How Hootsuite CEO Irina Novoselsky grew to $350M revenue and 18M customers in 2024.

you know I remember back in the day we were all using hotu Ryan Holmes got the company going with an agency model which is very popular for a lot of the most successful software companies how many of you guys your companies how many of you started as an agency some form of Professional Services proposify yep yep AJ yeah lot of agencies at the start hoot was in the news like crazy and then there were rumors about a you know could they IPO and then they hired Goldman to try and get a 7750 million exit done that didn't happen well Arena has coming in now leading is CEO since 2023 she's reshaping the business revenue is now over $200 million you'll see her Revenue graph and she's teaching exactly how you should focus on customers first and how she's doing this to reinvigorate hoot site so on that note please help me give a warm Round of Applause to the CEO of hoot Suite Arena [Applause] noski you ready to go okay you're on you all hear me thanks for being here take it away have fun exciting to hear the story behind SAS open hello I am really excited to be here uh in a room full of CEOs and successful leaders as Nathan mentioned I started at huite about 18 months ago and I started with a pretty similar mandate that I have started before which is how do you re accelerate high growth and so I came in with the same Playbook a focused execution and I went to work and we did it in less than 12 months we took our Enterprise core from 8% growth to 22% growth but that's not the most interesting thing that happened in this process we started to unlock some insights that will materially change and fuel not only our growth but every single person's business in this room and it is a dynamic that is absolutely changing how we do business and it is there is a new buyer emerging with a very different customer journey and a very different buying pattern and that new buyer Is the Gen Z buyer and so in order to share what I did next I have to give you a little background I'm originally from the USSR and so as you can imagine I'm part spy and so part of that spy um I had to put to work but also I'm also an Ukrainian Refugee kid yes that showed up and had to figure out how do I blend in into society with my salami sandwiches and almost every owl vowel in my name and so I became part Anthropologist studying humans understanding patterns how do you fit in and so I took my spinus I took my anthropology and I went to work I'm a millennial I thought I understood the genzi person we're close we're similar primates we're not we couldn't be more different and so I did what most anthropologists do I went and I studied them in their natural habitat I met with almost 519 geners and I asked them what they think about relationships politics life economic business and what emerged was a really interesting Insight how we conduct business today is no longer going to work in the future and the material Trend and Stat that really shook me when I heard this was that by next year literally in three months 75% of all buyers will be either Millennials or jenzy and all the playbooks that we have on growing SAS businesses were built by older generations for older Generations that will not work with this new buying generation and so I went to work to understand what will and as part of that I don't know if some of you have seen some of these stats in your businesses but as I've been looking around different businesses and whether it was in my finance career care and my operations career there was Trends emerging I haven't seen in a really long time in SAS which is the buying cycle is materially increasing sales productivity was going down even though they were doing the same things and CAC was really growing and what I was seeing a lot of my peers doing is doing the same old against these same problems they were throwing more budget we need more sdrs more bdrs more salespeople that'll fix the productivity AI just throw AI at it it'll make it better do you know what it does nope just do it throw more budget it's clearly more expensive I need more marketing budget and one of the things that tldr on all of my research basically the SAS Playbook as we know it is dead and we have a moment in time and especially all of you in the room who are building your businesses from the ground up have an ability to build it in a way that is going to materially change the trajectory of your business and allow you to become one of the future magnificent 7 the rest of us have to turn a whole engine to go adapt to what is happening but if you don't adapt the future does not exist the way it is today I want to share a little bit before I get into kind of some of the what do you do with your business I want to share a little bit about what I learned in my spyness in my investigations in talking to these Jens years and it was very different than the assumptions of going in it's a generation of contradictions they were born with cell phones in their pocket yet they don't use them to talk they won't work at a job that is 100% remote yet they don't want mandatory return to the office they use artificial intelligence for work but they do not trust it they want authentic intelligence they do not trust things that they do not see know or have a relationship with they want a relationship they just don't want to talk to you and it is a completely different way of interacting and if you're sitting there and thinking okay that's interesting but what does this b2z era have to do with me and my business well they're going to be 75% of your buyers they are your business and when you think about what's happening is we have to change the playbook for it and when you look at their patterns and how they do business it is completely different than any of the patterns of the generations before them 62% of gen Z employees are involved in buying decisions today how many of you have genz employees that are telling you hey we have to look at this there's this trend that's happening there's the software that we're looking at how many of you are getting that Insight it's almost half the room in here they're already one of the first champions in what we all know to be an 8 n 10 person B2B SAS buying Journey they're the ones that get that software in the door to have put on the table to have the conversation here's the stat that's really alarming is 65% of the B2B search starts on social social not on Google over the last few Generations Google search has declined almost 30% from gen Z from Gen X to gen Z if you were putting money behind Google great that's not where they're going to start their search so you are one derivative away from getting the most on the investment that you're making and then the other part that really was the aha moment for us is they don't want to be sold to if you you want to be in control you have to put them in control and it is a very different buying pattern and journey than we all have in our businesses today or most of us have and that is 60% of the process for buying B2B SAS is done before a gen Z person gets on the phone or talks to a sales rep that's 60% that you might not be influencing that they are going and consuming content in order to get that knowledge and here's the fun fact even though they're known as a Tik Tok generation with 6C attention spans on average 50% of them are consuming at least 13 pieces of content before they get on a phone with the sales rep by the time they get on the phone with the sales rep they already know what they're doing are you in that 13 piece Journey with them are you providing your content where they consume it it's a completely different way of doing business and it's the social self-service generation they grew up being lurkers on social social media they're there going through Netflix having content easily at their fingertips and they're used to being in control I mentioned they don't want a relationship and they don't want to talk to you but they want to be able to find it on their terms at their Pace it's opposite of our push model that we've grown up with in SAS Playbook call them email them cold email them throw some artificial intelligence to make that cold email better keep calling them they did an activity in the product call them again ping them again email them again don't stop till they return a phone call they're not going to return your phone call they just don't want to talk to you they want you to make their life easier as they go through their journey and they can manage it at their own time that's what's driving these longer sales cycle they're getting the tea on you they're doing the 13 pieces of content to hear what is happening what's your product doing what is going on they're not reading your emails they're going to Reddit they're going to peer reviews they don't join social media because of the Town Square they join it because they're trying to find their Community their tribe of people they respect who they think is authentic to give them an honest review they want to go and see what their be be friends are buying for that software to solve that problem it's a very different way of attracting an audience they also can smell the BS faster than anybody there are a generation that is 50% less likely to answer any kind of cold emails and cold Outreach they're a generation that wants to hear what their friend is referring what is being said who the B influencer for that product is saying and what your company is saying about them two out of three of these buyers want a fully digital experience to do their whole purchase and that goes for 20K ACB deals all the way up to 50 what's interesting on the high CAC piece is they're not a Trad kind of generation they don't believe in traditional search they also almost 50% of them have ad blockers they you ads is the least authentic thing you can do they want to but they're okay hearing the ad from someone they trust and there as a result we're seeing so much more Target and the cost is getting driven up based on targeting and personifying and really going after the Right audience I was talking to a B2B CEO who recently got a$2 billion valuation and maybe not so recently in 2021 um and he listened and as I was sharing some of my insights he kind of sat back and said Irena this is great I agree I see it with my kids who are jenzy but let's be honest I I'm a B2B CEO I'm a B2B software provider I don't sell to Consumers how many of you in this room are human one we got one you sell to humans there are 5 billion people around the world spending 4 hours and they lie in surveys we we all know that it's more 4 hours a day on social media tell me what customer you are targeting that does not fall into that 5 billion I would love to know pull me aside and tell me what magical customer that you have somehow found that is not a consumer of social media if you want to be in control you got to put them in control and that's where it starts at the beginning how do you win the research phase and again they want to know how to find you that stat of 50% of them consume at least 13 pieces of content are you showing up in that Journey do you understand what their journey is to make sure that your pieces of content are coming up in a way so that when they pick up that phone call to talk to a salesperson you're in that 60% that has made the decision to work with you they're doing the sdrs job they're also reaching out and trying to learn as much as possible from every different aspect of the business death of the demo demos as we know it which is a push mechanism to get them to call us and by the way we're the worst at it fun fact 95% of our business comes to us I don't have an outbound Salesforce and we're almost 400 million they come to us and when they get to the product they get to the site do you know how I turn them into a lead they click ask for demo and so we are in the process of massively Transforming Our customer Journey they don't want to click ask for demo they want to do the demo themselves they don't want to perfectly scripted pitch they don't want to hear you walking through the product they're a de they're a high demand on demand generation they want to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it and they want to consume when they want to consume it the company that has done it the best is monday.com has anyone been through their demo process if you haven't do it yes of course you have go through their demo process it is made for somebody that does not want to talk to a person you can do the whole thing without interacting with a human being and we are in the process of massively changing our entire business model in order to do this and you're saying why would you do this it's working sure it's working today you know what happens with Trends if we are early we are day one of what is about to be happening starting January 1 for the next 2 4 6 and 10 years if you don't adapt and pivot today you're going to miss what is going to be happening in the future and this generation is here to stay they are just getting started as decision makers and not only that but they're also comparing you not to other B2B companies in this product experience how many of you have been on Amazon come on really okay thank you they live on Amazon they're consumers of Amazon they go they buy they try on they return and they never get charged they're they're expecting that same kind of digital experience or that same type of consumer experience in the digital world they don't know how to separate being a consumer from a customer this is what they grew up with and they're taking those consumer expectations and bringing them to your business last social selling how many of you are on LinkedIn okay love it um well I did a little um math and and looked at all the speakers that are speaking over the next few days and on average is about 10,000 followers for every speaker uh the number one winner goes to Josh aronov he has almost 400,000 so if you can Corner him and find out what he's doing you should um but the interesting thing that really exists is they don't want to be led to buy but they will 100% follow to sell and social selling is an amazing tool when you think about what that means for a CEO in the room it is a whole vibe as they say 78% of salespeople that leverage social out sell their peers 77% of buyers are more likely to purchase if they just see executive presence on social let alone even what you're posting the majority of the social world is lurkers anyway just getting a post out just saying that you're on social allows them to understand what you're stands for what values you have and as they're doing their 13 piece content absorption to understand if they want to bring your B2B software into their business this is a key part of them seeing if you are authentic and have credibility it is no longer an option to be on social and to actually engage as a CEO or as a leadership team you have to be putting yourself out there because that is a key part of their buying Journey you have a customer who's knocking and asking to talk to you and you are not paying attention to them if you are not on there and the fun fact when you're on it and you're using it it decreases your CAC by almost 20% so some takeaways when you go back to your businesses and assess how do you build a platform a journey as you go and you take over the world as you scale your businesses as one of the things you will hear over the next few days is I am sure you're going to hear how people are using social media to do it and what I'm here to tell you is you are day one of a trend that is about to get really accelerated and fueled and you have this moment in time to go back and materially adjust your business to these new buying patterns or you're going to get left behind so how do you go back and assess does my business match the needs of this new generation am I winning in the research phase do you even know the research phase of these buyers do you know the 13 pieces of content and how do you surface them up whether it's in Reddit peer reviews Affiliates are you doing enough B2B influencing with your own employees they are best ambassadors to get your ma your message out are you using them and leveraging them in the authenticity that they bring to your brand and third maybe third how do you stay relevant in the genen Z experience when they don't want to talk to you how do you think of selling your entire product and your entire offering without interacting with a single human they'll reach out when they want to but how do you put them in control and it's the opposite of how we think about our entire business we've spent years figuring out how do we create touch points that force them to talk to us that give us an opportunity to reach out to them that trigger us to give them a phone call how do you rethink that entire landscape to Think Through how do I do it without them having to talk to me at all if they want to they'll find you and it's really about getting adapt or get ghosted and they won't even tell you why they don't want to do business and so adjusting is the name of the game it's what we as CEOs do and the takeaway I would leave you with if you want control over your buyer and your buyer's journey and you want to drive your sales and accelerate your growth how do you rethink it so that you put them in control and I run a social media company so I have to do a selfie fun fact um they don't take selfies like the rest of us I I'm going to do it the millennial way but they do it the other way which I I can't even learn to do but if you all will just say sass open on three I'm going to take a little video ready one two three sass open thank you it's a pleasure and I look forward to you all changing how you do business to grab Generation Z [Music]