Big G Growth: Crunchbase’s AI-Driven Outbound Strategy

[00:00:00] Tessa Burg: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Leader Generation, brought to you by Mod Op. I’m your host, Tessa Burg. Today I am joined by Kate Long. She’s the VP of Marketing at Crunchbase, and we have already had an entire conversation before hitting record, so I’m really excited to have her here today to talk about Crunchbase, its new direction and what it means to lead change.

[00:00:25] Tessa Burg: Kate, thanks so much for joining us.

[00:00:26] Kate Long: Thank you for having me. Yes. It’s unfortunate we didn’t record the first half of the call. Yes. We can give them the tldr r at the end if, uh, you know, if we need to.

[00:00:37] Tessa Burg: Yeah, we might have to tease a whole other episode just to cover more. Uh, so Crunchbase is a brand that a lot of us are familiar with.

[00:00:46] Tessa Burg: I worked at software as a service companies and startups, and I just feel like I used Crunchbase all the time to learn about our competitors, stalk the owners, see what the heck they’re doing. But it has had a major shift and you have only been on for three months. So tell us a little bit about your background and your journey to Crunchbase.

[00:01:07] Kate Long: Sure, happy to. Um, yeah, thanks again for having me. I love these conversations ’cause it’s just a really fun opportunity to just sort of share with your peers a little bit about like, what, what are you doing, what’s working, what’s not, um. So, yeah. Uh, so I, um, my background, uh, to people to, to the untrained eye, um, can look a little all over the place.

[00:01:31] Kate Long: I’ve always done marketing, um, and, um, uh, and primarily B2B, uh, and primarily tech. But, uh, I’ve gone big company, small company. I’ve changed industries. Um. And so for me, uh, the really the common thread is going into an organization that’s at a point of inflection or change and really catalyzing growth.

[00:01:56] Kate Long: So maybe they’re moving into a new market, maybe they’re changing their business model. Um, maybe they need to bring a new sort of product, um, to, to market. And so those are the types of opportunities I like to, to come in. And, uh, really make a difference in. Um, and that was very much the case with Crunchbase.

[00:02:17] Kate Long: Um, I joined three months ago at the same time as a new head of sales. Um, and the reason is because we’re moving from more of an inbound PLG model, sort of the Crunchbase, Tessa, that you referred to, where you hop online and you stalk the owners and you do right, like. You do all that research, um, to much more of a sales-led growth, um, outbound motion where we’re really working to sell, um, our data, our APIs directly.

[00:02:45] Kate Long: And the reason we’re changing that is because a couple of years ago, we, well, I mean I wasn’t there, but, uh, our very, sort of our board and our CEO and all these really smart people at the company sort of took at the, a look at the landscape, took a look at AI and said, holy cow, like. When AI, if and when AI gets a hold of our data, our historical data, like it can replicate it and distribute it at such pace that like, do we have a leg to stand on anymore?

[00:03:14] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:14] Kate Long: And um, so we took a look at the business and said, what do we have that’s really distinct and unique to us, um, that sort of AI can’t get its hands on and that no one else can. So really like what is our, what is our sort of defendable position, right? What’s our moat.

[00:03:31] Kate Long: And a huge piece of that was in addition to, of course, all of the data we’ve collected over the years was all the interactions on our site itself. Um, all of the clicks and um, I. And the, um, the sort of like, uh, activity that would happen, say before somebody was gonna be raising around. Um, and so we spent a couple of years building AI models on the backend and training them against all of this data, um, to create a series, um, of predictions and insights.

[00:04:06] Kate Long: Uh, that can help investors and go-to-market teams, um, really get ahead because it’s not just about looking at the historical data and trying to extrapolate from there. We’re actually giving them the prediction that a company, uh, will exit we’ll grow. Um, we’ll raise another round. Um, and so. In order to do that, right, like in order to be successful in terms of um, trying to get people to want this kind of data, we totally have had to shift to an outbound motion to a sales led motion.

[00:04:39] Kate Long: Um, you know, we’re talking about three to six months sales cycles ’cause it involves APIs, et cetera. Um, and so a huge part of the fun for me has also been that I’ve been able to reunite the marketing team. ’cause we sort of moved in to keep the lights-on mode while we were retooling everything. Um, so reunite the marketing team and um, and really start to orchestrate like, what does outbound look like and what does supporting a direct sales motion look like?

[00:05:05] Kate Long: Um, and I mean, I was so fortunate to walk into a really talented team of marketers, but some of them had really only done inbound before. So it’s been a really fun opportunity, um, to bring the team together sort of around this new direction, this new charge, and this and this new motion.

[00:05:22] Tessa Burg: That there’s so much in that answer that I think we’re gonna take a few steps back to unpack because a lot, a lot of our audience.

[00:05:31] Tessa Burg: Our other clients of Mod Op. So these are other VPs of Marketing, Directors of Marketing who also largely work in B2B, but this applies to B2C as well. There are consumer products who, when they hear what AI can do, also are nervous about what does this mean for my company? But especially if you’re in professional services, white collar services, you’re wondering, how am I gonna survive? How am I gonna differentiate? What is my competitor doing?

[00:05:59] Tessa Burg: So the first thing I find really fascinating and that I think some people haven’t quite moved towards yet is seeing data as more than what’s in the CRM marketing database marketing automation, like the things that we collect and call first-party.

[00:06:17] Tessa Burg: And what Crunchbase did was say first, what’s our strength?

[00:06:22] Kate Long: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:22] Tessa Burg: And then where do we have engagement interactivity behind? I would say the wall.

[00:06:28] Kate Long: Yeah.

[00:06:29] Tessa Burg: That helps us better understand in an implicit way and not an explicit feedback way, how others value interact and engage with our core strength, which, and where is their opportunity.

[00:06:44] Kate Long: Yeah.

[00:06:44] Tessa Burg: To start to bring more people along. I imagine in that process of discovery, there was probably like a lot of brainstorming, a lot of prototyping like you, how. What were some, what were some things when you were first coming in that helped you prioritize where to focus? Because I think sometimes data can be explicitly, especially when you’re tracking kind of overwhelming.

[00:07:10] Kate Long: Yeah, no, it can be completely overwhelming and uh, and I think you know as well. You’re coming into a company that’s like known for one thing and that’s been one way for a while. And so even though we’re a nimble, agile tech company, right, there’s still, there are people. Um, within the walls of Crunchbase who have like spent their whole careers building this amazing, you know, this amazing SaaS based platform.

[00:07:35] Kate Long: Right? Um, so in terms of where to focus first, honestly, I will say, um, it was made a bit easier, Tessa, by the fact that this new head of sales, um, joined at the same time. Because it was sort of, she and I co-creating things together and after a couple of weeks of her getting to know her team, me getting to know mine, figuring out, okay, where are we spending our money and where are we focused and all that kind of thing.

[00:08:02] Kate Long: Um, we sat down and had a conversation and she was like, you know what I need the most, I need air cover. Like, people when I’m, I’m reaching out to people, they don’t know that Crunchbase has made this change to this predictive, you know, to this predictive model, to these predictive insights. Um, and so my team is spending a lot of time doing the work that I actually need a marketing team doing.

[00:08:27] Kate Long: Like I need a marketing team, warming them and doing the education and so forth. So she and I sort of sat down and looked at everything we were doing and we said. We’ve just gotta, we’ve gotta do outbound, like we have to do air cover. Um, and so, um, and frankly because we didn’t have a motion before. I, I wasn’t, I feel really fortunate.

[00:08:47] Kate Long: Like I wasn’t upending anything. I was just building something, like I was just building something new and trying to help the team deprioritize inbound. So it’s not like we don’t have the, the PLG motion. It’s not like we don’t need to have a amazing, you know, base of customers using Crunchbase Pro and Crunchbase Business.

[00:09:05] Kate Long: Um, but that business is pretty well established. And, and so that’s a business that maybe doesn’t need as much care and watering care and feeding, watering and feeding, you know what I mean?

[00:09:15] Tessa Burg: Yeah.

[00:09:16] Kate Long: Whatever, whatever combination. Um, and so it, it was really a question of sort of saying, sitting down, saying to the team, okay, new direction.

[00:09:24] Kate Long: Um, new product, new sales leader. Here’s what we’re doing to support, here’s some education around what it means to support direct sales, what it means to support outbound, and sort of gradually dialing back the self-serve inbound business and reallocating into this new outbound motion. So it’s honestly been pretty smooth because it’s all sort of just net new and frankly, the team is just really excited.

[00:09:49] Kate Long: It’s such a good sign. I think that like everybody did such a good job over the last couple of years before I stepped in because the team is like excited and energized. Um, there’s nobody within marketing who’s like, I don’t wanna do this. This is the wrong idea. Like, everybody’s on board. So, frankly, I don’t know. It’s been, it’s, it’s, it’s been a pretty easy glide path so far.

[00:10:12] Tessa Burg: I think you really highlighted some important ingredients for leading change that need to be there. And one is a really strong vision that sounds like it was built from the inside out. Like the, the CEO said, here’s where we’re gonna move, here’s where we’re gonna go.

[00:10:29] Tessa Burg: And clearly Crunchbase has been brought along to be a part of what that means for the business. And then you also have a team who sounds growth-oriented, they have growth mindsets. They’re excited to see where they can contribute and lead into this outbound effort. Uh, when we think about being aligned with sales, what are some of the things that the team is doing to increase the air cover?

[00:10:58] Tessa Burg: ‘Cause there’s tons, like the landscape, and you said this before the call and I thought it was such a great phrase. The traditional playbooks have been blown up. So not only is your team doing outbound now, but everyone is having to sort of relook, rewrite the playbook. So how are you managing that change and empowering them, especially a team that this is new to as we look at this landscape that is going to forever be changing and shifting.

[00:11:29] Kate Long: Oh, forever.

[00:11:31] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:32] Kate Long: Um, and you know, I, I will say coming in because my, my job before, um, before coming to Crunchbase was more B2C. So, so the last time I’d been in B2B I was at PitchBook, which is great ’cause it’s a like, for like industry, but. Um, you know, I’d left there in, in 2022 and, uh, so and so coming into Crunchbase being like, oh, well this is what we did at PitchBook.

[00:11:56] Kate Long: I’m like, no way, but like, none of this is, this is relevant anymore. So it’s a little crazy, but it’s, it’s actually, I, I think a big piece of it. So the team for sure already has a growth mindset, but. Me coming in and being really authentic with the team and sort of being like, guys, this is crazy. We have to learn this together.

[00:12:18] Kate Long: Like, just like I, I don’t come in. Acting like I have the answers because nobody does right now.

[00:12:24] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:25] Kate Long: And anybody worth their salt would see through that because the, you, there’s no way anyone can keep up with the pace of change of AI and figure out very quickly how is, what’s the sort of thread into your business and how like it’s, that’s baloney.

[00:12:39] Kate Long: If somebody tells you they, they, they have that all under control. Um, and so me coming in. And being like, okay guys, we’ve gotta learn this together. We’ve gotta figure this out together. Um, has really allowed the team to be pretty, um, uh, pretty open and pretty flexible, um, as we sort of, you know, yeah, build, ev, build everything.

[00:13:01] Kate Long: Um. Uh, build everything new. Um, I think the, what’s great is that, um, I have been encouraging and so has, so has Jagger, our CEO, um, encouraging the use of AI, um, as a way like to learn and grow your skillset and become indispensable. So like I really view leadership like there’s. I mean, let’s be honest, like my job is to help people be their best versions of themselves for a finite period of time.

[00:13:34] Kate Long: Like they will not be on my team forever. They will go on to bigger things. They’ll go on to different things. It is, it is my job to make them the best version of themselves, like while they’re on my team. If I am not giving them the opportunity to play around with AI and figure out how to use it as a tool, they will not be successful in their next job period.

[00:13:55] Kate Long: And I will have failed. Right. Like the, there is no way you can move into another job and be like, we didn’t use, I didn’t use AI at all in my last job. And, um, yeah. And be successful. Um, and, and I think as well with, with, um, all the different tools at our disposal like. I think marketers need to become much more, I would say horizontal because you have tools that allow you to build no-code websites really quickly, um, allow you to enrich your data, um, in a way that doesn’t require, um, any sort of ability to code, right? Like all these tools have become so user-friendly in addition to layering in AI that like. I think the next than sort of the next wave of marketer is gonna be much more of an AI or much more of a horizontal sort of AI orchestrator. You know what I mean?

[00:14:46] Kate Long: And so I feel like it’s my job to enable them to, you know, to do that. And then by enabling them to do that, that’s how we’re playing around with and testing and learning and doing proofs of concepts on, okay, what are the newest tools out there that are gonna help us? Build the most successful go-to-market that we possibly can.

[00:15:04] Kate Long: So it sort of is fitting like the bill in two ways. You know what I mean? In terms of growing and developing the team, but also helping us figure out like what are the best options for us right now for the Crunchbase business as we build this outbound motion.

[00:15:19] Tessa Burg: Yeah. I love that you are aligning this employee empowerment and skill development with, as you said, the Crunchbase motion and Crunchbase.

[00:15:30] Tessa Burg: I feel like a lot of the confidence to do something new, to continue to develop your skills comes from that feeling of engagement, involvement, but also your confidence in the product-

[00:15:40] Kate Long: Yeah.

[00:15:40] Tessa Burg: Itself. You know, like if you weren’t confident in like what you’re bringing to market, it’s, it’s almost like a blocker to progress.

[00:15:48] Kate Long: Yeah.

[00:15:49] Tessa Burg: So tell me a lit a little bit about that. Like what are the new product benefits this service offering that Crunchbase is bringing to market today?

[00:15:59] Kate Long: Totally. So, um, so right now we have, um, a series of, I, I would, 18 signals we’re calling them signals that are new. Um, they can be delivered via the business SKU, so you can get them via the business SKU online.

[00:16:18] Kate Long: Um. But perhaps, perhaps more impactfully again, is sort of the, the ability to ingest this data, ingest these signals, um, into your own, you know, instance of Salesforce or whatever the case may be. Um, and, um, and so these, and so we, we released 18 back in February, but we are continuing to release, to release more, and we’re continuing to improve these, you know, the models against these 18.

[00:16:44] Kate Long: So. Some of the things that we’re, uh, rolling, some of the signals we’re rolling out are, um, things like, um, a growth score and a growth trend. So like, uh, the growth score says like, out of, you know, out of a hundred, um, you know how much are they expected to grow? And then we look historically and say like, what is the trend and how, what do we think is gonna continue to happen?

[00:17:08] Kate Long: So the great thing about having these predictions is that really, like, then like AI does the lift of the predictions and then the human can utilize that and their judgment and um, their experience, right? And their strategic thinking to say, okay, how do I apply this additional data point or these additional set of data points, these predictions to whatever my business goal or outcome is.

[00:17:31] Kate Long: So in the case of like a go-to-market team, right? It can be about building relationships with companies that look like they’re growing, that look like they’re gonna be raising another round. Who might want your product, but they’re not quite ready for it right now. But you develop the relationship in three months, when they raise that round, they’ll be ready to buy because you’ll have started that relationship with them, for example.

[00:17:53] Kate Long: Or if you’re looking at, if you’re an investor and you’re looking at targets, being able to have additional data points to help you say, huh. Yeah, this is one we wanna start talking to versus, oh, I think we’re gonna keep this one on the back burner. Um, you know, how much time and effort you save by virtue of allowing, again, sort of Crunchbase to do the predicting for you.

[00:18:13] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:14] Kate Long: Um, and so that, that piece of it for me, like, you know, you said this before, it’s really, it’s easier to take these big new swings when you sort of believe in your product. Um. This is some of the, um, uh, the accuracy with which we’re able to do some of these predictions is like nuts, like 95% accuracy and back testing.

[00:18:36] Kate Long: Um, and so like for me, seeing that make made me feel really comfortable stepping into this role because I didn’t have to worry about, I don’t know. Vaporware, right? Like, I didn’t have to worry about selling something that wasn’t like going to legitimately bring and deliver value. I don’t do well in jobs where I don’t feel like there’s meaning where I don’t think I, like, I’m delivering value, right? Like, that has to be sort of intrinsic to the, to the role. Um, so yeah, so it’s, it’s really fun now to think about. Okay. How do we, how, how do we bring the value of like these predictions?

[00:19:16] Kate Long: Like not just get people to understand what they are, but like share and showcase the value. So one of the things I’m doing, which I’m really excited about, is. In the go-to-market space, for example, like Tessa, we have no, um, we don’t have a leg to stand on telling other go-to-market teams use Crunchbase predictions to be a more effective go-to-market engine if we’re not using it ourselves.

[00:19:38] Kate Long: So like one of the first things I’m doing is working to get our own predictive APIs ingested into our instance of Salesforce so that we can use our predictions to do better, go to market, and then we can be a case study. Four other go-to-market teams saying, look at how, like, look at how much more effective we could be using our Crunchbase predictions.

[00:19:56] Kate Long: Right? So some of it is also just really, um, fun because we get to, you know, we get to sort of build our new motion, but like be a good test case for using our data all at the same, you know, all at the same time. I feel like I went a little on a left turn there in my answer.

[00:20:12] Tessa Burg: Oh no. The position that Crunchbase is taking with these signals is extremely timely. So we work with Forrester and they published a report, I think at the, I wanna say it was the end of last year, but they just highlighted it at their B2B conference and the-

[00:20:32] Kate Long: There I was there.

[00:20:34] Tessa Burg: You were?

[00:20:39] Kate Long: What the heck.

[00:20:41] Tessa Burg: But you know, the keynote was all about influencing the buying network and how big the buying network is.

[00:20:47] Kate Long: Yes.

[00:20:48] Tessa Burg: And. We had started seeing signals of that and we had started talking to our clients about the need to start rethinking about what brand means in B2B so that you can move up the funnel, even be in the in preference before the funnel and where your positioning that Crunchbase data, the signals.

[00:21:10] Tessa Burg: And I think when a lot of B2B marketers hear signals, they jump to bottom funnel and they jump to. Lead generation, but as was highlighted, that doesn’t produce the same level of growth or the same level of contribution to pipeline as if you’ve established a relationship before they even enter the buy cycle.

[00:21:39] Tessa Burg: Yeah. So Crunchbase has had this position as always being a trusted mm-hmm. Resource for information and early. Now what you’ve done is take the data and make it available. And I’m interested if it’s a different, slightly different customer who needs to know about where am I building this relationship early compared to um, people who are using this more as informational, probably positioning.

[00:22:04] Tessa Burg: But now you can really, you’re operationalizing, you’re making this much more, you’re making the Crunchbase data much more actionable. And at the right time, at the time when it’s gonna be more valuable to engage, which is early, early, early. Relationship, relationship, relationship.

[00:22:18] Kate Long: Totally. And I think like, so for me, the way I’ve characterized this, um, and as well when I sort of talk about my, my history with companies and like being what I call a growth catalyst, like what you just characterize is the difference between like big G growth and little G growth.

[00:22:35] Kate Long: Like little G growth is bottom funnel. Hacks, um, things that get you sort of short term conversion wins that maybe look good on a, you know, 1, 3, 6 month basis, but maybe aren’t sustainable. Big G growth is exactly that. Big G growth is about getting yourself, um, proving the value sort of through all the touch points in the, in the funnel.

[00:23:02] Kate Long: And you’re right, I think that buying group work, I mean, this is like maybe 13 people is in the buying or buying network now according to Forrester, right? So like, it’s about like, like. Uh, proving out your value in an authentic way to the entirety of that network. Um, and I think that’s why, as I mentioned before, there’s so many people that I’ve been learning from who are vendors in the space, right?

[00:23:28] Kate Long: Who are service providers who’ve been running AI summits and communities for learning that really. Like serve the purpose of upleveling, kind of every go to market team and keeping everybody on trend, but also serve that purpose of surrounding the buying network early. Right. So that you’re much more positively disposed to them because, huh.

[00:23:50] Kate Long: We’ve had some really meaty conversations about, you know, the implementation of AI into our overall sort of go-to-market, you know, strategy. So, um, yeah, I just, I, it’s the way we’re, it’s the way we’re headed. Um, you know, maybe it’s sort of this reaction to just over the last years, like sort of the like dehumanization and maybe the mechanization of the pipeline.

[00:24:12] Kate Long: Um, and like now that everybody is like, like everybody’s using AI for everything. We just kind of wanna human, like, just, just wanna be with a human. Like, I just wanna give you a hug. You know, like, just gimme a hug. So, yeah.

[00:24:28] Tessa Burg: No, I love that approach and especially you cited, you know, I. Understanding that these are humans in the loop and it’s about authentically influencing them.

[00:24:39] Tessa Burg: And influencing is an upleveling. It’s the exchange of mutual value and that feels, I feel like I’m gonna title this episode Big G Growth because Growth, yes. The benefit is more, the growth is more, when we think about the little G growth, the benefit down to your audience is less. Like, you know when, when you’re able to deliver a really high value product, plus upskilling your career, plus a relationship that they may be able to take with them wherever they go, that’s big.

[00:25:10] Tessa Burg: Be big G growth for your audience. As well. Yeah. Uh, and so I, I love that approach. We’re gonna have a big G growth.

[00:25:19] Kate Long: Good. I love that. Well, yeah, and think about the way you handle, like, think about the way you have like relationships and friendships, right? Like friendships are a mutual exchange of value.

[00:25:30] Kate Long: Like, like, Hey, I have this problem. Oh, what do you think about that? Oh, hey, let’s go out to dinner. I’ve got you this time, right? Like, I mean, like. Like it, it’s, it’s, it’s, and, and that’s sort of the way humans are intrinsically wired. Like why shouldn’t, especially in a post-COVID world where, you know, everybody’s like, and no, everybody, like the whole human comes to work now.

[00:25:51] Kate Long: Right? Like, why can’t you have that kind of relationship in business as well? Like there’s no reason not to like. Y’all can see that to over here. I’ve got like my Peloton with my, that I don’t use with my yoga mat drying on, and at least I use my yoga mat. Right? Like that’s like we all, we all see all of this about each other now, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be connecting on a more human level in business, you know?

[00:26:14] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm. No, I, I completely agree. We only have a few more minutes, and I feel like this conversation could go on forever, but I want to know before we exit, like what is next for Crunchbase on your AI roadmap, your AI journey, and as you’re bringing this value in a very human way.

[00:26:32] Kate Long: Oh my gosh. So I mean I, so I think the thing that I am really excited about, like I mentioned before, was bringing the Crunchbase API into our own instance of Salesforce and being able to enrich.

[00:26:47] Kate Long: The people that we have and the people that we talk to with, um, uh, with these, this predictive data so that we can be more. Targeted, you know, almost do. Um, and I also think probably lead scoring is a bit antiquated too, but I’ll use the phrase like, lead scoring. We don’t do lead scoring right. Against folks to really do different plays based on what we’re anticipating is gonna happen, um, next.

[00:27:14] Kate Long: Um, and so I, I think for me that’s what’s really, really exciting. Um. You know, we, we’ve got a couple of other pieces of our tech stack that have been sitting a bit in silos. So we’re doing some work to stitch our tech stack together. Um, first I would say, um, and make sure that we’re fully utilizing the AI components, like of our tech stack.

[00:27:35] Kate Long: Um, and then I think we’re gonna start to layer in a little bit more, um, here and there, but I don’t, I wanna make sure we’re getting sort of full value and utilization out of what we’ve got. Um, before we go too, before we go too crazy, but I mean, for me, really it’s about eating our own dog food and it’s about using our own API, um, to just, um, be a really, really, really strong, um, you know, go to market, uh, team with a, um, a really good and targeted go-to-market motion.

[00:28:09] Tessa Burg: Yeah, and I will second that approach has really worked for us as well. You know, we. AI looked like it was gonna threaten the existence of marketing and creative and writing. But what has actually played out is we’ve built out our own agents, our own tools. It’s elevated the humanness of our delivery, and it’s unlocked other things that are possible with clients.

[00:28:33] Tessa Burg: And now we have, you know, then there’s that natural shift that occurs where now we are engaging with our clients in completely new, in different ways, but in ways that is more human to human. While we’re using tools to do things that in some cases we never did before, you know, and in other cases we did do that and it was tedious and very repetitive, and now we don’t have to worry about it.

[00:28:55] Kate Long: And that’s the thing is like having the brain space to really think differently and creatively, uh, when you would’ve gotten pulled into the details. But before, at any level, frankly, like whatever level of your career you’re in, like you would’ve gotten pulled in the details. So like, now you can stop and think, think just bigger about things and more creatively about things.

[00:29:18] Kate Long: And so I, I, I’d like to think that AI allows us to tap more, you know, tap more into humans and, um, and the human experience, um, than it did before. You know? I mean, fingers crossed.

[00:29:31] Tessa Burg: Oh yeah.

[00:29:32] Kate Long: Crossing my fingers and my toes and everything.

[00:29:34] Tessa Burg: Yeah. I think you are seeing the evidence that that is the path that we’re heading.

[00:29:40] Tessa Burg: We have seen it. And for marketers who are listening in this episode who have not begun exploring what signal signals are critically important to getting into your target audience’s preference set early. Crunchbase is gonna be an amazing tool, and it is a great starting point to start that higher value exchange and value is really moving from just.

[00:30:04] Tessa Burg: The conversion rate on your product to, like you said, friendship. Like what is that mutual benefit. And with high value, high benefit, we get higher. G I’m gonna use this phrase like all the time. Higher G, big G, higher G. Big

[00:30:17] Kate Long: G growth. Big G growth. I love it. Oh, I love the shoulder shimmy too.

[00:30:21] Tessa Burg: I know. Well, I had a, I dance and I had uh, our dance recital last night.

[00:30:27] Tessa Burg: And that reminded me of a song that’s in our, um, adult hip hop.

[00:30:30] Kate Long: What kind of dance do you do? I’m very curious.

[00:30:34] Tessa Burg: Hip hop

[00:30:36] Kate Long: Nice!

[00:30:37] Tessa Burg: Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.

[00:30:38] Kate Long: Look at you!

[00:30:41] Tessa Burg: Right.

[00:30:41] Kate Long: You have to invite me to the next performance. Sorry. You just, you have to, I’ll, I’ll come to it.

[00:30:45] Tessa Burg: I’ll tell you, I, I shared a video out with, uh, Eric, our CEO and he busted up laughing, but that’s fine.

[00:30:51] Tessa Burg: You know, if I’m bringing giggles, there’s some benefit there.

[00:30:54] Kate Long: Okay. I feel like I now need to do a reverse podcast on you and understand more about like, Tessa and the history of her dancing. Like I feel like there’s an episode there, so shall we.

[00:31:06] Tessa Burg: Yeah, that sounds great. I’m absolutely shameless, so that would be fine.

[00:31:14] Tessa Burg: Um, but this has been, I mean, Kate, it’s been such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for all your time today. And if listeners want to learn more about you and Crunchbase, uh, where can they find you?

[00:31:26] Kate Long: Yeah, I mean, just find me on LinkedIn. Um, I think I’m like linkedin/katethemarketer. Um, find me there.

[00:31:33] Kate Long: Feel free to reach out because I really, really believe like. We’re just in this, this era where like we have no choice but to like band together to learn and grow and kind of figure it all out and make sure us as marketers don’t go extinct. So feel free, feel free to reach, reach out to me on, um, on LinkedIn.

[00:31:53] Kate Long: I’m, I’m, I’m happy to connect and, and, and do some, uh, uh, do some creative brainstorming or whatever the case may be.

[00:32:01] Tessa Burg: Yeah, and if anything, so Kate Long on LinkedIn and she is starting to publish her own content and as we said, the playbook. For go to market has been completely blown up. Yeah. So, uh, we can all help each other evolve and get creative in how we connect with people in really meaningful ways, and that is very exciting.

[00:32:21] Tessa Burg: And if you want to hear this episode again, or other episodes from our incredible clients, you can hear all Leader Generation at modop.com That’s modop.com or you can find it on wherever you listen to podcasts. Kate, thank you again for joining us.

[00:32:42] Tessa Burg: Until next time.

[00:32:46] Kate Long: I’m gonna do a little, now I’m gonna do a little shimmy. I’m gonna do-

[00:32:48] Tessa Burg: Do a little shi shoulder shimmy.