I review hundreds of pitch decks every year. The ones that get i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's right stand out immediately.
When I first tried scaling our sales team, I failed miserably. It wasn't until we implemented sales forecasting that everything clicked. Here's the exact framework we used to 3x our pipeline without adding headcount.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
Most people approach i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's with assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on. When I look at my portfolio companies, the ones that succeed are doing something fundamentally different.
The first thing to understand is that the data tells a different story than your gut. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
At RemoteTeam, we learned this the hard way. We spent months going down the wrong path before realizing that most founders overthink this and underspend on execution. Once we made the switch, everything changed.
The Counterintuitive Truth
Here's what surprised me most about i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's: the best practitioners do less, not more.
When I was building MovieLaLa, we tried to do everything at once. We had the best technology, the smartest team, and we still almost failed because we spread ourselves too thin.
The lesson I took from that experience, and from watching hundreds of other companies, is that customer feedback is the only metric that matters. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
What I Tell Founders
When a founder in my portfolio asks me about i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's, I usually start with three questions:
- What's your timeline? Because the right approach for a company with 6 months of runway is very different from one with 3 years.
- What have you already tried? Most founders have tried something. Understanding what didn't work is often more valuable than knowing what might.
- Who on your team owns this? If the answer is "everyone" or "no one," that's your first problem to solve.
These questions seem simple but they reveal a lot about where a company actually stands.
This connects to broader themes around sales forecasting AI, AI CRM, outbound AI that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Final Thoughts
After two exits, 200+ investments, and more mistakes than I can count, here's what I know for sure about i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's: there are no shortcuts, but there are smarter paths.
The smartest founders I work with treat i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's as a competitive advantage, not a checkbox. They invest in it early, measure it obsessively, and never stop improving.
If you're just getting started with i spent 13 years building sales teams. here's, don't be intimidated. Everyone starts somewhere. The key is to start with the right mindset and the right framework, and then execute like your company depends on it. Because it probably does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.