AI
When the auto industry was being decimated and jobs offshored to Japan, many of us instinctively reached for our college economics textbook and started thinking about fish and coconuts — the example Paul Samuelson used to explain David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage in international trade. Well, if Japan is
GTM
Today Dan Teodosiu, Thor Mitchell, and I hosted a Balderton webinar entitled Aligning Product and Go-To-Market (GTM) Using Customer Value Metrics. We are all executives in residence (EIRs) at Balderton -- Dan covers technology, Thor covers product, and I cover go-to-market -- and, in a display of cross-functional walking-the-talk, we
HR
Just a quick post to highlight a recent podcast appearance with Leah Tharin on ProducTea, a European podcast focused on bringing together product, revenue, and growth. In addition to her podcasts and blog content, Leah produces a number of guides that are quite useful for startups as well. In this,
Leadership
To adapt Julius Caesar's famous opening line of the Gallic Wars: marketing as a whole is divided in three parts. * Product marketing (prodmkt), responsible in a word, for the message and how well it resonates with customers in the market [1]. * Demand generation (demandgen), responsible in a word,
Management
You've decided you need to replace one of your executives. Hopefully, the executive already knows things aren't going great and that you've already had several conversations about performance. Hopefully, you've also already had several conversations with the board and they either are
Boards
I'll be speaking next month in Barcelona on the first day of SaaStr Europa, held at the International Convention Center on June 7th and 8th. My presentation is scheduled at 11:25AM on June 7th and entitled The Top 5 Scale-Up Mistakes and How to Avoid Them. While
HR
The other day a founder asked me about interviewing because a candidate had described me as "a great interviewer," and she wanted to know why. (And for that matter, so did I.) Emboldened by this seeming endorsement, I dashed off what turned into a lengthy email on interviewing
Management
Is your leadership team world-class? Are some of your executives holding your company back? Could you grow faster if you replaced your head of sales? Does your board think you have the right leadership team? Heck, does your leadership team think you have the right leadership team? Do your rank-and-file
Growth
In my new capacity as an EIR at Balderton Capital, I recently gave a presentation to a leadership meeting at a high-growth, Balderton-backed startup offering my perspectives on growth and the challenges that come with it. I discussed these five challenges: 1. Next-levelitis, an obsessive focus on scaling everything to
HR
I'm back for my second appearance on the ParkerGale Private Equity Funcast, this time speaking with Jimmy Holloran on topics related to Peopleops and the Chief People Officer (CPO) in a session entitled A Board Perspective on Peopleops. Topic we cover include: * The role of HR and my
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
Communications
This isn't political. He just happened to be talking to me about another matter when he mentioned this problem.