Why We Created an Slack Community to SaaS as well as Software Professionals -
- Global concentration.
- More established professionals and businesses (less students, and even early stage startups).
- Moderation by professionals.
- There is less emphasis on the funding or venture capital rounds.
- A truly supportive group, with no tolerance for disrespectful or improper behavior.
That's true: Elements such as a global business focus and experienced expert moderators (that's me!) are what we like to have in an online forum.
The post discussed what's included for members, particularly compared to other online groups.
You may be asking yourself, "But what's in it for?"
Valid question, and I'm going to discuss it due to the motives (plural) we have to invest in this project may not be as simple as the most cynical people think.
If you're a businessperson yourself, you know how it works. Businesses don't invest in new programs to aid business professionals online; they do it because it serves their individual businesses in some manner.
Yes, having a successful online community can be a fantastic way for to expand the recognition of your brand and even bring in some leads every now and then.
But marketing is only one reason we're doing this. And whether you're a customer or not, we wish for members to be a part of the network, or else it will not succeed.
Our Guiding Principle We believe that our Software as well as SaaS Community Must Be Good to You for It to Succeed
The explanation is fairly straightforward however the main point is that if one doesn't feel that our community is a beneficial and enjoyable place then you'll never be hanging out in our community.
So it's key to its growth -- both for you as well as for us that we at strive to create a cool group to be a member of.
(And If we appear to diverge from this in some way, or if you have suggestions on how we can make it better, please contact us. We'll discuss that further in the next paragraph.)
What Can You Benefit From hosting an online Community
There's got to be something to this otherwise we wouldn't do it, right?
Of course. But we want our goals to be forthright.
We're going to outline what we'd like do with this project.
Learn What's Important for Your Company
A key point our CEO David Nachman told me during a one-on-one about the purpose and mission of the community was that this community is an opportunity to reduce the transactional nature of the relationship we have with customers and other software as well as SaaS businesses.
This is a legitimate concern. We facilitate literal transactions for online businesses, so it's easy for everyone to fall into the rut of having a very well, a transactional connection.
We give you a service, we earn you money. You can repeat the process on autopilot.
However, allowing this pattern to go on for too long could make us unable to enhance our B2B services to directly benefit the success of your firm in making sure that online businesses are successful is an important goal for us.
It's applicable to our current customers, but it's also true for software companies that might be considering making the switch to . If you're uncertain which payments system or merchant of record (MOR) for your B2C and/or B2B SaaS company, we want to hear about any questions or worries you're having so we can take them into consideration as we continue building new features and services.
For more details on the ways David wants to meet you and your company, watch his member interview video, that I conducted in his own capacity as a member:
This is also the reason we have extended our plans for this community , to create the individual contributor, executive, entrepreneur and founders membership basesince we are convinced that it is easier to understand companies (and help them more effectively) when we've got different layers of community members.
This mission of increasing the intimacy of our relationships with businesses (and in particular, those who find or work for them) is the reason the reason we conducting interviews with our members. Apart from helping members get to know each other, it also helps get to know members and their current business concerns.
Building Customer Relationships
Knowing more about your company is a great way for us to build a stronger relationship that we share with you whether you're a customer or not.
Our relationships with our customers could be strengthened by granting members more access to members who work for us .
already offers a diverse and responsive customer support service for buyers and customers, and we have customers success specialists for a few of our customers with particularly large or complex businesses.
We know that businesses are able to improve the ways they help their customers and enhance their relationship with customers.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, out of a hundred, making a ticket is the best way to get help. That helps our support team properly route a request according to the nature or importance of the problem, as well as assists us in keeping track of the support requirements of a company over time.
(That last part also helps us to gain a more comprehensive understanding of a company's requirements.)
That said, it might be useful to reach out to the leaders in person particularly if someone has a business need that doesn't necessarily have to do with technical issues related to our system. We're a community of experts in the community that aren't just technical support specialists.
Product managers, taxes and payment experts, customer operations pros, and even the occasional sales director or two might be in there and can answer relevant business issues. They may even be able to provide insight on the future to the's platform.
We'd like our customers' experience with to be the kind of happy experiences that they'll be telling their colleagues about, and we believe that being more accessible will improve those opportunities. And if you're a customer that is not experiencing that type of positive experience yet The community also serves as the place to inform us of your experience.
Yes, Leads
This is the section of the post in which we need to be real open and transparent.
It would be great for our members who aren't already using as a merchant of record would sign up for our services.
It's good news for them that that isn't the sole goal of this community.
Because we also have the goal of enhancing customer relations and learning as much as we can about SaaS and software business's needs:
- You can rest assured that the process of registering as new customers is just a small part of what we're trying to accomplish to serve this community. Also, we won't solicit anyone who hasn't expressed the desire to us in advance.
- There are a higher chance in securing new users by achieving the two first goals that we discussed above, which is why we're going to work a lot harder on achieving these goals.
We're confident that if our the community sees us being attentive to our customers and earnestly asking for comments, they'll be a lot more interested in as a commerce platform and merchant of record since they'll see the work we put in and the care we show our customers firsthand.
In the event that you've been thinking about before that this could be a good place to begin your journey with us in a more informal way. Members of the community can interact with customers from other companies, participate in the conversations among customers , and (remotely) meet those who run the business it is.
What Can You Expect By Joining This Community
While it did focus on some of the features offered by the GSL community, it didn't quite provide the real advantages you gain by joining a group such as this one.
We have big plans regarding Global SaaS Leaders -- and we're always developing community-building effortsbelow are some benefits we've already provided to software and SaaS founders, executives entrepreneurs, marketing professionals, engineers, developers, and many others.
Connect with Software Experts from Everywhere Over the World
It doesn't matter if you're a SaaS marketer looking to boost the SEO of your location, a person and culture director concerned with meeting-ups and international onboarding, or someone who is a SaaS business owner looking for suggestions on selling into specific countries, having easy access to those in the international community provides makes "going global" significantly easier.
So far, we are represented by members from more than fifty countries spread over 17 time zones.
Find out about new markets you Are Interested in Expanding or Introducing Within
One of the advantages of being part of a global network is the ability to tap into it for advice as you work to break into new markets.
You can post in the community to ask for members from specific countries to help you out and you may also get in touch with me, principal moderator, and I can reach out to applicable members in your name.
You can also keep your eyes on the discussions within the forum for previous questions that are relevant to SaaS market you're trying to expand into.
You can also look at our profile videos for members that we're recording on a rolling basis for those who would want to be a part of it (like our previous example with our CEO David Nachman).
One of the most common questions we ask interviewees in general is "What's an aspect that isn't understood by people about selling software in your country?" The goal of this type of question is to help you learn about the cultural and business standards that may affect how easy it is to market software in the country.
Get Knowledge from SaaS Company Leaders and Experts
While our membership is spread across various roles and seniority at different levels, we do have several executive, SaaS founders, and department heads in Global SaaS Leaders who are eager to share their experience with other members.
Some members are software and SaaS founders with numerous SaaS businesses, others have been employed at internationally-known companies, and some entrepreneurs have switched into different industries or careers and possess diverse experiences to inform their suggestions.
Additionally, multiple executives and leaders are also on hand, like the Chief Executive Officer, our global Tax Director in addition to our Vice President for Global Customer Operations. The community is awash with them because they want to help members however they can.
(For additional information on this topic, check out Kurt about this issue, check out his stand-room only seminar about SaaS pricing strategies that work: how to design the most optimal pricing model at SaaStr Europa earlier in 2022.)
We love to answer questions like this, and we're delighted to offer the space in which topics such as such can be discussed with world-class peers.
Make yourself appear as an expert
If you're already recognized as an SaaS industry influencer or specialist, congratulations! We'd like to see your contributions to the community, while continuing to build your professional and personal reputation through sharing your knowledge.
In the event that you're working on creating your own identity in the first place, participating in professional forums is a great method to get started. We don't all have to be SaaS founders to have a solid understanding of the areas we specialize in, but being active in sharing our knowledge with other people establishes us as not only well-informed, but also friendly and gracious -- and that's a great image for your public profile to create.
The Community will be shaped as it Expands
We started this program and SaaS community in the month of March 2022 and have seen it grow quickly. We want it to be an ideal space for you to practically "hang out," this community is malleable and open to suggestions.
For example, a member last week suggested adding the channel to address a certain kind of usage.
This request was then transformed into a poll asking everyone to vote about the channels they'd prefer to see added to the workspace of Slack:
Therefore, whether you'd like to vote in a quiet way on community updates or confidently make suggestions of your own suggestion, we're happy to hear from you!
If you're interested in specific forum channels, service supplier suggestions, LinkedIn and social media connections, podcasts or facebook group meetings in person, webinars, templates, or just other software and SaaS growth hacks in general, we'd like to hear about it.
Share Your Thoughts
There are more options for members to express their opinions than just in relation to the community. One of the most recent requests we asked members to tell us the kind of benchmarking information and metrics they'd prefer to have released.
These kinds of measures can aid software and SaaS business owners better formulate strategies to increase their ARR.
In order to offer useful and valuable data to the expanding and profitable software and SaaS companies, we came into the community to inquire about benchmarking information we might want to collect in the future:
A few of the answers included retention rates in a specific market, MRR growth in a specific industry, failed payments measures (unintentional the churn) along with churn, conversion and rates across diverse regions.
Note that this poll is open to everyone, regardless of their customer status.
We've mentioned before that being aware of what matters most in software or SaaS businesses is important to our goal of creating the Global SaaS Leaders community to provide you with the opportunity to share what you really need in order to move your business to the next level.
Use the Community to Learn more about (If You're Interested)
This poll was made public within the specific channel of the community. It exists so discussions about (as opposed to general business-related conversations) can be made available in this channel but remain outside from our main feed.
We do not want our users -- and especially those that aren't customers to feel that we're always advertising . As we've said before, a software and SaaS community needs to be something that you can benefit from to succeed And we believe being overly salesy would make this a place it do not wish to be.
With that said, if you're not currently a client but you've considered visiting us, signing up to GSL is a great opportunity to learn more about the company, by viewing customer interactions with our leaders, looking at the types of questions and comments customers have to say about GSL, and much more. The channel that is specifically for GSL is accessible to all members.
What if you do not have an interest in ? It is fine to go away from the channel you're interested in completely not read. There are plenty of other activities to take part in on the forum without reading articles about platforms there is no need for.
Be part of the Global SaaS Leaders Community
We're extremely proud of the Global SaaS Leaders community already, and we're proud to provide an international networking and discussion space that includes features like live interview events video introductions of members, as well as a variety of expert opinions.
In the future, we will be focusing on community building, and as our membership increases, we'll add more options. We'd love to provide the creation of more personal networking relationships and launch a podcast. We also plan to host more real-time events, as well as integrate social media features down the road too.
But if you join now, you can have an influence on what the club develops into, too.
In order to ensure the highest level of quality, I'm personally reviewing all applicants for new members There aren't any automatizations that let spammers in or bots. That's why submitting your LinkedIn link is vital. Thanks for your patience as I go through your application as well as feel free to email us if you have any concerns prior to you submit your application!
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