Marketers of Technology
00:05:28 · Stefan Bader, Andres Figuera
[00:05:28] S0: Yeah, so there are some industries that tend to work better than others. I think we're quite industry agnostic from software is eating the world since a few decades, and you can see that we're offering software to companies, provide software to hairdressers, to construction workers, to teachers, to white collar workers, blue collar workers, whatever it is. We see that AI companies, because they have such great inbound and word-of-mouth that can be accelerated, This is working quite well, although retention might not be the best. We see that vertical SaaS is working really well. For example, accounting and tax software or software where you manage your flights you rent out and things like that. These are probably the verticals that tend to work best, vertical SaaS and AI. [00:06:17] S1: Okay. Okay. Stefan, another question I do have is, do you feel that you're working in a saturated market where there's competition? Or do you believe that you guys are set up or going to be the leaders of this, what's called it, this market in general?
00:06:17 · Andres Figuera, Stefan Bader
[00:06:17] S1: Okay. Okay. Stefan, another question I do have is, do you feel that you're working in a saturated market where there's competition? Or do you believe that you guys are set up or going to be the leaders of this, what's called it, this market in general? [00:06:31] S0: Yeah. So we're trying to build a horizontal platform with multiple products. And I think every product has a different competitive landscape. So for user referrals, which is the space probably we initiated or we started alone out of the need because there was nothing there, we're the leader in that market. When it comes to affiliate management software, there's a lot more competition and it's more like orange or red ocean where we have a lot more companies to share the market with. And then for the future products that will be shipped, for example, in Q1 and Q2 next year, the the situation will be, again, different. But these are then rather greenfield markets we're moving in. [00:07:10] S1: Okay. And when it comes to marketing this type of product, have you felt that you needed to, I don't know, create different campaigns? Does your competition have more budget than you guys? Like, how have you been able to market what you do properly?
00:07:25 · Stefan Bader
[00:07:25] S0: Yeah. I think go to market is under a lot of pressure for all kinds of businesses out there, right? With AI that is flooding the the channels of the existing playbook, which makes it for many companies out there quite challenging, including us. And therefore, you have to find unique ways to not burn a lot of the capital you have or might not have. And therefore, we're trying to focus on channels we own that are quite efficient when it comes to CAC payback, so that we first make money and then have to pay and try to avoid ads at all costs. We have also initiated a pretty large brand campaign, which is quite atypical for a company at our size and stage, which is called the GTM10 Awards. Basically, an award where we set the stage to five different categories around go to market and award 10 winners each year from sales, marketing, customer success, growth and partnerships. And we have done this now the second year. This is I think something you either get right or you stop it after the first one. And the first year was quite successful and went viral, so we continued doing it. And it was still not free, right? It still requires a decent amount of capital with the bet that we can co finance that. And in the second year we got for every category, for example, sponsors in that basically are carrying the cost for this brand campaign, which now leads us to a still large brand campaign that is completely cross financed with partners we actually want to have joining us on the award like Anthropic, Fin, PKI, EpiFi and LaGrosse Machines. So like partners we believe that are leading in their fields in like different go to market verticals or that are helpful for operators in these verticals?
00:09:09 · Andres Figuera
[00:09:09] S1: No, of course. And if you're backed up or at least partnering with like for example, Anthropic, it really provides, like, it gives this... What's it called? If they're being able to trust you guys and clients you may find, then we'll be... We'll know that they can trust you if you already have people like Anthropic backing you up or Finn, and I totally understand that. And then what do the partners get out of being able to work with you guys?
00:09:30 · Stefan Bader, Andres Figuera
[00:09:30] S0: Yeah, so basically they also get brand recognition. Many of them, many of the partners probably needed less than we do as a smaller company, but they also want to be seen especially in these specific verticals where they have interactions with the winners and the jury. We're basically we're the one that sets the stage and throws the party, and then our sponsors basically provide the capital to do it well. We're doing all the logistics in the background. The jury itself is then the one that is picking the winners, so we as a company don't do that. But yeah, it's around brand recognition. It's about the winners, for example, and the category sponsors get a few seconds each on the pretty known billboard at Times Square. There's a lot of influencer marketing going on around this award. We have physical events with dinners, we just did two dinners in San Francisco, one in New York, one in London the last three weeks. So there's a lot happening around the award, we're trying to build up a pretty special and unique community, which is a pretty high value. If you click through the jury and the winners, you will understand what I mean by that. [00:10:37] S1: Okay, that is so cool, man. Yeah, like everybody wants to be at least have some time on Times Square where so many people are walking through that place every single day. And Stefan, another question I do have is now shifting the perspective a bit more inwards to what Cello is. How big is the company, man? And how many people do you have helping you out on your team?
00:10:37 · Andres Figuera, Stefan Bader
[00:10:37] S1: Okay, that is so cool, man. Yeah, like everybody wants to be at least have some time on Times Square where so many people are walking through that place every single day. And Stefan, another question I do have is now shifting the perspective a bit more inwards to what Cello is. How big is the company, man? And how many people do you have helping you out on your team? [00:10:56] S0: Yeah. We have 24 people in the team. We're pretty heavy on engineering and products, and then a small and mighty marketing or go to market team. [00:11:08] S1: Amazing. Okay. And how are you leveraging AI, not specifically with the Cello platform, but to help you guys out in your day to day task? Or do you have any peculiar or particular ways that you're using it?