The race for marketers to adopt generative AI is on — and so far, they’re optimistic about it. In May 2023, we fielded an online survey, Generative AI in Marketing, to find out how marketers view the benefits, challenges, and potential of generative AI. The goal was to understand how leaders are currently using this […]

During uncertain times like these—when many startups and young companies may face lower revenue growth and sparser access to capital—we at Norwest lean in more than ever to help our companies drive capital- efficient growth and extend their cash runway. To look at cash preservation from a marketing perspective, I facilitated a discussion with more […]

We received a lot of positive reaction to the roundtable discussion we hosted on how to launch your company without breaking the bank, as well as an accompanying launch playbook. Many founders and CEOs wanted a follow-up discussion about the next steps young companies should take in building out their marketing functions. In response to […]

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript from the Norwest Nowcast above where Norwest CMO Lisa Ames shares the one question she asks to find out how attuned a marketing leader is to three core aspects of their role. Hi, I’m Lisa Ames with a Norwest Nowcast about the one question every marketer should be […]

Editor’s Note: The following is a transcript from the Norwest Nowcast above where Operating Executive Renée Cohen shares the three most impactful tips she has been sharing with marketing leaders in the Norwest portfolio. After three months in the marketing operating executive role at Norwest, here are three tips I found myself sharing more than […]

There is a lot of competition for a coveted space in TechCrunch and Forbes, but sometimes a trade publication is the better route—particularly if you’re an early stage company or trying to tell a deeper technology story. So how do you determine the best outlet for your news? How do you reach the right reporter […]

Let’s get vulnerable, CEOs. Hiring your marketing leader can be scary. Marketing budgets often represent the largest non-headcount discretionary spend in your company. You’re placing deep trust in your marketing team to perform, so you need confidence in your leader’s sound judgment, expertise, and raw talent. It’s also an exciting decision! Selecting the right marketing […]

With companies of all types and stages facing economic headwinds, the need to grow revenues efficiently is top of mind for everyone. Marketing and sales organizations share responsibility for leading the effort, but how can they best work together to achieve their shared goal when they often operate in silos? This question was the focus […]

Matt Hensler is an executive consultant with an extensive background in branding, marketing, and customer experience. In this article, he offers marketing leaders three strategies for optimizing their programs to support business resilience in tough financial times. “If the board gave you an extra $1 million today, how would you spend it?” This is a […]

The COVID-19 pandemic created a “work anywhere” culture. Despite the setback of a global health crisis, times were good in the startup ecosystem. We learned to replace two-hour commutes with back-to-back meetings on Zoom, and our productivity flew through the roof. Investors were throwing money into startups, and those startups were launching—so much so that […]

If there’s one thing we understand well at Norwest it’s value creation. Case in point: Lisa Ames was delivering so much value to our portfolio companies as a marketing advisor and operating executive that we tapped her to become our very first CMO. The good news is she accepted. The better news is she’s continuing […]

Customer acquisition costs (CAC) – the amount of money a company spends on marketing, advertising, and sales initiatives to gain new customers – are top of mind for most marketers. According to a study by martech firm Iterable – 2021 Marketing Trends: Dissecting the Unexpected – increased customer acquisition is the top priority for 65% […]

It seems you can’t view a LinkedIn post or listen to a podcast these days without some reference to buyer-centric or customer-centric marketing. It’s the catchphrase of the moment; indeed, of the past several years. As marketers, we all strive to give our target audience what they want, right? Yet why do I so often […]

A recent report from LinkedIn revealed that 75% of B2B brands’ advertising efforts are ineffective. Instead of producing results, these efforts fail to contribute to long-term market share growth. Gong, the leading revenue intelligence platform for B2B sales teams and one of our companies in the Norwest portfolio, is part of the 25%. I sat […]

Ever since account-based marketing (ABM) became a shiny object, everyone wants in on the action. For good reason; 76% of companies see higher ROI with ABM than with other types of marketing. Yet only 13% have reached maturity with ABM, according to ITSMA. Regardless of where you are in your ABM journey, you’ve probably come […]

One of the things I enjoy most about my role as an operating exec is the broad access I have to so many companies and the accelerated pattern recognition that comes from those interactions. Every day presents an opportunity to learn new strategies. So many times I’ve found myself picking up a trick from one […]

Throughout my career as a B2B marketer, I relished interacting with the board of directors. Whether it was at a quarterly meeting, a holiday dinner, or in passing at the office, I always got a sense of exhilaration over the opportunity to put my best foot forward. But I’ll confess something to you today: there […]

Gateway Learning Group has announced its rebrand to Kyo (“kai-oh”). In many ways, Kyo picks up exactly where the Gateway brand left off: the company’s founders, Colin Davitian and Melissa Willa, continue to execute upon their long-held mission to deliver top-notch services to children with autism. However, the Kyo rebrand also expands upon this vision […]

We recently hosted a webinar on a topic all B2B business leaders seem to be discussing these days: how to keep sales and marketing afloat in a COVID-19 world. So much has changed in the B2B industry since this pandemic took hold. Companies have been required to scramble and recalibrate substantial aspects of their tactics […]

HubSpot* found that 74% of companies that weren’t exceeding revenue goals did not know their number of visitors, leads, MQLs, or sales opportunities. Further, the survey found that 79% of all marketing leads never convert into sales and a lack of lead nurturing is the common cause. The good news is, having a documented integrated […]

What are the top emerging tech trends that have the potential for explosive growth in the next five years? This question was the center of debate at the Churchill Club’s 21st annual “Top Ten Tech Trends” event last month in Santa Clara, California. A panel of five notable Silicon Valley investors each presented two key […]

Many founders struggle with prioritizing building their brand with dozens of other concerns on their plate. You’ve built a strong product — but that will only get you so far. What keeps customers coming back is a strong consumer brand. It’s hard to build that in the early days because it’s tough to tell what will resonate […]

Sales Compensation Leading Practices: Tips for Entrepreneurs Building Recurring Revenue Businesses We’ve come a long way from magazine subscriptions. Recurring revenue is now the gold standard for businesses of all types. Many of the fastest growing companies in the world—SaaS and otherwise—employ a recurring revenue model, including Salesforce, Amazon, Netflix and Uber. Harvard Business Review calls […]

Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit 2016: The Maturation of a Space The Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit 2016 is tomorrow, November 2nd, at the Mandarin Hotel in Boston. Our complete agenda and (sold-out) registered attendee group promises to make this a great event for all involved. As in past years, all content from the conference is digitized […]

Creating Brand Cheerleaders through Loyalty Hacking Norwest hosts brand leaders in San Francisco for an evening with loyalty architect and author Craig Wilson Did you know that it costs about 500% more to acquire new customers than it does to keep current ones? Nevertheless, as companies shift attention from rapid acquisition to customer retention, many […]

Getting from Seed to Series A Our dedicated seed program is a channel for reaching early-stage entrepreneurs. Our goal is to work closely with the founding team and provide as much value as possible as they build their companies, products and business models. Today, the Norwest Seed Program ensures we get the opportunity to deepen […]

New York’s Top Consumer Startups Share Insights Into Building an Enduring Brand Online Online shopping is growing at an explosive pace. To better understand how companies can stand out from the competition in this large and exciting category, Norwest invited entrepreneurs building consumer brands to join in the latest installment of our Norwest Founder Series. […]

We constantly keep an ear to the ground to identify top trends, best practices, and solutions that are relevant for our portfolio companies and the general entrepreneur community. Norwest recently hosted an event that addressed the biggest challenges in Demand Generation, bringing together top industry pros who shared their hard-earned knowledge of how to build […]

Harnessing the Power of Demand Generation Earlier this month, we hosted the Norwest Demand Generation Summit at the Four Seasons Silicon Valley, where more than 120 sales, marketing, and demand generation executives gathered to learn about current trends and best practices in demand gen and customer acquisition through a mix of inspiring keynotes and panel […]

Udemy announces $65M financing led by Stripes Group with participation from Norwest Venture Partners and other investors.   Today Udemy, the leading online education marketplace offering 30,000 full-length courses by over 17,000 instructors in over 80 different countries, announced a $65M financing round. Udemy has over 7 million consumers and hundreds of corporations using Udemy […]

The barriers between the physical and digital world are dissolving more rapidly now than ever, and few of the companies I’ve worked with epitomize this more than Apigee. The company’s IPO this week is a testament to a leadership team that was willing to take risks in a new market when it became evident how […]

Rough patches early on can help young startups build toughness for the long fight ahead. It is easy to overlook in light of today’s IPO, but Lending Club almost joined the legion of early stage companies that get off to a promising start, but run into insurmountable roadblocks and fail. In Lending Club’s case, the […]

Today Norwest announced its Series B investment in Qubole, a leading provider of big data in the cloud. We are very excited to be supporting Qubole’s mission to help every company use the cloud to turn data into business growth. Qubole is changing the big data conversation by tapping the power of the public cloud. […]

  We recently hosted the Fall edition of our Female Founders Series: “Building a Women-Focused Brand Online” at NeueHouse in New York City. Our panel of dynamic, visionary female entrepreneurs (Kendra Scott, Founder & CEO of Kendra Scott Design; Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, CEO & Co-Founder of GLAMSQUAD and Co-Founder of Gilt Groupe; and Amy Errett, […]

While several notable ecommerce companies are making forays into the physical world – Bonobos, Warby Parker, and BaubleBar to name a few – there’s a lot of buzz around a new and exciting trend: the rise of the omni-channel retailer. So what’s omni-channel retailing? Today’s connected consumers will shop when and where it is most convenient for them — whether […]

It’s not often that a room full of startup CEOs and founders is 90% women. But that’s what happened on Tuesday night at The Battery in San Francisco. The theme of the night was building a women-focused brand online. But more so, it was an opportunity for approximately 100 women CEOs and executives (as well […]