Anand: Investing in brand creates alpha for B2B software startups
Varun Anand · Clay's unconventional path to $1.25B: Rethinking GTM, pricing, and enterprise sales | Varun Anand · Jan 23, 2025 · at 49:32
Varun Anand, co-founder at Clay, explains why early-stage B2B software companies should exploit brand building as an arbitrage opportunity.
0:00 / 0:31exact quote · 31.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“When you look at other B to B software, no one invests in it. And so when you have something that no one invests in, And everything kind of looks the same. A lot of early stage software is just about standing out. Because you're trying to make news about something, you're just trying to stand out from the crowd, because it's so crowded in the early stage. And brand is a way to do that. And you obviously have to have a point of view on it, and you also have to be creative. But when no one else is investing in something, and you invest in something, that is a way to add alpha, and that is a way to really stand out in a meaningful way.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Varun Anand
Anand: Prospective users should drive sales demos to build self-serve confidence
“We would have these, like, reverse demo conversations where I wouldn't traditionally demo the software. Basically, they would demo, like, they would demo it themselves. Like, they would sign up Share the screen, do the flow. I would help them do the individual…”
Anand: Platform fees are flawed pricing mechanisms that procurement teams challenge
“First, platform fees are inherently challenged. They are not great pricing mechanisms, and the reason for this is, first, it doesn't scale. After the first year, you want to keep raising the price because you want to, you know, you want to create more margin. …”
Clay combines AE, SDR, and sales engineer into one GTM engineering role
“We do sales through this, you know, we call it go-to-market engineering. And so this is collapsing three different roles into one. An AE, an SDR, and a sales engineer all into one role. And this is a person who's a bit more technical and background, who is goo…”
Anand: Managers lose if an employee has to ask for a raise
“If someone on your team comes to you, you've already lost the game because they have been thinking about this. I promise you for weeks, if not months, because it takes a lot of courage and bravery to like go up to your manager or the founder and ask for more m…”
Anand: Clay manually invoiced customers via Stripe until hitting $1M ARR
“In January of 23, I mean, it'll be interesting to share that, like, we didn't have billing in the product. You couldn't pay for Clayton in the product until past a million in ARR. Until a million in ARR, I was just sending Stripe invoices to people, which was …”
Anand: Usage pricing unlocks higher contract value than seat-based SaaS
“When you're not doing seat-based, you're doing a value-based sale, and you are pricing in this usage way, you can price more aggressively. And that probably enables you to go way higher over time as you generate more value. In a way that most seat-based pricin…”