Culture
This is a huge distinction and sadly I think many people miss it. You go a mid-quarter ops meeting. The CMO shows quarter-to-date MQLs. Someone asks how we define MQL. A 15-minute conversation ensues. The SVP of Alliances talks about influenced ARR. Someone asks how that's defined, but
Leadership
"Phew, we sure have a lot of challenges right now," the frustrated CEO mused after completing a day at the annual planning offsite. "While my executive team is pretty solid day to day, they're too in-the-box. They're not creative. They never have any
Career
Lack of savoir faire, like hypertension, is a silent killer. There are few symptoms, other than the odd cringe that often goes unnoticed. But the outcomes are clear if the reasons are not: you're omitted from meetings, passed over for promotions, underperform in nine-box reviews, find advisors suddenly
Competition
Yes. And, by the way, I'm not joking with that answer. I'm not saying you need 17 patents. I'm not saying you need any patents at all -- but you probably do. I am saying that despite the frenetic life of running a startup,
Management
For no apparent underlying reason, a lot of the companies I have worked at over the years have been quite successful in Japan. Thus, while I don’t write about it much, I have a fair bit of experience working with Japanese subsidiaries and/or distributors in the enterprise software
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
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
Management
Last week in London, fellow Balderton EIR David Vismans and I held a joint meeting to discuss the working relationship (or moreover, the lack thereof) between product and marketing organizations. David is a career product leader, who worked for over 8 years leading product at Booking.com. I am a
Leadership
I spoke a while back on go-to-market scaling at the 10X CEO Accelerate conference in Deer Valley to about eighty startup CEOs. I dropped a few references to popular business books into the material (e.g., Blue Ocean Strategy, Inside the Tornado, The Crux), as I often do, and discussed
Boards
I love writing and speaking about board meetings. Why? Because: * They're critically important. Board meetings can make or break careers. * You get little to no instruction on how to do them. Most training for CEOs and execs is of the "throw them in the deep end of
Finance
It's been a tough year. We're currently in peak planning season for 2024. With capital scarce and expensive, with companies increasingly trapped in Schrödinger's startup paradox, and with more startups than ever focused on positive cashflow and The Rule of 40, it's
Communications
After a negative customer experience on a recent fishing trip an old friend of mine said, "I judge people by the quality of their apologies." Interesting idea, I thought. This led to a discussion about the apology given to us by the proprietor of the ranch at which