GTM 135: How Marketing Creates Million-Dollar Exits: 6 SaaS Success Stories | Katrina Wong

Katrina Wong is the CMO of New Relic and a top marketing leader. She specializes in launching products, entering new markets, and scaling companies to the enterprise. With 15 years of experience at Twilio, Zuora, Salesforce, and SAP, she has led award-winning campaigns and helped six companies exit successfully.

Discussed in this Episode:

• Why you should be using "marketing sprints"
• Importance of operational excellence and agility in marketing
• The role of marketing in preparing for a successful exit
• Is 'fire fast' the right approach for managing your teams

Highlights: 

07:08 Secrets to picking winners

09:30 Attaining operational excellence in startups

15:43 Marketing's role in successful exits

29:12 Transforming PIP programs for successful employees

31:26 Challenging the 'fire fast' mentality

35:20 The importance of team dynamics

40:24 Navigating getting acquired successfully

48:58 Tactics for modern marketing

Guest Speaker Links (Katrina Wong):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinawong11/
• New Relic Website: https://newrelic.com/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
• Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Where to find GTMnow (GTMfund’s media brand):

• Website: https://gtmnow.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow/
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/GTMnow_
• YouTube:    / @gtm_now  

Sponsor: Pursuit

The best talent isn’t actively job hunting. Pursuit helps companies hire elite go-to-market talent on a non-retainer basis. As a key GTMfund partner, they equip sales and marketing teams with top performers.

If you're hiring for sales or marketing roles, reach out to Pursuit at pursuitsalessolutions.com/gtm or message a GTMfund team member.

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.