Welcome to the did you know Podcast by Varisource, where we interview founders and executives at amazing technology companies that can help your business save time and money and grow, especially bring awareness to smarter, better, faster solutions that can transform your business. 1.4s

Hello, everyone. One. This is Victor with varisource. Welcome to another episode of the Did You Know? Podcast. We have an exciting episode today about helping you with 10x your go to market strategies. We have Smartcue in the show today. We have the CEO and co founder Robin Singhvi here with us. Smartcue essentially helps you create interactive product demos in minutes. Welcome to the show, Robin.

U1

Hey, Victor. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

U2

Yeah, we got a lot of I mean, you know, in this day and age or in really any economic times, everybody wants to know how to improve their go to market and sales and growth, right. So we're going to have a lot of exciting questions for you, but yeah, for the audience, if you don't mind, maybe a quick background about yourself and the founder story. It's always really 1.4s

U1

of course. So, like, victory? You said I'm Robin. I'm the founder of SmartQ, and. 2s I have a computer science degree and I moved to the US to get my MBA early 2010 or 2008, and then post that I spent about ten plus years with startups of various sizes, all in the B, two B SaaS space, and we sold to enterprise clients. My roles at these companies were primarily in the intersection of sales and product, so say a solutions consultant or solutions architect. So I was always part of the sales function, right? And so as part of my role there as a solution consultant or solutions architect, my team and I were responsible for sales training, which nowadays has transformed into that buzzy term of sales enablement. Back then it was just sales training or sales readiness, but even back then, I kind of watched as we tried out different approaches to enable our teams, but saw that 1.3s it wasn't giving the results that we were hoping for. Teams were still struggling to 1.4s showcase our products in the best possible light and 1.2s that kept nagging at me throughout my career. And 1.8s I think with the Pandemic 2020, that problem became even more acute, I think, in general, and for me personally, because I was like, at this point in time, we have to solve it. Because with virtual, selling, becoming so much more commonplace. 1.3s Teams really had just these short, impersonal 30 minutes zoom calls to convince their prospects that their solution or product was the right solution for the prospect. So what can teams, both sales and marketing teams and even product teams, honestly, what can teams do to ensure that these prospects or these leads are really primed and armed with all of the information that they need to be able to convert these leads into paying customers faster? Right? And so that essentially really was the perfect storm for me to try and solve this problem of can we allow allow teams to put forward their products, create, distribute and track sort of. 1.5s Showcases of their own products 1.6s that help improve the quality of leads and also internally help with faster enablement of internal and external stakeholders. So that was kind of what led to SmartQ. And that's what I've been doing for about almost two years now. So a little bit long winded, but hopefully that helps set the context rest. 2.8s

U2

I never get tired of hearing founder stories. Obviously we're entrepreneurs ourselves, and it's just really cool to hear 1.3s what problems obviously a lot of the founders, they started these businesses or projects because they had similar challenges in their own careers or own life. And so I think it's always fascinating because these are things that most people, I think, don't hear about, know about when they go to your website, right? They see your product, they see the value, but they don't hear how it all came about. And so no, that was fantastic. So again, you've been at many different startups and startups are always trying to figure out the cheaper, better, faster, easier, differentiator ways of go to market, right? But maybe just the first question for you. What do you think are the current challenges for GTM go to market teams? Why is it so hard to differentiate now, especially with so many software out there and a lot of competition, and every day there's new software coming out. It's very saturated in almost every software category. So why is it so difficult?

U1

Yeah, so one, I'll try to answer that from the B two B lens, just because

U2

that's the lens I'm most familiar with, 1.3s and also because I think the B two B buyer persona and behavior in today's day and age has really evolved. I think we can attribute a lot of it to the pandemic, but I think even prior to that, the behavior is evolving as we move towards more 1.1s self serve models. Right? So even B to B buyers at the end of the day are starting to behave so much more like B to C buyers, where what they want to do is do their own research, educate themselves, make themselves aware of what is the landscape of solutions available out there for their problem statement. 1.1s Try it out just like they would any other consumer product. And once they've actually gotten to that stage of self evaluation, 1.1s that's when they want to come and talk to you as a seller for any sort of B, two B product. And that, I think, is a very unique development that has happened. Because what that means is that the good news is that if you enable your buyers or your prospects to do their own self evaluation in a way that allows them to see that your product or

U1

service is the right solution for their problems, then they're more likely to come to you. And when they do come to you, they've already done the work that your BDR or your Ae would have done of qualifying them, doing the discovery. All of that is done because you've already let them discover the product, and when they do come in, they're pretty much ready and primed to buy. So potentially, if done right, even in B to B, you have the opportunity today to really compress your sales cycle because of this changing the behavior. And all you really need to do, and it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination, is make this process of discovery and evaluation very easy for your buyer. 1.1s Right. Yeah.

U2

And. 1.8s

U1

Go ahead, Victor. 2.3s

U2

Yeah, 1.2s I love the feedback from, obviously your point of view. I totally agree with you that the buying behavior is changing, and I think 1.3s a lot of the SaaS is trying to adapt. And that goes into also kind of our next topic, which is that demo 1.3s process us. Right? Because if you think about how traditionally we all sell software, or even when we try to buy software, what is that process? First, you have a call with the BDR, may not be able to answer a lot of the questions, and then you have to, and you're just trying to even look for quick questions or seeing how things work. But it takes two or three calls to maybe even get to a demo. So maybe in your point of view and you have an interesting insight in this, why do you think traditional demo process is broken? Maybe for the company, but also for the prospect, right? The buyer and the seller?

U1

Both. Yeah, absolutely. I think the key thing is that in the traditional demo process, what we were guilty of, myself included, is we. 1.7s Used to put a large group of people into a bucket and say that this is my buyer persona of like, a million people. And what did we do is we created one demo for that audience of a million. Right. I think that in itself 2.3s is a problem because you're not really understanding that even in a B to B buying cycle, the end of the day, the buyer or your user is an individual, a person who has his own sets of challenges and problems. That individual is looking to look good in front of their boss, wants to use tools or products or solutions that will help them get ahead, get a promotion, get a pat on the back, do better than their peers, or sell more. And when we tend to just create these vanilla cookie cutter demos, we're kind of losing the opportunity to engage with our real buyer. So personalization. If you wanted to distill it down, I think is a big problem that traditional demos don't solve. Right. And then I think the second big problem is. 1.8s What we tend to do is we tend to do a feature function demo, right? Which is the absolute wrong way to go about it, because your buyer does not come to you or to your website or read your email, because you have 25 different filters or because you generate 8000 different reports. What they care about and what they're trying to come to you to solve solve is that, hey, I have this problem that I'm trying to solve at work and if I solve this problem, this is how it's going to benefit me. And we missed that opportunity where we're like, hey, we know what your problems are, challenges are, and this is how our product solves it, right? So that problem solution fit was missing in traditional demos, right? So I think those are two big things that we tend to 2s really rely on in the traditional demo process and which I think, honestly, in the last couple of years, I'm seeing a lot of great companies doing a lot of interesting things. Personalization is now front and center for most organizations, both buyers and sellers. And if you are able to. 1.7s You know, even come across as being thoughtful and having done your research about a prospect's pain points and tailoring not just your demo but also, you know, your your pitch or your deck or you know, just just structuring your discovery a lot better in a way where you come across as more informed. 1.5s That really helps in sort of, you know, solve that problem that we had in the traditional 1.3s way of doing things, if you will. 1.1s

U2

Yeah 1.5s the explanation you gave and kind of the examples, it even taught me a lot of things and sometimes when you're in it, you don't realize it. 2.6s I think what you mentioned there about personalization and about some of the challenges that the old demo process has. But why do you think then still majority of companies out there? Because first of all, we'll talk about interactive demo space coming up next. But I wonder, even with what you said, I would assume most people know, right, that hey, you shouldn't just bucket like you said vanilla same way of pitching to every single person and persona and everything. But why do you think it's still so hard for them to they still go through the same way? Is it just a behavior thing? Is it just like this is what we've done for forever, how to do sales so this is it or why do you think not more people are kind of changing the approach, you think? Yeah, I think the core reason is it's easier said than done. It's hard, it right. It takes a lot of legwork across teams to come up with firstly. 1.7s Very narrow and pointed personas, if you will. Right? I mean, instead of a persona of a million people, can you come up with a persona of like 25 people? That takes a lot of work on the part of marketing teams, on the part of product teams, on the part of user design and user research teams, and on the part of sales teams. So needs a very concerted effort to ensure that firstly you're segmenting your buyers correctly. Right? And once you've done that, how do you then go about the seemingly mammoth task of creating tailored or personalized demos for each one of those micro segments that you've just created? Right. So I don't necessarily blame a lot of

U1

companies of still trying to stay in the same bucket because it takes a lot of time, effort, resources, leadership, a lot of drive right from the top to make it happen, to make that change. And the larger the organization is, the harder that change is. And so it it's tough. But that's where I think tools like SmartQ and others in this space are coming in to help ease that burden of teams who are on the path to changing. Right? 1.3s They're selling behavior. 2.9s

U2

You know, that actually goes into that next topic seamlessly, which is this interactive demo space for sure in the last couple of years due to COVID and even a little bit before that. There's definitely several companies 1.3s getting into the space but it's still not widely adopted. So I think there's tremendous opportunities ahead for you and others in the space. But I guess what do you think and how do you think you guys differentiate from some of the other interactive demo solutions out there? Yeah, so

U1

like I said, my background is being a solutions consultant. 1.1s And I worked with I had teams of scaled engineers under me and 1.1s our jobs were essentially that, hey, you know what? You're responsible for creating these sandboxes, creating updating and maintaining all of these demo libraries, which took a lot of time and effort. And to create firstly and then also to maintain. And when you look at the software lifecycle, right, your product is changing like every four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, whatever is your dev cycle or your release cycle. And that means that there is that added sort of overload to maintain all of these resources and to drive the point home. 1s These sales enablement or sales engineering or solution consulting teams were responsible for creating these demos but marketing and sales teams weren't really able to use them because either they were too fragile or too technical. And marketing and sales teams always come up with custom requirements, so to speak. And they're not wrong because they're trying to do the whole custom selling. 1.5s Our sort of realization, or like my realization at SmartQ was that we need to solve one very core problem them. And that is to make this creation, maintenance and updation of these demo libraries extremely easy to the point where sales and marketing teams themselves are able to do that, right? And I think the proof is in the pudding where today. 1.6s 99% of our onboarding happens on a 30 minutes zoom call, right? Where we get on a call with a customer, we're like, hey, you know what? We are not going to do a demo. We want you to just click here, sign up, and then let's create a demo of your own product on this call itself, right? 2.7s Our sort of North Star, right, from day one and 1.1s think differentiates us from the competition is that this act of demo creation and sort of owning of the demo should not lie with solution consulting or sales engineering teams. They should come in like much later in the sales process when the deal is qualified. It's a significantly large deal. That's when you bring these subject matter experts in. But until then, you need to arm and make the marketing and sales teams really comfortable creating and using these interactive demos. That's the problem statement that we're trying to focus on. And our goal is that can we get our buyer to the AHA moment within a 30 minutes call? Or the long term goal is self serve that we don't even need to be in the picture. People come in, sign up, and they create their first demo and they're like, oh my God, this is so easy. And we're starting to see it like, we had 1.9s a fintech product sign up with us on a Thursday and by the Tuesday of next week, they had created 80 showcases. And wow, this was after literally just a 30 minutes call. And they're like, I get it, all right? I don't need to talk to you anymore. If I have any issues, I will call you. And they called me saying that, all right, I've created 80 of these. Now. I need XYZ features. Right. Or I've discovered XYZ bugs or whatever it is. But that's where I think we want to be. And we aspire to do that where it's like, okay, there is no technical person involved. This is all in the hands of revenue teams who want to be agile and who want to be able to do things without sort of relying on product engineering or sales engineering teams, right? So I think that's our core differentiation

U2

and. It. Yeah. No, I love that. And I love that example you gave, especially with a lot of new low code or no code tools. Drag and drop. Like, you have a lot of these tools. That's kind of the idea, whether it's for business intelligence, bi tools. You used to need data scientists in order to run bi tools. Now it's like, well, anybody can run bi tools. And that's the evolution. So I love that direction where you guys are going. So before kind of interact, demo was a thing. Obviously, you have different video tools, because I think a lot of time, the salespeople the sales teams go to market teams realize the problems we're talking about, right? Which is okay. 1.6s It's also a scale problem. Like, how can I demo for a million people? Like, I can't. It's just like, human not humanly possible, and it's not efficient. Right. There's only so much time in a day. I can only interact. So it's got to be like they also call it like a PLG, right? Product led growth, right? How can the product just self serve or sell itself to some degree? And some of that PLG strategy involves recording videos, right. Using tools like Loom or others, because they felt like, hey, recording videos, you can watch it whenever you want, right? Instead of me having to get on 30 minutes call with you, you just go watch the video. But then the problem is, once you see it in the video, you leave it up for interpretation, because now I'm not playing with the tool. I'm just looking at a video, just like a demo. It's like, I assume this is what you're telling me. So it was still not interactive, right, this video? And then obviously this interactive space came up. But I guess with your expertise, how do you think interact demos can be? Or is it better than the loom and the recording videos? Which is another maybe competition, in a way, to you guys, right? Sure. 2.9s

U1

What you have to realize is that different tools have different places in the sales cycle, and loom is a great product, and there's others like it. But I actually kind of use the same example that I did earlier, right? Because this customer actually was a loom customer. He was a naysayer. He's like, well, we use loom. Why should we use you? And 1.9s at the end of kind of getting onboarded on SmartQ, starting using it, she's like, no way in hell would I have been able to create 80 loom videos in six days. I think it's just the scale at which you can do these things really fast with a product like ours versus recording looms. When you think about it, looms made it really easy to record videos, but you as an individual, still need to ensure that you're not hemming and hawing. You're not like, stuttering. Your dog doesn't bark in the background. Your doorbell doesn't go off. And if you're actually recording your screen, you have to make sure that no notifications pop up, that if you're showcasing your own product, that the data in there is correct. There's a lot of variables when it comes to being able to use loom. 1.4s In a really scalable manner, right? Whereas with interactive demos, you literally can do these in like, minutes and then 1.1s enable your prospects in the same self serve manner. Or perhaps even better than video, because video, in a way, is unidirectional that the buyer hits play and then they have to watch the 60, 9120, 2nd video, and if they miss something, they have to figure out where to scroll back to figure out what they missed. Whereas with interactive demos or showcases on SmartQ, the buyer is really in control. They can sort of go at their own pace, figure out what they missed, what they're really interested in, kind of just deep dive in there and then just get a lot more value out of this showcase that you've sent over to them. And of course, on the back end, sales or GTM teams have the insights and analytics which allow you to understand what is the buyer interested in, which parts of your product are they spending more or less time in, where are they dropping off? 1s And that sort of real time insight allows you to further refine those interactive demos again in minutes, rather than spending an extra 30 minutes an hour re recording potentially aloof. 1.4s It, if that makes sense. Yeah,

U2

no, 100%, man. I think there's different use cases 1.1s for it, but I totally agree with you. I think 1s even if you have Loom, 1.2s you should and still have interactive demo strategy to complement that. 1.4s Can you give it to mention a couple of things? But can you be more precise and give us maybe a few examples of how interact demos can help companies generate more leads 1.4s than what these traditional methods? But can you kind of give some concrete one or two examples of how using utilizing interactive demos can help companies generate more leads? Yeah, and that's a great question, honestly, because in the past couple of months, I've had a few great examples of seeing customers sort of use SmartQ and then seeing how they've generated leads. So I'll give you one example, which is a customer started to use SmartQ, and let's just say that they were generating, let's say, 100 leads pre SmartQ through their website. Now, as those leads went through the funnel, so this is pre interactive demo world for this customer. So as these leads went through the funnel, by the time it actually got to the bottom of the funnel, they were seeing, like, out of 100, let's say four or five leads that converted. Right. So that's not a great number. Right. So the problem they had was at your fleets. 1.3s Now, when they started using SmartQ and very interesting thing happened. Instead of getting 100 leads a month, they actually started to get only about 70 leads a month. Like really alarming. They're like, oh my God, what is wrong? Something's wrong. But what happened was at the bottom of the funnel, the number of leads that they were able to convert out of those 70 was like 12, 13, 14. Right? So a significant bump in terms of the quality of leads. Now let's talk about why. Right? So this goes back to my initial point about buying behavior changing or evolving, right? Going from like a very typical B two B buying process to a hands on, self serve B to C buying process. So what's happening now is that enterprises looking for solutions, obviously there's an owner and a function and a person who's responsible to drive that initiative. That person then goes out, does their own research, and tries to figure out by watching videos, by looking at or reading case studies, by reading user testimonials on G two, doing a bunch of different things to figure out if a solution is right for them or not. But what is the one thing that even today is typically either behind a Paywall or like, hey, pay for this. And then you get to come in and actually see the product, right? 1.2s Or there's a big request, a demo button which forces you to put your email in and then speak to an Ae or a BDR or an SDR who will then sort of show you the product, at which point of time you'll be able to decide whether this is even worth exploring or not. So the buyer now is really frustrated that, oh my God, why not expose this to me up front when I'm doing my evaluation? And that's where interactive demos come in, 1s where we allow buyers to do their discovery at their own pace without forcing them to give up information that they would not want to at initial stages because you give them an experience of your product product and how it solves their problems, right? Not a feature, function, demo, but how it solves their problem. 1.3s At that point of time, you are allowing this buyer or this prospect to self select or self select in or out. 2.1s Right, that if this is not the right fit for them, they don't fill out your Contact US form, 1.1s which actually works great for you as a seller,

U1

because you would rather spend more time working on a qualified lead rather than one that is unqualified. Now the buyer is doing this work for you. That's why with this customer, when we actually implemented SmartQ, their quality of leads improved, but the quantity sort of went down a little bit because buyers were self selecting themselves out. That, okay, this is not the right solution for me. 1.6s They're actually pumped about right, because they're like, oh, my God, this is great. We're spending so much more time talking to customers who we know are the right fit, because we've shown them what we can do, how we can solve their problems. So when they come to us, they don't ask us, okay, tell us what you do. They're like, okay, I've already seen XYZ. I have this problem. It looks like you solve it this way. I just have these follow up questions if you can answer them, if you can tell me the price, if you can tell me you have great customer support, let's sign right? 3s I really like this example because that was a 1.1s scary moment initially, but such a great outcome, right, for everyone involved, including the end buyer, who didn't have to spend time speaking to someone about a solution that didn't really matter to them. Matter. 1.4s Yeah,

U2

it's like a win win 1s situation, which is super rare. And again, I think the interactive demo concept is still new, but every time I talk to you, I definitely learn more and feel even more pumped about this space. And I think this is going to be one of the key go to market methods in the future. So we're excited to partner with you guys as we wrap up with kind of the last question here. We want to talk about PLG again, product Led growth. Right? That is very common for software now, and a lot of people have done it very successfully because it scales. Right. 1.1s So for companies that 1.3s are currently doing PLG Motion or looking to do more PLG Motion, how can interact demos help with that, you think?

U1

Yeah, in my mind, there are two key things that a PLG Led company or a Pls or product Led sales company that is trying to move towards PLG that they're trying to do. Right? One is that they are trying to optimize their sales team, whether it is by having fewer sales folks or by making them more efficient, by giving them tools. And the second thing that they're trying to do is improve the conversion of their free to paid users. Right. Like, at the end of the day, that's it. You want people to come in, try it out, they like it, they sign up, they like it even more, and then they pay for it, and you want that ratio to be higher. So in my mind, those are the two key things. There's others, of course, but those are the two key things that they try to do. Now, when you think of interactive demos. 1.3s In the first problem statement of making their go to market teams more efficient. What interactive demos allow you to do is it allows you to create these libraries of showcases right now as a seller, whether it is on your marketing assets like your website or your landing pages or your ad copies. What if instead of just having a big request, a demo button, driving them to a calendar slot and then talking to them to figure out if your product is right for them, if you just have an interactive demo button that hey, look at the product right now. And once they do, they like what they see. And then at the end of your interactive demo, your call to action is sign up right now. That makes the selling or the sales motion much more efficient and optimized because you don't necessarily have to stand up a huge team of sellers to go pitch your product right, which is anyways antithetical to the concept of PLG. But if you think about what interactive demos are doing doing for PLG from the first problem and leading into the second one is now, because this buyer has experienced your interactive demo before even signing up for your product. 2.2s They are already sold about the value of your product, which means that the likelihood of this buyer converting from a free user to a paid user is much higher. 2.2s Whether it's investors or just PLG companies in general, the free to paid conversion lever is a sacrosanct for them. They're always trying to optimize it. They're always trying to make it better that, hey, can we improve that by 0.1%? Because that's going to add X million dollars to my arr. With interactive demos, it actually makes that ratio much more powerful, much more stronger. Right. Because the people who even sign up for your free product have already experienced your product, have obviously liked what they saw enough to go ahead and now sign up, give you their email and their contact info, and then when they do come in, they're already primed. They're like, okay, I already know what to expect. Now I'm just going to go in and ensure that it checks the boxes that I need to, that it has all the bells and whistles that I need. And once I'm satisfied, I'm going to become a paid customer, hopefully even faster than before. So in my mind, I think those are the two levers and where interactive showcases like smart cues really 1.5s make an impact on both of those leaders for PLG companies. 1.6s

U2

Yeah. And as we wrap up, I think we talked a lot today about 1s PLG sales motions and using interactive demos for sales motions. But this technology, I've seen people use it for internal training, for updates, for really any kind of interactive content. And I think so, really, I think once people understand the benefits, it's really based on their imagination, how they want to leverage it for different use cases that we didn't get to. But that's where I think partnering with you guys, you providing your expertise that's really going to take things to the next level. But the last question that we always ask our guest, Robin, is you've done a lot, you've seen a lot. If you have to give one personal and or business advice that maybe you're really passionate about, what do you think that would be? 2.4s

U1

The one thing that I think I've always 2.1s preached and have been lucky enough to mindfully practice after starting SmartQ is being customer focused. 2.3s Of course, this is advice that everyone gives, but it is extremely important, especially for entrepreneurs and folks who are starting up because 1.1s you start up because you believe in an idea which might be crazy. And the first thing you do is talk to your friends and family like, hey, I'm going to do this. What do you think and what do you think they're going to say? They're like, oh, this is awesome. Do it. 1.3s But when you start putting it in front of customers, when you folks who don't know you, who don't have any biases towards you, when you put this in front of them, that's when you really start to see if your idea has legs. Whether it is sort of a vitamin or a painkiller for a customer and whether this is worth pursuing. Right. Or what do you need to tweak? How do you need to pivot to make your product, your idea, your company valuable to your buyers, right? So while being bullheaded is a prerequisite to being an entrepreneur or a founder, 1.3s I think being very 1s open and listening, like, really listening and absorbing what your buyers are saying is so critical, 1.9s especially now, every feature, small or large, that we're building, the first question that we ask ourselves internally is one. 1.7s How is this going to impact or change or make the buyer's life or the user's life easy? And have we asked enough users or have we seen enough behavior in analytics to prove that, yes, by doing this or by making this smaller, large change, you're really going to make a difference? I think 1.9s it's said a lot, but it's not always preached as much as I think it should be. 2s

U2

Yeah. First of all, great content, great tips. It's for sure easier said than done. A lot of people are used to it's habit. It's a behavior of how things used to work and it's just easier to do what you know right. But no, I think whether it's the product or the tips you gave, it's tremendous. And it works out as a partner with you to bring this technology to more and more companies. So really appreciate you being

U1

here. No, thank you. Victor. It was great talking to you and thank you for having me on. 1.4s

U2

That was an amazing episode of the did you know podcast with Varisource. Hope you enjoyed it and got some great insights from it. Make sure you follow us on social media for the next episode. And if you want to get the best deals from the guest today, make sure to send us a message at sales@varisource.com.