Why Hull is building a successful business for the mid-market

In this episode of the GrowthTLDR, we talk to Romain Dardour, the CEO and Co-Founder of Hull.

Hull solves the problem of making data accessible across all marketing, sales, and customer support tools. It aggregates all of your data together into one unified profile.

We talk to Romain about what customer acquisition channels are working for Hull, how Hull started life as an internal tool at a gaming company, and how Romain wants to build Hull for the mid-market.

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Time Stamped Notes:

[2:15] - Hull solves the problem of making data accessible across all marketing, sales, and customer support tools. It aggregates all of your data together into one unified profile.

[4:00] - We talk about the growth in popularity of the term CDP (customer data platform)

[6:40] - Historically, there hasn't been a single database for your go-to-market and all of the go-to-market tools you use. 

[7:50] - Hull started life as an internal tool Romain built at a company in 2013 to help engage community members. In 2016 Romain met a friend who worked in B2B marketing who described how hard it was to aggregate data across his go-to-market. Romain knew Hull could solve these problems.

[12:00] - Romain has focused on Hull's customer acquisition efforts on content, podcasts, speaking at events, and SEO. A lot of their demand also comes from people directly searching for Hull.

[13:10] - We asked Romain how impactful marketing with integration partners has been for the business.

[16:30] - Hull's marketing strategy focuses on users in 'learn' mode and 'buying' mode.

[19:30] - Romain would love to move Hull's go-to-market towards a touchless experience. At the moment, the product needs to be human-assisted. Someone needs to walk a user through the product to show how it solves their problem/s. 

[23:25] - Romain talks through the advantages and disadvantages of raising a large investment round. Having less money allows you to focus more.

[26:25] - Romain wants to position Hull for the mid-market segment of the market. He likes the mid-market because it's easier to move up to enterprise, vs. down from enterprise to mid-market.

[27:25] - We talk about why it's so hard to move from building a product for the enterprise market and then trying to simplify it for the Mid & SMB market.

– Romain on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Kieran on Twitter / LinkedIn
– Scott on Twitter / LinkedIn