Developing New Skills

After joining Smartsheet by way of acquisition, I signed a 12-month contract to stay on board. I was incentivized through vesting schedules… but I also was determined to see the product that my team and I poured blood, sweat, and tears into make its way into the market.

Saying that we were motivated was an understatement. We worked long hours, late nights, and early mornings to ensure that our product was going to move mountains within the Smartsheet application.

Being acquired is strange. You feel like you are part of the team, but you aren’t really part of the team… since you never intended to work at your new company. Needless to say, it was an unbelievable experience.

As part of our contract with Smartsheet, our goal was to have a running prototype for a small group of customers within 12 months. We crushed those expectations. By the 6-month mark, myself and our Head of Product (previously CTO) presented to the entire company a fully functional version of our product.

Fast forward two months and myself and a few members of the Smartsheet Commercial Sales team closed one of the top 5 biggest deals in company history. Our product being the catalyst for the deal execution. What a thrill this was to the entire 10,000ft team. We not only built an incredible product, but we then integrated it into a publicly traded company and then closed a contract that exceeded our annual revenue as a startup. This was an incredible accomplishment.

Smartsheet taught me how to bridge the gap between sales and product, and I will forever be grateful of this. These skills that I learned spilled over into my next opportunity.