Today, we’re recapping our episode with Max Greenwald, Co-Founder & CEO of Warmly, a revenue orchestration platform who’s AI solutions transforms business interactions through validating intent, providing instant insights and automating personalized experiences.
Listen to the Podcast as we explore Warmly's founder story, GTM strategy, product roadmap and discuss the evolving rev tech and AI industry landscape. See highlights from the conversation below.
Sales Pitch & Founder Story: Warm Leads=Warmly
Warmly is revolutionizing lead generation by providing warm leads that significantly enhance your sales pipeline. The company's mission is to harness AI to identify potential customers who are already interested in related topics but have yet to discover your business. By analyzing web searches and de-anonymizing website traffic, Warmly finds and ranks the best leads for you, reaching out automatically via emails, LinkedIn messages, chat, and soon, voicemails. This innovative approach yields a 3x higher conversion rate compared to traditional cold leads, and automates outreach at 5-6x the volume of a typical SDR, check out Max’s elevator pitch:
The journey of Warmly began with a unique vision from Max, who originally aimed to create a "Tinder for co-founders" to help entrepreneurs find compatible partners. Although the initial concept didn’t take off, Max and his co-founders pivoted through several iterations, ultimately discovering an opportunity to use their existing tech to match salespeople with customers. Supported by significant investments from Techstars, Y Combinator, NFX and Felicis Capital, Warmly is looking to be cash flow positive by the end of 2024 and aiming for further growth and a series B fundraising round in 2025. Hear all the twists and turns of the Warmly’s founding story:
Demo Round: Speed to Signal Over Speed to Lead
Warmly’s dashboard provides a comprehensive view of warm leads, allowing users to filter by various criteria, such as ideal customer profile (ICP) and past interactions. For instance, users can identify closed lost opportunities that have re-engaged with the website, enabling targeted follow-ups. The AI prospector feature automates outreach to these hot leads, achieving a 5% reply rate—remarkably higher than the typical 0.5% for cold emails. Check out the 5 minute highlight product demo:
Using AI, automation, and A/B testing, Warmly.ai ensures intent signals are acted upon immediately through the the most effective channels with the right message, hear Max explain how he believe "Speed to Signal" is the new "Speed to Lead" and the ROI you should be getting from any RevTech tool:
Go-to Market Strategy: Cutting through the Noise of a Crowded Market
Warmly has strategically positioned itself to cater to various customer segments. For startups with 15-30 employees, Warmly.ai acts as one of their initial investments in RevTech, providing critical tools such as CRM and email sequencing. These companies often lack comprehensive RevOps resources, so Warmly fills these gaps by offering a suite of services. This approach helps startups streamline their operations and optimize their sales processes early on. For mid-sized businesses with 50-100 employees, Warmly focuses on integrating into their existing tech stack, which may already include some RevOps tools and employees. The company's novel features, like person-level identification on websites and automated LinkedIn messaging and email outreach, provide unique value propositions that differentiate Warmly from other tools, check out how they get their foot in the door as Warmly moves up market:
At the enterprise level, Warmly targets larger companies that might be locked into long-term contracts with major vendors like 6sense and ZoomInfo. Warmly demonstrates its value by emphasizing cost savings and efficiency improvements, suggesting that even with an investment of around $25,000, companies can offset their paid ad spend and enhance their RevOps efficiency.
In terms of other GTM strategies, Warmly's ecosystem of partnerships provides customers with discounts on complementary go-to-market tools, fostering a collaborative environment and ensuring that clients have access to the best solutions available. This partnership strategy, combined with a transparent and accountable approach to business operations, helps Warmly build trust and credibility in the market, attracting both new customers and potential partners, hear more about how Warmly is building trust:
The AI and sales tech landscape is bustling with competition, dominated by incumbents and emergent technologies. ZoomInfo, a major player with deep pockets and a history of strategic acquisitions, is often seen as a behemoth in the industry. Despite this, new entrants like Apollo, which secured a $100 million Series D investment from major VC firms like Sequoia and Bain, are making significant strides. These companies leverage the latest AI advancements to enhance their offerings. Warmly’s secret sauce for success amidst fierce competition lies in the quality of the leads generated that are highly accurate with actionable data through sophisticated processes like their Data Waterfall, which compares data from multiple vendors to ensure top-tier lead accuracy. Hear more about Warmly’s GTM strategy in a crowded market:
Product Roadmap: Beyond Just an SDRs Tool with Orchestrator
Warmly.ai is on the cusp of a significant product milestone with the upcoming launch of their Orchestrator feature. This new development represents a strategic shift in the platform's focus from being primarily a tool for SDRs to becoming an essential asset for RevOps and DemandGen leaders. The Orchestrator will serve as a central hub, enabling users to connect any signal they deem important and automate outbound engagement across multiple channels. The launch will exponentially increase the number of signals the platform can handle making it easier for companies to leverage comprehensive data for lead engagement. Hear all about Warmly’s Orchestrator launch:
In addition to the Orchestrator, Warmly.ai is working on several enhancements to better serve enterprise clients. This includes implementing security features like single sign-on (SSO) and audit logs to meet the needs of larger organizations.
Industry Trends: The Blurry Lines & Merging of AI Tools & Humans
In the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and RevTech, a notable trend is the strategic blend of automation with human oversight. Warmly's customer Sendoso exemplify this by integrating automated email sequences with manual checkpoints. Sales reps start their day by reviewing pre-drafted emails to ensure the messaging aligns with their goals and tonality, highlighting the growing need for a human touch in automated processes, hear more of our conversation about the merging of tools & humans:
There is a spectrum of automation adoption within the industry. Some companies are fully embracing AI-driven automation, relying heavily on it due to constraints like limited SDR teams. Others, particularly those dealing with high-touch customers, prioritize substantial human involvement in their sales processes. The middle ground combines both automation for efficiency and human quality assurance for personalization. This hybrid model is becoming increasingly favored as it leverages the strengths of both AI and human sales capabilities. The industry is grappling with content commoditization and the challenge of cutting through with unique, engaging messages, especially in the wake of generative AI advancements, which have made it harder to distinguish authentic, personalized outreach from automated messages. Hear some of Warmly's suggestions on how to break through all of this noise:
Kudos to the Industry
Max recognized several disruptors in the RevTech space that Warmly is using or partners with. We’re excited to get as many of these companies as we can on the RevTech podcast:
Apollo: CRM with a human rep top of mind & a big partner of Warmly's
Lavender AI: Credited for doing an amazing job of really well crafted AI emails, potential future partner of Warmly’s
Tourial: Choose your own adventure product demos tool
SendSpark: Personalized video messaging AI tool
Default: Inbound lead routing tool that Max’s described as next-gen ChiliPiper
Check out Max’s LinkedIn to stay up to date on exactly how and what Warmly is doing in his unique and highly transparent approach to starting a company!
Thank you for sharing the inspiring repivoting story, Max. This is an excellent example of perseverance and the commitment to evolve towards a true solution.