Industry experience as a competitive advantage with Spryker's Alexander Graf
This week on How to Win: Alexander Graf, co-founder and co-CEO of Spryker, an e-commerce platform for B2B and B2C enterprise marketplaces. Founded in Germany in 2014, Spryker raised $130M in Series C funding in 2020 and now sits at 650 global employees with 100% growth, year over year. In this episode, we look into how Spryker turned years and years of industry experience into a deep moat, and the strategy behind their investment in brand image. I share my thoughts on the importance of a strong brand, why identifying the causal factors of success can be difficult, and my tips on how to hire the right people.
Key Points:
- How Alexander and his co-founder got their start with Spryker (01:20)
- How Spryker adjusted to marketing to multiple decision makers after they passed the $1M ARR mark (05:06)
- My advice on managing your marketing while addressing a large stakeholder base, with a quote from Ismail Madni (08:21)
- Alexander discusses Spryker's different competitive strategies for addressing incumbent companies vs. up-and-comers (09:48)
- How Spryker is competing on brand to become the "Tesla of the commerce industry (11:15)
- I weigh in on the importance of branding, with a quote from Lattice's Alex Kracov (12:48)
- Alexander explains why experience and years in the industry are such a powerful moat for Spryker (14:34)
- Alexander discusses how difficult it is to pin down which sales efforts are working most effectively (16:04)
- I explain why it is nearly impossible to identify the causal factors of success, with a quote from Les Binet (18:08)
- Alexander explains why Spryker benefitted from getting their start in Germany (22:13)
- My advice on how to hire the best team members (24:14)
- Wrap up (28:05)
Mentioned:
How Alex Kracov made Lattice a go-to name for HR professionals"The Long and the Short of it: Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies" byLes Binet and Peter Field
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