Ben Brookke Shares Transcend's Journey: From First Customers to Series B Funding

Join me, Ben Brookke, Co-Founder & CEO of Transcend, as we dive into the world of data privacy infrastructure, market fit, pricing, and scaling sales teams to drive revenue growth.

1. A big number can be thrown out during pricing negotiations to gauge market reaction and establish a maximum price point.
2. Many founders are surprised by how much the market is willing to pay for their product.
3. First-time founders may feel guilty or greedy asking for certain prices but should focus on the business value provided by their product.
4. Ben Brookke is the co-founder and CEO of Transcend, a data privacy infrastructure company helping businesses comply with privacy laws and giving consumers control over their personal data.
5. The biggest challenge for Transcend was finding initial product-market fit.
6. Founders often need to learn to trust data, understand customer needs, and iterate based on feedback.
7. For enterprise software, it can be effective to start as a consultative service, helping customers solve problems and automating solutions.
8. As a company grows from 10 to 100 customers in the enterprise space, hiring a sales team is essential to scale the business.
9. Founders should first find a successful seller who can handle the end-to-end sales process before scaling their sales organization.
10. Hiring the best person for the job is crucial and may require slowing down the hiring process to ensure a good fit.
11. When scaling, it's important to bring in a sales leader with expertise in building sales teams, processes, and organizations.
12. Pricing should be iterative, starting as high as possible while understanding the business value provided by the product.
13. Founders should aim to articulate the dollar value of their product, helping customers create an assessment for approval.
14. Involve yourself in pricing discussions and understand how your product drives revenue or decreases costs.
15. To calculate a reasonable price, consider making it a quarter to a third of the total value provided by your product.
16. Transcend's Series B success was due to proving they could repeatedly switch customers from manual privacy operations to their platform.
17. A key metric in Transcend's growth was their win rate against incumbent competitors.
18. The current trend in privacy is the governance of AI systems, including data usage and potential impacts on individuals.
19. There is a growing need for businesses to ensure proper guard rails and assessments are in place when using AI systems.
20. Transcend's buyers have experienced significant role and scope changes, with many becoming owners of AI governance and digital governance as a whole.
21. Daily news highlights concerning privacy often involve creepy developments or data breaches.
22. Recent advancements in facial recognition technology, such as Meta sunglasses, can lead to intrusive applications.
23. The shift toward AI governance is an important trend in privacy today.
24. This summary provides a high-level overview of Ben Brookke's insights on company growth, sales, pricing, and the evolving landscape of data privacy.

Source: EO via YouTube

❓ What do you think? What is the most important lesson you've learned as a founder, and how has it impacted your approach to building and scaling your company? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!