GTM
My fellow Balderton Capital EIR Dan Teodosiu and I recently published an article on aligning product and go-to-market teams using metrics, specifically customer-value metrics. In this post, I'll talk a bit about the article and how we came to write it, with the hope that I'll
Finance
"I have a map of the United States ... actual size. It says, Scale: 1 mile = 1 mile. I spent last summer folding it. I also have a full-size map of the world. I hardly ever unroll it." -- Stephen Wright (comedian) Much as we build maps as models
Competition
Does your competitive analyst introduce themselves like this? If so, you’ve got a problem. Not only because his younger brother Big is a controversial employee over in DOGE but, more importantly, because old Harvey is not defining his job correctly. Many competitive analysts effectively define their job as product
Demandgen
My marketing professor once said, The answer to every marketing question is, "It depends." Thus, the important part is knowing on what. So, how do you calculate the cost/opportunity? Well, it depends! On what? On the specific question you're trying to answer. When people ask
Demandgen
Why is it that when we want to add an account executive (AE) to the plan, we always think about some ratios but not others? For example, most people think: Boom! Then we're going to need: * 2/3rds of an sales consultant (SC) * 1/3rd of a sales
Marketing
Years ago, I was in a board meeting and a VC dropped the expression: "you can't eat IRR." I'd never heard it before. It sounded catchy. But, honestly, I didn't know what it meant. At first, I thought it was VC-ism. But
Boards
So, you're on the executive staff of a startup and you've been asked to present at an upcoming board meeting. That's great news. Board exposure is a key benefit of working on the e-staff. You’re getting the chance to build relationships with the
Branding
I’m late with this year’s predictions post because I’ve discovered that writing while recovering from knee surgery, zonked on painkillers, is a surprisingly difficult endeavor. Onward, through the fog. And apologies for the delay. I’m always humbled by the act of making predictions. A few months
Boards
A critical part of the CEO's job is realizing when it's time to sell the company. I'm not talking about the easy cases, like when you're in year five of running a PE-backed company, and the numbers suggest an exit that produces
Competition
Of all the dime-store clichés that pass for business strategy, the one I hate the most is, "run your own race." Why? * As a quote from the winner, it's almost always survivor bias. "How'd I win? Well, I ran my own race."
Boards
Since many of you are in the midst of presenting your annual marketing budgets to your CEO, CFO, and board, I thought I'd write a quick post to remind people what board members actually care about when it comes to the marketing budget. I understand that, in the
AI
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve joined the board of Techwolf, a Belgian HR tech company backed by a slew of top venture capital investors including Harry Stebbings' 20VC, Future of Work boutique Acadian Ventures, vertically-focused SemperVirens, and European-focused Felix Capital, Notion, and Stride.vc. They also