The rise of collaboration tools has made email look just as slow as the old snail mail did back in its early days. Nowadays, team efforts, mobile devices and the need for flexibly available workforce (often home-based) made collaboration tools an essential component of any business effort which relies on cooperation, speed and keeping team members up to date with any development. While stressing collaboration by their very name, these tools are just as excellent platforms for people who prefer to work on their own, as they make it easier to fit an individual’s output into the larger business puzzle at the end of the day. All of this makes it worthwhile to give you the hottest in team collaborations tools on the market and make your selection process easier and better informed.

Asana

1. Image credit: AsanaAsana is particularly close to our hearts, as it is the collaboration tool we use in Bold (though we know most agencies go for slack). Sentimentality aside, it’s really a great tool as it allows us to customize projects and task fields at a pretty granular level. For example – a sophisticated editorial calendar keeping track of different clients, different types of content and different stages of editing (from content writer draft to client approval and all in between).Asana is all about staying up to date with the projects you work on – you can organize them as a list or a board, all the while enjoying streamlined communication between all of your team members. Asana covers all bases in terms of the features on offer, ranging from task assignment and prioritization to calendar management, all neatly packaged as part of user-friendly and eye pleasing interface with project templates. With this intuitive interface, you can easily design task lists for all of your projects, while the search function is something you’ll be grateful for once the number of these projects starts growing. With Asana, you can also set deadlines and announcements for team members who are also able to leave comments on whatever is posted as part of Asana’s workspace.Pros: intuitive interface, task management features
   Cons: might lack advanced communication capabilities

   Pricing: Premium $9.99 per user/month; Free version

   

Slack

Image credit: Slack

Slack is often called the big daddy of all collaboration tools, not just on the grounds that they started it first, but because of the number and robustness of its features. Just like Asana, it offers support for both desktop and mobile platforms. It provides a solution for direct communication between both individuals and groups of team members by means of instant messages as well as by increasingly popular video calls. Layering and organization of all tasks and human resources is easier with Slack’s conversation organizer which creates custom channels for all of your communication needs. These can include communications with people involved in specific projects only, conversing with team members in charge of specific fields (for instance, HR, IT support etc.) as well as casual chat. To round things up, Slack can be integrated with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and other popular services.

We tried using it internally and have opted for Asana but we use slack with some of our clients and it’s pretty cool.

Pros: easy to use, great communication channels
Cons: can become addictive/distracting

Pricing: Standard $6.67 per user/month; Free version; Plus $12.50 per user/month

Trello

Image credit: YouTube

Despite having an interface which draws comparisons with solitaire, Trello is a full-blown solution for users who prefer getting the job done without all the bells and whistles of competing project management platforms. Trello operates as a noteboard, with team members’ tasks being organized like cards which you manipulate freely by dragging them between the lists you can create based on their level of completeness. Yes, it’s that simple, and both boards and lists can be divided based either on assigned persons or individually delegated tasks.

Feedback between team members is shared by leaving comments on cards, with provided support for various emojis. In addition, Trello can be integrated with popular apps such as Slack, Google Drive or Evernote. The free option is a bit limited, but it can hit just the right buttons with smaller teams. Not bad for a “solitaire”, right?

Pros: card-based interface, free version is competent
Cons: working with cards may not be to everyone’s liking

Pricing: Business class $9.99 per user/month; Free version; Enterprise $20.83 per user/month

G Suite

Image credit:Wikimedia Commons

Good old Google has its own horse in the collaborative tool race and it is its reliable G Suite platform. The suite includes support for Google Docs, Sheets and Calendar as well as Google Hangouts platform. It supports everything a team may need, such as SMS and instant messaging as well as video conferencing. All of these features can be accessed as built-in Chrome extensions, together with native support for Android and iOS.

Hangouts is easily integrated with Google Drive and other applications provided by Google. It comes with a cloud-based chat platform which makes it possible for users to share calendars as well as all types of documents among team members in real time. The same goes for sharing files on various platforms, such as desktops, tablets or mobile phones. Business users will also appreciate embedded data loss feature for Google Drive and Gmail which is a part of its Enterprise edition.

Pros: great integration with other Google-based platforms
Cons: features such as Slide or Sheets may lag behind competition

Pricing: Basic $5 per user/month; Business $10 per user/month; Enterprise $25 per user/month

Podio

Image credit: Podio

In the face of strong competition, Podio wants to beat its competitors by focusing on customizability and excellent mobile platform support. So, instead of offering you a fixed set of tools the developers think you may need for collaboration, Podio gives you what is essentially a sandbox environment in which you create your own tools and customize your workflow. You achieve this by essentially making your own apps within the platform. You can both organize and give name to various work stacks, in addition to distributing tasks among team members. Podio offers quality communication features, which function well paired with its highly customizable and modular interface. It will give you a comprehensive overview of what goes on with your projects, as well as of any feedback given in relation to its individual stages. Podio can be integrated with Evernote, Dropbox and Google Drive.

Pros: high customizability, excellent mobile support
Cons: supported level of customizability takes getting used to

Pricing: Basic $9 per user/month; Free version; Plus $14 per user/month

Flock

Image credit: Flock

Flock posits itself as a fiery and more accessible competitor of the hugely popular Slack. For starters, it gives no ground when it comes to offering the same features you would expect from better established players in the market. These include audio and video calls, text chats and screen sharing, as well as the ability to set projects, teams and tasks according to your deadlines and workflow.

Flock includes standard collaboration tools, with features such as team member tagging in comments, creation of to-do lists and support for uploading and sharing of documents, image-based or video files. Group discussion is also supported, together with the ability to set deadlines and related reminders, as well as sending email alerts. Finally, Flock promises to get any task done just as well as others (or even better) at a highly competitive price, which is no small consideration in planning for its purchase.

Pros: offers the same features as big players
Cons: interface could use some tweaks

Pricing: Pro Plan $3 per user/month, Free version; Enterprise pricing available on request

The demands of modern day workplaces can be quite taxing for both managers and their subordinates, as even advanced bio-machines such as human brains can sometimes have trouble keeping track of all the tasks that need to be taken care of. You can try to juggle every task at the same time, only to end up having all of them crash around you like the spinner’s plates at the circus. This is why you need technology to lend you its helping hand. That help can come in form of task manager software which can handle the majority of workflow aspects, such as those pesky deadlines, team members organization, document sharing and keeping track of budget and communication. Let’s have a look at some of the best task manager platforms out there.

1. Trello

Image credit: Flickr

If there is a task manager software that can be described as a fan favorite, Trello is the most likely candidate for the title. It offers a whole range of plans to its users, ranking from free to paid ones ($9.99/month per user for business class and $20.83/month for enterprise plan).

Even in its free version, Trello offers a lot in terms of visual organization of tasks based on the Kanban project management system. All of these tasks can be designed as units which you can split your project into. Once the tasks are assigned, they can be easily edited and expanded with detailed descriptions, lists, boards, labels and progress checklists. File attachments are supported as well.

Finally, its trump card are power-ups which offer additional functionalities you can add to individual cards. These include supported compatibility with Google Drive, MailChimp or Evernote. Business plan removes the limit on the number of these you can have, while the Enterprise edition will easily find itself at home with large corporate-level teams.

2. Asana

Image credit: PCMag

Asana’s inclusion among the task manager platforms can be seen as controversial, as it mainly functions as a collaboration tool with the focus on workflow management. Yet, it also handles task management with ease and style, making its inclusion here a perfectly logical choice. Asana offers both free and premium plans, with both of these versions offering quality support for handling dependencies, tasks and subtasks, progress tracking, custom field design and customizable dashboards. Bear in mind that the free version will limit the use of some of these features, but even as such it remains a powerful solution.

Asana does not offer time-tracking or Gantt charts as features that some came to associate with large project management, but what it lacks in this department it easily makes up for with easy integration with other platforms. This means that literally nothing prevents you from using Asana in combination with Slack, GitHub or Trello, as well as with Chrome-based or time tracking apps.

3. Wunderlist

Image credit: Flickr

Wunderlist is designed with one goal in mind: making task management accessible. Yes, it’s quite possible to have too much of a good thing when it comes to included features, and Wunderlist realizes that sometimes you just want to get the job done. Free edition is available, while Wunderlist Pro will cost you $4.99/month per user. The software focuses on lists which are used for the management of projects, teams, individual members, tasks etc. To this purpose, it offers a wide selection of communication options, as well as support for file sharing and exchange.

4. DropTask

Image credit: TechCrunch

If Wunderlist wants to charm you with the focus on the most essential features, DropTask wants to do the same with its penchant for stylish visual presentation. This does not mean that the interface is cluttered with excessive design elements – on the contrary, it’s based on the drag-and-drop system and allows for getting quick insights into managed tasks and processes. Its Kanban-based organization system includes progress tracking and status, summary of daily activities, handling of task dependencies and others. Finally, there’s the ability to integrate DropTask with various third party applications you may find useful. Just bear in mind that the free plan includes a limitation of the number of projects and team members one can have, while the business version removes these at the monthly fee of $8.25.

5. Wrike

Image credit: PCMag

Wrike online task manager platform wants to stand out among the competitors by focusing on attractive storage and file exchange features. It also has many high end clients it can boast of, such as Western Union or L’Oreal, if that’s an important criterion in your consideration. Potentially more important information is that it offers its free edition for use with no more than five users, with extensive support for shared boards, dynamic management of timelines and breaking down of tasks. The professional plan comes with the price of $9.80/month per user, for up to 15 of them, with expanded support for 15 GB of video uploads and 5 GB of general storage. In addition to this, it will give you access to advanced analytical and time tracking options compared to the free version.

6. Any.do

Image credit: DigitalProductMarketer

Any.do describes itself as a life management and productivity application, which is just a fancy way of saying that it will handle task management jobs you may throw at it just as easily. It boasts user-friendly and clean interface which allows for easier overseeing and management of tasks. In order to streamline this, you can assign a team member to a role of an administrator or supervisor for any particular task. The native application which comes together with the software offers access to an AI assistant which can help you define priorities as you go. Finally, Any.do wants to extend its accessibility to the financial field as well, with price going as low as $2.99/month per user for its professional version.

7. Hitask

Image credit: Flickr

Hitask is yet another task manager platforms focused on business applications. Its free plan option includes support for unlimited projects and tasks for up to five users. The package includes support for shared task lists, calendar and projects. Yet, at the price of $4.98/month per user, the things just get better with support for much needed unlimited storage and email. In addition, its calendar can be synced with both Google and Outlook. Hitask is based on the Getting Things Done (GTD) platform for handling tasks, which includes color coding, tagging and division of tasks. All of these features can be easily managed via an integral dashboard whose main screen gives you insight into the nitty-gritty of each of managed project, deadline and individual task at one place.

You can just imagine it: a room packed wall to wall with 200+ marketers, salespeople, CEOs, and professionals quietly awaiting their online fate. Once May 25th rolls around, GDPR will have changed the way we interact with prospects and customers in the EU forever.

Lucky for all who sat in that room of the HubSpot User Group (HUG) Tel Aviv meetup on Monday, they were able to walk away with answers on what GDPR is and how best to prepare for the changes needed to be made ahead. Here’s a taste of some of the main highlights for the event!

Part #1: Amit Lavi (CEO, Marketing Envy) gives opening remarks

We started off with the basics. GDPR, simply put, is the reality that in order to protect the privacy of EU members (fun fact on that in a second), three policies must be enforced:

1. You need a good reason to collect data
2. You need to store said data in a safe and lawful way
3. You need to allow people to delete their data from your system.

Setting in the 6 stages of coping with GDPR (shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), you can rest assured that if you’re a HubSpot user, they’ve done their job in order for you to be ready on time for these laws to come into effect. Keep in mind, this applies to all EU passport holders, including those are who aren’t sitting on European soil.

The word of the day was easily ‘consent’. You need it for your cookies (in all languages), allowing others to download your content, and you’ll need to keep a record of all of your censenting transactions. For example, say you go to a conference in France. Gone are the days of asking for a business card and follow up when you get back to the office. You’ll now need some way to record the experience that the business card was handed to you with the consent of the other party that you mean to use it to follow up about collaborations, sales, and well just about everything else. While Amit was sure to keep us laughing and on our toes, he concluded that GDPR is no laughing matter and those looking for advice on the topic should consider speaking to a lawyer to understand how GDPR will affect their business come May.

Part #2: Sinead Goggin (Senior Channel Account Manager, HubSpot)

So if GDPR stops sales team from buying lists and cold calling/ emailing EU members, sounds like there’s a lot of sales teams who are going to need a serious huddle. But before you book a time to panic together and think of what else you can do to generate leads, it may be worth inviting some marketing team members to join the party.

Sinead Goggin came in from HubSpot Ireland (the company’s European HQ) in order to discuss “Smarketing” or the alignment of your company’s sales and marketing efforts. The truth of the matter is, 54% more leads are generated by inbound efforts so these teams ideally should be in constant communication. Common language, united goals and a seamless strategy should be your first steps in getting the best leads into the marketing funnel and teed up for sales for further nurturing and conversion.

Still not convinced? 60% of the sales cycle is over before a prospect even talks to a salesperson because they’re already “sold” on what they see on a company’s website and social networks. If that’s the case, shouldn’t we all be investing more on top of the funnel content? By forming a strong alliance, marketing and sales can generate 20% more growth for a company, while a misalignment can result in a 4% decrease in annual revenue. You do the math.

In the age of GDPR, one thing is for certain. By creating a service level agreement (SLA) between your marketing and sales teams, you can begin to share a common language, plan out an end-to-end inbound strategy, and measure and report for optimal growth.

Part #3: Noa Eshed (co-CEO, Bold Digital Architects) chairs a GDPR expert panel

First of all, let’s talk about this all-star lineup. Gali Arad Kovacs (Senior Marketing Manager, Netapp), Lior Etgar (Tulchinsky Stern Marciano Cohen Levitski & Co., Law Offices), Shahar Maor (Information Security Manager, Outbrain), Omer Shmueli (VP of Legal Affairs, Como), and Eli Zilberman Caspi (Partner and Head of Data Privacy & GDPR, Konfidas) joined Noa on the main stage to discuss the ramifications of GDPR on marketing and beyond.

When Noa opening up the panel with the question, “How do companies start understanding what to do?”, Omer jumped in on the mic to utter the words that precisely set the stage for the rest of the panel. “It’s a very complex question,” he began. “First the good news, that GDPR is a kind of an opportunity, it’s not a risk or threat. If you’re bringing enough value to your customers, then your end users will be willing to pay with their data.” The bad news? GDPR can be minefield he says. Once you’ve collected data, it can be hard to find your way out of the data that you’re already holding.

So what did the lawyer of the group have to say about all of this? Lior made it clear that first and foremost, you need to offer what he called an “open approach”. As a company, it’s critical to have management awareness, and their commitment to make it happen. Like any other project or regulation that needs to be implemented, be sure to all have your resources and technical measures in place. Do that, and you’ll find everything will go more smoothly.

Another moment of reassurance came from Eli, who explained that, “it’s not written in GDPR that you can or cannot do an action that you do today, but there are new rules to these actions. The basic rule of profiling is that you have to have a clear handshake between you, the company, and the ‘data subject’ [the client]”. In short, by becoming compliance and transparent, you can explain that you’re following what they’re doing in order to offer the most personalized experienced possible.

What should you be doing with those data subjects in your CRM? Shahar stepped in to talk about data retention policies. When he first got to the digital marketing team at Outbrain, they insisted they couldn’t delete old leads since they wanted the opportunity to retarget them in the future. So what is the best practices on how long to keep leads around for in your CRM? According to his team’s research, “24 months is more than enough…because higher engagement comes from fresh leads and those who interact with your system.”

Last but certainly not least, Gali was there to shed insight on how to begin shifting through your potentially thousands of CRM leads and get ready for the big day. “Start auditing. Start looking at all your forms. Start looking at the disclaimers that you have. Change them, add them if you don’t have them…increase the opt-in tactics that you’re doing on your website.”

Looking for more insights on GDPR? You can watch the entire video here. If you want to see the answers to specific questions Noa asked, click ‘SHOW MORE’ on the YouTube page to see the breakdown by question and timestamp.

Wrapping up

Following the panel, Amit come back to offer some more action points to consider such as forgoing obsolete practices like buying lists, being sure to withdraw consent when adding new contacts to your CRM, and offering easy and granular opt-out. All in all, it was a great event with expert speakers, an inquisitive crowd, and one lucky winner who won the raffle for a Flying Spider drone. Looking forward to the next HUG Tel Aviv in Q3!

Following our release of the 2017 State of Marketing Automation report, we were approached by The Telegraph UK and invited to take part in their digital transformation campaign alongside titans such as VISA, IBM and EMC. Humbled and honored we accepted the invite, jumped on a plane to royal London, and gave them our 2 cents on how to create the perfect B2B campaign.

We invite you to view the interview here or below:

Introduction

Demos are really one of my favorite parts of the sales process. Something about them reminds me of staying home sick from school and watching reruns of old The Price is Right episodes. Suddenly, I’m walking out in a sparkly dress showing off a prized car with all of its top-of-the-line features and gadgets. The audience (perhaps by command of the applaud box), ooh’s and ah’s over the car, as they all envision themselves driving it down an empty highway into the sunset.

But then I snap back into reality.

Sure, demos are without a doubt one of the more fun parts of sales, showing off your key benefits and talking proudly about your product, but it should be so much more.

Before we talk about what makes a we-need-this-software-now demo, we should first discuss what makes a hmm-we’ll-keep-you-posted demo.

Classic demo pitfalls

Hmm-we’ll-keep-you-posted demos can contain the following elements:

1. Pre-recorded demo videos – Wow. I’m getting bored just thinking about one of these videos. No doubt it’s narrated by someone with a monotone (or automated) voice who’s going to walk you through each part of the software via a screen sharing video. The demo’s probably going to be long yet also somehow vague on the points you’re actually interested in. That is if you watch it for long enough to get to those parts. I know it sounds like I’m throwing a lot of shade at pre-recorded demo videos, but these can provide little to no value or personalization to your prospect — the two key ingredients in anything that’s going to be relationship and trust building.

2. Scripted demos – Be it on the phone or video call, having a script can put an impersonalized damper on the conversation. Giving the prospect the time to talk shows a real interest in helping, but if it’s going to be as generic as the video presentation above, you’re still missing those value-giving, personal-connecting tokens you’ll need to move the sale along.

3. Pushy demos – Like any other part of the sales process, being pushy isn’t helpful. You know your product isn’t for everyone. It’s like they say, “if you’re selling to everyone, you’re selling to no one”. As you educate and engage your prospects, uncovering pain points in their current strategy, be honest with yourself about if your tool is right for them. If it’s not, don’t drag it out and insist it’s good for them anyways. Better to admit there isn’t a fit, you don’t want to waste either of your time, and wish them well. It’s that easy.

5 Ways to Wow

Now that we have an idea of what not to do, let’s run through an ideal demo scenario. If your prospect has landed on your ‘Request a free demo!’ landing page, congrats! Chances are they didn’t get there on their first visit to your site. You’ve nurtured them into leads using resourceful and relevant content and now they’re ready to see what you’ve got. Here are 5 ways to make their demo memorable and have them heading to your pricing page to subscribe to the plan of their dreams.

1. Be prepared — Before your prospect even signs up for your demo, use your landing page to get to know your prospect better. Asking for their company name, job title (a great way to see if the contact is a decision maker), challenges, and goals can be a great way to get a feel of what they’re looking for even before you start your chat. Choose for yourself which fields to make obligatory or optional. Getting more information before the call can help you prepare better, but be sure that your prospects aren’t being scared off just because you’re asking questions they don’t trust you enough yet to give over. Additional tip: If you’re using HubSpot Marketing or other software that has captured information about previous engagement of the prospect (or other contacts from that company) with your website (such as pages they viewed, content offers they’ve downloaded, etc) make note of that. This can help you start to create a picture for yourself as to who they are, and what part of your software they’re most likely interested in.

2. Personalization — As you begin your call, don’t be afraid to review the notes you’ve taken from the point above with your caller. They’ll be pleasantly surprised that you’ve done your homework, and care to make this about THEM. Too many demos are about the software and what it can do. During this demo, it’s all about the prospect. What tactics have you been using up until now? How’s that working out for you? Is that producing the results you’re looking for? How does that affect you personally? What goals do you hope our tool might help you achieve? From here, you can suggest the two of you head over to specific parts of your tool that might best suit their needs. We’ve all been given tours and demos of various products with an emphasis on the features that aren’t relevant to us and tend to get boring quickly. Keep it personal, keep it relevant.

3. Be a storyteller — I like to think of a demo as a choose-your-own-adventure storybook. Now that you have a good idea of their role, their company, where their pain points are, and their goals, it’s time to start painting an interactive picture for them. Create an engaging atmosphere for them to envision using your software. Is it 9AM and they’ve just sat down at their desk? Are they on the go with a coffee in hand? Creating a scene might sound like theatrics, but it’s a great way to humanize the experience and help the prospect see your tool as a functional part of their working experience.

4. Pause and reflect — No matter how much a prospect did research about your tool before starting, nothing can prepare them for the live demo. The design, the layout, the tabs that lead to sub-tabs that lead to that action they want to take. It’s a lot for someone to take in. Be sure at the beginning to set an agenda and reassure prospects that there’s going to be X amount of time allotted for Q&A at the end of the demo. Not only is debriefing important, but be sure to check in after each section of your tutorial to ensure your participant understands what you’ve covered or if he wants you to go over something again. Remember, your software is your bread and butter, but to your lead, it’s a totally foreign language. Sympathize, joke, and regroup when needed.

5. Next steps — After asking if the prospect has any final questions and wishing them well, you’ve just developed a relationship with this lead. When done right, you should have a real sense of who they are, what their role is, pains they experience, and if your SaaS software is a potential solution for them. No matter if there’s a fit or not, go ahead and send them a thank you email. According to an Adestra’s 2015 Subject Line Report, email subject lines including the words “thank you” or “thanks” placed on their top 10 list of highest above-average engagement levels. Feel free to review some of the points you’ve discussed and let them know that you’re there for any of their ‘morning-after’ questions. They’ll be thankful for the follow up.

Recently I took part in a think tank for a SaaS product group that was struggling with pricing issues. The issue at hand was that the product team was having a hard time getting users to opt for what they identified as the best offering out of three possible package tiers for their users.

The product’s standard tier package was originally priced at a fixed cost of $10/mo plus additional usage based costs. Further on down the road, they added a lower tier with limited features. The usage cost for the lower tier was set at almost a fifth of the standard tier price.

With time, as user needs to scale grew, a third premium tier package offering was added. This time, for technical reasons, the price was set at a monthly fixed price of $700. Not an unusually high price but in comparison to the two other packages, this was presented as 70(!) times the original standard tier offering. The new premium package offered robustness for high system load, and while the two other tiers did deliver, it was agreed that the new offering was the best offering for the users.

The problem: given the three choices, users were opting for the lower tier package and the standard, while the premium tier was seldom used even though it in fact was a much better offer with better features at a great value for money.

Before reviewing how to untangle this issue, let’s review the things you need to consider when approaching pricing of SaaS products.

Evaluating different pricing models

Here are the 4 most common pricing models:

1. Flat rate – paying a fixed price for all the product features. Typically, this will be monthly or annually based. This model is simple and is rarely used as it doesn’t give much room to capture a broad customer base. Simply put, it’s an offer they can refuse.

2.Pay as you go – a usage based pricing tier. This pricing model has its appeal to customers. They can moderate their payment according to their growth, and the fact that they can scale down and cut costs if they hit a rough patch can be a good selling point. On the other hand, this pricing model might cause a headache when trying to forecast your company’s revenue, as any bump on the road for your customers directly affects your earnings. Plus, your engineering team will also find this challenging as they will need to have a robust scaling strategy that can grow and shrink to cut your infrastructure costs (remember, your customers do not pay for what they do not use).

The best and most successful examples for this model would be the big cloud providers – Amazon web services and Microsoft Azure. They are big enough to use the competitive nature of this model and still stay profitable.

3.Flat rate + Pay as you go – This fine combination of the two models above consists of a fixed flat rate (e.g. $10/mo), in addition to a payment based on usage (e.g. 100 emails = $5, 1000 emails = $15. etc.). I like it because it creates a predictable safety net to the pay as you go model.
4.Tiered – Usually averaged at 3.5 offerings (that constitute a combination of all of the above), in this model, we want to appeal to a broader audience and have a safety net in the form of a mid-price in case our premium price deters users.

On the con side, the tier model planning is the most complex as it does not only consist of your cost plus profit. It entails strategy, psychology, and understanding of elements of game theory. It’s important to decide what features should be included in each tier and how to price it correctly. The SaaS product team understood that they were not playing this game correctly. Let’s now break down what went wrong and learn from it.

Raising money for your SaaS product is a minefield. Regardless of whether you are crowdsourcing, at the seed stage or beyond, it is imperative that you have a defined strategy for your product. Who is your target audience? What is your USP? Why should they fund your product? How are you going to present your product to potential investors and to customers? What is your price point and what are your projections in terms of sales and ROI?

The chances are if you are at the stage of raising money you have built a plan around these strategic considerations. However, as your product, and business, evolves so should your strategy. So, what are the 5 things you need to consider?

1. Who are you looking to raise money from?

The size of your business will often dictate who you target for your fundraising. If you are still in the pre-seed phase, are you able to do some bootstrapping? Can you ask family members to invest? Would crowdsourcing work as a quick win?

If you are at the seed stage, you are likely looking for some outside funding either through Angel investment or a Venture Capital fund. Beyond this, in your third, fourth and any additional rounds of funding it is important to consider what kind of investment fund you think might find your product of interest.

2. What is your competitive advantage?

Investors will want to know what the growth potential is and what their potential ROI will be. Why should they invest in you over the other SaaS products out there? Where do you fit within your market segment? If your market segment is already crowded, what makes you stand out above the rest. Or if you have managed to land on a relatively empty section of the market, are there potential barriers to new competitors entering the same segment and ‘stealing’ your funding? If you’ve spotted a gap in the market, the likelihood is that someone else has too, especially if it has fast growth potential. Your potential investors will want to know what you have to offer that others don’t.

3. Where do you plan to take the product with this investment?

So, you’ve beaten off the competition. No matter who the investor is, and at what stage of development you are, raising moneys is contingent upon a clear strategy. Knowing your product and how you plan to grow it through identifiable opportunities are key to attracting investment.

4. When is the right time to bid for investments?

If you’re in your very early stages, many SaaS products wait until they have a prototype ready to demo. For other, larger, investments, timing can be even more critical. Making sure you have the enterprise structure, including management, and a sound product marketing strategy in place could be the difference between securing funding and not. Of course, different stages of development will heed different levels of funding, but knowing when to begin your next round of bidding is indispensable to securing funding for your great product.

5 . How? How much do you want?

What kind of investment do you want? Is it simply cash? If you’re further down the development process, do you want board members or advisory personnel as well? If you have an existing management team and board members, they will play an important role in deciding how much you want to raise. You will also need to consider how much you value your autonomy. The additional capital may come with a requirement from the investor to install their own advisors. Are you happy with that? If you are the type to benefit from a collaborative relationship then this kind of investment could be just what your business needs.

Conclusion

There are many things to consider when you are trying to raise money for your SaaS product. Above all, articulate a clear strategy for your product – the product features, your USP, the route(s) to market, the competitive landscape, growth prospects and the potential return on investment. with timescales. Then, if you structure your thinking around “W4H1”; who, what, where, when and how, you will find it easier to generate questions which will eventually lead to the answers you need to answer. And those answers will be the key to a successful funding exercise. Go to it!

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