Dave Cedrone

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@aseemchandra @jjen_abel Our job is to map a piece of the solution (built/roadmap committed to by Product) to a specific, acute, quantifiable, near-term problem the prospect/market has. If we cannot map it, that’s the loop I think Jen is referring to– bring feedback to Product or bring Founder back in.

@jjen_abel Sorry, don’t agree. Your job in sales is to solve the customer’s most urgent problems.

folks early in their sales career - your job is to defend product decisions, not defend market’s requests of course, share implications you are hearing from market with product team BUT your job is to communicate the why behind decisioning with market

@paulg Underrated positive trait: "Genuinely interested in the problem." The hard part of this for most is removing attachment.

Actual traits of successful founders: Good at building. Genuinely interested in the problem. Very determined. Talks a lot to users.

@dscheinm It’s all we do day in and day out for our clients. It’s incredibly hard, and markets are ever-changing. But, acknowledging that it will be hard, and avoiding the urge to accept a path of lesser resistance when the pressure’s on, is what the strongest founders do.

As I get older, i am coming to the realization that building winning go to market is the hardest enterprise startup problem. A lot of folks like me look for easy fixes, and it just may be that there are not any.

@HarryStebbings @jjen_abel but only if you’re brave.

I am booking new guests for 20VC. Who should I have on the show? I want people who don’t do the podcast tour, who haven’t been on 10 already and have something unique and different to say. Tag them below and I call you out in the show to thank you. X, work your magic.

@tejeshwi_sharma @MeritechCapital @AtlanHQ @prukalpa @bankavarun Congrats!!

Welcome GIC and @MeritechCapital! Excited to double down in @AtlanHQ and deepen our partnership with @prukalpa and @bankavarun Since the last round in late 2021, @AtlanHQ has: 1. Scaled 10x in ARR 2. Cemented its #1 place in the category 3. Built a world-class leadership 4. Continues to win customers' hearts Data is a precursor to AI. Atlan is just getting started. @peakxvpartners @_surgeahead

@jjen_abel Targeting a market based on an assumption around sales cycle is dicey in early stage. Target based on whichever segment of the market most acutely feels the specific, quantifiable pain your solution maps to. Let it pull you from there.

'we're seeking to target the mid-market because sales cycles are faster' - startup founder this can be true, but less often -- it's more or less a startup myth 1. mid-market (non-tech companies) have fewer technical resources as an enterprise; therefore, there is a wait to buy that occurs until those resources free up, whether they be in-house OR outsourced partners (this seems to surprise a lot of folks) -- this adds friction/time to the buying process 2. mid-market bifurcates into high-end smb OR low-end enterprise --- there is no middle, middle 3. re: above bullet, the low-end enterprise is 80-90% the same sales cycle as a true enterprise, but usually with a smaller deal value as a veil to expedite -- you're actually negotiating with yourself at this point 4. the effort you put in to land needs to also be justified on expand opportunity -- 5-7 month sales cycle to have a stagnant (slow growing) price-point needs to be evaluated/reviewed carefully This is not to say that you shouldn't target the mid-market—the key is to understand each market's implications early rather than learning too late. Every market has its challenges; pick the market (1) you built for OR (2) you are excited to serve/deeply understand OR (3) aligns with the motion you are motivated by marketing/plg (high-velocity, high volume) OR sales (high-value, high-touch)

@DhairyaPurohit @jjen_abel Other great signs might include: 1) paraphrasing your solution back so they better understand in context of their problem 2) naming colleagues/teams they think should be aware of it 3) “warning” you of reality of their buying timeline 4) asking setup/implementation Qs

@jjen_abel You mean how curious/interested they are?

Startups: When a customer's response to your demo is "oh, cool", this is usually a negative signal.

@asympthoughts @jjen_abel Investors I’ve come across will often say they’re looking for a founder to push back (with *evidence*). Failing that, easiest option is to scale/delegate & roll the dice like everyone else. Sounds like she has done the work - bring the evidence and present an alternative path.

@jjen_abel 100% agreed. How might founders help investors / their board understand this better, especially when under pressure to scale and delegate?

This will likely not be well-liked, but ... It has always been far easier for a startup to pretend they have product/market fit and delegate sales in hopes that the market OR sales team will figure it out. The secondary benefit is it gives a Founder a finger to point to if it doesn't work: 'We have a sales problem.' However, this is simply a mirage. The past two years have proven that over and over again, you can NOT delegate early sales. This MUST be led (i.e. tip-of-spear) by the visionary, the Founder.

@mysteriouskat Always challenge axioms.

What's the best advice you've ever gotten?

@MichaelDBrant @frantzfries Correct

@frantzfries I think Having the balls to send cold emails is a good indicator of future success for a startup

Anecdotal but the most successful companies from my YC batch (based on funding rounds) went sales-first with cold/warm outbound vs PLG

@jjen_abel Same. I like to call them Courageous Questions.

Very excited to be rolling out something new for early-stage startups in search of product/market fit at @jjellyfish_co Went through our own Customer Discovery process and took our flagship offering built over 7-years and smashed it apart to reconfigure and modularize. Quite a meta experience. Will be going live with new program publicly soon. Still deep in learning from beta customers. Why and I mentioning this … product/market fit is moving target. If you’re not growing, it’s Day 1. Don’t fall victim to writing off a year.

@benedictevans It simply didn’t solve a specific, acute, quantifiable, near-term problem that a large enough market had or validated, no?

@alexisohanian Care to say more? 👀

@Samirkaji Cerebro 🧠 and soon.

Whats the best CRM for relationship and deal management? Salesforce Affinity Hubspot Dealcloud Other? Any AI driven yet?

@Ianwdj @jjen_abel Something you can try in a sales/customer discovery convo: tell the person right up front, “I want you to know it’s OK to tell me no. Are you comfortable telling me no, Ian?” Most will laugh and say “of course!” But it’s a critical moment - changes trajectory of calls.

@jjen_abel My struggle is in knowing what signal indicates you have the wrong channel, the wrong segment, approach, etc. so you know what should be iterated on.

@shavin47 @jjen_abel Makes sense. Ideally discovery is a step in your sales process.

@enordec @jjen_abel From my experience, they're two different modes, if you're really experienced in sales and have the autonomy to make decisions around the product you're selling then yes. If not you're better off calling those conversations discovery, it helps people open up as well.

99% of early-stage Founders ... You don't have a sales problem, you have a no-product/market fit problem. Stop trying to solve this with more leads, and more sales bodies. Founders, you need to return to Head of Sales role.

@shavin47 @jjen_abel Maybe a controversial opinion here, but good selling *is* learning. Curious, courageous questions, asked early and often, without expectation of a “Close” is what actually gets you much closer to a close, faster.

@jjen_abel Do you mean the head of discovery role? Selling and learning are two different conversation modes. If they're struggling with sales then they probably shouldn't be doing more sales.