Ready to launch your own podcast? Book a strategy call.
Frontlines.io | Where B2B Founders Talk GTM.
Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Martin Langelo Lien, CEO & Co-Founder of Volt, a messaging ops infrastructure platform that has raised over $6 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Identifying the Problem: Volt was born out of Martin’s personal experience running an SMS marketing company, where he encountered the inefficiencies of managing messaging infrastructure, inspiring him to build Volt.
- Capitalizing on Industry Shifts: The introduction of 10DLC regulations in the SMS space created a compliance burden, providing the perfect opportunity for Volt to offer a streamlined solution to an industry-wide problem.
- Pivoting the Product: Initially focused on analytics, Volt quickly realized that solving the core problem was more valuable than just identifying it, leading to a shift towards a more robust infrastructure solution.
- First-Mover Advantage: Being the first to address the unique challenges of SMS compliance gave Volt a significant edge, with early adopters eager to solve a problem that few others were addressing.
- Category Creation as a Strategy: Martin emphasizes that Volt is more focused on creating a new category—messaging ops—than just building a company, ensuring a long-term, defensible market position.
- Zero-Dollar Marketing Strategy: Volt has achieved significant growth without spending on marketing, relying instead on targeted outreach through LinkedIn and leveraging the pain points of potential customers.
Actionable
Takeaways
Focus on the Core Problem:
When creating a category, ensure your solution directly addresses the most critical pain points, and be willing to pivot if your initial product doesn’t fully solve the problem.
Leverage Industry Changes:
Keep an eye on regulatory shifts and other external factors that can create opportunities for new products or categories, as these often present a first-mover advantage.
Educate the Market:
Building a new category requires educating both customers and partners about the new status quo, which can be just as crucial as the product itself.
Build Partnerships, Not Competitors:
Collaborate with existing players in the industry to enhance your category’s credibility and reach, rather than viewing them solely as competition.
Involve the Entire Team in Category Design:
Ensure every team member understands and contributes to the category creation strategy, fostering alignment and maximizing impact across the organization.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Ajay Kulkarni
Co-Founder/CEO of Timescale
Ajay Kulkarni, CEO of Timescale: $180 Million Raised to Redefine the Database Category
Nicholas Freund
Co-founder & CEO, Workstream.io of Workstream.io
Nicholas Freund, CEO of Workstream: $7 Million Raised to Build the Data Knowledge Management Category
Jeremy Pease
CEO of Hivelocity
Jeremy Pease, CEO of Hivelocity: $200 Million Raised to Build the Future of Hybrid Cloud MSP
Ryan Janssen
CEO and Co-Founder of Zenlytic
Ryan Janssen, CEO and Co-Founder of Zenlytic: $5.4 Million Raised for AI-Assisted Business Intelligence to Drive Better Decisions
Alex Lamascus
Director of Thought Leadership of Workato
Alex Lamascus, Director of Thought Leadership at Workato: Elevating Go-To-Market Strategy Through Thought Leadership
Rina Galperin
CTO & Co-Founder of PVML
Rina Galperin, CTO & Co-Founder of PVML: $8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Access with Differential Privacy
Logan Havern
CEO and Founder of DataLogz
Logan Havern, CEO & Founder of DataLogz: $8 Million Raised to Build the BI Ops Category
Barr Moses
Co-Founder & CEO of Monte Carlo
Barr Moses, Co-Founder & CEO of Monte Carlo: $230 Million Raised to Build the Data Observability Category
Kaycee Lai
CEO and Founder of Promethium
Kaycee Lai, CEO and Founder of Promethium: $34.5 Million Raised to Make Building Data Products Easy
Ethan Ruby
CEO and Co-Founder of SaaSGrid
Ethan Ruby, CEO and Co-Founder of SaaSGrid: $3M Raised to Become the Standard For SaaS Metrics
Jake Schuster
CEO & Founder of Gemini Sports Analytics
Jake Schuster, CEO & Founder of Gemini Sports Analytics: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Sports Analytics
Avichai Tenenbaum
Head of Marketing of Qbiq
The Art of B2B Brand Strategy: Insights from Avichai Tenenbaum
Ian Coe
Co-Founder and CEO of Tonic AI
Ian Coe, Co-Founder and CEO of Tonic AI: $45 Million Raised to Build the Future of Synthetic Data
Nicolas Hourcard
CEO and Founder of QuestDB
Nicolas Hourcard, CEO & Founder of QuestDB: $15 Million Raised to Build the Leading Open-Source Time Series Database
Sean Knapp
Founder & CEO of Ascend
Sean Knapp, Founder & CEO of Ascend: $50 Million to Power the Future of Data Engineering
Saket Saurabh
Co-founder & CEO of Nexla
Saket Saurabh, CEO of Nexla: $15 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Operations
Vinoth Chandar
CEO and Founder of Onehouse
Vinoth Chandar, CEO and Founder of Onehouse: $33 Million Raised to Bring Order to Data Lakehouses
Ethan Aaron
Founder, CEO of Portable
Ethan Aaron, CEO of Portable: $3 Million Raised to Build a Cloud ETL Tool That Supports the Long Tail of Business Applications
Michel Tricot
Co-Founder & CEO of Airbyte
Michel Tricot, CEO of Airbyte: $181 Million Raised to Build the Future of Data Integration
Sarah Nagy
CEO of Seek AI
Sarah Nagy, CEO of Seek AI: $7.5 Million Raised to Modernize Business Analytics with Generative AI-Powered Database Queries
Adam Weinstein
CEO & Co-Founder of Writ
Adam Weinstein, CEO & Co-Founder of Writ: $3.8 Million Raised to Build the Future of Business Intelligence
Creating the Data Privacy Management Category with DataGrail
CEO and Co-Founder of DataGrail
Creating the Data Privacy Management Category with DataGrail’s Daniel Barber
Dan DeMers
CEO of Cinchy
Dan DeMers, CEO of Cinchy: Over $24 Million Raised to Build a Data Collaboration Platform That Makes Data Integration Obsolete
Yarden Shaked
CEO & Founder of Varos
Yarden Shaked, CEO, and Founder at Varos: $4M Raised to Revolutionize Competitive Analytics and Break Data Silos
Eduardo Silva
CEO of Calyptia
Eduardo Silva, CEO of Calyptia: $5 Million Build the Future of Data Observation
Idan Shchori
CEO of Datorios
Idan Shchori, CEO of Datorios: More Than $23 Million Raised to Build the Perfect Data Orchestration Environment to Run ETL Code