The Exchanges

Q I think I'm going off memory. I think he said they wanted to convert 6000 to a 10 dollar a month plan. And they want to hit a million dollar run rate within like the first 24 hours. You worked with them early on at what Were you working with them pre-revenue to build that waitlist or was it post-revenue once they, you know, had a 1,000,002 million in ARR?

A Yeah, this would be, this would be post revenue. So this was essentially when I think they had raised a series A at this point. Um, and they were trying to figure out how to, um, cast a wider net. Like their goal was to increase work user signups efficiently. And so we launched this hybrid campaign for them, helping them lean into high intent channels, capture demand and drive down their costs to acquire. But I mean, at a high level, they brought us in when they basically didn't have a demand team. It was like maybe a demand Team of one or two. We were brought in by an advisor of theirs, uh, partner directly with the CEO, Joe and his team.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, this would be, this would be post revenue.”

Q Is this, is this typical folks use you, right? They have one or two internal folks, but they really need more strength before they hire 10 people on their internal demand gen team.

A Yeah. I mean, I'd say that's probably the most common use cases like series A, series B, real small demand team. And essentially they, they need to get to key growth milestones to get to that next raise, um, and prove some things out, but it's kind of risky to go and hire like a very senior growth leader because they might not have the budget for the growth leader and the growth teams. It's like the arms and legs to execute plus strategy. And so we're able to come in and be that senior strategy layer that's, you know, helped grow 10 plus unicorns a year. Um, and also be their arms and legs, really help them figure out that initial foundational growth plan and program, what that looks like, help them establish baseline metrics such that they can go back to their board and say, we've built a demand engine. It works. Here's how much it costs to scale. And then they can go and build out their team. So we're frequently.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. I mean, I'd say that's probably the most common use cases”

Q What do you reverse engineer from? If you had to pick one metric that you say it's this, and then everything else falls from this. What is it? Is it CAC payback? Is it CAC in general? What is it?

A Yeah. I mean, the two metrics we focus on are reducing cost to acquire and scaling revenue. So it's like revenue or pipeline, depending on who we're talking to and depending on how long their sales cycle is. Right. So we might come in for a six month engagement. And if it's an enterprise sales product, we're not going to be focused on revenue because their sales cycles might be six to nine months. We'll be focused on like quality pipe gen where the sales reps are saying, yes, these are really great conversations we're having. Whereas if it's, you know, a product-led growth company like Loom or Hoppin or Calm or any of these other companies we've worked with and helped grow, um, The feedback cycle is much more immediate. And so we're able to focus on, it might be, uh, PQLs that they're really focused on and that's the board metric that they care about. Usually the metric is driven by the board wants to see certain proof points and we reverse engineer from there.

AI assessment note: “the two metrics we focus on are reducing cost to acquire and scaling revenue.”

Q What, and so what are you doing today? Same model today?

A It's a very similar model. So we have a paid media side of the business. We realized that most paid media agencies were like agency people starting agencies. And I felt like coming from SAS, I knew how broken that model was. So we do a performance based model where we literally set our pricing based on which growth milestones we help them accomplish. And if we miss those milestones, our rate gets cut down and vice versa. Like we make more when they win. Uh, and then there's the traditional side, which we've already talked about, which is like, Marketing org in a box. So they come in your loom and you say, Hey, I've only got one to two marketers. I need like VP level strategy plus execution across demand gen performance, marketing, uh, messaging, like all of the different surfaces, life cycle, marketing, nurture, just come in and own the whole program for six months and help us get to a better place.

AI assessment note: “It's a very similar model. So we have a paid media side of the business.”

Q They are focused on Eli. That was really valuable. You just gave to soft tissue between touch point. How is trial handed off? Is there an upsell motion triggered and on product behavior? Give me a couple more of those questions. That was good.

A Yeah. I mean, so, okay. So like, All of these surfaces cross between how they approach TAM, customer focus, revenue orchestration, top of funnel, mid funnel messaging, alignment, experimentation, and retention. Those are like the high level buckets that go into demand efficiency. And then within each of these, there is, there, there are a number of kind of qualifying questions that will tell you how well you're doing in demand efficiency. I actually set up a, uh, a survey that scores companies and they can like fill this out on their own. Um, and then get benchmarked against the industry leaders and see like, okay, if, you know, uh, if calm and loom are score a 93 in demand efficiency, like you could see I'm a PLG company. Like how do I score in demand efficiency? And then they would essentially give you like a recipe book for what to focus on as far as low hanging fruit. So you asked for more specifics. I gave you categories. Let me give you more specifics. So like in TAM, it could be Are you trying like a lot of, a lot of early stage companies think of their TAM. They're like, yes, this is what I've been pitching my investors or if I'm bootstrapped, like this is our total addressable market. I'm excited. I'm going to go after everyone. I can get in front of everyone I can. But the reality is that if your budget is strapped, you need to focus on a specific segment of your TAM.…

AI assessment note: “You asked for more specifics. I gave you categories. Let me give you more specifics.”

Q Eli, I want to hire you. How much can you improve?

A Yeah. I don't, I honestly don't even know how to answer that. Like, so let me, let me give you an answer. Like the, our process is we, we look at what I call demand efficiency. So most, most people, when they're talking about this space, they will, they'll talk about demand capture. They'll talk about demand creation and where we find the juice and what's different is we zoom out further and say, let's talk about demand efficiency, which is all of the different growth surfaces. And by surface that could be Something as common as, you know, like the actual channels and how effective we are on those channels, but it could be the soft tissue between touch points. Like when, and when a trial comes in, how is that handed off between sales and marketing? Or is there an upsell motion that is triggered by in product, uh, behavior that then there's a certain handoff. So they're all of the life cycle nurtures, like all of these different spaces, um, where. Things can go wrong. And a lot of these companies, especially on the earlier side, ignore these surfaces.

AI assessment note: “I honestly don't even know how to answer that. Like, so let me”