UPDATE: Assistly was acquired by Salesforce.com shortly after we did this interview… they are now Desk.com. I sat down and chatted with Assistly’s SVP of Marketing Matt Trifiro via Video Skype and he spilled his guts for you about why Assistly changed their pricing, adopted Freemium, and set out to disrupt the market… all at […]
Assistly Marketing VP Tells You Why They Dropped Tiered Pricing and Picked Up Freemium
August 11, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web App Sales Funnel: 2 Questions You MUST Answer
February 17, 2011 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS and Web App companies must manage marketing metrics, but before diving in too deep, answer these two questions. What if I told you there are two questions that you probably don’t immediately know the answer to but if you did would absolutely change your view of your self-service “sales funnel?” Would you want to […]
SaaS Customer Success: Technology Will Fail, but Service Must Never
December 20, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
As a SaaS company focusing on Customer Success, you are in a unique position to offer proactive support to your customers; anything less is unacceptable! Alternate title: SaaS Vendors Should Learn What NOT To Do from Citrix So, I’m not sure if you heard (you probably did if you follow me on Twitter!), but the […]
Your Revenue Crutch is Killing Your SaaS Startup
November 12, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps and Software-as-a-Service that comes from consulting companies or other service businesses can be lucrative but can be held back by non-scalable revenue streams. Do you have a less-scalable revenue stream that you rely on even though it is holding your business back? We’ll call this a Revenue Crutch. It is something you keep […]
37Signals Caught Treating SaaS Pricing Page like a Marketing Page
November 1, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The popular Web App company actively tests their pricing page layout. I was asked over the weekend if I saw the noise about 37Signals raising their prices. I had not so it was very nice to hear from colleagues looking for my opinion on the matter. So, here’s my opinion on the 37Signals price-raising uber-scandal; […]
SaaS Free Trial: Feature or Time-Limited?
October 5, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Freemium is free-forever, Free Trials have time limits and the psychology of the two COULDN’T BE MORE DIFFERENT! I got this question from some random person and I thought you might be interested in in my response. Feel free to comment if you have similar experiences and would like to weigh in. Q. What are […]
Web Apps use Customer Support to Increase Revenue
October 4, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS vendors know getting the sale is just the first step; keeping the customer means keeping them happy and that a happy customer will generate more revenue over time! A client that I am working with on their Pricing Strategy just sent me the following question (you can send me questions, too): Lincoln – This […]
As SaaS Matures, so will SaaS Pricing
June 21, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
The common SaaS per-user, per-month subscription revenue model is rapidly evolving. From time to time I feel I must remind everyone – buyers, sellers, pundits, commentators, & analysts – that SaaS is not a pricing model or pricing strategy. From the vendor side, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a unique Software Business Architecture where service is the […]
5 SaaS Pricing Mistakes to Avoid
June 11, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
For SaaS & Web App companies, Subscription Revenue is a no-brainer, but doing it right is not! There are many pitfalls Web App & SaaS companies need to look out for when it comes to pricing. If you keep the “Pricing is Marketing” mantra running through your head and “What’s In It For Them?” (them being your […]
SaaS Pricing: Please Learn From the Zendesk Fiasco
May 18, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
It is time for SaaS & Web App startups to sit up and pay attention. SaaS Pricing is very important to your venture but not just to ensure you make a profit or cover expenses. It is so much more than that and you should seek to get it as right as possible out of […]
Cloud Acquisitions Create New Opportunities
May 12, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
So you’ve built a killer SaaS product and [Google or Oracle or Microsoft or…] just bought your big competitor; is this good or bad for you? NOTE: This post is originally from May 2010, but the last two years have been full of Legacy Software vendors snapping up SaaS and Cloud providers. From SAP buying […]
SaaS Distribution: Time to Change the Channel
May 12, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Do SaaS products require, or can they benefit from, distribution through a 3rd party? I’ve written in the past about SaaS channels and how most people are doing it wrong, and there seems to be renewed interest in this topic. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed much. Since this is “software” as-a-service, people cannot get away from […]
SaaS, Web Apps, or Just ‘Apps’?
April 20, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
On my last trip to San Francisco I sat down with Matt Childs of DreamSimplicity to talk about the state of SaaS. We shot some video as we talked about how Google & Apple have changed the distribution landscape for SaaS & Mobile making App Stores & Marketplaces a new reality for SaaS vendors and […]
SaaS Pricing: Commodity Metrics and the $240 GB
March 31, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS pricing strategies that use low-value commodity metrics – like storage – to differentiate tiers force customers to make price comparisons that shouldn’t be made. Updated for 2014 This topic came up with a client who wanted to pass on the storage costs associated with the use of the system to their end-customer. We quickly […]
SaaS Pricing: Versioning for Market Segments
March 5, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Rags Srinivasan posted a great article titled “The Science of Optimal Versioning in SaaS” to his blog that talks about SaaS pricing. In the article, Rags talks about taking apply SaaS pricing to through different bundles of features at different prices for various market segments. The whole article is great, so I encourage you to […]
Free Trial Success Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #7: The Four Phases of a Free Trial
Free Trial Success Secret #6: Perfect Free Trial Length
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #6: Perfect Free Trial Length
Free Trial Success Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #5: Credit Cards are a Red Herring
Free Trial Success Secret #4: Measure the Right Things
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #4: Measure the Right Things
Free Trial Success Secret #3: Stop Confusing Freemium and Free Trials
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #3: Stop Confusing Freemium and Free Trials
Free Trial Success Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #2: Get Your Product to Sell Itself
Free Trial Success Secret #1: No More Evaluations
February 16, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Free Trial Success Secret #1: No More Evaluations
7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions
February 13, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
When your sales process fails to convert customers, it’s probably doing exactly what it was designed to do. Which is why even though you offer an amazing SaaS or Web App that meets a real market need, you’re not making sales. Even though you worked hard, created amazing content, made a bunch of cold calls, […]
[Replay] 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
January 25, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
I took the video down… thanks for stopping by, though!
[Replay] 7 Secrets to Increasing Conversions with Free Trials
January 22, 2010 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Join the Free Trial Dominator Program for SaaS & Web Apps Today! The Free Trial Dominator is a private, members-only program that combines Content, Community, and Coaching to help you transform your underperforming SaaS & Web App Free Trial into an efficient, customer-producing, conversion machine! What you’ll have access to in the Free Trial Dominator […]
SaaS Network Effect: Companies Should Exploit Aggregate Data
September 21, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS providers must understand the difference between consumers of their apps, producers of SaaS network effect data and how to monetize both. ADP: A Case Study in Network Effects A quick update for 2013: ADP now processes payroll payments for 1 in 6 American workers. Because of this massive “network effect” they’ve created, ADP has […]
SaaS Business Model – You Break It, You Buy It
September 17, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps don’t get forked without a massive payday as motivation! When you draw the line in the sand and adopt the SaaS business model, you might be tempted by people asking you to break that model. These requests could include: A competitor wants to license your application A client wants a copy of your […]
SaaS Business Model is About Rules, Not Exceptions
September 16, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
SaaS Apps should be flexible, but never customized. For the vendor, the SaaS business model is about rules, not exceptions. Exceptions aren’t scalable. For business scalability, you must shift focus to automated, repeatable processes. For pure-play SaaS startups, this isn’t as big of deal since they are likely starting with a clean slate. For those […]
SaaS Success Requires Dropping the Legacy Baggage
August 26, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Don’t try to force an on-premises, packaged software product to the cloud. Legacy software is a square peg and SaaS is a round hole. No matter how hard you try, forcing legacy, on-premises software to fit into the “SaaS model” is at worst not going to work and at best, requires cutting corners. It is […]
SaaS Companies Should Learn from Netflix
May 19, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps with Proactive Customer Service will win more – and keep more – customers than their competitors and Netflix should be the model. I often extol the virtues of the SaaS Business Architecture for vendors beyond just the typical “cost savings” and “operational efficiency” that most pundits and analysts like to talk about. I […]
ASP vs SaaS – What’s the difference?
May 12, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Not all Web Apps are created equal and many people don’t understand the difference between ASP vs SaaS or Software-as-a-Service. ASP vs SaaS – What’s the difference and why is ASP a failed business model? This post was originally written in 2009 and – while still very relevant – I suggest you also read this post for […]
The SaaS Single-Tenancy vs. Multi-Tenancy Debate
April 14, 2009 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Web Apps built from scratch rarely aren’t Multi-Tenant; the debate only comes up with legacy software vendors migrating to SaaS and trying to justify their cutting corners. This post was originally written in 2009 and – while still very relevant – I suggest you also read this post for a more up-to-date take on the Business Architecture […]
Actionable Business Intelligence at your fingertips
October 18, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on October 18, 2007 You probably capture a lot of data in your web or SaaS app, but how often do you mine that data for Actionable Business Intelligence; information you can use to solve business problems, such as slumping revenue, high client turnover, etc? It might be time to stop everything else […]
Fallout from Enterprise SaaS Series
March 10, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 10, 2007 I have received an amazing amount of feedback on the Enterprise SaaS series; just about everyone who read it has contacted me with mostly positive comments, but usually someone has at least one concern. I am going to try to address all of their concerns at one time. Hybrid […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Overview and Part 4
March 9, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 9, 2007 This series is to help Enterprise SaaS vendors with two potentially business-stopping problems; scalability and sustainability. I am attempting to address both the real-life objections seen in Fortune 1000 enterprises when selling a SaaS solution and some ways to work around them. This series is also meant to get […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 3
March 9, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 9, 2007 After overcoming all of the objections in your control: existence, reliability, support, and scalability, you must now overcome the objections that are not in your control. These are the real show stoppers and come from not understanding your target market. The SaaS industry obviously agrees that SaaS is the […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 2
March 7, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 7, 2007 Starting a software company from scratch, on-premises or SaaS, is no small task. The barriers to entry into the Enterprise software market are significant to say the least. To top it off, there are a number of things that can hinder adoption of your solution in large corporations, putting […]
Pureplay Enterprise SaaS and Vendor Sustainability – Part 1
March 6, 2007 Article by Lincoln Murphy
Originally published on March 6, 2007 The definition of Pureplay SaaS is where the SaaS vendor offers a completely hosted system with the customer needing nothing more than a standard PC with normal input devices to take full advantage of the offering. If you live in the blogosphere, you might think that SaaS is ubiquitous […]
