Today, I write my first blog post for Nimble as I start my new position as Nimble’s head of marketing and sales. I’m excited by the prospects of leading a truly social business, smack dab in the middle of the social revolution. The Nimble team, some of the best and brightest in Silicon Beach (Santa Monica, CA for the rest of the world), was a huge factor in my jumping on board. As is our vision. As Jim Collins says in Built to Last, Good to Great, identify the Big Hairy Audacious Goal and attack it. That goal is bringing nimble relationship management — especially through social channels — to every small-to-medium sized business on the planet. Which fundamentally changes the way business is done.
That’s the reason for excitement– Nimble is still so early on in its journey, with plenty of ground to cover. And we’re growing! My hire signals expansion, with more to come.
Maybe more importantly, as readers of this blog may appreciate already, a big part of our belief system (and a big part of mine) is a focus on listening. As I set out to meet with our customers, prospects, partners and enthusiasts, I welcome feedback and insight into how you are using Nimble today and how you envision our future together. As with many of my past experiences — this is how I roll — I always have an ear out externally. I’m very curious, and willing to listen.
I’ve spent the past few years as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Sorenson Media, an award-winning provider of high-quality video software such as Sorenson Squeeze, the gold standard in video encoding and the original video codec company behind Flash and Quicktime. Prior to that I’ve led marketing at a number of different startups, including video chat pioneer SightSpeed (acquired by Logitech in October 2008) and Appellation America, an innovative online wine portal. I also return to the Los Angeles area for the first time since my stint with News Corp (and their online properties FoxSports.com, FoxNews.com, and Fox.com).
There’s no doubt (in my mind, anyway) that the future is social when it comes to selling, business development and marketing. Business people using old techniques like cold calling or treating prospects like a number are numbered… which to say they are becoming obsolete.
Where Nimble fits into the picture are our customers being just that — nimble adj \ˈnim-bəl\ quick, clever and agile — which is what businesses need to succeed today, and evermore in the future. I’ve already had a number of passionate conversations with customers who indicate that Nimble has become an indispensable part of their business lives. Better still, there is also a dedicated Nimble team continually building out the feature-set and intelligence of the platform… Moving our software further towards daily, then increasingly more frequent, insights.
The market for trusted social tools for developing business is growing rapidly today… and I’m giddy on the future of social software. I look forward to strapping in and enjoying the ride! Join me.
Cheers,
Eric Quanstrom
CMO / VP, Marketing & Sales
eric [at] nimble dot com
