The Book About SaaS

This book is a collection of edited transcripts of interviews with the SaaS industry's thought leaders, covering the following:

1. History of SaaS: Phil Wainewright, founder of diginomica, discussed the early days of SaaS and the evolution of the industry.
2. SaaS Metrics: Dave Kellogg, famous in the industry for his blog, Kellblog, walked through the quantitative side of the field, covering metrics that SaaS discussions often cite.
3. Building a Sales Organization: Jacko van der Kooij, the founder of Winning by Design, shared how he would grow the sales organization of a growing SaaS company.
4. Building a Marketing Organization: Tracy Eiler, an author and marketing executive, shared her take on building a firm’s marketing function.
5. Building a Customer Success Organization: Ed Daly, the industry veteran, provided color on what customer success is and is not.
6. Raising Capital: Bruce Cleveland, an author and investor, shared his blueprint for raising capital from venture capital firms.

It is tempting to say that everyone, regardless of their experience in the industry, would tremendously benefit from this read. But that would be disingenuous. I’d say that this read is great for beginning and intermediate levels. If you run a later-stage SaaS company, you would certainly find interesting ideas, but I’d recommend instead that you read blogs and books that my guests (listed above) have written.

• Introduction

1. A Brief History of SaaS
2. SaaS Metrics
3. Building a SaaS Organization
4. Building a Marketing Organization
5. Building a Customer Success Organization
6. Raising Capital

A good primer on what is SaaS, even if the focus is mostly on the commercial aspects.

Worth reading, and well written interviews.