It’s been a big break between posts – as many of you probably know, I moved to Board Chair and left the CEO role at Bolster last summer (it’s now in the very capable hands of my friend and co-founder Cathy Hawley), and I’m now CEO of a super cool AI company called Acrolinx. So yes, that means I went through a job search – and I found my ultimate job as a result of an inbound cold email from a headhunter! The rich irony in that as someone who founded an executive search platform is not lost on me. So when a good friend of mine who is also between CEO gigs and looking at several opportunities asked me…
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Startup CXO
How I Engage with the CBDO
(Post 4 of 4 in the series on Scaling CBDO’s- other posts are, When to hire your first Chief Business Development Officer, What does Great look like in a Chief Business Development Officer and Signs your Chief Business Development Officer isn’t Scaling) Other than the weekly executive meeting, your day as a CEO rarely has an entry of “meet the CBDO.” Because of the infrequency of deals it’s critical to engage with the CBDO with a regular cadence so that when something does come up you’re not getting to know each other again. Anyway, a few ways I’ve typically spent the most time or gotten the most value out of CBDOs over the years are: One way to engage with…
Signs your CBDO isn’t scaling
(This is the third post in the series… The first one When to Hire your first CBDO is here, and What does Great Look Like in a CBDO is here). The metrics for understanding whether or not your CBDO is scaling differs from other functions like Sales, People Ops, Customer Service, and Finance because throughout the scaling process the CBDO team is likely to be small. So how do you know if your CBDO is scaling if they’re essentially the same size regardless of what the rest of your company is doing? I have found that CBDOs who aren’t scaling well past the startup stage are the ones who typically operate in the following ways. First, a CBDO who isn’t scaling is…
What Does Great Look Like in a Chief Business Development Officer?
(This is the second post in the series….the first one When to hire your first CBDO is here) One of the tricky things about finding a great CBDO is that the role is fairly nuanced and there’s not a degree a person can get in “business development.” So you’re left with searching for someone based partially on experience, reputation, and alignment with your company culture and goals. But over the course of my career I have figured our what “great” looks like for the CBDO and I’m confident that what worked for us at Return Path and Bolster will work for any startup. First, a great CBDO should have a good balance of the three core components Ken Takahashi outlined…
When it’s Time to Hire Your First Chief Business Development Officer
(Post 1 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPDO’s). For most startups the idea of hiring a CBDO is a pipedream, it’s a role that only global corporations have, right? After all, strategic partnerships and M&A are rare events for a startup and can be handled by the founder/CEO, or potentially by someone in Sales. If a startup is partner or channel heavy, those areas may be the focus of the Sales team in general. Or, if there is sporadic M&A activity that can be handled by external advisors or bankers. So how do you know when it’s time to hire your first CBDO? You know it’s time to hire a CBDO when you are spending too much of…
You Don’t Need a CRO
One of the most common things early stage CEOs say to me once they find product-market fit and make a few sales is “I need a CRO.” The answer is almost always, “no, you don’t.” A couple years ago I wrote about the evolution of enterprise selling organizations in this post. Reading that is a good place to start this topic. Go ahead…I’ll still be here when you come back. Welcome back! So in the early days of a company, it’s all “selling on whiteboard.” The need that early stage CEOs have that prompts them to tell me they need a CRO is simple the need to have help selling. What the CEO really needs is a couple of very…
Why Have a COO?
The following is a guest post written by my dad, Bob Blumberg, long-time tech entrepreneur and now startup advisor and board member (yes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). To create a successful and sustainable, growing and profitable business, the leadership of the company must have both strategic and tactical understanding and capability. For this purpose let us define “strategic” as having the understanding of the customer, his problem, need, or desire, a knowledge of his own industry, its past, present, and likely future, how developments in other industries can be applied to his own, and how to envision the product or service that will succeed. In contrast, “tactical” is the understanding of how to get things done,…
Signs Your Chief People Officer Isn’t Scaling
This is the third post in the series. The first one When to hire your first CPO is here and What does Great Look Like in a CPO is here) If you’ve been following my previous blog posts on the Chief People Officer you have figured out when to hire one and what to look for in getting a great one but even so, you can’t just assume that your Chief People Officer is going to be able to scale with your company. I have found that Chief People Officers who aren’t scaling well past the startup stage are the ones who typically operate in the following ways. First, a CPO might not be able to scale if they are…
What Does Great Look Like in a Chief People Officer?
This is the second post in the series…. the first one When to hire your first Chief People Officer is here). While all CXOs are important to a company, the Chief People Officer is the one role you don’t want to get wrong because People Ops impacts every facet of a company. If you hire the wrong people—even one wrong person—you’ll regret it, and so will everyone else in your company. If you short-change the onboarding process you’ll create tons of work for others in the company to answer questions, teach people the systems, and help them get up to speed quickly—not to mention the frustration of the new hire. And of course, if you or your employees do anything…
How I engage with the Chief Privacy Officer
Post 4 of 4 in the series of Scaling CPO’s- the other posts are, When to Hire your First Chief Privacy Officer, What does Great Look like in a Chief Privacy Officer and Signs your Chief Privacy Officer isn’t Scaling. There are a few high-quality ways I’ve typically spent the most time or gotten the most value out of Chief Privacy Officers over the years. Part of it may have to do with the business we were in at Return Path (and now, Bolster), but part of it is understanding what the Chief Privacy Officer needs from the business and working with them in that arena. For example, I found it helpful to work with the Chief Privacy Officer to…
Signs your Chief Privacy Officer isn’t Scaling
This is the third post in the series. The first one When to hire your first CPO is here and What does Great Look Like in a CPO is here). Chief Privacy Officers who aren’t scaling well past the startup stage are the ones who typically have the following characteristics and you should look for some of these telltale signs. First, if your Chief Privacy Officer looks at you sideways when you ask for a strategy or even a mitigation plan for a breach, then you might have a bigger problem than the fact that you don’t have a plan. While we like to talk about things like Privacy by Design and using data protection as an offensive strategic weapon,…