Romain Lapeyre

CEO, Gorgias · 0 appearances on the record.

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Romain Lapeyre is the CEO of Gorgias. He is known for using data-driven strategies to acquire over 10,000 SMB customers.

32statements → 16claims → 0claims resolved → average certainty → average debate potential → 1said about them ↓

1 not yet assessed 15 not checkable as stated how the 16 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

16 assertions · 8 insights · 8 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 16 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 15 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

Everything Romain Lapeyre said on the Official SaaStr Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Shopify sees an 80% annual merchant churn rate, warns Romain Lapeyre
“What was interesting is that the yearly churn is 80% for Shopify. It's pretty frightening, because at the end of the year, there's only going to be 20% of the stores that work here at the beginning of the year that will still be around and still be your custom…”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 5:36 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Insight
Founders should build data-driven growth machines at just 50 customers
“So I would argue that since now we have access to we have lots of data points about like trade shows we go to, the payment information, the sales data in our CRM. We can combine all these data points and start building the machine early on as soon as you have …”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 3:47 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Insight
Startups should hire a growth stack manager as a single-digit hire
“I think you should do the same thing for somebody who manages all this growth stack. They should be a single digit higher as well, because it's gonna help you get faster to a thousand customers.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 24:23 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias tripled identified leads using a 10-tool enrichment waterfall script
“We've built what we call a waterfall, which is essentially a script that starts with the cheaper tool... And essentially what we've done with that is that we've managed to roughly triple the amount of leads that we're able to identify from that process.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 11:19 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Targeting outbound emails based on tech stack signals doubled reply rates
“Instead of sending the vanilla email, we say, Hey, like just notice you use recharge. You're probably getting those three questions from your subscribers. And we know like they can add up quite a bit and it turns out we integrate really well with them and we c…”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 13:58 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Disclosure
Gorgias employs a full-time BDR solely to send leads to partners
“We hired a BDR whose job is to send leads to partners. Like that's their full-time job.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 18:45 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias increased ARR 6x in two years scaling to 10,000 customers
“So by optimizing all the steps I just described, we increased the AR by six X over two years from a thousand to 10,000 customers.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 20:29 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Insight
SaaS partnership channels take one year and dedicated staffing to work
“I think the learning here is that it takes one year. It takes a full-time person who's just going to focus on that. And it pays pretty pretty high dividends, so I would definitely invest in partnerships early if it's a fit for your business, because it's a fly…”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 24:59 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dedicated DTC VC partnerships generated only $200k-$300k ARR for Gorgias
“Working with the VCs that focus who focus on the direct-to-consumer brands, so we hired a, this time we hired a person to focus on that full-time, and what we found is, like, it was just, like, 200 K-R, 300 K-R per year, so not enough to justify a full-time fo…”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 43:34 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Insight
Most SaaS companies hit a growth wall at $1M–$3M ARR
“Most companies, when they get to 1,000,002 1,000,003 million AR, they don't really have the machine yet. So what they, so they typically end up hitting a wall for a few months because they don't really know how, where the growth comes from.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 3:29 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Insight
Startups with eight-month runways cannot rely on three-year marketing horizons
“The thing is when you are an early stage company, you cannot really afford to plan your growth based on something that's going to happen in three years because you only have money for like eight months.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 9:06 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias tripled its sales close rate to 50% in 12 months
“In our case, the close rate went from, ah, like, around 15% to 50% in the course of 12 months. So we tripled the close rate by having this hyper-targeted approach, giving the right pitch to the right people, and talking to the people that are ready to buy.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 14:25 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Insight
Automating CRM updates saves sales teams 20% of their time
“To be able to automate the deals that move in your CRM, that will save your team, like, about, like, 20% of their time.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 15:19 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Insight
The best time to engage users is directly inside the product
“The best time to engage a conversation with a customer or a potential customer is inside the product when they have decided to invest time on your product.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 16:29 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias reached 95% post-payment customer activation via tailored onboarding
“After we did that, we went to 95% customer activation after they paid, meaning that people made the decision to buy, and 95% of them start using the product and getting value.”
Romain Lapeyre May 15, 2019 ▶ 17:13 Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias reached roughly $2M ARR at 1,000 customers
“Two years ago I was at Saster and did a session on like how to do this the zero to one and get to this thousand customer mark. And for us, it was about two million AR at the time.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 1:03 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lapeyre: 700k of 2M Shopify Stores Form Gorgias's TAM
“So for us, we sell mostly to Shopify stores. There are about two million of them. I think there's about like 700 K of them that are on our TAM.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 3:03 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Disclosure
Gorgias hosts roughly one co-marketing event daily with ecosystem partners
“So we do about one event a day, which is which is pretty intense. And so that helps the partners essentially like attract their own leads.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 19:34 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Disclosure
Pure outbound sales generate approximately 10% of Gorgias's ARR
“Outbound how effective is it it's about 10% of our AR today. So that, that gives you an idea and that's like pure pure outbound.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 21:10 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Disclosure
Romain Lapeyre: Paid ads drive 10% to 15% of Gorgias's ARR
“Ads is about 10, 15% of our AR.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 28:41 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias raised average customer experience score from 2 to 3 out of 5
“After one year, we increased the customer experience score from two out of five average to three out of five.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 34:22 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias customers with higher CX scores retain roughly 20% better
“They retain about 20% better if they have a higher customer experience score.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 36:24 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Disclosure
Gorgias gave $1,000 iPhones for referrals against a $3K ACV
“So incentives for us where we offer an iPhone if you refer us to customers. So if you just do the math, an iPhone is like a thousand dollars, ECV is a three K, and then you have a NR that is like around like 90 90%. So it's like super worth it because your iPh…”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 38:17 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gorgias: Referrals Grew from 0% to 5% of New ARR in Two Years
“And so what we were able to do is get the referrals from zero to five percent of the new AR that we add after two years.”
Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 ▶ 38:43 Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre

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Played on the show (2)

Episodes where a recording of Romain Lapeyre was played rather than Romain taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
Acquiring 10,000 SMB Customers Solely from Data with Gorgias' CEO Romain Lapeyre Feb 11, 2022 40m aired address
Lessons from Gorgias: How to Close your First 1000 Customers Based Solely on Data May 15, 2019 21m aired address
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