We only take on 4 clients per month. Join our October cohort. 1 spot left.
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries, the show that explores the future of tech with innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Daniel Erickson, CEO and Founder of Viable, a customer feedback analysis platform that has raised $9 million in funding.
Key topics discussed in this episode:
- Daniel’s experience working in the chaotic cannabis industry at Eaze, navigating regulatory battles and rapid expansion
- The lessons learned from Rahul Vohra at Superhuman, particularly the importance of studying games to design effective workflows, processes, and habits within a product
- The impact of James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” on Daniel’s personal and professional life, emphasizing the power of small actions in building lasting habits
- Viable’s origin story, starting as a tool to help startups find product-market fit using surveys and evolving into an enterprise-focused platform for aggregating and analyzing unstructured customer feedback data
- The company’s core offerings, including a question-answering system that provides insights backed by customer data and a reporting feature that organizes feedback into organically discovered themes
- The enterprise sales process, leveraging investor networks, personalized outreach, and content marketing to drive leads and close deals
- The Product team as the primary user of Viable, benefiting from the ability to access distilled insights from various customer-facing teams without manual analysis
- Viable’s positioning in the emerging “experience analysis” or “generative analysis” category, differentiating itself by building an analyst rather than tools for analysts
- The challenges of being a category creator, including the need for customer education and the lack of established budget lines, and the importance of finding investors who value category creation
- The three-year vision of enabling more interactivity and goal-oriented analysis, tying customer feedback to company objectives
- The importance of building a data moat through user-generated content, ratings, and annotated training datasets to support the development of new AI-powered features
Actionable
Takeaways
Identify Manual Pain Points Ripe for Automation:
Look for time-consuming, manual processes within your target market that could be streamlined or automated using AI and other technologies. Focus on solving these pain points to deliver immediate value to customers.
Adapt Your Product and Target Market Based on Feedback:
Be willing to pivot your product and target market based on early customer feedback and usage patterns. In Viable's case, this meant shifting from a startup-focused tool for measuring product-market fit to an enterprise-focused platform for analyzing diverse customer feedback.
Leverage Multiple Channels for Enterprise Sales:
Drive enterprise sales by tapping into your investor network for early leads, crafting personalized outreach to potential buyers, and investing in content marketing to build brand awareness and credibility.
Educate Customers on the Value of Your Category-Creating Solution:
When pioneering a new category, prioritize customer education to help them understand the value of your solution and how it differs from the status quo. Highlight the time and cost savings, as well as the strategic benefits, of adopting your product.
Build a Data Moat to Support AI-Powered Features:
Create a competitive advantage by building a robust dataset of user-generated content, ratings, and annotated examples that can be used to train and improve your AI models over time. This data moat will enable you to develop more advanced, interactive features that set you apart from potential competitors.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Sangram Vajre
Co Founder and CEO of GTM Partners
Behind the Category: Creating the Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Category with Sangram Vajre
Cory Schmidt
Head of Marketing of Heyflow
Mastering Organic Growth: Insights from Heyflow’s Head of Marketing
Andy Mowat
CEO and Co-Founder of Gated
Andy Mowat, CEO and Co-Founder of Gated: Over $3 Million Raised to Build Noise Cancelling Headphones for Email
Ashish Nagar
Founder & CEO of Level AI
Ashish Nagar, CEO of Level AI: $35 Million Raised to Power Contact Centers of the Future
Rob Sadow
CEO & Co-Founder of Scoop
Rob Sadow, CEO & Co-Founder of Scoop: $8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Hybrid Team Coordination
Marc Bernstein
CEO and Founder of Balto
Marc Bernstein, CEO and Founder of Balto: $52 Million Raised to Power the Future of Contact Centers
Thomas Millay
CEO of DemandJump
Thomas Millay, CEO at DemandJump: Over $25 Million Raised to Power the Future of Content Strategy
Luke Hansen
CEO and Founder of CompanyCam
Luke Hansen, CEO and Founder of CompanyCam: $38 Million Raised to Build the Future of Visual Communication for Contractors
Pulkit Agrawal
CEO & Co-Founder of Chameleon
Pulkit Agrawal, CEO & Co-Founder of Chameleon: $15 Million Raised to Build the Product Adoption Category
Tom Lee
Co-Founder of LOVO AI
Tom Lee, Co-Founder of LOVO AI: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of AI Voiceovers
Parry Bedi
Co-Founder and CEO of Tingono
Parry Bedi, CEO of Tingono: $7 Million Raised to Help Companies Boost Net Revenue Retention
Dan Rua
CEO of Admiral
Dan Rua, CEO of Admiral: $28 Million Raised to Build the Future of Visitor Relationship Management
Michael Bamberger
CEO and Founder of Tetra Insights
Michael Bamberger, CEO and Founder of Tetra Insights: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of Qualitative Research
Katy Carrigan
CEO of Goody
Katy Carrigan, CEO of Goody: $32 Million Raised to Build the Future of Corporate Gifting
John Jahnke
CEO and Co-Founder of Tackle.io
John Jahnke, CEO and Co-Founder of Tackle.io: $148 Million Raised to Build the Future of Cloud Go-to-Market
Sam Mallikarjunan
Co-Founder & CEO of OneScreen
Sam Mallikarjunan, Co-Founder & CEO of OneScreen: $10 Million Raised to Power the Future of Offline Advertising
Taylor Lint
CEO and Founder of Swantide
Taylor Lint, CEO and Founder of Swantide: $7 Million Raised to Revolutionize How Companies Design and Build Their GTM Infrastructure
Robert Thelen
CEO & Founder of Rownd
Robert Thelen, CEO & Founder of Rownd: $3.3 Million Raised to Build the Future of App Onboarding
Tyler Strand
Co-Founder and CTO of Air
Tyler Strand, Co-Founder and CTO at Air: $38 Million raised to Build the Creative Operations Category
Spencer Dusebout
CEO & Founder of Aidium
Spencer Dusebout, CEO & Founder of Aidium: $19 Million Raised to Build the Future of Mortgage CRM
Tine Karlsen
Co-Founder & CEO of Vev
Tine Karlsen, CEO and Co-Founder of Vev: $7 Million Raised to Power the Future of No-Code Visual Design
Ariana Faustini
Head of Golioth
Ariana Faustini, Head of Global Marketing at Golioth: Embracing Authenticity in Developer Marketing
Pierce Ujjainwalla
CEO of Knak
Pierce Ujjainwalla, CEO of Knak: $25 Million Raised to Empower Enterprise Marketers with Codeless Email and Landing Page Creation
Andrew Forman
Founder of Givz
Andrew Forman, CEO of Givz: $3 Million Raised to Make Donating, Not Discounts, eCommerce Brands Ultimate Growth Lever
Jared Siegal
CEO and Founder of Aditude
Jared Siegal, CEO and Founder of Aditude: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of Publisher Monetization
Adrien Menard
CEO and Co-Founder of Botify
Adrien Menard, CEO and Co-Founder of Botify: $82 Million Raised to Build the Future of SEO
Jonas Rinde
CEO of Nomono
Jonas Rinde, CEO of Nomono: $15 million Raised to Power the Future of Podcasting
Jonathan Legge
Co-Founder and CEO of &Open
Jonathan Legge, Co-Founder and CEO at &Open: Over $35 Million Raised to Create the Future of Corporate Gifting
CEO and Co-Founder of Sendoso
Creating the Sending Management Category with Sendoso’s Kris Rudeegraap
Lars Grønnegaard Hansen
CEO and Co-Founder of Dreamdata
Lars Grønnegaard Hansen, CEO & Co-Founder of Dreamdata: $12 Million Raised to Build the Future of B2B Revenue Attribution
Zack Rosenberg
CEO and Founder of Qortex
Zack Rosenberg, CEO & Founder of Qortex: $11 Million Raised to Build the Future of Video Analytics
Chris Strahl
CEO of Knapsack
Chris Strahl, CEO of Knapsack: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Design Systems
Creating the Go to Market Category with ZoomInfo’s Bryan Law
CMO of ZoomInfo
Creating the Go to Market Category with ZoomInfo’s Bryan Law
Ori Entis
CEO and Co-Founder of Staircase AI
Ori Entis, CEO and Co-Founder of Staircase AI: $5 Million Raised to Power the Future of Customer Revenue Growth
Stephen Karaolis
Marketing Director of Cleary
Stephen Karaolis, Marketing Director at Cleary: Mastering Speed to Market – The Key to Dynamic Content Strategy
Patrick Woods
CEO and Co-Founder of Orbit
Patrick Woods, CEO and Co-Founder of Orbit: Over $22 Million Raised to Power the Future of Communities
Chris Golec
CEO and Co-Founder of Channel99
Chris Golec, CEO and Co-Founder of Channel99: $5 Million Raised to Power the Future of B2B Marketing
Omed Habib
VP of Sapient AI
Omed Habib, VP of Marketing at Sapient AI: A Technical Founder’s Guide to B2B SaaS Marketing
Hikari Senju
CEO and Founder of Omneky
Hikari Senju, CEO and Founder of Omneky: $10 Million Raised to Empower Brands With AI-Powered Ads To Maximize Performance
Creating the Marketing Automation Category with Mark Organ
CEO of Eloqua
Creating the Marketing Automation Category with Mark Organ
Alex Reynolds
Alex Reynolds, CEO & Co-Founder of Vendelux: $20 Million Raised to Build the Future of Event Intelligence
Dan Malgran
VP of Marketing of Steno
Dan Malgran, VP of Marketing at Steno: Elevating Legal Tech with Revenue-Driven Marketing Strategies
Rajat Mishra
Founder & CEO of Prezent
Rajat Mishra, Founder & CEO at Prezent: Over $24 Million Raised to Build the Presentation Productivity Platform Category
Ishveen Jolly
CEO and Co-Founder of OpenSponsorship
Ishveen Jolly, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenSponsorship: Over $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Sports Influencer Marketing
Leena Joshi
CEO of CloseFactor
Leena Joshi, CEO of CloseFactor: $15+ Million Raised to Automate Repetitive Sales Processes
Sam Fonoimoana
Founder & CEO of Datajoin
Sam Fonoimoana, Founder & CEO of Datajoin: $3.5 Million Raised to Help Brands Leverage Customer Behavioral Insights