Acquire, Convert, Retain: Rewiring Go-To-Market in the Energy Space

In this episode of Field Frequency, powered by Field Advantage and hosted by Jason Cortes, we sit down with Jonathan Colbert, founder of Fractal, to explore how companies in energy, mobility, and electrification are rethinking growth.

As the industry shifts away from “growth at all costs,” Jonathan shares how disciplined go-to-market strategies, aligned teams, and sustainable business models are becoming essential for long-term success.

From his experience at Mercedes-Benz and Rivian to launching Fractal, Jonathan brings a unique perspective on what it takes to scale effectively in today’s market.

Key Topics Covered

• The shift from rapid growth to capital-efficient scaling
• What a broken go-to-market strategy looks like
• Why companies often misdiagnose growth challenges
• The importance of aligning product, marketing, and sales
• Lessons from traditional industries like automotive and fuel infrastructure
• How AI and emerging tools are changing how companies build
• The rise of fractional leadership and the future of work

Key Takeaways

• Growth problems are often system problems, not just sales or marketing gaps
• Strong go-to-market alignment is critical for scaling efficiently
• Customer insight should drive product and strategy decisions
• Building unnecessary tools can slow growth and create complexity
• Sustainable companies focus on long-term operational health, not just speed

Notable Insights

• “Growth at all costs is gone—discipline and sustainability matter more than ever.”
• “If things feel harder than they should, the issue may be upstream in your system.”
• “If it doesn’t help you acquire, convert, or retain customers, reconsider building it.”

Learn More

• Fractal: scalewithfractal.com
• Connect with Jonathan Colbert on LinkedIn

About Field Frequency

Field Frequency explores the people, technology, and strategies shaping the future of field service, EV infrastructure, and connected systems—bringing real-world insight from leaders across the industry.

If you want, I can also spin this into Spotify/Apple Podcasts descriptions, social promos, or email newsletter blurbs.

Jonathan Colbert Bio 

Most growth-stage companies don’t have a go-to-market problem—they have a systems problem. They may have traction, strong teams, and a product the market wants, but the approaches that drive early success rarely scale.

Jonathan Colbert founded Fractal Fractional Leadership to address this gap, embedding with leadership teams to build repeatable, connected go-to-market systems across sales, marketing, product, revenue operations, and customer experience.

He brings over a decade of experience across electrification and mobility, including leadership roles at Voltera, Rivian, and Mercedes-Benz USA, where he led charging and infrastructure strategy for North America. His career has focused on turning complex, early-stage opportunities into scalable commercial systems.

Based in Florida, he holds an MBA from Georgia Tech and a BS from Florida State. Outside of work, he spends most of his time with his wife and two young children.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There's a pattern that appears in the EV industry often. If you've been around, you've seen it or maybe even experienced it. It's when companies scale fast, teams grow fast, and capital flows fast, but the system underneath it all does not get built. So when the market tightens, the system or lack thereof gets exposed. In this episode, I sit down with Jonathan Colbert, founder of Fractal, to unpack what's actually breaking inside companies that are trying to scale in this environment. We get into how misalignment between product, sales, and customer experience quietly breaks performance and why the answer isn't more demand, it's a better system. This isn't a conversation about growth. It's about the systems that fail when growth gets real. Let's get into it. Great to see you too, man. So glad that we were able to bring this together. I uh been wanting to get you on the episode for a while and glad the stars have aligned. Fun fact for the audience Jonathan and I have been connected and friends for quite a bit of time, of course, both from Rivian, but we were actually looking at a at a podcast ourselves at one point. Yeah. In time. Yeah. So uh even uh even a show platform that we were we were kicking around an idea. I'm glad to uh to have Jonathan on Filled Frequency today, and uh he'll certainly be a returning guest uh as his schedule allows. But Jonathan, for the audience, let's let's start off with with your background. We want to talk today about of course fractal. We want to talk about what you're doing in the space, but I think uh the audience needs to learn about your background because there's quite an arc. There's quite an arc uh to your story, and uh that arc takes you through Mercedes-Benz, of course, through Rivian, Terawatt, Volterra, all of that. So uh share your background with us, and then of course, all of those experiences that are that you've had in the industry, I want to see what the what the catalyst was for launching Fractal.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

So certainly we'll we'll do we'll do. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And look, you beat me to it. You definitely got this podcast off and running, and you've had some amazing guests so far. So I hope to be like you one day, you know, and would love to come back. Let's see. So I always when whenever I talk about my background, I always start with the fact that out of school, I went into a leadership development program. And it was four companies, the company's name TTI, it's a Power Tools and Consumer Electronics and Floor Care products. And um, ultimately, I was on the Power Tools side and start off in sales, work my way up in marketing, cut my teeth. Two things about that. Starting off in a leadership development program, like my brain was already hardwired and tuned to think about leadership day in, day out, even before I was privileged enough to lead a team. And then the second, that company was a lithium ion company through and through. And the housing market crash uh previously, that company had double-digit growth year over year, banking on new lithium ion technology across all their portfolio products. So my brain was already hardwired to think about that, you know. And fortunately enough, um, Mercedes-Benz made a move from New Jersey to Atlanta. I was in South Carolina at the time working there. And I ended up on the marketing team at Mercedes-Benz USA in Atlanta, Georgia. An amazing time to work there. It was it was it wasn't just relocating the headquarters, it was building something new, bringing a bunch of folks cross-functionally together and at the same time putting naming rights on new stadiums for the excitement. It was like no pun intended, electric to be working there at that time. And and I started off doing campaign marketing and was fortunate enough to be able to do e-mobility, hybrid, basically electric car marketing at the same time. So smart car was one of the brands of Mercedes-Benz at the time, and I was able to lead that. That being said, it's just worth noting, um, this is about a little over a decade ago, and folks thought these cars were just compliance cars, not just at Mercedes-Benz, but across the whole industry. So it was kind of looked down upon, but I I didn't know any better. I honestly just didn't know any better. Um, but it opened me up to the side of the business. I ended up on a team, a three-person team, focused on figuring out how to roll out the next wave of electric vehicles. That team was small but mighty. And after about a year, we were absorbed and built out a into a new organization called the Case Organization. It was connected, autonomous, shared, and electric. Um, and I was part of the electric, uh, part of that team and and led charging and infrastructure for North America. There were dealership programs, family facility programs, customer programs. Like, how do you get charging installed in someone's home? How do you use a Mercedes-Me platform to get them to charge on the road? So I would say that was kind of an MBA in the charging industry for me. And then I actually went back to school. I went to Georgia Tech, I went to Florida State undergrad, but I went back to school to get an executive MBA and thought, you know, I want to leave this big cruise ship of a company and go work for a startup. You know, I had it on the wall, 30 person or less startup, get on the leadership team, move the needle on the business, ended up at Rivian, 1,500 people strong walking in the door. You know, so it was much bigger than what I was shooting for. Uh, it's I I think um when I started the September before I started in that February, the company was like around 750 people. Just between that September to that February, it had doubled. And by the by the time I left Rivian, it was over 10,000 people strong, you know. So it was definitely that hyper growth phase. But I was the sixth person on the energy and charging team there. We were focused on building commercial fleet, so like public charging, fleet charging, and residential charging and energy services. I started doing a little bit of product when I first got there, ended up leading one of the charging networks, as you know. You know, we were what we were building out there with the Waypoints Network. One of the best highlights of my career, I would say being able to not only try to sell charging and energy products, but also donate chargers to national parks and state parks. I mean, just still like what a blessing to be able to work on on those projects. Um then fast forward to like, let's say, this last season of my career, I ended up leaving Volterra, did a very quick stint at Terawatt. And the reason what drew me to that business was understanding that there's a way to own these assets, to buy the land, develop the land. So with that, I worked there for a quick stint, like I mentioned, but ended up at Volterra, where the previous leader of the energy and charging team at Rivian launched this company, Volterra. So Voltaira Terawatt, similar business model, go out, buy the land, develop it, put infrastructure in. Um, and I've been at Volterra most recently for about three and a half years, focused on marketing and go to market, really developing sites for autonomous vehicle fleets. And um, so it's kind of bringing the whole ecosystem together. I look at it as everything within the property line is the solution for Volterra. And then most recently, literally hot off the presses, let's say the past month, have launched Fractal. And Fractal Fractional Leadership is a company focused on go-to-market for energy tech, uh, e-mobility, and also infrastructure and electrification companies. Um basically our space. We work with founders, we work with private equity firms, we work with ecosystem players to fix go-to-market motions and build a repeatable solution for them, a repeatable system for them. What that looks like for them is a workshop, a go-to-market assessment, some project-based work, but ultimately having a fractional executive on retainer to be able to help move the needle on the business.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

You know, when you mention uh the catalyst behind fractal and and specifically the the specialization and go to market, um, just to take a step back to the comments that you had around Rivian, that that alone is the the need for a company like Fractal is is is is seen across our industry. But when you when you talk about your entrance into Rivian, um, you know, being in in in the first 1500 and of course, you know, because I think you said employee six on the energy and charging team, the growth rate, because I came in, uh the group I came in was the the company was already sitting at around 7,000. And to your point, to to echo what you said when you exited, when I exited, Rivian was already at 10,000. And so the ebb and flow of a company like Rivian, of course, that's a bit of a one-off based on their size and what they're doing. But we see that all across the space. We see that in our industry with the with the ebb and flow of growth uh and change, reductions enforce, positions needed, positions eliminated, positions needed again, all of that. And so um I can already see um you know where where the calling uh of fractal comes into play just in in being strategic with go to market. All right. So um, you know, let's talk about the basis for fractal. Let's let's get a little granular and and and what you know, kind of what's in the DNA of fractal? You you've launched it today, like you said, just uh just you know fresh, fresh off the presses, you know, a couple a month in or so. And and you launched this company now, not not two years from now, not two years ago. What what changed in the market that made this moment, 2020, right moment to build fractal?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah, and let's you said like today, not two years ago, not two years from now. Let's talk about two years ago to now, like two years ago, we were on this like this tail end of this growth at all cost mentality within our our space. And a lot of companies that were building a new solution, a new technology, you name it, new business model, the thought process was just get more users, get more customers, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, throw money at all of your problems. You know, today there's much more capital discipline within the uh within our space. I think generally, commercially, there's just more capital discipline, regardless of what industry you're in. Um and that the days of growth at all costs are gone, I believe. What you could have done two years ago was just build out a full go-to-market team and go-to-market meeting, sales, marketing, product, customer success, revenue operations, right? Like just build out this massive team and then figure it out along the way. I think those days are gone. And I think rightfully so. We need more discipline. We need, we talk about sustainability as a tree hugger, altruistic dream, but really we need companies that can sustain themselves, that are truly sustainable. And that is also a part of sustainability, not just in the in the environmental aspects. So I think you take all of that and then you take the other, let's say, market forces of AI and all of what comes with that. Stakeholders, investors are expecting teams to do more with less, you know? And so this window is opened up where I believe we're looking at the future of work, we're we're staring at it, and the companies that are able to navigate this change two years from now are going to be successful. The ones that can't navigate this change will not be. So what that looks like is having that small but mighty team, but being able to flip that lever up or down and get the right leader that can help you see around corners, can kind of walk you through the do's and don'ts, you know, now instead of again, just being irresponsible, throwing money at the problem and hoping for the best, you know, brute, brute forcing it, right? There's more, more of a finesse that's gonna be needed in the near term.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, absolutely. And this the strategic aspect of that, I I like I like the way you frame that about the sustainability being beyond environmental sustainability, a sustainable, healthy company that's got runway and and can bring to market a product or a solution or whatever it may be that is is going to help the industry, but also keep them around for a bit of time. Um I would say from a uh you know, from a go-to-market reset, you know, go to market re versus reality, what from your vantage point working with the clients that you're working with now, the clients that you have on the radar to work with in the future, what is our industry telling itself about growth that doesn't actually match the systems that they deploy?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

You know, sometimes I I think that's a it's a good healthy gut check for all of us to think about this. And whether you're scaling or you're scaled, you know, whether you're just building a company from day one like we are with Fractal. But I think a lot of times companies feel like if I could just get in front of more companies, if I can just talk to more prospects, like we we have a demand problem, right? And and they focus on the demand, but they don't realize there's a lot of times they have a delivery problem. And that and and you build the right go-to-market engine overall, and you're gonna you're gonna understand your customer more, you're gonna understand what their needs are. That's gonna inform your product, that's gonna inform your positioning, that's gonna inform your messaging. So for example, they'll say, you know, um, we have we need more prospects, right? And the more prospects we have, the better off we're gonna be. But in reality, it's like, okay, if you if you get more prospects and you put them into your system, you're you're not gonna be able to convert them and you're gonna hit the same wall. Or they'll say, you know, if we just educate the market more, then we're gonna we're gonna gain more customers. Well, we're all pretty savvy in this industry. It we're a very tech forward industry. Most of the time, your customers have already done the research. They've already figured out what your competitors are doing. And if you're just putting out more awareness and for content and information, you're just scratching the surface, you know, and and you're not gonna get them at all. Maybe the last one they'll say, you know what, we just need more sales. Like if we just figure out sales, I mean, like all of this is like maybe it's not just sales, maybe it's your overarching system, the foundational system you're operating on that needs to improve. And by doing that, you understand your customer journey more, you're more you're closer to the customer, and then that informs sales, right? So your product's better, the sales are better, the customer delivery is better, and then everything is working and you're you're converting. But maybe a hot take I'll leave you with on that, on that one, just to close out on that topic is a lot of times we think there, I I am of the thought process there's nothing new under the sun. I really I really feel like every once in a while there's something that surprises me, but it's a usually a mix of of other things and things that have been done before. And when it comes to what we do in our space, we tend to think we're very novel and we're coming up with this new angle. So everything we do, we're we're gonna take all the arrows, we're gonna be the pioneer that does it. And we can't really look to the past because we're brand new, right? And and in reality, we beat up traditional OEMs, we beat up the oil and gas industry, but they've solved for a lot of problems already. And they've figured out how to deliver at scale, and we can learn a lot from them. And like one example, I've brought this up a bunch in the past is you go to a gas station, and in general, no matter the brand, no matter the state in the United States, you have a very similar experience. There's a canopy, there's lighting, you know, the payment terminal is pretty much the same. There's probably a trash can or two, you probably clean your windows, there's bathrooms. There's probably 24 hours if it's not, it's got later hours than a grocery store. We're just now getting charger networks at scale that are thinking about canopies at every side. And we're over a decade in, you know. So yeah, I'll get off of my uh soapbox on now.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

But well, that very point that you're making about the consistency of traditional fueling is really what was the catalyst to bring me into the e-mobility space uh because I was in traditional oil and gas fueling infrastructure. Yeah. Uh, you know, to to your point about nothing new being under the sun, it's it's very clear that which is half been. History doesn't, uh what do they say? History doesn't repeat, it rhymes though. And so um that is that is key. I, you know, when you were talking about, you know, kind of throwing money at things, get more sales, uh, you know, focus on on messaging, et cetera. It was it's it's almost, you know, to to oversimplify that from the way I was hearing it, it's almost like companies that will get entrenched in internal rather external messaging and become myopic, you know, that hungry for a sale mindset, hungry for success mindset, and they fail to internalize messaging. They fail to execute internally and develop and be strategic internally. It's it's it's cart before the horse. You know, we're we're talking a lot about go to market. And, you know, for those that might be listening that that really don't understand even maybe the the fundamentals of what go to market is, perhaps they've just been in a company or maybe they're in a startup, or maybe they were in a startup within an established company. But uh, you know, for for those that don't understand what what you know what kind of the foundational principles of go to market are, how would you explain to them what you can answer this the two one of two ways. What does a broken go-to-market structure look like from the inside, or what does a successful go-to-market? You frame it the way it makes sense to, you know, for those that are listening.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, and and I think more often than not, most people live in a broken system. You know, I've kind of talked about the pillars of go-to-market as marketing, sales, product, customer operations, revenue operations, right? You can call it customer success, customer man, like account management, you you name it. That's the other thing. We all have our own shade of of gray, like how we we talk about it. Um, I think a broken system, more often than not, feels like marketing is going after leads or going after prospects that aren't aligned with what the sales team is actually looking for. You know, so that's one thing. Alignment on objectives and goals are out or are off kilter. And the other would be like ownership across the function, across all these five functions isn't clear. So when something slips through the cracks, it's this person is it's their fault or it's their fault, and folks are pointing the finger in the blame, and it's like, well, marketing's not getting it right. Well, sales, we're giving them leads, they can't convert. And the other part is like, let's kind of go further upstream. The product may be being built in isolation. So the product team builds a product, ships it to marketing, says go marketing, marketing ships it to sales, and like the customer and the rest of the team is not really in that loop and the feedback loop is broken, you know? And and maybe to go even further downstream, another, like, let's say, glaring symptom would be no one has a clear picture of what's driving revenue in the organization. Day, day to day and long term. What does the pipeline look like? Is it healthy? Is it not? What are our lead and lag indicators of that? Um, and so those are, I'd say, what it looks like when it's broken. The cause of all those symptoms is you don't have a unified go-to-market approach, you know. And and I would say at a high level, the CEO always should own go-to-market, you know, and and because of that, we're always selling, but that doesn't mean you you don't have a sales function and clear sales leadership. You know, it doesn't mean you don't you don't divvy up these responsibilities, but there needs to be unity and alignment across the whole process. And I'll say for us, that's what will when we're engaging with customers and and then in the long term, that's what will separate Fractal from the rest of the industry and providers in this space because we're gonna always focus on the system first, foundationally, what we need to build, and then we'll help the the client run it and and we'll build from there.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

The silo, the the comments around product being siloed with those actually developing it and in that silo and those bringing the product to market are out of the communication loop, the customer is out of the loop, seems seems so counterintuitive. And yet I've I know what that's like. I've experienced that where product and even leadership. I won't name names, obviously, but where product product roadmap was focused on what the market was calling for. And in this particular example, I'm thinking of leadership was focused on something else, and in a certain aspect of leadership, but a very important aspect of that leadership. And there was total misalignment. And it was there was there was so much confusion around, you know, if if if you were to oversimplify it and talk about a company that had confusion around building a product with building a business that would last. And that's you know, that's where I'd you know, you what I'm hearing you talk about from a from from a value chain position. I think it's important call out the CEO needs to own the messaging and understand the messaging and and that be the face of that messaging and understand it top to bottom.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Let's talk about how fractal is and what fractal will do beyond just providing that part-time CMO or CRO or CEO, whatever the whatever the need may be for the particular what's yeah, what are you doing different?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah, so uh we talked about technology briefly earlier, right? So everything we're we're building out for us and our clients has an an AI component. Like it's not just I feel like it started as a buzzword, but it's literally core to how we're doing business. We have our AI brain. Um we're actually our LM of choice right now is Claude. So we've got cowork and and and chat and code built on top of all of our data and information that we're we're building, and we'll work with our customers to do that. Um, so foundationally, technology is at its core, and that'll help us to evolve and learn from our engagements over time. That being said, there are three approaches or maybe three steps in our approach that we'll we'll engage typically. First would be a workshop or go-to-market assessment with a with a client to really understand where they are day one. And this is not just the client, and in general, we want to get that view cross-functionally across the leadership team and other stakeholders within the organization, right? So, not just what Jonathan says needs to be fixed within the org, but hopefully to suss out truly what are other things, maybe some some blind spots that may be there. From there, we'll engage in project based work. So it could be, you know what, help us find our ideal customer profile, help us build out a market investment map to know like where we should be developing product or. Solutions and where we'll overdeliver in the space, right? And and we've got a whole suite of things that we can do there. And then the third, which is what we we lead with and we talk about the most, is really a fractional retainer where you get to hire a seasoned executive to work with your team to help you really hit that growth button day one without the bloat of uh full-time overhead uh cost from that person. What that looks like is 25-50% of their time devoted to that company. And like I said, they're embedded. It's not like a consulting firm where it's like, hey, here's what you need to do. Good luck. Um pay us next year if you want us to let us know how you how you performed. It's more of this person's in the in the in the trenches with you, they're rolling up their sleeves. All three of those things, I mentioned the technology piece, but there's also a partner layer. We know that our our time's of the essence for our clients. And because of that, we're working with partners to be able to flip a switch and move very quickly. So working with folks on the revenue ops side, we're working with folks on the like actual sales training, outbound sales approach. And of course, I already talked about the technology piece. So that even if you have that one mighty, but like small but mighty, like one of one powerful executive on your team, we will provide additional resources there. And then from an advisory perspective, we're building this brain trust of these executives in the space to be able to leverage. So even if you do get this one executive on your team, they're bouncing ideas off of the full fractal collective and and leveraging that too.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So there has to be probably some heavy intake on the front end to really assess what the client needs, what the company needs. I'm sure you you're you're spending time and will have to spend time just in some re you know, revisiting fundamentals, identifying things that they may maybe they don't even know what an ICP is. Maybe maybe they don't know. Maybe they don't know. Maybe they don't know what that means. Maybe they don't maybe they they understand it conceptually because they have a product and they see who would buy it, who would use it, but they don't understand how to market to. So you so through intake, obviously you've got to ascertain their needs and and develop a plan. But I think that the one thing I heard you say about all that that I think is signaling health and long-term viability is that it's not, hey, here's your here's your playbook. Good luck. See ya. But you're saying not only do you co-create the path to success, you're gonna you're gonna sit down beside them, or someone from your team is gonna sit down beside them and and walk that journey with them for a period of time to to be that oversight, to bring that inside, you know, proving it.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah, we have to, we have to build that go-to-market operating system with them. Right. And um, I think that in itself is a big difference than going to a consultant or going to someone that is going to like kind of advise you. Like we're not just going to advise, we're we will be in the trenches with our clients building out these systems with them. So yeah, I think you're spot on. We have to build with them. And I think the model doesn't work for us unless we are. Um so to a certain extent, we get to date them a little bit before before we have a have that full-on long-term relationship. Um, and then maybe another thing to note is like to a certain extent with some customers, we we will make ourselves obsolete. We we will help them build the right emotions and um the specific way we're engaging is going to evolve. It may be, you know, we're helping to, as the market shifts, we're going back and saying, okay, how does the customer profile need to need to be tweaked? But maybe they don't need as much time, or maybe they need a different executive, depending on their feet.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Well, Jonathan, haven't you just summarized leadership in a nutshell? I mean, that's working yourself out of a job. That's true leadership, is is working yourself out of a job because not only are you leading a part, you know, a leader is only defined by the amount of people that's following them. That's, you know, if someone claims to be a leader, but they turn around, there's nobody behind them, nobody following them, nobody monitoring, nobody listening to what they're saying, probably not a leader. And so a leader's, you know, uh competency is seen in the leaders that they develop. And so that's that's exactly right. As Fractal is doing a good job, it's actually working itself out of that particular client's uh hands and onto the next. And so that's that's that's so good. Um I I you know, when I think about the growth that we've had over at at Field Advantage, um, July will be two years for me, but probably within the first 16 to 18 months, we just experienced 5x growth. Um and so the reason why I'm making this comment is it's gonna tee up the next thing that I want to ask you about. Um because of that 5x growth, you know, not only growth in terms of uh customer logos on the board, but also the customers that were existing, the the growth within those existing customers that led to that 5x. And so it was it was wow, do we need operations? Do we need more sales? What what do we need? And so I I guess my question to you is is if you were talking to a company like me, that just expressed that problem or it's a good problem to have, but it's just express that you no doubt have seen teams overbuilding, you know, maybe building in complexity that was unnecessary versus uh investing in you know what they needed to do. So how do you help sort through that no noise? Where do you see teams overbuilding complexity uh versus under investing in systems that will support their growth?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I I think uh congrats, first off. That's awesome. What a great problem. What a great problem to have. You know, I think a lot of times we have this build versus buy conversation in all of industry now, but in technology it's it's always been present. I think with AI and vibe coding, folks are gonna build more for better or for worse. I think with your solution specifically, because it's service-based and there's there's actual physical infrastructure attached to it, a little bit harder to just go spin up something, a solution, right? But I think in all of those scenarios, what rings true to me is if I build this, will it make me better at acquiring, converting, or retaining customers? If they if you don't get an immediate yes to that question, then you probably should take a step back and reconsider building what you are are trying to build.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

John thank you say those three principles again. I think they're important.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Acquiring, say yeah, acquiring, converting, or retaining customers. Right. And go and going back to the example you gave, you're expanding into new customers and you're expanding with new with existing customers, right? So all three of those, let's say those, that barometer of those three different points, it holds true, right? Whether you're going out and you're getting new customers, whether you're converting those new customers or you're expanding, retaining those customers, that is the true north, especially with the growth stage company that we need to be thinking through. And um if the answer is a hazy yes, or maybe, I don't know, then more than likely you're you're you're staring down the barrel of building something that is not core to what you're doing and what you are what you're building as a business, what your domain expertise is. And that's that's where maybe you should buy or maybe you should partner. You know, that's when you start considering it. And I mean, I you said not to name names in companies before when you were giving an example. I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm gonna do my best not to, but I've seen that. I've seen where a company just is building something and you're like, this has nothing to do with the core solution or product that we deliver day in, day out. Why are we building this? I brought up AI and I brought up vibe coding before because it's going to be even harder to make the decision if you don't have a true north now, but even in the near term over the next few years.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

For those listening, obviously they're gonna know what AI is, but maybe they don't know what vibe coding means. What do you mean when you say vibe coding? What's that?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Great point. There are all these platforms. Um, one that comes to mind to me is lovable. Lovable is a platform where you can go and you basically can talk almost like you're you're talking with ChatGPT or Cloud and basically have a website developed on your behalf, have a prototype of uh an app developed. And there are multiple products like this. I mean, I've used GPT and I've used Cloud to do a quick HTML like I did an email signature generator, and I just said, here, make an HTML page, here's a formatting, here's my brand guidelines, so on and so forth. And it just creates it. I don't have to be a developer, I don't have to be able to do front-end or back end code. It just I talked to the chat in human language, and now it can build this out for me. So with that, you mix that with a let's say uh an overzealous company that's just like build, build, build, build, build. Now you've got a team of folks that are just building solutions that you don't necessarily need, you know? And what's crazy in all of this, one of the number one things you can do to really support the health of your company is invest in revenue operations. And that's usually underdeveloped and um underinvested in. And companies are running wild developing all these other solutions.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah. Well, thanks for for unpacking bod coding. There's, you know, in the in this space, you know, we get to throwing around acronyms or or phrasing that maybe the audience doesn't hear and that they can't speak up and say, hey, what does that mean? And so um sometimes there has to be a translation layer, but thank you. That very simple explanation, but an important explanation because you you just you just gave someone possibly listening uh a tool that they can add to their tool belt to kind of scale and and and maximize their time. Hopefully responsibly. Right. Right, right, right. Uh yeah, they're outsourcing their work and taking the rest of the day off. Yeah. Um let's let's talk about customer adoption uh behavior and and and the signals that need to be discerned to understand demand. You've been close to both the product side, what we've been talking about, you've been in the commercial side. So you you're in a very special seat uh that gives you uh a lot of background to see things that may be uh you know, blind spots, you know, like you said with your example. Why, why are we building this? Why are we building this right now? Why is there focus being how does this align to the broader mission? So you've been close to the product, to the commercial side. Where have you seen that misalignment, maybe with customers' expectations versus what was what's being built? Maybe you give us an example. I know we don't want to name names, I know we don't want to get too specific, but there there's got to be something there that um someone needs to hear.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I think the statute of limitations is out a little bit with this one, but so maybe I'll give you I'll give you an example because I think I think this one is um stands out to me the most. I shouldn't say the most on a regular basis. I'm brought back to when I was at Mercedes-Benz and doing that first business development role where they ironically, the code name for this team was Project California, because at the thought pro the thought process back then was electric vehicles are going to be sold in California. We need to really over-index on California. I was the only person on that team based out of the East Coast. I was in Atlanta, and our leader and another guy on the team were in California. And um, where we started was not just learning from the industry at large and saying, like, okay, who are the charging networks players, who who's building this the actual chargers, and who are the technology folks? But the best place to start, and I think the resource that proved out to be the most helpful was going and sitting with dealerships and talking to dealers and and figuring out like one example that I always call back to is like you talk to some dealers and they're like, Yeah, we just park all the electric vehicles in the back of the lot, and you go, You don't like these cars? Like, what's going on? And you start talking to them and they're like, No, actually, we like the hybrid. And a lot of people come to come in and ask about it, especially in the West Coast. And and I'm talking to them, and you're like, Well, but why? Why is it parked? And they're like, Well, if a customer comes in and wants the hybrid version of this ice model, there's a two to four hour conversation that I'm going to have to have to explain this vehicle, this this hybrid to them, versus it's pretty much, hey, you're just coming off lease of the same gas vehicle. Here are just a few updates that are made, you know. And they're like, to avoid that conversation, we're gonna put it to the back. The pricing was in alignment with customer expectations, the packaging was in alignment, you know. They they even said like a lot of times they would designate an EV person that just loved EVs at the dealership. And when they would have that conversation, they could convert and they could sell the vehicles. But like that tidbit alone helped us really understand and start diving deeper into like how do we educate folks? Like, this is a much bigger education piece than what we originally thought about, you know. So I think I think also it's probably worth calling out. I went from the oldest auto manufacturer, Mercedes-Benz, to one of the newer ones with Rivian, and um stark difference in how you go direct to consumer versus the dealer model. I think there's a time and a place for both. I think there's benefits of both, but I think too too often too often we villainize dealers. You know, and we look at them and we think of them as like these like well, we think of them like used car salespeople, like the like the stereotype of a used car salesperson is they're just trying to steal you your money and give you horrible terms. But these are like these are business people spread out across the whole United States working for these legacy automotive organizations that give them a finger on the pulse of what's going on in communities all across the U.S. And when you can leverage that in the right way, what an advantage. What an advantage. And I'll tell you, they're evolving. I was at the University of Georgia, had an event. Um, the the GNM initiative had an event a couple weeks ago. And one of the panel discussions, Grene Barranco, who basically the Branco family owned a Mercedes Benz dealership, they did own Mercedes-Benz Buckhead. She's building a new Audi dealership. She spoke on how her new dealership won't have salespeople. She's like, I don't, I don't need salespeople. I need people to decipher what a customer needs when they walk in and pair them with the right vehicle for them. So this perception of where dealers are, right? It's evolving, it's changing, you know, it's adapting fast. And that is to go back to your original question, that to me is a clear, like a direct line to a dealer principle with the legacy of having a family that's done really well in the traditional dealer model, evolving her model with this new dealership she's bringing online because she's aligned with what customers expect.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

That is fascinating. You know, when I think about my own personal spirit experience, I have not been to a car dealership to buy a vehicle in certainly more than 20 years, at least. I would yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The last, I would say the last three vehicles, maybe four vehicles I bought were either wholesale or you know, the the the online experience, the Carvana experience. I'm in and out. I'm done in less than 45 minutes. I'm done because I'm yeah, you know, there's the money's there. We know what the lines of credit are, we know what the money, we know what deposits, we know everything. It's just you know, so fascinating about that dealership in Atlanta. That's that's gonna be something I'm I'm gonna be uh casually tracking and watching because I'd like to learn more about that. And and really, uh, you know, again, not to not to dilute the value of what that example, but it's but maybe to to just kind of break it down. I don't need salespeople. I just need someone that understands what the customer wants. You know, maybe the person that is connecting them to the vehicle that leaves that dealership lot is still netting some some some money based on what a salesperson would be. But again, it's a it's thought, it's it's it's a rethinking, it's a it's a new architecture of thinking. Fascinating. Very good. Well, Jonathan, this has been great, great conversation thus far. I I don't know where the time has gone. I got some more things I want to talk to you about, a future outlook um and and where fractal sits in that as the industry is maturing. Do you see companies building these these capabilities internally, like like the example that you just gave, or does the need for embedded fractional leadership like fractal, like what fractal provides, increase? What's the long term? What's the what's the runway look like for this?

SPEAKER_00 37:53

I think both happen and both both are fine. We don't look at it as uh mutually exclusive. At the end of the day, we're going after growth stage companies in our space. And I think this model, we will see companies like fractal pop up in in other industries as well. Ultimately, our and we talked about it briefly, like we we are building up this capability within a company and we're helping them tune it and scale it. And I I should have mentioned this before. The reason we I even chose the name Fractal is uh fractal is is a system, it's a it's a design that repeats either in nature or in geometry and it scales, right? So we're wanting to build from the ground up the right motions, the right foundational system and scale it up. So the embedded nature of a fractional leader could evolve, could change. I will say, like, what's probably I think was gonna happen more often than not is the responsibilities are gonna shift, right? So maybe I need uh a CRO today and help me get uh a fractional leader to be a CRO to help me scale our team and get it to the point, chief revenue officer to the point where it needs to be. And then you hit that milestone, whether it's getting the amount of customers you need to help raise the next round of fundraising, or hit a certain milestone just financially. You may that company may say, now we want to hire a person full time, right? But that doesn't mean that they don't necessarily want our services to help keep tuning the machine, or that they don't go, you know what, we need a uh chief technical officer now. And we we we want that person to be fractional as well, or we need a CO, we want that person to be fractional as well, and we'll support them there as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Yeah. I think it's refreshing that the the intentionality that you shared around the naming of the company fractal and what what the what the the catalyst behind the naming is, it's always uh refreshing because a lot of times I've asked different folks from different companies, you know, what's what's the what's the story behind the name, what's the story, but why why those colors, why that naming convention, why that phrase, why those value core values? And it's kind of like you get a blank stare and it's weird. But I tell you, if you you pull John Paul D'Amico aside, CEO of Field Advantage, and you ask him, you know, what's the what's the thoughts behind the name Field Advantage, you'll you'll get a response right away. You you see this logo on my hat with this symbolizes a mountain. It's like, you know, we'll see you at the summit because we're at the top. You know, there's there's so much there. And so I think uh that's that's fascinating. Well, you know, John, we're you know, this is conversation one of I don't know how many, because you you'll be coming back to Field Frequency, but um as we're getting ready to part, you know, you know, a couple things I'd like you to share before we sign off is one, there's a founder of a gross stage company because that's that's who fractal is really working with. If there's someone in that or or type of organization right now in the energy tech, what do you what do you want them to take away from this chat that we've just had?

SPEAKER_00 40:41

I I'd say, you know, uh we've talked about it a bit, but maybe to like summarize what what I'm I'm trying to convey today is, you know, if if you have this like diagnosis internally of like we need more leads or we need to we just need a better pitch, we need to fix the website, we like we need to update the way we're looking at the the the funnel and our pipeline. And and and if we do, if we fix that, then it's gonna solve all of our problems, right? And if things are feeling harder than they should, even as you are making these tweaks, maybe you need to go upstream. Maybe the problem isn't just adding more to your go-to-market motions. And if if you do that, maybe there's a leak, right? Maybe there if you go upstream, you'll find where everything is breaking because nine times out of 10, it's not a pitch problem. It's not um a demand gen problem, it's a positioning problem. It's a segmentation problem. It's understanding where the handoff between teams is slipping. And that symptom is usually visible, but the cause a lot of times isn't, you know. So with us, what we want to do is have that conversation with you, understand foundationally what we need to shore up in that system, and then we want to build on top of that and build the right systems to help your business scale.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

For those that want to connect with you directly, find out about fractal, find out uh about whatever. How do how do they connect with you? How do they follow what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yep, scale with fractal.com. We're we're online, we're on LinkedIn, of course, as well. But scale with fractal.com, you can get all of our information. And then we'll actually we'll be at Act Expo um coming up soon in a few weeks, where we're throwing a conclave event where we're getting a bunch of go-to-market executives together in one room. Um, DM me if you're interested in coming. I can get anyone that that reaches out that's that is doing go to market that can add to the conversation, get you into that event as well.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Thank you for being on Field Frequency, Jonathan. All right, thank you. This episode was produced and edited by the team at Atozi. To find out more, visit autosy.co a u t o z y dot co.