Customer proof on record
How Spendgo got acquired in 12 months with Proofmap
- Customer on record
- Spendgo
- Vendor on record
- Proofmap
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Spendgo, a SaaS company, partnered with Proofmap to capture customer interviews and build a "modern go-to-market strategy" for its sales and partnerships. By the account of Neal Dubisky, its VP Sales & GTM Strategy, the project "changed the company's trajectory" and led to an acquisition by Olo "in only 12 months."
Approved quotes
Every quote the contributor approved, in the wording approved, so a cited quote can be checked against this proof.
Showing all 67 quotes
- Background
Self Intro
“Hi, my name is Neil Debisky. I'm the former VP of Sales and Go-to-Market Strategy at Spengo Loyalty. My responsibilities at Spengo included partnerships, sales, revenue, and marketing, and tying it all together is what made me successful in my role.”
- Results
Career & Company Transformation
“As the former VP of Sales turned VP of Go-to-Market Strategy, I earned that position through my project with Proofmap. I'm here today to talk about that project and how it transformed my career and changed the company's trajectory. We ended up getting acquired by arguably the number one restaurant technology provider in the space in only 12 months. It was life-changing.”
- Before
Founder-Led Marketing
“If we look at where Spengo was, we're in the restaurant technology space and a lot of the marketing efforts were founder-led. He was very busy with engineering, products, customer success, and a little bit of sales engineering here and there. We didn't have a counterpart in marketing to build out some of the assets that we needed to get to the next level. I saw an opportunity to tell that story, and not being the marketer, I just knew I needed it.”
- Results
Mission Critical Assets & Promotion
“I had one opportunity to lean into one project and looked at dozens of different options. I came across Proofmap, and the authenticity was something we absolutely needed. I did not want to be in stealth mode with Spengo for one more year. We put together a pilot project with Proofmap, and after only one interview, we got so much actionable content that customer success actually delayed a hire so we could have a budget for this. It was mission critical that the company build out these assets and plant a flag of what we do in markets. As a result of that project, I took over as the VP of go-to-market strategy. With these assets, sales was able to close more business, and now that I was running partnerships, we ran the same playbook there.”
- Results
Strategic Partnership Growth
“We had what you could call the Apple of point of sale, and we didn't have a partnership with them. We went from zero to strategic partner on their customer advisory board running the same playbook in only three months' time. I've never seen anything like this happen in SaaS or in partnership marketing in my ten plus years of experience, and I did it running the same playbook I was running for sales.”
- Results
Company Acquisition
“This went even one step further when after only working with Proofmap for one year, we were acquired by one of the restaurant technology leaders, Olo. I ran the same playbook for the acquisition as I did for the partnerships and the sales. Everyone thought this was just talking about Spengo and our go-to-market marketing story, but that same story translated to partners and ultimately led to this acquisition in less than a year's time. It changed my career and everybody in my company's lives as a result of this project.”
- How they use it
Irrefutable Market Proof
“Some competitors couldn't even get any information on us. We had a website that was five years dated and marketing materials with case studies that were just thrown together. I absolutely needed authenticity in the story, and I knew that if we had our customers talking about us, it would create irrefutable market proof. That wall of fame would lead to bigger and better things and positioning for our company. As a result of this project, we got everything we signed up for. I got the promotion, the company got partnerships that otherwise were unattainable, and we exited with an acquisition to a very reputable player in the space.”
- Before
Hidden Customer Success
“We were getting business prior to doing this marketing push due to the relationships we had in the restaurant industry, the metrics our solution came to market with, and an overall better customer experience. We knew a few of the crowd favorites already, but we didn't have any market case studies that really brought these to the forefront. They lived in individual one-on-one conversations with our prospects and our customer success team. We needed to expose the things that made us special and bring the essence of Spengo to the surface.”
- Results
Unbiased Market Proof
“As a result of doing that, we were able to tell the story without it sounding like a biased sales pitch just throwing out a bunch of metrics. Everyone has metrics. But when you can share them with an actual case study of one of their peers, it's not a biased case study that a couple of people in the company just slammed together to make it look pretty. This is irrefutable market proof that became our wall of fame.”
- Results
Uncovering Hidden Gems
“In uncovering these case studies, we were also able to uncover a lot of hidden gems that we couldn't see from inside the company. All of a sudden, we realized that our customer success team was one of the reasons customers loved working with us. There were all these additional gems that came out of collecting these case studies and testimonials from our champions.”
- Before
Outdated Marketing Assets
“Before Proofmap, we had a fairly dated website. It had some logos up there, but some of the logos were no longer with us. We didn't have any up-to-date case studies. We had dated marketing where everything was just old and irrelevant. We needed to work in the present to update all of our marketing, and we had to do it efficiently because there wasn't somebody in the company owning it.”
- Results
Building Marketing Assets
“As the VP of Sales, knowing that we needed marketing, I basically said I was not going to remain in stealth mode for a fourteenth year at the company. Knowing that this work would be instrumental to our future, I dove into this project and put everything I had into pulling out these interviews from our customers. In doing so, we were able to build out slides, case studies, metrics, clips, and partnership dynamics that otherwise no one knew unless they were in the partnership conversations.”
- Results
Modern GTM Strategy
“This project actually led to a modern go-to-market strategy that impacted sales, partnerships, marketing, and ultimately an acquisition to one of the leading providers in the space.”
- Before
Unscalable Event Marketing
“The secret sauce before Proofmap was just building and cultivating long industry relationships with prospects and brands. We did events with actual demos, like putting a tablet inside a Starbucks at a conference and giving everybody free coffee. We would go to these almost absurd means to really showcase our product. We would do all these one-off ideas that got us attention, but it was only after the conference was over.”
- Before
Translating Event Success
“How does that translate to the executives that weren't at the conference? They didn't see it. We got 78% adoption at the Starbucks and raised $1,500 for No Kid Hungry, but that's just a case study on paper of something that maybe the loyalty marketing manager didn't even get to witness.”
- How they use it
Tedious Campaign Execution
“That particular campaign was tedious in the sense that we had to install on their point of sale a day ahead of time. We had to get all the phone numbers of the executives and load their account with a free coffee each day, and then train the staff on what to say. Luckily our product focuses on customer experience and ease. We just told them to type in their phone number for a free coffee and a donation, which led to an 80% adoption rate.”
- Advice
10x Marketing Mindset
“When I think of marketing, I look for ways that I can 10x something. I don't like incremental growth where you get another 8% over here. I look for opportunities in sales and marketing that basically 2 to 10x. That's what I hone in on as a sales leader who's trying to share what my company does differently.”
- How they use it
Surfacing the 10x Opportunity
“The reason people were at SPiNGO was because of the 10x opportunity. They understood the math behind it and wondered why everybody wasn't doing this. That was the mission we all marched along, but we never brought anybody outside the company with us. That is until Proofmap was able to bring this to the surface with our clients through the interview process.”
- Before
Missing Customer Voices
“Our customers were not part of our marketing. We had these incredible relationships for years and maybe we got a quote here and there that we used on a slide, but they were few and far between and usually dated. It wasn't transformational. What we were selling in market was absolutely transformational and a 10x difference from the mobile app providers.”
- Results
Organic Customer Acquisition
“We were also impacting acquisition. Our platform organically generated more acquisition, which isn't necessarily a function of the retention or loyalty manager. We showed executives the math and they realized their customers were spending more money. If their members spend five to six times more, the North Star should be getting more members, and that's what our platform did so well.”
- Before
Overcoming Market Skepticism
“Before Proofmap, most marketers thought it was too good to be true. We heard that everybody has metrics and adoption rates. Even with market proof from a similar industry, we basically took the same approach as grocery stores where you just type in your phone number. That should be better than the mobile app approach because it obviously has a lower barrier to entry.”
- Advice
Lowering Friction for Acquisition
“I understood that right away when I joined the company over ten years ago. If you take this approach, you get an easier customer experience, lower friction, and more members. But it became industry standard, thanks to Starbucks, to put all this money into acquisition for a special type of mobile app member. We had to look at the entry point, whether it's through a customer-facing display, a phone number, or text messaging before they download the app.”
- Advice
Foot-in-the-Door Acquisition
“You'll get more members over time if you take the foot-in-the-door approach versus saying you can only join if you download our app, link your credit card, and use Face ID. That was a losing battle because you would have a 90% churn rate on those types of acquisitions. But we could actually nurture customers into the mobile app. If they're in your text club and have points, they have more value to be able to download the app.”
- Results
Customer-Led Strategy Validation
“We were able to show the progression of our strategy, and it doesn't translate coming from me or my team as well as it translates from a customer that has worked with us for multiple years. If they're a portfolio company with 25 brands, they can say they started working with SpendGo at their three biggest brands and just launched more because they saw the results. They decided to triple down and go all in on our platform as a result of the metrics we delivered.”
- How they use it
Peer-to-Peer Storytelling
“That story needed to be told, and it needed to be told not through the sales lens, but through the actual peers of these brands. We were trying to change their entire thought process on how they should think about customer acquisition and attaining more loyalty members.”
- Before
Market Perception Battle
“The most challenging part about Spengo was that we had a transformational product with a different approach where we didn't lead with the mobile app for loyalty. Starbucks kind of ruined the game ten years ago, and the market perception was that everybody goes with the mobile app for loyalty. We support the mobile app, we just weren't the builders of it, so we didn't lead with that.”
- Results
Customer Testimonials Over Sales
“What we were able to do is bring in actual customers for these testimonials and interviews to tell this story. It worked way better than if we were telling it from a sales perspective.”
- How they use it
Case Studies Drive References
“It's one thing to have a reference, but why do they want to talk to the reference in the first place? It's usually because they saw a testimonial or a built-out case study that we sent them in advance. The reference was then used as a closing part of the business at the very end before the deal got signed.”
- How they use it
Interviews as Sales Assets
“Usually that conversation was with leaders within the organization to basically check the math and talk to a few executives. Referrals didn't work nearly as well in the sales process. You needed the ammo and the interview, because the interview became the asset that created everything else.”
- Results
The Interview Engine
“Without actionable data from the interview, you don't have the case study, the slides, the quotes, or the LinkedIn posts. It was mission critical to get that interview. By lifting up the executives within those testimonials, they were able to connect with their peers when it came time to sign the contract. It was a cycle that fed itself to the finish line, resulting in less work and less smoke for sales.”
- Results
Peer Network Amplification
“Their peers and their peer network celebrated their case studies. They brought us into different events and circles. Things got shared within certain peer groups that salespeople or companies weren't privy to. This was a conversation starter that was able to get our marketing into places where we just had no access.”
- Results
Matching Assets to Deals
“Once you develop a bunch of assets, you will come into deal situations where you need a specific use case. In the restaurant space, you might need a QSR with over 100 locations, voice in the drive-thru, a kiosk inside, and a particular point of sale. Based on how we look at the deal from a sales perspective, we know exactly which case study and executive interview is going to match up perfectly.”
- How they use it
Providing Irrefutable Proof
“Why would you talk to us unless you saw something that was relevant to you? We needed to provide irrefutable proof in the very beginning on why brands should continue the conversation and lean into our transformational approach to loyalty marketing.”
- Results
Instant Proof Delivery
“They were just like, oh, they already have a full-on landing page for my exact use case. We were ready for this before the call even ended. I just plugged in exactly what I needed from that database and could show with proof that this was our domain and we could help them with their project because we had done this so many times in the past.”
- Results
Post-Demo Asset Delivery
“One of the things I really liked about the database is being able to pull out the exact use case and populate a URL to send to the client right after their demo. What that showed is we had already done this before and had case studies that incorporated their exact use case. Being able to send it over while it was fresh in their mind is huge. You don't wait two weeks and then say you have it, which makes it look like you had to build it. If you have it right after the call, there you go.”
- Results
Polished Post-Demo Marketing
“One of the things we can do with Proofmap right after the demo is basically pull in a bunch of different assets, case studies, and interviews, and it looks like a polished piece of marketing that was built just for them.”
- How they use it
Proofmap for Partnerships
“As the former VP of Sales, I also had to work on partnerships. We utilized the same Proofmap approach for partnerships, because a lot of what we did integrated with various components within the restaurant stack.”
- Results
Empowering Partner Sales
“Being able to tell the story of how this particular partner plus our company delivers better results was critical in empowering the partner sales teams. It also got market proof and case studies out there that would proliferate within the industry because everybody would see it.”
- Results
Ancillary GTM with Partners
“As a result of utilizing this same approach, we got more views and coverage. It appealed to more people because they use that specific technology. When you can say that this partner plus Spengo equals a specific result, you're basically doing marketing for that partner. Their sales team became empowered with exactly what we do and how we do it, using the same client testimonial approach we utilized for our straight product. This became an ancillary go-to-market with partners that ultimately led to more sales through those channels.”
- Results
Getting Big Player Attention
“For the big companies out there, the point of sale and online ordering providers, I needed to get their attention. It wasn't easy to do just by saying we have a great product. That wasn't good enough for them. But they like it when customers say what is great about our company plus their company. That's where the magic is. By taking the interviews and co-branding them into SpendGo plus the partner, we were able to get noticed by the big players, and ultimately this is what led to the acquisition.”
- Results
Strategic Tech Stack Partnerships
“Ultimately, this is what led to strategic partnerships in various places within the technology stack that we were dependent on. If we didn't have those integrations and relationships, it would have been very difficult to go to market with anybody besides ourselves.”
- Results
Two Assets from One Interview
“Usually nine times out of ten, the brand would say no problem, let's talk about the intersection between your company and their company. As a result, we would get two different testimonials and assets from this one interview for the same cost. We would cut one for the Spengo side, one for the partner, and then a highlight of both of us. I would use that to reach out to the partnership and marketing teams at the partner, and we would develop a go-to-market strategy for their sales organization. This playbook works for direct and it works for partners.”
- How they use it
Cracking the Toast Ecosystem
“We didn't have anything going with Toast Point of Sale. It was a strategic partner because we just completed the integration with them, and with their 140,000 locations, we wanted to do whatever we could to get their attention. We asked one of our clients to mention Toast in their interview. We had Proofmap cut it in two different ways, and we shared that with the Toast team.”
- Results
Zero to Advisory Board
“Within two weeks, we got invited to a Toast event. I met the CMO and the head of customer success. We saw them two months later at the RLC, and a month after that, we were on their strategic board of advisors, or partner advisory council as they call it. We went from having almost no relationship with Toast to being on their strategic partner advisory council within three or four months.”
- Results
Aligning with Partner Goals
“They saw that we had clients that loved us and we had the enterprise space, which they were trying to get into. It was a timing thing for Toast as they were going upstream, and we wanted to get deeper with their organization. It was about showing them that if they paid attention to us, we could help them get there. We were already developing assets around their enterprise clients, so it matched up perfectly with what they were trying to accomplish and what we were able to showcase immediately.”
- Results
Partners Listening to Customers
“Toast saw it. Because we did the interviews with clients that were utilizing a technology like Toast and they loved us, they were essentially listening to their own customers by partnering with us.”
- Results
Big Swings for Small Teams
“The way we were operating marketing, even though we were over $5 million ARR, was very much like a small company. It's hard to take big swings on a piece of partnership marketing like that. But since we were already grabbing it for our own direct marketing at no additional cost, we decided to just try it. Not only did we try it for no additional cost, it worked, and that led to a strategic partnership with one of the biggest names in the game.”
- Before
Interview Fatigue
“Another partnership play we utilized was sharing the expense on the customer interview. You don't want to ask your clients to do this very often because it can be daunting, and they don't want to go on camera once a year just to update their case study.”
- Results
Multi-Vendor Testimonials
“If there's a group of known providers that a particular brand utilizes, we asked them to do a testimonial on behalf of all their favorites. We said, these are your three favorites, how about we do an interview and encompass all three of them as well as the intersection? As a result, the brand only had to do one interview, which gave us assets for three different companies and the story that connected them. We had that co-marketing opportunity as well as the individual case study, and we only paid a third of the cost.”
- How they use it
Educating Partner Sales Teams
“When you look at major infrastructure players like Olo, they had their preferred loyalty providers and we were one of three. What we wanted to do is make sure that we were always recommended in particular deals, and that their sales team knew exactly what our strengths were.”
- Results
Elevating the Partnership
“When we started doing these interviews, we used the partnership play and looked for brands that would say wonderful things about both companies. Being able to tell the story through the brands we were interviewing and then share that with Olo got them to see us as more than just a loyalty provider. We got to hone in on some of the projects they were working on, like their Olo marketplace app.”
- Results
Driving the Olo Acquisition
“We have a network of 40 million people. We had Kahala Brands talk specifically about how they decreased their cost of acquisition through the SpendGo network. When we finally got the acquisition, that's the 40 million that Olo talks about in their app today.”
- How they use it
Mapping Exponential Value
“We had two of our brands highlight Spengo plus Olo, and we took a little bit of extra care on these particular testimonials. We mapped out exactly how the two companies added exponential value for our brands, and we figured out the case study metrics on members versus non-members and what that actually meant to their business.”
- Results
Feeding Partner Sales Teams
“Once we started doing these interviews, we actually had a reason to share more materials with their sales team. On our partnership call after we produced one, they told us to keep dropping these things into their Slack channel. It became something they wanted more of, which was surprising. Had we not taken care with that first interview showing that Olo plus Spendgo equals an amazing opportunity for brands, we wouldn't have been invited into more engagement with their sales team.”
- Results
Connecting with Big Companies
“I don't think we get there unless one of the brand leaders is shouting our name from the mountaintops, because that's where you have to be in order to connect with some of these big companies out there.”
- Results
Showcasing Passwordless ROI
“We honed in on one feature, passwordless login. We showcased the year-over-year numbers, which were off the charts because nobody wants to deal with email passwords. We looked at how many more conversions that equaled and what that could do to their platform.”
- Results
Irrefutable Market Proof
“I've been partners with Olo for over ten years, and all it took was one interview from a mutual customer saying to check out these passwordless stats. I didn't have to say it, even though I had the case study and had already shared it with the team. As soon as John Asher, the CTO of a 200 plus location brand, shared that, it became irrefutable market proof. They realized this makes their product better, and they zeroed in on SpendGo as a result.”
- How they use it
Clients Speaking Our Words
“I spent years trying to get everybody to listen about the metrics on passwordless login and why they should fix their digital front door. But it wasn't until our clients started talking about it in the exact same words I would use that any infrastructure player like Olo actually listened.”
- Results
Project Outcomes Summary
“I'm Neil Debiski. I was running sales at Spengo. We were doing between $5 and $10 million ARR, and we didn't have a dedicated marketing person or even a department. It was founder-led marketing. As a result of this project, not only did I get a promotion, but we also got acquired.”
- Results
Discovering Support Value
“During the interview process, we were able to uncover a bunch of beautiful gems about our organization that we didn't already know. Sales didn't know how loved our customer success team was. We actually forewent an interview because somebody else said that while all these brands have metrics and case studies, the thing they love about Spendgo is our customer support.”
- Results
From Stealth to Acquisition
“There's one more piece of this. I was the VP of Sales and I absolutely knew we needed marketing. I did not want to be in stealth mode another year. I didn't have much time and I didn't even have a budget. I partnered with Proofmap, and as a result, I became the VP of go-to-market strategy for Spengo. At the end of it all, we got acquired.”
- Results
The Critical First Step
“If I could go back and do it all over again, Proofmap was the first thing I would do. If there were only two things you could do, Proofmap on the go-to-market was absolutely critical for our organization in so many different ways, starting right from customer success.”
- Results
Boosting Team Morale
“The interview process also built team morale. When I shared these interviews with the customer success team and they were shouted out in nearly every interview, what do you think that did for morale? They worked harder because they knew that the customers appreciated them.”
- Results
From Marketing to Acquisition
“How do you build that type of morale within an organization if you don't have somebody that interfaces with the engineering team? This little project that started out as just needing marketing turned into so much more and ultimately led to an acquisition.”
- Results
Outsourcing Marketing Operations
“As the VP of Sales, I did not want to build out the whole marketing piece myself. Maybe you could, but this would be a full-time job times three, and I had other things that I needed to do. Outsourcing this was the absolute smartest thing I could have ever done.”
- Results
Seamless Third-Party Process
“It's such a seamless process. Imagine if my team was collecting the interviews; we would be leading the question every time. It needed to be done by a third party so you have that verification piece. It's an easy process where they handle the whole thing soup to nuts, and it just shows up almost an hour after the interview is completed with all the quotes.”
- Results
24-Hour Asset Turnaround
“In some cases, I used quotes from an interview that was completed in less than 24 hours, assuming I had approval.”