Summary:
This week on How To Win: Saravana Kumar, CEO of Kovai.co, a software company offering multiple enterprise and B2B SaaS products including, a customer success product, a self-service knowledge base product, and enterprise software for Microsoft BizTalk and Azure Serverless platforms. Founded in, 2011, Kovai.co has over 240 employees across the UK and India. This year Kovai.co's annual revenue has topped $10 million. In this episode, we discuss the benefits of true thought leadership, diversifying your product offering, and winning in your niche. I give my thoughts on the benefits of hiring T-shaped people, the concept of mental availability, and finding riches in the niches.
Key Points:
- Saravana talks about the beginnings of Kovai.co (01:01)
- How did Saravana use his blog to acquire his first customers? (03:11)
- Saravana reflects on becoming a Microsoft MVP (04:50)
- I weigh in on true thought leadership with a quote from Orbit Media Studios' Andy Crestodina (06:07)
- How did Saravana scale customer acquisition beyond the first million? (07:27)
- Why did Kovai.co become a multi-product company? (09:15)
- Saravana discusses the need to launch products for different ICPs (13:08)
- I give my thoughts on the concept of T-shaped people with a quote from author Mike Clayton (14:02)
- Saravana breaks down his strategy to stay ahead of the copycats (16:00)
- I stress the importance of understanding customers' mental availability with a quote from Will Leach, author of Marketing to Mindstates (18:51)
- What were some of the strategic decisions that paid off for Kovai.co? (21:15)
- I lay out Animalz VP Ryan Law's five content marketing strategies for niche industries (22:54)
- Saravana gives three pieces of advice to fellow SaaS founders (22:36)
- Wrap-up (25:18)
Mentioned:
Saravana Kumar LinkedIn
Saravana Kumar Microsoft MVP Profile
Saravana Kumar Blog
Kovai.co LinkedIn
Kovai.co Website
Kovai.co Integrate Summit Page
MVP Global Summit
Andy Crestodina Bio
Mike Clayton Website
Will Leach's Marketing to Mindstates
Ryan Law Blog
My Links:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Website
Wynter
Speero
CXL
