Podcasts about clearbit

Summary In today's episode of The AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Kevin Tate, former Chief Marketing Officer of Clearbit, to talk about the role of AI in "killing" time and how it helps us achieve time efficiency as sellers. Kevin dives deep into the role of metadata in AI, how much insight big data puts on our hands, and the impact of this data in conversational interfaces in the coming years. He also talks about why LinkedIn put a pause on AI development and reminds us that human judgment is still essential in this time when AI is now being used constantly. QUOTES How do you operationalize once you understand your ICP - Kevin "To speak more broadly to where we're participating in people's go-to-market stacks with all that data. A lot of it comes down to understanding your ideal customer profile, like using all that information to understand who is the best fit, who moves most quickly through the sales cycles, and who goes on to have the most success." Think about how tools can assist your team - Kevin "As a salesperson, you're in down in the freakin weeds, typing out emails, and cutting and pasting stuff and dealing. But if you were doing that with 30% of your time instead of 70 or 80, and you actually had tools that let you not just see reports about but actually do things with your pipeline and your portfolio of deals at scale, it's a different way of managing your work." Learn more about Kevin and connect with him in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-tate/ Learn more about AI for Sales with Chad: LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12811259/ LinkedIn Personal Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadburmeister/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIforSalesPodcast TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ai4sales Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/theaiforsalespodcast/ Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/saleshack The AI For Sales Podcast is sponsored by our proud partners: BDR.ai | https://www.bdr.ai/ TruVersity | https://www.truversity.com/ Tags: Chad Burmeister, AI For Sales, Kevin Tate, Clearbit, AI, sales, big data, pipeline, strategy

In this guest interview episode, Rebecca Yang, Director of Engineering at HubSpot, shares her unconventional journey to tech leadership and reveals seven uncommon leadership principles that have shaped her success. From her early days in client services to leading a 50+ person engineering team, Rebecca opens up about how embracing authenticity and overcoming personal challenges has made her a more effective leader. Her refreshing take on leadership - including why micromanagement isn't always bad and why you shouldn't trust your gut with feedback - offers valuable insights for leaders at all levels.About Rebecca:Rebecca Yang is a Director of Engineering at HubSpot, leading the Breeze Intelligence group. She joined HubSpot in 2023 through the Clearbit acquisition, where she previously served as VP of Engineering. She's passionate about cultivating high performance engineering cultures. Rebecca's teams focus on shipping innovative, impactful customer-facing solutions.Highlights:How coming out as a queer woman early in her career shaped her leadership style, particularly around transparency and authenticityThe unique culture of engineering teams and how it allows for greater self-expression and authenticityWhy psychological safety starts with how we handle critical feedback - both giving and receiving itA deep dive into Rebecca's "7 Uncommon Leadership Principles"How Rebecca successfully led her team through a challenging one-third reduction in workforce by being transparent about the "why"The importance of "Debate, Decide, Unite" in building team alignmentWhy leaders must own difficult messages rather than deflecting responsibilityLinks & Resources Mentioned:Rebecca Yang's LinkedIn ProfileStay SaaSy Blog: Don't Create ChaosDharmesh Shah's "Debate, Decide and Unite" FrameworkGet your FREE 5 Day Leadership Reset Challenge guide here: https://llpod.link/challengePodcast Website: www.loveandleadershippod.comInstagram: @loveleaderpodFollow us on LinkedIn!Kristen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenbsharkey/ Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-s-364970111/Learn more about Kristen's leadership coaching and facilitation services: http://www.emboldify.com

Back in 2022, João Moura was directing AI engineering efforts at Clearbit, a startup creating a unified hub for business intelligence tools. There, Moura was responsible for leading the development of AI integrations, as well as defining Clearbit's AI product roadmap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retention.com hit $22m of revenue in 2024 on the back of Adam Robinson and team bootstrapping. Wanting to get into B2B, they laucnhed an IP lookup tool called RB2B which competes with Clearbit and 6Sense. How has he used Linkedin to grow? What's driving his 8% free to paid conversion rate? Can he fix churn before its too late?

In Episode 28 of the RevOps Champions podcast, Brendon Dennewill sit down with Emily Grotkin, an expert in product development and AI integration. The episode delves into the significant product announcements from HubSpot's Inbound 2024 event, focusing on Breeze AI, Breeze Intelligence, and the enhancements to Marketing Plus. Emily emphasizes the importance of these new tools in driving operational efficiency and increasing productivity for marketing and sales teams by embedding AI capabilities directly into their daily workflows. Breeze Intelligence, which leverages HubSpot's acquisition of Clearbit, aims to enrich data and provide buyer intent insights without relying on third-party integrations.The conversation also addresses the economic challenges businesses face, such as slowing sales processes and shrinking budgets. Emily discusses how these new HubSpot tools can help businesses navigate these uncertainties by providing fast, easy-to-use solutions that unify systems and improve data governance. This is particularly crucial as companies move away from cookies and need more robust data solutions. The hosts and Emily stress the importance of maintaining clean data to maximize the effectiveness of CRM and AI tools, highlighting how Breeze AI and Breeze Intelligence can help automate data cleaning and enrichment tasks.Additionally, a notable development from HubSpot's recent announcements is the capability to store sensitive and highly sensitive data, making HubSpot a viable CRM solution for industries like finance and healthcare. Emily suggests that businesses should take advantage of these new tools to improve productivity now and prepare for future economic recovery. The episode wraps up with a call to action for listeners to explore HubSpot's latest product releases and consider how these advancements can be integrated into their own business strategies for maximum benefit.Find more at revopschampions.com

Triggers and signals are all the rage in B2B marketing at the moment. We have website visitor identification companies like RB2B!, Clearbit, and Dealfront making plenty of noise. We have intent data vendors trying to sell you lists of people more likely to be ‘in-market'.In this eye-opening episode of The B2B Playbook, we dive deep into the world of B2B signals and triggers. We explore what they mean for marketers, sales teams, and leaders, and how to use them effectively in your strategy.Tune in and learn:+ How to identify quality signals that actually indicate buying intent+ The power of customer interviews in uncovering true buying triggers+ Why tech platforms aren't the silver bullet for B2B signal success-----------------------------------------------------SUBSCRIBE to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@theb2bplaybookSUBSCRIBE to our newsletter: https://theb2bplaybook.com/newsletter/GET the latest CONTENT: https://theb2bplaybook.com/-----------------------------------------------------00:00 Unveiling the Power of B2B Signals and Triggers01:24 The 5 B's Framework: Your Roadmap to B2B Success02:34 Decoding Modern B2B Triggers: From Job Changes to Website Visits03:44 Old School vs. New School: The Evolution of B2B Signals05:20 Common Pitfalls: Where Marketers Go Wrong with Signals06:51 The Art of Signal Interpretation: Quality Over Quantity08:33 Lessons from the Past: Traditional B2B Signal Gathering09:50 The Tech Trap: Why Platforms Aren't the Silver Bullet11:05 Case Study: When Signal Tracking Goes Overboard12:50 Nurture vs. Hard Sell: Striking the Right Balance14:30 The Customer Interview: Your Secret Weapon for Signal Discovery16:30 Uncovering Buying Triggers: Key Questions to Ask Your Customers18:18 Cataloging Your Market: A Step-by-Step Approach19:50 Putting It All Together: ICP, Triggers, and Cataloging21:30 Key Takeaways: Mastering B2B Signals and Triggers-----------------------------------------------------

Our speaker this week is Sean Ericson, where we discussed the following, the founder of Abloom GTM, a sales development advisory firm that architects SDR and RevOps motions. Before Abloom, he provided foundational consulting services for 30+ startups like Clearbit, ConductorOne, Semgrep and Dolby.io as a Partner at InsideScale, and was a founding SDR at Talkdesk. Sean holds a Master's in International Development from the London School of Economics and is currently building a SaaS product for nurses. This Week's Episode is Brought to you with Netsuite. Get a personalized demo at Netsuite.com/Scale - that is netsuite.cm slash scale. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uncharted1/support

Kevin Tate was former Chief Revenue Officer at Clearbit. His expertise lies in strategic marketing, specifically in eCommerce, enterprise SaaS, social media, digital marketing and the like. He has over 24 years of experience in the field and has led several go-to-market software professional services and hardware-enabled SaaS companies. In this talk, he explains how Clearbit boosted their product-led to a 5x pipeline as well as how the company creates a seamless experience for their corresponding prospects. There's a lot to dig into this episode. Tune in to find out. Show Notes [0:36] What brought Kevin to Clearbit? [1:56] Some of the big steps that he took in order to get to where he's at [4:12] Kevin talks about MEL's (marketing engages leads). [8:24] Creating the weekly visitor report  [11:06] What type of problem space do they want to help companies explore with these tools? [18:41] What metric do they use to reach out to people? [28:56]. How to further accelerate your pipeline growth? [31:19] Try to make your tools as accessible, available, and convenient as possible. [32:07] How can you identify the best person for your ICP and prioritize your best accounts better?  [34:07] The importance of having a portable segmentation approach [36:28] Kevin's recommendations in nailing the company's segmentation process About Kevin Kevin Tate is a charismatic leader who likes to work swiftly to adhere to the vision, mission, and goals of his company. With over 24 years of experience, Kevin is well-seasoned to help people fully succeed when they deep dive into the market. He is currently the Chief Revenue Officer of Clearbit, an investor, mentor, and business tycoon at heart. Links Clearbit Profile Kevin's LinkedIn

Join us for an engaging conversation with Brett Goldstein, who is currently building a stealth startup. Previously, Brett was the Co-Founder and CEO of Launch House and served as a Senior Product Manager at Clearbit. In this episode, we explore a variety of startup ideas and business opportunities, including a conference event aggregator, vertical SaaS for matchmakers, data enrichment SaaS, and much more. Brett shares his framework for building a billion-dollar startup by disrupting legacy enterprise software companies. We break down how to transform spreadsheets into profitable startups and discuss the tactics and frameworks to build these businesses from idea to cash flow. Whether you're aiming to launch your first million-dollar business or are curious about cutting-edge entrepreneurial strategies, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration. Don't miss this essential guide to launching a successful startup!Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: [gregisenberg.com/30startupideas](http://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas)

There's no shame in taking one good idea and reusing it. In continuing to improve and tweak it to get more juice for the squeeze. Especially when you're struggling to come up with something new.That's what J.R.R. Tolkien did in The Lord of the Rings. When asked for “more hobbits” by his publishers, Tolkien had to get crafty. Because he never meant for The Hobbit to have a sequel. That's one of the things we're talking about today with the Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, Ryan Law. With Ryan's help, we're chatting about the power of iteration, world-building around your product, and much more.About our guest, Ryan LawRyan Law is Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs. He is a content marketer that's worked with both startups and enterprise companies, including Google, GoDaddy, Clearbit, ProfitWell and Hotjar.Before Ahrefs, Ryan was CMO at the remote content marketing agency Animalz where he generated over 2 million pageviews for the Animalz blog, and ran workshops with companies like Andreessen Horowitz, Writer, Drift, Clearscope, Wynter, and BrightonSEO. He has co-founded a marketing agency, freelanced as a marketing consultant and copywriter, reviewed beers, designed t-shirts and tended bar. He is also the author of two novels, the host of the Ash Tales podcast, an amateur landscape photographer, and the guitarist for The Schrödinger Effect.What B2B Companies Can Learn From Lord of the Rings:Iterate, iterate, iterate. When you have one good idea, continue to work on it, improve it and iterate on it. Ryan says, “Much like Tolkien, all the best ideas are kind of iterative evolutions of previous and frankly worse ideas as well. And you see that in Lord of the Rings, I think. I love The Hobbit to bits, but in some ways it does feel like the MVP of The Lord of the Rings. You know, there are decisions that he made in that narrative that weren't quite fleshed out and didn't quite make sense that he then changed a little bit in the full series of books.”Build a world bigger than your product. You're not just trying to make a sale. You're trying to immerse your audience in your brand and culture. Ryan says, “Some portion of every company's marketing effort should go into the world building that surrounds their brand. You know, creating things that further their beliefs and their ethos and creating opinions and ideas that are not sales assets, but are just plain interesting and share how they think about the world as well.”Quotes*“Tolkien does it without being really ham fisted with exposition. He doesn't laboriously explain the history of everything and how it all interacts. He teases at it and he hints at it and he reveals it through the dialogue of characters. I think that's deeply rewarding for the reader. You're not spoon fed this stuff, you make the connections yourself, you're brought along the journey and he gives you credit for discovering this huge mythos and history beneath it. And that's a wonderful thing to do, not assume the reader is an idiot, but just write the things you find interesting, let them find the secrets that they're going to find for themselves. It's so deeply rewarding.”*“Search demands that you basically write to the consensus. Like there is a set body of information it expects you to share, and it rewards companies that show consensus with other articles. And I think good thought leadership is in some ways the opposite of that. You are challenging truisms, you're talking about the things that no one else is talking about. So the thing I'm trying to do at the moment is, I think a more fruitful framework for thinking about that is talking about information gain. So if you're writing SEO content, you still have to cover the core topic, but you can think, ‘What new stuff can I add to that?' It's like an additive process. What new subject matter quotes or what new subtopics can we cover? What new research can we do? Cause it's very hard to reconcile those two from my experience.”*”Opinions are one of the most important things we're finding in content at the moment. A lot of people are very used to content marketing basically hedging bets. Nobody wants to say something very definitive. Mainly because content marketers, myself included, we're not experts in the things we're writing about. And we are, I think, wary of saying something that's wrong. And that generally leads to not saying anything at all. Being brave and willing to share a defensible opinion, that's something we're trying to do in all of our content, because it's a real differentiator and it's a good way of standing out when every other company is letting people make their own decision. Never make people think. Tell them what you're thinking yourself. ”Time Stamps[0:55] Meet Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs[4:34] Exploring Tolkien's Creative Process and Challenges[9:39] Content Creation Insights and B2B Marketing Takeaways[17:10] The Power of Storytelling and Building a Rich World[23:11] Human Connections and Their Impact on B2B Marketing[27:29] Exploring Book Titles and Author Insights[28:16] B2B Marketing Insights from Fantasy Literature[28:49] Long-Term Content Strategy and Its Impact[31:54] The Evolution of Content Marketing in Large Companies[33:42] The Importance of Serialized Content in B2B[44:12] Exploring the ROI of Creative Content Marketing[50:04] Final Thoughts on Marketing and CreativityLinksConnect with Ryan on LinkedInLearn more about AhrefsAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise.

Unpacking the Google-HubSpot Acquisition Rumors: Implications for the Future of CRM This week on "Unsolicited Feedback," host Fareed Mosavat welcomed Penelope Talbot-Kelly, GM of Platform & Services at DoorDash, and Austin Hays, a veteran in CRM and Martech, to discuss the buzzing rumors about Google potentially acquiring HubSpot. Austin previously joined us to chat about HubSpot's acquisition of Clearbit. Well, he's back to help us delve deeper into what this new merger could mean for the CRM landscape and digital marketing tools. Join us at Unsolicitedfeedback.co for a full summary!

Luke Diaz has a passion for building and leading high-performance Customer Success orgs (CSM, AM, SA, Support) to drive 3 outcomes: 1) accelerate product adoption, 2) drive quantifiable business impact for customers, and 3) achieve best-in-class gross & net retention. Customer Success is an underrated segment of startup success, it ensures users are getting value out of the product and even increases their customer value in an increasing revenue stream. Luke is also an angel investor and managing partner at DBT (Do Big Things) Ventures having invested in Kahawa 1893 coffee. If you're a coffee drinker use code: Luke at Kahawa's website at checkout for a discount. On the show, Luke shared a story about investing 100K into the company before they got into Trader Joe's and major grocery stores. Take a gander at their book summaries of over 40 business and self help books: https://www.dbtventures.com/library

On this week's episode of the SaaS Brand Strategy Show, Ryan, Mike, and Dustin delve into HubSpot's recent acquisition of Clearbit. A move that is part of what's been a significant shift in HubSpot's strategy over recent years, from a focus on inbound marketing to a broader customer management approach. We explore how Clearbit's data enrichment tools can impact customer's CRM and marketing strategies, enhancing lead generation and customer insights—and how this purchase does and doesn't position Hubspot against Salesforce. Join us as we analyze HubSpot's potential motivations behind the Clearbit acquisition and its impact on the SaaS marketing landscape. We discuss the fine balance between being specific enough to be compelling and generic enough to encompass a wide range of services in your messaging and positioning. And, how does HubSpot's evolving narrative align with the principles of effective category design, and what does it mean for their future, and the future of SaaS marketing? Tune in this week for an insightful conversation on SaaS marketing, on The SaaS Brand Strategy Show. About DRMG: SaaS Brand Strategy (SBS) isn't about the colors you use, or the typeface you choose. It's about the category you design and the story you tell. DRMG exists to help SaaS businesses find their magic bullet, load it, and fire it into the market. The companies we work with come out the other side with differentiation, defined categories, and the messaging to back it up. They're organizationally aligned, inspired, and ready to tell a better story—and win. Own the brand that drives demand. With DRMG. Send us an email at: ⁠⁠⁠hi@drmg.co⁠⁠⁠ Learn more at: ⁠⁠⁠drmg.co

Robin Spencer has the kind of career trajectory that makes people nod their heads admiringly—even if they can't *really* explain what she did as 1) Clearbit's Chief Operating Officer, or 2) Google's Head of Strategy & Operations. Suffice it to say: Robin has had some big jobs. And despite her success, she's more likely to talk about how bad she is at karaoke than about how good she is at building operationally excellent companies and teams.In the latest episode of Change Enablers, Robin opens up and reflects on the highs and lows of scaling operations at Clearbit—with advice for operators at all levels. Robin and Ken cover:• how much in Operations is process and how much is people• not getting ahead of yourself at a small-stage company• Robin's experience joining Clearbit when they had more tools than people, and how she approached her role to simplify things• processes are processes, no matter how informal (and sometimes the simplest solution = the most elegant one)• the influence that team dynamics play in making or breaking operations at a company• how to effectively set up a team early on to achieve optimal productivity• documenting your playbooks, even if you're the only player• what her team was able to focus on once she freed up their time to be creative Where to find Robin Spencer:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinbspencer/Where to find your host, Ken: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenbabcock/• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/bigredbabz• Change Enablers, a community by Tango: https://www.tango.us/change-enablers-communityLike what you heard? Subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who in Operations and Enablement should be our next guest.

This edition we dive into: • Preparing for a Fast Start in 2024 • Quick shots (Loom, Clearbit acquisitions) • Active lists of non-marketing contacts who used to be marketing contacts • How to build a list of ZoomInfo contacts • Adding images in meetings in the HubSpot app • Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator with HubSpot - pros and cons • How to find who created a contact • Sequence sender score analysis • Triggering SMS to contacts from a workflow • Blocking contacts with free email addresses • Smart content rules to block contacts from some countries • Last Message from Visitor ticket property • HubSpot's Data Model Overview overview • Teamwork Workflows marketplace app • Consultant versus Coach • Tons of training options Full show notes available at: https://www.hubshots.com/episodes/episode-305 Recorded: Wednesday 29 November 2023 | Published: Friday 08 December 2023

Find out what's going on in the marketing world right now with Alex, Shahin & Vinnie. The episode covers the following: Hubspot acquires B2B data provider, ClearbitThe Optus outageLinkedIn's AI job seeker coach Resources mentioned in this episode: HubSpot picks up B2B data provider Clearbit to enhance its AI platformPossessed - The Origin Story of a B2B MarketerLinkedIn launches AI job seeker coach for premium subscribers _________________ Hosted & Produced by Shahin Hoda, Allysa Maywald & Alexander Hipwell, from xGrowth. We would love to get your questions, ideas and feedback about Growth Colony, email podcast@xgrowth.com.au

Austin Hay Examines What's Next for HubSpot's Newest Acquisition, Clearbit; Plus a Defense of Freemium This week, we're thrilled to discuss the biggest bombshell acquisition in the marketing space - HubSpot's acquisition of Clearbit. To really understand the implications here, we tapped Austin Hay, a renowned expert in marketing technology. Austin, who currently leads MarTech at Ramp, has previously worked with prominent companies like Branch and Runway and advised industry leaders like Notion, Walmart, and Postmates on their marketing technology strategies. Today he joins us to discuss: 1️⃣ HubSpot's acquisition of Clearbit (Starts at 2:36) 2️⃣ A blog post by Bobby Pinero, the insightful CEO of Equals, where he tackles the complexities of Freemium (52:48) Below, we'll unpack the critical takeaways from our in-depth discussion on HubSpot's pivotal acquisition of Clearbit. For summaries of our rebuttal of Bobby's Freemium takedown and Austin's views on which Martech tools are underrated and which are overrated, you'll either need to subscribe to our new email list at Unsolicitedfeedback.co, or just listen to the episode

This Week's Guest is Lou Petrossi, founder and CEO of Inside Scale. Lou started in tech as an SDR with GoodData, then built outbound functions for Showpad (5th US employee) and Talkdesk (7th US employee) before founding InsideScale. Lou's supported sales development build-outs at 65+ startups to date, including Gong, Front, SaaStr, and Clearbit - all while leading InsideScale's GTM functions. This week's episode is brought to you by Bambee, learn more at Bambee.com/scale --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uncharted1/support

Ryan Law, Former CMO at Animalz, shares AI Prompts that can make you into a super content marketer. Download the free powerups cheatsheet: https://marketingpowerups.com/033

Join us in this episode of the Sales Development Podcast as we dive deep into the world of data solutions with Matt Sornson, the co-founder and CEO of Clearbit. In this insightful conversation, Matt discusses Clearbit's journey from its inception as a data company to its evolution into a critical player in the B2B sales, marketing, and go-to-market landscape. Discover how Clearbit's innovative use of APIs and data sets has shaped its success, and how they're leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to revolutionize the way data is processed and used. Matt also shares his vision for the future of Clearbit and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead in the data-driven world of sales and marketing. Tune in to explore the potential of LLMs, data enrichment, and the role of technology in powering the revenue machine. Want more Pipeline and Revenue? Tenbound Free Resources: Newsletter https://www.tenboundplus.com/free-access https://www.linkedin.com/company/tenb... / @tenbound Auto-Subscribe / @tenbound https://www.facebook.com/tenboundinc/https://twitter.com/Tenboundhttps://www.instagram.com/tenbound/

Please Rate and Review us on your podcast app of choice!Get involved with Data Mesh Understanding's free community roundtables and introductions: https://landing.datameshunderstanding.com/If you want to be a guest or give feedback (suggestions for topics, comments, etc.), please see hereEpisode list and links to all available episode transcripts here.Provided as a free resource by Data Mesh Understanding. Get in touch with Scott on LinkedIn if you want to chat data mesh.Transcript for this episode (link) provided by Starburst. See their Data Mesh Summit recordings here and their great data mesh resource center here. You can download their Data Mesh for Dummies e-book (info gated) here.Ale's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandracabre/In this episode, Scott interviewed Ale Cabrera, Senior Data Quality Product Manager at Clearbit. To be clear, she was only representing her own views on the episode.Some key takeaways/thoughts from Ale's point of view:A key part of understanding what data work will be impactful is a simple phrase: "Is my understanding correct?" Putting out there what you took in and making sure you're on the same page will save a ton of time and headaches!Her advice to her past self: In data, far too often, we try to jump to solutioning instead of really taking the time to understand the problem. Start from understanding the problem and assessing it first.It's very easy to make data say something that it's not actually reflecting. Quality isn't just about accuracy or similar metrics, sometimes there are intangible aspects around correctness that people get but usually can't measure.In data work, many people miss two crucial aspects - the voice of the customer and the why. If you build the greatest thing ever but it isn't what the customer wants, it won't be used. Similarly, if you focus on the work and not the target outcome, your results are likely to be subpar.If you want to prove data work return on investment, try to associate it to a key company metric and talk about how improving that metric will drive better business outcomes.When you want to prove out the value of data quality, attach quality issues to direct business challenges or goals. It's easy if you are a company selling data but you have to understand why bad quality...

Take a look back on season 3 thus far with some of our favorite guests including Rosie O'Meara, the Chief Revenue Officer at Groundtruth, Kevin Tate, CMO of Clearbit, Palmer Houchins, Head of Marketing at G2

Welcome to another episode of The SEO Growth Podcast! This time, we talk with Alex Ross, a Content Marketing Head, about the tenets for the success of a company newsletter. Today we chat with Alex Ross about getting your newsletter to feel like a magazine off a shelf. Alex chats to us about her time at Clearbit and how she contributed to the wide success of their monthly newsletter. Alex provides us with practical tips for creating a newsletter that resonates with your audience like lacing in pop culture references, having catchy subject lines, and keeping it light and fun. Alex also shares her process for producing newsletters, like ensuring there is an editor that goes through everything with a fine-toothed comb and injects the company's tone of voice into the piece. She also discusses the importance of receiving and incorporating reader feedback. She shares the importance of switching up topics and seeing what becomes most popular with your readers. Tune in to find out how to write the perfect company newsletter! In this episode, we talk about: B2B Newsletter Content Marketing Tone of voice Timestamps: [00:08] Introduction [01:10] Alex's time at Clearbit [02:08] The wide success of Clearbit's newsletter [05:44] The process for writing a great newsletter [08:19] Coming up with ideas for writing [12:00] How to engage with your subscribers [13:08] Understanding what resonates with your audience [19:50] Improving your B2B newsletter game [23:09] Wrap Up About Alex Ross Alex Ross has been in content marketing since blogs were ranking with just a couple hundred words. Working with several B2B startups throughout her career, Alex is no stranger to building content systems from the ground up. Alex is a Senior Content Marketing Manager for B2B companies.  When she's not creating content, you can find the San Diego native exploring her city through tacos, craft beer, and Padres baseball. Connect with Alex Ross on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-suarez-ross/  Join the Flying Cats Still feeling your stomach drop whenever you have to report organic growth to leadership? Things are about to change

Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, and his journey with each company has been wildly different. Clearbit took more of a “classic” startup approach—raising VC money, hiring hundreds of people, and working from an office in SF. In 2020, he charted a new course by replacing himself as CEO at Clearbit, selling all his possessions and living full-time on a sailboat in the Atlantic. And now he's building his new company Reflect in with a totally different approach —building a fully remote & asynchronous “lifestyle” company that decidedly eschews VC money and the other common hallmarks of a tech startup. Alex shares everything he's learned as a founder and why he believes building startups should not be one-size-fits-all. Blake and Alex talk through: (7:07) Pros/Cons of being asynchronous by design(09:01) Why Alex doesn't believe in remote work for large companies(10:11) Remote work pitfalls(14:21) When to replace yourself as CEO(15:52) How to find your zone of genius(18:31) When do startups hire a CFO or COO?(21:14) #1 piece of advice for founders(24:14) Things to know before you found a startup (B2B vs. B2C)(27:27) Why not raise venture capital(28:28) When startups should (or shouldn't) raise venture capital(29:40) How Reflect started crowdfunding(39:14) What AI and ChatGPT is good for(44:13) Best time to start a company(46:20) Not all startups need VC funding(47:16) Advice for VCs from a founder

Community-Led Growth is all the hype recently. But if you look at most companies' communities, what you hear is "crickets."But, if you look at Pocus' Product-Led Sales community, you can see members welcoming each other, responding to each other questions, and lifting everybody up.The secret? It's their AMAs series where experts from Clearbit, OpenView, and Notion have come to answer any questions, which has been so central to their marketing flywheel and community growth.Today, Sandy Mangat, Head of Marketing at Pocus, discusses the Pocus' AMA community strategy in detail.In this Marketing Powerups episode, you'll learn:How Pocus' AMA series fuel its marketing flywheel.How building a network of mentors and advisors accelerated Sandy's career.How Sandy repurposes the AMA recordings into articles and podcast episodes.How Sandy identifies product evangelists through their community.

Kevin Tate, Chief Marketing Officer at Clearbit, talks about Clearbit's B2B data activation platform for marketing intelligence. With accurate and diverse data sets, AI models can learn and make predictions with greater accuracy and reliability, driving better outcomes for businesses and their customers. Companies like Clearbit are playing a vital role by providing businesses with the necessary data to train their AI models effectively. Today, Kevin discusses how to power AI using data. Show NotesConnect With: Kevin Tate: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevin Tate, Chief Marketing Officer at Clearbit, talks about Clearbit's B2B data activation platform for marketing intelligence. With accurate and diverse data sets, AI models can learn and make predictions with greater accuracy and reliability, driving better outcomes for businesses and their customers. Companies like Clearbit are playing a vital role by providing businesses with the necessary data to train their AI models effectively. Today, Kevin discusses how to power AI using data. Show NotesConnect With: Kevin Tate: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevin Tate, Chief Marketing Officer at Clearbit, talks about Clearbit's B2B data activation platform for marketing intelligence. Clearbit's "Powered by Clearbit" program is designed for teams building data-powered products. By accessing Clearbit's company and customer data through APIs, product teams can make their systems smarter, personalize their products, and provide contextual experiences for end users. Today, Kevin discusses using Clearbit for building data-driven products. Show NotesConnect With: Kevin Tate: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kevin Tate, Chief Marketing Officer at Clearbit, talks about Clearbit's B2B data activation platform for marketing intelligence. Clearbit's "Powered by Clearbit" program is designed for teams building data-powered products. By accessing Clearbit's company and customer data through APIs, product teams can make their systems smarter, personalize their products, and provide contextual experiences for end users. Today, Kevin discusses using Clearbit for building data-driven products. Show NotesConnect With: Kevin Tate: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // LinkedIn // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I was super excited to talk to today’s guest because he is the founder of Clearbit, a software that would magically take an email address and then tell you about the person behind the email address. I didn’t expect to talk about his new company but shocked to find out how powerful and big it’s gotten already. Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, which helps users keep track of thoughts, books, and meetings. Alex MacCaw is the founder of Clearbit and Reflect, which helps users keep track of thoughts, books, and meetings. Sponsored byOrigami – If you’ve heard about DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and you want to find out how to set one up for yourself, go to JoinOrigami.com. Even if you’re just interested in how these things work and want to learn more, the Origami blog is a great place to start. Lemon.io – Why squander time and money on developers who aren't perfect for your startup? Let Lemon match you with engineers that can transform your vision into reality — diabolically fast. Go to Lemon.io/mixergy for a 15% discount on your first 4 weeks with one of their devs. More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint

Today, Jimmy is joined by Julie Beynon – Head of Analytics at Clearbit.Clearbit is a B2B data activation platform for marketing intelligence, helping its clients truly understand and identify prospects in their business.After a short stint in content marketing, Julie realized her talents could be recognized elsewhere, and joined the data analytics world. Jimmy and Julie discuss data, analytics, attribution and the concept of getting “close enough” when drilling down into the details.To find out more about Julie, feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn.To learn more about the processes at Clearbit, check out their blog.This episode is sponsored by Letterdrop. Letterdrop helps B2B companies go from idea to published fast with workflow automation and AI. Know what your customers are asking, plan your content calendar, manage approvals, optimize for SEO, and automate distribution across Webflow, LinkedIn, and your sales team.

This week's guest is Kyle Poyar, Operating Partner at OpenView. Kyle sat down with Patrick Campbell at SaaStock 2022 to discuss the ins and outs of product-led growth and how businesses can capitalize on this strategy to propel their success.Throughout the conversation, Kyle and Patrick delve into the importance of focusing on product usage as a key driver for customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. They discuss how companies like Zenefits have harnessed the power of sidecar products to provide additional value to their customers while strengthening their overall product offering. Kyle also shares valuable insights on why it's crucial to pay attention to user feedback and continuously iterate on product design to stay competitive in the market.High Level Overview:Product-led growth is a powerful strategy where product usage drives customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.To harness product-led growth, businesses must focus on creating effective and user-friendly products that exceed user expectations.Sidecar products, free offerings that complement the core product, can help attract customers early in their journey and increase the chances of conversion.Companies like Zenefits have successfully implemented sidecar products to broaden their suite of offerings and generate more value for their customers.Listening to customers and iterating on product design is crucial for continuous improvement and maintaining a competitive edge in the market.A Crash Course on Product-Led Growth:Product Led Growth (PLG) is a valuable approach to growth that focuses on getting customers to use the product, rather than relying on traditional sales and marketing. This guide will introduce you to the key components of PLG according to Kyle Poyar and how to leverage them for success:Quantitative Insights: The first step in PLG is to gain a better understanding of your customers' journey. Invest in a product analytics platform to gain quantitative insights into how users interact with your product. This will help you identify features that are being used, as well as unsuccessful user journeys.Session Replays and Recordings: In addition to quantitative insights, you should also look at session replays and recordings of user journeys. This will help you gain empathy with your users and identify areas where you could improve their experience. Tools such as Hotjar and FullStory can be used to get these insights.Micro Surveys: Micro surveys are a great way to get feedback from users on their experience with your product. Services such as Sprig allow you to collect user feedback on usability and product experience. This will help you better understand how users are engaging with your product and identify areas for improvement.User Testing: User testing is another great way to get feedback from users. It involves sending out prototypes and collecting feedback, through videos and questionnaires. This is helpful when targeting audiences that you have not reached yet, as you can get feedback on whether your product is compelling to them.Sales Assist Motion: You should also consider using a sales assist motion, even when you are trying to move towards PLG. This involves getting an email from the customer, running a rich through a service such as Clearbit and then using that data to inform how much resource investment you should put on the account. It is important to differentiate between customers that need a sales assist motion and those that can self-serve.Product Led Growth is a powerful tool for software businesses. By leveraging the tools discussed in this guide, you will be able to get a better understanding of your customers' journey and identify areas for improvement. With the right approach, you can unlock success with PLG.Further LearningsFollow Kyle on LinkedIn and check out OpenView for more on Product-Led Growth.

In this episode of Confessions of a B2B Marketer, we're joined by Alex MacCaw of Clearbit. We get Alex to share some underground B2B growth strategies that the implemented at Clearbit. He then shares what's working in the B2C SaaS marketing space as Reflect just hit $20k MRR!

Brought to you by Amplitude—Build better products | Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life | Ahrefs—Improve your website's SEO for free—Hila Qu is an Executive in Residence at Reforge as well as a renowned growth advisor, angel investor, and published author (her book about growth was named one of the top 10 business books of 2018 in China). Previously, she served as the Director of Growth at GitLab, where she implemented and scaled their PLG motion, and VP of Growth at Acorns, scaling them from 1 million to 5 million users. In today's episode, we discuss:• The importance of having both a product-led and a sales-led motion for companies of all sizes• A step-by-step process for implementing PLG• Common pitfalls of layering on PLG• How to audit your existing funnel• Conversion, activation, and retention tactics• Structuring your growth organization from day one, and as it scales—Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-adding-a-plg-motion-hila-qu-reforge-gitlab/#transcript—Where to find Hila Qu:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/HilaQu• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaqu/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Hila's background(03:26) The outcome of writing guest posts for Lenny's Newsletter(05:12) Why companies should have PLG and sales(07:58) What PLG is and why it's so popular(09:41) Zoom, an example of a PLG company(11:24) Common pitfalls in adding a PLG motion(16:06) The spectrum of when PLG makes sense(20:04) What you need to be successful in a product-led growth strategy(24:52) The first step to adding a PLG motion(30:11) What GitLab does and how the sales funnel and PLG funnel work there(34:07) Mapping out the funnel(35:29) Finding leverage and other next steps(38:24) What an aha moment is and conducting an audit(47:30) Activation and conversion (52:17) Why you should start with activation, and who is doing it well(55:24) Retention, the messy part of the funnel(1:00:34) How Hila made an impact on retention at Acorns(1:03:03) The two buckets of data (1:04:56) Tools for implementing a PLG motion(1:08:47) The importance of data (1:10:20) Tips to get started, and why you need to have good data first(1:12:10) How to do a data audit(1:15:04) Building a PLG team(1:22:40) The core growth squad(1:27:51) Lightning round—Referenced:• Hila's guest post on Lenny's Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/five-steps-to-starting-your-plg-motion• Ravi Mehta on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-your-product-strategy-stack-ravi-mehta-tinder-facebook-tripadvisor-outpace/• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/• GitLab: https://about.gitlab.com/• Lauryn Isford on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/mastering-onboarding-lauryn-isford-head-of-growth-at-airtable/• Acorns: https://signup.acorns.com/• PostHog: https://posthog.com/• Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/• Pendo: https://go.pendo.io/• Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/• HubSpot: https://www.hubspot.com/• Clearbit: https://clearbit.com/• ZoomInfo: https://www.zoominfo.com/• Endgame: https://www.endgame.io/• Pocus: https://www.pocus.com/• Pace: https://www.paceapp.com/• Toplyne: https://www.toplyne.io/• Crystal Widjaja on Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-scrappily-hire-for-measure-and-unlock-growth-crystal-widjaja-gojek-and-kumu/• Redshift: https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness: https://www.amazon.com/Almanack-Naval-Ravikant-Wealth-Happiness-ebook/dp/B08FF8MTM6• How Women Rise: https://www.amazon.com/How-Women-Rise-Habits-Holding/dp/1847942253/• 硅谷增长黑客实战笔记 (Hila's best-selling book on growth): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BZC8L78?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_ND87BRFMB0CMWBEVB747• The Wandering Earth II: https://wellgousa.com/films/wandering-earth-ii• The Three-Body Problem: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032• Lululemon yoga pants: https://shop.lululemon.com/c/women-pants/yoga/• ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/chat• Someday: https://www.amazon.com/Someday-Alison-McGhee/dp/1416928111—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

This episode features a conversation with Kevin Tate, the CMO at Clearbit. With extensive experience in enterprise SaaS, eCommerce, digital marketing, and social media, Kevin offers valuable insights on the shifting economics of demand generation driven by changes in the market. He also emphasizes the significance of timing in brand awareness building, highlighting its pivotal role in today's business landscape.Key Takeaways:Optimizing inbound motion has become a big focus area in the new economy for CMOs.The economics of demand generation is changing, with more tire kicking and fewer direct leads due to the market shift, but building awareness is still important.Mid-funnel content–content designed to nurture potential customers who may have interest but not the budget–is an uncuttable budget item for Kevin.Quote: “When things were really frothy, you could be more sure that someone who came across your content ad on Facebook or Instagram might be in the market. Now, it's less likely that they're ready to buy but it's just as important as a brand to be building awareness so that you're top of mind when the time is right.”Episode Timestamps:* (01:30) - Meet Kevin Tate, CMO of Clearbit* (04:00) - Navigating changes in shifting markets* (15:00) - Kevin's uncuttable budget items* (33:00) - How do you show ROI from mid-funnel content?Sponsor:Demand Gen Visionaries is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.LinksConnect with Ian on LinkedInConnect with Kevin on LinkedInLearn more about ClearbitLearn more about Caspian Studios

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Matt Mochary is an operator and an investor. Matt is known as the coach of Silicon Valley's best CEOs. He works with leaders at many companies, including Coinbase, Opendoor, Bolt, and Clearbit. After selling his startup in 1999 for millions, he surfed, made movies, and then developed the Mochary Method to help leaders excel. Matt's life mantra: “Make Money, Have Fun, Do Good” Matt has coached the leaders of Angelist, Brex, Coinbase, Sequoia, Grammarly, Attentive Mobile, Flexport, Plaid, and Reddit. I was not expecting so much emotion from him when talking about coaching. It's evident that Matt finds great joy in what he does. I find that inspiring. The components to a coaching conversation... Hold each other accountable. Declare the highest priority actions. Unpack the problems. Ask them how they are complicit in creating those problems? Help provide solutions & action items for each. Then share feedback. Instead of looking for a specific class, find the best teachers and go to them. That's where the learning happens. In college and out in the real world. "Matt's coaching has brought me clarity, focus, organization, less stress, and higher performance (me and the team). I have always been skeptical of coaches but I think he can 10x the output of a lot of people and I hope he does!" -- Sam Altman (CEO, OpenAI) “It's often easy to make a decision, but it can be much harder to get your team to invest emotionally in that decision.” “You create buy-in when you make people feel that they are part of the decision and that their input contributes to the final outcome.” “Most companies spend extraordinary resources of time, money, and equity to bring on a new team member, and then almost entirely drop the ball on quickly getting that team member onboarded and up to speed on how the company works so that they can begin making a full contribution. Don't make this mistake.” “You create buy-in when you make people feel that they are part of the decision and that their input contributes to the final outcome.” “Making a Sale To make a sale effectively, you need to do the following three things: Build trust Identify the customer's specific pain Sell results, not features” “Why did you leave that job?” Was the candidate promoted, recruited, or fired? Get very curious about why.” “And when receiving appreciation, there is only one correct response: “Thank you.” Do not feign humility by downplaying the act with statements like “It was nothing, anyone could have done it.” No. The person is trying to make you feel appreciated. Anything other than “thank you” will rob them of their goal.” Meetings – ALWAYS start on time. Don't ever say, “Well let's wait for everyone to join zoom.”

Alex MacCaw is the founder of Reflect, a note taking app which he's grown to $20k MRR with a team of 4. Previously, he was the co-founder of Clearbit, a VC-backed company that scaled to $50m in revenue. After stepping down as CEO of Clearbit, he decided to focus on doing the stuff he enjoys. So he's sailing around the world building an app that gets him excited every day.

Blake Thorne, Director of Content Strategy at LaunchNotes joins Jimmy to discuss how LaunchNotes' content team operates.Blake highlights the differences between product marketers and product managers and discusses the marketing strategies at LaunchNotes, the team's composition, and the role of content within it. The discussion shifts to the relationship between content cadence and quality, and whether a higher cadence negatively affects the quality of the produced content.Blake and Jimmy also explore repurposing and remixing content, including how to do it effectively. They delve into the idea of an expertise database that writers can use to search for relevant quotes and information, as well as the process of building and maintaining such a database. Finally, Blake explains how the LaunchNotes team communicates, shares insights, plans, and strategizes in terms of marketing.To find out more about Blake and LaunchNotes, visit their website or connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is sponsored by Campfire Labs, a story-driven content marketing agency that helps businesses build brand awareness, connect with customers, and create demand for their product. Check out their website at campfirelabs.co to learn more about how they are helping well-known companies such as Dropbox, Notion, Clearbit, Asana, and Freshworks grow.

Tina Donati, Content and Partner Marketing Lead at Alloy, joins Jimmy to discuss how Alloy's content team operates. They explore Alloy's strategy and organizational structure, providing an in-depth look into how the team works smoothly and efficiently. Alloy is an integration and automation platform for e-commerce that connects hundreds of apps and platforms, making it easy to access all of your data in one place.During the discussion, Tina offers a comprehensive overview of Alloy, its customers, and the structure of her team. She shares her career journey and highlights the importance of communication and collaboration in the workplace. Tina also talks about the tools her team uses for asynchronous communication and marketing needs and provides an inside look at their content publishing schedule and types of content they produce.If you're interested in learning more about Alloy and Tina's insights, visit runalloy.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.This episode is sponsored by Campfire Labs, a story-driven content marketing agency that helps you build brand awareness, connect with customers, and create demand for your product. To learn more about how clients like Dropbox, Notion, Clearbit, Asana, Freshworks, and more household names are growing with Campfire Labs, visit campfirelabs.co

Kevin Tate, CMO of Clearbit, joins Ajay and Vincent this week. He talks about how B2C and B2B are becoming similar, yet remain different, and how there is a need to understand a target market. Vincent welcomes Ajay back, and Ajay takes his win in Fantasy Football.

“It's just like being in a relationship,” says Brendan on this solo episode of Billion Dollar Tech. Today, he discusses what happens to a lot of startups when they bring in an outside expert or salesperson to help them scale, but the outside party through laziness or even with the best intentions fails to get the business past the growth stage. He lists five things most founders skip at the beginning stages, which can cost them everything, and explains what to do instead. Some of these are basic and universal such as being clear and specific with what you plan to solve, what your ideal customer looks like, and your results.  How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? More specifically, how do you create demand for your product when there is a long-established brand that people trust and don't feel like changing? How do you overcome the inherent mistrust people have in strangers, salespeople, and both in one? Once you bring people in, what do you have to say to them?  Brendan uses examples such as Cassidy Shield and Clearbit, as well as Seth Godin. Quotes: “Especially as you grow, you will hire experts, but you need to be able to speak, you need to be able to read your financial statements. You need to be able to speak the language of product, you need to be able to speak the language of sales and marketing. It doesn't mean you need to be able to drive the whole function. But you need to reasonably understand enough so that you can effectively interview people and address, ‘Do they know what they're talking about? Does this make sense for us?' and so forth.” (2:51-3:14 (Brendan)  “What are their jobs to be done? What are the things that they think are part of their job? Or the outcome that they're trying to drive? And how are they doing that today? What's the status quo? And what's the emotional resonance and like the priority of those jobs that they're doing? Right? Some things may be less important to people than others.” (5:25-5:44 | Brendan)  “It's just like in relationship. This is the overused metaphor which is that you wouldn't go up to a man or woman on the street and ask them to marry you, day one. You're going to start with coffee, then lunch, then dinner, then you know, and so forth and so on, building that trust over time. And that's the same with B2B sale.” (9:25-9:43 | Brendan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandellTikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

This week on How To Win: Matt Sornson, co-founder of Clearbit. He spent seven years across multiple leadership roles at the company and now serves on the board. His new day job is being a partner at Earl Grey Capital, an early-stage venture fund.In this episode, Matt breaks down five key lessons he's learned throughout his career. We discuss customers hacking your product, how to scrutinize your metrics, and the benefits of implementing an outbound sales strategy earlier. I weigh in on consistently releasing new products, going through the motions, and value-based pricing.Key Points: Lesson One: If you build it, they will come (01:19) I weigh in on why you should consistently launch new products (03:26) Lesson Two: Trust the hackers (04:18) I discuss the potential of hackers with a quote from ScreenCloud's Mark McDermott (06:19) Lesson Three: Customer success cannot be delegated (07:20) I talk about rethinking your metrics with a quote from Brian Burns, host of the Brutal Truth About Sales Podcast (12:17) Lesson Four - Pricing should be based on complexity (13:58) What is value-based pricing? A quote from ProfitWell's Patrick Campbell (18:04) Lesson Five: Start outbound as soon as possible (19:47) Wrap-up (24:28) Mentioned:Matt Sornson LinkedInEarl Grey Capital WebsiteClearbit WebsiteMaking the pivot upmarket with ScreenCloud's Mark McDermottThe Brutal Truth About Sales PodcastPatrick Campbell LinkedInMy Links:TwitterLinkedInWebsiteWynterSpeeroCXL

How To Raise a Venture Capital Fund Over the last 4 years, I have raised around $400M across different vehicles from many different types of investors. Today I am going to break down the early stages of how to raise a venture capital fund and then stay tuned for a follow-up to this where we will break down a fundraising deck for a fund, what to do, what not to do etc. But to the first element.  Your Fund Size is Your Strategy: The most important decision you will make is the size of fund you raise. So much of your strategy and approach will change according to your fund size target (LP type, messaging, documentation, structure etc). Remember, your fund size is your strategy. If you are raising a $10M Fund, you are likely writing collaborative checks alongside a follower, if you are raising a $75M fund, you will likely be leading early-stage seed rounds. These are very different strategies and ways of investing.  MISTAKE: The single biggest mistake I see fund managers make is they go out to fundraise with too high a target fundraise. One of the most important elements in raising for a fund is creating the feeling of momentum in your raise. The more of the fund you have raised and the speed with which you have raised those funds dictate that momentum. So the smaller the fund, the easier it is to create that heat and momentum in your raise. LESSON: Figure out your minimum viable fund size (MVFS). Do this by examining your portfolio construction. In other words, how many investments you want to make in the fund (the level of diversification) and then alongside that, the average check size you would like to invest in each company. Many people forget to discount the fees when doing this math and so the traditional fund will charge 2% fees per year and so across the life of the fund (usually 10 years), that is 20% of the fund allocated to fees.  Example: We are raising a $10M Fund.  20% is allocated to fees for the manager and so we are left with $8M of investable capital.  A good level of diversification for an early-stage fund is 30 companies and so with this fund size, I would recommend 32 investments with an average of $250K per company. That is the $8M in invested capital. Big tip, I often see managers raising a seed fund and are only planning to make 15 investments, this is simply not enough. You have to have enough diversification in the portfolio if you are at the seed stage. No one is that good a picker. Likewise, I sometimes see 100 or even 200 investments per fund, this is the spray-and-pray approach, and although works for some, your upside is inherently capped when you run the maths on fund sizes with this many investments.  A big element to point out in this example is we have left no allocation for reserves. For those that do not know, reserves are the dollars you set aside to re-invest in existing portfolio companies. Different funds reserve different amounts, on the low end there is 0% reserves and on the high end some even have 70% of the fund reserved for follow-on rounds.  In this example, given the size of the fund being $10M with a seed focus, I would recommend we have a no-reserves policy. Any breakout companies you can take to LPs and create SPVs to concentrate further capital into the company. This is also better for you as the manager as you then have deal by deal carry on the SPVs that are not tied to the performance of the entire fund. So now we know we know $10M is our MVFS as we want to make at least 30 investments and we want to invest at least $250K per company. Great, next step.  Set a target that is on the lower end, you can always have a hard cap that is significantly higher but you do not want the target to be too far away that LPs question whether you will be able to raise the fund at all. This is one of the biggest reasons why many do not invest in a first time fund, they are unsure whether the fund will be raised at all.  The Team: Alongside the size of the fund, the team composition is everything, simply put, LPs like managers who have invested in the stage you are wanting to invest in moving forward. They like to see track record. IMPORTANT: I see so many angels write checks into breakout Series B companies and then go out and try and raise a seed fund with this as their track record. Do not do this, this does not prove you are a good seed investor but merely shows you have access at the Series B. These are very different things.  With regards to track record, in the past, TVPI or paper mark-ups were enough, now there is a much greater focus on DPI (returned capital to investors). LPs want to see that you have invested before at that stage and they also want to see that the team has worked together before. You want to remove the barriers to no. If you have not worked with the partners you are raising with before, LPs will have this as a red flag, and as team risk, it is that simple.  Navigating the World of LPs (Limited Partners) The size of the fund you are raising will massively dictate the type of LPs that will invest in your fund.  MISTAKE: You have to change your messaging and product marketing with each type of LP you are selling to. A large endowment fund will want a very different product to a Fund of Funds.  Example: If you are a large endowment, you will invest in early funds but you want the manager to show you a pathway to them, in the future, being able to take not a $10M check but a $50M check from the endowment. Whereas the Fund of Funds will likely want you to stay small with each fund. So when discussing fund plans, it is crucial to keep these different desires in mind.   If you are raising a $10M fund, you will be too small for institutional LPs and will raise from individuals and family offices. An LP will never want to be more than 20% of the LP dollars in a fund and so the size at which an institutional LP (really the smallest fund of funds) would be interested is when you raise $25M+ and they can invest $5M. Generalisation but a good rule of thumb to have.  LP Composition of Your Fund: Speaking of one LP being 20% of the fund dollars, it is helpful to consider the LP composition you would like to have for your fund. The most important element; you want to have a diversified LP base. A diversified LP base is important in two different forms: No LP should be more than 20% of the fund at a maximum. That said you do not want to have so many investors in your fund it is unmanageable. LPs need time and attention and so it is important to keep that in mind when considering how many you raise from. Some LPs will want preferred terms or economics for coming into the first close or being one of the first investors, if you can, do not do this. It sets a precedent for what you will and will not accept and then for all subsequent investors, they will want the same terms and rights.  You want to have a diversification of LP type (endowments, fund of funds, founders, GPs at funds etc). Why? In different market cycles, different LPs will be impacted and so if you only raise from one LP type, if a market turns against that LP class, then your next fund is in danger.  Example: We will see the death of many mico-funds ($10M and below). Why? The majority raised their funds from GPs at larger funds and from public company founders. With the changing market environment, most GPs are no longer writing LP checks and most public market founders have had their net worths cut in half by the value of their company in the public market and so likewise, are no longer writing LP checks. In this case, the next funds for these funds will be in trouble as their core LP base is no longer as active as they used to be. We are seeing this today.  Prediction: 50% of the micro-funds raised in the last 2 years will not raise subsequent funds.   Going back to the question of diversification, my preference and what we have at 20VC, the majority of dollars are concentrated from a small number of investors. Of a $140M fund, we have $100M invested from 5 large institutions. These are a combination of endowments, Family Offices, a High Net Worth Individual and a Fund of Funds. The remaining $40M originates from smaller institutions or individuals, for us we have over 50 making up that final $40M. For me, I really wanted to have a community around 20VC Fund and so we have over 40 unicorn founders invested personally in the fund as LPs.  Bonus Points: The best managers select their LPs to play a certain role or help with a potential weakness the manager has. For example, I was nervous I did not have good coverage of the Australian or LATAM startup market and so I was thrilled to add founders from Atlassian, Linktree, Mercado Libre, Rappi and Nubank as LPs to help in regions where I do not have such an active presence. If you can, structure your LP base to fill gaps you have in your ability. Status Check In: Now we know our minimum viable fund size, we know the team composition we are going out to raise with, we know the LP type that we are looking to raise money from and we know how we want our desired fund cap table to look.  Now we are ready to move to the LPs themselves.  Fill Your Restaurant with Friendlies: As I said, the appearance of your raise having heat and momentum is important.  Mistake: The biggest mistake I see early fund managers make is they go out to large institutional investors that they do not have an existing relationship and spend 3-4 months trying to raise from them. They lose heat, they lose morale and the raise goes nowhere. Whatever fund size you are raising, do not do this. Fill your restaurant with friendlies first. What does this mean? Go to anyone you know who would be interested in investing in your fund and lock them in to invest. Create the feeling that progress is being made and you have momentum.  BONUS POINTS: The best managers bring their LPs with them for the fundraise journey. With each large or notable investor that invests in your fund, send an email to the LPs that have already committed to let them know about this new notable investor. This will make them feel like you have momentum, they are in a winner and many will then suggest more LP names, wanting to bring in their friends.  MISTAKE: Do not set a minimum check size, some of the most helpful LPs in all of my funds have been the smallest checks. Setting a minimum check size will inhibit many of the friendlies from investing and prevent that early momentum.  The bigger the name the incoming investor has the better. You can use it for social validity when you go out to raise from people you know less well or not at all. Different names carry different weight, one mistake I see many make is they get a big name invested in their fund but it is common knowledge to everyone that this LP has done 200 or 300 fund investments, in which case, it does not carry much weight that they invested in your fund. Be mindful of this as it can show naivety if you place too much weight on a name that has invested in so many funds.  Discovery is Everything: The world of LPs is very different to the world of venture. 99% of LPs do not tweet, write blogs or go on podcasts. Discovery is everything. When I say discovery I literally mean finding the name of the individual and the name of the organization that is right for you to meet.   This can take the form of several different ways but the most prominent for me are: The Most Powerful: Create an LP acquisition flywheel. What do I mean by this? When an LP commits to invest in your fund. Say to them, “thank you so much for your faith and support in me, now we are on the same team, what 3 other LPs do you think would be perfect for the fund?” Given they have already invested, they already believe in you and so 90% of them will come back with 3 names and make the intro. Do this with each LP that commits and you will create an LP acquisition flywheel.  Bonus Point: The top 1% of managers raising will already know which LPs are in the network of the LP that has just committed and will ask for those 3 specific intros. They will then send personalized emails to the LP that has just committed. The LP is then able to forward that email to the potential LP you want to meet. You want to minimize the friction on behalf of the introducer and so writing the forwardable email is a great way to do this.  The Most Likely to Commit: LPs are like VCs. When one of their portfolio managers makes an intro and recommendation to a potential fund investment, they will place a lot more weight on it than they would have otherwise. So get your VC friends to introduce you to their LPs, it is that simple. Remember, you have to remove the friction from the introducer. So, make sure to send the email they can forward to the LP. Make this personalized and concise. Mistake: Many VCs do not like to introduce other managers to their LPs as they view it as competition. This is moronic. If the manager asking for the intro is really good, they will raise their fund with or without your intro. If they are not good, then you can politely say it would not be a fit for your LP and move on. Do not be too protective of your LPs from other managers. The Cold Outbound: I am not going to lie cold outbound for LPs is really hard. Here is what I would suggest: Pitchbook: It is expensive and many cannot afford it but if you can, it is worth it for LP discovery. They have thousands of LPs of different types on the platform all with their emails and contact details. Those are less useful as a cold email to an LP is unlikely to convert but just finding their names and the names of their organization is what is important. You can then take that to Linkedin to then find the mutual connections you have with that person and ask for a warm intro.  Linkedin: Many LPs have the funds that they have invested in on their Linkedin profiles with the title “Limited Partner”. If they are invested in a fund that is aligned with the strategy that you are raising for, there is a strong chance they might be a fit. For example, I invest in micro-funds and have invested in Chapter One, Scribble, Rahul from Superhuman and Todd's Fund, and Cocoa Ventures, so you see this and see I like sub $25M funds with a specific angle.  Clearbit: Often you will know the name of the institution but not the name or position of the person within the institution that you are looking to raise from. Download a Google Chrome Plugin called Clearbit. With Clearbit you can simply insert the URL for the organization you would like to speak with and then all the people within it will appear and you can select from title and their email will be provided. Again, if you do not want to cold email, you now have their name which you can take to your community, to ask for the intro.  MISTAKE: LPs invest in lines, not dots. Especially for institutional LPs, it is rare that an institution will meet you and invest in you without an existing relationship and without having followed your work before. A mistake many make is they go to large institutions and expect them to write a check for this fund, it will likely be at best for the fund after this one or most likely the third fund. This does not mean you should not go to them with your first fund but you should not prioritize them and you should not expect them to commit. I would instead go in with the mindset of we are not going to get an investment here, so I want to leave the room understanding what they need to see me do with this first fund, to invest in the next fund. The more detailed you can get them to be the more you can hold them to account for when you come back to them for Fund II.  Example: If they say, we want to see you are able to price and lead seed rounds and we are not sure you can right now. Great. Now when you come back to them in 12 months' time, you can prioritize the fact that you have led 80% of the rounds you invested in, and their core concern there has been de-risked. In terms of how I think about LP relationship building, I always meet 2 new LPs every week. I ensure with every quarter, I have a check-in with them and ensure they have our quarterly update. This allows them to follow your progress, learn how you like to invest, and communicate with your LPs. It also really serves to build trust. Doing this not in a fundraising process also removes the power imbalance that is inherent within a fundraise and allows a much more natural relationship to be created. 

20VC: Fundraising 101 Today we are going to walk through the process of raising a funding round for a hypothetical company. We will break it down by different stages in the fundraising process and at those stages I will talk about how each element differs according to the round being raised.  First, for 99% of fundraises it is a game of shots on goal. You need to have enough investors in the pipeline, it is a sheer numbers game. Miki Kuusi @ Wolt said on 20VC recently for his Series B he got 68 rejections before Laurel Bowden @83North said yes. Wolt sold in 2021 for $7BN to Doordash making a monster return for the company's investors. But 68 meetings before that yes, for the Series B. Also goes to show, you sometimes just need one true believer.  How to Create a Target List of Investors Now we know we need enough shots on goal, we need to bring together a target list of investors, put these investors in three buckets: Priority (5 names of people you really want.) Tier 2 (15 names of people you would like) Tier 3 (15 names of people you would take money from but would not invite to your birthday!)  So how do we choose who goes in what bucket? First, founder references speak volumes and lead to warm intros, so speak to your friends who are founders, ask which of their VCs have been the best, place even more weight on their recommendation if the company has not been a success. It is easy to be a VC champion when the company is flying, you often see the true colours of the VC when a company is really struggling or fails. Get a couple of names there and then analyse the VC landscape, you can do this on Twitter or the VCs website or blog and find the VCs that resonate best with your company. Look at the types of deals they have done before, are they interested in pre-seed fintech in Europe, do they do enterprise SaaS Series A in the Silicon Valley. You can see their portfolio, make sure it is a fit for them. I get about 200 inbounds per day across channel, about 150 are clearly not a fit for me because of stage, sector or location and so making sure the obvious are aligned is crucial. Then double down on their Twitter or public profile to see as much as you can about their values and how they portray themselves. Rule No 1, never work with assholes. Value alignment is really important. Now we have the five priorities and then I would say do the same for the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bucket, make sure they invest both in your stage, sector and geography.  The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make Pitching: So now we have our pipe of investors. A couple of big mistakes I see founders make in this next step.  They go to their priority names first. Do not do this. Your pitch both in delivery, style and messaging will improve so much with each meeting. Start with a couple where you would not be sad if they said no. Analyse in real time in those meetings what messages are hitting and what are not, where are investors spending the majority of the time, are there common questions that keep coming up. If so, create an FAQ page that is in the deck and that will prevent you from having to answer the most obvious in other meetings. With each meeting, you will find ways to iterate the deck, the messaging and the way you present.  Another massive mistake founding teams make, if you are doing a Zoom call and it is a first meeting, do not have more than 2 people on the call from your team. It makes it tough to get to the core of the discussion and removes a lot of the relationship building with too many people too soon. If the investor likes the opportunity, they will ask to meet more team members but do not put too much in front of them to the point it dilutes the message and pitch.  Now we have done the first investor meetings and we have iterated our deck and messaging in accordance with the feedback we got. We now progress to taking meetings with investors we want as our partners.  How to Master the Subtleties of a First VC Call: Every investor call usually starts with each side telling a little about themselves and how they came to be the founder or the VC. As the founder, practice your intro, make it succinct, concise, break it into three chapters, a minute per one is a good guidance. In these you want to show a couple of things, founder problem fit or in other words, why you specifically have the right experience or skills to attack this problem. I also like to understand “insight development” as taught to me by the famous OG of seed investing, Mike Maples @ Floodgate. Insight development is the notion that the best companies are founded on a unique insight that the founder has about a product or market that is different to the way the world currently sees it. Include these two in your intro. Keep the intro to no more than 3-4 mins.  For the VCs intro, it is important to try and understand a little more about them. Many VCs give boring and bland intros; “we do Series A and B in Europe and like to lead rounds.” Very standard response and so you should ask them how they like to work with their founders, ask them about a company that struggled and how they worked with the founder to help. Ask them about their decision making process for reserves and pro rata. This creates more of a conversation which will instantly give you as a founder more gravitas in the eyes of the VC.  Use the deck as a vitamin and not a painkiller. I hate pitches where it is read off slide by slide. I would not have the slides showing at all, I will have asked for a deck pre the meeting and I should have gone through it before. The call is for me to ask about questions I want to understand more or double click on. That said, the deck can often be useful as a crutch and so it can work well to have it ready and refer to certain slides as and when necessary.    The 7 Sins of Fundraising Decks: So while we are on the deck, I want to go through a couple of elements that I so often see and they are killer mistakes: Length: Keep the deck less than 10 slides. If you need a couple more to show data or additional research, put it in the appendix at the end of the deck.  Introduction: First slide, company name and then answer the question; if I had a billboard in Times Sq, what would it say on it? 10 words max. From your first slide alone, there should be no doubt about what your company does.  The Team Slide: where do people go wrong here. They put 12 faces on it with their names. No information about the people, where they worked, why they are the best team to solve this problem. A totally useless slide if done like this. So do not do this. Instead, take 4 of those people, break the slide into quadrants and expand on those 4 people's backgrounds to why they are perfectly suited to do what they are doing. Fewer people more context.  The Useless Advisor Slide: Aligned to the terrible pictures of many team members with no context, the advisor slide, honestly, advisor slides just carry such little weight these days, they are not worth having. Take it out, it is not needed.  Market Sizing Errors: This is a massive one. I see so many make the mistake on market size slide. Say we have a CRM for hairdressers, taking a very random example here, so often I will see a $100BN market, thats the TAM for the hairdressing market or the CRM market, but we are CRM for hairdressers so that is not the right representation and is entirely misleading. It is much better to start with that, then show the slither of wallet spend that hairdressers spend on software and then show the even smaller slither that they spend on CRMs. Use the market sizing slide as a way to show your insight and intellect both into how the market is carved up today but also how it is going to change in the future. There is always the debate of what matters more, large market or amazing founders, the truth is, a massively growing market can cover a lot of operational sins and so showing how the market is and will expand and what causes this, the why now, will always be important. But do not show the massive market for hairdressing or whatever it is, I have seen more $1TN TAM for pet grooming businesses that you can imagine. So do not do that.  Exit Slides are Terrible: I do not see this so often now but do not have an exit slide in the deck for your early stage company, the wrong type of investors will be attracted to you if they like this slide, it encourages short term thinking and is not the right way to present for a company that will reshape an industry so no exit slide.  Why You Should Not Invest: One thing I love in startups and always have when I present my funds is a slide, why you should not invest in me. I think the most important thing for all founders is to be aware of their biggest weaknesses and then have clear action plans on what they are doing to mitigate the chances of them impacting their success. So have a slide that says, hey, these are our 3 biggest weaknesses and then tied to each one, this is what we are doing to solve it. This inspires trust in the relationship with the investor and really shows your self-awareness and strategic thinking. How To Structure The Size and Composition of Your Funding Round: Now at some point in the discussion the size of the round and the price of the round will be asked. Use this as a chance to show your calibre as a founder.  You Cannot Sit With Us (You Get The Joke!!!): Massive mistake founders make is they structure a round that does not allow for a VC to invest. What do I mean by this? VCs that lead rounds need to own at least 8% very minimum and if you come in raising $2M on a $25M cap, that is not enough allocation for the VC and pro-rata amount and then angels as well. Do not prohibit the VC from investing because of the structure of your round. For that example, $5M on $25M would allow for the VC to have 12.5% ownership, a smaller fund to have 3-4% and then a 3-4% allocation for angels.  Is This Check Meaningful?: An important question to ask is: is the check size being invested by the lead a material check size for them and their fund? For example, if the check size they are investing is less than 1% of their fund, it is not that meaningful, if it is less than .5%, it really is not meaningful. Now this could be bad as it means they are unlikely to be able to provide you with the same time and attention they would larger checks. That said, Jason Lemkin has also commented before on the benefits of this as they will leave you alone to execute, they will not put much pressure on you as you are not a core position and it is really yours to execute from there.  Do Not Do a Range: In terms of the actual size of check being raised, I do not like ranges. There is a massive difference between 3 and 5 million, and that impact on your runway is huge and so state a clear and direct number you are raising and what runway that will provide.  Milestone Hitting and Showing Resource Allocation: Use the question of how much are you raising to show your insight into the milestones that you need to hit over the next 18-36 months. Never raise less than 18 months, you also do not need to raise more than 36 months. Plan for a 6 month fundraise and execution 99% of the time always takes longer than you anticipate. With that in mind, I always prefer 24 months as the right period to raise for, this will give you 18 months heads down execution and then 6 months to raise.  Fundraising Rounds are To Prove Hypotheses: If we assume that fundraising rounds are science experiments and you have to prove or disprove a set of hypothesis with this time and money, make sure you can clearly articulate what you need to prove and by when. For the love of god do not say, this is the last round we will ever need to raise before we are immensely profitable, I could have a fund the size of Softbank if I had a dollar for everytime someone said that to me.  How to Answer the Question of Valuation: When you say the size of the raise, say $2M, the basic assumption is that each round will dilute 15-20% and so the average VC will think of a $10M post money valuation straight away when you say a $2M raise. That said, you do not want to anchor yourself to a price, you are running a process as transactional as it sounds and I am not saying you want to optimise for price by any means but the majority of the time, it is best to say, “hey we are raising $2M and we will let the market decide on the price”. This is a great way to answer the question as this will not put anyone off, it will not anchor you to a price and it will also show you are savvy as to the raise process which any incoming investor should want to see as your ability to raise the next round is fundamental for them. Again, use this question to show your sophistication and knowledge as to the finer details of how to navigate a fundraise successfully.    How to Choose Your Lead Investor?   The biggest problem of the last 2 years was people chose their lead having met them once. They will be a partner to you for 10 years and you will not be able to get rid of them, it is literally harder to remove an investor than it is to get divorced. Brian Singerman @ Founders Fund said on the show recently about how he was unable to do his job in COVID as he could not meet founders in person. It is so important to meet your lead investor in person before signing the deal, so much can be gained and learned from those meetings in person. Then there is the question of how do I really get to know someone, especially if it is in a compressed timeline, there are ways that you can accelerate a relationship and getting to know someone, make sure to ask: What would success look like to them with this investment? What are the 1-2 core ways they believe that you will not achieve your outcome? What worries them? Can they give you a reference for founders they have worked with where it has not gone to plan? Also do off sheet references and try to find others where it did not go to plan. You can find their email with the Google Plugin by Clearbit and that is super easy. That should reveal alot.  I also find really being vulnerable, talking about ambitions, inspirations, fears, childhood, my mother has MS and it is a tough and horrible thing to see your mother suffer with, I will discuss that and how it has changed me and my mindset in many ways.  How to Set a Timeline in a Fundraise? In this deliberation phase where you are waiting for a term sheet, you do need to create some form of urgency. Investors often need a reason to move and so it is good to put a timeline on the raise. 14 days is perfect, this is enough time for any VC to do the work they need to do but also if they cannot do it in that time without a plausible excuse, it is unlikely that they would have done the deal and so it will force timewasters to a no sooner and save you time.  Your Term Sheet is Ticking: One thing to be wary of is exploding term sheets. If any VC says you have to sign this here and now, that is BS. Do not do it and that is no way to start a 10 year relationship. That said, it is fair for them to set some form of timeline, otherwise, you can shop the term sheet; share it with everyone and use the first people to commit as leverage to create FOMO to get other people to commit. This can be a disadvantage of being a first mover as a VC but that is why they will often have some form of expiry date and that is not unreasonable.    When You Have Multiple Term Sheets: KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID)   Then you have leverage and you can optimise the round on price, size of round, size of lead check to angel allocation etc etc. My advice here would always be do not over optimise. If the chosen partner is slightly lower, take it. Do not lose the right partner because of a small 5% difference in price or size of round. Another big mistake founders make when they have multiple term sheets is communication. It is fine if you need another couple of days to consider the decision but keep everyone updated. Let each investor who is waiting know, you are still thinking it through and will be back to them shortly. Name when you will have an answer, a communicated delay is fine, no communication is not. Then another massive mistake founders make is for the VCs they choose not to go with, they do not turn them down graciously. These investors could likely fund your next round, a bridge round and you never know when you might need them and so always turn them down super well and keep them on side, they could be helpful in the future. If a VC Does These 3 Things: Forest Gump It:  Now the massive red flags with leads in this process that we need to call out: Pay to Pitch: If any VC ever makes you pay to pitch them. This is unacceptable and we have to remove this from the industry. Tweet me the details of these investors, it can be anonymous but these bad actors need to be called out. Investment Tranches Kill Companies: If it is an early round and they want to do the investment in tranches. No. This is such an inhibitor for the business it will not allow you to allocate resources effectively or with confidence. Do not allow for tranches. A bad deal can sometimes be worse than no deal. Tranches does not set you up to execute against a plan, build a world class team and achieve what you can. Say no.  Early Signs of Excess Control and Ego: If they haggle immensely on salary over small amounts, if they suggest you should be on $60K not $62K and they make a big deal out of it. This is a sign of what they will be like to come. Do not accept it.  So now we have our lead VC locked in and we have to allocate the rest of the round. I would work hand in hand with my VC to construct the rest of the round. They will have angels they work closely with and think highly of. Use them to help map out those people and then make those intros for you.  How to Allocate Your Angel Allocation: Assemble your angel cap table as you would a sports team. Each person has a specific position which they are specialised to and have a world class skill in. Someone for marketing, hiring, regulation, PR, partnerships etc. A massive mistake I see so often is founders try to cram down all their angels to their smallest allocation so they can fit as many as possible. Do not do this. Give fewer people more allocation. The only thing that matters is that the check size matters to them. For some it will be $10K for others it could be $50K but fewer with more skin in the game is important.  Next I see so many founders drag out the process meeting just one more investor and just one more, after a certain time, just get it done, get it closed and move on.  Just Closed: Time to Prep for the Next Round So now we have closed the round, congrats. Now time to start prepping for the next round, one thing to remember, as a founder, you are always raising. So here is what we should do next: Sit down with our new lead investor and align on what we believe we need to hit to unlock the next round of funding. Will that next round come from them or external financing?  If external financing, what 5 names should we focus on? Make sure to send those 5 names monthly updates with your progress. Investors invest in lines not dots.  Make sure to meet them on a quarterly basis.  By the time of your next fundraise, following 6 face to face meetings and 18 updates, the investor and you will know if this is a partnership you want to pursue.  I want your feedback. Did you enjoy this post? Let me know on Twitter here. 

Kevin Tate helps Clearbit reach B2B companies that are trying to better understand their customers and optimize their digital funnel. He has over 20 years of leadership experience in sales, marketing, and product, and deep expertise in enterprise SaaS, eCommerce, digital marketing, social media, and IoT. Prior to joining Clearbit, Kevin held executive roles at SurveyMonkey, Chirpify, and ShopIgniter.

In this new episode of Demand Gen Chat, I spoke with Colin White, Head of Demand Generation at Clearbit. Colin's career started in software development and he pivoted into marketing, where he's focused on driving revenue growth. If you're a marketer focused on driving top-of-funnel leads and looking to have an impact further down the funnel you won't want to miss this episode. We chat about how Colin approaches setting KPIs for individuals on his team (including Marketing Ops), and how to prioritize program ideas for the highest impact. Colin also shares how his team at Clearbit balances the science and ‘gut feel' of marketing to set and achieve their goals. Show Notes Follow Tara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraarobertson Follow Colin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maybecolin/ Check out Nick Bennett's content: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickbennett1/ About Demand Gen ChatDemand Gen Chat is a Chili Piper podcast hosted by Tara Robertson. Join us as we sit down with B2B marketing leaders to hear about the latest tactics and campaigns that are driving pipeline and revenue. If you're looking for tactical ways to improve your marketing, this podcast is for you!

Juhi Saha is the Vice President of Partnerships and Alliances at Clearbit, a data activation platform that allows companies to discover, engage, and convert their most valuable customers from one flexible go-to-market foundation. In this episode, host Jenna Sacks and Juhi talk about the importance of maximizing partnerships and identifying key factors that drive retention and successful internal communication. Juhi dives into the different variables that impact different partnerships and how to maintain them. Visit Salesloft.com for show notes and insights from this episode. 

This week we're talking with Alex MacCaw — he's well known for his work as founder and CEO of Clearbit. In May of 2021, Alex shared a personal update with the world on his blog. After much reflection, he decided to step down as CEO of Clerabit to go back to his roots. In his words, “I love the early stages of company building. Hacking together code, setting up the Stripe account, getting the first customer. That's my jam.” We talk with Alex about this portion of his journey at Clearbit, the Catamaran he bought in South Africa and then sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, and the new thing he's building called Reflect that let's you keep track of your notes, books, and meetings.

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Richard White, CEO of Fathom (www.fathom.video), an app that plugs into Zoom and helps you recall and share important moments from your meetings. In this episode, we talk about his previous company Uservoice, the pros and cons of strategic investors (in his case, Zoom invested in Fathom), why he raised funds from 90 investors over multiple smaller rounds with no lead investors, why he decided to go through Y Combinator even though he's a seasoned (3x) entrepreneur, tips for getting into Y Combinator, and more. Fathom most recently raised a $4.7 million seed round from over 90 early-stage investors. Zoom's Apps Fund was a strategic investor. Other funds include Maven Ventures, Character.vc, Active Capital, Global Founders Capital, Rackhouse.vc, Soma Capital, BoxOne Ventures, Quiet Capital, Immeasurable, Liquid2 Ventures, Valley Oak Investments, Hashtag Blessed, Whoa.vc, and Friale. Individuals include Bill Tai (Angel Investor in Zoom), Matt Ocko (Angel Investor in Zoom), Oleg Rogynskyy (CEO, People.ai), Steve Huffman (CEO, Reddit), Emmett Shear (CEO, Twitch), Justin Kan (Co-Founder, Twitch), Kyle Vogt (CEO, Cruise), Daniel Kan (Co-Founder, Cruise), Finbarr Taylor (CEO, Shogun), Immad Akhund (CEO, Mercury), Viral Bajaria (Founder/CTO, 6sense), Parm Uppal (CRO, DataRobot), Aaron King (CEO, Snapdocs), Aaron Rankin (CTO, SproutSocial), Jay Jamison (CPO, Quick Base), Alex MacCaw (Founder, Clearbit), Arram Sabeti (Founder, ZeroCater), Josh Buckley (Former CEO, ProductHunt), Rich Liu (Former COO Lattice), Chris Fanini (Co-Founder, Weebly), Nick Raushenbush (Co-Founder, Shogun), Jacob Rosenberg (Co-Founder, LendUp), Mikhail Seregine (Co-Founder, Outschool), Vikas Gupta (CEO, Wonder Workshop), Jinal Jhaveri (CEO, enable.us), Jeff Whitlock (Founder, Pingpong), Adam Michalski (CEO, Partnered), Andrew Chen (Co-Founder, Explo), Cedric Dussud (Co-Founder, Narrator.ai), Dwight Crow (Co-Founder, Whisper.ai), Jamie Quint (Uncommon Capital), Benjamin Bryant , Chris Evans, Jason Hunt, Maggie Gryko, Matthew Fong, Michael Keller, Nitin Shantharam, Shaan Puri, Leslie Lai, Zach Sherman, Zach Waterfield, Reza Hussein, Kutta Srinivasan, Jaclyn Kossmann, Eugene Zarakhovsky, Mujtaba Wani, Will Laufer, Eleanor Dorfman, Rustam Lalkakaas well as the CEOs of Reddit, Twitch, Cruise, Mercury, People.ai, Snapdocs and Shogun. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $9 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.