037 Ray Rike - Successful SaaS Leadership: Measuring What Matters in 2023 and Beyond

In today’s SaaS Fuel™ episode, Ray Rike joins SaaS Fuel to discuss how he helped develop the industry's largest (and first) interactive, real-time benchmarking database, saaskpibenchmarks.comEpisode SponsorChampion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/Navigating Success Together 2023 Virtual Event Key Takeaways[1:51] The importance of metrics [10:52] Customer CAC ratio versus existing customer expansion cap ratio[13:51] About saaskpibenchmarks.com[14:52] Measuring the return on investment of customer success and responsible forecasting[15:41] Using benchmarks properly  [17:13] Customer Success responsibilities[17:52 ] What Investors Look For [20:30] The SaaS Metrics Board[23:10] Three things that make financing deals difficult for SaaS Companies.[31:09]  Three things your organization can do to impact net dollar retention – and how to measure it’s working[38:18] SaaS metric and benchmark analysis example[43:26] Final thoughts and where to contact Ray Tweetable Quotes[1:51] Metrics and the associated benchmarks are the best way to inform decision-makingfor a fast-growing SaaS company. I also believe that metrics provide a great alignment foundation between the organizations responsible for customer acquisition, retention and expansion, marketing sales and customer success.[15:41] Benchmarks, just like metrics, aren't absolute. They're not one hundred percent accurate…but benchmarks are directionally very instructive and insightful.[30:26] So many of the VCs have great educational content about the metrics that matter, and B2B SaaS. If you just spend an hour a week kind of following two or three great thought leaders or learning about one metric from a venture capital website, you're gonna be so much better informed than the head of marketing, head of sales, or head of product. You’re also going to be positioned to be that CEO in the future. Guest ResourcesRay Rike - https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/rayrikesaaskpibenchmarks.comTwitter: @ Rayrike revopssquared.comhttps://www.revopssquared.com/metrics-that-measure-uphttps://www.key.com/businesses-institutions/industry-expertise/library-saas-resources.jspTodd Gardner – https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddgardner1/SaaS Capital: https://bit.ly/3WYmBxQLauren Kelly/Opex- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-kelley-13972Ben Murray - SaaS CEO - https://www.thesaascfo.com/about-ben/https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurrayChelsea Stoner - https://www.battery.com/people/chelsea-stoner/https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseastonerMary D’Onofrio - Bessemer Ventureshttps://www.bvp.com/team/mary-donofriohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-d-onofrio-a125b2154Dave Kellogg - https://kellblog.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelloggdavehttps://twitter.com/Kellblog?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorGainsight - https://bit.ly/3CjsxK6David Apple - https://www.linkedin.com/in/appledavidRyan Morrison: https://www.founderscircle.com/our-team/ryan-morrison/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-morrison-98225198Saasmetricsboard.comSaaS Fuel ResourcesWebsite - https://championleadership.com/Jeff Mains on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffkmains/Twitter - https://twitter.com/jeffkmainsFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/thesaasguy/Instagram - https://instagram.com/jeffkmains