Hello Friend,

In this issue, we have:

• RESEARCH: Why your board is stalling — and the one question that actually resolves it

• IN PRACTICE: How Meltwater built a retention system from a framework they already had
• EVENTS: One month until Impact Summit + event preview on April 22
• KEY RESOURCE: The Bowtie Toolkit — 6+ frameworks to aid strategic planning available for download
• REVENUE ACADEMY COURSES: Enroll in upcoming courses across the Bowtie

RESEARCH: Sellers, Savers, and Innovators — Which Boardroom Faction Is Governing Your Risk?

Walk into most board meetings today and you'll find the same underlying tension. One director is pushing for more growth investment. Another is guarding the balance sheet. A third is warning that the entire business model may be at risk of becoming irrelevant.

On the surface, it looks like a strategy debate. It isn't.

Boards disagree because each faction is managing a different risk. Strip away the slides and the strong opinions, and the organizing question is always the same: which risks are survivable — and which are not?

David Spitz and Jacco van der Kooij identify three distinct factions shaping these conversations:

The Sellers believe growth fixes most problems. Their instinct is to push harder — more pipeline, more headcount, more marketing spend. They operate on activity-based metrics: pipeline coverage, quota attainment, productivity. This mindset was forged in the Abundance Era (2012–2022), when capital was broadly available and growth was rewarded with valuation multiples that made efficiency a secondary concern.

The Savers believe survival must come before ambition. Their central fear is running out of cash. Their default response is to cut costs, preserve runway, and protect the balance sheet. This approach rose to dominance during the Correction Era (2022–2024), when financing vanished and free cash flow became the only scorecard that mattered. The limitation of this faction is structural: you cannot cost-cut your way to growth.

The Innovators — often serial entrepreneurs — believe the real risk is missing a market shift until it's too late. They see AI not as a tool but as a platform change capable of resetting markets for years. Their instinct is to move early, before the market forces their hand. The challenge: early signals are noisy, proof takes time, and asking a board to act before the evidence is board-level clear is a difficult case to make.

All three factions are rational. All three are still producing outcomes — for now.

What Spitz and van der Kooij argue is that the question boards have been asking is the wrong one. The question isn't which faction is right. It is: which risks are survivable, and which ones are not?

In the Abundance Era, the dominant risk was missing growth. In the Correction Era, the dominant risk was insolvency. In the AI Concentration Era we are entering now — where more than 60% of venture investment flows into AI-related companies — the dominant risk is irrelevance. And that risk surfaces later, more quietly, and outside the metrics boards have traditionally relied on.

By the time irrelevance appears clearly in revenue or churn, the market has already moved on.

– Bottom Line –

The boardroom tension most leaders are experiencing isn't a conflict of personalities or strategies — it's a collision of three risk frameworks designed for three different eras. Understanding which risks are genuinely survivable in the AI Concentration Era is the governance work of 2026.

These insights are adapted from an article authored by David Spitz, Founder of BenchSights and Jacco van der Kooij, CEO of Winning by Design. The full piece can be found in our Growth Journal - subscribe here (or read here if already subscribed).

Figure 1: AI's share of VC investment has surpassed 60% of all deal value — a level of concentration no prior technology wave came close to sustaining. Source: Pitchbook, US, as of July 31, 2025

IN PRACTICE: How Meltwater Turned SPICED Into a Retention System

Most CS teams know what a good customer plan looks like. The problem is consistency. When quality depends on individual judgment, it doesn't scale — and the accounts most at risk are the first to feel the gap.

Julien Cerutti, who leads revenue strategy at Meltwater, started with a targeted cohort: the accounts most likely to churn. His team required reps to submit structured Joint Impact Plans and explain how they were built. From there, AI was layered on top to evaluate execution at scale — scoring each plan against a consistent standard, identifying gaps in outcomes and clarity, and generating coaching recommendations.

The unlock wasn't the AI. It was the standard.

Instead of relying on individual managers to define what "good" looks like, the team established a repeatable baseline across the organization. Every plan was now measurable. Every gap was visible. Coaching became systematic rather than reactive.

The results were direct. The high-risk cohort outperformed the broader enterprise segment by +9 points in Gross Revenue Retention. The accounts most likely to churn instead performed better than average.

The system also surfaced a broader opportunity: the average plan scored just 55 out of 100. Most teams have more retention capacity than their current execution is capturing.

SPICED doesn't stop at the sales conversation. When extended into post-sale execution — through structured plans, consistent evaluation, and AI-assisted coaching — it becomes a system for delivering and compounding customer value over time.

– Bottom Line –
AI doesn't replace frameworks like SPICED. It makes them operable at scale. By turning customer plans into a measurable, coachable system, Meltwater built a repeatable engine for value delivery — and proved it where it mattered most: in their highest-risk accounts.

Julien shared his story in our recent webinar - watch it here.

Figure 2: The Joint Impact Plan blueprint Meltwater used to standardize post-sale execution — moving from a drafted plan at Sales-to-CS handoff through first impact, structured reviews, and renewal.

EVENTS: Impact Summit Is About A Month Out — Plus an Event Preview on April 22

⭐ IMPACT SUMMIT 2026 IS IN JUST OVER 30 DAYS | SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 12, 2026 / The agenda is set. Speakers from Verizon Connect, Docebo, and Insight Partners are locked in. On May 12 in San Francisco, WbD is bringing together CROs, CEOs, and GTM operators for a full day designed around one question: how do you build growth systems that compound in the AI era?

The day runs from Jacco's opening keynote on unstoppable growth, through sessions on growth governance, PE-backed GTM redesign, and AI in practice — and closes with a hands-on workshop where executives will apply the frameworks detailed on the main stage.

The lookbook of attendees will be released soon to registrants and our Growth Award finalists will be announced soon, with winners to be announced live on May 12.

Seats are limited. Learn more and request an invite.

- IMPACT SUMMIT EUROPE DATE SET | 6 OCTOBER 2026 | GHENT, BELGIUM / For our European operators, Impact Summit Europe lands on 6 October in Ghent, Belgium—a curated, one-day gathering of senior GTM leaders focused on designing growth systems that compound across markets and embedding AI into the operating logic of revenue teams.

If you’re based in Europe and want to join, you can now request an invite.

- OPEN WEBINAR: UNSTOPPABLE GROWTH: A PREVIEW OF IMPACT SUMMIT | APRIL 22, 2026 / Before May 12, get a first look at the research and frameworks that will anchor this year's Impact Summit. Jacco van der Kooij will share a curated preview of what WbD surfaced on its international Roadshow — including the single chart most boards never see that makes the current platform inflection point unmistakable, and an introduction to the architecture behind companies already running two growth engines at once.

This session is designed to change how you read your growth data. The full picture comes at the Summit.

Register for the April 22nd webinar here.

KEY RESOURCE: The Bowtie Toolkit — Sharpen Your Q2 Strategy

Most GTM teams heading into Q2 have the same problem: lots of activity, not enough clarity on where the system is actually breaking down.

The Bowtie Toolkit is designed to fix that. It gives strategic leaders a set of practical frameworks for diagnosing and aligning their revenue architecture across the full customer lifecycle — from first touch through expansion.

The preview version includes six ready-to-use modules, including the AI Adoption module, helping you map AI use cases across the Bowtie by stage, and sequence investments from assistive to agentic based on impact and effort.

The full toolkit — including Operating Model, Stakeholder Map, Tech Stack, Growth Loops, and more — is available exclusively to Growth Institute members.

REVENUE ACADEMY COURSES: Uplevel your skills across the GTM

Sign up for Revenue Academy Open Courses — next cohorts are kicking off on April 20th (with more scheduled throughout Q2).

We're delighted to see our newest course, Growth Architecture, delivering impact to early registrants, with one SaaS CRO saying:

Here's to a great month ahead. In a noisy market, the leaders who win are the ones who govern with clarity.

To impact!

The crew @ Winning by Design