November 11, 2025 • 50 mins
Chris Degnan is the former Chief Revenue Officer of Snowflake, where he helped scale the company from pre-product to over $4B in ARR and more than $100B in market cap. Over his 11-year tenure, Chris built Snowflake’s go-to-market engine from the ground up, from personally running the first outbound campaigns to leading a global sales organization through four CEOs and one of the largest software IPOs in history.
Today, he advises founders and revenue leaders on how to build high-velocity GTM teams, hire with grit, and scale with discipline. Chris is also the co-author of Make It Snow, the definitive playbook on Snowflake’s go-to-market journey, co-written with CMO Denise Persson.
Discussed in this episode
- The early days of Snowflake: selling a stealth startup with no product
- How to hire and identify truly self-motivated, gritty sales talent
- The lessons from John McMahon that shaped Snowflake’s leadership DNA
- How to build sales-marketing alignment that actually scales
- The near-death experiences that almost killed Snowflake
- What great CEOs do differently, from Muglia to Slootman
- The power of focusing on new logo acquisition
- The evolution of sales methodologies: MEDDPICC, culture, and curiosity
- The truth about AI’s “bubble”, and what’s real beneath the hype
Episode highlights
00:02:21 — Why join Snowflake pre-product and in stealth.
00:05:36 — The original outreach script and what resonated with prospects.
00:06:49 — Scaling from lists to SDRs; Degnan’s “8 meetings per week” rule.
00:09:11 — Hiring for self-starters; the interview opener: “Tell me your life story.”
00:12:49 — The feedback loop that kept a CRO in seat for 11 years.
00:24:46 — The outage that almost killed Snowflake, and how leadership showed up.
00:28:34 — New logo gates every quarter and why it mattered more than anything.
00:34:05 — “Customer success is everyone’s job”: removing CS, monetizing PS, driving adoption.
00:36:40 — Databricks: where Snowflake ceded ground and what they’d do differently.
00:39:19 — Why going public was the right move for enterprise trust.
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Follow Chris Degnan
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-degnan-524470Make It Snow (book):https://makeitsnowbook.com
The GTMnow Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
It was like my midlife crisis decision.
Um, I didn't buy a motorcycle.
I I joined a startup with nocustomers.
SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
That startup was snowflake.
Chris Denyon was the first andonly sales hire.
Eleven years later, he led salesfrom zero to over four billion
dollars in revenue and helpedtake the company to a$100
billion valuation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
So that was I I still kinda I'm like, I'm in the
matrix.
I don't think that's reallyhappened.
SPEAKER_00 (00:23):
But the same company that would redefine enterprise
data almost died more than once.
Chris stayed through the kind ofhypergrowth that breaks most
people and most companies.
The average zero tenure is about18 months.
And you lasted an incrediblerun, 11 years, through four
different CEOs.
(00:43):
Alright, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_02 (00:58):
Thanks, Sophie.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
It is fantastic to have you here.
And I don't actually know if yourealize, but eight years ago, to
this very month, you actuallycame on a version of this
podcast.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
Yeah.
It had a different name.
SPEAKER_02 (01:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
It was called Sales Hacker at the time.
So GTM Fund's general partner,Max Ultler, once founded
SalesHacker, grew to about175,000 members globally before
it got acquired by Outreach in2018.
Yeah.
And so you were actually onSales Hacker.
You were episode 28.
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
That's funny.
It was probably my first parkpodcast I ever did.
It might have been.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Eight years ago, you sat in, in a way, this very
scene.
Yeah.
And you were at about 100million in ARR.
Yeah.
Now you're projected to havefour billion in revenue.
Yeah.
So from when you first sat inthe seat at 100 million ARR to 4
billion, we're gonna essentiallygo through some of the
go-to-market moves, the lessons,the stories that really helped
(01:56):
make that scale possible.
You've actually documented a lotof these learnings in your new
book, which I've got on thetable right here.
Thank you.
Lucky to pick up a copy and divein a read it for anyone who is
not already familiar.
It's called Make It Snow.
We have a bit it available forlisteners.
SPEAKER_03 (02:12):
Awesome.
Great.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Let's start from the beginning.
You joined Snowflakepre-product, no sales team.
Why?
Why join?
SPEAKER_02 (02:21):
I I I joke it it was like my midlife crisis decision.
I didn't buy a motorcycle.
I joined a startup with no no uhcustomers.
Um you know, I had um I had uhbeen in enterprise technology
sales, I had worked at companieslike EMC, um, and then I went to
a startup.
Ironically, kind of weird smallworld is that the guy that I
(02:44):
work for is is is now infamous.
Uh he was caught on the KISS Camon the uh on the Coldplay
concert.
SPEAKER_03 (02:50):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:50):
But to his credit, I did learn a lot from him, um,
Andy.
And um so it the r the benefitof me going to this small
company called Avexa was um I Icertainly learned to be a second
line leader there, as well as umI had this guy, John McMahon,
who was on our board.
And uh and so uh Avexa got abought by my old employer, EMC,
and a bunch of the John McMahonnetwork wanted to hire me as
(03:14):
like a VP of the West orsomething like that.
And it turns out I didn't reallyuh like a lot of the uh sales
leaders that were recruiting me.
And and then I found this umstartup called Snowflake.
Um didn't love the name, uh, andit was in stealth mode, but I
really liked the founders.
I really liked uh the investor,Mike Spiser, and so that got me
(03:36):
excited.
And you know, I was prettyhesitant still, and then you
know, Mike, Mike was trying toclose me on um on joining the
company, and I and he said, Whatdo you need?
And I said, Well, I need someoneto be on the board uh who cares
about me.
Uh and he's like, Like who?
And I said, Well, on my lastcompany, we had this, you know,
amazing leader, John McMahon.
(03:56):
He's like, Well, I know John.
And and he's like, Well, someonelike him.
And like, literally the nextday, John McMahon's on our
board.
Wow.
And he's like, and so Mike'slike, okay, it took your final
objection off the table.
And yeah, sure enough.
So uh, and it was critical formy part of my success of having
John.
I could not have done the jobwithout John being on our board.
I took a risk, it took a bigrisk, it took a pay cut.
(04:18):
Um, but I wanted to do somethingfun and work with fun people,
and that's pretty much why Ichose the the job.
SPEAKER_00 (04:23):
Pretty productive midlife crisis.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
SPEAKER_02 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
I'm sure there are near-death experiences involved,
which we're gonna jump into.
But where did the name Snowflakecome from?
That was already a realconvenient dream.
SPEAKER_02 (04:35):
Um so that so the founders, and I would consider
Mike Spiser a founder.
Uh, you know, his kids were onthe ski team up in uh Tahoe.
Um Benoit, uh his kids were onthe ski team.
They he actually lived in Tahoeand he would commute down to
Oracle.
Um, and then Thierry, you know,liked to ski.
So they all like to ski.
(04:56):
Snow comes from the clouds.
We were a cloud data warehouse.
Um and there's this uh there's aa loose affiliation to a schema,
a database schema calledSnowflake Schema.
Uh and so they kind of they kindof took that and made and ran
with it and it's called itSnowflake.
And trust me, I did not love thename when I was out there
trying, because people were werenot very kind to us in in the
(05:19):
beginning about our name.
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
So Table's turn.
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Yeah, table's turn.
Table's turn.
Make it snow, baby.
SPEAKER_00 (05:25):
And so, okay, you join pre-product, you know, no
sales team, your number onesalesperson in the organization.
You're the first person.
What what did those first couplemoves look like?
SPEAKER_02 (05:36):
Um you know, so when I got there, um I I started, you
know, just trying to talk topeople.
Like there was no like Icouldn't sell the product.
And and so I started to just tryto get feedback.
And so I would just reach out toand blindly to a bunch of
different people um and and say,hey, this is what we've built.
(05:56):
And it helped me hone exactlylike what the differentiators
were.
The founders would explain it,like, hey, this is unique.
And then I would tell uh, youknow, our prospective advisor
companies of like, hey, this iswhat we built.
And so that's that was mybeginning.
It was just like reaching outand saying, Hey, do you have 15
minutes?
Um, I'd love to tell you whatwe're building.
(06:17):
We're a stealth mode datawarehousing company.
We've done something reallyunique where we've separated
storage from compute and wenatively ingest uh the uh
semi-structured data.
I'd love to tell you, getfeedback, see if something you'd
use.
And um, and so that was mypitch.
And I did that a lot, a lot anda lot and a lot.
So that was the beginning, andthat's how I got you know into
(06:38):
customer conversations.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Incredible.
And how did you start to growthat sales organization, hire
the right people, scale theprocess, really take it from
zero?
SPEAKER_02 (06:49):
Well, so when I started to figure out like who
was our ideal customer, um, Ithen would would start building
lists, like literally scrapingwebsites.
Now you can probably do this allwith AI, but I was doing it by
hand, uh going on job boards andstuff like that.
And that was, you know, and thenspamming people.
And so I needed help uh doingthat.
(07:11):
Uh so I I hired an intern,Alyssa, Alyssa Wong, who's still
actually at Snowflake, which isawesome.
Um, and um, but she was incollege at the time, and uh, and
so she uh her and I startedbuilding lists, and then um I
hired a uh an SE uh and then heand I would just go out and you
(07:31):
know tell the story.
And then from there, um whatwould happen is I would try to
get my goal with every week wasto get eight customer-facing
meetings a week.
So that was my goal.
And and so if I got that eightmeetings a week, that was great.
But what would happen is say I'dgo to New York, I would then not
be in front of my computer, notbuilding lists, and I'd miss out
(07:53):
on getting meetings for thefollowing week.
And so that's when I started uhhiring my first two uh sales
development reps.
So I hired two SDRs, Jordan andTom.
Um, and Jordan is still atSnowflake, and then from there,
uh we uh we started hiringsellers.
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(08:54):
And I heard in the book, one ofmy favorite quotes is that you
said, if you have to tell peoplewhat to do, they're in the wrong
company.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
How did you ensure and how can founders listening
ensure and leaders listeningensure that they're hiring the
right people that areself-motivated?
SPEAKER_02 (09:11):
It's hard.
I mean, I think like if if youhire someone from a big company
um to come into an early stagestartup, they're used to this
infrastructure being aroundthem.
They're used to having SDRs,they're used to having, you
know, Salesforce.
Like I'm there's a company I'madvising right now where we we
hired the uh you know a salesleader in there, and you know,
he he walked in and he's like,Yeah, there's no Salesforce.
(09:34):
All of the context of thesecustomers they're talking to are
in the cell phone of thefounders.
He's like, so I have to get anexport of their, their, uh,
their their cell phone and putit in and build my own
Salesforce.
So there's just a lot of thingslike when I'm looking for is I'm
looking for people that have hadum are self-starters that have
had self-motivated, that have todo things on their own.
(09:55):
If you're working at a largecompany like Salesforce, there's
this all this infrastructure isalready there for you.
And so those probably aren't thebest people to hire when you're
building a startup.
So you're looking for peoplethat have that grit.
Um, and then there's questionsyou can ask and and uh tell me
about tough situations you'vebeen in in your life.
You're looking for them to wherehave they overcome tough
(10:15):
challenging situations?
Um, and and you kind of learn alot about a person.
So there's there's stuff thatyou can ask, there's experience
they have on on, you know, wehad a lot of success hiring uh
people from the resellercommunity because they were
basically having to representall these different products and
and they were uh they were youknow selling them almost as a as
a reseller.
(10:35):
So that we had a lot ofdifferent uh backgrounds, but
that worked pretty well.
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
Yeah.
What's your opening line in aninterview?
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
Um I tell me your life story.
SPEAKER_00 (10:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (10:44):
So I you know, and and so tell me where you were
born to to how you got to whereyou're at.
Uh because I want to learn aboutyou.
And I think that's the thing Iwant to know.
Like, you know, where I don'tcare where you went to school,
but like, did you work duringcollege?
Did you uh, you know, when whenyou got out of college, what
what did you do?
Like what were you looking todo?
Did you know what you wanted todo?
(11:06):
Uh a lot of times, you know,people like hiring, you know, uh
uh athletes from college.
So you're just like you'retrying to learn about them.
And that's kind of part of thethe story that I I'm looking
for.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And then on the inverse, youknow, you you you were a
snowflake the long time and yourecently left, but the average
CRO tenure is about 18 months.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (11:28):
And you lasted an incredible run, 11 years through
four different CEOs.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
Yes.
I don't think this reallyhappened.
But uh I think um so I askedJohn McMahon that exact same
question.
Like, how did I how did I stayin this job?
Because I was not really sureabout it.
And um I think the the thingthat he said is, you know,
(11:58):
Chris, you would ask goodquestions, you would take
feedback, and you would act onthat feedback.
So the the thing that uh whathappens, um and what I saw even
with some of the leaders thatthat I had hired um as we grew
is people thought Snowflake wassuccessful because of them.
Um, and that was never the case.
We were we were, you know, wewere all part of this amazing,
(12:20):
we were selling an amazingproduct, we built an amazing
go-to-market machine, but therewas no one person in my sales
organization that was likeresponsible for the success that
Snowflake had.
It was a team effort.
And so I think um I think beingself-aware, being getting that
feedback, acting on thatfeedback, and sometimes that
feedback was hard, like, heyChris, you're screwing up here
and and having to make toughdecisions is not always fun.
(12:43):
Um, but that was kind of I I'dsay that in a nutshell is what
John gave the feedback that Igot from John.
SPEAKER_00 (12:49):
So yeah, and I mean there's a lot of founders that
ideally are making their firstsales higher and they want that
person to be the next Chris.
SPEAKER_03 (12:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
And conversely, a lot of leaders that aspire to
have the type of round that youdid.
SPEAKER_03 (13:04):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
And so that kind of quality is really interesting
and important for people tounderstand.
Yes.
It sounds like curiosity if youwere to boil it down to
something curiosity andreceiving feedback while being
able to iterate upon it.
SPEAKER_02 (13:16):
Yeah, I think yeah, I think uh yeah, being humble uh
because like again, you know, II found that when when we were
building the company, um, I Iwas the same way to uh you know
a sales development rep thatjust started as I was to our
(13:37):
CEO.
Um and and so what I found wasthat a lot of times there are
good people that we hired alongthe way that were big company
people and they were really theywould do well managing up, but
then when it came to uh you knowmanaging their team or or being
nice to people but you know thatweren't were not were not peers
(14:00):
or or hire, they were not.
And so I'm very respectful.
I don't like it drives me crazywhen the people are super
disrespectful.
I I don't have time for that.
And that that's not great, andthat can ruin a culture of a
company.
So I think it's just like youknow, be humble, take feedback,
act on that feedback, and act onit quickly.
Like you you you have to have asense of urgency.
Like one of the my the myfavorite traits of uh
(14:23):
Snowflake's chief marketingofficer, Denise Pearson, who I
co-wrote the book with, is thatshe has this high sense of
urgency.
So like when I'm in a meeting,when I was when I was working
with her and I was in a meetingwith her, we'd come up with some
idea and she'd be like, okay,let's do it right now.
And I'm like, you're the best.
Because like that, like thereisn't like, oh, let's do it in
three months from now.
No, let's do it right now.
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
And she'd challenge me, like, you should do this
right now.
And I think that's what I uhreally appreciate about people
is having a high sense ofurgency.
And and I, you know, sometimesthere are companies uh that have
sales leaders that don't havethat sense of urgency, and that
and then that's not great forthe company.
And I think, you know, I adviseuh a bunch of different
(15:05):
companies.
And you know, one of thecompanies I advise, they had a
sales leader um that didn't havethis sense of urgency, and the
and the CEO just called me andsaid, like, hey, I'm trying to
get this sense of urgency going.
And he's like, I just he's notacting on it.
And I'm like, well, this is likeit's like a it's like dating
someone.
It's like if you if you datesomeone and have this trait
(15:27):
that's annoying, it's only gonnaget worse the longer you're with
them.
So you you can't you can't fixit.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Isn't there like a learn to love about you?
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
Maybe, maybe, but not not certain things.
There's certain things that willreally annoy you.
And so that was that was uh someof the stuff that uh you know I
picked up along the way.
So yeah, uh have a highsensitivity, be humble, work
hard, uh be smart about what yousell.
Like on like I always say be astudent of what you sell.
So I think those are some keytraits of of uh you know great
(15:56):
salespeople.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
And you spoke to Denise, you you both had an
incredible growth trajectorytogether at Snowflake.
Yes.
And you were aligned at the hip,you went into board meetings
together.
You know, there's one thing tohire really humble and great
people, but there's another toactually foster the alignment
necessary for growth.
How did you and Denise fosterthat alignment and how can other
(16:19):
leaders think about creatingthat space for alignment?
SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
Um well, it it it goes number one with
transparency, uh is being honestwith each other, um, having that
sense of urgency, you know, andI think you know, rolling up
your sleeves and and being ableto do it.
So like when Denise started, shehad been a successful chief
marketing officer at, you know,at at public companies before.
(16:43):
And she came in and we weredoing three million dollars in
revenue.
And and I think I was strugglingwith our the demand generation
function of Snowflake prior touh Denise uh coming coming into
the company.
And so I, you know, I was Iwould I would argue with uh the
the previous team around what adefinition of like a what a
marketing qualified lead was oran MQL.
(17:05):
And and so having thoseconversations for a sales leader
is incredibly frustrating.
And Denise picked up on thatright away and she says, look,
listen, um, we're not gonna talkabout what an MQL is.
Um all we're gonna talk about isqualified meetings for your
salespeople.
Um and and so from there, that'slike the she had me at hello.
I'm like, okay, I like thiswoman a lot.
(17:27):
And and uh and so from there,what she would do is, you know,
she wouldn't tell anyone on herteam to go do something.
She would go and every week sitdown individually with this SDR,
the individual SDRs, theindividual AEs, the individual
managers, and tell me and say,tell me what about these leads.
Where are they coming from?
(17:47):
What's good, what's bad, what'sugly.
And she would get thatfirsthand.
And like that, I was soappreciative of that.
And I think that's the thingthat I love about people that
have had success, of get thatthat can come down and do the
hard things um and not tellpeople go do this, go do that.
No, you do it and see, and thenyou have so much more
(18:07):
credibility when you're comingin and trying to um, you know,
direct things and tell peoplewhat to do things like, hey,
I've done that.
And I think that was kind ofeven on my journey in Snowflake.
A lot of the team respected thatI was the first sales rep.
A lot of the team respected thatI knew how to sell the product
really well.
And I think those were kind ofpretty key uh elements of me
growing up and and recruitingpeople and then keeping people
(18:29):
at Snowflake and and leadingfrom the front that way.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
So and it sounds like a common thread across
Snowflake overall.
You were in the weeds, you werebuilding the first list.
Yes.
Denise was in the weeds, sittingdown with salespeople, yes, and
many of the CEOs also were ableto actually get in the weeds.
Speak to you a little bit aroundthe the CEOs that you worked
under and how they actually gotinto the weeds, because I know
(18:53):
one in particular was good atthat.
SPEAKER_02 (18:55):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, and and and that's a thingthat w was was surprising to me.
Um, so I joined uh under MikeSpiser, who was really, you
know, I guess the acting CEO.
Uh he was in one day a week.
Uh so it was, you know, it was apseudo-CEO.
And then they hired uh BobMugglia.
Um and Bob uh had had Ron, helike Satya Nadella used to work
(19:20):
for Bob at Microsoft.
Bob had an uh a very f infamousuh exit out of uh Microsoft, but
he he was a president of theserver and tools division.
He had 10,000 plus peopleworking for him.
Wow.
And so he came in and we therewas like 30 employees, and I'm
like, maybe, maybe, maybe 50.
And and he came in as a CEO ninemonths in my tenure, and I'm
(19:42):
thinking, how the hell is thisguy gonna be successful?
Because he's been so far uphere.
He's had you know assistance,his assistants maybe had
assistance, right?
You know, so so he just had youknow this, and I'm like, no, no
way can he be successful.
And to Bob's credit, he was thebest.
Like we Snowflake would not havebeen successful without Bob.
(20:02):
He invented our pricing, he hehelped so many parts of the
product, he we borrowed Bob'scredibility um to get in front
of customers.
There were so many wonderfulthings about Bob, and Bob got
into it.
And and I'll give you a perfectexample of how he he there are
two examples is number one, likehe came in and wanted to redo
the customer contract.
(20:23):
So every time we we signed acontract, we had to negotiate
the the the contract.
And he came in and he heincreased the number of pages by
like four pages.
He he added a thousand words tothe contract, and I got furious
and I sent him a note and Isaid, Bob, you've you've doubled
the size of the contract, you'veincreased the number of words by
(20:45):
a thousand, you're screwing usover.
And he goes, I have one questionfor you.
I'm like, What's that?
He's like, Did you read it?
And I'm like, no.
And so so he's like, do me afavor, read it.
SPEAKER_03 (20:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:57):
Um, and redline the things that you don't like about
the contract.
And and so I I mean it was justan invaluable lesson that I that
I that that gave me is that Iread it and maybe better at
selling the product, first ofall, because I better understood
the contract.
I I then redlined things and hetook the time to actually walk
me through, okay, I I understandwhy you don't want that, and
(21:18):
we'll take that out, but here'swhy we have to have this.
And he walked me through it.
And so, like, that was just likethis like incredible
development, you know, point forme of learning, learning from
Bob.
And the other thing that he did,which which I I love just being
a salesperson, is you know, it'svery public on whether or not
you know salespeople aresuccessful because it's like you
have a quota and are you hittingthe company number or not?
(21:40):
And and so every quarter fromthe beginning of time, I would
always talk about like, youknow, either A, how many people
are in beta of the uh uh oftrying the product or are we
hitting our numbers, et cetera,et cetera.
And we we were we were trying toget in um we were trying to get
to general availability in Juneof 2015.
And um this was this was likeJanuary, and we're like, okay,
(22:02):
these are the feature sets thatthat we declare, that we declare
victory and say we're generallyavailable.
And and and so what Bob did iswe every Monday we would have a
company meeting.
Um, and I would talk about youknow the customers I had and
what whatever and and the andhow we're doing on deals.
What Bob did was he then createdthis list and then assigned uh
(22:24):
each engineer to a feature thatwas required to for Snowflake
Declare generally available.
And then in that Monday meeting,he'd be like, hey, uh you know,
Allison, hey Abdul, hey, heyAshish, how are you doing in
this feature?
And and those those wereincredible engineers that I just
listed, but but but I thinkthere were some that weren't so
incredible um that were notexecuting on those features.
(22:46):
And every week they'd get outthere and they'd be they'd hate
it.
They'd be like, Wow, this isterrible.
I'm being called out for notdoing my job.
And to me, I'm like, yeah, Ineed those features to go sell
the product.
And so Bob like forcibly hedidn't like he didn't yell at
them, but there was this peerpressure to be like, hey, you
know, hey, Joe over there,you're not doing what you need
to do, go go do it.
(23:07):
So yeah.
So that there were a bunch, abunch of stuff like that.
So Bob, Bob was like kind of theyou know, so much into the
details, and you know,Snowflake's current CEO, uh,
Sridhar Ramaswamy, is like inthe details at scale that I it's
just unbelievable the amount ofinformation that he can uh take
on.
Um I've never seen anything likeit.
(23:28):
So there's different levels, andand Sutman, Souitman was more of
a general.
Like he he would he would pickup on, he would read the room,
he'd read people, like all thisstuff really, really well.
Um just different differentleaders, but all of them
incredible leaders.
SPEAKER_00 (23:43):
So it's a common common thread here around some
of the most success exceptionalleaders being able to balance
the strategy but also be in thedetails.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
Totally needs.
Totally.
I I think you can get toowrapped up in the details
sometimes.
I think you have to think aboutlike it, and I think my opinion
about what makes a great CEO, Ido think that product leaders
make the best CEOs.
People always ask me, like, heyChris, do you want to be a CEO?
And I I no, the answer is no.
(24:15):
Um and and I I think productleaders are are great because
they they have to think, youknow, in the future.
They have to think about have avision for the company and stuff
like that.
So yeah, I think those arethings that that are um
incredibly important to thecompany.
Um and so that's why I I I I Ithink highly of of product
leaders for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Super interesting point.
Yeah.
And you did a lot right alongthe journey.
But there's also all the storiesbehind the scenes of any high
growth company.
Yeah.
What were some of the near-deathexperiences at Snowflake?
SPEAKER_02 (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, the I the one of the the c classic
ones, you know, that was wasquite scary is we had so we went
generally available in June of2015 and and our first full
fiscal year as a generallyavailable product was um was in
2016.
(25:07):
And um, and so we were we did ahalf year of three million
dollars, and then we were on thepath to to have really great
growth the following year, andit was going really well.
And we had started to hire abunch of sellers.
So I I I thought, you know, it'dbe great to have the sales team,
you know, come in, get themtogether, and do a rah-rah
mid-year.
So we did a mid-year saleskickoff in San Francisco at the
(25:28):
W Hotel.
And we, you know, I get infront, and there's, I don't
know, maybe like 50 people um inthe room, and and I'm you know,
talking about how great whatwhat all these exciting
customers, what what how greatit is.
And you know, a lot of the salesjobs, their their phones are
going off.
And and then I'm like, okay,we're gonna uh bring Bob in, and
(25:49):
Bob's gonna speak, but I youknow, Bob wants to talk to me.
So I go out into the hallway,doors are shut, Bob's white, and
I'm like, what's wrong?
He's like, we're Snowflake wasdown, and we are we're software
as a service, we run theservice.
Right.
And he's like, Snowflake's down,and we're in one region in AWS
US West, and he's like, I'm notsure we're coming back.
(26:09):
And and I'm like, I just tellingeveryone how great a company we
are, and we like the thefounders can't get like they're
like open heart surgery, liketrying to like make the heart
pump again.
SPEAKER_03 (26:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
And uh and so I looked at Bob and I said, Bob,
uh, we're gonna come back, and Ineed you to get out and uh
instill confidence in the salesteam and tell them it's gonna be
okay, and tell them we're gonnabuild this great company.
And to his credit, he flippedthe switch, got out there, got
everyone excited, and four hourslater we we came back online.
So it was a pretty incredible umuh experience and and wild,
(26:42):
wild.
That was that was as close todeath as as we came.
But I mean, I remember being umso f Fidelity was a a big uh
early adopter of Snowflake.
They did they did a lot of pressaround us and stuff like that.
And and so this is just aspeople were taking meetings
again from COVID, and uh I wentout to go meet the the CIO and
(27:08):
the CTO of Fidelity in Boston atthe same time.
And I walk into their office, tothis is my first meeting with
them.
And I walk in the office and I'mlooking at them and they're
like, and all of a sudden theirphones are going off, and
they're like, hey, uhSnowflake's not working right
now.
And and I'm like, uh, okay, I'mabout to I'm trying to get a
deal from these guys.
(27:28):
And I'm like, uh, okay, and I'mtexting like CEO, I'm texting
the you know, the engineeringteam, and it was just like one
of these stupid mistakes wheresomeone forgot to uh renew a uh
a license key for our encryptionor or flip the encryption key.
It was so dumb, but it broughtthe entirety of Snowflake down
(27:49):
again.
So there's like those types ofexperiences you're like, oh my
God, like you know, we're luckyto be alive.
And I'm I'm super grateful, um,especially for our earliest
customers at Snowflake that tooka risk that stayed with us
because there were some bumpytimes.
There was a lot of outages wehad in the beginning, and and
they stuck with us.
So I'm super grateful for that.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
Incredible.
Yeah, those are those are somescary times.
SPEAKER_02 (28:13):
For sure.
SPEAKER_00 (28:13):
Yeah, and I mean some scary times, but also some
some really incredible andstrategic go-to-market moves
along the journey.
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (28:24):
Reflecting back on the journey, what were some of
the most pivotal moves that youdid or things that you remember
from that go-to-marketevolution?
SPEAKER_02 (28:34):
Yeah, I I think so the the focus uh of um new logo
acquisition was super important.
And and so, you know, when whenI started um at Snowflake, Mike
Spiser, the reason and thereason that we stayed as a
stealth mode company for a whileis is Mike was super paranoid
because we were competingagainst the largest companies in
(28:55):
the world.
We were competing against anAmazon product and we had Amazon
as our our our back-end uhservice.
And so he he's like, we have toget market share before the the
the competition gets product.
And so, okay, understood.
And so my hyper focus as acompany was every single sales
(29:15):
rep um would have a a uh gate ofthey would have to get depending
on the segment that they coveredof customers, they'd have to get
between four and eight new logosuh in a in a quarter.
Um that was uh really strategicbecause like getting the forcing
to get customer after customerafter customer, getting to use
(29:36):
the product, that was that wasum and hiring sales reps that
had experience opening up newlogos, these were these were
critical things that we did inthe beginning.
Um and and and candidly, likethere were times you know, at
the company where we got lazyand we took our eye off the ball
on customer acquisition, andthat hurt the company.
And and and unfortunately,Shridar uh had you know helps
(29:59):
helped us rectify.
That as he came in, and we'vebeen and so flakes reaccelating
that customer acquisition uhstrategy.
But I think that's the mostimportant thing for us from a
go-to-market standpoint wasacquiring new customers.
That I mean and the hyper focusand and celebrating that.
Like celebrating that uh, youknow, even stuff like to this
day on on earnings calls talksabout the number of global 2000
(30:22):
customers that they have, numberof that they've added and and
stuff like that.
And Wall Street reacts to that.
So super important.
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (30:30):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:30):
And expansion is a big thing that right now a lot
of companies are focused on.
Yes, acquisition, but expansion,I'm curious your thoughts.
Like, of course, acquisitionapplies now broadly, but how do
you think about the balance asyou're advising companies now
and startups between acquisitionand expansion and upsell?
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
Sure.
Um yeah, I think so Snow Like,so and a lot of companies now
are um use case or sorry, umconsumption models.
Um so Snowlike's a consumptionmodel, and so you know, we we
focused, you know, on uh on justgetting the customer first.
And so it and the typically anacquisition was really a almost
(31:07):
like a paid pilot.
Our average deal size, even atyou know, when I left, was
depending on the segment,anywhere between 40 and 60,000.
So these weren't like hugedeals.
It was just like, hey, there's athere's a paid pilot that we're
gonna do.
And so um we did that, and uh,and and and and then you'd land
the customer.
And and and that was we wouldonly sell one thing, a snowflake
(31:29):
credit.
So so there was no necessarilyother features to to sell.
There was use cases.
So then so then what you startto do is is try to identify use
cases and then have the salesteam, both that sales engineer
and the sales rep, um put thatin in uh Salesforce, track the
the the you know, the the theuse case win.
(31:50):
Are we winning it?
Are we losing it?
Are we selling professionalservices with it?
Um so that was a huge focus ofours.
And and and really because thesales reps got paid both on a
booking of a new deal, but alsoconsumption, they were highly
motivated to get the customer todo the deal, but also get the
customer to successfully use theproduct.
So uh so I think um what I wouldsay to founders is make sure
(32:14):
that the the sales team isincented not only just to
acquire new customers, but alsoto make sure the customers use
the product.
That's that's the biggest thingis you don't want just these
hitmen to come in and do a dealand then leave because that that
becomes problematic and and thethe sales rep doesn't really
care.
And a lot of times what peopledo is say, I'm gonna have this
customer success team take over.
(32:35):
Well, what happens like if thecustomer success team isn't
getting responses, they're notthat maybe you have to almost
resell the deal a lot of times.
If competition came in, theyhave a new CIO that came in,
something like that.
So I think you know, giving thethe sales team uh a quota uh on
expand on consumption orexpansion is incredibly
(32:56):
important.
Um and then it's also on thecompany.
So you know, I spend time withfounders talking about pricing.
Um, and you know, you know, alot of times maybe they they're
just trying to when you'rebuilding a company, you're just
hoping that companies pay yousomething to use your product.
And so there's a lot of mistakesthat founders can make early on
um around pricing.
(33:16):
And and so you you don't want tosell everything in in the first
deal.
You want to figure out how tomodularize your pro pricing, or
if you have consumption base,then then that's and then you
can go and focus on differentuse cases, certain things that
you have to look at as you'repricing the product.
And so I spent time now withfounders talk thinking through
okay, you can add thesefeatures, you can add these
(33:38):
modules, or or or this is howyou uh forecast use cases and
stuff like that.
A lot of different ways to doit.
SPEAKER_00 (33:44):
Yeah, that makes sense.
And I I know you preferred thatsales continuity as opposed to
passing off to customer success.
And I've seen that pattern witha lot of companies like customer
with a K, for example, where CSand sales have the same
ownership to create alignment.
Yes.
Is that do you think thatscales?
Like a snowflake scaled to thepoint that it it did.
SPEAKER_02 (34:05):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I I so so when Frank Slootman
came in, he he um he he I didn'thave customer success.
I didn't have professionalservices.
Um and then he put that underme, underneath me.
And so when Frank came in, he uhhe he said, Hey, look, you
you're gonna take over customersuccess, uh, you're gonna take
over professional services.
(34:25):
And he said, on customersuccess, it's costing the
company uh three milliondollars.
So therefore, Chris, it'scosting you, your budget is your
it's three million dollars, andit's only gonna grow if we scale
this function out.
And so then I'm like, okay, letme go figure out what they do.
And and I would interview uh, orI went and you know, ask the
(34:45):
people in customer success,like, what do you do?
Are you technical enough to bean SE?
Are you are you good enough tobe a sales rep?
Are you, you know, all theseother things?
And the answer was they'rehelping a customer um find the
right people in theorganization.
They're helping a customer lookat you know the documentation or
training, but they don't haveany particular skill that's
gonna like help the customer usethe product.
(35:07):
They're just kind of anavigating person through the
organization.
So I got rid of it.
I said, uh, we don't, you know,you can go apply for other jobs
at Snowflake, but you're we'reno longer having customer
success because ultimately, youknow, as as Frank Suitman would
say, and and Mike Scarpelli, theCFO, would say of Snowflake was
hey, look, the customer successis the job of everyone at this
(35:27):
company.
Um and you don't you you need toput it on the sales rep and the
SC.
The SCs are incrediblyimportant.
And then we had a professionalservices team that um we had to
build, and they built all of ourum uh you know, our training
materials, they bit built ourbest practices on how to
implement the product.
And so we would sellprofessional services.
(35:48):
So from my standpoint, our PSorganization was built from the
ground up, not as like this hugerevenue generation, but it was
cost neutral.
So we would say, okay, we're notgonna lose money on our
professional services team.
And I would say when we wouldsell professional services in a
deal, the customer would be waymore successful.
So then the sales reps startedto realize, like, okay, I need
(36:09):
to get professional services inthese deals.
And that was a that's how welooked at customer success.
Is it's not that I don't I'magainst it.
I'm just against free.
Like I there has to be somevalue, and the customer has to
pay for it.
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
Yeah.
For sure.
I love that model.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (36:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
And you know, you mentioned near-death experiences
beforehand, what you did well.
What were the moments in a way,now looking back, that would
have been really pivotal interms of competition?
You know, there was Databricks,there were others in the
picture.
Like, what did that look like?
SPEAKER_02 (36:40):
And yeah, I mean, I I think there's, you know, look,
hindsight's always 2020.
It's super easy to like Mondaymorning quarterback, you know,
all the mistakes we made.
But I think um there there werea couple of things.
Is I think number one, Snowflakewas the we we had to go to
market engine, um and we werebuilding this machine to go out
and and acquire a bunch of newlogos.
(37:02):
There were two things that wewere missing in the marketplace,
um, and that Databricksgravitated to.
Databricks, uh a lot of a lot ofuh data engineers wanted to use
Spark as a as a you know as ananalytic platform.
And so Databricks kind of didreally well there.
Um and and then they also hadthese data science notebooks for
(37:22):
data scientists.
And if Snowflake had built aSpark connector and and done uh
a data science notebook, andthen at the same time the sales
org, if we had continued toscale the sales org and focus on
new customer acquisition, Ithink we would have pretty much
put Databricks out of business.
And and we so we gave them aninch and they took a mile, and
(37:44):
they're they're obviously a verysuccessful company.
The other thing that you canargue is like they're they're
successful, um, and they don'thave they're not public.
So a lot of the things they saydon't have to be 100% true
publicly.
Um whereas a public company,you're you're very much uh you
have you have to say things thatare true.
Like Databricks does a lot ofreselling of uh uh AI
(38:08):
technologies.
So like they resell open AI,they resell um other other uh AI
technologies.
Those that's like a resellerbusiness.
It's like a single-digit marginbusiness, but it's top line
revenue.
They're not reporting to to WallStreet on their their margin.
Snowflake has to do that.
So Snowflake could not do thesame things they financially
that they can do.
And so there's an argument, likeif the private markets will fund
(38:31):
you, there's a argument to stayprivate for as long as you can
if you want to build thisginormous company.
And it's worked well so far forthem.
So I know there's a bunch ofthings along the way that on the
sales side, I wish that we hadfocused we had done more, been
more aggressive.
On the product side, I wish wehad been more aggressive.
Um, but at the same time, wealso did a great job on
(38:51):
competing against the the threeuh uh cloud service providers
and and while building on top oftheir platform, whether it was
competing with Amazon's Redshiftproduct or EMR, or there's
competing against the differentvariations that Microsoft has or
Google's uh BigQuery product ontop of their platform.
That says a lot about the thehow great of a product we had,
and we built a really strong uhuh go-to-market motion on doing
(39:15):
that.
SPEAKER_00 (39:16):
It's incredible.
And do you think going publicwas the right move then for
Snowflake?
SPEAKER_02 (39:19):
Um it it it it it was uh it was it was super
helpful um that it gave uscredibility.
So so what what would happenwhen I would try to sell deals,
so customers would put us as theas the back-end product um to
their their their product.
So we would we backend acustomer-facing analytic
(39:40):
application.
And if as a private company,people didn't necessarily trust
us.
Um and and so they'd ask us forour financials in the event we
went out of business, theywanted our source code and all
this other stuff, when which wewould do, we would not give them
our source code.
So so so yeah, so once we becamepublic, we I almost it was like
(40:03):
validation to the market that wewere this like real company.
And so that helped.
And and being we were thelargest uh software IPO, I think
still are, I'm sure one of theseum AI companies will crush us
and come out, but we were thelargest software IPO ever.
And that also was like, okay,this is a juggernaut.
And so then people were weremore comfortable betting on us.
(40:23):
Yeah, and for the employees, itturned out really well.
I mean, never in my wild imagwildest imaginations did I ever
think that Snowflake would wouldwould get over a hundred billion
dollars of a market cap.
And we did, and that was likecrazy.
Like on the IPO day, you justwatch the stock go up and you're
like, holy cow, like what ishappening, right?
(40:43):
Um and so that was a really coolexperience and it gave liquidity
to the employees.
So for the employees, I think itwas great.
I think uh, you know, from acompany validation it was great.
Um, but yeah, there are somebenefits, you know, pluses and
minuses to being public, forsure.
SPEAKER_00 (40:57):
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
And you mentioned AI companiescoming in and potentially, you
know, having even larger of anexit and liquidity event.
Yeah, for sure.
You have lived through the dotcom bubble.
Yes.
Boom.
Yes.
I'm curious what you think aboutAI now.
Do you think that we're in abubble?
SPEAKER_02 (41:15):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
Um the I mean we are, um, andthere's a lot of there's a lot
of and you know, s partneringwith with different venture
capital firms, seeing how theyvalue these AI companies, it's
it's bonkers.
It's crazy the evaluations thatthat people are getting.
Um and it will eventually have areckoning.
(41:36):
But um, you know, I I heardsomeone say this on CNBC the
other day.
There there were some um greatthings that came out of the
internet.
The internet is more powerfulthan ever today.
You know, um the dot-com bubblewas the beginning of that.
Um and and so there was a lot ofterrible companies.
I worked for some of thoseterrible companies.
Um, but at the end of the day,that you know, the internet
(41:58):
powered Google.
The internet powered so manydifferent things that, you know,
like AWS and and and uh orAmazon and and there's all these
things that came out of theinternet.
So yes, uh there is a bubble,yes, it will pop.
Um, but um there are real thingswith AI.
Like, you know, I you know, I'mI'm I'm partnering with uh uh
you know uh uh two AI companiesin particular that are doing a
(42:22):
bunch of automation.
So I'm partnering with thiscompany called Giga ML, they do
customer service agents andthey're legitimately replacing
you know cut call centers um inin some of the largest companies
in the world.
And that's that how that willhave a bot like a uh a bottom
line impact to those companiesbecause the the the these large,
large Fortune 500, they'rereducing the amount of people
(42:44):
they need to hire.
So that's a that's a big deal.
Um there's a code company calledfactory.ai, same thing.
They're helping people developcode um uh without having to
have a bunch of engineers.
So there's there's a bunch ofefficiencies that will come out
of AI.
Um and and so yeah, there, butthere's also a bunch of bloat,
and there's a bunch of companiesthat probably won't make it.
And and so it'll be interestingto watch for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
Definitely.
SPEAKER_02 (43:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (43:07):
Definitely.
And now you're advising a lot ofcompanies since you left
Snowflake.
SPEAKER_02 (43:10):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (43:11):
Super tactical, but I'm curious what you're seeing
in terms of sales methodologiesbecause you know, eight years
ago when you were on the saleshacker podcast, which GTM now
acquired in 2023, so we rolledit up under this brand, you were
talking about MedPick.
And it's so funny because youwere describing it.
The interviewer had never heardof it, and you were describing
it because it was quite new.
SPEAKER_03 (43:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (43:32):
And now it's so commonly known and practiced.
I don't think there's a salesleader out there that doesn't
know it, even if they go by adifferent sales methodology.
SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (43:40):
What are your thoughts on sales methodologies
for companies you're advising orother sales leaders?
What's kind of best practice?
SPEAKER_02 (43:47):
You know, I I'm a fan of I'm still a fan of
MedPick.
Um, and I think it's it's justlike if think of MedPick as your
compass to to getting a deal.
Like you're out in the woods,you're you're lost, you can go
to the MedPIC to kind of figureout like, do we have these
things um to get the deal?
And I think that thatmethodology is super important.
(44:08):
So I'm I'm a huge uh fan of ofyou know the building sales
organizations who have medpic astheir the back end.
And it's candidly when Iinterview sales leaders, yeah,
I'm looking for that.
Like what like what experiencedo you have?
What sales methodology, how howum, how diligent are you in
managing your team behind thatsales methodology?
(44:29):
So those are things that areincredibly important.
And so I I do think that um thateven now as I'm interviewing
sales leaders, I am asking themwhat what methodologies do they
use?
It doesn't have to be medpic.
I'm not like, oh my gosh, thisyou if you don't have medpic,
you're you're not gonna begreat.
But tell me about whatevermethodology you're using and and
how how uh how how do you manageyour team by that?
(44:51):
And that's what I'm looking forfrom a sales leader.
SPEAKER_00 (44:53):
So yeah, because we commonly get across the GTM fund
portfolio a lot of companiesthat are looking to hire sales
reps that have strongmethodology, irregardless of
what type, but just strongtraining around a methodology.
So it's interesting to hear thatyou are are kind of averse to
different types too.
SPEAKER_02 (45:12):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (45:13):
It's more about the actual muscle.
SPEAKER_02 (45:15):
It's it's the muscle.
It's it's are you actuallygetting up every single day?
Are you actually you know, youknow, diligent about it or not?
And I think that's that's thebig thing that you you really
have to um you know ask and lookat.
Because there are the the peopletalk about it, it's like almost
like values, like you know, youcan put values of your company
up on the wall and say those areour values, but do you are you
(45:37):
living our your values?
And that's the same thing on themethodology.
Are you living you know themethodology?
That's really important for meto figure out.
SPEAKER_00 (45:43):
For sure.
For sure.
And now, you know, what is whatdoes life look like
post-snowflake after 11 years?
SPEAKER_02 (45:52):
You know, it's it's crazy.
Um, it's weird to not like haveuh a number that I'm chasing
every quarter.
Um but you know, I I I I youknow what I've what I've
recognized about my myexperience at Snowflake is I
think the my most favorite uhtime at Snowflake was probably
the the zero to you know call it150, 200 million dollars.
(46:14):
That was like the most excitingtime.
There was so much desperation,yeah, but that's what I really
enjoy.
Um and not the you know, I'veyou know, obviously I managed
the the sales team where thisyear they'll they'll do north of
four billion dollars.
That's that's something that Imanage to.
Um I managed a largeorganization, but I think the
skill set that that's reallygood for those types of
(46:35):
organizations is more like anoperations person.
And that's not I don't lovedoing operations.
I like being in deals, I likeclosing deals, I like competing.
That's like and that and whenyou're doing that at a early
stage startup, that's like thefun.
And so so so now I pretty mucham advising companies in that in
that range, the zero, likeliterally have no revenue all
(46:57):
the way up to you know 200million dollars or 150 million
dollars in revenue.
And that's where I spend myenergy.
So um, and so that's what I'mdoing is I I'm I'm busy, but on
my schedule, on my terms, if Idon't want to do something, I
don't do it.
SPEAKER_00 (47:09):
And you documented the entire go-to-market journey
in this book.
SPEAKER_02 (47:12):
Make it snow.
SPEAKER_00 (47:13):
What do you hope that anyone reading this book
takes away if you could just sayone thing that you hope that
they get away from this book?
SPEAKER_02 (47:20):
Um I I you know, look, I think that Denise and I,
you know, when when stuff likebecame public, uh, we we got a
lot of people who wanted us tobe advisors.
They we became pseudo-techfamous.
Uh and and so I would get I andI still get a lot of emails
saying like, hey, hey, you know,how do I do this?
Should I do this?
(47:40):
So I think there's there'sthere's there's multiple um uh
examples where I would say thatwe talk about how we built the
company and and the things thatthe the the less the do's and
don'ts.
And I think the thing that youknow Denise and I you know
recognize when we becameadvisors to companies is the
dysfunction that founders cancreate between sales and
(48:02):
marketing.
And so, you know, one of thethings that that you know Denise
and I have this had thiswonderful you know working
relationship, which you know,Slootman, um I I would have to
go to Slootman and say, heyFrank, I'm I'm being asked to be
an advisor to this company.
Is it okay?
I'd have to get his approval.
And he's an intimidating dude,and I and he'd say, um he'd say,
(48:24):
you should, because you'll endup seeing how screwed up other
companies are.
And I was like, okay, whatever,dude.
And he was right.
Like, you know, it likesometimes it's like it's like
you know, you you have a bunchof friends, they're you know,
they're married, they have kidsor whatever, and you're like,
you know, oh, their lives areperfect, but then you get in the
inside, it's like, oh, it's notso perfect.
And that's the same thing withwith companies, is like they're
(48:44):
all screwed up, every single oneof them.
SPEAKER_00 (48:46):
Grass is never greener.
SPEAKER_02 (48:47):
It's never greener.
And so I think that's the thingthat that I'm uh uh it was it
was helpful for me to see.
And I think that's what I'd sayto founders is like you don't
want to have this competitive,like sales is doing this and
marketing is doing this.
No, they're they're thego-to-market team.
Partner together, build a greatgo-to-market machine.
Um, and if it's not working,understand why it's not working.
(49:07):
But if you're a founder andyou're creating this like
animosity, like, hey, marketingis creating a bunch of leads,
but you know, sales, you're notclosing those leads.
Well, okay, let's dig into why.
Don't don't make each other justyou know, throw, throw up you
know, scoreboard type numbersand and don't understand why
you're not getting what the endresult you want.
So I think that's the biggestthing that Denise and I focused
(49:28):
on was the partnership and whatwe focused our partnership
around on the go-to-market side.
SPEAKER_00 (49:32):
Yeah.
I mean, that is the go-to-marketengine, like you said.
That's right.
So that alignment is critical.
That's right.
Super valuable.
And you've been on the writingside of a book.
Are there any books that you'veconsumed and read that have been
particularly impactful in yourcareer?
SPEAKER_02 (49:45):
Um in my career.
Well, I mean, uh, no.
Um V V so so John McMahon, youknow, he he's you know, uh
someone I really look up to.
Um, and he has the qualified uhsales leader that that he's
built.
I I'm a I I I don't lovereading, I do audibles.
Uh uh and I just you know listento a book, really just a life
(50:09):
book, uh about the you know theeconomy and stuff like this
called um Abundance, which Ithink is a super cool book as
well.
So there's stuff like that.
But I think um um I I you know Ilove biographies, I love
learning about people and stufflike that.
I love listening to podcasts.
SPEAKER_00 (50:23):
Well, this has been fantastic, Chris.
Really appreciate the time.
I'm glad we could run it backeight years later under a
different name, having acquiredsales hacker, but here we are on
the other side.
SPEAKER_02 (50:31):
Well, I appreciate you.
You're so super kind for havingme.
Thank you for having me, and itwas great to speak in you.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Absolutely.
Wonderful speaking with you.
Where can people follow alongyour journey?
Obviously the book, butLinkedIn.
SPEAKER_02 (50:41):
LinkedIn.
Uh yeah.
Um I I try to I'm trying to bebetter about posting stuff on
LinkedIn and stuff like that.
And yeah, like reach out viaLinkedIn.
It was like my midlife crisis decision.
Um, I didn't buy a motorcycle.
I I joined a startup with nocustomers.
SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
That startup was snowflake.
Chris Denyon was the first andonly sales hire.
Eleven years later, he led salesfrom zero to over four billion
dollars in revenue and helpedtake the company to a$100
billion valuation.
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
So that was I I still kinda I'm like, I'm in the
matrix.
I don't think that's reallyhappened.
SPEAKER_00 (00:23):
But the same company that would redefine enterprise
data almost died more than once.
Chris stayed through the kind ofhypergrowth that breaks most
people and most companies.
The average zero tenure is about18 months.
And you lasted an incrediblerun, 11 years, through four
different CEOs.
(00:43):
Alright, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_02 (00:58):
Thanks, Sophie.
Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
It is fantastic to have you here.
And I don't actually know if yourealize, but eight years ago, to
this very month, you actuallycame on a version of this
podcast.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09):
I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
Yeah.
It had a different name.
SPEAKER_02 (01:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:13):
It was called Sales Hacker at the time.
So GTM Fund's general partner,Max Ultler, once founded
SalesHacker, grew to about175,000 members globally before
it got acquired by Outreach in2018.
Yeah.
And so you were actually onSales Hacker.
You were episode 28.
SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
That's funny.
It was probably my first parkpodcast I ever did.
It might have been.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:33):
Eight years ago, you sat in, in a way, this very
scene.
Yeah.
And you were at about 100million in ARR.
Yeah.
Now you're projected to havefour billion in revenue.
Yeah.
So from when you first sat inthe seat at 100 million ARR to 4
billion, we're gonna essentiallygo through some of the
go-to-market moves, the lessons,the stories that really helped
(01:56):
make that scale possible.
You've actually documented a lotof these learnings in your new
book, which I've got on thetable right here.
Thank you.
Lucky to pick up a copy and divein a read it for anyone who is
not already familiar.
It's called Make It Snow.
We have a bit it available forlisteners.
SPEAKER_03 (02:12):
Awesome.
Great.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Let's start from the beginning.
You joined Snowflakepre-product, no sales team.
Why?
Why join?
SPEAKER_02 (02:21):
I I I joke it it was like my midlife crisis decision.
I didn't buy a motorcycle.
I joined a startup with no no uhcustomers.
Um you know, I had um I had uhbeen in enterprise technology
sales, I had worked at companieslike EMC, um, and then I went to
a startup.
Ironically, kind of weird smallworld is that the guy that I
(02:44):
work for is is is now infamous.
Uh he was caught on the KISS Camon the uh on the Coldplay
concert.
SPEAKER_03 (02:50):
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:50):
But to his credit, I did learn a lot from him, um,
Andy.
And um so it the r the benefitof me going to this small
company called Avexa was um I Icertainly learned to be a second
line leader there, as well as umI had this guy, John McMahon,
who was on our board.
And uh and so uh Avexa got abought by my old employer, EMC,
and a bunch of the John McMahonnetwork wanted to hire me as
(03:14):
like a VP of the West orsomething like that.
And it turns out I didn't reallyuh like a lot of the uh sales
leaders that were recruiting me.
And and then I found this umstartup called Snowflake.
Um didn't love the name, uh, andit was in stealth mode, but I
really liked the founders.
I really liked uh the investor,Mike Spiser, and so that got me
(03:36):
excited.
And you know, I was prettyhesitant still, and then you
know, Mike, Mike was trying toclose me on um on joining the
company, and I and he said, Whatdo you need?
And I said, Well, I need someoneto be on the board uh who cares
about me.
Uh and he's like, Like who?
And I said, Well, on my lastcompany, we had this, you know,
amazing leader, John McMahon.
(03:56):
He's like, Well, I know John.
And and he's like, Well, someonelike him.
And like, literally the nextday, John McMahon's on our
board.
Wow.
And he's like, and so Mike'slike, okay, it took your final
objection off the table.
And yeah, sure enough.
So uh, and it was critical formy part of my success of having
John.
I could not have done the jobwithout John being on our board.
I took a risk, it took a bigrisk, it took a pay cut.
(04:18):
Um, but I wanted to do somethingfun and work with fun people,
and that's pretty much why Ichose the the job.
SPEAKER_00 (04:23):
Pretty productive midlife crisis.
Yeah, yeah.
For sure.
SPEAKER_02 (04:27):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:28):
I'm sure there are near-death experiences involved,
which we're gonna jump into.
But where did the name Snowflakecome from?
That was already a realconvenient dream.
SPEAKER_02 (04:35):
Um so that so the founders, and I would consider
Mike Spiser a founder.
Uh, you know, his kids were onthe ski team up in uh Tahoe.
Um Benoit, uh his kids were onthe ski team.
They he actually lived in Tahoeand he would commute down to
Oracle.
Um, and then Thierry, you know,liked to ski.
So they all like to ski.
(04:56):
Snow comes from the clouds.
We were a cloud data warehouse.
Um and there's this uh there's aa loose affiliation to a schema,
a database schema calledSnowflake Schema.
Uh and so they kind of they kindof took that and made and ran
with it and it's called itSnowflake.
And trust me, I did not love thename when I was out there
trying, because people were werenot very kind to us in in the
(05:19):
beginning about our name.
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
So Table's turn.
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Yeah, table's turn.
Table's turn.
Make it snow, baby.
SPEAKER_00 (05:25):
And so, okay, you join pre-product, you know, no
sales team, your number onesalesperson in the organization.
You're the first person.
What what did those first couplemoves look like?
SPEAKER_02 (05:36):
Um you know, so when I got there, um I I started, you
know, just trying to talk topeople.
Like there was no like Icouldn't sell the product.
And and so I started to just tryto get feedback.
And so I would just reach out toand blindly to a bunch of
different people um and and say,hey, this is what we've built.
(05:56):
And it helped me hone exactlylike what the differentiators
were.
The founders would explain it,like, hey, this is unique.
And then I would tell uh, youknow, our prospective advisor
companies of like, hey, this iswhat we built.
And so that's that was mybeginning.
It was just like reaching outand saying, Hey, do you have 15
minutes?
Um, I'd love to tell you whatwe're building.
(06:17):
We're a stealth mode datawarehousing company.
We've done something reallyunique where we've separated
storage from compute and wenatively ingest uh the uh
semi-structured data.
I'd love to tell you, getfeedback, see if something you'd
use.
And um, and so that was mypitch.
And I did that a lot, a lot anda lot and a lot.
So that was the beginning, andthat's how I got you know into
(06:38):
customer conversations.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Incredible.
And how did you start to growthat sales organization, hire
the right people, scale theprocess, really take it from
zero?
SPEAKER_02 (06:49):
Well, so when I started to figure out like who
was our ideal customer, um, Ithen would would start building
lists, like literally scrapingwebsites.
Now you can probably do this allwith AI, but I was doing it by
hand, uh going on job boards andstuff like that.
And that was, you know, and thenspamming people.
And so I needed help uh doingthat.
(07:11):
Uh so I I hired an intern,Alyssa, Alyssa Wong, who's still
actually at Snowflake, which isawesome.
Um, and um, but she was incollege at the time, and uh, and
so she uh her and I startedbuilding lists, and then um I
hired a uh an SE uh and then heand I would just go out and you
(07:31):
know tell the story.
And then from there, um whatwould happen is I would try to
get my goal with every week wasto get eight customer-facing
meetings a week.
So that was my goal.
And and so if I got that eightmeetings a week, that was great.
But what would happen is say I'dgo to New York, I would then not
be in front of my computer, notbuilding lists, and I'd miss out
(07:53):
on getting meetings for thefollowing week.
And so that's when I started uhhiring my first two uh sales
development reps.
So I hired two SDRs, Jordan andTom.
Um, and Jordan is still atSnowflake, and then from there,
uh we uh we started hiringsellers.
SPEAKER_00 (08:09):
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(08:54):
And I heard in the book, one ofmy favorite quotes is that you
said, if you have to tell peoplewhat to do, they're in the wrong
company.
SPEAKER_01 (09:02):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (09:03):
How did you ensure and how can founders listening
ensure and leaders listeningensure that they're hiring the
right people that areself-motivated?
SPEAKER_02 (09:11):
It's hard.
I mean, I think like if if youhire someone from a big company
um to come into an early stagestartup, they're used to this
infrastructure being aroundthem.
They're used to having SDRs,they're used to having, you
know, Salesforce.
Like I'm there's a company I'madvising right now where we we
hired the uh you know a salesleader in there, and you know,
he he walked in and he's like,Yeah, there's no Salesforce.
(09:34):
All of the context of thesecustomers they're talking to are
in the cell phone of thefounders.
He's like, so I have to get anexport of their, their, uh,
their their cell phone and putit in and build my own
Salesforce.
So there's just a lot of thingslike when I'm looking for is I'm
looking for people that have hadum are self-starters that have
had self-motivated, that have todo things on their own.
(09:55):
If you're working at a largecompany like Salesforce, there's
this all this infrastructure isalready there for you.
And so those probably aren't thebest people to hire when you're
building a startup.
So you're looking for peoplethat have that grit.
Um, and then there's questionsyou can ask and and uh tell me
about tough situations you'vebeen in in your life.
You're looking for them to wherehave they overcome tough
(10:15):
challenging situations?
Um, and and you kind of learn alot about a person.
So there's there's stuff thatyou can ask, there's experience
they have on on, you know, wehad a lot of success hiring uh
people from the resellercommunity because they were
basically having to representall these different products and
and they were uh they were youknow selling them almost as a as
a reseller.
(10:35):
So that we had a lot ofdifferent uh backgrounds, but
that worked pretty well.
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
Yeah.
What's your opening line in aninterview?
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
Um I tell me your life story.
SPEAKER_00 (10:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (10:44):
So I you know, and and so tell me where you were
born to to how you got to whereyou're at.
Uh because I want to learn aboutyou.
And I think that's the thing Iwant to know.
Like, you know, where I don'tcare where you went to school,
but like, did you work duringcollege?
Did you uh, you know, when whenyou got out of college, what
what did you do?
Like what were you looking todo?
Did you know what you wanted todo?
(11:06):
Uh a lot of times, you know,people like hiring, you know, uh
uh athletes from college.
So you're just like you'retrying to learn about them.
And that's kind of part of thethe story that I I'm looking
for.
SPEAKER_00 (11:16):
Yeah.
That makes sense.
And then on the inverse, youknow, you you you were a
snowflake the long time and yourecently left, but the average
CRO tenure is about 18 months.
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
Yep.
SPEAKER_00 (11:28):
And you lasted an incredible run, 11 years through
four different CEOs.
SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
Yes.
I don't think this reallyhappened.
But uh I think um so I askedJohn McMahon that exact same
question.
Like, how did I how did I stayin this job?
Because I was not really sureabout it.
And um I think the the thingthat he said is, you know,
(11:58):
Chris, you would ask goodquestions, you would take
feedback, and you would act onthat feedback.
So the the thing that uh whathappens, um and what I saw even
with some of the leaders thatthat I had hired um as we grew
is people thought Snowflake wassuccessful because of them.
Um, and that was never the case.
We were we were, you know, wewere all part of this amazing,
(12:20):
we were selling an amazingproduct, we built an amazing
go-to-market machine, but therewas no one person in my sales
organization that was likeresponsible for the success that
Snowflake had.
It was a team effort.
And so I think um I think beingself-aware, being getting that
feedback, acting on thatfeedback, and sometimes that
feedback was hard, like, heyChris, you're screwing up here
and and having to make toughdecisions is not always fun.
(12:43):
Um, but that was kind of I I'dsay that in a nutshell is what
John gave the feedback that Igot from John.
SPEAKER_00 (12:49):
So yeah, and I mean there's a lot of founders that
ideally are making their firstsales higher and they want that
person to be the next Chris.
SPEAKER_03 (12:59):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (12:59):
And conversely, a lot of leaders that aspire to
have the type of round that youdid.
SPEAKER_03 (13:04):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (13:04):
And so that kind of quality is really interesting
and important for people tounderstand.
Yes.
It sounds like curiosity if youwere to boil it down to
something curiosity andreceiving feedback while being
able to iterate upon it.
SPEAKER_02 (13:16):
Yeah, I think yeah, I think uh yeah, being humble uh
because like again, you know, II found that when when we were
building the company, um, I Iwas the same way to uh you know
a sales development rep thatjust started as I was to our
(13:37):
CEO.
Um and and so what I found wasthat a lot of times there are
good people that we hired alongthe way that were big company
people and they were really theywould do well managing up, but
then when it came to uh you knowmanaging their team or or being
nice to people but you know thatweren't were not were not peers
(14:00):
or or hire, they were not.
And so I'm very respectful.
I don't like it drives me crazywhen the people are super
disrespectful.
I I don't have time for that.
And that that's not great, andthat can ruin a culture of a
company.
So I think it's just like youknow, be humble, take feedback,
act on that feedback, and act onit quickly.
Like you you you have to have asense of urgency.
Like one of the my the myfavorite traits of uh
(14:23):
Snowflake's chief marketingofficer, Denise Pearson, who I
co-wrote the book with, is thatshe has this high sense of
urgency.
So like when I'm in a meeting,when I was when I was working
with her and I was in a meetingwith her, we'd come up with some
idea and she'd be like, okay,let's do it right now.
And I'm like, you're the best.
Because like that, like thereisn't like, oh, let's do it in
three months from now.
No, let's do it right now.
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
And she'd challenge me, like, you should do this
right now.
And I think that's what I uhreally appreciate about people
is having a high sense ofurgency.
And and I, you know, sometimesthere are companies uh that have
sales leaders that don't havethat sense of urgency, and that
and then that's not great forthe company.
And I think, you know, I adviseuh a bunch of different
(15:05):
companies.
And you know, one of thecompanies I advise, they had a
sales leader um that didn't havethis sense of urgency, and the
and the CEO just called me andsaid, like, hey, I'm trying to
get this sense of urgency going.
And he's like, I just he's notacting on it.
And I'm like, well, this is likeit's like a it's like dating
someone.
It's like if you if you datesomeone and have this trait
(15:27):
that's annoying, it's only gonnaget worse the longer you're with
them.
So you you can't you can't fixit.
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
Isn't there like a learn to love about you?
SPEAKER_02 (15:34):
Maybe, maybe, but not not certain things.
There's certain things that willreally annoy you.
And so that was that was uh someof the stuff that uh you know I
picked up along the way.
So yeah, uh have a highsensitivity, be humble, work
hard, uh be smart about what yousell.
Like on like I always say be astudent of what you sell.
So I think those are some keytraits of of uh you know great
(15:56):
salespeople.
SPEAKER_00 (15:57):
And you spoke to Denise, you you both had an
incredible growth trajectorytogether at Snowflake.
Yes.
And you were aligned at the hip,you went into board meetings
together.
You know, there's one thing tohire really humble and great
people, but there's another toactually foster the alignment
necessary for growth.
How did you and Denise fosterthat alignment and how can other
(16:19):
leaders think about creatingthat space for alignment?
SPEAKER_02 (16:23):
Um well, it it it goes number one with
transparency, uh is being honestwith each other, um, having that
sense of urgency, you know, andI think you know, rolling up
your sleeves and and being ableto do it.
So like when Denise started, shehad been a successful chief
marketing officer at, you know,at at public companies before.
(16:43):
And she came in and we weredoing three million dollars in
revenue.
And and I think I was strugglingwith our the demand generation
function of Snowflake prior touh Denise uh coming coming into
the company.
And so I, you know, I was Iwould I would argue with uh the
the previous team around what adefinition of like a what a
marketing qualified lead was oran MQL.
(17:05):
And and so having thoseconversations for a sales leader
is incredibly frustrating.
And Denise picked up on thatright away and she says, look,
listen, um, we're not gonna talkabout what an MQL is.
Um all we're gonna talk about isqualified meetings for your
salespeople.
Um and and so from there, that'slike the she had me at hello.
I'm like, okay, I like thiswoman a lot.
(17:27):
And and uh and so from there,what she would do is, you know,
she wouldn't tell anyone on herteam to go do something.
She would go and every week sitdown individually with this SDR,
the individual SDRs, theindividual AEs, the individual
managers, and tell me and say,tell me what about these leads.
Where are they coming from?
(17:47):
What's good, what's bad, what'sugly.
And she would get thatfirsthand.
And like that, I was soappreciative of that.
And I think that's the thingthat I love about people that
have had success, of get thatthat can come down and do the
hard things um and not tellpeople go do this, go do that.
No, you do it and see, and thenyou have so much more
(18:07):
credibility when you're comingin and trying to um, you know,
direct things and tell peoplewhat to do things like, hey,
I've done that.
And I think that was kind ofeven on my journey in Snowflake.
A lot of the team respected thatI was the first sales rep.
A lot of the team respected thatI knew how to sell the product
really well.
And I think those were kind ofpretty key uh elements of me
growing up and and recruitingpeople and then keeping people
(18:29):
at Snowflake and and leadingfrom the front that way.
SPEAKER_00 (18:32):
So and it sounds like a common thread across
Snowflake overall.
You were in the weeds, you werebuilding the first list.
Yes.
Denise was in the weeds, sittingdown with salespeople, yes, and
many of the CEOs also were ableto actually get in the weeds.
Speak to you a little bit aroundthe the CEOs that you worked
under and how they actually gotinto the weeds, because I know
(18:53):
one in particular was good atthat.
SPEAKER_02 (18:55):
Yeah, for sure.
Well, and and and that's a thingthat w was was surprising to me.
Um, so I joined uh under MikeSpiser, who was really, you
know, I guess the acting CEO.
Uh he was in one day a week.
Uh so it was, you know, it was apseudo-CEO.
And then they hired uh BobMugglia.
Um and Bob uh had had Ron, helike Satya Nadella used to work
(19:20):
for Bob at Microsoft.
Bob had an uh a very f infamousuh exit out of uh Microsoft, but
he he was a president of theserver and tools division.
He had 10,000 plus peopleworking for him.
Wow.
And so he came in and we therewas like 30 employees, and I'm
like, maybe, maybe, maybe 50.
And and he came in as a CEO ninemonths in my tenure, and I'm
(19:42):
thinking, how the hell is thisguy gonna be successful?
Because he's been so far uphere.
He's had you know assistance,his assistants maybe had
assistance, right?
You know, so so he just had youknow this, and I'm like, no, no
way can he be successful.
And to Bob's credit, he was thebest.
Like we Snowflake would not havebeen successful without Bob.
(20:02):
He invented our pricing, he hehelped so many parts of the
product, he we borrowed Bob'scredibility um to get in front
of customers.
There were so many wonderfulthings about Bob, and Bob got
into it.
And and I'll give you a perfectexample of how he he there are
two examples is number one, likehe came in and wanted to redo
the customer contract.
(20:23):
So every time we we signed acontract, we had to negotiate
the the the contract.
And he came in and he heincreased the number of pages by
like four pages.
He he added a thousand words tothe contract, and I got furious
and I sent him a note and Isaid, Bob, you've you've doubled
the size of the contract, you'veincreased the number of words by
(20:45):
a thousand, you're screwing usover.
And he goes, I have one questionfor you.
I'm like, What's that?
He's like, Did you read it?
And I'm like, no.
And so so he's like, do me afavor, read it.
SPEAKER_03 (20:56):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (20:57):
Um, and redline the things that you don't like about
the contract.
And and so I I mean it was justan invaluable lesson that I that
I that that gave me is that Iread it and maybe better at
selling the product, first ofall, because I better understood
the contract.
I I then redlined things and hetook the time to actually walk
me through, okay, I I understandwhy you don't want that, and
(21:18):
we'll take that out, but here'swhy we have to have this.
And he walked me through it.
And so, like, that was just likethis like incredible
development, you know, point forme of learning, learning from
Bob.
And the other thing that he did,which which I I love just being
a salesperson, is you know, it'svery public on whether or not
you know salespeople aresuccessful because it's like you
have a quota and are you hittingthe company number or not?
(21:40):
And and so every quarter fromthe beginning of time, I would
always talk about like, youknow, either A, how many people
are in beta of the uh uh oftrying the product or are we
hitting our numbers, et cetera,et cetera.
And we we were we were trying toget in um we were trying to get
to general availability in Juneof 2015.
And um this was this was likeJanuary, and we're like, okay,
(22:02):
these are the feature sets thatthat we declare, that we declare
victory and say we're generallyavailable.
And and and so what Bob did iswe every Monday we would have a
company meeting.
Um, and I would talk about youknow the customers I had and
what whatever and and the andhow we're doing on deals.
What Bob did was he then createdthis list and then assigned uh
(22:24):
each engineer to a feature thatwas required to for Snowflake
Declare generally available.
And then in that Monday meeting,he'd be like, hey, uh you know,
Allison, hey Abdul, hey, heyAshish, how are you doing in
this feature?
And and those those wereincredible engineers that I just
listed, but but but I thinkthere were some that weren't so
incredible um that were notexecuting on those features.
(22:46):
And every week they'd get outthere and they'd be they'd hate
it.
They'd be like, Wow, this isterrible.
I'm being called out for notdoing my job.
And to me, I'm like, yeah, Ineed those features to go sell
the product.
And so Bob like forcibly hedidn't like he didn't yell at
them, but there was this peerpressure to be like, hey, you
know, hey, Joe over there,you're not doing what you need
to do, go go do it.
(23:07):
So yeah.
So that there were a bunch, abunch of stuff like that.
So Bob, Bob was like kind of theyou know, so much into the
details, and you know,Snowflake's current CEO, uh,
Sridhar Ramaswamy, is like inthe details at scale that I it's
just unbelievable the amount ofinformation that he can uh take
on.
Um I've never seen anything likeit.
(23:28):
So there's different levels, andand Sutman, Souitman was more of
a general.
Like he he would he would pickup on, he would read the room,
he'd read people, like all thisstuff really, really well.
Um just different differentleaders, but all of them
incredible leaders.
SPEAKER_00 (23:43):
So it's a common common thread here around some
of the most success exceptionalleaders being able to balance
the strategy but also be in thedetails.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
Totally needs.
Totally.
I I think you can get toowrapped up in the details
sometimes.
I think you have to think aboutlike it, and I think my opinion
about what makes a great CEO, Ido think that product leaders
make the best CEOs.
People always ask me, like, heyChris, do you want to be a CEO?
And I I no, the answer is no.
(24:15):
Um and and I I think productleaders are are great because
they they have to think, youknow, in the future.
They have to think about have avision for the company and stuff
like that.
So yeah, I think those arethings that that are um
incredibly important to thecompany.
Um and so that's why I I I I Ithink highly of of product
leaders for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (24:33):
Super interesting point.
Yeah.
And you did a lot right alongthe journey.
But there's also all the storiesbehind the scenes of any high
growth company.
Yeah.
What were some of the near-deathexperiences at Snowflake?
SPEAKER_02 (24:46):
Yeah, I mean, the I the one of the the c classic
ones, you know, that was wasquite scary is we had so we went
generally available in June of2015 and and our first full
fiscal year as a generallyavailable product was um was in
2016.
(25:07):
And um, and so we were we did ahalf year of three million
dollars, and then we were on thepath to to have really great
growth the following year, andit was going really well.
And we had started to hire abunch of sellers.
So I I I thought, you know, it'dbe great to have the sales team,
you know, come in, get themtogether, and do a rah-rah
mid-year.
So we did a mid-year saleskickoff in San Francisco at the
(25:28):
W Hotel.
And we, you know, I get infront, and there's, I don't
know, maybe like 50 people um inthe room, and and I'm you know,
talking about how great whatwhat all these exciting
customers, what what how greatit is.
And you know, a lot of the salesjobs, their their phones are
going off.
And and then I'm like, okay,we're gonna uh bring Bob in, and
(25:49):
Bob's gonna speak, but I youknow, Bob wants to talk to me.
So I go out into the hallway,doors are shut, Bob's white, and
I'm like, what's wrong?
He's like, we're Snowflake wasdown, and we are we're software
as a service, we run theservice.
Right.
And he's like, Snowflake's down,and we're in one region in AWS
US West, and he's like, I'm notsure we're coming back.
(26:09):
And and I'm like, I just tellingeveryone how great a company we
are, and we like the thefounders can't get like they're
like open heart surgery, liketrying to like make the heart
pump again.
SPEAKER_03 (26:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:20):
And uh and so I looked at Bob and I said, Bob,
uh, we're gonna come back, and Ineed you to get out and uh
instill confidence in the salesteam and tell them it's gonna be
okay, and tell them we're gonnabuild this great company.
And to his credit, he flippedthe switch, got out there, got
everyone excited, and four hourslater we we came back online.
So it was a pretty incredible umuh experience and and wild,
(26:42):
wild.
That was that was as close todeath as as we came.
But I mean, I remember being umso f Fidelity was a a big uh
early adopter of Snowflake.
They did they did a lot of pressaround us and stuff like that.
And and so this is just aspeople were taking meetings
again from COVID, and uh I wentout to go meet the the CIO and
(27:08):
the CTO of Fidelity in Boston atthe same time.
And I walk into their office, tothis is my first meeting with
them.
And I walk in the office and I'mlooking at them and they're
like, and all of a sudden theirphones are going off, and
they're like, hey, uhSnowflake's not working right
now.
And and I'm like, uh, okay, I'mabout to I'm trying to get a
deal from these guys.
(27:28):
And I'm like, uh, okay, and I'mtexting like CEO, I'm texting
the you know, the engineeringteam, and it was just like one
of these stupid mistakes wheresomeone forgot to uh renew a uh
a license key for our encryptionor or flip the encryption key.
It was so dumb, but it broughtthe entirety of Snowflake down
(27:49):
again.
So there's like those types ofexperiences you're like, oh my
God, like you know, we're luckyto be alive.
And I'm I'm super grateful, um,especially for our earliest
customers at Snowflake that tooka risk that stayed with us
because there were some bumpytimes.
There was a lot of outages wehad in the beginning, and and
they stuck with us.
So I'm super grateful for that.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:10):
Incredible.
Yeah, those are those are somescary times.
SPEAKER_02 (28:13):
For sure.
SPEAKER_00 (28:13):
Yeah, and I mean some scary times, but also some
some really incredible andstrategic go-to-market moves
along the journey.
SPEAKER_01 (28:22):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (28:24):
Reflecting back on the journey, what were some of
the most pivotal moves that youdid or things that you remember
from that go-to-marketevolution?
SPEAKER_02 (28:34):
Yeah, I I think so the the focus uh of um new logo
acquisition was super important.
And and so, you know, when whenI started um at Snowflake, Mike
Spiser, the reason and thereason that we stayed as a
stealth mode company for a whileis is Mike was super paranoid
because we were competingagainst the largest companies in
(28:55):
the world.
We were competing against anAmazon product and we had Amazon
as our our our back-end uhservice.
And so he he's like, we have toget market share before the the
the competition gets product.
And so, okay, understood.
And so my hyper focus as acompany was every single sales
(29:15):
rep um would have a a uh gate ofthey would have to get depending
on the segment that they coveredof customers, they'd have to get
between four and eight new logosuh in a in a quarter.
Um that was uh really strategicbecause like getting the forcing
to get customer after customerafter customer, getting to use
(29:36):
the product, that was that wasum and hiring sales reps that
had experience opening up newlogos, these were these were
critical things that we did inthe beginning.
Um and and and candidly, likethere were times you know, at
the company where we got lazyand we took our eye off the ball
on customer acquisition, andthat hurt the company.
And and and unfortunately,Shridar uh had you know helps
(29:59):
helped us rectify.
That as he came in, and we'vebeen and so flakes reaccelating
that customer acquisition uhstrategy.
But I think that's the mostimportant thing for us from a
go-to-market standpoint wasacquiring new customers.
That I mean and the hyper focusand and celebrating that.
Like celebrating that uh, youknow, even stuff like to this
day on on earnings calls talksabout the number of global 2000
(30:22):
customers that they have, numberof that they've added and and
stuff like that.
And Wall Street reacts to that.
So super important.
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (30:30):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:30):
And expansion is a big thing that right now a lot
of companies are focused on.
Yes, acquisition, but expansion,I'm curious your thoughts.
Like, of course, acquisitionapplies now broadly, but how do
you think about the balance asyou're advising companies now
and startups between acquisitionand expansion and upsell?
SPEAKER_02 (30:47):
Sure.
Um yeah, I think so Snow Like,so and a lot of companies now
are um use case or sorry, umconsumption models.
Um so Snowlike's a consumptionmodel, and so you know, we we
focused, you know, on uh on justgetting the customer first.
And so it and the typically anacquisition was really a almost
(31:07):
like a paid pilot.
Our average deal size, even atyou know, when I left, was
depending on the segment,anywhere between 40 and 60,000.
So these weren't like hugedeals.
It was just like, hey, there's athere's a paid pilot that we're
gonna do.
And so um we did that, and uh,and and and and then you'd land
the customer.
And and and that was we wouldonly sell one thing, a snowflake
(31:29):
credit.
So so there was no necessarilyother features to to sell.
There was use cases.
So then so then what you startto do is is try to identify use
cases and then have the salesteam, both that sales engineer
and the sales rep, um put thatin in uh Salesforce, track the
the the you know, the the theuse case win.
(31:50):
Are we winning it?
Are we losing it?
Are we selling professionalservices with it?
Um so that was a huge focus ofours.
And and and really because thesales reps got paid both on a
booking of a new deal, but alsoconsumption, they were highly
motivated to get the customer todo the deal, but also get the
customer to successfully use theproduct.
So uh so I think um what I wouldsay to founders is make sure
(32:14):
that the the sales team isincented not only just to
acquire new customers, but alsoto make sure the customers use
the product.
That's that's the biggest thingis you don't want just these
hitmen to come in and do a dealand then leave because that that
becomes problematic and and thethe sales rep doesn't really
care.
And a lot of times what peopledo is say, I'm gonna have this
customer success team take over.
(32:35):
Well, what happens like if thecustomer success team isn't
getting responses, they're notthat maybe you have to almost
resell the deal a lot of times.
If competition came in, theyhave a new CIO that came in,
something like that.
So I think you know, giving thethe sales team uh a quota uh on
expand on consumption orexpansion is incredibly
(32:56):
important.
Um and then it's also on thecompany.
So you know, I spend time withfounders talking about pricing.
Um, and you know, you know, alot of times maybe they they're
just trying to when you'rebuilding a company, you're just
hoping that companies pay yousomething to use your product.
And so there's a lot of mistakesthat founders can make early on
um around pricing.
(33:16):
And and so you you don't want tosell everything in in the first
deal.
You want to figure out how tomodularize your pro pricing, or
if you have consumption base,then then that's and then you
can go and focus on differentuse cases, certain things that
you have to look at as you'repricing the product.
And so I spent time now withfounders talk thinking through
okay, you can add thesefeatures, you can add these
(33:38):
modules, or or or this is howyou uh forecast use cases and
stuff like that.
A lot of different ways to doit.
SPEAKER_00 (33:44):
Yeah, that makes sense.
And I I know you preferred thatsales continuity as opposed to
passing off to customer success.
And I've seen that pattern witha lot of companies like customer
with a K, for example, where CSand sales have the same
ownership to create alignment.
Yes.
Is that do you think thatscales?
Like a snowflake scaled to thepoint that it it did.
SPEAKER_02 (34:05):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I I so so when Frank Slootman
came in, he he um he he I didn'thave customer success.
I didn't have professionalservices.
Um and then he put that underme, underneath me.
And so when Frank came in, he uhhe he said, Hey, look, you
you're gonna take over customersuccess, uh, you're gonna take
over professional services.
(34:25):
And he said, on customersuccess, it's costing the
company uh three milliondollars.
So therefore, Chris, it'scosting you, your budget is your
it's three million dollars, andit's only gonna grow if we scale
this function out.
And so then I'm like, okay, letme go figure out what they do.
And and I would interview uh, orI went and you know, ask the
(34:45):
people in customer success,like, what do you do?
Are you technical enough to bean SE?
Are you are you good enough tobe a sales rep?
Are you, you know, all theseother things?
And the answer was they'rehelping a customer um find the
right people in theorganization.
They're helping a customer lookat you know the documentation or
training, but they don't haveany particular skill that's
gonna like help the customer usethe product.
(35:07):
They're just kind of anavigating person through the
organization.
So I got rid of it.
I said, uh, we don't, you know,you can go apply for other jobs
at Snowflake, but you're we'reno longer having customer
success because ultimately, youknow, as as Frank Suitman would
say, and and Mike Scarpelli, theCFO, would say of Snowflake was
hey, look, the customer successis the job of everyone at this
(35:27):
company.
Um and you don't you you need toput it on the sales rep and the
SC.
The SCs are incrediblyimportant.
And then we had a professionalservices team that um we had to
build, and they built all of ourum uh you know, our training
materials, they bit built ourbest practices on how to
implement the product.
And so we would sellprofessional services.
(35:48):
So from my standpoint, our PSorganization was built from the
ground up, not as like this hugerevenue generation, but it was
cost neutral.
So we would say, okay, we're notgonna lose money on our
professional services team.
And I would say when we wouldsell professional services in a
deal, the customer would be waymore successful.
So then the sales reps startedto realize, like, okay, I need
(36:09):
to get professional services inthese deals.
And that was a that's how welooked at customer success.
Is it's not that I don't I'magainst it.
I'm just against free.
Like I there has to be somevalue, and the customer has to
pay for it.
SPEAKER_00 (36:20):
Yeah.
For sure.
I love that model.
That's great.
SPEAKER_02 (36:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (36:24):
And you know, you mentioned near-death experiences
beforehand, what you did well.
What were the moments in a way,now looking back, that would
have been really pivotal interms of competition?
You know, there was Databricks,there were others in the
picture.
Like, what did that look like?
SPEAKER_02 (36:40):
And yeah, I mean, I I think there's, you know, look,
hindsight's always 2020.
It's super easy to like Mondaymorning quarterback, you know,
all the mistakes we made.
But I think um there there werea couple of things.
Is I think number one, Snowflakewas the we we had to go to
market engine, um and we werebuilding this machine to go out
and and acquire a bunch of newlogos.
(37:02):
There were two things that wewere missing in the marketplace,
um, and that Databricksgravitated to.
Databricks, uh a lot of a lot ofuh data engineers wanted to use
Spark as a as a you know as ananalytic platform.
And so Databricks kind of didreally well there.
Um and and then they also hadthese data science notebooks for
(37:22):
data scientists.
And if Snowflake had built aSpark connector and and done uh
a data science notebook, andthen at the same time the sales
org, if we had continued toscale the sales org and focus on
new customer acquisition, Ithink we would have pretty much
put Databricks out of business.
And and we so we gave them aninch and they took a mile, and
(37:44):
they're they're obviously a verysuccessful company.
The other thing that you canargue is like they're they're
successful, um, and they don'thave they're not public.
So a lot of the things they saydon't have to be 100% true
publicly.
Um whereas a public company,you're you're very much uh you
have you have to say things thatare true.
Like Databricks does a lot ofreselling of uh uh AI
(38:08):
technologies.
So like they resell open AI,they resell um other other uh AI
technologies.
Those that's like a resellerbusiness.
It's like a single-digit marginbusiness, but it's top line
revenue.
They're not reporting to to WallStreet on their their margin.
Snowflake has to do that.
So Snowflake could not do thesame things they financially
that they can do.
And so there's an argument, likeif the private markets will fund
(38:31):
you, there's a argument to stayprivate for as long as you can
if you want to build thisginormous company.
And it's worked well so far forthem.
So I know there's a bunch ofthings along the way that on the
sales side, I wish that we hadfocused we had done more, been
more aggressive.
On the product side, I wish wehad been more aggressive.
Um, but at the same time, wealso did a great job on
(38:51):
competing against the the threeuh uh cloud service providers
and and while building on top oftheir platform, whether it was
competing with Amazon's Redshiftproduct or EMR, or there's
competing against the differentvariations that Microsoft has or
Google's uh BigQuery product ontop of their platform.
That says a lot about the thehow great of a product we had,
and we built a really strong uhuh go-to-market motion on doing
(39:15):
that.
SPEAKER_00 (39:16):
It's incredible.
And do you think going publicwas the right move then for
Snowflake?
SPEAKER_02 (39:19):
Um it it it it it was uh it was it was super
helpful um that it gave uscredibility.
So so what what would happenwhen I would try to sell deals,
so customers would put us as theas the back-end product um to
their their their product.
So we would we backend acustomer-facing analytic
(39:40):
application.
And if as a private company,people didn't necessarily trust
us.
Um and and so they'd ask us forour financials in the event we
went out of business, theywanted our source code and all
this other stuff, when which wewould do, we would not give them
our source code.
So so so yeah, so once we becamepublic, we I almost it was like
(40:03):
validation to the market that wewere this like real company.
And so that helped.
And and being we were thelargest uh software IPO, I think
still are, I'm sure one of theseum AI companies will crush us
and come out, but we were thelargest software IPO ever.
And that also was like, okay,this is a juggernaut.
And so then people were weremore comfortable betting on us.
(40:23):
Yeah, and for the employees, itturned out really well.
I mean, never in my wild imagwildest imaginations did I ever
think that Snowflake would wouldwould get over a hundred billion
dollars of a market cap.
And we did, and that was likecrazy.
Like on the IPO day, you justwatch the stock go up and you're
like, holy cow, like what ishappening, right?
(40:43):
Um and so that was a really coolexperience and it gave liquidity
to the employees.
So for the employees, I think itwas great.
I think uh, you know, from acompany validation it was great.
Um, but yeah, there are somebenefits, you know, pluses and
minuses to being public, forsure.
SPEAKER_00 (40:57):
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
And you mentioned AI companiescoming in and potentially, you
know, having even larger of anexit and liquidity event.
Yeah, for sure.
You have lived through the dotcom bubble.
Yes.
Boom.
Yes.
I'm curious what you think aboutAI now.
Do you think that we're in abubble?
SPEAKER_02 (41:15):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
Um the I mean we are, um, andthere's a lot of there's a lot
of and you know, s partneringwith with different venture
capital firms, seeing how theyvalue these AI companies, it's
it's bonkers.
It's crazy the evaluations thatthat people are getting.
Um and it will eventually have areckoning.
(41:36):
But um, you know, I I heardsomeone say this on CNBC the
other day.
There there were some um greatthings that came out of the
internet.
The internet is more powerfulthan ever today.
You know, um the dot-com bubblewas the beginning of that.
Um and and so there was a lot ofterrible companies.
I worked for some of thoseterrible companies.
Um, but at the end of the day,that you know, the internet
(41:58):
powered Google.
The internet powered so manydifferent things that, you know,
like AWS and and and uh orAmazon and and there's all these
things that came out of theinternet.
So yes, uh there is a bubble,yes, it will pop.
Um, but um there are real thingswith AI.
Like, you know, I you know, I'mI'm I'm partnering with uh uh
you know uh uh two AI companiesin particular that are doing a
(42:22):
bunch of automation.
So I'm partnering with thiscompany called Giga ML, they do
customer service agents andthey're legitimately replacing
you know cut call centers um inin some of the largest companies
in the world.
And that's that how that willhave a bot like a uh a bottom
line impact to those companiesbecause the the the these large,
large Fortune 500, they'rereducing the amount of people
(42:44):
they need to hire.
So that's a that's a big deal.
Um there's a code company calledfactory.ai, same thing.
They're helping people developcode um uh without having to
have a bunch of engineers.
So there's there's a bunch ofefficiencies that will come out
of AI.
Um and and so yeah, there, butthere's also a bunch of bloat,
and there's a bunch of companiesthat probably won't make it.
And and so it'll be interestingto watch for sure.
SPEAKER_00 (43:06):
Definitely.
SPEAKER_02 (43:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (43:07):
Definitely.
And now you're advising a lot ofcompanies since you left
Snowflake.
SPEAKER_02 (43:10):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (43:11):
Super tactical, but I'm curious what you're seeing
in terms of sales methodologiesbecause you know, eight years
ago when you were on the saleshacker podcast, which GTM now
acquired in 2023, so we rolledit up under this brand, you were
talking about MedPick.
And it's so funny because youwere describing it.
The interviewer had never heardof it, and you were describing
it because it was quite new.
SPEAKER_03 (43:31):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (43:32):
And now it's so commonly known and practiced.
I don't think there's a salesleader out there that doesn't
know it, even if they go by adifferent sales methodology.
SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (43:40):
What are your thoughts on sales methodologies
for companies you're advising orother sales leaders?
What's kind of best practice?
SPEAKER_02 (43:47):
You know, I I'm a fan of I'm still a fan of
MedPick.
Um, and I think it's it's justlike if think of MedPick as your
compass to to getting a deal.
Like you're out in the woods,you're you're lost, you can go
to the MedPIC to kind of figureout like, do we have these
things um to get the deal?
And I think that thatmethodology is super important.
(44:08):
So I'm I'm a huge uh fan of ofyou know the building sales
organizations who have medpic astheir the back end.
And it's candidly when Iinterview sales leaders, yeah,
I'm looking for that.
Like what like what experiencedo you have?
What sales methodology, how howum, how diligent are you in
managing your team behind thatsales methodology?
(44:29):
So those are things that areincredibly important.
And so I I do think that um thateven now as I'm interviewing
sales leaders, I am asking themwhat what methodologies do they
use?
It doesn't have to be medpic.
I'm not like, oh my gosh, thisyou if you don't have medpic,
you're you're not gonna begreat.
But tell me about whatevermethodology you're using and and
how how uh how how do you manageyour team by that?
(44:51):
And that's what I'm looking forfrom a sales leader.
SPEAKER_00 (44:53):
So yeah, because we commonly get across the GTM fund
portfolio a lot of companiesthat are looking to hire sales
reps that have strongmethodology, irregardless of
what type, but just strongtraining around a methodology.
So it's interesting to hear thatyou are are kind of averse to
different types too.
SPEAKER_02 (45:12):
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (45:13):
It's more about the actual muscle.
SPEAKER_02 (45:15):
It's it's the muscle.
It's it's are you actuallygetting up every single day?
Are you actually you know, youknow, diligent about it or not?
And I think that's that's thebig thing that you you really
have to um you know ask and lookat.
Because there are the the peopletalk about it, it's like almost
like values, like you know, youcan put values of your company
up on the wall and say those areour values, but do you are you
(45:37):
living our your values?
And that's the same thing on themethodology.
Are you living you know themethodology?
That's really important for meto figure out.
SPEAKER_00 (45:43):
For sure.
For sure.
And now, you know, what is whatdoes life look like
post-snowflake after 11 years?
SPEAKER_02 (45:52):
You know, it's it's crazy.
Um, it's weird to not like haveuh a number that I'm chasing
every quarter.
Um but you know, I I I I youknow what I've what I've
recognized about my myexperience at Snowflake is I
think the my most favorite uhtime at Snowflake was probably
the the zero to you know call it150, 200 million dollars.
(46:14):
That was like the most excitingtime.
There was so much desperation,yeah, but that's what I really
enjoy.
Um and not the you know, I'veyou know, obviously I managed
the the sales team where thisyear they'll they'll do north of
four billion dollars.
That's that's something that Imanage to.
Um I managed a largeorganization, but I think the
skill set that that's reallygood for those types of
(46:35):
organizations is more like anoperations person.
And that's not I don't lovedoing operations.
I like being in deals, I likeclosing deals, I like competing.
That's like and that and whenyou're doing that at a early
stage startup, that's like thefun.
And so so so now I pretty mucham advising companies in that in
that range, the zero, likeliterally have no revenue all
(46:57):
the way up to you know 200million dollars or 150 million
dollars in revenue.
And that's where I spend myenergy.
So um, and so that's what I'mdoing is I I'm I'm busy, but on
my schedule, on my terms, if Idon't want to do something, I
don't do it.
SPEAKER_00 (47:09):
And you documented the entire go-to-market journey
in this book.
SPEAKER_02 (47:12):
Make it snow.
SPEAKER_00 (47:13):
What do you hope that anyone reading this book
takes away if you could just sayone thing that you hope that
they get away from this book?
SPEAKER_02 (47:20):
Um I I you know, look, I think that Denise and I,
you know, when when stuff likebecame public, uh, we we got a
lot of people who wanted us tobe advisors.
They we became pseudo-techfamous.
Uh and and so I would get I andI still get a lot of emails
saying like, hey, hey, you know,how do I do this?
Should I do this?
(47:40):
So I think there's there'sthere's there's multiple um uh
examples where I would say thatwe talk about how we built the
company and and the things thatthe the the less the do's and
don'ts.
And I think the thing that youknow Denise and I you know
recognize when we becameadvisors to companies is the
dysfunction that founders cancreate between sales and
(48:02):
marketing.
And so, you know, one of thethings that that you know Denise
and I have this had thiswonderful you know working
relationship, which you know,Slootman, um I I would have to
go to Slootman and say, heyFrank, I'm I'm being asked to be
an advisor to this company.
Is it okay?
I'd have to get his approval.
And he's an intimidating dude,and I and he'd say, um he'd say,
(48:24):
you should, because you'll endup seeing how screwed up other
companies are.
And I was like, okay, whatever,dude.
And he was right.
Like, you know, it likesometimes it's like it's like
you know, you you have a bunchof friends, they're you know,
they're married, they have kidsor whatever, and you're like,
you know, oh, their lives areperfect, but then you get in the
inside, it's like, oh, it's notso perfect.
And that's the same thing withwith companies, is like they're
(48:44):
all screwed up, every single oneof them.
SPEAKER_00 (48:46):
Grass is never greener.
SPEAKER_02 (48:47):
It's never greener.
And so I think that's the thingthat that I'm uh uh it was it
was helpful for me to see.
And I think that's what I'd sayto founders is like you don't
want to have this competitive,like sales is doing this and
marketing is doing this.
No, they're they're thego-to-market team.
Partner together, build a greatgo-to-market machine.
Um, and if it's not working,understand why it's not working.
(49:07):
But if you're a founder andyou're creating this like
animosity, like, hey, marketingis creating a bunch of leads,
but you know, sales, you're notclosing those leads.
Well, okay, let's dig into why.
Don't don't make each other justyou know, throw, throw up you
know, scoreboard type numbersand and don't understand why
you're not getting what the endresult you want.
So I think that's the biggestthing that Denise and I focused
(49:28):
on was the partnership and whatwe focused our partnership
around on the go-to-market side.
SPEAKER_00 (49:32):
Yeah.
I mean, that is the go-to-marketengine, like you said.
That's right.
So that alignment is critical.
That's right.
Super valuable.
And you've been on the writingside of a book.
Are there any books that you'veconsumed and read that have been
particularly impactful in yourcareer?
SPEAKER_02 (49:45):
Um in my career.
Well, I mean, uh, no.
Um V V so so John McMahon, youknow, he he's you know, uh
someone I really look up to.
Um, and he has the qualified uhsales leader that that he's
built.
I I'm a I I I don't lovereading, I do audibles.
Uh uh and I just you know listento a book, really just a life
(50:09):
book, uh about the you know theeconomy and stuff like this
called um Abundance, which Ithink is a super cool book as
well.
So there's stuff like that.
But I think um um I I you know Ilove biographies, I love
learning about people and stufflike that.
I love listening to podcasts.
SPEAKER_00 (50:23):
Well, this has been fantastic, Chris.
Really appreciate the time.
I'm glad we could run it backeight years later under a
different name, having acquiredsales hacker, but here we are on
the other side.
SPEAKER_02 (50:31):
Well, I appreciate you.
You're so super kind for havingme.
Thank you for having me, and itwas great to speak in you.
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Absolutely.
Wonderful speaking with you.
Where can people follow alongyour journey?
Obviously the book, butLinkedIn.
SPEAKER_02 (50:41):
LinkedIn.
Uh yeah.
Um I I try to I'm trying to bebetter about posting stuff on
LinkedIn and stuff like that.
And yeah, like reach out viaLinkedIn.
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