“deeto lets your customers become your advocates, using an AI-powered platform to make this a reality”
We are excited to spotlight our portfolio company deeto, building a disruptive growth-enablement platform. Shortly after US-based deeto was founded, UpWest partnered with Eran, Golan and Yossi by leading the company’s Seed round. In our chat with Eran Baron, CEO & Founder of deeto, we delve into their revelation about the untapped potential of customer trust and credibility, how it inspired them to create a cross-industry solution aimed at shorter and simpler sales cycle, and deeto’s strategic vision to capitalize on generative AI.
Tell us your background: Why did you decide to work on deeto?
Golan, Yossi and I all came from large enterprises where we held key roles in finance, marketing, sales and engineering. We all saw a common pain point across companies and industries: almost no one knew how to engage with their customers outside of making “asks” — for them to attend a webinar, dealing with troubleshooting, renewals, etc. Because of this, organizations are often left blind to their customers’ actual experience, which is a shame because the customer is the company’s biggest asset and biggest advocate. After interviewing hundreds of sales and marketing leaders, we saw a huge gap in these teams’ engagement and utilization of their own customer base. We started deeto to close this gap.
Please elaborate on what deeto does, and how it drives value in B2B Sales?
deeto’s core concept is based on prospects trusting customers more than they trust Sales or Marketing. We offer a full-stack platform, enhancing credibility, shortening sales cycles, and encouraging early engagement by guiding reference selection. Using AI, we’ve expanded our capabilities to assist marketing organizations in content generation by enabling teams to efficiently collect assets like reviews, case studies, and video testimonials, reducing the time and costs involved in content creation. While deeto is essentially an industry-agnostic B2B sales platform with broad application possibilities, our current primary focus is on serving software companies, top technology firms, and service providers.
The current market dynamics are challenging for many companies of all sizes. How does deeto actively align its offerings with the economic landscape?
Essentially, by building deeto as a versatile tool that can easily adapt to different industries and address varying market dynamics, we supercharge our customers and help them win more deals. We’ve been noticing a few key market trends;
First, consolidation: companies are actively seeking to reduce the number of technology tools they use, demanding more comprehensive solutions. deeto stands out as a full-stack platform that addresses multiple use cases related to customer engagement–for example, our ability to connect prospects and references, create unique marketing collateral (like video testimonials using user-generated insights), and boost lead generation.
Second, integration: sales and marketing organizations prefer tools that seamlessly embed into their CRM systems. deeto offers the flexibility to be used as a standalone solution or to integrate with platforms like Salesforce and others. Moreover, there’s what we call the ‘Credibility Paradox:’ Sales organizations aim to enhance their credibility with prospects, whereas, trust in salespeople is actually diminishing. deeto bridges this gap by providing data and insights that boost the credibility of sales teams. It allows sales organizations to provide genuine insights and customer testimonials, which prospects highly trust.
What role did your work with design partners play in the early days of building deeto?
Working closely with US design partners was a critical step in our journey. We created a basic proof of concept (POC) and gathered feedback from various technology companies, ranging from small startups to mid-sized organizations. This early input gave us critical product insights, prompting us to collaborate with branding and UI/UX experts as we built the full product. I can’t stress enough the importance of working with design partners, who are essentially your unbiased “early access customers” and provide genuine feedback. Ultimately, it’s not just about people liking your product, but about whether your potential customer would actually pay for it and the necessary changes needed. This process, in my perspective, is the gold standard for aligning products with market needs and achieving true validation.
Tell us about the process of defining deeto’s Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and how it has grown to serve various personas within the organization.
Initially, we focused on defining buyer personas for sales leaders and sales organizations because we believed they would have the most to gain from our value proposition. But as our product evolved into a full-stack customer marketing automation and customer voice platform, we became relevant to marketing teams as well. This has definitely expanded our appeal, especially in today’s market where companies are extremely cautious about their spend and seek multi-functional tools that provide value across different teams. Our data-driven approach is also compelling to CFO’s and aligned with their priority to examine how the product impacts the “top line” — evaluating whether it can increase revenue and reduce expenses. deeto helps enhance win rates, shortens sales cycles, reduces CAC, and minimizes marketing costs. That has a huge financial value to our customers. In essence, being relevant to multiple teams is a valuable asset in the current market conditions.
What is your long-term vision for the company?
Our long-term vision for deeto is to revolutionize how businesses leverage their existing customer base in sales and marketing efforts. We aim to be the go-to platform for creating authentic and valuable customer-driven content, while also serving as a hub for customer advocacy and engagement. Our technology, which includes AI-driven content creation and analytics, is designed to simplify and optimize the process of using customer references and testimonials in a way that is both scalable and deeply personalized. We want to create a virtuous cycle of engagement and loyalty, serving businesses of all sizes across various industries. In essence we’re cultivating a powerhouse of empowered customers contributing to the brands they believe in.
