Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, identifies Mario Di Dio’s approach to enterprise innovation sales as sequencing markets rather than sharpening pitches. When an innovation requires three to five years to fully materialize, Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium and previously VP of Software and Network Technology at Kyrio and a Principal Architect at CableLabs across more than a decade in wireless and software architecture, holds that a seller must secure early adoption evidence from one market before the idea will anchor in a risk-averse executive’s mind as a bet safe enough to try. Mario Di Dio applies that sequence across Helium’s work in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil, and uses Brazil, which he considers more mature than the US on parts of what Helium is building, as the traction proof he brings to US buyers.
This episode is for founders, product leaders, and technical executives who have a demonstrably better technology and keep losing enterprise deals to buyers who agree it is impressive and do nothing.
Key Takeaways
- A cool idea is a necessary condition for enterprise innovation, not a sufficient one. Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, names timing and market conditions as the second half of the requirement, and describes pitching the same idea two to three years later and getting a completely different reaction.
- The pitch must sell the problem, not the solution. Mario Di Dio’s rule for executive conversations is to secure buy-in on a problem the buyer either has now or already expects to have in two years, rather than opening with the specificity of the solution.
- The right proof-point market is often not the largest revenue market. Mario Di Dio treats a smaller, more mature market as the place to earn early validation, then carries that validation into the bigger markets as evidence.
- Unit economics, not preference, determine which market is ready first. Mario Di Dio points to cost structure, access to capital, and debt rates differing between US and South American telecommunications companies, which changes whether a cost-savings pitch lands at all.
- Executive risk aversion is a scheduling consequence, not a personality trait. Mario Di Dio says he could not grasp it as a technical lead pitching C-level executives, and understands it now as CEO because every yes commits an organization’s priorities and the people working against them.
Sellers Treat a Strong Idea as Necessary but Not Sufficient for an Enterprise Buyer
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, describes the engineer’s assumption that has to be dismantled first. Technical people build something genuinely good, believe its quality is self-evident, and expect the buyer to recognize it: of course, don’t you get it? He is describing his own starting point, formed while co-creating the pCell product technology at Artemis Networks, where a five- or six-person team built an architecture that C-level executives from some of the largest carriers in the US and Asia carved fifteen minutes out of their schedules to see, and left asking their teams of forty or fifty to follow up.
The correction came at CableLabs, where his role shifted from technical peer to executive advisor. The buying context is what he had not accounted for: enterprises have tens or hundreds of projects in front of them, and everybody has a cool idea. Quality does not sort the queue.
His conclusion is stated as a two-part condition rather than a preference: “Cool ideas just is probably a necessary condition in a way to do something interesting, but it’s not sufficient.” The second part is timing, meaning how the idea plays into current market conditions well enough to reach a chief revenue officer or a chief operating officer where they actually are. Mario Di Dio’s evidence is his own: an idea he and his team pitched, then pitched again two or three years later, produced a completely different reaction without the underlying idea changing.
Sellers Sell Buy-In to the Problem Before Selling the Specificity of the Solution
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, states the sequencing rule for a conversation with an enterprise executive plainly: do not talk about the specificity of the solution. What the seller needs is the buyer’s buy-in on the problem, either a problem they have today or one already on their radar as a problem two years out given where the trajectory is heading.
The reason this ordering matters more in innovation than in ordinary enterprise sales is the time horizon. Mario Di Dio notes that innovation pitches typically describe things three to five years from being fully materialized, which means the buyer cannot evaluate the solution against a problem they are currently feeling. If they have not accepted the problem as real and approaching, the solution has nothing to attach to.
Two skills carry that conversation. Mario Di Dio names storytelling as something he refuses to discount, and synthesis as the capability he is still developing as an engineer at heart: building an impactful presentation for a room full of C-suite people in fifteen minutes, with numbers that land as meaningful to them. He credits coaching at CableLabs, including from then-CEO Phil McKinney, with pushing him through that transition, and describes the work as hard.
Sellers Choose a Proof-Point Market by Unit Economics, Not by Revenue Size
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, treats market selection as a sequencing decision that follows the minimum viable product rather than a targeting decision that precedes it. His rule is to spend enough time identifying which market is right, secure very early validation there, then carry that validation into less developed markets as proof.
The pitch that follows has a specific shape: this is where your market will be in two years, and here is how we are already solving it for them. Mario Di Dio uses Brazil that way for parts of what Helium is building, on the view that the Brazilian market is more mature than the US market for those things, and brings the Brazil traction into US conversations as evidence of where the US lands in two to three years.
His argument for why the same technology produces completely different impact across markets is economic rather than cultural:
| Variable | Why it changes the pitch |
| Unit economics | The same project applied to a different market produces different economics, so the value case is not portable without rework |
| Cost structure | Telecommunications cost structures in South America differ substantially from the US, changing what a given efficiency is worth |
| Access to capital | Debt costs differ by country, which determines whether a cost-savings pitch is compelling or irrelevant to that buyer |
Mario Di Dio is explicit about the trade-off a seller accepts here. The proof-point market may not be the biggest revenue-generating market for the idea. What it provides is a good enough proof point to go after the big markets, which makes it a strategic choice rather than a commercial compromise.
Enterprise Executives Are Risk Averse Because Every Yes Commits an Organization
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, describes his own reversal on this point. As a technical lead pitching C-level executives, he could not quite grasp the risk aversion he was encountering. In the CEO seat, on a much smaller scale than the carriers he was pitching, he understands its mechanism.
The mechanism is commitment. A decision, once made, gets planned into an organization that then works against that priority, which means a yes cannot be given lightly: it lands directly on the people the executive manages and reorders what they are working on. Mario Di Dio’s scaling observation follows from that: the bigger the enterprise, the bigger the risk aversion, which is why a CTO at a carrier of that size leads with caution as a matter of structure rather than temperament.
The practical value for a seller is that risk aversion is addressable rather than fixed. Mario Di Dio’s framing is that there is no such thing as a safe bet in innovation, and the seller’s job is to reach the early validation stage that appeases the risk-averse mentality every enterprise executive at that level carries. The proof-point market from the previous section is the instrument for exactly that: it converts an unbounded bet into a bet with observable precedent.
Principles Executives Will Apply From This Episode
| Principle | Practice | Named outcome evidence |
| Quality is the entry fee, timing is the decision | Treat market conditions as the second half of the pitch, and re-approach a rejected idea when the trajectory has moved rather than rebuilding the product | Mario Di Dio’s team pitched the same idea two to three years later at CableLabs and received a completely different reaction with the idea unchanged |
| Sell the problem before the solution | Secure buy-in on a problem the buyer has now or expects within two years, before describing the specificity of what is being built | Mario Di Dio learned this shift at CableLabs under coaching from then-CEO Phil McKinney, moving from technical peer to executive advisor across a decade of wireless architecture roles |
| Pick the proof-point market, not the biggest one | Identify which market’s unit economics, cost structure, and access to capital make the value case land first, and win validation there | Helium uses its Brazil traction as the proof point brought into US conversations, on Mario Di Dio’s view that Brazil is more mature than the US for parts of what Helium is building |
| Rebuild the value case for each market | Do not port a cost-savings argument across borders, since debt costs and telecommunications cost structures change what the savings are worth | Mario Di Dio applies this across Helium’s operations in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil, where the same technology produces different impact by market |
| Early validation is what converts a bet into a decision | Give the risk-averse executive observable precedent rather than a stronger argument, since no innovation bet is safe | Mario Di Dio reached the executive-audience standard at Artemis Networks, where a five- or six-person team’s pCell demo moved carrier C-level executives to assign teams of forty or fifty to follow up |
Quotes from This Episode
- “You realize that you can punch above your weight.” Mario Di Dio, CEO, Helium
- “No is not just a default answer. You just don’t accept that answer.” Mario Di Dio, CEO, Helium
- “When you’re an engineer you create cool stuff. And you think that just because they are cool everybody should should get.” Mario Di Dio, CEO, Helium
- “There is not there’s not such a thing as a secure as a safe bet in innovation.” Mario Di Dio, CEO, Helium
- “Organizations are made out of people.” Mario Di Dio, CEO, Helium
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you sell an innovation to a risk averse enterprise executive?
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, told Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and a CEO for 25 years, that a strong idea is a necessary but insufficient condition, and that what closes the gap is early adoption evidence from a market that is already further along on the problem. Because innovation pitches typically describe something three to five years from being fully materialized, the buyer cannot evaluate it against a problem they feel today, so the seller must first win buy-in on the problem itself. Di Dio uses Helium’s traction in Brazil, which he considers more mature than the US on parts of what Helium is building, as the proof point he brings into US conversations.
Why does the same pitch fail one year and succeed two years later?
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, experienced this directly with a project he and his team pitched at CableLabs, then pitched again two or three years later to a completely different reaction without the idea changing. His explanation is that timing determines whether an idea reaches a chief revenue officer or chief operating officer where their priorities actually sit, since enterprises are evaluating tens or hundreds of projects and everybody has a cool idea. The value proposition matters, but market conditions at the moment of the pitch matter more.
Should a company target its biggest market first or its most ready market?
Mario Di Dio, CEO at Helium, targets the most ready market first and accepts that it may not be the largest revenue opportunity, because its purpose is producing a proof point rather than producing revenue. He selects that market on unit economics, cost structure, and access to capital, noting that telecommunications cost structures and debt rates differ enough between the US and South America to change whether a cost-savings pitch is compelling at all. Once validation exists in that market, the pitch to a larger market becomes a claim about where that market will be in two to three years.
Executives Work With Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Their Own Capability
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach. He coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits, drawing on 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
