David Skok

The Author

David Skok

Serial entrepreneur turned VC @MatrixPartners. - Author of forEntrepreneurs blog. - Interested in investing in SaaS, Cloud, Infrastructure Software

The SaaS Founder’s Journey – What Matters At Each Stage

As anyone involved with startups will tell you, focus is key to success. But, it can be very hard when there is a huge overload of topics clamoring for a startup CEO’s attention. In order to achieve the necessary focus and understand what you need to accomplish to...

David Skok 09/18/2017

The Most Important Startup Question

Because of the huge overload of topics clamoring for a startup CEO’s attention, it can be really hard to figure out where to focus. As anyone involved with startups will tell you, focus is key to success. I believe there is one question that should dominate startup...

David Skok 09/13/2017

Bridge Group 2017 SaaS AE Metrics Report

Since 2007, The Bridge Group has tracked the Account Executive (AE) role and gathered data on how metrics and compensation change over time. We’ve partnered together to publish the 2017 SaaS AE Metrics Report and offer sales organizations a set of benchmarks to compare...

David Skok 07/05/2017

Optimize Your Funnel By Getting Inside Your Buyer’s Head

Part of finding product/market fit is turning early wins into repeatable, scalable, and profitable sales. In my talk given at Heavybit as part of their developer-focused speaker series and community, I discuss how to design a great sales process, analyze the buyers journey,...

David Skok 06/15/2017

Why early-stage startups should wait to calculate LTV:CAC, and how they should use it when they do

I have the great pleasure in introducing you to a new writer, Jared Sleeper, who will make regular contributions to this blog. We were very excited to have Jared to join Matrix Partners recently as he is a truly exceptional individual. Jared grew up in Maine working in his...

David Skok 06/28/2017

Optimizing the SaaS Funnel from Top to Bottom

In my talk at the 2017 SaaStr Annual conference, the goal was to offer a simple model of a SaaS business and highlight key areas for optimization within the SaaS funnel. Watch the video presentation to learn the key levers a CEO can pull to make the greatest impact to their...

David Skok 04/19/2017

12 Key Levers of SaaS Success

This presentation is from my talk at the 2017 SaaStr Annual conference in San Francisco. It offers an overview of a simple model to understand a SaaS business and the key levers a CEO can pull to get the most impact. The presentation covers: Optimizing the SaaS Funnel: Get...

David Skok 02/08/2017

2016 SaaS Survey Infographic

The forEntrepreneurs 2016 SaaS Survey Infographic highlights key metrics from this year’s SaaS Survey and includes links to advice and insights on improving these metrics. You can find the full 2016 SaaS survey results here: Part 1 covers growth rates, go-to-market...

David Skok 11/03/2016

2016 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey – Part 2

We recently released Part 1 results of our annual SaaS Survey, which shares data and insights on growth rates, go-to-market trends and cost structure. A new highlight in Part 1 of this year’s results includes data on balancing growth and profitability in SaaS companies...

David Skok 11/03/2016

2016 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey – Part 1

For the fifth year in a row, we’re proud to work with Pacific Crest Securities, a SaaS-focused investment banking firm, to share results from a survey of 336 SaaS companies. The survey represents deep benchmarking data and insights on growth and operation of SaaS...

David Skok 10/17/2016

Bridge Group 2016 Sales Development Metrics and Compensation Benchmark Report

Intro Sales development teams are taking a much more data-driven approach in recent years by closely tracking their metrics and performance. Benchmarking your performance against other companies offers a valuable way to see how your company stacks up against the competition...

David Skok 08/17/2016

Microservices Essentials for Executives: The Key to High Velocity Software Development

“Software is eating the world” – Marc Andreesen Companies thriving in the new world order have technology as a core competency. They build complex cloud applications. They constantly bring new capabilities and features to the market. And despite the constant iteration and...

David Skok 07/04/2016

Marketing Attribution: Creating a Growth Engine at Salesforce, Zendesk and Slack

I recently sat down with Bill Macaitis. I’ve been a big fan of Bill’s since we brought him in as CMO at Zendesk. He has since gone on to be CMO at Slack. In an age where product gets most of the attention, Bill is the kind of marketer founders crave. He knows exactly what...

David Skok 06/15/2016

What Your Opportunity Slide is Missing – Make Investors Believe

This article is part of our series “Pitching to Investors” that shares real examples and practical advice from the Matrix General Partners on creating your pitch deck. The intro to the series is here: Five Ways to Nail Your Pitch and Win Over Investors. Our goal of this...

David Skok 06/01/2016

Demystifying Churn: Measuring and Benchmarking this Metric

As every SaaS entrepreneur knows, churn is one of the single most important metrics in determining the day to day health of the business. Acquiring new customers is time and capital intensive, and this growth is meaningless if those customers do not stay. Despite the...

David Skok 05/12/2016

Clarity of Message: Why You Need A Great Message & How To Create It

Intro In the early stages of their business, founders often struggle to come up with really strong messaging to describe what they are selling, and this has a huge impact on their ability to raise money, find customers, and attract employees. This is not that surprising, as...

David Skok 04/20/2016

A Resource Guide: Hiring For Growth

At Matrix Partners, we’ve collectively hired many people by starting our own companies and as investors, and written lots of advice for startup founders. We’ve put together the following articles into a comprehensive resource guide for you to reference as you navigate...

David Skok 03/11/2016

The Team Slide: You Had Me At Hello

This is part of our series “Pitching to Investors” that shares real examples and practical advice from the Matrix General Partners on creating your pitch deck. See intro to the series here: Five Ways to Nail Your Pitch and Win Over Investors. Our goal in this series is to...

David Skok 04/07/2016

Five Ways to Nail your Pitch and Win Over Investors

There are many opinions on creating a pitch deck and presenting to potential investors, but there is still a big gap between what entrepreneurs perceive to be important and what investors really value during a pitch presentation. This post is the first in a series, where we...

David Skok 03/23/2016

The Close: New Rules for Hiring Executive Candidates

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. When Polyvore CEO Jess Lee was looking for a CFO, she found everything she wanted in Cheryl Dalrymple: incredible experience, shared values about how to run a company, and immediate personal rapport. Yet despite both women...

David Skok 03/09/2016