GTM-focused SaaS Advisor and Board Member

I am a go-to-market-focused technology executive and board member with over 20 years experience leading SaaS companies.  

I have led product, marketing, sales, and customer success, and twice I have run companies as CEO.  Along the way I have served formally on 4 boards of directors (including one public company), 7 advisory boards and 3 non-profit boards.

As part of these roles, I have helped to:

* Sell 5 companies (to Oracle, Amazon, Aurea, Maritz, and NonProfitEZ)
* Secure over $100M in equity financing (series Seed, A, B, C)
* Acquire and integrate 5 companies
* Manage small and large quotas (up to $300M)
* Launch dozens of products
* Get two products to profitability on a pure PLG / self-serve basis
* Grow multiple companies at 50%+ growth rates
* Restructure / downsize multiple companies
* Hire hundreds of people
* Create over $1B of shareholder value

I am now 100% focused on teaching, writing, investing and advising.  

As the Executive Chairman of Winning by Design, I work with leadership teams to optimize go-to-market strategies, product development, and customer success.  As an active board member and advisor, I focus on product development and corporate strategy.  As a professor at BYU's Marriott School of Business I teach Product-led Growth, B2B Sales & Marketing, and Career Strategy.

I recently published my first book with Stanford University Press:  FREEMIUM, available from all book retailers.

I am proud to serve as a formal advisor to Mercato Partners, Pledge, Terrett, and ProAI, and an informal advisor to other entrepreneurs and business leaders changing the world.

My mission is to empower the next generation of software leaders and entrepreneurs to create value for their customers and for society.

Dave Boyce

The year was 2000.

➡️ I had never sold a company.
➡️ Never sat on a board.
➡️ Never sold a 7-figure deal (or 6, or 5)
➡️ I had raised funding and started two companies, both of which folded.

We lived in Boston--an expensive place, far away from family.  We had two kids (pictured), so I joined a company that could pay me a salary (ProfitLogic (Acquired by Oracle), and we buckled down.

25 years, 6 kids, 8 houses, 3 cities, and 7 exits later, and we are still doing it--life, career, faith, family, fun... 

Here's to those on the front end of the journey.  I see you. You are squinting, trying to see your successful future. The current circumstances seem impossible, and the road ahead is fuzzy. You will do it! Buckle down, work hard, take some calculated risks, pick yourself back up, put yourself back in the game, and you will do it! 

Don't do it for the rewards (they will come), do it for the journey. Do it for the adventure. Do it for the chance to make an impact. Care for the people in your life, keep your head up and eyes forward, and be grateful for the opportunities you have.

XOXO,

-db

It's almost 2026. Time to make a choice about how you kick off your year with your team:

▶️ "AI pilots are failing and sucking up a lot of time. We are sticking to the basics.  AI cannot replace what we do.  If you can use AI to help you in your individual job, great, but we are not going 'all in' on AI in 2026."

▶️ "The AI train is moving fast. The only thing worse than missing a train is missing a fast train--it's hard to catch up.  Based on our inititial AI pilots, here is what we are doing in 2026.  We will be the most AI-powered GTM team in our industry."

At Winning by Design we have chosen path B.  We spent all year launching AI pilots and agents.  Not all of them worked, but some of them now define how we work day to day. SiftHub is all in. Salesforce is all in. SAP is all in. Google, Meta, and Microsoft--all in. Also Winning by Design's certified partners:  SalesHood, Momentum.io, Fathom, Grain, Una Software, Vasco, Attention, PeopleAI-- all in.

Time to gut check.  What have you done, and what are you doing in AI GTM?  Are you ready to get on stage in January and launch your year with a clear AI strategy?

XOXO,

-db

25% of adults have a hole in their heart. 

It’s called a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), and it occurs when a baby’s heart fails to completely close the opening in the atrial septum as the heart starts to beat independently. 

This week I had my PFO surgically closed. 

The doctors wanted to close it to prevent any future deoxygenated blood clots from passing through the hole and on to the brain (vs going first to the lungs, which tend to do a better job breaking up clots). 

The surgeon inserted a titanium mesh septal occluder, all done arthroscopically (entered through the groin). 

I’ve attached two videos here:

1) an animation of the procedure
2) a video of my device, now in place 

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?

It’s amazing to me what humans are able to innovate with precision science. Whenever I engage with innovation like this (or AI or robotics or pharmaceuticals), I realize how much room we have in GTM to tighten up our game. 

200 years ago, we didn’t understand the human body like we do now, and we practiced bloodletting via leeches. We amputated, we blistered, we lobotomized. 

But when you know better, you do better. Medicine has come a LONG way… so have engineering, manufacturing, space exploration…. 

Next up: GTM. We still have a surprising amount of “winging it” in GTM. But there are underlying principles of compounding and system-led growth that can help us do better. 

Today I’m grateful for modern medicine. And tomorrow I’ll continue working with Winning by Design  on modernizing GTM. 

Let’s go!!!

XOXO

-db

https://lnkd.in/g72_jZhB

AI-Native companies run on PLG Rails.

We see the breakout success of some select AI-native companies (Cursor, Replit, Lovable, Mistral, OpenAI...) and assume there must be something special about their GTM.

Yes, they are in a hot space with wind at their backs.

But no, they are not using agents to sell to you.  It's just #PLG.  And if you dive deeper, you can see how and why.  

I wrote about this in the October issue of GROWTH, and I've now published that article to my Substack (linked below). You can get a free digital subscription to GROWTH by following the link at the end of the article.

XOXO,

-db

Winning by Design

Neoteric3D

Leveraging over a decade of Data & AI industry insight, we specialize in constructing sustainable growth engines that seamlessly integrate buyer intent with product experiences. Our digital, design and data strategies are tailored to foster enduring market success and propel your business forward.

Highlights
•	Conduct deep analysis of product market fit to identify gaps related to client’s brand, networking, & community engagement; compile findings into comprehensive reports with strategic roadmaps, milestones, and cost analysis. 
•	Partner with elite agencies to facilitate seamless completion of projects within designated scopes.
•	Assume interim executive leadership positions, including Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer, as needed to build high-performing, cross-functional teams and successfully execute pre-determined strategies. 
•	Direct global and cross functional teams  in product strategy, marketing, and self-service experiences; oversee line managers alongside their own staff. 
•	Assist in ongoing product development/design from UX perspective, liaising directly with C-suite.

Select Achievements
•	Facilitated major rebrand for a leading customer success client. Collaborated with Product, Marketing, and Sales teams to develop & launch modernized company brand identity through unique digital marketing campaign that prioritized customer experience, product positioning, and community programs. Efforts resulted in company achieving record share of voice and mentions across industry websites, social media, and news outlets.
•	Grew client’s customer base from 300 to 30K+ in one year using product-led growth approach, ultimately enabling millions of disabled individuals to access the World Wide Web, Cloud Applications, and Critical Resources during COVID-19 pandemic.

Owner

SingleStore

Strategic Advisor - Growth Marketing

MemVerge

Strategic Advisor - Product Strategy & Ecosystem Development

Anaconda, Inc.

Strategic Advisor - Partnerships

Promo.com

Launched PromoAI resulting in 6MM ARR in 6 months.
Led all aspects of GTM:
Brand, Messaging, Digital Marketing, Customer Lifecycle Management, and Investor Relations.

Chief Marketing Officer

Weights & Biases

Enterprise messaging for ML, DL, LLM experiment tracking.
New product introductions: Prompts, LLMs, Monitoring, and AI Observability.
Product-Led Growth UX, Community, and Ecosystem.

Head of Product Marketing

Union.ai

Strategic Advisor

Totango

SVP of Brand and Community

Sero Capital

Product Strategy
Competitive Intelligence
Digital Marketing
Business Development
Investor

Managing Director

Core Responsibilities
•	Promoted to serve as global leader of strategic partnerships & digital marketing for all of IBM, leading remote team of 800+ across North America, Europe, Japan, Brazil, and Australia.
•	Developed and implemented go-to-market strategy for company products, partner programs, legal agreements, commerce platforms, and digital self-service tools.
•	Ensured partner & acquisition success through collaborative efforts to activate growth of company ecosystem, including joint product development, roadmap alignment, and sales enablement across market routes. 

Select Achievements
•	Delivered $110M+ per annum in consumer base growth & product adoption through strategic investments and joint solutions in collaboration with client companies, including Anaconda, Databricks, DocuSign, and Unity Software.
•	Engaged 100K+ partner companies by defining and delivering Digital GTM for IBM Partnership programs.

Vice President Marketing, Digital Transformation

Core Responsibilities
•	Handpicked to lead team of eight in inorganic growth strategy for $7B+ Analytics business unit (BU), fostering corporate development through deliberate thought leadership and transparent communications.
•	Conducted SWOT analysis of product portfolio & business cases to organize thesis on companies to target for purchase or investment. Executed investment & pricing policies following extensive market analysis to manage P&L during expansion.

Select Achievements
•	Oversaw acquisition and integration of The Weather Company and Cloudant in 1/2016; formed new Cloud Data Services Business generating $1.3B in additional annual revenue.
•	Built & maintained strong relationships with key strategic partners, including Databricks, Box, and DocuSign.

Director of Business Development, IBM Data & AI

Led the IBM | Spark announcement:
- The announcement generated over 1 million hits on Google within the first few days of its release. The announcement received positive feedback from customers, partners, and the broader industry about the announcement and its implications for the future of big data processing.

In addition, formed partnerships with several major technology companies and organizations to support the development and adoption of Apache Spark. These partnerships helped to increase the reach and impact of the announcement, as well as the overall visibility of the Spark technology.

Overall, the 2015 IBM Spark Announcement had a significant impact on the tech industry and helped to accelerate the development and adoption of Apache Spark as a key tool for big data processing and analytics.

Director of Product Marketing, IBM Data & AI

As the Founder and CEO of Neoteric3D, I specialize in building sustainable growth engines that integrate buyer intent with product experiences. With over 15 years of experience in the Data & AI market, I have a deep understanding of the customer needs, challenges, and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field. I leverage my industry expertise and network to advise and invest in several high-growth companies in the Data & AI, IT infrastructure, and Digital Transformation sectors.

I also help clients craft data-driven product and marketing strategies, conduct product market fit analysis, and facilitate project execution with elite agencies. I have assumed interim executive roles, such as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer, at some of the companies I work with, such as WANdisco, AudioEye, and Totango. My mission is to support and accelerate the innovation and adoption of Data & AI solutions that make a positive impact on the world.

Joel H.

Congratulations Sourcegraph for building not one, but two hyper growth products! 

Dan Adler has been at the center of it and is a rare CEO with deep product, customer, and analytics experience to continue to build on the incredible foundation of Code Search as we move into the next era of Human and AI Agent Code Understanding. Onward and Upward! 

PS, we're searching for a Head of Marketing, message me if interested.

Helping Scale-Ups Build Sustainable Growth Engines

We are excited to announce today that Sourcegraph and Amp are becoming separate companies. I will become Sourcegraph's new CEO.

I joined Sourcegraph a decade ago to help devs deeply understand the largest, most complex codebases in the world. With agents writing 100x more code and running 1000x more searches than humans ever did, the need for this is greater than ever.

Our users today are agents as much as humans, but they face the exact same challenges working in big codebases. If I update this API who is affected? How do I call this library? Does this functionality already exist? Have I updated *all* of the calls to this vulnerable code, or just the ones I know about?

In a large enough codebase, without universal code context, human or agent, you’re blind. 

We believe:
1. Agentic search is the future of code understanding (today, our Deep Search)
2. Every coding agent needs universal code context (today, from our MCP+CLI)
3. The “outer loop” of the software development lifecycle *will* be automated by AI agents with full code understanding

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