RB2B reposted this
In 2020, when I joined Apollo as the President & COO, they were stuck at single-digit ARR for over five years. Here’s the 6-step GTM playbook they used to get unstuck and become a billion dollar behemoth: BACKGROUND: Four years ago, the B2B data market was just as crowded as it is today. With companies like... ZoomInfo, D&B, Lusha, RocketReach, Cognism, LeadIQ, 6Sense, Seamless, Uplead, Lead411 and many more. ZoomInfo and D&B were clearly the market leaders and most other companies followed their product and GTM strategies as a recipe for success. But not Apollo. They took a different path. Here’s the 6-step GTM playbook they used to differentiate themselves and become a Unicorn: 1. Do something different: - If you do not have a differentiated product then go for a differentiated GTM - Apollo doubled down on PLG as their primary GTM channel while other vendors focused on enterprise sales with PLG as their secondary channel 2. Follow trends, fulfill unmet demand: - Getting the timing right is important when pursuing a contrarian strategy - The timing for Apollo’s PLG approach was perfect because Covid created massive demand for SMB data tools 3. Brand Awareness: - Apollo’s Programmatic SEO was not helpful for enterprise sales but it helped accelerate SMB and individual sales - Perpetually free plans and low priced plans ensured word of mouth virality 4. Hiring the right team: - When doing PLG it is important to build a low cost sales structure with low monthly quotas where reps celebrate $5K/yr deals and not ignore single seat opps - Bulk of the inbound sales team was hired out of LATAM with relatively high ROI 5. Understand SMB Churn: - SMBs are cost conscious and churn rapidly. If they get access to multiple tools for the same price, it can reduce churn. - SMBs only use 20% of the feature set of enterprises. Perfect use case to develop an entire GTM stack for the same price to increase stickiness 6. Turning power users/ agencies into brand advocates : - With individual solutions that are free, it is common to get millions of ‘indebted’ users. Most companies do not squeeze enough value of these free users. - Leveraging these users on social media to generate UGC content can significantly increase brand recognition and amplify outreach Of course, there was much more to it.. That's why tomorrow (at 12pm PT), in a LIVE session with Adam Robinson, I'm breaking down in detail the GTM playbook Apollo used to go from single-digit ARR, to exponential revenue growth and landing a $100M investment from Sequoia. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gWzUUrzF
This is 🥇🪙, valid for 90% of saas companies out there: "if you don't have a differentiated product, you need a differentiated gtm."
Excellent insights Santosh Sharan ! Curious if you found that any of those advocacy strategies help your team in developing a more sustainable acquisition channel - better insight regarding potential churn triggers and feature requests eventually leading to better targeting, positioning and ROAS?
I am interested to know how you segmented and converted your free users in the PLG approach. That is a challenge for many companies that often leads to offers of free trials instead.
Love this playbook.
I thought it was just because they charged significantly less than everyone else and didn’t require lock in contracts
This is interesting Santosh, and takes me back to your "Alignment" theory. Where you said, "every business wants to grow, you just come in and align them" and can't imagine how hard it must be to shift focus from enterprises to SMB. The amounts of doubts it must've raised, bringing everyone together etc.
"4. Hiring the right team: - When doing PLG it is important to build a low cost sales structure with low monthly quotas where reps celebrate $5K/yr deals and not ignore single seat opps - Bulk of the inbound sales team was hired out of LATAM with relatively high ROI" Latam is the future.
#1 is spot on Santosh - Either have a differentiated product or GTM. Looking forward to the live session!
Number 6 is key. I worked in the SMB data space for years and of the 100s of competitive deals I worked, Apollo where the only vendor I came up against that actually had 'fans' who where involved - directly or indirectly - in their community.
Senior Director of Marketing | Content Operations, Pipeline Generation
2moSantosh Sharan -- When you say "Apollo's Programattic SEO was not helpful for enterprise sales," is your take that programattic seo as a tactic creates content that generally won't attract enterprise prospects or that Apollo's content specifically was not targeted at enterprise sales?