Bill Binch of Battery Ventures on Product Led Growth and Hiring a VP of Sales

I had the pleasure of interviewing legendary CRO Bill Binch (Marketo and Pendo) this week. I met him recently and I had come to find out he has lived in Phoenix for over 20-years. Who knew!? We talked for over an hour but we could easily gone much longer. I hope everyone gets the opportunity to listen to this one as it is full of great insights on go-to-market and scaling a sales organization. You can listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.

Bill, a veteran technology leader with nearly three decades of global sales and go-to-market experience, is an operating partner based in Battery’s San Francisco office. He serves as a coach and mentor for sales executives and CEOs in Battery’s portfolio, helping software companies scale through various stages of growth, effectively expand overseas and create multi-product sales platforms.

Bill’s operating experience spans key roles at fast-growing private software companies, such as Marketo and Pendo, as well as billion-dollar public enterprises such as Oracle and PeopleSoft. Before joining Battery, Bill was the chief revenue officer of Pendo, where he helped grow annual recurring revenue to nearly $100 million in three years. Prior to that, he spent more than nine years at the marketing-tech company Marketo. There, he held multiple roles, including EVP of worldwide sales, managing director of APAC, and board director of Marketo Japan. At Marketo, Bill was the 16th employee and led the company’s sales teams through its private stages of growth to an IPO, and until the company’s 2016 acquisition by Vista Equity.

Before Marketo, Bill held senior sales roles at Avolent, BEA, PeopleSoft, and Oracle. He has also been a member of the board of directors at Qvidian and advised companies including Birst, Conversica, Integrate Inc., and Node.io.

Bill holds a BS in marketing from Arizona State University and completed Harvard Business School’s strategic sales program.

What You’ll Learn:

• Being an Operating Partner at a VC firm 

• Day-to-day Activities of an Operating

• Product Lead and Sales Lead Companies 

• Freemium vs. Product Lead Growth

• Understanding the Concept of Having the Buyer Control the Sale

• Steps to test a PLG as a go-to-market strategy

• Consumption vs Per Seat Model

• Tips on How to Choosing Your First VP of Sales 

• Tips on How a founder/CEO can measure a VP of sales

• Tips on how long a founder/CEO should give a VP of sales to present a sales plan after hiring 

Favorite Quote:

“In an interview, I commonly ask this question: If you were on a desert island and you could only have three dashboards what would be the three things that you would like to see?”