Grit

Leadership is in Peter Kim’s DNA. Since he got his first management job running a Subway on the weekends when he was 14-years-old, Peter has built successful sales teams at companies such as LinkedIn and Advent Software.

Now, Peter works as Senior Vice President of Sales at Relativity, a company that is transforming the legal discovery process by streamlining the collection, processing and review of legal evidence.

On this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Peter talk about methods for evaluating new talent, as well as the values of a “people-centric” leader.

In this episode, we cover:

• What Peter's nine-month stint at ride-sharing company Scoop Technologies taught him about the importance for sales leaders to have 'personal passion.' (7:02)
• Peter's experience working as a sales leader at LinkedIn during the company's early stages. (11:50)
• The Skill vs. Potential Scale: How Peter evaluates new talent when building a team. (16:52)
• 'The experiential game film': Why Peter looks at a person's past experiences with adversity to gauge potential. (23:46)
• How Peter's current company, Relativity, is streamlining the collection, processing and review of legal evidence. (26:37)
• Methods for building a productive and people-centric sales culture as a leader. (32:07)
• The importance for leaders to establish 'first principles' before making decisions. (37:57)
• Embracing vulnerability to become a more authentic leader. (43:15)
• How Peter defines grit. (47:32)

Links:

• Connect with Peter Kim
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Dave Justice knows a lot about crisis leadership. Over his almost 21 years in sales, he’s successfully navigated through the dotcom and housing bubble crashes — and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. 

After 18 consecutive years working in various sales roles at Cisco, Dave became Executive Vice President of North America Enterprise Sales at Salesforce before transitioning in 2020 to his current role as Chief Revenue Officer at PagerDuty, a company that produces an incident response platform for IT departments.

On this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Dave talk about the leadership lessons Dave learned while working through crises, the opportunities and challenges for PagerDuty’s go-to-market operation, and how to successfully transition into a company as a new leader.

In this episode, we cover:

• Dave's sales career before joining PagerDuty. (3:27)
• 'The platform for real-time work': What is PagerDuty? (12:09)
• Market opportunity and happy customers: Why Dave left Salesforce for PagerDuty. (14:44)
• The importance for leaders to rally an organization around a shared vision. (18:36)
• Go-to-market challenges: Learning how to articulate a product's business value to the customer. (22:17)
• Go-to-market opportunities: The 'virality' of PagerDuty's business model. (28:00)
• The value of listening to employees and customers before making decisions as a new leader in a company. (34:05)
• Why Dave believes leaders must own their own personal development and career. (37:28)
• Communication and empathy: How to successfully lead through a crisis. (40:05)
• How Dave defines grit. (48:45)

Links:

• Connect with Dave Justice
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

When Matt Heinz took a quota-carrying sales job in 2011 after having worked in sales leadership, he knew that “it was a step back, from the way that you look at it on a piece of paper.” 

But in the end, Matt saw success as he helped turn a company doing $11 million a year in revenue to one that sold for over $5 billion. Now, Matt serves as the Chief Revenue officer of Amplitude, a leading company in product analytics.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Matt discuss the many leadership lessons Matt learned throughout his career, go-to-market strategies and what a successful relationship between a sales engineer and a sales rep looks like.

Links:

• Connect with Matt Heinz
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

If a customer doesn’t understand how a product will provide a positive impact to their business, will they buy it? It may seem like a simple question — but for Jay Snyder, identifying and communicating such areas of value to customers is a crucial aspect of keeping a business growing.

On this episode of Go to Market Grit, Jay and Joubin discuss ways to build respect as a new leader, how to effectively communicate a product’s value to a customer, and why simplifying a business is crucial to successfully scaling it. 

Links:

• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

No matter how advanced sales technology gets, it’s still imperative for Kevin Knieriem to listen to his gut intuition when it comes to making business choices. And for good reason — his “Spidey senses,” as he jokingly calls them, are always accurate. 

But that doesn’t mean that artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics can’t help him and his team make better decisions. In fact, as Chief Revenue Officer of Clari, a company that makes software to help businesses visualize revenue operations, Kevin’s seen firsthand how getting a handle on data can make an organization thrive.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Kevin talk about the various ways data analytics has changed sales as well as what Kevin looks for in new sales hires.

Links: 

• Connect with Kevin Knieriem
  • Email: [email protected]
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

If you ask Ross Biestman about the highest-performing environment he’s ever been a part of, you might be surprised to hear nothing of his time as an investment banking analyst or as a salesperson at Adobe. 

Instead, Ross points to his time on the University of California, Berkeley rugby team — an organization that he says instilled team values that he still brings to every company he works with. In addition to his position as Chief Revenue Officer of ServiceTitan, Ross currently serves as the CRO Executive in Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Ross talk about how to motivate sales teams and increase their overall performance, the shared characteristics of high-performing people and how ServiceTitan is pushing full steam ahead on its go-to-market strategy.

Links: 

• Connect with Ross Biestman
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• ServiceTitan: https://www.servicetitan.com/
• ServiceTitan Careers: https://www.servicetitan.com/careers

Cloud-based data storage company Snowflake made headlines this past September when it underwent the highest-valued software IPO in stock market history. For the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, Chris Degnan, this blockbuster success was many years in the making. 

Having joined Snowflake in 2013 while the company was still in its early stages, Chris led the effort to build the business’ sales organization. Now, as CRO, Chris remains an integral force of Snowflake’s continued growth. 

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Chris discuss what it was like to work at Snowflake in its early stages, how Chris built Snowflake’s sales organization from the ground up, and how the fear of failure can be an effective motivator.

Links: 

• Connect with Chris Degnan
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected] 
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Global trade is as complex as it is essential to worldwide economic stability. From organizing freight shipped through the air or over oceans, to customs and other governmental red tape, there’s a lot for businesses to worry about when it comes to world commerce. 

Just take it from Will Urban, Chief Revenue Officer of the freight forwarding company Flexport — a business creating cutting-edge technology that has changed the way organizations visualize their supply chain by digitizing data to drive greater efficiency and profit.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Will talk about how Flexport is disrupting the freight forwarding industry, what the company’s go-to-market engine looks like, and why Will believes relationship building is important for salespeople.

In this episode, we cover:

• The ways freight forwarding and logistics companies manage world commerce, why global trade is so complex, and how Will began working in the industry. (2:28)
• What Will learned from taking a sabbatical from work — and how his time off led to his current job as Chief Revenue Officer of Flexport. (11:32)
• How Flexport is streamlining global trade with technology that makes it easier for customers to see and interact with freight data from across the world. (20:00)
• Will’s go-to-market strategy for Flexport and why he thinks sales in the shipping and freight forwarding industry is unique to other fields. (31:05)
• Why domain expertise matters for shipping and freight forwarding industry salespeople. (34:43)
• The benefits that Will and Joubin see to building long-term relationships with customers. (39:04)
• How Will defines grit. (49:36)

Links:

• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• Flexport
• Connect with Will
  • LinkedIn

When it comes to building a company from the ground up, Qasar Younis has done it all. 

A mechanical engineer by trade and entrepreneur at heart, Qasar transitioned from working on cars to building startups, eventually selling his second business venture TalkBin to Google in 2011. Qasar has also helped fund and advise early-stage companies as a partner at Y Combinator. Now, Qasar is the founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, a company valued at $1.25 billion that develops simulation software that engineers use to create self-driving systems.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Qasar discuss what patterns Qasar has noticed about go-to-market strategies while working in startups and how he’s built two massively successful businesses.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why Qasar decided to enroll in Harvard Business School after working as a mechanical engineer. (4:20)
• How one of Qasar’s early startups, Camessa, failed — and what Qasar learned from this failure. (8:50)
• What Y Combinator does and how it has grown in scale. (11:11)
• How Qasar and others analyzed the retail market and the emergence of new technology to come up with the idea for TalkBin. (12:15)
• How Qasar’s “boots-on-the-ground” sales experience helps create a more balanced environment at Applied Intuition and how he learned about developing early sales motions while working at Y Combinator. (15:39)
• Qasar’s take on why centering a company around the customer can dismantle engineering-oriented cultures and unite a business around a common goal. (18:58)
• The divide between engineers and business people and why leaders need to have a diversity of skills. (21:40)
• ‘Market risk’: Why cultivating a deep understanding of the market and its demands can make or break a business. (24:43)
• Reasons why some businesses fail to listen to its customers. (30:53)
• What Qasar’s current business, Applied Intuition, does. (32:15)
• The present and future of autonomous cars. (34:21)
• How Applied Intuition penetrated the autonomous car market by creating software that manufacturers want. (37:50)
• Why Applied Intuition doesn’t only focus on selling to car manufacturers — and how its technology can save a business money. (45:24)
• Qasar’s thoughts on how long it will take for autonomous driving features to come standard in cars. (47:52)
• The cultural challenges of taking a company international and the importance of focusing on hiring the right people who can carry company values. (49:10)
• How Qasar defines grit. (53:22)

Kelly Wright has had a remarkable career in sales, from her early days selling books door to door to joining Tableau as a developing startup and helping them grow into a multi-billion dollar company as a key member of their executive team. Today, she is board director at Fastly, a leading cloud services provider. 

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, Joubin and Kelly discuss Kelly’s incredible career path, including her decision to attend business school, how she landed at Tableau, and how she secured a position as board director.

In this episode of Go to Market Grit, we cover:

• Kelly’s thoughts on Tableau’s high profile acquisition by Salesforce.
• Kelly’s career journey, and how she ended up at Tableau as EVP of sales. Kelly also talks about her early experiences selling books door to door, and how she built up grit and resilience.
• Why Kelly went to business school, even though her calling was in sales.
• What Kelly saw in Tableau, and why she decided to take a leap of faith and join the company.
• How Kelly measured herself, as the first account executive at a developing startup without a formal tracking system in place.
• How Kelly dealt with change management during her early days at Tableau.
• The concept of hiring for culture fit, and why Kelly prioritizes this when searching for new team members. Kelly also talks about how interviewing quickly at scale, and how she determines whether interviewees have the potential to be successful.
• Kelly’s advice on how to get on a company board.
• Kelly’s definition of grit.

Links:

• Connect with Kelly Wright
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected] 
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins