Erik Nilsson

5 sales metrics that lie to you: #1 - "Deals closed" Means nothing if the Stripe charge failed, the card declined, or the payment plan fell apart two weeks later #2 - Close rate calculated by calls made A rep who dials 80 times and closes 2 looks identical to a rep who takes 10 qualified calls and closes 2, and those are very different closers #3 - Call volume The easiest metric to game and the least correlated with revenue on any team I've ever managed #4 - Show rate from EOD reports Reps round up, forget no-shows, and miscount cancellations, so the number you're looking at is fiction #5 - "Leads by source" Knowing that Facebook generated 200 leads tells you absolutely nothing about whether Facebook generated any actual revenue

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A short one-pager to explain "GRR" (Gross Revenue Retention) in SaaS 👇 𝗚𝗥𝗥 𝟭𝟬𝟭 GRR or "Gross Revenue Retention" is a common metric used in SaaS companies. I like to think of it as, "here's how much ARR I have left after accounting for Downsells and Churn." You're basically seeing how much your Revenue shrunk without accounting for anyone who might have upgraded (via an Upsell). It's expressed as a percent, so the basic formula is: (Beginning ARR - Downsells - Churn) / Beginning ARR 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 So if ARR looked like this: Beginning ARR $100,000 + Upsells $10,000 - Downsells ($5,000) - Churn ($3,000) Ending ARR $102,000 Then GRR would be: GRR = ($100,000 - $5,000 - $3,000) / $100,000 GRR = $92,000 / $100,000 GRR = 92% 𝗦𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆... "I only have 92% of the Recurring Revenue I started with." 𝗦𝗼 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁...? Then, to actually do something about it, the next thing you'd ask is "why?" Reach out to the customers, get the story, and hopefully make some changes in the future. 𝙉𝙚𝙭𝙩 𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙥𝙨 ⤵️ When it's time to take 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 on what to do, this guide can help: 📥 Data storytelling guide: https://lnkd.in/dCt-P3Na

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I'm building a free toolkit for B2B SaaS leaders to help them increase business efficiency with data. It's designed to answer 5 questions: 1. Data maturity Where do you stand today, and what's your next step? 2. Metrics What metrics should you measure? 3. Alignment How do you get Sales, Marketing, product and CS to finally agree on definitions? 4. Dashboards What dashboards do you need to make great decisions on a daily basis? (and how to use them) 5. Tools What's the "lean" data stack that gets you the insights without a $100k price tag? If you're a leader at a B2B SaaS company, I have a question: is this something you'd find useful? Looking for a few people to get some honest feedback.

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Most PE CEO and board blowups aren’t about the quarter's results. They’re about the "unspoken deal". I learned this the hard way. When I first stepped into PE-backed CEO roles, I didn’t do "real" 1:1s with Board Members to define how we’d work together. I did the “nice to meet you” tour. You know the meeting: - They tell the new CEO what the business needs. - They tell you what they want in board meetings. - You nod, take notes, and tell yourself, “I got this.” = And that’s where the "unspoken deal" gets written. The CEO thinks: “If I keep this clean and predictable, the board will back me if it ever gets messy.” The Board Member thinks: “If we keep pressure on, the CEO will find another gear and keep pushing for growth.” Nobody says it out loud. Then when the first real miss hits, both sides feel betrayed. => What changed my board relationships to be so much better was simple. I started making the deal explicit, early. Now, I cover four things: NO SURPRISES Every board member says they want it. Few define it. Here’s what it means in practice: “If the CEO learns something that they know will materially impact revenue or cash versus plan (or is a real threat to the business), the Board Member will get a call within 24 hours it's a confirmed issue. Not the next board meeting. Not buried in a deck.” SUPPORT (WITHOUT CO-MANAGING) Board Members can challenge the CEO. They should. But they can't strip authority through side directives or implied disagreement. “If the Board Member wants to pressure-test something up close, join the meeting. Dig in and ask the hard questions. But they can't run parallel management conversations or board discussions without the CEO involved.” ONE ROOM DECISIONS Board meetings can’t be about group agreement followed by backchannel second-guessing. “If we align in the meeting, we don’t relitigate it in side conversations. If you agree in the room, you agree outside the room. If the Board Member changes their mind, bring it to the CEO first.” PERMISSION TO STRUGGLE *This one matters most* “If performance expectations are binary, good quarter equals CEO trust and authority and bad quarter equals questioning CEO authority, then the CEO will start managing optics instead of reality. The CEO will still be accountable, but they need room to diagnose, adjust, and recover without fear-driven theater.” The best boards aren’t warm. They’re clear. And the fastest way to get there is to kill the "unspoken deal" before it kills you. QUESTION: What’s your definition of ‘no surprises’ as a CEO or Board Member?

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Every PE firm I talk to wants an AI dashboard None of them need one Here's what actually happens - a fund spends $40k on a slick dashboard, demos it once, then nobody opens it again The pretty front-end is never the bottleneck The value is in the plumbing nobody wants to look at: - The data that's scattered across 6 portfolio companies - The monthly report that takes an analyst 3 days to pull together - The diligence findings rotting in a shared drive Fix the plumbing and the dashboard builds itself Skip it and you've bought a $40k screensaver The firms winning with AI right now aren't the ones with the best dashboard They're the ones who fixed the boring layer underneath And, funnily enough, it’s the boring stuff that pushes the envelope the most

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