DevTools Brew #29: A Journey with Retool's CEO: How to Win Early Sales Deals, Top Open-Source Alternatives to Most Popular SaaS...
Hey folks, welcome to DevTools Brew #29!
If you're new here, my name is Morgan Perry, co-founder of Qovery, and every Saturday, I share the stories, strategies, and insights behind the successful devtool companies.
In this Issue #29:
📈 Retool Story: Winning Early Sales Deals
🔍 Top Open-Source Alternatives to Most Popular SaaS
⭐ Star History Weekly Pick
💰 Latest Devtools Funding Rounds
I hope you will enjoy this new edition.
Let's dive in!
📈 A Journey with Retool's CEO: How to Win Early Sales Deals
Today, let’s embark on an extraordinary journey with Retool, a game-changing devtool startup that shifted gears from the brink of failure to an $800 million success story. From David Hsu (Retool CEO) insights, learn how they harnessed outbound sales and savvy tactics to achieve product-market fit and usher in a new era for internal tools 👇
Key Takeaways
Running out of Runway
In the lead-up to Y Combinator Demo Day in 2017, David Hsu faced a daunting financial challenge, burning $1000 a day.
Their initial venture, a UK-based Venmo competitor in fintech, was unprofitable, and they were running out of money fast.
With fewer than 60 days of funds remaining, a pivotal decision was needed to change their course.
Pivoting to Retool's Genesis
Upon closer examination of their prior work, they uncovered a treasure trove of custom software developed for their struggling fintech startup.
This included tools for fraud detection, Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulation, and more.
A crucial revelation occurred when they recognized that most internal tools essentially followed a similar pattern of tables, buttons, dropdowns, and forms, which could be streamlined.
Within a remarkably short time frame, they transformed this insight into a functional prototype.
Their journey culminated with a triumphant announcement of an enterprise customer pilot worth $1.5 million at Demo Day.
Outbound to Product Market Fit
In their early days, Retool's sales strategy relied heavily on outbound efforts since they were virtually unknown in the market.
They strategically leveraged Crunchbase Pro to pinpoint over 10,000 target companies that met specific criteria, such as raising over $10 million in the past six months and having a specific employee count.
To convert these companies into individual leads for outreach, they utilized freelancers from Upwork who were cost-effective and efficient in identifying the right contacts.
Rigorous A/B testing in email campaigns resulted in an impressive 8% conversion rate, a noteworthy achievement in the SaaS industry.
This approach allowed them to secure early adopters and clinch a paid pilot project, all before Demo Day.
Shifting Gears to Inbound Sales
An August 9th, 2018 post on Hacker News marked a pivotal moment that redirected Retool's focus from outbound to inbound sales.
The influx of companies signing up for Retool daily necessitated significant changes in their workflows and strategies.
They took a fresh approach to hiring, prioritizing individuals who could think independently and creatively, valuing problem-solving skills over strict adherence to established sales norms.
Empowering Inbound Signups
Despite having a relatively new product with its share of bugs, they were determined to ensure early customer delight.
To achieve this, they built specialized tools to monitor user experiences in real-time.
An ingenious Slack automation system allowed them to track user activities and proactively intervene when issues arose, making customer support highly responsive and effective.
Scaling Sales Activities with Tools
Recognizing the importance of sales efficiency, Retool developed a range of purpose-built tools.
These tools included an SDR dashboard on Salesforce, which streamlined sales development activities, and a mock data generator for tailoring sales demos to different industries.
The rapid development of these tools exemplified the company's agility in adapting to its evolving needs.
A Pivotal Shift in Messaging and Market
Rather than embarking on a wholesale transformation of their product, Retool astutely adjusted its messaging and target audience to attain product-market fit.
They learned from their earlier marketing attempts, which failed to resonate with their desired audience.
The pivotal shift in their market and messaging, from legacy software users to React developers and creators of internal applications, significantly contributed to their explosive growth.
Retool's Explosive Growth
The strategic shift in market and messaging played a crucial role in driving exponential growth for Retool.
This growth was underscored by the successful raising of a substantial $50 million Series B funding round.
Retool's customer base expanded to include industry giants such as Amazon, DoorDash, and Plaid, cementing their position as a valuable solution provider.
David’s Vision about The Future of Internal Tools
David Hsu's visionary outlook centers on revolutionizing internal tools to elevate business efficiency and employee satisfaction.
High-quality internal tools can transform workplace dynamics, leading to enhanced productivity and happier employees.
This commitment to improving internal tools remains a core focus for Retool, hinting at continued innovation and growth in the future.
Retool's journey embodies resilience, adaptability, and the transformative power of strategic pivots in the startup landscape. It serves as a testament to the importance of recognizing the right market and messaging to achieve lasting success.
—> To explore more, read the full article “Retool's CEO on the operations behind winning early sales deals”.
🔍 Open-Source Alternatives to Most Popular SaaS
I had fun putting together a comprehensive, handpicked collection of the best open-source alternatives to the most popular SaaS products you use every day👇
Algolia ➝ Meilisearch
Amplitude ➝ Posthog
Airtable ➝ Nocodb
Archbee ➝ Docusaurus
Auth0 ➝ SuperTokensio
Bitly ➝ Dub.sh
Calendly ➝ Cal.com
Contentful ➝ Strapi
Courier ➝ Novu
DocuSign ➝ Documenso
Doodle ➝ Rally
Doppler ➝ Infisical
Datadog ➝ Highlight
Gmail ➝ Mailspring
Google Analytics ➝ Plausible
Figma ➝ Penpont
Firebase ➝ Supabase
Fivetran ➝ Airbyte
Heroku ➝ CapRover
Hubspot ➝ Erxes
Intercom ➝ Chatwoot
LaunchDarkl ➝ Unleash
LogRocket → Sentry
Mailchimp → Listmonk
Notion ➝ AppFlowy
Postman ➝ Hoppscotch
Segment ➝ JITSU
Snyk ➝ Semgrep
Redis ➝ DragonflyDB
Retool ➝ Appsmith
Rewardful ➝ Reflio
Saleforce ➝ Odoo
Slack ➝ Mattermost
Shopify ➝ Medusa
Snowflake ➝ Hydra
Stripe ➝ Lago
Substack ➝ Ghost
Tableau ➝ Metabase
Typeform ➝ Typebot
Webflow ➝ Webstudio
WorkOS ➝ BoxyHQ
Zapier ➝ Temporal
Zendesk ➝ Rocketchat
Do you see any other alternatives? Feel free to mention them in comments :)
⭐ Star History Weekly Pick
The Star History Weekly Pick is:
Evidence: “Business intelligence as code: build polished data products with SQL and markdown.”
⭐️ 2k stars reached
💰 Latest Devtools Funding Rounds
Rocket.Chat, a startup that provides an open-source chat platform, raised $10M in a Series A “bridge” funding round.
Deskree, a Toronto-based devtool startup, has raised $1.5M in a Seed round to help developers create backend infrastructure without a single line of code.
Codee, a Spanish startup scored $5.3M to bring automated software testing for performance to market.
Evidence, a startup that brings open source BI to technical data teams, raised $2.1M in seed funding.
It’s already over! If you have any comments or feedback, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Thanks for reading,
Morgan
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