Earlier this year, we set out to find a dynamic leader for BCV’s Customer Development team. Our Customer Development team at BCV helps our portfolio companies obtain design partners, customers, and strategic relationships. In some cases, that means connecting our portfolio companies to each other, and in others, it means connecting them to some of the largest, most complex companies on the planet. 

We were looking for someone who could advise early stage founders on how to build sales teams and win customers, but also someone who could face off with execs at large enterprises and go deep on our latest investing themes at BCV. Ideally, this mythical person would have some experience in venture capital, and maybe a bit of consulting experience as well as we look to scale BCV’s collaboration with Bain & Company. 

Somehow, we found all of that, and more, in Joe DiMento, who recently joined BCV’s platform team to head up Customer Development. Joe brings an incredible base of B2B sales and business development work in venture-backed startups, consulting experience, and early career sales leadership at Google, to the role. Most recently, he served as an Operating Partner at Fractal Software, helping incubate and scale vertical SaaS companies. 

Joe loves working in the startup ecosystem and has advised numerous startups over the years, both personally and professionally. Whether it is building relationships with industry executives, assisting founders with sales hiring, or helping startups “crack the code” on outbound, Joe dives into his work with energy, intellectual curiosity, and a genuine passion for helping people. In his short time at BCV, he’s already making an impact. 

We had Joe answer some questions so you can learn more about him and why we are thrilled to have Joe join our team. 

What are some of your key learnings from your career in sales?

First, the importance of excited early customers – Especially early in a company’s journey, a passionate and excited customer – not just someone who uses and buys your product, but someone who is genuinely amped to do so – is worth so much more than the revenue they pay you. They will become your evangelists, your advocates, even your defenders, and you should cultivate those relationships with utmost care. That means “doing things that don’t scale” for and with these customers – meeting them in person whenever possible, personally resolving their support tickets, hand-mailing swag to them to make sure it arrives on time.

Second, you need flexible salespeople early in a company’s revenue journey – As an early-stage company develops product-market fit, it will learn (often the hard way) many things to do, and not do, about its product delivery, sales process, and customer retention. The folks best equipped to handle the challenges of this part of the company-building journey are flexible and adaptable, and may not necessarily have the functional track record you’ll hire for later on in sales. I would much rather hire a very smart, customer-experienced generalist than a “President’s Club 4xer” as an early startup’s first or second account executive.

What had to change when you became a leader of salespeople? 

As much as you might genuinely like someone as a person, how they perform towards their target is what is going to determine their success in sales. I enjoy Kim Scott’s “Radical Candor” framework, and fortunately “challenge directly” is easier for revenue leadership than for almost any other function, as the metrics for success or failure are very transparent to all. 

What attracts you to helping startups with go-to-market? 

A brilliant business idea, an innovative product, a radical new technology – all are largely theoretical until you determine whether someone will pay for them, and for how much. I love early go-to-market because it’s where so much of the real company building happens. Salespeople learn what customers hate, love, and really care about – and can bring that to product, engineering, and company leadership to inform the strategic direction of the business. I’m also just a huge extrovert, and early GTM requires talking to everyone, which comes naturally to me (you should meet my dad!).

What are the best ways for BCV’s founders to work with you? 

I am not a theoretical, “conjoined triangles of success” framework type person – so I will rarely if ever draw a theoretical diagram on a whiteboard when you, a founder, are mired in real stuff like support tickets and code reviews. I like to get tactical. The best way to work with me is to give me some pre-meeting context (even a voice memo is fine – I love a verbal brain dump), and then to jump right into a specific challenge you’re facing. I will do my best to prepare enough so we can make progress in our first meeting, but then follow up with more, whether from the BCV or Bain Capital networks, my personal network, or other resources I can find that are relevant.

What are you hoping to accomplish in your work at BCV? 

It’s incredibly hard for any founder to build go-to-market successfully. I want every one of our founders to do so more quickly than they would have otherwise had they not partnered with BCV. This means helping them with everything from debating and deciding on the right sales motion, talking through key GTM hires, and facilitating introductions to their ideal customer profile prospects via one-on-one and one-to-many events and programs.