@matiii
Recently we celebrated an incredible milestone: adding $14M of additional ARR in a single day. It was our first day crossing $10M, and it’s crazy to see how much has changed since the early days and our very first deal. One of our first agreements was signed in November 2022 at Web Summit in Lisbon. From the start, we adopted a unique strategy: self-serve and sales-led GTM motions could work together in harmony from day zero. Still many of the fundamentals of traditional sales were entirely new to us: - Our inaugural deal was closed almost live during the conference spearheading the early pitching to bring it home. It was with another startup, focused on building AI avatars who needed high-quality speech. While they were also in an early stage they were keen to move quicker and also take the bet on us - which formed the initial target for who to reach out to with our technology - Unsure if our product was fully ready, we often offered it for free initially to demonstrate value, only asking for payment once companies recognized that value (frequently far too late too!). With this first deal, we agreed to start charging only after about 2 months, with volumes ramping up as their needs grew. - We were unfamiliar with the necessary details of the paperwork required to sign a deal, and with ChatGPT not yet available and cash tight, we ended up co-drafting the agreement with the client. - And we closed it - for a huge amount at the time - of $1,000 ARR. Fast-forward to November this year: $14M of additional ARR closed in a single-day. Our core principles remain, but our processes and platform have evolved dramatically: - We still prioritize proving value before seeking major commitments. While the $14M was closed in single day, it was the culmination of around 12 months of collaboration, proving out value and building toward a deep partnership - Our offering has grown from speech to agents and the broader audio solutions, evolving from a single-product to a muti-product enterprise platform. - We moved from ad hoc paperwork to structured workflows and agent automations at each stage of the deal process (a variation of message we received after the deal, from the brilliant RevOps team, below). This ensures a transparent process across the entire company. And witnessing this level of collaboration always a pleasure. - And today, although our sales team still shows our platform live on the ground at events, we bring together Forward Deployed Engineers, core product, legal and GTM to ensure seamless execution through which makes working with our partners a true team activity.
