DevTools Brew #46: Lessons from New Relic: 5 Critical Steps to Scaling Enterprise, Harness’ CEO: How Did We Get Our First Customer?...
Hey folks, welcome to DevTools Brew #46!
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 most successful devtool companies.
In this Issue #46:
📈 Lessons from New Relic: 5 Critical Steps to Scaling Enterprise
🧲 Harness’ CEO: How Did We Get Our First Customer?
⭐ Star History Weekly Pick
I hope you will enjoy this new edition.
Let's dive in!
📈 Lessons from New Relic: 5 Critical Steps to Scaling Enterprise
In today's deep dive, we're taking inspiration from Erica Schultz, former CRO at New Relic, a leading AMP (Application Performance Monitoring) solution. Erica shared invaluable insights and lessons learned during her journey of scaling New Relic's enterprise business 10x. Scaling a company's revenues, customer base, team, process, and product requires meticulous strategy and hard work.
Erica unveiled the 5 critical steps to achieving enterprise growth👇
Key Takeaways
1. Enterprise Transformation Beyond Product Targeting
Transitioning to the enterprise market isn't just about selling the same product to a different audience.
All facets of the company, from sales to marketing and product development, need to undergo transformations.
Sales teams may shift from primarily inside sales to field sales, and roles like technical sales and customer success become crucial.
2. Building the Right Talent Pool
Hiring individuals who are not only experienced and strategic but also possess a passion for building is vital.
Agile team members capable of scaling up and down quickly are invaluable.
Leaders should be coaches who can define clear roles and responsibilities while nurturing talent.
3. Developing a Culture of Customer Empathy
Enterprises have diverse buying teams, so understanding multiple personas' needs is essential.
Recognize that enterprises view new tech vendors as potential sources of risk, emphasizing factors like security and scalability.
Enterprises often grapple with significant technical debt, so meeting them where they are is crucial.
4. Selling Solutions, Not Just Products
In the enterprise, it's not enough to showcase your product; you must connect it to solving business problems.
Focus on demonstrating the value your solution provides in solving critical issues for your enterprise clients.
Customer stories highlighting tangible benefits play a pivotal role in selling solutions.
5. Partnering for Success and Advocacy
Identifying target customers in your sweet spot is key to success.
Forge strong partnerships with these customers, building trust and commitment to their success.
Successful partnerships lead to enthusiastic advocates who can help you make a name in the market.
Embrace transformation, hire the right talent, cultivate customer empathy, sell solutions, and create strong partnerships to not only survive but thrive in the enterprise space.
🧲 Harness’ CEO: How Did We Get Our First Customer?
I stumbled upon an enlightening LinkedIn post by Jyoti Bansal, the CEO of Harness, where he spills the beans on how they secured their first customers in his initial startup journey. The insights are pure gold, and I couldn't resist sharing them with you!👇
Key Takeaways
1. Crafting the Outreach: The Cold Emailing Process
Creating a cold emailing process to cast a wide net, then strategically segment the prospects.
Targeting hundreds of potential customers on LinkedIn, with a focus on IT operations roles.
Analyzing responses to identify patterns in company size, job titles, and more.
2. Engagement over Sale: Asking for Feedback
Jyoti advocates for engaging users by seeking feedback rather than pushing for a sale upfront.
Making customers feel like partners in solving a problem.
The importance of not just getting responses but fostering meaningful engagement.
3. Identifying Desperate Users: Asking the Right Questions
Jyoti advises using closing questions to separate the desperately seeking from the casually curious.
Questions like, "If we build this product, would you be willing to buy it?"
Pinpointing users with urgent needs and valuable feedback.
4. Tailoring Solutions: Adapting Based on Feedback
Harnessing the power of user feedback to adapt messaging and offer solutions.
Changing the product narrative based on the articulated business case and urgent problems identified.
The iterative process of refining the offering to align with customer needs.
Jyoti Bansal's journey from 0 customers to a $3.7 billion acquisition is therefore a golden word in strategic customer acquisition 😅
⭐ Star History Weekly Pick
The Star History Weekly Pick is:
Vanna: “Chat with your SQL database. Accurate Text-to-SQL Generation via LLMs using RAG”.
⭐️ 4.7k stars reached
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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