GTM 94: Mastering Branding, Pricing, and Customer Success for AI Startups with Holly Chen

The GTM Podcast

Holly Chen is the Managing Partner of ExponentialX, a Marketing and Growth Advisory Collective for high-growth SaaS startups, advising companies like Miro, Loom, ServiceNow, Appsflyer in their growth journeys. She also guest lectures at Berkeley and NYU, teaches at Section and Maven, mentors at First Round Capital, and is an active angel investor. Previously, Holly was the Global Head of Digital Marketing at Slack, helping it grow $100M to $700M ARR and going public. She was the Head of Growth at Google Store and Global Head of Google B2B Websites. Holly also worked at Gucci, Deloitte Consulting. Kearny and the UN. In her spare time, Holly runs Ceiling Breakers, a group coaching program for underrepresented leaders. Holly lives in San Francisco and speaks Italian and Chinese fluently.
Discussed in this Episode:

• Strategies for AI startups to differentiate, drive retention, and optimize pricing
• The importance of strong branding and concrete use cases for AI market penetration
• Evolving customer success models to maximize value in AI deployments
• Transitioning from sales-led to product-led growth and key considerations
• The rising role of influencer marketing in B2B and how to leverage it effectively

Highlights:
11:55 - Top 3 challenges facing AI startups today
14:33 - Differentiating in a crowded AI market
18:43 - Painting a concrete picture of AI use cases
21:42 - The importance of getting hyper-specific with AI applications
24:58 - Best practices for targeting personas and use cases
27:58 - Tackling the challenge of retention in AI startups
31:40 - Transitioning from B2C to B2B for better margins and retention
33:44 - The evolving role of customer success in AI companies
36:30 - Pricing strategies for AI: usage-based vs. seat-based
38:11 - Making pricing tangible by tying tokens to outcomes
43:54 - One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Holly thinks is bull$***.
46:33 - One thing that is working for Holly in go-to-market right now.
Guest Speaker Links (Holly Chen):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly/
Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

Sponsor:

• Brought to you by Demandbase. Demandbase helps B2B companies hit their revenue goals using fewer resources by using the power of AI to identify and engage the accounts and buying groups most likely to purchase. Their account-based technology unites sales and marketing teams around insi

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with well-known tech executive, VC, and founders - the expert operators in the trenches who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories, revealing expert insights around what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.
This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of GTMfund - sharing insight on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by over 350 of the best go-to-market executives. GTMfund is an early-stage VC fund focused on investing in the most exciting, up-and-coming B2B SaaS companies across the world. The LP network consists of VP and C-level Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success leaders from companies like DocuSign, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Snowflake, Okta, Zoom, and many more.
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