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.
Adam & Jason Talk All About Product Strategy (with Adam Thomas & Me, Two Product Management Talking Heads)
The Power of Storytelling for Cross-Functional Alignment (with Ronke Majekodunmi, Director of Product Management @ Promevo)
OKRs: The Gateway Drug to Agility & Good Product Management (with Jeff Gothelf, Product Management Consultant & Co-author ”Lean UX” )
Getting the GIST of Evidence-Guided Product Development (with Itamar Gilad, Product Management coach, speaker and author)
Practice Makes Perfect: Embracing the Messy Reality of Product Management (with Matt LeMay, Product Management Consultant & Author ”Product Management in Practice”)
Going Global! When and How to Take your Product International (with Chui Chui Tan, International Growth Adviser & Director @ Beyō Global)
Helping Tech Teams Get Closer to ”The Business” with Effective Conversations (with Douglas Squirrel, Founder @ Squirrel Squared & Co-Author ”Agile Conversations”)
The Five Dysfunctions of Product Management Teams (with Saeed Khan, Founder @ Transformation Labs)
OKIP LIVE! Is Product/Market Fit Really Dead, or Just Resting? (with Andrea Saez & Dave Martin, Right To Left)
Learning the Bedrock Skills of Innovators & Entrepreneurs (with Bob Moesta, Co-creator of the Jobs to be Done Framework & Author ”Learning to Build”)
Using The Power of Community to Help you Thrive in a Generalist World (with Milly Tamati, Founder @ Generalist World)
Making Sure you REALLY Know your Customers and Pulling out of Growth Stalls (with Adrienne Barnes, Founder @ Best Buyer Persona)
Team Change is Inevitable - What’s Important is How we Respond to It (with Heidi Helfand, Author ”Dynamic Reteaming”)
The Trouble with Product Management Onboarding and How to Get it Right (with Mirela Mus, Founder & CPO @ Product People)
Using Tech to Change Culture and Un-f**king the Design Industry (with Mackenzie Daisley, CEO & Founder at Brieft)
Getting the Narrative Right and Taking Web3 Products Mainstream (with Rachael Sacks, Crypto Storyteller & Founder @ Narrativ3)
The Importance of Messaging & ROARing Your Way to Product/Message Fit (with Diane Wiredu, Founder & Messaging Strategist @ Lion Words)
Supporting Mental Health & Wellbeing for Product Managers (with Jacquelyn Guderley, Product Manager @ OVO & Co-Founder @ Product Mind)
Taking Recruitment into the Future with AI and Embracing the Metaverse (with Shaun Smith-Taylor, Co-Founder @ MyProductPath)
Beyond the Challenger Sale Part 2: Focus on Value & Make your Product Easy to Buy (with Brent Adamson, Author ”The Challenger Sale” & ”The Challenger Customer”)
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