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Oct 8, 2022 · 21m · top-founders

How We Acquired our PLG Competitor to Break $30m in Revenue

James Isilay · 18m spoken Nathan Latka · 51s spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

Cognism CEO James Isilay breaks down how the B2B intelligence platform scaled past $37M in ARR through international engineering hubs, dual-engine marketing, and the strategic in-house acquisition of PLG competitor Kaspr.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 4.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 0.0 Guest disagreement 0.0 Nathan pushing back 0.0
05100:0010:0020:000:59–3:58 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Cognism Overview, Board Value, and Growth Agenda This segment is a solo stage presentation by James Isilay recounting advice received from Nathan Latka and giving an overview of Cognism's growth. Because the host is not participating, host-side metrics and combativeness are zero.3:59–7:53 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Building Global Engineering Hubs to Drive Cost Efficiency James continues his solo conference presentation explaining his playbook for hiring offshore developers in Croatia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, as well as splitting demand capture and demand creation.7:53–12:12 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Strategic Rationale for Acquiring PLG Competitor Kaspr James outlines the strategic rationale behind acquiring Kaspr to solve poor SMB retention and add a PLG motion. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this presentation.12:15–18:29 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Deal Structuring, Valuation Negotiations, and Letter of Intent James details how they negotiated the LOI and structured valuation expectations between the target and Cognism's board using earnouts and all-cash consideration.18:31–21:19 · Nathan as informed peer 0/10 Summary of Growth Lessons and International Expansion James wraps up his keynote by summarizing the primary growth levers and international market expansion via PLG. Host-side scores remain zero due to the monologue format.0:59–3:58 · Guest teaching 0/10 Cognism Overview, Board Value, and Growth Agenda This segment is a solo stage presentation by James Isilay recounting advice received from Nathan Latka and giving an overview of Cognism's growth. Because the host is not participating, host-side metrics and combativeness are zero.3:59–7:53 · Guest teaching 0/10 Building Global Engineering Hubs to Drive Cost Efficiency James continues his solo conference presentation explaining his playbook for hiring offshore developers in Croatia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, as well as splitting demand capture and demand creation.7:53–12:12 · Guest teaching 0/10 Strategic Rationale for Acquiring PLG Competitor Kaspr James outlines the strategic rationale behind acquiring Kaspr to solve poor SMB retention and add a PLG motion. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this presentation.12:15–18:29 · Guest teaching 0/10 Deal Structuring, Valuation Negotiations, and Letter of Intent James details how they negotiated the LOI and structured valuation expectations between the target and Cognism's board using earnouts and all-cash consideration.18:31–21:19 · Guest teaching 0/10 Summary of Growth Lessons and International Expansion James wraps up his keynote by summarizing the primary growth levers and international market expansion via PLG. Host-side scores remain zero due to the monologue format.0:59–3:58 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Cognism Overview, Board Value, and Growth Agenda This segment is a solo stage presentation by James Isilay recounting advice received from Nathan Latka and giving an overview of Cognism's growth. Because the host is not participating, host-side metrics and combativeness are zero.3:59–7:53 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Building Global Engineering Hubs to Drive Cost Efficiency James continues his solo conference presentation explaining his playbook for hiring offshore developers in Croatia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, as well as splitting demand capture and demand creation.7:53–12:12 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Strategic Rationale for Acquiring PLG Competitor Kaspr James outlines the strategic rationale behind acquiring Kaspr to solve poor SMB retention and add a PLG motion. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this presentation.12:15–18:29 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Deal Structuring, Valuation Negotiations, and Letter of Intent James details how they negotiated the LOI and structured valuation expectations between the target and Cognism's board using earnouts and all-cash consideration.18:31–21:19 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Summary of Growth Lessons and International Expansion James wraps up his keynote by summarizing the primary growth levers and international market expansion via PLG. Host-side scores remain zero due to the monologue format.0:59–3:58 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Cognism Overview, Board Value, and Growth Agenda This segment is a solo stage presentation by James Isilay recounting advice received from Nathan Latka and giving an overview of Cognism's growth. Because the host is not participating, host-side metrics and combativeness are zero.3:59–7:53 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Building Global Engineering Hubs to Drive Cost Efficiency James continues his solo conference presentation explaining his playbook for hiring offshore developers in Croatia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, as well as splitting demand capture and demand creation.7:53–12:12 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Strategic Rationale for Acquiring PLG Competitor Kaspr James outlines the strategic rationale behind acquiring Kaspr to solve poor SMB retention and add a PLG motion. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this presentation.12:15–18:29 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Deal Structuring, Valuation Negotiations, and Letter of Intent James details how they negotiated the LOI and structured valuation expectations between the target and Cognism's board using earnouts and all-cash consideration.18:31–21:19 · Nathan pushing back 0/10 Summary of Growth Lessons and International Expansion James wraps up his keynote by summarizing the primary growth levers and international market expansion via PLG. Host-side scores remain zero due to the monologue format.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 33% · guest 67%0:00 · Nathan 33% · guest 67%3:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%21:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%21:00 · Nathan 0% · guest 100%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:20 Dismissing the need for investment bankers

In a monologue format with zero interpersonal hostility, this represents James's most forceful opinion where he dismisses hiring investment bankers as unnecessary and expensive.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 0:00 Host pre-recorded intro setting expectations

Because the talk is a recorded keynote without live host intervention, the only host segment is Latka's intro enforcing strict presentation requirements for speakers.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:05 Masterclass on aligning valuation multiples

James educates the audience on the subtle art of presenting different valuation time horizons to satisfy both VC board expectations and seller targets.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 0:00 Latka establishing Founder 500 presentation standards

Latka asserts his platform authority during the opening remarks, explaining how he mandated all founders to share visual revenue data and real artifacts.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Cognism Overview, Board Value, and Growth Agenda 0000 This segment is a solo stage presentation by James Isilay recounting advice received from Nathan Latka and giving an overview of Cognism's growth. Because the host is not participating, host-side metrics and combativeness are zero.
Building Global Engineering Hubs to Drive Cost Efficiency 0000 James continues his solo conference presentation explaining his playbook for hiring offshore developers in Croatia, Macedonia, and Tunisia, as well as splitting demand capture and demand creation.
Strategic Rationale for Acquiring PLG Competitor Kaspr 0000 James outlines the strategic rationale behind acquiring Kaspr to solve poor SMB retention and add a PLG motion. There is no host involvement or disagreement during this presentation.
Deal Structuring, Valuation Negotiations, and Letter of Intent 0000 James details how they negotiated the LOI and structured valuation expectations between the target and Cognism's board using earnouts and all-cash consideration.
Summary of Growth Lessons and International Expansion 0000 James wraps up his keynote by summarizing the primary growth levers and international market expansion via PLG. Host-side scores remain zero due to the monologue format.

Statements from this episode (11)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cognism saved $1M in banking fees by keeping Kaspr M&A in-house
“One of those people was Phil Garlick, who is Head of Corporate Development at ZoomInfo, and Phil Garlick really helps us to do the transactions and to do the acquisitions, and particularly Casper, that saved me at least a million dollars in fees from bankers, …”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 2:03
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Cognism reached $37M ARR in August 2022
“Right now, actually, we're in end of August, we're at thirty-seven million AER.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 2:37
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cognism's revenue growth splits evenly between marketing and outbound sales
“Our revenue growth has really been a mix of probably about 50% from marketing and 50% from our outbound sales team, and I'll talk more about that as we go through the talk.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 2:42
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cognism pays an average of $16K for software engineers in Tunisia
“Now we're actually building a new office in Tunisia where the actual average cost of the engineers is around 16 K.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 4:33
Insight
Fully remote offshore developers are far less sticky than office-based talent
“What we've found is that when we've actually had developers that are just work from home, that they're not, they're far less sticky.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 5:12
Insight
Outsourcing demand capture marketing to agencies failed twice for Cognism
“Our key lesson here was we tried to outsource this. I, you know, initially tried to outsource this. Before building a team and really didn't get much success, you know, using agencies. And recently, again, we tried to outsource this to try and get cost efficie…”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 6:12
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Cognism generates $260K in monthly organic traffic value, doubling closest rival
“Currently we're about 260 K of value of from our organic traffic, that's about twice the value, you know, using, you know, tools like Ahrefs, it's about twice the value of our nearest competitor.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 6:50
Disclosure
South Africa is an optimal hiring market for English marketing content
“We have a lot of marketing staff in South Africa, which has been a great location for hiring in terms of marketing content.”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 7:33
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kaspr achieved 110% SMB net retention compared to Cognism's 60%
“Where when we were actually acquiring those kind of micro and SMB businesses at 15 K packages, we really had very poor retention of them. And what we saw when we looked into Casper was for that same type of audience they had on annual contracts, they had about…”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 9:26
Disclosure
Cognism acquired Kaspr in cash due to French equity tax inefficiencies
“Casper was a French company. There's a lot of negative noise about France as a country to do business in. So far we're having a very good experience. Here we did have one problem around tax on the, on equity. So, so it was actually more tax efficient to do a p…”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 15:49
Insight
Pitch M&A multiples on current ARR to founders, closing ARR to boards
“One of the, like, methods and tactics there that I used in terms of negotiation is really, you know, talk about valuation multiples that are higher on the current AR, and then with the board, talk about the multiple at the close of the transaction. So you can …”
James Isilay Oct 8, 2022 ▶ 16:54
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