I have to admit, I’ve had my fair share of career crushes throughout my professional life. When I dreamed of becoming an investment banker, Michael Lewis was a major influence. When I pivoted that dream into a short-lived attempt to join the Pittsburgh Steelers, “Mean” Joe Greene was whom I looked to for inspiration. That dream died when I realized I had no athletic ability whatsoever.
But when I came out to Silicon Valley in 1998 to cofound a technology startup called Chipshot, Mary Meeker was covering the all-stars building category-defining companies during her time at Morgan Stanley.
Like some other high-tech companies attempting world domination in the bubble era, Chipshot didn’t make it through the dot com bust. C’est la vie.
Fast forward to last Wednesday, on a stage somewhere in Southern California. Mary Meeker (now at venture firm Kleiner Perkins) released her annual 2015 Internet Trends Report. For those of you that don’t know, this report is the #1 must-read annual document in the tech industry.
Lo and behold on Slide 37, I saw Gainsight recognized along with some of the fastest growing, “unicorn” B2B companies in the world including Zenefits, DocuSign and Slack.
I think the popular thing to say now is “I am humbled,” right? Honestly, my reaction was “that is freaking cool.” And as I reflected on this, I realized what Mary was really highlighting was that Customer Success is one of the top trends in the Internet. Between 2000 people at our Pulse conference 2 weeks ago and this report, it’s amazing to see the movement taking off!
Take a look at the report below — stopping briefly on Slide 37.
Now, if only I could say the same for Chipshot…
