Hiring
“When you read their profiles and interview them, you think one thing: these people are gods.” -- European founder on early US hiring. Despite numerous warnings, I continue to see many European founders fall into the same trap when it comes to hiring in the first years of their US
Leadership
I'm always looking for better ways to distill strategy. My favorite strategy author is Richard Rumelt, who wrote Good Strategy, Bad Strategy and the more recent but less acclaimed follow-on, The Crux. I love Rumelt's work for two reasons: * He takes a wrecking ball to the
Career
Many concepts in Silicon Valley are defined from the point of view of the venture capitalist (VC), not the employee or founder. For example, the term "exit" is a misnomer when seen from the employee point of view. An IPO is usually anything but an exit for executives
Marketing
"If a bird walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." -- James Whitcomb Riley Many marketers are in such a hurry to talk about topical issues that they forget the duck test: if it walks like
AI
Last week I hosted an event at the Balderton Capital London headquarters discussing the impact of AI on go-to-market (GTM) functions. The event was inspired by two things: * My aborted attempt to write an AI GTM guide, after I realized just how huge the space was and how fast it
Career
Just a quick post to share the slides of a presentation I recently gave on six principles that can help you optimize both your results and your career. The material, which should be familar to long-time Kellblog readers, is largely based on posts that I've written over the
Entrepreneurship
I've realized that one of things I do for (or should I say, to) early-stage startups is detect whether they have a real or a faux focus (pronounced fo-focus) -- the latter being a focus that appears to be real at first, but is in fact fake. Focus
Growth
Just a quick follow-up post to share the video from the recent Balderton event I did on opening new markets as the key to durable, efficient growth. I previously shared the slides here. Now, thanks to the marketing team at Balderton, I've been able to embed a video
Growth
Just a quick post to share the slides from the webinar I did with Balderton Capital this morning entitled Opening New Markets, The Key to Efficient Growth in 2024 and Beyond. Thanks to everyone who attended and/or submitted questions at the event. And thanks to the Balderton team for
Growth
Just a quick post to highlight a Balderton Capital webinar I'm doing this week on Wednesday, March 20th at 8:00 AM Pacific, 3:00 PM UK, and 4:00 PM CET. The registration link is here. Since I've heard of a few problems with it,
Demandgen
I had a lightbulb moment in the car yesterday listening to the Revenue Vitals podcast. It wasn't a flash of insight so much as a flash of synthesis. I've been driving a lot lately, so I also had time to listen to the amazing Acquired podcast,
Entrepreneurship
Just a quick post to highlight my third and most recent appearance on 20VC with the amazing Harry Stebbings (Spotify, YouTube). It is always, always a pleasure to speak with Harry. He's such an effective interviewer that you quickly get into detail and stories that others miss. So