Attention

Here's something every org should learn from Anis and the team at Attention. They've put on a masterclass in building a company the right way: 1. Positioning messaging in a crowded market 2. Growth hacking 3. Leveraging creators and creating buzz Congrats on the Series A. Massive!!!!

Yesterday Attention.com announced a huge $14 million series A round of funding. Talk about a company that’s actually doing super cool things with AI. Over my sales career, I’ve helped companies bring in over $550 million in revenue, and I wish this existed back in 2017. Attention helps sales & revenue teams get more out of their customer conversations, by providing actionable insights, so they can make informed decisions and drive growth. This funding highlights the growing demand for Attention's AI product and solutions as the business saw a 10x revenue increase this year. Their customers already include big names like Crunchbase, BambooHR, Aircall, Clay and others. I’ve worked with many great companies in the past, but this has to be one of the most exciting. They’re solving huge problems like: 🟣 helping teams become more customer-centric 🟣 incomplete and undependable CRM data 🟣 getting coaching tips to help new reps 🟣 having too many sales tools 🟣 missing sales targets As someone who’s worked in tech sales, there are so many things to do and so little time in the day. The thing I hated doing the most was weekly reporting, remembering action items, and sending follow up emails. Attention is taking the game to the next level by eliminating all of that 🔥 Congrats to their CEO Anis, their CTO Matthias and the entire team. If you’re interested in a company actually doing cool things with AI—go follow and check out Attention.com! #fundraising #seriesA #salestech #startups #AttentionPartner

I moved to NYC a month ago without a plan. Crashing on my cousin's couch, I dove into researching NYC tech startups and discovered Attention—a company that immediately captivated me. With a team of all-stars, a killer product, and a spot in a winner-take-all market, I knew I had to get involved. Despite no careers page or open roles, I took a chance and reached out directly to Stewart White, hoping to join his team and help grow the business. 10 days later, I started my first day. Since then, every day has been an exciting journey of learning and making an impact. 🎉 I'm super excited to share that Attention has just raised a $14M Series A! Our mission is to automate the tedious work out of customer conversations, letting sales teams focus on what really matters—their customers. By streamlining admin tasks and providing actionable insights, we're changing how businesses interact with clients. In the short time I've been here, I've seen firsthand how our platform is helping companies boost win rates, shorten sales cycles, and become more customer-centric. If you're interested in learning more about what we're doing at Attention, feel free to reach out or check us out at attention.com. Now back to work.

The past two months have been an exciting journey, working with a team that is driven, passionate, and laser-focused on transforming the way organizations operate. We've achieved so much in a short time, and I’m thrilled to share that we’ve secured our $14M Series A funding! This new milestone is not just a testament to the hard work of everyone here but also the potential Attention holds in helping teams double their capacity, streamline processes, and drive growth like never before. Being part of this next phase is beyond exciting, and I can’t wait to see how we’ll continue to evolve and innovate. Grateful to be on this ride with such an amazing team and to all the support from our partners, customers, and investors. Here's to the next stage of growth!

Move over Gong! Congrats to fast growing, NYC based, Eniac Ventures seeded Attention on their $14M Series A 🚀 Been inspiring to watch Anis Bennaceur and Matthias Wickenburg alongside my partner Hadley Harris iterate through PMF and blast off TY Samantha Stokes for the scoop @ https://lnkd.in/dzhP6PsR

July 29, 2024 - I went from working at a corporate consulting firm to a small office with 5 people in it. The future seemed incredibly bright, but there was no doubt that this felt like a seed-stage startup. A few weeks later, we onboarded three new team members and had to move to the corner office of our building - the biggest in the space. Matthias left his coding den to join us, and we recently hired one more. We can barely fit in our current space, and the energy keeps on climbing. While we are still a tight-knit group, the energy around the office feels entirely different. We are still very much an early-stage startup, don’t get me wrong. But I feel fortunate to have experienced what seems like two entirely different phases of the company in such a short period of time. The backdrop of all of this change has been, of course, our $14M Series A funding round, which I am beyond excited to announce. The team has put in an incredible amount of work over the last few years, and things are really starting to take off. An early lesson I have learned is to not sit on your victories for too long. We will enjoy the day, but everyone is still buckled down, continuing to work. There is no better inbound/outbound day than a funding announcement ;) This rocket ship has a long way to go before we hit the stars. Can’t express how excited I am to continue to help us drive there.

Some exciting news 🥳 - we’ve raised $14 million in Series A investment led by Alven, with additional participation from Eniac Ventures, 645 Ventures, AGLAÉ VENTURES , Frst and Liquid 2 Ventures. This is a significant milestone for us, and I’m proud to be part of such an amazing team. I’ve been reflecting on our journey, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important reason for our success-to-date is our team’s relentless focus on customer success. Shoutout to Matthias Wickenburg, Anis Bennaceur, Jacob Fleisher, and the entire team who consistently go above and beyond to keep our customers happy (check out what one of our customers said below!). Whether it’s building custom features over the weekend or jumping on late-night calls for international clients, their dedication is second to none. And of course shout-out to our early customers (Crunchbase, BambooHR, Aircall, Clay to name a few) for taking a chance on us. Our long-term vision is centered around the idea of customer obsession. Whether it’s sales teams closing new deals, product teams gathering insights for their roadmap, or marketers refining campaigns based on testimonials - we believe that the most impactful workflows in any business start with the voice of the customer. We know there’s an incredible opportunity to use AI to extract insights and automate workflows from these face-to-face conversations. And with this new funding, we’re ready to bring that vision to life 🚀 P.S. If you're fed up with the limitations of your current call recording tool, give us a shout! We’re ready to build the future with you 🤝

Today I’m incredibly excited to announce Attention’s $14m series A, led by Alven with participation from 645 Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Aglae, Frst, and Liquid2. We started Attention with the goal of automating work out of your sales conversations, and filling the CRM was only the beginning. It's very clear to us that revenue teams have never had true visibility into what was happening, and building the best possible intelligence and workflows for our clients has been helping them generate millions of dollars in bottom line. We’ve 10xd our ARR over the last 12 months and can’t wait to repeat this over the next year. A special thanks to all of our customers for your trust in us, all of our team for your hard work, and all of our existing and new investors for all your help. We’re just getting started ⚡️

The outbound strategy Attention used to add $1.2M pipeline in 4 months? The step-by-step playbook and tech steck is now available to you. ↓↓↓ Orchestrating signal-based outbound campaigns is about leveraging data and automation to target the right prospects at the right time, and on the right channel. Attention has mastered this approach. I've sat down with Anis Bennaceur, Stewart White, and Loic Jeanjean to unpack their process and share it with you all. Here's what we cover: 1. 𝗗𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗜𝗖𝗣 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴   - Identify key traits of your ideal customers   - Create 1-3 buyer personas   - Why it's key to focus on one persona per campaign 2. 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗔𝗠, 𝗦𝗔𝗠, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝗢𝗠 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 Apollo.io   - Start with existing account data   - Expand your list using ICP trait filters   - Use lead scoring to tier your segments 3. 𝗘𝗻𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 Cargo (YC S23) 🧱   - Import and analyze SAM in Cargo   - Find lookalike accounts with Ocean   - Enrich accounts with waterfall research 4. 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗮𝘃𝗲𝘀   - Group high-score accounts in themed waves.   - Customize outreach messaging for each wave. 5. 𝗘𝗻𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵   - Enhance deliverability with Instantly.ai   - Personalize messaging with AI   - Automate sequence enrollment with La Growth Machine 6. 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿, 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀   - Track key metrics   - Learn signal/messaging/persona fit   - Test and iterate on your campaigns Want the full playbook? Comment "𝗢𝘂𝘁𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱" and I'll DM it to you personally (no automation). (𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸).

Yesterday was a masterclass for any founder. I even met a founder who jumped on a red-eye to NYC just to attend this. Got to see Brian Chesky, Eric Glyman, and Keith Rabois talk about founder mode & the art of hiring (thanks Ramp for hosting!!). It comforted me in many contrarian decisions that we were making, but also challenged some other views that we had. 10 key takeaways from the Brian Chesky talk: 1) The CEO should be the chief product officer of their company, as they should know the most about the product. 2) Founder mode involves being in the details and practicing presence, not absence, in leadership. 3) Companies should have a functional organization structure rather than a divisional one to reduce bureaucracy and improve efficiency. 4) CEOs should review all work on a regular cadence, similar to how Steve Jobs operated at Apple. 5) When hiring, start with results and work backwards to find the right people, rather than focusing on resumes or brand names. 6) References are crucial in hiring and should be prioritized over interviews, with extensive reference checks recommended. 7) The 3 key functions reporting to the CEO should be engineering, product marketing, and design. 8) When scaling, look for people who are doing things six months ahead of what they should be doing, not six months behind. 9) To attract talent in early stages, leverage networks, constantly tell the company's story, and use investors to help recruit. 10) When closing candidates, try talking them out of the job at the end, spend a lot of time with them, and have trusted people advocate for your company. Over the weekend, I’ll be finalizing a longer piece on what was discussed throughout the entire day. Worth its weight in gold. If you’re interested in receiving it, drop a note in the comments :)