Disclosure
Dalgaard: Took SuccessFactors public earlier than desired due to board pressure
“Because I, honestly, I didn't really want to go public, but my board wanted to go public, and so I was, had a great sense of duty, of doing things that, I mean, obviously, I got a lot of runway, building your own company the way you want it, and so I felt the …”
Disclosure
Dahlgaard: Equal status for sales and engineering was SuccessFactors' top breakthrough
“This is maybe one of the biggest breakthroughs in SuccessFactors history was that we made reps feel like they were as important as engineers.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dahlgaard: Startups attempting to eliminate commission-based sales always revert
“And frankly, all of companies in Silicon Valley that we didn't have Salesforce up front and thought they could rethink it, have all come home to roost. And they now have great sales forces that sell with commission for a living.”
Insight
Dalgaard argues unified teams vastly outperform toxic 10x individual performers
“Oh, I'm completely comfortable losing the Tenexa. What the total unanimous team that are together in fighting this big battle can gain together because they have that power of trust completely dwarfs that one Tenexa. And you multiply all those people up, what …”
Opinion
Dalgaard: Founders take far more personal risk than venture investors
“It's pretty intimidating to be around your VCs. You've thrown your whole life into this. They haven't, and so it's bigger risk for you personally than it is for them”
Disclosure
Dahlgaard: Sales reps voted non-sales peers onto President's Club trips
“What we did in that case is, we gave them a vote. Who helped you the most this year? And they got to go.”
Insight
Dahlgaard: Overcomplicating sales compensation plans is the worst founder mistake
“What I can tell you is the worst thing you can do in the world is make Selling so damn complicated with so many different variables that a rep can try and optimize that they don't have the ability to actually figure out what you want them to do.”
Insight
Forcing direct peer confrontation resolves office disputes 90 percent of the time
“I would say nine out of 10 cases, they become people who trust each other and start working together.”
Insight
Dalgaard: Executive coaches provide safer and more consistent guidance than advisors
“And what's really great about a coach is that they're actually a safer place in a way than a board is. And it's not like, well, I have an advisor. That's not the same. An advisor will cancel a meeting with you. They have something else to do. They won't be con…”
Insight
Dalgaard: Silicon Valley leaders fear direct conversations about employee failure
“One of the biggest issues I run into in tech companies, no matter how big they are, how successful or how they're great they are, is there's no time for not having a real conversation about this is how you fucked up and this is not going to work. Let's figure …”
Opinion
Lars Dalgaard: Building a board consisting solely of investors was a mistake
“I made the mistake, I would say, of having all investor, similar to what you said in the beginning, board members.”
Insight
Dalgaard: Independent directors must love the business, not the CEO
“I don't think that you can have Somebody be independent if they only love you. I think they have to be in love with your business, but I think it's dangerous if they're smitten by you and sort of bowled over because then they don't become independent.”
Disclosure
Dalgaard: I initially took independent board members less seriously than VCs
“My external board members, for some, I can't really explain reason, I just, I took them less serious, and I wish I had taken them more serious”
Insight
Dalgaard: Prospective board members must do blind background checks
“It's very, particularly if it's your first board, it's very easy to fall in love. This must be it. Now I'm getting that, and it's, your ego drives your decision-making, even if you won't admit it. Now I'm on my first board. This is exciting. Maybe not so fast.…”
Insight
Dalgaard: Recruit independent board members for problem-solving fit, not PR prestige
“I was so focused on getting the people who had been big in my industry before so that I could advertise that now I had them. I, I'd much rather have the one who wasn't the biggest today, but the one that was the right fit with me, that wanted to go and fight t…”
Insight
Dalgaard: Sharing board materials under NDA tests potential board members
“I think at that stage, you should be comfortable under NDA giving somebody this stuff, because you're, it's such a great test for both of you,”
Disclosure
Dahlgaard: Product managers must include sales reps in roadmap meetings
“And so I made it a rule that product management would never have a meeting discussing roadmap without having sales reps in the meeting.”
Insight
Dahlgaard: Initial large sales deals do not signify a solved sales model
“One rep does one big deal. That doesn't really mean anything. You, I mean, sales is a hard job. It's very easy to think that because a couple of reps do some big deals, now you've figured it all out and let's move on to the next thing.”
Insight
Dahlgaard: Top sales reps often fail when moving to a different company
“Some reps that are successful in one organization, like super successful, might not have any success in a different company. It's a very different thing depending on what you're selling”
Insight
Dalgaard: Founders should avoid chasing hot market trends
“Don't try and catch a wave. Don't try and do something you've read in a magazine that might be hot, and you can just get in on it, because there is no such thing. Once you try to catch that wave is gone, and it's got a bunch of people on it that came up with i…”
Disclosure
SuccessFactors explicitly defined its primary core value as 'no assholes'
“My first one was Respect for the individual. It starts, and it said, no assholes.”
Assertion Partly supported
Dalgaard: Southwest's market cap equaled all other competitors combined after 20 years
“I believe strongly it's what Southwest Airlines did. They came into an industry where everybody said, there's monopoly. You can't do anything in this. What are you thinking? And 20 years later, their market cap was that of all the others combined.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dalgaard refused to hire or sell to personal friends for ten years
“You can't find any of my friends working for my company for the first decade, and you can't find any of our customers being any of my friends.”
Insight
Dalgaard: Hard data lies less than a founder's internal narrative
“Data doesn't lie as much as your own brain does. And you can come up with all sorts of interpretations around why what you're thinking is actually right, but there is nothing to prove it.”
