Your guide to killing Zendesk
With Marty Kausas, co-founder & CEO at Pylon
Listen to the episode here: Spotify, Apple or YouTube.
In today’s episode we talk with someone who:
Used to live in their office
Raised $17m from a16z in just 2 weeks
Spends 4 hours every Sunday on LinkedIn
Taking Zendesk head on
Yeah, it’s really that last one we decided to focus on.
And also a bit of 3 (because Toni is a LinkedIn addict).
We had Marty Kausas join us. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Pylon.
In a packed episode, he shares 3 key elements of the playbook to kill Zendesk.
And even if you aren’t competing against Zendesk (or a similar behemoth), there’s still much to learn.
Here are just a few takeaways:
Find underserved needs: Yes facing a giant like Zendesk is daunting. They have so many resources. Pylon found an underserved market of B2B companies that ran support on shared Slack channels.
Their goal guides everything: Pylon is focused on building a $10 billion+ public company in under 10 years. And in the process, they’re treating it as a game - trying to find all the ‘hacks’ and cheat codes to get there. It also guided decisions such as what industry to focus on.
Niche and expand: Pylon's first product was an integration between Zendesk and Slack. From there,e they gradually expanded the product to cover more usecases.
Founder-led marketing: Pylon's founders are killing it on LinkedIn. Marty’s regret? Not doubling down sooner. Now they’re investing more and being very strategic around how they use the channel.
Speed is their advantage: Pylon has done a great job creating a perception of shipping ultra fast and punching above their weight (they are only some 40 folks). This is a clear contrast to Zendesk who’s… much slower (we think?).
Watch the episode here
00:00 Introduction
01:17 The Motivation Behind Building Pylon
01:52 The Journey to Becoming A-List
02:19 Board Games and Strategic Thinking
04:16 Targeting a Massive Market
09:46 Building the First Product
11:42 Competing with Giants
18:59 Product Development and Marketing Strategies
26:35 Embracing a Heavy Debate Culture
29:24 Leveraging LinkedIn for Business Growth
38:22 Scaling Sales and Hiring Strategies
42:31 Navigating AI in Customer Support
47:59 Reflecting on Business Learnings and Future Plans