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Wingman

by Shruti KapoorLaunched 2018-10via The SaaS Podcast

Wingman is a conversation intelligence platform that helps sales teams improve performance through real-time coaching, call recording, and pipeline insights. Founded by Shruti Kapoor and two co-founders from Google, the company struggled initially with 40 cold outreach meetings yielding zero sales, but pivoted to an inbound strategy leveraging online communities and word-of-mouth. By focusing on low-friction features and customer advocacy, Wingman grew to over 300 customers and mid-seven-figure revenue before being acquired by Clary in 2022 at a 15-20x multiple.

Key Takeaways

  • Used word of mouth, content marketing, seo, community as primary growth channel
  • Reached product-market fit in Approximately 5-6 months from initial coding to first paying customer and repositioning
  • Got first customer via Network/co-founders' relationships - customers from their personal network
  • Most effective channel: Inbound marketing through online communities, word-of-mouth, content marketing, SEO, and social media
  • Monetizes with subscription pricing
  • Built initial product in 5 months

Revenue

Initial Investment$2.3M
Pricing Modelsubscription

Traction

First Customer ChannelNetwork/co-founders' relationships - customers from their personal network
Most Effective ChannelInbound marketing through online communities, word-of-mouth, content marketing, SEO, and social media
Outreach MethodCold outreach through a sales consultant (40 meetings), then pivoted to community-based word-of-mouth and inbound channels
Time to PMFApproximately 5-6 months from initial coding to first paying customer and repositioning
Traction Patternword-of-mouth, content-marketing, seo, community

Tech

Dev Duration5 months

Why They Built It

Shruti struggled to understand why certain sales reps on her team at a fintech company were performing well while others weren't, and wanted a way to record and review sales calls to provide real-time coaching and get customer insights to the product team.

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