Kent Summers and Jim MacDonald’s entrepreneurial journey began over 30 years ago when they worked together at Electronic Book Technologies (EBT). DynaText, the world’s first commercial browser, was spun out of the CS Dept at Brown Univ., bootstrapped over a 7-year period, and acquired in the fall of 1996 by a public company. Their shared experience and success building and scaling a B2B startup through direct and channel sales was the inspiration behind separate entrepreneurial career pursuits, and what would eventually become Spinnaker Sales Group.
Following EBT, Kent’s expertise developed through years of software startups as founder, several successful exits, and 20+ years mentoring startup ventures at MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). He developed a unique B2B selling methodology specifically designed to help technical founders acquire first customers, generate revenue, and build a repeatable sales process for growth. This no-nonsense B2B sales methodology has been taught at MIT since 2008. A commercial version of the MIT course was introduced in 2016 to early-stage ventures enrolled in accelerator programs.
With over three decades leading enterprise sales at global technology startups, including the launch of a new business within Amazon, Jim has guided countless startups in crafting effective sales strategies and go-to-market approaches. His expertise spans both domestic and international markets. In 2012, Jim reunited with Kent through MIT VMS, where their shared passion for helping founders succeed led them to establish Spinnaker Sales Group in 2022. Their mission: equip B2B startup founders and their teams with a proven sales methodology to accelerate customer adoption and revenue growth.
Spinnaker Offerings:
1. Sales Training: five-day intensive “sales bootcamp” for founders and management teams, teaching essential B2B sales skills and practices through a modular approach.
2. Sales Coaching: personalized six-month engagements focused on applying the Spinnaker Sales Methodology to individual startups’ sales pipelines to generate measurable wins.
Key Spinnaker Achievements:
Jim and Kent measure Spinnaker impact by helping founders acquire new customers, generate revenue, and gain the sales knowledge and skills to grow their ventures independently — and in doing so, helping accelerator organizations achieve their mission to drive business growth in their community.
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