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
Kellblog’s 10 Predictions for 2020
As I’ve been doing every year since 2014, I thought I’d take some time to write some predictions for 2020, but not without first doing a review of my predictions for 2019. Lest you take any of these too seriously, I suggest you look at my batting average and disclaimers. Kellblog 2019 Predictions Review 1. […]
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!) […]
It Ain’t Easy Making Money in Open Source: Thoughts on the Hortonworks S-1
It took me a week or so to get to it, but in this post, I’ll take a dive into the Hortonworks S-1 filing in support of a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of their stock. While Hadoop and big data are unarguably huge trends driving the industry and while the future of Hadoop looks very bright indeed, […]
Don’t Be a Metrics Slave
I love metrics. I live for metrics. Every week and every quarter I drown my team in metrics reviews. Why? Because metrics are the instrumentation — the flight panel — of our business. Good metrics provide clear insights. They cut through politics, spin, and haze. They spark amazing debates. They help you understand your business […]
Churn: Net-First or Sum-First?
While I’ve already done a comprehensive post on the subject of churn in SaaS companies and some perils in how companies analyze it, in talking with fellow SaaS metrics lovers of late, I’ve discovered a new problem that isn’t addressed by my posts. The question? When calculating churn, should you sum first (adding up all the […]
