PandaDoc is a powerful document management and eSignature platform that simplifies the way businesses handle their documents. The platform offers a range of features designed to streamline ...

Review of Pandadoc.com

Some of you may have heard about our official PandaDoc Podcast, The Customer Engagement Lab, and for those that haven't, here's a quick rundown of what it's all about. If you're working in sales ...

How to Start Freelancing: Tips for navigating self-employment

According to DataHorizzon Research , the SaaS sales software market size was valued at USD 8.13 Billion in 2022 and is expected to have USD 31.8 Billion in 2032 with a CAGR of 14.7%. The increase in the cloud based software across industries for cost reduction,

Saas Sales Software Market To Reach Usd 31.8 Billion By 2032 | Cagr: 14.7% | Datahorizzon Research

Opalesque Industry Update - Geek Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in visionary immigrant founders, today announced the close of Geek Ventures Fund I, LP. The inaugural fund of $23 million will be used to support pre-seed and seed stage technology startups that are driving innovation in global markets and the U.

Geek Ventures launches debut fund

The investment fund Geek Ventures, founded by the Belarusian Ihar Makhanyok, has raised $23 million. The IT entrepreneur plans to invest in startups of migrants moving to the US, techcrunch.com writes.

Investment fund started by Belarusian raises $23 million

PandaDoc helps make it easy for firms to create, manage and e-sign documents such as proposals, quotes and contracts. The firm also enables payments collection directly from documents but it is ...

PandaDoc buys payments firm Denario

Prior to Geek Ventures, Mahaniok invested in notable unicorns as an angel investor including Instacart, PandaDoc, People.ai, Chainalysis, Airbyte, and Jeeves at pre-seed and seed stage ...

Geek Ventures Launches First Fund to Support Immigrant Tech Founders

Prior to Geek Ventures, Mahaniok invested in notable unicorns as an angel investor including Instacart, PandaDoc, People.ai, Chainalysis, Airbyte, and Jeeves at pre-seed and seed stage, and hundreds of other successful companies. Through Geek Ventures ...

Geek Ventures is the latest venture capital firm to launch its first fund and has $23 million in capital commitments to invest in immigrant tech founders at the pre-seed and seed stages. Ihar Mahaniok founded the firm in 2021 after working for more than 20 years as a software engineer for companies,

Geek Ventures targets immigrant founders with its first fund

PandaDoc

pandadoc

In the business world, there’s nothing more frustrating than dealing with paperwork. It's one of the most boring and time-consuming tasks, but it's essential for keeping running smoothly. e signature growth This is where eSign software comes in. eSignature software allows you to digitally sign documents, which can save you a lot of time and hassle. In 2021, the value of the global e-signature market was $1,527.7 million, and it is expected to reach $12,721.5 million by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.6% between 2021 and 2030. (According to psmarketresearch) While there are many different eSign providers on the market, Pandadoc is one of the most popular. However, it’s not the only option out there. This blog post explores 10 Pandadoc alternatives that can simplify your eSign process in 2023. Let’s get started. 1. WeSignature If you're looking for a Pandadoc alternative to simplify your eSign process, WeSignature is a great option. WeSignature offers a simple, easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to get started with eSigning. Plus, WeSignature integrates with popular CRMs and document management systems, so you can keep all your documents in one place. 2. SignNow If you're looking for an alternative to Pandadoc for your eSign needs, look no further than SignNow. SignNow is a leading provider of electronic signature solutions, and its software is used by some of the largest companies in the world. SignNow's software is easy to use and allows you to create legally binding signatures with just a few clicks. Plus, SignNow offers a free trial to try it before buying it. 3. DocuSign DocuSign is a cloud-based software application that enables users to sign documents electronically. The software is designed to streamline the document signing process and make it easier for users to get signatures from others. DocuSign offers a free trial and a monthly subscription service. DocuSign has a simple, straightforward interface that makes it easy to use. The software allows users to upload documents, add signature fields, and send out signature requests via email or text message. Once the signature is obtained, the document is automatically signed and stored in the cloud. DocuSign also offers security features, such as password protection and data encryption, to keep documents safe. 4. Signaturely Signaturely is one of the most popular alternatives to Pandadoc out there. It's simple to use and comes with a wide range of features to make electronic signatures easy. Here's a quick overview of what Signaturely can do: Upload or create documents to be signed Invite others to sign your document Track document status and receive notifications when it's been signed eSignature capture from desktop, mobile, or tablet Legally binding signatures backed by PKI encryption If you're looking for an alternative to Pandadoc that can simplify your eSign process, then Signaturely is definitely worth checking out! 5. DocHub DocHub is a great alternative to Pandadoc if you're looking for a way to simplify your eSign process. With DocHub, you can easily create and manage documents, automate document workflow, and track signatures. Plus, DocHub integrates with Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can easily access your documents from anywhere. 6. HelloSign HelloSign is an easy-to-use electronic signature solution that streamlines the eSign process for businesses of all sizes. With HelloSign, users can sign documents electronically from any device and track the status of signatures in real-time. In addition, HelloSign integrates with a variety of business applications, making it a flexible and powerful solution for businesses looking to streamline their eSign workflow. 7. Adobe Sign Adobe Sign is a cloud-based eSignature service that enables you to sign documents electronically. You can sign documents online, via email, or using a mobile device with Adobe Sign. Adobe Sign is legally binding and has been used by over 250 million people worldwide. Adobe Sign offers a free plan that allows you to sign up to three documents per month. Paid plans start at $9.99/month and allow you to sign unlimited documents. Adobe Sign integrates with a variety of third-party applications, making it easy to use in your workflow. 8. RightSignature RightSignature is a great alternative to Pandadoc if you're looking to simplify your eSign process. RightSignature allows you to create and send documents for signature directly from your desktop or mobile device. You can also track the status of your document and receive notifications when it's been signed. 9. ESign Genie ESign Genie is one of the leading electronic signature solutions on the market. It offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of features to make the eSign process simple and efficient. Some of the key features of ESign Genie include: A simple, user-friendly interface that makes it easy to create and send documents for signature A wide range of document templates to choose from The ability to add fields, images, and other content to documents Advanced security features to protect documents and signatures 10. SignEasy If you're looking for an alternative to Pandadoc for electronic signatures, then you should check out SignEasy. SignEasy is a web-based solution that makes it easy to sign documents electronically. You can upload your document to SignEasy and then add your signature using your mouse or trackpad. SignEasy also lets you add a date and time stamp to your signature, so you can see when the document was signed. SignEasy is a great alternative to Pandadoc if you're looking for an easier way to sign documents electronically. With SignEasy, you can upload your document and then sign it with just a few clicks. You can also add a date and time stamp to your signature to keep track of when the document was signed. Summing Up As we've seen, there are a number of different options available when it comes to electronic signature software. While Pandadoc may be a popular choice, it's certainly not the only one out there. If you're looking for an alternative to Pandadoc, any of the options on our list should be able to provide you with the features and functionality you need.

Top 10 PandaDoc Alternatives Everyone Can Afford in 2023

The Secret Sauce to PandaDoc’s Sales While there is no silver bullet for success in sales, there are tried and tested sales strategies so you won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Secret Sauce to Sales by Freshsales features top sales leaders across industries and gives you inside access to their sales methodologies. Jared Fuller is the VP of Sales and Business Development at PandaDoc. PandaDoc is an app that lets you build, track, and sign your documents, all in one place. The app is used by over 7000 companies. Before PandaDoc, he was the founder of multiple startups, including JobHive (hiring automation software). Jared is among Entrepreneur.com’s 10 Most Innovative Sales Leaders in 2017. He also regularly contributes to Inc, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, and more. We managed to catch hold of to talk about his sales story at PandaDoc. Here goes! Jared Fuller You’ve been a founder your whole life, what made you join PandaDoc? There was a point when we knew JobHive would not work out and I was about to build my next product. Oddly enough, I was a beta customer of PandaDoc at JobHive, and I had known (CEO, PandaDoc) for a while. Mikita Mikado When he knew that I’d left JobHive, he made it a point to call me every day until I agreed to come and join the PandaDoc team. Not without a disclaimer though — I’d been a founder throughout and being an “employee” was very new to me. I come with a founder mentality. Anything I work on, I own it. Don’t get me wrong — it’s not that I’m in charge. I just have the drive to stay up until 2:00 AM and wake up at 4:00 AM and give it my all. Although I had been responsible for Sales in all my other companies, I’d never been a salesperson myself. I didn’t think I was hire-able and I was upfront about it. A few conversations with Mikita and (CTO, PandaDoc) and I was sold. I joined as the Head of Business Development in June 2015.And the rest is history. Serge Barysiuk Tell us a little about PandaDoc and your mission. is a complete digital document solution, designed for efficiency. PandaDoc We make life easier for people and companies that want to accelerate revenue and decrease the time taken to put something back in front of the customer and help educate a customer on the buyer’s journey. In services, the buyer needs to understand what they are buying, you need to gain trust, and you need to condense all of that into one beautiful proposal, contract or Statement of Work. We can radically shorten deal cycles and ensure a higher win rate on their deals. Our audience is founders, people responsible for sales and sales operations — those involved in the sales process and want to enable their sales teams. At PandaDoc, we help small to medium-size businesses accelerate revenue for their revenue functions. Typically businesses that sell a service — marketing agencies, accountants, etc. Anyone selling a service — could be software or time. Could you take us through your initial few months at PandaDoc? The first three months were chaotic. I lived in the same apartment that doubled as the PandaDoc office. I focused on building the partner ecosystem — integrations with a bunch of different CRM software along with the co-marketing and GTM activities around this. It was a mix of business development, marketing, sales, and product. This was fantastic! I had ownership of a new project that was highly cross-functional. Some of those relationships also ended up scaling fast. In less than a year, we became the #1 CRM integration partner with about six different CRM software. We built all these relationships from scratch — cold emails to subsequently having HubSpot and Microsoft invest in our Series B funding. PandaDoc Funding | Source: Crunchbase Partnerships are core to our business. When people connect PandaDoc to their systems of record, for example, a CRM, it reduces churn for our partners and us; there’s a tremendous impetus to integrate. Building and scaling integrations were all I focused on during my first year at PandaDoc. Let’s talk about channel sales. How important is it at PandaDoc? I think channel sales is the most misunderstood area of sales in SaaS today — it’s a legacy function for most organizations. Channel sales originated from companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM — you needed a partner to deploy a massive on-premise perpetual license agreement, and they would try to maximise the upfront investment. In SaaS, you’re trying to maximize the lifetime value. Channel sales today for a tool that is about $40 per month per user, is a precarious proposition. Also, the GTM strategy for channel sales hasn’t changed for decades at most companies. This nudged us to come up with something that adds value — we wouldn’t need a partner to set up the integration or convert a document, neither would the partner make $50,000 or $100,000 by setting up a web 3.0 tool. PandaDoc Partner Program In any channel partner program, there are three key stakeholders — the product, the partner, and their customer. We chose to focus on our partners and build our strategy to optimize for their growth. How do we help them win more business? How do we build a process that helps them close deals faster? With this in mind, our value proposition became obvious. If our partners were consultants to our customers and grew their top line, they are tied to revenue versus expense. In short, the most important thing to focus on when you’re starting a channel program is on the services that your partners are going to need to sell to become successful. If you’re an early stage company, channel sales is not a hack. It’s an investment. It’s a multi-year investment. If you’re not willing to commit to investing in a channel strategy, I would say, don’t do it. You need a lot more humility, education, and empathy for the partner than most companies realize. How did you go about onboarding new channel partners and how do you manage to keep them interested? We’re still dabbling with that. We have hundreds of partners at PandaDoc which is more than most companies that are around 10 million in ARR. Usually, companies don’t start a channel partner program until they hit $10M in ARR. PandaDoc partner program benefits What we do have is a collection of resources open to all our partners — our tech stack, marketing collateral, proposals, and templates they can use. We have a dedicated partner relationship management portal that we direct partners and customers into regularly. PandaDoc’s channel partner program grew from <1% of total revenue to over 15% in nine months. A new initiative we’re testing is to make PandaDoc’s channel sales a part of every department instead of it being a silo. For instance, customer success managers own a percentage of partner accounts, and we have account executives who receive deals from channel partners; they will have to work together here. The that features you mentions you grew revenue from $1M → $5M ARR last year. That’s phenomenal! How has the growth been in 2017? GrowthEverywhere podcast Within the first two years you triple, and the next three years you double — that’s the Silicon Valley magic number. Also known as , this determines the mechanics of your annualized revenue growth in SaaS. T2D3 Framework Triple, Triple, Double, Double, Double. We’re in the doubling phase now and hitting . In 2018, we intend to replicate this growth. $10M ARR this year SaaS Growth Curve: T2D3 Framework What spurred this growth? Sales and Marketing can win the battle, but product always wins the war. Its simple. Documents suck. They were designed 30 years ago — that’s what we are solving for. We turned documents into a web application which has objects, data storage, the ability to pull and move information, modularise content, and take sections from one document and merge it with another without copying and pasting. PandaDoc badges on third-party review websites. The only reason we are here today is because of our product. We have the best product in the world in the space we operate. We are the best proposal and document tool. That’s why we’re at the top on all the third-party product review websites. Read why listed in “ ” G2 Crowd Freshsales CRM 10 Best Free CRM Tools for Businesses Opening of PandaDoc’s East Coast Headquarters in St. Petersburg Florida How is your sales team structured? The sales team at PandaDoc is a little over 30 now. We have 15 account executives (spanning small business and mid-market), an SDR Team, an Outbound Team, an Inbound Team, and a Live Chat Team. A small team also handles operations for our channel sales program. Add to it, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement, and the leadership layer and you’ve covered our whole team. Our Head of Commercial Sales manages the day-to-day Account Executive efforts. Two salespeople focus on building strategic accounts — these efforts are still nascent. With about 1000 trials a day, our inbound leads pipeline keeps us busy too! Graduation ceremony of an apprentice Looks like you have a pretty lean team to handle the massive traffic at PandaDoc. How do you pick the right sales folks? What are the top three things you look for in a new sales hire? #1. A lot of failures. Here, learning is paramount. We believe everyone is here to learn. That’s what makes the core of our culture too. Like Jack Welch (former CEO, General Electrics) said: An organization’s into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. ability to learn, and translate that learning PandaDoc is a company full of first-timers. We are under no delusion that we have seasoned engineers from SFO or the most experienced sales executives and account executives that make half a million dollars. That’s not us. We are beginners. #2. A hunger to learn. We started an apprentice program with 12 positions. We hired them all. They started with live chat. They learned how to talk to customers, and we saw that some of them were proficient writers. We graduated them to an SDR or an SMB sales role. That’s been the success story of the sales function here at PandaDoc. I have sales reps who have never had a professional job before, and that is entirely counter-intuitive to the way sales hiring happens in San Francisco. The hiring playbook has clear instructions — you hire the best recruiter who then will hire the best salespeople. We didn’t have the opportunity to do that because we weren’t able to shell out $300,000 for sales hires. I guess you could say we improvised. #3. Respect and attempt to master the craft of sales. Halloween 2017 @ PandaDoc Read about Building and Training an Ace Sales Team. Even with a solid team like that, I’m sure sales isn’t always easy. What are some of the common sales objections you hear? How do you overcome them? Time and price. It’s not the right time or it’s too expensive. You have to know how to recognize these false objections.These are what I call false objections. You’re lied to because you didn’t traverse the first four gateways of sales successfully. Gateway 1: Vision = Alignment If they don’t have alignment surrounding the vision of your product, it’s a dead deal. That is, if my customer doesn’t despise Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, the nightmare of emailing attachments, making changes, and taking hours with proposals, they aren’t going to buy our product. Gateway 2: Validation = Trust If they don’t trust you have their best interest in mind, they will push back. If my prospect isn’t convinced that my product is the best out there and that I’m batting for their team to improve their sales process, they may say the timing or pricing just isn’t right. Gateway 3: Pain = Value If they can’t correlate their pain with your product’s value, they aren’t moving ahead with you. Your prospect must be able to clearly articulate how your solution solves their problem. If they can’t, it’s a deal-breaker. Gateway 4: Decision Makers If you’re not speaking with the decision maker, you’re setting yourself up for a longer sales cycle. A gatekeeper or an internal advocate is almost always going to come back asking for more time or a massive discount. Gateway 5: Price If your prospect quotes price as a roadblock, they weren’t aligned with your product’s value in the first place. Gateway 6: Time If your prospect tells you they need more time, they are probably stuck at another gateway. The time to buy is always now. by Jared Fuller The 6 Gateways of Sales What are some of the open-ended questions you ask on your discovery calls to work your way through these six gateways? I follow the procedure by covered in AxNot Dan Smith The Anatomy of a Perfect Discovery Call . AxNOT: Call Opening ppreciate you taking the time for today’s call. A = time → “We have 30 minutes scheduled to speak today — does that still work for you? Remember to listen to their response, and adjust your call if necessary) x aturally, you will have questions for me about my company…. N bviously, I have questions for you about your team and goals to understand if we could help. O ypically, this call will end with us determining next steps in the evaluation, or if at any point you realize this is not going to be a good fit — will you please interrupt me to let me know? T I double down on this. I let my prospects know that they can let me know if I’m not adding value. I tell them, “I do not want to blow up your inbox with emails like — Following up, Checking in, Touching base. If it is not the right fit let me know.” — Discovery Call Framework Winning By Design calls it . At the beginning of the call, it sets the tone for honesty. If you don’t do this, you’re going to be led on. You’re not going to close because they don’t trust you. Richard Harris “setting up a respect contract” What’s your favorite productivity hack? Email reminders—they are the best. Say action and time-based reminders that alert me if a prospect has not replied in x number of days. Read about “ Five sales workflow automations that are great productivity hacks. ” What are three metrics you look at every day? Opportunities booked. Number of new leads. Sales accepted leads. What’s your favorite sales quote? It’s not a sales quote, but I love this one by Jerzy Gregorek (Author and Weight Lifter): Hard choices. Easy life. Easy choices. Hard life. What’s your recommended sales read? There are two books. One is a recent favorite, and the other I recommend to my sales team: “Never split the difference — Negotiating as if your life depended on it.” It’s by (Former FBI Hostage Negotiator). It makes for a fantastic read! Chris Voss by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon “The Challenger Sale — Taking control of the customer conversation” Being a consultant is difficult for some people. Sales reps need to understand that you need to become an expert in what you do to challenge their current business process and offer something better. Nine times out of ten, your product is not going to fit the perfect circle your prospect expects. They have to change some things to adapt to the tool or service you’re selling. Freshsales is a sales CRM built to help you stop juggling multiple tools. It’s ideal for small businesses and refreshing for enterprises. While there is no silver bullet for success in sales, there are tried and tested sales strategies so you won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Secret Sauce to Sales by Freshsales features top sales leaders across industries and gives you inside access to their sales methodologies. Drop us a line in the comments or shoot an email to nivas.ravichandran@freshworks.com with your suggestions. A big shoutout to , my co-author on this blog! Alina Benny _According to WIRED, this vulnerability doesn't draw its origins from Android (or any firmware version) but from…_medium.com Alina Benny - Medium

How PandaDoc grew from $1 million to $10 million in 2 years

How Digital Platforms Undo Paperwork In Real Estate

If you work from home, chances are you're relying on various online tools to replace in-person meetings and maintain productivity. However, if your workspace remains cluttered with paper, your home printer never rests, and old reports keep stacking on your shelves, it may be time to consider reducing paper consumption. Doing so can simplify your workflow, increase productivity, and even save you money. Plus, it's an environmentally friendly choice. Let's explore three simple strategies to make your home office paperless. Disregard any backlog and begin today Making your home office paperless might seem like a big task, causing you to put it off. However, simply beginning with small steps each day can lead to significant progress in just a few weeks. If you have a lot of papers to deal with, it's okay to leave sorting and scanning for later. When you have time and feel like doing it, you can go through the papers and decide what to scan and what to throw away. The key is to start reducing paper usage today rather than putting this beneficial initiative on hold. Try using these 5 apps Consider installing a few helpful apps to make your home office truly paperless. They'll assist you in transitioning tasks from paper to digital, bringing immediate benefits. With such apps, finding information becomes effortless—no more searching through piles of paper for hours. Plus, you won't have to worry about spilling coffee on important documents or your pet leaving marks on them. So, these are the apps that will help you go paperless: Scanning apps Gone are the days when you needed a bulky scanner. Now, with apps like or , your phone can do the job just as effectively. Moreover, iScanner, for example, employs a wide range of AI features to make your scans look better than the original documents by removing folds, shadows, and glares. iScanner Adobe Scan Online storage services Sure, electronic documents need somewhere to be stored securely, and choosing the right platform is crucial. When evaluating your options, consider factors like storage capacity, document sharing, and, of course, the cost. Top contenders in this field include , , and . Google Drive Microsoft OneDrive Dropbox E-signature tools In today's digital world, even signing documents has gone electronic. Whether it's a rental agreement or a service contract, you can sign it with just a click. The two most popular services are and . But if you're handling just a few documents, many scanning apps offer an easy-to-use e-signature feature. PandaDoc DocuSign To-do list apps If your workspace is covered with Post-its and notebooks for task management, consider switching to apps like or . These digital alternatives keep your tasks organized and accessible, preventing you from losing important notes or forgetting urgent tasks. Plus, you can easily rearrange tasks and add new information without adding to the clutter. Trello Todoist Notion apps To cut down on paper usage, try ditching traditional notebooks. Instead, jot down your notes digitally using Word documents or specialized apps such as or . While it may feel somewhat awkward at the start, you'll soon find it much simpler to find, organize, and share your notes with colleagues. Notion Evernote Set up an algorithm for new incoming papers Even though you can deal with your pile of papers later, it's crucial to manage new documents properly as soon as possible. If you get flyers or newspapers in your mailbox, take a quick look at them, and if there’s nothing important, simply toss them out. But when you receive letters or official documents, decide what to do with them right away using this simple guide: Put it in the recycling bin right away. Scan and save the digital copy, then throw away the paper one. Scan and save the digital copy, and keep the paper one for a while before throwing it away. Keep the paper version forever. Yes, we can't go completely paperless since there are some documents we need to keep in paper form forever. And here's the main tip, which is helpful in many life situations—Don't Overthink It. If you've decided to use less paper and begun organizing your home office—that's great news, regardless. If you're struggling to change your routine quickly, forgetting to scan documents and dispose of unnecessary papers, don't be too hard on yourself. Starting is always the toughest part, but eventually, you’ll grow into the habit.

3 Tips On How To Make Your Home Office Paperless

In April 2021, eight months into Belarus’ largest ever anti-government protests, the nation’s key startup hub in Minsk – – was shut down by the authorities. The company had been outspoken in its support for the pro-democracy demonstrations, which were spurred on by a falsified election that saw long standing president Alexander Lukashenko elected to his sixth term in office. Imaguru Launched in 2013, Imaguru quickly became one of the most powerful startup hubs in Eastern Europe. For almost eight years, it played a fundamental role in building the Belarusian startup ecosystem and helped create more than 300 startups, which have now raised over $100 million in funding. The Lukashenko regime’s crackdown on Imaguru only made the nation’s tech community grow stronger. After defying the authorities and continuing its activities online, Imaguru expanded and opened new hubs in Madrid, Vilnius, and Warsaw. A new hub in Madrid , Imaguru’s founder and CEO, has always felt a close personal connection with the Spanish startup ecosystem, having graduated from IE Business School in Spain. This is just one of the many reasons she was drawn to set up the company’s headquarters here. Tania Marinich “Madrid is one of the most successful startup ecosystems worldwide. The city hosts a lot of VC funds, business angel communities, universities, accelerators, incubators, and corporate players,” she says. “Plenty of global startups and unicorns choose Madrid as an important hub for growth in the Spanish and LATAM market.” Imaguru Madrid is a diverse community with founders from the UK, Germany, and Scandinavian countries, as well as from the crisis region of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia). In addition to serving as a launchpad for companies looking to expand into Spain and LATAM, the hub has played an important role in bridging gaps between Eastern and Western European tech ecosystems, which “helps our startups grow faster”, Marinich adds. In a few months’ time, Imaguru will organize a Madrid visit for startups from Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania. “This will be a study tour for our portfolio companies, so that they can get to know the Spanish ecosystem, for those who want to expand and find contacts here,” Marinich explains. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine marked a new set of challenges for Belarusian startups. Many foreign clients with them, due to Belarus' ties with Russia and the worldwide sanctions against the two nations. Those who publicly opposed the Lukashenko regime had already lost opportunities within Belarus, leading to an estimated 300,000 people fleeing the nation. no longer wanted to collaborate Marinich wants to help rebuild Europe’s trust in the Belarusian entrepreneurial community. As a member of the Belarusian Coordinating Council – recognized by the EU and US as the representative body of the Belarusian people – she promotes Belarusian tech talent across Europe, including meeting with the European Parliament. “We are trying to convey that our entrepreneurs, who were able to take a risk and start business in a hostile Belarusian ecosystem, can now fully integrate and contribute to the European market.” A one-stop shop for entrepreneurs Imaguru welcomes any and all early-stage startups, which it provides with all the tools and resources to “do extraordinary things”: a multinational community, a world-class network of mentors, coworking space, and investment. But at the core of its offering is its “expertise and exceptional platform of knowledge sharing”, Marinich says. The hub’s name comes from the phrase “I’m a guru.” According to its website, a guru is someone who “inspires others, acquires followers, and often wears several hats. Master. Mentor. Advisor… They will inspire you to believe that impossible is nothing.” Imaguru gives its members “an opportunity to feel the startup culture, cultivating such values as openness, solidarity, and global thinking. We infuse startups with tech expertise and talent, empowering them to change the world. This is our mission,” Marinich adds. The hub, which became a partner of Google for Startups in 2021, organizes pitch sessions, runs accelerator programs and hackathons, and holds various educational events. The startup MSQRD, which was acquired by Facebook in 2017, was born at an Imaguru hackathon. PandaDoc was one of the unicorns accelerated by Imaguru. Other notable alumni include Splitmetrics, PingFin, and more. As a venture fund, Imaguru focuses on cutting-edge tech companies from Europe which create social impact. Like other VCs, it has been more cautious in the wake of the current slowdown, and hasn’t made a single investment in the past six months. However, Marinich is considering a pipeline, and says she is open to investing at the beginning of next year, regardless of how the market develops. “I believe that startups with sustainable and scalable business models are not the ones with an urgent need for support right now,” she points out. “In general, the lull market is ideal for the birth of new business models. This applies to both startups and investors. The venture industry itself needs changes – for example, we’re now seeing an increase in the number of nano funds.” On a high level, Marinich believes that investors should focus on projects that aim to solve major global challenges (political, environmental, economic, and healthcare). More than a tech hub In addition to its startup-focused activities, Imaguru runs a Solidarity Program, which originally focused on Belarusian businesses in exile, and now works with Ukrainian refugees as well. This initiative relocates entrepreneurs forced to flee the war in Ukraine and matches them with startups from its community. The Madrid-based hub has also recently created the for Ukrainian refugees. It holds a variety of events, not only focused on business, but also on music, art, and even children’s events. It created this initiative both to help refugees connect with their new communities and also to inspire entrepreneurs to make an impact in society. Imaguru Club Despite the Belarusian political demonstrations having ended in 2021, Marinich and the Imaguru community haven’t stopped protesting. Their protest now takes the form of fostering a safe and open space where entrepreneurs can grow and learn without fear of repression. “We've created a community of free-thinking people with no boundaries who cannot exist under the Belarusian regime,” Marinich concludes. “We refuse to play by restrictive and arbitrary rules and we want to inspire startups to think globally.” This article was originally published by Siobhan Parnell on . Novobrief The lead image for this article was generated by via the prompt "soldiers shooting computers". HackerNoon's AI Image Generator

Russia's War Forces Belarusian Startups to Relocate to Madrid

La guerra de Rusia obliga a las startups bielorrusas a trasladarse a Madrid

La guerre russe oblige les startups biélorusses à déménager à Madrid

मैड्रिड में स्थानांतरित करने के लिए रूस के युद्ध बल बेलारूसी स्टार्टअप

ロシアの戦争により、ベラルーシの新興企業はマドリッドに移転することを余儀なくされました

Guerra da Rússia obriga startups bielorrussas a se mudarem para Madri

Chiến tranh của Nga buộc các công ty khởi nghiệp Belarus phải chuyển đến Madrid

俄罗斯的战争迫使白俄罗斯的初创企业迁往马德里

On managing remote teams and creating an atmosphere similar to your office: Recently, I did a webinar with TIE and fellow women founders on Managing remote teams. A lot of you asked for the extensive list of tools that I mentioned in the webinar. So, here it is! When we are in an office environment, we have the luxury of meeting each other, share our learnings, provide instant feedback, infrastructure, facilities, etc. which helps teams to be productive and well-bonded. Unfortunately, we don’t get all these facilities in a virtual team and environment. Here's my list of the best alternatives to in-person situations, for remote teams: Best alternatives to Physical, In-Person Team or One-to-One Meetings When working virtually it’s advised to avoid channels that can cause misinterpretation. It’s better to avoid textual channels when doing important discussions. Make a practice of using the following channels in the given order: 1. Video Calls (even if it is a 2 min conversation, prefer this mode) 2. Audio Calls (only if the video call is not possible) 3. Chats (nonurgent & important communications) 4. Emails (only for official communications) For video calls, you can use tools like — In a free account, it allows up to 100 participants for 40 mins. After 40 min, you need to rejoin the meeting. It also has features like Recording the meeting, screen sharing, whiteboard, private meeting links, chats, file sharing, etc. Zoom — During Coronavirus pandemic, they’ve made it free for up to 100 participants and there is no limit on meeting duration. Features are similar to Zoom. Webex Others: , , , (Paid), etc. Google Hangout Skype GoTo Meetings Doodle Best alternatives to replace Water Cooler Conversations For co-learning & team-bonding, it’s important to create virtual spaces where people can share their learnings, hobbies, good reads, etc. You can know who is active, who is working, online, offline, etc in such tools. You can create channels or virtual groups in the following tools. —In the free account, all standard features like …….. are available with limitation of search possible in only recent 10k messages. Slack — In the free account, they have unlimited chats and video callings. Meetings can’t be scheduled in the free plan. Microsoft Teams Others: , (for geeks), , Flock Discord Fugu You can also organize games for your teams on video conferencing tools. Let me know in the comments if you want to know how we did it in our company? hite-boards & Brainstorming Best alternatives to W Being able to visually represent your thoughts, research, and ideas is the core of a team brainstorming session. It gives clarity to the other person. — It's very easy to use and has features like mind-mapping, flow charts, sticky notes with the ability of real-time collaboration. It has 100s of use cases that you can find in their templates. the free plan, you can have up to 3 boards. Miro — You can do flow charts, wireframing, sticky-notes, and mindmaps. In the free account, you can have up to 4 boards. Whimsical Others: , Draw.io, , , , (Paid) Lucid charts Awwapp Witeboard Mindmeister Mural Best alternatives to In-Person Feedback: Recording your screen to provide feedback effectively If you review your colleague’s work use a video medium to provide the feedback instead of screenshots or texts. — You can do your screen recordings along with your audio and video. It generates a cloud link that can be shared. It also gives statistics if someone opens or watches the recording. It’s easy to use and during Coronavirus pandemic they’ve increased the limit of recordings from 25 to unlimited. Loom — Similar to Loom. In the free account, you get 50 videos with each video being 10 minutes long. Screencastify Others: , , , , etc. Recordit Bubbles HippoVideo AwesomeScreenshot Best tools for remote Documentation & Collaboration Documentation is key for working remotely. Using a cloud tool makes it easy to share and access anytime. — Simple to use, create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. It allows multiple people to edit the same document in real-time along with the version history. It’s free to use for up to 15GB of storage. Google Drive — You can create notes, docs, knowledgebase, databases, etc in one interface. No juggling required. In the free account, you can use up to 1000 elements. Notion : Collaboration on social media posts. It’s free and has numerous attractive templates. Canva Others: , , , , , Dropbox Slite Confluence Coda Tettra Best tools for remote Task Management You need a tool for managing all team tasks and goals. It’s an old saying that . You can use the following tools to track your tasks What Doesn’t Get Measured Doesn’t Get Done — Easy to use and free to use. It helps you organize, assign, and prioritize the tasks. It also shows them in a calendar. Trello — Unlimited, tasks, calendar, users, discussions. Freedcamp Others: , , , , , (Paid), etc. GoodDay Quire Basecamp Asana Startinfinity Jell Best Tools for Recording Productivity & Time spent on each task If you want to know how your team is spending their time without indulging in micro-managing. It’s good to know where the money is flowing and can help in making smart decisions. Use the following tools: — Create timesheets in a simple interface. Just press the toggl button when you start working on a task and do the same to stop. It has browser extensions and desktop apps. Free to use Toggl — Advance time-tracking, automated screenshots, web and app usage, etc. It’s a paid tool starting at $12/user/month. Time Doctor Other: , WhenIWork IDoneThis Best tools for Scheduling Meetings and Managing Calendars remotely Fixing a meeting requires a lot of to and fro communication. In the virtual team’s meeting scheduling tools saves a lot of time which is wasted in such conversations. — Put your available meeting slots and let others book it. It’s simple to use and directly integrates with your phone or PC calendars. It’ll not let someone book slots that are already booked in your calendar. In the free account, you can use it for one type of meeting only. Calendly — Shared calendar for teams to know who is working on what. Free for up to 8 calendars for 8 users. Teamup Others: Hubspot meetings Best tools for Getting Signatures on contracts remotely: Use e-sign instead of physical signatures Speed up your approval processes by using an e-sign solution for your business documents, contracts, proposals, etc. You can save up to weeks of time which is wasted in transporting a document from one location to another. — Adobe eSign Services helps you to electronically sign and send business documents. It’s free for 3 months than at a very nominal price annually. Adobe e-sign —Sales teams can share branded proposals, contracts, quotations, etc. with clients over email and can get it digitally signed. They can know when the email is opened or the document is opened. During Coronavirus Pandemic you can pay for one year and use it forever. Gridle.one Other: , , , HelloSign Docusign Pandadoc Smallpdf Best tools for remote HR Management and Tracking Team Attendance If you want to manage your team’s attendance and leaves, use the following tools: — it allows check-ins and checkouts with selfies for unlimited users in the free plan. Jibble Other: Keka Best tools for To-Do Lists and Checklists If your team does some repetitive works and there are no processes then productivity will leak through cracks and you will not even know. If not complex processes, you can start with simple checklists for publishing content, doing a release, creating videos, etc. Few checklists tools: , , , , Trello Todoist Any.do Pipefy ProcessSt If you have found any tool which is helping your Team to work effectively, do share in the comments. We will add them to the list mentioning your name, and it’ll help others. :)

All the Tools You Need to Emulate the Experience of Being in a Physical Office

60+ Ideas to Help Your Startup Survive the Coronavirus Recession

Trust has always been one of the major problems of business relationships, and the IT industry is not an exception. Mutual trust is a paramount factor in setting up a productive and successful workflow with the software engineers. Ultimately all of the fears of tech companies boil down to : a question of trust “H** ** ow can I be sure a partnership with a software development vendor won’t f*ck up my business?” Unfortunately, sometimes it may take quite a long time to develop such trust, especially with the teams involved in so many . offshore horror stories of IT outsourcing There are so many risks when your product development to third countries but still, many tech companies do that without even having enough information about the agency they’re going to partner with. However, exactly the lack of such information is the reason why it’s so available on the software development market and find a team that you can trust. outsourcing complicated to make the right choice among the hundreds of companies Before you decide if you want to outsource your project, you need clearly understand the pros and cons of offshore software development, potential risks, and reasons behind them and stop jumping to the worst-case scenario. Offshore Development Team: Pros and Cons The number of offshore developers in the world is enormous. Offshore destinations offer the lower cost of living so you can but at the same time, these advantages can have some “dark sides” that you must be aware of. cut your development cost #1 The number of offshore software developers in the world is more than one million, meaning that you have a wide variety of talents to choose from. Access to thousands of brilliant talents. BUT Yes, it is an advantage, but it can also become a disadvantage. You can spend weeks or, even worse, months trying to hire a product/development team that perfectly suits your project, delivers the work of exceptional quality, and can be trusted. This is a bad option for startups, when each hour worked is critical for the business. A number of offshore developers and companies is enormous. #2 You may think that the low prices mean low quality and the lack of experience but this is not the case with some countries, especially the ones. Such reasonable prices are typically the result of the low cost of living and in most cases have nothing to do with the quality. Good price/quality ratio. Eastern European BUT , the Eastern European developers have a more critical attitude towards the quality of the code. Moreover, they are quite straightforward with this criticism, even if the code is actually of medium quality. On the contrary, developers from Asia are more likely to say that the same code is “OK” to avoid confrontation. Don’t take me wrong but it is important to consider those when you hire a development team in an offshore country. Cultural differences might be tangible. According to Mikita Mikado cultural differences #3 If you open an office in your own location, the infrastructure setup is very likely to carry lots of costs and take a lot of time. However, if you cooperate with the developers in software development centers that already exist in offshore countries, you do not need to worry about that. All admin and legal stuff is handled by the onsite software development firm. Infrastructure is provided. BUT As in most cases, the offshore developers are located in a time zone that is different than yours — and in the case of distributed teams, even in several different time zones. As a result, you may experience communication problems. However, you can solve this issue with the help of specialized that are available on the market. Distance and time zone differences. time zone management tools #4 still, there is BUT It is really hard to work and build trust with people whose faces you have never seen. Even the highest ratings and proven track record cannot save you from possible trust issues that may arise when working with offshore development teams. A question of trust. So why is it so difficult to build trust? You Can’t Trust Any Offshore Development Team. Here’s Why Before you hire a development team in an offshore country, it is good for you to clarify all of the trust related issues beforehand. Let’s find out which reasons can prevent you from trusting your dedicated development team. Reason 1. Lack of information about software engineers. It is essential to have all of the information about the candidates, such as their technology stack, experience, projects’ portfolio, education, etc. Recruiters and talent acquisition specialists say that . Moreover, offshore companies may not provide their clients with all necessary info, so there are always risks that it will lead to misunderstandings and the client’s requirements might not be met. It is not always clear if, for example, offshore software developers are familiar with modern technologies such as Git and approaches such as test-driven development. Finally, the engineers do not update their portfolios on a regular basis so the client does not really know who will be working for them eventually. incomplete profiles make a bad first impression Reason 2. The ambiguity of ratings and rankings. You can browse the websites such as Clutch.co to look up the category rankings of offshore companies that you may be working with. However, all projects and people are different, and what is good for one company can be bad for another one. Moreover, any company can apply and arrange a raking which would meet their requirements on Clutch.co. For example, Clutch can highly rank their most sponsoring service providers. As a result, the ratings are not so valuable anymore when it comes to deciding who is better for your project. Forming a personal rating based on your own experience is always a good option; however, it is not always possible in the offshore development setting. Just imagine how much time you would request to create such a rating for your specific project on your own. Reason 3. Lack of face-to-face communication. This is one of the most common problems of offshore software development, which is caused by the following factors: The head office and offshore company can be located on the opposite sides of the planet, it can be hard to catch each other online and efficiently communicate. Moreover, it is hard to define if the developers really work during the hours that they report. For example, Jake Carlson, a software development manager at Oracle, on how he experimented with the hourly billing. He tried to perform the same task along with the offshore team and it took him only 4 hours to complete the project whereas the team billed 35 hours. shares a story As Lorraine Longhurst emphasizes in her article “ ”, offshore teams often prefer to avoid communication issues rather than solve them. As the teams are far away from each other, it is easier for them to stick with the avoidance tactics. Why offshoring Agile development often doesn’t work It is impossible to build trust when you treat your offshore team members not the same way as your local team members, e.g. give them less interesting and valuable tasks just because you haven’t explored their full potential yet. (the company outsources software development to Belarus), says that “you should absolutely treat your offshore team members the same way you treat your HQ team.” Mikita Mikado, founder of PandaDoc Cultural differences between the onshore and offshore teams can also hamper the communication. Again, Mikita Mikado believes that if you do not visit your software development team and do not organize their visits to your office, it means that you are reluctant to share your culture with them. Some offshore software development companies use their local project managers as a “bridge” between the onshore and offshore teams. As a result, you cannot communicate with the developers directly, as if they are “hiding” behind the PM’s back. Reason 4. Risky money transfers. Money transfers between the head office and offshore company can pose certain risks that are related to the security and transparency of the process. For example, (1) invoices from offshore countries may not be recognized by all tax authorities. This is because there is a risk of issuing a falsified invoice with the purpose to avoid taxes, as . Tax Free Today reports (2) You will need to carefully check all of the legal documentation and ensure the transparency of transactions between the two companies, with proven and revealed identities. , you can find detailed information on the best options to transfer money to an offshore country, with Ukraine as an example. In this article (3) Another issue is that you do not get a 100% guarantee that the work delivered by an offshore company will meet your quality standards. As a result, you cannot be sure that an hour paid is an hour worked because you can get low quality work in exchange for your money. Source: Behance Reason 5. What if a developer decided to leave a project …. Sometimes a software developer can unexpectedly leave the project — this is especially common with freelancers. How to find a replacement in this case asap? It can be devastating for the project, especially if it is a startup since lots of time and resources will be spent on looking for a new team member and training them. Besides, it is not always clear who should look for the replacement and how easy and fast it can be. For example, that it is the task of a company or startup who hired them. Therefore, the company should have an available talent pool where they can find the replacement. However, the developers need to hand over their tasks to the replacement within a reasonable time frame. Anyway, it sounds too complicated if doing on your own. software developers believe Is there any alternative? All these five reasons were exactly why we decided to build . We wanted to cover all these issues within one single platform, and here is what we have as a result: YouTeam You can trust the dev shop vendors if only each of them goes through a multi-stage screening process like . We can even visit the offices of our vendors to make sure our partners organize their workflow and communication according to the industry standards. Strict vetting of both the web development shops and the developers that are employed by them. vetting by YouTeam We never accept any empty or incomplete developer profiles. Detailed information about all of the completed projects, tasks and technology stack is a must for everyone who joins our platform. Check this , for example. Completed developer profiles and portfolios that are constantly updated. profile of a React.js developer YouTeam clients can personally interview the candidates and communicate with the already hired programmers at any time in the course of the project. Also, there is an option to assign a dedicated Project Manager who will handle all the communication instead of you. Ability to directly communicate with your team. . Our clients securely transfer all of the payments through our platform. However, the offshore team members do not receive these payments until you approve the delivered work. In the case of dissatisfaction with the work quality, we fully refund this money. Secure payment system Moreover, with the aim of making payments easier for you, we integrated payment processors operating worldwide. No more wire transfers when working with your offshore development partner. Few clicks. Invoice paid on YouTeam. Your dedicated team working non-stop. At YouTeam, the web shops can sign a contract with you in the course of 24 hours whereas the developers are ready to join your team in a matter of days. Flexibility and scalability. . Unlike freelancers, software developers featured at YouTeam are employed by our trusted partners on a full-time basis. Therefore, our partners are fully responsible for their developers and they work, so they will not let you down as some freelancers can do (no hard feelings). Better than freelancers To wrap up, trust has always been a decisive factor to consider when working with an offshore development team. It starts with a darkness when you know your offshore developers so little and it may take quite a long time before you start seeing the light and developing such trust. The key reasons why you might mistrust your offshore developers are: lack of information about software engineers; the ambiguity of ratings and rankings; lack of face-to-face communication; risky money transfers; developers suddenly leaving the projects. YouTeam offers a unified solution to all of these trust issues. We provide our clients with: access to profiles of the best software developers from our trusted web shops; ability to directly communicate with the team; secure payment system; opportunity to scale the team in a matter of days; reliability as opposed to working with freelancers. With YouTeam, you will not have to wait for years until you build mutual trust with your team. Check out and let us know if your concerns are solved. youteam.io Originally published at youteam.io on December 12, 2018.

Why It Is So Hard to Trust Your Offshore Development Team and How to Fix It

The Secret Sauce to Sumo’s Sales . While there is no silver bullet for success in sales, there are tried and tested sales strategies so you won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Secret Sauce to Sales by Freshsales features top sales leaders across industries and gives you inside access to their sales methodologies is the VP of Sales at . Sumo provides strategies and tools to help E-commerce companies get more customers. Businesses like , , , and BulletProof Coffee use Sumo. Sumo’s sister business, , is a daily deals website for digitally distributed goods and online services and has over 700,000 active subscribers. Anton Sepetov Sumo.com Huckberry Shopify Tony Robbins AppSumo.com Anton started his career in six years ago as a junior sales rep to now leading the entire Sales Team for . Anton was responsible for AppSumo’s revenue growth which involved running promotions, acquiring deals, etc. In 2015, AppSumo launched , and since then he’s been involved with Sumo in different capacities. AppSumo Sumo.com Sumo.com Before joining Sumo, you were working in a marketing role at your previous company. In the “OkDork” Podcast with Noah Kagan, you mentioned that you weren’t sure of a shift to sales. How was the transition from marketing to sales? The reason why I jumped over is that I firmly believed in what AppSumo does, which is helping entrepreneurs and small businesses acquire new customers. That’s immensely important to me. Having been an entrepreneur myself, I wanted to help in any capacity I could. And I found sales for AppSumo was more about partnering with companies, not “selling” . per se It’s about working with fantastic software companies like Dropbox, Evernote, Freshsales, etc. to promote them to an audience of entrepreneurs, which is a win-win for everyone involved. I saw that it was a fulfilling and exciting role so I wanted to help in any way I could. And about the part where you were not sure about sales. When a lot of people think of sales, they think about cold calling — talking to people who may say no to your face. It happens a lot, and there’s no denying that. What you may not realize is that everyone does a little bit of sales in their lives. When you’re applying for college admission or looking for a job, you’re selling something: YOURSELF. So I disassociated the negative terms of sales and realized that what I actually would be doing is bringing in revenue for the company. And that’s realistically how businesses grow. When did you realize you were truly a salesman? Have you had any “aha!” moments in your sales career so far, Anton? Seeing results that are directly caused by a “sale” I closed has always been my driving factor in sales. This is true for most sales folks. Witnessing the direct impact in dollars/results/happiness by the work you do is the “aha!” moment in sales. In fact, there’s one story that comes to my mind. In 2011, , a web-based infographic application company based in Malaysia, was launched. I used the tool myself and really loved it. We wanted to promote it to the AppSumo audience so that more people could use it, and we reached out to the Piktochart team. Piktochart They were a small team then and were looking for ways to grow the business. We reached out to them and offered to promote their product to an audience of 700,000 entrepreneurs on AppSumo. What happened? Piktochart gained thousands of new customers, even referring to the AppSumo deal as the biggest deal-maker in Piktochart history. The promotion was an absolute win-win where our audience and Piktochart were delighted with the campaign. It was not B2B; it was human to human. I approached Piktochart because I liked and respected them, and I wanted to work with them. We developed a good relationship and then we were able to turn that into a win-win for them, for us, and for our customers. That’s fantastic. The kind of value that Piktochart saw is probably not what they would have envisioned when you first approached them. At times, it’s difficult to show value for the price at the beginning of a discussion. What is your advice to sales folks on how to sell on value rather than price? You need to be able to show customers tangible results that you will drive them. This is the most meaningful realization we’ve had at Sumo. For example, E-commerce companies make a significant amount of money through promotional email marketing and are dependent on growing their email lists. We at Sumo know that we can create real value for their business because we can help them build their email list and get more customers. We approach E-commerce companies and learn about what they’re currently doing to get new customers from their existing traffic. Then, we show them 1–2 places where they are losing customers and the exact strategies and tools they need to implement to fix it. For a growing E-commerce company, every new customer matters. I work with my team day in and out to make sure we are doing this on every single call. You need to show every customer the ROI you can offer. We show them that they’re losing $10,000 in new customers every month. And the cost for Sumo? Only a small percentage of that amount. When the customer sees this type of an ROI, they don’t care about the pricing. This is value-based selling. It’s about showing the value you can provide for their business, and it’s a lot easier selling when that value is quantifiable. It could be anything — improving employee productivity by 50%, increasing sales by X amount of $ a month, etc. This type of value should get them up and running. Earlier, sales teams used to look for aggression as an essential characteristic among salespeople. But I feel it is changing to where now empathy is the important characteristic to look for in salespeople. How important is empathy among sales professionals at Sumo? Empathy is incredibly important because you put yourself in the shoes of who you’re talking to. And that’s the reason why I’ve enjoyed “sales.” It’s not about winning or losing a sale. If you learn that what you’re selling to a customer isn’t essential to their business and will not have a significant impact, you should walk away accepting that they’re not a good fit. I think that empathy is essential because you want to make sure you’re helping them. Maybe in the past salespeople were just trying to be persuasive; I don’t think that’s ever the case anymore. It’s about making sure it’s a good fit on both sides. Anton, adding on to that, what skills do you look for in sales reps to join your team? For me, by far, the most important trait I look for is ‘coachability.’ We have a specific way of working with our customers. We’re consultative, we have empathy, but coachability is incredibly important to me. If my teammates are coachable and they can adapt, they can become the best Account Executives/SDR’s/etc. in the world. I look for people that can take feedback very well. People always have their own ways of doing things. But if you’re coachable and adapt to the changing world and the way we talk to customers, then you can always be a top performer. The second thing I look for is ‘hustle,’ and I know that word is highly overused and abused nowadays. But when I say I look for hustle, I don’t mean I just want them to work long hours and slave away. The ‘hustle’ I look for in people is the trait in people who are always striving to do better. It’s the people who always want to learn, always want to improve, always want to be the best at what they are doing. The third is ‘do I enjoy talking to them?’. I look for the kind of people who can make me smile over the phone. A friendly conversation helps you connect with people. Some sales reps turn into robots when they use a script, which I’m not a big fan of. Every person is different, so every conversation should be different too. Sumo Team So, Anton, we like how you and Noah keep the company culture at Sumo part goofy part fun. How do you ensure the sales team and new hires adopt this? And, how do you retain this culture? One of our core values at Sumo is to “Work Hard and Have Fun Together”, and this culture is vital to us. How I make sure that we follow this culture is by inculcating this philosophy into every person at Sumo. Certain people treat their workplace with a very serious and professional attitude, which is perfectly fine for certain industries. But for us, we work with entrepreneurs and small businesses where passion and grit are insanely important. And I want the same from people in my team. If they enjoy their job, then they’re going to have fun. I always tell my team that I want them to have their own personality. Every person on our team has a unique personality. I WANT them to be themselves. For example, a joke that might seem silly to some people might seem hilarious to the person who said it. By encouraging them to be themselves, we allow their personalities to shine. I’ve listened to many calls where I can tell that the salesperson is stressed out and they’re trying hard to close the sale. To me, it’s more important to be relaxed and to enjoy the conversation without worrying about the outcome of the call even if you don’t happen to bring in that deal. I guarantee you that being yourself with a customer will bear some result. Either you’ll sign a deal, or they may refer you to someone else in need. Or, who knows, you may end up becoming best friends with them or even marry them! So, it’s essential to have fun. We use Sumo at , and I don’t remember speaking to a salesperson at Sumo. So, what’s the sales process at Sumo? Freshworks Sumo has a free plan, so we have a lot of customers who sign-up on the Free Forever plan. We use a variety of technology to then enrich data on these customers, using Clearbit, SimilarWeb, SEMRush and other tools. We shortlist ideal targets based on our qualification criteria before we approach these contacts. Our ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) that we target is an E-commerce company of a certain size and employee count. We have a team of VAs (virtual assistants) and who go through the sign-up list and qualify each contact accordingly. SDRs Then, we set up meetings or phone calls with them. Our motive for a call or meeting is never to push a sale on the customer but to help optimize and grow their E-commerce business. Our Account Executives get them set up with Sumo and help fix the issues that cause them to lose customers. After that, our success team takes care of ongoing development and nurturing them to make sure they’re happy with the product. Our outbound sales process is also, very similar. Our team of VAs and SDRs go through customer lists from Shopify and other channels and determine potential customers. The team then reaches out to them, gets them on the phone and helps get them set up. What are the things that helped you grow your business at Sumo? Any principles or secrets you can share? One of the things we did before was trying to sell our services to too many people — which yielded poor results for us. It’s been hard to go ‘niche’ vs. broad, but we’ve gotten much better over time. Now we only target E-commerce companies. In the past, we tried to sell Sumo to media publications. We approached large media companies in New York, and even closed some of them as customers. The problem? They barely got any tangible results/value out of using Sumo. That’s when we decided to double down on E-commerce companies because the saw ridiculous ROI from using Sumo. We learned it’s important to focus on core customers and not get carried away trying to sell to every market out there. Another thing that’s working well for us is identifying where our target market is. Thousands of E-commerce companies use to run their E-commerce store, so we’ve laser-focused on finding companies that are using Shopify. Making our presence felt where our customers lie is the second thing that’s been working well for us. Shopify What are three metrics which you look at every day? Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Call tracking — number of calls my team has set up. Because if you don’t have calls set up, then we’re not going to close deals. So, I look at how many calls we’ve set up in the current month and if they’re on track or not. SDR How many Sales Qualified Leads we have? How many leads is marketing driving? What is a typical sales objection you keep hearing and how do you go about handling it? The most common sales objections are “I need to think about it” or “I need to talk to my team about this.” I hear them all the time. These responses result in setting up a lot of follow-up calls after that first phone call. When someone says that they need to think about going with your services, there’s a hidden objection in there that you need to get to. Ask yourself — “Why do they need to think about it?” or “Why do they need to talk to their team about it?”. One of the best ways my team and I have learned to handle this is by being honest and upfront so we don’t waste their time and ours. We get to the bottom of it by saying “Look, let’s not waste each of our time. I can tell that there’s something that’s making you hesitate. What is it?”. We push to uncover the true objection, which we can then handle. The best way to avoid misunderstanding a hidden objection in sales is to tackle it with the customer. This will save you a lot of time. What’s one misguided practice in sales today? The biggest misguided practice is the concept of sales demos or calling conversations with potential customers “sales demos”. It’s not a demo, it’s a conversation. A conversation with your prospect shouldn’t be about pitching your product or service nor demoing your product feature by feature. This may/may not be applicable to every business. For us, it’s about identifying 2–3 things on our customer’s website that they could improve by using your product, and that would allow them to focus on their business growth. It’s not a demo, it’s a conversation. What would you say the sales industry needs more of? Going back to what I said earlier, the sales industry, in general, should have more fun, real conversations. If you have engagingly funny and productive conversations with customers, it will build more relationships versus transactions. And, we all ought to be building strong relationships with customers. What’s your favorite productivity hack, Anton? This sounds like a no-brainer, but please: have a to-do list. I use . In the past, I used a Moleskine notebook, but now I’ve moved to managing it online. Every morning I sit down and make a list of things that I want to do for the day. At the end of the day, I make sure that every single thing is checked off. Todoist Three things that you have on your desk? A Sumo branded water bottle. I drink a lot of water, you should too! A note from my fiancè that she wrote me when we hit one of the hardest goals we had at AppSumo. It keeps me inspired to do what I’m doing. A computer that has a Conference Room setup with our team in Austin. So, that I can see them all the time and talk to them. Zoom What are your recommended sales read? by and . It’s a book I just had my whole team read. Amazing book that every SaaS company should read. “From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue ” Aaron Ross Jason M. Lemkin _The Secret Sauce to PandaDoc’s Sales_hackernoon.com How PandaDoc grew from $1 million to $10 million in 2 years — — — — — — — — Freshsales is a sales CRM built to help you stop juggling multiple tools. It’s ideal for small businesses and refreshing for enterprises. While there is no silver bullet for success in sales, there are tried and tested sales strategies so you won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Secret Sauce to Sales by Freshsales features top sales leaders across industries and gives you inside access to their sales methodologies. Drop us a line in the comments or shoot an email to nivas.ravichandran@freshworks.com with your suggestions. A big shoutout to and , my co-authors on this blog! Janani Dwarakanath Rebecca Richard

How Sumo grew to an 8-figure business with a lean sales team

Turning into a fruitful Solopreneur is an activity of perseverance, persistence, and resourcefulness Possibly you began your own business since you needed adaptable hours, would not like to work for a manager, or needed more control over the work you do. Regardless of how you started, solopreneurs are known for being diligent employees and handymen. Be that as it may, however, they may pick up opportunity in their work, they frequently convey substantial burdens. Business obligations lay on their shoulders alone, thus does the achievement. Solopreneurs do everything independent from anyone else. A small-time band is a CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CLO, and an overseer who likewise blends the coffee. Solopreneurs tend to like being in control — responsible for their business, accountable for their lives. “Turning into a fruitful solopreneur is an activity of perseverance, persistence, and resourcefulness. “ Along these lines, in case you’re supposing it’s a great opportunity to begin your own show, here are a few recommendations to get you from here to THERE speedier. 1. Planning is the primary key: Building up a fruitful solopreneur endeavour requires an unmistakable mission and vision. Make a stride back and put some time in an arranging session before you plunge into business. Business visionaries have a tendency to be driven by advancement and a clutter of thoughts, however hopping quick into the attack can be a formula for catastrophe. One of the principal recommendations given to business visionaries beginning a business is: You require a strategy for success. It’s actually that speculators or banks, for the most part, make a request to peruse the business person’s arrangement before going into talks about giving capital. In any case, that is on account of they need to discover whether the business person has altogether thoroughly considered all parts of the wander — as it were, arranged the wander. Same applies to Solopreneurs. * Begin with your BIG objective. * Recognize littler objectives which will contribute towards your BIG objective. * Organize your littler objectives and orchestrate them sensibly on your datebook. * Make every day/week by week significant strides to accomplish each of your little objectives. * You should have the monetary arrangement also like you should have satisfactory levels of trade out your business account, Pay yourself a compensation on a steady timetable, Fund a corporate construct retirement arrange with respect to a general premise, Pay down individual obligation reliably et cetera. 2. Automation- Get rid of boring work As you build up your business, you will go over things you abhor. Making automated frameworks will build your efficiency in light of the fact that your framework will run itself. You likewise will make more opportunity to put resources into your qualities. You can utilize mechanization for online networking posts, bulletins, receipt updates, formats, and then some! Time is dependable at a premium, and you need to utilize it carefully and complete a considerable measure keeping in mind the end goal to be effective. Mechanization can help you be more proficient at getting things done for you. When you can set up a device to get things done for you, you spare time and cash and in addition your mental transmission capacity. says that Sarah Morgan when you have the business blues, ask yourself what you slightest appreciate and how to change that. Here are a couple of such automation tools which we would recommend you to look at without a doubt. * GoToMeeting : Find gatherings at your territory to work together with the individual in your industry. * PandaDoc : Automate your agreement and sign archives * FullcontactForGmail : Provides background points of interest to any individual you reached through your email. * Calendly : plan your arrangements * Infusionsoft : A powerful sales & marketing software integrates with thousands of apps to get you more organized, deliver personalized service and close more sales. * Conspire : Similar to LinkedIn for building associations * Automate : Create super smart marketing, sales or business workflows by connecting your cloud apps. 3. Concentrate on your qualities and outsource the rest. Being a solopreneur doesn’t mean you’ll do everything alone. Despite everything, you’ll work together with accomplices and you’ll have to outsource some of your assignments. You’ll prevail in business due to your qualities, however, nobody is solid in every aspect of the business. For instance, If illustrations aren’t your solid suit, pay another person to the configuration, Consider exchanging administrations with different business visionaries who are solid where you’re powerless et cetera. As the entrepreneur of a , you have various things to do. Time is dependable at a premium, and you need to utilize it admirably and complete a considerable measure with a specific end goal to be effective. Outsourcing can help you be more effective in getting things done for you. solopreneur business 4. Quit being procrastinating, rather be organised, be disciplined. For most solopreneurs, there’s that one thing in your mind that you know you ought to do. You perceive its significance and even understand that it can possibly change your business and significantly advance things. A straightforward approach to user association into your life is to do what needs to be done. Consistently when you wake up, make plans to do no less than one assignment that will advance your business. Doing as such will sort out your reasoning and your needs. It will give you an unmistakable and sound vision for the accomplishment of your business. * Review your objectives regular * Batch assignments * Work at least on one thing each morning that will take your Business forward * pick a couple significant assignments for the day. 5. Work and Improve your Business abilities: You will require various abilities to begin and maintain a business. It is critical to recognise the attitudes you have to create or enhance with the goal that you can prevail in your everyday business operations. Maintaining your own business implies wearing every single diverse sort of caps. Regardless of whether it’s you’re showcasing cap, your business cap, or your general relationship building abilities cap, will need to know how to court deals, and on the opposite side of operations, you are likewise going to need to know how to run an adjusted record and keep on growing your riches. * Financial administration * Communication and transaction abilities. * Leadership * Project administration and arranging * Time administration * Networking aptitudes * Marketing and deals aptitudes. 6. Being Consistent- The ultimate necessity As indicated by Entrepreneur, “Being consistent is the same as being great.” You can’t expect comes about when you just go to the gym centre once every month, isn’t that so? Same goes for your Business. Truth be told, consistency is a standout amongst the most ignored methodologies accessible to drastically expand your adherents and pull in new customers. On the off chance that you can ace it, you will blast to the top. There are a huge number of solopreneurs out there attempting to make their messages listened. The hard truth is that exclusive a little rate really succeed, while the lion’s share loses all sense of direction in the commotion And Inconsistency could be the essential reason. * Consistency takes into account estimation. * Consistency sets up your notoriety. * Consistency keeps up your message. * Consistency makes you significant. 7. These books will make a difference for sure! Read them for sure! Go Solo: How to Quit the Job You Hate and Start a Small Business You Love!: You can break free from your day job, start your side hustle from home, and achieve success as a solopreneur! The One Hour Content Plan: The Solopreneur’s Guide to a Year’s Worth of Blog Post Ideas in 60 Minutes and Creating Content That Hooks and Sells Create a Happy Business: How to Be a Successful SoloPreneur The Solopreneur Life: 42 Solo-Business Owners Speak the Truth on Dreaming Big, Failing Forward, and Calling Your Own Shots The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future If you liked this and want more: How about few claps, 💬 comment on it, and/or follow me 😀 Also, if you would like to read more captivating stuff on the topics of entrepreneurship, , social media, leadership, , innovation and venture capital via my regular posts then please click ‘Follow’ and feel free to connect via , , and . marketing technology SlideShare Twitter Facebook LinkedIn P.S. here are my other . Articles on Medium

Stories, News & Mentions about PANDADOC

Pandadoc’s Stories on HackerNoon

Pandadoc's News & Mentions