Enterprise
(This is the second in a three-part restructuring and build-out of a previous post. See note [1] for details.) In the prior post we introduced repeatable sales process as the Holy Grail of enterprise software sales and, unlike some who toss the term around rather casually, we defined
Enterprise
(This is the first in a three-part restructuring and build-out of the prior post. See note [1] for details.) The number one question go-to-market question in any enterprise software startup is: "do you have a repeatable sales process?" or, in more contemporary Silicon Valley
Culture
Most of us are familiar with Mark Leslie’s classic Sales Learning Curve and its implications for building the early salesforce at an enterprise startup. In short, it argues that too many startups put “the pedal to the metal” on sales hiring too early – before they have enough knowledge, process,
The good people of Riverside Acceleration Capital and my old friend Jon Temple invited me to speak at their portfolio company CEO Summit and I was only too happy to oblige, particularly because Jon asked me to speak about one of my favorite topics -- marketing in early- and growth-stage
Branding
Decades ago I had the pleasure of watching a branding video, created by a San Francisco ad agency, narrated by an advertising executive with a familiar voice who'd narrated scores of commercials [1]. It was, I believe, entitled Staying in Character and while I've searched the
Demandgen
Back in the day I was taught that marketers do three things, memorized via the acronym STP: segment, target, position. * Divide the audience into different segments. For example, dividing consumers by demographics or dividing businesses by size or industry. * Select the segments that the company wishes to target for its
Demandgen
There's a common debate out there, it goes something like this: "Our sales development representatives (SDRs) need to look for pain: finding business owners with a problem and the ability to get budget to go fix it." Versus: "No, our SDRs need to look for
Management
The good people of Costanoa Ventures invited me to speak at their summit where they gather portfolio company CEOs to participate in an impressive set of sessions related to building and scaling startups. I was honored to be in the company of friends and respected colleagues like Nick Mehta and
Leadership
I remember one time having an argument that went like this: Joe: I think there's enough detail in there. Dave: No, there's not. There's no underpinnings, there's no rigor in the thought process. Remember, David Ogilvy always said "good writing is
Management
The folks at Plannuh, specifically Peter Mahoney, Scott Todaro, and Dan Faulkner, asked me to write the foreword for their new book, The Next CMO: A Guide to Marketing Operational Excellence. (Free download here.) Here's what I wrote for them. CMO is a hard job. Early in my
CAC
Thanks to everyone who attended my SaaStr 2020 presentation and thanks to those who provided me with great feedback and questions on the content of the session. The slides from the presentation are available here. The purpose of this post is to share the video of the session, courtesy of
I just finished delivering my presentation at SaaStr Annual 2020, dubbed Churn Is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention. The presentation is about understanding SaaS businesses: how to think about them, how to value them, how to use unit economics like CAC and churn to measure them, all with a