In private equity we throw around convictions a lot, or talk about what we believe. But: that's not the same. Conviction in defense is not measured by capability alone, but by credible intent to act. The same applies to venture capital: your portfolio is a map of what you’re willing to stand behind when it … Continue reading Writing The Check Isn’t Just An Act Of Confidence — It’s A Signal Of Ethical Clarity.
Engaging in natural, fluid conversations with AI often leads us to overlook the intricate context required for such interactions. Striving for a human-like dialogue without tailoring our prompts to the AI's design can inadvertently open doors to subtle manipulations—such as covert subversion, goal misalignment, or strategic deception. This risk escalates with lengthier prompts and extensive … Continue reading Interrogating AI: A Guide to Maintaining System Integrity
The management-craze of "bring me solutions" has gone too far. I recently met with two spin-out teams of enterprises where the engineers and interim-CEO were scared to share any challenges or problems with corporate management because they were expected to be more "solutions-oriented." When I went back to one of the senior executives with a problem … Continue reading Bring me Problems.
Most Enterprise markets are somewhat finite regarding the number of customers: F1000 by definition has exactly 1,000 companies (d'oh!). Getting new customers is good. That usually comes in cycles: yay, the first customer! Oh no, who's next? I think I figured it out.... Darn copy-cats! You will hit the point where competition isn't sleeping anymore. … Continue reading Scaling First Revenue: Don’t Forget ARPU Expansion.
I got a lot of good feedback on my last post on SaaS: Should You Fix EBITDA Margins or Revenue Growth? The main criticism was that the companies of each cell were not true peer-companies and a such not comparable. I admit that perhaps it was a bad judgment using these companies to illustrate NTM revenue growth and … Continue reading Cloud Index: EBITDA Margins versus Revenue Growth
First off: You should have a great product. It's pointless to try and "fix" revenue growth if you don't have a great product. But perhaps you have too many products, or your prospects don't understand what you stand for, or your operations are less than optimal. [At the end of this post I will include … Continue reading SaaS: Should You Fix EBITDA Margins or Revenue Growth?
