This document provides advice for companies in their early stages (0-5M revenue). It recommends: 1. Clearly defining the target market through segmentation to improve marketing and sales alignment. 2. Resisting quick wins and distractions to stay focused on one target market and go-to-market strategy. 3. Starting outbound sales efforts sooner through proactively contacting potential customers, rather than solely relying on inbound leads. The document discusses how TravelPerk applied this advice when focusing exclusively on the European market in its early stages, rather than being distracted by the larger US market, helping it become a leader in the European market.

2. Who am I?

5. A few preliminary comments
● It might be controversial sometimes
● We took a radical approach
● The following advice are valid from 0-5M not 5-20M
● We had an amazing product to start with!

6. 1. Market Segmentation
2. Don’t go for quick wins
3. Start outbound sooner rather than later
3 Key reasons

7. TravelPerk in April 2017
➔ Focus was on 5-20 People Company
➔ Our business model is directly correlated with the Travel Budget
➔ We were acquiring a lot of new customers but no uptake in GMV
➔ Too many leads for the sales resources we had at the time (2 AE)
Market Segmentation

8. ➔ Defined MQL clearly and with no ambiguity
> this created Marketing/Sales Alignment
➔ Sales team focused exclusively on these MQLs in terms of acquisition
> they had a much higher conversion ratio
➔ Sales team focused on maximizing revenue from each customer
> Decrease month to recover CAC
➔ You can always sell to a higher valued customer than you think!
> might be harder, but revenue generated is 10x for a 2x effort
How did we do it practically?

9. Don’t go for quick wins

10. ● In the early stage a lot of opportunities are available
● Saying no and staying focused is the number 1 skill
● What looks like a quick win is more often than not a distraction
Rule! You can only choose 1 target market and 1 (max 2)
GoToMarket strategy in the beginning. Keep this
discipline.

11. ➔ It would’ve been tempting to do Adwords for US market
> Larger size company, more PR, English speaking…
➔ Our product was not US ready
> it is now!
➔ Focus exclusively on the European market
> no advertising on US Market, and US Leads were not MQL.
For TravelPerk, this meant...

12. A year later, we are leading the European Market.
Now, we are ready to expand to US market.

13. Start outbound sooner
rather than later

14. Why focus on Outbound if you have a ton of Inbound?
● Typically focus is only Inbound even if they’re not the right Target Market
● Outbound scale infinitely (contrary to Inbound)

15. Side note: There are different ways of doing Outbound.
I use the definition quite loosely here. At the core, it means reaching out
pro-actively to someone who is not looking explicitly for your solution.
Outbound in some shape of form represents 50% of our SQL.

16. 1. A clear and defined target market early on - no quick wins
2. Defined a kick-ass database of companies we wanted to target
3. Found the right persona within the company
4. Best way to contact them > Event, Email, Linkedin, Phone
5. Execute, monitor and scale!
So, how did we do it?

17. Get €50 discount on the first trip you book!
travelperk.com/saastockberlin