6 min read
Our upcoming growth panel will cover a range of advice on communications, marketing, and founding a SaaS company.
Below are some highlights of what you’ll learn from the panelists.
- Ataer Arguder, co-founder at Aura, will be the moderator of the panel.
- Tom Geary, founder and creative director of School of Thought, will talk about marketing and communication fails.
- Jen Portland, founder and “spreadsheeter” at Excel Rain Man, will give tips on scrappy sales techniques.
- Jefferson Nunn, managing director of Code Warriors, will cover how to start and maintain a successful SaaS company.
Geary sees many founders’ communication fails originate from “being inside the bubble.” If you’re inside your own company and invested in its success, of course you’re interested in it. But you aren’t the target audience for your pitch. Assuming your audience cares as much as you do creates many communication fails. From a marketing standpoint, it’s deadly.
The solution to this problem is overlooked by 90% of companies: Nothing matters in business if you don’t first get your audience’s attention. The new latency rate: doesn’t matter. The position in the Magic Quadrant: doesn’t matter. The series D funding: doesn’t matter. Get your target’s attention first or you are wasting your energy and opportunity.
Portland offers a couple savvy marketing tips: keep in touch with prospects in a genuine and simple way, and respond to correspondence quickly. Let people know that you are noticing their accomplishments with a genuine note, not a ‘like’ or canned ‘Congrats on your Work Anniversary.” You don’t even need to mention your business; the recipient will likely check out your profile anyways.
Responding to correspondence quickly, even just to let people know you will be back to them soon, shows professionalism. Portland customers have told her that her company’s speedy responsiveness make them easier to communicate with than their own employees. Be responsive not only to clients, but to everyone.
Nunn cautions that SaaS founders can run into many problems when starting a new software business. Contract mistakes with software developers cost time and money. Cloud hardware issues destroy consumer confidence. Lack of insight into consumer preferences can stop your business before it even starts. There are a lot of things that can happen, which is why it’s important to do things correctly from the outset.
Register now to learn more about these insights and others at the upcoming growth panel on August 10 at 9:30am PST. Join us at Founders Network or request an invite to see if you qualify for membership.
More about our speakers:
Ata Arguder is a serial entrepreneur and consultant, based in London, UK. After working for 15 years in the entertainment sector in various companies including Sennheiser, he started a digital ticketing company in Istanbul where he generated 7x growth over two years and . After selling that company, he moved to London in 2017 and started Aura – Museum Genius with investment from credible investors, building a global platform for museums and their visitors. He is currently a co-founder in two London-based tech startups (Aura – Museum Genius and Breath Hub) and he is also representing Founders Network in the UK as their Regional Manager for the UK.
Tom is a writer, creative director and the founder of School of Thought. Tom has worked at some of the world’s top agencies, including Goodby, Ogilvy NY, Butler Shine & Stern and AKQA, on more than 100 brands. Geary was the lead creative behind MsDewey.com, arguably Microsoft’s most successful viral project ever, with over 50 million organic hits. For three months, site traffic outpacedGoogle.com. He has created highly-lauded campaigns for divisions of Microsoft, HP, Cisco and Adobe. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, Adweek, Creativity, and won dozens of awards. He’s also lectured at conferences and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Lest you think he’s beyond missteps, he turned down a job offer to be the CCO at some company named Salesforce.
Jen Portland is the Founder and CEO of Excel Rain Man, a spreadsheet and data analysis firm with a focus on automation via Visual Basic. They serve a range of clients from rising start-ups to the Fortune 500, including major retailers, financial institutions, hotels, hospitality groups, real estate portfolios, contractors and others. Most recently, they are winning government contracts as Jen pounds the (now virtual) pavement in New York City and New York State showing demos of their work, including Diversity Dashboards of how NYC interacts with MWBE vendors (Excel Rain Man is a WBE-certified business). Since starting the company in 2008 as a 1-woman side project, Jen has grown Excel Rain Man into a thriving business with a staff of 12, comprised of top experts from around the globe with backgrounds in engineering, computer programming, mathematics, and finance. Jen’s perseverance and hard work grew Excel Rain Man while fully employed for the first six years. This involved not only recruiting talent and growing a customer base, but also educating others that this type of spreadsheet help and outsourcing exists… thereby allowing others to focus on the more important aspects of their work and not to get bogged down in a spreadsheet. Jen graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program in conjunction with the Tory Burch Foundation in 2013. Jen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a B.S. in Systems Engineering and a minor in mathematics.
Jefferson Nunn is a Chief Editor of Liquid Health News, also the Director of Biotoxin Foundation. Since 1999, he has been a consultant to high-net-worth individuals. Always an innovator, his ideas have generated millions for clients including Ronco and GoWireless. Jefferson has been involved in the cryptocurrency industry since mining my first Bitcoin in 2010, now he is Podcaster for BTC Manager. Since then, he’s met with many of the early pioneers in the cryptocurrency space including the founders of Ethereum and the founders of Crypto Capital in Panama, SALT, EasyBit and more.
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