Rahul Abhyankar

🔑 The Power of a Written Exercise in Interviewing Revenue Leaders 📝 Hiring the right revenue leader can make or break an organization. As we search for smart folks to drive our revenue growth at Vanta, one approach has consistently proven to be a game-changer: the written exercise. 🔍 Why a Written Exercise? Clarity of Thought: A well designed exercise reveals a candidate's ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and concisely. This skill is vital for revenue leaders who must communicate strategies across diverse teams and stakeholders. Strategic Insight: Through real-world scenarios, candidates demonstrate their strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities. This helps us gauge their approach to challenges and opportunities unique to our business. Analytical Prowess: Written exercises allow candidates to showcase their analytical skills. By dissecting data and presenting actionable insights, we can see how they drive decisions that lead to growth. Cultural Fit: How a candidate approaches a written task can also give us a glimpse into their work ethic, attention to detail, and alignment with our company values and culture. Elliot Goldwater has really nailed this practice, and it's incredible how much the exercise can swing a process towards or away from a candidate. 👥 Have you implemented written exercises in your hiring process? What has been your experience? #RevenueGrowth #Leadership #HiringTrends #Interviewing #TalentAcquisition #Strategy

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The acquisition game is very different from 10 years ago now that 70% of SaaS acquisitions are led by private equity investors or PE-owned strategic buyers. Most SaaS founders aren't thinking about the new realities of eventually selling their SaaS companies. It's very different than the old days of "sell it for big multiples to a strategic buyer, cash out, and see ya later." Here are 5 questions for founders to consider the new realities of a potential PE-backed exit: 1) Is my company built to keep growing efficiently after I sell it? - Your SaaS metrics need to be healthy. Growing steadily with efficient CAC and solid revenue retention - You need a business that runs without you, the founder. - And you will still be responsible for fixing the problems in your business. 2) Would I invest in the new company with my hard-earned equity or cash? PE buyers don't cash you out of 100% of your equity, just a partial "first bite of the apple" prize. They buy a minority or majority of your company, so you become the major private investor in the acquiring business. This is not an earn-out. You now own shares in a new company that you don't control. You must be confident enough in the new owners, operators, culture, and vision to invest 20-60% of your hard-earned equity in this new venture. 2) Why will this acquisition work to build and sell a much bigger company? Most old-style mergers and acquisitions didn't work for either side. In this new world, founders need to find the right owner/partner with the right strategy and team to ensure their hard-earned equity pays off on their "2nd bite of the apple" when it is sold again. Founders should also do deep due diligence on their acquiring PE investors, not just pitch themselves for "sale" to any takers. 3) Do I trust the new owners and operators to do the right things? Most founders don't stay on as CEOs when they sell to PE buyers. Someone else owns your business (PEs), and they have CEOs who will run the business their way. 90% of founder-CEOs who sell to PE end up as board members with the ability to make suggestions to the new leaders. That's it. You must trust the people and their approach to your business and your precious equity. 4) How will things change now that I'm not the CEO? Maybe you continue running the business as a CEO with new owners for a while, but eventually, you won't be there. Now what? How do you spend your time now that you're only an involved board member? This is very jarring for most former CEOs, so it's worth considering before selling. 5) How will things change now that I have money? The biggest reason to sell a major part of your healthy SaaS business is to take some chips off the table and win a major cash prize. You invested 5-15 years in this business and probably some of your own cash. Now what? Will your life change a little or a lot? It's a whole new world for successful SaaS founders when they sell to PE buyers. #practicalfounders

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90+% of CIOs believe they have a value perception problem and that this will make it harder for them to get budget to invest in 2025. This is why it is imperative as a seller to not only prove the value of your product/service but to help prospect/customer stakeholders prove the value of their department.  Article in first comment.

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Data is irrefutable, but the insights are debatable. Getting from Seed to Series A is not hard; it's excruciatingly painful. All of the following need to be in place: 1. Found strong evidence of PMF within your core customer segment 2. Figured out GTM strategy and distribution channels. 3. Effectively allocated capital for growth whilst reserving capital to raise a new round 4. Build a smooth enough operation that allows you to step aside from your organization to go raise capital. 5. Execute a flawless fundraising process that you are doing for the (statistically) first time in your life 6. Assemble a strong team without the proper resources in a highly competitive talent market. But Marcial, look! Graduation rates went from 37% to 12%. - 37% is high because a "small" pool of Seed Rounds got Series As during the bull market frenzy. These companies will struggle with their Series Bs. - 12% is low because of the huge volume of Seed rounds completed in Q4'21 and Q1'22, which will not amount to anything. If I had a message to entrepreneurs: Building a massive tech company remains similarly as difficult as previous vintages. Money will continue to flow to companies with signals that they are building the 'next big thing'. Do not misread the data thinking, "now it's harder, so I'll avoid raising", because if you are building an outlier company, you shouldn't be concerned with averages. Disclaimer: I haven't built shit yet, so not speaking from experience.

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As we explore a seed round of VC funding for Avnir, a mentor has driven into me to "interview them as much as they'll do their due diligence on you!" When I consider professional etiquette important to me (and probably every serious founder), I am reminded of what I've coached hundreds of executives on over the past two decades: "Your culture is a culmination of behaviors you're willing to tolerate!" So, here is a Top 10 List of Professional Etiquette crucial to long-term strategic relationships between VCs and founders: 1️⃣ Respect for Time—Punctuality, Efficient Communication, and Timely Feedforward are demonstrated and genuinely felt. We would both rather me invest time in building the business. 2️⃣ Transparency—Clear Expectations, Honest Feedforward, and Disclosures on conflicts of interest or resource limitations save everyone unnecessarily wasted cycles! 3️⃣ Professionalism—Politeness, Confidentiality, and Objective Evaluation allow courteous interactions, respect for proprietary information, and avoiding bias in evaluating the founder's meritocracy. 4️⃣ Empathy—Understanding the Journey and Constructive Dialogue acknowledge the uphill battle founders face while avoiding unnecessary criticism and providing supportive guidance, demonstrating a genuine interest in their vision. 5️⃣ Integrity—Fair Terms, Follow Through, and Avoiding Overpromising honor commitments during discussions, and create realistic expectations from the relationship. 6️⃣ Co-Creation—Value-adding Mindset and Team Player Attitude accelerate the founder's ability to gain traction and position the VC relationship as transformational vs. simply transactional. 7️⃣ Humility—Avoiding Arrogance, Condescension, and Open-Mindedness acknowledges that both parties have unique expertise to add and enhance the receptivity to unconventional ideas, approaches, and perspectives. 8️⃣ Listening Louder—Present, Engaged, and Clarity of Intent eliminates distractions, brings out what's not being said, and jointly crafts better questions to help uncover the unknown and the undiscovered. 9️⃣ Encouraging—Supportive Communication, Positive Reinforcement, and Inspiration help celebrate small wins and key milestone achievements. It's ideal to light a fire within the relationship rather than under anyone, which seldom lasts! 🔟 Playing the Long Game—Relationship Nurturing and Post-Investment Care establishes the runway for a lasting partnership rather than simply pitching a deck and closing a deal. After the investment decision, sustaining the relationship will determine the partnership's long-term perspective. Jason M. Lemkin, Peter Bell, Cassie Young, and Ed Sim - you exemplify world-class in the relationships you build with your founders. Did I miss anything? #VCFounderRelationship #AlignedExpectations #RelationshipsMatterMoreThanEver

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Why do some marketing teams perform a LOT better than others in the same space? I have asked myself this question for 9 years now & met 1000+ executives (by no stretch of imagination) and here’s my list to do date : GTM teams that are in the “old paradigm” still do things like: - Scan leads - Gate content and measure “ebook downloads” - Measure ALL traffic on the site - Write 100 useless SEO articles that only bots read - Measure “chat conversations’ that never convert - Send the same semi-mediocre cadence that starts with “hope this finds you well” - Consider their audience to be “certain titles” at “large companies” Not that these things are WRONG but that’s not what moves the needle The better marketers AUGMENT their thinking of the above with - Precision in their ICP, and Target accounts. Can tell you precisely which firmographics close and which are the titles most often included on the deals won - Measures the educational value of ungated content and knows how to target precisely their ICP even when it comes to their paid channels. Example: - This “Ten ways to measure pipeline” can be shown on Facebook to Senior Rev Ops at Account that uses Salesforce, has more than 200 sales reps, is in US, Has more than x traffic, and has paid campaigns running ) - Dig deeper into channels to see which ones are converting and WHY - Even more, they look into conversion rates and create actions to improve demand conversion rates - Those that track Intermediary channel metrics are already on their way ! - Figure out what drives the direct channel attribution via self-reporting + Gong tracking or with smart attribution tools - Have figured out how to tap into authentic (! and this word is key) content generation with social influencers - Are not afraid to do SCARY THINGS Would be curious what else you’d add to the list ?

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Key takeaways from VC Goat - Vinod Khosla podcast. - The firm cares more about working on interesting problems with large technical solutions rather than just maximizing IRR. The team is there because they believe in the mission. - Khosla assumes they've lost the money the day they invest, and then maximizes for the upside opportunity. He calls it "option value investing" rather than IRR investing. - Khosla has contrarian bets in AI (neuro-symbolic computing, probabilistic approaches), biotech, robotics, crypto, and more. - He believes aviation fuels, fusion energy, new transit systems, and other contrarian areas ignored by most investors will be huge opportunities. - Most large innovations come from outsiders, not industry insiders. Khosla looks for founders who can learn a business rapidly rather than have deep domain expertise. The Future Impact of AI - AI will be deflationary and increase productivity growth to 4% annually vs the typical 2% forecast. This will cause great abundance but also increasing income inequality. - Bipedal robots will take over most manufacturing and manual labor jobs within 20-25 years. This will free humans to be more creative and pursue their passions. - Education will shift from job training to creativity. Uniquely human elements like taste and curation will be most valued in an AI-enabled world. https://lnkd.in/gqBsmbks

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Choosing the wrong growth model can sink your SaaS business. And that's a mistake you can't afford to make. So, how do you pick the right one? Here are five growth models to consider: 1. Product-Led Growth (PLG) - Users experience value quickly. - Scalable with low-touch acquisition. - Best for strong product-market fit targeting SMBs. 2. Enterprise Sales - Direct selling to large organizations. - High-revenue, personalized solutions. - Ideal for high-value products needing hands-on sales. 3. Freemium Model - Basic version free, paid tiers for more. - Drives quick adoption. - Great for scaling with a clear upgrade path. 4. Channel Sales - Use partners or resellers to expand reach. - Leverages others' networks. - Good for scaling without a large sales team. 5. Hybrid Model - Combines multiple strategies. -Flexibility to target various segments. - Balances low-touch and high-touch approaches. Choosing isn't easy. But aligning your growth model with your product and market is a game-changer. So, which one fits you business? #BrainDumps | BrainDump #106

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Product-Market Fit and Trust: Why the CEO and the rest of the C-Suite Must Rally Behind the CMO Last week, I shared in a post (https://lnkd.in/gV-tuPRP) a matrix exploring the critical relationship between Product-Market Fit (PMF) and Trust in B2B. These are two fundamental aspects at the core of marketing's mission. Today, I'm highlighting why these CMO-led initiatives demand active support from CEOs and the entire C-suite. A new report from CMO Huddles, "Underground Recession: The Hidden Strain on B2B CMOs" (https://lnkd.in/gTR7qb8C), shows tough realities like budget cuts and longer deal cycles. These symptoms point to deeper, strategic marketing challenges that impact the entire organization. My hypothesis is that B2B companies are struggling with foundational marketing challenges in PMF and/or customer trust. Here's why: ► Profitability Shift - "Growth at all costs" to sustainable profitability requires reassessing PMF. ► Evolving Buyer Expectations - B2B buyers prefer known entities and peer recommendations. ► AI Innovation - Rapid tech advancements need company-wide support, especially addressing data privacy concerns. Remember that just as we can't out-exercise a bad diet, we can't out-campaign a bad product-market fit. C-suite leaders must rally behind marketing to address PMF and trust-building. No company is immune; even tech giants are reassessing. Some key reasons to revisit PMF include: ► AI Integration ► Upmarket Expansion ► Augmenting with Product-Led Growth ► Regulatory Changes ► Post-Pandemic Market Evolution Marketing leaders are driving these critical conversations but need full C-suite engagement. The PMF and Trust matrix illustrates marketing's strategic impact on the entire business. Where does your company truly stand on PMF and Trust? How is your entire C-suite collaborating with marketing to adapt to these seismic B2B shifts? Note: I built the dynamic product-market fit vs trust matrix below using natural language with Claude Sonnet 3.5 artifacts. #MarketingStrategy #ProductMarketFit #CustomerTrust #AI #CMO GrowthPath Partners

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PE - How to Use AI to Unlock Growth in Portfolio Companies All PE firms and portfolio companies should be thinking about unlocking GTM and growth via AI (i.e. not merely ChatGPT or other LLMs but actually implementing apps that are "AI Agents"). 1. What are "AI Agents"? - AI agents are autonomous systems powered by ML and natural language processing, designed to perform tasks with minimal human intervention - They can interpret data, determine the workflow & direction (i.e. make decisions), and execute actions across various functions, continuously improving through self-learning 2. Examples of using AI Agents in PE portfolio companies: - For Sales: AI agents handle lead qualification, respond to inquiries, book meetings, and provide personalized product recommendations, ensuring no opportunities are missed - For Marketing: Generate campaign briefs, segment audiences, create tailored content, and analyze performance to optimize outreach efforts - For Customer Success & Support: Provide 24/7 support, resolve customer issues autonomously, escalate complex cases to human agents with full context, and ensure consistent, brand-aligned responses 3. How PE portfolio companies benefit: - Efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks, enabling teams to focus on high-value activities - Scalability: Handle growing customer volumes without increasing headcount - Personalization: Deliver tailored experiences using real-time data insights - $ Cost Savings: Reduce operational costs by streamlining workflows 4. Business Impact for PE Portfolio Companies: - Accelerate GTM Execution: Faster lead conversion, better customer retention, and enhanced marketing ROI - Improve Metrics: Boost Customer NPS, CSAT, and efficiency - Enable Growth: Scale operations seamlessly while improving team productivity. 5. How PE Firms Must Think About Adoption - Define clear portfolio objectives to use AI agents (not just LLMs) - Ensure integration with existing CRM and data systems - Prioritize high-quality data and ongoing performance monitoring - Use AI agents to complement existing GTM teams, focusing them on automation ------------------ #pe #privateequity #investing #ai

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Myths about CMOs ⚫️ They can market ANYTHING ⚫️ Fix churn if product is broken  ⚫️ Can track attribution PERFECTLY ⚫️ They can be the most creative, most stellar in operations, most plugged to AI, most inspirational, most technical, most strategic, most business acumen all at once ⚫️ They can triple the pipeline with half the budget  ⚫️ They can mysteriously get campaigns to work within a week  ⚫️ They can fix bad culture  ⚫️ Can align with all the departments on their own  ⚫️ Can write magical stories that move people to action  ⚫️ Can create community with just a slack group  ⚫️ Can use AI to perfectly message to all their accounts What else am I missing? 

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Avoid Go-to-Market pain (missed targets, cash burn, talent attrition) by: 1) Only going into a market where a competitive advantage can be achieved. - Remember the Powell doctrine, Don't go to war unless there is an agreed upon, clear and obtainable objective. 2) Only going into a market where a profitable outcome can be achieved. - Evaluate pure-play competitors in the market and calculate their ROIC and make sure its above your companies hurdle rate. 3) Only go into a market if it aligns with your valuation strategy/narrative. - Is your company's valuation strategy to achieve: "High Growth at all Costs", "Sustainable Growth", "Market Share growth" to become a bolt-on acquisition, "EBITDA Growth" or do you want to dominate a niche. Shout out to Toni Hohlbein for listing his 14 signs of a GTM-Fit problem. #GTM #SaaS #RevOps #Valuations #Strategy

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Why some SaaS companies 🚩 struggle to grow on cloud marketplaces? These 5 root causes may not be what you expect. 1️⃣ Strategic Cloud GTM Misalignment The most critical blocker isn’t technical—it’s strategic. Many companies treat cloud marketplaces as "just another channel," but success demands a fundamental GTM shift. Winning in cloud marketplaces requires embracing a partner-led, customer-centric, consumption-focused model where you align with the cloud provider’s priorities—not the other way around. You’re entering ecosystems of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud as their partner, not the reverse. 2️⃣ Cloud & Customer Centricity Gap The "build it and they will come" approach fails spectacularly on marketplaces. Successful ISVs deeply embed themselves in the cloud ecosystem by: Mapping their solution to the cloud provider’s growth areas and strategic initiatives. Understanding how and why customers discover, evaluate, and buy solutions in cloud marketplaces and on each cloud platform. Aligning GTM motions with the cloud provider’s sales cycles and engagement models. 3️⃣ Immature Co-Sell Many SaaS companies struggle with co-sell readiness, held back by ingrained direct sales cultures, concern of conflict (channel/competition) and lack of Cloud GTM understanding. Incentives: Sales teams aren’t motivated (or de-motivated) to collaborate with cloud reps or sell through marketplaces. Value Proposition: SaaS companies fail to articulate how their solution complements the cloud provider’s offerings and drives customer value. Program Knowledge: ISVs often miss out on cloud program benefits because they don’t meet requirements or focus enough on eligibility. 4️⃣ Lack of Alignment and Internal Resistance The most insidious obstacle often comes from within: Siloed Departments: Sales, marketing, product, and finance don’t collaborate effectively, hindering a unified marketplace strategy. Leadership Gaps: Executives may not fully grasp the strategic importance of cloud marketplaces, leading to misaligned priorities or underinvestment. Not leveraging marketplace data and insights and not integrating MP into your sales and company operations 5️⃣ Cloud-Native Product Reality Success on cloud marketplaces goes beyond GTM strategy—your product must also be ready... Ideally its architecture should leverage cloud-native services to enhance consumption and scalability. 📈 What This Means The gap between leaders and laggards in cloud marketplaces is widening. Those who treat Cloud GTM as a transformation, not just another sales/partner channel, are experiencing rapid growth. Others risk being left behind in what’s quickly becoming the largest software distribution channel. 💡 What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve encountered? _________ PS. Accelerate your #growth on #cloud marketplaces with Cloud GTM Leader Course. Last chance to join Cohort 9 starting Jan 14th (tomorrow) - https://lnkd.in/ejc7S4Pb

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The Problem with Customer Feedback Is actually a problem of attention Most startups do customer feedback wrong. They spray generic NPS surveys at all users indiscriminately, getting back 1-4% response rates of mostly shallow data. This feels like doing something, but it's theatrical busy work. The reality is that users who matter most to your business - those about to churn, those who just hit a key milestone, those who could be evangelists - need different questions at different times. And they need to feel heard, not just surveyed. Duonut (UP23) (founded by @ramyabhaskar14) is replacing traditional surveys, they are using GenAI to create contextual conversations with users at moments when feedback actually matters. Duonut adapts follow-up questions in real-time based on responses, much closer to how a founder would actually talk to users. The insight here is that good feedback isn't about asking questions - it's about having the right conversations with the right users at the right time. Most startups don't do this because it hasn't been scalable. Until now. This is the kind of tool I wish existed when we were building our user feedback systems at Upekkha early on. If you're drowning in low-response surveys and shallow feedback, you might want to check them out: https://lnkd.in/gCehKYPE

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What Boards talk about is important, what they don't talk about maybe more so as it has undue influence on outcomes. Reviewing the Sales Model versus just the outcomes creates failure points in scaling. Or, letting the technical debt accumulate to the point of crisis courts disaster. Establishing a cadence of meeting subjects keeps things from being overlooked and unaddressed.

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This Sequoia Capital article is easily the best article I have read on product-market fit. (link below) Its very relevant to (disruptive) deep tech startups, a category I often feel is ignored in these articles. 3️⃣ There's three methods to get to PMF, and the largely depend on the nature of the product and the perception of the market: 🔥Hair on Fire: Customers are acutely aware of the problem and actively looking for solutions. Success hinges on delivering the best-in-class solution through differentiation. [Smartphone market, after the iPhone] 🪨Hard Fact: Customers acknowledge the problem as an inevitable fact of life and haven't actively sought solutions. The challenge lies in convincing them that there's a better way and overcoming inertia. [Uber/ AirBnB] 👀Future Vision: Customers are either unaware of the problem or believe a solution is unrealistic. The entrepreneur needs to create a new paradigm and win over customers to this vision. [Apple iPhone/ OpenAI] Each of these have different approaches, as the nature of problem to be solved is different. 🔥Hair on Fire: Act fast and prioritize a great product with a strong go-to-market strategy, usually with a unique insight, because if its a hair-on-fire problem, there are likely existing competitors. [Rippling, the HR software did it unified HR Database for businesses] 🪨Hard Fact: Educate the market about the problem and how your solution offers a better approach. [Square had to do this to overcome the cash-only mentality] 👀Future Vision: Be prepared for a long journey, focus on attracting top talent, and find strategic pit stops for commercial traction along the way. [Nvidia did this with gaming chipsets] So which type of problem is your startup solving?

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During yesterday's LibreQoS APNIC webinar, I posed the question: won't more bandwidth solve these problems? As Herbert Wolverson said, yes, more bandwidth is good, but, still these problems remain if queueing is done incorrectly. Here's my take on why bandwidth alone is not as good as bandwidth + good queueing policies: Generally it was believed that 'data is important, so don't throw it away; hang on to it and send it later'. In practice, this has proven to be suboptimal as two issues may emerge: 1) latency increases for some flows due to heavy demand from other flows using the same bottleneck link, 2) even a single flow can have excessive latency due to aspects of typical TCP behavior (referred to bufferbloat) when the buffers grew large enough that the data being buffered was retransmitted anyway. It turns out that not all data is equally important. Active Queue Management is the art of deciding priorities, both in deciding what data to throw away, but also in allowing some later arriving data to be transmitted ahead of data in another connection that arrived before it. These problems have been studied, and good solutions have been found by using certain queueing policies in routers and switches, referred to as “fq_codel’ and “cake”. These track the different flows not by classifying the data, but by watching the behavior. Flows that send relatively little data (DNS lookups), or at a measured pace (video chat) have priority over flows that send a lot of data as quickly as possible (App and System updates, Video and ISO downloads).

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All CEOs know revenue target for runway & valuation at next funding round (& CROs their number for equity release / bonus) BUT crazily few think about (& take ownership of) resource allocation to achieve these GTM objectives. Despite 1)Efficient growth & sales productivity being top C-Suite priority 2) Where you play being top controllable determinant of how you win. To maximise revenue growth & margin in your business you must 1) Know what you are doing today that works / doesn't work across sales, marketing and CS: clarity of input and attribution / cause & effect / unit economics of GTM components 2) Learn what you are not doing that is proving successful outside your business that is worth testing / integrating 3) Apply "first principle" and "80/20" thinking to knowledge blocks 1 & 2 4) Re-engineer process with sero-based budgeting to make strategic bets by re-allocating resource to where most likely to get bang for buck within your resource constraints. After 100s of audits I've learned that you can reliably - Cut > 25% of current sales & marketing budget - AND increase revenue growth by > 50% YoY - obviously with better margin / runway / valuation So much of revenue success is - Despite current process / from not following playbook - Accidental as opposed to intentional - Limited by not knowing a) what works and can be scaled / improved b) what doesn't work and can be cut with near zero downside You can't do everything and you don't need to, but you surely must intelligently allocate resource to where you are most likely to win and not dilute resource effectiveness by doing what doesn't work? Too many leaders focus on making what is not effective more efficient, rather than actually leading the change to establish what is effective #ceo #managingdirector #founder #salesleadership CRO Connected RevGenius Pavilion GTMfund Modern Sales Pros

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