In this episode of the SaaS Revolution Show, host Alex Theuma is joined by Sendspark Co-founder and CEO (and SaaStock USA speaker) Bethany Stachenfeld.
“When it comes to selling a sales tool, our goal is that our customers are able to sell with the tool. That’s all that matters to us. How are we helping our customers win? Sales practices, tactics, etc. continue to evolve. And they always will because once you do something a lot, it stops being effective and you have to move on to the next thing. So, we’re always trying to figure out what is coming next and how do we build for that now?”
In this 30 minute episode, Beth shares:
- Her journey from Marketer to SaaS Founder and CEO.
- The Sendspark founding story and journey so far.
- How Sendspark approaches differentiation.
- Advice for founders differentiating their product at scale.
- How to stay relevant in a fast-moving product space.
And more!
Watch (or listen) below or read on for key takeaways.
Listen to the audio:
Founding Sendspark
Bethany started her career in marketing, which allowed her to identify gaps in the stack and recognise where technology could have the most impact.
“Right now, I feel like I am my company. I’ve been working on Sendspark for over five years. My background’s in marketing, so I built a video tool that is kind of a marketer’s dream.”
In her early career, Bethany saw the power of video in sales and marketing but found it limited in terms of personalisation and scalability:
“We found that videos got really good responses… but you couldn’t scale video the way you could scale email.”
Recognising this challenge as an opportunity, she and her co-founder set out to build a platform that allowed companies to personalise videos at scale, leveraging AI to make the process seamless.
Differentiating Sendspark from other tools
Bethany took the leap and co-founded Sendspark in 2020 to capitalise on the massive opportunity in outbound personalisation at scale. Focusing initially on building a great product, she quickly faced challenges when it came to balancing building their own value and having feature parity with competitors.
“We were getting a lot of feedback…people were asking us to build features similar to our competitors… But if you’re not really different, it doesn’t matter that you have the same features.”
After some time meeting these feature requests they realised it’s more valuable to look at what competitors aren’t doing instead:
“What is something that marketers really need at scale, that Loom drops the ball on? [Or] that other companies drop the ball on? Let’s be the absolute best at that.”
For Sendspark, that was AI-powered video personalisation at scale. Honing in on this helped Sendspark establish a unique position in the market and drive real brand differentiation.
Deciding where to focus
For Bethany, differentiation isn’t just about being the best at something–it’s about being the best in a growing market.
“You don’t want to be the best in the world at something nobody cares about, or is small, or is part of a shrinking market.”
Their focus on AI personalisation made Sendspark integral to the AI conversation, and the go-to-market engineering trend. It also established the product as a key player in the shift towards automated, personalised outbound campaigns.
Staying differentiated at scale
Sendspark exists to help its customers sell. But to be successful, sales tools need to constantly evolve.
“Sales practices, tactics, etc. continue to evolve. And they always will, because once you do something a lot, it stops being effective and you have to be on to the next thing. So we’re always trying to figure out what is coming next and how do we build for that now.”
Currently, they’re working to help users reach out based on signals and intent–a difficult challenge because “intent” looks different for every company.
“It’s a little bit of trying to predict the future. You’ve got to predict it, build it, and then have it ready for when people really need it.”
Hear more from Bethany at SaaStock USA
Bethany is joining our stellar lineup of speakers including Cristina Vila (Cledara) and Philip Braddock (Atlassian) at the Startup Forum on Tuesday 13 May.
In her keynote, Beth will share how AI can transform your outbound sales processes. From smarter prospecting and personalised outreach to automated follow-ups, you’ll learn where AI can add value and help you scale more quickly.
Tickets will sell out. Get yours today.
