Bain Capital Ventures’ Post

Six(ish) months ago, sitting in a coffee shop, Zach and I had a conversation about working together. The conversation revolved around startups, and founders and sales challenges. Why scaling businesses was hard, and how so many folks didn't have what they needed to be successful. It was out of that conversation that Revenue Rocket was born. It was birthed out of this notion that Sales Doesn't Have to Suck... but for most people it does. We wanted to bring together a group of elite sales leaders, operators and executers to attack some of the hardest sales challenges... lead gen, GTM, closing, sales operations (etc). Well, fast forward 6 months and we just brought on another UNBELIEVABLE asset, Alex Newman, to build this thing with us. He has been driving immense value for his clients for 10+ years solving alot of the same challenges that RevRocket is solving. We couldn't be more excited to have him... not just because he is one of the best sales minds out there... but because he loves people and wants to see people succeed in business (and in life). Please join us in welcoming Alex as a founding member of the 🚀

Last week, I met with 30 of the top Partnership leaders. Their partner programs generate over $150M in ARR. This was their #1 most common challenge: “Do more with less.” Now, this is nothing new for partnership leaders. We are the OG’s of doing more with less. We’ve had to operate this way even through the peak ZIRP froth where every SaaS startup had more money than they knew what to do with. But now the more is MORE and the less is LESS. To not only survive, but to thrive, in this environment partnership leaders need to become experts of operations and data. We need to start creating processes. We need to start measuring everything. Process allows us to operationalize our programs for scalability. Measurement gathers data on our processes, our partnerships, and our outcomes to surface what’s working and what’s not. This is the only way to create lean and mean partner programs. There’s no magic bullet. Either we build the foundation to scale, or we *hope* for good luck. I know it’s not the most fun part of the job, but it’s critical. It’s the only way we exit GTM purgatory and get the resources we deserve.

We've been growing a LOT recently... Team members Partners Conversations Prospects And, growing is tons of fun... And busy... And stressful. But, ultimately, growing well is the #1 way to win, and while that's an easy thing to say and know - it's a totally different beast to do well. If an early-stage company fails, it'll fail in the growth stage. When your meetings pick up, and you have less time to focus on the product. When your prospects are asking for new product features/integrations, and you have to prioritize. When you take on more/less early-sales calls and focus more/less on following up well. (Want to know why this is important? Talk to 🦄 Matt Farina 🦄.) This is where most early-stage orgs + founders fail. So, if you want to know how to grow well - hit us up. (Link in comments)

Many early-stage founders set their executive team up to fail. There are 3 main reasons why: 1. Hiring too senior too early You don’t need a CRO if you have two sales people. You must understand that hiring a senior executive is investing in a function, not hiring an outstanding individual contributor. If you’re early stage and don’t have a ton of customers, the first thing you need is to make sales yourself. Then you need to add some additional folks. Then you can hire a Head of or VP. But hiring too senior too early mismatches the stage of growth the company faces. Senior people need more resources and firepower. If you expect them to pull their own reports out of the CRM or close some deals on their own you might get blank stares. Size your hiring to your stage of growth. 2. Building revenue targets with no revenue A revenue plan implies predictability. Predictability implies you have enough data and data implies you’ve been doing something long enough to measure it and find some patterns. None of that is true at the early stages and trying to adhere to a revenue model before you understand how your customers will actually behave, whether they will renew, or what they might need from the product. Instead, focus on key milestones. Those milestones will likely center around signups, usage, engagement, NPS, and momentum around pipeline. Past $1M in ARR you can think more clearly about predictable growth but until that point you’re building the muscles that lead to growth. 3. Lack of alignment As the CEO, it’s your job to make sure everyone is pointed in the right direction. Some of my biggest mistakes have come from assuming people are moving in the same direction and then realizing that we weren’t. That different people had different definitions of the same words. That we thought we were agreeing in the meeting but we weren’t pushing to the “last mile” to understand whether we truly agreed. This type of “ruinous empathy”, as Kim Scott calls it, where people smile and seem to agree in person but aren’t because they’re not being direct is toxic and it sets the team up for failure. It’s your job to learn how to guide the conversation and keep going until you’ve confirmed that everybody understands which way they’re going. What other ways do early-stage founders get it wrong or right? Share your take in the comments. Let's all get better together.

Early-stage founders often contend with limited time and access to talent, necessitating strategic resource management. Startups should prioritize building a robust foundation with available talent, gradually scaling up as the business expands. Emphasizing achievable milestones over traditional revenue targets and fostering alignment within the team are pivotal for long-term success amid resource constraints. Thanks Sam Jacobs for these invaluable insights!

I had the fantastic opportunity to attend a workshop with the Silicon Valley veteran, Scott Sambucci, focusing on structuring our sales process. The experience was nothing short of transformative, and I'm eager to share some pivotal learnings: 🌟 Key Insights: 1. **Structuring the Sales Process**: How to prepare your sales procedure during the startup phase for a smoother ramp-up. Scott's approach to building and refining this structure is both innovative and practical. 2. **Founder-Less Sales for Growth**: A revelation was the concept of 'Founder Less Sales' as a strategy to reach the $100m ARR. 3. **Sales Pipeline Metrics**: Setting up a sales pipeline with concrete metrics is vital. It not only allows you to streamline the process but also provides valuable data to learn and improve consistently. 4. **Founders and Sales**: One of the most impactful takeaways was the importance of founders not outsourcing the first sales. This direct involvement is key to understanding and evolving the sales process effectively. 🔥 Impact on Our Journey: - These insights have equipped us with a clearer roadmap for scaling our business. - We're now more confident in our approach to building a sales strategy that's data-driven and founder-involved. - Implementing these strategies is an exciting next step for us, promising substantial growth and learning. A heartfelt thank you to Scott Sambucci for such an enlightening workshop. The journey to $100m ARR just got clearer! #SalesExcellence #ScottSambucci #BusinessScaling #SalesProcess #StartupGrowth #FounderSales #BusinessStrategy

In the last year I’ve spoken to 100’s of partnerships teams. From Series A startups to $100B market cap enterprises. Want to know the #1 problem they ALL faced? Bad publicity. Here’s what I mean (and how to fix it): Partnerships has a perception problem. At best, C-suites and boards “don’t get it”. At worst, they think it's a waste of time. And you know what? I don’t totally blame them. They’ve come to expect a level of predictability from their GTM channels. And partnerships teams are NOTORIOUSLY bad at demonstrating impact. And you know what? I don’t totally blame them either. The average partnerships team is doing 20 jobs on a weekly basis. Effectively tracking, reporting, and forecasting on all of them is incredibly difficult. Balancing that with core revenue generating activities is virtually impossible. And forget about trying to keep executives updated. Something always gives. That’s why we built EULER. It's not just a PRM or Portal. We make it easy to track, analyze, and communicate the impact of Partnerships in real-time. We do the heavy lifting so partner teams can focus on revenue. Why? Because without validating impact… We'll never get a seat at the table. P.S. If you want to get on our waitlist, DM me.

Over the past few weeks I met more than 10 founders, CEOs and VPs of Sales at startups ranging from Seed to Series B. I saw four common challenges across the different groups that are hindering revenue growth. 1. Limited mindset - I literally had a CEO say "We aren't thinking big enough and we have no idea how to get the best out of our sales team". There is also a massive lack of investment in enablement. They expect teams to just get up and running on their own. Ouch. 2. No clarity on ICP - I saw in one company sales execs selling to different company sizes, different personas and one CEO told me "We really didn't do a good job in defining who our ICP is, the value proposition and we did nothing to communicate those to our new hires". 3. Chaotic selling - relying on one rep isn't going to move the needle for you when it comes to scaling. Teams are struggling with consistency. Without proper onboarding, continuous enablement and clarity on your value proposition, how best to handle first meetings , defining the sales process, I am seeing teams creating their own decks, pitching in totally different ways, over selling features that do not make sense and so on. Teams end up with inflated pipeline that doesn't close. 4. Sales leaders drowning without a Sales Management System in place - two things I'm seeing here: 1-Startups struggling with leaders who've never been at startups before, and are left alone. 2- Promoting top sellers to leadership roles without any sort of support. I am seeing teams running in the dark, leaders detached from their sellers, and without real visibility on how the team is conducting their daily operations. Account executives are frustrated, they aren't learning, they aren't earning and their manager is no where to be seen on their calls either to support. If you are struggling with these issues and want to have a chat, please click on this link to schedule an exploratory call. I am here to help. https://lnkd.in/dnYJVMcp PS thanks to all the clients who had betted on TeamRevenue - super excited to continue our commitment to help you drive revenue execution excellence across your business.

Since transitioning out of my revenue leadership role, I have used the past few weeks to reflect on key learnings within my first startup journey.  Everyone obsesses over TAM in the early days, especially founders and investors.  “We estimate the market to be X big, we play in the $100B+ space.” While TAM is usually one of the most sought after figures to determine long-term potential and ROI, it's important for early leadership teams to further segment and include layers for SAM (serviceable addressable market) and SOM (serviceable obtainable market). These were terms as a sales leader I was only vaguely familiar with, and had largely ignored. TAM can often be a distraction and a bad proxy in the company’s infancy stages. Why? Because your product offering, brand value & awareness, and service model are not ready for the broader market e.g. the late majority and laggards. SAM takes these limitations into account while SOM factors in shifts in market conditions/preferences, competition, and current resourcing. What this demands is 𝐚 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐮𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐂𝐏 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.  If you could only touch 100 prospects, who are they and why? This profile needs to go well beyond the industry and should include finer firmographic and technographic detail – company attributes, maturity & growth profile, tech stack, values/missions, etc. This is mission critical in today’s environment of profitability and operational efficiency & rigor. Having sales and marketing resources focus on bad fit prospects, or even worse, uncertainty of fit, will severely hamper CAC and LTV unit economics. In the day and age of diminishing results with outbound efforts, this is one of the single biggest areas to increase sales rep productivity. As Peter Thiel outlines in 𝑍𝑒𝑟𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑂𝑛𝑒, focus on a specific and niche cohort first.  Maximize this segment’s needs and value, and only then extend your product offering based on the unmet customer voice. Can your entire team from leadership to product to sales/marketing articulate the same customer profile with proper granularity? #sales #revenue #b2b #opentowork #startups

A third into the year, founders still embrace "do more with less." An outcome of this? Series A and B founders with 10-12 direct reports. Back in 2021/2022 (the good ol' days of ZIRP), this would never have happened. A Series A raise meant you were quickly building out your entire executive bench. A Series B raise and you're staffing up C-level for hypergrowth. Here are some real examples of what the world looks like now: - A CEO with 10+ engineers still reporting to them, while also running a $10M+ revenue co - A CEO with no VP of Sales, no VP Marketing heading into Series B fundraise - A Series B CEO with international and US-based sales teams (12+ reps) still rolling up to them So what's going on here? First: we're seeing some CEOs in the unfortunate position of hiring execs that didn't work out, and taking more time going back to the drawing board. Instead of moving quickly they're doing a deep retro, working through the issues themselves, and then going back to the hiring process when they feel ready. Second: traditional benchmarks for Series A, B, and C rounds from 2022 are no longer applicable. Broadly we're seeing teams just do more with less. - Seed stage companies are growing past $2M ARR before fundraising their A. - Founders are hiring a senior sales IC instead of a VP sales. - And on the product front, that traditional VP Product is instead replaced with an up-and-comer product lead. Here's the advice I end up giving: At a certain point, too many direct reports harms executive function and decision-making and distracts from the big wins the CEO is responsible for getting each year. Yes -- finding the right leader to take over a team is hard. You're digging deep for people who can roll up their sleeves, still operate as executives, aren't jaded about the early stage buildout, and can bring a deep well of energy to getting it done. But these people exist -- as hard as they can be to find -- and a bench of the right leaders is still the solution to CEO leverage. It's just that everyone is looking for a very different flavor now. In a typical search, it's not uncommon now for us to have 50+ conversations on the market (if not way more) in order to filter for a unique combination of talents and DNA. You'll then need to combine this with stellar interview process design and top-grading exercises to ensure you're assessing for the right talent. It's not easy, but the end result of a single right hire is massive pressure relief.