The Startup's Guide to Customer Success


Book Description

Are you looking to start or grow a customer success team? Customer success is no longer just for companies with large teams and resources. It's a company mindset that can unlock the biggest opportunities in business. Customer success can help streamline experiences, grow product engagement and loyalty, and more importantly - retain business.In The Startup's Guide to Customer Success, Jennifer Chiang presents a guide on how to plan, execute, and grow your own customer success team and the actionable steps that you can take to champion the customer at your company.Learn insights such as: * The four attributes Shreesha Ramdas, CEO and Co-Founder of Strikedeck, says are must-haves when hiring your first customer success team* How Jamey Jeff, Managing Director of Customer Success Solutions at Coastal Cloud, reevaluated QBRs to derive more value for his customers with less work* How Maranda Dziekonski, VP of Customer Success at Pared, manages her time wisely to not only get everything done, but fight fires and plan aheadThis book is for everyone from new customer success leaders, CEOs and VPs who want their company to be more customer-centric, to start-ups who are starting their own customer success teams




The Web Startup Success Guide


Book Description

If there's a software startup company in your developer heart, this is the book that will make it happen. The Web Startup Success Guide is your one-stop shop for all of the answers you need today to build a successful web startup in these challenging economic times. It covers everything from making the strategic platform decisions as to what kind of software to build, to understanding and winning the Angel and venture capital funding game, to the modern tools, apps and services that can cut months off development and marketing cycles, to how startups today are using social networks like Twitter and Facebook to create real excitement and connect to real customers. Bob Walsh, author of the landmark Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality, digs deep into the definition, financing, community–building, platform options, and productivity challenges of building a successful and profitable web application today.




Customer Success


Book Description

Your business success is now forever linked to the success of your customers Customer Success is the groundbreaking guide to the exciting new model of customer management. Business relationships are fundamentally changing. In the world B.C. (Before Cloud), companies could focus totally on sales and marketing because customers were often 'stuck' after purchasing. Therefore, all of the 'post-sale' experience was a cost center in most companies. In the world A.B. (After Benioff), with granular per-year, per-month or per-use pricing models, cloud deployments and many competitive options, customers now have the power. As such, B2B vendors must deliver success for their clients to achieve success for their own businesses. Customer success teams are being created in companies to quarterback the customer lifecycle and drive adoption, renewals, up-sell and advocacy. The Customer Success philosophy is invading the boardroom and impacting the way CEOs think about their business. Today, Customer Success is the hottest B2B movement since the advent of the subscription business model, and this book is the one-of-a-kind guide that shows you how to make it work in your company. From the initial planning stages through execution, you'll have expert guidance to help you: Understand the context that led to the start of the Customer Success movement Build a Customer Success strategy proven by the most competitive companies in the world Implement an action plan for structuring the Customer Success organization, tiering your customers, and developing the right cross-functional playbooks Customers want products that help them achieve their own business outcomes. By enabling your customers to realize value in your products, you're protecting recurring revenue and creating a customer for life. Customer Success shows you how to kick start your customer-centric revolution, and make it stick for the long term.




Practical Customer Success Management


Book Description

"This book contains so much common sense that my neck was getting tired from nodding my head in agreement so often." Peter Armaly, Senior Director Customer Success, Oracle "...a comprehensive review of the Customer Success role and responsibilities..." Anne Marie Ponder, Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure, Astellas Pharma US "...a must read playbook for all business leaders and customer success-focused professionals." Jason Noble, Global Customer Success and SaaS Leader "I wish a book like this existed when I started in Customer Success!" Cyn Taylor, Enterprise Customer Success Manager, LogicMonitor "...provides all the ingredients to create the right customer success strategy." Baptiste Debever, Head of Growth & Co Founder, Alkalab "...an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in Customer Success." Adam Joseph, CEO, CSM insight "A structured and logical approach that will help new and experienced CSMs to bridge the gap between Customer Success theory and practical application." James Scott, General Partner, Success Hacker Customer success management is "the practice of helping customers to generate value from using our products" and it is a relatively new and fast-growing profession with many new CSMs coming into it from other customer-facing professions. Due to the speed with which the profession is undergoing change as it matures and expands, both new and existing CSMs need to keep abreast of customer success best practice. However there are relatively few books that provide much in the way of practical guidance for customer success practitioners and even less options for resources such as tools, templates and checklists that enable a consistently high quality approach whilst increasing the CSM’s productivity. Practical Customer Success Management is a practical guide book and comprehensive training manual for CSMs that provides a simple to follow, best practice framework that lays out the core steps at every stage of the customer journey to business outcome success. It describes and explains which situations each step applies to and provides recommendations for activities or tasks that the CSM can perform to complete each step, together with detailed guidance for successfully completing those activities. The book also includes a suite of tools and templates that enable rapid completion of tasks whilst ensuring consistency of approach both across multiple customer engagements and by multiple CSMs within a team.




The Startup Owner's Manual


Book Description

More than 100,000 entrepreneurs rely on this book. The National Science Foundation pays hundreds of startup teams each year to follow the process outlined in the book, and it's taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and more than 100 other leading universities worldwide. Why? The Startup Owner's Manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the Customer Development process to work. This method was created by renowned Silicon Valley startup expert Steve Blank, co-creator with Eric Ries of the "Lean Startup" movement and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. This 608-page how-to guide includes over 100 charts, graphs, and diagrams, plus 77 valuable checklists that guide you as you drive your company toward profitability. It will help you: Avoid the 9 deadly sins that destroy startups' chances for success Use the Customer Development method to bring your business idea to life Incorporate the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses Identify your customers and determine how to "get, keep and grow" customers profitably Compute how you'll drive your startup to repeatable, scalable profits. The Startup Owners Manual was originally published by K&S Ranch Publishing Inc. and is now available from Wiley. The cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.




Traction


Book Description

Most startups end in failure. Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don't have are enough customers. Traction Book changes that. We provide startup founders and employees with the framework successful companies use to get traction. It helps you determine which marketing channel will be your key to growth. "If you can get even a single distribution channel to work, you have a great business." -- Peter Thiel, billionare PayPal founder The number one traction mistake founders and employees make is not dedicating as much time to traction as they do to developing a product. This shortsighted approach has startups trying random tactics -- some ads, a blog post or two -- in an unstructured way that will likely fail. We developed our traction framework called Bullseye with the help of the founders behind several of the biggest companies and organizations in the world like Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Paul English (Kayak.com), Alex Pachikov (Evernote) and more. We interviewed over forty successful founders and researched countless more traction stories -- pulling out the repeatable tactics and strategies they used to get traction. "Many entrepreneurs who build great products simply don't have a good distribution strategy." -- Mark Andreessen, venture capitalist Traction will show you how some of the biggest internet companies have grown, and give you the same tools and framework to get traction.




Why Startups Fail


Book Description

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.




The Customer Success Professional's Handbook


Book Description

The definitive “Customer Success Manager How-To-Guide” for the CSM profession from Gainsight, who brought you the market-leading Customer Success The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That’s because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you’re no longer selling just a product. You’re selling an outcome. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are committed to capturing and delivering those outcomes by listening to their customers, understanding their needs, and adapting products and services to drive success. Although several existing resources address the customer success imperative, there is no authoritative instruction manual for the CSM profession—until now. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook is the definitive reference book for CSMs and similar roles in the field. This practical, first-of-its-kind manual fills a significant gap in professional customer success literature, providing the knowledge every CSM needs to succeed—from the practitioner level all the way to senior leadership. The authors—acknowledged experts in building, training, and managing Customer Success teams—offer real-world guidance and practical advice for aspiring and experienced CSMs alike. The handbook is written by practioners for practioners. An indispensable resource for front-line Customer Success Managers, this much-needed book: Demonstrates how to build, implement, and manage a Customer Success team Helps new CSMs develop their skills and proficiency to be more employable and grow in their careers Provides clear guidance for managers on how to hire a stellar CSM Presents practical tactics needed to drive revenue growth during renewal, expansion, and customer advocacy opportunities Explains proven methods and strategies for mentoring CSMs throughout their careers Offers valuable insights from Gainsight, the Customer Success Company, and the broader customer success community with more than a dozen of the industry’s most respected leaders contributing their perspectives Currently, with over 70,000 open positions, Customer Success Manager in one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook: How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers—While Driving Growth For Your Company will prove to be your go-to manual throughout every stage of your CSM career.




Lead Upwards


Book Description

In Lead Upwards: How Startup Joiners Can Impact New Ventures, Build Amazing Careers, and Inspire Great Teams, startup marketing leader Sarah E. Brown delivers an illuminating and accessible guide to maximizing your impact and delivering results in a startup leadership role. The author draws on over a decade of experience scaling SaaS companies as she explains how to prepare for, earn, and succeed in an executive role at a startup company. The book describes every step on the way to realizing your goals—and the goals of your startup—as you navigate the gap between a management role and the executive team. It covers what to do in your first 90 days, how to build and sustain a healthy team culture, and the art of communicating results to your leadership team and board. You’ll also learn: How to manage the challenges posed by leading a remote, distributed, or hybrid team Management strategies based on inclusive and diverse teambuilding, alignment with business objectives, and inspirational leadership Effective ways to level up your skills and stay current as your company grows A must-read book for current and aspiring executives at startup firms, Lead Upwards will also earn a place on the bookshelves of startup board members, founders, funders, and managers seeking a singularly insightful discussion of business leadership.




Marketing Your Startup


Book Description

Let Inc. catapult your company to success. To put a business on the map, nothing beats great marketing. No matter how original your idea or ambitious your dreams, the company will stall without a plan to spread the word, build momentum, and drive sales. But how many entrepreneurs excel at marketing? If you are like most, you are focused on building your product or service...and don't know how to execute a marketing strategy or measure the results. No one is better positioned than Inc. to help you get up to speed fast. For years, Inc. has covered the innovative marketing used by thousands of tiny startups that turned into household names. Now, Marketing Your Startup shares these compelling stories and spotlights strategies for igniting growth, including how: Dollar Shave Club mastered the inexpensive viral video- and rocketed to success * Casper combined content marketing, creative branding, and old-fashioned subway ads to convince consumers to buy mattresses a whole new way * SoulCycle's obsessive fixation on their brand fueled their rise from spin studio to cult-like fitness sensation Through firsthand insights from founders and helpful how-to guidelines, you'll learn to define your brand, market position, and customers, then unleash the right mix of tactics through the right channels: social media, email and direct mail, content marketing, SEO, media ads, events, guerilla marketing, influencers, cause marketing, and more. Whether you've got a robust budget or you're bootstrapping your way to the top, Marketing Your Startup gives you the tools to launch an empire.