A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:31:02 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:31:02] S1: to get what was the goal of most of those emails? [00:31:04] S0: To get them on a call. Just try to get them on, like, a demo, basically. And I do, like, discovery and demo on the same call, and that would be the the main goal. That was the CTA. It was just, like, are you free for a quick call? And as I back to the point of, like, when we actually had when we had the messaging down and we had some case studies, it was easier to scale it. So it was like, hey. We are helping crypto.com do this. We are helping partner Hero do this. [00:31:25] S1: I was gonna ask, though, are those the best emails where you can just name drop a customer that they'll know and then you just get social status that way? [00:31:31] S0: 100%. [00:31:32] S1: When you have a crypto.com, of course, you should milk it. Right? But what was working best before that? What were the sort of things that and maybe tell me more about the email. Right? Like, everybody gets so many emails these days. How crazy do you go on personalization, on length versus just being short and to the point, like or being alarmist? Like, you see some stuff on LinkedIn these days. I saw one the other day. Was like the headline was like, your mother's dead. No. Just kidding. I was like, obviously, it's crazy rage mate, but you get what I'm saying.
00:31:32 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:31:32] S1: When you have a crypto.com, of course, you should milk it. Right? But what was working best before that? What were the sort of things that and maybe tell me more about the email. Right? Like, everybody gets so many emails these days. How crazy do you go on personalization, on length versus just being short and to the point, like or being alarmist? Like, you see some stuff on LinkedIn these days. I saw one the other day. Was like the headline was like, your mother's dead. No. Just kidding. I was like, obviously, it's crazy rage mate, but you get what I'm saying. [00:31:58] S0: Right? No. No. I I absolutely hate that. They're the worst of worst, so I hate that stuff. But I think, like, my email, like, copy is like, hey, first name. I'm Mark. Building Solid Road. Solid Road is this. And we're helping companies like x y z do this. Any interest in learning more? Would love to show you a personalized demo of how we can help your company. Let me know. That simple. Simple. Basic. Okay. It's like really, like, basically, why I'm contacting you, clear ROI, case studies, testimonials, social proofs, call to action. [00:32:28] S1: And so that's where you're really going after volume in the sense of, like, you need the person to be at the right place, right time to be like, oh, wow. I actually was thinking about this kind of thing. Yeah. Sure. Let's talk.
00:32:37 · Mark Hughes, Pablo Srugo
[00:32:37] S0: Yeah. And I think, like, that's how we got these customers, and then, like, how we grew those customers is probably another thing that I have a strong opinion on. And, like, our net revenue retention last year was a 186%. So, like, what we did then was we would go meet these people in person. So, like, day one, first office there as we got into YC, sat with our group partner, Brad, and we're talking about customers. And we were saying we have this customer, Podium, and, like, they're really using the tool heavily across different teams. Don't know them that well. And he's like, yeah, like Podium are a YC company, and they're based in Utah. Like, go book a flight and just, like, try get a meeting with them. So we're like, okay. Cool. And they were like, we're messing them saying, oh, we'd love to meet in person, and, obviously, people are busy. They're kinda ignoring us. So then we just, like, doorstep them, basically. We're, oh, we're actually meeting these other customers, potential customers in Utah. We'd love to come in. And then they were the most hospitable people ever. Ireland gets a good name for good hospitality. I've never seen anything like it in Utah. So they kinda brought us into their office. Like, we walked in. We were introduced, like, the Solid Rogue guys, and, like, one of their teams got up and started, like, clapping again. Patrick was getting emotional in that in that regard. Don't know if it was, like, being endearing or just joking, but either way, we appreciated [00:33:42] S1: it.
00:33:42 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:33:42] S1: it. [00:33:43] S0: And we kind of parked ourselves in one in of their meeting rooms for three days and, like, met with every single person who's using the tool, got feedback, and then we just, like again, when we saw how impactful that was on usage and, like, building relationships with people, that it wasn't just, like, a Slack connect channel and didn't know anyone, we'd like scale that. [00:34:02] S1: What does that do? Tell me a bit more about like because obviously the time investment in going to visit a customer is massive between the flight and the hotel and this and that or whatever. The reason that you get more is is what exactly? People see you and they're just more willing to jump into a room and chat with for you for thirty minutes? Your onboarding is better? Like, what improves as a result of spending that time? [00:34:21] S0: Yeah. I think, like, onboarding activation, it's like there could be small bottlenecks in the product that you don't realize. Because we're not a self serve product. We're a sales led motion, and there's things in our product that maybe we just become blind to that become bottlenecked to adding new users or someone getting fully activated in the tool. So it was really being able to see that firsthand and click buttons side by side. So I think activation's a big one. And then, yeah, just, like, the actual relationship, like
00:34:21 · Mark Hughes, Pablo Srugo
[00:34:21] S0: Yeah. I think, like, onboarding activation, it's like there could be small bottlenecks in the product that you don't realize. Because we're not a self serve product. We're a sales led motion, and there's things in our product that maybe we just become blind to that become bottlenecked to adding new users or someone getting fully activated in the tool. So it was really being able to see that firsthand and click buttons side by side. So I think activation's a big one. And then, yeah, just, like, the actual relationship, like [00:34:46] S1: It's literally hand to hand combat. Like, at scale, you're gonna have to figure something out. But it's like, okay. This pissing off, cool. Like, let's fix it. Let's find a way, whether it's software or just me telling you or whatever it takes, let's just get to the point where you're almost forcing. We always talk about that moment, that value moment where it's seven friends on Facebook, whatever it is. How do you get people to that fast? You know what? Just show up at their office and hand hold them all the way till they get there, and then you're like, cool. Now who's next? You know what I mean? Like, now you're good to go. [00:35:13] S0: Yeah. Like, a 100%. Obviously, you need to have ACVs to justify, like, our ACVs are are sitting at just below, like, a 100 k now. [00:35:20] S1: But even back then, like, that was that a 100 k customer, or that more, 20 k? [00:35:23] S0: No. Like, twenty, twenty five k. [00:35:25] S1: Yeah. At the beginning, it's like whatever. As long as they can grow into that.
00:35:25 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:35:25] S1: Yeah. At the beginning, it's like whatever. As long as they can grow into that. [00:35:28] S0: 100%. 100%. And and I think the one good thing that really came from the first batch of on-site visits, because, like, I have a a note in my phone of all the flights I took last year for customers, and I took 56 flights and based on, like half my time was in Dublin and then I moved to San Francisco full time in in September, so taking transatlantic flights as well to Nashville and Connecticut and all these interesting places. What percent of [00:35:52] S1: your time, total time would you say is then invested in just being with customers? [00:35:57] S0: Then, I actually don't have the the honest figures. It was like a big proportion, like [00:36:01] S1: Must have been like 80%. I mean, 56 flights. Like, it's just even between that.