guide sales compensation? Annual Contract Value, Total Contract Value, or Monthly Recurring Revenue? SaaS models tend to favor rewarding ACV, or the first-year footprint.

65%

of respondents sell primary through a direct sales approach

offer their prospects a free trial period

15%

Other 19%

MRR 48%

ACV

52%

use a self-service model

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20%

Less than 20% of free trial users convert to paying customers

18%

TCV

HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE

WHAT ARE YOUR COMMISSION RATES?

How do you deploy your sales team? By region? By industry expertise? By prospect size (Enterprise, SMB, etc.)? We’re finding more and more sales groups are developing specific AEs as industry experts, promoting them in relevant media and events.

At the bottom rung of sales commission rates, 5% is probably closer in line with a traditional product sales model. At the other extreme, a 20% commission implies a mature product and aggressive investment in market share.

SALES TEAM SEGMENTATION STACK RANK:

31%

Industry Verticals

responses

26%

Customer Rev

35%

THE LOW NORM

6–10%

37%

THE HIGH NORM

11–15%

12%

BREAKING THE BANK

21%

9%

# Employees

rates

CHEAPSKATES

5%

20%

HOW TO MODEL SALES CYCLE Defining an average sales cycle length is crucial to modeling your AE enablement efforts. Almost half of our respondents reported a cycle length of at least 120 days, pointing to the deliberate nature of enterprise sales.

4% 16% 32% 29% 19%

10 days 30 days 60 days 120 days >120 days

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6

charge less than 10% of initial year ACV for the implementation

DEPLOY You’ve made the sale – now how do you think about your professional services team in terms of revenue? Are they driving your profit picture, or are they primarily an operational function?

Profit or break even

Alignment between Sales Professional Services

What KPIs should you hold the implementation team accoumtable to

When does subscription start

2/3

2/3 50%

have an implementation component to their solution

7

75% commence the subscription on contract signing

75%

of customers to go live within 30 days of contract signing

RUN

Once you’re off and running, how do you keep your customers happy? How do you weigh the benefits of a rock-solid customer support team versus a more proactive strategy of customer success? Who owns the red flags?

Churn is the Achilles heel of any subscription business

ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS COMMITTED?

Who owns renewals

SLAs and uptime commitments

Support vs customer success

How does a company learn from service tickets

WHO OWNS RENEWALS?

The vast majority of our respondents have contract lengths

Customer Success teams are increasingly becoming

of at least a year, giving customer success departments breathing space to develop and nurture longer-term relationships.

a prerequisite for successful subscription businesses, but for a third of our respondents, sales still owns renewals.

Contract Terms Monthly Semi–Annual

12%

15%

33% 4%

Customer Success Sales

70

1–2 years

73%

> 2 years

7%

55%

Other

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EXPAND Who owns the upsell

The “farming versus hunting” dynamic is especially relevant to subscription businesses, where the real value lies in nurturing long-term relationships.

Sales efficiency depends on farming the existing base

New usage, new divisions, new products... can all be leveraged as upsell strategy

PRODUCT STICKINESS AND UPSELL POTENTIAL ARE OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE TO SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESSES.

>60%

Upsells are important – over

40%

of respondents generate more than

Sales reps are the keys – companies generating higher upsell assign reps to manage.

of companies are changing pricing at least annually

20%

14%

of their booking from upsells

only every 3 years

WHO OWNS THE UPSELL? SALES OR CUSTOMER SUCCESS? IF IT’S YOUR CS DEPARTMENT, SHOULD THEY BE GETTING A COMMISSION?

Who manages upsells?

Do you pay for results?

7% 42%

Customer Success Team

35% 65%

No Yes

Sales Reps 51%

Other

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PODCASTS WE LIKE by Erika Malzberg

1 EXPONENT.FM

2 HBR IDEACAST

3 THE GROWTH SHOW

Co-hosted by Ben Thompson (author and founder of Stratechery) and James Allworth (writer for Harvard Business Review), Exponet is a weekly podcast that offers insights into the economics of technology and how tech is changing our world. In episodes such as Driving Into the Future, on “the future of cars and transportation,” and The User Experience, the role the user experience plays in “building dominant companies,” Ben and James’ great rapport and striking intelligence make easy listening of big picture ideas.

As expected from the trusted Harvard Business Review, HBR IdeaCast provides solid content from “the leading thinkers in business and management.”

Whether reclaiming the term “thought leader” or digging into the subject of how to be a Super Boss, host Sarah Green Carmichael lives up to the HBR brand.

And the condensed format (most of the weekly episodes clock in at less than 20 minutes) is pretty appealing.

The Growth Show, hosted by Mike Volpe, CMO for HubSpot, provides expert guidance on growing and scaling a business.

Since HubSpot is a marketing software firm, it’s no surprise that the subject matter skews towards a sales and marketing perspective.

But the candid Q&A format gives business experts such as Mozilla’s CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff and Clif Bar CEO Kevin Cleary ample opportunities to share practical advice.

feeds.harvardbusiness.org/ harvardbusiness/ideacast

hubspot.com/podcast

exponent.fm/

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SUBSCRIBED PODCAST BY ZUORA Check out the only podcast dedicated to the ‘Subscription Economy,’ as hosts Tom Krackler, SVP of Product at Zuora, and Rachel English, Zuora’s Director of Customer Success, talk to innovators, entrepreneurs, and analysts about the business shift towards recurring revenue. zuora.com/guides/subscribed-podcast/

4 RE/CODE DECODE

5 BBC BUSINESS DAILY

6 THE TIM FERRISS SHOW

7 ENTRELEADERSHIP

Re/code Decode, hosted by prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher and writer/editor Peter Kafka, is a look at “Silicon Valley’s key players, big ideas, and how they’re changing the world we live in.” More specifically, it’s an informed view into the tech industry with hosts who aren’t content to just pitch softballs to big name guests like BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, and Y Combinator President Sam Altman.

If you’re looking for a daily podcast fix that will keep you up-to-date on “the daily drama of money and work,” BBC Business Daily delivers with unique global stories and their impact on current business and business trends. From Australia’s drought to Tonga’s economy to women’s work in Saudi Arabia, the BBC team offers compelling “story behind the story” reporting from an international perspective.

From the guru who brought us the 4-hour work week, comes one of the top-ranked business podcasts. Guests and topics are all over the map, from Jamie Foxx on workout routines to B.J. Novak on the creative process to Alain de Botton on how philosophy can change your life. Some episodes hit home more effectively than others, but you’re sure to uncover at least a few golden nuggets in every episode.

bbc.co.uk/podcasts/ series/bizdaily

fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/

Great listening even if you’re not an entrepreneur. Currently hosted by Ken Coleman, this weekly podcasts strives to help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. The guest list is pure quality, even if it isn’t as flashy as some higher profile podcasts.

Experts - from CEOs to authors - provide in-depth insights on critical business topics such as the new rules of customer service, making change happen, and how to build an enduring, great company.

recode.net/podcasts/

entreleadership.com/ posts.podcast

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A luxury travel destination club. A pet insurance provider. A farming equipment provider in

lunch program. A wedding publisher. A French home furnishing company. A restaurant reser

vice. A plumbing & handyman service. A major American airline. A major American automob

rental service. A cable TV company. A foreign language learning program. A standardized tes

interior design community. A salon & spa management platform. A radio network. A hospita lock manufacturer. A smart phone manufacturer. A private jet service. A toothbrush delive ing company. A food takeout delivery service. A real estate agent community. A Swiss travel

cial newspaper. A recreational marketplace. A home security company. A French restauran

A farming equipment provider in New Zealand. A personal meditation app. A professional s

nishing company. A restaurant reservation seating system. A streaming Japanese anime prov

can airline. A major American automobile manufacturer. A smart thermostat. A credit card c A cable TV company. A

SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESS

provement and interior

RUNS ON ZUORA.

foreign language learning program. A st

design community. A salon & spa manag

tional telecom. A legal contract resource. A lock manufacturer. A smart phone manufacture

beauty supply company. A mobile gaming company. A food takeout delivery service. A real e

vice. A 160 year-old British financial newspaper. A recreational marketplace. A home secu

club. A pet insurance provider. A farming equipment provider in New Zealand. A personal

publisher. A French home furnishing company. A restaurant reservation seating system. A st man service.A major American airline. A major American automobile manufacturer. A smart

company. A foreign language learning program. A standardized test preparation service. A 13

A salon & spa management platform. A radio network. A hospital mews publisher. An Ivy Lea

phone manufacturer. A private jet service. A toothbrush delivery service. A multinational O

livery service. A real estate agent community. A Swiss travel agency. A streaming music servi

A recreational marketplace. A home security company. A French restaurant guide. A visual

n New Zealand. A personal meditation app. A professional soccer scouting service. A school

rvation seating system. A streaming Japanese anime provider. A fashion industry marketing ser-

bile manufacturer. A smart thermostat. A credit card company. A textbook publisher. A home

st preparation service. A 131 year-old cash register manufacturer. A home improvement and

al mews publisher. An Ivy League university. A national telecom. A legal contract resource. A ry service. A multinational OEM. An 83 year-old beauty supply company. A mobile gamagency. A streaming music service. A weather data service. A 160 year-old British finan-

nt guide. A visual effects studio. A luxury travel destination club. A pet insurance provider.

soccer scouting service. A school lunch program. A wedding publisher. A French home fur-

vider. A fashion industry marketing service. A plumbing & handyman service. A major Ameri-

company. A textbook publisher. A home rental service. A salon & spa management platform.

tandardized test preparation service. A 131 year-old cash register manufacturer. A home im-

gement platform. A radio network. A hospital mews publisher. An Ivy League university. A na-

er. A private jet service. A toothbrush delivery service. A multinational OEM. An 83 year-old

estate agent community. A Swiss travel agency. A streaming music service. A weather data ser-

urity company. A French restaurant guide. A visual effects studio. A luxury travel destination

l meditation app. A professional soccer scouting service. A school lunch program. A wedding

treaming Japanese anime provider. A fashion industry marketing service. A plumbing & handythermostat. A credit card company. A textbook publisher. A home rental service. A cable TV

31 year-old cash register manufacturer. A home improvement and interior design community.

ague university. A national telecom. A legal contract resource. A lock manufacturer. A smart

OEM. An 83 year-old beauty supply company. A mobile gaming company. A food takeout de-

ice. A weather data service. A 160 year-old British financial newspaper.

l effects studio. A restaurant reservation seating system.

THE SUBSCRIPTION ECONOMY HAS A STRONG PULSE. Filled with informative content, from foundational overviews to industry deep dives, the Academy offers straightforward and actionable advice for a range of roles including marketing, finance, technology and operations. We invite you to learn, contribute, and engage.

www.zuora.com/academy

Powering Subscription Business