Consultative Selling: How He Closed Instacart Live - The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders Recap
Podcast: The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders
Published: 2025-12-04
Duration: 42 min
Summary
In this episode, Saket Saurabh, co-founder of Nexla, shares his journey of targeting enterprise customers from the outset and the challenges he faced in building a successful data unification platform. He discusses the importance of understanding customer needs through consultative selling, leading to key relationships and significant revenue growth.
What Happened
Omar Khan interviews Saket Saurabh, co-founder of Nexla, a platform aimed at solving data fragmentation issues in enterprises. Saket reflects on his past experience with a mobile app company, which shaped his understanding of data's value in business. Instead of pursuing small-to-medium businesses, he targeted enterprise customers right away, leveraging his network to gather insights about their data challenges. His approach was not to sell initially but to learn, which eventually led to landing Instacart as his first customer a year after their seed round.
As Nexla began to scale, they faced significant challenges, including a tough decision to halt salaries for the founders and downsize the team. This painful reset ultimately paid off, as they became cash flow positive and raised a Series A round with multiple seven figures in revenue. Today, Nexla serves over 50 enterprise customers, including notable names like DoorDash, LinkedIn, and Autodesk, and has raised $33 million in funding. Saket emphasizes the importance of consultative selling, highlighting a pivotal moment when his co-founder live-coded a solution during a meeting with Instacart, demonstrating how to create 'magical moments' that resonate with enterprise clients.
Key Insights
- Saket targeted enterprise customers from day one to leverage higher-value contracts.
- Consultative selling helped identify and address specific problems faced by potential customers.
- Live-coding during customer meetings can build trust and demonstrate expertise.
- Understanding enterprise pricing and contracts is crucial for founders without prior experience.
Key Questions Answered
What inspired Saket Saurabh to start Nexla?
Saket's journey into entrepreneurship began in the 2000s at Nvidia, where he learned to build new product ideas. After founding a mobile app company that became a leading ad-serving platform, he realized that the most valuable aspect of his work was solving data problems. This insight led him to establish Nexla in 2016, focusing on the need for data unification in enterprises as a way to extract maximum value from fragmented data systems.
How did Saket acquire his first customer, Instacart?
Saket used his network and engaged in warm outreach to have conversations with potential enterprise customers, focusing not on pitching but on understanding their data challenges. This consultative approach allowed him to identify shared pain points, leading to Instacart becoming Nexla's first customer approximately a year after their seed funding.
What challenges did Nexla face after initial growth?
After signing a few customers quickly, Nexla encountered significant growth challenges that necessitated a painful reset. The founders made the tough decision to forgo salaries and downsize the team, only hiring new members when revenue justified it. This strategy proved effective, enabling them to return to a healthier financial position and become cash flow positive by the time they raised their Series A.
What role does consultative selling play in enterprise sales?
Consultative selling is crucial for enterprise sales, as it focuses on understanding the unique needs and challenges of potential clients. Saket highlights a memorable moment when his co-founder demonstrated a live-coding fix during a meeting with Instacart. This not only showcased their technical capabilities but also fostered trust and created a 'magical moment' that resonated with the customer's needs.
How did Saket learn about enterprise pricing and contracts?
Initially unfamiliar with enterprise pricing structures and contracts, Saket navigated these complexities through a process of learning and adaptation. His early experiences and conversations with industry insiders helped him understand the nuances of contract negotiations and pricing strategies, which were essential for scaling Nexla in the competitive enterprise landscape.