David Cancel

When we founded Drift, a Salesloft company six years ago, we made it very clear that we valued an in-office experience. I believe this contributed to being able to achieve hypergrowth and becoming the company we are today.

But the world has changed, and we can’t pretend we are going back to the world we had before.

This has meant that over the past ten months, we've been forced to reevaluate every belief we held as a company.

We needed to find a way to thrive and succeed in this new reality.

But a hybrid approach was never an option for us. Why? Because I still believe that hybrid leads to an inequitable experience. One of the reasons Elias and I founded Drift was to help build an equitable company for our team and as a role model for our community.

That’s why I’m excited to announce that starting today, Drift is now a Digital First company. This means that while remote will continue to be the primary experience, we’ll reconfigure our offices to be “Conversation Spaces,” where Drifters can gather and collaborate once it’s safe to do so.

I think this is the way of the future. A future where we can focus more on outcomes and less on time in the office. And I know that by continuing to be intentional with every culture-related decision we make, we’ll build an even better Drift. ⚡️

I'm sharing internal thinking (slides) for the first time ever 😳

Why?

1. Because I'm lazy. 🛌
My friends Andy Raskin and Dave Gerhardt were discussing the new category, Revenue Acceleration, we announced at Drift, a Salesloft company this week, and instead of typing out my thoughts in a comment I thought I'd provide some of my internal thoughts behind the move.

2. Ideas need oxygen and sunlight to become the best versions of themselves. I don't believe in iterating on ideas secretly. Those days are over. We need to iterate on ideas in public, very much like the open-source movement, to find the best answers together.

So here are my private slides that explain our thoughts on the paradigm shift that is happening between the old, company-centric model, and the new buyer-centric model.

This is not about software, or Drift, or categories. This shift is undeniable, we just hope to be one of the companies to help usher it into reality for the companies we serve.

Lots more content but here's a peek.

hashtag#revenueacceleration hashtag#conversationalmarketing hashtag#marketing hashtag#sales

I've struggled my entire life with the line between personal and professional.

I have *failed* for most of my life to bring my "whole self" to work.

I never talked about my ethnicity.
I never shared my story.
I never saw it as my place to fight to change things.

I was afraid.

I always felt as the "other", alone, like the outsider.

I felt this way because for over half of my career I never saw anyone in my industry who looked like me. I never knew of another hashtag#latinx person doing what I did, I never saw them in the places I worked. (these were the days before LinkedIn/etc)

That changed at Drift mostly because of the courage that my partner Elias Torres ⚡️ was able to give me. For the first time, I didn't feel like I was alone.

But very few have been as fortunate as me. Their voices have not been heard. Their lives have not been saved. They have not had the luxury of choice that many including myself, enjoy.

👉🏽 That is why we CANNOT be silent anymore. We must speak out so that they know they are not alone. We must act now and forevermore.

Last weekend I sent an email to the team at Drift, a Salesloft company that today I am making public to continue the conversation 👇🏽

https://lnkd.in/d-Jhj2j 🙏🏽

hashtag#blacklivesmatter hashtag#diversity hashtag#equality

Drift Video Pro is now free for all teachers, students, and non-profit employees. ⚡️🎉🤗

At Drift, a Salesloft company, we want to do our small part to help the many people who have been impacted by this awful pandemic. A couple of weeks ago we launched initiatives to lessen the load on healthcare facilities with our COVID-19 bots that would help many self-assess their symptoms without overwhelming those on the frontline.

Today I want to share another initiative that we have been working on - donating premium licenses of Drift Video Pro to teachers, students and non-profit employees.

Over the last few weeks, we have seen a sharp uptick in Teachers, Tutors, and Educators using Drift Video to help their students transition to a new distance learning paradigm. We built Drift Video for businesses but the ability to privately share videos and to know who has watched which videos and to be able to message the Teacher while watching the video has proven a perfect match for schools too.

If you know any Teachers please let them know about this new free resource they have available to them.

More info:
* https://lnkd.in/ehjTTxj
* https://lnkd.in/eqiakYj