Most companies struggle with one critical challenge: getting their product and marketing teams to work together effectively. While both departments are essential for growth, they often operate in silos, missing opportunities for explosive results. Jonathan Buckley, with 25 years of experience bringing early-stage B2B tech companies to market, has developed a methodology that changes this dynamic entirely.
Building Companies That Actually Scale
Jonathan’s background spans CMO and VP marketing roles in both public and private enterprise tech companies throughout Silicon Valley. “For the last 25 years I’ve been working exclusively with my team in bringing early-stage B2B tech companies to market and getting them to scale,” he says. The numbers back up his methods. “Over 50% of our clients have ultimately reached IPO or initial public offering or a strategic acquisition.” Take Matterport, the 3D camera company that owns the virtual home tour market. Jonathan’s team helped expand them beyond real estate. “We helped bring it to other verticals like insurance and construction. That company went on to go public as well,” he explains. His client list includes SaaS companies, AI businesses, and hardware-software combinations across multiple industries.
His company, the Artesian Network, gets its name from something personal. “When I grew up, my home had what is known as an artesian well,” he recalls. “What defines such a water well is that when you drill it in exactly the right place, the water rises to the surface under its own volition.” He uses this as a business metaphor. “It’s a metaphor for tapping revenue opportunities where pulling said revenue opportunities becomes closer to effortless.”
Rushing to Market Without Proof
Companies rush to market without doing the hard work first. Jonathan wrote a viral LinkedIn article called “Build It, Test It, Prove It” after repeatedly seeing the same mistakes over and over again. “The product is early and you have to validate that you have product market fit. This is before you do any marketing, before you do broad-based sales,” he explains. Here’s where things go wrong. Companies get Series A funding and immediately feel pressure to scale fast. “They get their series A funding, which usually is the funding round that brings them to market and expand in the market and they’re pressured, perhaps they get pressured from the board and investors to scale out fast.” This creates a dangerous rush.
Jonathan recommends running two processes simultaneously. “What we advocate is running what is called a sales and marketing MVP or minimal viable product process in concert with developing an MVP for the product itself.” For B2B companies, he wants to see “10 to 20 arm’s length transactions that fit a pattern, a recognizable pattern.” The problem is most companies cheat this process. They rely on friends, family, or heavily discounted deals instead of real customers paying real money. “It is quite typical in the alpha process, sometimes beta, that they rely on transactions that are not truly arm’s length,” Jonathan notes.
Three Key Strategies for Alignment
Jonathan outlines specific approaches for synchronizing product development with marketing execution.
Treat Sales Like Science Experiments
Jonathan’s approach centers on treating early sales like scientific experiments. “You want to make sure that you’ve properly curated the messaging required for each of those individuals in the enterprise sale,” he says. B2B sales typically involve six to seven people in the buying company, and each needs different messaging. This requires careful testing and measurement rather than hoping things work out.
Bridge the Technical-Marketing Divide
The traditional divide between technical and marketing teams kills progress. “Engineers have no tolerance for the typical marketing person. It’s quite typically an adversarial relationship,” Jonathan observes. His solution is straightforward but effective. “We make sure that our technical acumen is up to speed so that we can have respectable conversations with the product development team and the engineers.” This mutual respect changes everything.
Embed Growth Into the Product
Product-led growth represents the third strategy. “Increasingly products today, especially in the SaaS space, have what’s known as product-led growth opportunity in them,” Jonathan explains. Slack serves as a perfect example. “The product helps grow its customer base over time. You don’t necessarily have to market it separate from the product; it’s embeddedin the product.” This approach makes marketing feel natural rather than forced.
Jonathan sees fractional marketing teams becoming more common for early-stage companies. “It gives the early-stage company access to experienced operators earlier,” he explains. This matters because senior marketing talent usually avoids high-risk early-stage companies. “Senior marketing talent tends not to have the risk profile to take on a company before repeatability and predictability is built.” His core advice remains unchanged. “You need to think like a scientist, not a salesperson. Early in the cycling experiment, measure, iterate, refine, and prove you have a model that is ready for scale and don’t prematurely assume that it will scale.”
Follow Jonathan Buckley on LinkedIn to learn how top B2B startups reach IPO with smarter growth.
