Probably not. To benefit from our time and see the return on investment you would expect, you need to have the resources to experiment and invest. That said, we enjoy talking with founders and we’re happy to connect with you even if now isn’t the right time to engage. Typically, once you’ve raised a significant seed round or Series A, you’ll have those resources–and probably a sense of urgency for finding GTM fit. For bootstrapped companies, we see success with clients with $5 million or more in revenue. At that point resources become more readily available and the stress of making payroll isn’t keeping founders up at night anymore. If you’re not ready to engage yet, you might explore our resources for ideas and strategies to pursue on your own.

Absolutely! Many clients come to us after raising their first significant financing, to ensure they hit their goals and milestones in time to raise the next financing. We specialize in helping seed-stage companies establish a strong foundation, enabling them to grow smoothly without the need for major course corrections along the way. We work directly with founders to give them confidence in their early GTM efforts, GTM hires and management of their team. 

Maybe. Any technical founder able to raise a financing round is great at many things. You are probably extremely smart and are a world-class expert at something–engineering, product, design–and a quick learner. However, without experience or confidence in GTM disciplines, you are signing up to learn on the job. Even if you are a very fast learner, your company will fail faster than you can learn. A GTM advisor works with technical founders to bring them the perspective and confidence to tackle their GTM challenges and achieve their goals. We do that in a way that feels right and conforms to the thinking and mindset of an engineer or other technical thinker, both accelerating learning and helping hire and manage for GTM at the highest level.

The specific areas GTM advising can help technical founders are hiring and managing the sales and marketing team and leadership, setting expectations for GTM disciplines and interpreting feedback from employees and agencies, thinking of and executing GTM strategies such as partnerships and other higher risk engagements, and–perhaps most importantly–managing with confidence, whether with direct reports, peers and other founders, or with your board and investors.

Each engagement is tailored to the specific needs of our clients. The simplest and perhaps highest leverage engagements are coaching, meeting regularly with founders or key team members to help them achieve more and be more confident in their role. We can broaden this to include a mix of advisory and execution, where we dedicate approximately a day or more each week to work with your Go-to-Market (GTM) team. From time to time our team can take on an interim role, such as a fractional CMO or CRO, to enable you to find the right long term hire.

We also offer either project-focused or ongoing engagements. Whether starting with a GTM assessment, where we look at your GTM from top to bottom to help you decide where to focus, or managing paid marketing, building a website, configuring a CRM, running cold outbound campaigns, or managing social presence, our team focuses on strong execution so that you can experiment quickly and confidently. We deliver results in all of our projects.

A GTM assessment is where we dive deep into your whole GTM motion, to understand exactly what is and is not working for you, and to make recommendations on where to spend time and resources. We look at everything from the website and marketing materials to listening to sales calls, reviewing your analytics and paid advertising metrics, and pouring over the data in your CRM or other customer communications. Every company we work with is doing a lot of things right, and benefits from recognizing that while also getting an outsider’s perspective on where the opportunities are for growth and expansion. 

Founders who are new to sales and marketing benefit the most from GTM advising. Newly promoted sales and marketing leaders also benefit, especially when their senior leaders (e.g., founders) do not have hands on GTM leadership experience themselves. While experimenting is the best practice in finding GTM fit, management requires confidence and advisors can bring that confidence. Everyone can use a guide to navigate the challenges of the startup journey.

To us, Silverwood captures the sense of journey. All entrepreneurship is a journey, and while each of us may have their own destination in mind, the journey is where we spend all of our time. Whether the goal is simply achieving profitability and independence or going public in the biggest IPO of the decade, the journey is never easy. The people of Silverwood are your companions and guides, helping you navigate on your journey. We walk alongside founders, helping them make thoughtful and intentional choices about their journey, ultimately emerging successfully at their destination, on their own terms.

Yes, we provide advice and support to international companies. Our team is global and so are our customers. 

We act as the founder’s coach or advisor, distinct from the role of a VC. While VCs often introduce us to founders, we serve as a trusted advisor to the founder. You can ask us questions that you might hesitate to ask a VC or board member, and unlike many VCs and board members, we always provide candid and honest answers.

We differ in another important way: we are operators, unlike most VCs. Many VCs have seen people operate from the boardroom, but that is a once-a-month or once-a-quarter view. We have actually done the hard work–sending the cold emails, dialing the phone, hiring and firing people, and much more. Our advice is rooted in having walked the path. Some investors, of course, have that experience also; they can be the best to work with, especially if they have the time to share it with you. But most do not, and filling that gap is where we add tremendous value.

No, there is no minimum commitment for the majority of our services. If at any point you feel that our engagement is not providing value to you or your company, you can choose to end it. We are dedicated to delivering measurable value and impact every day. The moment you feel we are not delivering that value, we would prefer to part ways.

Yes! We’re always happy to meet with founders. Just reach out. You can also check out the resources on the site–newsletters, podcasts, and maybe even a book to help you be the best you can be at go-to-market.