SaaS Talks #39: Outbound demand-gen | Deepak Anchala (Slintel) & Raghu (Yellow.ai)

EXPERT

HOST

Alok Goyal

Sayantan Sarkar

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00:00 Introduction and Context

04:25 Raghu on how yellow.AI initiated outbound from Day 1

06:27 How to decide whether you should start an outbound motion from Day 1

07:49 How to structure your outbound motion

09:40 Optimizing outbound when it comes with longer sales cycles, lower conversion rates and velocity

13:43 Raghu on how he refined his ICP for outbound

16:39 How do you stand out against competition in outbound?

19:54 For very early-stage founders, how do you incentivize people to give feedback on your product?

26:09 What are some effective channels for early-stage outbound motion? What are some fundamental changes in the approach to outbound in a crowded market?

29:39 How do you manage the complexity of outbound as a young, early-stage startup? What are some tools that can aid this process?

33:28 How to fine-tune your outbound motion for different sizes of customers?

36:55 Some frameworks to build your outbound team as your ARR scales, and should you hire an agency?

39:41 Intent-based tools and how to use them

44:30 How to incentivize your customers to make referrals for you

47:47 Thoughts on AI SDR

50:45 How to justify and attribute the ROI of the marketing campaigns you run?

53:40 Which outbound channels are the most effective?

55:42 Should you hire a BDR from India or the US?

57:31 Closing remarks

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As investors, we feel fortunate to work with exceptional SaaS founders every day. But over time, we’ve noticed two common challenges that some of them encounter when figuring out enterprise sales.

The first challenge often affects product-first thinkers, typically those with engineering or product backgrounds. While they’ve built outstanding products, they may lack experience with the enterprise sales cycle and often struggle to generate leads, stopping them from unlocking their product’s full potential.

The second challenge arises among founders who are efficient at converting leads into customers. With impressive conversion rates, they perform exceptionally well further down the funnel – but face difficulties in generating enough top-of-funnel leads to sustain growth.

If any of this sounds like a problem you’re trying to solve, tune into this edition of SaaS Talks, where we’ll dive into building the first leg of your outbound motion. The discussion covers a wide range of topics, including creating a demand generation engine, leveraging the right tools to achieve your goals, identifying signals to qualify leads, pinpointing the right decision-makers within target organizations, and much more.

Leading this session are two stellar founders who’ve truly been there and done that – Deepak Anchala, co-founder of Slintel (acquired by 6sense), and Raghu, co-founder of Yellow.ai.

Hosted by Alok Goyal and Sayantan Sarkar

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