---
title: "Episode 9: Dan O'Connell and Keith Messick | B2B Category Creators Podcast"
url: https://metadata.io/resources/podcasts/b2b-category-creators/episode-9-dan-oconnell-and-keith-messick
description: "Dan O'Connell (CRO, Dialpad) and Keith Messick (SVP Marketing, LaunchDarkly) discuss startup risk-taking, VC advice, and forecasting on the B2B Category Creators podcast."
source: metadata.io
---

In our ninth episode, Gil Allouche talks about startup building and category creation with two experienced B2B operators who made huge impacts on the cloud communication and product/feature management categories.

**Panelists for this episode include:**

- Dan O’Connell, CRO of Dialpad and influencer of the Conversational Intelligence category
- Keith Messick, SVP of Marketing at LaunchDarkly and influential in the Feature Management Platform category

## Or watch the video

**You’ll walk away from this episode with great insights around:**

- Why it’s a bigger risk to not swing for the fences than it is to even work at a startup, which is risky to begin with
- When, why, and how to ignore advice from your VC
- How even the most mundane estimates in a forecasting model can throw you completely off

**BONUS!**

Dan recounts one of his biggest missed opportunities when it came to owning a movement before everyone started working from home: #workfromanywhere.