Sales Impact Academy CEO and Founder Paul Fifield sat down with Latka on August 31st for this interview.
- The company broke $4 million in revenues in 2021, raising $3m on an $21m valuation
- Sales Impact hit 200 customers and grew revenues 3x over the last 12 months
- The company is raising right now so they can launch 20 courses per quarter.
Paul Fifield co-founded Ceros in 2012 before raising $112m to scale operations. The tool made it easy for marketers and designers to create content. Fifield is taking everything he learned about scaling a sales team and building out Sales Impact Academy.
The fastest growing SaaS companies today establish a clear relationship between SDR’s, AE’s, and CSM’s. Training each of these teams can be a burden. Thats where Sales Impact Academy comes in. Revenue has grown from $1.5m in January this year to $4m last month.
Sales Impact Raised $3 Million seed money in January 2021 at a Valuation of $20 million
In less than 2 years, Sales Impact has begun to make its mark with SaaS teams in regards to online education. Sales Impact is a live learning subscription-based platform. Customers can access live lectures and saved content year-round.
SaleImpact is the brainchild of CEO Paul Fifield. Mr. Fifield has spent 20 years founding and scaling global companies. He is now trying to bridge the gap between educational technology and SaaS training. Before starting Sales Impact, he grew two international technology businesses from zero to $100M in combined sales with a $700M valuation.
80 People, Hard at Work To Educate Global SaaS Leaders
The company currently has a total of 80 full-time employees. 9 sales reps must meet a quota of $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). In 2019, the initial 2 AEs got the company off to a fast start when they each hit $30,000 in sales in their first 3 months. After functioning without an engineer for several months, Sales Impact added an engineer in July to start building a proprietary content and course management platform.
200 Customers Pay $13,200 Annually, On Average
As of 2021, the company has doubled the number of customers to 200 actively paying, up from 100 in 2020. Customers tend to consist of Series A and Series C level companies that purchase seats for whole teams or individuals for an average of $1,100 per seat. Clients include Gong, G2, and other big brands.
Mr. Filfield found his initial customers in 2019 through his network. While doing volunteer sales teaching after leaving his previous company, he saw a huge gap in relevant sales knowledge among SaaS teams.
This platform goes beyond watching a video and moving on. With the enormous amount of knowledge required for a successful SaaS team, learning tracks are scaled to stay with individual team members for years. The learning pedagogy is set up so that a new SDR can scaffold training well into the VP or CRO career stage in later years.
Once a seat is purchased by the company, individual clients have access to all materials – live and previously recorded.
4 Hour Monthly Masterclasses Lead to $333,000 Monthly Revenue
SaaS teams are busy and need streamlined learning. Teams can currently take a four-hour course over 2 weeks. Learn from an industry giant like Kevin Dorsey at Gong. 35 courses are available in the catalog at the moment. Recent course options include ‘Best Practice in Cold Calling” by Mr. Dong. Customers can give feedback through a survey after each course.
Industry professionals are well compensated for their time and can make $15-20k to teach a 10-20 hour course on the platform. Instructors set up the course and teach live for an hour. The live classes are available year-round and repeat five up to twelve times a year.
International companies can bring all their offices together to watch the live courses in unison. Live instruction broadcasts during the magic hour of 8PCT/6 pm Israeli time. This special time frame allows companies to stay connected after a lecture and absorb, discuss, or make business plans related to the information.
More industry experts are now contacting Sales Impact to teach on the platform. Venture capital connections from Stage 2 Capital have provided access to 250 GTM leaders, such as the President of SalesForce, Linkedin, and the CRO of Box.
Fifield predicts a $7 million dollar run rate at the end of 2021. After they account for expenditures, the company earns $10,000 a month in net income.
Why Does Sales Impact Need $80 Million?
Fifield has no plans to slow down. He’s focused on continuing to build a frictionless model for course content consumption., “We really want a frictionless model”. He plans to have as many as 20 courses per quarter and wants the company to be the leader of SaaS Global learning platforms.
With the long-awaited acquisition of an engineer, the company is in the process of migrating to its own proprietary learning platform. It currently uses a 3rd party called Docebo. As more customers flood in, current and new content needs to be organized. Net revenue retention is 120% at the moment, and Fifieldbelieves the company is on track for 500-600 % annual growth.
High Previous Churn Rate of 30%
While the company continues to expand, they continue to spend large amounts of money bringing in new teachers.In 2019, the company started out with ten clients and retained seven. While seven may be a majority number out of ten, 30% churn does not scale.. Fifield admitted he made a mistake seeking the wrong early customers and now focuses only on tech and Series A to Series C companies.
The question now is, “ What will clients do once they have all the information they need in a year or five years?”. What is stopping another company from using this same model with better or more famous instructors?
