The 21st of January 2023,  saw the first SaaS Founder meetup held in Bangalore to resounding success. With the purpose of assisting SaaS founders in Bangalore, the meetup aimed to provide valuable insights and guidance on setting up successful GTM motions, creating playbooks for global sales, building an outbound engine, cracking the enterprise segment, and much more. 

The event was hosted by Saurabh Lahoti from GTM Dialogues and Shreyas Nair from Scale It Right.

The meetup was graced by two highly experienced speakers, Arun Raveendran, Senior Director of Business Development at Whatfix, and Ajinkya Malasane, Cofounder of Playment, who shared their knowledge and expertise on the subjects at hand and their journey of building enterprise GTM across their respective stints at Foradian Technologies/Whatfix and Playment. 

Here’s everything the two gentlemen shared at the event.

Arun Raveendran’s insights

• Whatfix had achieved $2-3 million ARR but faced plateauing due to the slow decision-making process caused by having 8 co-founder friends. However, Whatfix was able to overcome this challenge by hiring individuals who were smarter and had more exposure than the founders and early team.
  This strategy is crucial for companies especially after reaching product-market fit, as it is important to not hesitate in hiring for skill and figure out the role later.
• It was noted that founders are the best sellers until PMF but remain valuable sellers throughout the company’s journey. For instance, Whatfix CEO Khadim Batti is still involved in critical deals, and the same can be said for Foradian where every founder was actively involved in sales efforts. 
• While hiring sales leaders early on, it is important to be clear about their prior experience, especially in building sales from scratch versus only building on top of a certain scale. It is usually wise to hire younger sales individuals at an early stage rather than directly hiring a VP of sales.
• Another key lesson was the importance of making smart contrarian bets. Foradian, for example, expanded to Africa before US/EU, and this decision paid off as they noticed a lot of money being invested in their market in that geo. Similarly, Whatfix focused on building a partner network instead of offering customer success for too many SMBs, which helped them build brand value and crack bigger deals later.
• Whatfix was successful due to its fast-paced decision-making culture promoted by the leadership and its experiment-friendly approach, even at scale. It was advised that hustle mode should always be on and that everyone in the team, including product and engineering, should contribute to selling and be aligned with pipeline/ARR. 
• The importance of setting up and tweaking the right processes early on was emphasized, as well as role specialization in sales to shorten sales cycles. Whatfix was able to shorten sales cycles by 25% by clearly defining SD, BD, SC, and AE roles.
• Deep persona and industry segmentation are crucial for GTM success, and some of the sales team at Whatfix were trained to become sector-specific use case experts to build customer trust.
• The importance of running experiments in pairs was emphasized as a key factor for success in sales. The idea behind this is to have two individuals work together on every new initiative, which helps in the sharing of ideas, resources, and support.
  This approach can also be applied to hires, where two reps, managers, or leaders are put in charge of every new initiative. This not only increases the efficiency and effectiveness of the process but also creates a sense of accountability and ownership.
• Whatfix places a strong emphasis on enablement and has a 45-day onboarding plan, as well as continuous upskilling for new product lines or features. Managers are mandated to provide feedback to reps and the CRO himself listens in to rep calls. It was emphasized that pricing should be focused on selling value, not features.
• In the world of startups, it is common to rely on improvisation in order to get things done quickly and efficiently. However, this approach often leads to a lack of structure and a disregard for the value of processes. Despite the fact that setting up the right processes early on can be counterintuitive, it is actually crucial for success in the long run.
  This was demonstrated by the fact that changing the sales target horizon from quarterly to monthly tangibly boosted deal momentum. In order to achieve sustainable growth, it is important to prioritize process value and ensure that the right processes are in place, even if the immediate impact is not always clear.

Ajinkya Malasane’s insights

• The decision of choosing between a go-to-market (GTM) strategy in India or the United States is a complex one, as each option comes with its own unique challenges and considerations.
• In India, the abundance of human resources available to enterprise buyers means that cost and time-saving SaaS products may not be highly valued. Additionally, dealing with Indian buyers can result in feature bloat and unexpected requests. Furthermore, revenue from Indian buyers may only come in the form of processed invoices and not directly to the bank.
• In order to be successful in a global GTM strategy, it is important to start thinking about sales know-how for each market from the very beginning and to start speaking with customers as soon as possible. This will ensure that speed, product quality, and execution are not negatively impacted by the various asterisks and catches involved in dealing with international customers and partners.
• Before formally launching your GTM strategy, it can be helpful to approach friends and connections to make initial enterprise sales. These individuals can also guide you on the right processes and individuals to approach when selling to their companies. Attending industry conferences can also be extremely valuable, as it provides the opportunity to learn from competitors and see others sell their products.
• When targeting a US GTM strategy, it is important to get your US visa sorted and to have a plan for at least one founder to move to the United States permanently. This will allow for a more direct and frequent presence in the market.
• In the world of SaaS, outbound sales skills are crucial for success. This is evident from the CTO of Github who stated in a recent video that he regrets not having a stronger ability to do outbound sales.
• When it comes to customer preferences, Indian customers may prefer products with an umbrella-like, end-to-end functionality, while American customers tend to prioritize products with limited but well-focused functionality and a strong integration strategy.
• In order to create a strong competitive advantage, it is important to consistently build a large amount of content, which can serve as an invaluable moat. This is demonstrated by a US healthcare-focused Indian SaaS unicorn, where one of the founders requires 10 writers to produce a blog post each day and selects the best one to be posted.
• Finally, when starting out in the SaaS world, it is important to focus on building a strong relationship with customers, which requires the ability to speak with them for extended periods of time to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and preferences. As a founder, your role should not be limited to CEO or CPO, but rather as a Chief PMF Officer focused on ensuring that your product delivers real value to your customers.

Panel discussion 

• One of the key takeaways from the discussion was the importance of considering the perceived value of a product to enterprise customers. As a number of panelists noted, enterprise customers often take into consideration factors such as the stability and future prospects of a company when deciding on whether to purchase a product.
  As a result, it is essential for companies to effectively communicate their value proposition and establish their credibility with enterprise customers.
• Another important consideration discussed was the role of sales in determining pricing. The panelists agreed that salespeople are often the “lid on the price” of a product and that it is important for sales teams to understand the value proposition and pricing strategy of the product they are selling.
• The panel also addressed the challenges of scaling up go-to-market strategies as companies transition from serving small and medium-sized businesses to enterprise customers. They stressed the importance of paying equal attention to support, customization, legal, and compliance considerations, in addition to sales dynamics.
• When it comes to pricing strategy, the panelists noted that it is important to have a clear understanding of the value offered by a product and to believe in that value. This belief sets the ceiling for the level and range of price that a product can be sold for.
  For “land and expand” strategies, the panelists recommended breaking down the value of a product into phases, aligned with the timeline of phased deployment.
• In addition to product value, the panelists also discussed the role of platform visibility in attracting enterprise customers. They noted that solution discovery and research by buyers often begins on platforms such as G2, Capterra, and Gartner and that having a strong presence on these platforms can be critical to success in the enterprise market, particularly in the US.

• The panelists also emphasized the importance of brand awareness and reputation in attracting enterprise customers. For example, Whatfix invests in a $1 million booth at premier conferences to communicate a certain level of service and stability to buyers.
• Finally, the panelists emphasized the need to be realistic about costs, and the value of leveraging relationships with venture capital firms to find leads and gain references.

* * *

The GTM Dialogues and Scale It Right event was a great platform for SaaS entrepreneurs and enthusiasts to gather and share their insights and experiences on Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies. 

The panel discussion hosted by Shreyas Nair was insightful, covering a wide range of topics from the challenges faced by SaaS startups in the enterprise market to the importance of pricing, product customizability, and sales dynamics. 

The speakers, Arun Raveendran and Ajinkya Malasane, shared their expertise and provided valuable insights on the various aspects of GTM that led to their success.

The event was a great success, attracting over 80 participants, and providing an opportunity for SaaS founders to network and exchange ideas with like-minded individuals. 

We would like to extend our special thanks to GTM Dialogues and Scale It Right for hosting the event, to the speakers for their valuable contributions, and to all the participants who made the event possible. 

We look forward to the next GTM Dialogues event and the opportunity to continue learning and growing in the SaaS community.