Jesse Creighton

[Announcement!] I talk to young and aspiring founders almost every day. Some of the biggest reasons they reach out to me are- ↳ Need for/lack of funding [Cashflow] ↳ Struggling with revenue [S&M/PMF] ↳ People issues [Talent & Culture] ↳ Develop a game plan [Strategy] Less than 5% of all startups reach their primary revenue stream, leading to eventual failure. Yet, many young graduates, entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals take the plunge to start a business for a better future. Over the past 15+ years working in startups and corporates, I have learned that the founder/leader's #1 job is to 'manage internal and external risks' that can kill the business. Startups or ideas fail to reach their potential due to 'poor management of the risks' they must mitigate for success. The ability to see the long term and build the foundation in the short term while mitigating all the possible reasons for failure cannot be taught overnight with a recorded video, podcast or a blog. You have to go through the journey to figure it out. ⇲ Some take 2-3 years of trial and error to learn this. ⇲ Some learn this by working for 2-3 years before starting their business. ⇲ Some find a partner to complement their skills and reduce their risks of failure. ⇲ Others join an incubator/accelerator to bridge their experience gap by attending sessions and booking office hours. Each of these options has more cons than pros. And no single one can guarantee a desired outcome as there are too many variables that a founder has to navigate through the formative years of their company. Having mentored dozens of entrepreneurs and advising five outstanding founders (startups) in Bangladesh, I found a unique approach that is more effective than all of the above. But first, let's recognize what's at stake for an early-stage startup run by first-time founders. ⏳ The business needs to achieve PMF within the first 2-3 years ⏳ There needs to be enough cashflow (financing) to support this critical runway Time is the most crucial thing here, and it is against all of us. Hence, an optimum solution that can reduce the 2-3 years' worth learning curve into a 6-12 months extensive learning process to achieve the PMF is the way to go for most startups. [If you want to increase your odds of survival and success] Solution? ✳️ The STARTUP OS It's an Operating System (OS) for early-stage #STARTUPS and #FOUNDERS. It trains you like a ninja 🥷 to successfully navigate, iterate, and pivot the first three years' worth of struggles and milestones over a six-month extensive LIVE boot camp. The #COHORT1 of the STARTUP OS Live program starts in November 2024. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or an early-stage founder, this program will give you what none of the existing options can match. If you want to learn more about the first-ever STARTUP OS Live Cohort 1, please email me at [email protected] with the subject line [STARTUP OS]! Can't wait! 😎

45

20 Comments

Today’s Brennan would crush Zendesk BDR Brennan in ANY outbound game. This hit me after chatting with Abdul Javed about deliverability and hyper-relevant campaigns. And don’t get me wrong, I was pretty darn good back then. *cough* humble brag *cough* I was a top 1% APAC rep every quarter and maxed out my quota - twice. But honestly, I brute-forced results with pure determination and repetition. I'd have made my life a lot easier if only I had known to: Leverage tech. I relied too much on manual work, barely scratching the surface of tools like Outreach and 6sense. With tools like Clay, Smartlead, and OpenAI now? If you're not using them, you're behind. No excuses. Deliverability. How is this still not taught in outbound sales? I didn’t grasp spam filters until I started my own agency. I can't imagine how much email bounces impacted my campaigns. Thank god for BounceBan (Verify risky emails without sending messages), MillionVerifier and Findymail. Lead segmentation. My campaigns would’ve been 3x better if I’d segregated my territory properly. Now, it’s a must in all my client work. Nurture sequences. Not every prospect is ready to buy and that's ok. Nurturing is key if you know how to do it right. --- B Found is built on multiple years in SaaS sales, boosted by what I know now about outbound. That's exactly how we manage to connect founders with investors better than they can themselves.

46

17 Comments

The single most important thing that changed the trajectory of Gem wasn’t raising money, getting into YC, or hiring a team. It was getting our first 2 customers. I’ve seen this first-hand at Gem. I’ve also seen it in the 50+ companies I advise + angel invest in. And I think it probably holds true for anyone looking to bring a new product to market in a larger company. Here’s why: ➡️ ‎You stop wasting time building features that don’t matter. Before you have customers, you’re guessing at what features might matter. As soon as you have a few customers, you very quickly uncover a TON of features you didn’t even know you needed, and most of the “great” features you dreamed up will quickly fall below the fold in terms of priority.   ➡️ ‎Most startups spend time building entire companies that don’t matter. The biggest failure mode I see is when smart technical founders spend a ton of time heads down (sometimes years!) building a company in search of a problem without validating that the problem is even worth solving. The best way to validate whether a problem is worth solving is to see if a few customers will pay you for it. If you can’t, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree. ➡️ ‎Motivation. Getting customers kicked us into high gear. There’s something magical about waking up every morning and solving real problems for real people.   To this very day, customer focus is one of our core values at Gem and is probably the single biggest value that influences how we build our product & company. Super grateful for our Gem customers. You are why we do what we do each day.

187

16 Comments

This will be Spotify's 1st profitable year ever. It only took 18 years. They just posted Q3 earnings and they beat expectations across the board: → Paying subs up 12% to 252M → Monthly Active Users up 11% to 640M → Premium Revenue up 24% to $3.86B They posted quarterly income of $499M, putting them on pace for a ~$1.5B profit in 2024. And Spotify stock just hit an all time high today. But two trends to keep an eye on: 1. Y/Y growth rates for MAUs & Premium Subs are at all-time lows (though raw numbers remain strong). 2. The share of users in high-value regions (US/EU) has dropped from 59% in 2020 to 45% today, as most growth is coming from lower-revenue regions. I know many root for Spotify's demise, but this is about the health of music's core business model. More people paying for music. More global access to the world's catalog. Spotify's profitability is a win for music's ecosystem.

266

46 Comments

Very important lesson for any founder - think long and hard to whom and for what you give equity.

1

We’re hiring AEs and SDRs in the Bay Area (or open to relocation). Here are the transparent numbers and why this is one of the best opportunities in SaaS right now: AEs: 1. I came on a year ago to be the first IC and build the sales process: 180% to 1M quota in the first year with 0 ramp quota. We had few customers, little trust, and our brand was much smaller than it is today. 2. Brought on Tyler Boyd. We worked at Chili Piper in the very early days as 2 of the first reps. I knew he could pick things up with minimal onboarding + the effort he’d put in to succeed. He closed 100k+ in his first full month with 0 ramp period and only working our smaller segment customers. He was on his own calls within a couple weeks, and considering the sales cycle can often be longer than the time he has been here, we’re in a pretty confident place to continue growing. 3. Our calendars are slammed every day and we will need 2 more AEs to handle the bandwidth. One reason calendars are slammed brings us to the next point: SDRs: 1. Until last month, we were 100% inbound (and didn’t have much bandwidth to outbound), but we knew money was being left on the table, so brought on Alex and Garrett to start our outbound motion. 2. Alex and Garrett hit 100% of their quota with no ramp period. 3. July was our biggest month in terms of pipeline gen with 2x increase from June. (and it’s usually the worst month for B2B companies) 4. We’ve proven the first iteration of outbound is successful and want to continue to scale it. 5. Alex Choi built SDR teams at Carta and has a 90% SDR to AE promo rate for SDRs he hired and trained. We want to fill our AE team with internal promotions. Why HockeyStack?: -We sell a solution for a problem that literally every B2B marketing and sales team has (understanding which marketing efforts drive pipeline + using this data to execute on prospecting/marketing strategies) -No other solution solves the problem well (and we get to rip out archaic systems from F50 companies) -The team is the smartest/hardest working people in the biz (no better environment to level up a career) -Comp is above market + incl. equity You: -Bay Area or open to relocate -Startup Experience -MarTech Experience (AEs) -Takes initiative/Self Taught (Be able to ramp fast/learn without handholding) -We work hard + have a high bar/expectations, so that should be an exciting thing not a scary thing to you Please reach out to Rajalakshmi Venkatesh if this sounds like you.

55

13 Comments

5 Steps to 10X your appointments set by increasing your cold call pick up rate! (🧊📞) Step 1) Scrape leads at volume using software like: - Apollo.io - D7 Lead Finder - Lead Rocks Step 2) Focus on cell phone numbers (Much higher answer rates.) using software like: - ClearoutPhone Step 3) Sort by area code and time zone. Step 4) Dial Time: - 8AM-10AM and 4PM-6PM tend to work best. Step 5) Leverage a Power Dialer or if possible, a Predictive Dialer like: - Close - JustCall - PhoneBurner Bonus Tip 1: Go High Level tends to end up in spam. Bonus Tip2: Use targeted area codes per state. Bonus Tip 3: I've heard there is easily accessible cheap underground software that hacks the Apollo API. #entrepreneurship #sales #revenue #coldcalling #business #leadership #worksmarter

10

4 Comments

📢 10 Interesting Learnings from Vacasa's Q2 2024 Financial Results! 📢 1️⃣ $30 Million Investment from Davidson Kempner Capital Management (DK) Vacasa secured a $30m convertible note from DK, the 8th largest hedge fund in the world. The note allows for an additional $45m. This is notable as DK amassed a 9% stake earlier in the year, partly with shares purchased from Vacasa’s founder Eric Breon. 2️⃣ 2 New Board Seats In return for the investment from DK, they will get 2 board seats: Luis Sosa and Alan Liu. 3️⃣ Focus on Local Teams Greyber continued to emphasize the focus on local teams vs corporate. For ex, giving local teams the ability to update listings instead of having it done at the corporate level or allowing local teams to decide which inventory to bring on. I commend them on this decision as I 100% think it is the right move. Had they made this strategic decision in the early days, Vacasa might be in a much better position. 4️⃣ Inventory Count Vacasa announced they finished the second quarter with approximately 40k homes, down from 44k YoY and 41k at the end of Q1’24, “reflecting the ongoing churn dynamic that we have been seeing.” I still think this number is inflated & counts some properties still on their website that have already left their program. My guess is the number is closer to ~35k. 5️⃣ Inventory Churn Inventory churn was a significant topic during the call. They explained the primary reason for churn was “owner concerns about rental income”. Vacasa is now focusing on acquiring better-quality homes rather than increasing quantity and has shifted the decision-making process for new inventory to the local level. 6️⃣ Continuous Market Cap Decline Vacasa’s market cap as of this morning is only worth $88m. To put that in perspective, it was $148m just 3 months ago and $253m the quarter before. 7️⃣ Expenses I thought it would be interesting for other professional VRMs to compare their expenses as a percentage of revenue vs Vacasa. See below: - Ops & Support - 23% of revenue - Sales & Marketing - 17.3% (declined 26% YoY) - Tech - 6.7% (down 5% YoY) - G&A - 8.4% (up 16% “due to professional services and legal expenses.” Wonder why their legal expenses were so high this quarter???) 8️⃣ Profitability Not Likely “…we still do not anticipate reaching Adjusted EBITDA profitability this year.” 9 and 10 in comments below... _______________________ ➡️ I’m Brooke Pfautz. 4x startup founder ➡️ Passionate about the short-term vacation rental industry ➡️ Grew a vacation rental company from 0 to 500 Properties in 5 Years ➡️ Helped over 750 companies grow their rental inventory ➡️ Authored 2 best-selling books for the short-term vacation rental industry 👉 Follow me for stories from my journey Vacation Rental Professionals - The Industry's Largest Professionals Forum Vintory Comparent

65

27 Comments

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT Today we’re releasing 1Price.co — it allows companies to dynamically change prices on autopilot to maximize revenue per customer. Here’s the wild story of how we partnered with Stripe and scaled to 200+ SaaS companies: 👇 --- I’ve done growth for 20+ SaaS companies at Atomic VC, Copy AI, and advised several others - here’s the truth: Pricing is still a guessing game, yet, it’s the most powerful growth lever. --- If you’re not using data and experiments to find your best price points (and pricing model)... You’re leaving hard earned revenue behind. Every single day. --- We're also an official Stripe Partner. This makes it quick and easy to integrate with companies using Stripe. Anyone can get their first experiment running in 15 mins. --- You can also track how pricing effects your entire customer funnel. From first visit all the way to purchase. Capturing metrics like conversions, LTV, Churn, MRR, and more. --- 1Price is now available for any company to use. Launch your first price experiment (in 15 mins) 👇 Or want price experiments completely done for you? We’ve got you covered. I have another big announcement coming out in the next 14 days.. 1. Follow me on LinkedIn to follow along 2. Like/Repost to help others hear about 1Price

58

7 Comments

I’ve helped 12+ AEs and SDRs transition into SE/SC roles. There’s no doubt that you can earn a lot as an AE. AEs can make $1,000,000+ in a good year - a very lucrative career path. But the reality is most AEs don’t get there. It takes an exceptional AE to earn consistently at high levels, year in and year out. (I personally would be a terrible AE 😅) A big reason why folks pivot to Sales Engineering is because the earning potential is solid and much more consistent. That’s what the data in the image shows: 36% avg quota attainment for AEs vs... 74% for SE from this same company, with similar OTE’s As an SE, you don’t always have the extreme upside* that your AE counterpart will, but your income is more stable. (*there are some companies that pay SEs similar to AEs, with SEs able to clear $1M+ in a great year, though this is more of the exception than the rule) As an SE, there’s also less pressure to hit quota, quarter after quarter. The roles are different, with different responsibilities and varying degrees of risk (and upside). Both paths can provide tremendous opportunities depending on your strengths and the type of work you enjoy. Hope this provides some perspective for those who are considering SE or AE career paths. #sales #presales #compensation (source: RepVue)

116

18 Comments

Founders from Foam cold called Target and closed a $130,000 deal They then got a deal on Shark Tank They are true BDR Lifers If this doesn't tell you cold calling and BDR Lifing can work I don't know what will Keep dialing and keep BDRing!! #bdrlifer #bdr #sdr #sales #salesdevelopment

11

2 Comments

🔥 Unpopular Opinion: Australia's Fractured Fintech Ecosystem As a Fintech founder or community member to go to all the major events this month you're looking at circa $1K minimum, even more if you're not a startup founder. 💰 Now it's not a HUGE amount of money but that's just June, there's multiple events throughout the year. 🤝 Now all of these events are great opportunities for networks to grow, deals to be done and partnerships to be formed and should be attended. They're organised by passionate and great people. 🤗 But there's lots of talk about Fintech struggles of late and how as a community we can band together and help increase funding, talent and growth of Fintech in Australia. 🤯 We have multiple communities, awards, summits (including a new one last week), newsletters, memberships and then there's other communities for cyber, regtech, proptech, insurtech, crypto and on and on and on the list goes. 👊 And I'm not naive as to how we got to where we are, and I'm certainly not diluting the value each community or event brings, we all love a good backslapping. It's just appears to be overly complex for our size of market. So it beggars the question, do we need micro communities, with different audiences, agendas, voices? And as a Founder how do you determine where to spend your hard earned $ and get the best bang for buck? #australia #fintech #events #community #networking

34

11 Comments

Tired of chasing bad leads? DM me to see how Resquared’s accurate lead generation can boost your sales efficiency!

5

3 reasons why you shouldn't raise VC The usual success story goes something like this: Start company - Get first revenue - Raise VC - Become Unicorn - Get acquired or do an IPO. VC might not be your jam if: 1) 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 - Most founders exit with <20% ownership - At Series A your ownership might drop <50% - At Series B, your Board might outvote you 2) 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 - Early stage VC plays for home runs (> 25x returns) - Investors expect rapid growth - T2D3 in SaaS - Added external pressure to scale fast 3) 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 - 'Unicorn or bust', but less than 1% get there - Exit expected in 5-7 years (early stage) - VC requires a business / culture fit The reality is: You can be very happy without VC money. Success is not to raise a lot of money. Success is to find something you love doing and being able to make a living with it. Not every company is a VC case. That doesn't mean it can't be a great, profitable business. #vc #startups #investing #founders

486

113 Comments

Finding what’s right for your start up is important.

4

Evan Spiegel got rejected by tier-1 VCs like Sequoia. So I met the VC who seeded Snap with $485K. Here’s what he saw that others missed: In 2012, a senior partner at Lightspeed saw his daughter was obsessed with 3 apps: Angry Birds, Instagram, and Snapchat. 
Angry Birds was big. Instagram was huge. But he’d never heard of Snapchat. So he asked Jeremy Liew (another parter at Lightspeed) to look into it. Jeremy tried to email Evan— no answer. He hit him up on LinkedIn— no answer. So he DM’d on Facebook and finally heard back. Evan said the only reason he responded was Jeremy’s profile picture shaking hands with Obama. “I figured you must be a halfway decent human being." 20 minutes into the first meeting, Jeremy knew he had to invest: 20,000 DAUs 50%+ DAU to MAU ratio 50% MoM growth $0 in ad spend The app was growing virally and creating a habit of daily use. It was all organic, driven purely through word of mouth. So Lightspeed bought ~10% of Snapchat for $485K. Over time, Lightspeed invested a total of $8M. That $8M became $2B when the company went public. A small observation, a bit of hustle and one meeting led to a career-defining investment. And a 250x return. /// Listen to the full episode on The Product Market Fit Show #startups #venturecapital #founders

807

41 Comments

I have a portfolio company that consistently converts 1000 paying subscribers every month, and referrals are a key source of these new subscribers. Here are a couple of lessons we’ve learned: 1. Boost referral conversions by integrating PLG features early on. People often forget about referral programs, so use transactional or marketing emails as gentle reminders. 2. Maintain user awareness of the referral feature with a counter for referral conversions and send "congrats, your invitation was accepted" emails to celebrate successful referrals. 3. Introduce referral programs even during the waiting list phase before your product is fully launched. If your product solves a real problem, people will wait for it. Think about the Cybertrucks Tesla has yet to deliver despite the massive number of orders, or how long Oura ring buyers waited after Prince Harry was seen wearing one (I waited almost a year for mine!).

30

2 Comments

2 weeks into Bravado Exec Search, I'm figuring out why nobody is making hires anymore. - Founders want naïveté, but not too much. - Founders want experience, but not too much. - Founders want IC sales skills, but not too much. - Founders want Management experience, but not too much. - Founders want money motivated, but not too much. - Founders want long term thinking, but not too much. - Founders want short term scrappiness, but not too much. After talking to ~15 Founders and VCs about open VP Sales' roles at their companies, and why they are struggling to fill them, I realized there is one fundamental misalignment in our industry right now: There is this strange perception that if you compromise on nothing, you'll find the perfect candidate. Just keep stacking requirements like pancakes, asking for more instead of less, and you'll eventually stumble upon the perfect person. And that, folks, is just NOT how it works. Startups are all about prioritization. They are all about figuring out which 1-2 things matter the most, and putting all your energy behind optimizing for those things. This new flavor of recruiting where you sit back and say "be absolutely perfect in every way" is equal parts lazy and reductive. But I'm an optimist. I believe in shaping my industry, not being a victim of it. What can be, unburdened by wh... you get it 😉 So instead of complaining, I'm writing the simple guide to hiring the right VP Sales. It's for Founders and VCs who have struggled to figure out what is the perfect recipe for the right sales leader at their company. I finished the first draft this morning! Tag a founder, vc, or exec who needs this and I'll advance them a first copy.

533

69 Comments

Y Combinator's acceptance rate is 1.5% (2x as selective as Harvard) We went through YC, and here's what I'll tell anyone who just applied... 1️⃣ Getting into YC will not make or break your company. You will. Think of YC's effect like a megaphone, not a magic wand. It amplifies what you're already doing so keep learning and getting better. 2️⃣ If you don't get in, you can apply again in 6 months. Many of the best YC founders I know didn't get in their first or second time. So... If you get in, great and welcome, the work continues! If not, don't sweat it, the work continues! 🫡 📸 Me, Robert Eng, Advith Chelikani chatting w/ our YC partner Harj Taggar -- Notes -- I remember this conversation with Harj quite well. We were probably halfway into the batch and wondering how Pylon could grown into a billion-dollar company (at the time we were just a Slack <> Zendesk integration which was too small of a vision). Harj suggested we might want to go after the Zendesk. We had considered this many times but we pushed back on this idea (and continued to for another 6 months). Now, almost a year after this conversation, we're regularly replacing Zendesk for our customers 😅

421

24 Comments