The Marketo Journey — “Why We Win”
Congratulations Team Marketo!
After the board call approving the sale, I went back and looked at the Marketo investor presentation from 2008 when I first met the founders.
On the first slide, the founders outlined their simple, customer-driven vision. Marketo would “Turn marketing into a revenue driving organization and give them the tools to prove it.” Over the next 8 years, I would meet many CMOs thanking me for Marketo delivering on that simple vision and thus transforming their careers.
Later in the same presentation, the founders outlined their execution plan on a single slide called “Why We Win” — marketing speak for “Why We Will Win.” The company basically executed that slide to success over the next 8 years. The slide stated:
- “We can go where they can’t” by leveraging fast time to adoption and value. That turned out to be a high velocity Go-To-Market strategy. I learned that this time to value dictates the appropriate GTM strategy.
- “We will build the strong eco-system” with community and content. That turned out to be the Marketing Nation.
- “Fastest growing player” with vocal happy customers. I just met several such people at the Marketo Summit last month. One even personally paid to attend the Summit, since her employer would not pay for the trip.
- “We will set the agenda” through superior thought leadership + track record of delivery. That happened.
Back in 2008, Marketo faced many competitors — some even larger, better funded and with more buzz. But, the Marketo team continued to succeed by having that simple, customer-driven vision serve as a north star and executing on a single page, thought-through plan.
Once again, congratulations to the founders and team for building a great company and transforming so many careers — including mine.
After working with the Marketo founders, we at Storm Ventures look for founders who can go the distance — from inception to IPO and beyond. This means founders who not only excel at product, technology or sales, but also have the right vision and right execution plan. We then aspire to be a trusted strategic advisor for their entire startup journey.