GrowthX Market Acceleration Program

Description

The GrowthX Market Acceleration Program (MXP) Workshop helps founders develop, test and validate hypotheses at every stage of the market development process. That equates to less time and capital required to learn whether and when you can achieve product-market fit. The only sustainable way to find product-market fit is through the continuous give-and-take between the startup and its customers. Founders must methodically go through a process to learn how customers will acquire and use their product. We call this Market Development and it differs from sales. Rather than hiring a "coin operated" sales leader to follow conventional wisdom, the market development process focuses on enabling entrepreneurs to learn from customers and then respond to them.
 
The MXP is a proprietary program created by GrowthX, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund and innovation platform helping companies commercialize innovation through capital, talent and know-how.

About the hosts:
 
Andrew Goldner
Andrew is a Founding Partner of GrowthX. He has been in the technology sector since 1998, based in New York City, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Palo Alto.
 
Andrew began his career in technology as a lawyer for early Internet pioneers such as Alta Vista, Yahoo, and Salesforce while practicing law at Skadden Arps. He left private practice to join DoubleClick prior to the Google acquisition. Andrew then joined Thomson Financial where he co-founded their financial news business leading to the acquisition of Reuters. At Thomson Reuters, Andrew served as Publisher of Reuters News, where he worked on innovation and design-thinking with nearly 3,000 journalists based in 200 countries worldwide. He then became Co-Founder and Managing Director of the company?s legal media business in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
 
After 6 years in Asia, Andrew returned to the U.S. and returned to helping early-stage companies. In Silicon Valley, Andrew was early at Guidespark, an employee communication SaaS platform, and BrightTalk, a content marketing SaaS platform and professional community. He then co-founded GoodMoney to democratize high-performance, values-based investing. During that ?wonderful learning opportunity,? Andrew met his current partners and co-founded GrowthX.
 
Andrew is a Kauffman Fellow, Regional Board Member of Venture for America, Trustee at the Nashville Children?s Theatre, and a proud Mentor at The Wond'ry at Vanderbilt, the TN Advanced Energy Business Council, Alchemist Accelerator, WeWork and Galvanize. Andrew received his undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati and his law degree from Georgetown University.  
 
Sean Sheppard 
Sean is a Founding Partner of GrowthX. Sean has over 20 years of experience bringing new products to market, including as a five-times sales founder. Sean's deep expertise has been codified into a proprietary market acceleration program and entrepreneurial sales training curriculum.
 
In addition to helping dozens of startups find product-market fit and predictable revenue models, Sean helps global multinationals to identify new applications for their existing technology portfolio, bring new products to market with profitable business models, and organize and train self-managing early product-stage sales and marketing teams. Sean's successful corporate advisory track record includes work for Bridgestone, Canon, Faurecia, and Clariant.
 

Sean is a globally recognized sales and marketing thought leader. He was named as One of the Top Sales Influencers You Should Be Following On Social Media, as well as Top 20 Inside Sales Influencers. Sean is a former professional golfer, PGA certified golf instructor, and an active mentor, advisor and guest lecturer at global startup accelerators, innovation conferences, and colleges and universities including Galvanize, Alchemist, GSVLabs and the London Business School.