1/ Following up on why I believe content & community are going to be increasingly important in #legaltech, and in enterprise software generally in the coming years. Some thoughts in no particular order.

2/ Expect more VC to flow into legaltech in next few years. Lots of reasons why, which is beyond the scope of this thread. But I suspect part of it is pattern matching, & what’s been successful. Which is why we keep seeing similar types of companies (AI/contracts) getting funded.

3/ Barriers to entry have fallen in legaltech and elsewhere. It’s never been this easy to start a new tech company. After 2020 it’s also become much easier to build a distributed team at relatively low cost.

4/ As the space gets more crowded with well funded competitors, it becomes increasingly expensive to sell and market your product. Deals that used to be fast and easy become highly competitive. Price wars erode ACVs, which reduces LTVs, which impacts how much CAC you can afford.

5/ Meanwhile, the cost of acquiring customers is not getting any lower any time soon. Sales compensation keeps rising as the war for talent intensifies. Cost of paid ads skyrocket as intent-driven keywords get bid up into the stratosphere.

6/ Speaking of sales. The last real innovation in software distribution is nearly 20 yrs old, when Salesforce popularized the SDR/AE model. While effective, that approach no longer provides a competitive advantage since your competitors all follow the same model.

7/ SDRs making 100+ calls a day & email marketing blasts & everyone else doing it ends up overwhelming prospects. Two problems arise: (1) It’s very annoying, which erodes your brand; and (2) Sales energy is wasted on buyers who are genuinely interested, but aren’t ready to buy.

8/ This is precisely why enterprise software review sites like G2crowd and Capterra are so valuable right now. They catch prospects at all stages of the buyer’s journey, and educate them until they’re ready to buy.

9/ Is there some way for SaaS companies to mimic this approach, and build their own distribution channel that operates the same way as these review sites? Ie. to “nurture” prospects until they turn into buyers who self select into the sales process? I believe there is.

10/ You do it by leveraging quality content and building a customer-centric community that's all about them. Quality content isn't just "writing some whitepapers" or "hosting some webinars" by the way.

11/ In this thread, I've only really touched upon sales. Stay tuned for future tweets on other areas of impact. Would love to hear your thoughts, especially from those who have operational experience solving problems described above.