The formula for growth outcomes

Link Roundups

• Elevate Your Marketing Dashboard: How to Impress the CEO, CRO, and CFO (Link)

• How Profitable Should SaaS Be? (Link)

• New GTM Benchmark: 56% of companies missed revenue goals (Link)

• 5 Interesting Learnings from Klaviyo at $800,000,000 in ARR (Link)

SaaS Weekly Reads

Are SaaS companies becoming media businesses?

In today's noisy content landscape, where it's harder to stand out and easier to be forgotten, SaaS companies are embedding media businesses inside them. Here’s why.

👉 Today, audiences seek more intimate ways to consume content – favoring creators, podcasts, and dedicated series over generic blogs.

👉 Traditional media excels at capturing attention for two reasons 1) content is the core product, and 2) they own their distribution.

👉 Media properties offer high-reach, low-cost marketing – seamlessly creating brand awareness where an audience consumes content.

Ian Ito @ SaaS Weekly [saas]

Growth Reads

A Million Dollar Stripe Page – Why Some Content Is Worth $$$

Distribution and timing are the two drivers of a lucrative customer channel.

For Stripe, ranking high on search was only half the equation – being discovered at the right time helped drive a customer conversion.

Here are three tips on building a million-dollar page like Stripe.
👉 Target high-value, high intent keywords. Front-run the traffic of searchers who are not just browsing but actively seeking a solution.

👉 Create content for every stage of the buyer journey. Align your content with the expertise level of your reader.

👉 Link back to your own resources. Use internal linking to improve the discovery of high-intent pages for readers who already landed on your site.

Chris Meabe @ Foundation [growth]

Welcome to the Distribution-First Era, Where Strategy Starts With Channels and Ends With ROI

Great distribution paired with great content leads to growth outcomes.

To maximize your content's impact, start with how it will get read, then align the topic and format to that specific channel.

Here’s the rundown.

👉 List all the potential channels you can use to get in front of your ideal audience.

👉 Rank your current channels by the traffic volume you're getting today.

👉 Categorize all the channels on a two-by-two matrix of Potential Impact and Usage to see where you should be investing your time.

Ty Metz @ Animalz [growth]

Marketing Reads

Turn Buyer Stories into Smarter Marketing Campaigns

Your customer stories are your greatest sources for marketing material – not just for social proof, but for content that speaks to the 'why now' question.

By understanding the timing element, you can craft content to prompt a trigger for prospects.
👉 Interview your customers to understand the specific events or situations that prompted them to search for a solution.

👉 Write content that highlights the challenges associated with the trigger events and positions your product as the ideal solution.

👉 Run small, focused tests to experiment with different content themes, formats, and channels to see what resonates with what audience.

Katelyn Katelyn @ Customer Camp [marketing]

When Choosing Marketing Channels, Visualize the Curve

The dangerous (and often expensive) fallacy for startups is that you can drive profitable engagement through content+SEO or ads alone. But in reality, each customer channel has its own curve – the challenge before traction starts having a high impact.

For emails, building an opt-in list is an uphill battle before the channel starts generating a frictionless return.

For SEO, strong traffic and authority come before your content has an immediate impact.

The TL'DR – focus on your overall content and brand strategy instead of trying to create artificial wins.

Rand Fishkin @ SparkToro [marketing]

Lessons From A Founder

Navigating New Waters: 10 Tips for First-Time Founder Success

Dive into tactical advice from seasoned founders like Thumbtack’s Marco Zappacosta and Dropbox’s Drew Houston.

Here are three gotchas to avoid as a first-time startup founder.

👉 Be open to being wrong, and reduce your entrepreneurial ego to enable quicker feedback cycles and cultural development.

👉 Prioritize company culture and team fit over individual talent to build a foundation of trust and quick decision-making.

👉 Establish a conservative cash management plan that assumes little to no profit and includes a safety net like a venture debt line—used only as a last resort.

The Team @ First Round

Podcasts I'm listening to

• Acquired | Democratizing the Tools of Big Tech with Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji (Link)

• Mostly Metrics | Rippling CFO Adam Swiecicki on Building a Compound Startup and Channeling Ambition (Link)

SaaS Weekly Resources

1) The SaaS Weekly Database: Search Thousands of the Best SaaS Articles and Resources

2) Generative AI Tracker: B2B SaaS Companies Adding GenAI Capabilities

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SaaSy Social Posts

Last issue’s most clicked links

• GTM strategies to reach $250M ARR at ActiveCampaign (Link)

• Musical Chairs: A Shrinking SaaS TAM (Link)

• SaaSletter - State Of The Industry (Link)