Speaker: Patrick O'Connor, CEO, Gatekeeper
What challenge did you have before working with Pete & Emily?
Patrick O'Connor: Our key challenge before working with Pete and Emily, was really the number of different ICPs and verticals that we spanned. We were a bootstrapped organization to north of $10 million ARR and we've grown very successfully but, almost exclusively by inbound. So we had five ICPs over forty different verticals and that stood us in very good stead up until the point where we were really in scale up mode and scaling up that many of the different use cases, different types of customers, different value propositions started to become really problematic. So we needed to try and work out what's the part of the market that we can really carve out and dominate. And how can we go and become the leading player in that specific category? So for us, it was all about growing up and really defining a category that we could own.
What did you like about them and how they worked with you?
Patrick O'Connor: What we loved about working with. Pete and Emily was it was a really collaborative approach. So we were able to work really closely on understanding the kind of data and the process. But I guess most of all, it's the existing frameworks that they have. So every single step of the way you're guided, you're coached through understanding how each step fits together, what the bigger picture looks like. But if you just look at the bigger picture, it can be pretty overwhelming and there is a lot of work to do. It's extremely valuable work. In fact, it's invaluable work. But there's work there nevertheless. So breaking it down into chunks and then understanding how those individual chunks make up the whole of the work streams put together through these overarching frameworks and then guided by Pete and Emily running interactive workshops, keeping the energy levels really high within the team and making sure that all the key team members contribute was absolutely crucial to our success.
What results did you get with Pete & Emily?
Patrick O'Connor: The results for us have been incredible. So out of all of the different workshops and collaborative sessions, we came up with a very clear idea of who our buyer was and who our verticals are that we go after and that we do best in where we have better sales velocity, better average order value, better net revenue retention ongoing. We also carved out a brand new category, vendor and contract life cycle management as a direct result of the workshops that we went through with Pete and Emily. We went through and managed to secure a place on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, which for us was a complete game changer. We've put vendor and contract life cycle management at the heart of everything we do. That transformation process is still ongoing, but it impacts every single part of the customer journey, you know, from marketing, getting the messaging right and improving. how you attract these customers, you want them to land on the web page and just say this business was built for me if they're your ICP and they're in the target verticals, you know, all the way through to the sales talk tracks become narrower and deeper, which improve sales velocity, through to onboarding, these customers look the same. So the onboarding templates, the processes become much narrower and much deeper. So it means faster time to value which in this current economic climate with the CFO in most deals is absolutely vital all the way through to the customer success teams because the same value journey is aligned across these customers now, which means that you get better net revenue retention. And then finally, even into the product team, if what we're building doesn't fit this ICP and these verticals, we simply don't build it. And when we do build it, that means that the messaging and the solution that we're putting the platform that we're putting out to the market attracts the the same kind of verticals and the same kind of ICPs even better. So it's this virtuous kind of fly wheel, you know, we went through in the output and the VCLM messaging has radically improved our go to market function. It's secured us a place on the Gartner Magic Quadrant and we've recently just secured and partnered with Vista Equity Partners. And the VCLM vision is no small part of that, securing that partnership. So yeah, for us, it's probably the best thing we ever did in business. I can't say much more than that now, can I?
