Authgnosis Business Consulting
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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
Founder, co-founder, executive, angel investor
Hands-on skills in any sales or marketing role
19 years as an individual contributor
25 years as Sales and Marketing VP/CRO
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.
Sales, Marketing, and Operations Leadership
I offer my services most often as a fractional or full-time senior executive CRO, COO, VP Sales or VP 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 strategic position in their market.
Management teams who lack clarity on the company’s strategic position can create confusion with customers, inefficient resource use, and ultimately business failure.
- Every company has limited resources
- You need to decide who you are in the context of your products, customers, and competitive landscape
- Every part of your organization has to be aligned to your strategic position
Companies that get caught in-between strategic positions ultimately experience business failure.
Capital Funding Strategy
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 monetize and scale it, it has no value.
Investor Due Diligence
Due Diligence Report Structure
Investors never want to miss getting in early on the next unicorn.
However, for angel investors, private equity funds, and family offices, performing due diligence on companies with complex technologies can be a challenge without direct domain experience.
I can help assess:
- Intellectual property and freedom to operate
- Market demand
- Business model
- Sales plan
- Marketing plan
- Development roadmap
- Management team skill sets
- Risks and mitigations
- Liquidity options
- Strategic partners
As an experienced technology executive, founder, angel investor, and a former member of Keiretsu Forum trained to perform due-diligence, I can help you de-risk your investment decision.
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.
Sources of Growth
Sales Diagnostics
Sales KPI Diagnostics
CEOs and sales leaders sometimes 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.
I can assess:
- New logo vs recurring revenue mix
- MQL – SQL conversion
- Up-sell/cross-sell
- Contract renewal health
- Opportunity funnel health
- Territory coverage
- Market/sector ROI
- Business intelligence / CRM automation
- Sales compensation model
- Sales culture and retention
- Customer feedback loops
- Productivity friction points
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.
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.
I can assess:
- Marketing strategy alignment
- Market maturity
- Market segmentation
- Ideal customer and buyer persona profiling
- Competitive landscape analysis
- Product-market-messaging fit / drift
- Lead generation and ROI measurement
- Channel strategy
- Marketing funnel health
- Market intelligence platform
- Automation
- Pricing model
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