Make people get what you build.

Learn, build, judge, ship: What to look for in your first (AI) marketer

I've worked with 100+ startups over the past 13 years and led growth and marketing at Pinecone from pre-seed to $1B+ valuation. These days, when I talk to founders about hiring the same conversation keeps coming up: they're not sure what to look for in their

Do it in jeans first

It was six months after my trek through the cloud forests of Peru when I learned I'm not supposed to hike in jeans. At least it's what I was told, on a different mountain range and continent, by a Seattleite guide who volunteered to lead a

After four years at Pinecone, I'm back to consulting

After helping Pinecone go from an unknown pre-seed company to a household name in the AI space, I'm returning to independent consulting (and writing). Mission-driven In 2013, the same year I started consulting, I got the idea to run the New York City marathon. That idea turned into

Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better

You know the nagging feeling that your product, project, or company has become more complicated than it needs to be? You can solve many problems and get better results by doing something unthinkable to many: removing parts that once seemed essential. My crusade against complexity continues with this short story

Would Anything (of Value) Be Lost?

“Wabl” is a principle I instill in my own and my team's work. (Pronounced like “wobble”.) I want to share it with you because it could help you do better work with less time and agony. When you review some work — like code, a strategy, an architecture, a

Being Swamped is Normal and Not Impressive

Being swamped — overwhelmed by stuff to do — is the default state of being within a startup. There's always more to do than time to do it, and the list keeps growing. Everyone else working at every other startup feels this too. Even if it doesn't look

Signups Shmainups

Signups are a lousy measure of growth. They're unreliable and too far removed from actual business goals. If you have a goal for reaching some number of signups, I suggest defining and tracking activations instead. Here's why, and how… 1. Signups are unreliable I'm

The First Pancake

Everyone who joins my team is required to push something to production within three days. Some people freeze up upon hearing this on their first day, either from imagining the amount of work they’ll need to squeeze into the next 72 hours or from thinking I’ve lost my

I Changed My Mind About Product-Led Growth

Whether it was our first call or our hundredth, founders inevitably asked me whether they should market and sell their enterprise software to buyers/executives (top-down) or to users (bottom-up). My view, which only strengthened every time I uttered it, was this: Marketing and selling to users is just another,

I am Joining Pinecone

After consulting enterprise software startups on marketing for nearly eight years, I am joining Pinecone as VP of Marketing. Consulting felt like a thrill the year I started, with a short runway, high stakes, and more determination than relevant work experience. In the years since then it felt like a

Looks vs Results

Making things look nice can take a long time, either due to lack of resources or abundance of opinions. This could delay launches, frustrate people, and waste precious energy. Those are high costs for startups or companies hoping to move fast. Is it worth it? Long ago I got fed

Overview of Product-Led Growth (PLG)

Product-led growth (PLG) accelerates the pace of growth just like DevOps accelerates the pace of product development and deployment. Very soon, running an enterprise software company without PLG will be as unthinkable as running one today without DevOps. Definitions of Product-Led Growth As with any emerging methodology, there is no