Ted Glasnow

Broadly, there are six categories of North Star Metrics: 1) Revenue (e.g. ARR, GMV) 2) Customer growth (e.g. paid users, marketshare) 3) Consumption growth (e.g. messages sent, nights booked) 4) Engagement growth (e.g. MAU, DAU) 5) Growth efficiency (e.g. LTV/CAC, margins) 6) User experience (e.g. NPS)

"In the early days at Thumbtack, so much of our growth was coming from SEO that it made sense for it to dominate our growth roadmap. We spent disproportionate time generating content, earning links, and optimizing conversion on SEO landing pages. Over time, however, it became clear that we were running into diminishing returns from these efforts,... See more

I don't know if I've ever talked to anyone that says, “I want to spend more time on the phone with the salesperson and less time actually touching, feeling, trying the product.” It's no surprise that we're moving in this direction, and companies that don't catch on are going to be left behind. What buyers want is to see the product, try the... See more

For product partnerships, focus on building features that make your value prop truly unique

The most effective sales compensation plan at Flexport includes team based quota for managers (including the manager’s output), with no penalty for individual contributors underperforming. Additionally, managers were imcemtivized to drive long-term value by getting equity grants if they ramp new reps faster than average

We look at [the taxonomy of B2B marketplaces] in a couple of different ways. High-level, there are aggregators, managed marketplaces, channel marketplaces, vertical SaaS-enabled marketplaces, and then tech-enabled brokerages.

Setting up Customer.io requires significant upfront and ongoing investments of developer time

Type of company: Paid-growth driven businesses; Most common North Star Metric: Growth efficiency