Rich Nieset is the principal of TractionPoint Advisors. He has been in the technology sector for over 25 years, mostly focused on developing VC funded companies. With a technical background of engineering and physics he has worked with hardware companies, database and data warehousing applications, business SaaS providers, 3D Metal manufacturing and a contact center machine learning and AI.

His list of successes includes being an early member of the go to market team at Agile Software building the company’s initial sales and marketing functions. Agile hit the $40M annual sales revenue mark within only four years, completed a successful IPO and was later acquired by Oracle Corp as part of its flagship manufacturing ERP offering.

Rich also helped KNOVA Software rebuild its commercial team from five to over 40 team members with an international market scope. It became one of the most successful service center knowledge base companies, rolled up several competitors and eventually completed a successful M&A exit with Made2Manage (M2M) holdings.

Harkening back to his roots in hardware he helped leading 3D Metal Printer manufacturer Velo3D field its initial sales team and go from pre-revenue to over $20M in just one year.

Recently as CRO at PolyAI, Rich worked with the founders to build the first international sales organization, complete the series B funding and exceed stretch goals for Annual Recurring Revenue and new customer acquisition. He continues to work with the company as a senior advisor, having transitioned it to a new revenue leadership team.

Over the years, Rich has built and maintained a library of tools, tips and techniques that are particularly applicable to the go to market team and focused in the areas of marketing, sales and customer success, with the main focus on building revenue strategies, sales process and methodology and keeping and growing customers for long term success.

With industry experience ranging from hardware to SaaS and machine learning/AI, Rich has the breadth of experience to be a quick study in a variety of application areas and can leverage that wealth of experience to help founders quickly launch and ramp the commercial function.