David Beisel
As seed stage investors here at NextView Ventures, we have the privilege of working with a wide profile of founders at the company conception stage — from early-career first time entrepreneurs, to seasoned execs turned founders, to repeat successful entrepreneurs. Our investment in Correlated, which was announced today in conjunction with the company’s official product launch falls into the latter category. Correlated Co-Founder and CEO Tim Geisenheimer was on the Founding Team of TapCommerce, an early NextView portfolio company which was subsequently sold to Twitter for a reported $100M. There Tim as SVP Sales built a machine which grew revenue from $0M to $18M ARR in a matter of months prior to the acquisition.
As I’ve followed Tim’s career successes subsequently, from Timescale to Facet, it’s become abundantly clear to me that he’s an exceptional salesperson. And not in a slimy used-car salesman kind-of-way… in fact, quite the opposite. He listens to issues, looks to address problems, and seeks solutions for all of the (potential) customers he interacts with. A goal-oriented consultative approach to sales has been the foundation for his personal success, so it’s no surprise to me that the SaaS company he’d start would be directly in line with that theme.
Correlated recognizes that increasingly software is being purchased in a product-driven self-service process where salespeople in companies are no longer gatekeepers but rather consultants who help customers maximize the value of what they’re buying. The problem is that many sales teams struggle with understanding how their customers are using their products because they don’t have easy access to customer usage data. Without easy access to this information, sales teams can’t easily prioritize which self-service customers to reach out to, when the appropriate time to reach out would be, or what message would resonate the most. Correlated’s offering is the best way to implement data-driven strategies to surface these insights and orchestrate powerful easy-to-use workflows so that sales teams can spend their time on the best opportunities.
The company’s vision for orienting sales around “Product Led Revenue” is now becoming a reality. In their private beta over the last several months, Correlated already has been able to drive meaningful success by helping customers like Ally, Pulumi, and ReadMe easily uncover signals from their customer data and take action. On the heels of that success, Tim along with co-Founders Diana Hsieh and John Peña, are publicly launching Correlated out of beta and into GA along with announcing an $8.3M round co-led by NextView with our friend Michael Dearing at Harrison Metal – read more about their funding in TechCrunch, as well as Correlated’s blog. I am personally excited for this new investment, as it’s an opportunity to be a part of a company building something so authentic to the Founders’ DNA and so connected to where the world is moving with product led revenue.