The Fallacy of MQLs: Why Marketing Qualified Leads Are Dead with Seth Robbins, CRO at Cycode

Welcome back to the Cybersecurity Startup Revenue Podcast! In today's episode, we have a special guest joining us, Seth Robbins, the CRO of Cycode. Seth is known for challenging the status quo, and today he will be sharing his thoughts on the topic of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and their relevance in measuring marketing effectiveness. Seth believes that the MQL is dead and proposes a different approach to evaluating marketing success based solely on revenue generation. He will discuss the pitfalls of relying on MQLs and share valuable insights from his experience in the cybersecurity sales industry. Join us as Seth challenges conventional wisdom and uncovers the key elements necessary for driving revenue growth in early-stage startups. This is an episode you won't want to miss! So, without further ado, let's dive into the conversation with Seth Robbins at Cycode.

[00:02:18] Start early, assess market, simplify message, adapt.

[00:06:14] Sales reps should be like cats, not dogs.

[00:08:56] Controversial MQL is a useless marketing metric.

[00:12:14] MQLs are dead; focus on revenue generation.

[00:16:59] Focus BDRs on ICP, measure demo requests.

[00:21:58] Proper process is key to scaling sales.

[00:24:14] Startups face a game of inches.

[00:28:18] Exciting progress, breaking records, non-fragile stage. Looking for trailblazers who drive industry forward. Seeking four key traits: drive, empathy, intellect, adaptability. No compromise.

[00:32:13] Drive, empathy, and value in business relationships.

[00:37:41] Empathy and intellect are important in hiring.

[00:40:54] Adaptability is crucial in startup success. [7 words]

[00:43:32] Special Forces salesperson and CEO discuss adaptability.

[00:47:11] Good conversation about optimizing marketing and sales.

Seth on LinkedIn
Cycode

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Transcript

Andrew Monaghan [00:00:00]:

The MQL is dead. So says Seth Robbins, the CRO at Cycode. Seth has a long history running sales at cybersecurity startups and comes to that perspective from the real world, from his real experiences. Find out why he got there, what he thinks needs to be done instead, and also the impact of making this change. And as an added bonus, we also talk about the character trait of the best salespeople for early stage companies. Do not go away. This one is really good. Welcome to the cybersecurity start up revenue podcast where we help cybersecurity companies grow revenue you faster. I am your host Andrew Monahan, our guestias Seth Robbins, CRO @ Cycode.

Seth Robbins [00:00:56]:

Seth, welcome to the podcast. Hey. Thank you for having me.

Andrew Monaghan [00:01:00]:

I am looking forward to this, Seth. We've got a couple of meaty topics to get through today that I think through your experiences over the years, you've kinda come to some conclusions and some ideas that I don't know if I ever don't agree with, but you've you've certainly got from ideas and experiences to back up your thoughts. So it's gonna be an interesting episode for everyone to to listen to. But let's learn a bit more about you, Seth. I've got a list of questions here. I'm gonna ask you to pick three numbers being 135, and I'll redo the the question they they correspond to. Alright. Let's go with 23, 1013. Let's go try 3 best advice you have ever been given about startups.

Seth Robbins [00:01:43]:

No one tells you how hard they are, so I can't tell you I've given them in that great advice about it. I would say if someone gave me a one liner, it's something I read from Mike Tyson, which is everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the face. That is the best way to describe a startup, I feel like.

Andrew Monaghan [00:02:01]:

Yeah. I've sat there like you have for a way back in the day, you know, working on the plans. Right? And you think you're it's all so good, all the rest. And then the end of 1st week, you realize, well, it was kinda useful to go through the exercise, but the plan is gonna all turn up. You just have to be very adaptable.

Seth Robbins [00:02:18]:

because it depends when you start in the company. I've only ever done very early stage where the technology is crunchy, They just got funding. There's maybe 1 or 2 customers. So you can apply sort of a PTC BQM model. Let me drop people in NFL Cities. and have overcapacity, you have to really try to assess the market, simplify down the message, Keep trying it. Keep trying it. Keep trying it. And then once you get 1 dot, look for that pattern recognition. decide where you wanna put your limited resources and time to try to take it to that next level of scale. And Some of the acquisitions I've been in happened well before we got there. Some of them were bought versus sold, which is a much better situation. And the last one, Hyper, you know, was close to 20,000,000 ARR before leaving, and we're just getting to that repeatable sales motion. where you can drop people in NFL City. So, again, I think it really determines where you are brought in around that cycle and if a plan's gonna work or not. So planning, I think, is 4 for the later stage than it is the early stage. Early stage, I think you'd be massively adaptable, be ready to fail fast, and pivot quickly.

Andrew Monaghan [00:03:33]:

Yeah. Learn quickly. Right? Alright. Well, the next number you gave me was 10. Was that right? 10. Yes. Okay. you know, a lot of talk these days about getting everyone's day off to that very productive start with sometimes a family who can your best laid plans go out the window a little bit. But what's the first hour of your day look like? First hour of my day looks probably like most people. As I get up, I

Seth Robbins [00:03:56]:

go down and get some coffee, wake myself up, shower, then get my kids up for school, try to make sure they're not late, then once I get them out the door, that's when I get on my phone. I just realized it's better to be very present when you can be with them. So I try not to even look at my phone or do work until they're out the door because then I'm, like, not getting that limited amount of time with them. That's to learn right after making the mistakes in the past.

Andrew Monaghan [00:04:24]:

Yeah, corralling kids to get ready for school even though they have to do it every day is always in my house, it could be a little bit of a challenge as well. Well, with COVID, it was even tougher, right, because then they were in the house all the time.

Seth Robbins [00:04:39]:

So there was no kind of divide, but I think we all had to learn to be adaptable and see what worked for us. And everybody's circumstances were obviously different. Alright. Last number, 2 135. Oh, I gotta go with my first born, thirteen year old.

Andrew Monaghan [00:04:52]:

Cats are dogs.

Seth Robbins [00:04:54]:

Oh, This is a crazy, religious, almost like question. I have cats now. So if they're listening, I'm gonna get in trouble. but I am a dog person. Dogs just seem to give loving energy that cats don't give you, and I appreciate my cats. And I trained to be more like dogs, but there's nothing like a dog, but quality of life of a dog person is not as good as a cat person, but I'm still a dog person at heart.

Andrew Monaghan [00:05:19]:

It's funny. My neighbor Across the street here and my neighborhood, same position. I think his wife is definitely the cat person, he's the dog person, and elicit our our dogs and, you know, wishes he had a dog to himself. But, you know, he does like the idea having to cast, but I think for him, Cycode I would have more fun with dogs. I'd take them for walks and, you know, get out there and enjoy them a lot more. Cats come to you when they wanna come to you? dogs are unconditional

Seth Robbins [00:05:47]:

love. Right? And cats are also cleaner than dogs. They're more independent than dogs. you don't need to, like, wake up at 6 in the morning and take them out. Right? So they're also saying the quality of life person with a cat is probably a little better. but just that, you know, wanting to cuddle up with you at any moment in time, not just when they want to, that's a dog. Right? And I think as a cyber leader or go to market leader, you need a dog. You get beat up a lot. Well, I think you're right, but I was there someone

Andrew Monaghan [00:06:14]:

said, you know, as a salesperson, you wanna be more of a cat than a dog. Right? You don't wanna be the the person with the latest toy in your mind running around trying to show everyone your latest toy. You wanna have that sort of attachment about, well, I'm gonna hang out over here and let you come come to me a little bit. Right? Cat string theory is I think what you're talking about, which is, you know, based the cat isn't interested until it needs to be interested. So really good sales reps don't waste their cycles. They realize their time is probably the most valuable resource.

Seth Robbins [00:06:41]:

But I think as a cybersecurity leader and someone's been a go to market leader for years, you need a dog to make yourself feel better after the day. Right? Because it's not easy. Like, I have a saying, like, what lasts is never easy and what's easy never lasts, and I keep reminding myself of that. because this job is not for someone who doesn't wanna grind.

Andrew Monaghan [00:07:04]:

Well, since you talked about successful salespeople, let's talk about your background quickly a little bit. So to be honest, it gets a sense of, you know, where your experiences come from. in our conversation today. You spent 7 years at RSA as you started off your career there at SDR and kinda moved through the ranks and finished off as a global account manager there, and then you move to have a 4 year stint of romeum Growing them back in the day was kind of the hot company, one of the hot companies I guess of the period it was in. And you could have different sales leadership roles there. You spent 2 years leading sales at Faroe Glass before you were acquired by Symantec. Nice exit there, I'm sure. And for the last 5 years, you've been the CRO at Hyper, which bills themselves as the password less company. And as we said before, you're now the CRO at Cycode Code. And if that's not enough, sprinkled in there as well our various advisory board or board positions and also you're an LP in the cyber mentor fund that Tim needs runs. He's one of the leaders over there. Actually, Tim his episode in this podcast will be released just before Euro 1. So if you're listening to this, you know, either the episode before or the one before that will be Tim talking about CMF and all his learnings working with earlier stage companies. So you got a long history in sales and specifically in cybersecurity sales. And when we were when we first chatted a while back, one of the things that stuck out to me, you said to me, the MQL is dead. And, you know, a certain part of me was like, woah. That's a strong statement to make. And I gotta tell you a certain part of me could've went, hell yeah. So I'm kinda interested about, you know, how you came to that that idea and and and what it really means. Yeah. Look. I'm definitely known for saying controversial things.

Seth Robbins [00:08:56]:

If something's controversial, it it usually gets more reaction than if it doesn't. Right? But I really do believe the MQL is dead. I think we have to look at, like, the time we're in. right now. Right? So the MQL could have been more valuable maybe 10 years ago. Right? But we're in a time now where digital spend is really tough to produce revenue. And, you know, the shows you go to, the events that you're spending a lot on. You're hoping to find the right individuals and engage them and hopefully get them to come on this journey with you. You know, there's digital on the email campaigns and nurture programs. And MQL is this It's like this shiny vanity metric that, in my mind, doesn't relate to actual revenue, but creates more of an opportunity thought. for the business. Right? So MQL stands for marketing qualified lead. So you would think that means that if my rep is in front of that MQL, and they are asking hard questions, and they're prosecuting that the conversion rate is gonna be very high into an opportunity, and that that opportunity is Monaghan have velocity. In my 10 years, you know, running go to markets, I've never seen that. What I have seen is inbound leads that come in, where somebody puts in a demo request and says, you know, I'd like to see this technology in action. Those typically move to fruition much faster and more frequently, and they're not considered MQLs necessarily. So That's part of the problem. If you try to get a CMO to start measuring just his inbounds that come in from real companies, and try to hold him or her accountable to that number, it's a very hard conversation. Right? The MQL is where they say, hi. This many MQLs, It's gonna convert to this many sales qualified leads, and it's gonna convert as many opportunities. And just like we said in the beginning, it just does not work out that way. you have to recognize where you are in certain sales motions and time of motions. And the MQL, I'm gonna just, you know, let you talk a minute. It's just, like, not what I wanna measure the success or share a voice of a of a company's marketing program on? Yeah. My impression of MQL is something that maybe this is going back a few years. You know, marketing has investments in

Andrew Monaghan [00:11:18]:

different things that they do, and they wanna be able to show that there's some some output from those investments, and there was this bucket called MQL, and MQL might have been a very raw thing, or there might be some qualification. on that MQL, other demographics, psychographic, or maybe even if they own BDR, STR, they might even talk to them as well. Right? But it it became this one number Right? It was like, no matter all the different channels, whatever might have happened. Here are the, whatever, 500 MQLs that we handed over to sales, this Monaghan, didn't we do well, right? That's kind of my impression of how it ended up. And I don't think I've ever seen people talk about you know, MQLs by channel necessarily. Right? It it becomes you know, the blended number is what people used to be able to show and say, yeah. Look what we did. Isn't that good? Is is that kind of where you're going the multichannel approach or the fact that just even -- Yeah. Exactly. I mean, multichannel

Seth Robbins [00:12:14]:

is one side of the equation. We've Typically, they don't look at it by it was, you know, events. It was digital. It was something else. But then it's even more than that where The MQL has basically created this, like, trough to think that a program is doing well because of what the metrics are versus looking at, like, the revenue contribution that really matters. Right? But the reason I think the MQL is dead is to the opportunity it creates for the business. So let me walk through that. So I've run a lot of SDR teams. Right? Sales development teams. and their job is to try to set up meetings that can turn to opportunities. Right? And they'll sometimes not be able to go after the right type of company the right persona that could actually lead to an opportunity because their, let's call it, you know, lead queue gets just completely filled with MQLs, that they have service level agreements to marketing that they have to respond to. And the MQLs aren't even back to your idea of channels, even tied to, like, channels like a Gartner event. The MQLs could be don't get me started on this, but lead lists that are bought or syndicated content which I've never seen turn into anything. And so that's a massive opportunity cost because now these resources can't work with their team members to get into the accounts that matter. to hit the personas that matter, to hit the right titles. Right? And what we started doing at Hyper is we started measuring the effectiveness. right, because I was just sick of this. And we saw that when we could let the, we call them BDRs, go after the right accounts, the right persona. Right? Tie them down to, like, what they're doing on LinkedIn and their interests. We got a lot more fruitful outcome. than any of the MQLs that were followed up on. Right? And so when you look at the MQL, it's supposed to go through this funnel. but no one talks about what is the opportunity cost of going through that funnel. And so that's really why I think the MQL is dead, and we have to look for different ways to measure marketing's effectiveness. Right? So one way that I believe we should do that is just to be really focused on revenue generation. and only revenue generation of marketing. And I don't think MQLs should even be followed up on. This is controversial. I think it's a The MQL should be treated differently than a demo request from, let's say, Citigroup. When a demo request comes in from Citigroup, It is typically an accelerated sales cycle, and you're probably behind the curve. They're already probably starting to evaluate people, and it already set their requirements up ahead of time. right, but it still gets you in the game. Right? That shouldn't count as an MQF, but that's merged in with the syndicated content. So what I'd envision, if I had a blank canvas, is imbalance come in, right, You you don't want your reps be following up on that because they could be a waste of cycles and time. So there is still value in having a BDR team go through that and make sure it's the right person, right persona. But, you know, outside of that, BDR should be all outbound. Right? And it's actually interesting. Salesforce did just that when they kind of created the model that works extraordinarily well. They had an MDR team, and they had a BDR team years ago. And they were able to generate tons of more revenue by this BDR program. Right? So we have enough technology in place that we could waterfall these MQLs to become demo requests at some point. Right? And there's such a vendor fatigue out there. I talked to all these security leaders and CISOs that I know, and they're just, like, bombarded by people. They don't even wanna pick up the phone. Some go as far as, like, writing LinkedIn saying, hey. If you're interested, get this email address. I'll look at it once a month. So having people follow-up in MQLs of people who don't look forward to really talking to us is not really the right play. but being targeted, being strategic, and going after the right persona, whereas that pain point, I think is valuable enough. for a BDR program to show their worth.

Andrew Monaghan [00:16:34]:

When I think about prioritizing leads, let's call them, You know, league scoring is the first thing I'd coast my mind, right? Where, you know, for various reasons that league gets 100 out of a 100 and some get 10 out of 100, things like that, and, you know, whatever happens from there is part of the process, right? They'll get treated differently. Is that does that fit into your model, or are you thinking that's probably not working?

Seth Robbins [00:16:59]:

I know that's not working. Those are the MLLs that come to the BDRs queue to work. The scoring is can adjust at any given time to drive what we want the data to look like. Right? Oh, we have 500 MQLs this month. Oh, wait a 1000 this month. Oh, a 1000 little much. Okay. Let's tone it down. Oh, let's speed it up. So I'm actually suggesting that unless it's a demo request, right, people wanna engage with you at the time they wanna engage with you. Right? Buyers are very intelligent now versus in any other time period. They're extremely educated in this stuff. And there's this different process they go through the same way we go through process of discovery, customer validation, POV, you know, all all all the stages of sales that we're familiar So what I think is really important is allow your BDRs to be more effective. and allow them to go after the accounts that mat as, you know, go to market leaders, we talk about ICP. ideal customer profile, right? It's been around for a long time. It's critically important. It allows you to win more. Guess what? How many of those MQLs do you think are actually in the ICP or even looked at as part of the ICP? None of them. So why not have your BDRs go after your ICP? Right? Your persona that you know they buy from and the type of companies that you know are more forward looking you're an earlier stage company versus not. And so my vision, as I was saying, is why not focus on measuring demo requests because demo requests lead to accelerated sales cycles. Put MQLs is still something that you care about, but create a waterfall system where those MQLs are constantly nurtured And then when they raised to the top, because they came back for a demo request,

Andrew Monaghan [00:18:47]:

right, that's when you follow-up with them. And and that's nurtured by marketing rather than the BDR. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. So the content, the public content that Martin produces whether it's purely do, you know, podcasts, white papers, pieces, whatever we might do. That's used to bring people down to waterfall, right? say, okay, this type of person will get this, this, this, and then at some point we want them to then raise their hand and say demo request to wherever our version is of that, right? the BDR can just do a quick sanity check on it, or it might just go straight to the AE at that point. Exactly. And then the BDRs are focused on that ICP that they should focus on. the right companies they just focus on, the right personas.

Seth Robbins [00:19:29]:

And when I've done that, I've actually seen a much better increase than qualified opportunities, in deals that made it to POV and deals that closed won. And that's across bromium. That's across fire glass. That's across hyper. So I like to say 3 dots make a line. Like, that's 3 dots. It's not that marketing doesn't do a great job. Right? But it's just this is an area where it's kind of easier. It's easy for them to act successful. And the goal is, like, you know, hard choice is easy life. Easy choice is hard life. Like, this is a hard choice for marketing, but I think it will lead to, like, business being a lot more successful if it happens uniformly. Right? Because you're not you're not losing the investment in these, you know, events you do or these digital campaigns you run. All you're doing is recognizing that you don't wanna have an opportunity cost for your BDR team with MQLs anymore. Right? And so you don't go into boards highlighting any more MQLs. You go into boards talking about revenue contribution that was created. Well, I I think the couple thoughts come to my mind as you're talking about this. Remember,

Andrew Monaghan [00:20:29]:

I was selling at a startup probably 10 years ago. And what we talked about with the marketing was, listen, If we get a demo request from anyone that looks like a a non student or non non journalist, don't do anything whether they accept these. Give it to us. Text me on my phone. wherever I am in the world, I'll I'll respond immediately to that. Right? That's that's gold dust. Right? Don't put any barrier in the way. I'd I'd much rather get on the phone with someone and find out wasn't the right person at Citigroup rather than am I I learned something about having a conversation with them rather than have that somehow filtered from me. because, you know, that's one of my few accounts I've got to get into, and I never request this goal. So I I'm kinda lying with you on that. I I think the the kind of wider picture you're talking about, though, is something that I'm seeing and hearing a lot right now, which is that this this kind of old way of doing things where we'd scale up go to market by adding a whole bunch of salespeople and maybe some BDRs and then flood them with with MQLs and get them to go and the sales team to go and create their own pipeline is shifting to one where, well, what if we put more responsibility in the marketing area to to really nurture and create campaigns that impact revenue to then have a smaller team working on these things. right? Working on sales, working on cans, BDRs and AEs, and let them be flooded first before we start adding more head count. So it kinda moves from adding headcount to sale to scale to

Seth Robbins [00:21:58]:

to scaling by having a proper process. It kinda seems to be an alignment somewhat with with that thought process. Would you agree with that? I mean, look, you definitely, I think, don't wanna I've always thought this. Right? And it's maybe why I have the 10 years I've had as a CRO. Right? You don't wanna have sales become a cost center. You want it to always be looked at as a revenue center. Right? So I remember in my days at Broomio. when I was, you know, the first rep there, I was brought on. I think I closed the first six deals in the company's history, companies like JPMC, Bluebird, Broadridge, ADP, New York Life, and they were like, yep. We're ready to go. Right? And we ended up having a team of, like, 18 sales reps. by the end of that 1st year of sales. Right? Now we did a decent number that 1st year of sales. But the next year, the head of sales, great guy, who, you know, still in touch with, like, he got shot because we missed our our q one number after he hired 18 reps. and then we ended up scaling down quickly to 9 reps, and we did better revenue than we did the year before. So it's an example of sales being a call center. That's what I was viewed as. So I'm very much in the mindset, as I alluded to, is milestone approach, Right? 1 dot does make a line. 2 dots doesn't make a line. 3 dots make a line. Right? Like, just adding reps to dip capacity models just means you're gonna be firing reps really soon. And so, you know, one thing I'm most proud of is at at Hyper and never had you know, I was very conscious of that. And so the tenure of the reps that we have there is probably extremely uncommon, you know, 3, 4th, even 5 years in some cases because we weren't looked as a cost center. We were based on revenue, and I didn't let it get to a point where we doubled the sales team because I knew we weren't ready for that. That's a hard

Andrew Monaghan [00:23:44]:

stance to take sometimes in companies, you know? because you go to the board saying, but you need to scale sales. Right? You you can't do that with six people. You should go an hour, 15 or 20. I bet the bromium head of sales. It wasn't just his idea to to put in the 18 heads. I'm sure that was driven by by the board as well. So it must be tough to say, no. We're not ready for that yet. I think that's part of the job of, you know, executive leadership is to have the data to say this is the time to scale or the data to say this is why we shouldn't

Seth Robbins [00:24:14]:

Right? This was this quarter was deal dependent. Right? Or look at how it came down to the why. Or, yeah, we hit the number, but if this didn't happen, we'd be in trouble. I'm actually a big believer in every company I go into is what I call game of inches. Like, that's where I feel the stage companies that I are and that's till you're, like, a 30,000,000 ARR. In fact, I was just reading something about the CEO of Okta, Todd Buchanan. And he actually said that Okta was fragile up until like 30,000,000 ARR. Right? So I used the word game of inches. And and I try to highlight to my team, like, what it means to be in a game of inches, and those inches can help you or hurt you. and he thought the word fragile. Right? Until you get to 30,000,000 ARR, you really are in this game of inches. Now once you get there, there's enough data enough revenue, there's enough NRR, there's enough land and expand that you can start taking some liberties, I believe. Not everything happens like the whiz. Right? Those type of companies happen once in a Bluebird moon. And I, you know, listened to Colin was awesome to hear him talk about what happened and, you know, what he learned during that process. but sometimes, like, just have, like, the perfect alignment in a market. Typically, that doesn't happen for a lot of companies. And in fact, I wanna say most side most startups fail. Like, 97% of startups fail, and out of them, only point 04 get to 10,000,000 ARR of them. And then, you know, it's a longer journey from there. Right? It's not over. The clock usually starts at 1,000,000, but then how quick you'd get to 10. And then from 10 to 50, And like I said, so I'm just blow by it like a whiz, but, typically, it's had a next milestone too. And I think you have to look at all these things differently. Right? So maybe I could look at an MQL as dead from the lens I'm talking about, which is very early stage, and it might really evolve as you get later stage. But I've only lived in this game of it just mindset. And so this MQL is dead mindset that I have is marketing help contribute more to revenue. Like, think about the opportunity costs of these MQLs on the company, and don't blump in demo requests, which, by the way, are amazing when you put them in with MQLs to say that this is it, because demo requests lead to accelerated sales cycles. Yeah. I remember

Andrew Monaghan [00:26:30]:

the startup recently where yeah. We were at that stage. We had 3 or 4 or 5 customers, let's say, And the next year, we wanna get to 25. Right? So we got we wanna get we had a net add of 20 new logos was the plan, something like that. Right? And we had a real disconnect and, you know, we were all part of the problem where, you know, marketing was saying, well, we got 1500 MQLs this quarter and we're trying to drive to 2000 NQLs. And I don't think we don't even need 20 customers. We we don't need 4000 NQLs. Right? If we need 4000 NQLs to get 20 customers this year, we're we're doing something wrong. Right? That's not a great conversion. Right. Right. What have we got more focused? What have we put all that effort into much more of, like, you know, as early stages for a much more an ABMs approach. Right? We we know our ICP, and we got pretty good sense for it. Why don't we get focused around that? And it was kinda interesting conversation as we evolved and and changed it up and made it we came much more at ABM company at the time, but there was that real disconnect about what we're trying to achieve and that misalignment around this MQL number. So when you said to me, you know, MQL is that I could've, you know, I had a could've been a first one fiscal reaction from experience. on how sometimes we can get way delayed by that. One of the things that you you've mentioned already there, Seth, was, you know, as people come in, you you bring in the rep, Right? And, you know, hopefully, we're away from this, but let's just add 50 reps and watch all the magic happen. Right? But as you bring in the 5, the 10, the first five or ten people, who those people are are crucial, right, to the success of the team, the company, and and what happens next. What have you what do you look for? Right? You're you you just started at at Cycode Code. So there's a team in place already, but you'll be looking to expand or grow What do you look for in these early stage reps?

Seth Robbins [00:28:18]:

Yeah. Cycode a little further along, which is exciting. You know, I definitely wanna break out of my type cast. I like to break records. I like to do things different. But it's still not at that, you know, stage where it's not fragile as we talked about. Todd McKinnon talked about, you know, $30,000,000 in ARR. It's all different level. Look, I think job of a CRO, a sales leader, is to hire better than themselves, coach those people be better than they are and help them close business. Iron coach close. I think that, you know, in baseball, you have starting pitchers, middle relievers, blazer. Right? You don't wanna put a closer in the beginning of the game. You don't wanna put a starter at the end of the game. I think it's the same thing. I think these hires And I, you know, haven't fully met the team is I'm gonna right? But I look for people who can be trailblazers. And with trailblazers, people who can kinda sell when it's earlier than the market is ready for a little bit. And even though, you know, customers want to move forward with something later stage, something bigger, something not be the first model. Right? There's a benefit of buying early. Right? The customers that bought fire eye early are the ones who truly benefited from the risks out there, right? because the adversaries of cat and mouse games, over time, learned how to make malware fall asleep, then those sandbox didn't really make a difference. So I look for people who understand that, you know, They're gonna drive the industry forward. They're gonna make the customers buy earlier than they would have, but those customers will benefit in the long run. right, in terms of the price they're paying, and in terms of how they are in front of the risks of tomorrow. That being said, like, Outside of the scorecard I look for, right, and scorecard is like, don't just show me you've had success at a big company. Show me you've had excessive start up. right, that doesn't have as much infrastructure that has a little more crunchy technology that doesn't have a huge land and ex and expand base. But then I look for outside of that scoreboard, I look for 4 traits for me. And if they don't have these 4 traits, the conversations are over. And those 4 traits are drive, empathy, intellect, and adaptability. And I always look for those 4 things, and I don't compromise.

Andrew Monaghan [00:30:26]:

Well, let's go through those just quickly then. So drive, how do how do you how do you test for drive?

Seth Robbins [00:30:32]:

So the way you test for drive isn't just like what they've done in the past. it's understanding their story. It's how they got into sales or whatever they're doing. It's testing them on the adversity that they were up against. You know, for me, drive is defined by what you were up against and what you broke through to. Right? And it's not just professional, but it's personal. So, like, I have a drive, I think. And people have asked me, like, where that's come from, and I know exactly where it was. I was, like, in middle school when I was going to go play tennis with my dad, and our cars got repossessed right in front of me because my dad was an entrepreneur. And He lost everything, and that was the first sign of this cascading effect where everything was going great. I went to a private school. And right when I was going to play tennis, someone just came and took my dad's, like, vulva. And then we went and lived in welfare housing for a little bit. And, fortunately, this doesn't happen. My dad was able to build back up, came an analyst Aberdeen group. That story is not very common, but I was old enough to recognize it and saw how fragile it was. and I never wanted that to happen. And that's the drive that I have that allowed me to kind of go up the ranks at RSA, be the number one rep 1 year and then 2 years in a row, And I am a big believer if you don't leave, you don't grow. So that's why I went to that early stage startup, bromine at the time. So that's Myra. So I try to get those stories from people. So when you let's just dig into that a little bit. So do you feel like you're driven by that? I'm I'm I'm two steps away from having my car repossessed?

Andrew Monaghan [00:32:03]:

even though you're not. Right? Is is that kind of gut feeling you have all the time, or have you evolved a lot from there? I evolved a lot from there, but that drive is, like, I don't wanna be situation

Seth Robbins [00:32:13]:

where my son has to see his car get repossessed later on. You know? And that that's the drive I have that always allowed me when I was the BDR to make the most phone calls have the highest activity. It was high activity, high activity, and then I blended it with being methodical. And that's, like, when I broke out, but there was that drive. And For other people, it's a sports thing that they tell me about an analogy where they played, like, with a broken arm and still pitched. Like, I look for those little things. Like, I'm not always right, but usually, like I said, you know, three dots make a line. So I look for that pattern range. And, typically, when, you know, someone doesn't have drive, they're not someone who can persevere the adversity of an early stage starter. Your next one was empathy. How do you how do you assess for that? So Theodore Roosevelt said, no no one cares how much you know. They they care how much you care. I might have messed that up. Right? But it's something like that. No one will care how much you know is I wonder how much you care. That defines empathy. Right? You don't know when you're sitting across the table from a seesaw. If he just found out that his son, you know, got sick with something or his wife. So having empathy is recognizing that you never know what people are dealing with. when you're trying to engage with them. They're not gonna be open to you about it. Right? But then empathy also replies to understand what the buyers going through. Right? They're being, like, I talked about earlier, like, hammered by vendors. They're getting pressures from their boss or their board. Right? And it's really trying to be a partner with them and help them understand that you're here, not just for a commission check. Like, I'll tell you one thing I hate. I hate when I see people talk about their attainment on LinkedIn in public posts. Okay? If you wanna put it on LinkedIn with your resume and, like, hey. Did a 120% like, down there in the bottom, I'm all fine with that. But when I see these posts about, oh, I hit my number this quarter or, oh, it's a 140% as a post. I hate that. Right? Or I've seen it worse, people talk about commission and what they're gonna do with their commission. That's not empathy. Right? You need empathy is recognizing your partner. Your job is to help drive value to the business that you're working with, and they are dealing with a lot of things and that you have to be kind of patient with them and know that you're not just in it for the dollar. Right? So that's how I kinda define empathy a little bit. You know, it brings up a topic to take it a bit passionate about, which is that, you

Andrew Monaghan [00:34:27]:

know, we typically, when salespeople join a company, They're trained in the product. They're trained in the problems that they solve, and they might be told a little bit with ICP. Right? But I I don't know what the right Venn diagram is, but a lot of it is in product and what we do and what we're all about and you know, our strengths versus their strengths and all this sort of stuff. Right? And you were to hear you talk there. It seemed it would seem to me that it should be flipped around. It's almost like you we should train people a lot more in the life of a Cisco or the life of a head of the the the the sock, whoever it might be. about their day to day life, how they measure what their fears and frustrations are, is that let's let's really understand who these people are rather than just saying, you know, they got 3 problems, and here's what they are. Right? Sometimes it just goes that surface level. And I wonder I've asked this before, people, and I wonder how much more effective we as a sales community would be if we flipped around our trading into into 70% towards buyers and what they do in their daily lives, and their fears and frustrations, and 30% in product. and not the other way around?

Seth Robbins [00:35:36]:

No. You're definitely right. Like, you know, I run a program called LaunchPad whenever a new hire comes in and LaunchPad is how we're gonna, like, bring in these rock stars and make sure they go fast. because if you don't start fast, you don't start at all. And we talk about, here's your ICP, talk about here's a competitive landscape. We talk about here's the market. And then to your point, we go in the product. Right? But we touch on personas. We don't live in the persona. Right? And so I think there's definitely a gap there. Because if you understand the business pain, you can associate it to value. And what what I do is that we will need 4 and afters, whatever, before a POV. And a before and after is what's the current state, what's the future state? and we're trying to show like the differentiation of our product versus a competitor to solve this future state. And there's something that has to be pain that race above the noise, and it's either cost, risk, or user experience. And those things need to be measured. Right? But if the rep actually understood the persona's better, they could really be able to drill into

Andrew Monaghan [00:36:40]:

those metrics that help move the deal forward. Yeah. I would even go further that, Seth, and I'd say if you understand you understand how real the deal gets done. right, they're they're they're personal or other people's personal motivations and fears of frustrations. Right? What they're really worried about is getting fired. not the fact that they took too long to remedial an issue, right, because they've missed it eight times in the last three months and the the CIO or the CFO is looking at them going, what are idiots doing? Right? That that that's the level to get to, right, when you can really understand that. and then you can you can link together the the personal side with the the ROI. I always look at ROI, you know, It's called ROA justification, not an ROI decision, right? It justifies something. And usually there's a sponge board behind it, that if we just spent the time to understand and and had the empathy, I guess, but to the original point, about these people and all the things they're going through, we probably do a lot better, I think, to to get some momentum behind some deals.

Seth Robbins [00:37:41]:

And the thing about empathy, it's like tigers don't change their stripes. Right? That there there's something that you your bill you don't really learn it as well. It it's sort of, I think, more just who the person is individually. Now, you might evolve over time and become better at it or have something a life event that made you more empathetic, right? But this isn't new, right? Like, They did studies years ago for insurance salesman. And the top insurance people, this is, you know, 50 years ago, where people who are at the most empathy. Well, let's talk about intellect. What do you look for there? Obviously, you're looking for, you know, where they went to school. You know, what they studied, why they studied it. Right? But, I mean, I don't think you can be so shortsighted that you won't hire someone because they didn't go to college. I think you need to understand why they didn't go to college. I've had that scenario happen a number of times. But intellect's really important. Right? Because especially in the stage you're gonna be in right now, you don't have all the answers. Like, we're talking about, you know, well before 30,000,000 ARR kind of companies. Right? So we're talking in the case of a when I was at, you know, bromium, let 0 when I was at fire glass, less than 500 k ARR. when I was at Hyper same. Right? So you need people who can help you on Big League or Iron Sharpen's iron. and, like, will challenge you and your assumptions, and I think you need to intellect for that. Right? I also think, like, the products are becoming more and more nuanced in the market. And so you need people who can actually understand. They don't need to be, like, more technical than the sell than than the customers, but they have to really understand the technology and how it works and how it is applied to business. But they also need to be intellectual enough to understand where the market gonna be going and be able to be audibly ready to be able to respond to customers, and that is an intellect. Right? So part of that's a little bit just the conversation you have, what you speak about with them. Right? I can't give them an IQ test per se. I don't ask them about their IQ test. But you get the feeling that someone's trying to learn about the market or did a lot of due diligence. Like, I always actually appreciate I don't always answer the question, but if somebody asks how many shares are outstanding. To me, that's his actual little bit of sign of intellect. You'd be surprised how many don't. Yeah. As you talk about Intellect there, I I think that

Andrew Monaghan [00:40:03]:

I think that brought to my mind was when you're in early stage companies, you know, you you can't rely on the product to to sell. Right? Because what it does right now is probably reasonably limited. And therefore, your ability to talk about the future And the future means you start getting into trusted advisors or status. Right? Let's talk about the way the market is going or why. Let's talk about the dynamics. Let's talk about what's gonna come and hit you next year or the year after, right, if these changes aren't made, that takes someone with intellect and get a market awareness that I think many people don't have. And it's more required to think than ever if you're, you know, a small group of people at an early stage company trying to go and make that market. It seems like it's it's super important on that stage.

Seth Robbins [00:40:47]:

We are aligned there, Andrew.

Andrew Monaghan [00:40:48]:

Let's move on to adaptability then. Why is that so important? Adaptability

Seth Robbins [00:40:54]:

is important, especially in that stage of a startup, because things never go the way you think they're gonna go. new competitors enter, giant suites enter like Microsoft. The technology is bumpy, not just because of you, but because you're basing on an open standard to potentially that's new to the equation. So if the person's not adaptable, you know, when they have the really, really big highs. And when you have the really, really big lows, they're not able to handle it, right? You almost have to be like iceman if you ever watch top gun. right, where you're just, like, steady across it. You don't let it get too high, you don't get too low. Because Starbucks are that roller coaster. I know you've been in them yourself. but adaptable people are people who can deal in the highs and deal in the lows as well and not let it define them because for example, you hire people in, and they're expecting a certain amount of infrastructure. They're expecting a certain amount of training. They're expecting a certain amount of go to market knowledge. Like, it's just typically not there because you don't have the right resources to build all that stuff. Right? Like, I will always wanna be doing enablement But how do I do enablement if I add, you know, a rev ops leader in myself? Like, it's a lot of work, a lot of content. Right? So you need people who can adapt And also, you might have done going a certain way in your, you know, tip of the spear motion, and it's the wrong one. And if it's not someone adaptable, you know, they could lose could lose faith, right, versus recognizing that, hey. Like I said earlier, you're failing fast and making the right move now. So Adaptability is critical in that sense of being, I think, successful in that very fragile startup more than anything. It's, like, the temperament of the individual because Everything they go into is not gonna be exactly what was defined to them. And are you looking for, what, past experience to show they can do that, or are you looking for something else when you're talking to yeah, what I look for is, you know, tell me what happened when you went as a start up. Tell me what your expectations were. Okay. Were your expectations met? Right? I also look at the amount of time they're at companies. Right? I don't wanna discount somebody because it was just like a 9 month stint. They just don't know the circumstance. It goes back to empathy. But, I mean, 2 dots, 3 dots make a line. So if you're seeing that constantly, you're clearly saying that this person seems they're not choosing well, but even if they're not choosing well, they weren't very adaptable. Right? And the way, a lot of resumes out there are like that. Right? And then you also have to be careful because people don't put everything on their resume, which I'm sure you've seen that as well. Right? So to me, just getting back. Like, drive, intellect, adaptability, empathy. Like, that is nonnegotiables for me. And it's one of the things I look at when I go into new teams or before I even hire. Like, do they have those strengths?

Andrew Monaghan [00:43:32]:

Yeah. Essentially, a couple of things come to mind as you go through them again. I When I talked to Tim at CMF, he he he talked about the Special Forces salesperson. He said as a person you drop off for 3 days of a supply of food and come back in 3 weeks and and see how they've done. Right? You need someone who just figures out, you know, we can't we don't have ever things. I can't give you everything. but I trust you to figure it out. And with that, you know, adaptability, empathy drive is all part of that. The second thing that comes to mind, I interviewed Eric Holden, Eric is the CEO at Strata Identity. He's Strata is the 3rd company, sold the first 2 to RSA, following up. So you you might know the in companies from back in the day. And he talked about the difference between driving on the freeway and driving off road. Right? He said, you know, if you're if you're coming to a start up expecting it to be the freeway, you're not the right person, you're gonna be very, very miss sadly mistaken about how things we're gonna work out. Say, he wants the person who has the roll cage. Right? As they go off road and they hit the bumps and they they yeah. Everything goes wrong. They they flip over, and within a day, they're they're back on the right side again. moving forward, figure out what to learn and and keep moving forward. Again, with that, you know, adaptability drive into let goes with that as well to to understand what's happening. seems like those 2 different people are are embodying what you're saying as well. That's good to hear. Yeah. I have not had those conversations, I think, with either of them.

Seth Robbins [00:44:57]:

but it's worked for me and, you know, keep doing what works. I think, you know, it doesn't mean these other individuals aren't great salespeople. It's just I think the time of the need of when you bring the individual in or not is very important to recommend.

Andrew Monaghan [00:45:12]:

That's great. I I talked to a guy couple of weeks back. And, you know, his business now is he he works with early stage cyber security companies, and he gets their 1st Canadian customers. right? And he says, you know, I'm not trying to get a customer 50. I'll give them the first 5 or 10 in Canada. It's like it's a world I know. and I'm good at it. I've done it many times before. So he just knows that's his his thing. But he wouldn't be the sort of company that you know, Paolo would be higher to to get more gating customers. Right? He he's definitely at that early stage. I mean, ideal for that.

Seth Robbins [00:45:45]:

Yeah. And and he thrives in that. Right? And these are also people it's funny. I say this. It's that wanna be CEO of their own territory. Right? And if you don't have an elect to adaptability drive empathy, you're not gonna be the CEO of your own territory. I don't think that later stage company guys typically are Zio of their own territory. It's it's a lot less flexible, right, because it's all proven the success Monaghan. And look, process has to be followed, but I think in early stage, like, if it's not working, that's where you're looking for feedback too and just wanna be driving it with them. Right? Not loan will

Andrew Monaghan [00:46:20]:

Yeah. Good. But when I when I first went to a startup, I'd been at McAfee for a while. And, you know, we at McAfee, we we've been Wild West for a while, and then it went the exact opposite where everyone was locked down. Process was followed. If you didn't follow this or do that, you wouldn't get paid on deals. You know? it it went too far the other way. Right? And then when you go to the startup, it was like, you got to get the mindset that no one's gonna fire you for not following the process. you're doing the right thing. You're trying to figure out how to break barriers down and and do things. They're much worse than making being in progress, and that wasn't always the case, you know, the bigger company. It does take a different mindset to to be used to that and want to embrace it. I think

Seth Robbins [00:46:59]:

doing it is one thing embracing is something completely different. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Look. I only have these beliefs and follow this road map because I've done it the other way before.

Andrew Monaghan [00:47:11]:

Yeah. Well, Seth, we we had a good conversation. Right? We talked about the MQL as dad, how the need is to to really rethink through where marketing and sales engage in how they deal with different types of leads and who does what. Totally with you the idea that we need to optimize or, you know, spend our time with in the right places with the right increased chance to success. I think that was the theme that I took from that. And then secondly, when you when we're looking at these early stage companies and getting the right people in, it is so important to have people that have these traits that know, we're gonna we can't get it right all the time. Right? But if we go in very intentionally looking for these things, our chances of getting the right people and attracting the right people as well, I think, go up so much higher. Yeah. Look. I think the resume is important like the scoreboard, but those traits are nonnegotiables

Seth Robbins [00:48:03]:

for me. And Like we said, but to start this whole conversation, like, start ups are hard. Like, a lot of them fail. None of them usually get past 10,000,000 ARR. It's sensationalized. It's sensationalized that you go to a start up and you make tons of Monaghan you get bought for a lot of money. But there's actually been 61 companies, and this includes IPOs in the last decade that have had over a $100,000,000 outcome. That's not a lot. 61? Yes.

Andrew Monaghan [00:48:33]:

Out. Out of potentially, I don't know, 3 or 4000 companies started, maybe more. actually the last 10 years. Exactly.

Seth Robbins [00:48:41]:

So, you know, it's not gonna be easy. You have to embrace the hard. But if you pick the right company at the right time, it can change your life. You know? Instead of coaching your kid's soccer team, you can be taking your kid on a private jet to roll cup. Look at some of those people at whiz.

Andrew Monaghan [00:48:55]:

The whizzes whizzes and hat lyre. Happy for them all. Happy for them all. Absolutely. Well, if someone wants to continue the conversation or talk about what you're doing over Cycode right now. What's the best way to get a hold of yourself?

Seth Robbins [00:49:06]:

Just join Cycode. I think they're the whiz of code. I think that they're in a space the two spaces that matter in cybersecurity, which are cloud security, which you've already seen, like, monsters built like Wizz and what Psycho lives in, which is code to cloud. You can hit me up on LinkedIn, Seth Robins, or ceft@cycle.com. Cycode thank you for the time being.

Andrew Monaghan [00:49:30]:

Yeah. I wish you every success as you embark on a new journey

Seth Robbins [00:49:34]:

at at Cycode Code. It's it's like a time to be there, I'm sure. I love it. Very excited, and I was running there, and that's what you always wanna do. You wanna run somewhere, not run away.