challenges & opportunities for vertical b2b saas companies › res › migrated ›...

Challenges & Opportunities for Vertical B2B SaaS Companies

Gregg Scoresby, CEO at CampusLogic@greggscoresby

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What is It?

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“Focusing on niche verticals or specific functional areas may be one of the most successful

strategies of the enterprise cloud software era…the vast majority of successful cloud solution providers have struck gold by picking one thing

and doing it extremely well." (Gordon Ritter, founder of Emergence Capital)

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What We’ll Cover Today

✛ 3 Opportunities for Vertical SaaS

✛ 3 Challenges for Vertical SaaS

✛ CampusLogic Case Studies

✛ Principles as Opposed to Rules

✛ Q&A Throughout

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#1: Sales & Marketing Efficiency

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I’ve been hearing about CampusLogic, should we be looking into

this?

Know Your Buyers

Dir Fin AidChampion

VP Enrollment or Student Services

Buyer

ITInfluencer

C-LevelInfluencer

All of my processes are

manual and time-consuming, is there a better

way?

I’m looking for ways to improve enrollment and

the student experience.

What will it take from IT to

implement this?

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Go Where Your Buyers Are

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Engage 100% of The Market

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Don’t apply horizontal sales and marketing strategies to vertical

SaaS companies.

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#2: Superior Economics

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More Revenue Per Account

$-

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

$30,000

$35,000

$40,000

ARPA

52% ARPA Expansion

✛ Communicate Value

✛ Right features

✛ Better pricing

✛ More product

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More Valuable Relationships

✛ Growing ARPA

✛ Low churn

✛ Deep relationships

✛ Giant LTV

$-

$100,000

$200,000

$300,000

$400,000

$500,000

$600,000

$700,000

LTV

77% LTV Expansion

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More Profitable Customers

✛ Invest early &

often

✛ Obsess about

churn

✛ Be consultative

✛ Create community

Target: 80%+ GM

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Better Customer RetentionTarget: >115% Net Retention

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Public vertical SaaS companies have ~30%

higher EBITDA than horizontal SaaS

businesses

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#3: Deep Data Analytics

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>75% of have BI somewhere

on campus

0% use BI tools in student finance

No Shortage of Analytics Tools

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BeyondVisualizations

✛ Who isn’t completing the fin aid process?

✛ Which students are over-borrowing?

✛ What content enables lower borrowing?

✛ Where are students disengaging?

✛ How do we compare to other schools?

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Become THE data source for your vertical and use it to make your industry and

your customers better.

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#1: Small Markets

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An Typical Investor’s View

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Launched Beta VersionOf StudentVerification

$75M

2013 Total Addressable Market

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Expanded SV, rebranded as StudentForms$180M

2014 Total Addressable Market

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LaunchedAwardLetter$250M

2015 Total Addressable Market

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LaunchedCampusMetric

s$325M

2016 Total Addressable Market

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Acquired Net Price

Calculator$375M

2017 Total Addressable Market

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Launching Scholarship

Universe Fall 2017$500M+

2018 Total Addressable Market

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Domination Required

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Prove that you can grow your addressable market

everyday, every week, every month, every year.

And then dominate it.

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#2: Domain Expertise Needed

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Vertical SaaS Founder Profile

✛ Personal connection with the industry

problem

✛ Understanding of how customers deal with

it

✛ Ability to source early customers

✛ Knowledge of other players and their

position

✛ Obsession with fixing the problem

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Go Deep on Differentiated Product

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Generic Forms vs. CL StudentForms

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Consultative Customer Success

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Be an industry expert.Then hire industry experts

into product, customer success, and most everywhere else.

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#3: Churn Will Crush You

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Every Fish in the Pond will Know

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100% Referenceable

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What Do They Really Think?

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Make Them Feel Special

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Obsess about customer happiness and the value

they get from your products. And make them look like

rock stars.

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