More than 400 companies have issued initial public offerings (IPOs)s on the U.S. stock market as of November 30, 2020. That is 82% more firms than the same time in 2019.
That’s good news. Despite the wary world we live in, an IPO—or a successful exit, like an acquisition—is still in reach for many organizations. The signals that you are on the right path to IPO remains largely the same for 2020 as before, too.
You need accurate, predictable revenue, and quarter-over-quarter growth.
But getting those insights and data-points, is more complex than ever. Revenue leaders today need real-time visibility into their teams’ activity, accounts, deals, and more. And having this data is only the first step. Leveraging that data in regular cadences is the secret shortcut to revenue success. Here at Clari, we call that Revenue Intelligence.
Revenue Intelligence is valuable at every stage of growth. However, every startup stage has different business needs. From our experience, here are some example top initiatives at each stage:
- Seed: Find product-market-fit, product-focused, signing first customers.
- Series A: Find more customers, refine value prop, and start identifying a repeatable sales motion.
- Series B: Growth beyond your region and increased sales motion, hiring and onboarding is a focus, introducing roles to create scalable processes and ops.
- Series C+: Further grow sales and scale functions, fix what's not scalable, and focus on creating predictable revenue to pave the way to IPO—or other exit.
For example, Carbon Black was delivering “up and to the right” results during their fast approaching IPO, but each quarter was a herculean lift to predict and report revenue. They suffered from scattered sales processes, and end-of-quarter deals that left the team scrambling.
They rebuilt their sales playbook from the ground up to increase accuracy in their forecast and deliver predictable revenue results with confidence—achieving 95% forecast accuracy by week 2 on the ramp to IPO.
How did they do it?
Today, we show how your teams can use Clari to forecast with confidence just like Carbon Black, build rigor into your sales processes, and fast-track big events like an IPO or acquisition.
With the foundation you build with Clari, your IPO isn’t an end-point. It's a success point on your way to fulfilling your company’s mission and transforming the world.
In today’s Playbook, I share how you can use Clari’s AI to:
- Improve sales execution
- Streamline deal inspection and pipeline management
- Forecast with confidence
We dive into the Clari dashboard so you can understand exactly what is happening in your business so you can execute your best go-to-market strategy.
Clari Playbook is a video series featuring revenue experts who share their best practices around mastering pipeline visibility, winning renewals and reducing churn, aligning go-to-market teams, and much more.
Check out past episodes of our Clari Playbook series:
- How Finance Leaders Can Be Strategic Business Partners with Kevin Yao, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis
- Account Engagement, the Key to Winning Customers and Growing Revenue with Stephanie Glass
