Enterprise revenue & go-to-market

Go-to-market strategy: No single playbook

Every company I’ve joined needed a different go-to-market. MySQL needed a way to sell a free product to enterprises. HAProxy needed its first commercial model. OffSec needed to find the enterprise behind the individual buyer. Conductor needed someone to find out why growth had slowed.

I don’t arrive with a template. Great companies are built on the shoulders of giants, by a team with clear goals and shared definitions. Together we study the market, test what we believe, and build what this company needs at this stage. Then we change it when the evidence changes.

Diagnose before prescribing

I start by listening and measuring. I talk with customers, sellers, product and marketing, and I trace the funnel from first touch to renewal. Early on, we agree on shared definitions, so sales, marketing, product and finance measure the same things the same way. The goal is to find the real constraint before deciding what to fix.

At Conductor, the pressure was to fix sales. The full-funnel analysis showed sales, marketing and customer success were the strongest parts of the business. The constraint was the product.

Treat new markets as experiments

Some parts of a go-to-market can’t be planned up front. A new segment, region or route to market starts as an experiment: a small team, a clear hypothesis and an agreed measure of success. We test, measure and adjust, then put more behind what works.

At MySQL, there was no playbook for selling open source to enterprises beyond Red Hat, so we built our own licensing model and sales process by trying, learning and refining. At OffSec, we started enterprise sales with two sellers so we could compare results and learn what worked before expanding the team.

Let the market set the sales approach

Open-source and product-led adoption, direct enterprise sales, inside sales, channels, OEM and ISV partners, and government each need different conversations, contracts and expertise. I choose the approach for each segment instead of forcing one model on all of them.

At MySQL, that meant splitting OEM from enterprise so each had a dedicated team. At OffSec, it meant separate enterprise, public-sector and partner approaches on top of an established web business.

The strategy also has to say what we won’t do yet: which segments, regions and routes to market wait until the business can support them.

Shape the offer with product and marketing

Positioning, pricing and packaging decide what the sales team can win, and they stay hypotheses until customers prove them. I work closely with product and marketing so the offer makes sense to the buyer and supports the way the team sells.

At MySQL, the free edition set the bar, so the paid subscription had to earn its price. At OffSec, we developed volume options, contract terms and license administration as organizational buyers showed us what they needed.

Build the organization the stage requires

Sometimes the job is hands-on: designing the first commercial model with a founder and early customers, as at HAProxy, or hiring the first sellers, as at MongoDB. Sometimes it’s an established organization that needs to be restructured: at Conductor, three segment-aligned selling teams fed by a large BDR team. Either way, it takes a team. I add capacity, specialists and management as the evidence supports it.

Own what happens after the sale

Onboarding, adoption, renewal and expansion need clear ownership and good handoffs. At OffSec, sales owned commercial renewals and expansion, working with customer success on program health and customer value.

Stay nimble as the business matures

As we define and build the market, the team’s capabilities and the maturity of the business, the plan has to move with what we learn. Qualification standards, stage criteria, CRM and forecasting show what’s working. I use that evidence to revisit market choices, resources and the sales approach, and to decide which experiments become the way we operate.

The right go-to-market fits the company’s market, product and stage. My job is to find it with the team, build it, and change it when the evidence says to.