Welcome to the Go to Market Podcast

Business. Business. Business. Business.

Welcome to Go-to-Market, a podcast for RevOps, sales, and marketing leaders to dive deep into industry insights and best practices. Go-to-Market is sponsored by Fulcast, the Go-to-Market Cloud. My name is Amy Cook, and it is a pleasure for this very first podcast to introduce my co-founder and CEO, Ryan Westwood. Ryan, thanks so much for joining our very first podcast.

Amy, thank you for having me on. I'm thrilled to be here.

I am so happy. I'm— I really wanted to just kick off this podcast with you as a co-founder and talk about why we're doing this, why we're doing Fulcast. And, and why we love the RevOps community. So tell me a little bit about you for— I know probably most everything about you, but tell me for all of our viewers, what got you excited about RevOps?

So in 2005, I was working for a tech company and we were using SugarCRM. So for those of you that go back that far in CRM tech, Sugar was kind of exciting because you could customize it and it was very adaptable. And so I started working in Sugar, building custom commissions reports, building forecasting reports. We even built a dialer for our inside sales team way before a lot of these became their own big companies. And me and this developer named Shelley Warren, her and I were like, Two peas in a pod and we would sit and just work on these projects late at night and we built all kinds of cool things. And I realized later, I'm like, that's not normal for an executive to be up at night wanting to actually build dialers in your CRM. But I was geeking out on it and I really enjoyed all of it. So that was my first kind of exposure. And then in 2009, I had this incredible opportunity when I worked for a company called Workfront that's now owned by Adobe. The venture capital firm that backed us was called OpenView, and a bunch of the partners at OpenView had formerly been at Oracle. And then Marc recruited those, those sales leaders from Oracle to Salesforce. And so some of them went to OpenView to be VCs and some went to Salesforce. And so because of that connection, OpenView got us a full day with the, then a woman named Hillary was the president of sales at Salesforce. And she got us in front of all sales management, all marketing management. And we were in a classroom style format and we spent the whole day going through what, before RevOps, RevOps. And it was awesome. And I still have a 100-page deck from that day. In 2009. I still have it with all the detailed reports and how Salesforce ran their operation. And that got me even more excited. So then in 2009, I partnered with a professor at BYU and I taught a series of classes on CRM management.

Oh my gosh. I did not, I did not know that about you. That's super interesting.

And so I look back and then obviously you and I ran Simplus, which was CPQ quote to cash. And again, in the heart of RevOps. And so if you think about really, it's been just about 20 years I've been in or around revenue operations and it felt so natural to go back into it. And you and I wanting to be authentic as leaders, you know, we've both been around this for so long. It was like, okay, how do we get into and run a company in a space we care about, that we're knowledgeable in, and that we would love and our company and our employees would see it and our community would feel the same way.

I love that. And I think one of the things that I know you're passionate about, and I am as well, is some of the best people that we know are in RevOps, right? Like they're super hardworking, they're the smartest people in the room, very strategic, and they can do operations and they can, you know, do all the tactics. And oftentimes these are like the wizards behind the curtain who are making everything happen, but they don't always get the credit, right?

Totally. And I would say that, you know, from a psychology standpoint, they would get an A+. They're so good at working with different people and the dynamics between the departments. They're also typically working more hours than most people, and they're the unsung heroes where a lot of times they're, if you think about it, you hit your number, CRO gets credit. We love you CROs, but a lot of times your RevOps leaders are enabling a lot of that success. And then if it's a really efficient growth in the, in the economics are good, the CFO benefits from it. And so a lot of times your RevOps leaders, they're actually the ones who are taking the board level kind of discussions and they're putting them in practice and making the tactical things happen that make the revenue engine work. But a lot of times they're not given the credit for the things that they're doing. And we want to give a voice to that community.

1 million percent. I think about on my team, just coming at it from a marketing perspective, you know, Megan on my team has always done all of our operations, right? And on the marketing side, it's been super fun to have her move more into RevOps. But I feel that way, like I can't do my job without Megan. Like, she is the one that enables me to have all my reports. And, and it's really fun when you can get into that mode like you did with Shelley back in the day. And like, Megan and I are like, I oftentimes between 10 and midnight going, now how do we make this work? And it's really fun and it's exciting and energizing. And when you have that appreciation for your RevOps leader, it, it is everything just works better. And so I just see this as such an amazing opportunity for us to showcase and feature RevOps leaders on the podcast, but also with Fullcast. And this is another thing I wanted to talk with you about is how did you know? Like, I saw the vision a few months after you did. How did you know Fullcast was a winner?

Okay, so this is such a great question. I think that You and I have had enough life-shortening experiences building companies from zero. And so this time we were like, hey, could we get a little bit of a head start? It would really help. And so we were willing to spend some money to be able to acquire a business that we loved and appreciated to be able to build. So we looked at maybe 50 different companies and for a year I was asking, reaching out to VCs, all my relationships, hey, you know, what have you seen out there? We want to do something in RevOps. And we met with companies. We even got way down the line with a few. There was one particularly that we went quite far with, ultimately determining it wasn't the right company. But what was so exciting about Fulcast is we saw all these companies that were over here focused on rep productivity, whether it was a prospecting tool, whether it was a coaching tool. A lot of these companies that you would typically see focused on the CRO and reps. And then all the way over here was Fulcast, and it was a former RevOps leader building for RevOps leaders. The first thing that stood out to me, Amy, is when you have somebody who understands who they're building for that intimately. I mean, Bala, 20 years of in and around these types of things. It reminds me of the founder of ServiceNow. You know, ServiceNow's founder had been in IT for 20 years and he finally was like, I'm fed up. I'm going to build something that works for me. So I started to see that it was differentiated from the rest of RevOps. And it was easy to explain to other people when we were talking about, okay, equitable territories or capacity planning. These are things that people can catch on to right away. And it's highly differentiated. And we felt like the products that were built were best in class. So it was like the other companies that we were competing with, when we looked at competitors, their impetus for starting was a totally different department. So it was like, hey, we're gonna focus on finance and be an ERP, and then later on the cross-sell or upsell might be RevOps.

Makes sense.

But I felt like at the heart of Fulcast was RevOps. They weren't the afterthought, they were the thought. And I think that that now is, you know, more, the more you and I get involved, we realize, wow, there's a community to build here and this really is best in class for RevOps.

You know, it, it really speaks to the personality and the collaboration of of people who are in RevOps to be prioritizing everybody else's systems besides theirs, right? And they don't have one themselves. And so I love that. And that's one of the things that is most exciting to me about it. Another one of those aha moments for me was meeting Bala, understanding what an incredible person he is in general, and then also hearing his story about as the head of RevOps, for Salesforce doing all their territory planning. 1,500 spreadsheets, a team of 100 in 6 months is what it took him to do. And then he like, you know, threw his hands up in the air and was like, there must be a better way and came and built Fullcast. And I thought there could not be a better story than that and a more important use case than just as you said, a founder building for people like himself to make life so much easier.

Yeah, so I feel so fortunate now, Amy, that Bal and Dharmesh, they, that they had the gumption to found Fullcast. And now you and I are just going to take it to the next level and build this community. Like you said, a couple of things that I noticed even in my most like recent conversations is I actually was with a RevOps leader who'd been in RevOps for 15 years. And I asked her, I was like, tell me about your tech stack. And she's like, here's what I have for the SEs. Here's how— what I have for the AEs. Here's what I have for the CRO. Here's what we have for the CEO. And she's walking through all these tools that she had personally reviewed, that she had personally helped in the purchasing process and that she had implemented. And then she has this lightbulb moment. She was like, I've never purchased software for myself. And she's like, I have a lack of resources. I'm asked to do more with less and I don't have anything to enable my job. And so it was so interesting that she had been giving so much and it shows the selflessness of a RevOps leader where they're so focused on everyone else that it maybe doesn't even dawn on them that the efficiencies in their own role they haven't been able to gain.

Yeah, so, so true and so important. And you know, this podcast is not about Fulcast, it's about thought leadership and it's about the RevOps community. But what are a few things that you would like the RevOps community who listens to this podcast in the future to know?

Okay, so a couple of things that I'm thinking about. One is, is we want to elevate you. We want you to have a voice and elevate you among the leadership team and the board. We think that you're underrated in your roles. We think you have an outsized impact on the growth and the trajectory of a company. And efficient growth starts and ends with RevOps. So if you're, if you're a board and you're not interested in efficient growth, then I'm shocked. So I think RevOps is pretty important. And I think the other thing I want them to know is there's a lot of conversation around where they should report. And we think that there's opportunities for them to impact the whole business. Not a silo of the business. So I think that's an important thing that we want to elevate. The other thing is, is we really want to understand their top priorities. We want to understand what it is they need to get done. And we're here to listen. We will listen and we will figure out what your top priorities are and we will deliver product to help you with those priorities. And we want to be the source at Fulcast for everything you need for RevOps.

I love that. And for me, the only thing I would add is that after having done about 15 of these in the can, yeah, the one common thread that every single person says is how much value they find from talking with other peers and learning from other peers. And so that is my personal goal as the, um, the pod— I feel like I'm just like basically the moderator of discussion— is helping people come together and understand from each other how to lean on each other, how to understand the pressures and the tactics and the strategy and the operational efficiencies and the human element of doing your job and just crushing it and having such a huge impact on your companies.

Well, it's so right, Amy. I think about it developing the community. And when you have these other thought leaders, because there's still so much evolving, you wanna hear from the other people that really do their jobs well. And I think there's nobody better than you that's gonna bring out in people, make them feel comfortable and bring out their best ideas and thoughts to share with the rest of the community. And I think your passion for RevOps will come through in the podcast. You know, one thing I know about you is communications and go-to-market, these things you've been thinking about these things for many decades. And since you were really young, you've been thinking about PR. And so I think that our guests are going to feel that. They're going to feel how genuine you are as a person. And we're going to get the best information that's going to come forth out of this podcast.

Oh, I totally agree. And thank you. The passion is real. It's funny because, you know, I have become an appreciator and a huge advocate just from trial and error of trying to do it myself, right? When you're starting a business 15 years ago and trying so hard to understand the marketing technology around the agency, having to rely so much on people in RevOps has made me really truly appreciate it. And then becoming a practitioner myself and becoming Salesforce certified and, you know, becoming a HubSpot partner, like, The more I learn, the more I realize how much there is to know and how much we really rely on, as you said before, these unsung heroes of revenue to be able to get our jobs done. So I love that we're both very aligned in, in celebrating a community that is so important to us in business.

One thing I would add to your resume, Amy, is being the CMO of Simplest. A company focused on RevOps from almost no revenue to hundreds of millions in revenue and at scale. You've been marketing for the RevOps community for— I mean, that was— that's been a long time.

100%. And what's so interesting, Ryan, is when I had the fortune of coming on with you as your CMO in 2017, that was the year that the RevOps term was actually coined. A lot of people don't know this because RevOps is such a common phrase now, But that term didn't even exist before the year that you and I started at Simplus. And so in a very real way, we have been involved in DevOps since the beginning of DevOps. And it's a new field and it's an exciting field and it's a field that's still being defined. And I feel really lucky to have a part in that and to help pull together the community with so many other community leaders that we're partnering with. To really define a market segment.

I would say the last thing I would add to all this, Amy, is we want to at Fullcast, we want to become what Workday is to HR, what Salesforce is to sales. We want to become to RevOps. We want to have Fullcast and RevOps become synonymous. We want to build a community and we want to listen to RevOps leaders and deliver value for them.

I couldn't say that any better than that, Ryan. And thank you so much for the opportunity to be your co-founder, to work with you on this. And this is, this is such a labor of love for both of us, and it's really where our hearts are. And so I think it's really exciting that for the next decade we're going to be working on this together.

Well, I couldn't have a better partner. You're top pick. So thank you so much. Let's go. All right, thanks so much.

It's that business, business. It's that business.