The Science of Scaling · 25 Jul 2024
Becoming a Unicorn Doesn't Happen By Chance w/ Dini Mehta (fmr CRO, Lattice)
These are notes on the conversation, checked against its transcript. The episode itself has the full discussion.
In brief
Dini Mehta, former founding CRO of Lattice, explains how she assessed the HR software company before joining in 2018 and how she scaled its go-to-market in her first year, with host Mark Roberge interviewing her. The episode covers her due diligence on CEO Jack Altman and his team, her finding that Lattice was running self-serve and sales-led motions at once, and how she then built segmentation, intent signals and buyer research. The central argument is that a go-to-market leader should test the leader's fit and openness before joining, focus on one motion, and learn from real buyers before codifying a playbook.
For founders
- Dini Mehta said running a self-serve and a sales-led motion at once left self-bought accounts with lower activation, so she prioritised the sales-led motion while protecting the existing base.
- She described moving up-market as a company-wide effort that needs engineering, not just go-to-market, and said limited engineering bandwidth, raised by the CTO, forced the choice of one motion.
- Before joining, she tested the CEO by sending a 20-question shared doc and asked his direct reports how he manages and delegates.
- She recommends talking directly to buyers early in a new role, including HR leaders she met for half a day with no product pitch.
- She credits alignment across all levels on values and mission for a team that avoided cross-functional blame and stayed people-first.
For revenue leaders
- Segment leads by employee size first, then add intent signals such as headcount change and Glassdoor rating direction, which Lattice's ops team later built into backend account scoring.
- Be prepared for revenue to dip during a shift from self-serve to sales-led: at Lattice it went down in the first three months, which Dini Mehta called nerve-wracking for a new revenue leader.
- Learn the buyer journey by talking to buyers rather than only reviewing sales calls, asking about their top problems, solution categories, decision drivers and success measures.
- Treat a new HR leader's first three months in role as a buying signal, since Dini Mehta said they typically evaluate the existing stack then.
- In diligence, ask about growth rate, lead volume, how leads are segmented, quota attainment and MQL to SQL to SAL conversion rates.
What was said 19, most useful first
Before accepting, she ran a reference check on her future boss by asking his direct reports about his management style, how he delegates and whether he empowers them. Listen
She asked the CEO's direct reports what his management style was, how he worked with them, how much support and freedom they had and how decisions were made. She also discussed with the CEO how short-term and long-term decisions would be made. She concluded he would empower her if she earned it, which excited her.
“even asking his directs, like what's his management style and how does he work with you?”
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When she arrived, Lattice was running self-serve and sales-led motions at once with no defined ICP, and self-bought accounts churned at a higher rate and had lower activation and usage. Listen
She said the company was taking inbound from very large companies and 30-person companies alike, and it was easy to get stretched in many directions. The data showed customers who bought on their own churned at a higher rate and had lower activation and lower usage. Her first observation was that the company was doing too much.
“the folks that were buying the product on their own converting at a higher rate had lower activation and lower usage.”
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She said moving up-market or into sales-led growth is a company-wide effort that needs engineering, not only a change to go-to-market, based on a mistake she made earlier. Listen
In a prior role she assumed that moving up-market, going sales-led or going international was a go-to-market effort, and only later brought in engineering. At Lattice the CTO asked where the company should invest because bandwidth was limited, and this forced the choice to move up-market rather than keep both motions.
“I've known that like that's a company wide effort and you need, you need everyone focused on it for you to be successful in that approach.”
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In her first three months she interviewed about 15 HR buyers and found they want human help to buy, not an automated purchase they can make online. Listen
Some were clients and some were contacts in the space. She asked about their jobs, the KPIs they tracked and what they loved and hated, and said that if given the choice between buying online and talking to a human who helps them set up, HR leaders would choose the human. This changed how she planned the sales process for the persona.
“They don't want an automated thing that they can buy online.”
Listen to the episode Sales process & deals Link to this Report a problem
When she added capacity, Lattice moved from round-robin lead routing to two segments defined by employee size, SMB and mid-market, and did not segment by region. Listen
She had come from a world of regional segmentation, but at Lattice the first question was whether to segment at all. The team chose employee-size segments to start, with only two segments at first. The segments were later combined with intent signals.
“We decided on not doing a regional segmentation in a light employee size-based segmentation to start with.”
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She treated a change in employee count, up or down, and a Glassdoor rating that was climbing or falling as buying-intent signals for a people-management tool. Listen
Fast headcount growth suggested a need to codify culture and management practices, while headcount decline pointed to performance management. The BDR team used these signals, and the operations team later built them into backend account scoring.
“we saw that the employee count change up or down was a signal that they would think about investing in a tool like Lattice.”
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She used a new HR leader in their first three months, and HR reporting directly to the CEO, as buying signals for a people-management tool. Listen
A new HR leader typically evaluates the stack for their first three months. HR reporting to the CEO signalled a people-first organisation that was more willing to invest, and she said positioning would differ there, with more focus on feedback and one-on-ones rather than only performance reviews.
“Typically, a new HR leader comes in and for the first three months, they'll evaluate the stack.”
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Before joining, she sent the CEO a 20-question list in a shared Google Doc, and was struck by how quickly and openly he answered. Listen
Jack Altman was responding within two hours, replying in comments on the same doc, and he was open about problems as well as strengths. The exchange felt like working together rather than an interview, which gave both of them a sense of how they would work together, even though that was not the intention.
“I just wrote up 20 questions on a Google Doc and I was like, Jack, I have a lot of questions”
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Her diligence questions on Lattice covered lead volume, segmentation, quota attainment and MQL to SQL to SAL conversion, the questions she would expect in a QBR. Listen
She asked about growth rate, how many leads top of funnel was producing, how leads were segmented, how many people were hitting quota and conversion rates between each lead stage. She also asked qualitative questions about current verticals and where the future verticals were.
“What's the conversion rate between MQL to SQL to SAL?”
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She judged the team by instinct, asking whether she felt more or less energized after time with each person, while finding spreadsheets of attributes only helpful. Listen
She said she had tried scoring the attributes she cared about in a spreadsheet, which was helpful, but ultimately relied on her instinct. She looked at whether people knew the answers, were self-aware about what was working and not working, and how it would feel to partner with them. She met the co-founder, a COO who had come from Zenefits, the go-to-market leaders, and the heads of customer success, operations and sales.
“am I more energized after I've spent time with this person or am I less energized?”
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He is starting to see that candidates who know what they don't know, and who know how to fill the gap, tend to be the ones who later succeed. Listen
He framed this as a pattern he is beginning to notice rather than a settled rule. The test he described is whether a candidate is aware of gaps in their knowledge and knows who to ask or how to get the answer.
“I'm starting to see a pattern that that is correlated with people who eventually succeed.”
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Executive hiring goes wrong when companies look only at what they want from a candidate and not at what the role offers the candidate's career. Listen
He listed checklist criteria such as scaling from one to a hundred, ten years of selling in the industry, or ABM experience, and said these ignore fit for the candidate. He presented Jack Altman's hiring of Dini Mehta as an example of appreciating her goals and assessing what Lattice could do for her career as well as what she could do for Lattice.
“We're too selfish. We look at what we want.”
Listen to the episode Hiring & team building Link to this Report a problem
She said Lattice delivers the most value when the whole company uses it, not when one or two managers buy it for their own team. Listen
She used this observation to explain why the self-serve motion was producing weaker activation and usage. The reasoning was that Lattice's value depends on company-wide adoption.
“you see the most value out of it when the whole company uses it versus one or two managers buy it for their team.”
The working phrase at Lattice was 'protect the base while crawl up market', which meant keeping the existing base while moving up-market. Listen
The company stopped treating the classic self-serve model as the right fit but did not abandon the customers who had got it there. The aim was to use product signals to make the sales-assisted motion almost automated while building sales capacity.
“one of the phrases we said was protect the base while crawl up market”
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Lattice's revenue fell for the first three months after it moved toward sales-led growth, which she said was nerve-wracking for a new revenue leader. Listen
Dini Mehta said the revenue decline came straight after she made the shift to focus on the sales-led motion, and it was especially hard as a new leader. The team had decided to focus after the CTO said the company could only invest in one of the two motions.
“the first three months, actually the revenue started going down, which was sort of nerve wracking as a new leader.”
Listen to the episode Metrics & finance Link to this Report a problem
A company should try a product-led motion early if it might be the best route for part of the business, because even a failed attempt leaves an easy product and removes the threat from below. Listen
He said that without trying it, a company keeps looking over its shoulder for a product-led competitor coming up from below. If the attempt fails, the company has de-risked itself from that competitor and ends up with an easy-to-use product to wrap sales-led growth around, which he presented as what happened at Lattice.
“When you're starting out, if there is a chance that PLG will be the optimal distribution for at least a portion of your business, you gotta do it and you gotta do it early.”
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She spent about half a day shadowing HR leaders without discussing the product, and said she will spend time in the first 30 days at every new company on this, with at least five buyer conversations. Listen
She had first planned ROI-based messaging, as her marketing background trained her to think in ROI, but found she did not understand the persona well enough. She said she would aim for ten or more conversations in a new role, and at least five, and that she did not talk about Lattice at all during the shadowing.
“Now, every time I join a company, I'm gonna spend time in the first 30 days doing this.”
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Sales leaders should learn how buyers buy by asking about the top problems buyers discuss, the solution categories they consider, what drives their decision and how they will measure success. Listen
He framed these as questions about the buyer's role, not the product, and argued the buyer journey should be written as if the buyer did not know the product existed. He contrasted this with listening to sales calls and evaluating close rates, which he said Dini Mehta did not focus on.
“What are the top five problems or opportunities that your buyers are talking about in their role today?”
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She credits strong alignment across all levels on values and mission for a team that was ambitious and avoided cross-functional blame, and says growing fast and being people-first can coexist. Listen
She said the team was uniformly ambitious and passionate, with no sales blaming marketing or go-to-market blaming product. Lattice's mission was to make work meaningful, and its values shaped how it hired. Going in she had thought winning and building a great team might be at odds, but she now says it is possible when alignment exists across all levels.
“I think it comes down to the strong alignment across all levels around our values and our mission.”
Listen to the episode Leadership & culture Link to this Report a problem