Building the growth engine from zero: 6x monthly leads and 120 new clients
As a founding team member I rebuilt the brand, the positioning, the website and every marketing channel, then hired the marketing and SDR teams to run them.
Kobalt.ioHead of GrowthMar 2021 – Oct 20213 min read- 20120
- Leads per month
- 120
- New clients
- 7-fig
- Added to the funnel
- 18
- Team size
Context
Kobalt.io provides managed cybersecurity and compliance services, giving growing companies a security team without the cost of building one in-house. I joined in March 2021 as a founding team member and Head of Growth, reporting directly to the CEO.
There was no marketing function and no SDR team. My job was to build both from the ground up, along with the brand, positioning and systems they would run on.
The thesisBefore you can scale a channel, the market has to understand what you are and why it matters to them. Positioning comes first; everything else amplifies it.
Building it in order
- 01Brand and positioningEstablished the brand, repositioned the company in the market, and reframed how the offering was described.
- 02Website and infrastructureRedesigned the website and set up the CRM, a new email platform, analytics, data and tracking.
- 03ChannelsLaunched paid ads, events, in-person summits and training sessions, partnerships and a large outbound email program.
- 04TeamMade two marketing hires, then built out a larger SDR team as the sales-led motion proved itself.
The order mattered. Repositioning and the new brand came first, because every campaign afterwards would repeat whatever story we chose. The infrastructure came next, so that from the first campaign onward every lead could be tracked to its source. Only then did we turn on the channels and hire the people to run them.
The starting profile
A wide first pass, designed to be narrowed as we learned.
| Filter | Starting point | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Geography | Canada | Where the team, references and relationships were |
| Company value | $10M+ valuation | Large enough to have something worth protecting and a budget for it |
| Industry | SaaS, fintech, health tech and other data-heavy sectors | Handle sensitive data and face customer security reviews |
| Trigger | Enterprise deals, compliance requirements, investor diligence | Moments when security stops being optional |
| Team | No dedicated in-house security team | The gap a managed service fills |
With no customer history to learn from, we did not pretend to know the ideal customer profile. We started with a deliberately broad set of filters, then let data from our first clients show us where the real fit was.
Test, cut, scale
Casting a wide net only works if you are ruthless about what you keep. Every campaign was measured by segment, losers were cut quickly and winners got more budget. Each new client also told us more about who we were best placed to serve, which sharpened the profile for the next round.
Results
Monthly leads grew from about 20 to about 120 during my time there, and marketing and the SDR team together generated the pipeline that sales closed into 120 new clients. With deals typically in the mid-to-high five figures, that added seven figures to the funnel.
Perseverance pays off. As a small fish in a big pond, genuine, transparent selling backed by educational marketing and events won the day.