The new GTM playbook

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The Proven Growth

Typeform’s Lean Product Launches & One GTM Funnel

The genesis of Typeform is not unusual.

The co-founders Robert and Dave were initially running separate design agencies before partnering with the launch of Typeform.

The initial pain point was the unresponsiveness and complexities of forms used to collect leads that were available in the market.

So, they decided to build a sleek and responsive form builder with one simple mantra - Make form-filling an enjoyable experience that emulates a real conversation.

More than a decade later, Typeform hit over $100m ARR. I have been following their growth and here are some key frameworks they are executing on product launches and go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Lean Product Launches

The first Typeform was launched in 2012 on Betalist generating over 1000 first users. Their initial competitive advantage was being user-focused and strong positioning on conversational design forms.

Several years later, Dave was recently hosted on Nathan Latka's channel to share his teaching process for launching new products.

/ Dave works with a maximum of three team members to build new products - he leads the product, design, and UX, while one or two engineers do the coding. 

The outcomes - VideoAsk and Formless products

As per the conversation with Nathan, Dave mentioned VideoAsk was doing over $3m arr before passing it over to the company team.

Unified GTM to Drive Efficient Growth

The current CEO Kim Lecha took to the stage at SaaSOpen to present the next path Typeform is taking to accelerate growth.

One message that stood out for me from Kim is the understanding that ‘ what got us will not get us there ‘

From launch to over $20m in revenue, the North Star focus for Typeform was the Number of Customers.

The next phase as of 2019 after hitting over 45,000 customers was focusing on the Number of Submissions as the North Star and scaled to over 500 million submissions as of 2022.

However moving Kim shared a new North Star - Total Number of Submissions.

The focus here is as a result of scaling upmarket to enterprise clients. Kim mentioned thinking about customers that derive the most value from the Typeform products.

For Typeform to deliver on their next North Star, Kim shared their new GTM framework dubbed One Funnel.

1/ Unify your GTM team towards one common goal - Revenue. You can do this by having the Rev Ops lead the team.

2/ Build a customer-first tech stack powered by data and ensure they are in sync to deliver actionable insights.

3/ Complete your customers’ profiles - on a granular level.

4/ Personalize the customer journeys including areas like traffic sources, target segments, enrich & score, and more.

5/ Measure and optimize for better conversion and retention

Lastly, Kim highlighted the positive results of using the framework like 75%+ in opportunities, 40%+ in lead quality, and 25%+ in meetings attended.

The Expert Takes

The New B2B GTM Playbook - Chris Walker

My journey in marketing has been constantly keeping a pulse in the space. One, it keeps me alert on the changing marketing dynamics.

Two, I get to be mentored by those who have gone before me on what they experiencing as marketers in the trenches.

One such individual is Chris Walker from Refine Labs & Passeto. If you are active on LinkedIn you probably have come across his in-depth posts on everything B2B marketing and GTM.

Chris also runs live webinars on his YouTube channel and has several podcasts including Revenue Vitals.

Recently Chris gave a short presentation at SaaStock on the new GTM playbook. One of the key takeaways Chris mentioned is the unsustainability of the current GTM.

The GTM bloat happening is a factor of two things;

• The gospel on SaaS growth at all costs, thanks to VC investment is slowing done significantly.

• The cost of acquisition (CAC) to Pay-back period is significantly taking longer.

However, a new shift is happening, from growth at all costs to profitable efficient growth.

Another key concept Chris has been discussing on his channel is signal-based analytics.

From the data, Chris has been analyzing from working with over 300 B2B clients, it’s evident that siloed data are doing a disservice to the businesses.

The new playbook is designed to integrate all relevant buyer intent touch points ( signals) to make growth more efficient.

Note: I will continue to learn more about this new B2B marketing playbook and share it with you.

The Three Examples

How Omnisend Won With Organic SEO

Bootstrapping your SaaS means you have to make every marketing dollar count.

Rytis Lauris, the CEO of Omnisend took to the stage at SaaSOpen to share how they scaled from $0 to $50m ARR with majorly organic SEO.

Taking on existing rivals like Mailchimp and Klaviyo, Rytis had to execute their customer acquisition strategically. One core principle they understood; SEO is math.

Below are the core areas Omnisend focused on and scaled from 0 to 120k organic traffic, but an emphasis on link building is what really paid off for them.

Key Moments to Drive Revenue Growth & Customer Retention ( Xero, CRO Ashley Grech)

I was listening to Ashley share some key insights as the CRO of Xero in a recent SaaStock interview with Alex Theuma - the events company CEO.

On growth: Constantly look for touchpoints to impact the customers’ businesses as they grow. You don’t need to connect with customers whenever you get a negative or positive signal of your relationship.

Purpose to humanize the business for better customer retention.

On conversions: Focus on speed to value to improve conversions. At Xero, Ashley's team ran an experiment on the sign-ups that have not taken any more action after seven days.

The hypothesis was to help the retailers import their data into the accounting software for free and others pay $100 for the Xero team to assist them in these mundane tasks.

To Ashley’s surprise, the test group was more willing to pay for the service.

Finally, Ashley shared with Alex some key takeaways that include;

1/Focus on a couple of key moments to push the revenue needle forward.

2/Do’nt wait too long to run tests ( do it in peacetime and it will help in wartime)

3/ You have way more customer insights in the data at hand than you think.

How to Sell in a Hyper-competitive Space - (Apollo io, CRO Leandra Fishman)

CRO Confidential podcast host Sam Blond had a chat with the CRO of Apollo, Leandra Fishman on how they are winning in the competitive sales intelligence space.

One way the Apollo team won was by focusing on easy-to-set-up and use.

While the leading competitors were Sales-led, Apollo won by going with a Product-led motion with a focus on the end user getting to value fast.

Sam shared that at Brex, they won by choosing one segment and nailing it, For Brex, they went with a ‘corporate card for startups’ and it paid off.

Another insight that stood out for me is becoming a trusted advisor when prospects ask about other vendors. Focus on the core differences that make you stand out from the competition.

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Thank you for reading.

God’s speed.

 Okeros