… and how you can avoid the same thing.
Rami Essaid · Finmark
Published September 1, 2022Rami Essaid, current CEO of Finmark shares:
- 3 things he did wrong to lose the deal
- Why we didn’t sell for $1B
- How to ask investors for help
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Rami Essaid shares lessons from building and selling software companies, covering analyst relations, differentiated event marketing, fluid product-market fit, buyer relationships, company metrics, and sustainable founder practices.
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“facts are revenue um the thing that really hurts me is that our biggest competitor who we were ahead of two years before not just ahead of in terms of reviews and and um analyst uh coverage but we were ahead of in terms of revenue outpaced us and sold for a billion dollars that same year um so that that was a kind of a a painful piece right like we we actually invented the category we were the first to market”
“other thing that's really important about working with analysts is always follow up with them right they're in the business of talking about the market talking about the space understanding clients needs right and so what we would do is offer them to talk to a customer to understand the pain points directly from the horse's mouth we would give them research reports every single analyst meeting ended with an email that we would send out to say here's how we can make you doing your job easier same thing for press when you”
“they closed themselves now this didn't mean that i paid salespeople twice as much i just adjusted the commission plan so their ote was the same but i incentivized the behavior which led me allowed me to spend less on marketing or distribute those marketing leads across a a wider pool of people without having to um without having to invest as much right and so and i see too many people afraid to use commissions or to use that in their in their as a leverage as a”
“you may not be able to see it here i can't read it here off of the screen but the key number is when we went into 2017 we thought we were going to add 100 we're going to grow 100 on that year right we were going to add about 15 million dollars of new arr minus churn whatever it was going to get to be double um the the year prior in terms of uh entering arr four months later we had slashed that forecast for 20 um”
“here's an artifact at the end of every investor update or actually at the beginning of every investor update i put front and center and ask and i make it stupid simple for them to make introductions right here's a pdf here's the type of company that we're looking for please make introductions right just always always continue to beat that drum beat and ch i change up the ask right so that they don't have fatigue but i constantly i ask for referrals ask for connections all the time right um the last one”
“Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows We sold for $100m+ Exit … so what was the mistake? $60M RAISED EXIT TO PE OWNED IMPERVA 2019”
“Year 1: Set up as many briefings as you can by yourself. Each briefing ask who else on the team would be interested in your company. Year 2: Establish a relationship with a sales rep. Give them a target milestone when you will buy the basic subscription 6-18 months out. Work with the sales rep to book meetings with analysts. Year 2.5: Buy individual tickets to Gartner conferences and work with sales rep to schedule as many f2f meetings as possible. Year 3-4: Buy basic membership and continue to meet with analysts with established credibility. Established Thought Leadership on a Budget Leverage research consulting firms”
“Winning Culture Incentivize the behavior you want”
“Poor Financial Planning (2017) January April”
“Pipeline: “They Could Buy Us” Keep an “acquirer” pipeline”
Video
Hiring Plan
How I Raised $60m Then Fumbled a $1b Exit - Slide Deck
Rami Essaid is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Finmark, a Venture Partner at IDEA Fund Partners, and an Extended Team Member of Ubiquity Ventures. He also serves as the SVP Product at Bill.com. He was the Co-Founder and Chairman of Distil. Rami helps enterprises embrace the cloud to improve their scalability and reliability while maintaining a high level of security. He attended North Carolina State University where he majored in computer engineering.
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28 passages
March 2022 March 2022 | Rami Essaid, CEO Finmark Rami Essaid CEO of Finmark, Exited Distil Networks How I Raised $60m Then Fumbled a $1b Exit … and how you can avoid the same thing.
Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows
Forrester: Market Leader We worked hard for this ranking The only anti-bot solution to be included in Gartner’s Online Fraud Detection Market Guide two years in a Row Ovum puts Distil Networks On The Radar. “Clear innovation compared to similar services.” “Distil’s ability to analyze behavior provides the best chance of detecting and blocking bot-driven attacks.” 5 Stars across the board. “Verdict: For monitoring the impact of bots on a network this is the tool one needs.”
Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows
Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows We sold for $100m+ Exit … so what was the mistake? $60M RAISED EXIT TO PE OWNED IMPERVA 2019
Why we didn’t sell for $1B … and watched our competitor Shape Security do it instead
3 Things I Did Wrong Thought Leadership … and you should avoid Aggressively scale Sales Winning culture Marketing didn’t scale No product market fit Bad financial planning Maintain “Acquirer-er” Pipeline Leverage network Work life balance WENT WELL DID WRONG DIDN’T CONSIDER
What Went Well
Year 1: Set up as many briefings as you can by yourself. Each briefing ask who else on the team would be interested in your company. Year 2: Establish a relationship with a sales rep. Give them a target milestone when you will buy the basic subscription 6-18 months out. Work with the sales rep to book meetings with analysts. Year 2.5: Buy individual tickets to Gartner conferences and work with sales rep to schedule as many f2f meetings as possible. Year 3-4: Buy basic membership and continue to meet with analysts with established credibility. Established Thought Leadership on a Budget Leverage research consulting firms
Email Copy Landing new thought leadership opportunities
Established Thought Leadership on a Budget Conferences
Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows Hiring Plan … how we ramped fast 2017
Distil (Now Imperva.com) Strategy and Revenue Growth 2007 2010 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Org Charts Technology Intelligence Added to App Exchange Intent by Category Ideal Customer Profile, ReachOut Extension Enrich Launch, RainKing Integrated Corporate Hierarchy, Intent by Topic Combined Platform, Form Complete, Workflows Aggressive Sales Growth … then layoffs 2017
Winning Culture Incentivize the behavior you want
What Went Wrong
Didn’t feed the reps Incentivize the behavior you want
Building Finmark to Fix This! Easy financial planning
PMF Issues Incentivize the behavior you want
PMF Issues Incentivize the behavior you want
Poor Financial Planning (2017) January April
Things We Didn’t Even Think Of
Pipeline: “They Could Buy Us” Keep an “acquirer” pipeline
Didn't leverage our network
How to ask investors for help …should have done this more
Did Not Create a Work Life Balance
3 Things I Did Wrong Thought Leadership … and you should avoid Aggressively scale Sales Winning culture Marketing didn’t scale No product market fit Bad financial planning Maintain “Acquirer-er” Pipeline Leverage network Work life balance WENT WELL DID WRONG DIDN’T CONSIDER
Finmark is what I wish I had at Distil Come by our booth to see our SaaS dashboard
March 2022 | Rami Essaid, CEO of Finmark Rami Essaid CEO of Finmark, Exited Distil Networks
