CEO
I talked to a founder a while back who felt like they'd lost a year or two thanks to some strategic distractions foisted upon them by a well-meaning board of directors. While most startup boards try to follow the Hippocratic Oath, some -- like well-meaning but overbearing parents
CEO
I've always felt that "what keeps you up at night?" was a trick question for CEOs. There's one part of it I'm quite sure about. There cannot be anything that you control that keeps you up at night. Why? Because you'
Boards
Have you ever been to a board meeting where 60 minutes were allocated on the agenda for discussion of a strategic topic? What happened in that session? * You probably started late because board meetings are hard to keep on time. * Some exec, maybe the CEO, probably presented a "few
Marketing
With angel and seed money flowing, and a great environment for company creation, I've been talking to a lot of seed-stage and pre-seed stage startups of late. They often ask me about positioning. Listening to myself talk, I realized that I didn't really sound like me,
Management
Some friends wonder why, as someone who considers himself a strategist, I care so much about execution. Is it because I'm a perfectionist? Well yes, but that's only one reason (and perfectionism is a weakness [1] in business, not a strength). Is it because I like
Databases
Well it's time for my annual predictions post, a series now in its eighth year. Before diving in, let me remind readers that I do these predictions in the spirit of fun, they are not business or investment advice, and that all of my usual disclaimers and terms
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
Management
Say you're a $40M SaaS business growing at 40%. Is that good? Is that bad? How do you know? In this post, we'll take a quick look at three lenses you should look through in considering this question. * The plan lens * The benchmark lens * The market
Management
Please join me on October 13th at SaaStock EMEA, a free European SaaS event, for my presentation entitled "How to Make a Marketing Machine" on October 13th at 9:05 am PT (6:05 pm CET). While west coasters will have to wake-up early to attend some of
SaaS
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be joining Balderton Capital on a part-time basis to work with the firm and its portfolio companies on topics related to enterprise software, strategy, go-to-market, marketing, and SaaS metrics. You know, my usual stuff. In addition, I expect to do some more
Boards
There's only one executive who should ever say, "the board brought me in," and that is the chief executive officer (CEO). Yet, you'd be surprised how often you hear other executives -- chief revenue officers (CROs), chief marketing officers (CMOs), chief product officers (CPOs)