Finding Your Focus – with Blackthorn’s Chris Federspiel

Go-to-market for growth acceleration?

  1. Focused on a specific niche/vertical Instead of trying to be a horizontal solution, they concentrated on the higher education and nonprofit verticals within the Salesforce ecosystem. This focus allowed them to deeply understand the needs of this segment and build tailored solutions.
  2. Leveraged the Salesforce partner ecosystem A major part of their go-to-market was partnering closely with Salesforce implementation partners serving higher ed and nonprofits. They trained these partners on their products to get pulled into relevant deals the partners were working on.
  3. Built an integrated suite of solutions Rather than just point solutions, they created an integrated suite of applications (events, payments, messaging, etc.) that worked seamlessly together on Salesforce, making them stickier with customers.
  4. Offered quick implementation and ease of use Their solutions were much quicker to implement (1 hour vs 40 hours for a competitor) and more user-friendly, allowing faster time-to-value.
  5. Gained Salesforce’s endorsement Having Salesforce directly endorse and bring them into deals provided crucial access to decision makers and increased their average deal sizes significantly.
  6. Targeted a concentrated buyer landscape Within higher ed/nonprofits on Salesforce, they could concentrate their marketing efforts on just 200 key people/personas instead of a fragmented horizontal approach.

How did blackthorn achieve its growth?

  1. Finding their focus and go-to-market strategy:
  • It took them a long time, but once they figured out their go-to-market strategy and focused on higher education and nonprofit customers within the Salesforce ecosystem, they were able to double their revenue each year from around $1 million ARR in year 4 to $16 million ARR by year 8.
  1. Listening to customer feedback and building requested features:
  • Instead of building whatever they wanted, they focused on having lots of conversations with prospects to understand what features were needed, and built products around addressing those customer needs within their targeted higher ed and nonprofit verticals.
  1. Leveraging the Salesforce ecosystem and partnerships:
  • They worked closely with Salesforce implementation partners serving higher ed and nonprofits to get introduced to deals and trained the partners on their products.
  • Having a suite of integrated apps on the Salesforce AppExchange made them stickier with customers compared to point solution competitors.
  1. Achieving product-market fit with an affordable, easy to implement solution:
  • Their products were far quicker to set up (1 hour instead of 40 hours) and more affordable than competitors, allowing them to land and expand more easily within their targeted customer segments.

What set Blackthorn apart from others?

  1. Ease of implementation and configuration The interviewer mentions that one of Blackthorn’s main competitors took 40 hours to set up and configure their app, whereas Blackthorn’s app only took 1 hour to get set up. This ease of implementation and faster time-to-value was a major differentiator.
  2. Integration with other apps Blackthorn integrated their apps with other complementary apps in the ecosystem that competitors had not integrated with yet. This provided a more seamless, integrated experience for customers.
  3. Early mover advantage The interviewer notes that because Blackthorn was an early mover in certain areas, they could be “first to market” with their messaging and push that advantage before competitors caught up.
  4. Focus on partnerships Blackthorn focused heavily on partnering with and winning over the Salesforce implementation partners, which gave them an inside track to get pulled into deals those partners were working on.
  5. Listening to customers By having many conversations with prospects, Blackthorn could identify unmet needs and focus their products in areas competitors were not addressing for their target higher ed and nonprofit verticals.

How long to build first product?

The CEO mentions that for the initial version to do basic charges and refunds “only took a few weeks or something.”

He then goes on to say:

“But no one ever needs exactly what you ship. Sure, they can get some value out of the version one thing for a tiny company, but as soon as you start going up market, they need incrementally, not exponentially, incrementally more things.”

This implies that while the very first basic version was built relatively quickly in just a few weeks, it then took considerable more time iterating and adding incremental features requested by customers as they started landing larger customers.

He also mentions they launched the initial app as free since they were still getting revenue primarily from services projects at that point.

Target customers for your products?

  1. Higher Education Institutions The CEO specifically mentions that they found their focus by targeting higher education customers within the Salesforce ecosystem. He states they were able to concentrate their marketing and relationships on just 200 people by grouping higher education.
  2. Nonprofit Organizations Along with higher ed, the CEO says nonprofits emerged as another core target customer segment that had very similar needs and requirements as higher ed when it came to things like event management, payments, messaging, etc.
  3. Healthcare Organizations While higher ed and nonprofits were their initial core focus, the CEO mentions they have expanded into healthcare as well, as healthcare organizations have similar user personas and needs to higher ed and nonprofits.
  4. Government The interview notes they are also starting to make inroads into the government sector, though it’s not clear how far along they are in targeting this segment.

Explain go-to-market strategy?

  1. Focus on a niche ecosystem (Salesforce) Instead of trying to be a horizontal solution, they focused specifically on customers using Salesforce as their core platform/system of record.
  2. Identify and concentrate on ideal customer profiles After lots of customer conversations, they honed in on higher education and nonprofit organizations as their ideal target segments that had very similar needs they could build solutions for.
  3. Leverage the Salesforce partner ecosystem A big part of their strategy was working closely with Salesforce implementation partners serving higher ed and nonprofits. They trained these partners on their products to get pulled into relevant deals the partners were working.
  4. Get endorsed by Salesforce The CEO mentions that having Salesforce bring them into deals provided crucial access to decision makers and helped increase their average deal sizes.
  5. Build an integrated suite of solutions Rather than just offering point solutions, they focused on building an integrated suite of applications that worked together seamlessly on the Salesforce platform.

Current product lineup?

  1. Events App (Flagship Product) This is described as their flagship/core product focused on event management capabilities for higher education and nonprofit organizations.
  2. Payments App This app handles payment processing and checkout functionality, and is tightly integrated with their Events app for those customers.
  3. Messaging App
    A complementary app that provides messaging/communication capabilities for their core higher ed and nonprofit customers.
  4. Compliance App Provides compliance management features, likely related to tracking requirements for higher ed, nonprofits, etc.
  5. Storefront App Allows customers to sell digital/continuing education products and services. An add-on prompted by needs from their higher ed customer base.

The CEO mentions they had 9 different products previously, but killed off several of them to regain focus, leaving them with these 5 main apps that are used together as an integrated suite.

He also notes they still have a separate Mobile Payments app used by non higher ed/nonprofit customers, which doesn’t seem to be a major focus area currently.

Effective customer acquisition channels

  1. Salesforce Implementation Partners The biggest channel mentioned is working closely with Salesforce implementation/integration partners that serve the higher education and nonprofit verticals. The CEO states:

“We found the ones that were doing higher ed and nonprofit work, and we started catering to like, there’s like 10 of them, I don’t know, but now we have four or five key partners. So we trained them on everything that we had, and we said, anytime you get one of these deals, this is where we can help you win.”

By training and co-selling with these key partners already engaging with their target customers, it gave them an effective way to get pulled into relevant deals.

  1. Salesforce’s Endorsement Having Salesforce directly endorse and bring Blackthorn into deals is cited as very helpful, providing access to top decision makers and driving larger average deal sizes.

“Salesforce is very good at getting to the top of an organization. So when they bring us in, it really helps because we’re already getting to like the decision makers.”

  1. Partners/Referrals While not a major channel, the CEO does mention they get “some” customers through partner referrals as well.
  2. Traditional Channels (Events, SEO, App Exchange) Lastly, he notes they get customers through more traditional marketing channels like events, SEO, and the Salesforce AppExchange, but doesn’t emphasize those as major acquisition sources.

Monitoring competition

  1. Their niche focus reduces need to watch competitors closely The CEO states: “Salesforce is kind of small. If we weren’t on Salesforce, we don’t necessarily have this niche. So we have to pay attention to the people that are either what they call native to Salesforce or built with Salesforce first.”

By concentrating on the Salesforce ecosystem, it narrows down their competitive landscape.

  1. Customer feedback drives their roadmap more than competition He mentions that they have so many feature requests coming from customers combined with their own product vision that “the competition means significantly less.”

Their priorities seem more guided by addressing customer needs rather than being hyper-focused on competitors.

  1. They watch for robust Salesforce integration capabilities While not calling out specific competitors, he notes they need to “pay attention to anyone that’s building really robust integrations into Salesforce” as potential competition.
  2. Their focus is on building their own differentiation Overall, his comments suggest their main emphasis is on finding their own differentiation through quick implementations, integration breadth, new innovation like AI, rather than being overly distracted by individual competitors.

Unsuccessful strategic bets?

  1. Killing off extraneous products to refocus He states that at one point they had 9 different products, but ended up killing most of them to regain focus on just their core event management, payments, and a few complementary apps. Some of the discontinued products mentioned:
  • A web-based contextual data normalization UI and invoicing product
  • A signatures app
  • A professional services automation app
  • A billing application (made redundant by Salesforce’s billing acquisition)
  1. Wasted engineering efforts The CEO admits that killing off those failed product bets resulted in “a heavy waste of engineering time” spent building them out initially.
  2. Drained go-to-market resources Not only engineering time, but he says those sidetrack initiatives were “a heavy waste of go-to-market time” as well – having to create documentation, websites, sales enablement, etc. for products that ultimately got shelved.
  3. Lack of focus before finding their niche He acknowledges that before really nailing their focus on higher ed/nonprofits using Salesforce, they were “just simply doing too many things” without a clear concentrated strategy.

Lack of focus

  1. It took them 4 years and building 9 different products before they found their focus on event management for higher education and nonprofits on Salesforce. The CEO states “once we found our focus, we then started doubling each year” from around $1M to $16M ARR over the next 4 years.
  2. Having too many product efforts made it unsustainable – “We just couldn’t really sustain anything” at $300K ARR before they killed off the extraneous products and concentrated on their core solution set.
  3. Lack of focus was a “heavy waste of engineering time” and “heavy waste of go-to-market time” that drained resources until they honed in on their sweet spot.
  4. The CEO directly advises “try to pick a focus and stay with it” as one of his top 3 recommendations for founders, saying “if you pick six focuses at once, you’re going nowhere.”
  5. Their focused niche on a specific ecosystem (Salesforce) and verticals (higher ed/nonprofits) allowed them to concentrate marketing, build partnerships, and deeply understand customer needs.

What set Blackthorn apart from the others

  1. Ease of Implementation and Configuration The interviewer mentions that one of Blackthorn’s main competitors took 40 hours to set up and configure their app, whereas Blackthorn’s app only took 1 hour. This significantly faster time-to-value was a major advantage.
  2. Integration Capabilities
    Blackthorn integrated their apps with other complementary apps that competitors had not yet integrated with, providing a more seamless experience for customers.
  3. Early Mover Advantage As an early mover in certain areas, Blackthorn could be “first to market” and push that messaging before competitors caught up.
  4. Focus on Partnerships Blackthorn focused heavily on partnering with Salesforce implementation partners serving higher ed and nonprofits, giving them an inside track to get pulled into relevant deals.
  5. Customer-Driven Development
    By having many conversations with prospects, Blackthorn could identify unmet needs and focus their products on areas competitors were not addressing for higher ed and nonprofit customers.
  6. Integrated Product Suite Rather than just point solutions, their integrated suite of applications working seamlessly together made them stickier with customers compared to individual competitors.

Top advice for B2B founders

  1. Persevere and don’t give up too easily “If you wanna give up, just remember it’s very easy to. So push it until you think it’s like the very worst, until you can’t handle it anymore, then make a decision.” He advises founders to persevere through the really tough times and not quit prematurely before exhausting all options.
  2. Be willing to apologize and learn from mistakes “I have made so many people mistakes that I have quickly gotten used to apologizing. It’s really hard to learn. And I’d imagine every founder, everybody has some negative and for sure it’s going to come up at some point in the business and you just got to apologize.” The CEO emphasizes having the humility to apologize when you make inevitable people/cultural mistakes as a founder.
  3. Pick a focused strategy and stick to it
    “Try to pick a focus and stay with it. Deviate from the focus if you’ve proven that it hasn’t worked. If you pick six focuses at once, you’re going nowhere.” His final advice is to resist the temptation to spread resources across too many focus areas. Pick one concentrated strategy and see it through unless it clearly is not working.

How did Blackthorne win?

  1. Finding their focus and go-to-market strategy The CEO states once they found their focus on higher education and nonprofit customers within the Salesforce ecosystem and nailed down their go-to-market strategy, they were able to rapidly accelerate growth from around $1 million to $16 million ARR over 4 years.
  2. Customer-driven product development Instead of building what they thought customers wanted, they focused on having many conversations with prospects to deeply understand their needs, and built products tailored for those pain points in higher ed and nonprofits.
  3. Leveraging the Salesforce ecosystem and partners Working very closely with Salesforce and their implementation partners allowed Blackthorn to get pulled into relevant deals within their targeted verticals. The CEO cited this as their biggest customer acquisition channel.
  4. Product advantages Their products provided key advantages like much faster implementation times (1 hour vs 40 hours for a competitor), integration with other apps, and an integrated suite of solutions.
  5. Concentrated buyer landscape Within higher ed/nonprofits on Salesforce, they could concentrate their marketing on just 200 key personas rather than a fragmented horizontal approach.
  6. Salesforce’s endorsement Having Salesforce directly endorse and involve them in deals provided crucial access to decision makers and increased average deal sizes.