The Sales Test This Norwest Partner Gives Founders Before He’ll Invest
View original at news.crunchbase.comCrunchbase News - Funding Ma Title: The Sales Test This Norwest Partner Gives Founders Before He’ll Invest Date: 2026-09-09 11:00 Source: https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/startup-investment-qa-ai-hr-fintech-jacobsohn-norwest/ <p><a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/person/sean-jacobsohn">Sean Jacobsohn</a> worked at…
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Before investing, Jacobsohn goes on sales calls with the CEO to assess the founder's selling ability, which he considers a major indicator of a company's potential.
60% confidenceAI should not be trusted to perform calculations in finance because it is not good at math and errors can occur.
60% confidenceIt would be very hard to disrupt the core products of Workday, ADP, SAP, UKG and Dayforce, but easier to disrupt their secondary, non-core products.
60% confidenceJacobsohn built the Failure Museum, containing more than 1,500 items from failed companies and products, to study why they failed.
60% confidenceBecause CFOs buy software for themselves with one less layer of approval, it is easier to replace that software when the CFO is the direct buyer.
60% confidenceThere is a potential opportunity to disrupt NetSuite and Sage in ERP, with disruption happening more downmarket first before moving upmarket.
60% confidenceNorwest's Office of the CFO market map has more than 500 companies, about three-quarters of which are legacy players.
60% confidenceNorwest's primary entry point is seed and Series A, with opportunistic participation in later Series B and C deals.
60% confidenceJacobsohn has passed on CEOs/startups when the founder was consistently unable to secure second meetings on sales calls.
60% confidenceAn acquisition for less than $1 billion can still be a great outcome given Norwest's early entry point and typical acquirer budgets.
60% confidence