How to Nail Product-Market Fit and Scale a B2B Company with Thejo Kote of Airbase

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Apr 25, 2024

Thejo Kote, CEO of Airbase, shares insights on pre-selling, targeting specific buyers in B2B, and building strong customer relationships through early partnership discounts. He emphasizes the importance of personality traits over prior experience when hiring salespeople. The podcast delves into strategies for finding product-market fit, setting pricing models, scaling a business, and navigating talent acquisition in the startup ecosystem.

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Introduction

00:00 • 3min

From Startup to Airbase: The Evolution of an Entrepreneur

02:41 • 5min

Exploring Airbase's Initial Product Wedge and Landing Early Design Partners

07:48 • 4min

Navigating Product-Market Fit in B2B Companies

11:29 • 18min

Scaling, Financing, and Building Sales Teams

29:44 • 10min

Strategic Talent Acquisition for Startup Success

39:57 • 14min

Navigating Compensation Philosophy in a Global Economic System

54:17 • 3min

Thejo Kote (@thejo) talks to Village partner Ben Casnocha. Thejo is a two-time founder and CEO. His current company, Airbase, is a spend management platform serving companies with 100 and 5,000 employees like Coda, 15Five, Front, Marqueta, CaptivateIQ, Abnormal, and more. Airbase has raised over $200 million, has tens of millions in ARR, and is consistently ranked as a top spend management company by G2.

Highlights:

- Rather than jumping into building Airbase, he built high-fidelity mockups and went back to prospective customers and asked if they’d buy it to “pre-sell” it.

- In B2B, build for a specific, recognizable buyer. You want to sell to a specific role within the org who will be your champion. Ideally this is someone who also has influence within the org.

- Select the kinds of customers who aren’t likely to switch in the early days. Team with early customers who actually want to be partners and are motivated by the relationship. Flatter them by asking: “are there any other innovative, forward-thinking leaders you know who I should also talk to?”

- 6-8 months later after proving value and showing they could be a good partner, he said “hey, I want to get your feedback on our pricing model. Is this fair for the next set of customers?” 100% of the customers converted when he asked if they were willing to opt in to the pricing structure with a significant discount for their initial partnership.

- When hiring salespeople, Thejo focuses more on personality traits rather than prior experience selling to the same segment. Also, if candidates are drawn to the liquid comp at a large, public company, they’re likely going to have a hard time transitioning to a startup. Find people who have been comfortable taking risks.

- Airbase is fully remote and Thejo doesn’t think in terms of onshore vs. offshore within the company because that instantly creates a class system. Anyone anywhere in the world is part of their single, remote team, which has the internet as its headquarters. Each member of the team is “equitably inconvenienced” in his words.

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