Setting Expectations for SaaS Companies Based Outside the Bay Area with Pendo

Name: Setting Expectations for SaaS Companies Based Outside the Bay Area with Pendo
Uploaded: 2019-04-16T14:00:00+00:00
Duration: 1 min 43 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this talk, the speaker argues that SaaS companies based outside the Bay Area should turn their regional characteristics into strategic advantages…

16 Apr 2019 · 2 min

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1:43

In this talk, the speaker argues that SaaS companies based outside the Bay Area should turn their regional characteristics into strategic advantages rather than viewing them as limitations. Using Southern hospitality as a case study, they emphasize infusing genuine, locally rooted customer service into the brand to create a differentiator. Authenticity is presented as more valuable than trying to mimic other regions. The speaker also stresses the importance of setting a global, category‑leader mindset: instead of aiming to be the biggest firm in Raleigh or North Carolina, the company benchmarks itself against the top 1 % of worldwide SaaS firms, measuring growth speed and behavior. Maintaining this high bar helps avoid being distracted by local competition and keeps the organization focused on world‑class performance.

Chapters

[FOREIGN] How do we take what's unique and differentiating about our region and make it a positive? So one of the aspects of our area is Southern hospitality, treating customers really, really well, going above and beyond, being thoughtful. And we try to say, how do we infuse Southern hospitality into our brand and make that a differentiator rather than being stressed about the fact that you know, there are some negatives to being where we are. So again, we felt that there is much greater value in being authentic than trying to be someone that we weren't and try to find positives. So wherever you live, wherever you're from, there's something really unique about that area. I encourage you to think about what's unique, think about what's differentiated, and use that as a positive. Also part of that is being intentional about who you want to be as a company. We started this company, and I think this is one of the great things about being in SaaS, and all of you are at a SaaS conference, is that you can address the entire world. The world's your market, right? So when we benchmark ourselves, when we started this company, we didn't say we wanted to be the biggest company in Raleigh. We didn't say we wanted to be the biggest company in North Carolina. We want to create a category leader. We want to be one of the biggest companies in the world, and we've always held ourselves to the bar of what are the top 1% of the companies in the world doing? How fast are they growing? How are they behaving? And we've always thought of ourselves as that's our comparison. Narrative set, not our local region. So that's helped us make sure that we don't get too caught up in the fact of how we're doing in relation to other folks in our community. It was always make sure we kept a really, really high bar.