Ken Holladay

Great post Santosh Sharan 1. If I am reading this correctly, you were in line with what Peter Drucker repeatedly said in classes I was blessed to have taken "Focus on market share and revenue (margins) will follow". 2. I always encourage Startup Clients from Concept through Seed phases: 1. Solid Data Supported Market Analysis (Total Market, SWOT Analysis) 2. Methodical, Low Cost, Essential Features and Fast MVP 3. Traction & Market Share Naturally, I encourage building the business plan immediately and continuously strengthening it. Thanks again for this great launch testimonial!

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North Star metrics are the backbone of any successful marketplace. In this clip, Godard Abel shares how G2 focuses on quality reviews, buyer traffic, and vendor revenue as leading indicators of success. Episode 462 of The Full Ratchet dives into his journey of building and scaling G2 to $100M ARR, the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship, and how AI is transforming software discovery. Link to the full episode is in the comment section below.

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Startups building sales teams in Utah... I’ve talked to >5 founders in the last 30 days that want to build GTM teams here. Makes sense to me... If you're on the fence, here's a handful of reasons to lean in: Note: the culture is uniquely different than most anywhere else. All of these reasons are based on this culture. → Everyone knows everyone. For the most part, it's an extremely small community. Everyone seems to be 1 or maybe 2 degrees removed from someone else. This is deeply rooted in the fact that a good majority spend their Sunday's at church → It's an extremely competitive environment. In a community where a lot of people believe the same thing, drive similar cars, buy similar homes, have the same looking kids... it breeds an extremely competitive environment to stand out. Many attempt to do this with their careers. → Since everyone knows everyone, college grads come with an immediate network. Not just college friends, but people they've networked with their entire lives. This makes recruiting a hell of a lot easier → Since there's an extremely high bar to 'stand out' amongst the crowd, many of the high performers are coming from even higher performer families. This means broader networks and an expectation of their lineage to keep performing high → Many are married young, with kids and a mortgage. I was one of them. 22, married, mortgage and 1st kid on the way. 25, married, two mortgages, 2 kids and a 3rd on the way. This is kinda normal here. You gotta perform early in your career to make it work. What else am I missing? What companies do you know of building GTM teams here? If you're considering building a GTM team in Utah, shoot me a note. Always happy to chat.

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If you're a startup, inbound from VCs should be seen as an opportunity to build leverage for your GTM. For example, FTV Capital tracks 20k companies a year and speaks with ~5k, resulting in around 8 investments/yr from ‘21-’23. That's a ton of connections! Ultimately, this matters because you want a warm intro from the VC in order to arrange a top-to-top call between a very small selection of your C-Suite and a prospect's. Partners on company boards are typically best positioned to provide such an intro, but partners are rarely outbounding. Who is regularly leveling with CXOs in the portfolio and outbounding? Firms vary(!), but often VPs and typically Principals. Principals are usually seen as being on the path to Partner and have more influence, but VPs should not be overlooked. They’re essentially super-niche project managers who manage sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio support. Due to the nature of their jobs, they’re also engaged with a much broader set of companies who they view as investment prospects OR who they’ve built a rapport with but did not invest in. Things can get complicated here, but if your company receives inbound from a VP or Principal you should view it as an opportunity to receive a prospect intro. But what to do? (1) Determine whether your Co-Founder(s) or another designated team member should take the call (If you’ve done your homework, this should be an easy choice.) (2) Schedule a call to pitch, include 1-2 companies from their portfolio who fit your ICP. (3) Manage questions without over-sharing. (4) Ask *them* what next steps they’d like to take. If they say, “I’m going to bring this back to my partners…” OR "Let's check in in a couple quarters" it’s unlikely you’ll receive any prospect intro. If they say, “Let’s get (Your Co-Founder) and (My Partner) on the phone by (This Date)” OR “This seems like a great fit for (X Company). Let me talk to (X Company Co-Founder) and email you by (date within 2 weeks) if relevant,” you have a chance. This is only one part of the broader VC GTM. but have a system in place for handling this kind of inbound. These folks are often hustlers with influence, and treating them with conscientiousness and integrity can go a long way. #vc #pe #gtm #partnerships #fintech #saas

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CEO HyperAcceleration -> How I manage 70+ CEO calls a week & about my recent $35,000 client pulled at a 1:35 CAC to Price Point Ratio. Many of you saw my recent post about eating 168 eggs a month… And the associated CEO call schedule… Today we talk about REAL marketing It means you absolutely cannot copy someone else There are creators with hundreds of thousands of followers and hardly any money You end up copying what makes little to no money The wider audience doesn’t have a ton of money Certain niches do It means when you do things like pull in $35,000 clients (and bigger) and have clients that stay with you for over a year… You do much less marketing and/or are way more capital efficient It means you can do things like pull 20 CEO clients in one month at $1,000 - $2,000 a piece keep them a year and then do more marketing next year. If you want to grow faster then you put more smart results oriented work into customers The actual speed of a company is not based in how much you post, get leads and market Or how much time, energy and capital (TEC) you put in TEC is “burned” with inefficiency Inefficiency driven by “not enough” and “not quality enough” customer results and track record on your part We do 50-80 page business plans, succession planning, interview questions, executive coaching, fundraising strategy, tone of voice and micro expression coaching, sales, engineering, and 100+ other customized services Your service stack creates your LTV Your “smooth pricing curve” accelerates your revenue (free and low prices leading to higher prices through upsell) Your high quality customer experience and product/service quality/results creates the glue between purchases I manage 70+ calls a week because it’s effortless for me to identify the exact problem and solution for someone in quick calls because I have often seen it in 5 countries that day already or solved it years ago. Across industries, products, countries, etc You cannot copy my marketing or sales because I have a different ICP, price point/set, LTV and more. That’s why we run a custom 4,000 to 4 billion variable optimizing function on each CEO & company that we grow ($20,000 to $100,000 for a custom excel or algo about every variable in your org) No advice ever the same. You’ll want to do that too. The three takeaways from this post are… 1. Becoming the absolute best at what you say you do is paramount to driving higher prices and years long LTV 2. Run high definition calculations (so many inefficient $50 million - $1 billion orgs and $500k orgs from low definition calculations) & master DEEP people science (team, sales, investment) 3. Use AI A LOT more often 

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Customer Churn is Your Startup's Secret Weapon (Yes, You Read That Right) Now, before you roll your eyes and click away, hear me out. Most founders fear churn. It's the boogeyman under the bed, the silent killer of startups. But what if I told you churn could be your secret weapon? What if it's not the end, but a new beginning? Here's a contrarian thought: 𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀. Think about it. A churned customer already showed interest in your product. They signed up, tried it out, and saw some value. But that value wasn't enough to keep them around. Maybe they didn't fully understand your product. Perhaps they didn't see how it fit their needs. Or maybe, they simply forgot about it in the hustle of their day. But here's the kicker: With a little education, you could win them back. Not just as customers, but as raving fans. 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗘𝗥𝗠): 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗼𝘁𝗲 ERM isn't about flashy marketing or sales gimmicks. It's about empowering your users with knowledge. It's about teaching them how to get the most out of your product, overcome any obstacles, and achieve their goals. When you invest in education, you're not just reducing churn. You're building a community of power users who understand the true value of your product. They're more likely to stick around, upgrade, and tell their friends how awesome you are. Take 𝗙𝗶𝗴𝗺𝗮, the collaborative design tool. They understand the power of ERM. They offer extensive tutorials, live workshops, and a thriving community forum. It's not just about learning the software; it's about mastering the art of design collaboration. This investment in education has paid off big time. Figma has not only reduced churn, but they've also built a passionate community of designers who are fiercely loyal to the platform. These designers are Figma's biggest advocates, spreading the word and driving organic growth. 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗖𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 So, how can you weaponize churn? Don't just acquire users, educate them. - Create a comprehensive knowledge base, offer tutorials and webinars, and foster a community forum. - Reach out to churned users. Ask for feedback, offer personalized assistance, and show them you care about their success. 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆. Analyze why users are leaving and use that feedback to improve your product and your educational content. Remember, churn isn't the end. It's a chance to turn a negative into a positive, a loss into a win. #Startups #Growth #ContentMarketing #EducationalRetentionMarketing #Figma

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1. Can't get enough of 20VC with Harry Stebbings. All startups can benefit from this show. 2. At the end of this episode, ServiceTitan CEO, Ada says this to being asked what aspect of leadership he would like to improve if he had a magic wand → "Be able to assess the real capabilities of a potential hire [...] that is so hard to do in the interview process." In Ada's words, being able to magically hire successfully would be company-changing. This is the magic wand we're working on at HiringBranch ✨ It is incredibly validating to hear (unprompted) that our startup is steering in the direction of providing "company-changing" value. Yay team HiringBranch and Stephane Rivard 💪

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I've invested in over 300 startups over the last 5 years, and there is one common trait that nearly all failed early stage startups share - they don't run a proper customer discovery process. You can read about the importance of customer discovery all over the internet, but that practical application of it among first time founders is still extremely low. We look at over 10,000 deals each year Forum Ventures and I see firsthand just how few founders actually excel in this process. One subset of founders simply doesn't do it at all. It's a classic archetype - build product in a vacuum without running any validation cycles. Typically the founder profile here skews more technical/product where founder-led sales feels out of character and not an area they enjoy spending time. Often founders think they can "product their way" to initial customers, but more often than not that new feature set they are excited about fails to generate user demand, simply because they never asked anybody if they care about what they were building. There is a classic startup'ism - first time founders focus on product, second time founders focus on distribution - and it rings very true within this subset. The second group of founders actually understands the importance of running discovery and leans into it early in their build process. While they have the best intentions, ultimately they come up short because in practice they don't actually know how to run an unbiased process. Discovery that focuses around a feature/solution set will skew toward lukewarm positive responses from potential customers, "sounds interesting, let me know when the beta is ready". The reality is no one is going to tell you that your baby, in this case your product, is ugly when it's far easier to just smile and nod. Founders often take this false signal as validation and race to ship a product that ultimately falls flat on its face. There is an art to soliciting feedback from a potential customer. The process emphasizes questions on their existing workflows, bottlenecks they experience in their day to day, understanding what motivates them and how they measure success in their role. This is a critical area we emphasize when evaluating investment opportunities, and a process we are very hands on in assisting our portfolio companies. Having a strong network is a massive advantage when launching a startup but close network relationships have the potential to give false signals across a customer discovery process. There are ways to combat this by being very deliberate when once solicits feedback from their network, but there are definitely bonus points for net-new out of network customer validation.

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Not applicable to every B2B business, but a very tactical Value Creation Hot Tip for most: implement auto-renewal / auto-reorder. Great ways to combat passive churn (churn that happens without any action on the part of the customer). Pretty ubiquitous in vertical SaaS & related industries, but found this to be surprisingly overlooked elsewhere (eg. last port-co I had an operating role at). Hit on this in the book--Winning Move #17--but check out the vid below for a deeper dive. ▶️ * * * * * Found this helpful? Plenty more where that came from. Check out the Winning Moves Platform: the ambitious PE leader's toolkit for accelerating value creation. ↳ A digital arsenal of resources, how-to's, and tools to help private equity leaders make value-generating Winning Moves with confidence. Link in the comments below. ⤵️

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Our Micro SaaS portfolio company just hit ARR / FTE productivity rivaling $50M SaaS firms. Here are 4 lessons we learned along the way: Focus on operating leverage, not just revenue growth. EBITDA/FTE is an excellent scoreboard. Lean teams move faster and punch harder. Return on effort matters more than chasing scale or deal size. Where have you most recently created operating leverage in your business? #ARR #MicroSaaS #BusinessEfficiency

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🚀 🚀 Introducing: Bravado Executive Search The average tenure of a VP Sales at Seed - Series B startups: 9 months. Here's why that happens: Fancy Logos - They hire heads of / VPs of Sales from market leaders like Stripe, AirBnB, Google because it's what their expensive old-school search firm / VC told them to do. But that person has only tasted post-PMF success. Lots of brand recognition. Infinite resources. Fully functional and vetted product. Reference clients. When that leader shows up and sees how the sausage is made at an early stage startup (constantly shifting priorities, risky bets on unproven products, zero support, no base of clients to lean on, zero inbound leads, zero marketing) and has to rely on scrappiness, hustle, outbound, and rolling up their sleeves to do the hard work... they can't. They never took nothing and turned it into something. That's the job of a builder. And all they know how to do is scale. So they start to make excuses, assign blame, demoralize the rest of the company, and quit. OR Their CEO starts to undermine their authority, refuses to acknowledge the product needs work / the goals are too lofty, assigns blame, scapegoats to the Board, and fires the sales leader. Often it's a bit of both. But either way, it's an absolute disaster for both parties and has ruined so many promising startups and careers. That's why we're launching Bravado Exec Search today. It's a revolutionary approach to scaling from $1-$40M ARR. Hire the Rising Stars of Sales. The people who will be known for building your startup, not someone else's. The Kelly Kriegshauser of the world. The Cory Gosselin of the world. The Kara Kayrouz of the world. People who are builders at the soul. People who are scrappy, brilliant, and know how to leverage modern tools and playbooks to win in 2024. If you want to hire the past of sales, go to Daversa or Cole Group or waste $150K. If you want to hire the future of sales, come to Bravado Exec Search. 👀

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When will GTM teams start focusing on their actual users, and not the CEOs of their users’ companies? I can’t believe how simple this is, yet how many teams get it wrong. You’re far better off convincing a team lead or individual contributor that their team needs your tool, and have THEM make YOUR case to the CEO. Properly identifying who to target starts with asking the right questions: → Who uses the product? → Who champions the solution? → What department are they in? → Who books demos organically? → Who’s problems do you actually solve? The C-Suite oversees ROI, but USERS determine if you deliver it. While your competitors are out trying to pin down C-Suite: → Target product champions → Keep track of real pain points → Build solutions they actually need Because what most SaaS founders miss: C-Suite pain points ≠ User pain points. CEOs know metrics. Users know problems.

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What does your sales conversion rate look like at your accounting firm? 🤔 Too many firm leaders talk about "crushing it" and "doing great" but not enough data to really know how well you're stacking up. This is why I loved having Patrick Dichter come on the Jetpack Workflow "Growing Your Firm" podcast to talk about ACTUAL NUMBERS. Here's his data ... 10 discovery calls ⏩ 4 proposal call ⏩ 2 clients Early on, he realized he had a repeatable process and was able to double revenue within 12 months of acquiring his first firm. In the interview, we talked about his sales process, pricing, how he built more inbound acquisition (all his clients come from inbound) and much more. Take a look at the comments for the full interview 👇 #JetpackWorkflow #GrowingYourFirm #accounting #sales

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Thanks for your partnership, CJ Gustafson. I can't tell you how many times I have had the T3D2 conversation with my different investors over the years and then with other CEOs. 4 points to consider 1. This is rarified air. Very few companies are able to execute, which doesn't mean give up hope! In fact, it is something like .1% of all companies that ever reach the $100M threshold EVER--regardless of doing it in 5-7 years. 2. The goal post is moving. The threshold for going public has gotten a lot higher. I have heard it is now $250-$300M 3. You are probably going to get bought vs go IPO. Something like 80% of software exits are to strategices or PE firms. So while it is still a wonderful dream to want to go public, you need to build a business that is ready for a transaction 4. As a former public company CEO, I would warn people "be careful what you wish for." The post-IPO reality of running a public company is often soul crushing. Julie Neumann

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Big one: over the course of 4+ months, we helped Fondue scale pipeline by 22% while saving 9 hours every week. Hyped to pull back the curtain here: 1. After getting acquired, Oren Charnoff + co wanted to scale demand gen 2. There were a TON of levers to pull, but he knew content was part of the mix 3. Because he'd partnered with Verbatim before, Oren reached out to our team 4. Fondue needed full-service execution + a deep understanding of ecommerce 5. Our model was a perfect fit, and we hit the ground running to start shipping 6. After deploying case studies, lead magnets and original reports, Fondue saw: + 22% pipeline growth + 17% revenue increase + 9 hours saved per week In Oren's words: “Verbatim’s speed of delivery and 24/7 support is phenomenal. If something comes up, they’re all over it in minutes across Slack and every comms channel. Verbatim genuinely feels like an in-house content team.” Full case study here: https://lnkd.in/gGMSywNk

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We sent out a survey after last year's Utah Tech Week. It had an NPS score in the high 70s. 💅 That said, we had 4 main bits of constructive feedback that were the most recurring. 1. There should be more *tech* in Utah Tech Week. Too much emphasis on the business side of things, and not enough on the tech. 2. Better representation. Not just race and gender, but lots of the feedback was about underrepresented industries/verticals. 3. Too much time in the car! 4. Keep the quality of events high! We'll discuss each of these in at our event tomorrow at 3pm at Pelion. (link in comments) 150+ founders/community builders/event hosts attending our event, which to my knowledge is the largest gathering of community builders in Utah. Stoked at the ways our community comes together to build. Come tomorrow! And also, lmk if the comments if you feel like a community/industry/group that you're a part of is underrepresented.

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Attention VCs: Your deal flow is broken. Here's why: - You're fishing in crowded waters - Your time management is a mess - Economic rollercoasters are derailing your strategy - Quality deals are needles in a haystack But don't panic. This infographic breaks down each problem... And offers actionable solutions. Click to see how you can: - Cut through the noise - Streamline your processes - Adapt to market fluctuations - Uncover hidden gems What's your biggest deal flow challenge? Tell me in the comments 👇 --- 📌 If you liked this (and want to support my work): 1. Like 2. Repost Thank you! #BrainDumps | BrainDump #83

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When you step in as a new VP of Revenue at an early-stage startup, you’re often inheriting a company with $2-3M ARR after their Series A. You’ve promised to 3x that ARR in 12 months, going from $3M to $9M+ ARR. But here’s the real question: Is the market big enough to sustain those expectations? The first thing any VP of Revenue needs to do when joining is build a clear point of view on the market. Too many execs jump into execution mode, chasing deals without first verifying if the opportunity is big enough to deliver. Here’s how you do it: For the first few weeks, you need to go all in—we’re talking 12-hour days, 5+ days a week. You have to talk to customers, analyze competitors, and validate the market’s total addressable size. Your goal? Prove that the market can support the $9M+ ARR growth you’ve promised. At RVNU, we’ve seen new VPs of Revenue succeed by asking: 1. Is the problem you’re solving big enough to command enterprise-level budgets? 2. Are there enough customers in this market to sustain your growth to $9M, $15M, and beyond? 3. Does your pricing reflect the value you’re delivering, or are you underpricing? 4. How well do you understand your competitors—and can you differentiate? 5. What’s the feedback from your first 50 customer conversations—are they seeing measurable value? And yes, it’s a grind. For those first few weeks, expect long days and to give up some weekends. Customer calls, market research, and team alignment. But this grind is the difference between hitting the ground running or spinning your wheels with no clear strategy. In my experience leading revenue, I’ve seen that if you don’t do this upfront work, you could be running fast in the wrong direction. Want to ensure your market can sustain aggressive growth? Take our free GTM Debt Self-Assessment to evaluate if your opportunity is big enough before you burn valuable time & resources. You got this 👊🏼 #sales #saas #startups #venturecapital #GTMdebt

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What metrics should SaaS founders focus on? "The best learnings come from SaaS founders sharing the metrics they measure, like NPS, eNPS, or Net Revenue Retention. Benchmarking is critical." —Travis Knipe, CEO of StarRez, Inc. Travis emphasizes the value of transparency and collaboration within the SaaS ecosystem. 💬 What’s the most valuable metric you’ve learned from another founder? 🎧 Hear more here: https://lnkd.in/gbsfH6Ps Are you a SaaS founder? What’s the biggest challenge you've overcome in the last 6 months? Comment below or, better yet, come share your story on SaaS Founder Stories! Book in here: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gwBw-zqm #SaaS #Startup #Entrepreneurship #SaaSFounderStories #SaaSMetrics

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