David Walker

@jaltma Congrats Jack - sounds like you found the perfect spot in the world to do your best work

I’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I love it so much that I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I’ve certainly learned what I care most about, and what kind of investor I want to be. What I’ve realized is that I love investing at the Series A, when there’s enough going on that an investor can be useful but not so much that you can’t have an impact. I think there are many amazing ways to practice venture, it’s just the way that most speaks to me. And as I came to realize that, I started to think about how to best set myself up to do that craft as well as possible. It became clear to me there is nowhere better for this than Benchmark; the way they’re structured, their principles, their overall approach to investing, and their track record all create an environment that I believe will let me do my best work as an investor and help founders the most I possibly can. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Ev, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala, Vivek, and Nate. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.

We’ve officially launched! Introducing @Spara, backed by @RadicalVentures + @InspiredCap to build the future of inbound sales. Story via @BusinessInsider → businessinsider.com/spara-stealth-…

@ttunguz Another factor post '08 was the impact of ZIRP on S&M costs. Top line revenue growth was heavily valued and software companies were incentivized to push S&M costs to 50%+. I think AI can reduce S&M as a % of revenue in the next 5 years as FCF is valued more than top line alone.

In “Do software companies actually have good margins?”, Benn Stancil makes a case for a counterintuitive point : Software companies are much less profitable than they might seem. Why? Because the research & development costs associated with software should be part of their cost of goods sold. Software companies don’t invest once in R&D & then sell copies of the software as we did in the 90s on CDs. It’s software-as-a-service. So the costs of developing & maintaining the software are ongoing. If that argument is correct, then the average gross margin of a software company in the public domain would fall from 72% to 47%. Quite a stark difference. Profitability for software companies isn’t straightforward. Different accounting rules govern revenue & cost recognition. In 2017, the industry migrated from ASC 605 to ASC 606, which are financial arcana as esoteric as it reads. Overnight, some companies were more profitable & others were not. So let’s set profitability aside for a minute, & look at free-cash flow yield. Free cash flow yield offers investors or stockholders a better measure of a company’s fundamental performance than the widely used P/E ratio. Investors who wish to employ the best fundamental indicator should add free cash flow yield to their repertoire of financial measures. FCFY is a metric that measures this : how much of a company’s revenue, after funneling through every cost imaginable, is left over in its bank account at the end of the year. That’s my mental model for it, anyway. Software companies top the charts at 3% over the last 20 years, according to data from New Constructs, a financial research firm. For a period from December 9, 2009, to approximately March of 2016, technology companies produced nearly 5% free cash flow yields on average. There are times when other sectors yield more. For example, energy tops the list at the moment, primarily driven by the fluctuations in those markets. But over two decades technology tops the list. And if AI fulfills anywhere close to its promise, we should expect that trend to continue. Despite the enthusiasm from Investopedia, I think it’s important to say that no financial metric is perfect & all of them are proxies for the ultimate performance of a business. Free cash flow yield has its imperfections & nuances like any other metric.

Further thoughts on the similarities between parenting and GTM... when the chicken is in the wrong part of the plate and your skills are put the test. linkedin.com/posts/davidwal…

Since I just started a new company, I've purchased a lot of software in a short period of time. It's amazing that there is no way to fast track the purchase even when you know you will buy. What's the "money in hand at the bar" version of SaaS buying?

For so many companies, the buying experience is directly dictated by buyer ACV. Generally, enterprise buyers get a good experience, SMBs don't. I think AI creates an opportunity to decouple buyer experience level from buyer ACV level.

AI will transform software sales. Most of the discourse so far has focused on how AI upends the sellers’ worldview. But the buyers’ process will also evolve. When researching software, operational buyers & procurement teams alike will use AI to research different offerings. Typing “Compare Salesforce & Hubspot for a 10 person sales team. which is better?” into Gemini produces this result & most importantly, a recommendation : [image below] For a Hubspot or a Salesforce seller, a few ramifications resound from the new reality that most buyers will consult AI before speaking to a rep. First, marketers must ensure the information surfaced in these queries is accurate. SEO is no longer sufficient. AIO, (AI-optimization), will become necessary to ensure the results are accurate. The workflow to achieve this outcome isn’t yet built but will undoubtedly influence inbound-marketing efforts. Second, procurement teams may automate some or all of the RFP/RFQ. My second query was to compare pricing between the two products & ask which would be less expensive. HubSpot generally offers a lower price point at equivalent feature tiers, especially for small to medium-sized sales teams. How about SOC2 & ISO-27001 or FedRamp compliance? It’s just a query away. AI becomes a low-budget Gartner in box. Third, agents acting on behalf of buyers may execute transactional sales differently “swiping” a virtual credit card to buy project management seats in the same way a Nike-neaker-bot snipes a pair of Jordans. A buyer types “buy 5 seats of the best Gantt charting software for software teams.” into their chatbox & off the robot goes. All of these vignettes into the future of software buyer behavior are guesses. What’s certain is that prospects will use AI to research & potentially automate software purchases.

Over the past 12 years as a CEO/GTM leader I've done tons of sales training, created sales training courses, and taught plenty of sales training myself. Trying to convince my 2 year old to eat his dinner is probably the most effective sales training I’ve ever had.

It's going to be interesting to see how big organizations think about vendor vetting with GenAI companies. If you want to use cutting edge GenAI tools, they're probably less than 2 years old. I bet the bar shifts.

I'm working on something new. We're still in stealth, but broadly we're exploring how to create the ideal buying experience. As a GTM leader, it's felt like the past 10 years of sales SaaS has made the experience worse for buyers. It's time for that to change.

@JustinThomas34 @JustinThomas34 1 miles is about 3.5 holes so I’d say a solid hour… now that Bryson isn’t in front of you maybe 50 minutes.

Had a conversation with my fiancé last night and some of the players at the course today… what time could I run a mile? No training nothing just a random Tuesday I go out and run one mile as fast as I can (I’m v slow), what could I run it at?

Thank you to the panelists who joined us yesterday for our panel on the Modernization of Real Estate: @daviddotwalker of @Triplemint, @FredWPeters of @WarburgRealty, @reinadenyc of @BHSWorldwide, and #RoryGolod of @Compass NY. youtube.com/watch?v=xyyKJy…

Great panel of Fierce Females in Residential Real Estate with @VivaceMaxvictor this morning

The listing video that changed listing videos forever by the always incredible @tylerwhitman and @triplemintnyc youtu.be/yyjC_8cShB8 via @YouTube

@Delta also why cancel the 5:50 from LGA to PWM when there was no weather at all? More important flights to get out??

@Delta 3 canceled flights and now 2 hours on the tarmac at LGA trying to get to Maine (or close)... any ideas?

I couldn't be more excited to be joining @DormRoomFund as the new COO with @themollette at the helm as CEO. The last few months working with the DRF community has been nothing short of amazing, excited to see where the next chapter takes us: @firstround/why-were-doubling-down-on-dorm-room-fund-bd23c2e95352" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@firstround/wh…

@MikeReiss do you think the pats trading two of their 7th rounders this late is a sign they’re satisfied with the positions they’ve covered?

So lucky I get to work with the most amazing people @TriplemintNYC #CS

1/ And we're back! Thrilled to launch applications for two new cohorts of @firstround Angel Track — the 12-week masterclass in SF and NY for exceptional emerging angels, with instructors such as @phineasb, @hayleybay, @npilosof & @eladgil. 😇 Apply today: angeltrack.firstround.com