Case Study: Telgorithm's Journey Towards Product-Market Fit Involves "Celebrating Your Successes And Losses"
Celebrating your loss allows you to dissect the key challenges and gives you time to reflect. Honor them and then move on.
Introduction:
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies depend on cloud communication platforms to deliver unique, high-quality customer experiences to their users, but are limited by the structural challenges of APIs across the unified cloud communications stack. The $140B cloud communications market is in need of more flexible solutions.
Telgorithm is a “purpose-built” cloud communications enablement platform that provides compliance-based messaging and voice solutions to SaaS vendors built by Aaron Alter, Mason Zheng and Yury Semerikov.
Executive Summary:
Problem: High-Velocity Growth Has Left Product Managers (PMs) and Go-To-Market (GTM) Teams Behind
The majority of cloud communication APIs and solutions were built for developers first (i.e. developer-friendly), leaving the particular needs of PMs and GTM teams on the wayside. The Telgorithm team had to figure out what those needs were and whether there could be a viable business behind solving them.Market: Product Managers Need A Cloud Communications Platform That Built For Them In Mind
PMs are responsible for defining the roadmap of the new product, services, and subsequent features that need to be launched. Platform solutions that are built with PMs in mind can allow the latter to better serve their customers in the $140B cloud communications market.Solution: Excellent Problem Discovery And Customer Onboarding Helps Telgorithm Delight Its Early Adopters
The Telgorithm team found early success by maintaining unique, dedicated Slack channels for each one of its customers. Although unscalable in the long-run, Slack allowed Telgorithm to quickly onboard and troubleshoot issues. The Slack invitation also invites early adopters into a team environment where they can receive transparent answers to challenges, in real-time.Team: Promoting Group Discourse Allows For Better Decision Making
One of the most important habits the Telgorithm team cultivated is promoting group discourse. Listening more than speaking allows the team to maximize their chances of making the right decision as well as build trust in one another.Takeaway: Celebrating Your Losses Can Help You Find Product-Market Fit
The Telgorithm co-founders said it best: “Celebrating your loss allows you to dissect the key challenges and gives you time to reflect. Honor them and then move on.”
Case Study: Telgorithm
Problem: High-Velocity Growth Has Left Product Managers and Go-To-Market Teams Behind
Tell me about a problem or set of problems that you’ve had to solve on your journey to product-market fit.
Our journey towards finding product-market fit has been through the lens of being a customer of the product and service that we’ve launched for ServiceTitan. For many years, cloud communication companies proliferated from massive demand from SaaS companies. The unintended consequence of high-velocity growth is the disenfranchisement of SaaS companies’ product managers and go-to-market teams to launch mission-critical features easily (e.g., messaging features, voice features, etc.). Imagine doing your taxes without TurboTax. We’re doing just that for GTM teams that want to easily launch cloud communication features.
Our mission started by determining how much effort to launch and support a voice application. We found that not only was it difficult to launch a voice application (sometimes taking 2-3 years to build), but we also found that much had to be sacrificed in the pursuit to offer a voice solution with a partner platform (think Twilio, Plivo, Dialpad, etc.). Many platforms have not been purpose-built for SaaS companies. This leads to discontent with end customers (think SMBs that lean on telephone calls to generate revenue but experience consistent outages). Our recent raise will help us tackle this challenge.
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