Mo (Mohit) Arya

Every founder in B2B dreams of selling a huuuuuuge platform. But this can be a huuuuuuge mistake. The almost magnetic pull towards positioning as a platform makes sense: ✅ higher perceived value ✅ bigger ACV ✅ better customer stickiness ✅ greater investor appeal But not all multi-product companies have the makings of a true platform. Whether you position in the market as a platform or a suite of products starts way earlier in the startup journey — beginning with your product strategy. (Yes, ideally your marketing strategy & product strategy should have collaborated since day 1... but they rarely do). The normal flow goes something like this: 1) a founder creates a product that solves a problem related to a use case 2) customers come with adjacent use cases and say, "can you help us too?" 3) not wanting to turn away revenue, founders will say, "yes!" 4) each different customer segment has different needs 5) the founder starts building for all these different segments 6) suddenly, they're left with a collection of disconnected products At this moment, the founder has two choices... 1️⃣ market & sell these products individually 2️⃣ attempt to combine them into one large platform Because of the positive associations with platforms that I mentioned above, most founders will opt for the latter. And yet... a lot of time, no category really exists that makes sense of all these disparate use cases. No company is shopping for a solution that can help them incorporate their startup in Delaware, AND contribute to carbon removal projects, AND set up identity verification (among many other unrelated use cases, as with a product suite like Stripe). Most founders (who are not the Collison brothers) will embark on a multi-year "category creation" process, attempting to cover an undisciplined product strategy with marketing fluff. And yet, the founder would have been much better off keeping these products separate. If each product is doing sufficiently well (as they were/are with Stripe), the startup should (eventually) be able to fully staff each product line and achieve healthy individual P&Ls. On the flip side, some companies DO begin with the end in mind. Companies like Clari started with a simple use case (like forecasting) but then began to own the connected use cases in order to create a true one-stop shop for revenue teams. Their platform angle ACTUALLY makes sense because their ideal customers likely ARE doing forecasting, prospecting, mutual action plans, etc all at once. And so, they likely would consider Clari as a powerful consolidation tool that could replace a handful of tools to solve one big connected workflow. -------- One caveat: → there's another definition of "platform" that is widely used and refers to software that others can build their own software on top of (i.e., Shopify, Salesforce, etc.) I am referring to the other, more colloquial definition of "platform" used in product packaging.

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Customers won't always tell you what's wrong 🤫 But every support interaction will! It doesn't have to be an escalation or dramatic case. In every ticket or call, there is hidden pain. How each business deals with that pain can make or break a lifelong loyal customer. Most customers will drop the chat, service, or product the minute it feels like going in circles. Best case you'll get an NPS or CSAT. 25 out 26 times you'll get nothing - silence and churn. Yet, most large companies ignore this and at best review 2-5% of the total support volume - a heroic effort by the tiny but mighty QA teams in each case. But what happens with the remaining 95-98%? Would you also ignore 95-98% of new product or sales orders? Truth is, if you're still stuck at the 2-5% random ticket reviews then you probably are ignoring a huge risk of revenue retention, upsell, cross-sell, referral revenue and everything in between. For every 25-30 negative experiences, only 1 gets reported by customers. Adding a well-thought out and structured AI framework in your quality processes flips this script. It unlocks one of the most underrated attributes of your customer support organisation - the real-time 'pulse check' on the health of your business - something I wish I had in my earlier CS days fighting user attrition and churn. That's the unlock we're helping companies implement with Intryc (YC S24) and category leading companies like Deel, Blueground, SadaPay, Djamo, are already changing the game in CX. If that resonates with you, happy to walk you through what we're seeing behind the scenes in companies who are transforming their CX with AI. DMs are open!

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Yesterday I got asked the most popular question: What’s the fastest way to grow a SaaS startup? Answer, just 3 simple things. 1. Raise millions dollar Before writing a single line of code. 2. Hire a 20-member team Before getting your first customer. 3. Spend on billboards and fancy branding Before revenue. And congraculations, Your startup is selected for “How to go bankrupt faster then expected." With, 1. $00000 in depth 2. 25 employees salary to pay. 3. Great branding which noone like. Just kidding, 😂 Here’s my real answer Building a SaaS startup isn’t about shortcuts. It’s not about speed. And it’s definitely not about the destination. But it’s a journey Between the founder and the market. Which begins with identifying the problem. And ends with delivering the right solution. And everything in between? It’s just market testing the founder - For his vision. - For his purpose. - For his patience to build. So, SaaS founders remember. Don't look forward to destination, Before you have start enjoying The Journey of to be. (Other wise, you will be soon get, welcome to bankruptcy club of SaaS)... 😂 P.S. Would you like to get membership in Bankruptcy club ! If so, comment down to get added.... 😂

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If I had to restart RTG today, I’d take a very different approach. Back then, we were figuring things out as we went. Today, we have access to 100x more tools, insights, and opportunities. But without the right mindset, those resources won’t mean much. What I’d do differently: ⚙️ 1/ Integrate AI aggressively I wouldn’t start every sentence with “AI,” but I’d redesign operations around it. Every workflow, every customer touchpoint: “Can AI handle this before a human steps in?” That changes how you build from day one. It demands smarter processes and scales faster. More importantly, it prepares the business for where tech is going. ⚙️ 2/ Center growth around impact Focus on real customer problems, then revenue takes care of itself. The right problems attract great talent, loyal customers, and long-term value. As more tech emerges, I’d funnel it into solving more meaningful problems that people are willing to pay for. ⚙️ 3/ Build for regional from day one At launch, we were hyper-focused on Egypt. A natural choice, but it limited how we thought about scale, strategy, and even talent. If I had to do it again, I’d anchor RTG with regional goals from day one. MENA. Europe. Beyond. Bigger challenges and bigger opportunities. ⚙️ 4/ Hire slower but smarter I’d invest early in a few strong management hires. Look out for those who: ✅ Find their own path to deliver. ✅ Turn plans into results. ✅ See how everything connects. ✅ Welcome pressure before the market applies it. ✅ Are driven by purpose And I’d bias more toward engineers with depth over generalists. Tech-first companies need technical leadership. --- Founders today have greater platforms to succeed.. They have access to tools and capital we could only dream of 10 years ago. But at the same time, they can only accelerate when the fundamentals are right. What do you think? 📸: Shot of the team from 2021

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I used to joke with my team that it took me 2 years and $1M to learn how to do entreprise sales. I started with the sales process i had heard from everyone - create an ICP list, a messaging and then start sending them out. And that worked till we started going upmarket and target more entreprise customers. The reality is, enterprise customers are already solving the problem you’re pitching. Their solution may be hacky and inefficient, but it works. Which means they don’t “need” you. And they’ve heard the same pitch from 100 other vendors. The unlock for us was doing research to find their current solution, what problems it was causing and how we could give them a 10x roi. That process was really hard. We went from targeting a 100 account list to only 10 and went deep into them. Created a full org map, went through JDs, linkedin posts, google reviews, linkedin profiles and everythng we could find to understand what they were doing. We then we built a unique POV on each one: here’s your current inefficiency, here’s the hidden cost, here’s why a 10x ROI is possible.. We stopped pitching. We started educating. And prospects began coming to calls just to hear our perspective on their problem. That’s how we went from burning $1M… to hitting $1M ARR in 12 months.

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