This September there are 7 returning speakers at Business of Software.
It’s a delight to be welcoming Rahul Vohra, Rita McGrath, Alex Osterwalder, Steli Efti, Matt Wensing, and Patrick Campbell back to the stage at BoS, and to have Claire Lew back to lead a half-day workshop. We don’t welcome speakers back to BoS lightly – we’ve asked them to come back because their talks were top quality and because the BoS community have asked to hear more from them.
In anticipation of their return, we’re taking a look back at some of their previous talks. Read on below to find great talks about:
- Optimising for Product-Market Fit
- Why competitive advantage doesn’t mean what it used to
- Proven ways to increase your sales
- Implementing a pricing process
- How to design organisational culture
and more…
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Last time: At #BoS2018, the founder of Silicon Valley’s buzziest startup spoke about how he adopted and adapted Sean Ellis’ product-market fit survey at Superhuman. Rahul’s spoken and written on the subject at length since BoS 2018, but it was here that he first laid forward his process for optimizing for Product-Market Fit. It was certainly the most discussed talk at the conference last year, with many attendees putting his survey into practice.
This Year: Customer Onboarding – The Key To Happy Customers
Rahul will be speaking on Superhuman’s time-intensive onboarding process, and why it helps drive retention and increase virality.
Last time: For years, sustainable competitive advantage was goal of large companies – locking in your advantage over your competitors using innovation or market mechanisms. Prof Rita McGrath spoke at BoS USA 2013 about her belief that things were about to change dramatically, that markets were about to get a whole lot more agile and dynamic and that this would produce enormous opportunities for entrepreneurs. Interesting watching with hindsight!
This Year: Seeing Around Corners: How To Spot Inflection Points Before They Happen
With technology changing at such a pace, Rita will give you tools to help you spot future inflection points and stay ahead of the curve.
Last time: At Business of Software Conference USA 2015, Alex Osterwalder described the key steps in designing an effective organizational culture. In most companies, there is a gap between the actual culture and the desired culture. How can we work to optimize our company’s culture like we would any other business function?
This Year: Building Invincible Companies With Effective Business Portfolio Management
Alex will help you understand how to manage a portfolio of products successfully using a 3 step process – Explore, Exploit, Manage.
Last time: In Dublin in 2016, Steli shared some of the tips and tricks he has learned as one of the best sales hustlers and hackers in the software business. No dark arts, no magic bullets, just solid advice, proven processes and plans that will be applicable to anyone, from single developer, through to a large established sales organisation.
This Year: The Lies We Tell Ourselves And Others As Entrepreneurs
Steli will talk about the common lies founders tell themselves, how to realize that you’re telling yourself these lies and how to prevent telling these lies to both yourself and other people.
Last time: Claire asked the question: why is the CEO often the last to discover something? Those pesky employees aren’t telling you everything you need to know. She talked about why people don’t tell you the things you need to know but more importantly, she gave highly actionable advice about how to build a much more honest, open and productive work culture.
This Year: The Feedback Loop – How To Create A Culture Of Feedback (Workshop)
In this workshop, Claire will share the playbook for how the most effective managers create a culture of feedback within their teams.
Last time: In a data-rich talk, Patrick considered why SaaS companies obsessed by User Acquisition and User Acquisition Cost are focusing on the wrong metrics, missing the far more important growth drivers for a SaaS business: monetization and retention.
This Year: Cancer, Competitors, and the Cacophony of being a CEO
Building a company is tough. On top of that, life is tough. As someone who’s experienced his fair share of difficulties in both, Patrick will share frameworks to help you handle problems in their proper context.
Last time: In his Lightning Talk at BoS USA 2018, Matt shared his research into whether it is possible to predict success from the startup stage. Can you forecast growth? Can you write software to simulate a SaaS company? The answer is quite exciting…
This Year: Can You Predict Your Company’s Success?
Matt will build on last year’s lightning talk and present his research from taking this idea further with the launch of his new company, SimSaaS.
Learn how great SaaS & software companies are run
We produce exceptional conferences & content that will help you build better products & companies.
Join our friendly list for event updates, ideas & inspiration.