Jon Darbyshire is the CEO and co-founder of SmartSuite, a b2b, no code, data management programme that competes with the likes of airtable to become the number 1 tool for business!
Within the first week of launching, Jon and his team brought in over 400 paying customers and growth has continued on this trajectory for the next 3 years. He talks to Ryan all about how he made this happen and the steps you can take to leverage his knowledge and replicate his success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Jon previously founded Archer Technologies which he then sold for $200 million cash buyout! He then retired but couldn’t stay away from the start-up world for long and that’s how SmartSuite was born.
- SmartSuite doesn’t have a single marketing person on their team, their growth has simply been down to virality, mainly through videos that existing customers have created.
- SmartSuite is a no-code platform that helps businesses manage any process or project inside their organisation.
- Jon and his team took a partner and affiliate model approach to marketing and growth. This is due to the experience Jon gained from running his previous software company.
- SmartSuite receives a lot of leads from freelancers and small firms and although each of them only produces a few leads each, the volume overall is very high. SmartSuite are now focusing on the higher-level clients to try and replicate this lead gen on a bigger scale.
- SmartSuite is so confident in its product that they don’t ask clients for exclusivity, they actively encourage clients to use its competitors.
- SmartSuite spent 3 years developing their core product, focusing particularly on millennial and GenZ workflow, so they could compete with the big competition already out there.
- One of SmartSuites challenges is with their free users, they had to carefully think about how to incentivise them to more to the paid plan by creating the right amount, but not too much friction with the free service whilst also understanding why they might not be switching.
BEST MOMENTS
“Over the last three months you have had 3000 customers”
“We basically become a work management system for businesses that help them manage activities across all their different employees”
“A lot of the times we were selling to an account but also communicating and selling to a partner that was also going to be doing the implementation”
“The freelancers and small consulting firms have created a lot of leads on the SMB side”
“That’s ballsy man, I love it”
“Our number one goal is to get people’s hands on a keyboard so they can make up their own minds”
Do You Want The Closing Secrets That Helped Close Over $125 Million in New Business for Free?” Grab them HERE: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets
Ryan Staley
Founder and CEO
Whale Boss
312-848-7443
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondarbyshire/
ABOUT THE SHOW
How do you grow like a VC-backed company without taking on investors? Do you want to create a lifestyle business, a performance business or an empire? How do you scale to an exit without losing your freedom?
Join the host Ryan Staley every Monday and Wednesday for conversations with the brightest and best Founders, CEO and Entrepreneurs to crack the code on repeatable revenue growth, leadership, lifestyle freedom and mindset.
This show has featured Startup and Billion Dollar Founders, Best Selling Authors, and the World’s Top Sales and Marketing Experts like Terry Jones (Founder of Travelocity and Chairman of Kayak), Andrew Gazdecki (Founder of Micro Acquire), Harpal Sambhi (Founder of Magical with a previous exit to Linkedin) and many more.
This is where Scaling and Sales are made simple in 25 minutes or less.
Saas, Saas growth, Scale, Business Growth, B2b Saas, Saas Sales, Enterprise Saas, Business growth strategy, founder, ceo: https://www.whalesellingsystem.com/closingsecrets
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