Dan Griffith

I help regulated-market B2B companies stop depending on the founder to close every deal. Capital-efficient GTM. Host: Seriously Don't Do That™ podcast.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

The single-threaded B2B founder, set to music. 🎺

"One voice singin' won't carry the room. Need the whole choir to finish the tune."

New song this week. It's called Who Else Is Here.

Listen ↓

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

I went for a run this morning. Here’s the thing about me and running: I’ve never loved it. I do it because I need to. Not because I embrace it.

So I’m out there today, head down, just trying to get it done. And it hit me.

How often do we get so locked onto the goal that we forget to enjoy the journey?

I stopped. Looked around. And honestly, I realized what a beautiful place God has given me to live in. Greenville in the summer, tree canopy over the whole street. Right there the whole time. I’d just been too focused on finishing to see it.

We do the exact same thing as founders.
We fixate on the goal. The million-dollar business. Financial independence. Setting our own schedule. All good things. But we lose track of the journey and worse, the people walking it with us.

I’ve been there. Heads-down, grinding toward the number, missing what’s right in front of me.

So here’s my challenge for you this week. While you’re running the founder rat race, look up. Look around.

Notice the things that are beautiful right now, not just the ones waiting at the finish line.

I guarantee you it makes the whole thing more worth it. And more durable, too.

Seriously. Don’t forget to enjoy the journey.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

I had a setback this week.

Saturday morning, 5K. I woke up not feeling great, thought a migraine was coming, took my rescue meds, felt good, decided to run anyway.

First mile, good pace. Second mile, better. Rounding toward mile 3, I felt strong enough to pick it up.

Then at the 3-mile mark, with a tenth of a mile to go, the migraine hit. Suddenly. I had to step off the course, sit down while the world spun, and my son helped me back to the car and into the house.

Major setback.
But here’s what I’m learning, in training and in life: it’s not how many setbacks you have. It’s how you recover from them.

So today I went back out. And I walked a 5K. Walked. Didn’t run. Didn’t push. Didn’t try to prove anything.
That’s the life of someone with chronic migraines. It’s also the life of a founder.

We all hit the setback. A financial hit, a deal that dies, a launch that flops. And the instinct goes one of two ways—quit and walk away, or double down and go twice as hard.

Honestly? It’s neither.
It’s staying steady. It’s walking when you want to run. It’s walking when you don’t even want to work out and you’re scared of getting knocked down again. It’s showing progress, even a little, with all the voices inside and out telling you it’s not enough.

As Dory said: just keep swimming.
If you’re in the middle of a setback right now or you haven’t hit yours yet, know that it’s coming. And when it does?

Seriously, don’t quit. Just keep swimming.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

Seriously, Don't Do That™:

Don't build your ICP from your wishlist.

The dream logos you've never closed aren't your ICP. They're your losses with better branding.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

Quick one for the founders:

When was the last time you actually read your closed-won deals - line by line - instead of describing your ICP from memory?

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

"If you don't know the target you're shooting at, then everything's a target."

Build the ICP from evidence.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

The ICP on your wall and the deals in your CRM are two different companies.

So here's a pattern I see constantly, and it shows up most painfully right when a company is trying to move off founder-led selling.

A founder hands me their ICP. It's a nice document. Says they sell to enterprise health systems, or Tier-1 banks, or national carriers. Big logos, big TAM, the kind of slide that makes a board nod.

Then I pull the closed-won report.

And the deals that actually closed, the ones with real revenue, reasonable sales cycles, and renewals, are with regional payers, community banks, and under-300-employee provider orgs.

Nobody on the enterprise list has signed. A few have been "in late-stage" for eleven months.

That gap has a name. What's written down is an ICP. What's in the CRM is an ACP, your Average Customer Profile.

This matters more in regulated markets than anywhere else, because the cost of chasing the wrong buyer isn't a wasted email. It's a nine-month committee cycle you'll never get back.

In healthcare, the fantasy ICP is the enterprise health system. The reality, for most growth-stage HealthTech, is regional payers and mid-sized providers under 300 employees, places where a buying committee is five people, not twenty-five.

In banking, the wishlist says Tier-1. The closed-won says community banks under $5B in assets, institutions where you can actually reach the decision-maker.

In insurance, aspirational ICPs aim at the big carriers; the winnable motion is often brokers and MGAs. Carrier, broker, MGA, employer, these are not one market. Treating them as one is how a quarter of pipeline becomes activity with no conversion.

Wrote a longer piece on what to do about it, including why your closed-lost data is the half most companies skip, and where the real signal is hiding.

If you don't know the target you're shooting at, then everything's a target.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

A bigger target list doesn't grow your pipeline.

It dilutes it.

When everyone's a fit, your messaging gets generic and your best buyers stop feeling seen.

Narrow on purpose.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

I've made this mistake too.

Early in my career, I wanted to sell to the impressive customer. The logo that would make the dinner party conversation easier. The deal that would land in the press release.

Took me a while to learn that the customer who says yes fast and renews and refers you is worth ten of the customer who makes you feel important in a pitch meeting.

I see it constantly now with founders, especially in regulated markets. They write an ICP that describes the buyer they wish they had. The enterprise health system. The Tier-1 bank. The big logo.

Then I ask to see their closed-won list. And every single deal - every one - is somebody else. A regional payer under 300 employees. A community bank under $5B. The buyer they've been quietly winning while they stared at the far buoy.

The aspirational ICP is a status object. The real one feels like a confession.

But here's what nobody tells you - the deals you win easily are the deals you win easily because you're a great fit. That's not a consolation prize. That's the whole game.

The founder who admits "I win with community banks under $5B" isn't losing the enterprise dream. He's earning the right to chase it later - from a position of repeatable wins instead of hope.

Wrote a piece this morning on the open-water swimming day I learned this lesson the hard way (from a guy named Carl, who probably saved my life).

If you don't know the target you're shooting at, then everything's a target.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

~80% of B2B deals go to the vendor the buyer already preferred before sales ever spoke.

(6sense, 2025)

So stop trying to out-pitch the favorite.

Go where your closed-won says you're the favorite.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

Benjamin's wedding it is!

My three boys, all in one frame. Tuxedos, bow ties, the whole thing. Honestly, I spent half the day trying not to get misty and the other half failing.

There's a moment as a dad where you realize the work isn't the deals you closed or the companies you built or any of the stuff that fills up a LinkedIn profile. The work is the four of you, standing in a room together, on a day that matters.

This was that moment.

Couldn't be more proud of these guys.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

80% of B2B deals go to the vendor the buyer already favored before they ever talked to sales (6sense, 2025).

So sit with that for a second.

If your ICP says "enterprise health systems" or "Tier-1 banks" but those accounts don't already know you, don't already trust you, aren't already inside your watering hole, you're not their pre-contact favorite. You're showing up to a race that's already been decided.

Meanwhile you've got a whole category of buyer where you ARE the favorite, the regional payer under 300, the community bank under $5B and you're ignoring them because they don't make the deck look good.

That's the disease. The GTM Playbook named it directly in March: "treating ICP as aspiration rather than description." Their test: "if your biggest wins are with 50-person companies and your ICP says 200–500 employees, your ICP is aspirational rather than evidenced."

Most founders fail that test and don't know it. Because nobody ran the closed-won report.

Forecastio's 2026 data shows companies that re-derive their ICP from closed-won and closed-lost analysis cut forecast variance from 25–30% to under 10% in three quarters. That's not a marketing win. That's a "your board stops flinching" win.

The fix is a 5-step audit. One spreadsheet. One uncomfortable afternoon. No new hires, no agency, no tool.

Your ambition belongs in your strategy. It does not belong in your ICP.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

Your ICP is a description of where you already win.

Not a brochure of who you'd like to win.

Read your closed-won.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

5/ Read the pattern back.

Where do you keep winning?

That's your ICP. Not the logos on your wishlist.

If the audit and your deck disagree — the audit's right.

#icp

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

The closed-won audit. The fastest way to find your real ICP.

No personas. No vision board. Just the deals you actually won.

Here's how 👇

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

4/ The trigger + the speed.

What was happening when they bought? New reg, failed vendor, funding, new leader.

Then: how fast did it close, how many people touched it.

Short cycles = low friction. Go there.

[Dan Griffith @dangriffithsr]

The founder chasing the wrong account, set to music. 🎧

"I been dreaming so loud I forgot to see the folks who came looking for me."

New song this week. It's called The One Who Already Said Yes.

Listen ↓