Jason M. Lemkin and Colin argue founders need daily customer contact to earn trust, not just transactional networking. They point to cloud and security markets where customer needs shift fast, forcing companies to overhaul go-to-market strategy, like moving entirely to channel sales.
So many of the best founders at the best companies spend a high percentage of their time customer facing. And that happens on day one and it happens on day 1,000. And so Colin, I'm curious, do your, I guess two things. Do your founders still spend a fair amount of time meeting with customers and prospective customers? And then second part of that question is as the company has matured, how have the demand gen channels also matured?
Yeah, that's a good question. A couple of things just while it's top of mind, we talk about the network effect quite often in our industry because it's a multiplier, it's a force multiplier at times. Specifically within the security domain. Your network is earned over an extended period of time. I will never do anything that I don't believe is the right thing for a customer. And so like you have to earn that credibility and that trust and build that network through your actions, not some happy hour at some event at the Moscone Center. Right, like so. Just to clarify, I think too often we see what I'll call transactional connections as building our network. It's not true. That's not how you earn trust and you build credibility and relationship with people. It is through your actions over extended period of times and having a set of core values you will never deviate from. And then do our founders, executives spend time with customers every single day? Our responsibility to our customers in the market at large is especially in the cloud. It's the most dynamic part of the market right now. Right? It goes up, it comes down, it goes this way, it goes that way. Your world changes, their business changes, your cloud changes. If our responsibility and our focus isn't on understanding what our customers are going through and how their world is changing and therefore as a byproduct of that we need to change, then we miss the point we never set out with these ambitious revenue targets. That was never the goal, it wasn't talked about very often. We set out to build a world class product to solve the biggest problem in a particular industry. The only way for us to stay in touch or attached to our customers throughout our life cycle, which we're at the very beginning of, is to be present with them. So all day, every day, customer, customer, customer. It's a non starter, it's table stakes, talking about sources of pipeline. It all depends on not just your go to market, but your routes to market. Like we announced earlier this year, we're transitioning from a kind of hybrid direct channel model to 100% channel. That's a result of how our customers are telling us they want to buy. We didn't make that decision. Our customers made it for us.
