Drivetrain

As founders & sales leaders, we’ve seen first-hand how difficult it is to build & scale a revenue org for the first time. 

70% of the first hire as VP of Sales are gone in 11 months.

It’s simple: you hire them to deliver revenue, but without a support team they can’t focus on it.

If you’re about to make your first sales hire, give them a fully operational fractional team with Drivetrain.

Co-Founder, Principal

Supersynchronous

We pair low/no code engineers with your team to design better workflows - saving them time, solving difficult ops challenges, and actualizing great culture. 

In our first year we've saved clients $100,000s and empowered their teams to take ownership at the next level.

Founder

Strawberry Finch Games

My side hustle is supporting my life partner Becca's game development company.

I serve as game designer, playtester, graphic designer, art director, and business buddy.

We just launched the Kickstarter for her first game "Can You Survive 2020?" - check it out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/strawberryfinchgames/can-you-survive-2020

Product Designer

Startup Patterns

Working with clients such as Microsoft Azure, PG & E, and Credit Sesame, we enable technology organizations to infuse their teams with a product mindset. We design and deliver coaching programs where engineers develop the skills they need to perform in cross-functional teams, including how to self-organize around the most impactful customer problems and deliver solutions using modern coding methods (TDD, pair programming, CI/CD).

Our clients gain measurable acceleration in creating startup-grade culture and processes within their IT operations, building capacity to rapidly adapt to market-moving opportunities and challenges.

In this role, I provide consulting services that include:

• How to build cross functional teams to solve business challenges through technology
• Analyzing business opportunities through a product lens 
• Empower engineers, product managers, and designers to effectively manage up

Agile Coach

Ph.Creative

I lead our US team and partnerships with HR tech companies - particularly in delivering fresh insight to the HR community via webinars, podcasts, and other digital content.

We built successful employer brands for the Global 1000, including Apple, Thermo Fischer, and Mass Mutual.

Employer Branding Specialist

LinkedIn

Served as a mentor and coach to our customer success teams. We:

* Built a Challenger Sales model
* Launched a customer education series
* Improved insights on the buyer's journey, combining customer development and multiple data sources
* Maximized customer's programmatic advertising
* Boost the performance of our client's recruiting teams by 40%+

Strategist, Programmatic Advertising

TheMuse.com

Part of building a new team focused on reaching the Global 1000 by:

• Engaging and working with renowned HR thought-leaders
• Leading governance and compliance in procurement
• Informing go-to-market and product strategy
• Guiding clients on digital transformation 
• Teaching clients how to tell their employees’ stories to source top talent
• Providing market insight so clients could build and engage with an organic audience

Talent Acquisition Specialist

MyloWrites

Delivered Google NLP chatbot inside Google Docs to provide students with dramatically more intuitive guidance in writing school papers.

Built the front-end, designed the learning pathways, lead business strategy, conducted customer discovery, ran & supported pilots, and worked closely with our back-end development team.

Some notables include:

• Built lead funnel with a 96% response rate
• Reduced time to revenue by four months
• Delivered new products MVP (Minimally Viable Products) that doubled user engagement by combining Google Classroom with a chatbot AI

Head of Product, AI

Funderbolt (Acq. by CampusLogic)

Founded a certified B-Corp delivering an enterprise SaaS solution that created a new line of fundraising revenue for universities while teaching students entrepreneurial skills.

I built our first MVP and served as our product, marketing, and sales leader:

• Designed peer-to-peer education campaigns that taught students to raise $5 million in gifts
• Created a new regulatory framework to enable crowdfunding in a highly regulated industry
• Empowered college students to launch satellite experiments, produce documentaries, and build water purification systems in developing nations

Consulted with universities executives and their teams to win unengaged alumni, discover major gift prospects, and educate their students on the importance of philanthropy.

Delaware Film Company

One of the first companies to bring high-quality digital film (and the RED camera) to Internet video production. We:

* Launched a viral video seen in 127 countries
* Produced award-winning independent films & tv-series
* Pioneered a new film-finance mechanism
* Wrote the bill for bringing top studio productions to Delaware

Film Producer

I'm passionate about building and leading teams to:

* Achieve creative leaps through collaboration
* Remove friction from workflows & communications
* Deepen a shared commitment to the mission & each other

As a remote leader I've built startups, ventures in the Fortune 100, global consulting firms & agencies, and international education programs - delivering break-through achievements in new or emerging categories.

My superpowers are structuring chaos, creating the context for collaboration, and uncovering new possibilities. 

Kolbe: 6-3-8-3

Curiosity and appreciation are my primary tools.

Here on LinkedIn I share what I and others have learned including:

1. Insight, research, and guidance on how to build and engage teams.

2. Road-tested tools & processes for inclusive, supportive, and effective execution.

3. The journey of discovery that deliver creative leaps.

“Omakase”

Sam Jacobs’s word for the year to signal his mission:

Do a small number of things, 
Do them incredibly well.

Borrowed from the “chef’s choice” experience in sushi, it captures the wonderful experience of being served by a master who tunes into to you and isn’t afraid to be prescriptive.

In a world of more choice & change than we can ever process, our growth & progress comes from learning and taking action.

Pavilion’s philosophy is to take responsibility for providing *this year’s* best insight in their courses.

As I launch DrivePipelineAI this week, I’m inspired by this mission and the commitment to make the most of the precious time people spend  with us to learn how to apply AI to their own GTM.

Kathleen Booth and team have created another amazing event. I’m excited to be here and learn from everyone!

Brian Sowards

Yesterday’s CMO Summit kicked off with the legendary Latané Conant (she/her), now CRO of 6sense.

So many great lessons learned on a Chief Market Officer who became the CRO.

A few fav observations:

🌶️ Spicey take: most CROs are just “sales guys” 

Today’s CROs #1 job & challenge is alignment.
There’s a lot to orchestrate. CMOs have real-world experience in the cross-functional/ops muscles required. I’ve found that’s true of game changing sales leaders as well.

🐣 Hilarious take: use the Momma Bird strategy when working with sales. Don’t just “chop up the meat” before handing deals to sales, pre-chew it first 😝🤣

While the analogy was hilarious, 6SENSE’s PG Tuesdays (which the post on LinkedIn!) is so cool. The whole revenue team prospects together in a brilliant, motivating, shared experience. It solves the ultimate problem in high-performing revenue orgs: making sure all that brilliant work by marketing actually delivers pipeline.

🌅 Inspiring take: “Give the gift of high expectations.”

This one resonated in such a special way. I’ve heard a lot of advice about having high standards, pushing your team/kids to succeed, driving yourself towards excellence. But what Latane tuned into was what a gift it was to put a big goal out there and say:

“You can do it.”

We all need some borrowed confidence now and again, especially when the accomplishment would be a personal first.

Thanks for the real, funny, and empowering talk Latané Conant (she/her) !

On the "Open to Work" controversy on LinkedIn:
There are two job markets, especially in tech.

One is purely network based and is almost entirely passive for the candidate. Recruiters (and VCs and founders and friends) reach out to them all the time to see if "you're thinking about looking for another role." If you are an engineer in San Francisco, that's daily life. Recruiters who live in this world see "Open to Work" as a negative signal, mainly because "why would you be looking?"

A recent post on HackerNews about this was illuminating for me. It was an engineer who moved to Austin from Palo Alto. For 20 years living in the SV he'd never looked for a job, they just showed up. Then he moved to Austin and when it came time to find the next role he had to search.

That's the job market of everyone else: you build your network into your next role. 

Network density is great. I highly recommend to everyone early in their career to move to the highest density area you can for your career aspirations.

If that's not the right choice for you, playing the application game is not the answer. You'll get the wrong, unhelpful message way too often - ghosting, no interest, not a fit, etc. From what I've seen working inside recruiting, most applications are *never* looked at by a human. It's so important not to internalize market forces in terms of your personal worth.

You've got talent, skills, experience, ability, personality. Aim to build a network where people know about it. 

The greatest value of "Open to Work" is that your network can advocate for you.  I've seen dozens of people win roles on LinkedIn by adding value through their posts and comments. But don't wait for people to find you. Reach out to hiring managers and ask for career advice. Join communities. Build relationships.

When a hire is finally made it's not because a company filled a role. It's because they found a team member.

On my 44th birthday 🥳 I’m excited to announce my next startup on AI GTM: 

🤖DrivePipelineAI

We teach your revenue leaders, directors, and top performers how to take what is working in your GTM and amplify it with AI.

We believe the revenue potential of AI lives in serving as a co-pilot for doing the hard things that win deals.

Our founding partnership is with the incredible B2B SaaS sales community Pavilion where we are building their AI-powered SDR motion in public! 

Check out the link in the first comment, sharing  the launch video with my new fav startup buddy Josh Carter 👊 

After a year serving as a consultant to startups, from pre-seed to growth stage, I learned powerful lessons on the benefits and challenges of implementing AI. I’m so grateful to the Drivetrain Revenue team and co-founder Derek Evjenth, who continue to serve our amazing clients.  Working with top performers is a magical experience and I’m excited to see them continue to grow!

I’m forever grateful to everyone who gave me the opportunity to make an impact. It’s fueled my fire to offer as much actionable, immediate value as I can each day.

More to come! 🚀

Another great Pavilion CEO Dinner with Sam Jacobs 

Getting to bond with other founders and share the experiences was reassuring

One of my favorite discussions was how much current and future parents wanted to give their children the very best of themselves and their support.

A big thank you to Seamus Ruiz-Earle for MCing the candid discussions with curiosity and insight. 
I feel inspired to do the same for my PHX community some time!

Claude's new Haiku model is faster, better, and become a favorite in my community of AI builders.

AI startups are rapidly becoming more impressive in their ability to deliver, but most are betting models have multiple leaps ahead.

But what if it is only incremental from here?

Incremental progress alone doesn't change the game.

Compounding incremental progress, however, could deliver leaps all it's own.

Open article: Claude 3 Haiku: our fastest model yet by anthropic.com • 2 min read

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-3-haiku

The most powerful move a startup can make to drive revenue growth is win deals upmarket

Steve Blank, the godfather of many startup terms we use today like Minimally Viable Product and Customer Development, just shared his latest advice on finding Product Market Fit.

“Before agreeing to delivering a prototype or proof of concept, ask how it will turn into a purchase.”

As a product founder, sales can seem like the thing to put off as long as possible.

There are skills <inside> sales that will serve you at every step.

This is a great one to start with.

Open article: Founders Need to Be Ruthless When Chasing Deals by steveblank.com • 5 min read

https://steveblank.com/2024/04/16/founders-need-to-be-ruthless-when-chasing-deals/

Alignment is the #1 challenge for CROs
What resources have helped you make progress?

I spoke with a dozen CROs and soon-to-be CROs at Pavilion's CMO Summit last week and this chart from Latané Conant (she/her) resonated.

Some common themes:

Understanding their market 
- Something everyone is working on, no one is clear on. Even $100M+ ARR companies don't have a clear roadmap & source of truth on what their Buyer's Journey is.

The "dead zone" of hand-offs between marketing and sales 
- the oldest unsolved challenge. Marketing delivers priority leads that don't get worked, Sales is targeting this quarter's best opportunities but lack sales enablement for it.

Customer success keeping the wheels on with professional services while needing to become more "scalable."
- more CMOs are also becoming the heads of CS, a positive trend that could significantly improve marketing's ability to target future customers.

Our GTM orgs have become highly complex collaboration environments. A "One Team" spirit and supportive culture are key, but not enough to deliver the alignment revenue needs.

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