Bursts of Color - Tombstone
We lost two cultural icons from my era last week:
Val Kilmer, who lit up some of my favorite films like Tombstone, Heat and Top Gun. He also wrote a worthy memoir: I’m Your Huckleberry.
Joe DePugh, the pitcher who could throw a speedball by you in “Glory Days.”
I have often sent hiring candidates to a subset of this group. I am going to try including them here rather than sending out those separate notes. As always, please feel free to reach out to these candidates directly or let me know if you’d like an intro.
Sales Leader - Bret Baumbach
Bret Baumbach is a sales leader who comes recommended by Adam Guild of Owner.com, where Bret was VP Sales and helped triple revenue. Prior to Owner, Bret held sales leadership roles at OpenGov, Verkata, SolarCity and Tesla. At Verkada, he launched “Verkademy,” a sales training program, whose graduates consistently outperformed outside AE hires by 40%. Bret lives in Southern California and is open to a range of company stages. [bret.baumbach at gmail.com]
UX & Product Design Consulting - Martin Granstrom
Martin Granstrom is a design leader who has started a small agency to help teams that could use support with design, research, experience strategy, or problem identification—especially early-stage startups that have moved past 0–1 and need more than what the founders and GenAI can handle… but aren’t quite ready to build out a full design team. Martin lives in the SFBA. [granstroms at gmail.com]