Scaling Smarter: 3 Lessons Learned From Scaling to $30m/yr in revenue in 2024

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Thank you everyone for being here to listen. My name is Sophie Bonassisi, the VP of Marketing at GTM Fund and GTM Now. GTM Fund is an early-stage venture fund backed by 350 go-to-market expert operators who have been there, done that, if you will, to grow some of the greatest SaaS companies. GTM Now is the media brand of GTM Fund, sharing insight and advice from that top 1% of operators in addition to our viewpoints from working with over a couple hundred portfolio companies. And our media roots extend far beyond even the Fund, back to Sales Hacker, which was

a brand our GP Max Alchiler founded back in the day. He sold it to Outreach in 2018. And then last year, we actually re-acquired it and rebranded it as GTM Now. So I'm going to kick us off on this stage day. Unfortunately, you're going to see a little bit more of me as I introduce our subsequent speakers. You're going to hear from seven incredible speakers throughout the day, but we will get started with building and growing a, or building and growth of flywheel versus an engine, an example of product, media, and community. So in the next 20 minutes, I'm going to show you a flywheel versus an engine, breakdown of an actual example, so our example, our use case, and three key benefits of building a flywheel.

Now, a growth engine requires continuous input to generate growth, much like fueling a car unless you drive electric. It works, but it stops once you stop putting fuel in it. A growth flywheel, on the other hand, grows on its own once it gains momentum, with different parts of the business reinforcing each other. And so, once it's set in motion, it has this compounding growth effect and a much more sustainable growth impact. So it's self-reinforcing and sustainable versus a growth engine that is linear and predictable. It's momentum-driven versus more input-driven,

and it has a compounding effect versus more of a direct relationship. So this is our flywheel at GTM. Fund, community, media. Now, for a SaaS company, that would be the product. The fund is our product in this case, and they all reinforce each other. So all elements are going to work together. The fund is at the top of this flywheel simply because the flywheel is designed to support the fund. Everything we do is to support the fund, and in SaaS companies' case, everything would be to support the product. So if we break those down, a few examples of the pieces of the flywheel that come together.

So the product, funded in this case, supports media by providing an industry landscape and visibility to be able to share that kind of insight through media. It brings limited partners, so go-to-market executives, together to create a community. Media, in turn, helps the flywheel because it increases brand visibility, provides meaningful distribution for portfolio companies. In a SaaS example, that's for yourselves or any of your partners in your ecosystem. And for us, it also provides a revenue source for programs for portfolio companies. Media also supports community in the flywheel because it helps amplify the thought leadership

of anyone in that community to support their professional goals. In SaaS companies, that can be prospects in your funnel, that can be customers. And for us, it also serves as a revenue source for community events. And last but certainly not least is community. It supports our product, product, by providing built-in go-to-market support for portfolio companies. On the media side, it helps by providing insight and expertise to share through that content and support the distribution. So there's a couple of examples of SaaS companies doing this really well at a very early stage. Pocas is one example. You'll hear from their CTO later today. His name is Isaac.

And they built media and product, or media and community, pardon me, around their product. And it's been really effective as they can bring the flywheel together. Another interesting example on the community side is a company called Noble. And they brought together an advisory board of their ICP. And that advisory board, their ICP are marketers, helps them with distribution, helps them overall get connected. It also informs their product roadmap, however, because they can easily get feedback. They set up a Slack channel. And the interesting thing about that is they've shaped their advisory board as a community. And then those members get the benefit of having that community together. Together, it creates a flywheel.

And again, product, community, media, coming together. So they all work together to create compounded growth. Now, in this graphic, the arrows are unidirectional, but the reality is they all feed into each other. So they are multidirectional, all supporting each other. So with a flywheel, growth is baked in, not bolted on. There's a few key benefits to doing so and thinking about this at a very early stage while you're building. Number one is efficient growth. So building a flywheel can help reduce your CAC in the long run, as it creates more sustainable organic channels.

It also just helps you overall do more with less. I know it sounds cliche. We say it all the time when we acquire the media business. Purely, it helps us do more with less, fewer resources. Because you can lean into your distribution to get any kind of messaging feedback way quicker than otherwise.

And word of mouth, organic. So certainly helpful on that front also. Second, it creates a competitive moat. So the recipe of having a flywheel creates differentiation. You could have the product, you could have a community, and you could have media working in silos. But when you connect them as a flywheel, they create a unique blend. Almost like, I mean, a recipe. And the reality is, in startup world, that we're often against larger companies with way more resources. So if you were slow cooking a recipe, for example. You'd have a large company, they've got expensive pans, they've got all the ingredients they can throw together, no problem, at a way quicker rate.

But for startups, when you're layering in parts of the flywheel very intentionally, it's creating this recipe where each individual ingredient is layering on the next and extracting more flavor to create a unique blend that is harder for any company to replicate.

And third, it helps build deeper relationships.

So because we've got these longstanding, deep-rooted connections, it does help in the long run for contributing to higher customer and lifetime value, in addition to any kind of top-of-funnel acquisition. So any kind of pillars of the business, any growth strategies, the way we recommend always thinking about it and looking about it is, are you compounding momentum, or are you constantly feeding the fire? And it's not to say that growth engines do not serve a purpose, and a very important purpose, they certainly do. Especially before brand is taking off. But everything that is being built can be viewed in the lens of, how can this contribute, or how are there potential synergies

to be creating a flywheel, or building towards creating a flywheel for acquisition, for retention, and for expansion? So just a quick recap. We covered key differentiation between growth flywheel and a growth engine. A real kind of example, if you will, a flywheel for us. Of course, that is fun, it's a little bit of a different, unique use case. But the same things lend itself in terms of product, community, media, and three key benefits towards looking at everything that you do.

Through the lens of how can I build a flywheel that is self-sufficient? So efficient growth, competitive moat, and stronger long-term relationships. Thank you. Thank you for listening. We've got seven fantastic speakers coming up. So again, unfortunately, you can't get rid of me that easily. I will be hanging around to introduce them as the next one comes up in about seven minutes from now. So feel free to grab a quick drink of water and then we'll be right back.