How'd we get here?

Last year our first product, Baseplate, was featured in Google I/O after our stint in Y Combinator. Andrew and I had spent the year learning the ins and outs of AI tools by helping our customers connect LLMs like GPT-3 to their knowledge bases and datasets.

Four months later, we experienced something that changed our mission and led us to take what we learned, pivot, and build DealPage.

In this blog post I want to cover:

• Why we pivoted
• Our new mission and the problems we're solving
• Why AI is the key lever
• How we plan to do it

Why we pivoted

We wanted to build cool AI products, not just help other teams do it

LLMs are the coolest tech Andrew and I have ever built with. We were too young when smartphones became a thing, but luckily we're alive AND capable builders now that computers are learning to think. We loved helping our customers build AI products with Baseplate, but sometimes it felt like being on the sidelines.‍

A terrible software purchase lead us to a problem we really wanted to solve

Last summer, Andrew and I were looking to incorporate a document viewing/editing SDK into Baseplate. There were multiple good options in the market, each with similar offerings that we couldn’t differentiate based on the available marketing and sales material.

8 sales calls and 52 emails later (we counted) and we still made the wrong choice. It was expensive, time-consuming, and stressful. And we don’t think we’re alone in that experience.

1. We learned that buying software can be really difficult, especially when the stakes are high.
2. Most B2B sales teams run processes that are fundamentally divorced from what buyers want, and don’t have the tools or resources to change that

What do buyers want?

Gartner’s B2B Buyers report from 2023 found that 75% of all B2B buyers prefer rep-free sales experiences. Buyers might be open to 2-3 meetings at the high end - after which they want to leave with all the materials and information needed to make an informed decision.

This is likely influenced by a few factors:

1. Increased Competition: Buyers are considering more providers for each purchase than ever before (on average 5 vs. 3 just 3 years ago). The SaaS market has seen a surge in new entrants, growing by 133% in 2024. This has led to a crowded marketplace where buyers have tons of options. A long sales cycle with each is just impossible
2. Review Aggregators: Prospects now conduct more in-depth pre-purchase research using review aggregators (like G2, Capterra, and Gartner) and search tools (such as Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity).

The Problem

Buyers want self-serve experiences, but don’t have great experiences with them. The same Gartner report found that buyers are 1.65x more likely to regret a self-serve purchase than rep-led.

This indicates a problem of what I’m calling “Information Transfer” and “Transformation” (if there’s an actual name for this please let me know)

1. B2B buyers want to know how products will benefit them - specifically relating to their pain points and situation. The reviews and landing pages they’re reading aren't personalized enough to really help, and they might have to dig through tons of content to find what they need. That information is locked up inside a sales reps or solutions engineer
2. GTM teams don't have the resources, time, or tools to create personalized buying experiences for every unique buyer. This leads to a tradeoff between high-quality sales processes and efficient sales processes.

Everyone loses because sellers can't explain the the things they need to explain without a good old fashioned calendar invite, video meeting, and email thread. This leads to longer sales cycles (+36% for enterprises, +24% for startups in 2023) and unhappy buyers.

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Our Mission

Our mission is to eliminate information barriers between buyers and sellers.

We think there’s a world where buyers are able make informed decisions, even about complex products and solutions, without the need to jump on dozens of calls with sales teams.

We’ll make this happen by giving GTM teams the tools to provide highly personalized sales materials and high quality buyer support at scale. That means every buyer will know exactly how your solution impacts them, with all the intricacies of their business and without a lengthy sales process.

How?

LLMs are uniquely suited for solving problems of information transfer and transformation.  One AI tool, built correctly, can serve as your ROI calculator, case study, and FAQ. More broadly, AI can

1. Assist buyers in an instant, low-effort way while they are finding information, reading through materials, and making decisions
2. Personalize sales, marketing, and technical information on the fly when given complex, highly variable buying scenarios

We tackle these use cases directly with our Buyer Enablement platform. This includes

1. Buyer’s Assistant
2. Seller’s Assistant
3. Content Sharing and Personalization

This 2-sided approach allows buyer’s and seller’s to interact with variations of the same AI platform. The Buyer’s Assistant helps answer questions with direct answers and links to relevant sales materials. The Seller’s Assistant helps GTM teams build personalized experiences for prospects and helps complete daily workflows like writing follow up emails and responding to buyer questions.

The end result is happier buyers, faster sales cycles, and more wins.

For more information on how this works, see here.

What’s next?

We’ve been building DealPage in stealth with our design partners, but we’re excited to start rolling this out more broadly. And of course, we’re dogfooding our own stuff, so you'll see how it works firsthand!

Try it out for yourself here, and please get in touch.

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