15 B2B Entrepreneurs and Influencers You Should Be Following

Entrepreneurs get bombarded with advice from friends, investors, family, founders and the media.

Receiving conflicting ideas and opinions has a negative impact on their ability to focus and make quick decisions.

Although too much advice can lead to decision paralysis, listening to the right voices can open growth opportunities for a startup.

To help founders along, I put together a list of 15 B2B entrepreneurs and influencers to help inspire the work of your startup:

Bill Aulet – Serial entrepreneur, managing director of the Martin Trust Center at MIT, Disciplined Entrepreneurship author.

Ironically, those who pursue an ambitious goal & struggle end up happy, those who pursue pleasure do not.

— Bill Aulet (@BillAulet) November 7, 2015

Stewart Butterfield – Slack founder, Flickr co-founder, fellow Canadian.

The "principle of the drunkard's search" holds the key to understanding most bad design and business decisions: https://t.co/CQ53iffJJ0

— Stewart Butterfield (@stewart) September 24, 2015

Steli Efti – CEO at Close.io, sales expert.

The way you deal with being told “no” is one of the best indicators of future success in #sales https://t.co/HKRVTCwOOc via @closeio

— Steli Efti (@Steli) October 26, 2015

Brian Halligan – HubSpot co-founder, Inbound Marketing author, MIT Sr. Lecturer.

Transparency is a trust multiplier

— Brian Halligan (@bhalligan) October 18, 2015

Christoph Janz – SaaS investor, Point Nine Capital partner.

From the archives: Excel template for cohort analyses in SaaS https://t.co/oXTW2pIr0M https://t.co/8K7yMioxCY pic.twitter.com/fYophs3hGo

— Christoph Janz (@chrija) November 1, 2015

Jason M. Lemkin – EchoSign co-founder, VC, SaaStr blog creator.

You do realize that the multiples for Salesforce, Workday, Box, Zendesk, etc. really aren't that high, right? https://t.co/fDwu8A8h4I

— Jason M. Lemkin (@jasonlk) November 7, 2015

Aaron Levie – Box co-founder, funny guy.

Future enterprise software leaders will build like Facebook, design like Square, measure like Zynga, and support like Zappos

— Aaron Levie (@levie) May 14, 2012

Mark MacLeod – VC partner at Surepath Capital, DJ.

Scale is the only way to win in #Fintech https://t.co/WQEd3dycC9

— Mark MacLeod (@startupcfo) October 28, 2015

Eoghan McCabe – Intercom co-founder.

We have reached peak "behavior driven email" software. Technologists of the world: Build something new!

— Eoghan McCabe (@eoghanmccabe) October 14, 2015

Geoffrey Moore – Crossing the Chasm author, venture partner at MDV.

Why do start-ups routinely outperform incumbents when it comes to catching the next wave in disrupted markets? https://t.co/A4NwLpqHtd

— Geoffrey Moore (@geoffreyamoore) November 4, 2015

Aaron Ross – Predictable Revenue author, sales expert.

#salestips: over the long term, grow 2/3 of your people internally and hire 1/3 externally for new ideas and blood.

— Aaron Ross (@motoceo) November 6, 2015

Hiten Shah – KISSmetrics and CrazyEgg co-founder, curator of the SaaS businesses weekly newsletter.

Surround yourself with people who want you to succeed.

— Hiten Shah (@hnshah) October 29, 2013

David Skok – Serial entrepreneur, VC partner at Matrix Ventures, forEntrepreneurs blog creator.

2015 #SaaS Survey results are out: https://t.co/HTTndT9Prs 300+ companies, benchmarking data to help you grow.

— David Skok (@BostonVC) October 21, 2015

Tomasz Tunguz – Venture capitalist at Redpoint Ventures.

The Risk Sales Discounts Impose to Startup Burn Rates https://t.co/tCZIpaVEzO

— Tomasz Tunguz (@ttunguz) November 5, 2015

Michael Wolfe – Serial entrepreneur, startup advisor.

If we are in a bubble, why is a company at >$2B revenue and growing >50% a year (Twitter) considered a "failure" ?

— Michael Wolfe (@michaelrwolfe) November 7, 2015

Happy learning!

And, while you’re at it, I invite you to join the #LeanB2B community on Twitter for weekly updates on B2B, SaaS, Startups, Innovation and Growth.