Category creation and product-led differentiation with Drift's David Cancel
Explicit content warning
01/17/22 • 33 min
1 Listener
Key Points:
- David talks about category creation and conversational marketing (01:05)
- I give my thoughts on category creation and category design, with a quote from Chris Lochhead (03:50)
- David talks about the downsides of category creation, and Drift's success was a bet (4:50)
- I give my thoughts on the pitfalls of category creation, with a clip from Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta (07:40)
- David discusses the cost of category creation, and how Drift had to look for low-cost, high-reward ways to build mental availability (09:45)
- I give my thoughts on the surround sound effect, with a quote from Alex Birkett (15:10)
- I give my tops tips on generating mental availability, with a clip from Les Binet on the 60/40 rule(17:10)
- David gives his thoughts on commoditization and competition emerging in the category (20:25)
- David talks about the cycle of technology in SaaS (21:55)
- David discusses the death of product-based differentiation (23:30)
- I give my thoughts on product-led growth as a transient competitive advantage (24:15)
- David discusses Drift's failure to create a 'revenue acceleration' category (24:55)
- I give my thoughts on Drift's learnings and strategic narrative, with a clip from Andy Raskin (26:30)
- David gives his thoughts where the market is going next (27:50)
- David talks about how SaaS has to pivot to become customer-centric, not business-centric (29:20)
- David discusses their next milestones and the value of teams and the human component (30:10)
- Wrap Up (31:00)
Mentioned:
Hubspot
Gainsight
Slack
Google Ads
Facebook Ads
SaaStr
Chris Lochhead
Key Points:
- David talks about category creation and conversational marketing (01:05)
- I give my thoughts on category creation and category design, with a quote from Chris Lochhead (03:50)
- David talks about the downsides of category creation, and Drift's success was a bet (4:50)
- I give my thoughts on the pitfalls of category creation, with a clip from Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta (07:40)
- David discusses the cost of category creation, and how Drift had to look for low-cost, high-reward ways to build mental availability (09:45)
- I give my thoughts on the surround sound effect, with a quote from Alex Birkett (15:10)
- I give my tops tips on generating mental availability, with a clip from Les Binet on the 60/40 rule(17:10)
- David gives his thoughts on commoditization and competition emerging in the category (20:25)
- David talks about the cycle of technology in SaaS (21:55)
- David discusses the death of product-based differentiation (23:30)
- I give my thoughts on product-led growth as a transient competitive advantage (24:15)
- David discusses Drift's failure to create a 'revenue acceleration' category (24:55)
- I give my thoughts on Drift's learnings and strategic narrative, with a clip from Andy Raskin (26:30)
- David gives his thoughts where the market is going next (27:50)
- David talks about how SaaS has to pivot to become customer-centric, not business-centric (29:20)
- David discusses their next milestones and the value of teams and the human component (30:10)
- Wrap Up (31:00)
Mentioned:
Hubspot
Gainsight
Slack
Google Ads
Facebook Ads
SaaStr
Chris Lochhead
Previous Episode
How to Win in SaaS - 15 insights from the series so far
Key Points:
- Tapping into pre-existing demand (00:40)
- Listening to customer demands with Alina Vandenberghe - Co-Founder of Chili Piper (01:45)
- Moving away from feature-based differentiation with Guy Yalif, CEO of Intellimize (03:25)
- Niching down and focusing on a specific audience with Nathan Barry, founder and CEO of ConvertKit (06:00)
- Out-innovating the competition with Colin Nederkoorn, founder and CEO of Customer.io (08:10)
- Doubling down on organic content marketing with Patrick Campbell, founder and CEO at ProfitWell (10:05)
- Educating your customers with Patrick Campbell (13:45)
- Creating a community with Alex Kracov, former VP of marketing at Lattice (15:10)
- Perfecting your operations and processes with Devin Bramhall, CEO at Animalz (16:50)
- Creating a category with Tamara Grominsky chief strategy officer at Unbounce (18:50)
- Creating a great offer or freemium plan with Patrick Campbell, founder and CEO at ProfitWell (21:10)
- Piggybacking on growing ecosystems such as Shopify or Chrome with Ben Jabbawy, CEO of Privy (22:05)
- Attracting the best talent (24:10)
- Building moats with Morgan brown, VP Growth at Shopify (24:50)
- Building long-term relationships (25:45)
- Wrap up (26:10)
Next Episode
Building trust through transparency with Metadata’s Gil Allouche
Key Points:
- How Gil pivoted from a marketing career to starting tech company Metadata (1:12)
- My thoughts on innovation as a transient advantage (04:19)
- How Metadata is competing on innovation (06:56)
- Why Gil made an early marketing investment in G2 Crowd (10:46)
- Why Metadata opted to tap into pre-existing demand for ABM software (12:41)
- How Gil and Metadata are differentiating by prioritizing transparency (14:49)
- My thoughts on gaining customer trust through transparency (18:13)
- Why Gil’s initial strategy did not focus on brand (20:31)
- My take on building brand as a sustainable asset (21:47)
- My view on defining your target market (24:46)
- Gil’s predictions for the future (27:44)
- Wrap up (28:57)
Mentioned:
Category Creation and Product-led Differentiation with Drift's David Cancel
Bigger than This by Fabian Geyrhalter
My Links:
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