The Journey to the Billion Dollar Exit with ServiceMax and Emergence Capital (Video + Transcript)
Hear how Dave Yarnold, CEO of ServiceMax, in partnership with Jason Green, General Partner and Founder at Emergence Capital, navigated the challenges that every CEO faces when building a billion dollar business. Also, don’t miss out on SaaStr Annual happening in less than one month!. FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW Dave Yarnold– CEO of ServiceMax Jason […]
Why Culture is a Key Criterion for Raising Capital and Driving Growth with Idinvest partners (Video + Transcript)
What are you doing to build and maintain the culture in your startup? Or has culture been put on the backburner as you have scaled? Well, it’s time to put culture at the forefront of your startup if you are looking for more funding in 2019. Jonathan Userovici, VC at Idinvest Partners, talks about culture […]
Building Great SaaS Companies Everywhere with SaaStr and Point Nine Capital (Video + Transcript)
Jason Lemkin, Founder & CEO at SaaStr and Christoph Janz, Partner at Point Nine Capital, had an opening session at SaaStr Europe earlier this year. They talk about the state of SaaS, pros and cons of SF vs Europe and more. Also, if you didn’t attend SaaStr Europa, we’re doing it bigger and better in […]
From Burn-Out to $100M in ARR with Jason Cohen of WP Engine (Video + Transcript)
Metrics are important, but so is making the tough, gut-wrenching decision to part ways with a key employee. Product strategy is important, but a fixation on the competition is counter-productive. A successful exit can set you up financially, but how do you avoid the fate of (statistically) the majority of founders who become sad and […]
The Importance of Teams and Why the Best Leaders Cultivate Them
I was watching my favorite show on TV this morning – GPS (Global Public Square) with Fareed Zakaria. It is a hugely compelling show because Zakaria covers world issues that will affect all of us in ways that are accessible and with frameworks for processing disparate information. He brings knowledgable experts from varying points of […]
Some Thoughts on Leadership Going into 2016
Having time to think about “leadership” at most startups feels like a luxury. It feels like something you could turn your attention to once you have tens of millions of dollars and a large staff to run operations and you could step back from it all and think about how to lead. The reality of […]
Stay Focused on Your Goals Not Your Critics
I came off of a few tough weeks at work. In part that’s why you’ve heard less from me recently. I had some good days and bad days like most of you. I had a very big negative surprise which I’ve mostly worked through but will take time. And I’ve had some good moments, too, […]
How Do You Know if You Have the Right CEO to Run Your Business Until the End?
Many people don’t know that I actually became Chairman of my first company and relinquishing the CEO role before the company was sold. It’s a topic I’m well versed in personally and I understand the difficult emotional decision of whether to hand the reigns to someone else of the baby you’ve struggled so hard to […]
Some Career Advice for Aspiring Tech CEOs
You’ve never been a CEO but might like to be one some day. But how? Nobody sees you as a CEO since you’ve never been one? I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “personal branding.” If you don’t create the […]
How to Deliver More Software Projects On Time
There’s an old joke in software development, “How much time does it take to design software?” Answer: As long as you have scheduled for the design phase. I know. Not funny, “ha, ha” but pretty apropos. If you’ve been involved with a number of software projects you already have an intuitive sense for this. We’ve […]
One of My Most Frequent Pieces of Advice: Be Politely Persistent
One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you “no.” But then again most entrepreneurs fail. There is that rare breed that doesn’t accept “no” for an answer. It is impossible advice to give because there is such a fine line between being […]
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Peyton Manning
I’m not a huge football fan. But I do marvel at the drama of professional football. In particular, I admire what Peyton Manning has done for the Broncos the past two years. His individual contributions are well documented. But what I’ve been most impressed by is the positive impact he seems to have had on the […]
Lead, Follow, Or Get Out Of The Way
If you have been following this blog you would know that I mainly blog about enterprise software, cloud, and big data with a few occasional posts on design and design thinking. That’s what I am most passionate about. Having spent my entire career building enterprise software I have realized that success and competitive differentiation in […]
Marissa Mayer and Yahoo’s telecommuting policy: Right motivation, wrong execution
When Yahoo! hired Marissa Mayer, I supported the move, believing that the board needed to shake things up, and that given the dismal state of the business, Mayer was probably a better candidate than they could ever have expected to attract. I also supported the move on Mayer’s part; she wasn’t ever going to become […]
2B or Not 2B
I have worked the majority of my career from various executive suites. As a part of senior management I see many corporate leaders. I am unusual in that much of my early career was not climbing the corporate ladder through successive management ranks. I was an engineer who was happy doing engineering until some unusual […]
