Marketing was celebrating "record MQLs" while Sales was missing quota for 3 quarters. The CRO and CMO were barely speaking. Marketing was incentivized on volume; Sales on closed-won. No feedback loop existed.
The Board demanded "AI Forecasting". The CEO bought expensive tools (Clari/Gong), but they hallucinated because the Salesforce data was garbage. 30% of "Active" deals were actually dead.
Founder-led sales worked, but hiring failed. The "Magic" was in the Founder's head. Onboarding was "shadow me". No standard operating procedures (SOPs).