7 trends founders of "sales tech companies" are talking about rn
(AI is only two of them 😅)
Hey y’all!
If you’re new, welcome! If you were forwarded this from a friend, or found it on the interwebs, get future posts directly in your inbox (only once a week, I promise) -
Let’s get into today’s post.
I've spoken with about 40 founders of sales tech companies in the past month. Public company CEOs, all the way down to seed stage companies.
These are the top trends that everyone is talking about:
1/ Consolidation szn
Everyone knows it, now it's a matter of placing your bets on where to expand or where to plant your wedge.
"The Big 7" are the ones to try and take out:
• HubSpot
• Zoominfo
• Gong
• Clari
• SalesLoft
• Outreach
• Apollo
2/ Everyone is an AI company
No company says "we're a cloud company" anymore. Very quickly, this is the trend with AI. It's a tool, not a differentiator anymore. Build with it, it's table stakes now.
3/ Copilots are the future
Every rep and manager will have smart Copilots that help them manage their day-to-day tasks, delivers insights to them proactively, and can answer questions for them. It's inevitable.
4/ The old GTM Playbook is dying (RIP "Predictable Revenue" era)
What's the *new* playbook? It's not entirely clear, yet. But it's slowly emerging.
Here's where I see the most upside:
• PLG/PLS
• Warm intros through your network(s)
• Community flywheel
• Founder brand (eg: LinkedIn content)
• Partner-selling, and
• Signal-based selling ('warm outbound').
Learn the new playbook to find the alpha.
5/ It's unclear if the data warehouse will overtake the CRM as the single source of truth for GTM Teams
Many companies are trying to build the CDP for GTM Teams, or the "Intelligence Layer" (as I call it). No one has emerged the clear winner, because it's a really hard and technically hairy data problem to solve. Salesforce's data model is the double-edged sword that continues to prevail. But Rome will fall eventually.
6/ OpenAI is eating the world
OpenAI wrappers are the obvious companies to short. But I think these companies can actually use OpenAI to get a wedge into a market, then expand and build a moat from there. The pace at which a *few* companies are building with this new toolset is astounding. I'm excited to watch it unfold, but frankly, I have zero idea how/where to place my bets.
7/ It's extremely hard to find budget for net-new tools in the current down market
Companies that are having the hardest time right now are the ones building a shiny *new* thing — something that is a new budget line-item, and not replacing an existing tool. This won't be forever, but until we're back in a bull market, it's hard to imagine any net-new budget items ripping unless they're truly 10x better than the status quo.
Excited to keep tracking this space and place some bets.
There will be a few big winners who emerge as the infrastructure for the future B2B SaaS GTM Playbook. And I'm determined to find them. :)
See you next time,
B.