Loop & Tie’s Sara Rodell Braved Some Tough Judges and Won Dreampitch. Now What’s She Doing?
Last year, Sara Rodell stood in front of four hawk-eyed investors to tell the story of her company. The CEO and founder of Loop & Tie, a corporate-gifting platform, was competing in our second annual Dreampitch at Dreamforce. The prize? A cool $250,000 investment from Salesforce Ventures. Though she kicks herself for blanking during the Q&A, she killed the presentation and won. Since then, she’s used the money and exposure to build her business by adding customers and developing an app for the AppExchange.
Dreampitch offers startups an incredible opportunity at a crucial moment of development. While the investment helps accelerate projects, the coaching and refining of the pitch focuses the company’s narrative. Possibly best of all, the lasting exposure puts the founder in front of many more potential investors and customers with the purest version of what the company wants to be.
“Win or lose, being on that stage is a fantastic opportunity for startups to reach new customers, and we certainly saw that transpire,” she says. “There’s awesome credentialing that comes from winning and being associated with such a strong brand. And it’s lasting!”
Growth, Accelerated
The $250,000 investment from Salesforce Ventures, says Rodell, allowed Loop & Tie to speed up the company’s plan to invest and build a native app for Salesforce. “This first version of the app will duplicate the features from loopandtie.com so gifters don’t have to leave Salesforce to generate their gifts,” she says. “You’ll be able to generate gift recipients from a variety of list views across leads, contacts, tickets, opportunities and more. And, all gift data will be stored in the contact record, making follow-up easy. V1 is all about bringing access, as we release future versions we will continue to expand how gifting is a trigger for engagement and knowing your customer.”
The company has also grown its customer base. Loop & Tie now works with a quarter of the NFL and just won its first MLB contract. The growth is across all of the company’s users and industry groups, she says. “An important metric we track is the number of users per company, this shows how effectively we’re growing with our customers. I’m happy to share we’ve doubled that metric over the past year.” The visibility from Dreamforce helped Loop & Tie connect with many new customers including Rapid7, PowerInbox, Aviso, and Splunk.
A Visibility Boost
That sudden visibility not only exposed the company to new customers, it also acts as an introduction to what Loop & Tie is all about.
“We’ve won quite a bit of business from customers who say they discovered us watching the pitch, both in person and on YouTube,” Rodell says. “They get to see the pitch before they even meet me and have more detailed and substantial questions so that we can get into the implementation of a gifting program. It’s really sped up the selling process for us.”
Data Is a Gift
With Loop & Tie, Rodell has found a way to personalize the corporate gifting experience with a platform that sources gifts from makers around the U.S. “The gift exchange can really empower a salesperson to get to know a client in a more human way,” she says. And, as investor and Dreampitch judge Chris Sacca told her, the company’s value isn’t just in the ease of gifting.
“Both during and after the pitch, Chris encouraged us to think about how we could use the Salesforce platform to increase and enhance the kind of data we have associated with the gift and the client interaction,” she says. “Seeing how the judges latched on to the idea of gifting as data was a great signal around my own thesis of what we can create.”
Telling the Company’s Story
For Rodell, Dreampitch gave her the opportunity to refine her company’s story before she took the stage. “I talked to myself nonstop for about a week beforehand!” she says. While she’d practiced with investor friends, she chose those test audiences carefully. “Be selective in the people you get feedback from and don’t ask for too much feedback because you can lose your own sense of north. That’s a major danger zone because you have to make sure you’re telling the story in your voice so it feels as powerful and authentic as possible.”
So finding the right advisors is important in developing a pitch. Part of being a Dreampitch finalist meant that Sara got access to additional coaching from Salesforce execs and mentors, like Dan Darcy, Salesforce SVP of Global Sales & Customer Success Enablement. Before her pitch, she had coaching sessions with him that helped her shape the Loop & Tie narrative.
“The way I crafted the pitch for Dreamforce has also influenced how I pitch in other events and meetings,” she says. “He really helped me create a story people can relate to, thinking critically about my narrative arc is now something that I do to prepare for all of presentations and meetings. It’s important for a founder to be communicating in their own voice. I think authenticity always wins.”
According to Rodell, interacting with the Salesforce ecosystem is impactful, no matter the outcome. “Win or lose, being able to work with experienced pitch coaches, getting to participate in the Dreamforce conference, and having five minutes to talk to so many impressive attendees and judges about Loop & Tie was a priceless experience.”
We’re Looking for a Few Good Pitches
Do you want the opportunity to share your vision and company’s story on the main stage this year at Dreamforce to push your business forward? Dreamforce 2018 Dreampitch applications are now open. Apply now.
