DTM E48. Leveraging GTM to Scale your Deep Tech Startup – Neeraj, Xscale

From the Deep Tech Musings Podcast - Get actionable and tactical insights to take your Deep Tech startup from 0 to 1 [Idea to Traction]

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Neeraj is an industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in leading Strategy, GTM, and Operations globally for Fortune 500 companies. In this episode, he shares his journey from working in leading corporates to becoming an angel investor in startups and eventually founding Xscale. He talks about his motivation for creating the company, which is aimed at helping startups scale their businesses and overcome the common struggles of scaling, selling, and monetization. Neeraj shares his insights on deep tech and highlights some of Xscale's contributions to helping startups go from zero to one. Neeraj also provides his top five pieces of advice for entrepreneurs looking to take their deep tech startups from zero to one. The episode concludes with a discussion on the importance of GTM strategy for deep tech startups and how to use a template-based approach for startup GTM motions.

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Social Links:

Neeraj Saxena – neerajsaxena (LinkedIn)

Xscale - xscaleglobal (LinkedIn)

Pronojit Saha, DTM Podcast - pronojitsaha (LinkedIn), @pronojits (Twitter)

Show Notes & Summary:

(00:27) Founding story of Xscale and its motivation

1. Neeraj has over 22 years of industry experience, with 20 years spent working with leading corporates like SAP and FIS, focusing on go-to-market plans, sales strategies, and sales enablement.

2. He has also been an angel investor in startups for the past five years.

3. Neeraj realized that the skills and capabilities he gained in the corporate world are highly needed in the startup world, where startups often lack these skills.

4. This realization led to the creation of Xscale, a company aimed at helping startups scale their businesses, find customers, and monetize their products.

5. Neeraj believes that Indian startups are technologically advanced, but they struggle with scaling, selling, and monetization, which Scale aims to address.

(03:24) What is the current team composition of Xscale?

1. Xscale has grown to a decent size with over a dozen employees. Neeraj reflects on the team's growth that includes several senior members.

2. The company's CBO, Anshul, has close to 18 years of industry experience and has worked with 50 startups.

3. The company's Head of Marketing, Nitesh, has over 15 years of experience in digital marketing.

(05:05) How does Neeraj define deep tech?

1. Deep tech is characterized by being an IP-led business with strong proprietary IP behind it.

2. Innovation and fundamental research are key aspects of deep tech, and it involves technology that is not yet mainstream.

3. Deep tech has the potential to provide a quantum leap over existing technology and is not just incremental.

(06:32) Xscale’s contributions in helping startups go from zero to one

1. The first company, SecurWeave, is a cyber security startup that has developed a new layer called hypervisor for its antivirus system, which can sit on system on chip devices and has applications in defense and industrial IoT.

2. The second company, Dheya Technologies, is building India's first micro-gas turbine, which is 100 times smaller than a regular turbine and has applications in defense and long-distance civil surveillance.

3. The third company, Green Earth Research Labs, is focused on plastic recycling and has developed a process to convert waste plastic bottles back into plastic as good as new using advanced chemical technologies.

(13:03) Neeraj’s top 5 advice to entrepreneurs who want to take their deep tech startups from zero to one

1. A startup should focus on acquiring customers and selling their products to survive.

2. To focus on the market, startups should segment it based on dimensions like geography, industry, and customer segment.

3. Startups should create a three-dimensional grid to identify the segments they want to address.

4. Startups should use a customer value map to identify the attributes that their target customers value the most while choosing a product.

5. Different customer segments have different needs and priorities when it comes to the attributes they value in a product.

(21:30) Can GTM motion be the moat for deep tech products?

1. Technology is important in the early stages of a startup, but competitors can replicate it in different ways.

2. Sustainable moats for a business include the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and brand.

3. Companies like Nike and Coca-Cola have sustained their success through brand and GTM strategy, despite competitors being able to replicate their products.

4. In the tech world, Microsoft's success with Microsoft Office is an example of a company relying on GTM strategy rather than technology.

(25:18) How does Template based approach of GTM change the scenario?

1. Zero to One journey is about finding a product-market fit, the first set of customers who will buy your product.

2. One to N journey is about scaling your product and acquiring more customers, which requires building a sales engine that includes generating demand, qualifying customers, nurturing them, closing sales, providing after-sales services, driving upsells and reference programs.

3. The sales engine needs to be unique for each company and can't be copied from other startups. It needs to be designed, and the right mix of channels needs to be found to generate demand.

4. A self-sufficient machine needs to be created that runs on its own with minimal intervention from the founders.

5. When evaluating startups, investors look for a good idea, technology, and business model, along with founders who have the ability and experience to turn the idea into a business.

(31:25) Future initiatives of Xscale in deep tech space

1. Xscale has two ongoing initiatives, Xmultiplier and Xcalibur

2. Xmultiplier is a network of CXO community that helps startups with closed mentoring and reference sales across different geographies

3. Xcalibur is a comprehensive platform that combines the best sales enablement tools in the market under one umbrella, with a layer of decision science on top of it

4. Xcalibur will be provided to portfolio companies to use as their technology stack, with a data science layer already being built on top of it.

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