From the Other Side: a Founder-Turned-VC’s Advice with Ridge Ventures

4. 50+
pitch
competitions
Why am I here?
1000+
pitches
800+
founders
& teams
4

5. 5
Bill Bird Story

6. 6
Cloud
Transformation
Artificial
Intelligence!
Data
Management +
Security +
Compliance
Next Generation
of
Corporate SaaS
Megatrends Driving $670B Enterprise Software Market at 11% Growth
Modernization of
Industry-Specific
Infrastructure

7. Team Market
Opportunity
7

8. 8

9. Culture
Mission
led
Build
things +
sell
things
9

10. Not
Knowing
Your
Customer
Not
coachable
I
vs.
we
10

11. 11

12. What should you
remember?
12

14. “Hi! We’re launching ChatGPT today!
We're doing a silent launch at 10am.
Don’t expect significant impact on sales, audience
is mostly researchers.”

32. “AI DJ is now reaching “millions” of active users
every week, Spotify reported, representing more than
25% of user consumption on days that they use the
DJ feature.” Earnings Report - April 2023
“In one UK pilot, AI drove sales up by 5.25%
across all devices” Grocery Dive - Sept 2023

35. Last week, we launched ChatGPT Enterprise.

36. This is our internal productivity tool.
Sales
Executiv
e
Product
Marketer
Data
Scientist
Human
Resource
Manager
InfoSec
Auditor
General
Counsel
Product
Designer
Project
Manager
Support with UI copy
Help me create a report
Create a project
plan
Consult on security
posture
Explain legal
implications of
new compliance
measure
Publish
JD

37. So…this is not exactly the job I signed up for.

39. Every sales
leader
becomes a
data scientist.
💡Some Ideas:
Improve Sales Funnel: "Use data
from all our sales platforms to help
me understand weak points in our
funnel"
Competitive Analysis: "Help me
visualize market share changes
against our main competitors in
the last year."

40. Super-
charge
sales
coaching.
💡Some Ideas:
Run large scale data analysis
across platforms to uncover
coaching opportunities ☞
Upload your best sales performers
customer call transcripts to
uncover best practices to coach on
across the wider team.

41. Upleveled
1:1s

42. Increase rep
productivity.

43. Share
templates
across
your
teams…

44. …to make
everyone a
top
performer.

45. Scale sales enablement.

46. Onboard your
new reps.

47. Get
everyone
the help
they need
to close
deals.

48. What does the future hold?

49. AGI as an
assistant.