RevenueDNA To Help Startups Grow

RevenueDNA To Help Startups Grow

with Edward Golod and Colin Kleine

Where we discuss the challenges and remedies for tech startups that need more top-line sales but do not have the resources, manpower, or budgets.

Learn how they can marshal their entire startup and turn themselves into a "RevenueDNA engine" for dramatic results.

Hey, Collin, how are you? Good to see you, man.

It is always great to see you.

And I appreciate that. So we've been talking a lot about inherent DNA. And the topic came up about changing a tech startup to a revenue, DNA, or revenue-driven sales company. Tell me what you think, is that the fluff? Or is that really the core issue and nobody wants to talk about it. Because it's really hard to do.

It's, it's not the fluff, it's 100%, the core issue. And I'll be completely honest, it's actually not that difficult to do. Companies just need to be cognitively aware of it and act to do something about it.

When you say that what immediately springs to my mind is the countless tech startups I see brilliant ideas that have already received some VC funding.

But they started by a technical team, CTO, CIO.

What they lack is the ability to very succinctly articulate why this technology, why now, and what are specific problems it solves.

It's a mindset shift to be able to go from, "we're a technology company to we're a sales company" that is powered by technology.

That's what it makes me think it's a clear and very, very defined articulation of what the value proposition is why this is going to help executives or help companies. What this is going to do that just so happens to be a tech company.

Businesses that do this well end up doing hyper-growth 100% year-on-year growth and end up listing on the NASDAQ.

Businesses that don't do this well, burn through cash, and eventually, you don't hear from them again. That's how crucial it is.

It's really crucial. And you sort of peeled back the onion. I think you have to think about going down a few levels on the onion because what you're talking about is what I call basic chops. You need to be a top performer, the top five percent. We have what you just mentioned. My issue is I'm talking to a lot of people and clients and prospects and friends.

I'm talking to everybody with, "is your company hooked on a revenue DNA?"

In other words, how do we all make money? How do we all make a profit? How do we all drive the energy? I mean, we don't have resources like Salesforce and have Marc Benioff driving us for 20 years. He is a legend in creating money. So you're right, people have these great skills, and they sell, but how do you get that DNA into everybody?

So the product people and the marketing people, and the support people and the finance people? How do they start drinking that revenue? DNA Kool-Aid, so that startup gets more trajectory and more speed into the market?

Correct. So there's, there's a couple of things there. So the first one is success leaves clues. There are reasons why the Salesforce's of the world are successful. Even if you jump one tier below that, and you have a look at the tech companies that have really crushed it over the last eight to 10 years your workday, Zendesk, aka Twilio, CrowdStrike, these sort of businesses, there's been common themes between them.

Some common themes you'll see are either excellent demand generation, excellent value proposition, and usage of systems like MEDDIC or Challenger.

Being able to identify international markets, and doing the research well, in advance of exactly who are the partners who are the customers, what marketing and PR, we're going to do localized, so it's going to work for that market. So this is the thing, success leaves clues when you're looking at the big guys, but you don't just need to look at the big guys, you also need to look at the tech startups, the 100 to 500, the small caps, and understand what it is that they're doing.

Which is making them overwhelmingly successful. And again, success leaves clues. It's a very good value proposition. It's why us why now, what are we changing? And if you can articulate that in 30 seconds, then you as a business are not going to succeed. And as far as I'm concerned, copy what's already working. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah, you're right. It's why waste money doing that. So you bring up so much meat and potatoes at dinner right now. It's incredible. And I agree with you. Where I think we're all missing, is we all cannot hire somebody who is really smart when you're a startup. There are examples of high-growth, cash-rich startups that have hired a top Google developer paying millions of dollars as a sign-on. Most startups can't do anything like that.

But you try to hire somebody with enough revenue DNA They pull the whole company forward.

They excite everybody and when you add tools and processes, it's a lot.

But I think the missing link is for a CEO to have enough dynamics to drive the company, be the voice, have the energy, and have everybody get behind it.

So creating sales and revenue becomes really the number one objective, because products will get built, markets will get opened, development and leads will happen. But I think it starts with the CEO, and I feel bad for the startups that don't have a dynamic CEO, but yet their competitors do. And the whole company follows it. That revenue DNA, I think just sort of filters through the business. I don't know if we could put it in a jar and sell it. I wish we could.

Well?what you said before it also hits on a nerve, you need an unashamedly commercial CEO. Now they don't have to have been a CEO previously, you can take someone out of what I've seen work quite well is the companies that are listed before your Twilio Zendesk, aka like the big success stories of the last 10 years, people that have come up through those organizations, or what I see now MEDDIC certified organizations, as a sales director or head of sales.

They've been there. And they've done this before for a startup, that they can join another startup in the CEO capacity and be able to replicate them. You know, I'll tell you something really interesting. And I found this fascinating, but the vast majority of the most successful tech companies in the last 10 years use the MEDDIC methodology which came from PTC.?And what completely spun me out is that so many of the board advisors of these companies are ex-PTC stakeholders.

So this is what I mean success leaves clues, it's created this new ecosystem.

It appoints CEOs, unashamedly commercial who already have the experience in doing this and can come across and implement that into the organization.

As far as I'm concerned, you either get on board with these plans, or you listen to what the experts are saying. And you follow it down to a tee that will make you successful, or you can push it down. And I personally think that will not make you successful. Because, again, this is what successful businesses do.

You're so on the money. And I know PTC. And if you're working in a startup, and your CEO does not have these types of chops, and you know that they can't make deals happen; you're not going to go and say, "Gee, you're not a good CEO."

How do we help? The problem is, the VP of Sales must be saying, "I have to bring more revenue into this company? Or does the CRO say, "I need to bring in somebody who can speak for us at a conference'?

Because we need this energy? How critical is this dynamic? And without the RevenueDNA you will be successful but will take longer.

Does it really give you a disadvantage, when you're competing with 1000s, and hundreds of 1000s of startups that are all trying to make money to a limited number of companies? Look,?you definitely need the person that can be the public face of the company to be speaking at conferences and events and create their wealth factor. But you need it embedded in every single layer of the organization.

I'll tell you an example. And I won't list the company. It's a company that is now doing quite well, and they are listed on the NASDAQ. But five years ago, when they were breaking into it, it was still a founder-led organization, and the founder, brilliant, brilliant individual, that he's a CTO. He's a CIO. And he's very, very good in terms of the product. And they ended up poaching somebody across from one of the major tech giants who'd done an incredible job in the APAC region. Now when they appointed him, it's very much Look, why don't you go and sell a few things. And then we'll see if we'll, we'll back you as opposed to creating the structure and the framework right throughout the entire organization.

And rather than the CEO giving the opinion on how do we run our sales, you hired someone who's an expert in this, who's done this repeatedly, take the advice of the person and change and shift your organization they know what they're doing. So, yes, you need that public face of the organization.

But if it's not driven across every single facet of that company, CEO, CRO, even CTO, and CIO a revenue-driven embedded revenue DNA, I simply don't see how companies are going to succeed given the amount of IPOs we're getting.

Given that the amount of in excess of 20 million capital raises has quadrupled in between 2020 to 2022, from what it was in 2018 to 2020. So, this is what you have to do.

You know Colin, you are on the money You are so right. If we were doing this 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the ecosystem of startups was not there. And you could still do well, but right now there's too much volume. So I love this idea. And I think people listening will have to ask, especially if you're running a company, do we have the drive to do it and if we don't have the drive to really stand out, then they're always to bring it in.

So this has been our interesting SpeedCast today. And Colin, thank you as usual for your AsiaPac insights.

We thank you.

Edward Golod, CEO & Founder, https://www.revenueaccelerators.com/

Colin Kleine, Director, https://www.zack.group/