Operating Principles 101
News, insights and updates from the team at Bloom Equity Partners
Founders, Operators, and Investors! Happy Friday!
We are back with another Weekly Bloom!
In this week’s edition, we share some operational tactics from a well-respected SaaS founder + ⚡️ Favorite Tweets from the Ecosystem, and much more.
Favour to ask: if you've been enjoying these newsletters, would you mind sharing with a fellow SaaS entrepreneur, investor or capital allocator that you feel would enjoy them too?
Let’s get into it 🔥
Operating Principles of a B2B SaaS Co
Operating a software company in a remote-first world is complicated. Operating practices have changed, and the way employees view their work is shifting. As a founder implementing a proper operating framework is critical for long-term success. B2B SaaS founder, Kay Iverson, shared his ‘operating principles of a modern software business’:
Customers’ love of the product must be at the center of everything. Customers share their experiences both online and in-person more than ever these days.
Your existing customers are the number one buying decision resource for prospects. A word-of-mouth impression is worth 5x a paid media impression.
Customer love is achieved by helping individuals become successful at using your product and letting them talk about it.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the four principles:
Empowered teams
Without empowerment employees, withdraw from their work, become less passionate, and are less likely to think critically and creatively. This in turn brings poor performance.
Empowered teams have a reasonable amount of autonomy. They are guided by well-calibrated performance metrics and responsibilities rather than surface-level incentives.
Outcome over output
The product and company vision need to be properly written down, shared, and believed by all employees to ensure that the company is being steered in the right direction.
OKR frameworks are a great way to do this and when being created should:
keep the customer in mind
set objectives as problems to solve
focus key results on measurable customer outcomes
There is no better way to make board members part of your team than to involve them in discussion about the next quarter’s OKRs. By doing so, the board, management and teams work together on the most important tasks to achieve the next performance level.
From good to great
This is all about the manager’s position. The most important responsibility of every manager is to help each employee get from good to great. This is usually a combination of professional and social skills.
Managers should:
coach frequently, with weekly one-on-ones
cultivate diverse points “disagree and commit”
have the courage to correct mistakes
Real ownership
Employees should think and act as real owners of the business.
To demonstrate the emphasis on real ownership the company should provide stock options to each employee.
If you enjoyed this quick breakdown make sure to check to give it a share
What We’re Reading and Listening To…
📚 Scale Faster: A Guide to Optimizing Your B2B SaaS Marketing Strategy
Favorites from the Ecosystem
Investors👇…..
Founders👇…..
Operators👇….
News from the Industry: deals, deals, and more deals 💰
Hg to close latest large-cap fund
Rothschild's buyout fund tests appetite for $1.5bn software firm A2Mac1
End Note 🔚
As always, if you're enjoying The Weekly Bloom, we'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two. We try to make it one of the best emails you get each week, and I hope you're enjoying it.
And should you come across anything interesting this week, send it our way! We love finding new things to read through members of this newsletter.
About Bloom Equity Partners
Bloom Equity Partners is a lower mid-market software-focused private equity firm, leveraging deep operational and commercial experience to create enduring market value for the benefit of our investors, founders, and their companies.