Article · Short read

An Inside Look at How Datadog Reached $500M in ARR (and Counting)

Kristin Hillery · OpenView Free Advanced

Datadog's own VP of Marketing describing the dual motion and, more usefully, saying you have to actively reach out to the grassroots users so they will champion you in the contract conversation.

  • Datadog runs bottom-up with individual developers and top-down with technology executives at the same time.
  • The product is built so a user knows what to do with it the moment they sign up.
  • Marketing's job is enthusiasm from the actual user, who then becomes the internal champion.
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It answers 2 questions

  1. When should you add a sales team on top of a self serve product, and how do you avoid breaking it?
  2. How does Datadog run bottom up and top down selling at the same time without the two fighting?

Read with it

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  2. Seven concrete lessons with the numbers attached, including the 15 minute time to value and net retention above 140 percent.... aakashg.com Article · Long read Datadog: The Archetypal Example for SaaS Product-Led Growth Aakash Gupta
  3. The clearest thresholds anyone has published for this decision, plus the warning that matters: the pipeline your new sales team... elenaverna.com Newsletter · Long read Why, When, and How to add Sales to your Product-Led Growth motion Elena Verna
  4. The best source on stopping the two motions fighting, with real penetration triggers and named cases where it went wrong,... Andreessen Horowitz Article · About 15 min read The "$20M to $500M" Question: Adding Top Down Sales Sarah Wang and David George
  5. It states the anti-conflict thesis directly: bottom up usage is what generates top down pipeline, so the two motions feed each... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · About 14 min read Introducing enterprise sales to a product-led growth organization Janelle Teng and Elliott Robinson
  6. Video · Long-form interview Every Lesson From Scaling Datadog to $40B Olivier Pomel
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