April 18, 2024 • 29 mins
Discover the unconventional path Antony Lamotte took from psychology to entrepreneurship as he shares the enthralling tale behind his tech startup, De-Select. Antony's expertise transformed the daunting world of Salesforce Marketing Cloud data management into a user-friendly experience for marketers everywhere. Throughout the episode, we navigate De-Select's journey—from its early bootstrap days to its current flourishing state, discussing the strategic moves that enabled their expansion into the U.S. market, and Antony's own relocation to the tech hub of Austin. He sheds light on the significance of crafting a product that's not just powerful but intuitive and the mastery behind De-Select's go-to-market strategy, which has been a cornerstone of their success.
When it comes to the ripple effects of the pandemic, Antony dissects the contrast between the hurdles and the unexpected financial windfalls faced by tech startups. He details the pivotal shift from a frenetic growth pace to a more sustainable, profitable trajectory and how De-Select has embraced AI to enhance their service offerings. The conversation also turns to the power of customer feedback and the art of leveraging content marketing to not just draw in leads, but to build lasting relationships. Antony's strategies for maintaining customer connections and reusing educational materials for lead generation offer a cache of wisdom for those aiming to thrive in the ever-evolving tech landscape.
The episode caps off with a candid examination of the challenges that lie in the path of scaling a startup. Antony doesn’t shy away from discussing the high personal stakes involved, from relentless work schedules to the critical task of executive recruitment. He emphasizes the importance of delegation for CEOs and keeping a close watch on a variety of KPIs to navigate the fiercely competitive MarTech space. Finally, we delve into De-Select's focus on forming powerful partnerships, highlighting how collaborations with accelerators and consulting firms have been instrumental in carving their niche in a crowded market. Join us for a deep dive into the strategies that have catapulted De-Select to the forefront of marketing tech innovation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup, an award-winning app and
software development firm basedout of Virginia.
This is your host, Dylan Burke,also known as Deej, and I'm
super happy to be here todaywith Antony Lamotte, co-founder
and CEO at De-Select.
Welcome, Antony.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hi Deej, Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, the pleasure is all mine.
So, Antony, to get us started,can you tell us a little bit
about your background in historyand what led you to founding
De-Select.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, great question.
To start my background, Istudied psychology, of all
things.
I have a master's degree, but Iended up in management
consulting and so back in 2018,I was doing marketing automation
consulting, typically forenterprise, very focused on
Salesforce, and in doing so Isaw that marketers were really
(00:58):
struggling with how to managedata.
So in Salesforce MarketingCloud it's a very powerful
platform, but it can be quitetechnical platform as well.
So if you want to manipulateyour data or segment, you're
going to have to write SQLqueries or find someone who does
, and I thought, well, surely wecan do something that's a
little bit easier.
So I had been teaching myselfhow to code throughout my career
(01:20):
.
This was not my first startup.
I just tried a few other thingsbut me and my co-founder.
So I got together with Jonathan, who's now my co-founder and
our CTO, and I know him fromback in the early days in our
career in consulting and westarted hacking and we went to
market very fast.
We can talk more about that andinitially we actually
(01:41):
bootstrapped till one million inannual recurring revenue.
That allowed us to attractattention of some prominent
angels.
We got an awesome advisoryboard you can find them on our
website and then we alsoattracted some venture capital,
used that money to expand intothe US.
Side notes were originally aBelgian company.
Our HQ is still there, but, asI like to call it, our GTM, our
(02:02):
go-to market HQ is here inAustin, where I live now.
So I've made the jump acrossthe Atlantic.
We got over a dozen people nowhere as well and still growing
pretty good, especially giventhe current market.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Awesome, awesome, amazing.
And could you walk us throughyour overall business strategy
for deselect?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I mean, it's a broad question.
I can talk about this stuff forhours.
I'll break it down into productand GTM.
So on the product side, there'sa few pillars that we have
adhered to from the very earlybeginning that we still adhere
to and how we think about ourproducts.
So those are turnkey, intuitive, fully integrated.
So turnkey means you sign withus within 24 hours, you're up
and running, you don't have todo a heavy implementation
(02:46):
project, so your time to valueis almost instantaneous.
Maybe some training, a coupleof weeks to get used to the tool
, but very fast value.
Secondly, intuitive this isvery, very hard but we will try
to make our software as easy tounderstand as possible.
We do offer some trainingbecause we solve very complex
problems data models,segmentation, marketing strategy
(03:09):
, et cetera so we do offer sometraining around it.
But people do comment and leaveus really good reviews on
things like the Salesforce, appexchange or Capitara or whatever
that our stuff is easy to useand then, lastly, fully
integrated.
So as a design principle forour we call it an MOP marketing
optimization platform, which issomething we've gradually
(03:30):
developed into we want to makesure that it can just plug and
play instantly In our case, theSalesforce.
Because we're a Salesforce firstcompany, we already support
other channels as well.
So there's that.
So, overall, this wholestrategy, where is it going?
Well, I mentioned how weinitially started as something
that replaces SQL in Salesforce,but that was, I would say, our
(03:54):
initial point solution.
Meanwhile, we've developed intoa multi capability platform
that does multiple things.
Also, our stack, while we're aSalesforce first company,
actually our own tech stack isfully independent from that.
It runs on Google Cloud.
It's working fully via API, sowe can be technology agnostic
tomorrow if we should choose.
Having said that, I love salesfor the build, my career, my
(04:16):
company.
It's a huge market, so we'restill happy being a Salesforce
first company for probably manyyears.
That's on the product side, onthe GDM side, very high level
sales marketing, partnershipsand PLG.
So sales it's outbound, coldcalling sequences, prospecting,
target account lists, all thatstuff.
Marketing it's mainly events.
(04:37):
There's many awesome events youcan do in the Salesforce
ecosystem, such as dreamforceit's the most well known one,
but there's also connections andmany, many others.
Natural search, social media,marketing.
There's a bunch of stuff we candelve into if you want to.
Partnerships where Salesforcepartner.
So obviously that is reallyimportant to us.
But we also enable consultingpartners, agencies.
(04:58):
We call them SI systemintegrators, people who work
with marketing cloud and who arelooking for better solutions to
add on to it and just do rightby their customers and advise
them.
So we enable those.
And then, lastly, plg hasproduct led growth.
Most well known examples arecompanies like Atlassian Gira
products that you start using byyourself, you like, get a
(05:20):
subscription.
Then you tell your buddies nowyour team's using it and
suddenly the whole enterprise isusing it.
Well, suddenly might take a fewyears, but in any case that's
the idea behind it.
Now PLG is notoriously hard toactually get right, but we
believe it helps all of promisefor our business, seeing how we
typically in firstly cater tothe more technical marketer and
then they enable their team.
(05:40):
So it seems we're having, we'reserving, the right persona.
We have a product that lentitself to it and we have a free
version of our product now andwe've seen some installations by
major major insurance companiesand sports teams.
So I think it's very promising.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Awesome, awesome.
Thanks for that.
And you've been around for whatit's about five years now,
since 2019, right, that's right.
How have you adapted to changesin the global space, like the
main one being the pandemic thatwas probably the first one we
hit and then the second onebeing AI coming into the
(06:17):
mainstream and being availableto everyone?
So how did you adjust to?
Let's start with the pandemic?
How did you and your businessadjust to the pandemic?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, great question.
So the pandemic?
That's a funny one because Icanceled my final consulting
contract, which was for a globalautomotive company.
It was a really interesting job, well paid.
I quit it.
A week later COVID hit and Iwent fuck.
But, it worked out very well.
I think in a sense COVIDactually benefited us and the
(06:52):
big bummer was building officeculture was harder and I think
it's really critical to havesome office culture and see
people face to face for a techstartup, because there's just so
much you have to figure outboth product and GTM-wise.
At least that's how I see it.
I hear a little similarthinking and accelerators these
days.
But aside from that, covidworked out for us because in
(07:13):
enterprise SaaS so we're SaaSbusiness models software as a
service In enterprise SaaS,customer contact is normally
very important, but that's veryexpensive.
Jumping on planes is veryexpensive, especially for a
bootstrap company if you havezero money.
So we didn't have to do thatbecause people had to do calls
and I think that might haveactually helped us.
At the same time, during COVID,marketing spend was pretty high
(07:34):
Marketing technology spent, andwe're in that category.
So that kind of worked in ourfavor.
So that was the first one, thesecond one, I would say.
There's actually one other trendI should highlight.
That is that SaaS itself hasgone through a very turbulent
period.
In 21,.
Fundraising was easy.
People would buy softwareeasier.
There was this notion of growthat all costs.
(07:56):
Didn't matter how many eurosyou were throwing Eurus, dollars
, australian dollar, whatever,how much currency you were
throwing at a marketing,qualified lead and opportunity,
it just didn't matter.
You could do whatever you want.
Almost that has completelyshifted Money markets, so to do
fundraising have become muchharder, almost impossible for
(08:17):
certain companies.
Many SaaS startups have gonebankrupt.
Meanwhile there's been massivelayoffs in the industry and we
might have hit the stabilizationpoint.
Some people in the know theythink it's going to go up again.
We don't know.
I don't have a crystal ball.
What that has meant for us isjust like for the companies who
have endured well, it meansshifting from growth at all
(08:38):
costs to sustainable growth Likean actual business works right,
not like a crazy Silicon Valleytech startup works.
Suddenly there's no guaranteeyou can fundraise.
So you shift your business fromgrowth at all costs to cash
flow positivity as soon aspossible.
So we've done that shift, Iwould say pretty well.
Sometimes that took making harddecisions.
(08:59):
That's not always fun, but itwasn't necessary.
I feel we've been very decisivein those things.
We've learned very fast,especially being a very young
company, and we've come true.
I mean, compared to my peers, Iknow we're in a very
comfortable cash position.
We have a line of sight andcash flow positivity we don't
have to raise unless we want to,those kind of things.
So those are big, big shifts inhow we think about our business
strategically and in aday-to-day operations way.
(09:22):
And then, lastly, I'll get to AI.
So AI, yeah, I follow thisstuff closely myself.
I love using chat GPT, forinstance, to think about
strategy.
It's a really interesting toolto think about your strategy or
to think about organizationaldesign, roles and
responsibilities, sort of someof my personal use cases.
But we start to integrate theproduct very early on into our
(09:44):
segmentation solution to offer afeature we call DD AI DD being
the name of our penguin mascot,by the way.
So DD, ai, that's our AIcapability.
So now you can shout at yourlaptop to get a segment, at
least as the idea.
However, there's some learningsand I can talk more about that
if we have the time.
But that's one way we startintegrating it In other parts of
(10:06):
our product.
We also have machine learning.
Whether you consider that AI ornot, you know that's your
choice, but we have machinelearning built in to do things
like frequency optimization.
That's part of our engagedproduct, which is another module
on our platform.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Okay, awesome, awesome.
And are there any specifictools or tactics that your
business makes use of that havebeen particularly effective in
helping you grow to where youare?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I mean there's a million.
I could name my number onebecause I know this is a very
founder heavy audience here Talkwith customers, keep talking
with customers.
Even if you, you know, make 100million a year, you should be
talking to your customers on adaily basis if you can.
So just recently, just to, kindof because there's so much
going on the market AI there's alot of stuff happening in the
Salesforce ecosystem,specifically Mark tech is
(10:55):
remains a very dynamic field.
So me and my co-founderactually just wrapped up doing
57 interviews with marketingleaders and experts in companies
from mid market to Fortune 100companies, literally and and and
doing those interviews just toget a feel of what is everyone
thinking, what are the mainchallenges, what can we do.
There's all of good content outthere from somebody by a
(11:16):
combinator, on how to talk withcustomers, and so now we have
this whole big piece of meat wecan feed into our product
management thinking we can usefor content.
So talk with customers.
Number one.
Number two what's really workedfor us is get your insights
into your industry, product usecases, things you're solving
into something like an ebook,but make it really educational
(11:37):
and then recycle the heck out ofthat piece of content.
So I'm recycling.
What I mean with that is youpost it on social media and say,
hey, if you comment, I'll sendyou the ebook.
Now, ever in post on the post,the post explodes.
You capture leads, but at thesame time you also post the
ebook fully exposed as a landingpage, because that creates
natural search and then peoplewho are scrolling they'll see a
(11:58):
pop up.
They can leave their emailaddress.
What it was going to do for youis going to be less leads and
if you would gate it but theleads you get a more qualified.
And it's exactly what you wantless leads, but more qualified.
And then you turn it into awebinar and then you cut up the
webinar and then you make sureit's an, etc.
Etc.
So recycle, recycle, recycle,recycle Super duper important.
I think those are two thingsI've really worked.
(12:18):
And in terms of tools, one toolI'm a fan of is gong gong.
For those who don't know it's,it's meant to be sales coaching
and what it does is record yourcalls and then your sales
manager can coach people.
But we use the crowdorganization, we use it for CS,
we use it for marketing, we useit for product management.
So how?
So say, for instance, I want toknow what people are thinking
about.
(12:38):
Let's say AI, right, I actuallyhave a tracker.
It's funny.
I actually have a tracker setup in gong to listen to what
people are saying about AI,whether it's our product or
generally.
I don't have AI in general, andat the end of the week, gong
sends me a nice report witheverything anyone has said about
AI and I can just click to theexact second when people are
saying that this is a great wayfor me to not just coach people
(13:01):
but to also hear from customersdirectly what are they saying
and not have it rephrased bysomeone else reporting to me.
It's really important to stayvery close to the exact
terminology people are using toyou, that you're marketing,
you're thinking, etc.
So these are just three, but Iyou know I could geek out for
another day probably 100%.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Now I could also chat about it for days.
And what has been the biggestchallenges for you, let's say,
firstly in launching thebusiness?
So what were the startupchallenges that you faced?
And then what have been ongoingchallenges in scaling the
businesses and how have youovercome those challenges?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely great question.
So many.
This might surprise you.
It's not easy starting abusiness, right, I mean I you
know.
But maybe when starting look,it's just hard you have to work
hard.
I saw startups in theaccelerators that we were part
of.
We were in an accelerator inBelgium called Start at KBC.
(13:58):
They helped us a ton initially,but there were many startups
there that honestly didn't crushit as hard as they probably
could have For the first monthsof really like from the moment
we decided, okay, this thing isgoing to be a thing because we
got customer interest, there wasa period I worked seven days
out of seven four monthsstraight.
This was a combination of a fewconsulting things I was still
(14:18):
doing to pay mortgage and food,but then I was also just working
the remaining whatever hours ofthe day every day.
Sunday days, I would workpublic holidays, I worked on
Christmas, I worked on NewYear's Day, that kind of stuff,
and I still work often six daysa week, and I think that's is
that a challenge.
I think that's just somethingyou have to stomach and train
(14:39):
yourself into.
Do another, much more specificone when scaling the business is
once you, especially in a techcompany, at some point you need
to hire for great leadership andthe one single most important
role, arguably or one of themost important ones at least is
your VP sales.
Now, vp sales are good VP salessuper hard to find.
(15:00):
It's a hard skill set.
It's a grind of a job.
Also, if you get the wrongperson, it sets you back six
months at least, because findinga new one will take about that
long and they can really make orbreak your company.
Like a great VP sales, theyfind talent, the business grows
faster, everything becomeseasier.
Bad VP sales will build badprocess, bad culture, etc.
So there's this saying in SASand I kind of hate it and it's
(15:23):
something like as a new CEO,founder, you need to get past
the corpse of your first VPsales, meaning the first one
never works out.
So I had to go past two corpses.
I unfortunately had twomis-hires and from the moment we
raised venture capital, itactually took us more than 80
months to finally have a greatVP sales.
And now we do have a great VPsales.
(15:44):
Jason, if you're listening,thank you for everything you're
doing for us and it's making adifference.
And, you know, maybe it had totake 18 months for us and I
could have maybe compromised forsomeone who was adequate.
But I think it's reallyimportant to find people who are
great, especially forleadership role, but, frankly,
(16:06):
for any role.
So that was definitely achallenge because in that period
I had to juggle many heads.
I moved to the US, I had tostill coach salespeople are
still in many deals, I was stillbeing a CEO, still talking to
the board and investors, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
But, yeah, just have Amazing yeah, that's a common
discussion I'm having on theseshows is that it takes a lot for
CEO to like finally hand overthe reins of a specific
department Because, like it's,obviously it's your baby, you
know.
But you've got to come to thatpoint where you realize you
(16:41):
don't have time to do all ofthese things, so you actually do
need to hand it over for thebusiness to continue growing.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, and then it's super important point.
Yeah, and you know it'sinteresting.
I've always I've never likedthe phrase it's your baby
somehow doesn't resonate.
I like to think of it as likeit's our project.
We're doing this together and Itry not to be too identified
with it.
But I think the right way tothink about hiring talent,
especially if for yourleadership team as the CEO, is
(17:11):
find people who are better atthe thing that you are.
Like as a CEO, as a founder CEO, you're going to have to learn
everything, everything, if onlyjust to hire the right person.
Like if you're hiring tomorrowfor a head of CS, you're going
to have to learn what CS isabout, right, and you better
study fast.
But the person you do hire hasto bear it as you are.
Otherwise you're going toalways want to micromanage a
(17:31):
person and step in, and you cando that.
You have to make sure thosepeople alleviate you so you can
focus on other stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, 100%, 100%.
And can you speak to anymetrics or KPIs that you use to
measure the success of yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, so there's, there's dozens, literally dozens
of KPIs we have.
I mean, actually it's funny,even in our marketing department
.
So they have a list of KPIs.
It's literally 150 KPIs.
But but I mean, those are maybemetrics, maybe they're not KPIs
.
The KPIs that I look at as CEOfounder obviously ARR, so annual
recurring revenue.
Then there's the growth ratelinked to that.
There is NRR, which is revenueretention, and revenue retention
(18:13):
itself.
I can I can speak to those in asecond CAC payback, burn, cash
runway, and, and the thing iswell, if there's one metric as
the most important of all, it'sprobably ARR.
But these metrics do have toplay together.
So it's not that there's one ortwo metrics I'm only focused on
.
It is a more of a holistic view.
(18:33):
What does the whole dashboardlook like?
So, but ARR is the mostimportant one, just because, as
a SaaS company, your valuationis dependent mainly on ARR and
the growth rate linked to it.
So for us, keeping a steady, Imean keeping the same growth
rate year over year, which meansevery year we have to grow
faster and faster, and thecurrent market that means faster
and faster with less means.
(18:54):
That's important.
So that's, that's part of thegrind.
Another thing is revenueretention, so avoiding churn,
making sure you keep yourcustomers happy and they expand
rather than leave, is reallyimportant.
We have very healthy metricsthere.
I want to get them a little bitbetter.
And in terms of expansion,which will trickle into NRR,
(19:17):
these days, for great, a greatmetric would be 130%, but other
world-class companies today,today's market, at our stage,
above 100%, is often consideredgood.
We're comfortably above that,but we can probably go much
higher because of the newproduct, engage, which we've
launched last year, which isgetting a lot of traction.
So I think that metric is goingto get better.
Cag payback, that's customeracquisition costs.
(19:37):
That's the reflection of howlong it takes to earn back the
money you've spent on sales andmarketing, essentially, so that
gives you an idea of howefficient is your growth machine
, so that one is one of themlooking at very often.
And then, of course, cash in arunway.
Keep your burn low, especiallytoday where fundraising is not a
given or not easy, and get tocash flow positivity in the
(20:03):
current market is something thatmost companies are doing, most
SaaS companies at least.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, 100%, and that's the main point of our
podcast is growing lean.
So growing while staying aslean as possible.
I think it's super importantthese days, especially in this
economy.
Totally, and where do you seeyour industry heading, let's say
, in the next year and in thenext five years?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah.
So one trend that I'vedefinitely seen and I've
mentioned our interviews and ifpeople are curious about
learning about these lessons,you can follow me on LinkedIn.
We'll be posting about thatshortly but Marketing leaders,
even at enterprise companies,they don't want to do long
(20:49):
digital transformation projectsand more Like digital
transformation still sounds kindof sexy, but what it means is
you're going to spend aconsulting firm a million to do
a 12-month project to hopefullyget this new integration with
your data warehouse or whateverrunning and there's just not a
lot of appetite there, becausein today's market, to be
competitive, you need a reallyfast time to market right.
The speed you go to market isreally important and if you're
(21:10):
waiting for 12 months for a toolto be implemented without even
knowing it's really going to payoff, that's a hard sell.
So that's why our turnkeyapproach, I think, is really
very valuable.
Another thing that I see in theMarTech space is so sometimes
people say, oh, maybe the marketis saturated with MarTech.
I don't believe it.
There is this very famous chartby Scott Brinker where he edges
(21:35):
out the MarTech landscape.
A year ago this was a singleslide with a few dozen companies
.
Meanwhile, it's amazing it's10,000 logos of MarTech
solutions.
And now some people say, oh,there's going to be acquisitions
and mergers.
But I believe, given capitalismand what it is, and given a
still growing world population,there's just going to be more
(21:55):
sophistication.
Right, we're just going to getmore and more refined in our
marketing and technology.
There's going to be moreplayers, even though there's
going to be mergers andacquisitions.
So I think that's a trend thatwill continue.
There's one thing that largecompanies and mid-market
companies and even smallcompanies struggle with is
because there's not so muchsophistication in your tooling.
There's all these automations,automated nurturing journey, et
(22:16):
cetera.
People have lost the overviewof what's really going on.
One customer told me a coupleof weeks ago we don't even know
what we're sending out anymore,right?
So there's this risk that maybeif you're a marketer, you're
bombarding your subscribers andthey're going to unsubscribe,
they're going to leave.
It's very hard to getsubscribers these days.
So that's where we're alsocoming into play with Engage.
(22:37):
We've made sure it'scross-channel and it can already
integrate all Salesforcemarketing cloud channels.
That's email, text, mobile push, that's in Salesforce marketing
cloud.
But we also allow customchannels, meaning maybe you want
to integrate your CRM, Maybeyou have another ESP, et cetera.
Now you can integrate it intoEngage so you can work
cross-channel, so you can dealwith those 10,000 marketing
(22:59):
solutions out there as amarketer.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Wonderful St Amazing.
Thanks for that, and could youdiscuss any partnerships or
collaborations that have helpedyou form the business and grow
the business?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, definitely.
So I think again, I've alreadygiven a little shout out, but
one thing that really helped usat the start was started at KBC.
They're an accelerator based inBelgium, so I guess my message
here would be for especiallyaspiring founders if you have a
local accelerator these guysthey gave us free office space
and a bunch of coaching and thatjust made a huge difference.
(23:35):
There's this romantic image ofworking from your garage, but if
you actually have an officewhere you can go to, it's easier
to hire and it's also it's goodfor your own psychology, for
your own mentality about it,right?
Like okay, I'm actually going towork, I'm going to build
something.
I'm not going to chill at homeand maybe have this little side
project which is the risk of thegarage approach.
(23:56):
So that definitely helped.
And then, no, we're an officialSalesforce partner, so that's
by far the most important one.
It goes as far as revenuesharing.
I fly out like.
A couple of weeks ago I was inChicago giving a training to
pre-sales support from sales forthe ComSolution engineers.
For those who are familiar, sothat goes very far and that has
(24:19):
led to them helping us on deals.
It has.
We're listed on theirSalesforce app exchange.
For those who don't know,that's the largest B2B app store
.
Essentially you can find andyou know it's brought us leads
as well.
And then, finally, these aresometimes formal, sometimes less
formal partnerships, but, asI've alluded to before,
(24:41):
consulting firms, agencies,marketing agencies, can be a
very pivotal role for us becausethey're often in a great
position to recommend goodsolutions to their customers.
And so those consulting firms,agencies who really want to just
advise good solutions, theywill often reach out to us and
bring us to customers.
And so, for instance, we've hadreally good success with some
(25:03):
of the big ones Capgeminite,deloitte, accenture.
These are some of theconsulting firms that have all
referred us to really greatcustomers, so we're very
grateful for those thingsespecially.
It's also funny about me and myco-founder we come originally
from Deloitte, so it's nice tostill have those contacts.
But then we've also worked with, I would say, more
boutique-sized marketingagencies who have done similar
(25:24):
things for us and us enablingthem being a good partner,
giving them credibility,invisibility and transparency.
Yeah, that works, but it's avery long, long-term play.
If you're investing in partnermanagement today, your real
return will come 18 months fromnow, and so you have to be
(25:45):
willing to do that and able todo that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, 100%.
Couldn't agree more on that.
And, anthony, we are coming tothe end of the show, but before
we go, what advice would youlike to give to other tech
founders looking to succeed intoday's world?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, I love that question.
Look, there's three, three mainthings.
I would say that I've learnedin the past few years and it's
been quite a ride, but the firstone would be so.
So if you're an aspiringfounder, solve for problems.
Don't look for a great idea.
I did three startup ideasbefore.
The one single differencebetween this one and the
(26:28):
previous three ones I failed waswith this one I actually saw a
problem that went out to solve.
You're super smart, you havetons of ideas, nobody cares.
Look for a problem to actuallysolve and then work on that.
Secondly, sell before you build.
So initially, once we had, oncewe saw the problem, it thought,
oh, maybe we can solve it.
Then we started to sell itbefore we actually coded.
(26:49):
So we got a request for a quotefrom an insurance company
before we wrote a single line ofcode and to some extent to some
extent we still do that wenever make any guarantee that we
can make.
True, we've never failed todeliver on promises that we made
during sales engagements and soon.
But even today, there may berequests from customers and if
(27:11):
we haven't built them yet, wewill only built them if you know
there's will probably be anextra upsell on that.
So sell before you build.
And then lastly really it'sgoing to sound almost silly or
self-evident, but it's justworth repeating hire great
(27:32):
people and for newer founders orfor people who never hire, your
standards will go up throughoutthe process.
You have to figure out what itwas great look like and, as one
of my investors and mentors hastaught me, or you know, as he
explained it in the end yourcompany is nothing but the
(27:53):
people in it.
So choose wisely.
Hire slow fire.
Fast sounds rough, but you haveto do it for the rest of the
organization, to make sure youcan keep the ship floating.
And look for great talent andonce you have them, it's awesome
Like look for people you loveworking with smart people that
push you yourself as well.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, 100%.
I love that last one and thanks.
Thank you for that and thanksfor your time today, anthony.
I've really enjoyed learningmore about you and your business
.
What's the best way for ourlisteners to get in touch with
you if you're open to that, orif they're looking to get
involved with your software orjust following your journey?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, first off, thank you so much again, dij,
for being on the show.
I love the questions, lovechatting with you and thanks for
asking so people who want tofollow me personally.
They can find me on LinkedIn.
Just if you look for AnthonyLamott, I think I'm still the
only one on LinkedIn out there.
And then if you want to learnmore about Deselect, simply go
to Deselectcom, subscribe to ournewsletter, check out our
(28:57):
website, learn a bit more aboutwhat we do.
And, yeah, people can alwaysreach out to me on LinkedIn too
if they have any questions.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Awesome, awesome, thanks so much, anthony.
Thank you, it's been a pleasurehave a great day.
Hey folks, welcome back to the growing Lean podcast
sponsored by Lean DiscoveryGroup, an award-winning app and
software development firm basedout of Virginia.
This is your host, Dylan Burke,also known as Deej, and I'm
super happy to be here todaywith Antony Lamotte, co-founder
and CEO at De-Select.
Welcome, Antony.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hi Deej, Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, the pleasure is all mine.
So, Antony, to get us started,can you tell us a little bit
about your background in historyand what led you to founding
De-Select.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, great question.
To start my background, Istudied psychology, of all
things.
I have a master's degree, but Iended up in management
consulting and so back in 2018,I was doing marketing automation
consulting, typically forenterprise, very focused on
Salesforce, and in doing so Isaw that marketers were really
(00:58):
struggling with how to managedata.
So in Salesforce MarketingCloud it's a very powerful
platform, but it can be quitetechnical platform as well.
So if you want to manipulateyour data or segment, you're
going to have to write SQLqueries or find someone who does
, and I thought, well, surely wecan do something that's a
little bit easier.
So I had been teaching myselfhow to code throughout my career
(01:20):
.
This was not my first startup.
I just tried a few other thingsbut me and my co-founder.
So I got together with Jonathan, who's now my co-founder and
our CTO, and I know him fromback in the early days in our
career in consulting and westarted hacking and we went to
market very fast.
We can talk more about that andinitially we actually
(01:41):
bootstrapped till one million inannual recurring revenue.
That allowed us to attractattention of some prominent
angels.
We got an awesome advisoryboard you can find them on our
website and then we alsoattracted some venture capital,
used that money to expand intothe US.
Side notes were originally aBelgian company.
Our HQ is still there, but, asI like to call it, our GTM, our
(02:02):
go-to market HQ is here inAustin, where I live now.
So I've made the jump acrossthe Atlantic.
We got over a dozen people nowhere as well and still growing
pretty good, especially giventhe current market.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Awesome, awesome, amazing.
And could you walk us throughyour overall business strategy
for deselect?
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I mean, it's a broad question.
I can talk about this stuff forhours.
I'll break it down into productand GTM.
So on the product side, there'sa few pillars that we have
adhered to from the very earlybeginning that we still adhere
to and how we think about ourproducts.
So those are turnkey, intuitive, fully integrated.
So turnkey means you sign withus within 24 hours, you're up
and running, you don't have todo a heavy implementation
(02:46):
project, so your time to valueis almost instantaneous.
Maybe some training, a coupleof weeks to get used to the tool
, but very fast value.
Secondly, intuitive this isvery, very hard but we will try
to make our software as easy tounderstand as possible.
We do offer some trainingbecause we solve very complex
problems data models,segmentation, marketing strategy
(03:09):
, et cetera so we do offer sometraining around it.
But people do comment and leaveus really good reviews on
things like the Salesforce, appexchange or Capitara or whatever
that our stuff is easy to useand then, lastly, fully
integrated.
So as a design principle forour we call it an MOP marketing
optimization platform, which issomething we've gradually
(03:30):
developed into we want to makesure that it can just plug and
play instantly In our case, theSalesforce.
Because we're a Salesforce firstcompany, we already support
other channels as well.
So there's that.
So, overall, this wholestrategy, where is it going?
Well, I mentioned how weinitially started as something
that replaces SQL in Salesforce,but that was, I would say, our
(03:54):
initial point solution.
Meanwhile, we've developed intoa multi capability platform
that does multiple things.
Also, our stack, while we're aSalesforce first company,
actually our own tech stack isfully independent from that.
It runs on Google Cloud.
It's working fully via API, sowe can be technology agnostic
tomorrow if we should choose.
Having said that, I love salesfor the build, my career, my
(04:16):
company.
It's a huge market, so we'restill happy being a Salesforce
first company for probably manyyears.
That's on the product side, onthe GDM side, very high level
sales marketing, partnershipsand PLG.
So sales it's outbound, coldcalling sequences, prospecting,
target account lists, all thatstuff.
Marketing it's mainly events.
(04:37):
There's many awesome events youcan do in the Salesforce
ecosystem, such as dreamforceit's the most well known one,
but there's also connections andmany, many others.
Natural search, social media,marketing.
There's a bunch of stuff we candelve into if you want to.
Partnerships where Salesforcepartner.
So obviously that is reallyimportant to us.
But we also enable consultingpartners, agencies.
(04:58):
We call them SI systemintegrators, people who work
with marketing cloud and who arelooking for better solutions to
add on to it and just do rightby their customers and advise
them.
So we enable those.
And then, lastly, plg hasproduct led growth.
Most well known examples arecompanies like Atlassian Gira
products that you start using byyourself, you like, get a
(05:20):
subscription.
Then you tell your buddies nowyour team's using it and
suddenly the whole enterprise isusing it.
Well, suddenly might take a fewyears, but in any case that's
the idea behind it.
Now PLG is notoriously hard toactually get right, but we
believe it helps all of promisefor our business, seeing how we
typically in firstly cater tothe more technical marketer and
then they enable their team.
(05:40):
So it seems we're having, we'reserving, the right persona.
We have a product that lentitself to it and we have a free
version of our product now andwe've seen some installations by
major major insurance companiesand sports teams.
So I think it's very promising.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Awesome, awesome.
Thanks for that.
And you've been around for whatit's about five years now,
since 2019, right, that's right.
How have you adapted to changesin the global space, like the
main one being the pandemic thatwas probably the first one we
hit and then the second onebeing AI coming into the
(06:17):
mainstream and being availableto everyone?
So how did you adjust to?
Let's start with the pandemic?
How did you and your businessadjust to the pandemic?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, great question.
So the pandemic?
That's a funny one because Icanceled my final consulting
contract, which was for a globalautomotive company.
It was a really interesting job, well paid.
I quit it.
A week later COVID hit and Iwent fuck.
But, it worked out very well.
I think in a sense COVIDactually benefited us and the
(06:52):
big bummer was building officeculture was harder and I think
it's really critical to havesome office culture and see
people face to face for a techstartup, because there's just so
much you have to figure outboth product and GTM-wise.
At least that's how I see it.
I hear a little similarthinking and accelerators these
days.
But aside from that, covidworked out for us because in
(07:13):
enterprise SaaS so we're SaaSbusiness models software as a
service In enterprise SaaS,customer contact is normally
very important, but that's veryexpensive.
Jumping on planes is veryexpensive, especially for a
bootstrap company if you havezero money.
So we didn't have to do thatbecause people had to do calls
and I think that might haveactually helped us.
At the same time, during COVID,marketing spend was pretty high
(07:34):
Marketing technology spent, andwe're in that category.
So that kind of worked in ourfavor.
So that was the first one, thesecond one, I would say.
There's actually one other trendI should highlight.
That is that SaaS itself hasgone through a very turbulent
period.
In 21,.
Fundraising was easy.
People would buy softwareeasier.
There was this notion of growthat all costs.
(07:56):
Didn't matter how many eurosyou were throwing Eurus, dollars
, australian dollar, whatever,how much currency you were
throwing at a marketing,qualified lead and opportunity,
it just didn't matter.
You could do whatever you want.
Almost that has completelyshifted Money markets, so to do
fundraising have become muchharder, almost impossible for
(08:17):
certain companies.
Many SaaS startups have gonebankrupt.
Meanwhile there's been massivelayoffs in the industry and we
might have hit the stabilizationpoint.
Some people in the know theythink it's going to go up again.
We don't know.
I don't have a crystal ball.
What that has meant for us isjust like for the companies who
have endured well, it meansshifting from growth at all
(08:38):
costs to sustainable growth Likean actual business works right,
not like a crazy Silicon Valleytech startup works.
Suddenly there's no guaranteeyou can fundraise.
So you shift your business fromgrowth at all costs to cash
flow positivity as soon aspossible.
So we've done that shift, Iwould say pretty well.
Sometimes that took making harddecisions.
(08:59):
That's not always fun, but itwasn't necessary.
I feel we've been very decisivein those things.
We've learned very fast,especially being a very young
company, and we've come true.
I mean, compared to my peers, Iknow we're in a very
comfortable cash position.
We have a line of sight andcash flow positivity we don't
have to raise unless we want to,those kind of things.
So those are big, big shifts inhow we think about our business
strategically and in aday-to-day operations way.
(09:22):
And then, lastly, I'll get to AI.
So AI, yeah, I follow thisstuff closely myself.
I love using chat GPT, forinstance, to think about
strategy.
It's a really interesting toolto think about your strategy or
to think about organizationaldesign, roles and
responsibilities, sort of someof my personal use cases.
But we start to integrate theproduct very early on into our
(09:44):
segmentation solution to offer afeature we call DD AI DD being
the name of our penguin mascot,by the way.
So DD, ai, that's our AIcapability.
So now you can shout at yourlaptop to get a segment, at
least as the idea.
However, there's some learningsand I can talk more about that
if we have the time.
But that's one way we startintegrating it In other parts of
(10:06):
our product.
We also have machine learning.
Whether you consider that AI ornot, you know that's your
choice, but we have machinelearning built in to do things
like frequency optimization.
That's part of our engagedproduct, which is another module
on our platform.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Okay, awesome, awesome.
And are there any specifictools or tactics that your
business makes use of that havebeen particularly effective in
helping you grow to where youare?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yeah, I mean there's a million.
I could name my number onebecause I know this is a very
founder heavy audience here Talkwith customers, keep talking
with customers.
Even if you, you know, make 100million a year, you should be
talking to your customers on adaily basis if you can.
So just recently, just to, kindof because there's so much
going on the market AI there's alot of stuff happening in the
Salesforce ecosystem,specifically Mark tech is
(10:55):
remains a very dynamic field.
So me and my co-founderactually just wrapped up doing
57 interviews with marketingleaders and experts in companies
from mid market to Fortune 100companies, literally and and and
doing those interviews just toget a feel of what is everyone
thinking, what are the mainchallenges, what can we do.
There's all of good content outthere from somebody by a
(11:16):
combinator, on how to talk withcustomers, and so now we have
this whole big piece of meat wecan feed into our product
management thinking we can usefor content.
So talk with customers.
Number one.
Number two what's really workedfor us is get your insights
into your industry, product usecases, things you're solving
into something like an ebook,but make it really educational
(11:37):
and then recycle the heck out ofthat piece of content.
So I'm recycling.
What I mean with that is youpost it on social media and say,
hey, if you comment, I'll sendyou the ebook.
Now, ever in post on the post,the post explodes.
You capture leads, but at thesame time you also post the
ebook fully exposed as a landingpage, because that creates
natural search and then peoplewho are scrolling they'll see a
(11:58):
pop up.
They can leave their emailaddress.
What it was going to do for youis going to be less leads and
if you would gate it but theleads you get a more qualified.
And it's exactly what you wantless leads, but more qualified.
And then you turn it into awebinar and then you cut up the
webinar and then you make sureit's an, etc.
Etc.
So recycle, recycle, recycle,recycle Super duper important.
I think those are two thingsI've really worked.
(12:18):
And in terms of tools, one toolI'm a fan of is gong gong.
For those who don't know it's,it's meant to be sales coaching
and what it does is record yourcalls and then your sales
manager can coach people.
But we use the crowdorganization, we use it for CS,
we use it for marketing, we useit for product management.
So how?
So say, for instance, I want toknow what people are thinking
about.
(12:38):
Let's say AI, right, I actuallyhave a tracker.
It's funny.
I actually have a tracker setup in gong to listen to what
people are saying about AI,whether it's our product or
generally.
I don't have AI in general, andat the end of the week, gong
sends me a nice report witheverything anyone has said about
AI and I can just click to theexact second when people are
saying that this is a great wayfor me to not just coach people
(13:01):
but to also hear from customersdirectly what are they saying
and not have it rephrased bysomeone else reporting to me.
It's really important to stayvery close to the exact
terminology people are using toyou, that you're marketing,
you're thinking, etc.
So these are just three, but Iyou know I could geek out for
another day probably 100%.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Now I could also chat about it for days.
And what has been the biggestchallenges for you, let's say,
firstly in launching thebusiness?
So what were the startupchallenges that you faced?
And then what have been ongoingchallenges in scaling the
businesses and how have youovercome those challenges?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Oh yeah, absolutely great question.
So many.
This might surprise you.
It's not easy starting abusiness, right, I mean I you
know.
But maybe when starting look,it's just hard you have to work
hard.
I saw startups in theaccelerators that we were part
of.
We were in an accelerator inBelgium called Start at KBC.
(13:58):
They helped us a ton initially,but there were many startups
there that honestly didn't crushit as hard as they probably
could have For the first monthsof really like from the moment
we decided, okay, this thing isgoing to be a thing because we
got customer interest, there wasa period I worked seven days
out of seven four monthsstraight.
This was a combination of a fewconsulting things I was still
(14:18):
doing to pay mortgage and food,but then I was also just working
the remaining whatever hours ofthe day every day.
Sunday days, I would workpublic holidays, I worked on
Christmas, I worked on NewYear's Day, that kind of stuff,
and I still work often six daysa week, and I think that's is
that a challenge.
I think that's just somethingyou have to stomach and train
(14:39):
yourself into.
Do another, much more specificone when scaling the business is
once you, especially in a techcompany, at some point you need
to hire for great leadership andthe one single most important
role, arguably or one of themost important ones at least is
your VP sales.
Now, vp sales are good VP salessuper hard to find.
(15:00):
It's a hard skill set.
It's a grind of a job.
Also, if you get the wrongperson, it sets you back six
months at least, because findinga new one will take about that
long and they can really make orbreak your company.
Like a great VP sales, theyfind talent, the business grows
faster, everything becomeseasier.
Bad VP sales will build badprocess, bad culture, etc.
So there's this saying in SASand I kind of hate it and it's
(15:23):
something like as a new CEO,founder, you need to get past
the corpse of your first VPsales, meaning the first one
never works out.
So I had to go past two corpses.
I unfortunately had twomis-hires and from the moment we
raised venture capital, itactually took us more than 80
months to finally have a greatVP sales.
And now we do have a great VPsales.
(15:44):
Jason, if you're listening,thank you for everything you're
doing for us and it's making adifference.
And, you know, maybe it had totake 18 months for us and I
could have maybe compromised forsomeone who was adequate.
But I think it's reallyimportant to find people who are
great, especially forleadership role, but, frankly,
(16:06):
for any role.
So that was definitely achallenge because in that period
I had to juggle many heads.
I moved to the US, I had tostill coach salespeople are
still in many deals, I was stillbeing a CEO, still talking to
the board and investors, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
But, yeah, just have Amazing yeah, that's a common
discussion I'm having on theseshows is that it takes a lot for
CEO to like finally hand overthe reins of a specific
department Because, like it's,obviously it's your baby, you
know.
But you've got to come to thatpoint where you realize you
(16:41):
don't have time to do all ofthese things, so you actually do
need to hand it over for thebusiness to continue growing.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, and then it's super important point.
Yeah, and you know it'sinteresting.
I've always I've never likedthe phrase it's your baby
somehow doesn't resonate.
I like to think of it as likeit's our project.
We're doing this together and Itry not to be too identified
with it.
But I think the right way tothink about hiring talent,
especially if for yourleadership team as the CEO, is
(17:11):
find people who are better atthe thing that you are.
Like as a CEO, as a founder CEO, you're going to have to learn
everything, everything, if onlyjust to hire the right person.
Like if you're hiring tomorrowfor a head of CS, you're going
to have to learn what CS isabout, right, and you better
study fast.
But the person you do hire hasto bear it as you are.
Otherwise you're going toalways want to micromanage a
(17:31):
person and step in, and you cando that.
You have to make sure thosepeople alleviate you so you can
focus on other stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, 100%, 100%.
And can you speak to anymetrics or KPIs that you use to
measure the success of yourbusiness?
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah, so there's, there's dozens, literally dozens
of KPIs we have.
I mean, actually it's funny,even in our marketing department
.
So they have a list of KPIs.
It's literally 150 KPIs.
But but I mean, those are maybemetrics, maybe they're not KPIs
.
The KPIs that I look at as CEOfounder obviously ARR, so annual
recurring revenue.
Then there's the growth ratelinked to that.
There is NRR, which is revenueretention, and revenue retention
(18:13):
itself.
I can I can speak to those in asecond CAC payback, burn, cash
runway, and, and the thing iswell, if there's one metric as
the most important of all, it'sprobably ARR.
But these metrics do have toplay together.
So it's not that there's one ortwo metrics I'm only focused on
.
It is a more of a holistic view.
(18:33):
What does the whole dashboardlook like?
So, but ARR is the mostimportant one, just because, as
a SaaS company, your valuationis dependent mainly on ARR and
the growth rate linked to it.
So for us, keeping a steady, Imean keeping the same growth
rate year over year, which meansevery year we have to grow
faster and faster, and thecurrent market that means faster
and faster with less means.
(18:54):
That's important.
So that's, that's part of thegrind.
Another thing is revenueretention, so avoiding churn,
making sure you keep yourcustomers happy and they expand
rather than leave, is reallyimportant.
We have very healthy metricsthere.
I want to get them a little bitbetter.
And in terms of expansion,which will trickle into NRR,
(19:17):
these days, for great, a greatmetric would be 130%, but other
world-class companies today,today's market, at our stage,
above 100%, is often consideredgood.
We're comfortably above that,but we can probably go much
higher because of the newproduct, engage, which we've
launched last year, which isgetting a lot of traction.
So I think that metric is goingto get better.
Cag payback, that's customeracquisition costs.
(19:37):
That's the reflection of howlong it takes to earn back the
money you've spent on sales andmarketing, essentially, so that
gives you an idea of howefficient is your growth machine
, so that one is one of themlooking at very often.
And then, of course, cash in arunway.
Keep your burn low, especiallytoday where fundraising is not a
given or not easy, and get tocash flow positivity in the
(20:03):
current market is something thatmost companies are doing, most
SaaS companies at least.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, 100%, and that's the main point of our
podcast is growing lean.
So growing while staying aslean as possible.
I think it's super importantthese days, especially in this
economy.
Totally, and where do you seeyour industry heading, let's say
, in the next year and in thenext five years?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah.
So one trend that I'vedefinitely seen and I've
mentioned our interviews and ifpeople are curious about
learning about these lessons,you can follow me on LinkedIn.
We'll be posting about thatshortly but Marketing leaders,
even at enterprise companies,they don't want to do long
(20:49):
digital transformation projectsand more Like digital
transformation still sounds kindof sexy, but what it means is
you're going to spend aconsulting firm a million to do
a 12-month project to hopefullyget this new integration with
your data warehouse or whateverrunning and there's just not a
lot of appetite there, becausein today's market, to be
competitive, you need a reallyfast time to market right.
The speed you go to market isreally important and if you're
(21:10):
waiting for 12 months for a toolto be implemented without even
knowing it's really going to payoff, that's a hard sell.
So that's why our turnkeyapproach, I think, is really
very valuable.
Another thing that I see in theMarTech space is so sometimes
people say, oh, maybe the marketis saturated with MarTech.
I don't believe it.
There is this very famous chartby Scott Brinker where he edges
(21:35):
out the MarTech landscape.
A year ago this was a singleslide with a few dozen companies
.
Meanwhile, it's amazing it's10,000 logos of MarTech
solutions.
And now some people say, oh,there's going to be acquisitions
and mergers.
But I believe, given capitalismand what it is, and given a
still growing world population,there's just going to be more
(21:55):
sophistication.
Right, we're just going to getmore and more refined in our
marketing and technology.
There's going to be moreplayers, even though there's
going to be mergers andacquisitions.
So I think that's a trend thatwill continue.
There's one thing that largecompanies and mid-market
companies and even smallcompanies struggle with is
because there's not so muchsophistication in your tooling.
There's all these automations,automated nurturing journey, et
(22:16):
cetera.
People have lost the overviewof what's really going on.
One customer told me a coupleof weeks ago we don't even know
what we're sending out anymore,right?
So there's this risk that maybeif you're a marketer, you're
bombarding your subscribers andthey're going to unsubscribe,
they're going to leave.
It's very hard to getsubscribers these days.
So that's where we're alsocoming into play with Engage.
(22:37):
We've made sure it'scross-channel and it can already
integrate all Salesforcemarketing cloud channels.
That's email, text, mobile push, that's in Salesforce marketing
cloud.
But we also allow customchannels, meaning maybe you want
to integrate your CRM, Maybeyou have another ESP, et cetera.
Now you can integrate it intoEngage so you can work
cross-channel, so you can dealwith those 10,000 marketing
(22:59):
solutions out there as amarketer.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Wonderful St Amazing.
Thanks for that, and could youdiscuss any partnerships or
collaborations that have helpedyou form the business and grow
the business?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, definitely.
So I think again, I've alreadygiven a little shout out, but
one thing that really helped usat the start was started at KBC.
They're an accelerator based inBelgium, so I guess my message
here would be for especiallyaspiring founders if you have a
local accelerator these guysthey gave us free office space
and a bunch of coaching and thatjust made a huge difference.
(23:35):
There's this romantic image ofworking from your garage, but if
you actually have an officewhere you can go to, it's easier
to hire and it's also it's goodfor your own psychology, for
your own mentality about it,right?
Like okay, I'm actually going towork, I'm going to build
something.
I'm not going to chill at homeand maybe have this little side
project which is the risk of thegarage approach.
(23:56):
So that definitely helped.
And then, no, we're an officialSalesforce partner, so that's
by far the most important one.
It goes as far as revenuesharing.
I fly out like.
A couple of weeks ago I was inChicago giving a training to
pre-sales support from sales forthe ComSolution engineers.
For those who are familiar, sothat goes very far and that has
(24:19):
led to them helping us on deals.
It has.
We're listed on theirSalesforce app exchange.
For those who don't know,that's the largest B2B app store
.
Essentially you can find andyou know it's brought us leads
as well.
And then, finally, these aresometimes formal, sometimes less
formal partnerships, but, asI've alluded to before,
(24:41):
consulting firms, agencies,marketing agencies, can be a
very pivotal role for us becausethey're often in a great
position to recommend goodsolutions to their customers.
And so those consulting firms,agencies who really want to just
advise good solutions, theywill often reach out to us and
bring us to customers.
And so, for instance, we've hadreally good success with some
(25:03):
of the big ones Capgeminite,deloitte, accenture.
These are some of theconsulting firms that have all
referred us to really greatcustomers, so we're very
grateful for those thingsespecially.
It's also funny about me and myco-founder we come originally
from Deloitte, so it's nice tostill have those contacts.
But then we've also worked with, I would say, more
boutique-sized marketingagencies who have done similar
(25:24):
things for us and us enablingthem being a good partner,
giving them credibility,invisibility and transparency.
Yeah, that works, but it's avery long, long-term play.
If you're investing in partnermanagement today, your real
return will come 18 months fromnow, and so you have to be
(25:45):
willing to do that and able todo that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, 100%.
Couldn't agree more on that.
And, anthony, we are coming tothe end of the show, but before
we go, what advice would youlike to give to other tech
founders looking to succeed intoday's world?
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, I love that question.
Look, there's three, three mainthings.
I would say that I've learnedin the past few years and it's
been quite a ride, but the firstone would be so.
So if you're an aspiringfounder, solve for problems.
Don't look for a great idea.
I did three startup ideasbefore.
The one single differencebetween this one and the
(26:28):
previous three ones I failed waswith this one I actually saw a
problem that went out to solve.
You're super smart, you havetons of ideas, nobody cares.
Look for a problem to actuallysolve and then work on that.
Secondly, sell before you build.
So initially, once we had, oncewe saw the problem, it thought,
oh, maybe we can solve it.
Then we started to sell itbefore we actually coded.
(26:49):
So we got a request for a quotefrom an insurance company
before we wrote a single line ofcode and to some extent to some
extent we still do that wenever make any guarantee that we
can make.
True, we've never failed todeliver on promises that we made
during sales engagements and soon.
But even today, there may berequests from customers and if
(27:11):
we haven't built them yet, wewill only built them if you know
there's will probably be anextra upsell on that.
So sell before you build.
And then lastly really it'sgoing to sound almost silly or
self-evident, but it's justworth repeating hire great
(27:32):
people and for newer founders orfor people who never hire, your
standards will go up throughoutthe process.
You have to figure out what itwas great look like and, as one
of my investors and mentors hastaught me, or you know, as he
explained it in the end yourcompany is nothing but the
(27:53):
people in it.
So choose wisely.
Hire slow fire.
Fast sounds rough, but you haveto do it for the rest of the
organization, to make sure youcan keep the ship floating.
And look for great talent andonce you have them, it's awesome
Like look for people you loveworking with smart people that
push you yourself as well.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, 100%.
I love that last one and thanks.
Thank you for that and thanksfor your time today, anthony.
I've really enjoyed learningmore about you and your business
.
What's the best way for ourlisteners to get in touch with
you if you're open to that, orif they're looking to get
involved with your software orjust following your journey?
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Yeah, first off, thank you so much again, dij,
for being on the show.
I love the questions, lovechatting with you and thanks for
asking so people who want tofollow me personally.
They can find me on LinkedIn.
Just if you look for AnthonyLamott, I think I'm still the
only one on LinkedIn out there.
And then if you want to learnmore about Deselect, simply go
to Deselectcom, subscribe to ournewsletter, check out our
(28:57):
website, learn a bit more aboutwhat we do.
And, yeah, people can alwaysreach out to me on LinkedIn too
if they have any questions.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Awesome, awesome, thanks so much, anthony.
Thank you, it's been a pleasurehave a great day.
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