Money, Metrics, and SaaS: The 17 Best Books On SaaS Finance
SaaS finance is a whole beast of its own and, when you're at the top of your organization, there aren't many people you can ask for advice. Good things books on SaaS finance exist.
For continuous learning and growth in finance, finance books are a great resource. Each one of the books in this list is a pillar of wisdom in SaaS finance, ensuring your steps are rooted in proven strategies and deep understanding.
Let's get right into it:
17 Best Books About SaaS Finance
Here is my handpicked selection of books on SaaS finance, in no particular order:
- Subscription Marketing by Anne Janzer
- Subscribed by Tien Tzuo and Gabe Weisert
- Customer Success by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy
- Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff
- Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin
- Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya
- The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
- The Automatic Customer by John Warrillow
- Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose
- Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown
- Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
- Contagious by Jonah Berger
- Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
- Platform Scale by Sangeet Paul Choudary
Overviews Of The 17 Best SaaS Finance Books
1. Subscription Marketing by Anne Janzer
Summary:
Anne Janzer guides readers through the evolving world of subscription marketing, explaining how to navigate and leverage the potential of this business model.
What You'll Learn:
How to evolve marketing strategies to better serve subscription models and embrace practices that emphasize customer retention and value maximization.
Why You Should Read It:
Janzer offers tangible insights and strategies for those keen to elevate their subscription marketing game, providing valuable techniques for nourishing long-term customer relationships.
About The Author:
Anne Janzer is an award-winning author and nonfiction writing coach who has generously shared her expertise in various realms of marketing. Connect with her insights on LinkedIn, or follow her tweets on Twitter.
2. Subscribed by Tien Tzuo and Gabe Weisert
Summary:
Tien Tzuo, alongside Gabe Weisert, outlines the subscription model's inescapable presence in future business frameworks, explaining its evolution and integral role in sustaining corporate growth.
What You'll Learn:
The integral concepts, challenges, and major shifts associated with pivoting to a subscription-based business model, as well as how to adeptly navigate through them.
Why You Should Read It:
The book acts as a futurist’s guide, highlighting the imminent prominence of subscription models and providing a roadmap for adoption and execution in your own business.
Quote From The Book:
"Today's customers are subscribers first. Subscribers are your new strategic north."
About The Author:
Tien Tzuo, the CEO of Zuora, and Gabe Weisert, an articulate writer, bring their collective wisdom to the forefront, providing a plethora of insights into subscription models. Engage further with Tien on LinkedIn and Twitter.
3. Customer Success by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy
Summary:
This insightful book, crafted by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy, serves as a primer for optimizing customer success to mitigate churn and amplify recurring revenue.
What You'll Learn:
Learn how to systematically reduce customer churn, maximize recurring revenue, and manage and comprehend the intricate dynamics of customer success in a corporate framework.
Why You Should Read It:
It unearths the methodologies employed by innovative SaaS companies to not merely retain but also significantly uplift their recurring revenue through astute customer success management.
Quote From The Book:
“True Customer Success is achieved through genuine and meaningful Customer Management.”
About The Author:
Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy each bring a wealth of knowledge in customer success and growth. Immerse yourself in their thoughts by connecting with Nick on LinkedIn and Lincoln on LinkedIn and Twitter.
4. Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff
Summary:
Marc Benioff offers a riveting tale of the rise of Salesforce, illustrating the innovative strategies and disruptive SaaS marketing that shaped this household name.
What You'll Learn:
The book provides insights into the groundbreaking strategies employed by Salesforce, revealing the secret sauce behind its meteoric rise in the competitive cloud computing space.
Why You Should Read It:
This narrative not only unravels the journey of Salesforce but also serves as a blueprint for SaaS entrepreneurs and leaders looking to learn from a remarkably successful business strategy.
About The Author:
Marc Benioff, the CEO and founder of Salesforce, imparts his substantial knowledge garnered from building one of the most impactful tech companies. Explore his thought leadership further on his LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
5. Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin
Summary:
Rand Fishkin presents an unfiltered view into the startup world, revealing the honest, often painful, truths that accompany the journey of founding and building a company.
What You'll Learn:
Discover the raw version of the startup ecosystem, with an honest disclosure of what it truly takes to navigate through the tumultuous journey of entrepreneurship.
Why You Should Read It:
Fishkin’s refreshing transparency sheds light on the harsh realities and unpredictabilities intrinsic to SaaS startup life, making it a must-read for present and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Quote From The Book:
"The startup ecosystem relies on lots of companies failing."
About The Author:
Rand Fishkin, the co-founder of Moz and founder of SparkToro, shares his brutally honest experiences from the startup trenches. Connect with his extensive expertise on LinkedIn and Twitter.
6. Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
Summary:
Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler decode the revenue-generating techniques that propelled Salesforce, providing a systematic approach to driving predictable and scalable revenue growth.
What You'll Learn:
This book offers a glimpse into creating a sustainable SaaS sales model that ensures consistent revenue growth, providing actionable strategies to establish a reliable revenue generation engine.
Why You Should Read It:
“Predictable Revenue” acts as a playbook for organizations to architect and implement effective sales process strategies, systematically driving stable and scalable monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
Quote From The Book:
"You can’t close a customer you never call."
About The Author:
Aaron Ross, known for his contribution to Salesforce’s substantial growth, and Marylou Tyler, a globally recognized lead generation expert, bring forth their respective expertise. Engage with Aaron’s insights on LinkedIn and connect with Marylou on LinkedIn.
7. Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Summary:
"Zero to One" is a visionary template for startup innovation and the creation of a fruitful future, showcasing Peter Thiel’s philosophy that progress comes from uncharted territories.
What You'll Learn:
Readers will gain data-driven insights into the unique mindset needed for startup innovation, understanding how to move from zero to one, creating something entirely new and impactful.
Why You Should Read It:
Thiel distills his ideas on the path to true innovation and how to build a startup that sets the trajectory for an industry or market.
Quote From The Book:
"Every moment in business happens only once."
About The Author:
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, brings forth a wealth of knowledge from his expansive career in tech and investment. Further delve into his perspectives on his LinkedIn profile.
8. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Summary:
Eric Ries propounds a systematic, scientific approach for creating and managing successful startups in an age where companies have to innovate more than ever.
What You'll Learn:
The Lean Startup methodology—an approach to building companies and launching products that relies heavily on iterative product releases to gain valuable customer feedback and adapt SaaS products accordingly.
Why You Should Read It:
For anyone seeking to start a business, Ries’ innovative approach provides a tactical method for being adaptable, customer-focused, and operationally intelligent in a startup environment.
Quote From The Book:
"The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else."
About The Author:
Eric Ries, an entrepreneur and the pioneer of the Lean Startup movement, shares experiences and methodologies from his entrepreneurial journey. Engage with him further on LinkedIn and Twitter.
9. Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya
Summary:
Ash Maurya presents an actionable guide for scaling startups effectively, focusing on mastering key metrics like customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost (CAC) that are imperative for sustainable and scalable growth.
What You'll Learn:
This book provides strategies for identifying the key SaaS metrics essential for startup growth and teaches methods for analyzing and applying them in business scaling strategies.
Why You Should Read It:
Entrepreneurs will find a succinct, hands-on guide that navigates through the complexities of startup scaling, ensuring they focus on impactful, actionable metrics.
Quote From The Book:
"Life’s too short to build something nobody wants."
About The Author:
Ash Maurya, known for his works in the startup arena and the creator of the Lean Canvas, continues to share pivotal insights for entrepreneurs. Stay connected with Ash on his LinkedIn profile and Twitter account.
10. The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
Summary:
Clayton M. Christensen unpacks the paradox of great companies failing, even when managing well, with his theory of disruptive innovation.
What You'll Learn:
You'll be introduced to the concept of disruptive technology and how it often displaces established technologies, causing industry leaders to falter or fail if they do not adapt.
Why You Should Read It:
"The Innovator's Dilemma" provides insights into why large companies can fail despite good management, particularly relevant for business leaders and innovators.
Quote From The Book:
"Managing innovation mirrors the resource allocation process."
About The Author:
Clayton M. Christensen, a prolific author and Harvard Business School professor, has been a pioneer in introducing disruptive innovation as a concept in technology and business management. For deeper insights into his work, visit his Twitter account.
11. The Automatic Customer by John Warrillow
Summary:
John Warrillow discusses the transformative power of subscription models in business, expounding on how any business can leverage them to build a steady revenue stream.
What You'll Learn:
This book elucidates the process of moving a business into a subscription model, detailing the benefits and strategies for creating automatic customers.
Why You Should Read It:
It's a pivotal read for business owners looking to create a stable, scalable, and sustainable revenue model through subscription-based customer acquisition.
About The Author:
John Warrillow, an entrepreneur and author, shares vast knowledge, especially focusing on building valuable and successful companies. Explore more of his wisdom on LinkedIn and Twitter.
12. Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose
Summary:
Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose challenge conventional marketing models, advocating for transforming marketing departments into profitable ventures.
What You'll Learn:
This book will present you with a revolutionary new model wherein marketing ceases to be a cost center and instead becomes a profitable revenue generator.
Why You Should Read It:
For any marketing professional or business owner, “Killing Marketing” provides a provocative yet tangible model for marketing that contributes directly to revenue.
Quote From The Book:
"Your goal is not to be a leader in content. Your goal is to be a leader of content."
About The Author:
Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose, both renowned content marketing strategists, have reshaped how we think about marketing. Connect with Joe on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Robert on LinkedIn and Twitter to delve further into their strategic perspectives.
13. Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown
Summary:
In "Hacking Growth," Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown delve into how companies such as Airbnb, LinkedIn, and Dropbox use growth hacking techniques to grow faster and smarter.
What You'll Learn:
Understand the processes and mindset that enable companies to surge in growth, focusing particularly on how teams collaborate across departments to achieve and sustain rapid expansion.
Why You Should Read It:
The book serves as a blueprint for business leaders and marketers to understand and apply hyper-growth hacking strategies in their own companies.
Quote From The Book:
"Growth hacking is not anti-marketing, it is rethinking marketing for the world we live in now."
About The Author:
Sean Ellis, who coined the term "growth hacker," and Morgan Brown, a well-known growth hacking practitioner, are pivotal figures in modern marketing and growth strategies. Connect with Sean via LinkedIn or Twitter, and Morgan through LinkedIn or Twitter for more insights.
14. Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
Summary:
"Traction" by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares provides startups with a framework to achieve customer growth, exploring various channels to aid that acceleration.
What You'll Learn:
Explore the Bullseye Framework which helps startups find the one traction channel that will optimize their next growth stage and early stages, illustrated by various case studies and onboarding experiences.
Why You Should Read It:
For startups struggling with customer growth, this book provides a systematic approach to explore and find the right growth channel to focus on.
Quote From The Book:
"Almost every failed startup has a product. What failed startups don't have are enough customers."
About The Author:
Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO & Founder of DuckDuckGo, and Justin Mares, a successful author and entrepreneur, bring valuable insights into startup growth. Engage further with Gabriel on LinkedIn and Justin on LinkedIn to explore their expansive entrepreneurial wisdom.
15. Contagious by Jonah Berger
Summary:
Jonah Berger's "Contagious" explores the phenomena behind why certain things go viral and how operators can leverage these principles to have their product or idea catch on.
What You'll Learn:
Understand the six basic principles that drive things to become contagious, from products to ideas to behaviors, backed by meticulous research and real-life examples.
Why You Should Read It:
It is essential for business leaders and entrepreneurs looking to create viral content and want their products to be word-of-mouth sensations.
Quote From The Book:
"People don’t listen to advertisements, they listen to their peers."
About The Author:
Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School, specializes in exploring how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on. You can dive deeper into his works and thoughts via LinkedIn and Twitter.
16. Blitzscaling by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
Summary:
"Blitzscaling" provides insights into the aggressive, risk-tolerant approach of scaling up businesses at a blistering pace, focusing on speeding up company growth to beat competitors to scale.
What You'll Learn:
Discover the strategy that companies like LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Microsoft used to grow rapidly and secure market dominance, plus the techniques to manage and navigate the challenges and pitfalls of swift expansion.
Why You Should Read It:
If you aspire to scale your company rapidly and efficiently, understanding the theory and practice of "blitzscaling" is invaluable in gaining a competitive edge.
Quote From The Book:
"Blitzscaling isn’t always the right answer, but when it is, you’d better be good at it."
About The Author:
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Chris Yeh, a seasoned entrepreneur and writer, draw upon their own profound experiences in Silicon Valley. Explore more from Reid on LinkedIn and Twitter, and Chris on LinkedIn and Twitter.
17. Platform Scale by Sangeet Paul Choudary
Summary:
"Platform Scale" unveils how modern digital platforms like Uber, Airbnb, and eBay grow massively with minimum investment, focusing on how they scale and how they solve hard economic challenges. The book is available on Amazon.
What You'll Learn:
Understand the underlying mechanics, tools, and practices organizations implement to evolve and operate at a platform scale, catering to a large user base with minimal capital.
Why You Should Read It:
The book is vital for startup entrepreneurs, strategists, and innovators who want to understand and employ platform business models effectively.
Quote From The Book:
"The key to platform scale is the ability to ensure production by the community. This production could be of social media updates, videos, accommodation, transportation, or other forms of value."
About The Author:
Sangeet Paul Choudary, a critically acclaimed author and entrepreneur, expertly dissects modern platform business models. Dive deeper into his platform insights on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Which SaaS Finance Books Do You Recommend?
While not all finance-specific books, the titles I've included should all help you to be a better SaaS operator, thus increasing your value overall.
Have other suggestions? Leave them in a comment below and maybe they'll make the next list!
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