7 HAB ITS OF HIGHLY EF FECTIVE EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS

As an enterprise technology venture capital fund in New York City, Work-Bench has worked with hundreds of early stage go-to-
market enterprise startups to accelerate their Fortune 1000 customer acquisitions.


Executive Briefings are a valuable tool for the startups in our community to meet and connect with Fortune 1000 enterprise
buyers. For enterprises, it's a chance to evaluate relevant emerging startups that address new opportunities or solve pain points.
For startups, these briefings are a foot in the door with a potential customer through a trusted partner who can help elevate you
beyond the noise.


After hosting more than 150 executive briefings with enterprise technology buyers and observing thousands of startup pitches,
we’ve noticed key patterns from many of our portfolio companies that lead to successful meetings, follow-up conversations, and
in the best case, POCs and pilots. We created a playbook, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Executive Briefings, to serve as a guide
to own the room and land your next enterprise customer.

AU T H O RE D BY: KE LL E Y HE NRY KE LL E Y MAK

Communications 
 Principal
& Community
 [ CA S E STU DY ]

1. A LITTLE CHARISMA GOES A LONG WAY

Your pitch begins the moment you open the door. Take ownership and In a recent executive briefing we
hosted between vArmour and a large
control over the room by introducing yourself, your company, and your media company, Tim Eades, vArmour’s
CEO, made it a point to greet and
role right away. Presentation setup doesn’t always occur as planned, so learn about all 12 participants around
the table, share quick information
don’t wait until you set up AV and pull up your slides to start the about himself, and ease the tension
conversation; at that point you’ve already wasted time and missed an with a little British humour — all within a
few minutes.
opportunity to connect.
Starting the mood off strong, he was
intentional and deliberate about
building a relationship, which made a
Remember that your potential customers are humans. Don’t
huge difference moving forward.
underestimate the impact of making a genuine connection beyond just a
sales pitch. It may sound simple and obvious, but showing your COMPA NY VA RM OUR

personality and charisma eases everyone in the room not only in that WE BS IT E WW W.VAR MO UR .COM 


moment, but it also sets the temperature for the rest of the meeting. S ECTOR DATA C E N T E R
& C LOUD S E C UR I TY

LOCAT ION MOU N TA I N V I EW, CA

3
 [ CA S E STU DY ]

2. M A K E IT A CO NVE R SAT I ON
One of the worst mistakes you can make is failing to sufficiently involve As an example, Semmle is a software
engineering analytics company that
your audience. Treat the briefing like a conversation, not a presentation. provides software engineers and IT
leaders visibility into their software,
Ask questions that set upfront expectations and ensure that you’re engineering processes, and teams to
create reliable and secure products
speaking to the exact needs of the participants. Even if you have an idea without slowing down. Since the
of their painpoint, inviting participants to express their problem on their technology has several core use cases
across software security, team
own terms will provide insight that you’d be otherwise blind to. This performance, and code quality, the
Semmle team immediately starts a
information will come in handy later when mapping potential use cases. dialogue with those in the room to
determine appropriate context. Then
Try to understand your buyer just as much as you are pitching to them.
they structure the conversation
Aside from closing a deal, the next-best (extremely valuable) outcome is according to what is most relevant to
their buyers.
to bring insight back to your team about your buyer’s needs.
COMPA NY S E M ML E

WE BS IT E WW W.S E M MLE .COM

S ECTOR. E N G IN E E R I NG A N A LY T IC S

LOCAT ION S AN F RA N CI S CO, CA

4
 [ CA S E STU DY ]

3. P RE PA R E F OR T HE T E C HNICAL

Executives that we bring into a briefing are ready to dig into the Algorithmia’s CEO Diego
Oppenheimer is a prime example of a
weeds and can see right through a “salesy” pitch. Always bring a technical founder who can explain the
grand vision of how their platform that
senior leader that has the technical aptitude, knows your product enables large enterprises to
productionize their machine learning
inside and out, and can tell the company’s story in a meaningful way. models fits into the broader future of
enterprise AI, as well as provide
Of course, it’s always best to send your CEO/Founder if you still have deeper details on their tech stack and
what features to be excited about in
a single digit total customer count. However, if they can’t make it, upcoming releases. He speaks to the
technical side while still telling a
ensure that your sales lead is accompanied by a senior-level technical
compelling story.
product person. When in doubt, err on the technical side, and be
able to provide solid business use-cases. COMPA NY A LG OR I T H MI A

WE BS IT E WW W.A LG OR IT H M I A. COM

S ECTOR O PE N M AR K E T P LAC E F OR
A LG ORI T H M S

LOCAT ION S E AT T LE , WA

5
 [ CA S E STU DY ]

4. NO FLUFF ZONE
Dialpad’s CEO and Founder, Craig
We could go on and on about creating your perfect pitch deck. Be
Walker, always shares why they’re
specific and tactical, focus on why you’re the right team for the job, uniquely positioned to bring the best
cloud communications experience to
use graphics, and don’t add fluff or filler. Ultimately: tell your story. large enterprises by providing their
unique background. They previously
Case studies and customer slides are great references because it founded the technology behind
Google Voice, and now they’re
proves you have the capacity to support large enterprises, which addressing the needs for the
“anywhere worker” for large
helps de-risk their working with you, as well as details what they companies like Uber and Motorola.
could expect as a potential partner. However, make sure you’re up to
speed on the logos that you showcase. Chances are the folks in the
room might know a peer that works at an organization featured and
COMPA NY D I ALPA D
can ask for further details of your engagement. It could spell disaster
WE BS IT E WW W.D IA LPAD.COM
if you mischaracterize your actual involvement.
S ECTOR C LO UD COM MU NI CAT I ONS

LOCAT ION S AN F RA N CI S CO, CA

6
5. DON’T DANCE
[ CA S E STU DY ]

Don’t dance around questions, especially if they poke holes. There Your audience knows you’re a startup
and it’s okay to admit you don’t have
are few things worse than sitting in a meeting with a presenter who is everything built out. Be transparent
about what you can solve for now and
clearly avoiding questions. If you don’t have an answer, or your what is on your roadmap. Tim Delisle,
CEO of Datalogue, whiteboards to
product doesn’t solve the specific issue that they’re inquiring about, help align his audience with the
greater vision. Highlighting the
it’s better to be candid and say something to the effect of, “that’s on excitement in the room, Tim shows his
team’s thoughtfulness in focusing
our radar - here is another way we could be helpful.” Trying to be a efforts on particular challenges in data
sneaky wordsmith never works and ends up diluting your overall prep and uses visuals to explain how it
plays out in his broader view of data
pitch. Don’t undermine yourself. operations.

COMPA NY DATALOG U E

WE BS IT E WW W.DATALOG UE .I O

S ECTOR. DATA P RE PAR AT I ON

LOCAT ION N E W YOR K , N Y

7
 [ CA S E STU DY ]

6. BE M INDF UL OF THEIR TIME

Stick to the schedule and be mindful of time. It’s tempting to rush Veteran executive briefers Tamr have
the pitch on lock. They know their
through those last few points in “just a few more minutes,” but we've presentation inside and out, have
conducted research on their audience
found it to be more harmful than helpful because it shows lack of prior, and make a point to feel out the
room with prep questions. The Tamr
organization and preparedness. Instead, come ready with how you team know what to highlight about
their solution for data unification, such
want to run the meeting. Make sure you hone in on the key aspects of as key metrics for ERP reduction at the
largest industrial firms, and when to
your offering that differentiate you while leaving ample time for wrap up with questions and follow
discussion. Even if you don’t quite finish your pitch, ideally your value ups.

is communicated and there is an opportunity to cover it in the follow

up. COMPA NY TAM R

WE BS IT E WW W.TA MR .COM

S ECTOR E N T E R P RI S E DATA

U N IF I CAT ION

LOCAT ION CAM B R I DG E , M A

8
 [ CA S E STU DY ]
7 . END WIT H A P L A N F OR NE X T ST E P S

Always end with a verbal plan for next steps. It can be as simple as The Merlon Intelligence team is a
prime example of how to best put
taking their card and making a plan to follow-up via email, or even follow ups into action. We’ve seen
them wrap up meetings pinpointing
setting a date for a second meeting. Whatever the plan is, explicitly the key areas where they can
immediately start working with
state it in the room out loud at the end of the meeting. This will give
corporates, such as augmenting or
your audience a chance to provide feedback, express interest, and supplanting current KYC efforts for
AML compliance, and identifying the
ensure everyone is on the same page so that these next steps are right people to carry the conversation
to the next stage. At the same time,
actually executed. Not every conversation will lead to a follow up with not all financial services are mature
enough to begin to modernize their
contract potential, and it’s best to assess the fit early on to save time regulatory practices.

for everyone.
COMPA NY M E RLO N I N T E LLI G E N C E

WE BS IT E M E RLON I NT E LLI G E NC E. COM

S ECTOR F I N AN C I A L COMP LI A N C E

LOCAT ION N E W YOR K , N Y

9
IS EN TE RPRISE GO -TO-MARKET YOUR TOP PRI ORITY THIS YEAR?

IF SO, WE’D LOVE TO CHAT.

Work-Bench is an enterprise technology VC fund in NYC.

We support early go-to-market enterprise startups with community, workspace, and corporate engagement.

Sign up for our Enterprise Weekly newsletter, a weekly digest of all things enterprise with 15K+ subscribers.

WWW.WOR K- BENCH.COM @WORK_BENCH HEL LO@WORK-BENCH.COM

AS SEEN IN