Welcome to the world of RevOps After Dark, where we get straight to the revenue news you (hopefully, probably) wanna know, adding in just a taste of that Rattle-brand paste.
This week, we’re paste-eatin' hard and hoppin' the news line to talk about the biggest story buzzing throughout the world of GTM: HubSpot made a big move and got married to Clearbit. As of this week, they are set to become “Clearspot" (not to be confused with this record).
Firstly: We just made the name change part up. Heh.
Secondly: There is actual serious news here.
So yes, everybody's second-favorite CRM of all-time announced that they locked down the acquisition of everybody's second-favorite B2B data provider. While the terms of the acquisition have yet to be made public, according to data provided by Pitchbook, Clearbit had raised $17 million to date and was valued at $250 million as of January 2019. So, yeah, it's a chunk o' change.
The move marks HubSpot's 14th acquisition (and as a point of comparison, at the same ARR of $2B, Salesforce had made 18 acquisitions).
That all said, it's hard to imagine this acquisition, while no doubt significant, is a direct attack on Big Daddy Benioff and the Salesforce bunch. It seems rather more like a defensive strategy for the Massachusetts-based CRM darlings, who are keenly aware of the potential threats looming in the market by smaller and more nimble CRMs.
So it seems pretty clear that HubSpot is aiming to enhance customer growth by integrating Clearbit's data on companies and their decision-makers and to protect their relationships with SMB.
Tools & Software News
🧑💻 Openrise drops DataOps for RevOps
Late last week, automation darling Openprise introduced DataOps for RevOps, as they are apparently hellbent on enhancing their RevOps Data Automation Cloud with new capabilities for data automation, integration, and enrichment — mercifully, without the need for getting your IT team involved. They’ve got a buttload of new features but the most interesting to us is their buyer-centric enrichment solution, which is offering 30% higher contact-match rates... which you can really never get high enough on that one.
Strategy & Tactics
🌞 Are we saying goodbye to sales tech overload? Forrester thinks… maybe so!
As you may have heard over the last year, A.I. is swooping in to declutter your desk, sharpen your insights, boost your engagement, raise your kids, walk your dog, steal yo girl, replace yo girl, and obviously, offer "actionable insights." Sales tech has explode since 2020 — growing from 400 to over 1,000 tools in just three years — and the team, you could say, be feelin' it: an overwhelming 66% of sellers still feel swamped by this plethora of options. Despite the intention to enhance productivity, the overload has actually ironically cluttered workflows and hindered seller-buyer interactions, according to Forrester's analysis. However, there's a silver lining as vendors, keen on ensuring tool adoption and renewal, are innovating with generative A.I. to simplify workflows, enhance insights, and improve engagement quality. Tools like, say Rattle even.
🤖 Duct-taping A.I. into your product? Eraser has some learnings
Eraser, a tool for engineering teams, has rapidly expanded after launching DiagramGPT, an A.I.-powered sidecar product that generates diagrams from text and code. In fact, it’s accounted for 30% of Eraser’s recent sign-ups. Their case study with Growth Unhinged highlights the advantages of sidecar products in testing A.I. features, providing useful user feedback, and creating an organic user acquisition channel, but they also caution of the potential distractions and infrastructural costs. It’s a fun one to share with product, but also just something to think about as we all try to find ways to leverage the unholy power of gen A.I.
💸 Event invite: Cost center shmosh shmenter!
If you're looking for the some good, hard, unassailable, numerical data on your own position's value (and we mean that *very literally*) — join our very own Ryan Wong as he dishes the deets on how to beat back criticism and prove that worth. This one's hosted by our good friends over at the RevOps Co-op, alongside some consummate experts, including RevOps experts from Dropbox, Terminus, and Weights & Biases. It's gonna be a good one! You could even say... Rawr.
💗 Reminder: You don’t have to do it alone
Friend of the brand, Rosalyn Santa Elena, has some really great advice regarding two of the things she’d like to have done differently at the onset of her RevOps career… We won’t spoil it for you. Here are her own words:
A Good Read
🧠 Put away the Mensa t-shirt: Here are 10 ways to prove you’re a strategic thinker
Turns out, it’s not just saying the word “synergy” as often as you can… This HBR article provides some seriously valuable communication strategies for RevOps pros to effectively articulate their strategic ideas, align cross-functional teams, anticipate future trends, and establish themselves as influential leaders (ultimately contributing to optimized revenue outcomes). If you’re looking to get out of the doldrums of the tactical, you may wanna bookmark this one. Also, just in case: Synergy synergy synergystic synergy.
The Ad-hoc
🔮 A.I. in SFDC: Salesforce Ben shows off his fortune-telling skills
Friend of the brand, Ben McCarthy, provides his on-brand thoughtful and balanced exploration of the future of A.I. within the Salesforce ecosystem. Notorious SFB — as we affectionately call him around here — anticipates A.I. skills becoming essential for all Salesforce roles, emphasizes the irreplaceable value of experience, foresees every Salesforce professional having an A.I. assistant, predicts increased happiness and productivity among users, and finally, suggests that while A.I. will be transformative, it will ultimately integrate seamlessly into our daily toolset. Will he be right? We say, you don't never wanna count this guy out.
A.I. Meme of the Week
Might as well just keep going with a running theme — pun intended. We asked Dall-E 3 to make the "funniest RevOps meme it could" and this was what it came up with....
Hmmm.
The good news? I guess if you're in comedy your job is safe, for now. (What in the world is that on the right? A boogie board with an umbrella?)
***
And that's it for this week!
We'll be back next Thursday night with more news, tips, and oh ya know, just general sarcasm.
Thanks for reading — remember you can always reach out to us at hello@gorattle.com for any questions, comments, concerns, or synergies.
