Experience driven lessons on leading
startups, culture and customer success
by Nick Mehta
January 28, 2023
The Chief Customer Officer (CCO) role is crucial for virtually every SaaS company. Hiring one moves Customer Success (CS) from a function to a company-wide strategy, offering a customer voice in the boardroom and a peer to your Sales and Product leaders. Yet if you asked 100 SaaS CEOs to define a CCO’s roles and […]
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January 18, 2023
Given the uncertainty in the world right now, it’s hard to predict what will happen this January—let alone all of 2023. Besides the Taylor Swift Eras concert being epic, of course! So, I decided to get the scoop. A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a survey to hundreds of growth-stage SaaS CEOs to […]
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December 16, 2022
I get an email almost every day from other CEOs or CXOs that goes something like this: “What’s a good metric for… [Growth Rate / Net Revenue Retention / Gross Margin / ARR / Employee]?” Often the message provides no context on the leader’s business. They just want to know what “good” is. As a […]
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December 16, 2022
How will we look back on 2021 and 2022 years from now? I’m sure partly, we will reflect with shock. How did we ever think GameStop was worth tens of billions of dollars? Why did we believe in crypto scams like FTX? And whoever thought an NFT of a “Bored Ape” would be valued at […]
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October 20, 2022
This article was originally published on All Business. I’ve always longed for an archnemesis. I know that may sound strange, but I’ve seen enough superhero movies to know that every great hero needs an antihero. We all know that Superman isn’t anything without Lex Luthor, and that Batman can’t quit the Joker. via GIPHY Somehow, […]
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September 22, 2022
One of my favorite TV shows ever is the 2000s comedy Community. The show features six-ish community college students who become unlikely friends. I love the program for many reasons. First of all, it’s one of the most meta TV series ever, in that it’s mainly self-referential about TV tropes. And if you know me, […]
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Just before Pulse, I shared my (slightly biased) opinion on why Pulse is the Best SaaS Event of the Year. And our time together at the Moscone Center proved that again ten times over. We laughed together. We suffered through far too many of my dad jokes and Taylor Swift references. We celebrated all the […]
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This article was originally published on Fast Company. My morning mental health best practices includes things to not check: My phone. My email. My stock portfolio. If you’ve accidentally done the latter lately, you know things are very different than they were a few months ago for SaaS stocks. While the next few quarters are […]
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August 24, 2022
This article was originally published on Fast Company. My first real job was as a Product Manager at a software company in 2002. I remember sitting in my tiny, windowless office and launching my Windows XP laptop for the first time. And I remember asking the PM in the office next door to help me […]
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August 5, 2022
Pulse is one of my favorite times of the year, and if you’ve attended one before, you know why. In addition to hearing from fantastic thought leaders, spending time networking with peers, and growing your career, the puppies, parties, and parody videos tie it all together. This year the theme of Pulse is “Together, We’re […]
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July 29, 2022
Co-authored by Shantan Reddy. I don’t know about you – but data is one of my favorite things to geek out about (in addition to creating music parodies and talking about physics). Many of you know Gainsight has thousands of customers and tens of thousands of customer success managers that use Gainsight daily, so we […]
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June 30, 2022
The paranoid CEO in me has been feeling better since last week’s survey results on what investors thought of the SaaS valuation collapse. Still, I wanted a more complete picture of SaaS’s trajectory in the economic downturn. Private Equity and Venture Capital firms may be aligned on priorities, but what about CEOs? Are there meaningful […]
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June 29, 2022
As companies consider the chaos in the market and plan their strategies for the second half of the year, Product-led growth (PLG) is (or should be!) top of mind for many SaaS executives. In fact, we learned from the Product-Led Growth Index 2022 that almost half of SaaS companies plan to double their investment in […]
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June 25, 2022
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an annoyingly-positive optimist. But like every CEO, I’m also constantly paranoid. So two narratives are constantly battling away in my brain right now: “The market opportunity for SaaS has never been better.” “The stock market is down by how much?” After reading the 732nd memo from a VC […]
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June 15, 2022
This article was originally published on Inc. It’s a challenging time in the world–and in the world of SaaS. Right now 2022, the Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) NASDAQ Emerging Cloud Index is down nearly 40% from its peak. Since SaaS companies grew a lot during that time frame, this means multiples are down even more. […]
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April 30, 2022
Every company claims, “you’ll never work somewhere like here” and, “we have the best company Values.” And I’m sure they are all (mostly) true. But there’s something really special about working at Gainsight – although I may be a little bit biased. I love talking to people. If you casually Google my name, you’ll find […]
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April 19, 2022
This post originally appeared in Chief Executive. In case you missed the news—or haven’t visited a grocery store in a long time—prices are going up. Whether you’re looking for a house, a handbag, a used Honda or a ham sandwich, everything is much more expensive. According to this week’s reporting from the Bureau of Labor […]
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April 18, 2022
If your goal is to become a SaaS CEO at a startup company, you’ll have to learn several skills: Building a business strategy Motivating the team Executing consistently Raising money Repeating CEO cliches over and over again While I find all parts of the job to be interesting, there are some unique lessons you get […]
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March 3, 2022
Whenever people ask me what my favorite TV show was as a kid, I pause to decide whether to reveal my secret shame or not. While I loved cartoons and still remember the theme song to “The Golden Girls,” what I was addicted to at ten years old was CNBC. I loved hearing the anchors’ […]
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March 3, 2022
“Do you have time for a quick call? I’d love to get your input on our Customer Success Organization.” I’ve received at least 500 emails, texts, and Linkedin DMs like this from SaaS CEOs over my nine years running Gainsight. And I LOVE getting these messages. It’s so encouraging to see CEOs leaning into Customer […]
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