SaaStr Annual 2024: From Blunders to Billions: How AI Could Have Saved Me from Making these 5 Common Mistakes with Remote

Join John Kelly, Chief Revenue Officer at Remote, as he candidly shares the crucial missteps that shaped his journey while scaling companies to $1 billion in annual recurring revenue. This session offers SaaS founders and professionals a unique opportunity to learn directly from the trenches of high-stakes revenue growth. John will dissect key errors in strategy, execution, and team dynamics, providing attendees with clear insights and strategies to avoid these common pitfalls. Enhance your understanding of effective leadership and revenue management in a fast-paced SaaS environment, and equip yourself with the knowledge to navigate your growth path more successfully.

1. From Blunders to Billions: How AI could have saved me from making these 5 common mistakes John Kelly Chief Revenue Officer - REMOTE

2. From Blunders to Billions: How AI could have saved me from making these 5 common mistakes John Kelly Chief Revenue Officer - REMOTE

3. SVP/GM at Oracle CEO at Cerebra Acquired by SoftwareAG EVP at Life Technologies Acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific COO at SAP COO at Baynote Acquired by Kibo CRO at Findly Acquired by Symphony Talent CRO at InsideView Acquired by DemandBase CRO at Hired Acquired by Vettery COO/CRO SupportLogic CRO at Remote VP at Icarian Acquired by Workstream I love to scale companies – from $0 to millions to billions

4. Top 5 common mistakes I experienced while building high-tech companies

5. Mistake 1 Misalignments between Sales, Marketing, Customer Success & Product fragmented my go-to-market strategy , created product-market fit hurdles , and negatively impacted our revenue growth trajectory .

6. Over-indexing on a single metric (growth) jeopardized many of my financial and operating metrics foundational to a sustainable business model. Add in visual/graphic aligned with the lesson Mistake 2 Bookings ARR CAC C-Sat Margins Logos Burn NDR NPS

7. Focusing on customer acquisition overshadowed the importance of retention and expansion . This led to early churn rates and lost revenue opportunities. Mistake 3 Add in visual/graphic aligned with the lesson Increase bookings!! Add more logos! Poor Onboarding Low Usage & Adoption Slow Up-sell + X-Sell

8. Underestimating the need for robust Data and Analytics from “day one” led to our reliance on intuition over insights . Add in visual/graphic aligned with the lesson Mistake 4 Tabular Lagging indicators Non-predictive Autonomous agents Actionable insights Root-cause analysis RevOps in a BOX

9. Having the right people , processes , and tools is critical to you and your company’s success. Add in visual/graphic aligned with the lesson Mistake 5 Where should I hire? How do I find Top Talent? How do we hire them? Where do I find people like this? Are we legally compliant? How do I hire in this country or region? How do I track job seekers? What are the local labor laws? What about benefits? How does Equity work in this country? How do I lower my people costs? How do I mitigate risk?

10. So, what should you do?

11. Recommendations Learn as much as you can starting today There are hundreds of free courses on LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Ted Talks, YouTube, etc. You should be doing this personally, as well as professionally . Knowledge is power!! “AI might not take your job, but people and companies using AI will!” 1 Get in the game – now

12. Recommendations In Feb’24, there were 80K+ unique GPT models There are GPTs for everything – writing, productivity, research & analysis, education, lifestyle, programming, images, science, etc. Source: GPT examples provided by ChatGPT.com 1 Get in the game – now 2 Pick a GPT and personalize it

13. Recommendations Bad Prompt “Provide me with an agenda for a team offsite” Better Prompt “Provide me with an agenda for my global sales leadership team meeting. Our goal is to discuss and finalize our FY25 sales plan that includes a major launch of a new AI-based talent platform. We are a global team and the meeting is two full days.” Even-Better Prompt “Provide me with an agenda for my global sales leadership team meeting. Our goal is to discuss and finalize our FY25 sales plan that includes a major launch of a new AI-based talent platform. We are a global team and the meeting is two full days. Ask me any clarifying questions first to give me an amazing answer.” 1 Get in the game – now 2 Pick a GPT and personalize it 3 Become a prompt engineering expert!

14. Recommendations 1 Get in the game – now 2 Pick a GPT and personalize it 3 Become a prompt engineering expert! 4 Pick tools with built-in AI & autonomous agents – improve team productivity!!

15. Recommendations 1 Get in the game – now 2 Pick a GPT and personalize it 3 Become a prompt engineering expert! 4 Pick tools with built-in AI and autonomous agents to massively improve productivity 5 Remember, you’re in control You get to decide what to ask Awesome prompt → response = TIME SAVINGS I ask ChatGPT for feedback all the time How to write an email to the team Check for typos and syntax errors Read this article in German and summarize it for me Have it listen to your meetings & provide feedback Evaluate responses and be on the lookout for “Hallucinations” GPT can be a force multiplier for you, your company, and your teams The biggest limitation is – your imagination

16. AI can give you visibility across all facets of your business (in seconds or minutes vs. days)

17. Most of all…have fun!

18. Thank you John Kelly: [email protected] Find us in booth SG219 www.remote.com

19. UP NEXT: How AI Affects Data Breaches Amruta Moktali Chief Product Officer Skyflow