Work-Bench

We're thrilled to announce that Work-Bench has led Prequel.dev's $3.3M Seed round, with participation from Runtime Ventures, Operator Partners, and founders of category-defining infra companies 🎉 🚀 The problem 🤕 As applications grow more complex, DevOps and SRE teams face mounting challenges: managing diverse technology stacks with limited expertise, working across siloed teams, dealing with overwhelming telemetry data, relying on customers rather than proactive detection, and struggling with time-consuming manual instrumentation. The team 🤓 Co-founders Lyndon K. Brown and Tony Meehan have decades of experience in security detection and response and leading engineering teams at Elastic, Endgame, and the NSA. But what truly sets them apart, is their genuine drive to make life easier for DevOps and SRE teams — a mission that resonates deeply with us at Work-Bench. The solution ⚒️ Prequel is a problem detection and management platform featuring an out-of-the-box detection library, a problem detection community (detect.sh), and the industry’s first reliability research team. Prequel helps DevOps teams quickly identify and resolve infrastructure issues across open-source software, misconfigurations, and developer-introduced bugs. The platform is already used by leading technology companies in FinTech, Infrastructure, and SaaS, dramatically reducing incident detection and resolution times. Huge thanks to Rebecca Szkutak for covering them in TechCrunch. Find the article in the comments!

As we step into 2025, one of the most critical aspects of annual planning for enterprise software startups is mapping out a successful events strategy. We brought together 3 marketing leaders Annie Christian, Kate Beckman, Christina Sirabella from our portfolio for a roundtable to share their strategies, tactics, and lessons learned. Whether you're planning intimate dinner or large-scale experiences, here are a few tips👇 1️⃣ Master Event Logistics: Flawless execution sets the good apart from the great. - Workback Timelines: Begin planning at least three months in advance, creating a detailed timeline for each phase of execution. - Be Prepared for Drop-offs: For larger events, expect up to 70% of your invitees to decline, cancel last-minute, or fail to respond. Build a robust attendee list to mitigate these effects and make sure your venue (virtual or IRL) is still full.  - Test the Platform: Familiarize your team with the event venue or platform in advance. This way they can be experts in navigating issues. 2️⃣ Craft Scalable, Compelling Content: Content is the heart of your event. - Diverse Sessions: Offer a mix of formats to maintain interest, such as customer panels, keynote presentations, data insights, and roundtables. When it comes to programming, less is often more, so priority quality vs. quantity of sessions. - Efficient Preparation: Use questionnaires and templated slide decks to help speakers prepare quickly. - Customer-Led Content: Showcase customer success stories, allowing them to talk about your product more authentically than if you were to do so yourself. 3️⃣ Effective Event Marketing: Promotion is key to attracting the right audience. - Differntiate through branding: A strong theme and cohesive branding make your event stand out. Develop a clean, professional agenda and event webpage to set the tone. - Sales Enablement: Provide your BDR team with tools and content to connect with prospects before and after the event. - Try a super high-touch approach to create FOMO like phone calls, follow-up emails, individual calendar invites, etc. - Social Media Promotion: Highlight your speakers and sessions on LinkedIn to drive organic interest. 🤔 Don't forget: The event doesn’t end when the last session concludes. Leverage the momentum to continue building deeper connections. By prioritizing authenticity, thoughtful planning, and valuable content, your events in 2025 can become the cornerstone of your marketing strategy—strengthening relationships, elevating brand awareness, and driving measurable impact. Happy planning 🎉

Thank you to everyone who joined our Work-Bench #Womenterprise event last week! We had such a stellar panel on lessons selling AI products with GTM leaders Krissy Buongiorno from OpenAI, Liza Katz from Runway, and Karina El Baze from Hebbia ✨ It’s inspiring to have such a packed house of women in revenue in NYC in one room connecting, collaborating, and supporting one another. Here’s just some of the awesome feedback we heard 🙏 ▪ While a lot may be new with AI, so many of the fundamentals in a strong and disciplined sales process are still required ▪ It was reassuring to hear the panel’s candor...TLDR: not everyone has AI totally figured out yet ▪ Women in tech events are rare, but so needed Our #Womenterprise Community continues to grow, so stay tuned for so much more to come in 2025! 🎉💪 Huge thank you to our partners at Bank of America for sponsoring!

Every founder needs a consistent, always-on top-of-funnel engine to maintain a steady stream of prospects. To tackle this challenge, we hosted an Enterprise Masterclass with Robin Izsak-Tseng, growth marketing leader from BetterCloud and G2, covering 👇 Why is TOFU the backbone of growth? 🌪 Prevents pipeline gaps that can stall growth when your mid- and bottom-funnel stages slow down and ensures a constant influx of new prospects.  🤸♀️ Creates flexibility, resilience, and less dependence on a single channel or tactic; by diversifying your lead sources early, you’re able to pivot and adapt when one source slows down. 📈 Supports scalable growth because it’s not just about bringing people in…it’s about setting a scalable revenue pace and nurturing leads that convert to opportunities and revenue. 🎮 Gives the marketing team proactive control and allows marketing to always be a step ahead. 🌊 Reinforces predictable revenue by maintaining a steady lead flow, which creates a reliable foundation for accurate forecasting. 5 battle-tested campaign examples to build a sustainable and predictable top-of-funnel engine below: ▶ The Big Idea ➡ Creative, High-Impact Collaboration ▶ The Scrappy ➡ Small Budget, Big Results ▶ The Recycle ➡ Repurposing Content for Key Audiences ▶ The Scale ➡ Automated Engagement at Scale ▶ The Whale ➡ Long-Term ABM for High-Value Targets To get into the campaigns and for more context – see the full masterclass slides and recording: https://lnkd.in/e5y2jQm3

Too often, after a sale, customers are left to figure things out on their own, leading to poor product adoption, lack of value, and low renewal rates. Why? Poor post-sales. For our next Enterprise Masterclass this Wednesday, our Sales advisor Kiran Narsu will walk through his framework for building a rock-solid post-sales model 💪 He'll answer questions like: ▪ When do I hire a dedicated CS person? ▪ What does the handoff from Sales to CS look like? ▪ What should CS check-ins look like? ▪ How do we increase the customers' usage, adoption, and ultimately dependency on our product? ▪How do we measure success? ▪How do we make every customer an advocate? Whether you're a founder going at it alone or a scaled-out sales team, don’t miss this chance to level up your customer retention game. RSVP link in comments.

It’s days like today, we’re reminded of the importance of community. Our Work-Bench #Womenterprise community continues with our mission to bring together women in enterprise software to connect, learn, and lift each other up - and that mission is more important than ever 💪 🏋️♀️ Join us next Wednesday, Nov. 13th for our final #Womenterpise event of the year for a live podcast recording 🎙️ and hear from women sales leaders from the fastest-growing AI companies in NYC. Together, we'll dive into the top strategies of selling cutting-edge AI products with our 🔥  panelists: ▪️ Karina El Baze, VP of GTM at Hebbia ▪️ Krissy Buongiorno, GTM at OpenAI ▪️ Liza Katz, Sales at Runway We want to reach every woman in B2B, SaaS, and enterprise software in NYC, so please share widely! Registration link in comments. 

Last night, we hosted our first-ever Live Podcast Recording x NY Enterprise Tech Meetup with a behind-the-scenes, real talk look at how Ramp and Figma have become such product powerhouses and generational companies. Our GP Jessica Lin moderated a panel with Geoff Charles (Ramp's VP of Product) and Mihika Kapoor (Figma’s Product Lead), who shared some 🌶️ takes on their product journey: 📅 Forget roadmaps beyond 6 months. Long-term roadmaps are rarely accurate, so avoid planning for an unpredictable future. 📜 Don’t spend hours crafting the perfect strategy document…no one will read it. Instead focus on how you can visually present your idea – a mock up / demo / etc. goes a much longer way. 🔥 Push through the “nos.” Mihika’s tenacity in making Figma Slides a reality, despite countless “nos” from the founders, was a great lesson on the lengths needed to justify a product into existence. 🔍 There’s nothing wrong with being a features factory if needed. But be intentional about impact and have a strong POV on how these features will drive change and impact. ⏱ Velocity is everything. Geoff gave an example of getting off a customer call one night and having the team build a new feature by morning. This speed is what sets you apart from sleepy incumbents. 🤝 Become BFFs with your top sales reps. They're often most in tune with customer needs and can be your pulse on customer resonance and invaluable allies. We've got clips off all of Geoff and Mihika's greatest takeaways coming soon! Follow Work-Bench on LinkedIn to see them first! We’re beyond pumped to see the NYC enterprise and SaaS community come out strong and huge thank you to Ramp for hosting us at their beautiful office. If you’re a Pre-Seed or Seed founder building across AI/ML, cybersecurity, infra/dev tools, or SaaS - we’d love to meet you!

Are you a first time enterprise software founder looking to fundraise? Today, Rho's Justin Wolz published his podcast episode with our General Partner Jonathan Lehr and this one is for you👇 He covers the various VC models out there (ie. YC, high-volume funds, multi-stage funds, concentrated funds) invest at the Seed stage in today's market and what each can offer founders beyond capital. Definitely worth a listen. Full episode linked in the comments.

💡 If you could ask Geoff Charles (VP of Product at Ramp) and Mihika Kapoor (Product Lead at Figma) anything about their product strategy…what would it be? 🤔 Next week, we’re hosting a live podcast recording with these two incredible product leaders, and we want to know what burning questions you have! We'll dive deep into tactical insights on how to push your product to the next level with velocity, collaboration, and experimentation—so please share your questions below ⬇️

We’re all about helping startups master the journey from 0 to 1, and one way we do that is through our tactical Masterclass series 🚀 Up next: Creating a Predictable Top-Of-Funnel Engine 🚂 🔍 The problem: Many teams put all their energy into moving prospects down the funnel, only to come up for air and find their top-of-funnel pipeline has dried up. 💡 The solution: An always-on, predictable top-of-funnel engine ensures you're never scrambling to find new prospects. Join us as Robin Izsak-Tseng, a growth marketing leader previously at G2 and BetterCloud, dives into 5 battle-tested (and inexpensive) campaigns to build a sustainable and predictable top-of-funnel engine. 👉 Whether you’re an early-stage founder or a marketing leader, this session is packed with insights to fuel your funnel and drive sustainable growth. RSVP link in comments.