Claire Suellentrop, Co-Founder & COO of ForgetTheFunnel talks about how SaaS companies should look inwards & understand their best customers to effectively grow after reaching 1-2 $MN in ARR.
You can also watch the video on youtube here.
Hey, here's what your customers said they loved right?
Claire Sullentrop:Now, here's what your marketing is currently doing, and here's what
Claire Sullentrop:your messaging currently says.
Claire Sullentrop:Here's all the gaps where we have opportunity to tighten up that
Claire Sullentrop:messaging and go reach those customers in channels where they actually hang
Claire Sullentrop:out, not just where you're kind of.
Claire Sullentrop:Throwing ideas around because you heard that was a good idea.
Upendra Varma:Hello everyone.
Upendra Varma:Welcome to the B2B SaaS podcast.
Upendra Varma:I'm your host of pramine.
Upendra Varma:Today we have Claire Sue Andro with us.
Upendra Varma:Claire here runs a company called . Forget the Funnel.
Upendra Varma:Hey, Claire, welcome to the show.
Upendra Varma:Hey, thanks for having me.
Upendra Varma:All right, Claire, so let's talk about what forget the funnel does and
Upendra Varma:you know how you sort of help your
Claire Sullentrop:customers.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah, so forget the funnel is a boutique, uh, consulting firm.
Claire Sullentrop:We work primarily, uh, nearly exclusively with SaaS companies.
Claire Sullentrop:My co-founder, George, a Lotti, and myself, have long
Claire Sullentrop:backgrounds in SaaS marketing.
Claire Sullentrop:So I was, uh, originally the number two hire and the director
Claire Sullentrop:of marketing at Calendly.
Claire Sullentrop:That's how I got my start in SAS specifically.
Claire Sullentrop:And Gia got her start in SAS as the, uh, original director of marketing and
Claire Sullentrop:eventually VP of marketing at Unbound.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so we use our years of experience in that field and the, the growth framework
Claire Sullentrop:that we've developed together, uh, which we've named the customer led growth
Claire Sullentrop:Framework to help SAS companies rapidly figure out who within their customer
Claire Sullentrop:base are their very best customer.
Claire Sullentrop:Why do those best, most engaged stickiest customers choose their product
Claire Sullentrop:versus anything else on the market?
Claire Sullentrop:. And then based on that insight, we help them improve their positioning,
Claire Sullentrop:how they differentiate themselves, the marketing channels they use to
Claire Sullentrop:attract more of those sticky, highly engaged, you know, high L T V customers.
Upendra Varma:All right, we'll, we'll deep dive into all of those things.
Upendra Varma:I mean, it's a pretty interesting problem that you're sort of trying to solve and.
Upendra Varma:. I know it's not, not gonna be easy, right?
Upendra Varma:So we'll deep dive into that a bit.
Upendra Varma:But I wanna get a sense of, you know, how many sort of, uh, SaaS customers you're
Upendra Varma:sort of helping as of today and how, how you are sort of earning revenue from them.
Upendra Varma:So just give us a sense of that as well.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, in terms of how many, I mean at this point we've worked with
Claire Sullentrop:dozens, uh, a couple hundred by now.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, I would've to go look through our client's folder, but, uh, we've
Claire Sullentrop:worked with some really, really awesome brands, uh, as well as you.
Claire Sullentrop:Smaller startups that are just now making their name, um, some of the bigger brands
Claire Sullentrop:that, that may have more recognition.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, full story, um, spark Toro, uh, the, the, the SAS that former MAs, c
Claire Sullentrop:e o, ran Fishkin co-founded, uh, meet Edgar Social Media scheduling tool.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, those are a couple of names that, uh, seem to be well known in
Claire Sullentrop:the SASS and SASS marketing space.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but we've also worked with, you know, as, as I said, companies that are
Claire Sullentrop:a little more under the radar, um, as.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So, so when, why do you say I've worked with, right.
Upendra Varma:So when, at what point do you actually leave them and how
Upendra Varma:does the whole arrangement work?
Claire Sullentrop:Oh.
Claire Sullentrop:Like how does the whole process work?
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Um, so basically, so just help me understand at what
Upendra Varma:stage do you jump in, right?
Upendra Varma:So, and sort of, I think you can just pick one of your, uh, customers
Upendra Varma:who's, who's been very successful.
Upendra Varma:Just walk us through the entire process of how you actually sort of helped
Upendra Varma:them and at what stage did you jump in?
Upendra Varma:What did you do exactly?
Upendra Varma:How did you turn out and when did you sort of leave them,
Upendra Varma:if I can call it that Right.
Upendra Varma:, just walk, walk me through one such example.
Upendra Varma:Yeah,
Claire Sullentrop:absolutely.
Claire Sullentrop:So a lot of times we get called in when.
Claire Sullentrop:The company has reached a point at which they've maybe been like kind of tackling
Claire Sullentrop:marketing in a very piecemeal way, and they don't really feel like they've gotten
Claire Sullentrop:like their hands around like a good, repeatable, scalable marketing system.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, some of the pain points that we hear when companies reach out to us is, , you
Claire Sullentrop:know, we've tried, uh, paid and it's not scaling or, you know, we, um, we don't
Claire Sullentrop:really know which channels are working and which are a waste of our time.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, sometimes companies realize that their channels aren't working, working
Claire Sullentrop:because their positioning is kind of off, like their product has evolved and their
Claire Sullentrop:positioning hasn't evolved with, with it.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, another common scenario is, hey, we just raised a big round of funding.
Claire Sullentrop:We have a lot of growth goals ahead of.
Claire Sullentrop:and we know that like the, the kind of like entry level marketing we've
Claire Sullentrop:been doing is no longer going to work.
Claire Sullentrop:So those are some of the, like, those are some of the inflection
Claire Sullentrop:points at which teams bring us in.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, oftentimes they're at least one or more million in revenue, uh,
Claire Sullentrop:and they've got Happy Pay customers already, um, in their product, right?
Claire Sullentrop:So they've got product market fit, they've got happy people in there,
Claire Sullentrop:and now they're like, okay, how do we really unlock why these people.
Claire Sullentrop:Fired an old solution and hired us so that we can go find more of them.
Claire Sullentrop:So what we do when we come in is we sit down with the leadership
Claire Sullentrop:team and we, we say, okay, tell us about your best customers.
Claire Sullentrop:So when I say best, I'm referring to those that, um, are
Claire Sullentrop:super happy with the product.
Claire Sullentrop:They get it right.
Claire Sullentrop:They're not a big burden on support.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, like they're, they're relatively low touch, uh, and,
Claire Sullentrop:and happy with the core product.
Claire Sullentrop:They're not asking for customizations all the time.
Claire Sullentrop:, um, they are clearly engaged.
Claire Sullentrop:Like they're not, it's not as if they purchased and then no one ever
Claire Sullentrop:implemented, but they're actually using it on a regular basis.
Claire Sullentrop:Who are those folks within your larger customer base?
Claire Sullentrop:And this part is really important of those folks.
Claire Sullentrop:How many became customers?
Claire Sullentrop:Recently, um, and recently really depends on the market.
Claire Sullentrop:So for self-serve products, that might be a couple of months ago, they were
Claire Sullentrop:acquired for a more enterprise product.
Claire Sullentrop:Product.
Claire Sullentrop:It might be within the year.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but what's important about learning from recent customers is one,
Claire Sullentrop:they have the most experience with the current version of the product.
Claire Sullentrop:And two, they remember what life was like before and what was so
Claire Sullentrop:painful that they looked for a new, so, So we identify those folks.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, and then we actually either through surveys, sometimes interviews, we unpack
Claire Sullentrop:not just their, their buying experience, but their their struggling moment, right?
Claire Sullentrop:Like we asked that customer to take us back to life before they were
Claire Sullentrop:ever even familiar with this product.
Claire Sullentrop:What were they doing?
Claire Sullentrop:Were they using nothing?
Claire Sullentrop:Were they using competitor?
Claire Sullentrop:And then in their own words, Not in like a closed multiple choice
Claire Sullentrop:survey, but their own words.
Claire Sullentrop:What happened that made them say, okay, I need something else.
Claire Sullentrop:Right.
Claire Sullentrop:And we kind of unpack those pain points and, and what they need in a
Claire Sullentrop:new product and what's really valuable.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, my favorite part, honestly, is we ask them, , like what was so
Claire Sullentrop:compelling about this product that they chose it over anything else?
Claire Sullentrop:Um, lots of times we get phrases like, oh, it was easy to use, or
Claire Sullentrop:great customer service, or, um, it was, you know, super fast setup.
Claire Sullentrop:And we take those, those high level values and we actually map them
Claire Sullentrop:to, okay, what are the attributes?
Claire Sullentrop:What are the features in this product that create that value?
Claire Sullentrop:So then we can get way sharper in the company's positioning and their product
Claire Sullentrop:marketing about why they're different, why they're better than their competi.
Claire Sullentrop:and then we, with those insights, we meet with the team and we say, Hey, here's
Claire Sullentrop:what your customers said they loved right?
Claire Sullentrop:Now, here's what your marketing is currently doing, and here's what
Claire Sullentrop:your messaging currently says.
Claire Sullentrop:Here's all the gaps where we have opportunity to tighten up that
Claire Sullentrop:messaging and go reach those customers in channels where they actually hang
Claire Sullentrop:out, not just where you're kind of.
Claire Sullentrop:Throwing ideas around because you heard that was a good idea.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so that's the, that's the gist.
Claire Sullentrop:Our, um, like services.
Upendra Varma:So just, just a follow up question on that.
Upendra Varma:I get so, so, uh, let's just say you figured out a real
Upendra Varma:positioning for them, right?
Upendra Varma:So, so what exactly do you say, right?
Upendra Varma:Are you gonna say, okay, these are the three growth channels that are gonna
Upendra Varma:work for you, just go and invest in it.
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:is, is that what you're gonna come up with?
Upendra Varma:Is, is that exact pathway that you're trying to sort of help them with?
Upendra Varma:Such
Claire Sullentrop:a good question.
Claire Sullentrop:, can I give a few examples?
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah, sure.
Upendra Varma:I would love an example that in fact, asked.
Upendra Varma:Asked an example in the beginning.
Upendra Varma:Okay.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Great.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so I'll choose two different ones where the outcome meant
Claire Sullentrop:very, very different activities that the team pursued.
Claire Sullentrop:Mm-hmm.
Claire Sullentrop:. So one, uh, it was Meet Edgar, the social media scheduling tool.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, we learned that within their best customer, Or or group of best customers.
Claire Sullentrop:There were people who basically sought out the product for two reasons.
Upendra Varma:Can you just, uh, help me explain at which point this
Upendra Varma:is, where was Meeted go at, uh, in
Claire Sullentrop:terms of revenue?
Claire Sullentrop:Oh, absolutely.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Yes.
Claire Sullentrop:So when they reached out to us, they were already several million in a r r.
Claire Sullentrop:Okay.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, they had a very happy customer base, but.
Claire Sullentrop:. Um, even though they've, they were a, they were a rarity in that
Claire Sullentrop:they had lots of great marketing.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Really good content.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, a s a sophisticated ad strategy, like they were doing great.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:But their revenue was still flatlining, like they were driving
Claire Sullentrop:in new signups, but their, their trial, the paid rate wasn't great.
Claire Sullentrop:And so new customers in turn were just kind of canceling each other out.
Claire Sullentrop:Hmm.
Claire Sullentrop:And so what we learned from talking with their most engaged customers,
Claire Sullentrop:Customers showed up to meet Edgar to solve one of two problems.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, one, they were kind of more like, uh, early stage businesses that hadn't really
Claire Sullentrop:invested in social media, and they wanted to see if it would work as a channel for
Claire Sullentrop:building an audience and selling more.
Claire Sullentrop:So they were kind of getting their hands around social media for the first time.
Claire Sullentrop:And the other problem that a lot of people came to solve was more mature
Claire Sullentrop:businesses that had already seen a lot of.
Claire Sullentrop:In marketing on social media, and they were like, cool, this works.
Claire Sullentrop:We need to scale.
Claire Sullentrop:We can't do this manually anymore.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, and what the team realized was, okay, that second group is way stickier, right?
Claire Sullentrop:Mm-hmm.
Claire Sullentrop:, they're, they've already seen the value of, of this channel
Claire Sullentrop:that we help them manage.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, they're willing to pay more for tools to increase their presence on
Claire Sullentrop:this channel versus those who are just kinda learning about social media.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, you know, they may go out of business.
Claire Sullentrop:It might not be a good channel for.
Claire Sullentrop:and then we looked at their messaging and we were like, uhoh, y'all are trying
Claire Sullentrop:to target both of these groups and you're not really speaking to anybody.
Claire Sullentrop:Like, it's too vague.
Claire Sullentrop:And so across their website, um, they, they ended because they had such strong
Claire Sullentrop:marketing programs in place already, they didn't really do any additional
Claire Sullentrop:marketing beyond what they were already paying for and investing in, but they did.
Claire Sullentrop:The homepage, the features page, and the pricing page on their website to better
Claire Sullentrop:speak to those more advanced businesses.
Claire Sullentrop:And as a result of that, they ended up, oh, let me see if I
Claire Sullentrop:can find the conversion rates.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, da da da da.
Claire Sullentrop:What's our media conversion rate?
Claire Sullentrop:Um, shoot.
Claire Sullentrop:Where is it?
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, there's like a, this should be very like climactic and I,
Claire Sullentrop:I can't find my case study.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, they saw a.
Claire Sullentrop:, I wanna say 40% increase in the number of people visiting their website to sign up.
Claire Sullentrop:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Okay.
Upendra Varma:Where's my, so I, that, that, that's, that's still a good number, right?
Upendra Varma:I think I can work with that.
Upendra Varma:So my question is, so you're saying the entire top of funnel lead
Upendra Varma:generation, they already had, you know, channels that were bringing in,
Upendra Varma:you know, new leads to the customers.
Upendra Varma:All you help them is help them with this to sort of, you know, revamp that
Upendra Varma:whole website, whole positioning so that the conversion just could go up, right?
Upendra Varma:So yes.
Upendra Varma:Is it that simple?
Upendra Varma:I mean, my question is, I mean,
Claire Sullentrop:In some cases, yes.
Claire Sullentrop:And to your point, uh, in some, no.
Claire Sullentrop:So what worked really well for Meet Edgar was their new positioning and messaging
Claire Sullentrop:was attracting better fit customers.
Claire Sullentrop:So not only did their conversion rate on the website increase their
Claire Sullentrop:trial to paid conversion rate also increased cuz they were, they were
Claire Sullentrop:bringing in more tech savvy users.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, in other cases though, uh, we worked with, um, an HR tech
Claire Sullentrop:company earlier this year and.
Claire Sullentrop:we updated, yes, the positioning on their website, but also we, we worked
Claire Sullentrop:with them to understand, you know, where are your ideal customers actually going
Claire Sullentrop:when they look for a problem like this.
Claire Sullentrop:Mm-hmm.
Claire Sullentrop:. And prior to that point, um, they'd been doing a lot of blog content.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, they had a social media presence, but they, they hadn't really invested in.
Claire Sullentrop:What they learned through our research were the channels where HR professionals
Claire Sullentrop:were really hanging out, and so in their.
Claire Sullentrop:What this work did was enable them to, um, we actually used Spark Toro.
Claire Sullentrop:Mm-hmm.
Claire Sullentrop:, um, this audience research tool, and we helped them find private communities
Claire Sullentrop:where HR professionals were hanging out.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, we helped them find podcasts where, HR professionals were
Claire Sullentrop:going to to improve, like from a professional development perspective.
Claire Sullentrop:And so they saw a big uptick because they had learned what channels they
Claire Sullentrop:were just kind of defaulting to, and how those weren't actually the channels
Claire Sullentrop:where they needed to be getting in front of their best customers.
Upendra Varma:All right.
Upendra Varma:So it's not just the conversion part that you typically help with, it's
Upendra Varma:also the top of funnel sometimes,
Claire Sullentrop:right?
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, sometimes it's that it's really wherever there's the biggest
Claire Sullentrop:opportunity for revenue growth.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, so yeah.
Upendra Varma:Now, now my follow up question.
Upendra Varma:So, So one thing I realized, right, talking to all of the SaaS
Upendra Varma:founders is that your top of funnel and your conversion is heavily
Upendra Varma:dependent upon your a acv, right?
Upendra Varma:If you're, if you're selling, let's say a hundred dollars ticket versus,
Upendra Varma:you know, a $10,000 ticket, right?
Upendra Varma:So it's gonna vary, right?
Upendra Varma:It's gonna vary entirely, right?
Upendra Varma:So, So how do you sort of, I mean, you've got one experience.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:And one thing I typically realize it is basically if you are a sales
Upendra Varma:founder, you would have experience doing one thing or the other.
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So you typically won't have experience of, you know, sort of
Upendra Varma:solving all the problems at once.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:Solving, coming up solution or framework, which will fit all markets.
Upendra Varma:You real?
Upendra Varma:Mm-hmm.
Upendra Varma:, you need real data, you can call that.
Upendra Varma:Right?
Upendra Varma:So how exactly are you sort of approaching these, you know, solutions
Upendra Varma:for various such, you know, uh, markets?
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah, it's such a good question.
Claire Sullentrop:So the way that we think about it is in that, I, the, you may not have only one
Claire Sullentrop:ideal customer group, to your point.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, you may have an ideal customer group on your SM B plan, right?
Claire Sullentrop:Where they're, you know, a, a lower A C, B, a C, B, and then you might have
Claire Sullentrop:a different customer segment entirely that has more enterprise needs.
Claire Sullentrop:So what we recommend and what we help companies do is that same process,
Claire Sullentrop:um, but independently for those two different groups because ultimately,
Claire Sullentrop:while they're both getting value from the same product, they might need very, very
Claire Sullentrop:different experiences to get that value.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so it's, it's a process you can definitely rinse and
Claire Sullentrop:repeat across different segments of the audience you serve.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, another, another common example of serving multiple
Claire Sullentrop:segments is companies that.
Claire Sullentrop:Companies that, that have a product that helps both, you know, a single brand.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, and, and that also helps service provider bra brands.
Claire Sullentrop:So Spark Toro is a good example of that.
Claire Sullentrop:Like the head of, you know, marketing at a startup would get a lot of
Claire Sullentrop:value from Spark Toro, but so would an agency that serves clients
Claire Sullentrop:over and over and over and over.
Claire Sullentrop:So those two segments also need a different experience.
Claire Sullentrop:Different features matter to them, um, and.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah, I hope that
Upendra Varma:answers the question.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:So, so let me just sort of, uh, simplify what I was trying to understand.
Upendra Varma:That's, for example, imagine I'm a SaaS founder, I come to you.
Upendra Varma:Yep.
Upendra Varma:Let's say I've grown 200 k r r, maybe something worked for me.
Upendra Varma:I I might have came, I might have grown 200 K with a bunch of contacts, right?
Upendra Varma:All of those things.
Upendra Varma:Right Now I really wanna focus, I I wanna figure out those two or three, you know,
Upendra Varma:uh, lead generation channels, right?
Upendra Varma:That are going to predictively grow my business, right?
Upendra Varma:So how exactly are you going to help me, you know, do this?
Upendra Varma:So how exactly, what, what's your, what's your approach gonna look like for.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, you said you're, you're a couple hundred K in
Claire Sullentrop:a r r, so you have some customers Yes.
Upendra Varma:But I don't have any proven, you know, acquisition channels.
Upendra Varma:You can call something that's repeatable, right?
Upendra Varma:I got them doing a bunch of random things, but nothing's really, you
Upendra Varma:know, you can say nothing's fully predictable and nothing's really working.
Upendra Varma:I wanna, I want those 2, 2, 3 channels that can bring me consistently, you know?
Upendra Varma:So how would you help me?
Claire Sullentrop:I would, one of the biggest challenges that SaaS teams face
Claire Sullentrop:in choosing what marketing channels they should pursue is overwhelm There.
Claire Sullentrop:So fucking many.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:And there's always a new one.
Claire Sullentrop:There's always a new channel.
Claire Sullentrop:Exactly.
Claire Sullentrop:Example.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so like suffering from overwhelm is probably the biggest blocker.
Claire Sullentrop:And to avoid that, what I would do is of those customers that you
Claire Sullentrop:find to be like the best fit for the product, I would actually ask
Claire Sullentrop:them where they went when they were looking for solutions like yours.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, did they go to Google?
Claire Sullentrop:Did they actually just ask a friend?
Claire Sullentrop:Um, did they hear about it in a private community?
Claire Sullentrop:Did they hear about it at an event?
Claire Sullentrop:Like where were the channels?
Claire Sullentrop:They were actually looking for the information?
Claire Sullentrop:And those are the channels that I would prioritize
Claire Sullentrop:experimenting with with my team.
Claire Sullentrop:Now, will that be your forever channel?
Claire Sullentrop:Maybe not as you scale.
Claire Sullentrop:But replicating what worked well for your best customers and where they
Claire Sullentrop:spent time is the sures way to start driving more predictable growth.
Claire Sullentrop:Oh, that's the, and then as you attract,
Upendra Varma:yeah, go ahead.
Upendra Varma:Yeah, that's, that's the thing, right?
Upendra Varma:So basically, I like a typical SaaS founder who's, who's very early.
Upendra Varma:I, I'm not even talking about somebody who's like couple hundred,
Upendra Varma:you know, thousand in revenue.
Upendra Varma:I'm talking about somebody who's still, you know, at an early stage, he got a
Upendra Varma:bunch of customers doing a bunch of random things, but he really don't, don't know
Upendra Varma:where they got, like, how to sort of scale that, you know, how to sort of figure out.
Upendra Varma:Channels that, that I wanna work for them.
Upendra Varma:I mean, there are like bunch of, whole bunch of them that
Upendra Varma:he's gonna experiment with.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:And if he keeps on experimenting with for next couple of
Upendra Varma:years, he might just go bus.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:Because it's not gonna work for them.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:And so how do you sort of figure those working channels within
Upendra Varma:like, you know, months time, you know, without actually going bus?
Upendra Varma:So what's, what's your advice for them?
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, what I just said, which is ask your customers.
Claire Sullentrop:So
Upendra Varma:that's the thing, right?
Upendra Varma:So it's, it's, uh, so they really don't know where to get those customers from.
Upendra Varma:I mean, so what happens is all of the SaaS founders these days, they do a
Upendra Varma:lifetime deal or things like those, right?
Upendra Varma:They get a whole bunch of customers.
Upendra Varma:Now, how do you sort of figure out a channel, a channel that's
Upendra Varma:going to effectively, you know, you
Claire Sullentrop:send them an email, . If you send them an email and you say,
Claire Sullentrop:Hey, I'm the founder of this company.
Claire Sullentrop:I'm super happy you're here.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, I'd love to get on the phone for 30 minutes and really understand
Claire Sullentrop:your experience because I want this thing to be great for you and
Claire Sullentrop:I wanna find more folks like you.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, and when you have early champion, like early customers who love you,
Claire Sullentrop:it would be, uh, many people find it surprising how eager those folks are
Claire Sullentrop:to talk to someone at the company.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, in my early days at Calendly, When we were, we, we were lucky to
Claire Sullentrop:not have an acquisition problem.
Claire Sullentrop:The product, yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Really spread like wildfire and, and onboarding and, and activation
Claire Sullentrop:were our bigger challenges.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but I was lucky enough to get to reach out to hundreds of different
Claire Sullentrop:customers at that time, um, and just ask them, like, tell me, tell
Claire Sullentrop:me how, how did you even find this thing we're brand new in the market?
Claire Sullentrop:What were you looking for?
Claire Sullentrop:What were you Googling?
Claire Sullentrop:Um, , what else did you consider?
Claire Sullentrop:And really having those one-on-one conversations.
Claire Sullentrop:A lot of times what I find, um, is that that founders, especially if it's
Claire Sullentrop:their first business, founders, are hesitant to talk to customers one-on-one.
Claire Sullentrop:They're, you know, worried because they've never done a research project and
Claire Sullentrop:maybe they're scared they'll fuck it up.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, they're worried they'll annoy their customers.
Claire Sullentrop:early champion.
Claire Sullentrop:Customers are surprisingly vocal and super excited to be involved.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so that's, uh, how I would say you get past that, like, uh, that
Claire Sullentrop:roadblock of getting that insight.
Upendra Varma:Makes sense.
Upendra Varma:So you say work with your customers, figure out where
Upendra Varma:they're hanging out, then Yeah.
Upendra Varma:Start approaching them or figuring out then, right.
Upendra Varma:That's the way you wanna
Claire Sullentrop:take them.
Claire Sullentrop:Prioritize where they're actually going.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Rather than just like trying a random tactic.
Claire Sullentrop:Trying Another random tactic.
Claire Sullentrop:Trying another random tactic.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:I mean, tactics are great, but , that's your, that's your prioritizing framework.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:I think this, this advice will definitely work if you have,
Upendra Varma:you know, a whole bunch of customers and you're, you're already doing a
Upendra Varma:couple million revenue, but I mean, it's really hard to do if you are just
Upendra Varma:early and just starting out, right?
Upendra Varma:Because you don't even know who your customers are.
Upendra Varma:I mean, so that's, that's always gonna be a bit.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, there's also a, there's a lot to be said for, um, you
Claire Sullentrop:know, learning from beta users, right?
Claire Sullentrop:If you've got, if you've got users who aren't paying yet, but are, are
Claire Sullentrop:in the product in a, in an early version, they can be a great substitute.
Claire Sullentrop:Worst case scenario, I've worked with a number of early stage teams where,
Claire Sullentrop:um, they don't have any customers yet, and there's a, there's a whole separate
Claire Sullentrop:process for audience research as well.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, it's a little bit trickier because.
Claire Sullentrop:, you're not learning from people who customers have vouched for your product.
Claire Sullentrop:They're paying for it, right?
Claire Sullentrop:They've, they've voted with their dollars.
Claire Sullentrop:The audience is the audience.
Claire Sullentrop:Research is trickier because you're going to have to do a lot more,
Claire Sullentrop:um, guessing on whether you're moving in the right direction.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but we have a, actually our, our, um, My business partner, GIA and I
Claire Sullentrop:recently finished writing a book and we've got a, a chapter on customer
Claire Sullentrop:research and then we have a second chapter on audience research because to your
Claire Sullentrop:point, it is tough when you don't have those paying customers to learn from.
Upendra Varma:Alright, so Claire, let's, let's come back
Upendra Varma:to your own business, right?
Upendra Varma:How do you charge these customers that you work with?
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, how do we charge, uh, flat fee.
Claire Sullentrop:Or if you want a kind of a C M O for hire on board, um, then we just work on
Claire Sullentrop:a monthly retainer, kind of like a SaaS.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but it's service as a service instead of software as a
Upendra Varma:service.
Upendra Varma:And are you, are you, are you just two folks in your entire consultancy?
Upendra Varma:Uh, you put
Claire Sullentrop:myself.
Claire Sullentrop:Yeah.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, my, my partner Gia.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, we also have a strategic advisor.
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, her name is Beth.
Claire Sullentrop:She's a seasoned marketing exec.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, she's one of our best, like c m o for hires.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, so she helps a lot of companies in a fractional C M O role.
Claire Sullentrop:And then our success manager, uh, Ethan, who keeps the trains running on time,
Claire Sullentrop:as well as some expert researchers who when we're working with a company
Claire Sullentrop:help us dig in and uncover that, um, that, that data on why customers buy.
Claire Sullentrop:So what does that make us about?
Claire Sullentrop:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.
Claire Sullentrop:Now makes
Upendra Varma:sense.
Upendra Varma:Alright Claire, so one last question, sir.
Upendra Varma:Right.
Upendra Varma:So you've got all of this amazing background, right?
Upendra Varma:You've seen Calendly grow from like a nothing to you know,
Upendra Varma:you know, pretty crazy out.
Upendra Varma:Yeah.
Upendra Varma:, right?
Upendra Varma:So why don't you just start a SaaS company?
Upendra Varma:Why are you helping other SaaS companies?
Upendra Varma:What's the story there?
Claire Sullentrop:Uh, I am getting such valuable experie.
Claire Sullentrop:Seeing so many different businesses and how they operate
Claire Sullentrop:and the challenges that they hit.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, and that is giving me a, I'm very grateful for this.
Claire Sullentrop:It's giving me a very broad understanding.
Claire Sullentrop:How to solve for different business problems at different stages.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, it's not out of the question that Gia and I may start or
Claire Sullentrop:acquire, uh, or something.
Claire Sullentrop:We may get involved in a SaaS directly at some point, like
Claire Sullentrop:that's definitely on the table.
Claire Sullentrop:Um, but right now I'm having a lot of fun and learning so much, um, with how
Claire Sullentrop:many different SAS examples I'm seeing.
Upendra Varma:Alright.
Upendra Varma:That makes sense.
Upendra Varma:Alright Claire, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.
Upendra Varma:You know?
Claire Sullentrop:Absolutely.
Claire Sullentrop:Again, it was, thank you for having me.