Let’s Take the Cult out of Silicon Valley Culture
I am big believer in strong corporate cultures. Culture can be used to set powerful norms. Culture can bind people in an organization to a common set of values bigger than their quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs). Culture helps attracts the right people to your organization – and can drive out the wrong ones […]
Slides from My SaaStr Annual 2019 Presentation (5 Questions CEOs Struggle With)
Thanks to everyone who attended my session yesterday at the amazing — and huge — SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose. In this post, I’ll share the slides from my presentation, Five Questions SaaS CEOs Wrestle With (and some thoughts on how to answer them). The folks at SaaStr recorded the session, so at […]
SaaStr 2019 Presentation Preview: Five Questions SaaS CEO Wrestle With
I’m super excited for the upcoming SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose from February 5th through the 7th at the San Jose Convention Center. I hope to see you there — particularly for my session from 10:00 to 10:30 on Tuesday, February 5th. Last year they ended up repeating my session but that won’t be […]
Two Natural Reactions That Great Managers Suppress
Most employees tolerate their managers more than love them. According to a year-old survey in Forbes: Only about 50% of employees say the boss values their opinion. Only 35% of employees feel inspired by their boss. Some 25% say they can do a better job than their boss does. Almost 20% say that their boss […]
Not in My Kitchen, You Don’t: Leaders as Norm Setters
There are two types of restaurants: those where it’s acceptable for a cook to pickup dropped food and serve it, and those where it’s not. Sure, when asked, everyone would say it’s unacceptable to serve dropped food in their kitchen. But is that how their kitchen actually runs? One of my favorite definitions of culture […]
A Simple Trick To Get Your CEO Closer to Your Team
Startup VPs sometimes lament that their CEOs don’t really know the people on their teams, don’t realize how smart and talented they are, or fully appreciate the value of their teams’ work. How, they wonder, can they build a better bridge between their boss and their teams? The answer is simple: invite the CEO to […]
Seven Books Not To Give the Boss for Christmas*
Well, when you run a company focused on corporate finance, you don’t get a lot of Holiday Party scandals. At Host’s very nice 2018 Holiday Party the closest thing we had was an employee conversing with me about books (Bad Blood) and then wholeheartedly suggesting that I just had to read another book, Drive — which, […]
Lost and Founder: A Painful Yet Valuable Read
Some books are almost too honest. Some books give you too much information (TMI). Some books can be hard to read at times. Lost and Founder is all three. But it’s one of the best looks I’ve seen when it comes to giving the reader a realistic look at the inside of Silicon Valley startups. […]
How To Sales Manage Upside and Unlikely Deals
If your sales organization is like most, you classify sales opportunities in about four categories, such as: Commit, which are 90% likely to close Forecast, which are 70% likely to close Upside, which are 33% likely to close Unlikely, which are 5% likely to close And then, provided you have sufficient pipeline, your sales management […]
The Two Engines of SaaS: QCRs and DEVs
I remember one day, years ago, when I was a VP at $10M startup and Larry, the head of sales, came in one day handing out t-shirts that said: “Code, sell, or get out of the way.” Neither I, nor the rest of marketing team, took this particularly well because the shirt obviously devalued the […]
