SALES FORCESubbu Vempati

Introducing Myself

• Five years in Defense Research• Twenty two years in HP

– Last Assignment – Managing about $8B of pull-through WW partner business

– Key Skills – Scale • Last one and a half years in Indiverein

– Founder– 1+1 > 11 : Partnership of Best of Breed

late stage start-up/SME IT companies– Goal: $100M in three years

Focus of the Presentation

AND,

Not B2C

Problems faced by Start-ups

1. Obtaining external fi-

nancing17%

2. Internal financial

management16%

3. Sales/Market-ing

38%

4. Product development

5%

5. Produc-tion/Opera-tions man-agement

4%

6. General management

11%

7. Human resource

management5%

8. Economic environment3%

9. Regulatory envi-ronment

1%

1-Year Old Co

1. Obtaining external financing

1%

2. Internal fi-nancial man-

agement23%

3. Sales/

Marketing24%

4. Product development2%

5. Production/Opera-tions management

8%

6. Organiza-tion struc-

ture/design6%

7. General manage-

ment15%

8. Human resource manage-

ment18%

9. Economic environment2%

9-Year Old Co

David E. Terpstra, Philip D. Olson

You have an old buckle? I have a customerCustomers are plenty!1. The issue is how do we find a way to

reach them (RTM)?2. Each route to the customer has its own

characterization

Product Customer

Startup Genome

• Founders that learn are more successful• Founders overestimate the value of IP before

product market fit by 255%.• Startups need 2-3 times longer to validate their

market than most founders expect• Startups that haven’t raised money over-estimate

their market size by 100x• Business-heavy founding teams are 6.2x more

likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups.

• Premature scaling is the most common reason for startups to perform worse.

Sales in Enterprise vs. in SME/Start-ups

• Saturation coverage vs. Entry challenges• Many RTM vs. one or two RTM• Sales Team

– Farming sales force vs. Hunters– Layers of sales force vs. Simple structure– Complex sales incentives vs. Simple

• Deep pockets vs. Cash flow challenges• Employees vs. Owners

– Slow decision making vs. Nimble• Brand power vs. “Unknown”

– Innovator’s dilemma vs. Innovation– Breadth vs. Niche– One size fits all vs. Customer Intimacy in solutions

Saturation coverage vs. Entry challenge

1. Is it Market size/growth research or Entry challenges research?2. What are the plans for Entry challenges?3. What is the time to achieve critical mass?4. How to prevent SG&A getting ahead of the curve?

• Coverage• Difficult to price• Difficult to repri or

repurpose• One size fits all

• No scale• Predictable

margins• Easy to retarget• Tailor made for

RTM

Many RTM vs. one or two RTM

How to choose RTMHow to keep them abreast?

All-in-One, MSFT-KPMG

• Farming sales force• Layers and Layers• Complex layers• Complex incentive

structures

• Hunters• Specialists• Simple structure• Simple incentives

Direct Sales

1. Where should you use Direct Sales?2. How do you measure Sales productivity?

1. One more in India or in EMEA? 3. How to target them?

Direct Sales

Brand power vs. “Unknown”

• Innovator’s dilemma vs. Innovation– Breadth vs. Niche

• One size fits all vs. Customer Intimacy in solutions

Not choosing the early right customers in start up can meander the product; Shelf life – of core. When you drift off-core……..How to keep the sales abreast with changes?How to overcome niche?

OV 20% features

Deep pockets vs. Cash flow challenges

• Who can afford to give away?

Boost sales without slashing prices

Thank You!