Startup for Startup - Global ⚡ by monday.com

The current geopolitical situation in Israel brings quite a few challenges for startups wishing to raise money. These challenges become even more significant when they involve foreign VCs who may need help understanding the situation, making the way startups communicate with them even more critical.

In mid-November, we held an event where Daria Wertheim interviewed Shuli Galili from the UpWest Fund, Jacques Benkoski from U.S. Venture Partners, and Aaron Jacobson from NEA about the way investors in the U.S. perceive the current situation, how they would like founders to communicate with them, And how they see raising money for Israeli startups today.

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Why is it important for CS & AM to work together? What can this cooperation allow us as a company? 

Customer retention is one of the most, if not the most, important abilities for a company. It becomes even more important in a time when markets are changing, and companies are re-evaluating their expenses and making sure every service they use is at the core of their business - not a nice to have, but a must-have.

There for, it’s crucial for the CS and AMs (account managers) to be on top of their metrics, and make sure they can identify any potential risk or churn in advance.

In this episode, Adva Shisgal speaks with George Graham, Enterprise Account Manager, and Lauren Knowles, Customer Success Manager at monday.com, about the way their two functions work together.

George and Lauren discuss the changes their departments made in order to make sure they work closer together, what led to these changes, and how have they impacted the entire company. 

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Let's talk about SaaS metrics in 2023.

The last few years have turned the tables for many startups, and have also changed the way the market, and investors in particular, have evaluated startups. As part of this, many of the metrics we have worked with until then - such as ARR or CAC, have become much less relevant. The market wanted to focus on profitability and efficiency and had to find new metrics to support this.

In this week's episode, Darya Wertheim spoke with Jason Lemkin, SaaStr founder & CEO, and with Eran Zinman and Roy Mann, the Co-Founders and Co-CEO of monday.com about SaaS metrics in 2023. They've discussed what has changed in the SaaS business model in recent years, how to look at ARR, CAC, and NDR today, and why it is not certain that these metrics serve us as well as they did in the past, and on many more topics that arise when we put three SaaS geeks in the same room (or in the same virtual conversation).

The episode dives deep into the business model of SaaS companies, so it is aimed at those who are familiar with and discuss concepts such as ARR, CAC and NDR.

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A discovery call is fundamental to any successful sales cycle. Looking at the more simple definition of it, a discovery call is the first conversation with a potential customer after they’ve shown initial interest in our product. It’s basically our chance to get to know the customer and see if we're a good fit for them, and, in return, if they're a good fit for us.

But there’s is a lot more to a successful discovery call than calling and asking questions for 30 minutes. Making sure you’re asking the right set of questions is a skill you must obtain as well as many other practices that will optimize the impact you could create while on the call.

On this episode of Startup for Startup, Nathan Newman, Senior Account Executive at monday.com, takes us through the intricacies of discovery calls, offering valuable insights and strategies to help you master this crucial element of business growth.

Nathan shares his insights about the purpose of the call, finding relevant leads, preparing for the call, and the questions that will allow you to get a lot more from your discovery calls. 

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How do you build a product that people will want to share with each other? What do you do when you have two weeks left until your runway ends? How do you know that pivot is the right thing for your startup?

Back in 2015, Joe Thomas and his fellow co-founders held a meeting where they each pitched three startup ideas. They spent the next eight months striving to develop a video-based product for customer feedback but unfortunately, their startup wasn't growing as quickly as they hoped, and they found themselves with only two weeks until their runway ended.

But they didn't give up, and taking everything they learned from their journey up until then, they managed to pivot just in time to save the company from going under.

On this week's episode of 'Startup for Startup - Global', Darya Wertheim sits down with Joe to discuss Loom's inspiring journey from crisis to success. Joe candidly shares the mistakes they made when founding Loom, the questions that guided them to make the right pivot, and the obstacles they encountered along the way.

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Why have we decided to build a startup within monday.com? What makes a founder that closed their company want to start a new one within an existing company? And how does the integration between the two companies work? 

How many of the big companies you know have started within other companies? Gmail started within Google, Atlassian has companies with a different brand like confluence, and most other examples related to companies acquired by more prominent brands and kept their autonomy. 

In this episode, Darya Wertheim spoke with Roy Mann, monday.com Co-CEO and Co-Founder, and Noam Ackerman, who leads ‘monday canvas’, about how we built a new startup within monday. Roy and Noam shared the experience of starting a new, separate startup - one that is led by its own founder doesn’t use any of monday’s resources and hires slowly - like any other startup in its first stages. 

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There is a number of important points in an employee’s life at a company. The most crucial one is probably the onboarding. a good onboarding experience can improve the employees’ retention by 82%, and their performance by 70%. It puts a lot of weight on this process - that many companies struggle with.

By working right with a few tools, you can improve dramatically the onboarding to your team. In this episode, we’ll understand what makes a great onboarding assignment, how to make the onboarding less theoretical, what’s the value of a team member that walks the new joiner hand in hand through the first few months, and how to shape the onboarding based on the recruitment process.

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In the age of technology, careers shift all the time. A programmer can wind up in product management. A content writer can find their passion for design and become a graphic designer. More and more, we’re becoming comfortable switching career paths, and like any new practice, there’s a name for it: job crafting. Though job crafting is all the rage at the moment, not every company - or manager - embraces the idea—and we get it. This kind of change is complex, not only for the one switching careers, but for management, who now needs to fill the role. For managers, is it worth giving an employee the chance to make this kind of change? And if management gives employees the green light on "job crafting", what does the employee need to smoothly make the switch? Tune in as we discuss one of startup’s latest habits.

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 “Well done!” “Err, good job.” “It’s sufficient.” For both the giver and receiver, feedback can feel daunting. As a manager, you face quite a few challenges: you don’t want to be so slight-handed that the team member doesn’t know what to improve or how, but you also don’t want to come across as cold and demotivate the person, or equally as undesirable,  causing an argument leading nowhere.

Thankfully, there’s a scheme - and an attitude - that allows us to get the most out of feedback,  helping us navigate a conversation so no one feels defensive. If you’re wondering what this conversation looks like,  what you can do to prepare yourself for this talk, the wrong way to raise an issue, and more, you’re in for a treat this week as we answer all that and more.

Wanna hear more about feedback and ask Joe Hirsch YOUR questions? Register now and join us on March 24th: https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/

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Having a bunch of great team members doesn’t guarantee team success. Your team needs to be able to run smoothly and independently, effectively collaborating with each other without needing constant reassurance. Vitali Margolin learned this lesson the hard way when he realized that as a CTO of a small startup, his team wasn’t capable of making decisions and moving forward without asking for his permission on every single step. He found himself micromanaging, and wanted to know how he could build their confidence to solve minor issues on their own. 

Along with Vitali, monday customer success managers share the lessons they’ve learned about building a strong team. What routines are important for improving communication and alignment? How can you create a work environment that supports innovation? And how can you combine a team member’s personal ambitions and goals with the team’s goals? We answer all that and more in this week’s episode!

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On March 24th, 10:00 AM EST, we'll have an online event focusing on feedback. We'll discuss some of our top principles regarding giving constructive feedback. Register now and join us on zoom!

https://www.startupforstartup.com/ww/feedback-event/

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