Nicolas Kopp is the Founder and CEO of Rillet - with the vision to help recurring revenue companies leverage a Financial Management Platform purpose-built for their business model.

During our conversation with Nic we covered the following topics:

• Unique Accounting Challenges in a Recurring Revenue Model
• The Importance of Revenue Recognition in a Recurring Revenue Business
• Financial Performance Reporting beyond the Income Statement and Balance Sheet
• Entering a Mature Market Category with a New Product

One of the first challenges a recurring revenue business will face is translating an annual subscription and the associated "bookings" into GAAP revenue. During Nic's previous roles including working at a recurring revenue that scaled to over $100M AR, he saw the challenges firsthand that Finance had with converting subscription revenue into GAAP revenue.

What are some of the most common challenges Nic sees in the market?

• #1 is what is my MRR/ARR and do I trust it
• What is my deferred revenue
• Do I trust my accounts receivables report

Traditional accounting platforms, such as QuickBooks - though solid, functional software is that they do not typically have the concept of "recurring revenue" and the unique revenue management, reporting, and SaaS metrics that are specific to a recurring revenue business.

One of the primary challenges that Nic and Rillet faced when first launching their product is that the Accounting Platform space is quite mature, and most companies are not proactively looking to swap out their technology until scaling revenue which introduces new challenges and financial management challenges that cannot be addressed with their current platform. This is also often associated with when a first-time VP Finance or senior finance executive enters the picture and quickly realizes they do not have the information or infrastructure required to manage "by the numbers".

If you are a founder/CEO entering a mature category or a Finance leader who is struggling with Financial Reporting in a Recurring Revenue business - this conversation is full of unique insights and ideas.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave Gerhardt, the founder and CEO of Exit Five, former Chief Marketing Officer at Privy, and Chief Brand Officer at Drift discusses the challenges, opportunities, and success strategies for building a Community for B2B Marketers.

In 2021, Dave started Exit Five as a community for B2B Marketers as a side project while at Privy. it started by posting on LinkedIn and launching a podcast building a following and then creating a community at $10 per month. Within the first 60 days, over 1,000 members joined the community and now the community includes over 3,000 B2B Marketers.

Dave defines Exit Five as a media company focused on B2B Marketing. With over 3,000 members Dave has a unique perspective on the role of Chief Marketing Officers and their organizations.

Over the past 2-3 years, the environment has changed resulting in much greater scrutiny on Marketing expenses and thus rigor has returned. Moreover, the market conditions have forced CMOs to ensure Marketing and Sales are more tightly aligned - especially as Dave Kellogg says if the CEO goes right and the CRO goes left - the best CMOs stay close to the CRO by going left.

What does Dave think about measuring ROI on evolving trends such as community-led growth or media-led growth? Dave highlighted this is a common problem, and part of the reality is that good marketers just need to know that these are critical "long-term" strategies, that need to be blended with up to 70% of the investments being more short-focused, but having the courage to help the CFO and CEO understand the strategic, long-term value of the other 30% of Marketing investment. Bottom line, getting the CEO and CFO to understand the strategic value of Marketing is a key skill of those most successful CMOs who can see the return over multiple years, not just a few quarters.

Another point Dave highlighted was that over time members of your community will self-identify how they heard about your solutions and why they decided to "raise their hand" to buy something. Community is even more important when the deals are bigger and the risks are heightened.

If you are thinking about or modeling the investment and returns of building a B2B community, this conversation with Dave Gerhardt is full of great ideas and critical insights into what turns an audience into a community.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Becky Lawlor is the founder, of Redpoint Content, which advises and assists technology companies by providing original research services and content marketing services

• Evolution of Content Marketing
• Role of Research in a Content Marketing Strategy
• Original Research Content Challenges

Over the past 3-5 years, content marketing has evolved from a "nice to have" versus a "must have". The primary goals include increasing brand awareness, enhancing demand creation, and ultimately generating pipeline. Over the past 12 - 18 months in an environment of increased efficiency and reduced expenses, the quality of content is trumping content quantity. The benefit of AI is as much about quality as it is about producing more content with fewer resources.

Becky started by sharing that a good content marketing strategy and even organizational structure begins with understanding what the target audience is looking for and reflects a high level of engagement. Becky's findings are that "original research" is consistently one of the highest-performing content marketing assets, in fact, many of Becky's clients report that original research-based content performs 2x - 3x higher, as measured by downloads" as other types of content, such as how to guides.

Becky highlighted that while industry analysts provide a valuable service, most technology buyers understand there is a certain "pay to play" aspect to analyst-published research which increases the value of a brand's own "primary research". One key caveat is that when a whitepaper is a "funded project" for a brand - that an analyst report is not that much more valuable than a brand conducting its own "original research".

If you are responsible or depend on pipeline creation, or have direct responsibility for identifying, creating, and publishing content that increases brand awareness and drives demand creation, this is a great listen!!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.