2022: Evolving Zero To Twenty 🚀

The building of an active community

There is nothing more liberating than seeing people succeed where you failed or struggled as a result of the lessons you learned that you shared openly.

In the deepest depths of my DNA is this drive to share knowledge and create ubiquity around intelligence in order to spread wealth beyond the lucky few.

I don’t believe in hiding “secret sauces”, and I believe deeply that things like patents are self-serving and actually slow the progress of humankind, which is the polar opposite of what drives me.

It’s safe to say that being candid and sharing openly is critically important to who I am. Closed and scarcity mindsets repel me.

I began the process of paying forward my experiences of building SaaS companies in the form of writing content here and on LinkedIn in June of this year, and I am truly shocked by the reception:

Community Growth

In 2020, my content on LinkedIn had 34k views, whereas in 2021 my content has just passed the 1 million views mark, and I only started posting in the middle of the year 🤯… …thank YOU so much to all of my readers, I appreciate you all incredibly 🤗

 

Any up-to-the-right metric is comforting, but in reality, for me, metrics are pure vanity unless there is a tangible value exchange that underpins them.

I have been humbled by many of the heartfelt messages I have received. Anything from “your content is like a free MBA from a top school” to “your posts are the pillar I lean into to guide my path as a VP of Sales” and many more.

One thing I’ve realized is that the power of content, mine or anyone else’s, is very real. It often has a direct impact on the careers and personal lives of the reader, and that is something I take very seriously.

As a result, my Zero to Twenty ‘brand’ will evolve in 2022, to offer a greater variety of content and more consistency.

Zero to Twenty LIVE 🎙

In the last 6 months I have found myself in countless 1:1 conversations with founders, investors, CEOs, CROs, VPs of Sales, VPs of Marketing and inaugural AEs answering very similar questions around all aspects of go-to-market.

My intention with Zero to Twenty LIVE is to activate a community of people who are facing the same challenges day in day out and offer this community the wisdom of my advice at scale in group meet-ups.

Going live with early-stage sales folk is an important move for Zero to Twenty. It’s the creation of a movement that I hope will one day take a life of its own outside of my control.

Live discussion is very powerful. Go-to-market roles in early-stage startups, especially when the founder is from a product or engineering background, are often lonely and it’s difficult to find counsel to guide you through this arduous early-stage sales path. Not helped by VCs who bang the drum of sales folk being expendable pawns!

I intend Zero to Twenty as a community to be that counsel, and Zero to Twenty LIVE to be the opportunity to personalise the content to YOU.

I have many scars from 20+ years of successfully building and leading GTM teams in SaaS globally. The most forward-thinking of my CEO clients hire me to be the person they lean on weekly for high-frequency highly tailored personalised guidance.

Sadly, these leaders are the exception, not the norm. Most leaders don’t think to offer themselves or their sales leaders such support, and in many cases their investors discourage such support, treating salespeople as expendable pawns. This leaves many sales leaders isolated and destined to fail.

But equally many companies and founders are not at the stage of being able to afford my services - so I want to create a community for these folk too, a launching off point for them on their journey.

The Zero To Twenty LIVE community will aim to solve this isolation and its fundamental goal will be to increase the success rate of the first VP of Sales in SaaS and Web3.

If you’re interested in being a part of this community, please let me know which time slot(s) suit you best by completing this 2 question form here.

Zero to Twenty Newsletter: Free + Premium

Free

It’s critically important to me that access to my content remains free. And this newsletter for free subscribers will move from weekly to monthly. I will continue to post insights frequently on LinkedIn. I will also begin to post more frequently on Twitter.

Premium - $5 per month/$50 per year

However, in order to keep up the depth of commentary, be able to more frequently react to audience requests, and commit to a once-weekly cadence I will introduce a premium level for those that value a deeper dive on specialist subjects relating to SaaS sales and leadership, want to better understand core SaaS metrics, value understanding frameworks that help you scale SaaS GTM teams with a focus on early-stage startups, and want access to weekly insights and opinion.

What you will also begin to see in 2022, is my opinion on how SaaS sales leaders can successfully make the leap to Web3, something that I am increasingly focused on.

The weekly newsletter will cost $5 per month/$50 per year.

Founding member plan

Many readers have suggested that they would like to support me and my content beyond the $5 per month/$50 per year subscription. For those that wish to contribute more, there will be a founding member plan that will enable you to do that if you wish.

Hardship grants

I never want to exclude people who feel they need this content, but have fallen on hard times and are struggling to make ends meet. I will encourage anyone in this category to drop me a personal note ([email protected]) explaining the value they get from Zero to Twenty, and I will grant 100% of the applications that I receive.

2022

With the advent of Web3, building and activating community using a combination of traditional top-down and bottom-up sales and marketing techniques will take centre stage.

Tokenization of communities has already begun in earnest, and it’s my belief that it will accelerate ultra fast. What I’m most excited about is the democratization of products and communities. More on what that means to me in upcoming newsletters.

My long term hope for the Zero to Twenty that you are a part of, is that it will fork and take a life of its own, with you, the community custodians ensuring that the content and community evolves optimally and naturally into the future, long after I have departed.

This is the very beginning, YOU are the Cambrian explosion of Zero to Twenty 🚀

Thank you, and Happy New Year all!

Wayne.