Developing a distinctive marketing tone with CB Insights' Anand Sanwal
This week on How to Win: Anand Sanwal, co-founder and CEO of Attentive, a business intelligence platform that enables organizations to make technology decisions faster and with more confidence. Launched in 2010, CB Insights is on track to hit $100M ARR this year, with over 400 employees and thousands of customers. In this episode, we unpack CB Insights' highly successful content strategy, and discuss why the ability to prioritize has been essential to their growth. I weigh in with my thoughts on the importance of focus, how to monitor changes in the market so you can choose the right time to pivot, and why more creativity and hard work is needed in marketing.
Key Points:
- How CB Insights got its start (01:13)
- Anand explains when he realized the target market for CB Insights had shifted (03:33)
- My thoughts on the transient nature of the market, and why successful companies should be prepared to adapt with a quote from Bridgefy's Jorge Rios (05:03)
- Anand explains CB Insights' unique approach to content marketing (07:00)
- I discuss the need for more creativity and more hard work in marketing (09:40)
- Anand describes the competitive landscape CB Insights in playing in (10:30)
- Why Anand believes experience and pain tolerance gives them a competitive advantage (12:36)
- I explain how excellence and mediocrity are both habits that are developed over time (15:00)
- Anand explains why figuring out your priorities as a company is key to success (16:19)
- My take on the importance of knowing where to focus resources, with a quote from Steve Jobs (18:23)
- Anand talks through the moats CB Insights is developing (20:31)
- I describe the law of increasing returns with a quote from Prof. Brian Arthur (22:29)
- Anand explain how content is still the anchor of CB Insights' marketing strategy (24:16)
- Why a personalized newsletter from Anand tested better than a more generic option (25:49)
- Anand's advice for other founders and CEOs (28:20)
- Wrap up (31:09)
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