Richard Blundell is a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor who helps B2B startups win by getting them uncomfortably narrow and solving critical problems. He also believes that startup founders are heroes, and recently published a book trying to help them avoid common mistakes and have the best chance of putting a dent in the universe. We discussed his approach, and what on Earth he's got against product managers.
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1. Your best chance to win in B2B is to get "uncomfortably narrow" and solve a visceral problem
Startup founders often start off spraying and praying, hoping to get any traction at all and start to build their revenue. This is understandable, but generally a mistake. It's important to start off way more narrow than feels comfortable and have a really solid plan to get your next 25 customers. Everything else can follow.
2. It's easy to get misaligned and lose sight of your core value propositionEven when organisations start off with a solid value proposition, this can change over time. But, in any case, one of the main problems with startups slowing down (or failing to scale up) is often not a lack of sales ability, but a lack of fundamental GTM narrative. You need to fix it upstream.
3. Startup founders are heroes...Startup founders put everything on the line to bring a sometimes impossible-seeming vision to fruition. It's easy to criticise them when things are going wrong, but no one has invested more time and effort into their startup than them.
4. ... but even heroes have weaknessesIt's important for founders to be self-reflective and understand their own weak spots. In some cases, this is the first leadership position they've ever held. In other cases, they'll have glaring gaps based on their own past experience. It's OK to have gaps! But, it's important to be honest about the gaps and get the right people to help you.
5. Your first hire at a B2B startup shouldn't be a Head of Sales (or a Product Manager!)It's tempting to get a seasoned seller into the business to get the numbers in but, actually, there's an even more crucial role that you need to hire first. Listen to the episode to find out who, but it's not a product manager - this can come later after you've got a foothold in the market and the founder can no longer scale.
Buy "The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders""There are few people we admire more than the Founders and Leaders of software companies who have the courage, determination and, some might say, sheer madness to put their livelihoods and reputation on the line, to leave their own ‘dent in the universe’. It's a day to day, up at dawn, pride swallowing siege to lead such a business. And we know this for a fact because we’ve walked in your shoes many times. Over the last 25 years, we’ve been involved in the start-up, scale up and exit of several successful technology businesses, that between them have realized close to billion dollars of shareholder value. But along the way we've also had more than our fair share of disappointments and have the mental scars and bruising to prove it. We’ve made mistakes and fallen in what felt like bottomless pits. But fascinatingly enough, we learned as much from the ones that didn’t work, as we did from the successes. It’s these lessons which we thought we'd share in this book."
Check it out on Amazon.
Contact RichardYou can catch up with Richard on LinkedIn or visit Vencha.
Avoiding the agency trap & ADHD in Product (with Janna Bastow, CEO ProdPad, co-founder Mind the Product)
Lifelong learning & the perils of time-based roadmaps (with Andrea Saez, Product Growth & Education @ ProdPad)
Managing Tension in Product Management (with Marc Abraham, author & Head of Product @ ASOS.com)
Product Processes & the Importance of Work / Life Balance (with Busayomi Omotosho, PM @ Softcom)
Growing a PM career & the importance of side hustles (with Victoria Tkatch, Senior PM @ Sonos)
Technical Product Management & the importance of mentorship (with Mark Yamashita, Technical PM @ Sensibill)
API Product Management & mountain climbing as a metaphor (with Elina Sokolovska, PM @ Flux)
AI Product Management & The Importance of Communication (with Mark Graham, Lead PM @ Sharktower)
Entrepreneurship & being a founder (with Matt Wilkinson, Founder @ Zenquiries)
The role of education in leadership (with Mac Maistrelli, Engineering Leader @ Blocket)
Building inclusive products for all (with Nidhi Wadmark, PM @ PayPal)
Making yourself heard in the workplace (with Priyanka Naik, Growth PM @ Advarisk)
Networking to start your Product career (with Anna Lieberman, aspiring PM)
Using your experience to teach the next generation (with Maanas Bukkuri, PM and educator)
Putting users back at the heart of UX (with Dr Nick Fine PhD, UX consultant)
Being an AI Product Manager (with Pouya Jamshidiat, author & Senior PO at Eagle Genomics)
Getting started in Product (with Becca Vibert, Product School speaker & PM @ Fiit)
Product leadership & how heroism doesn't scale (with Saeed Khan, product consultant @ Transformation Labs)
How to do UX in sextech (with Ansh Bagri, UX @ Vibio)
Networking, communication & growth mindset (with Kristy Olinger, podcast host & credit card PM at Citizens Bank)
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