VC: 116 Quarters on Quota and What Every Sales Leader Should Be Tracking, with Bill Binch, Operating Partner at Battery Ventures
VC: 116 Quarters on Quota and What Every Sales Leader Should Be Tracking, with Bill Binch, Operating Partner at Battery Ventures  
Podcast: The GTMnow Podcast
Published On: Tue Mar 03 2026
Description: Bill Binch (Operating Partner at Battery Ventures) joins GTMnow to share the operational frameworks he's built across 116 quarters on quota, and what actually changes when you move from driving revenue to advising an entire portfolio.Before Battery, Bill was employee #16 at Marketo, where he led sales from zero revenue through IPO and a Vista Equity acquisition. He then served as CRO at Pendo, helping scale ARR to nearly $100M in only three years. His career spans some of the most defining sales organizations in enterprise software, from Oracle to PeopleSoft.- Bill Binch - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-binch-302a4a2/, - Battery Ventures - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/battery-ventures/- Battery Ventures website: https://www.battery.com/Host links:- Max - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler/- Max - X: https://x.com/HackItMax- Paul - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving/- Paul - X: https://x.com/PaulGTM- Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.comBrought to you by: AngelListFrom starting as a small, operator-led rolling fund, to evolving to an institutional platform, AngelList has been a core partner in every phase of GTMfund’s growth. Their software-first fund admin infrastructure allowed us to scale without sacrificing agility — from onboarding hundreds of LPs seamlessly to handling compliance, capital calls, and reporting as our fund size evolved.As we expanded from Fund I to Fund II, AngelList took care of the back-office operations, allowing us to stay focused on what matters most: investing in world-class founders and building the strongest go-to-market network in venture.They’ve scaled with us across funds and into the future.If your fund is growing in size or complexity, check them out at https://angellist.com/gtmfund.Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com/Highlights:00:00 – Bill's career path: Oracle, Marketo employee #16, Pendo CRO, and choosing Arizona over tech hubs15:01 – Battery's approach: why there's no one-size-fits-all playbook19:56 – Outreach's accidental sales experiment: remote vs. in-person results21:23 – What nobody tells you about the transition from CRO to operating partner23:01 – Gold watch and slippers? Why operating partner is not a retirement plan27:15 – Three audiences: prospective investments, portfolio companies, and Battery internal31:42 – Investing in GTM tech: why Battery went 7 years between bets34:44 – The Phil Fernandez warning: "your hand is on the wheel, now you're a passenger"36:44 – Why every forecast should start with "my quota is" not "my forecast is"38:33 – The metric most companies miss: plan vs. planned quota vs. actual quota deployed40:05 – The mojo metric: 6 daily pipeline inputs that tell you everything43:16 – Helping technical founders sell: the one-eyed man in the land of the blind48:04 – Advice for operators who want to move into an operating partner role51:03 – The sales and marketing dance: what real GTM alignment sounds like in a board roomFor inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email gtmnow@gtmfund.comGTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/