“The New Stack” for a modern enterprise: A TechCrunch Enterprise Video Interview
The fabulous Alex Williams of The New Stack had a bunch of us on a panel at TechCrunch Enterprise to discuss the new tech that makes up the modern digital stack: 1. Frederic Lardinois / writer and news editor / TechCrunch 2. Katherine Boyle / Principal / General Catalyst 3. Melissa Pancoast / founder and CEO […]
What really is Product Marketing?
On the heels of this post about What Really is Go-To-Market?, I have had a ton of discussions about the constant tussle between product management and product marketing, especially at later stage growth businesses or divisional teams at large companies. Between Kahuna (startup) and at SuccessFactors/SAP as GM (ginormous largeco) I’ve seen this play out […]
What really is “Go-to-Market”?
The single most bastardized, watered-down term in the business of enterprise tech is “Go-to-Market”. Go-to-Market (GTM) gets bandied about as the cure-all to everything from missing 2 sequential quarters to losing critical deals to a single competitor, to seeing a tepid uptick in demand, to my least favorite – a one-time effort to coordinate activities […]
SaaS Product-Market fit fools you into thinking that growth will come
Mark Andreessen coined the term product-market fit, defined as being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. Whilst getting to product market fit is job #1 for a CEO at the early stages, product market fit alone leaves gaps that you need to fill to drive sales velocity. There are some fabulous perspectives about these gaps already. Brian Balfour […]
Do these five things to get badass BD SaaS partnerships done
Last year, Jeff Clavier asked me to present at Uncork Capital’s (formerly SoftTech VC) CEO summit on how to do BD deals with large software companies. I was then CEO of an Uncork portfolio company, but the content here draws on my prior experience as GM at largeco (in this case, SuccessFactors/SAP) when I was […]
These 4 terms will kill your SaaS business
A giant caveat: this post is focused on high growth SaaS. Not on mature businesses where you are trying to coordinate the build, sale and adoption of a large portfolio of products. In the world of high growth SaaS, all too often we tend to believe that it is our functional or technical inferiority that will […]
A wartime Customer Success SaaS Leader has these five attributes
Dave Kellogg wrote a solid post about the three types of Customer Success Managers. Contrasting them as product-oriented, process-oriented or sales-oriented, it’s a much-needed primer at a time where the vocation of Customer Success is still nascent. Dave’s post got me thinking that there is also a need to contrast happy time vs war time CS leaders. During […]
Combining functions in a SaaS business is a terrible idea
Ok, here is the punch line: No two SaaS functions should be coupled together. Any combination forces conflicts of interest and while you and the board are busy charting out your world domination strategy, this dysfunctional org design will eat the company from the inside out. The long form: Combining Product and Engineering Why it’s a […]
Kahuna announces a purpose-built SaaS solution for Digital Marketplaces
Five full quarters in the seat at Kahuna and with many many customer co-development hours to show for It, I’m thrilled to publicly share Kahuna’s forward focus. I’m stoked to announce a SaaS platform specifically for marketplaces that helps retain buyers and sellers, and connect them to drive liquidity. Unlike most marketing systems that focus […]
Announcing Demandfest – a SaaS marketing summit for practitioners, by practitioners
B2B Marketing for high-growth companies is hard: marketers are expected to find that magic bullet that drives sales velocity, with limited chips and a fail-fast but not-often, ethos. My bestie Jeff Nolan, Venture Capitalist-turned marketing operator and I have put our heads together over the years to cook the most complex, elaborate menus. And so […]
