Sales Engineers are the MVPs of SaaS

I graduated college back in the mid-90s when a 56k modem was considered high-speed internet. I started my tech career in QA at a software startup called AimTech that created authoring software for multimedia apps. We competed with Macromedia Director, and eventually Macromedia Flash. Through my QA job, I became an expert on our product …

There and back again

Today I started a new job at Acquia, the open source digital experience company. Yeah, that Acquia. https://twitter.com/twentworth12/status/282151641401155586 First day at Acquia in 2012 Since I left in 2015, Acquia has exploded to over $200m in revenue. Dries, Lynne, Tim & team have done a fantastic job turning Acquia into a digital experience powerhouse. Bigger, …

Bad Bros and Bad Blood: a Summer Vacation Book Report

Hey kids: I know you hate all that summer reading you get assigned at the end of every school year. But when you grow up, you’ll discover that reading books is actually the best part of your summer vacation. Here’s what I read on my summer vacation. Brotopia — by Emily Chang I already knew most of the …

How to do A/B/N testing in a Pardot Engagement Stream

Want to do A/B testing in a Pardot Engagement Stream? You can’t 😦 Well, not without a little bit of customization. Here’s a simple workaround for doing A/B/N testing in a Pardot engagement stream using a Salesforce APEX trigger. I won’t get into the details of building an APEX trigger, so if you aren’t comfortable with …

Debunking Five Analyst Relations Myths

Analyst relations is easily the most misunderstood function in marketing. I’ve been involved with analyst relations — or AR — for over a decade, working on dozens of Gartner Magic Quadrants and Forrester Waves. I’ve experienced the impact that analyst relations, when done well, can have on growth. And I know how much time and effort it takes to …

What I Learned Building an App on the Drift Platform

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — I was a Computer Science major at the University of Illinois. I grew up programming in BASIC on a variety of hardware, including my beloved TI 99/4A and then later a Commodore Amiga. My parents came up with a brilliant strategy to get me to learn …

Your Best Startup Strategy is Better Execution

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, not that time. The other one. The time where your startup gets together and starts planning for the upcoming year. Some of you have already finished this process, but with my fiscal year ending in January, I’m currently in the midst of it. That’s why this …

Lessons Learned Shifting to Product Qualified Leads

The Death of the Marketing Qualified Lead? A little over a year ago I wrote an article about killing the marketing qualified lead. Here’s a quick refresher: Once upon a time, sales and marketing hated each other. Sales complained about never having enough leads, and marketing complained that sales were terrible at following up and …