Stijn Hendrikse is a serial entrepreneur and marketing leader who has contributed to the success of Microsoft Office 365 as part of the launch team and numerous startups, including CRO of Acumatica and CEO of MightyCall, and Co-Founder of Kalungi. T2D3 is the product of Hendrikse’s decades of marketing experience and passion for B2B software start-ups. Hendrikse recently wrote a book called “T2D3: How some software startups scale, where many fail.” Pulse 2.0 interviewed Hendrikse to learn more.
Stijn Hendrikse’s Background
Hendrikse was at Microsoft for the first half of his career and shared the following about his journey:
“While there, I was able to move from being a software developer to becoming a marketing leader – and in between, I led sales in the Netherlands. That’s where I’m from. I was fortunate to basically get to do a ton of really cool stuff – but I knew if I hadn’t been there, those cool things probably still would have happened. So I wanted to venture out and try new things,”
“During the second part of my career, I’ve been running small software companies and founded a couple. Being a consultant and a board member of software companies is something I really enjoy. I like helping these companies who do something for the first time and who are at the stage where they have to scale or they will fail. In this role, I can really measure my impact versus when I was at Microsoft.”
“I like to leave something meaningful behind if I work on something.”
Decision To Become An Author
What made you decide to become an author? Hendrikse shared:
“I had a sense in the first projects that I did after I left Microsoft that what I was doing was going to be helpful to others. In the first company I ran, I was not the CEO but the CRO, but I was effectively running the company. Because the CEO was one of the founders who did not have experience building or organizing a go-to-market strategy.”
“Then, in the second company I ran, I ended up doing things exactly the same. So I started to think, ‘Hey, there’s a pattern here,’ and I started to write some of these things down. I had some time, and I started to create a blog. I wrote these blog articles, and over the course of about eight or nine years, those became, I think, a little better over time. They were answering questions like, ‘How do you start your first marketing team?’ or “How do you grow your first analyst relationship program?”
“So I decided, at some point, to go turn it into a book – mostly because it was a helpful way for me to also put it all together into a structure.”
Concept Of T2D3
What is T2D3, and how did the idea for this method come together? Hendrikse shared:
“It’s interesting. It was coined by Neeraj Agrawal. I think it was in 2015. He notices a similar kind of extreme growth curve in SaaS companies that ended up being really successful and becoming unicorns.”
“It stands for tripling your ARR two years in a row and then doubling it three more years. So it’s growth over a five-year period. He mentioned that in an interview as a measurement of success but didn’t elaborate more on it. That resonated with me and a lot of marketing and sales leaders over the next eight years. It became an acronym to describe the desired level of growth and was used as a measurement when seeking capital because there are still a lot of early-stage companies that can really grow fast. If they have the right product-market fit and deploy their growth capital in the right way.”
“So that’s what T2D3 really is. And the book is a way of describing not just what it means but how you actually do it. It shares my best practices and the playbook I’ve used that has helped many companies get to that level of growth.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory of putting the book together? Hendrikse reflected:
“I guess when I was done. It was a huge feeling of accomplishment. I had a very hard time getting it over the finish line because you need the proofreading, the editing, and most importantly, the cutting out. I was maybe too close to it, so that part was hard for me.”
“Thankfully, in Mike Northfield, who became my co-author, I found the right partner. He came into this project relatively late. We were a couple of months away from publishing the book, but he was a fantastic editor. I had some other people help, but they didn’t have the same knowledge about what we do or how to be a successful Saas go-to-marketer. I needed someone close to that process. So, Mike did what other editors couldn’t, and he really dove in. He also took care of all the illustrations. so getting Mike on board was probably a very important moment. Put a smile on my face.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have you faced in writing the book? Hendrikse acknowledged:
“I had a lot of content that was duplicative. I wrote so many blogs over time that had a lot of overlap. Touching on slightly different angles of the same topic. So, organizing things in the right sequence and eliminating duplication was a lot of work. For example, if you read the book, you notice that Chapter 5 is almost the same size as several chapters combined. So, figuring out the right structure was challenging.”
“When I did hit on something, it was satisfying. I love the analogy/model of the baseball diamond. It illustrates the four stages, four milestones, in the growth of a company. Getting to MVP, and product market fit, then to the t2d3 growth curve, and then finally to home plate by getting to 100 million ARR or profitability.”
Takeaways
What are the main takeaways that you want readers to understand from the book? Hendrikse noted:
“The book is targeted to help three different audiences. First, people who run a B2B SaaS company – and whether you’ve done it before or not, I hope there’s something in it for you to run your company better. The book teaches the right priorities to make the right trade-offs. Second, professionals who work as either executive marketing or sales leaders. And the third audience would be investors in these companies.”
“The takeaways would be a little different for each, but I’ll start with the investors. If they are betting on a company, the growth thesis in the book helps to validate whether some of the things that they hope to be true are true. They want to get a return on their investment, and the lessons learned here can make it easier to explain and communicate to whoever is running the company what the expectations are.”
“For the second audience that I mentioned, people who work as marketers in software companies, the book is filled with just pragmatic, simple templates, from how to do an ICP, how to build a value prop, examples of personas, etc. And they can register their book for access to online resources. So it is very actionable for that group.”
“And then the last audience, the Owner/Founder/CEO, the book can help them judge what type of leaders they need to hire in their team. And what kind of talks they need to have with them about the company’s needs and goals. Especially if you’re a CEO who hasn’t managed a marketing leader before, the book will give you a couple of ways to do that.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Hendrikse concluded:
“Yes, another book is in the works! I’m currently working on a second book. It’s not really a sequel or a continuation of the first, but it is centered around the “Rule of 40” – which is the working title. The whole world has come to a complete new insight.”
“I think T2D3 is a very important term and is an admirable goal for SaaS companies, but at some point, the growth has to turn to profitable growth. And that’s what this book covers. There may be some exponential growth at the start, but at some point, you will start leveling off, and it’s really important by then, that the cost of acquisition of customers and the cost to service them becomes more in balance with turning into a healthy, lasting and profitable company. So the new book is really about some of those concepts.”
Want To Buy A Copy Of The Book?
You can find it on Amazon:
What’s T2D3? Watch Stijn explain it in a short video.
Disclosure: Pulse 2.0 may receive a commission for purchases made through this article.
