They said goodbye to 80% of pipeline - and their growth exploded

Back in May 2021 the company was a general-purpose conversational AI chatbot company called BotXO. It was a growing scaleup with a conversational AI platform helping vastly different companies like a bank in Denmark, an NGO in Spain and a fashion e-commerce in the UK. Today, the company is a fashion and apparel e-commerce focused company called Certainly.

From Steadily Growing Business
to Exploding Growth

Henrik explains that the management team agreed that this new direction was the best way forward for the company. As I’m talking to Henrik about this big decision and the following transformation from BotXo to Certainly, it strikes me how calm and cool he is about it. And how confident he must have been to drive this change and get the organization on board with it.

“I think that I was pretty confident about the new strategic direction because it just made sense to me. The alternative on the other hand, staying broad and catering to many different types of customers - it could have been a good business case, but I don’t believe it could be great in the long run.”

“We had a business that was steadily growing, but narrowing in and focusing is what gave us our acceleration.”

“Being a company with many different customers doesn’t only demand a complex product, but it demands more of your messaging, of your customer support and your sales people - at every step we have to understand their business really well to be able to give them the best service possible. And that’s really hard if you’re servicing vastly different types of businesses like a bank, an NGO and an e-commerce business across three different countries.”

So despite a steadíly growing business the management team still sat down to discuss an even more ambitious growth plan for the company.

But Henrik also fully acknowledges that it can be difficult to focus. Particularly, if you are an entrepreneurial opportunist and you can spot opportunities everywhere - something that characterizes a lot of entrepreneurs. 

“It’s important to be able to be cynical enough to say no to opportunities and no to business. Suddenly, you will have freed up a lot of time and money that you can now spend on something else that potentially can create even more value!”

And he stresses this point.

“Everything you spend your time and resources on, there is an opportunity cost in it.”

Handling Organizational Resistance
with a Strong Narrative - and Success

Big changes don’t come without a fair amount of skepticism in the organization, and Henrik explained how the management team handled the organizational resistance and fear. 

“Making the decision to become vertical meant removing 80% of our pipeline. Just 20% of our existing pipeline was e-commerce. Naturally, a lot of employees were concerned with such a big change (however 110% committed). But the management team still decided to become vertically-focused, and we wanted to see a positive change in the company pipeline within 3-6 months. It really does demand a top down decision.”

And soon enough the rebranded company, Certainly, started seeing the results of their decision to focus on one vertical.

“It is a really big change management task to go from serving a broad range of customers to a specific industry and segment. But now our pipeline is growing faster than ever. The sales cycle is shorter and the deal size is bigger.”

The results of making a bold strategic decision to become a vertically-focused business showed themselves quickly. And Henrik has been transparent about the results on his personal Linkedin page in a three part story.

[On the picture: Henrik Fabrin, Founder & CEO of B2B SaaS startup Certainly, in his short Linkedin series “The Power of Focus”]

“And there is nothing as effective in problem solving as success. Success solves all the small challenges and concerns among your employees.”

Success was fortunately something the Certainly team found quickly after focusing their organizational efforts on a much smaller customer base within apparel and e-commerce. The change demanded that the organization created new priorities and daily habits, and Henrik highlights how the strategic narrative has been essential. Successful results or not, it’s a daily change management task to stay on the new strategic path.

“Of course you still have to communicate the change. Daily. Why and how are we making this change? And you have to repeat the strategic narrative to yourself and to the whole organization. If you do that well it will serve as a benchmark for everyone's decisions on a daily basis.”

I found this really inspiring. As a Strategic Advisor, I believe strategy is execution, they are not separate disciplines. And trying to separate the two only leads to confusion. It's impossible to have good strategy and poor execution. Something Henrik and I agree on.

“But it's hard. You can set up a perfect strategy and a perfect system, but then you add people into the mix, and something unexpected always happens. It never happens according to the manual. That's just how it is. It’s muddy.”

The daily decisions and priorities are what creates the company strategy, and that is why a strong internal narrative has to be built on a clear strategic direction.

“Yes, the strategic narrative has to be clearly explained and reminded daily. If you don’t repeat it clearly you can’t expect it to be executed. And it’s your responsibility that the organization understands the story and the company strategy.”

And the narrative of the Certainly pivot from general-purpose to vertically-focused business has been powerfully narrated by Henrik and his management team. In fact, the strategic direction and narrative is so clear that Henrik recently asked his Linkedin followers where they should forward the inbound leads that don’t fit their vertical.

Saying no to business is a strong signal that you have a clear strategic path to growth!

If you feel equally inspired to make courageous strategic choices like Henrik Fabrin and his management team at Certainly, you can follow Henrik on Linkedin where he shares their journey. 

Henrik Fabrin sharing “The Power of Focus” part 4”

Henrik Fabrin sharing “The Power of Focus” part 3”

Henrik Fabrin sharing “The Power of Focus” part 2”

Henrik Fabrin sharing “The Power of Focus” part 1“