Inside Crowdbotics’ GTM Strategy: Why They Let Customers Define Their Market

Most startups meticulously plan their target markets. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Anand Kulkarni from Crowdbotics revealed a counterintuitive approach: letting customers pull them into new markets. The result? Three consecutive years of 200-300% growth.

The Unexpected Path to Market Fit

When asked if targeting regulated industries was always the plan, Anand’s response is refreshingly honest: “Gosh, that’s a great question. I had no idea. I would never have predicted that. Let me tell you why we ended up going into regulated spaces. It was really because customers pulled us in.”

Building Without Forcing Vision

Instead of demanding customers buy into their complete vision, Crowdbotics focused on immediate value. “We didn’t need to have people buy that bigger vision, as long as they were willing to understand at a different level how the software was able to work,” Anand explains.

This pragmatic approach meant customers could adopt their solution without having to believe in the future of AI. The company’s modular approach resonated because it matched how organizations already thought about software development.

Following Customer Pull

The strategy led them into unexpected territories. “Crowdbotics has seen its biggest uptake among regulated customers. So think government, finance, health, as well as non technical ones who are, by virtue of changes happening in their industries, being forced to become software companies,” Anand notes.

This wasn’t random chance. Their approach to software development naturally addressed these customers’ needs: “If you’re a CIO or a security officer, matters quite a bit in terms of understanding what your software is actually doing and if it is actually going to be secure or insecure.”

The Ripple Effect

Success in one regulated industry opened doors to others. “The US government is one, of course, that meeting their security standards means that we can work in a wide variety of contexts that are a little bit less meticulous,” Anand explains. Their government success created credibility that attracted similar security-conscious customers.

Building for Customer Reality

Rather than pushing their own vision of how software should be built, Crowdbotics adapted to how customers actually work. Their modular approach means “if you, as a customer showing up to build software, you are describing what you’re trying to create in natural language. We are identifying, based on historical similar products built by your organization or by your enterprise standards, the different components of code.”

The Growth Validation

The results speak for themselves. “For the last three years, we have doubled or tripled top line revenue every year. So 200% to 300% growth,” Anand shares. More importantly, this growth came from customers building mission-critical systems, not just experimental projects.

Key Lessons for Founders

Crowdbotics’ experience offers several insights for founders planning their go-to-market strategy:

1. Listen to where customers are pulling you, even if it’s not part of your original plan
2. Focus on delivering immediate value before selling your complete vision
3. Let early successes in one market naturally open doors to others
4. Build for how customers actually work, not how you think they should work
5. Pay attention to unexpected patterns in customer adoption

The strategy requires patience and flexibility, but as Anand notes, “That’s been a good place for us to be.” For founders, the lesson is clear: sometimes the best market strategy isn’t the one you plan, but the one your customers reveal to you.