This presentation starts by looking at the huge global forces that are currently reshaping the world, triggered by Covid. It then drops down layer by layer, to finally show how you need to react as a SaaS business to set up for success in a changed world. These are the slides that I used in my presentation at SaaStock Remote 2020 on June 10th.

1. HOW TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE
IN THE POST-COVID ERA

2. "There are decades where nothing happens;
and there are weeks where decades happen"

3. BIGGEST life-changing event most of us have witnessed
Equivalent to a
World War?
Like experiencing the
Industrial Revolution
in a few weeks

4. Framework
for Analysis
& Action
Epidemiology
Macro Economics
Global Impact
Tech Industry Impact
Impact on You

5. Unanswered Epidemiology Questions
• Time To Vaccine?
• Time to get manufactured, distributed and administered?
• Will people get vaccinated?
• Only about half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine
• (Associated Press-NORC poll)
• Possibility of a Second Wave?
• Need for further lockdowns?
• How successful will we be in controlling new infections after re-opening?
• Do we become immune after infection, and if so, for how long?
• Future viruses with worse characteristics?

6. GLOBAL IMPACT[ ]

7. Global Impact:
Post Covid – A New World?
Office for work Office for connection, community, ecosystem, maker-spaces
Physical Digital
Cities Suburbs / Countryside
On-prem infrastructure & Apps Cloud & SaaS
Full employment High unemployment & Social unrest
Corporate Debt Government Debt and Higher Taxes
Capitalism Further towards Socialism
Globalization Nationalism and borders, Self-sufficiency
$100k for College Not paying $100k for a Webinar
Office by default Remote by default
Suit & Tie Good lighting, microphone, webcam & background
Too much technology Technology as a lifeline
10 year bull market across sectors Extreme Winners and Losers
Credit to Nat Friedman for format & many included ideas
And so much more…

8. Emergence of a
new World
Order?
• 1945 – 2020 US dominated world order
• US dollar is the global currency
• United Nations, NATO, World Bank, IMF
• Disrupted in multiple ways
• China – gaining in wealth & power over the US
• Playing by different rules
• Large Wealth Gap
• Covid
• Climate Change, etc.
• Unstable State in the USA
• High Unemployment + Large Wealth Gap + Economic Downturn
• Result: will be a fight over wealth redistribution
• With a divided country, the fight could be ugly

9. PHOTO BY JULIO CORTEZ

10. America was a
Tinderbox
before George
Floyd’s death
• Covid Unemployment
• Inequality
• Economic (wealth gap)
• Racial
• A divided nation
• Two sides farther apart than at any time we can remember

11. Capitalism
needs to evolve
• Must Address:
• The wealth gap
• Racial inequality
• Education inequality
For more on this topic read/watch Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Founder

12. THE NEXT FEW YEARS WILL BE INTERESTING…

13. MACROECONOMIC IMPACTS
EXTREME WINNERS, EXTREME LOSERS

14. Lockdown/Social Distancing
• Travel
• Hotels
• Airlines
• Rental Cars
• Cruise Ships
• AirBnB
• Physical Retail
• Restaurants
• Physical Events &
Entertainment
• Sports
• Hospitals
• Those selling to the
directly impacted
Direct Impact Indirect Impact
• Commercial Real
Estate
• Colleges
• Doctors, Dentists
• SMB’s
• Particularly if selling
to consumers
• Recruiters
• Fitness
• Car sales / Oil
• Cities & States
Is the consumer allowed to buy your product? Was your supply chain disrupted?

15. Behind the Stock Market recovery …

16. Lies Extreme Winners and Losers
United Airlines
Nordstrom
Marriot
Amazon
Shopify
DataDog

17. Covid Lockdown Winners
• Video Conferencing
• eCommerce
• Streaming Media
• Gaming
• Remote Collaboration
• Cloud Computing
• Etc.

18. Longer term
Macro
Economic
Damage
• Consumer Damage
• 40m people filed for unemployment benefits (1 in 4 workers)
• 20m continuing claims (as of Friday June 3rd)
• 13.3% unemployed, 27% expanded unemployment (NY Times)
May 2019 May 2020
Source: NY Times

19. Macro
Economic
Impact
Questions
• Consumer Confidence and Consumer Spending
• 70% of the US economy is powered by Consumer Spending
• Ripple effect to all other businesses
• Supply chain disruption
• Damage done to developing nations
• Government Stimulus

20. Economic recovery - What shape?
Consensus: U-Shaped
Source: Arthur D. Little Analysis

21. OECD Report
June 9th 2020
“The world faces the worst
downturn in a century”
• Global economy will contract 6% this year
• assuming no 2nd waves of infection
• If there’s a second wave, that will be 7.6% contraction
• US economy: shrink by 7.3%
• European economy: shrink by 9%
• 2012 growth rate forecast: 2.8%
http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/june-2020/

22. OECD.org
http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/june-2020/

23. National Credit & Debit Card Spending
Spending change 2020 vs 2019
Source: Internal Chase data, JPMAM. May 25, 2020
Social distancing: retail, lodging, restaurants, amusement parks, theaters, & other recreational services

24. Credit Card Spending - eCommerce
Credit and debit card spending trends according to current state reopening status
Retail only, eCommerce transactions only
Spending change 2020 vs 2019, 7 day smoothing
Source: Internal Chase data, NY Times, JPMAM. May 25, 2020

25. IMPACT ON TECH WORLD[ ]

26. Impact on the Tech World:
Acceleration of Cloud Adoption
• Work from Home (WFH)
• Easy if using SaaS /Cloud, awful if using VPN’s to talk to on prem systems
• Technology needed for video conferencing, remote collaboration, etc.
• Reacting to changes in Demand
• Cloud scales up or down easily
• Physical to Digital
• Many physical interactions forced on-line
• Retail to eCommerce
• Signatures to eSignatures
• Etc.

28. Impact on the
Tech World
“We’ve seen two years’ worth of
digital transformation in two months."
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO

29. Impact on the
Tech World
“The luxury of time now seems to have disappeared
completely. Businesses that once mapped digital
strategy in one- to three-year phases must now scale
their initiatives in a matter of days or weeks."
McKinsey

30. Impact on the
Tech World
“All along, digital transformation has been mainly seen
among businesses under competitive threats such as
tech-savvy industry disruptors. COVID-19 may be the
mega-event that pushes everyone toward digital
transformation"
ZDNET

31. IMPACT ON YOU[ ]

32. Impact on YOU?
Positive Neutral Negative
Zoom, Shopify, Twilio,
Slack, Okta, etc.
Future Recession impacts
on your customers?
Customers include:
Travel, Retail, Oil, SMB’s, etc.

33. Three Phases
Impact Recovery Reinvention
Anticipate Reinvention!

34. Reinvention…
Face-to-Face Management Remote Management
Observed Performance Measured Performance
In-person recruiting & onboarding Remote recruiting & onboarding
Water cooler conversations Always-on online spaces, Asynchronous communications
In-person collaboration Next gen video collaboration workspaces
Vacations VR Travel
Tourism Touring by remote controlled drone
Desktop screens and smartphones AR Glasses / Brain Machine Interfaces
Global Supply Chains Self-sufficient Nations
Expensive Colleges + no jobs after graduation Next Gen Higher Education

35. Impact on YOU
• Product/Market Fit Check
• Have your customers problems and priorities changed?
• New opportunities?
• Adjust strategy where appropriate

36. Impact on YOU
• Customer Health Check
• Evaluate risk across your customer base
• By industry and ability to withstand a downturn
• Individually score customers, adding Covid to the usual factors:
usage, champion,
• Forecast Churn and Downsizing risk
• Refocus on healthiest segments

37. HubSpot placed customers into four categories

38. Retain at all costs
• More proactive customer success
• Check in with top customers
• Give concessions as opposed to risking churn
• Give customer choice of when to pay
• Suspend payments for a period
• Short term discounts
• Longer term discounts
• Extend contract term for amounts already prepaid
• Lower pricing for lighter use customers

39. Impact on YOU
• Go-to-Market Health Check
• Face-to-face selling not a good option
• Large deals impacted by recession
• New pricing/packages to make it easier to sign up

40. Support specific Covid impacts
• Proactively identify customer’s Covid opportunities
and pain points
• Help with their strategy and tactical responses
• Help customers Work From Home
• Many customers doing furloughs or layoffs
• Help training new users on the product
• Anticipate an increase in support needs
• May need to find a new executive sponsor

41. Example of how you can help: Namely (HR, Payroll & Benefits)
• PPP loans
• Payroll data & advice for eligibility and forgivability
• Tools & advice to manage new legislated leave policies
• Enacted to deal with childcare and emotional distress
• Compliance tools & advice around re-opening workplaces

42. WFH Challenges and Opportunities
• Re-assess need for offices
• Are you more or less efficient now?
• Managing and collaborating in a remote environment
• Recruiting and onboarding
• Maintaining culture
• Need for very strong leadership

43. Changed
Funding
Environment
The big change in my criteria for new investments is
that a company must be able to continue growing in
the current environment. We don’t know how long
this downturn will last, so I don’t buy into the
promise of “as soon as the economy recovers,
growth will resume”.
Ariel Tseitlin, Scale Venture Partners

44. Changed
Funding
Environment
• If Covid has impacted your growth…
• Harder to get Financing
• Valuations likely to drop
• Winners and Losers
• Underperforming startups likely to get weeded out
• Creating acquisition opportunities for stronger players

45. ACTIONS
• Survival
• Cash for ideally 18 months
• Or to reach milestone for successful fund raise
• Business Planning
• Revised plan using best guess
• Worst case contingency plan
• Revisit Org Design
• Cuts?
• Redesigns for a new world

46. Startup Valuations
TIME
VALUATION

47. Startup Valuations – The Reality
MILESTONES
TIME
VALUATION

48. Startup Value Creation Happens
as Key Elements are De-risked
“Do we know
what problem we
are solving?”
“Will many
people pay?”
TIME
VALUATION
“Does it actually
work?”
“Will
someone
pay?”
Credit Pete Kazanjy

49. Key Startup Inflection Points
TIME
VALUATION
Can we scale
profitably?
Does our growth
process scale?
Can we scale without
excessive churn?
Can non-founders sell
this?
Will many people
pay?
Does it actually work?
Will someone pay?
Do we know
what problem
we are solving?
Credit Pete Kazanjy

50. Not Only is Risk Reduced…
but Focus and Business Motion also Change
TIME
VALUATION
Inflection Points

51. 9 Steps to Repeatable Scalable & Profitable Growth
Search for
Product/Market Fit
Search for Repeatable & Scalable
& Profitable Growth Model
Test
Hypothesis
Prove the
Value
Prove it can
be sold
Find
Repeatable
Sales Motion
Prove non-
Founders
can sell
Make it
Scalable
Ensure
Customer
Success
Make it
Profitable
Hit the Gas
and Scale
Scale the
org & its
processes
Etc.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Scaling the
Business

52. FOR MORE DETAILS…