Day One, Tuesday, April 26th

Morning

8:00 - 9:00AM

Opening Remarks and First Morning Keynote Address

Building a Profitable SaaS Business: A Step by Step Approach

How can you build a scalable and profitable SaaS business?  This is a subject that is on the mind of every software executive today;  not just growing revenues or launching new products but delivering profits. This keynote by Kevin Dobbs, Owner and Managing Partner at Montclair Advisors, will provide useful information on industry best practices and lessons learned based on more than 60 different SaaS firms.

The SaaS model offers a unique set of business and financial challenges when building either a new or transitioning from a traditional license firm to a subscription business model.   This keynote will cover:

• Review of the differences between the SaaS and license business models
• Tips and tricks to avoid big mistakes with the SaaS business model
• SaaS business model maturity phases
• Key SaaS metrics to track
• Actionable best practice ideas

This session will also offer several case study examples of well known software firms that have successfully transitioned to SaaS, all of which will provide you with  ideas on how to build your profitable SaaS business.

Kevin Dobbs, Montclair Advisors 

9:00 - 10:00AM

Keynote Address: Key SaaS Metrics from the The Softletter SaaS Report and Lead Generation and Social Marketing  Reports

Softletter' s SaaS research provides the industry with the standards and benchmarks by which SaaS technology providers measure their business operations and compare their financial and operating metrics agains their peers. Now in its fourth year, The Softletter SaaS Report is the largest repository of hard data and facts on SaaS.

During this presentation, Softletter managing editor Rick Chapman will examine key metrics dealing with:

• SaaS revenue growth and profitability
• SaaS lead generation, management, and conversion to sales
• SaaS and participation in international markets
• SaaS pricing and subscription models
• SaaS resubcription and churn rates
• SaaS/Cloud infrastructure costs and models
• SaaS R&D costs and use of Agile development models
• PaaS choices and evaluations
• SaaS channels
• SaaS social marketing usage and effectiveness with Twitter, Linked In, and Facebook
• SaaS professional and customer service levels and measurements
• SaaS and product and community management

This session will provide the audience with insight into the industry's development and key operations challenges available nowhere else.

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman, Softletter

10:00 - 10:30AM

10:35 - 11:05PM

MAIN TRACK:

Seeking SaaS Operational Excellence
 

SaaS companies must deal with a wide variety of operations and infrastructure problems foreign to firms in the on demand markets. SLAs. Peformance benchmarks. Backup and security issues. Customer service response. And many more.

This session by local Denver firm Absolute Peformance will focus on best (and worst)  practices and benchmarks in areas such as:

• Application monitoring

• SaaS system availability and perfomance

• Product and operational security and management

Managing the operational throttles of a SaaS firm requires deft managerial hands. Learn how to take control of the process at this presentation.

Jerry Champlin, Absolute Peformance

CLOUD/SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

Leveraging Technology to Continuously Improve Cost of SaaS Operations

Ask any executive and they will tell you that attention to your cost structure is essential for long term sustainability and success, regardless of what business you’re in. This is especially true when operating as a SaaS provider since the barriers to entry are low and competition is fierce.

This session will discuss: 

• The key differences between COGS in the “Software” business and the “SaaS” business.

• Overall strategies for cost containment leveraged by the most successful SaaS providers.

• Available technologies that can be leveraged to execute a successful cost containment strategy, including choice of technology stack, appropriate hosting facilities and how to leverage technologies such as virtualization, and multi-tenancy.

• Effective practices for day to day execution.

This session is strategic for C Level executives, operations and product managers who are evaluating, planning, implementing, or enhancing their SaaS offering. Participants will come away with a clear understanding of the technological options available for implementing sustainable cost containment strategies.
 

Rob Brown, Corent Technology

 11: 05 - 11:35AM

MAIN TRACK:

How to turn SaaS Complexity into Revenue with Feature-level Analytics, Metering, Billing, and SaaS Packaging

Readers of Softletter and Softletter SaaS Research know that we've been urging SaaS companies to integrate business analytics into their systems so they analyze product usage (and non usage) in detail. In our latest SaaS Report, 49% of the responding companies told us they had added analytics to their systems. But a closer look into the data revealed that in many cases, such approaches as simply analyzing web log files was as far as the analytics went.

Join this session to learn about a new solution for SaaS providers that will enable you to measure every interaction with every function, button, and page on your system. Furthermore, the solution allows you to flexibly enable and disable granular features to provide targeted product configurations to specific market segments, and maximize monetization of those segments. The impact of this revolutionary approach on pricing, metering, billing, and packaging to your "community of customers" will be discussed at this fascinating and timely session.

Michael Welch, SafeNet

Cloud/SaaS INFRASTRUCTURE TRACK:

Your Cloud Infrastructure Choices: A Comparative Analysis
 

The numbers from the most recent edition of The Softletter SaaS Survey revealed that SaaS companies have many infrastructure choices to make, from highly virtualized (Cloud) server farms to highly managed service systems and many variants in between.

This session analyzes the choices available to your company and provides realistic numbers, checklists, and scenarios that will help you make the best choice for your operations and business peace of mind.

Richard Qualls, BlueLock

 11:35 - 12:10PM

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

The SaaS/Mobile Applications Connection

The explosive growth of the mobile applications market tracks the high-speed growth of SaaS. But mobile applications represent a new platform, a "fourth platform" that now resides next to the PC desktop, on premise, client/server, and SaaS/"cloud applications." But while mobile applications share some characteristics with SaaS, there are significant differences.

This session will examine the intersection between SaaS and the "Fourth Platform." Topics discussed will include challenges in building to the multiple mobile OSs that make up this growing platform, dealing with localization and language translation associated with more people traveling more widely around the globe, and ways to blend your SaaS business and mobility.

Ray Solnik,  myGengo

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

Lean Product Development for the Cloud
 

Developing a successful SaaS product involves more than leveraging Cloud technologies to make your application available on the Web. It requires a coordinated product strategy, business model and development approach that helps you meet your customers’ needs in better ways.

Based on real-life examples of companies transitioning to SaaS, this presentation will introduce the concepts of the Lean Product Development Roadmap that helped them:
 

• Ensure the strategic features that would differentiate the product in the market were clearly understood and validated

• Release their SaaS product without cannibalizing the market for their existing on-premise products

• Develop a product plan that accelerated time to revenue and funded on-going product development

• Understand the true costs of operating a SaaS offering so they could validate the pricing model, price levels and packaging of their product

Whether your company is new to SaaS, or simply could use better results from your existing offerings, this session will offer practical advice on how to accelerate time to market and maximize the chances for success with your SaaS product by leveraging Lean practices.

Luis Aburto, SCIO

 12:10 - 1:10PM

Birds of a Feather Lunch: Sit With SaaS Experts to Further Discuss Your Needs and Concerns (Your Choice, of Course)

   Afternoon

 1:10 - 2:00PM

Afternoon Keynote Addresses

Europe, SaaS, and the Cloud
 

As our 2010 SaaS Report demonstrated, international markets are an increasingly important part of the SaaS growth equation. But while SaaS acceptance is growing steadily in Europe, the Euro market presents unique challenges and obstacles.

This session will provide a continent-wide perspective on EuroSaaS and the growth of "Cloud" acceptance. Individual markets will be discussed and analyzed, with a focus on what types of localization, marketing, and technical issues and challenges characterize each market. In addition, Jan will be discussing where American companies can expect European companies to attempt to "colonize" the New World with Old World smarts and technology.

Jan Aleman, Servoy

 2:05 - 2:55PM

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS Selling Models: Building Compelling Value Models that Maximize Sales Success
 

Cloud applications and SaaS may be hot, but your customers' budgets are tight and no one is interested in buying technology for technology's sake in a recession. This session will focus on the critical success factors in selling and marketing Software as a Service (SaaS) to large Enterprises, specifically how to position the unique values of SaaS applications and apply them to your business value propositions and sales models.  We will examine current sales processes and marketing programs, and pricing models for companies that sell SaaS solutions to enterprises.  Attendees will learn how these practices are evolving and hear projections on best practices from market leaders.  Key elements of this highly interactive course will include: SaaS value propositions and pricing models, SaaS sales & marketing approaches, and the role of services in a SaaS model.

Chuck DeVita,
Growth Process Group

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

The SaaS/Agile Connection
 

SaaS and Agile are natural allies. In Softletter's SaaS Report, 66% of SaaS firms reported they were implementng agile methodologies into their development processes. This session will examine:

• What are the key benefits of using an Agile methodology to develop a SaaS product?
• What are some success stories?
• What impact does Agile have on your sales and marketing operations?
• What Agile methods and techniques are the best fit to your company?

This session will cover this topic in detail as well as provide case studies and examples of companies who've pursued different paths on the road to fast product development and release. 

Eileen Boerger, Agilis Solutions

 3:00 - 3:30PM

  Networking Break

 3:30 - 4:15PM

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS and the Right Pricing Model
 

There's been a lot of hype recently about "new pay as you go" SaaS pricing models. The only problem with all of this is pay as you go is not new; Softletter's been tracking this model for years; "pay as you go" (or per usage or per transaction) pricing models are used by 29% of SaaS companies.

In this session, software pricing guru Jim Geisman will discuss the various pricing models available to SaaS companies and provide you with a roadmap to picking the model that best fits your business and revenue goals.

Jim Geisman, Software Pricing

MAIN TRACK:

SaaS ROI and Sales Compensation Metrics Benchmarks and Methodologies
 

If you're going to sell SaaS in a recession, you need to provide powerful ROI numbers and potential cost savings arguments as part of the sales cycle. Because without them, your not going to be closing many sales.

And you'll need to compensate your sales personnel while doing it and manage cash flow. And you'll need to consider different compensation models and approaches based on your company's growth and development stage. Do you want to pursue multi-year deals and increase cash flow upfront? How are you going to incent your salesforce to do so without giving away the store?

This session prepares you build compelling ROI models (a sample template will be supplied by Jeff ) and effective compensation pans that incent your sales force.

4:20 - 5:00PM 

SaaS SALES and MARKETING TRACK:

SaaS Marketing:  What’s Different?  What’s the Same? What You’ve Never Considered

When looking to market SaaS-based solutions, it’s easy to take what has worked in the traditional software marketing environment and apply it to your new, shiny SaaS solution.

However, most companies will burn through extensive dollars before they realize that is the wrong strategy.  

What do you need to know about your marketing strategy when the cost structures, user experiences, ease of access and sales models are completely different?  

This session identifies the unique challenges of marketing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to enterprises. It highlights how SaaS marketing differs from traditional on-premise applications marketing in three essential ways:

• The sales process

• The call-to-action

• The need for customer loyalty programs.  

For companies new to SaaS or those needing to enhance the effectiveness of their existing efforts, this session will help you recognize common SaaS marketing hazards and will offer practical advice on how to avoid them.

Brett Schklar,  The Market Creation Group

TRANSITION TO SaaS TRACK:

To Build or to Lease Your IT Infrastructure – That is the Question!
 

So you’re planning to transition your software solution to a Software as a Service (SaaS) delivery model (or you’re thinking about it).  So now you need to decide if you’re going to build your IT infrastructure in-house or lease it.   This is one of the biggest decisions you will make in the transition to a SaaS delivery model.  This session will focus on the pro’s and con’s of either building your IT infrastructure in-house or leasing it.

Specifically you will learn:

• What the market demand is for SaaS applications
• Key considerations for building your own IT infrastructure
• Key considerations for leasing your IT infrastructure
• The pro’s and con’s of both options
• The typical costs associated with both options

At the end of this session, you will have a clear understanding of the benefits and the drawbacks of both - building your own infrastructure or leasing, so you can decide which option is best for your business model and strategy. 

Ivan Hurtt, Verio

 4:30 - 5:30PM

SaaS and the Rise of Community Management (and the Death of Traditional Product Management)
 

The growth of SaaS spells the end of product management as it's been as it's been defined in the software industry for the last thirty years. After SaaS ERP vendor Plex transitioned from client/server to SaaS, it jettisoned its entire product management/product marketing management framework. Current product management functions such as tick list herding, MRDs, PRDs,  "Agile" product management and the concept of no responsibility, no accountability, and no authority are as relevant to SaaS companies as DOS 3.0 and floppy disks.

Replacing "product manager's" will be "community managers," a new breed of people who will be tasked with optimizing your SaaS community, monetizing it, and working in an environment of bottom line metrics and measurable performance. If you're thinking about pulling out your checkbook and wasting money on outmoded product management training courses, obsolete product management research, reports, and publications, and the latest theories on "Agile" product management, put that check writing hand back in your pocket and attend this session to discover what your CMs should be doing to put money IN your pocket more quickly.

Patrick Fetterman, Plex Systems

 5:30 - 6:10PM

Panel Session:

How's That "The Cloud Change's Everything" Thing Working for You?
 

A couple of years ago everyone thought we had it all figured out. Their was SaaS, PaaS for the Geeks, and the hardware folks had IaaS. Then some marketing genius came up with the "Cloud" and everything became..."cloudy." This lively panel session will take a look at the impact of the Cloud on customer attitudes towards SaaS, discuss ways to leverage Cloud excitement to increase sales, and challenge some of the conventional wisdom currently circulating. Panel participants will be chose the day of the conference and often include attendees. We'll also be holding a series of "snap polls" during session and posting the video results up on the Softletter web site!

Moderated by Jeff Kaplan, THINKstrategies

 6:10 - 7:30PM

Networking Session

Kick Back, Enjoy Some Drinks and Hors D'oeuvres With Your Peers