The Sales Framework Every Founder Needs | Mark Roberge
"There's 20 fires going on at every moment in the office and you have enough water to put out four."
Mark Roberge shares what it takes to build and scale a company, from finding product-market fit to knowing when it's time to grow.
He also shares the framework behind his new book, The Science of Selling, and why founders should scale based on their own data, not another company's success.
Guest: Mark Roberge, Founding CRO of HubSpot, HBS Professor, and Co-Founder at Stage 2 Capital
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Royce Yudkoff & Rick Ruback - Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition - [Invest Like the Best, EP.423]
My guests today are Rick Ruback and Royce Yudkoff. Rick and Royce are Harvard Business School professors who teach their students how to search for, acquire, and run small business directly after graduation. It has been almost a decade since our first conversation, and unlike many past interviews that have become outdated due to technology or market changes, the core principles they shared about entrepreneurship through acquisition remain remarkably relevant today. They explore fascinating developments in the search-fund ecosystem, including the bifurcation between funded searchers targeting larger companies and self-funded entrepreneurs finding success with smaller businesses. Rick and Royce share their accumulated wisdom on what makes a company worth buying, why the "magic is in the multiples," and how their students consistently achieve impressive returns through patient, value-oriented business acquisition. Please enjoy my conversation with Rick Ruback and Royce Yudkoff.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus.
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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:05:23) Changes in the Small Firm Acquisition Space
(00:06:52) The Impact of SBA Loans on Acquisition Entrepreneurship
(00:08:55) The Evolution of Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
(00:10:09) Risk and Return in the Search Fund Model
(00:13:38) The Role of Investors in Funded and Unfunded Searches
(00:19:33) Criteria for a Good Acquisition Target
(00:28:36) The Growing Popularity of Self-Funded Searches
(00:43:21) Challenges and Red Flags in Small Firm Acquisitions
(00:49:47) Exploring Margin Expansion and Growth
(00:51:02) The Impact of Practical Teaching in Business Education
(00:52:12) Keys to a Successful Business Class
(00:53:30) The Role of Theory in Practical Business Education
(00:55:29) Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Business
(00:57:46) Capital Allocation in Small Businesses
(01:00:50) Advice for Aspiring Business Searchers
(01:03:45) Value Creation and Business Lifecycle
(01:08:20) Deciding to Leave Private Equity
(01:11:20) The Future of Higher Education in Business
(01:16:06) Ongoing Relationships with Former Students
(01:18:45) Favorite Business Cases to Teach
(01:24:46) Encouraging More People to Pursue Business Ownership
Reskilling the Workforce With AI: Harvard Business School’s Raffaella Sadun
Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun’s research has historically focused on digital reskilling. Now, rapid technological changes — like AI — are reshaping the nature of work. Raffaella’s research has explored how AI might empower those with intermediate expertise, such as store managers and blue-collar workers, to become more efficient and satisfied in their roles. She shares a bit about her research on today’s episode of <cite>Me, Myself, and AI</cite> and highlights the potential for AI to improve teamwork and innovation by bridging the gaps between different functional teams. Her experiments show that AI can enhance productivity and output quality, sometimes even substituting for team collaboration, while also improving speed and efficiency in problem-solving tasks. Read the episode transcript here.
Guest bio:
Raffaella Sadun is the Charles E. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where she cochairs the Project on Managing the Future of Work and is coprincipal investigator of the Digital Reskilling Lab. Her research focuses on managerial and organizational drivers of productivity and growth in corporations and the public sector. She cofounded several large-scale projects to measure management practices and managerial behavior in organizations, such as the World Management Survey, the Executive Time Use Study, and U.S. Census Bureau’s Management and Organizational Practices Survey of hospitals.
Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Alanna Hooper.
Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
20Sales: Biggest Lessons Scaling Hubspot from $0-$100M in ARR, The Framework for How Startups Should Scale into the Enterprise, How to do Channel Partnerships Right and How to Construct Sales Comp Plans Early On with Mark Roberge
Mark Roberge is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital and a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School. Prior to these roles, Mark was the founding CRO at HubSpot, where he scaled ARR from $0 to $100 million and expanded his team from 1 to 450 employees. Mark was ranked #19 in Forbes' Top 30 Social Sellers in the World. He was also awarded the 2010 Salesperson of the Year at the MIT Sales Conference.
In Today's Episode with Mark Roberge We Discuss:
1. Biggest Lessons Scaling Hubspot to $100M in ARR:
What are Mark's biggest lessons in what worked in their sales strategy in scaling to $100M in ARR?
What elements of Hubspot's sales strategy did not work? What would he have done differently with the benefit of hindsight?
What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known when he started at Hubspot?
2. How the Best Startups Scale into Enterprise:
What are the single biggest mistakes startups make when scaling into enterprise?
When is the right time? What do founders get most wrong on timing of scale into enterprise?
What do you need to have in place both from a team and product perspective to make the transition?
3. Second Product and Second Channel:
When is the right time to launch the second product?
Why does Mark believe that you should be turning down customers in the early days? Why is not every customer right for your company?
How does Mark think about channel diversification? Does Mark agree you only need one channel to scale to $50M in ARR and two to scale to $100M in ARR?
4. 99% of SaaS Founders Do Partnerships Wrong:
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when doing channel partnerships?
What can and should they do to set channel partnerships up for success?
What do the channel partners need to have to be equipped to sell the partner solution?
What level of buy-in and from who on the channel partner side is needed for the partnership to be successful?
What did Mark learn from Hubspot's partnership with Salesforce scaling to 10% of Hubspot's revenue?
SaaStr 703: Who Will Win the Go-to-Market AI Race — Startups or Incumbents? with Stage 2 Capital's Managing Director and Co-Founder Mark Roberge
As AI continues to reshape the way businesses operate, it has become a critical differentiator in gaining a competitive edge. Stage 2 Capital Co-founder and Managing Director Mark Roberge dissects the advantages and challenges faced by both startups and incumbents in leveraging AI for Go-to-Market strategies. Uncover the unique capabilities that startups bring to the table and how they disrupt established players with their agility, innovation, and ability to adapt to changing market dynamics.
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SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet.
Join us in 2024 at:
SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave50
SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
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Marketing With Generative AI: Harvard Business School’s Ayelet Israeli
As an associate professor at Harvard Business School and cofounder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the school’s Digital Data Design Institute, Ayelet Israeli’s work is focused on how data and technology can inform marketing strategy, as well as how generative AI can be a useful tool in eliminating algorithmic bias. One of the products of her recent work is a paper she coauthored with two Microsoft economists and researchers on how generative AI could be used to simulate focus groups and surveys to determine customer preferences.
Ayelet joins Sam and Shervin to discuss the opportunities and limitations of generative AI in market research. She details how the research was conducted and how artificial intelligence technology could help marketers reduce the time, cost, and complexity associated with traditional customer research methods. Read the episode transcript here.
Guest bio:
Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration in Harvard Business School’s Marketing Unit. She is also the cofounder of the school’s Customer Intelligence Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute. Her research focuses on data-driven marketing, with an emphasis on how businesses can leverage their internal data, customer data, and market data to improve outcomes. Her research interests include retail, pricing strategy, channel management, marketing analytics, and algorithmic bias. Israeli has a Ph.D. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.
Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
Network Effects, Moats, & the Business of web3
with @skominers @smc90
In this deep dive and tour through key business concepts, from theory to practice, we cover the topics of strategy, competitive advantage, network effects, moats, and more -- covering both both basic foundations, as well as the tricky nuances in a new world of open source, including web3. In the first half of this discussion, we cover foundational business concepts and questions -- such as the nature of competition, and how it *really* changes in web3; as well as how network effects really work -- and then, in the second half (in case you want to skip ahead), we cover mindsets and general guidance for builders…
Our expert guest -- in conversation with editor in chief and host Sonal Chokshi -- is a16z crypto research partner Scott Duke Kominers, who is also a professor at Harvard Business School; a faculty affiliate in Harvard’s Department of Economics; and advises several companies on marketplace development, incentive design, and more; as well as advises, and is directly involved, in several NFT communities.
Scott also teaches on these topics -- both at Harvard and also recently at our Crypto Startup School -- so be sure to subscribe to our playlist for those talks on the a16z crypto YouTube channel to get the latest updates as we release more videos from the 2023 cohort.
Listen to web3 with a16z: https://web3-with-a16z.simplecast.com/
related links // see also:
Can web3 bring back competition to digital platforms? by Christian Catalini and Scott Duke Kominers
Why build in web3 by Jad Esber and Scott Duke Kominers
Vampire attacks: A theory (and thread) on 'blood sucking' platform competition by John William Hatfield and Scott Duke Kominers
Why NFT creators are going cc0 by Flashrekt and Scott Duke Kominers
Decentralized identity: Your reputation travels with you by Scott Duke Kominers and Jad Esber
Increasing returns and the new world of business (1996) by W. Brian Arthur
Network effects, origin Stories, and the evolution of tech with W. Brian Arthur, Marc Andreeessen, and Sonal Chokshi
The five competitive forces that shape strategy (2008 reformulation of 1979 paper) by Michael Porter
Strategies for two-sided markets (2006) by Tom Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker, and Marshall Van Alstyne
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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SaaStr 594: Optimizing GTM for PLG with Stage 2 Capital Co-Founder and Managing Director Mark Roberge
Product-led growth (PLG) is the consumerization of software—a strategy B2B software companies can learn from growth teams at successful consumer tech companies.
Stage 2 Capital's Co-Founder and Managing Director, Mark Roberge, breaks down what a consumer tech growth team looks like and how they operate. He advises bringing these features to a B2B growth team and then shares mistakes that B2B companies make while adding go-to-market (GTM) to PLG.
Full video: https://youtu.be/prLzBINL4tI
Want to join the SaaStr community? We're the 🌎largest community for B2B software.
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Founding CRO @HubSpot / Prof @HBS / CoFounder @Stage 2 Capital Mark Roberge: The Science and Psychology of Scaling
Mark Roberge’s first anxiety attack hit him six months after 9/11, and his second hit him in the middle of a big speech while he was an executive at HubSpot. And Roberge, who now lectures at Harvard Business School and co-founded the venture firm Stage 2 Capital, says it’s important to include that anxiety in his entrepreneurial story. “I talk about it because there is a stigma associated with it,” he says. “Society values some of the things I’ve accomplished, but when I admit to everyone that I have severe anxiety, it gives other people comfort.”
In this episode, Mark and Joubin discuss the connections between HBS and KPCB, taking the long way around to get to MIT, Mark’s first company PawSpot, the meteoric rise of HubSpot, why it decided to zag when all the competition was moving upstream, being pigeonholed inside of big companies, what to say to reps who are trying to leave, extreme anxiety attacks, escaping to the gym, whether Mark would encourage his sons to work in tech, why customer retention matters more than revenue growth, becoming a VC, and why the best plan can be not having a plan.
In this episode, we cover:
Mark’s first sales job — selling $2000 vacuum cleaners — and what he learned from his sales coach father (06:45)
How he met and started working with HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah (10:24)
Should you hire more sales reps, or incentivize existing reps to work harder? (19:40)
Why established players can’t embrace product-led growth as quickly as smaller competitors (27:19)
The stress of chasing a number and why “it’s always a grind” (36:03)
Struggling with — and talking about — anxiety (41:01)
Making time exercise and family dinners during the HubSpot journey (46:29)
The reasons why someone might not want to join a startup (50:25)
Ex-Shopify exec Loren Padelford’s big question for Mark (55:28)
Do MBA programs “get” what’s happening in the tech sector? (59:54)
Why Mark decided to get into venture capital with Stage 2 Capital (01:02:40)
Links:
Connect with MarkTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
SaaStr 498: The Most Common SaaS Sales Potholes and How to Avoid Them with Mark Roberge, Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital
Mark Roberge is the Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital, Sr. Lecturer at Harvard Business School, and author of the bestselling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula. In this podcast, he'll outline some of the most common SaaS sales potholes when scaling from $0 to $100 million and how to avoid them.
Blog post & video: https://www.saastr.com/the-most-common-saas-sales-potholes-and-how-to-avoid-them-with-mark-roberge-podcast-498-and-video/
Sponsors:
https://shortcut.com/saastr
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Everything you need to know about the global chip shortage
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for microchips has far exceeded supply, causing problems in every industry that relies on computers. And if you’re a Decoder listener, you know that that is every industry. Right now, major automakers have unfinished cars sitting in parking lots waiting for chips to be installed. Game consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X are impossible to find. And even things like microwaves and refrigerators are impacted, because they contain simple controller chips.
So we realized it was time to figure out what caused the chip shortage, why that happened, and how we are going to get out of it.
My guest today is Dr. Willy Shih. He’s the professor of management practices at Harvard Business School. He’s an expert on chips and semiconductors — he spent years working at companies like IBM and Silicon Graphics. And he’s also an expert in supply chains — how things go from raw materials to finished products in stores. Willy’s the guy that grocery stores and paper companies called in March 2020 when there was a run on toilet paper. If anyone’s going to explain this thing, it’s going to be Willy.
Links:
What toilet paper can teach us about supply chains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihd7XJMzdG4
The latest in the global semiconductor shortage https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/2/22363232/global-semiconductor-chip-shortage-pandemic-consoles-cpus-graphics-cards-cars
Ford to build some F-150 trucks without certain parts due to global chip shortage https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/18/ford-to-build-some-f-150-trucks-without-certain-parts-due-to-global-chip-shortage/
Situation regarding semiconductor plant fire and product supply https://www.akm.com/us/en/about-us/news/information/20210122-information/
Samsung forced to halt chip production in Austin due to power outages https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/17/22287054/samsung-chip-production-halted-austin-winter-storm-uri-power-blackouts
About that White House meeting to discuss the semiconductor supply chain https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2021/04/12/about-that-white-house-meeting-to-discuss-the-semiconductor-supply-chain/?sh=63b7f65b1641
Ford CEO Jim Farley on building the electric F-150 -- and reinventing Ford https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/20/22444294/ford-f150-lightning-pickup-truck-jim-farley-interview
Senate approves billions for US semiconductor manufacturing https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/8/22457293/semiconductor-chip-shortage-funding-frontier-china-competition-act
Intel invests $20 billion into new factories, will produce chips for other companies https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/23/22347250/intel-new-factories-arizona-20-billion-chips-outsourcing-foundry-services-manufacturing
Apple supplier TSMC confirms it’s building an Arizona chip plant https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21259094/apple-tsmc-factory-chips-arizona-a-series
Biden-Harris Administration announces Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force to address short-term supply chain discontinuities https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/08/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-supply-chain-disruptions-task-force-to-address-short-term-supply-chain-discontinuities/
Water shortages loom over future semiconductor fabs in Arizona https://www.theverge.com/22628925/water-semiconductor-shortage-arizona-drought
Transcript
https://www.theverge.com/e/22412413
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How the U.S. Lost Chip Dominance and How It Can Be Regained
The U.S. was once a manufacturing leader in semiconductors. That's no longer the case, given the rise of contract manufacturing and outsourcing, the dominance of Taiwan Semiconductor, and Intel's own design stumbles. But how did it come to this? And can it be reversed by government policy? On this episode we speak with Willy Shih, a longtime tech industry veteran and a professor at the Harvard Business School, to answer these questions.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Recode Decode: Frances Frei
Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about the new book she wrote with her wife Anne Morriss, Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. Frei — who has previously worked with Uber, WeWork, and Riot Games to address culture crises — discusses what good leadership today looks like, the unfair treatment of women and people of color in business, and why it's a mistake to chase "balance" or "equal treatment." She also reflects on her work with Uber and WeWork, calling the former a "terrific success," and explains the key difference between Uber's former CEO Travis Kalanick and WeWork's former chief Adam Neumann. Plus: Why Amazon's market dominance is threatened by its poor treatment of workers.
Featuring:
Frances Frei, co-author, Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You
Host:
Kara Swisher (@karaswisher), Recode co-founder and editor-at-large
More to explore:
On Reset, Arielle Duhaime-Ross explores why — and how — tech is changing everything.
On Recode Media, Peter Kafka interviews business titans, journalists, comedians and podcasters about the collision of tech and media.
On Pivot, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway talk about the big tech news stories of the week, who's winning, who's failing, and what comes next.
And on Land of the Giants, Jason Del Rey chronicled the rise of Amazon. Season 2 will focus on Netflix and is coming soon!
About Recode by Vox:
Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.
Follow Us:
Newsletter: Recode Daily
Twitter: @Recode and @voxdotcom
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E1028: Laura Huang, author of “Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage” shares insights on overcoming disadvantages to create an edge, being bitter vs. getting better, structural bias in tech & more
0:41 Jason intros "Edge" Author Laura Huang
3:00 How do Harvard MBA students compare with Stanford MBA students?
7:17 Why did Laura write "Edge" at this time?
8:55 Overcoming disadvantages based on race, ethnicity & gender
14:56 Laura's experience reading her own audiobook
17:23 What does her research show about structural bias against Female entrepreneurs?
23:33 How can a founder turn adversity into an advantage when asked a question with a negative bias?
28:01 How being underestimated inhibits the opportunity to enrich & provide value? What is an example of delight in p2p interaction?
36:39 How should we look at intent when discussing bias & privilege?
44:35 How to deal with being bitter vs. getting better and controlling emotions while still allowing ourselves to feel?
1:00:17 Laura & Jason share personal stories about bitter vs. better & explain how she converted her energy
1:05:09 What is Laura's hope for the lasting impact "Edge" has on its readers?
Rebel Talent
When we think about rebellious behavior in the context of organizations and companies, we tend to think of rebels as trouble-makers, rabble-rousers; in other words, people who make decisions and processes more difficult because they may not follow the established rules or norms. But rebel behavior can also be incredibly positive and constructive—in keeping us from stagnation, encouraging growth and learning, increasing curiosity and creativity.
In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino, a social scientist who studies organizations, breaks down with a16z's Hanne Tidnam what makes rebels different in how they tend to see and do things—whether that’s cooking, flying planes, or holding board meetings—and what we can all learn from “rebel talent” to make our organizations more productive and innovative.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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SaaStr 221: HBS Sr. Lecturer and Former Hubspot CRO Mark Roberge on His Step by Step Guide to Revenue Growth
Mark Roberge is a senior lecturer with Harvard Business School, former CRO of Hubspot and author of the bestseller "The Sales Acceleration Formula". Join him as he takes you through his step by step guide to revenue growth.
Missed the session? Here's what Mark talks about:
An in-depth guide to driving revenue growth by company stage
When to scale and how fast
Product market fit, go-to market fit during the experiment stages
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
SaaStr
Mark Roberge
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism with Shoshana Zuboff
The age of surveillance capitalism author Shoshana Zuboff considers whether "data is the new oil" and explains how data collection has fundamentally changed the economy and how big companies interact with consumers. Shoshana Zuboff breaks down how to define, understand and fight surveillance capitalism.
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Recode Decode: Shoshana Zuboff
Harvard Business School professor emerita Shoshana Zuboff talks with Recode's Kara Swisher about her new book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.
In this episode: Zuboff's background and why she wrote the book; how the economy got digitized; maximizing shareholder value "scraped the life out of so many of our institutions and our businesses"; how surveillance capitalism was invented; why Zuboff uses the term "surveillance capitalism"; how tech companies are like magicians (and not in a good way); and what the hell do we do about this?
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a16z Podcast: Competing Against Luck
with Clayton Christensen, Marc Andreessen, and Steven Levy
In business, mistakes of omission may be just as bad as (if not worse than) mistakes of commission -- simply because of the loss in potential upside: new companies, new products, new opportunities for growth. Or even in the ability to respond to the disruption coming to one's industry and company... if it hasn't already. Sometimes, and in certain industries (such as hospitality and education), it just takes longer to pull off.
But it's not like people and companies are dumbly sitting around waiting for disruption to happen. In fact, having read the book on disruption for years -- 20 years, to be precise, given the anniversary of The Innovator's Dilemma this year -- many smart business leaders know it could happen, yet fully determine that it's not going to happen to them... and then, of course, it still happens, observes a16z's Marc Andreessen. Why? Part of the answer, shares father of disruption theory and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, is they don't have a common language, logic, architecture, way to frame the problem. And that's where other theories and frameworks -- like jobs-to-be-done and modularity -- come in. A theory, after all, though never perfect can help.
So in this episode of the podcast -- from our inaugural a16z Summit event -- Christensen and Andreessen (in conversation with longtime tech writer and Backchannel editor-in-chief Steven Levy) share their thoughts for how such theories can play out practically in both managing business, and managing priorities in life.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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Recode Decode: Frances Frei, SVP of leadership and strategy, Uber
Live onstage: Uber SVP Frances Frei talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about the future of the beleaguered ride-hailing company. Frei came to Uber from Harvard Business School, where she studied leadership and diversity, and says the company's problems are neither unusual nor unfixable. Uber's employees want to do the right thing, she explains, but have been historically let down by management and not given an outlet to call out bad behavior. Frei also talks about why she rejects Uber board member Arianna Huffington's concept of "zero tolerance," why ex-CEO Travis Kalanick can be redeemed and how to fix the broader epidemic of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley.
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SaaStr 119: The Sales Mistakes That Can Kill Your Startup & How To Avoid Them with Mark Roberge, Former CRO @ Hubspot & Michele Law, Former COO @ OpenDNS
Mark Roberge is a Senior Lecturer @ Harvard Business School where he teaches entrepreneurial sales and marketing. Prior to his role with HBS, Mark was the Chief Revenue Officer @ Hubspot where he increased revenue over 6,000% and expanded the team from 1 to 450 employees. As a result, Mark has been named Forbes' Top 30 Social Sellers in the World and awarded the 2010 Salesperson of the Year by MIT.
Michele Law is an investor and advisor specialising in building and executing on go to market strategies, creating new revenue models and the operations to support them. Michelle has sat on both sides of the table having been a Principal at Greylock for 8 years before moving to be COO at OpenDNS where she led the sales and customer success team growing enterprise revenue from $0 to $20M ARR in 4 years, prior to the company's acquisition by Cisco for $635m. Michele then moved to Castlight Health where she grew revenue from $13 to $75m.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
Why it is fundamentally dangerous to prematurely focus on growth? How can founders know when is the right time to focus on growth? What does the path to growth phase look like?
How should founders assess and structure the core components: customer success, unit economics and growth? In which order should they be prioritised? What does the funnel look like?
What should the profile of your first sales hire be? How can founders understand who and when to hire? From Hubspot days, when has Mark seen the transition from generalist to specialist?
What should your sales compensation plan look like in the early days of the company? Why does Mark believe that churn is rooted in the sales compensation plan?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Royce Yudkoff and Rick Ruback – REALLY Private Equity - [Invest Like the Best, EP.33]
In this episode, I continue to pull on one of the most interesting threads that I have uncovered while producing this podcast: the world of permanent equity. My guests today are Royce Yudkoff and Rick Ruback, two Harvard Business School professors who have partnered to create a popular class that teaches students how to search for, acquire, and run a small business directly after graduation.
I approach this conversation from an investors standpoint. LP investors usually partner with these searchers to form what is called a search fund. A search fund allows recent MBA grads to spend time looking for a business and ultimately acquire it. The result is a small scale but often high return proposition for investors. I loved our discussion of what to look for in a business and what to avoid. The principles we list are useful for investors of any kind, and will particularly appeal to those from the buy and hold, value investing, and quality investing camps.
One point of note which wasn’t captured during the recording. One of the reasons this style of investing isn’t more well known that it is extremely costly upfront. It can take years to find a company, and once found, the transaction costs can be 20% of the total purchase price. Rick calls this category “REALLY private equity.
If you enjoy this conversation, be sure to check our Royce and Rick’s book. HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, which goes into many of the topics we cover in even greater detail.
For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to http://investorfieldguide.com/hbs
For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.
Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub
Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag
This Is How You Know When the Stock Market Is in a Bubble
One of the most fascinating market phenomenons is the bubble. When they occur, fortunes are made and lost, and the full spectrum of human emotions, from fear to greed, are on display. But what defines a bubble exactly, and how do you know when you're actually seeing one? This week on Odd Lots, we speak with Harvard Business School economist Robin Greenwood, who has figured out the key characteristics that all stock market bubbles have in common.
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a16z Podcast: Disruption in Business... and Life
It's not incompetence, but competence, that causes companies to be disrupted. That applies to big companies and small, as well as people too.
Or so argue Clayton Christensen and Marc Andreessen in this podcast, based on a conversation at Startup Grind (moderated by Derek Anderson) between the a16z co-founder and Harvard Business School professor Christensen -- aka the "father of disruption theory" (also known to his wife as "the Jewish mother of business").
This podcast shares everything from their views on managing innovation in companies like Apple, Google, and Twitter (including how to apply the jobs-to-be-done framework there); what the abundance of capital means for innovation; and how to truly measure success and strike work-life balance.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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