Episode #13: A Deep Dive into HockeyStack's GTM Playbook - Emir Atli
How a young startup became a category leader by breaking the mold.
When it comes to B2B marketing and sales, almost everyone is “buying IBM.”
That is, they’re following a well-trodden and conventional strategy. It’s why most companies seem so seem bland and homogeneous.
Companies run the playbook that their VCs expect, or that the executives used at their last company, or that their competitors seem to be running. Same website layout. Same positioning language. Same content strategy. Safe…and boring.
I like to keep my eye out for companies building a unique GTM strategy based on first principles. They are the innovators, and those that are successful will write the playbooks for others to follow.
Enter HockeyStack, a player in the B2B marketing attribution space. Sometime in the last 6-12 months, they started appearing everywhere in my LinkedIn feed, with content that was funny, unique, and creative. They went from a non-entity to a brand that was inevitably brought up when marketing ops peers were discussing a new attribution software purchase.
What impressed me most was the way they were building in public. Executives share regular details about their GTM strategy, sales process, approach to fundraising, and more on LinkedIn.
So I reached out to their CRO, Emir Atli, who leads both marketing and sales. He joined me for a no-holds-barred analysis of the HockeyStack GTM playbook.
We also get nerdy and go into the weeds on their product strategy and how the platform differs from other attribution tools on the market.
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My Take-Aways
Companies where the executives “get” social will earn millions in organic reach.
HockeyStack is an example of a company where the executives are 100% bought-in to social and see it as their most powerful growth lever. This means real people from the company posting real thoughts - not a brand page churning out self-promotion that receives little engagement.
Although they still have a considerable paid budget, HockeyStack’s organic reach alone is huge and arguably more impactful.
Companies like this will have an unfair advantage until the rest of the market catches up.
Design the sales process around the buyer.
Emir has created a unique and effective sales process by starting from first principles and considering the needs of buyers. E.g., buyers want easy access to information, they want to run the cycle on their own timeline (not the vendor’s), and so on.
By leveraging a digital sales room, coaching sellers to act as consultants rather than product-pushers, and not forcing customers into a process before they’re ready, the HockeyStack team is able to be extremely efficient in the sales process and outsell much more mature competitors.
Be a platform that companies can scale with.
HockeyStack is making strategic bets in R&D to become a scalable GTM analytics platform rather than an attribution point solution.
They understand that ultimately customers want flexibility and a way to interact with data on their own terms.
They have an ambitious current feature set and roadmap that goes way beyond multi-touch attribution, including self-reported, incrementality, MMA, forecasting, and more. This level of product investment is pricey, but it’s reassuring to marketing prospects that are frustrated with legacy platforms that stop innovating.
About Today's Guest
Emir Atli is the co-founder and CRO of HockeyStack, a B2B GTM Analytics platform.
Key Topics
[00:00] - Introduction
[01:27] - Origins of HockeyStack.
[02:42] - What they saw that could be disrupted in the attribution space: a platform that didn't depend on Salesforce data and that was faster to implement. People buy these tools for two reasons: proving contribution and optimizing. There is most room to innovate around optimization.
[04:56] - HockeyStack's go-to-market strategy. Starting with a goal to dominate LinkedIn, with co-founders posting daily. All GTM team members are expected to post. They focus not just on brand awareness but on making marketers smarter. Each team member has their own personality which shapes the content strategy. Finding the balance between entertainment and education.
[09:53] - The Flow, HockeyStack's content platform.
[10:39] - Sales strategy and process. Importance of the interactive demo. Use of a virtual sales room. Taking a consultative approach to selling. Working with the buyer's pace.
[15:41] - Implementation and onboarding process (typically takes two weeks).
[17:10] - How to be differentiated in showing value from the product once people buy it. Emphasis on flexibility - no-code dashboard builder, not locking people into templates.
[18:59] - Data cleansing and data structure.
[20:10] - Using data to tell better stories. Demonstrating what's actually working.
[24:51] - Definition of incrementality reporting.
[26:26] - How HockeyStack positions itself against competitors.
[27:55] - Flexibility of the data model and dashboarding platform. Bringing in Snowflake data.
[29:18] - Incorporating self-reported attribution. How many "dark social" touchpoints actually can be tracked.
[33:12] - How HockeyStack innovates rapidly on the product. Impact of being in Y-Combinator.
[35:49] - Marketing Mix Modelling - what it is and how to use it.