When you put your brand name on everything, that name loses its power.Chevrolet used to be the largest-selling automobile brand in America. But trying to be all things to everyone undermined the power of the brand.If you want to build a powerful brand in the minds of consumers, you need to contract your brand, not expand it. In the long term, expanding your brand will diminish your power and weaken your image.

The Law of Expansion

A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.Many small-town delicatessens try to carry everything to appeal to a broader market. Subway founder Fred Deluca narrowed his focus to one type of sandwich, the submarine sandwich, which helped him perfect his entire operation. Unsurprisingly, when you make only submarine sandwiches, you get pretty good at making submarine sandwiches.

The Law of Contraction

The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.What others say about your brand is more potent than what you can say about yourself. That’s why today’s brands are built with publicity first and maintained by advertising. A new brand must be capable of generating favorable publicity in the media, or it won’t have a chance in the marketplace. The best way to create favorable publicity is to be the first brand in a new category.

The Law of Publicity

Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.Many mega-brands were born in a blaze of publicity. But as the hype died out, each of these brands had to shift to advertising to defend its position. When a brand advertising says, “our product is the leader,” the prospect thinks, “It must be better than its competitors.” That’s the power of brand leadership.

The Law of Advertising

A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.To build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect’s mind. A word that nobody else owns.Once a brand owns a word, it’s almost impossible for a competitor to take that word away from the brand. Saab tried to take “safety” from Volvo but failed; Volvo has locked itself in the mind of the consumer.How do you know when a brand owns its category name? When people use the brand name generically.

The Law of The Word

The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.There is one claim that takes precedence over every other claim, and that’s the claim to authenticity. When Coca-Cola launched its advertising program called “The only thing like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola itself,” customers instantly responded. “Yes,” they agreed. “Coke is the real thing. Everything else is an imitation.” This is the brand’s credentials.

The Law of Credentials

Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.There is almost no correlation between success in the marketplace and success in comparative testing of brands. Why? Because quality, or rather the perception of quality, resides in the mind of the buyer.To build a quality brand, narrow the focus and combine that narrow focus with a better name and a higher price. The latter allows the buyer to obtain psychic satisfaction from the public purchase and consumption of a high-end brand.

The Law of Quality

A leading brand should promote the category, not the brand.Customers don’t really care about new brands; they care about new categories. Buyers don’t care about Dominos; they care are whether or not their pizza will arrive in thirty minutes.By first preempting a new category (as Domino’s did with the home delivery of pizza) and then aggressively promoting the category, you create both a powerful brand and a rapidly escalating market.

The Law of Category

In the long run, a brand is nothing more than a name.The most important branding decision you will ever make is what to name your product or service. Because in the long run, a brand is nothing more than a name. It’s easy to confuse what makes a brand successful in the short term with what makes a brand successful in the long term. In the short term, a brand needs to be first in a new category.But in the long term, the unique idea or concept disappears. All that is left is the difference between your brand name and the brand name of your competitors.

The Law of Nature

The easiest way to destroy a brand is to put its name on everything.Before you launch your next line extension, ask yourself what customers of your current brand will think when they see the line extension. If the market is moving out from under you, stay where you are and launch a second brand. If it’s not, stay where you are and continue building your brand.

The Law of Extensions

In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands.Not only should the dominant brand tolerate competitors, but it should also welcome them. Customers respond to competition because choice is seen as a major benefit. If there is no choice, customers are suspicious. But there is a caveat: when there’s too much choice, consumption suffers.

The Law of Fellowship

One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.Generic brand names tend to disappear into the ether. Only brand names register in the mind. When naming a brand, a good rule of thumb is to find a regular word taken out of context and use it to connote the primary attribute of your brand. Blockbuster Video was a more powerful brand name than, say, General Video Rental.

The Law of the Generic

Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference.Brand names should almost always take precedence over company names. Consumers buy brands; they don’t buy companies. So when a company name is used alone as a brand name (Coca-Cola), customers see these names as brands. If you have to use the company name, use it. But do so in a decidedly secondary way.

The Law of The Company

When building brands, sub-brands can destroy.Holiday Inn became a mega-brand with the launch of sub brands like Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Select, and Holiday Inn Garden Court. This sub-branding is eroding the power of the core brand. Sub-branding is an inside-out branding strategy that tries to push the core brand in new directions. It captures management’s attention because of what it promises, not necessarily because of what it delivers.

The Law of Sub-Brands

There is a time and a place to launch a second brand.The key to a family approach is to make each sibling a unique individual brand with its own identity. Resist the urge to give the brands a family look or a familiar identity. You want to make each brand as different and distinct as possible.A family of sibling brands is not a strategy for every corporation. But where it is appropriate, a sibling strategy can be used to dominate a category over the long term.

The Law of Siblings

A brand’s logotype should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes.Since the eyes of your customers are mounted side by side, the ideal shape for a logotype is horizontal—roughly two and one-fourths units wide and one unit high. The Avis logotype is almost the perfect shape.

The Law of Shape

A brand should use a colour that is the opposite of its major competitors.When selecting a color for a brand or a logo, managers usually focus on the mood they want to establish rather than the unique identity they want to create. And while mood or tone can be important, other factors should override a choice based on mood alone. Leaders have the first choice. And for that reason, it’s better to create a separate brand identity than it is to use the right symbolic color.

The Law of Colour

There are no barriers to global branding. A brand should know no borders.Every country has its own unique perceptions. When a brand is in sync with its own country’s perceptions, that brand has the possibility of becoming a global brand. When playing the global game, appeal to a different segment of a market rather than its core. Corona Extra, for instance, became a global force by associating the brand with the boom in Mexican cuisine.

The Law of Borders

A brand is not built overnight. Success is measured in decades, not years.Markets may change, but brands shouldn’t. Ever. They may be meant slightly or given a new slant, but their essential characteristics should never be changed.

The Law of Consistency

Brands can be changed, but only infrequently and only very carefully.If you are embedded in the prospect’s mind and have a unique and distinct perception, then avoid changing your brand. It’s going to be a long, difficult, expensive, and perhaps impossible process.

The Law of Change

No brand will live forever. Euthanasia is often the best solution.Once you understand the nature of branding, you’ll know when it’s time to let your old brand die a natural death and know when to create another in a newly invented category.

The Law of Mortality

The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness. In summary, what is a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

The Law of Singularity

A unique look at the birth and death of brands, and what makes a great brand.

This marketing classic has been expanded to include new commentary, new illustrations, and a bonus book: The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding. Smart and accessible, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the definitive text on branding, pairing anecdotes about some of the best brands in the world, like Rolex, Volvo, and Heineken, with the signature savvy of marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries. Combining The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, this book proclaims that the only way to stand out in today's marketplace is to build your product or service into a brand—and provides the step-by-step instructions you need to do so. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding also tackles one of the most challenging marketing problems today: branding on the Web. The Rieses divulge the controversial and counterintuitive strategies and secrets that both small and large companies have used to establish internet brands. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the essential primer on building a category-dominating, world-class brand.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

books

Books

product

Product & Design

This marketing classic has been expanded to include new commentary, new illustrations, and a bonus book: The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding.Smart and accessible, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the definitive text on branding, pairing anecdotes about some of the best brands in the world, like Rolex, Volvo, and Heineken, with the signature savvy of marketing gurus Al and Laura Ries. Combining The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding and The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding, this book proclaims that the only way to stand out in today's marketplace is to build your product or service into a brand—and provides the step-by-step instructions you need to do so.The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding also tackles one of the most challenging marketing problems today: branding on the Web. The Rieses divulge the controversial and counterintuitive strategies and secrets that both small and large companies have used to establish internet brands. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is the essential primer on building a category-dominating, world-class brand.

Al Ries is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Al Ries has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Al Ries's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Al Ries

Laura Ries

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

How you improve yourself depends on two factors: <ol><li>When do I improve myself? When is the most important because you can waste a lot of time and energy if you focus on self-improvement at the wrong time.</li><li>How do I improve myself?</li></ol> Use your best hour of the day to improve your mind, be it after you wake up, before dinner, etc. Doing this every day will result in mental compounding interest.

How to improve yourself

When building an online business, you want to commit to something that you're good at and something that has a future. The most important thing for your business is getting started. The biggest mistake we can make is to never get started. Once you've started, you can modify your strategy until you succeed.

Building an online business

Welcome to Wise & Wealthy! This edition includes tips to stop comparing yourself with others. And 8 online business ideas.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

startup

Startups

Wise & Wealthy: The Munger Technique and online business ideas

The metaverse can be best described as an evolution of today's internet. It is something we are immersed in, not something we look at. It is a vast digital world that is parallel to our physical world. The metaverse presents an opportunity for marketers to engage consumers in new ways and push internal capabilities in new directions. Marketers should take the opportunity to embrace a test-and-learn mindset and start exploring what the metaverse can offer.

A shift in how we use the internet

<ul><li>The metaverse encompasses immersive environments, often using virtual- or augmented-reality technology.</li><li>It is always on and exists in real-time.</li><li>It spans the virtual and physical worlds, as well as multiple platforms.</li><li>A fully functioning virtual economy powers the metaverse. It is often built on cryptocurrency and digital goods and assets, including nonfungible tokens (NFTs).</li><li>It allows people to have virtual identities, presence, and “agency”, including peer-to-peer interactions, transactions, user-generated content, and world-building.</li></ul>

Characteristics of the metaverse

Critical elements of marketing are similar to brand experiences in the physical world. However, the application can be very different. <ul><li>Define your metaverse marketing goals. For the near term, the primary goal shouldn't be driving sales directly.</li><li>Identify which platforms provide the best opportunity and brand fit. Examples include Roblox, Fortnite, Decentraland, and Meta’s Horizon Worlds.</li><li>Design experiences appealing to target audiences.</li><li>Experiment with money-making models.</li><li>Leverage and partner for new metaverse capabilities.</li><li>Proactively plan for risks.</li><li>Rethink how you measure marketing success.</li></ul>

Rewriting the rules of marketing for the metaverse

The metaverse gives companies many opportunities for brand building and marketing. A few questions will shape its longer-term evolution. <ul><li>How will it work in the metaverse to transfer digital avatars and assets across multiple worlds? What are the implications?</li><li>How will the social contract and legal framework for the metaverse evolve? How will user safety be ensured?</li><li>How will first-party consumer data be stored, managed, and protected?</li></ul>

Shaping the longer-term evolution of the metaverse 

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Marketing in the metaverse: An opportunity for innovation and experimentation

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat"

I learned from this book the value of good communication with others and the best way to communicate for maximal success in relationships, happiness, business, and life overallI practiced these ideas until they became second nature and they have to proved to be very useful in many aspects of my lifeI will share the fundamental principles so people can better apply them to their livesStash the Ideas that have the greatest impact on you and write them down where you can see them so you won't forget to apply them in your everyday life

Principles and Lessons

<ol><li>Don't Criticise, condemn or complain - We learn faster and retain knowledge better when rewarded for good behavior than punished for bad behavior</li><li>Give honest and sincere appreciation - People need to feel appreciated. Sincere appreciation of someone will be remembered long after your interaction with them</li><li>Arouse in the other person an eager want - To influence someone you need to talk about what they want and then show them how they can get it</li></ol>

Handling People

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

<ol><li>Become genuinely interested in other people-Interest in others will allow you to make real friends</li><li>Smile-Your smile is a show of light and happiness in the world. Everyone likes someone who smiles</li><li>A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language - Use (and remember) names!</li><li>Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves - Listening intently, makes you a better conversationalist</li><li>Talk in terms of the other person’s interests-People love talking about themselves</li><li>Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely - Our importance is essential</li></ol>

Making People Like You

<ol><li>The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it</li><li>Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”</li><li>If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically</li><li>Begin in a friendly way</li><li>Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately</li><li>Let the other person do a great deal of the talking</li><li>Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers</li><li>Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view</li><li>Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires</li><li>Appeal to the nobler motives</li><li>Dramatize your ideas</li><li>Throwdown a challenge</li></ol>

Winning People to Your Way of Thinking

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”

<ol><li>Begin with praise and honest appreciation</li><li>Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly</li><li>Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person</li><li>Ask questions instead of giving direct orders</li><li>Let the other person save face</li><li>Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”</li><li>Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to</li><li>Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct</li><li>Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest</li></ol>

Being a Leader

<ul><li>We crave acceptance</li><li>Communicating and connecting with others is a skill that can be trained and improved</li><li>Have humility. Some of these principles may go against your own. To improve, you need to have the humility to look at them objectively and test them for yourself </li></ul>

Ideas and Notes

"The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

Do you feel stuck in life, not knowing how to make it more successful? Do you wish to become more popular? Are you craving to earn more? Do you wish to expand your horizon, earn new clients and win people over with your ideas? How to Win Friends and Influence People is a well-researched and comprehensive guide that will help you through these everyday problems and make success look easier. You can learn to expand your social circle, polish your skill set, find ways to put forward your thoughts more clearly, and build mental strength to counter all hurdles that you may come across on the path to success. Having helped millions of readers from the world over achieve their goals, the clearly listed techniques and principles will be the answers to all your questions.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

Updated for today’s readers, Dale Carnegie’s timeless bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic that has improved and transformed the professional and personal and lives of millions. One of the best-known motivational guides in history, Dale Carnegie’s groundbreaking book has sold tens of millions of copies, been translated into almost every known language, and has helped countless people succeed. Originally published during the depths of the Great Depression—and equally valuable during booming economies or hard times—Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their professional and personal lives. How to Win Friends and Influence People teaches you: -How to communicate effectively -How to make people like you -How to increase your ability to get things done -How to get others to see your side -How to become a more effective leader -How to successfully navigate almost any social situation -And so much more! Achieve your maximum potential with this updated version of a classic—a must-read for the 21st century.

Dale Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer, and the developer of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.

Dale Carnegie

How To Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Most people in life are controlled by the SCRIPT which is the life path that is taught to us at a very young age which leads to your enslavementGo to school, get a degree, get a job, buy a car, go into debt, work to get out of debt, retire at an old age, die. sounds depressing right?This 9-5 script is what makes you a MODEL citizen as described below.

You are (probably) Scripted 

(M)ediocre: Your objective is to survive, you live an ordinary life but you are comfortable(O)bedient: You don't think for yourself. Only following the popular opinion like a sheep you meander through life, trusting governments and news(D)ependant: You are owned by others. Debt, Corporations, Product/ Service providers and worst of all, Time(E)ntertained: Your mind is entertained by useless and uncontrollable consumption all the time untill you have no original thoughts and your soul is silent(L)ifeless: You are part of the walking dead. No ambitions, goals, dreams or optimisim for life

MODEL citizen

"Comfort is the killer of creativity"

Your FTE or Fuck This Event is described as the moment where the clarity of your terrible situation hits you like a truck and you are motivated to take action regardless of potential barriers. This event is the catalyst for change in your beliefs and actions, redefining your life towards the goal of freedom For me, this occurred when I was working a job that I hated while being treated like shit by my employers (and b eing payed almost nothing). One particularly bad day (FTE) led to me quit and use my built up anger and motivation to start a business and begin on my path to freedom

Fuck This

"If I accept average advice from average people living average lives, can I expect to be anything but average?"

MJ states that freedom is achieved by developing a business that follows specific guidelines: <ul><li>Control - Full control over your business</li><li> Entry - High barrier of entry for others</li><li> Need - People need what you are selling</li><li> Time - Business can run without you</li><li>Scale - Need ability to scale/ leverage</li></ul>

Freedom

"You figure out what you value in this life, and then you go for it. For me, it was freedom"

<ol><li> Take action</li><li> Assess and measure impact</li><li> Adjust for more impact</li></ol>

3 Steps to Achieve This

<ul><li>Don't compare to others</li><li>Save</li><li>Spend/Earn ratio needs to be skewed towards Earn</li><li>Don't risk everything</li></ul>

On Staying Rich:

<ul><li>STOP consuming so much garbage and become a producer</li><li> Don't focus on single events, follow the process (achieving your end results won't happen overnight)</li><li> Build a brand not just a company </li><li> Always keep learning and growing (having a growth mindset is important here)</li></ul>

Actionable Tips

How to become UNSCRIPTED and live a FREE LIFE

What if Life Wasn't About 50 Years of Wage-Slavery, Paying Bills and then Dying? Tired of sleepwalking through a mediocre life bribed by mindless video-gaming, redemptive weekends, and a scant paycheck from a soul-suffocating job? Welcome to the SCRIPTED club— where membership is neither perceived or consented. The fact is, ever since you’ve been old enough to sit obediently in a classroom, you have been culturally engineered for servitude, unwittingly enslaved into a Machiavellian system where illusionary rules go unchallenged, sanctified traditions go unquestioned, and lifelong dreams go unfulfilled. As a result, your life is hijacked and marginalised into debt, despair, and dependence. Life's death sentence becomes the daily curse of the trivial and mundane. Fun fades. Dreams die. Don't let life's consolation prize become a car and a weekend. Recapture what is yours and make a revolutionary repossession of life-and-liberty through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. A paradigm shift isn't needed—the damn paradigm needs to be thrown-out altogether. The truth is, if you blindly follow conventional wisdom pushed by conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional? Rewrite life’s script: ditch the job, give Wall Street the bird, and escape the insanity of trading your life away for a paycheck and an elderly promise called retirement. UNSCRIPT today and start leading life— instead of life leading you.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship. Build A Business That Goes Beyond Paying Bills... It Changes Your Life. It is waking up in the morning and pinching yourself black-and-blue that OMG, this is my life, and it is freaking awesome.You live in your dream house, but there's no mortgage. No alarm clock, no boss, no bills. No claims on the day's time other than what you choose. It is making more money before breakfast than you made for an entire week at your last job. It is a crazy expensive car parked in your garage, a victorious symbol that your dreams no longer sleep in fantasies, but are awake with reality. Make no mistake, this life exists. I know, because it has been mine for nearly 20 years. And in a few short years, it can be yours as well. Better, you won't need 5 tedious decades of thankless jobs, buzz killing frugality, and patient investing with our trusted friends on Wall Street. Unfortunately, you have been SCRIPTED to believe that such a life is out of your reach, or only possible for a certain type of person. Someone with a certain college degree, a certain amount of VC funding, or a certain contact list of connected friends from Stanford. I am here to tell you, that none of it is true. While I have been entrepreneur most of my life, I am no one special. You won't read about me over at Tech Crunch or in some Silicon Valley newsletter. While I have been an internet entrepreneur since the old &quot;you've got mail&quot; AOL days, I have never been funded by venture capitalists, I have never had a payroll with more than 5 people on it, and I have never studied computer science at school.Despite this, I am able to create profitable businesses that create the type of UNSCRIPTED life described above. We are talking five- and six-figure monthly profits with valuations in the millions. Although I have had two successful exits, do not let that scare you; it is just a welcome side effect of the process.Make no mistake, UNSCRIPTED is not about some trendy new marketing tactic that becomes ineffectively overused within months. It's not about fifty-year stock-market fantasies or depriving yourself of life's luxuries; Amazon already has a gazillion books on such trash. I wrote UNSCRIPTED to change your life.It was written for you if life has become hopeless and dissatisfying. It is for you if your weekday is held hostage by the bribery of its paycheck. It is for you if you are sick of the suck and tired of the tiresome: the breakroom gossip, the office politics, the managerial butt-kissing, and whatever else boils when multiple human beings are tossed in a box and tasked with corporate minutia. It is for you if you yearn for the creative autonomy to pursue work that matters. It is for you if you have X-ray vision and can see what your parents cannot that life's formulaic, scripted template has become dated and flawed.But most importantly, UNSCRIPTED is for you if you have been an aspiring entrepreneur far too long, someone who cannot turn a corner, turn a break, or turn a profit. Someone who might already own a business, but like a job, it just steals time and barely keeps the bill-paying treadmill moving until next month.So, if you are ready for the challenge, get ready for a sh*t-your-pants revelation that everything you have been taught is bullsh*t. Legendary bullsh*t. Paradigm shift? Heck no. The problem is the paradigm itself. You have allowed the paradigm to set the rules, call the shots, and dictate the decisions. The problem is, you have allowed ordinary thinking preached by ordinary people to produce exactly that; an ordinary life. The paradigm shift is realizing the paradigm is sh*t.

MJ DeMarco is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. MJ DeMarco has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. MJ DeMarco's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

MJ DeMarco

UNSCRIPTED

Whether you created your SaaS product to help solve a problem you had or because you wanted some extra income, the truth is that your SaaS business is a valuable asset.Whether you’re an early-stage founder or you’ve built up an established B2B SaaS business, it's crucial to understand how valuations work and how you can prepare for an exit when the time is right for you.

It’s a Valuable Asset

There are three ways to look at SaaS valuations:<ol><li>Seller discretionary earnings (SDE)</li><li>Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA)</li><li>Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)</li></ol>No matter which formula you use, they boil down to how much money your SaaS business generates and set that number against a multiple that reflects the quality of your business.For SDE and EBITDA, you would set annual profit against an annual multiple; typically, this multiple ranges from 2-10X.MRR is set against a monthly multiple that usually ranges from 25X to 100X.

Valuing SaaS Companies Based on SDE, EBITDA, and MRR

SDE reflects how much money your business makes after all expenses are paid and any salaries are added back into the business. The figure is one way to indicate a business’s earning potential and is often confused with EBITDA. Businesses valued with SDE tend to earn less than $2 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and tend to be run by solopreneurs. Year-on-year revenue growth is usually less than 50%.

SDE for Businesses Valued at Less Than $5 Million

Businesses that make over $5 million in ARR will likely use EBITDA, as the business will have a high growth velocity and a more fleshed-out infrastructure. The owners tend to be thought leaders in their industry and operations are developed with department heads and teams working under them. There are usually more stakeholders than the owner. EBITDA takes many factors into consideration, which is why this metric is more suitable for mature and complex businesses.

EBITDA for Businesses Valued Above $5 Million

MRR is a popular way to value SaaS businesses because it’s a key indicator of revenue growth.Investors prefer looking at MRR rather than ARR because annual recurring revenue doesn’t provide proof of churn.Big SaaS brands generating high MRR can raise a lot of money during seed funding rounds, despite not generating profit. For less mature brands that haven’t built up a name, people prefer monthly plans; with a recognizable brand, they can charge a discounted annual plan.A newer startup could be valued using MRR if it’s experiencing rapid growth and ARR is more than $2 million.

MRR for Fast-Growing SaaS Companies

No matter which valuation formula is used, investors look for proof of these three characteristics in a business: <ol><li>Transferability </li><li>Sustainability </li><li>Scalability </li> </ol>

The Three Key Elements of Attractive Assets

Investors look for businesses that can be easily transferred. To prepare your business for a sale, focus on making the transition as seamless as possible. Payment processing can cause huge headaches for buyers if the account can’t be transferred. Payment processing aside, you’ll need to document your business operations as much as possible to make your business plug and play. Creating well-documented code that can be understood by another developer ensures continuity if the new owner wants to develop the product or fix any issues. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) help buyers to learn how to run the business as you did; SOPs are great for training new staff or to refer back to during the transitional period when the business changes hands. While buyers are doing their due diligence, they’ll need to see clean financials. This will include tax returns from the past three years, a balance sheet, income statements, and cash flow.

1. Transferability

Scaling your revenue (MRR) is great, but it needs to be done efficiently.A business with high MRR won’t be worth as much if the churn rate is through the roof and your retention rate is poor. Buyers pay attention to your LTV, churn rate, and conversion rate optimization.Investors will also look at how efficient your operations are at acquiring new leads. Organic lead generation is highly attractive because there are no expenses involved; if you have other customer acquisition channels (CACs), the conversion rates will indicate whether these marketing channels are worth maintaining.

2. Sustainability

The most exciting prospect of SaaS businesses is their room for growth.Buyers will be looking at how scalable your business is based on a number of factors, such as the LTV/CAC ratio.A low LTV/CAC ratio may indicate that more capital is needed than expected to scale a business; on the other hand, a high ratio could mean your growth is slower than your competitors because you aren’t spending enough on marketing.

3. Scalability

<ul><li>Competition  - is there enough differentiation from existing software companies? </li><li>Product lifecycle - does your product need any major updates to stay relevant? </li><li>Technical knowledge - does the new owner require deep technical programming knowledge to be able to run the business, or can that knowledge be easily transferred? </li><li>CAC per channel - how effective is your marketing strategy at generating new customers in a cost-effective way? </li><li>Diversification - how many single points of failure are there in your business? </li><li>Saturation - is there room for growth in the current market? </li> </ul>

Other Factors That Affect the Sales Multiple

If you're thinking an exit strategy from your SaaS startup, you have to be prepared for it.

Whether you created your SaaS product to help solve a problem you had or because you wanted some extra income, the truth is that your SaaS business is a Here is an article on what investors look for in SaaS businesses and the factors that affect multiple sales.

strategy

Strategy

Here's What Buyers Look for in SaaS Businesses

Forget about assigning blame until later, since that will only complicate matters and make it an emotional battle. What is needed first is your strong leadership, or even a leadership team, to build a plan, assign the right people, and monitor the steps to resolution. Provide tools and resources as required.Especially when distractions and emotions are high, it will help your focus to break down large challenges and crises into smaller elements to get things started and give you a sense of progress along the way. Map out some dedicated time for every serious issue

Keep your focus on how to fix the problem

Your people need to know who to follow, what to do, and how to do it. However, very quickly after everyone has their assignment and is actively working, you need to let them do their jobs without questioning every step. Micromanagement at a later stage only increases stress and slows progress.Micromanagement can be especially productive if you are working with a first-time or unique situation, or working with a new team with little experience. The challenge for many bosses is to recognize when their team should be coaching them.

Don't hesitate to micromanage initially in a crisis

Don't try to solve the problem or build a plan alone, especially if you have no relevant experience. Look for a mentor, or expert in this area, and ask for their advice. You need to understand potential misconceptions and ferret out any rumors which complicate the situation and lead to the wrong conclusion.

Get advice before jumping to conclusions

When you sense a crisis, you need to communicate and listen carefully with urgency, transparency, and empathy. A tone of urgency encourages people to mitigate impact, and transparency builds trust in you as a leader. Showing empathy fosters resilience in facing the challenges directly and acting.A key challenge with communication in a crisis is to get ahead of the issue. Don't wait until a media inquiry or a government agency puts you on the defensive, and makes all of your efforts look like too little, too late. Daily updates on a crisis are often appropriate.

Overcommunicate and really listen to feedback

Whether the impending crisis was caused by your mistake, your team, or was a fluke accident, you win trust by accepting responsibility for how it has affected customers and apologize. Conversely, the quickest and surest way to lose all trust is by blaming others entirely for the situation.

Always be prepared to accept responsibility

Every business leader expects to encounter one or more crises eventually. The challenge for each of you is to get it handled quickly and effectively, without losing the trust of constituents, as well as customers.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

5 Steps For Turning Your Next Business Crisis Into a Leadership Moment

It has become increasingly favorable thanks to several macro factors:<ul><li>The proliferation of vaccines has made the return to the office feel safer</li><li>Many workers want to get back to the office, and their companies are looking to fulfill hybrid work environments while still offering flexibility</li><li>Startups facing an uncertain funding environment — the new normal these days — favor short-term leases,</li></ul>

Coworking

<ul><li>A recent Pew Research study found that 59% of workers who can work remotely want to stay remote, meaning coworking spaces won’t be much of an attraction for them.</li><li>Coworking spaces are also at risk for security issues. In 2019, WeWork was found to have weak WiFi security, which exposed sensitive data on its network.</li><li>Even so, some analysts predict there will be ~42k coworking spaces globally in 2024, up 116% from 2020. If that’s the case, “WeCrashed” won’t be the end of WeWork’s story.</li></ul>

But coworking still has its challenges

A combination of macro factors have led to a resurgence in coworking.

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

Coworking is back

<ul><li>Change in business (and life) is essential for growth. Everything changes </li><li>Without understanding the importance of change you won't be able to alter the things in your business that aren't working and require change to flourish</li><li>Change in any business is vital as without it no business can succeed. Don't get too stuck in your old ways/ habits</li><li>BE OPEN TO CHANGE</li></ul>

Lesson 1: Change

"Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What's closer to nature's heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed?"

<ul><li>Most small businesses fail because they believe that if they understand the technical work of a business then they understand a business that does technical work (e.g. just because you are a good carpenter, doesn't mean you understand how to start a carpentry business)</li><li>The key here is to ensure that you understand the inner workings of business before attempting to start one. If you have already started a business, you still have a chance to learn but that will require change!</li></ul>

Lesson 2: THINK DIFFERENTLY

"If your business depends on you, you don't own a business-you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic!

Every person who goes into business is made up of three different people These are<ol><li> The Technician, </li><li>The Manager, and </li><li>The Entrepreneur. </li></ol><ul><li>Each of us has different aspects of these personalities inside of us which we need to understand so we can make better decisions. </li><li>Balancing all three of these personality types is ideal and would allow us to be incredibly competent.</li></ul> These personalities are as follows:

Lesson 3: The three personalities

<ul><li>The Entrepreneur is always thinking forward and about the future. </li><li>This personality is the part of us that is constantly making strategies, innovating, thinking creatively, looking for opportunities (and occasionally wrecking havoc).</li><li> This also comes with the need for control of the things around them</li><li>CREATES THE VISION</li></ul>

The Entrepreneur

<ul><li>The Manager is the planner/ organiser. Always creating order and living in the past. Where the Entrepreneur sees opportunity and possibilities, the Manager sees the problems that will invariably occur.</li><li>Constantly chasing the Entrepreneur and cleaning up the mess left behind, the Manager is tactical and focuses on achieving results through others.</li><li>TURNS THE VISION INTO ACTION</li></ul>

The Manager

<ul><li>The Technician is the doer. Loving the hands-on work within the business</li><li>Not caring about thinking or ideas or multitasking, the Technician just wants to tinker and work, always living in the present</li><li>The Technician believes that all things need to be reduced to a method if they are to be of value</li><li>Ruminating is common of this personality type</li><li>DELIVERS ON THE VISION THROUGH VARIOUS SYSTEMS</li></ul>

The Technician

SYSTEMS?<ul><li>Systems are one of the most important aspects of your business.</li><li>Systems are a series of specific and explained processes showing how to carry out a task in detail</li></ul>WHY ?Systems are important for:<ul><li>Creating consistency</li><li>Increasing your business's value</li><li>Improving quality of work</li><li>Increasing efficiency</li></ul>RULES<ol><li>Always give consistent value to your customers and partners</li><li>The system should be able to be operated by low skilled workers</li><li>Order is required in all aspects</li><li>Document using an Operations manual</li><li>Provide predicable service to customers</li><li>Use colour schemes specific to your business</li></ol>

Lesson 4: SYSTEMS and Strategy

Important for anyone in business already or wanting to start one

An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business. Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. The E-Myth Revisited will help you grow your business in a productive, assured way.

The E-Myth Revisited

Find 100+ Business Facts, Ideas & Insights - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

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Here's What Buyers Look for in SaaS Businesses

5 Steps For Turning Your Next Business Crisis Into a Leadership Moment

Coworking is back

The E-Myth Revisited

Subscription Pricing Models

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding

Wise & Wealthy: The Munger Technique and online business ideas

Marketing in the metaverse: An opportunity for innovation and experimentation

How to Win Friends and Influence People

UNSCRIPTED

Here's What Buyers Look for in SaaS Businesses

5 Steps For Turning Your Next Business Crisis Into a Leadership Moment

Coworking is back

The E-Myth Revisited

Subscription Pricing Models

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.