Dave Kellogg Profile picture
Oct 24 7 tweets 2 min read
Since people are in scenario planning mode, right now, a few tips. A 🧵 #planning #scenarios
Please don't present a base case and two strawman (or strawperson) proposals. A strawman, often misused in my experience, is a rhetorical fallacy, i.e., creating a proposal that no one would reasonably vote for, and then encouraging votes against it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
For example, most companies create 3 scnearios: base, silly1 and silly2. Then they spend the meeting arguing why silly1 and silly2 are bad, which isn't hard, and thus we have only one good choice, the base case. All in favor, aye!
Instead, try to make 3 planning scenarios that are all valid and that you actually wrestle between choosing. That makes the exercise much more useful. The former exercise is arguably just manipulation.
Then, try to provide the metrics and indicators that would tell us which scenario we're in. That is, in six months if we see X, Y, and Z, then we're likely in someting close to scenario 2.
Additionally, I like giving scenarios clear and descriptive names whereever possible. Tap the Brakes, Full Speed Ahead, International Retrenchment, etc. Note these names are actually about our resultant plan than the external scenario driving it.
Finally, and this is super geeky, just as I like headlines based on movie titles, I love using the scenario names from the old classic, War Games, to inspire me. filmjournals.net/wargames_tacti…

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More from @Kellblog

Jul 18
Find the contradiction in this sales/marketing relationship. A thread 🧵
Our CMO and the CRO get along great. They never fight in meetings. All is seemingly peaceful.
Both agree that it's a new market, it's forming, everyone in the space is having troubles convincing buyers to buy.
Read 13 tweets
Jul 11
Set pipeline generation goals on opportunity count and not on pipeline value or, worse yet, percent of pipeline. Short thread 🧵
When you say, e.g., SDRs or Alliances, need to generate 30% of the pipeline, you immediately do two things: [1] start an attribution war about who gets credit, and potentially end up putting more energy into the credit-assignment problem than the oppty-generation problem, ...
and [2] you expose yourself to pathlogical cases where the pipeline dollar goal was $10M, you end up with only $5M, but Alliances generated $1.5M so they hit their 30% of pipeline goal. Ick.
Read 10 tweets
Jul 8
As someone who's launched a lot of products, I thought I'd share a thread on naming 🧵
The longest product name I've ever launched was BusinessObjects WebIntelligence. A massve mouthful of 10 syllables.
I should have been hauled before the Marketing High Tribunal and found guilty of malpractice for launching it. Ten syllables!
Read 19 tweets
Mar 29
Startup leaders come in three basic types and those in a given type typically neither understand nor respect those in other types. Nevertheless, it's critical to have the right types at the right time as you grow. A thread 🧵 #startups #tech #SaaS
The first are innovators. They love disrupting the status quo by doing things that haven't been done before. They don't need training or playbooks. All they need is an email, a telephone, and a machete and they can survive and thrive.
You need innovators in your early days. They tend to be smart generalists who likely don't function well in large organizations. However, they have little interest in process and industrialization and will either leave the org or need to deployed into new "hard problems"
Read 12 tweets
Mar 24
There has been some conversation on venture debt in the Twittersphere of late. Here's my first-hand take on venture debt. A thread 🧵
The first time I looked at venture debt was nearly 20 years ago, and it had a strong negative connotation back then. It's for people who can't raise equity. They'll pull the line. They'll sweep your accounts. Parachute that won't open, etc. So we didn't get it.
The next time was when I raising capital and I got a "debtquity" proposal from a PE firm. Mix of equity and debt. But the interaction between the terms on the equity and the covenants on the debt was crazy. The shareholders get approval all CXO hires.
Read 10 tweets
Mar 24
We’re Not Buddies:  Thoughts on Managers Too Preoccupied with Being Liked buff.ly/3N1WMsB
Since some people took issue with the analogy, which is not surprisingly given the frequency with which you see buddying, I have two thoughts: [1] whether you like the analogy or not don't miss the point, managers shouldn't be buddies with their employees, and ...
... [2] since this is not my area of expertise (other than my direct/anecdotal experience raising 4 wonderful kids), I'd direct you to real sources in parenting philosophy. Finally, please remember that good analogies are elucidating but hard.
Read 5 tweets

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