Kellblog
Audio From My Exit Five CMO Leadership Retreat Presentation
Upcoming Kellblog Platform Migration
On the Socially Acceptable Use of AI in Business
The Odd Little Book All Founders Should Read On Selling Their Company
Be the CMO Everyone Wants to Work With
Why I’m Not Worried About Running Out of Work in the Age of AI
The Silicon Valley Canon, Circa 1998: A Stroll Down Software Memory Lane
Why The Rule of 40 is Becoming the Rule of 60 — and What You Can Do About It.
The Ten Most-Read Kellblog Posts in 2025
Kellblog Predictions for 2026
Fare Thee Well, Bobby
A Review of Courageous Marketing by Udi Ledergor
Your Buyer Has an “I Want” Song — Does Your Messaging?
The Era of Haves and Have-Nots
How To Navigate the Pipeline Crisis
The Startup Board’s Hippocratic Oath
Slides From My SaaS Metrics Palooza 2025 Session on Selling Work vs. Selling Software
Slides from Balderton Webinar on Aligning Product and GTM Using Customer Value Metrics
Whence Will Come Tomorrow’s Sellers?
Your ICP Starts as an Aspiration and Becomes a Regression
Smart Conversations by Ian Howells: A Must-Read Book on Where B2B Marketing Strategy Meets Generative AI
Aligning Product and Go-To-Market with Metrics
Navigating the Mythical Sea of Sameness
The First Rule of Messaging: When in Doubt, Be Clear
Who To Hire As The First Salesperson In Your Startup
“All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful.”
Three Ways To Get Fired as CEO
A CEO’s High-Level Guide to GTM Troubleshooting
Your Competitive Analyst Should Not Be Named Harvey Balls
Change Management and Selling Hope Along The Way
Transitioning from Founder-Led Sales: The “We Need More Schmedleys” Problem
How to Calculate Cost Per Opportunity
My Fourth Appearance on AI and The Future of Work
Think of Demandgen Like Any Other Sales Support Resource
You Can’t Eat Pipegen
Six Tips on Presenting to the Board of Directors
Kellblog Predictions for 2025
Appearance on ProducTea with Leah Tharin
The Paradox of Saying, “It’s Time To Sell The Company”
The Ten Most Read Kellblog Posts in 2024
Please God, Don’t Run Your Own Race
Board-Level Questions On The Marketing Budget
Why I’m Joining the Board of TechWolf
Why Your CFO Should Be The Customer Testimonial On Your Debt Provider’s Homepage
Five Success Principles For Startup Founders
The Proper Role of the Board Observer
Seven Messaging Lessons from the 2024 Election
Should Marketers Say “Business Outcomes”?
Video of My Appearance with Jason Lemkin on SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays
A Simple Rule For When To Consider Selling Your Startup
A Box of Rain Will Ease the Pain
The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics: Video Now Available
Design Your Organization for the Conflicts You Want to Hear About
Slides from SaaS Metrics Palooza 2024: The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics
Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead by Scott and Halligan: A Belated Book Review
Talking About the Numbers vs. Talking About the Business
Come to My Session at SaaS Metrics Palooza: The Impact of AI on SaaS Metrics
The “Idea Bake Sale” and Why It’s a Bad Idea to Have One
Back to Finance: Why I’m Joining the Board of Vic.ai
Why Great Marketers Look at Pipeline Coverage, Not Just Pipeline Generation
Hump? What Hump? Why You Should Listen When Someone Says You’re Doing It Wrong.
We Are Not The Same: The Obligatory Post on “Founder Mode”
You’ve Been Asked To Be a Startup Advisor: Now What?
The Four Key Questions About Every Angel Investment Opportunity
Slides from a Balderton Launched Go-To-Market Workshop
Does Your Startup Need a Patent Strategy?
The SaaS Talk 50th Episode Credits
Startup Growth Trajectories and the SaaS Mendoza Line
Go-To-Market Troubleshooting: Let’s Take It From The Top
Who, Me? The Brand Curmudgeon? Appearance on the Standout Startup Brands Podcast
Target Pipeline Coverage is Not the Inverse of Win Rate
Playing to Win vs. Playing to Make Plan: The Two Very Different Worlds of Silicon Valley
The Two Big Choices Enterprise Software Companies Make in Opening Japan
These People Aren’t Gods: How European Founders Can Stop Making The #1 Mistake in US Recruiting
Strategy as a Series of Beliefs
You’re an Operator and Maybe Don’t Even Know It
Does Your Marketing Pass the Duck Test?
The Impact of AI on Go-To-Market: Slides from my Balderton Event
Six Principles to Optimize Your Results and Your Career (Presentation Slides)
How to Detect if Your Startup Has a Faux Focus
Video of Balderton Webinar on Efficient Growth via Entering New Markets
Slides from Balderton Webinar on Entering New Markets, The Key to Efficient Growth
See You Wednesday for a Webinar on Efficient Growth Through New Market Expansion
Great Marketing Machines Are Like Costco
My Most Recent Appearance on 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Join Me for a Chat with Nick Mehta: How To Prevent Your Customer Success Team from Getting the Axe
Startup Century: A New Book on Technology Policy by Balderton’s James Wise
A Discussion of My 2024 Predictions on the AI and The Future of Work Podcast
Analyzing Core Messaging in the 2024 Election
Demystifying the Growth-Adjusted Enterprise Value to Revenue Multiple, and Introducing the ERG Ratio.
The One Question to Ask Before You Blow Up Your Customer Success Team
Kellblog Predictions for 2024
The Top 7 Marketing Metrics for a QBR or Board Meeting
Lessons from Playing with a Simple Quota Attainment Model
The Oft-Maligned Operating Partner and the Use of Tension Questions in Market Research
Some Marketers Use Data to End Conversations; Others Use Data to Start Them
Slides from Five Ways to Get Product and Marketing Working Together
Do Superachievers Read Business Books?
Appearance on Run The Numbers Podcast: A Startup CEO’s Guide to Board Meetings
A Friendly Reminder to Cost-Cutters: Keep the Company a Great Place to Work for Survivors
The Elements of a Good Apology
Four Lessons From the Carta Communications Train Wreck
Slides from SaaStock: What Founders Need to Know About Product Marketing
Does Your Startup Need a Sales Playbook or Just a Few Plays?
Come To My Sesssion at SaaStock Dublin: What Founders Need To Know About Product Marketing
Slides from SaaS Metrics Palooza 2023: How To Present SaaS Metrics Like a Pro
Video of my SaaStr 2023 Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics
The Keys to Nailing and Scaling Go-To-Market: Slides from my 10X CEO Accelerate Presentation
Slides From SaaStr 2023 Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics
Balderton Post on European vs. American Board Meeting Minutes
Come to my SaaStr Annual Presentation: The Strategic Use and Abuse of SaaS Metrics
Three Marketing Lessons from The Realm of Politics
PLG Resources and Wrap-Up
Appearance on Data Radicals: Frameworks and the Art of Simplification
The CEO Job Description: In Reductionist Form
What Do “Pipeline Coverage” and “Forecast” Mean When Your Sales Cycle is 30 Days?
Video of the Balderton SaaS Metrics That Matter Webinar
Interpreting The Insight 2023 Sales KPI Report
Slides from my Radia Accelerator Presentation: SaaS Metrics 101
Mark Tice Returns: It’s Time For SaaS Companies To Do A Channel Check.
Slides from my SaaStock Presentation: How To Connect Your C-Suite to the Ground Truth
Come to my SaaStock Presentation: How to Connect Your C-Suite to the Ground Truth
My Appearance on the Exit 5 Podcast: Traits of a High-Performing CMO
Bottle the Love: Selling Customer Satisfaction vs. Vision
Register for Balderton SaaS Metrics That Matter Webinar on June 28, 2023
Slides from the Balderton Version of Metrics That Matter in 2023
Fly the Aircraft First: The Potentially Paralyzing Effects of Fundraising
Appearance on The SaaS Growth Hub Podcast on Founder Sales Knowledge and Sales & Marketing Alignment
Slides and Video From SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays: The 7 Things Founders Should Know About Sales.
ChatGPT Writes a Kellblog Post: The Indispensable Role of Marketing in the Age of the Customer
How to Simplify Your Marketing Funnel: Seeing the Unit Cost Forest for the Conversion Rates Trees
The Seven Things Founders Need to Know About Sales: SaaStr Workshop Wednesdays, 5/3 at 10am Pacific
Don’t Hide Behind Ending ARR
Write Actionable Emails! (aka, If You’re Going to Make a Proposal, Make One)
Metrics That Matter in 2023: My KiwiSaaS Presentation Slides
My Thoughts on the SVB Meltdown
Is a Dream a Lie if It Don’t Come True? Founders, Aspirations, and Company Potential
The Key to Making Market Research Actionable, Part II
The Key to Making Market Research Actionable
Appearance on the SaaS Revolution Podcast
My SaaS Metrics Syllabus
Slides from the Balderton Founder’s Guide to B2B Sales Webinar
A Tale of Two Companies: The Professional Services Paradox
Kellblog Predictions for 2023
Video of my SaaStock Presentation: Strategies and Tactics to Drive GTM Efficiency
Appearance on the AI and the Future of Work Podcast
Slides and Video Link for Emerging Stronger from the Downturn Webinar
Emerging Stronger from the Downturn Than You Went In — A Balderton Webinar
Fighting Envelopment Strategies: What To Do When A Larger Company Tries to Absorb Your Category
How to Present an Operating Plan to your Board
The Balderton Founder’s Guide to B2B Sales
How to Fix a Broken Go-To-Market Motion Using a Steady-State Funnel
Key Takeaways from the 2022 KeyBanc SaaS Metrics Survey
Slides from a CFO Summit on Leading and Lagging Indicators
Slides from my SaaStock Dublin Presentation on GTM Efficiency
The Mental Mapping from Annual to Monthly and Usage-Based SaaS Metrics
You Can’t Fix a CAC Payback Period: The Operator vs. Investor View of SaaS Metrics
Lazy NRR is Not NRR. Accept No Imitations or Subtitutes.
Slides from my SaaStock Workshop on US Expansion for European Startups
Did Your Board Order a Proposal or a Discussion?
The Decomposition of Marketing
Playing Bigger vs. Playing To Win: How Shall We Play the Marketing Strategy Game?
How Quickly Should You Grow to Key ARR Milestones? The Rule of 56789
The More Cons than Pros of the Backdoor Search
Crowdsourced Marketing: Hey, We Can Put on a Show!
Official Video of my SaaStr Europa Presentation
Everything You Need to Know About the CRO and CMO Working Relationship: In One Story
Practical Thoughts on Branding for Software Startups
The Top 5 Mistakes European Startups Make in US Expansion
SaaStr Europa Slides: The Top 5 Mistakes in Scale-Up
“You Don’t Want That!” — A Rant from Lance Walter on Product Management Communications
The Qualified Sales Leader: A Must-Read Book for Product-Oriented Founders
How and Where To Answer Three Basic Questions on Your Website
Talking Burn: Appearance on the Metric Stack Podcast on Cash Conversion Score and Related Metrics
Preview of My SaaStr Europa Talk: The Top 5 Scale-Up Mistakes
The Board Boss Delusion
The Pipeline Progression Chart: Why I Like It Better Than Just Tracking Rolling Four-Quarter Pipeline
How Should CEOs Answer the Question, “What Keeps You Up at Night?”
Marketing’s Uncomfortable Relationship with the Truth
Crash Course in Customer Success SaaS Metrics: Appearance on the ChurnZero podcast.
Understanding SaaS Marketing as an Investor — Appearance on The Novice Investor podcast
Traditional B2B Sales is Dead, Long Live the UCE?
The Sales/Marketing Expense Ratio
Appearance on the Precursive Podcast: The Role of Services in Today’s SaaS Market
Everything I’ve Learned About Recruiting and Interviewing
Why You Should Always Create Sales Opportunities at Zero Dollar Value
A CEO’s Guide to Marketing: My SaaStr 2021 Official Video
How to Lead a Strategic Board Discussion
How Much Should You Bet on Educating the Market?
Seed-Stage Positioning: Lock and Load
Why Execution Matters
Kellblog Predictions for 2022
Sorry, But Demo Is Not A Sales Cycle Stage
Named To Top 25 All-Time SaaStr Podcast, Twice
How To Build a Marketing Machine, Presentation from a Balderton Capital Meetup
Should Your Website Drive Prospects to a Demo?
How to Know if You Have the Right Executives on Your Leadership Team
My Perspectives on Growth (Presentation)
Are We Growing Fast Enough?
The Four Sources of Pipeline and The Balance Across Them
The Top Two, High-Level Questions About Sales (and Associated Metrics)
Video of my Presentation at SaaStr 2021: A CEO’s Guide to Marketing
Join me at SaaStock EMEA for “How to Make a Marketing Machine”
Slides from my SaaStr 2021 Presentation: A CEO’s Guide to Marketing
Preview of my SaaStr 2021 Session: A CEO’s Guide to Marketing
Why I’m Joining Balderton as an Executive-in-Residence (EIR)
The Triangle of Director Protections: D&O Insurance, Indemnification Agreements, and Charter Provisions
Appearance on the “Yes, And Marketing” Podcast
Core SaaS Metrics Interview at SaaSBoomi Now Available on the Orbit Shift Podcast
“The Board Brought Me In” Telltale
Diary of a Novice NED: A Look Inside the World of Independent Directors at Startups
B2B SaaS Metrics 2020 Benchmark Report: A Discussion with Ray Rike and The SaaS CFO
Tomorrow’s Product Power Breakfast with Paul Jozefak on Introducing SaaS as a Layer to Lighten the Legacy Load
Structuring the Organization and Duties of Product Marketing and Competitive Analysis
A Quick Critique of Clubhouse
SaaS Product Power Breakfast with Evan Kaplan of Influx Data
Pulse 2021 Slides: Net Dollar Retention (NDR) Benchmarks and Thoughts
Three People To Call When You Need Help with Positioning
How To Be A Good Independent Board Member
Private Equity Funcast: A Board Perspective on Peopleops
SaaS Product Power Breakfast with Stephanie McReynolds on Category Creation
Appearance on the Metrics That Measure Up Podcast
Navel Gazing, Market Research, and the Hypothesis File
A Ten-Point Sales Management Framework for Enterprise SaaS Startups
ABM is Not B2B and Other Rants on Account-Based Marketing
The Product Superpowers That Few Flex: Join Special Guest Brett Queener on the SaaS Product Power Breakfast
Using This/Next/All-Quarter Analysis To Understand Your Pipeline
Using To-Go Coverage to Better Understand Pipeline and Improve Forecasting
Using Triangulation Forecasts For Improved Forecast Accuracy and Better Conversations
The Three Un’s of Founders
What a Pipeline Coverage Target of >3x Says To Me
What is a Minimum Viable Product, Anyway? My Favorite MVP Analogy.
Congratulations to Nuxeo on its Acquisition by Hyland
My Two Appearances on the SaaShimi Podcast: Comprehensive SaaS Metrics Overview and Differences between PE and VC
What Are The Units On Your Lead SaaS Metric — And What Does That Say About Your Culture
Why I’m Advising Bluecore
Thoughts on Hiring Your First VP of Sales
What To Do When You Need Pipeline in a Hurry
Next-Generation Planning and Finance, A Broader and Slightly Deeper Look
Kellblog 2021 Predictions
An Epitaph for Intrapreneurship
The Holy Grail of Enterprise Sales: Is a Repeatable Sales Process Enough?
The Holy Grail of Enterprise Sales: Proving a Repeatable Sales Process
The Holy Grail of Enterprise Sales: Defining the Repeatable Sales Process
The Holy Grail of the Repeatable Sales Process: Is Repeatability Enough?
Chatting About Marketing: Slides from a PE Portfolio Company CEO Summit
The Key to Branding Success: Staying in Character
Marketing Targeting: It’s Not Just Where You Fish, It’s What You Put on the Hook
Should Your SDRs Look for Projects or Pain?
Unlearning As You Scale: Presentation from a VC Portfolio CEO Summit
What Exactly Do You Mean by Anal? Thoughts on Leadership and Self-Awareness
Foreword to The Next CMO: A Guide to Marketing Operational Excellence
Video of My SaaStr 2020 Presentation: Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention
Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention! Slides from my SaaStr 2020 Presentation
SaaStr 2020 Session Preview: Churn is Dead, Long Live Net Dollar Retention!
How To Get Sales and Marketing Working Together (Presentation)
Are We Due for a SaaSacre?
The Pipeline Chicken or Egg Problem
Book Review of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
Ten Pearls Of Enterprise Software Startup Wisdom From My Friend Mark Tice
Branded Features: Resist the Temptation
PMM Hive Interview, Marketing Strategy in Hot vs. Cold Markets
Why You Should Eliminate the Title “Implementation Consultant” from Your Startup
Congratulations, You’ve Created a Category. Now What?
Measuring Ramped and Steady-State Sales Productivity: The Rep Ramp Chart
Kellblog on SaaS Metrics, A Comprehensive Introduction Podcast
Appearance on the AI and the Future of Work Podcast with Dan Turchin
The First Three Slides of a SaaS Board Deck, with Company Key Metrics
Will Your CEO Search Produce the Best Candidate or the Least Objectionable?
On the Perils of Taking Advice from Successful Business People
Marketing Exists to Make Sales Easier
On Recruiting: The Must-Have / Nice-to-Have List
Should Customer Success Report into the CRO or the CEO?
The Zero-Sum Fallacy: ARR vs. Services
How Startup CEOs Should Think About the Coronavirus, Part III — Useful Links
A Missive to Marketing: Impose Simplicity
Stopping the Sales & Marketing Double Drowning
How Startup CEOs Should Think About the Coronavirus, Part II
How Startup CEOs Should Think About the Coronavirus
Does Enterprise SaaS Need a Same-Store Sales Metric?
How to Make and Use a Proper Sales Bookings Productivity and Quota Capacity Model
What To Do When Someone Says You’re Not Listening
Ten Questions Founder CEOs Should Always Be Able to Answer About Their Startups
Why Every Startup Needs an Inverted Demand Generation Funnel, Part III
The Evolution of Software Marketing: Hey Marketing, Go Get [This]!
Kellblog’s 10 Predictions for 2020
Why Every Startup Needs an Inverted Demand Generation Funnel, Part II
Why Every Startup Needs an Inverted Demand Generation Funnel, Part I
Should SDRs Report to Sales or Marketing?
A Historical Perspective on Why SAL and SQL Appear to be Defined Backwards
The Red Badge of Courage: Managing and Processing Failure in Silicon Valley
Number 7 on the All-Time Top SaaStr Podcasts: On the Importance of LTV/CAC
The Most Important Chart for Managing the Pipeline: The Opportunity Histogram
Do We Have Enough Pipeline? The One Simple Metric Many Folks Forget.
Whose Company Is It Anyway? Differences between Founders and Hired CEOs.
I’ve Got a Crazy Idea: How About We Focus on Next-Quarter’s Pipeline?
If Rebranding’s the Answer, What was the Question?
Joining the Profisee Board of Directors
My Appearance on the Private Equity Funcast
Avoiding the Ten-Year Stock Option Trap (and Other Stock-Option Considerations)
Things to Avoid in Selecting an Executive-Level Job at a Software Startup
Good CEO Habits: Proactively Update Your Board at the End of Every Quarter
New ARR and CAC in Price-Ramped vs. Auto-Expanding Deals
Stopping Inception Churn: The Prospective Customer Success Review
Ten Ways to Get the Most out of Conferences
Career Decisions: What To Look For In a Software Startup
Slides From My Presentation at a Private Equity S&M Summit
Appearance on the Twenty Minute VC: Financing Thoughts, The Private Equity Sales Process, and More
Communications Lessons from Mayor Pete
The Market Leader Play: How to Run It, How to Respond
The Board View: Slides From My Presentation at Host Perform 2019
The Rule of 40 — Down, But Not Out!
What’s the “Cause of Death” in Your Churn Reporting?
My Final Verdict on Multi-Year, Prepaid Deals
Reacting to Feedback as CEO
Is Another SaaSacre In The Offing?
The Two Dimensions of Startup Performance
The Introvert’s Guide to Glad-Handing
Are You Counting Payments as Renewals?
What It Takes to Make a Great SaaS Company
The Three Marketing Books All Founder/CEOs Should Read
Video of my SaaStr 2019 Presentation: The Five Questions Startup CEOs Worry About
Hiring Profiles: Step 0 of a Successful Onboarding Program
Let’s Take the Cult out of Silicon Valley Culture
Price Qualification: The Tiffany Way
Slides from My SaaStr Annual 2019 Presentation (5 Questions CEOs Struggle With)
Rule of 40 Glideslope Planning
SaaStr 2019 Presentation Preview: Five Questions SaaS CEO Wrestle With
An Update on the SaaS Rule of 40
Two Natural Reactions That Great Managers Suppress
Not in My Kitchen, You Don’t: Leaders as Norm Setters
Kellblog Predictions for 2019
The Next Chapter
A Simple Trick To Get Your CEO Closer to Your Team
Seven Books Not To Give the Boss for Christmas*
Host Analytics + Vector Capital = Growth
Should Your Startup Have a Quota Club? (And How Much to Spend on It.)
Lost and Founder: A Painful Yet Valuable Read
How To Present a Quarterly Sales Forecast to Your SaaS Company Board
Using "Win Themes" to Improve Your Sales Management and Increase Win Rates
The Three Types of Customer Success Manager
Video of my SaaStr 2018 Presentation: Ten Non-Obvious Things About Scaling SaaS
The Big Mistake You Might Be Making In Calculating Churn: Failing to Annualize Multi-Year ATR Churn Rates
The Use of Ramped Rep Equivalents (RREs) in Sales Analytics and Modeling
How To Sales Manage Upside and Unlikely Deals
Important Subtleties in Calculating Quarterly, Annual, and ATR-based Churn Rates
The Two Archetypal Marketing Messages: “Bags Fly Free” and “Soup is Good Food.”
The Domo S-1: Does the Emperor Have Clothes?
The Two Engines of SaaS: QCRs and DEVs
Talking Competition: Methinks Thou Doth Protest Too Much.
“Always Scrubbing the Pipeline” Means “Never Scrubbing the Pipeline.”
Bookings vs. Billings in a SaaS Company
The Leaky Bucket, Net New ARR, and the SaaS Growth Efficiency Index
My Appearance on DisrupTV Episode 100
The Question that CEOs Too Often Don’t Discuss with the Board
The Single Biggest Myth about MBOs and OKRs
My SaaStr 2018 Presentation: Ten Non-Obvious Things About Scaling SaaS
How to Walk From a Deal
My SaaStr Talk Abstract: 10 Non-Obvious Things About Scaling SaaS
Quota Over-assignment and Culture
Speaking of India: Five Lessons on India-Based Product Development
Eight Words that Can Limit Your Career: “Let Me Get Back To You On That”
Kellblog Predictions for 2018
Handling Conflict with the “Disagree and Commit” and “New Information” Principles
Using Pipeline Conversion Rates as Triangulation Forecasts
Using Time-Based Close Rates to Align Marketing Budgets with Sales Targets
Win Rates, Close Rates and Milestone vs. Cohort Analysis
Just Effing Demo
Don’t Let Product Management Turn Into “The Roadmap Guys”
Kellblog (Dave Kellogg) Featured on the Official SaaStr Podcast
Can You Solution Sell without Selling Solutions?
Are You a Challenging or Simply a Difficult Direct Report?
Simple Rules to Make It Easier To Build Your Startup's Board Deck
The SaaS Rule of 40
Detecting and Eliminating the Rolling Hairballs in your Sales Pipeline
A Look at the Tintri S-1
The Strategy Compiler: How To Avoid the “Great” Strategy You Couldn’t Execute
Dear Marketing: Stop Putting the Template Ahead of the Story
Blocking the End Run: Eleven Words to Reduce Politics in Your Organization
How to Train Your VP of Sales to Think About the Forecast
How To Get Your Startup a Halo
Why has Standalone Cloud BI been such a Tough Slog?
Do You Want to be Judged on Intentions or Results?
The Role of Professional Services in a SaaS Business
10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Moving into Management
The Dogshit Bar: A Memorable Market Research Concept
The Evolution of Marketing Thanks to SaaS
In-Memory Analytics: The Other Kind – A Key Success Factor for Your Career
Kellblog’s 2017 Predictions
A Fresh Look at How to Measure SaaS Churn Rates
SaaS Startup One-Slide Financials Dashboard
The Opportunity Cost of Debating Facts
How to Manage Your First Sales VP at a Startup
The Era of Consumer Deception: Why Do We Tolerate Such Price Opacity?
Win Them Alone, Lose Them Together
The Four Levers of SaaS
On Hiring: Promote Stars, Not Strangers
The Three Golden Rules of Feedback
How I Got One Marketing VP Job: A Quick Lesson
Lead Nurturing, Fast and Slow
We’re Not Buddies: Thoughts on Managers Too Preoccupied with Being Liked
You Can Never Fire Someone Too Early
Whose Team Is It Anyway? The 90 Day Rule.
Can the Media Please Stop Referring to Company Size by Valuation?
Myths of the Headless Company
The Worst Interviewing Advice Ever
Marketing is Too Important to be Left to the Marketing Department
Introducing a New SaaS Metric: The Hype Factor
Too Much Money Makes You Stupid — Let’s Make an Alec Baldwin Viral Video
CAC Payback Period: The Most Misunderstood SaaS Metric
Thoughts on Jeff Weiner’s “Pay No Attention to the Stock” Message
Book Review: From Impossible to Inevitable
The SaaSacre Part II: Time for the Rebound?
SaaS Stocks: How Much Punishment is in Store?
How To Run a Sales Kickoff
The CEO Should Be the Most Bullish Person on the Future of the Company
Kellblog Predictions for 2016
The Great Reckoning: Thoughts on the Deflation of Technology Bubble 2.0
Theoretical TCV: A Necessary New SaaS Metric?
The Best Work Parable
What Marketing Costs Should be Included in CAC Calculations?
The Perils of Measuring a SaaS Business on Total Contract Value (TCV)
Six Words That Can Make or Break Your Credibility: “I’ll Get It To You Tomorrow”
Curse of the Megaround: Expectations and Power
I Don’t Want to Talk to You Anymore
My Favorite Quotes on Planning
Stop Making the #1 Mistake in Presentations
Managing Change: The Sailboat Tack Principle
Are Your Managers Good Enough? A Simple Test
Collected Wisdom on Business and Life from the HBS Class of 1963
The Second Agenda: Why No Executive Should Ever Have One
Please Give Me a 10: Interpreting Customer Satisfaction Surveys in an Era of Bias
Bottom-Fishing Acquisitions and Catching Falling Knives
The Curse of the Megaround
Career Advice: Simplifiers Go Far, Complexifiers Get Stuck
Conflict Avoidance Causes Conflict: Managers Too Nice for Their own Good
Survivor Bias in Churn Calculations: Say It’s Not So!
One More Time: What Drives SaaS Company Valuation? Growth!!
A Disney Parking Lot Attendant Gets More Training than Your Typical $250K Enterprise Sales Rep: Thoughts on Bootcamps
Career Development: What It Really Means to be a Manager, Director, or VP
Why Can't PR People Do Math?
Managing the Fundamental Tension in Marketing
Kellblog Ten Predictions for 2015
Some High-Tech Career Counseling Tips
CFOs: More Strategic Than Ever
It Ain’t Easy Making Money in Open Source: Thoughts on the Hortonworks S-1
Don’t Be Enslaved by Metrics
Churn: Net-First or Sum-First?
Make a Plan That You Can Beat
Why I’m Against Succession Planning at Startups
Average Contract Duration and SaaS Renewals: All Is Not As It Appears
Thoughts on Hiring: Working for TBH
A Missive to Human Resources (HR)
The Ultimate SaaS Metric: The Customer Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost Ratio (LTV/CAC)
You Can’t Analyze Churn by Analyzing Churn
Why, as CEO, I Love Driver-Based Planning
Ten Classic Business Books for Entrepreneurs / Startup Founders
Product is Not a Four-Letter Word
The Box S-1, Delayed IPO, and the Genius of Tien Tzuo
Woe is Media: Lessons from Tidemark’s PR
A Look at the Zendesk S-1 (IPO)
If Marc Benioff Carried a Rabbit’s Foot, Would You?
Strategic Focus: I’m Just Trying to Get My Space Together
Burn Baby Burn: A Look at the Box S-1
To Pre-Meet Or Not To Pre-Meet: That Is The Question
The Old “Don’t Bring Up a Problem Unless You Have a Solution” Rule
Is Salesforce / Siebel a Classic Disruption Case?
10 Things Never To Do at a Business Dinner
Did You Just Make a Plan or a Budget?
Kellblog’s 10 Predictions for 2014
The Pillorying of MarkLogic: Why Selling Disruptive Technology To the Government is Hard and Risky
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Ratio: Another Subtle SaaS Metric
Thoughts on MongoDB’s Humongous $150M Round
Measuring SaaS Renewal Rates: Way More Than Meets the Eye
5 Things Executives Should Say More About The Budget
Sales is from Mars and Engineering is from Venus
How Much Does My General Manager Need to Know About My Department?
A Few of My Favorite Quotes
Management and Bill Walsh’s Three Types of Players
What To Do If You're Winning the Product Evaluation But Losing the Deal
What Drives SaaS Company Valuation? Growth!
The "Dumb VC" Controversy: Financial vs. Operating VCs
Lifers, FBI guys, and Acquired CEOs
The Self-Fulfilling 3x Pipeline Coverage Prophecy
Startup CEOs and the Three Doors
Kellblog 2.0
The Importance of Nurture in Nascent Markets
The Simple, Definitive One-Step Hot Market Test
The Future of the Company
The Right Time To Raise Money At A Startup
The Independently Wealthy Salesperson
The One Thing To Get Done Before Sales Kickoff
The One Key to Dealing with Senior Executives: Answer the Question!
Two Bosses Are Better Than One: Thoughts on the Virtues of Matrixed Organizations
First-Day Stock Price Appreciation is Not the Correct Measure of IPO Success
Endeca and The Butterfly Effect
Thoughts on the Jive Registration Statement (S-1) and Initial Public Offering (IPO)
Will Oracle or IBM Start a Bidding War with HP over Autonomy?
HP Rumored To Be Buying UK’s Autonomy for $10.2B
A Note to the Results-Oriented: Just Be Nice
Twelve Questions Executives Can Ask To Improve Decision Making
Bobby Fischer Applied to Silicon Valley: Pattern Matching vs. Good Moves
Marketing Vision While Selling Product: The 3+1 Repositioning
The Silicon Valley Strategic “Pivot”
What the CEO Really Thinks of Marketing (And 5 Things You Can Do About It)
Why Palantir Makes My Head Hurt
Open Source Business Models, Revisited
Interest Misalignments in Silicon Valley Startups
A Fun Taxonomy of Technology Executives
The Open Source Software Paradox
If We Can’t Have Repeatable Success, Can We At Least Have Repeatable Failure?
An Amazing Story about Twitter and the Japan Earthquake
Business Strategy and The Wrong Medicine
Traits of Next-Generation BI (Business Intelligence)
Teradata to Acquire Aster Data
Seating Chart for President Obama’s Silicon Valley Tech Titans Dinner
Strategic Thoughts on Finding a Job in Silicon Valley
Leo’s Pawn to King Four: HP To Acquire Vertica (Updated)
A Note to the CEO: Drive the Board of Directors
A Note to Public Relations: Be Credible and Check Your Math
Perpetual Money vs. Perpetual License: Subscription, SaaS, and Perpetual Business Models
You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello
The Opportunity Quality / Execution Quadrant
The Loose Coupling of Decisions and Outcomes
Corporate Trust and the Little Things: 2.5 Servings per Package
A Short Missive on Culture
The 20th Century Called. It Wants Its Relational Database Back.
Defending Weak People
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs
I Wanna Be A Billionaire
More Emergent Strategies: Groupon, Greendot
Win-Seeking vs. Perceived Stupidity Avoidance
The Mythical World-Class Manager
Twelve Things Good Bosses Believe
Confusion Is The Enemy and Inconsistency is His Ally
EMC Acquires Data Warehouse Vendor Greenplum; Creates New "Data Computing" Product Division
Seeing Both Sides of an Issue
Beware the Spectacular B-Round Valuation
Six Thoughts on The NoSQL Movement
Questioning the Tech Wunderkind Image
Marketing Abuse: The Word "Partnership"
The Information Continuum and the Three Types of Subtly Semi-Structured Information
Thoughts on the Qlik Technologies (QlikTech) IPO
Yes, Virginia, MarkLogic is a NoSQL System
The Fit or Fat Startup
Classifying Database Management Systems: Regular and NoSQL
Five Rules for Competing with Giants
Veterans vs. Up-and-Comers in Startups
The Database Tea Party: The NoSQL Movement
How To Make a Great Corporate Blog
Coming Friday 1/29/10: Kellblog!
Six Things Publishers Should Be Able To Do With Content
Does Benihana Mean Birthday or Teppanyaki?
ZL vs. Gartner: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again
The Great Dysfunctional Corporate Budgeting Process
Marketing Tip of the Day: Never Say "Very"
Keeping Up With The Conversation
Judge Does Not Decide on Dimissing ZL Technologies Complaint Against Gartner
Gartner Sued Over Magic Quadrant for Alleged Damages of $132M plus Punitives of $1.3B
Dear CIO: Stop Writing Big Checks for Commodity (Database) Software
DHT, Listen To Your Heart, and Flanking Strategy
The Perils of Text-Only Search
NY Times Calls Out Tom Siebel on Death of IT Claims
Netflix’s 128 Slides on Culture. Awesome.
How Do You Query a Key-Value Store Anyway?
Two Great Posts on Media Industry Disruption
New York Times on the Changing Ways of Silicon Valley PR
Stonebraker: Send Relational DBMSs to the Home for Tired Software
Kedrosky: VC Will Be Cut in Half
Entrepreneurship: Not Just for 20 Somethings
A Venn Diagram for Business Success
LogMeIn Files (Again) for IPO
The First Rule of Data Centers: Don't Talk About Data Centers
Things Not To Do: Declare Your Category Dead
Things a VC Will Never Say
Critical Thinkers vs. Critics
Re-Inventing Business Intelligence
My Favorite Wolfram Alpha Query
OpenTable Has Been Chosen: A Successful IPO
Precision, Confidence, and When The Dead Peaked
End of the IPO Drought in Sight?
10 Lessons from a Failed Startup
Too Funny: Twitter Founders Interviewed in 140-Character Responses
Mind of the CEO: Steve Jobs Deposition
The Madness of Mobs: Twitter and Swine Flu
The Downturn: Accelerating the Digital Publishing Transition
A Crack in the IPO Window: Rosetta Stone IPO
Regulating Venture Capital? Methinks Not.
Welcome Uptick in Venture Capitalist Confidence
Amazon Elastic MapReduce: Power to Burn, On Demand
If At First You Don't Succeed, Should You Try, Try Again?
Oracle's Become Computer Associates (CA)
Top Resources for Understanding The Google Book Settlement
Venture Capital Confidence at Record Low
Google Settlement: Implications for Publishers White Paper
Notes from Tom Siebel's Speech to the Alliance of Chief Executives
MySQL’s Mickos to Leave Sun
A Lone Voice in the Wild: OpenTable Files for IPO
Why Google Employees Quit
Lervik Resigns from Microsoft/Fast (Updated)
Correlations between Grateful Dead Fan Concert and Online Behavior
Goldman Sachs Smacks Software Stocks
New York Times on Risk Mismanagement
VCs Say 2009 Will Be a Tough Year
2008: The Year Internet Surpassed Newspapers
FBI Issues Code-Breaking Challenge
Marketers Beware: Even Dilbert Says Everything is a Platform
Surowiecki on Newspapers
'Twas the Night Before the Big Demo
30-Year Low in IPOs Suggests Pent-Up Demand
Rise Early, Work Hard, and Strike Oil
Two Peoples Separated By A Common Language
Checkout Google Flu Trends
Freakonomics: A Must Read
Should We Rename the 401K the 201K?
ElfYourself’s 7261-Word Terms of Service
Is Venture Capital Broken?
A New Media Plan for Weathering the Storm
Unlearning the Relational Model
The Valley and the Bust
Oracle Buys Tacit's IP
Web 2.Over?
The Semantic Web Pitch by Nova Spivack
The Frugal Future
Intrade Prediction Markets
To SaaS or Not To SaaS: That is the Question
How Big is Big? Oracle’s Largest Data Warehouses
Venture Capital: Quaint by Comparison
Using Agile Methodologies Presentation
Bubblenomics: The Financial Mess from an Investor Perspective
Built to IPO, Flip, or Last?
The Specialized Database Argument: Performance
Startup Zeitgeist
Krugman on the Grateful Dead as a Business Model
The Never-Ending Fast Search Story
Thoughts on Category Creation and Information Access Platforms [Revised]
Alfresco: A+ in Positioning as the SharePoint Alternative
Cuil vs. SearchMe, Plus A Rant On Powerset
Should My CEO Have a Ghost-Written Blog?
Happiness as a Business Model
The Entrepreneur Age Myth
Liautaud Lands as General Partner at Balderton
The Convera Transition: 1Q09 Results (Updated)
Microsoft Document Interop Initiative Video
Fast Troubles Linger
Coverage of CMO Club Panel Session
Moritz Says Watch Out for Hot Air and Arrogance
Another Burned Unveiler: The UK’s OGC
User Conferences, Pigs, Wigs, and Lipstick
QlikView: A Return to Simple
Honey I Shrunk The Company, II: Convera's 4Q08 Results
Or-Die Networks: Verticalizing Vertical Search
Yahoo Investor Deck: Future Value and the Microsoft Deal
Documentum Post DeWalt: One Year Later
Visualizing Warren Buffet's 2007 Shareholder Letter
SAP / Business Objects 101
Tim 1.0 on Web 3.0 (The Semantic Web)
How to Develop a Marketing Message
Tim O'Reilly on Free
Tufte on the iPhone
Google and Autonomy Spat, Round II
Fast Search to Restate 2006 Results (As Predicted)
Sun Buys MySQL for $1B
EMC Acquires Document Sciences for $85M
Microsoft Bids $1.2B for Fast Search and Transfer
Facebook News Parody Video
DBMS in the Cloud: Amazon SimpleDB
The Demise of Closed-Source RDBMSs?
Google as Publisher: The Grassy Knol
Your Web Search History: Worth a Look
Research 2.0 Software Trends Update
Digitization And Its Discontents
The Death of E-Mail: Greatly Exaggerated
Forget BI: Go With Your Gut
A Bottom-Up Education in Venture Capital
New Conglomerates: After the Deluge
LinkedIn Growing Faster than Facebook
As Predicted, IBM Buys Cognos (for $4.9B)
SQL/XQuery Franglais Frankenqueries
Why Thomas Keller Loves In-N-Out Burger
Fast Forgets Headline and Body Copy Need Linkage
Death to Death By PowerPoint
Software Consolidation: Modern Conglomerates?
Fast Search Announces $100M Net Loss in Q3 07
Paul Kedrosky Presentation on Venture Capital and Catastrophism
The End of an Architectural Era
Web 2.0 Summit: Evan Williams
Convera Update: What Happens When You Sell All Your Revenue?
The Economist on Lap Dances
Au Revoir Business Objects, Bonjour SAP
The Powerset Launch: Beware "The Next" Positioning
Fooled By Randomness
Parsing The Unparseable: Miss Teen South Carolina’s Answer
Fast Search Salacious Wikipedia Edits
Lazy XML Enrichment
Rethinking Crossing the Chasm
Fun High-Tech Cliches
Fast Search: The Blood-Letting Begins
The Price of Inxight: $76M
Highlights from the 2Q07 Software Equity Report
The Fast Search Train Wreck: Who's Accountable?
Plight of the Single-Digit Millionaire
Crushing Butterflies: Answers Whacked by Google Algorithm Change
More on Fast's "Extensive" Profit Warning
17 Search Innovations Outside Google
Fast Search & Transfer Warns Big Time
The 2007 Web Trend Map, Version 2.0
The Google – Autonomy Spat
PR Oddities on the EMC X-Hive Deal
Is Blogging Dead?
Stonebraker's "One Size Fits All" Papers
Postini Snatched Off IPO Track By Google
The Relevancy Quest
The Web 2.0 Opportunity for Publishers
Enterprise Search Crisis
Quick Take: Business Objects Acquires Inxight
Notes from Tim O'Reilly Keynote Address
Change is Good: You Go First
Web Applications: The Virtues of Top-to-Bottom XML
Valleywag’s Hype Cycle
Scribd: YouTube for Documents
Autonomy Hires Fast's Convera Guys. Huh?
Honey, I Shrunk the Company: Convera Sells Retrievalware to Fast
Netezza Files To Go Public
What's a Column-Oriented DBMS?
Open Secrets
The High Cost of Ineffective Search
Oracle Acquires Hyperion: BI Enters Wave 2 Consolidation
Best of Mark Logic CEO Blog
Rule 1 of Database Performance
Moritz Tops Forbes Midas List
France without Johnny?
Restoring Serendipity to the Web
Quaero: Chirac’s Waterloo
Search Engine as Implemented in MarkLogic
What's At The Center of Your Content Architecture?
Pushing 1994 Hot Buttons
Give Me Back My Google
The “Content Is Ancillary” Test
Stock Options: It’s A Darn Shame
Sequoia Hits Again: YouTube Sells for $1.65B
Fingerprinting Content
Deconstructing Databases
Ten Geek Business Myths
Knowledge is Good
The Sad State of Software Marketing
Gallic Subtlety: Branding, MarkLogic, and Mark Logic
You Are What You Search
Parallel Evolution: ECM and BI
Thoughts on Blink
Hope and Agility: The Revlon Test
Is Silicon Valley Reproducible?
On Branded Features
Pimp My Ride: Jacked-Up Relational vs. Special-Purpose DBMSs
On Classification: There Are Two Types of People
Taxonomies and Tags
Missed Step in Procedure Costs USAF $6.7M
Half Man, Half Machine, All Cop
Half Your Advertising Budget is Wasted
Ingres: Can You Ever Go Back?
Web 2.0: More Than A Buzzword?
MarkLogic: DBMS or search engine?
Flying Airplanes — or Documents?
Enterprise Search: Nascent or Just Small
Unlikely Foes: Custom Publishing and Enterprise Search
Gartner’s Death of the Database
The First Step’s A Doozy
Don't Trust Anyone Over 30
A Mission From Codd
Uh, Oh — It’s Magic
The Bifurcation of Search
We Seek The Grail
Lessons From WinFS
Square Pegs and Round Holes
Introduction and One-Year Retrospective