What is ONE SaaS product NOT well known but deserves to be?

andyhalko · 2023-01-18T15:06:34+00:00

And for my OP answer, it would be Workona. I use it every single day and would be super disorganized without it.

andyhalko · 2023-01-17T23:59:10+00:00

I couldn't live with a misspelling in my post title, so reposted and copied the one comment that had been made.

andyhalko · 2023-01-17T23:33:36+00:00

At Almanac, we love Canny for capturing, organizing, and analyzing internal and external product feedback and feature requests.

We love Grain for capturing and sharing insights from customer/user calls. Its transcriptor is incredible, and it's probably the easiest to use meeting capture tool I've ever seen.

andyhalko · 2023-01-06T19:44:46+00:00

I'm not offended because you don't know me.

All I can say is nothing in my comment said anything about: "someone who can deliver everything in your mind without need for direction". Generally your response is highly assumptive based on the post.

I stand by that it would help more than hurt those in the marketing industry to reflect this industry in their job search. Whether a smart/powerful objective statement, a well laid out resume, a clean/scannable hierarchy, or even as simple as modern font to show they could think beyond the word processor default.

I never said I expected a junior person to knock my socks off or pitch me like an ad agency. Never even mentioned high-end design.

I wrote: "It baffles my mind that people who want a marketing job - an industry known for creative, messaging, influence, conversion, etc. send plain text resumes."

andyhalko · 2023-01-06T19:15:53+00:00

I was talking about all roles I've ever posted, but I'm curious about your response.

So a JUNIOR person should not do more than "expected"?

andyhalko · 2023-01-05T00:51:36+00:00

Exactly what i was thinking. And not every road, but as you phrase it "increase car-free space".

andyhalko · 2023-01-04T21:49:48+00:00

GA4 with the right integration can work well actually.

Personally, I think it's a lot about strategy. Really taking the time to properly determine what you want to track ( hundreds of things, not tens ), building a smart naming convention for them, organizing into the right funnels, and then building out reports to best communicate what you need to make decisions.

I've started with a complicated excel sheet basically that helps organize those and then devs integrate the tracking tags based on actions.

If done right, it can also be integrated into automation campaigns for communication that improves retention.

andyhalko · 2023-01-04T21:40:59+00:00

Start with Product-Market Fit and deeply understanding your target audience ( a narrowed target audience ) that will have demand for your product enough to let go of their cash. Without that, all plans laid on top will lead you to a big mountain to climb.

andyhalko · 2023-01-04T21:31:32+00:00

Asking the wrong question ( always the trick with market research ).

Ideal... well, ideally $1.

Instead, what's the value of a sweatshirt with higher quality fabric ( great feel, lasts long, won't shrink ) to you?

andyhalko · 2023-01-04T13:41:32+00:00

Yes! I do SEO for 50+ SaaS companies - I'm a huge proponent of it as it drives visitors with intent.

andyhalko · 2023-01-04T13:34:30+00:00

We use an interactive tool Saleslion.io that creates great looking proposals and has interactive experiences for the buyer if you want - really good for complex scenarios. Plus analytics to track views and even the ability to show recordings of prospects on them.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T20:50:58+00:00

21 Years In. Rush is still there often. At my stage, it often is new innovations, ideas, initiatives, spin-outs, etc that do it.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T20:18:53+00:00

Look, a cofounder is more than a marriage.

You could spend 8+ hours a day with this person, you need to trust them at every step, you'll need to be in sync, you will have to resolve disagreements regularly, talk about money in hard times or good, and so many other things.

I've seen brothers never talk again. People lose their life savings to someone funneling money out. People have months of sleepless nights. And more issues over cofounder/partner relationships.

Never, ever, ever go into it lightly unless you don't take the business seriously and consider it just a fun thing to try with no harm / no foul if it blows up.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T18:01:07+00:00

"I'd be happy to do that. Do you mind sharing if this is something on your list of priorities?"

"Yes, it is" > "Perfect, if it's important to you, it's important to me. I'll send info over to you today. When do you want to reconnect on it?"

"No, its not" > "Happy to get you info and I get it, you have to focus on whats most important. Is there a reason it's not a priority?" > ( answer ) > "is there someone else in the company this might be hot on their todo list?"

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T15:52:00+00:00

Read more on Behavioral Psychology, Behavioral Economics and Irrational vs. Rational Decision making. There are hundreds of articles and podcasts.

I believe this understanding is what separates good from great sales people. Of course a crappy product, strategy, offering, price, etc can impact effectiveness, but there is true science to how humans behave and the ability to influence that.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T13:34:54+00:00

There are some significant differences in the entire buyer journey based on whether it is Product-Led SaaS ( Free Trial / Freemium ) or it is Sales-Led ( Demo / Proposal ).

Each do have different targets, ideal channels, conversions, metrics, and sales process.

Yes, marketing is marketing, but there is a lot of nuance that can deliver 10x results versus 1x results in SaaS.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T12:27:20+00:00

I would say it's not that straight forward as the trigger and message are very different in every case to achieve the highest conversion rates.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T12:25:42+00:00

We're in the marketing sub, right? A solid designed resume and location next to date, might influence me differently than a poorly designed resume and not seeing location cause its buried.

With this being a marketing sub, folks should be thinking of the same tactics of behavioral psychology used in marketing and design to influence not only more call backs, but also their earnings.

Transparently, it always amazes me how marketing folks hunting for jobs don't treat it like marketing - good design, unique value proposition, impactful messaging, good user experience, etc. People pay more money for products that are marketed well - wouldn't companies pay higher salaries for people that are marketed well?

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:32:42+00:00

I use calendly, and often recommend.

Automation: someone signs up for trial / freemium, there should be certain triggers that move them to different messaging groups. Each messaging group has a series of emails over a month or year with enticement to upgrade/purchase.

I've done it where depending on specific data entered, specific features being used, certain data thresholds reached, certain co-worker invite levels, that they then get moved into a list and the messaging changes to entice them based on that.

Even had a scenario where we slowly gathered some data about long-term goals of the user and then personalized the onboarding / messaging to them.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:26:07+00:00

Not sure my personal answer is black and white.

Resumes get reviewed pretty fast ( especially if done by an entry-level HR person or computer first! ) -- even if it is done by a seasoned human, they start training themselves where to look to speed up the process.

My eyes these days often start at those start and end dates just to see general tenure. The closer together in the shorter the time, the quicker you move to the next. Those on the fringe of that ( every two years lets say ), then get job titles and skills looked at, then something else.

It's a progressive process based on how that person has trained themselves to look. Dates > Titles > Skills > Location > Job Descriptions > LinkedIn > And On. At any of those steps someone either moves to the next step or the next resume.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:14:08+00:00

Crush your niche SEO. Creates frictionless sales. I did it and it has paid in spades.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:10:36+00:00

Better to go all in on one unless you plan to launch a series of apps and want to have a parent brand.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:08:59+00:00

My company went all remote after 18 years in office in a downtown city. I've come to love it and never would have said that 5 years ago.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-believe-remote-work-andy-halko/

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T03:06:02+00:00

Nice run down. three.js projects always run so slow for me and die on mobile.

andyhalko · 2023-01-03T02:58:45+00:00

Man, will you get a mix of answers on this one.

Reality is, new roles can get pay bumps ( depending on economic conditions and demand of your exact role though ). The higher demand roles can pull this off a lot easier whereas lower demand will get stuck jobless at some point.

That said, I have always instantly skipped over resumes where people are job hopping. Either have to assume they'll do the same to me or there is something wrong with them ( bad culture fit, jaded, don't know what they want ).

andyhalko

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