Just a quick post to share the slides of a presentation I recently gave on six principles that can help you optimize both your results and your career. The material, which should be familar to long-time Kellblog readers, is largely based on posts that I’ve written over the years and the last slide of the deck has links to specific posts. The six principles are: Answer the effing question (ATFQ). Not answering questions wastes time, frustrates coworkers and executives, and can stall your career. Know your in-memory analytics. Know what numbers you should know in your sleep, why, and then know ..read more

I’ve realized that one of things I do for (or should I say, to) early-stage startups is detect whether they have a real or a faux focus (pronounced fo-focus) — the latter being a focus that appears to be real at first, but is in fact fake. Focus is like baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet. Needed. Timeless. And everyone’s in favor. But, alas, when you drill in, the conversation often goes something like this: DK: So what are you focused on? CEO: Mid-market (MM). DK: Do you sell anywhere else? CEO: Yes, for sure. A lot of today’s SMB companies will be mid-market tomorrow, so we want t ..read more

Just a quick follow-up post to share the video from the recent Balderton event I did on opening new markets as the key to durable, efficient growth. I previously shared the slides here. Now, thanks to Balderton, I’ve got video, embedded below. Thansk to Balderton for hosting and to everyone who attended this event. The post Video of Balderton Webinar on Efficient Growth via Entering New Markets appeared first on Kellblog ..read more

Just a quick post to share the slides from the webinar I did with Balderton Capital this morning entitled Opening New Markets, The Key to Efficient Growth in 2024 and Beyond. Thanks to everyone who attended and/or submitted questions at the event. And thanks to the Balderton team for hosting it. The slides are embedded below as a slideshow. You can download a PDF version here. If and when a video becomes available, I’ll revise this post and share it here as well. If and when a video becomes available, I’ll revise this post and share it here. The post Slides from Bal ..read more

Just a quick post to highlight a Balderton Capital webinar I’m doing this week on Wednesday, March 20th at 8:00 AM Pacific, 3:00 PM UK, and 4:00 PM CET. The registration link is here. Since I’ve heard of a few problems with it, you can request an invite as well. If you get stuck, ping me on LinkedIn, Twitter, or leave a blog comment here. Since 2024 is the year of efficient growth, I have already talked a lot about how to improve efficiency through driving expansion ARR, doubling down on campaigns and segments that work, relentlessly optimizing the go-to-market (GTM) machine, and experimenting ..read more

I had a lightbulb moment in the car yesterday listening to the Revenue Vitals podcast. It wasn’t a flash of insight so much as a flash of synthesis. I’ve been driving a lot lately, so I also had time to listen to the amazing Acquired podcast, specifically the three-hour episode on Costco. In fact, since I was driving down from Oregon and I loved the material, I listened to it twice. I won’t attempt to summarize the episode, but my God I love Costco. From its complex and intertwined origins to its values-driven culture to its relentless — and I mean relentless — focus on execution, it’s an oper ..read more

Just a quick post to highlight my third and most recent appearance on 20VC with the amazing Harry Stebbings (Spotify, YouTube). It is always, always a pleasure to speak with Harry. He’s such an effective interviewer that you quickly get into detail and stories that others miss. So you end up with very rich content, which in this case lasts significantly longer than 20 minutes. (More like 72, but who’s counting?) In this episode we hit on a wide range of topics including: The metrics that matter in SaaS today Why CAC Payback is flawed and CAC ratio is better Why you need to hire sales reps thr ..read more

Just a quick post to invite people to join a chat that I’m having with my old friend Nick Mehta from GainSight in just a few days — on Thursday, February 22nd at 1:00 PM Pacific time — entitled How to Prevent Your Customer Success Team from Getting the Axe. The event came as a result of Nick reading this Kellblog post, The One Question to Ask Before You Blow Up Your Customer Success Team, which led to a conversation about it. At some point Nick asked, wouldn’t this be an interesting conversation for everyone? And thus, the event was born. Expect it to be informal (no slides), conversational, a ..read more

Just a quick episode to highlight my recent appearance on Dan Turchin‘s AI and the Future Work podcast. In the episode, we discuss my 2024 predictions both in general and with an unsurprising spin towards AI and the future of work. I think this is our third year running in getting together to discuss my predictions. If you don’t know Dan’s podcast, you should. It’s one of the longest running founder/CEO podcasts in Silicon Valley with approximately 300 total episodes, an overall 4.9 rating, and some great reviews including this one from none other than Ben Horowitz: ”I love this podcast. Great ..read more

The growth-adjusted enterprise value to revenue multiple is a personal favorite metric because it’s a quick way to determine if a SaaS stock is in the bargain basement, where I sometimes like to shop.  Quick reminders before proceeding: I don’t give investment advice, see my terms & conditions and FAQ Any bargain basement shopper needs to heed Wall Street’s warnings about catching falling knives.  (Something I’ve painfully done many times in my dabbling as an investor.) But, attention Kmart shoppers, if you’re looking for the blue light specials, this metric may help you find t ..read more