GTM 170: 0 Customers → $4B: Inside Snowflake’s GTM Machine With Chris Degnan The GTMnow podcast

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GTM 170: 0 Customers → $4B: Inside Snowflake’s GTM Machine with Chris Degnan

4d ago 50:51

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Chris Degnan is the former Chief Revenue Officer of Snowflake, where he helped scale the company from pre-product to over $4B in ARR and more than $100B in market cap. Over his 11-year tenure, Chris built Snowflake’s go-to-market engine from the ground up, from personally running the first outbound campaigns to leading a global sales organization through four CEOs and one of the largest software IPOs in history.

Today, he advises founders and revenue leaders on how to build high-velocity GTM teams, hire with grit, and scale with discipline. Chris is also the co-author of Make It Snow, the definitive playbook on Snowflake’s go-to-market journey, co-written with CMO Denise Persson.

Discussed in this episode

The early days of Snowflake: selling a stealth startup with no product
How to hire and identify truly self-motivated, gritty sales talent
The lessons from John McMahon that shaped Snowflake’s leadership DNA
How to build sales-marketing alignment that actually scales
The near-death experiences that almost killed Snowflake
What great CEOs do differently, from Muglia to Slootman
The power of focusing on new logo acquisition
The evolution of sales methodologies: MEDDPICC, culture, and curiosity
The truth about AI’s “bubble”, and what’s real beneath the hype

Episode highlights

00:02:21 — Why join Snowflake pre-product and in stealth.

00:05:36 — The original outreach script and what resonated with prospects.

00:06:49 — Scaling from lists to SDRs; Degnan’s “8 meetings per week” rule.

00:09:11 — Hiring for self-starters; the interview opener: “Tell me your life story.”

00:12:49 — The feedback loop that kept a CRO in seat for 11 years.

00:24:46 — The outage that almost killed Snowflake, and how leadership showed up.

00:28:34 — New logo gates every quarter and why it mattered more than anything.

00:34:05 — “Customer success is everyone’s job”: removing CS, monetizing PS, driving adoption.

00:36:40 — Databricks: where Snowflake ceded ground and what they’d do differently.

00:39:19 — Why going public was the right move for enterprise trust.

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Follow Chris Degnan

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-degnan-524470Make It Snow (book):https://makeitsnowbook.com

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.
Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.

Chapters

1. From Midlife Crisis To Snowflake (00:00:00)

2. Revisiting The Early Days And Milestones (00:01:40)

3. Why Join A Stealth Startup (00:02:45)

4. Naming Snowflake And Early Pitch (00:04:31)

5. First GTM Moves And List Building (00:05:31)

6. Hiring SDRs, SEs, And Early Scale (00:07:22)

7. Sponsor Break: Event Planning Offer (00:08:14)

8. Hiring Self-Starters And Grit (00:08:44)

9. Longevity As A CRO And Feedback (00:10:29)

10. Humility, Urgency, And Culture (00:12:30)

11. Sales–Marketing Alignment With Denise (00:14:08)

12. CEOs In The Weeds: Bob To Sridhar (00:16:05)

13. Near-Death Outages And Recovery (00:19:05)

14. Pivotal GTM: New Logo Obsession (00:21:22)

15. Balancing Land, Expand, And Pricing (00:23:30)

16. Rethinking CS And Professional Services (00:25:25)

17. Competing With Databricks And CSPs (00:27:08)

18. Going Public: Credibility And Tradeoffs (00:29:03)

19. AI Boom, Bubble, And Real Value (00:30:12)

20. Sales Methodologies And MedPick (00:32:01)

21. Life After Snowflake And Advising (00:33:50)

22. The Book’s Core Lesson: Alignment (00:35:09)

23. Parting Thoughts And Where To Follow (00:36:42)

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GTM 170: 0 Customers → $4B: Inside Snowflake’s GTM Machine with Chris Degnan

The GTMnow Podcast

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published 4d ago

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Discussed in this episode

The early days of Snowflake: selling a stealth startup with no product
How to hire and identify truly self-motivated, gritty sales talent
The lessons from John McMahon that shaped Snowflake’s leadership DNA
How to build sales-marketing alignment that actually scales
The near-death experiences that almost killed Snowflake
What great CEOs do differently, from Muglia to Slootman
The power of focusing on new logo acquisition
The evolution of sales methodologies: MEDDPICC, culture, and curiosity
The truth about AI’s “bubble”, and what’s real beneath the hype