SaaStock is a conference dedicated to ‘Software-as-a-service” bringing together participants from across the ecosystem – investors, influencers, thought leadership and founders, with companies from acorns to unicorns.
It was held in Dublin at the RDS, (with some pop-ups across the city), over three days (the main part was Sep 18th – 19th) with 5,000 delegates from across the world. it’s the biggest SaaS conference in Europe.
It was our first time attending. Zngly is bootstrapped and proud of it. No VC. No outside money. We are building a profitable business, creating value not valuation. We make every pound / dollar / euro a prisoner!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCsZ5uy-gLw
So… we paid hard earned ‘list price’ cash
for our tickets and we wanted to get the maximum return of time, money and
opportunity!
Myself and Oscar attended, he took point on Customer Service, and I covered Business Development. We set ourselves some goals:
- How do firms talk about themselves, what sets them apart. How do they ‘sell’
- Our clients love Zngly. How do we increase customer adoption
- What are the hard decisions that we need to make, and when to make them
So what did we learn, was it worth it?
When you get to immerse yourself like this you see how really important it is to get our industry together. Nothing beats meeting people.
After lockdowns this was the first gathering of SaaStock. We had a month of meetings and insights every single day.
Having real human connection and hear
people’s experience first-hand, it’s just invaluable.
What did we learn…
- There is the mother of all recessions coming make your business relevant and flourish
- Bootstrap all the way! Be cockroaches not unicorns. Not just survive, but thrive
- Be confident, stick to your plan, progress is incremental steps. Build on good foundations
So let’s dive in and share with you how we got on…
So how did it work – what’s the format
The conference is organised in three parts:
- Formal(ish): A great agenda of speakers, keynotes and sharp folk sharing experiences. The sessions are really well moderated. 20 minute, high paced, content rich. No fluff or puff. All proper.
- Collide: Stands and booths. From ‘pop-up’ pubs to stalls that would not look out of place at a village fair. Lots of friendly folk, who want to pitch, sell, demo, and also to listen and connect. There was a tonne of great swag and sweets. It was most definitely sugar fuelled! We left full in every possible way.
- Connect: The SaaStock app was super easy to use, scan a QR code, connect and meet-up. The Nightstock events were great fun. SaaS folk know how to work and play! With lots of people visiting Dublin and wanted to sample all the fun of the city.
Organised across ‘stages’ – Bootstrap, Growth, Accelerating and Scale – it’s like a Geeky Glastonbury without the mud. It’s not all back slapping and shooting to the moon. Quite the opposite.
There was failures, heartache and tears
shared. The challenges of getting a business off the ground and wind under it’s
wings. Practical, proper advice.
A special shout out to the Bootstrap moderators, curators and speakers stage. Great content and connections. Thank you!
So - lasting benefits…What did we take away for Zngly
We validated our approach to marketing and business development, forget the funnel (for now). We’ve got it right with laser focus on the great opportunities we have.
How and when to scale and the key decision factors within that scaling, seeing the problems other founders faced. Do not put off the difficult decisions.
You can see the ‘aha’! moment - the real power of cloud delivered innovation, Time To Value, that’s what it’s about.
We feel energised to be part of a community and Zngly is where the smarts are – SaaS delivered, open-source, no-code. We fuel our clients at the speed of a click.
Be the promise delivered.
So how is it measured…
We are already adopting some of the findings
and advice.
There is no better reference than a happy customer.
Three key takeaway:
- Adoption: Our existing clients, their day to day use of our platform. Listen to them.
- Analytics: How Zngly is delivering real measurable returns and value. Power them.
- Ambassadors: There is no better reference than a happy customer. They will champion you.
So SaaStock...
We will be back next year. With a stand. And on a stage. Loved it.
SaaStock, you do indeed Rock!
Zngly EI International Markets Week
Starting a business or sourcing solutions. Be inspired!
This blog I hope will… inspire entrepreneurs embarking on creating a business to consider setting up in Ireland with the help that Enterprise Ireland (EI) can give to grow internationally. Give our clients a line of sight on the global network of support we have at Zngly. And to businesses in international markets to consider sourcing solutions from Irish companies. From Cyber to Payments, Digital to Manufacturing, Ireland’s eco-system of firms from start-up to established is firing on all cylinders. A hot bed of innovation and ambition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaavvW82vHc
EI International Markets Week what’s it all about?
EI is an Irish Government agency dedicated to the promotion, development and growth of Irish businesses, and are ranked first in the world of venture capital investors by deal count.
At Zngly we were delighted to have been selected as an EI-HPSU (High Potential Start-Up) when we launched. EI provide us with a wealth of knowledge, experience and connections.
International Markets Week (IMW) is a three-day coming together of all the Market Advisors (MA) from around the world converging in Dublin to assist and support Irish businesses with their growth plans. It was held at the RDS in Ballsbridge, Rugby fans will know it as Leinster’s home ground, and was the first time it was held since the Covid lockdowns.
It was great getting everyone together in a real celebration of Irish innovation and business, with over 700 EI portfolio companies attending over the three days. Meeting with MA’s from all over the world, from northern Europe, to the southern hemisphere, from Asia to the US West Coast.
I knew the omens were good on the way there! I passed Old Belvedere, and I see their next home game is against my old club Naas RFC. So hopefully I would be the first of many winning Naas men in Ballsbridge this week!
Why is IMW important to Irish businesses?
Zngly are proud that we are a bootstrapped business, with no VC or outside money.
We are focused on creating a profitable business, with value not valuation our priority. So
it’s hugely important for us to be able to connect into this network of advisors on the ground who can shape our opportunity and proposition.
We have clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, UK, Ireland and the US. We are global and international markets are massively important to us.
IMW means we are on track, the products we are shipping have local market validation, and our business development growth plans and connections are at a personal level.
So how does it work?
We worked with Conor our Dublin based Development Advisor (DA) ahead of IMW identifying opportunities and geographical regions. We then scheduled a series of one-to-one meetings with the international MA’s. In one day we covered a global conversation from Asia (with Tiarnan and Sinead), US (Jack and Jane), UK (Jack and Niamh) and also here in Ireland (Luke and Mike) working with global ambition and global brands. We even had a master class chat on Marketing & Sales with Naghmeh!
The depth of local market knowledge, and deep relationships is incredible.
Lastly, it's just a lot of fun. I loved it! The event was a huge infectious feeling of innovation opportunity ambition. It was a privilege to be selected to be a part of it, and we are very grateful. Making these personal connections is what it’s all about.
What are we taking from it?
There are three immediate great benefits from this. First the discipline of presenting Zngly, pitching and demoing our platform in a high paced showcase event like this from around the world really helps validate market fit. You get feedback upfront.
Secondly, hearing first-hand the opportunities, needs and challenges from around the world is massively important so we know how to allocate resources and identify opportunities.
Being a start-up, you are looking for friends and ambassadors. With EI we have that and so much more.
Lastly, it's just a lot of fun. I loved it! The event was a huge infectious feeling of innovation opportunity ambition. It was a privilege to be selected to be a part of it, and we are very grateful. Making these personal connections is what it’s all about.
How are the benefits measured – what next?
There are three very practical ways. One, how we tune the B2B Zngly proposition and market fit to specific sectors.
Fintech, Media and Education are all really exciting areas for us where we have great clients.
Secondly, we’ve got a diary of meetings and confirmed follow-ups in Asia, US, UK and Ireland. There are dates in the calendar.
Finally, the benefits aren’t just measured by sales and growth, but that we have an action plan that’s ‘doable’ that we can confidently build out for our clients and business.
To close.. that was some day.
A huge thank you to everyone I had the pleasure to work with and congratulations to Enterprise Ireland on a fantastic event. To Deirdre and all the team – Joanne, Jack Callaghan Jack FC, Niamh, Tiarnan, Sinead, Luke, Mike, Naghmeh and Conor.
Final thought. There was even a vegan option for my lunch! I’ve changed and come a long, long way from my Naas RFC days!
Zngly Awarded October’s Community Spotlight by FINOS
We’ve been awarded this month's community spotlight feature by The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS)
“By using Zngly, we have been able to level up the messaging and value surrounding our critical projects and initiatives for FINOS.”
“Aside from being an outstanding content and resource management tool, Zngly has partnered with us on many different events throughout the year, both in-person and remote, most recently with last week's DEI SIG Tech Gateway, which was a day of DEI events in the City of London which was organized by FINOS DEI SIG members, Zngly, Scott Logic, NatWest, Goldman Sachs, EPAM, GitHub, Google, Red Hat, and ING.”
“The event brought together under-represented London communities to explore city tech career opportunities through inspiring DEI stories, tech mentoring, and network building.”
“FINOS is proud to partner with Zngly! We look forward to organizing more co-hosted open source events this year and delivering our content in new and innovative ways.
Special thanks to the Zngly team, Mike Wilson, Oscar Wilson, Hayley McCarthy, Vlad Medves and Shaban Duymun, among many others.”
Click here to read the full article over at the FINOS website
Click here to check out the FINOS Resource Center which is powered by Zngly.
Part 1
The future of content marketing
In the first of a three-part series on how the Zngly media platform reenergises B2B sales and marketing efforts, we look at how businesses can make the most of their webinars
What is Content Marketing?
Over the last five or 10 years, digital transformation in B2B has served a single purpose: to make content marketing more effective and more cost-effective.
The focus was on bridging legacy systems, integrating product catalogues with the content platform, and enabling the creation of “customer experiences” in an omnichannel context.
Even for small to medium-sized B2B businesses, the implementation of customer experience projects takes many months, if not years, and requires a considerable commitment in terms of resources.
Although the goal as always is to make the business more agile, the means of achieving this ideal state of “agility” is usually costly and painstaking.
Omnichannel is now widely accepted by B2B businesses as the way forward but implementations are still weighted heavily towards the website, perhaps for good reasons. A breakdown[1] of more than 46 billion user sessions across 14 industries in 25 countries showed that B2B came second only to media for average time spent per page, at 82 seconds per page. This was a significant 20 seconds more per page than the next category, travel, and 30 seconds more than financial services.
The popularity of B2B webinars suggests that customers aren’t finding all the answers on the website which, in the majority of cases, is still only a shop window, not a shop. Other than at marketplaces, most B2B suppliers still sell through distributors, wholesalers, resellers, or retail outlets – each with their own website of course, and their own customer experiences.
[1] 2022 Digital Experience Benchmark Report, Contentsquare
Businesses are engaged in a digital arm’s race of ever increasing complexity; they would much prefer to get off this merry-go-round yet they don’t know how – and are inhibited by the fact that everyone else seems thoroughly invested in the customer experience paradigm.
The media platform Zngly offers a way out – or at the very least a respite from complexity, and the never-ending succession of digital projects. Zngly puts sales and marketing back on the front foot by enabling them to curate content and get it directly in front of the prospect, bypassing the websites.
This three-part blog explores the tortuous content landscape, and analyses how Zngly addresses pain points that persist, despite years of digital investment and transformation.
As we mentioned a moment ago, the new generations of B2B leaders prize the expertise and experience of webinars, and so this is where we shall start.
Supercharge your webinars
Webinars can be the gift that keeps on giving. A conversation between experts or seasoned B2B cadres is a more immediate way to get into a subject than (most) written content. The thought leadership is extended to include the attendees who are invited to ask questions. The Q&A part of a live webinar is often the most lively and eye-opening, as attendees reveal what is preoccupying the market – and the experts have to think on their feet to answer.
So webinars are good, and “webinars on demand” are good in theory – if only you could get people to demand them! In the rough and tumble of a busy working day, most B2B influencers and decision-makers don’t get around to doing this – even if the topic interests them.
This is why B2B marketers amplify the reach of their webinars by creating complementary collateral such as blogs, white papers, fact sheets, infographics, and follow-ups on social media. You can never quite tell which piece of content is going to hit the spot, so you have to be patient and wait for your audience to build.
Patience and consistency are particularly relevant in the financial sector, where sales cycles are very long. You have to keep the marketing drumbeat going by delivering this complementary content – and curate the webinar itself for targeted sales approaches.
And this is where marketers have a problem. If you have chosen an interesting topic and invited a good mix of expert voices, your webinar will be interesting. However, not every part of a wide-ranging discussion will be of interest to all your customers and prospects – even if they had the time to watch the discussion from beginning to end.
Posting a recording on YouTube removes the “on demand” barrier, but still requires the customer to work out which part(s) of the discussion are of interest to him, and then click through the timeline to get there. It’s not that your customers and leads are lazy; it’s that your splendid webinar is not a priority for them.
You have to make it easier for your customers – and pique their curiosity. This is what Zngly can do for you.
The platform boosts webinar views. The customer doesn’t have to ask for it; he doesn’t have to go from your website to his email inbox to download it, and he doesn’t have to parse it or “skim-watch it” to find the content that is relevant to him.
For the sales reps or marketers that curate the webinar, the process is also very intuitive. Zngly enables you to segment webinar content so it will start where you need it to start for a particular client. You can give the webinar a custom title and/or description, whatever you believe will resonate most strongly with the customer. You can send the webinar extract individually or as part of a Zngly list with other relevant collateral.
One click (no download) and your customer is immersed in the webinar discussion. Of course, there is nothing to stop him from watching the entire webinar once he has been hooked by the curated extract. But the initial approach will have been much more likeable and realistic. You have gone from a presumption (“Give us an hour of your time to watch a webinar that will at some point be of interest to you”) to an act of thoughtfulness (“We thought X’s views on Y might interest you and your colleagues. And here it is”).
We are not suggesting that traditional marketing approaches are brash or rude – not always anyway! But we all know that the decision whether to-watch-or-not-to-watch is on a knife’s edge – and that you must do everything within your power to improve your odds. With Zngly, you do that.
In the next instalment of our blog on content marketing we look at the future of PR and email campaigns
