Freshworks CMO Kady Srinivasan on GTM - ICP, Not Product

0:00 you you kind of learn something or you you zig in a different direction than you had expected. You just need to know how that you it's okay to fail and the failure is just a one point in time. If you keep getting at it, you will eventually succeed. >> Hi there, this is Vijay Damoji Parapu and you're listening to the B2B go to market leaders podcast. the show where I go behind the scenes with top go to market practitioners to discuss their mindset and tactics. Hello again. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the B2B go to market leaders podcast. My sincerest gratitude because you have so many options and and you can do anything at this point in time but you've taken the time and dedication to listen to and learn go to market. Uh with that as context, I mean I have yet another amazing guest on the show today.

0:58 I have the CMO of Freshworks, Caddy Siniwasen and I'm excited to be speaking and I'm sure you'll get a lot of nuggets uh listening to this podcast. So with that intro uh welcome to the show Carrie. >> Thank you so much for having me Vijay. Really great to be here. >> Yeah likewise. I'm sure there'll be so many uh advice, insights for the listeners here. Uh I've met you a couple of times. I know somewhat about your work and what you do and uh yeah, looking forward to really going deeper into so many of those contexts.

1:32 >> Yeah. >> But first the signature question which every listener loves which is how do you view and define go to market? >> Yeah. Oh, that's a very good question. Um I I think the simplest way that I define it is uh how do you go and build market share in a specific market, category, vertical, geography, whatever that is. So what are the coordinated set of actions that that helps you build that market share? That's how I define it as in a the most simple manner but obviously it's uh it's simple but not easy to do.

2:07 >> Yeah. Yeah. So let's double click triple click into that. Yes. market share is the output or the end game >> but a lot of moving pieces both externally and internally so curious how you approach it >> from your >> yeah I so I've worn a couple of different hats right I've been a CRO and I've been a CMO multiple times now and so I've kind of seen both sides of the equation um I think the the market share thing is a very interesting one because you one you need to have the right product for the right market so there needs to be some product market fit assuming there this PMF then you need to go about thinking about who are the people in the market that you can actually go and service that serviceable addressable market >> and then how do you how do you message your product to those people in a way that makes them that makes it easy for them to think about and digest what you do >> then you go and actually have those touch points that matter to get them to close >> so it's it's almost I I'm describing it as a linear process in some ways it But it also has to come together in a very coordinated manner. And I, you know, one of couple of the mistakes I've made in the past is we had an amazing product um but we were selling it to the wrong audience. We had an amazing product, we were selling it to the right audience, we didn't have the right messaging at all.

3:27 >> And so it just any part of that process can break down and you end up not being able to get the traction that you want. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, great great example. And in fact, great insight there. Reminds me of a very important piece of uh advice I heard from a couple of founders yesterday. I was at an event >> here in Silicon Valley >> and two founders were sharing about how they achieved product market fit.

3:52 >> So even though it's super relevant for early stage, I think that advice is even relevant and even more so relevant even as scale. >> Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, I think it's >> Yeah. >> See, sorry. >> Yeah. So, which is essentially about identifying the niche, the segment, what you're referring to, and it's an ongoing game. It's not like one >> once you're there and it's done, it's an ongoing game. >> Yeah. I think it's um what I found is, you know, when you when you find product market fit, you have an ICP, right? You have a bullseye target and that that target market really just loves you so much. And then when you get better and better at sales and marketing, you're going beyond the early adopter community in that uh ICP and going into the late adopter, early majority, that kind of stuff. So you kind of you're still staying in that ICP circle if you will, right? Think about the bullseye.

4:44 >> Then what happens in you grow so much that you start introducing new products, new features and suddenly your platform is bigger, more extensible, appealing to a different audience. So the bullseye expands. So I call it the ICP plus. So it's the people that are outside of your original ICP that you also have to start to and that's when many many many companies kind of lose the thread. >> They lose the thread of okay where do how do I start to position like I used to position really well really strongly but suddenly now I have this other thing and I'm not quite able to get that bullseye anymore because the ICP plus is a different audience. Correct.

5:23 >> They're looking for something different. Correct. Now you hit upon a very important point, right? Yes. Once you identify the segment, >> I mean PMF can break at so many points. >> Yeah. >> But you hit upon a nuance which is the messaging, >> right? The message audience, message market, message channels fit and so on. >> Yeah. >> Right. Uh and I'm sure we we can actually go into a lot of those details because I'm eager and curious to understand how you approach that. But uh but but again going back to what you're saying which is how we got going on this thread >> which is expanding market share.

5:56 >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No I think it's uh uh I I kind of think of it as when you when you expand market share it's it's uh you are going after net new logos and net new business but also don't forget you're also going after share of wallet and expansion opportunities as well. So if you have a great product then you're landing and expanding and it's a very seamless thing. >> Correct. >> When you start to become a platform company you have lot of landing zones.

6:25 >> So that expands your TAM and your your market. >> But back to your point about messaging then you have to be very very clear. Okay am I messaging the platform which is a set of components A plus B plus C right >> or am I messaging A then B and then C in very specific targeted kind of ways. And that that's a kind of a product marketing design decision that needs to happen. And most companies what I've seen is and I advise a lot of companies like startups all the way to series D companies most of the companies don't make a deliberate intentional choice to do that right to say how are we actually evolving our messaging what they end up doing is just drifting >> correct >> along with how the product is getting built.

7:08 >> Yeah. And that because of that drift suddenly you are defining yourself as a red cat and then somehow 18 months later you become a blue dog. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And and then you don't know how that has happened. So you need to start to get back into what you want. Do you want to be a white cow? Is that where you need to be? >> Or a purple cow. >> Yeah. Purple cow. Yeah. That's actually a better one. Yeah.

7:29 >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No. Very good. Uh so let's actually step back bigger picture. uh it'll be great if you can walk our listeners through your career journey, how you got started and uh what led you to what you're doing today. >> Yeah. Um it's a very zigzaggy career journey. I had a um I started life um like a like many people in I guess my generation growing up in India, we I started as a software engineer. Um >> and uh I was quite honestly one of the worst you could think of. Just absolutely hated it. I don't even know why I chose computer science >> except for the money I guess and then uh did that for a couple of years is so bad I realized I had to go to business school but I was in India and I applied to in India there was this the you know you have these prestigious >> uh in Indian institute of management >> and literally got rejected by all of them uh couple of times >> then I was like I don't know what to do and and and strangely enough at that time I I got married came to the US didn't again like was trying to find a job didn't know what to do but fortunately I got into a business school here and that's when it sort of uh helped take off so I went to business school um I was trying my best to get into supply chain consulting of all things but for some reason that didn't work and so I ended up in strategy consulting and that was a window into how to solve business problems which was just absolutely fantastic you you know one project I talk about um we were literally trying to help um uh sorry craft at that time figure out a breakfast category and the next project was how to launch a skincare line for a celebrity in Hollywood kind of a thing.

9:17 So just amazing range of things uh all related to market share and market development. Fell in love with this idea of marketing which I'd never even imagined that I would be a marketer. I kind of had this really bad connotation of marketers as like really fluffy, >> you know, talkers >> kind of a thing. Um, really loved the science behind marketing and realized, oh, there's actually something here. Um, then I made a deliberate uh effort to get into performance marketing, which back then was the way to connect data and technology, you know, kind of stuff.

9:55 Did that for a bit, was in Dropbox for a while. Um uh and then you know bunch of stints across tech >> uh every every place was ended up taking on more pieces of marketing or go to market as as it uh happened and so >> um I think at this point I'm I am in a in a interesting uh space where I know a playbook which is a SAS playbook. I've had this playbook in my head for 15 years.

10:25 >> Yeah. AI is completely changing all of that playbook, right? Everything is getting disrupted from a again to your point go to market perspective. It's all fluid. >> What is marketing? What's sales? It's all fluid. >> So I am in the space of reinventing everything all over again. Um so Freshworks for me is the opportunity for me to rebuild not only what uh great marketing is for the company but what a great playbook is going to be. That's where that's how I'm here.

10:58 >> Very good. Yeah. And thank you for being so authentic, honest, and sharing your early part of the journey which many of the folks go through it. Right. I mean, again, going back to one of the points you mentioned earlier, it's never a linear up to the right. >> Yeah. >> Right. Uh you clearly identified early on that software coding is not your thing and decided to go to B school. >> Uh and you stuck to it. Even though you got rejected at the IM in India, you stuck to it and that really was an inflection point in your career.

11:29 >> Yeah. >> And if I look at your LinkedIn profile, so you were at >> Clarkston Consulting that that's where Yeah. >> I believe you're talking about the early all the different consulting >> engagements and starting consulting. >> Yeah. >> That's right. Yeah. And and that's the thing, right? like uh you you go to these uh companies you you go into these professions thinking you'll get one thing but you get something completely different >> right >> um so at Clarkston and then I went to this other company called IRI the biggest biggest learning there was how to manage large amounts of data and be able to process data and to make fine-tuned decisions based on that data.

12:09 So to give you an example, almost every retailer in the entire world runs on 1 to 2% gross margin, right? That's that's what they run on. Correct. Which means that a single uh penny of um pricing on one of their commodities can make or break their year their earnings and lose like value or all that stuff. So you have to be exceedingly precise. You can't go and say, "I'm going to increase the price of sausage by from 48 cents to 49 cents." Because your CEO might get fired, >> correct, >> the next quarter.

12:44 >> Yeah. >> So, that taught me the value of data and being able to be precise when it comes to thinking about markets and all that. Took that to gaming where we had tons of data. From there, I realized technology is where the real uh leverages went to Dropboxes. So every step of the way you you kind of learn something or you you zig in a different direction than you had expected. You just have to have the resilience to >> um be uh like you need to know how that you it's okay to fail.

13:18 >> Correct. >> And the failure is just at one point in time. If you keep getting at it, you will eventually succeed. >> Right. Yeah. Exactly. And uh one of the board advisors I met a few years ago that that's the advice he gave which is failing is not really failing. It just shows you that is not the right path and you're that much closer to a winning. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. Like you look at the the what I uh what I advise a lot of younger people who are in their careers to in marketing is they go to these different companies and marketing is 18 month tenure you know the CMO tenure so invariably something happens they separate from the company and they they get very traumatized by it >> especially after the second time you're going through it you get traumatized you're like what's wrong with me but it's not what's wrong with them it's the >> the fit doesn't exist So every time something like that happens, it means you're getting closer to a place where the fit is going to be there.

14:19 >> Correct. >> So you can't give up and that's what uh I found in my life and uh I keep telling people about >> Yeah. No, very good. And then so you were in strategic consulting and then you moved and got into the tech industry and that is where you are right now and I'm looking at electronic ads. Fair enough. Gaming and then Dropbox and then outlet baby Care. you shifted to consumer uh for some point in time and then you came to Clavio.

14:48 >> Yeah. >> If I compare even like Dropbox versus Clavio, it's an entirely different go to market motion. >> Yeah. Uh yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Clavio um so Dropbox was for the most part PLG obviously. >> Correct. Um but the interesting thing about it is um we we didn't I mean it's not very apparent to the outside but Dropbox business was actually a heavily inbound >> uh motion >> similar to Claio. So the parallels there are >> Dropbox overall was PLG but Dropbox business when we were selling into business teams was u >> like heavily inbound not much outbound.

15:30 So that way Claio is also exactly the same. You could come in, start a trial, >> go through that motion. So, lot of velocity of leads coming in, low ACV, >> quick close, quick deal cycles, uh, kind of a thing. >> Yeah. So, PLG is your lead gen if you were to call it. And then, I mean, no, I'm talking about like the on the business side of things, right? So, that's going really bottoms up where you first tap into the individual user. It's not uh not quite PLG is one of the levers.

16:02 >> Yeah. >> Um if you so the way I you know I I think the industry has PLG defined wrong. Most people think PLG means two things. One is it's a premium user who comes in and then upgrades to premium. That is absolutely one of the ways. >> But when you um these users are also uh single player users. They're not multiplayer. So if you're selling into an enterprise, you want multiplayers, >> right? >> So the to go after those multiplayers, you have to give them a frictionless experience where they can come and try the product if that's the kind of product you have, >> right?

16:41 >> And so that's what I would call the inbound motion. So the inbound motion >> and the PLG motion was both sources of acquisition for us. the to drive that inbound motion, that multiplayer motion, you have to go do ads like you have to do marketing, you have to do all of the traditional >> Okay. Yeah. >> less less enterprisey but still enterprisey kind of marketing. >> Understood. Yeah. Yeah. At some point I it'll be good to really get into how you approach that because there's one playbook or maybe you can get into even right now.

17:13 So there's one playbook of Yes. Let's say it's an enterprise company and you have like five two to five individual users who are using who came through PLG and then now they're paid customers right enterprise place typically now you see that there are two to five users and then you start >> talking to the management that's that's one way where with sales overlay sales you would try to figure that out sales >> assistant correct so exactly but uh if you think about it right like you let's take um a tax AI tax assistant. Okay, so >> you have a proumer motion which is you're basically trying to go after all of the people who want it who want it as a single player mode for their own personal use.

17:59 >> So that becomes a motion that you have to define and some of them may become more paid users at some point because they need more access, more sharing, more whatever that is. Yeah. >> But if you ignore that altogether, you you have a tax assistant that you can actually go and sell to let's call it legal firms. >> Mhm. >> And those these are small SMB customers and they will likely buy two to three licenses, but it is a sale from a a package perspective. Yeah.

18:29 >> So to go after those people, you you don't necessarily you can't rely on brand awareness. you have to go and actually target those people through specific marketing. Now when they come to your door, you have the quick turn um uh hot hand off to a a sales team that closes the deal etc etc or sales assist you know whatever that is >> and then some of them may upgrade into 50 licenses if they're a big enough company.

18:57 >> Yeah. Then you if we if and when you int introduce real enterprise features you start selling to larger firms and in which case you're talking about an outbound motion. So you have a a sales team who's actually going outbounding to big legal firms and saying buy 100 licenses from us. >> Yes. >> Correct. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. And and again going back to the the fundamental the initial conversation which is go to market capturing market share and expanding and defining the segments and so on. Yeah.

19:27 >> So depending on the segments you're targeting, you have to build in and layer in the appropriate go to market motion. >> Correct. Yeah. Exactly. You have to think about the what is the right marketing that will help you get the messaging in front of them and then >> once they once you hook them and they get interested, how what is the the way to convert them into a sale? Is it through your website which is PLG?

19:52 >> Correct. or is it through a you know low touch uh sales motion or is it a hightouch sales motion? So it depends on on that. >> Yeah, fair enough. And then if you extend this conversation and go to marketplace. >> Yeah. >> And going back to one of the points you mentioned earlier that you learned uh in your consulting gigs, >> consulting uh job which is the impact on the financial metrics and the finances, >> right? So how do you go about thinking about the different go to market motions and how does it translate to the n on income sheet income statement and balance sheet and the margins and so on.

20:28 So how do you think in those directions? >> Um for SAS it's um for uh you know for consumer tech when I was at Olet for instance when you're selling a a product which is like a one-off it's a much easier uh thing to construct a P&L. You're just basically saying I'm selling this one product to this person. I expect hundred of those people to show up and this is the gross margin impact of manufacturing it. This is you know all that kind of stuff. In SAS it becomes so much more complex. In AI it's even more complex.

21:00 >> That's true. >> Um because of the the both the pricing models as well as the um the way you're thinking about the their LTV. >> Mhm. So if you the the my heristic has always been you you bring somebody in with the expectation that they're going to be around for five years on your platform. >> Mhm. >> So you have your platform should be good enough that your net dollar retention should be higher than 100%. Right. So that you're they're getting value from it. And then at some point because you may have the right features, you are then helping expand them so that your net dollar retention goes to 170%.

21:39 >> Right? >> Not just 100%. >> Yeah. >> So your LTV becomes a much bigger chunk. >> Uh even though your bookings are going to be m like very limited. >> Um and so that flows it into kind of that P&L as you think about it. Um, where I think it gets complicated and we saw some of this in Claio is when you suddenly start to have different ways of monetizing your customer base. Some you sell as licenses, some you sell as consumption and that becomes uh super complicated. I honestly that's one area that I I have to dig into a little bit more in terms of how you recognize revenue when you have those vastly complex metering systems.

22:24 >> Correct. Yeah. No, but you brought up a good point, right, which is you go in with the assumption or hypothesis that first of all, your product has to be good. I mean, that's >> that that's a given. >> I mean, no amount of marketing and sales can fix the issue if the product is okay or average. That that's number one. >> And second, I like the way you approached it, Carrie, which is around assume that yeah, once you get a customer, once you earn a customer, they're there for five years.

22:52 >> Yeah. And then think about the financial implications like the NDR >> uh and then the upsell cross-ell motions and everything that can play into that one customer or customer segment. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's also interesting, right? Like the sometimes the way you land uh in in in like the kind of feature set that you land a customer in can determine how big their expansion can be, >> right? >> So the landing zone can determine your expand expansion revenue. So you have to be you have to experiment your way into what's the right >> because if you if you have them come in and take to and sign a million dollar deal right off the bat unless they see massive value you lose them >> they don't that's too much but you don't want to start with 30,000 so what's the right >> middle ground >> yeah so curious I mean typically most of that liver or the thought process is between the sales the sales leader and the finance So what is your role as a CMO in terms of what is the right balance at least for initial ACV?

23:56 >> Uh yeah it's true. It's uh mostly it lives in the world of um sales and finance but the the construction of the pricing and the packaging uh is not that framework. >> Yeah. >> It lives anywhere the CEO chooses it should live. But at Clavio, I had that under my uh my remitt. >> Got it. >> Where we basically helped redesign what the pricing and packaging structure of the company or the platform should be.

24:27 >> Right. >> And it wasn't necessarily because of anything I did. It was more because we were trying to define a category, a new category. So we felt at that time that we could bring in the right value proposition because we were doing so much work on the product side and translating that product to benefits and all that kind of stuff. I think it's more you you have to have a very strong understanding of what's in the market, how competitive you are.

24:55 >> Yeah. >> Um what what's really innovative about your feature set and what is the elast elasticity of your customers, right? If you have a deep understanding >> it and most CRO have this understanding. So then it makes sense for them to be able to invol get involved there >> and figure this out >> knowing also that as sales teams go and and sell it. They are going to discount. They're going to be special deals like you have to think about you know the the deal desk you have to take think about the applications to revre and all that kind of stuff.

25:32 >> Yeah. Um yeah I >> I know we can just go on and on. >> Oh yeah it's so many things. Yeah >> so many things over there because I when you're talking about all those things in my mind I'm thinking about okay how do you build a narrative a narrative that even initially opens the doors >> for the salespeople to engage in a conversation with certain accounts right let's just yeah if you can share that and then we can go into the next segment. Yeah it'll be good if you can share how you approach the narrative building part.

26:01 Yeah, you know I it can get as complex as multiple years of effort. It can be as simple as okay CEO and uh someone getting in a room and then whiteboarding it. >> Yeah, >> it um but I like to keep things simple. I think it's it's it's I I use two frameworks. Um there's one called ABCD. A A stands for audience. B is benefits and I'll talk about that in a second. >> Yeah. C is um compelling RTBs or reasons to believe and D is dramatic differentiation. So whatever you're trying to sell, if you can get clear in your mind, I am selling to um attorneys who need tax software to help them manage X Y and Z. My the benefits to them are they can they don't have to hire parallegals. They can improve productivity. The emotional benefit for them. So there are two right rational benefit, emotional benefit.

27:01 >> Yeah. >> Uh and the emotional benefit to them is that they can actually get work done faster and look good in front of their >> Mhm. >> bosses, whatever. Yeah. >> The compelling RTB is 10 of the biggest law firms in the world use the software, >> right? >> The social proof. And then the differentiation is uh we we have the best trained AI models that nobody else on the market has. we are the only or we are the best at X Y and Z. So you you literally is if if when you're a good product marketer, you have to be able to put that entire thing down on one page.

27:39 >> Correct? >> So that it's uh anybody in the company, anybody in the sales team can just repeat understand that, repeat that and just bring it out there. Right? So >> that's you you use that to start building the story around it. Then you build the story. You're like what's happening in the world? Um I don't know if you have heard of something called um the hero's journey. >> Yeah, I did. Yeah. >> Yeah. So that's the second framework I use is you build a story which basically starts with the idea that there's something happening in the world some big context. Y >> and this hero the customer is going on this journey >> but suddenly some problem appears or some problem they have a problem and they have to overcome that problem and here's what they >> like we are the Yoda >> and here's how we solve that problem and then this is what you get out of it you know kind of a thing >> and that makes it exceedingly compelling for uh >> as a as and that's as simple as that you know like as simple as putting that together going to market with it testing it, experimenting, moving on.

28:45 >> No, great, great framework. I mean, it's easy for anyone. I mean, especially this is good advice for the listeners. Just pick a framework in in your case, Carrie, you just created this framework ABCD >> and made it really simple to understand and made it sticky. I think that that's a key especially for a good marketer. How do you build concepts that are sticky? because you need to get your internal audience to adopt and use that at the end of day >> and say that over and over or if they change it then change it in their own ways. Yeah, agree.

29:16 >> Cool. >> All right, let's go get into the next segment of the show which is a go to market success story and a pivot story. I'll let you choose which one you want to start with either a success or a pivot but yeah all yours. Um I think a success story is uh so you know I c I talk about this concept of a multi-threaded marketer. >> Mhm. >> And uh one of the things that I did in my previous AI startup was um I built what we called a CEO influence uh flywheel. So basically what it is is the the idea of a multi-threaded marketer is to how to create these flywheels of growth in both small and big ways. One of the things we identified was our CEO had a massive LinkedIn following like I don't know some 2 million 3 million something like that >> and uh uh he we were not doing much with it. So >> was it was this at light speeded or somewhere?

30:12 >> Uh you.com you.com. Okay. >> Yeah. So we would we would go to uh so we would have him post something on on the on his LinkedIn. Then we would have uh people go and look through the people who have interacted with that post, liked it, whatever. >> We would uh filter that through an ICP fit. >> Yeah. gr those people either send that list to our BDRs to BDR or of the people that were really ICP fit like a CEO of X Y andZ that we were trying to target we would um put them on this named account list that we would then invite to a dinner or an event or something like that and then we did host a couple of those dinners with those people and that yielded more data more topics of conversation so that then becomes another LinkedIn post.

31:02 >> Yeah. You see like the way I'm drawing that circle. So that uh turned out to be pretty effective. I think we drove like 10 x MQLs >> in a short space of time type of a thing which was >> u pretty helpful. I mean I can talk about a bunch of experiments like that that didn't work but this one was was pretty good. >> Yeah. And this is a great example. I think it's becoming even more important and relevant in today's world where >> it's just not the company LinkedIn handle or the brand handle that has to be active. It's eventually people to people can get people at the end of the day >> and you caught that unique advantage that you had at you.com which is the CEO active that that's number one. It was not like you had to train the CEO to be active on social media, >> but then how do you create a playbook?

31:54 First of all, sit down with the CEO, understand the different themes and then >> create have a team behind in creating that playbook and then sending out beacons and signals which >> are >> which the audience are catching and then based on the title or the responsibilities or the company size, you bucket and steer them into the different >> Yeah. Yeah. Um like either SDR or it's a dinner round table that you mentioned. >> Correct. Correct. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun when we did that and it's also interesting, exciting, right? People when you crowdsource ideas, you have >> um Yeah, it was fun.

32:31 >> Actually, let's double click on this concept of multi-threaded marketer. You mentioned that I know we just graze the surface in this, but can you double click on that? why it's relevant especially in the day of AI nowadays. >> Yeah. You know, when you when you think about like the 15 years or 20 years of uh SAS experience that I've had, I I've almost always organized my team as product marketing, brand and demand genen. Those are the general pillars for marketing. Right.

33:03 >> And in on the sales side, you have the same like either geographies or whatever. >> Correct. um but and and that that assumed that each of those people had a specific skill set that they have built over time. So it was like an apprentichip type of a model or a junior PMM then you become a VP of PMM >> and but in so so it was very hard for a VP of PMM to then become a CMO because then you don't have that 20 years of experience in the other very few people actually made that jump >> correct >> in the world of AI what's happening is you don't need that much specialized knowledge you can basically create your own um uh set of understanding of each of the other things that you don't know as long as you have one spike and you know how to solve business problems.

33:52 >> Correct? >> So it it comes down to how do you clarify what the objective is? What are you trying to go after? Okay, we want to win the market share in this by these five levers, >> right? >> Clarify it. Use AI to augment the knowledge that you have and then go run at it, right? >> Create these growth loops or flywheels and experiment your way and get get it done. So that requires a different kind of a marketer. A marketer who is uh very conversent with using AI. It doesn't have to be AI native but knows how to draw on the knowledge uh of these other pillars that they don't know.

34:30 >> It requires somebody who can have clarity of thought in terms of how to >> anchor on a specific objective or business outcome. It needs somebody who can think and connect the dots across multiple AI systems and create the right go to market tech stack for themselves, right? >> And then like go run at it, right? So that is what I call a multi-threaded marketer is is a mini CMO essentially. >> Yeah. >> But for very small specific localized problems >> and then you kind of build it all together at some point.

35:00 >> Yeah. No, totally. I mean this is something that I'm seeing personally for myself as well as with the others in the industry and customers that I'm working with >> which it's become very easy >> for a marketer who specialized in one like to your point spike who has a spike it's very easy to now go and >> get things done earlier you had to lean on like for a content marketer or a brand person or a demand genen but now it's so much easier if you take the example of what you mentioned earlier.

35:32 Let's say it's a AI software that you are selling to legal firms. >> Yeah. >> Right. And we know that we're targeting a segment like individual users, but we do have a hypothesis and want to experiment with. Okay. How do I sell it and increase it to five seat? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, as a product marketer or someone who's curious, it doesn't matter. >> Right. And now with the help of AI, I know that I can do quick analysis and research.

35:55 >> Yeah. >> Right. and put together this is my business case for expanding from single to a five team >> segment >> and I'll quickly put together a landing page >> it can all be done >> yeah correct it can all be done and so the gating there is not the knowledge it's how quickly you can take action >> correct >> how quickly you can learn from it >> yeah exactly >> yeah so that's the concept of a multi-threaded market it's almost like it's it comes from a software engineering background right when you're when you're doing a lot of different things to achieve a certain outcome.

36:29 >> Yeah. Yeah. For sure. >> Yeah. >> All right. Uh so I know we talked about a go to market success story and how about a go to market pivot story. >> Um pivot as in where we expanded a goto market motion. I I'll talk about that for a second. Actually this idea of um self-s serve sales assist is the is a good one because we uh at Clavio you know we had a we didn't have a PLG motion we had a inbound motion like I said and then we had started to introduce an outbound motion to go sell to big companies >> what we realized was the the platform was such that you could come to the platform and up basically you have to upload your contacts and then you can try out a few features people would start uploading about 200 contacts, play around with the features, and then they would get stuck when they wanted to do more and they would just leave at that point because there was nobody to help them out because they are free users. So, they don't get access to professional services and all that. So, we introduced the self-serve sales assist which is basically back then >> I'm saying back then it's 2019 was a chatbot. Yeah, >> essentially.

37:41 >> Okay. Um we it was a chatbot that you could interact with and then it would kick you over to a product specialist if it got complex. >> So we introduced that and immediately just completely opened up a whole revenue stream for us uh for those people who really wanted to do more but couldn't and they were getting stuck in product and we were able to Yeah. So that I I'd say that's that was one um that was one version of a pivot. The other one actually now that I'm thinking about it is uh at when I was at Lightseed we were selling to hospitality customers which is basically dining restaurants you know that kind of stuff.

38:21 >> Um I think the company had started as a we'll sell to everybody on the planet. >> Mhm. >> Small mom and pop shops to Michelin star restaurants. >> Yeah. So my my um CEO decided no we need we we because the product was made for complex workflows that we would only sell to a certain kind of customer. >> Yeah. >> That was a crazy pivot to make because you have to retool the entire company right to say no more small mom and pops only focus on this >> right. Um so I started a project called ICP um ICP project which uh crazily enough I was slacking one of my people late at night. Uh I said we really have to get this ICP project off the ground for some strange reason. Slack changed the ICP to hug Jim. I don't know why. Hug Jim.

39:20 >> Okay. >> Yeah. And then that he was his name is Richard. He's completely confused. What is hug Jim? I I explained it to him. He's like, "Oh, we we should just call this hugjim." So that became a thing like we announced it at SEO. He like made it a project. So everything became about Hagim meaning like we are >> pivoting to ICP. It was it was great but my god it took me 18 months to do.

39:45 >> Mhm. >> Accidental ICP changed to Hajim. That that's a interesting and funny story. >> Crazy, right? Yeah. >> Yes. So, so again that the point you made there in that story Krie which is the CEO saying yes earlier on we are selling to pretty much anyone mom and pop to high-end Michelin star restaurants but then identifying the segment >> was the key strategic decision. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So what really drove I mean what was >> the buildup to why it had to come down to that moment and what changed?

40:22 uh I so I can't take any credit for that. I think when they were putting together a um analysis for capital markets day they realized that uh we were the best ARPA customers were in a certain segment. >> So they that's where the churn was lowest was highest NDR was amazing. >> Yeah. >> And so then they started digging into it and saying what why are these customers so special? Did we see something uh like did we do something accidental? But it turned out those customers were the ones who really loved the product. Our seesat for that customer segment was amazing through the roof.

41:00 >> Um which also then led to this other questions around okay but why that means that's because they loved the our ability to take care of their comp. So you know we to make this real we were selling to companies like a vineyard which also had a hotel resort >> which also had a warehousing operation. >> Got it. >> And there was nobody on the market who could take that complexity and help them be to to create the the operations behind it. Um so that's what we were doing and so that that went that became a light bulb moment of oh wow we have crazy product market fit in this and >> if we can just get a few more of this then we are good to go and the interesting thing about that is we did find that it was all about um uh like a we did find that m majority of that ICP was Michelle and star restaurants like really complex restaurants when we put a label to it. It became much more real.

42:03 Then we started to say, "Okay, now how do we go and there are I think 100 oh no sorry maybe I'm wrong a thousand or so Michelin star restaurants in Paris alone. >> How do we go convert that?" >> Yeah. >> So then we went geography by geography started to really attack that from a market share perspective and say okay we have 7% of market share in Belgium. What do we need to do? And we would do like really scrappy things. We would create this thing called light speeded awards and you know for 5,000 bucks we would get people in a room together give out awards.

42:40 >> You won't believe it Vijay but we went from 7% market share to 19% >> in like a year's time in some of those geographies. It was insane. So clarity and then really diving into um like the smallest smallest surface area you can you can think of. >> Correct. >> Go start to attack. >> Yes. >> And then rapidly do that over and over and over. >> Yeah. I mean that that's a point exactly which I was mentioning earlier and which the founders mentioned yesterday which is riches are in the niches, >> right? But the key is really identifying or acknowledging that you need to niche down further. Yep.

43:20 >> So in the case of Clavio, what was that trigger that led the CEO and the team to okay now we need to niche down further like what was the trigger moment? >> The so this was light speeded. Um >> sorry yeah light speeded. Yeah >> I think it was u it was mainly the the analysis that the finance team had put together. I think that's basically what it was which was interesting. Right. I don't think I I I do think there were signals, a lot of signals that many customers were unhappy, some customers were amazing, they would >> give us um they were sending us other leads but we had never not been able to uh put that together and say this is the reason why like this this set of customers. So I I think you know we like to think that uh when we say ICP it's just this one magic wand that creates clarity.

44:15 >> Yeah. >> For everybody saying oh yeah get we get it. This is ICP. This is why it is but it takes more work to define it. Why are these people ICP? What >> binds them together? >> Yes. Is it ICP because we want it to be an ICP? Yeah. >> Or is it because they are these this is the kind of people they are or this kind of customer they are or you know that kind of stuff. I think that's the most important thing to define as a marketer or even a CRO.

44:46 >> Yeah. No, fair enough. In fact, a lot of folks make this mistake uh which is when they go down and start doing this ICP exercise, it's typically like thermographic or maybe to some extent techraphic and then you have the type of person they create all the fictional characters and all that. But what I've seen really work and tying back to your success story Kaddy is around >> identifying the characteristics. Right. In your case, it was a vertically integrated >> Yeah. a Michelin star or a vineyard.

45:20 >> Yeah. >> Right. All the way from vineyard to warehousing to a restaurant. >> Yeah. >> And they have a unique set of problems. >> That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And I like the way you said that it was vertically integrated and then as soon as you say something like that, then suddenly it creates clarity for the sales team, right? They know who they're going after. They know what to look for. They know what kind of discovery questions.

45:44 >> Yeah. >> To find out. Yeah. Very cool. I know we are almost coming to towards the end of the show. I know we can go on and on. Maybe we should get you uh a second time later. >> Sure. >> Uh couple of other questions. Uh like when people come to you for advice specifically around go to market, what are those one or two areas that they think of, hey, this is something Carrie is really good at and we should pick her brains on this. I think it's uh what is what what it has been in the p in in the past is because I advise a bunch of uh VC companies as well as uh as startups is it's always about what go to market motion do I need to pick >> because in my career I've had the privilege of seeing a lot of different things I've seen constructed PLG inbound sales outbound partner >> and there's always a mix and match of what you have to do right you can be a PLG company and then eventually migrate to an outbound motion it's very hard to do it the reverse >> right >> right you when you're selling to big enterprise you have that it's very very very hard for you to rearchitect everything to become PLG so >> it's uh that's the one thing that that uh people come to me for over and over the second one is actually ICP definition >> a lot of people companies uh especially startup they go through a period of massive growth in the beginning where they found that early adopter community.

47:14 >> Yeah. >> Um but for some reason they can't translate that to the next scurve of growth. >> Uh and then the questions start like why and and then you start losing some of those early customers. >> Yeah. >> And then you you have to really think through what does that mean? Who are we going after? What's the sub is that a subset of a bigger >> set of customers etc. the ICP definition is is one thing that um it's like a make or break for every company but especially for startups.

47:43 >> Yeah. And then being really clear and having the conviction that this is the ICP and we're not going any going after any other ICP is really critical because that'll drive the messaging. >> Yeah. >> And your sales motion or go to market motion. >> Yeah. No. And and you know the the other thing is the discipline and holding to it is going to be important because >> I have seen companies which are selling to uh their average ACV the way they're set up is they're selling to an average ACV of 30,000. Right.

48:15 >> Mhm. >> Then suddenly a $1 million opportunity comes knocking on the door. Which salesperson is going to turn that away? >> Exactly. Yeah. >> But it's going to take six months to close. is going to need all kinds of bespoke work, custom work to be done and all of a sudden you're putting a bunch of pressure on the engineering team to create some instance that is not the so at that point the leadership has to take a decision is the cost worth all of this >> correct >> and if you're in a competitive environment or under pressure for making your numbers >> that becomes an extremely hard decision to make >> yeah absolutely it's like shortterm revenue win for sure you at a a mini spike but then is it worth the cost as you said right product will be under pressure >> sales not sales but post sales will be under pressure to deliver and then you don't know from a customer support point of view and who knows 6 12 18 months later that customer would churn >> plus the your your board is telling you >> I mean why didn't you sign this customer maybe that's a new direction you should go in because >> all boards want like big sticky customers >> but the minute you let's say you sign it, you get a small portion of the promised revenue and what if you don't get the rest of it? You've done all of this. So, it's it's a very man I I really um I have empathy for CEOs because these decisions are so hard to make.

49:40 >> Yes. Yeah. Completely. All right. Uh last couple of questions for you. Um >> like who are like the two three people who have really helped shape your career overall? >> Yeah I mean the the the person that comes to mind most is my current CEO Dennis. I used to work for him uh back at Dropbox and he is just one of the most uh the smartest guys I've met but extremely logical rational and first principles oriented in how he approaches decisions >> and um the kind of the questions he asks the incisiveness of his um insights and decisions in how we what we need to do.

50:29 I've learned so much from him uh >> in terms of like really driving the business forward and ensuring he's also a systems thinker. He knows how all of this comes together and for me that's that's an important one. So he's someone I really admire and like I learn from him every day every day. Um, I'd say the uh I think the um let's see on the business side I think that's probably those are probably that's he he's definitely the the the biggest one I can think of.

50:59 >> I did have a few mentors >> when I was in my consulting company um >> there there was a partner there who gave me my first start uh if you will. Gosh, like the way he managed people, the way he sort of uh created a a an environment of safety and respect. >> Yeah. >> Unbelievable. So, I don't think I'm there yet, but that's what I aim to be. Like, I keep wanting to be in that uh on that journey of where, you know, where he wants to go. I I' I feel like you can learn from everybody, even the the worst the best learnings have come from who I thought were the worst managers.

51:41 >> Yeah. because I was like, I'm never going to be like that person. >> Exactly. Yeah. It's it's like you start building your blueprint. >> Yeah. >> Uh in terms of who you want to be and who you don't want to be with all these mentors and >> Yeah. >> on both sides. All right. Uh the final question for you is if you were to turn back clock to day one of your go to market journey, >> what advice would you give to the younger caddy?

52:05 I actually think um I would tell people to go and become a salesperson first. Become an AE, a BDRE, learn to knock on doors, learn to accept no. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Learn to take rejection because man, that is a very useful skill set. >> So true. >> Yeah. >> Great. Uh excellent. Thank you so much, Carrie. Enjoy the conversation. Good luck to you and the team at Freshworks. >> Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

52:33 >> Hi there. Thank you for listening to this episode of the B2B gotomarket leaders podcast. I have all of the show notes and a full transcript on stratum.com s t a t y v.com. Subscribe on Apple Podcast or wherever you get a podcast. Leave a rating and a review. Your comments will help other go to market professionals find this podcast.