Introducing Reachdesk Unwrapped
Building companies and leading teams is hard. There are no shortcuts.
Even ChatGPT can’t help you hack your way to success. Reachdesk is the fourth startup I’ve been part of that has exceeded $10M in annual recurring revenue (ARR). The previous three – Deezer, Agillic, and Yieldify – have all exited or IPO’d, which is when a privately owned company lists its shares on a stock exchange.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from being a part of these amazing companies and their growth, it’s that while the game changes all the time, so do the rules.
As companies grow, you need to keep learning from others to navigate the many challenges you will face. Now that Reachdesk is well beyond the $10M ARR mark and we have over 180 incredible employees, it only seems fair to share what we’ve learned along the way.
When companies start to share their secrets, questions get asked. Won’t our competitors just copy us? Will sharing our ideas mean that what we're doing will lose its effect if more people do it? Let’s set the record straight. We aren’t Google. We’re just a humble startup still in our infancy.
So why are we doing it? Well, I got a lot of help when we were starting Reachdesk. Most of the time I had to listen to information and advice that I didn’t want to hear. And people often ask me the same questions like “How the heck do you get a company off the ground?”, “How do you hire your first salesperson?”, and “How do you get started with ABM?”. I didn’t have any of the answers back then. I've since learned a few lessons the hard way that I will try to share here.
None of what we’ve built within this company is my idea. It’s the people we hired who brought their ideas with them, as well as the external people who shared their wisdom with us. Oh by the way, here’s another thing I've learned: people want to share their ideas, they love talking about themselves, and they love mentoring. Very few people said “no” when I asked them how they solved a certain problem or if they would mentor me. Only one person asked for money when I asked for their help. They got paid in the form of a custom bottle of whiskey with their name engraved on it. That bottle still sits behind their desk and they refer to it a lot!
So who is this for then? Well, it’s not for those who want hacks or are looking for shortcuts. It’s not for those who think that culture = bean bags and table tennis tables in the office. It’s for those who want to apply knowledge meaningfully as they build out their teams and their company. This is for everyone.
Whether you want to learn how to make the shift from founder sales to scaling a global sales team, all the way to how to structure your engineering team, I’m confident we’ll have plenty for you. We will share our ideas on how to build world-class products and the truth behind getting started with ABM. We will also walk you through some of our epic fails and what we learned. It’s time to unwrap the gifts that we’ve received along the way and give them to others.
Welcome to Reachdesk Unwrapped.
