why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public
record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable
ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't;
assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card:
▮▮▮▮▮ certainty ·
▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Insight
Open-source infrastructure tools are powerful but remain difficult to assemble
“I thought that every company should be able to take advantage of a lot of the technology that's out there. It's being released into open source, but that's still really hard to assemble.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Global 2000 buyers require enterprise procurement rather than self-serve SaaS
“And those companies won't be just putting in a credit card and ordering 500,000 dollars worth of a product on our website. These are contracts that go through long negotiation cycles, they go into procurement, and we got this advice in the beginning many times…”
Insight
One-on-one investor advice is more effective than large board meetings
“I think usually I'm a big fan of one-on-one advice, because then you can have a much more honest conversation about everything. It's kind of hard when you're in a room with 10 people or so to really dive in and discuss some really hard issues. I think that's m…”
Insight
Basing product features on two or three customer interviews fails
“I think if you just talk to two or three customers, you're probably going to end up building the wrong things.”
Insight
Establishing shared success criteria before enterprise pilots enables post-pilot sales
“I think it's super important when you go into a pilot, paid or unpaid actually, to identify the success criteria, and if you do that right, You basically can then make a sale upon completion of the pilot.”
Assertion Supported
Data volume grows at 40% annually, driving edge computing demand
“So the data is growing at 40% compounded annually, and you just won't be able to just put all of this data into a centralized system.”
Insight
Sales execution is as critical as product development for technical founders
“So I came out of engineering, and I never really understood how important sales in a company is. I guess my naive way of going into starting a company in enterprise sales was that if you build a great product, it's going to sell itself. But sales is super impo…”
Assertion Supported
HPE resells VMware despite majority ownership by competitor Dell EMC
“And I think if you look at HPE, for example, they also resell VMware, even though VMware is mostly owned by Dell EMC.”
Assertion Supported
Sales represents 40% of expenses at public software infrastructure firms
“If you look at the large public Software infrastructure companies, sales oftentimes makes up 40% or so of their expense”