Bruce Cleveland

Market engineering and category creation are core to Bruce's work: he wrote the book Traversing the Traction Gap (2019) and now runs Traction Gap Partners, applying the 'Traction Gap Framework' to help startups and product teams define categories, validate market demand, and engineer repeatable go-to-market systems. tractiongappartners+2

Operator turned investor 94 Bruce combines decades of operating experience (senior executive roles at Oracle, Apple, Siebel and C3 AI) with venture investing (InterWest, founding partner at Wildcat), and has been an early investor or board participant in notable enterprise outcomes (e.g., Marketo, Vlocity, Doximity). This blend informs his hands-on advising and market-first investment approach. cxotalk+2

Enterprise marketing leadership — Cleveland served as CMO at C3.ai (senior vice president and chief marketing officer) and led marketing during a critical growth and public-listing period, applying market engineering and category strategy to enterprise AI go-to-market efforts. c3+2

Active advisor and board member of startups and enterprise product teams, Bruce serves as a strategic advisor, bringing product, market-engineering and category-creation expertise to founders. prioriti+2