Dave Grow

Excited to host Steve Isom. When he shares what PE firms actually expect from CFOs, he's not guessing. Steve's seen it from every seat at the table. 2009 → Banker, TD Securities & Jefferies 2013 → PE Investor, @North Bridge Growth Equity 2016 → Finance Leader, Cybereason, Flywheel, WP Engine 2021 → CFO, Bloomerang (Warburg Pincus LLC & JMI Equity) 2026 → COO & CFO, Bloomerang On March 5th, he's joining me to break down his playbook and perspective on working at PE-backed businesses. 📍 Inside the PE Boardroom: How CFOs Win (or Lose) 🗓️ March 5 | 12:00 pm ET / 9:00 am PT Link in the comments 👇

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The credentials PE firms screen for hardest — prior CEO title, elite MBA, consulting pedigree — explain less than 1% of the difference in exit outcomes. New research from Verata, analyzing 12,174 CEO appointments over 18 years, finds résumé traits barely outperform a coin flip. The strongest predictor of CEO success isn't background — it's timing and context. The takeaway isn't that search is broken. It's that the spec is. I partnered with Richard Stein, CEO of HSiQ Talent Intelligence, to analyze the implications of our latest research for the PE and search community. Full report >> https://lnkd.in/ePA9M7_J #privateequity #CEO #leadership #talentintelligence #executivesearch

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I spent some time at Colorado Startup Week this week and here's the best thing I learned for growing companies: The 5 Conditions Framework, developed by TrueSpace. It's framework for startups-to-scale-ups and a practical checklist founders can use to figure out if they’re ready to graduate from starting to scaling. Condition #1 on the list: Alignment. Are you and your team aligned around three elements? 1️⃣ Direction — Where are you trying to go, and why? 2️⃣ Focus — What’s your market, who are your customers, and what’s your point of view? 3️⃣ Structure — Do you have the leadership and capital to get there? As a marketer, I love seeing alignment lead the list. Mel Bell, Garrett Jestice and others have clearly articulated lately the huge upside GTM alignment brings to teams, with speed the most obvious benefit. Driving alignment is a superpower every marketer should develop. We intuitively know the value of getting teams aligned and the fuel it adds to GTM execution. And it's great affirmation to see the deep datasets and analysis that Charles Fred and his team have conducted back up what many marketers know by intuition/experience/scar tissue. Also, a bit of reality check for marketers: There's five conditions on the list ... and the other five are probably harder than alignment. You can download the complete 5 Conditions Framework at TrueSpace's website.

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Call for startups: AI-native Payroll We’ve seen the core systems being redefined from CRM, ITSM, Support, ERP, but I’ve seen very little innovation in Payroll, AI-native payroll In the public markets alone we have ADP, Paychex, Paycom, Paylocity, TriNet,  that's over $100B in market cap before you even get to Workday, Intuit and the vertical players. These are old, sticky, high-margin businesses that haven't fundamentally changed in decades Yes, there are strong private companies in the space (Rippling, Deel, Gusto), but I haven't seen the AI-native challenger yet Massive AI opportunity hiding in plain sight:  US payroll is uniquely complex, differing tax codes, labor laws, and regulations across every state, county, and municipality. Thousands of rules. All documented and deterministic An AI-native payroll company doesn't just automate processing,  it reasons over compliance, flags anomalies, and handles edge cases that today require a human on the phone with ADP support Now the big question is of course distribution and the wedge into the market, but I’d love to chat with people who are thinking along these lines! beautiful claude screenshot attached

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Weather delays. Compliance gaps. Lost days and lost dollars. Every contractor knows the pain. Pavewise, based in North Dakota and built by operators who’ve lived it, has just raised a $2.5M seed round led by C2 Ventures Fund II, alongside Connetic Ventures, Service Provider Capital, M25, gener8tor 1889, and Broadwater Capital. Their platform brings real-time compliance, weather, and production tracking to road construction, helping crews make better calls, cut rework, and keep projects on time. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about our thesis, Dirty, Dull, and Dangerous innovation: solving real operational problems in essential industries with durable tech. https://lnkd.in/eecPMHdN

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Every hire, product feature, and GTM experiment is a capital allocation decision, most teams just don’t call it that. I’m kicking off a 3-part series on capital allocation for founders, operators, and finance leaders with a simple question: ➡️ Will the next $1 you deploy become worth more than $1? Series overview Part 1: defines the core concept + the math Part 2: where capital goes + how to measure whether it’s working Part 3: AIMS framework for communicating allocation decisions to management teams and your board Part 1 (attached here) lays the practical foundation: 🔹 The $1 invested test and ROIIC vs. hurdle rates (scoreboard vs. decision lens) 🔹 A lightweight “investment brief” to evaluate bets (GROW / BUILD / BUY) 🔹 The small metric toolkit that translates finance into operating decisions (NPV / payback / ROIIC / incremental margin) 🔹 Early-stage proxies when DCF inputs are unknowable (burn multiple + revenue quality) 🔹 Operator “vital signs” to spot drift early (profit engine, leverage, cash conversion, optics) Series Roadmap ✔️ This series (Parts 1–3): breadth-first. shared, lightweight framework to define value creation, choose decision-grade metrics, and communicate tradeoffs clearly ✔️ Next series: depth-first. momentum drivers + operational decisions that need near real-time measurement to spot drift early and course-correct fast Read Part 1 here and Part 2 and 3 on substack. Next Series will be out next week. 💰 What’s one bet you’re funding right now, and how will you prove it’s working?

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CHIEF MARKETING OFFICERS | AVOID THIS SCENARIO AT ANY COST | A competitor just acquired the definitive domain asset in the category your company has invested $100M+. Through a simple asset purchase, their business is now directly associated with category ownership every time the domain is viewed by the target market. After all, only thought leaders are astute enough to own digital assets that define the category competing in, as consistently demonstrated by leading market-driven organizations. It’s too late to tell the C-Suite that you have been unaware of the relevance of category defining, exact match domain names. That you did not understand the advantages specific to brand protection, brand augmentation, and thought leadership. That you were unaware of the availability of digital assets definitive of the category competing in. Or that you let a competitor acquire some, or all, of the most relevant assets, leaving your employer exposed to great financial risk. Domain names are the critical first point of contact between customers and your brand online. As your business’s address, domain names are the epicenter of marketing and the foundation of your brand’s value. Clear and concise messaging is essential in defining your brand identity and delivering a powerful first impression. In this era, leveraging category-defining, exact match domain assets are non-negotiable. They drive brand recognition, build trust, and directly shape how customers perceive your business. If you don’t, a competitor whose singular focus is to be the category killer will. To think otherwise is naïve. #CMO #ChiefMarketingOfficer #Founder #COO #ChiefOperatingOfficer #Csuite #Brand #Branding #BrandIdentity #BrandStrategy #ThoughtLeader #CategoryKiller #CorporateFlex #GrowthStrategy #BusinessGrowth #Innovation #Disruption #CompetitiveAdvantage #VC #VentureCapital #Tech #TechStartup #TechInvestor #Domains #DomainNames #DomainBrand #DomainStrategy #DomainForSale #DigitalAssets #BlameGame

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Coming out of Vanta Delivers, one thing feels really clear: Customers aren’t asking for more compliance work. They’re asking for a better way to do it. The reality today is a lot of teams are stuck in cycles that repeat over and over again. And as Alex Stamos pointed out in the discussion, all that activity doesn’t always translate to better security outcomes. That’s the frustration we hear most often. And honestly, adding more process on top isn’t the answer. The goal is to take work off the system. If teams can spend less time chasing evidence and answers and more time understanding what actually matters, everything else moves faster. That’s what customers are really asking for. Get all of our latest updates in Vanta Delivers here: https://lnkd.in/g8zfQvxC

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I’ve been talking with founders about how painful enterprise customization still is — even in 2025. David Dworsky and Gordon Ritter just put words to what we’ve been seeing: the age of point-and-click configuration is ending, and the next category winners will make customization conversational. For early-stage founders, this is the wedge: - Own one painful workflow - Capture the data - Build toward becoming a system of record If you’re building in this space, I’d love to hear how you’re approaching it. Link to the full article on this in the comments. 

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For the GTM-obsessed: here’s a tool that can give you a bucket load of insights. If there’s a data point, there are at least ten ways to interpret it. One way: inform how you deploy strategies in similar cities. Say a GTM strategy worked in Birmingham, AL. By identifying the most crucial indicators (GDP per capita? industry clusters? population density?)you can adjust these visualizations to find similar cities where that strategy is likely to succeed again. Birmingham mirrors Shreveport, Des Moines, and Worcester across key economic metrics: familiar customer profiles, likely similar pain points. Use it as a gut check for where your business goes next. How would you slice this data to uncover new GTM opportunities? Tool: Metroverse by Harvard (link in comments)

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I sat down with Jake Rockafellow, CPA, CMA, CEO of Rig Source, to talk about his journey from CPA to CEO, and what it takes to scale a niche rental business where the mindset toward renting still lags two decades behind general construction.   Here’s what we covered: 1. Why 60% of the drilling market still prefers ownership, and how Rig Source educates contractors on the value of renting 2. The leadership philosophy behind building a high-performance culture that retains top talent 3. Why in-person, on-site visits remain a differentiator in a digital-first world How robust data systems form the foundation for scaling and visibility in rental operations 4. The industry trends shaping the future, from tariffs and supply chains to the growing role of technology As Jake put it:   “What I’m most passionate about is educating our market that there’s many ways to acquire machines… because what I’ve learned is that drillers don’t always need machines. What they really need is a hole in the ground.”   That perspective reframes the rental value proposition entirely: it’s not about competing on equipment alone...it’s about solving the contractor’s real problem.

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