Launching a Series A Company, Brand and Product in the Early Days of SaaS
Series A startup funded by Partech and Peregrine needing to be messaged, positioned, branded, and launched from scratch in six months.
Domains
- SaaS
- Customer Service
- Business Application
Objectives
- Create the marketing content and machine in 6 months and then turn operations over to junior internal resources
- Establish new product category for SaaS application to manage building services in upscale commercial real-estate
- Develop all digital content to serve marketing program for years
- Launch the company and product with press and analysts
Challenges
- No marketing infrastructure in place
- Minimal budget, requiring a lot of hands-on creation of DIY work product
- Early stage startup with few paying customers
- Innovative technology forging new product category
Process
- Interviewed founders and engineers to understand what they are building and for whom
- Interviewed early adopters to understand “what” they bought and “why”
- Interviewed sales to understand what they are currently “selling”
- Researched alternate legacy solutions for pertinent messages and differentiation
Findings
- Real Estate management companies were new to using technology to manage building services
- Real Estate management companies were new to using the Internet for communicating with tenants
- Needed to evangelize the solution and educate audience on the possibilities
- Needed to emphasize the services business benefits, bypassing technical jargon
Solutions
- Created multi-level messaging platform to address all levels of company communications
- Developed 2 page messaging summary with elevator statements for sales and other customer-facing resources
- Wrote multiple pages of hierarchical boilerplate to repurpose on website, in collateral and in outbound marketing campaigns
Results
- Workspeed grew and was eventually merged with MRI
- MRI subsequently acquired by GI Partners
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