Field brief · 7 Oct 2026 · Public sources only
First 90 Days: APJ Field Marketing at Cursor An outside-in hypothesis
APJ already has developer pull. Field’s job is turning it into enterprise pipeline.
- 80% of new accounts sourced by marketing
- 125% of APAC revenue target, four quarters
- 11 person team · $5M budget
Liftoff, during 2.54× global revenue growth, against a $360M APAC revenue target. The 125% is App Annie’s APAC revenue target.
What the public signals say
Checked 7 October 2026. Three accounts of market order disagree. They stay side by side.
Market order
- SBR: Simon Green, ex-Palo Alto Networks, APJ President. Singapore HQ. Japan, ANZ, Korea, India, Indonesia. Pete Short oversees ANZ.
- ABR: about US$20 billion a year. Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, India and ANZ first; Korea to follow. He names Grab, Rakuten, and banks with heavy technical debt.
- THE ELEC, 28 June: Japan and Korea are the two priorities. “We will enter the Korean market within four months.” Several Korean companies already; a developer event within two months; headcount to 200 within six months.
Japan
Nikkei xTECH, 23 June: a Country Leader first. Digital natives and startups, then larger enterprises.
India
A physical presence before end-2026 (Inc42, 12 Aug). Infosys CoE, 27 Jan. Cursor’s CEO said it would enable over 100,000 Infosys engineers (Infosys). Inc42: third-largest market, more than 3 million developers.
Customer proof
NAB standardized 6,000 developers after evaluating Amazon Q and GitHub Copilot, and is bringing Cursor to over 10,000 technology employees. Money Forward: 1,000+ daily users. IMDEX. Grab: about 98% of the tech organization monthly.
Community already running
Tokyo, 5 Mar. Kopitiam, Singapore, 30 Mar (167 went). Seoul #4, 24 Oct, 10:30–19:00 KST. A forum post still says 22 Aug; treated as stale. Sydney #6, Atlassian, 10 Jun. Melbourne, 12 Aug. Bangalore, 1 Aug. Singapore hackathon, 18 Oct 2025 (581).
Sales seats on the board
Ashby, 7 Oct: enterprise AEs for Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines; commercial, enterprise and federal AEs in Australia; a strategic enterprise AE in Bengaluru; two APJ sales-development leader reqs; a GTM Strategy & Ops lead in Singapore.
Theater strategy
One hypothesis per market. Working order, to validate.
- JP Japan Digital natives first
- KR Korea Hosted in Korean
- ANZ ANZ Banks, regulated
- IN India Partner, then direct
- SEA SEA Singapore hub
| Market | Hypothesis |
|---|---|
| Japan | Digital natives and startups first, then larger enterprises. Dinners in Japanese; Money Forward is the peer proof. The Japanese-language host is a hire. Rakuten is named publicly; reference status is to verify. |
| Korea | 24 October is a community moment. To verify if it is the June developer event. The enterprise room is chaebol and platform engineering leaders, which I can host in Korean. |
| ANZ | Banks and regulated industries. NAB is the reference; IMDEX is the second Australian story. A federal motion beside the 2 October federal AE req is to verify. |
| India | Partner-led through the Infosys Center of Excellence, plus global capability centre engineering leaders in Bengaluru. The CoE keeps enablement. Field takes named accounts. |
| SEA | Singapore hub, beside Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines enterprise AE reqs. Regional banks and super-apps. Grab is the published proof. |
Starting personas, as a hypothesis: CTO, VP Engineering, Head of Platform or DevEx, and CISO.
Community → room → account
- Community. Meetups and hackathons stay the at-scale top of the funnel. Field feeds them and routes the right people onward.
- Room. Proposed A monthly executive dinner in each priority city. Working title “Software Factory,” from talks on the Tokyo and Bangalore agendas. Model: my 12-edition Japan/Korea Dinner Club. One peer story, one Field Engineer, a named list. Mobile Heroes, launched in Korea then Japan and Greater China, with game developers in the room, is the community half.
- Account. A briefing with the AE and a Field Engineer, only on a list Sales already owns.
First 90 days
-
0–30
Listen
Sales leaders around Simon Green, the GTM ops lead, and AEs in seat. Agree account lists. One baseline dashboard. Dinners wait on that list.
-
31–60
Pilot
Tokyo and Seoul dinners. Proposed Open field marketing manager reqs, Japan and Korea first.
-
61–90
Show the math
If the pilots produce meetings, add Sydney, Bengaluru and Singapore, with a QBR view of sourced pipeline, cost, and what to stop.
On the calendar
Next verified date: Seoul Hackathon #4, Saturday 24 October 2026, 10:30–19:00 KST (Luma). No later public Sydney, Melbourne or Tokyo date as of 7 October. Dinner dates are proposed.
Measurement
With Sales Ops: sourced pipeline, influenced pipeline, stage conversion, event-to-opportunity, cost per opportunity. At Liftoff I tied events, webinars, inbound and paid to opportunities in Salesforce and Tableau, and moved spend toward what converted. App Annie lead-to-opportunity rose 5.9×. Miss that rate twice, and the program loses its next budget.
Team
One field marketing manager each for Japan, Korea, ANZ, and India with Southeast Asia. I have led teams of four to eleven, including five managers, and promoted managers into Head of Region roles. I host the early dinners. The Japanese-language host is a hire.
Questions I’d validate in week one
- Japan: what share of year one is digital-native, and who sets that with the Country Leader?
- India: what is partner, through Infosys and others, and what is direct?
- Korea: is “within four months” of 28 June still current, beside the later “Korea to follow” line? Is 24 October the event he meant?
- Which account list and stage definitions does Sales Ops already trust?