Summary: This week on How To Win: Casey Carey, CMO at Quantive and expert in B2B, e-commerce, and growth marketing. From heading up scaled marketing departments at giants like Google to helping build teams from the ground up at scrappy startups, Casey's expansive career has given him a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw on as a marketing executive. In this episode, Casey shares some of that knowledge with us as we discuss creating a culture that prioritizes learning from failure, the imp...
Feb 13, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 58
Summary: This week on How To Win: Muhammad Younas, CEO of vFairs, an all-in-one events platform that allows users to conduct virtual, in-person, and hybrid events. Founded in 2016, vFairs experienced accelerated growth during the pandemic and ballooned to over 250 employees with offices located around the world. In this episode, Muhammad breaks down some of the strategies that have helped vFairs win. We discuss hiring for hyper-growth, the power of word of mouth, and why delivering high-quality ...
Feb 07, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Summary: This week on How To Win: Kevan Lee, Senior VP of Marketing at Oyster HR, a management platform for globally distributed teams. Before joining Oyster, Kevan spent six years as VP of Marketing at Buffer, a social media management platform that helps brands and businesses engage with their online audience. Kevan is an expert in brand strategy, marketing leadership, and category creation and shares his expertise through regular appearances at events and on podcasts. In this episode, Kevan w...
Jan 30, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 56
Summary: This week on How To Win: Matt Sornson, co-founder of Clearbit. He spent seven years across multiple leadership roles at the company and now serves on the board. His new day job is being a partner at Earl Grey Capital, an early-stage venture fund. In this episode, Matt breaks down five key lessons he’s learned throughout his career. We discuss customers hacking your product, how to scrutinize your metrics, and the benefits of implementing an outbound sales strategy earlier. I weigh in on...
Jan 23, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Summary: This week on How To Win: Mark Kosoglow, B2B SaaS thought leader and CRO of the customer success platform Catalyst Software. Founded in 2017, Catalyst's founders saw a need to create a tool that integrated customer success tools into a platform that was easy to learn and implement. To date, Catalyst has raised over $45M in funding and employs more than 100 people. Before Catalyst, Mark spent 8 years at the sales execution platform Outreach where he led their sales team as VP and later Se...
Jan 16, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Summary: This week on How To Win: Alejandro Rivas-Micoud, Founder & CEO of Userlytics Corporation, a UX testing platform founded in 2009. In this episode, Alejandro breaks down six important lessons he’s learned throughout his career. We discuss creating a strong corporate culture, deciding not to use VCs, and why people overestimate the impact of things in the short term and underestimate their value in the long term. I weigh in on the idea of 'culture eats strategy for breakfast', being yo...
Jan 09, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 53
Summary: This week on How To Win: Brian Bourque, SVP of Marketing at SmartAsset, where they've grown a lead generation business from $0 to $100M+ in revenue primarily through paid acquisition marketing and SEO. Brian has a ton of experience leading profitable paid acquisition teams in quantitative, direct-response marketing businesses. He's an advocate of using behavioral psychology, tech, data, and creativity to find exciting, new approaches to business. In this episode, Brian breaks down six i...
Dec 13, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Summary: This week on How To Win: I'm taking the opportunity to dive deeper into something we've touched on in previous episodes, but never given the complete attention it deserves: how to get inside the limited consideration set of your ideal customers. I'll share how to create mental availability beyond your product, how to position yourself in the market, and unpack the B2B Message Layers™ framework. You'll also hear input from Drift's David Cancel, Andreessen Horowitz's Andrew Chen, and auth...
Nov 29, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Summary: This week on How To Win: Kyle Lacy, Chief Marketing Officer at Jellyfish and former CMO at Lessonly, a sales training and coaching platform. Lessonly was acquired by Seismic in 2021. Kyle also served as the Director of Global Content Marketing at Salesforce after its acquisition of ExactTarget in 2014. Before its acquisition, Lessonly made $24M in revenue and had a team of 230 that migrated over to Seismic. Lessonly was used by 1,200 B2B customers. In this episode, Kyle breaks down six ...
Nov 21, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Summary: This week on How To Win: Mikita Mikado, CEO of PandaDoc. PandaDoc is an all-in-one document workflow automation platform. They launched in 2013, were valued at $1B in 2021, and have a projected revenue of $55M this year. They have 390 employees across the US and Belarus. In this episode, we discuss how they used customer feedback to pivot PandaDoc successfully, their decision to make part of their product free, and how balancing external opportunities with a strong internal culture help...
Oct 31, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Summary: This week on How To Win: Saravana Kumar, CEO of Kovai.co , a software company offering multiple enterprise and B2B SaaS products including, a customer success product, a self-service knowledge base product, and enterprise software for Microsoft BizTalk and Azure Serverless platforms. Founded in, 2011, Kovai.co has over 240 employees across the UK and India. This year Kovai.co's annual revenue has topped $10 million. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of true thought leadership, di...
Oct 24, 2022•26 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Summary: This week on How To Win: Jaleh Rezaei, CEO and co-Founder of Mutiny. Mutiny is a no-code AI and personalization platform for marketers. Mutiny launched in 2018, raised their Series A in 2021 with Sequoia Capital, and their Series B this year with Tiger Global. They now have over 70 employees. In this episode, we discuss how they carved out and dominated their niche, the benefits of building a community around your product, and why continually innovating to add value should be part of yo...
Oct 10, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Summary: This week on How to Win: Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder & CSO at Aircall, a cloud-based call center and phone system that seamlessly integrates with common productivity and help desk tools. Since its founding in 2014, Aircall has raised over $226M in funding and now sits at over $100M ARR with over 700 global employees. In this episode we discuss the massive opportunity Aircall saw in the market, how they got an early leg up on the competition by being specific about their ICP, and w...
Oct 03, 2022•27 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Summary: This week on How to Win: Randy Wootton, CEO of Maxio, a platform offering subscription and revenue management solutions to SaaS companies. Founded in 2022, Maxio is the product of a merger between SaaSOptics and Chargify, brought together by private equity investment firm Battery Ventures. In this episode, we discuss the challenges of transitioning to a non-founder CEO, how assessing your business honestly is essential, and the idea of competing against non-consumption. I share my thoug...
Sep 26, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 45
Summary: This week on How to Win: David DeWolf, President and CEO of 3Pillar Global, a software product development company. 3Pillar Global was founded in 2006 and now has over 2000 employees with annual revenue of over $100M. In this episode, we discuss going beyond a great product offering, why leaders should regularly reinvent themselves, and why scaling company culture is key to successful growth. I weigh in on innovating for customer value, why you should always be generous with your knowle...
Sep 19, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Summary: This week on How to Win: Scott Voigt, founder and CEO of FullStory, a digital experience intelligence platform that combines quantitative and qualitative data to drive digital growth. Founded in Atlanta in 2014, FullStory now serves over 3200 customers and has consistently increased their ARR by over 70% year over year. In August, the company wrapped up a $25M funding round bringing their total amount raised to around $200M. In this episode, we discuss how FullStory repositioned early o...
Sep 12, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Summary: This week on How to Win: Brandon Bornancin, founder and CEO of Seamless.AI, a platform focused on sales, lead generation, and prospecting via an advanced search engine. Launched in 2018, Seamless.AI grew out of a list-building agency called Seamless Contacts founded three years earlier. Seamless.AI recently completed a nearly $100M funding round, and in under four years has earned a billion dollar valuation. In this episode, we take a look at Seamless' decision to stay focused on their ...
Sep 06, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Key Points: How Alexander and his co-founder got their start with Spryker (01:20) How Spryker adjusted to marketing to multiple decision makers after they passed the $1M ARR mark (05:06) My advice on managing your marketing while addressing a large stakeholder base, with a quote from Ismail Madni (08:21) Alexander discusses Spryker's different competitive strategies for addressing incumbent companies vs. up-and-comers (09:48) How Spryker is competing on brand to become the "Tesla of the commerce...
Jun 06, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 41
Key Points: How CB Insights got its start (01:13) Anand explains when he realized the target market for CB Insights had shifted (03:33) My thoughts on the transient nature of the market, and why successful companies should be prepared to adapt with a quote from Bridgefy's Jorge Rios (05:03) Anand explains CB Insights' unique approach to content marketing (07:00) I discuss the need for more creativity and more hard work in marketing (09:40) Anand describes the competitive landscape CB Insights in...
May 30, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Key Points: How Brian got started with Attentive (01:04) My thoughts on the advantages of being vertical-specific with a quote from Steve Blank (02:52) Brian explains the competitive landscape Attentive was playing in at the start (04:23) Why selling should start with identifying the major problems facing your target customers (05:30) I discuss how to identify your customer's pain points and use that knowledge to outsell your competitors (06:15) Brian shares how Attentive saw early success with ...
May 23, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Key Points: James explains how his trading background led him to founding Cognism (01:04) Cognism's first major pivot (02:25) My thoughts on early pivots with a quote from Eric Ries (03:39) James describes how Cognism's market size meant there was plenty of growth opportunity, despite competition (06:24) I explain the advantage of starting your business outside the hyper-competitive US market with a quote from Jean-René Boidron (07:18) James talks through why friendly, warm relationships with yo...
May 16, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Key Points: Sangram explains the problem he identified that inspired Terminus (01:00) How Sangram developed the FlipMyFunnel framework in Terminus' first year (02:31) My thoughts on community creation as a moat (04:37) I explain the benefits of developing your company around a clear point of view (07:19) Why Terminus defined their category as account base marketing, rather than the narrower niche of account-based advertising (08:19) I unpack the importance of having both focus and broader resili...
May 09, 2022•34 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Key Points: How HoneyBook got its start (00:58) Oz explains why he views competitors as incentive for improvement (02:27) Why HoneyBook is shifting strategies to invest in category creation (04:31) My thoughts on category and subcategory creation with a quote from Guillaume Cabane (06:08) I explain why choosing an ideal customer and being the best at catering to their specific needs is a winning strategy (11:51) Oz relates what he learned from HoneyBook's failed experiments (12:45) I discuss the...
May 02, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Key Points: Doug explains how Seismic's founders saw a market opening (00:55) How Seismic created a category and helped define a new word (02:43) How the founders played to their strengths and industry experience (04:37) My thoughts on founders playing to their strengths, and a quote from Unqork's Gary Hoberman (06:38) How Seismic achieved product-market fit (08:35) I explain why you need to be the best at something specific if you want to win (09:28) "Contacts become contract" and a quote from ...
Apr 25, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Key Points: Jean-René explains how Kameleoon got its start (01:07) How Kameleoon got an advantage by establishing itself outside of the dominant North American market (02:40) My thoughts on finding market openings and targeting a specific set of customers (05:34) Why Kameleoon keeps its core strategy the same globally, which some localized differences (07:00) I explain the advantages of being more local with a quote from Prof. Richard Lynch (09:06) Jean-René explains the market verticals Kameleo...
Apr 19, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Key Points: Mark explains how CaptivateIQ's co-founders came from the problem (01:03) Mark explains why CaptivateIQ went through three distinct versions early in the company's life (06:25) My thoughts on why it is better to launch a product before it is ready, rather than be too late (07:00) Why CaptivateIQ had such early success with an outbound sales movement (08:17) I explain why you should invest in people who have skillsets you don't, with a quote from Alibaba's Jack Ma (10:10) Mark talks t...
Apr 12, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Key Points: Tony describes the opportunity in the market he saw for a company like Oyster (01:05) My thoughts on speed as a competitive advantage with a quote from Hopin's Johnny Boufarhat (04:35) How Oyster managed to scale fast when met with massive demand (07:25) Tony describes Oyster's internal recruitment strategies (08:40) My thoughts on what makes a winning company culture, with a quote from Sequoia Capital's Alfred Lin (10:06) Why Oyster is obsessed with being the best employer, and enab...
Apr 04, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Key Points: How dbt got its start as a consulting service (01:04) Four key factors in a successful transition from consulting service to SaaS company (03:37) Tristan explains why the services team at dbt remains strategic (08:55) dbt's three main sales motions (10:00) How dbt's massive Slack community aids their growth (10:53) My thoughts on creating a successful community with a quote from Lemlist's Guillaume Moubeche (11:38) Tristan explains dbt's unusual relationship with their competition (1...
Mar 28, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 31
Key Points: Jason explains Klue's backstory (01:03) My thoughts finding an opening in the market and and creating a new "job to be done" (03:47) The three areas Jason focused on to get Klue to its first million (06:20) I discuss the importance of customer research (09:10) Jason explains how Klue educated the market about competitive enablement (10:05) My thoughts on creating new "must-haves" to establish subcategories (11:23) Jason explains how Klue is differentiating through authenticity (16:09...
Mar 21, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Key Points: Rytis explains the opening he saw in the market when starting Omnisend (01:13) My thoughts on the importance of speed when entering a category without established competition (03:38) The strategies that won Omnisend their first 100 000 customers (06:31) Rytis describes Omnisend’s profitable agency partner program (07:37) I discuss why partner programs can be difficult to pull off, and what agency partner are looking for (09:03) Rytis explains how original research fuels Omnisend’s co...
Mar 14, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 29
