How Neha Sampat pivoted from services to SaaS to launch Contentstack
Neha Sampat - Co-Founder and CEO at Contentstack, an API first, headless CMS, tells us how they grew to revenues of $26 million with 160 staff in three years. Neha talks about how they spun the company out of their services business in 2018 after identifying a gap in a stagnant market, and grew by retaining a team of expert engineers and problem solving for clients fed up of the competition.
Key Points:
- Neha talks about how Contentstack grew from a gap in a stagnant market and embraced new technology clients needed (01:13)
- I give my thoughts on championing change, and encouraging clients to come with you (3:08)
- Neha talks about how they took a product-led approach, building features the established competition couldn't match (5:11)
- I give my thoughts on pulling together and improving existing technologies to build a better product (6:44)
- Neha discusses how Contentstack was spun out successfully by keeping it separate from the main services firm (8:28)
- I give my thoughts on the difficulties of transitioning from services to SaaS (09:41)
- Neha talks about how the firm became trusted by investors (10:50)
- Neha talks about how their consultative and flexible approach helps them keep 99% retention (12:41)
- I give my thoughts on educating potential clients and seizing opportunities when launching new product segments (16:57)
- Neha gives her thoughts on how they win clients by improving on the poor performance and inflexibility of the competition (17:47)
- Neha talks about their network of partners as a moat, and how they will put clients in contact with other firms who offer features they can't (22:17)
- I give my thoughts on the concept of cornered resources, as defined by Hamilton Helmer (24:48)
- Neha talks about how Contentstack's strong expertise and consultative approach helps differentiate them from the competition (26:28)
- I give my thoughts on highlighting your advantages and marketing to customers who know what they are looking for (29:28)
- Neha talks about how they are planning to build a developer community/ecosystem to expand the features of Contentstack (30:31)
- I give my thoughts on community building, with a clip from Morgan Brown, VP of Growth at Shopify (32:29)
- Wrap up (34:50)
