OpenView Weekly: 4/7/18

OV | Weekly – April 7, 2018

Hi Friend of OpenView,

This week’s big story: Spotify’s IPO. OpenView’s Blake Bartlett, provides some insight:

This week’s big story was Spotify’s IPO, due to the $25B+ valuation and its novel “direct listing” approach to going public. In the era of ICOs, it will be interesting to see if this unconventional, lower-overhead approach to a traditional IPO will become the new norm. Before the opening bell, RBC warned the stock could “decline significantly and rapidly,” and that’s just what happened as the price declined from $165.90/share at the opening bell to $149.10/share at the close.

Is it a failure not to have a big “pop” on Day 1? If you were one of the shareholders who sold in the direct listing, then you’re probably pretty pumped that there wasn’t a pop. But if you bought in at the open, you’re probably pretty bummed. It’s all relative.

We’ve also got a lot of meaty content to share this week, check it out 👇

Answering the age old question: how to design effective sales comp plans?

Luckily OpenView’s own Liz Cain has the answers. Prior to joining OpenView, she grew NetsSuite’s BDR team from 0 to 170 people. Needless to say, she knows how to compensate sales people in a way that keeps them motivated.

Liz shares her essential ‘Dos and Don’ts’ for effective sales comp plans here.

Email is an untapped resource for B2B companies.

Did you know that 86% of professionals still prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes? And that B2B marketers have a 47% higher click-through rate than the average B2C business?

For those struggling to convert email leads to customers, Single Grain’s Eric Siu provides tactics with examples from seven leading companies in his article here.

🎧BUILD Podcast: Learn from HubSpot’s iterative approach to pricing

Nailing pricing is crucial to the success of your business. But it’s often overlooked by early-stage startups. HubSpot’s Chief Strategy Officer, Brad Coffey, discusses how a deeper look at unit economics led to a reinvention of Hubspot’s pricing plans.

Today the company’s market cap is nearly 5 billion dollars. Listen to the BUILD podcast to learn about HubSpot’s pricing strategy and evolution here.

Survey: What buyers find most important before and after purchasing software

In a recent study conducted by TrustRadius, customers were asked to look at a list of 11 software criteria and from there, identify the three most important for software before and after they actually purchase it.

Read the full study to learn what matters most pre and post-sale here.

Here’s what else we’re reading 📖

• China’s AI threat is real, but not as bad as you think
• Agile for Marketing Teams – A Roadmap
• Lessons from a Triathlete: Learn to Celebrate the Small Stuff

Here’s what else you need to know this week:

• Know a Growth Hacker? Boulder-based JumpCloud is looking for just that. Learn more about the role and apply here. You can view all open positions here.
• Our second annual Product led Growth Summit is fast approaching. Join us in San Francisco May 9. Get all the details, find out who’s speaking, register to attend and more here.

That’s it for now. See you back here next week! In the meantime, say 👋on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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