Early on almost every B2B company grows through one dominant channel, so the wrong move is to run four at half strength. Name your primary channel, get it to the point where it reliably produces pipeline, and only then add a second, and add it as an expansion rather than as a rescue when the first one stalls. Organic inbound ends up the largest channel for most established B2B companies, but very few of them started there. A useful sequencing rule from the Accel India playbook: below roughly two million dollars ARR keep marketing narrow, product marketing plus lead generation, and resist building a broad team. Do not force product-led growth onto a product that needs a human in the loop.
4 hand-picked resources, 3 India-specific, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it A rare account of channel evolution in order (outbound, then inbound, then events, then expansion) as Whatfix went from one million to seventy million ARR, plus why they split the CTO to the US and kept the CEO in India.
On The Neon Show by Siddhartha Ahluwalia with Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar Namburu 1 hr 9 min listen
Why we picked it A first-hand account of moving from product-led growth to enterprise sales and the pricing changes that made the revenue work, told by Smartsheet's president of product to an India-first audience.
On Prime Venture Partners Podcast by Prime Venture Partners with Praerit Garg podcast episode
Open primevp.in →Why we picked it The channel data behind the advice to pick one channel and commit, including Ali Ghodsi's account of Databricks revenue flatlining when they forced a zero-touch motion. Good antidote to running four half-funded channels at once.
From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky long read
Open lennysnewsletter.com →Why we picked it Freshworks' early marketing approach documented properly: what they measured, what they spent on, and the argument that below two million dollars ARR you should do product marketing and lead generation only. The India cost discipline in it is the part US playbooks never give you.
From SeedToScale by Accel by Rachit Parekh long read
Open seedtoscale.com →How inbound, content and demand gen reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Get your first customers, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Grow organically & retain, our D2C track.
