Big news! I’ve joined another early-stage startup here in Atlanta called AUTIT.It’s been almost exactly three years since I started consulting with SalesWise which led to full-time employment in February 2016. But I officially close the SalesWise (and Burner Rocket) chapter in my life today as I officially start with AUTIT.
SalesWise has been a tremendous journey where I learn so much. It’s odd looking back trying to piece together if I learned as much as expected, more, or less? All I can say is that I learned in every aspect of the growth side of business – from marketing to sales to customer success. Though, we did not scale as much as we all hoped, I got to experience real, structured processes to drive growth. I got to create a whole new go-to-market strategy that became its own product and business (that was later sold – Burner Rocket). I spoke to hundreds of sales leaders and their team members and got to understand what made sales leaders successful. I got to understand what they assessed from their sales professionals. I got to work with executives from marketing to customer success. I sat in on Board Meetings and met highly successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
Then again, I got to learn a lot about what did not help drive growth. I learned about misalignment in product positioning as well as the criticality of customer discovery for true pain. I learned the side effects of taking on moderate venture capital early on. I learned the traps of building based on financial proformas from a top-down rather than a bottom-up model. The careful scrutiny of burn rate was more apparent than ever.
And of course, I got to experience growing a completely new idea into a product and into an acquisition with Burner Rocket. I experienced the negotiations processes with some due diligence. Burner Rocket was successful not just for us, but for many of our customers, too. It’s now a checkmark in my many boxes for success.
I could go on and on about the incredible almost-three-year ride at SalesWise, especially talking about the relationships I’ve built and forged. However, it’s important to now translate those lessons learned and continue to forge those relationships to this next chapter at AUTIT.
I will explain how this opportunity came in a future post, but for today, I’m excited about the prospect of blending my diverse experiences into a single entity. AUTIT dramatically reduces inventory costs through data harmonization for the world’s most complex supply chains. Here, I can leverage my experiences in supply chain and consulting as the industry and personas while coupling my technology and startup experience into this new role at AUTIT. Here, I am employee number 7. I will start this journey as a Solutions Architect – building the bridge between product and growth teams. That’s simply the title to get the job requisition passed. However, I will also help handle marketing, product management, account / customer success, and be involved in the sales process. The title is focused, but my role is multi-faceted. Perfect.
It’s a good story on how I came to this day. I’ll save that for another day. For today, cheers for new chapters that continue to build on the story.