Riding with Nutanix from Day Zero
What I learned from angel investing I am the luckiest guy in the world. I met Dheeraj (CEO) during my years at Oracle more than 10 years ago, and Bipul (Board Member) during my years at IIT more than 20 years ago. When Bipul reached out and told me that Dheeraj was building a company, […]
American breaks people
It’s easy to lose sight of people in a CRM discussion by focusing instead on the great technology and what it lets us do under optimum circumstances. But we should always keep the customer in mind for without them what are we? Forgetting the customer is dangerous for both customers and vendors in this social […]
Josh Stein, Partner @ DFJ: What Makes a Great SaaS CEO (Video + Transcript)
As a partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Josh Stein has invested in some of the most well-known SaaS companies in the world like Box and Yammer and spent plenty of time with truly remarkable SaaS CEOs. In this session he and Jason Lemkin sit down and dive into what really makes a great CEO, and how that […]
Aligned to Achieve: A B2B Marketing Classic
Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin’s Aligned to Achieve came out yesterday and it’s a great book on an important and all too often overlooked topic: how to align sales and marketing. I’m adding it to my modern SaaS executive must-read book list, which is now: Aligned to Achieve by Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin Customer Success […]
Accenture Acquires DayNine and positions itself at the forefront of the race for Workday services supremacy
Why do the eyes of HR people always light up when you mention the word “Workday”? Has Workday become the “complete suite” for the HR function, in a similar vein that SAP did with the CIO in the 1990s? Well, judging by the feverish excitement from the leading service providers to scoop up the best […]
“New Owner’s Manual for Twitter Buyers”
Facebook is the most natural buyer. Google is the most strategic buyer. The problem with any company acquiring Twitter is that it must invest resources in managing a company that’s proven near impossible to manage so far. When you apply the lens of management overhead and risk of things falling apart after acquisition, you realize the […]
Lars Nilsson, VP Global Inside Sales @ Cloudera: Targeting the Big Guys: Account Based Sales Development (Video + Transcript)
In anticipation of the upcoming SaaStr Annual 2017, we’ll be releasing the full series of transcripts and videos from all the awesome 2016 sessions. Account-based sales development is the hot new thing with promises of finding targeted leads and pushing your sales performance to levels to dramatically greater heights. That all sounds fabulous, but since we all […]
The Best SaaS Founders Are (Somehow) Indefatigable
There’s now a whole group of companies I’ve invested in, and/or been an advisor/board member or other close relationship with … that are hitting or have recently crossed 4 Years Old. Interestingly, only a few have more ARR than I did 4 years in. But — almost all of them are growing much faster. So […]
Big Conference Attendee Tips — #HRTechConf, #HRTechWorld, #WorkdayRising
It’s that time of year again, and this year I’m scheduled for three major HR technology conferences between now and Halloween. Each is very different, but for me each represents a valuable opportunity to learn, network, visit with old friends, share what I know, and did I mention learn? I’ll have my husband, Ron Wallace, […]
Global Internet of Things Evangelist for SAP
My SAP phone on my SAP laptop I have been recruited into SAP in the role of Global Internet of Things Evangelist starting this month. When I left RedMonk earlier this year, I mentioned that I was talking to a couple of people, but that there was still a window of opportunity for other companies […]
