14 Lessons from Asheem Chandna (Partner @ Greylock)

Lessons from Asheem Chandna

• The old playbook for acquiring customers is broken. The most successful companies of the next decade will find repeatable cycles that acquire and educate customers without breaking the bank.

• Bottom-up sales will become standardized.  Companies will need place added resources to aid free-to-paid conversion.

• The IPO process is not right for most tech companies. We’ve already seen venture-backed companies look for liquidity elsewhere (secondaries + M&A). Expect this trend to continue.

• Take time to build curated networks of people. The better you curate a network of people you trust, the easier business becomes.

• Always be looking for world-class people to work with. Occasionally you will meet people that operate on a level you didn’t know existed. Figure out how you can do work with these people. 

• Market first; founder second. You can’t beat a bad market. 

• Too many VCs want the best opportunities served to them on a plate. This is not how the game works. You have to work for them over a LONG time.

• Great recruiting is what ultimately separates good companies from great companies. Great recruiting is telling stories, understanding the candidate, crafting the experience, and working to make it a strength of your organization.

• Top-down sales will not disappear, but it is clear that we are moving to a world of bottom-up adoption. More businesses are building a PLG motion, but even the most product-focused teams will need an outbound sales process eventually.