近日，風險投資機構GGV 紀源資本在舊金山Pearl 展廳舉辦了第二屆GGV Evolving Enterprise峰會。我們有幸邀請到來自頂級科技公司的創始人和高管等五十多位傑出演講嘉賓，向大家分享他們在產品、上市、人才和商務拓展等方面見解的想法。
以下是本次活動的一些重點：
GGV 紀源資本管理合夥人Glenn Solomon和Square公司首席財務官兼營運主管Sarah Friar。
Sarah Friar（Square公司首席財務官兼營運主管）在爐邊講話中強調說，讓團隊成員從客戶的角度思考問題，並感受到客戶的壓力是非常重要的。於是，Square直接讓工程師團隊入駐舊金山一家頗受歡迎的餐廳Soulva，讓他們在現實生活中使用銷售時點信息系統，高壓的環境有利於工程師團隊更好的體會顧客的痛點，促進工程師的同理心。上市後後，Square在每期收益報告中都強調商家利益。“我們希望受到挑戰，進行公開談話。”她還強調，她更關心員工的輸出，而非輸入。她不會給員工具體的工作指導，相反她喜歡“退後一步，讓員工自己摸索“，推動更廣泛的創新和更多元化的解決方法。
參加我們 “Series A”研討會的專家分享了他們對如何確定產品/市場適合性，精簡組織結構，選擇正確的早期客戶以及協調初始執行團隊的建議。
Ilir Sela（Slice）、Dave Vasen（Brighwheel）和Tiffany Chu（Remix）參與了由Jeff Richards（GGV紀源資本管理合夥人）主持的座談會。
Tiffany Chu（Remix聯合創始人、CEO，Remix旨在為公共機構研發過渡性計劃軟件）仔細查看了她LinkedIn的好友，並邀請其中所有城市規劃官員到她的辦公室接受採訪，分享他們工作中的困難和Tiffany Chu可以幫助他們的地方。這輪初次用戶訪談驗證了她的團隊研究方向的有效性。
同時，她還警告早期階段的公司要仔細挑選最初的客戶。Remix早期與一位顧客簽訂了一個很大的訂單，然而顧客的複雜要求Remix無法交付，最終部署失敗。幾年後，Remix用更為成熟的產品和團隊贏回了這位客戶。
Tiffany Chu還談到了她如何看待公司技術對客戶及其社區的影響。“我非常關注技術對社會的影響。每當Remix進駐一個新的城市併產生一定影響，都是一場勝利。“
Ilir Sela（Slice創始人兼首席執行官，Slice是獨立比薩店最大的技術提供商）鼓勵創始人用更有創意的方式尋找人才，並講述了他如何在其家鄉馬其頓建立起一個300人團隊，這一隊伍使得他在全球競爭中佔據了低人力成本的優勢。 早期精簡的組織結構使得Ilir的公司年銷售額達高達4000萬美元。Ilir還談到了產品決策的重要性，在團隊投入和個人願景之間取得平衡。“你必須傾聽團隊的意見，但也要當機立斷。”
Dave Vasen（Brightwheel創始人兼首席執行官，Brightwheel是早教行業領先的垂直軟件研發公司）認為，早起團隊人員的選取需要有外科手術般的精準度和針對性，因為初創團隊會影響公司文化，後期更換的成本極高。
此外，他建議創始人留出時間進行自我反思，與高層管理人員一起工作，並定期收集團隊的反饋意見，這會幫助創始人在日常的工作之外，站在更高的層次上思考公司的戰略和方向。他也鼓勵團隊內部的交流，“我不想員工只是點頭，而是真正的參與決策。我們要推彼此一把。“
在公司發展和增長的研討會上，專家分享了他們在建立市場推動力，內容營銷的重要性以及如何處理客戶回頭率和追加銷售方面的經驗。
Jenny Roy（Gladly），Edith Harbaugh（Launch Darkly）和Dave McJannet（Hashi Corp）參與了由Crystal Huang（GGV紀源資本投資執行董事）和Alex Choy（SVB企業級軟件部副總裁）主持了本次公司發展和增長研討會。
Jenny Roy（Gladly營銷副總裁，Gladly研發顧客服務與支持的軟件）談到了Gladly在公司建立初期就指派了一位從事人力資源管理的副總裁，因為他們認為良好的招聘、面試和入職流程有利於樹立公司的口碑。公司發展的各個階段裡，她曾帶領不同的銷售團隊，面向消費者和公司銷售不同類型產品。在她看來，並沒有適用於所有情況的黃金法則，她鼓勵團隊去嘗試，但是如果影響策略行不通，就抓緊放棄轉換思路。
Edith Harbaugh（軟件管理平臺Launch Darkly首席執行官）強調了內容營銷對創建新類別的重要性。其團隊編寫了許多關於Netflix和Facebook等大牌客戶案例研究的博客，並利用Edith本人廣受好評的個人博客“To Be Continuous”，面向軟件研發者和市場，討論特性切換的重要性。她還強調隨著團隊的增長，企業文化也應到有所調整。“有些人不喜歡改變，但是8個人的公司和80個人的公司文化理應有所不同。”
Dave McJannet（基礎設施自動化軟件製造商Hashi Corp首席執行官）提及Hashi Corp在年度客戶會議中的提前投入，以及這樣做的積極影響。他表示，該公司第一個小規模Hashi Corp會議“讓公司看上去比實際規模要大很多”，現在公司已經有數百名年會參與者。他認同Jenny Roy重視早期人力資源主管的觀點，尤其是在僱傭公司最初的50-60名員工，因為他們將在業務規模擴大時形成核心的業務文化。
Dave認為營銷是一場漫長的比賽，“我們不去衡量年度客戶會議的直接影響。我們對其效果有信心，所以願意組織它。”
Stewart Butterfield (Slack)結束了本次爐邊講話。
最後，Stewart Butterfield（領先的企業協作平臺Slack聯合創始人、CEO）談論了工匠精神和真正瞭解終端用戶日常體驗的重要性。Slack創始初期，雖然他從未研發過企業軟件，但他預想了軟件使用者的情況，面對日常的家庭和財務負擔，複雜的軟件只會增加用戶的壓力。最後，他決定研發出“讓人們在工作中使用起來讚歎不已並會向他人推薦的的軟件”。
他還表示，儘管遭到了他的批評，但他並不後悔Slack在紐約時報刊登的整版大膽廣告“致親愛的微軟”——“微軟團隊發佈後的109天裡，109篇文章提及微軟的文章有107篇在標題中提到了Slack。“
Last week, GGV Capital hosted its second annual Evolving Enterprise summit at the Pearl in San Francisco. We were lucky to be joined bymore than 50 founders and executives from top enterprise technology companies, as well as exceptional speakers who shared insights on product, go-to-market, talent and scaling.
Here are a few of the top takeaways:
Sarah Friar (CFO & Head of Operations at Square) emphasized during her fireside chat that it is incredibly important for team members toput themselves in the shoes of the customer and “live the struggle.” Square puta team of their engineers behind the counter at Soulva, a popular San Franciscorestaurant, to enable them to actually use the point-of-sale system in a reallife, high pressure setting to fully understand customer pain points and strengthen empathy for Square customers. Following its IPO, Square highlightsits merchants in every earnings report and encourages them to ask questions onearnings calls. “We want to be challenged, to have an open conversation.” She also stressed that she manages people around output, not input, and doesn’t believe in being prescriptive in how goals are met — she likes to “step backand let people figure it out,” driving a broader range of innovation and more diverse approaches.
The panelists on our “Series A” panel shared advice on identifying product/market fit, staying lean, picking the right early customers andaligning the initial exec team.
Tiffany Chu (Co-Founder and COO of Remix, which builds transit planning software for public agencies) looked through her Linkedin connections and invited every urban planning official in her network to her offices toconduct interviews on their pain points and how her product could help them. This round of initial user interviews helped her team validate that they were onto something.
She also warns early stage companies to pick initial customer scarefully — Remix signed a big deal early on with a sophisticated customer, couldn’t deliver and the deployment failed. Ultimately, they won that customerback years later with a more mature product and team. Tiffany also talked about measuring the impact her technology is having on her customers’ communities.“ I’m very focused on social impact. Every time a city uses Remix to make adecision that affects change, it’s a win.”
Ilir Sela (Founder and CEO of Slice, the largest technology provider to independent pizzerias) encouraged founders to be creative in looking for talent and told the story of how he built a 300-person team in his birthplace of Macedonia, giving his organization global leverage in a lower cost environment. Going lean in the early days enabled Ilir to bootstrap the business to $40M in annual sales. Ilir also talked about the importance ofhaving a true north around product decisions, and balancing team input with astrong personal vision for the product. “You have to listen to the team, butalso know when to just make a decision.”
Dave Vasen (Founder and CEO of Brightwheel, the leading vertical software provider for Pre-K education) believes in highly “surgical and targeted” hiring at the early stages, as the first hires can have a huge impacton culture — and are costly to replace. He also advised founders to make timefor self- reflection, to consider working with an executive coach and to regularly collect feedback from the team, as all of these enable them to think about strategy and direction at a high level separately from the weeds of day-to-day operations. He also talked about open dialogue, “I don’t want folks to just nod their heads, but instead, engage. We need to push each other.”
The panelists on our growth stage / scaling panel shared their insights on building a go-to-market engine, the importance of content marketing and how they manage retention/upsell.
Jenny Roy (VP of Marketing at Gladly, which builds customer support & engagement software) talked about how Gladly brought on a VP of People early on in the company’s life because they see well-run recruiting, interviewing and onboarding processes as opportunities to build a great reputation. She has run marketing teams in many stages of organizations, across both consumer and enterprise products, but has no hard rules on the ideal marketing stack — she encourages people to experiment and quickly shut down campaigns that aren’t working.
Edith Harbaugh (CEO of Launch Darkly, a feature management plat formfor software delivery) highlighted the importance of content marketing forcreating a new category. The team wrote many blogs on customer case studies with big names such as Netflix and Facebook, and leveraged Edith’s own popular developer-centric podcast, “To Be Continuous,” to educate the market on feature flags and why they matter. She also talked about actively shifting the cultureas the team grows, “Some people don’t like it, but the culture at 8 people can’t be the same as at 80 people.”
Dave McJannet (CEO of Hashi Corp, a builder of infrastructure automation software) talked about how Hashi Corp invested early in an annual customer conference, and the positive impact of doing so. He said that the company’s first humble Hashi Conf “made us seem bigger than we were” and the annual event has now grown to hundreds of attendees. He agreed with Jenny Royon the importance of hiring a Head of People early on to focus on hiring theright 50–60 initial people because they will form the core culture for the business as it scales. Dave also talked about marketing as a long game, “We don’t try to measure the direct impact of the conference. We have confidence it works, and we run with it.”
Finally, Stewart Butterfield (Co-Founder and CEO of Slack, the leading enterprise collaboration platform) talked about product craftsmanship and the importance of really understanding the day to day experience of an enduser. When he started building Slack, he had never built enterprise software before, but he thought about the realities of the real life of the user, who has normal day-to-day family and financial stresses and how bad software could compound that. As a result of this thought process, he built a product that people would rave about at work and tell other people to use.
He also said that he had no regrets about Slack’s bold full-page “Dear Microsoft” ad in The New York Times, despite the criticism he received — “The day after Microsoft Teams launched, there were 109 articles written about it and 107 mentioned Slack in the title.”
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the event. We appreciate your time and look forward to staying connected.
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