Your Customer’s Success IS Your
Success
1
Dave Ng
General Partner
Altara VC

Dave Ng
General Partner, Altara Ventures
What is on the menu today?
● A way of life
● Support != Success
● Segmentation and Prioritization
● Framework, Ops flow and Stack
● Key Takeaways

It takes more than Sales to get to $100M ARR
What we often hear about:
Sales PS CS
Conclusion: Customer Success is
one function of a successful SaaS

But it takes MUCH more to get to $100M ARR!
Here is the reality:
Sales
3 - 6 months
PS
3-12 months
CS
Forever / Ongoing / Indefinitely
Customer’s success encompasses every single touch point of the journey

The No. 1 mistake many make
You believe you are doing this … when you are actually doing this

End-to-end experience matters
5 common pitfalls for customer churn:
• Disjointed engagement (Silos)
• Being bounced around (Ping pong)
• Over promise, under deliver (Salesy)
• Stuck in no man’s land (Dead zone)
• Who is my CSM? (Clueless)

End-to-end experience matters: Zuora
From fuzzy buzzy to concrete customer lifecycle engagement
From single digit to crossing $50M in revenue within 3 years

Know your customers, prioritize your customers
How much do
you really know
about your
customers?
What is the annual
spend? Why do they
spend?
Renewal,
upsell, churn
rate?
Areas of
complexities?
How often do
they login?
Who is the
champion?

Know your customers, prioritize your customers: Oracle
• Strategic engagements vs
account management
• Focus on Value vs Pricing
• Conversations around
Insights vs Use cases
• Do X -> Unlock Y -> Achieve Z
Strategic
Mid market
Enterprise
Emerging

The magic that your amazing Ops team (and tools) do
Operating framework Platform & tools Reporting
Ops Team

Key Takeaways
1. Customer Success is not a function. It is a huge mindset shift, a way of life.
2. Do your homework and focus on key customer value drivers – externally and internally.
3. Have your dedicated ops team and tech stack, especially as you scale up.
Dave Ng
General Partner
dave@altara.vc
Altara Ventures

Thank You