Empowering the Channel Partner-led GTM motion with Shruti Ghatge of Zomentum

Step into the intersection of technology and marketing with the latest episode of the Marketing Nation SaaS podcast. Hosted by Arvind Parthiban, the Co-Founder & CEO of SuperOps.ai, this episode welcomes Ramesh Ravishankar, Co-Founder and CGO of Highperformer.ai, whose previous stints at Freshworks and Google have armed him with unparalleled insights into the digital marketing world.

This conversation delves into the evolving landscape where AI meets content creation, debunking myths about AI's role in the future of marketing jobs by highlighting its potential to enhance human creativity and efficiency. Ramesh shares his journey with Highperformer.ai, offering a unique perspective on leveraging AI to build a robust social presence and the strategic importance of identifying your Total Addressable Market (TAM) early on.

Get a glimpse into product-led growth strategies that attract leads organically, and the critical decision-making between inbound and outbound marketing based on the stage of your company and the current market demands. The episode draws inspiration from Freshworks' success, showcasing how optimizing AdWords strategy and managing lead quality can scale a business from serving SMBs to mid-market enterprises.

Join us for this engaging and insightful session, designed for both budding entrepreneurs and seasoned marketers looking to navigate today's dynamic digital landscape with confidence and creativity.

 

Key Takeaways:

1:13 - Content Marketing Revolution: AI's Role

3:40 - Ramesh's Journey: Freshworks to Google

5:33 - Highperformer.ai: A Strategic Odyssey

8:49 - Startup Success: Unlocking TAM

13:11 - Growth Hacking with Free Tools

21:07 - Scaling Up: From SMB to Worldwide

23:58 - Lead Quality: Marketing vs. Sales Dynamics

28:10 - The Lead Conversion Debate

29:51 - The Inbound Marketing Roadmap: Strategic Insights

32:06 - Advanced Tactics in Lead Generation

40:39 - GenAI: Transforming Marketing Workflows

43:55 - SEO Evolution: The AI Content Impact

Key Mentions:

ChatGPT

Freshworks

Google

AdWords

LinkedIn

Salesforce

Sora.ai

Welcome to another episode of Founder’s Deep Dive! Join our guest, Sachin Bhatia, and our host, Suresh Sambandam, as they delve into several topics, including the formula for happiness, expanding into a global market, and all the challenges and wins that come along the way. It’s a very intellectual conversation where they talk about very abstract and high-level concepts using anecdotes from their own lives. Enjoy the episode! 

Key Takeaways 

02:00 - Meet the Players! 

03:24 - Success vs Happiness 

06:50 - Are You an Architect or a Contractor? 

10:00 - Early 2000s - A Changing India 

12:05 - Moving from BPO to Enterprise Segment 

17:30 - Ameyo’s First Enterprise Customer 

19:55 - Inside Sales and Sales Development 

22:20 - Can SMB SaaS Survive? 

24:19 - Global Emerging Markets 

27:07 - Different Countries and their Ticket Sizes 

31:30 - Doing Business in Dubai 

35:35 - Team Distribution for International Markets 

37:26 - Relationship Building in Emerging Markets 

40:20 - Generating Pipelines for Enterprises 

45:58 - Ameyo’s Secret Sauce 

51:28 - Successful Marketing Strategies 

56:18 - Final Words of Wisdom Key Mentions 

02:59 - OrangeScape (KissFlow)

 05:30 - Freshworks 

05:40 - Drishti (Ameyo) 

06:35 - HP, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, IBM

 06:30 - Satyam, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, HCL 

11:45 - ZOHO 

14:45 - Helion 

14:49 - Daksh 

15:44 - Ameyo 

15:59 - Peppertap 

15:59 - Meru 

16:00 - UrbanCompany 

16:38 - Ola 

17:40 - Motilal Oswal 

19:36 - HubSpot

Welcome to another episode of Deep Dive! Suresh, our host, and Aditya Tulsian, our guest, delve into the critical role of ICPs and how organizations deal with acquisition journeys.

Aditya is a seasoned entrepreneur who founded Numberz, which was acquired by Chargebee, prior to which he held a very important role at Intuit. After an MBA at ISB Hyderabad, launching QuickBooks in India was the experience that revealed a universal truth to him: businesses worry about cash flow, not accounting. In 2016, inspired by these insights, Aditya co-founded Numberz, initially for Indian small businesses, later expanding globally. The company recently got acquired by Chargebee, uniting visionary forces.

In the world of startups, understanding the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is like holding the compass that guides the business. The success, failure, or struggles of any company can be traced back to the clarity or confusion they have about the ICP. Aditya and Suresh nail down what it takes to find your perfect ICP, and the struggles and pressures of navigating an acquisition conversation with both the buyer and the team.

Key Takeaways: 

00:00 - Meet Aditya Tulsian!

07:00 - Finding the perfect ICP - Problem first or person first? 

08:13 - Mr. Cook’s billionaire’s business blueprint 

09:15 - When Suresh narrowly missed meeting Mr. Cook 

11:13 - Nuances of B2B and B2C with ICP 

15:15 - Narrowing down customer segments to ICP 

17:54 - Your ICP is actually a combination of 3 people 

19:09 - How BYJU’S missed the ICP 

21:50 - Tally vs Intuit 

22:37 - Numberz’s journey with ICP 

27:42 - The buyer, user and influencer of Numberz 

30:20 - Repercussions of a vague ICP 

32:00 - The fundamental difference between Box and Dropbox 

33:46 - Product team’s role in finding the ICP 

35:00 - The impact of the right ICP on marketing 

38:53 - A leader’s job in the organization 

39:45 - Critical points to keep in mind during an acquisition 

44:16 - Handling uncertainties like a pro during acquisitions 

48:44 - Managing your team’s concerns around an acquisition 

52:45 - Closing thoughts

Key Mentions

01:37 -  Numberz

01:40 - ChargeBee

03:18 - Intuit

03:47 - QuickBooks

10:36 - KissFlow

12:52 - Facebook

19:10 - BYJU’S

21:50 - Tally

32:01 - Box

32:03 - Dropbox

41:43 - Freshworks

Enjoy this 50-minute podcast where Arvind and Varun get on a call with Ankit Oberoi to decode the dilemma of ABM, or Account Based Marketing. Ankit, being a proponent for documentation and structure, talks about his journey with AdPushup and how they discovered the untapped potential of ABM in a world filled with inbound marketing companies. Having cracked the ABM playbook methodically, Ankit shares some gems of wisdom with Arvind and Varun as the three of them nail down the specifics of what ABM is and how to leverage it to engage prospective clients in ways that really matter. 

Key Takeaways 

01:45 - Meet Ankit Oberoi! 

03:50 - The Power of ABM 

05:52 - Ankit’s tryst with ABM 

08:42 - Big companies are intimidating! 

11:38 - Identifying the right ICP for you 

14:49 - Pick an ICP for your roadmap or pick a roadmap for your ICP? 

18:38 - Outbound vs ABM

21:06 - Structuring the Organization for ABM 

25:12 - SuperOps’ journey with ABM 

27:28 - Using a RevOps team 

33:48 - Building the ABM machine 

35:35 - Database Management at AdPushup 

39:45 - AdPushup’s channels beyond ABM 

45:48 - Planning for Zelto’s acquisition 

Key Mentions 

01:16 - Zelto 

02:04 - AdPushup 

03:39 - SGx 

08:41 - Kayako 

39:05 - Almabase 

41:32 - Microsoft Azure 

41:42 - Google 

44:05 - Facebook

Happy watching and listening! 🎧

“Never change your SEO team while shifting from SMB to enterprise, because once lost, never regained.” Join Maansi Sanghi and Arvind for more such knowledge bombs as they deep-dive into the world of product marketing. 

Maansi takes us through her journey of product marketing, and how the team at iMocha braved the tumultuous shift from an SMB model to an enterprise model of marketing. You’ll also find a lot of tips and tricks on how to refine and hone your processes and your pipelines inside your organization. 

Tune in with Maansi and Arvind as they break down and examine the bare bones of a business and the best practices for marketing teams.

Key Takeaways

02:25 – Forming strong teams

04:50 – Indispensable players in a marketing team

05:10 – iMocha’s team structure

05:45 – The dichotomy of inbound and content teams

08:25 – From SMB to Enterprise

11:40 – Your demand generation engine

13:19 – Do you have a channel problem or a marketing problem?

16:12 – Enterprise marketing tenets

18:12 – iMocha’s training protocols

22:27 – Setting OKRs for your team

30:52 – How deep is your sale?

33:40 – Positioning yourself in events

43:11 – Making an impression on your customer

46:29 – Rapid Fire!

Key Mentions

iMocha - 05:09

FreshWorks - 08:15 

HubSpot - 27:11

MS Excel - 27:14

Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount

 - 51:08

For the next 45 minutes, join our guest Anand Venkatraman as he and Arvind dive deep into the murky waters of partner channel marketing. It's a power packed episode filled with gems of knowledge and wisdom that could substitute for an MBA lecture. 

Anand introduces the world of partner channels (yes, it's non-MBA friendly), and then goes into the nitty gritties of how to cultivate that side of the business, the best practices while working with partners and the most common mistakes you're better off avoiding when it's your turn. 

Tune in and listen to Anand and Arvind dissect some really abstract concepts with crystal clear insights—on the very first episode of Marketing Nation!

Key Takeaways

00:00 - Intro 

03:25 - Partner Channels 101

04:20 - The Revenue Partners

08:04 - The Technology Partners

09:58 - Owning the partner channels

15:00 - A small start-up’s cheat sheet for partner acquisition

20:40 - Vetting a partner’s account books 

22:19 - SuperOps’s journey with partner channels

23:20 - Feeding the partner engine

27:30 - Common mistakes to avoid

32:25 - On the importance of PRM 

33:57 - Taking MDF more seriously

35:33 - A shifting market - On-prem to SaaS

44:05 - Anand’s message to founders

Key Mentions

00:38 - Salesforce

00:40 - Akamai

00:42, 38:41 - FreshWorks

00:47 - CleverTap

01:00 - Growthloop.ai

06:49 - TCS, Accenture, HCL

08:41 - Line Messenger

08:48 - KakaoTalk

09:20 - Amazon, Google, Microsoft

22:20 - SuperOps

22:43 - Connectwise

22:43 - Kaseya

This episode is special because its the first time we are having a founder from Singapore join the SaaSBoomi Podcast! 

Suresh Sambandam, CEO of KissFlow has a virtual sit down with none other than Sagar Khatri, the founder of Multiplier, a Sequoia surge backed SaaS business that helps business hire talent globally. We dive deep to talk about Sagar’s motivations to start Multiplier, how AI disrupts his offering and his dream of running a public company.

Key Takeaways

00:19 - Multiplier and Sagar’s intro

01:50 - Multiplier's value prop and its benefits

16:15 - Sagar's story behind starting Multiplier and why it's a SaaS business

21:14 - Sagar's vision for making payroll an employee-driven phenomenon

26:02 - How Multiplier deals with legalities and potential challenges in their business model

36:48 - Importance of having a strong product background for Platform dev

39:27 - How AI influences Sagar's business

46:10 - Role of governments in employment and the gig economy's effect on social contributions

53:15 - Sagar's go-to-market strategy and their sales cycle for inbound and outbound leads

56:09 - Sagar's thoughts on "The Ride of a Lifetime" by Bob Iger

57:10 - What Sagar envisions for the future of Multiplier and his dream of running a public company

Key Mentions

• Amazon: Sagar mentioned employment use cases with companies like Amazon and Orange.
• Orange: Sagar mentioned employment use cases with companies like Amazon and Orange.
• Sequoia: Sequoia has been an investor in Sagar's previous startup and was indirectly involved in his experiences that led to the founding of Multiplier.
• GCP: Sagar talked about the shift from having server rooms to using cloud solutions like GCP.
• Azure: Sagar discussed the shift from having server rooms to using solutions like Azure.
• Kissflow: A platform that Sagar mentioned his company Multiplier uses for their backend.
• ADP: ADP was mentioned as a traditional payroll processing company that Multiplier aims to outpace with its more modern, employee-driven approach.
• Tiger Global Management: Tiger Global Management is an investor in Multiplier for their Series B round.
• DST Global: DST Global is an investor in Multiplier for their Series B round.
• Pine Labs: Pine Labs is another investor in Multiplier.
• IIT Bombay: The co-founders of Multiplier are both alumni of IIT Bombay.
• Kelly Services: Kelly Services was mentioned as a traditional staffing services firm similar to what Multiplier aims to disrupt with their platform.
• Talent Wiki: Sagar mentioned that they have created a Talent Wiki of 150 countries to help customers with labor law information.
• Ranstad: Ranstad was mentioned as a traditional staffing services firm similar to what Multiplier aims to disrupt with their platform.
• Robert Walters: Robert Walters is a recruitment agency where Am Paul Sing, Co-founder of Multiplier, previously worked.
• Lazada: Lazada is an e-commerce company in Southeast Asia where Multiplier’s CTO previously worked as SVP of Engineering.
• Freshworks: Sagar compared his company's go-to-market model with that of Freshworks.
• MTR: A restaurant in India that Sagar loves, mentioned while discussing a meeting in Chennai with Suresh.
• Sangeetha Restaurants: A restaurant in Chennai that Suresh suggested Sagar visit when he comes to the city.
   

Multiplier is a platform that allows companies to hire talent globally without the need to set up legal entities in each country. With coverage in 150 countries, Multiplier handles all aspects of employment such as contracts, payroll, benefits, taxes, and social contributions, allowing companies to focus on sourcing the right talent. Although Multiplier itself does not do recruitment, it provides the infrastructure necessary for a company to hire globally.

The employee is technically on Multiplier's payroll since the legal entity belongs to Multiplier. What seems to matter more is the work relationship and the emotional connection that employees have with their team and their work, not the legal specifics.

Suresh Sambandam, CEO of KissFlow has a virtual sit down with not one but two co-founders, who also happen to be a married couple. Besides finding out about how they set out on founding their respective companies, Suresh also explores their unique working dynamics and relationship, the ups and downs of doing business together, the pros and cons of operating out of a Tier 2 city and of course their secrets to building a successful business model with CallHippo and SoftwareSuggest. Enjoy this first of its kind episode!

Key Takeaways

5:13 - CallHippo business model

7:10 - Inception of CallHippo, founder story and current revenues

11:18 - Global customer segments

12:44 - Impact of inbound marketing, how to manage your budget for Inbound Marketing

15:05 - SEO strategy

19:15 - Exercising patience to see SEO results

21:57 - Optimizing for humans not Google

26:20 - Traffic to sign up rate

32:23 -  Tactical hacks for increasing sign up conversion and churn rates

34:59 - Marketing to Sales funnel - Handling different ticket size customer segments

41:48 - Hiring strategy in a Tier 2 city

45:24 - Pros and Cons of operating out of a Tier 2 city

50:33 - Spouses to Co-Founders 

53:52 - Developing the culture at CallHippo

1:01:32 - Vision for CallHippo

Key Mentions

3:36 Software Suggest

3:43 CallHippo

3:57 Exotel

8:08 Avinash Raghava

8:30 Girish Mathrubootham

10:55 Ozonetel

18:09 RingCentral

21:05 Google

32:05 Mail Chimp

35:48 HubSpot

In Part 2 of Getting SaaS Pricing right, Arvind and Varun bump it up a notch. They discuss key features of a pricing plan like Naming of plans, the ideal number of plans to go with, Add-ons, Discounts, cost-based pricing and value-based pricing.

Listen on as the duo share insights from their own experience of having worked for and mentored other companies and of course getting the price right in their own respective startups. Enjoy the show!

Key Takeaways

3:40 - Decoy pricing plan

6:05 - What's the ideal number of price plans?

8:30 - Open Vs Hidden pricing

14:00 - Contact us to know the pricing 

16:56 - Knowing your target audience while selling

21:40 - Naming the Price Plans

26:10 - Deciding on the value metric 

28:05 - Land and expand strategy

29:55 - What is value and value-based pricing?

35:43 - Is there room for Add-ons?

42:12 - How often do we change pricing? 

44:23 - Open Vs Closed pricing verdict 

46:05 - Dishing out Discounts 

49:15 - Importance of pricing in NRR

52:00 - Top 3 ways to increase NRR

56:15 - Importance of revenue recognition 

59:15 - Varun and Arvind’s Pricing pet peeves

Key mentions

Apple

SuperOps

Girish M

Zoho

FreshDesk

PipeCandy

Wingman

Intercom

Spot Instances

Spot.io

ChargeBee

Manage Engine

Hubspot

IKEA

Sequoia

For Entrepreneurs

In this episode of the BTS podcast, our hosts Arvind and Varun introduce a new format of discussion to the show and decide to pick each other's brains to go deeper into topics that are pertinent to founders and marketeers. 

They explore the various aspects of designing the perfect pricing plan for your business keeping in mind various aspects such as the product, the perceived value, the market segment, the industry and the buyer persona. 

Listen on as they explore pricing strategies of various companies who’ve done it right from the get-go and others who’ve got it right through trial and error, in effect showcasing how setting a pricing plan for your SaaS product may not always be the simplest or most straightforward exercise.

Key Takeaways/Timestamps

2:37 - MSP - Managed Service Provider

3:10 - Silent price hikes in the industry

5:33 - 4 levers of business

7:32 - Effective communication over Grandfathering

10:02 - Pricing game on point

11:09 - HubSpot-on pricing

14:03 - Unpredictable pricing design

16:17 - Don’t reinvent the pricing wheel that works

20:28 - Questions to ask before designing the pricing model

21:41 - Who’s doing the heavy lifting?

22:32 - Top 3 challenges faced by Indian Saas companies

24:54 - Perceived value of your product

28:55 - Are you selling based on the features of your product?

32:52 - Playing to the persona

36:45 - Common pricing mistakes in the Indian ecosystem

Key Mentions

3:30 - Ninjaone

7:37 - Netflix

11:44 - Intercom

12:04 - Hubspot

12:11 - Salesforce

12:13 - Pipedrive

17:10 - Girish Mathrubootham 

38:02 - Pipecandy

38:19 - Wingman