A CMO’s First Year at a $2.4B Valuated SaaS.

Hello again listeners! Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Leader Interview Series!

This week, we’re talking to Andrew Davies about his first year heading up marketing at Paddle, a $2.4 billion valued company that helps SaaS businesses set up, run, and scale their payment infrastructure.

We discuss the challenges he’s faced and the changes he’s made to grow the marketing department in three distinct areas:

• Product marketing, including customer marketing and the website itself
• Demand gen, which involves managing business development representative (BDR) teams
• Branding, which deals with the brand’s reputation, reach, and engagement with the wider market

Paddle has grown extremely rapidly, riding the pre-and post-covid wave of software and infrastructure investment. This year, it acquired ProfitWell, an analytics and retention tools business, along with its customer base and teams.

Andrew tells us how he’s helped Paddle get to the next level by:

• Merging the marketing departments of the two companies.
• Broadening marketing efforts across distinct channels
• Expanding the tactics of the BDR team to include direct mail and outbound calling
• Improving branding recognition with an expanded PR strategy

“We’ve got smart people in every function across this marketing team, and one of my career goals is to be the dumbest person in the room. And I’m definitely that at Paddle. In my marketing function, I love that we’ve got specialists on HubSpot, we’ve got specialists on our PPC, we’ve got specialists within our BDR managers, we’ve got specialists on show producing.”

By making the most of existing teams, finding out what everyone does, and where they need support, Andrew has been able to quickly expand the scope and potential of Paddle’s marketing department.

Tune in to find out what it’s like to be CMO during the rapid growth stage of a $2.4 billion SaaS company.