Jul 2022, 27
Have We Reached Peak “Downturn Thought-Leadership” Yet?
OMFG, I certainly do hope so.
If I hear or read another “how to do ‘X’ in a downturn,” I’m gonna puke.
Jul 2022, 20
What’s The Cost Of Implementing A Product-Led Motion?
Smart question to ask. These days, everybody and their cousin are talking about having a Product-Led motion or being a Product-Led company.
Everybody and their cousin are also talking about the benefits of having/being one: how it lowers cost of acquisition, how most of the top-of-mind companies of the hour have it, how it’s the best way to go, and if you don’t have one you’re a dinosaur on its way to extinction.
Except: everybody and their cousin are leaving out one itty-bitty detail, either because they don’t actually know about it or because they are incentivized (in some direct or indirect way) to actually push it under the rug.
Jul 2022, 18
A Tool is Worthless Without a Craftsman
Far too often, I’ve started a new role and immediately been thrust into a significant technology migration. The litany of reasons for such a major endeavour is long and often transposable from one organization to another.
More often than not, the justification is encapsulated in a broad generalization like “we’ve outgrown the platform” or “it’s such a mess we should just start over.”
Have a hot take you’d like to see published? 🌶️
Write it down in 250-350 words, fill out the form below, and let us know.
Jun 2022, 13
Don’t contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy
The outlook from industry pundits across VC, PE, and public markets seems overwhelmingly bearish.
I get it; many of the typical leading indicators are in bear country.
May 2022, 12
I bet you don’t know you have a Sales Prevention Department
So I was recently at the Forrester B2B summit in Austin and had a blast! It was an excellent opportunity to focus on new thinking in the B2B space, check out the latest and greatest vendors, and reconnect with old friends.
However, it was also an eye-opening experience as I experienced the sales prevention department of several companies in action.
Apr 2022, 22
Reducing Platform Dependency is Overrated
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or starve to death.
Every morning across the world, a founder wakes up. They’ll receive an email from an investor recommending reducing dependency on some platform. Every morning an investor wakes up. They know they’ll have to invest in some company with strong platform dependency.
As much as everyone would love not to depend on someone’s else platform, the reality is that there’s only one way to have zero external dependencies: becoming so big that you are a platform.
Have a hot take you’d like to see published? 🌶️
Write it down in 250-350 words, fill out the form below, and let us know.
Apr 2022, 20
How should I think about revenue modeling for my company?
I found myself in a heated discussion earlier this week. The big contentious issue: which direction should the company go?
Now, it’s hard to make informed strategic decisions if you don’t really have a decision framework around it.
Plus: at a strategic level, it’s always about too many opportunities available and never enough resources to go around.
Apr 2022, 18
Does “wisdom” get in the way of innovation?
In the last two years, I’ve been having many conversations where the build vs. buy debate is the crux. Like many conversations, perhaps the challenge lies in a lack of nuance or discrepancy in definitions.
However, there is a clear relationship between tenure and perspective on this issue. Fewer years of experience will favor building over buying and vice versa for more tenured professionals.
Since I’ve been around the block a few times, I have some inherent bias regarding this topic.
Apr 2022, 15
There’s a trove of revenue hiding in your most boring pages
Most funnels and websites are filled with “service” pages that could have a high revenue impact but are completely neglected by marketers.
Thank you pages and unsubscribe pages are the most common ones.
Have a hot take you’d like to see published? 🌶️
Write it down in 250-350 words, fill out the form below, and let us know.
Mar 2022, 30
How should I think about pricing and packaging in a smart way?
Pricing & Packaging is such a critical part of every company’s GTM (or go-to-market), you could argue that any company at its very core has two existential imperatives.
First: it needs to be able to deliver value to a group of customers (which implies being able to define and reach them effectively). Second: it needs to be able to extract a portion of that value for itself.
Mar 2022, 29
Now That You Have Big Data, It’s Time to Talk About Smart Data
Big Data has been one of the major buzzwords of the last 5 years.
Everyone rushed to build all the required infrastructure to support them: CDP, ETL, reverse ETL, data warehouses, and plugging them across their stacks.
Great companies like Snowflake, Segment, and Fivetran flourished in this period helping customers gather, route, synchronize, and store the huge amounts of data that was being generated all across the funnel, from the first touchpoint with a user down to their whole customer journey.
That’s great. I love data-driven companies and I think, at least in the tech space, it’s time to call the Big Data war won. Most companies nowadays have a horde of data about their prospects and customers.
So…has the time come for celebrations?
Well, no.