Dave Kellogg
Technology executive, angel investor, independent director, adviser, and blogger. Formerly CEO of Host Analytics and MarkLogic, CMO of Business Objects and Versant, and independent director of Aster Data, Granular. Currently independent director of Alation and Nuxeo
Why Every Startup Needs an Inverted Demand Generation Funnel, Part II
In the previous post, I introduced the idea of an inverted demand generation (demandgen) funnel which we can use to calculate a marketing demandgen budget based given a sales target, an average sales price (ASP), and a set of conversion rates along the funnel. This is a handy tool, isn’t hard to make, and will […]
Why Every Startup Needs an Inverted Demand Generation Funnel, Part I
Does my company spend too much on marketing? Too little? How I do know? What is the right level of marketing spend at an enterprise software startup? I get asked these questions all the time by startup CEOs, CMOs, marketing VPs, and marketing directors. You can turn to financial benchmarks, like the KeyBanc Annual SaaS […]
Should SDRs Report to Sales or Marketing?
Slowly and steadily, over the past decade, the industry has evolved from a mentality of “all salesreps must do everything” – including some percent of their time prospecting — to one of specialization. We, with the help of books like Predictable Revenue, have collectively decided that in-bound lead processing is different from outbound lead prospecting […]
A Historical Perspective on Why SAL and SQL Appear to be Defined Backwards
Most startups today use some variation on the now fairly standard terms SAL (sales accepted lead) and SQL (sales qualified lead). Below see the classic [1] lead funnel model from marketing bellwether Sirius Decisions that defines this. One great thing about working as an independent board member and consultant is that you get to work […]
Summary of the 4Q14 Fenwick & West VC Survey
Because I was reading it and had a minute, I thought I’d do a quick post summarizing the 4Q14 Fenwick & West Silicon Valley Venture Capital Survey (PDF). As the name indicates, this is an ongoing quarterly survey on the state of venture capital that pulls from many sources, integrating lots of data into a single […]
Managing the Fundamental Tension in Marketing
Say you’ve got a new product release. You’re super excited about your app’s new Feature X. It’s very innovative. Product marketing sees it as long-needed differentiator. Sales sees it as a silver bullet: “with Feature X, our competition is screwed.” Everyone’s excited. Then it happens. A regional sales VP says, “Hey, marketing, we’ve got a do […]
Kellblog Ten Predictions for 2015
As we move into the fourth week of January, I figured it was “now or never” in terms of getting a set of predictions out for 2015. Before jumping into that, let’s take a quick review of how I did with my 2014 predictions and do some self-grading. 2014 to be a good year in Silicon […]
Some High-Tech Career Counseling Tips
I get a fair number of emails and calls from former colleagues and friends asking for career advice. I’m always happy to provide it and the process of doing so is both thought-provoking and fun. I have a learned a lot from having these conversations and have noticed a few patterns and principles in that […]
A Review of SalesHood by Elay Cohen
I recently completed SalesHood by my former Salesforce colleague Elay Cohen and wanted to do a quick book review in this post. Net/net: I think SalesHood, along with Predictable Revenue (by another former Salesforce leader Aaron Ross) are two of the best books out there on contemporary business-to-business high-technology sales. Between these two books, you can […]
CFOs: More Strategic Than Ever
I was digging through my reading pile and found this about nine-month-old report by Accenture and Oracle entitled The CFO as Corporate Strategist by Donniel Schulman and David Axson of Accenture. Those who follow Host Analytics might remember David Axson at several of our user conferences. (Note: the 2015 conference is May 18-21 — save the date!) […]
