How This Conversational AI Startup Grew 10x in a Year

Getting a startup off the ground is tough. Most fail in the first year. So how did conversational AI platform Attention grow 10x, start charging within months, and regularly beat out big dogs in the space?

I sat down with Attention CEO and founder Anis Bennaceur to find out.

After building his first startup and learning hard lessons around product-market fit and hiring, Anis knew he needed to nail those two areas.

Here are the key lessons that drove Attention's meteoric growth in 2023:

Today's Revenue Leader Speaker:

• Anis Bennaceur‍
• CEO and Co-founder of Attention
• Attention's LinkedIn
  

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Laser Focus on Product-Market Fit First

Anis stresses that you should not even think about growth until you have tight product-market fit (PMF).

His tip for knowing when you've found it:
‍Get 10 beta users and make them a deal. If 7 out of 10 are disappointed when you take the product away after 2 months, you've got it.

With early PMF, Attention started with small teams under 10 reps. That way engineering resources stayed focused on product, not fancy admin features only big companies care about.

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Growth Stack Instead of Growth Hack

Once Attention reached PMF, Anis went all in on "growth stacking" - running many small experiments, keeping the winners, and automating them.

Some examples:

• Using AI to personalize outreach based on prospects' own podcast transcripts
• Capturing sales conversations in Attention to fuel top-of-funnel messaging
• Leveraging intent data like recent website visits to send warmer leads to sales

This compounding growth stack resulted in 30-60% month over month growth.

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When You Know It's Time to Sell

Initially Anis sold solo. But after adding two sales reps, he realized he needed to deeply understand the product from their perspective.

By dogfooding Attention as a sales leader, Anis sharpened positioning and prioritized the features that would make the biggest impact.

Keep It Simple With the 3 Whys.

Anis credits much of their sales success to the "3 Whys" framework for understanding customers:

1. Why do anything? Get to the root of their pain and the cost of staying put.
2. Why now? Dig into the compelling events driving action now.
3. Why Attention? Refine positioning and messages to showcase the perfect fit.

What works for sales, also works for marketing, and re-injecting these questions into the top-of-funnel was Anis's biggest learning in 2023.

Learn more as Anis talks about the 3 Whys in our previous webinar, How Revenue Leaders are Optimizing Deal Reviews with Mutual Action Plans.

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The Takeaway from Recapping with Attention's Anis Bennaceur

Attention's phenomenal first year stemmed from ruthless early prioritization.

Laser focus on nailing product-market fit, then selecting experiments that moved the needle, compounded growth.

When sales kicked off, leveraging AI and their own platform to sell smarter only accelerated things further.

If this conversational AI platform can beat out an 800 pound gorilla like Gong, what can you do by focusing on product and efficient growth?

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About Recapping with Recapped

Recapped CEO Mark Fershteyn interviews and unpacks the critical lessons learned by top revenue and GTM leaders in 2023. This series dives deep into their insights, strategies, and hidden tactics, offering you the blueprint to dominate 2024.

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