Navigate to the Lighthouse: A Silicon Valley Guide to Executing Global Deals
Title: Navigate to the Lighthouse: A Silicon Valley Guide to Executing Global Deals
Headline: Learn to close transformative, global business development deals from an author – and his colleagues – who spent a decade building a billion dollar software company across the world.
The Book:
Execute a “lighthouse” deal to catapult your startup over the chasm of early adopters and into lands of new opportunities, with trillion-dollar companies. Navigate to the Lighthouse explains how to do that by using strategic business development as a competitive advantage.
When you approach the chasm and look afar at lighthouses shining on potential trajectory-changing deals, two questions likely cross your mind: Should I invest the time and resources to pursue what seem like impossible deals? If so, what’s the path to get there—strategically and tactically?
This book details the answers. Kurt Davis has gone through the journey, and now he wants to share his hard-earned knowledge with you. He breaks the process down into three parts: Chart Your Course, Galvanize Your Crew and Maneuver Strategically, Land the Deal and Expand. Master these and you’ll be on your way to landing the lighthouses and building an enduring business.
Don’t take just his word for it. More than twenty, current and former, tech investors and executives have also contributed—from Apple, PayPal, Microsoft, Sony, Docusign, Adyen, Bill.com, Boku, Uber, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and more.
Who’s Inside: (20 people)
Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku
Ron Hirson Former CPO of Docusign and Founder of Boku
Mark Britto, EVP of PayPal and Founder of Boku
Thomas Clayton, Chief Revenue Officer of Bill.com and Global Technology Executive
James Higa,Former Apple Executive with Index Ventures
Mike Ghaffary, Former VP of Yelp and Partner at Canvas Ventures
Emil Michael, Former Chief Business Officer of Uber
Joanne Liu, Boku, Adyen, and Paypal Silicon Valley CS Executive
Adam Lee,Chief Product Officer of Boku
Mark Jacobstein, Serial Entrepreneur with four exits and Chief Business Officer at Immunai
Mark Gerban, Multinational Technology Executive in Europe
Nicholas Reidy, Silicon Valley Customer Success Executive (Boku, Docusign, Contentful)
Ranjan Reddy, Founder of Bureau Inc.; Indian focused expert
Stephen Lee, Corp Dev of Treasure Data, Partner Carbide Ventures
Junichi Fujimoto,Former Digital Garage Employee; Japan Entry Specialist
Jason Spero, Mobile Executive at Google
Jessica Notini, Principal of Notini Mediation, Facilitation & Training Services
Dorie Clark, Author of Reinventing You and Executive Education Faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business
Josh Wein, Silicon Valley Marketing/PR Executive
Gregg Delman,Founder of G Three Media
And a dozen more!
Testimonials: (3-4)
“Kurt explains the concept of moving from cookie-cutter sales to business devel- opment through our experiences at Boku and anecdotes from other startups. At this crucial point of inflection, Kurt helped us at Boku, and I’m sure that you’ll benefit from reading this book, leading your startup to success.” -Jon Prideaux, CEO of Boku
“I worked with Kurt when I was co-founder/CEO of TrialPay, and he was always persistently working on deals. Now he puts his technique and methods into a very thoughtful book. It’s definitely recommended reading for any entrepreneur or startup person who’s focused on ‘big-game hunting’/transformational deals.” -Alex Rampell, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
“This book is for any startup CEO, CRO (Chief Revenue Officer), or VP of sales/ business development. It outlines a methodology on how to work with the larg- est companies in the world effectively. Kurt tells much of what we learned from a decade at Boku and some anecdotes from other companies; read it, and you won’t need to go through the ups and downs we did.” -Mark Britto, EVP of PayPal and Founder of Boku
“To be a Startup Hero, you have to close sales deals that ignite your business and then propel it to success with larger strategic business development partnerships. Kurt outlines how to do this with his experiences, other anecdotes from Silicon Valley, and actionable takeaways. Now it’s your turn.” -Tim Draper, Founder of Draper Associates, DFJ, and Draper University
“At Boku, we were always ‘bigger’ than our 100-person startup seemed. The key was business development, where we did deals with multinational companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, MasterCard, Sony, and more. Kurt has captured the step-by-step methodology on how we did it and how you can apply it to your company.” -Ron Hirson, Former CPO of DocuSign and Founder of Boku
About the Author:
Kurt Davis is a technology executive and investor with over two decades of experience building tech startups throughout Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia. From 2008-2017, he worked with a startup called Boku where he led global business development, focusing on deals with Apple, Microsoft, Spotify, Sony, and more. This boku documents and chronicles Boku’s journey from closing small sales deals to transactions worth billions of dollars in transactions. Speaking to other entrepreneurs, he realized that many get stuck in their initial market but few leap the chasm to bigger opportunities. So he wrote this book.
His first book, Finding Soul: From Silicon Valley to Africa, was born of his journey in 2017 working at entrepreneurship centers in sub-Saharan Africa. For more from Kurt visit KDAlive.com.