For a new startup, should we custom build enterprise integrations or use a middle-man like MuleSoft, Informatica or SnapLogic?

It's not foolish, but it's going to be extremely hard to pull it off. I would consider starting with a beta program so you can have some paid clients to pay for the company's expenses. After you have some traction, you can raise a seed round.

Hi. I'm a Business Intelligence consultant with most of my customers being call centers. There are definitely guidelines you can apply but it will be based on several factors. Your question references ratios, which I assume means you would like to know how many agents per customer. That number will vary greatly depending on a number of other factors including: -what is your ASA target (Average speed of answer)? -what percentage of calls should meet the ASA? -are their penalties below a certain threshold (if less than 80% of calls meet ASA in 24 hours, for example) -how long are calls waiting when they don't meet ASA? -what is the call distribution by day of week, time of day and holiday v. non-holiday. -what is the average call duration? -what is the % of calls requiring escalation or call back versus calls resolved on first contact? To simplify it though, the two most important (IMO) will be call volume and your target for ASA (assuming you aren't answering then putting them back on hold, etc). To simplify though, the top 3 are: ASA, Call length and call volume. Regardless of the size of customer base. A good reporting system that combines live metrics and daily/weekly/monthly analysis will help a great deal. Feel free to set up a call if you'd like to talk about this in more detail.

In my experience, the longer sales cycle requires more attention. The metrics will be unique to your business, but you can't go wrong with these: Marketing & Sales Metrics Look at metrics that will help you scale and project growth, and then accelerate opportunity to close velocity #s and conversion rates of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of MQLs to sales qualified leads (SQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of SQLs to opportunities #s, time, and conversion rates of opportunities to sales Customer Success Metrics An ARR SaaS business may have a guaranteed 12 month customer lifespan, but that doesn't guarantee the customer actually uses the product and won't churn at renewal time. Measuring product usage will help you discover patterns that cause churn, increase the perceived value of the product, and improve the customer experience. Financial Metrics Each Reporting Period (I'd recommend monthly) look at Values & Rate of Change Customer Acquisition Cost Average Value of a Customer look at Values, % of total, & Rate of Change Revenue from New Subscriptions Revenue from Renewal Subscriptions At the early stage, businesses will see new Subscriptions significantly outpace renewals. As the business matures, the % of total ARR from New Subscriptions will begin to decline, assuming churn rates are good.

Yes, I did exactly that a few years back. A friend of mien and I launched a site with minimal functionality that was really just a landing page. We offered the opportunity to pre-buy a year's subscription to the service by allowing users to set their own pricing. Within the first 24 hours of the site going live, we had enough paying customers to validate the business and inform our iterative development cycle. Ultimately, we decided it wasn't a big enough business for either of us to get really excited about but it proves that it can be done. I also did that in my current business with a landing page that generated literally thousands of leads and hundreds of very qualified customers, which resulted in paid pilot contracts before the software was fully built. Build something that people actually *need* and you'd be surprised at what they're willing to do to get early access to it. Happy to talk about it in a call in more detail

There is no valuation until you sell something. An idea or a company is only worth what its sales are. Once you have your initials sales, sales strategy and forecasting length (ie 9 months from first customer lead to close) then you have a formula for valuation. Valuation for start-ups is generally 3.5 x last years sales model should be the growth factor. When you are looking for investors, you will want to have atleast 9-18 months of SALES, not just pipeline and they will be looking at 5x revenue for a 3-5 year payback.