Boards
Last week a scathing post by Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos, entitled Dear Dumb VC, generated some stiff controversy in the blog- and Twitter-spheres. Serial entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Mark Suster, author of the superb Both Sides of the Table blog, weighed in with a long, fact-filled response, entitled
Management
Since I've had the good fortune to work at small, large, and small-that-became-large software companies, people sometimes ask me about the pro's and con's of working at companies of different sizes. Let's start with the basics. At a small company: * You generally
Management
Quick, go ask any sales manager or Silicon Valley how much pipeline you need to make your quarter. The answer you will hear: 3x. Always, everywhere, every time. Let's talk about why that's true, what it means, and what to do about it in this post.
Management
Everyone knows the old joke about the new CEO and the three envelopes. I thought I'd take a moment in this post to talk about the new CEO and what I call the three doors. I think most people fail to grasp the commitment that hired (non-founder) CEOs
After an approximately* one-year hiatus, I've decided to start blogging again. What Happened? The reincarnation begins oddly, with my discovery that cybersquatters had evidently moved into Kellblog. My WordPress account had been hacked and because the hacking was subtle it took me a while to realize what was
Marketing
I just finished reading Phil Fernandez's recent book, Revenue Disruption, and I have to say that I recommend it highly. Fundamentally, Fernandez argues that the old Chinese Wall between sales and marketing needs to be torn down. Instead, companies need to think of a continuous process, executed collaboratively
Strategy
Founders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and startup employees often spend a lot of time wondering, worrying, and pondering if a company is in a hot market. Will the company shoot the moon? What is the market potential? Are you in Geoffrey Moore's tornado? After 25 years or so doing
Strategy
It’s fairly common to hear the CEO of a company that makes most of its money doing thing-X announce that the future of this company is thing-Y. Why might they do this? I think it’s often just to sound visionary and bold. In rare cases it might be
VC
I’m often asked by entrepreneurs: when is the right time to raise money at a startup? I invariably say two things in response: * Whenever you can * Right now Whenever You CanMost startups typically go through ups and downs. Say you’ve just completed 4 consecutive quarters above plan. You
Technical founders and entrepreneurs can easily overlook the coin-operated nature of salespeople. Why? Because they aren’t salespeople, they’re product people and they’re just not wired the same way. Founders might be motivated by changing the market, popularizing a product, or just proving they are right. Salespeople, almost
It's that time of the year again. With many tech companies now on a 1/31 fiscal year end, that makes February kickoff month. So it's a time to say "thanks" for a great last year, but also to move quickly on to launching
Management
I can't tell you how many times over the years that I've needed to coach people to "answer the question" when dealing with senior executives. It amazes me to sit in meetings and watch people hem, haw, dodge, extemporize and do just about anything
