Hello.

Welcome to Authgnosis.

Options:

+ Fractional Executive

+ Business and market strategy

+ Business plan development

+ Go-to-market execution

+ Sales diagnostics

+ Marketing diagnostics

+ Investor readiness

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Authgnosis == Marissa Wright

Authgnosis Business Consulting Inc. is the consulting practice for the services of Marissa Wright.

(The look and feel of this website is an homage to the first job I had selling personal computers and software in 1982. This is what we had to work with back then!)

Authgnosis is my independent advisory practice focused on helping technology companies build, scale, or find their next growth curve.

I work with founder-led and growth-stage companies that have strong technology but need a sharper commercialization structure.

If you are looking for someone who as “been there and done that”, I may be able to help.

Keep reading to learn more.

Key Differentiators

  • Hands-on skills in any sales or marketing role
  • 19 years as an individual contributor
  • 25 years in Sales and Marketing senior management
  • 9 years as a business consultant and advisor
  • Services include assessment *and* implementation
  • Zero-risk engagement: if you aren’t enthusiastic with my deliverables, I will cancel your invoice.

 

Fractional Leadership Services: Sales, Marketing, and CRO

I offer my services primarly as a fractional or full-time senior executive CRO, COO, Sales, or Marketing leader.

A fractional engagement is provided as a percentage of my available time per month, in blocks of 20 percent.

This offering provides an affordable engagement option for firms that may be in their pre-seed or seed-round with limited funds.

In this way, I get to work with exciting companies of any size , and they can gain the benefits of my depth and breadth of experience that scales with any budget.

Business and Market Strategy

For new companies (and sometimes even more mature firms), they may not be clear on their competitive market position, or have alignment issues.

What do I mean by that?

  • Every company has limited resources
  • We need to decide who we are in the context of our competitive landscape – our competitive position
  • Our products, messaging, and sales all have to align
  • We need to be disciplined to reject what doesn’t fit our competitive position

Otherwise we have internal resource conflicts that can put a company out of business – it’s just a matter of time.

Business Plan Development

Adoption Lifecycle, Customer Acqusition, and Revenue

I wrote my first business plan in 2002 for Actenum, an early AI software company that today, develops complex maintenance scheduling applications for the world’s largest oil & gas firms like Saudi Aramco.

That enabled my co-founders and I to raise $600,000 in pre-seed funding, with support from the National Research Council of Canada through my own investment, angel investors, their Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) and Simon Fraser University’s Industry Liasion Office.

My second business plan raised $500,000 and provided a long-term financial partner for what is now Techemet Canada, the leading recycler of catalytic converters.

Since then I have written, co-written, or revised business plans for several early-stage and growth stage companies in technology, manufacturing, and packaged consumer goods.

Go-to-Market and New Market Development

I’ve worked with a number of companies from overseas seeking to enter the North American market for the first time. North America is large and complex, and the differences in business culture can be daunting.

In some cases, new startups are looking to sell to their first customers – one of the most challenging problems to solve for any company.

In other cases, I’ve worked with companies with flat or declining revenue at the end of their first growth cycle.

In those cases, I’ve been able to help them discover new adjacent markets for their existing products, adapt their core products to new market opportunities, or add new complementary products and services to their product mix.

My experience across a wide range of technologies, market sectors, channels, and geographies can help find that new growth or first customers.

 

Sales Diagnostics

sSome CEOs and sales leaders question whether they are getting the most out of their sales teams.

Sales may have flattened out, competition has intensified, revenue targets are getting missed, and everyone has a different answer.

  • Are we getting enough new logo business?
  • Is our SQL conversion rate good, bad, or ugly?
  • Are we doing enough on up-sell/cross-sell?
  • Is our SaaS or service contract renewal rate weak?
  • Where do we have failures in our funnel and why?
  • Is our team able to effectively cover their territories?
  • Are we over- or under-invested to meet demand in our sector markets?
  • Are we executing based on data or hypothesis?
  • Is our Sales compensation aligned with business objectives?
  • Is our culture supporting high performance or draining it?
  • Are we getting customer and prospect engagement feedback from Sales going to Product and Marketing?
  • Where are the friction points for productivity?

I’ve answered every one of these questions – not only for my clients, but for myself as a 25-year VP of Sales and Marketing, and 19-year individual contributor with a quota.

I know what it’s like to be in the trenches, and I know the frustration of being part of a senior management team struggling with these issues.

Let me help you.

Marketing Diagnostics

As with Sales teams, when revenue flattens out or begins to decline, many question whether their Marketing investments are going to the right places.

  • Is our marketing strategy aligned with the target market’s maturity?
  • Is our strategy effectively segmented and targeted?
  • Has a new market entrant disrupted the competitive landscape?
  • Do we have messaging drift from the market or product?
  • Are we investing for lead generation effectively?
  • Do we have a closed loop from MQL to SQL to close?
  • Do we have the right channel strategy?
  • Do we have adequate top-of-funnel to close on target?
  • Do we have conversion failure at a critical stage?
  • Do we have clean and robust market intelligence to support Marketing and Sales activities?
  • Do we have effective automations to maximize productivity?
  • Where are we not investing and should be?
  • Is our pricing model a competitive advantage or disadvantage?
  • Do we need to rebuild a stale marketing strategy?

There are so many moving parts to effective marketing. I can review, evaluate, and give you an objective assessment of where you’re at, where you need to be, and help you execute.

Marketing Channel Flow Diagram

Investor Readiness and Engagement

Investor Opportunity Summary

As a founder, co-founder, and angel investor myself, I know what early-stage investors – whether angels or private equity firms – want to see from a new company seeking capital.

I help companies avoid common pitfalls, and develop their investor deal-room data that will give investors confidence in their business prospects. I’ve done this for several private and public companies.

Great technologies with great market opportunities often hit a brick wall when investors begin asking hard questions about commercialization.

Where founders may lack capital fundraising or commercialization expertise, I can step in, give them the knowledge they need to feel confident, and provide my fractional revenue-side leadership to round-out their management team in this critical area.

From an investor’s perspective, if you can’t sell it, it has no value.