Village Global Podcast

Village Global

The Village Global podcast takes you inside the world of venture capital and technology, featuring enlightening interviews with entrepreneurs, investors and tech industry leaders. Learn more at www.villageglobal.vc.

  1. JAN 15

    How To Build Your First Go-to-Market Team with Swing Search

    Magnus Sandstrom and Debbie Wiss are senior partners at Swing Search, specializing in go-to-market roles at director, VP, and head levels for nearly 20 years. They joined Village Global partner Lindsay Pettingill to discuss the mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales and marketing talent, and how to get it right. Takeaways: Don't go too senior too early. Look for someone who can see around corners, not over mountains. Senior hires want teams and foundations. You need someone doing outbound calls and chasing deals.Don't try to solve product-market fit with a go-to-market hire. Talk to customers first. If you're pre-PMF, it's too soon to hire sales.You'll never leave sales. Even $100M+ CEOs are on sales calls. Accept this reality and get good at it rather than trying to hand it off.Strong sellers know their metrics to the decimal. "112.2% quota attainment" reveals discipline and ambition. "Around 100%" is a red flag.Hire two founding AEs, not one. They work in the trenches together while competing. If one doesn't work out, you still have revenue coming in.Marketing is more complex than sales. Define whether you need product marketing, demand gen, or brand. Wanting someone analytical and creative is unicorn territory.You can't delegate what you can't document. Write down your processes before expecting new hires to execute them.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal. Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

    43 min
  2. JAN 8

    The Future of Work with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan and Reid Hoffman

    Eric Yuan is the founder and CEO of Zoom. Reid Hoffman is the co-founder of LinkedIn. Both are luminary LPs at Village Global. They joined Village GP Ben Casnocha to discuss the future of AI agents, digital twins in the workplace, selling AI to enterprise, and what it takes to build companies that endure. Takeaways:Digital twins will handle meetings you're unsure about attending. Your AI can join internal meetings, summarize key points, and alert you only when your presence becomes critical. This frees you to focus on what truly matters.External AI interactions are coming too. Eventually, digital twins could negotiate contracts, discuss pricing, and handle preliminary conversations before humans finalize agreements.Enterprise customers want partners, not just products. When selling AI to enterprise, become a trusted guide through anxiety-ridden territory. Trust matters as much as features, especially when customers feel behind.Make customers part of your innovation cycle. Get enterprise customers deploying early, even partially. The unique data they generate becomes your moat that competitors can't replicate.Focus on vertical markets with domain expertise. Generic horizontal AI products are vulnerable to big players who can give similar tools away for free. Build where deep domain knowledge creates defensibility.Hypergrowth hides problems. Rapid revenue growth can mask fundamental issues in your product and operations. The best scenario is growing fast while proactively fixing hidden problems, but that's extremely hard.Theory of the game matters more than current metrics. Companies aren't valuable in a year; they're valuable in ten years and beyond. Have a clear theory for how your initial traction compounds into long-term value.Be honest with yourself about durability. Rapid early success doesn't automatically mean you have a long-term strategy. Understand what's driving growth and whether those factors will last.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal. Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

    25 min
4.4
out of 5
113 Ratings

About

The Village Global podcast takes you inside the world of venture capital and technology, featuring enlightening interviews with entrepreneurs, investors and tech industry leaders. Learn more at www.villageglobal.vc.

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