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Puneet Lamba
Co-founder of Aspiro; enhancing human articulation, beginning with sales
Puneet Lamba is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiro AI, a company he established in December 2020.1 Aspiro AI is focused on developing voice AI technology to enhance business conversations and provide sales coaching solutions for SaaS teams.23
Professional Background
Prior to founding Aspiro AI, Puneet's career included:
- Founder In Residence at Entrepreneur First (July - December 2020)1
- VP & Country Head - India Market at AMCHART, LLC (January 2019 - February 2020)1
- CEO of CrankOut, a wellness e-commerce startup (September 2014 - July 2017)1
- Equity Research analyst at J.P. Morgan (October 2012 - May 2014)1
Education
Puneet studied Materials & Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He later pursued a Master's degree in Healthcare Management at Yale University but dropped out to co-found Aspiro AI.
Skills and Expertise
Puneet has demonstrated expertise in:
- B2B startup and SaaS go-to-market strategies
- Business development
- Product management
- Market research
- Building and leading cross-functional teams2
Current Focus
At Aspiro AI, Puneet is:
- Building an AI-roleplay-based sales coaching product for SaaS sales teams2
- Seeking collaboration with voice AI enthusiasts
- Looking for mentorship to build a world-class SaaS product
Puneet is also a member of HYPCCCYCL, an invite-only professional community for top B2B revenue leaders.1
Highlights
(Post 2/2) How to Sell Your SaaS Amidst Rapidly Changing B2B Buyer Behaviours?
These trends I'd covered in Post 1/2 (link in comments) can often be seen manifested in newly coined terminologies like 'Inbound Signal-led Outbound' or 'Buyer-driven Selling' on LinkedIn, sales podcasts etc.
QUICK RECAP: -> Merging Buyer Segments: Enterprises now focus on near-term ROI, while mid-market/SMB demand enterprise-grade AI, security & data privacy. (Arjun Saksena found even pre-product/revenue startups feeling the pressure to get SOC2 certified). -> Net Increase In Buying Friction: These new buyer asks are on top of what's always been there: enterprise sales cycles are longer than ever and smaller orgs. still prefer self-serve options. -> AI Spam: Overuse in emails, calls & LinkedIn has degraded them as channels.
But the best early stage, PMF-adjacent teams are still hitting quota. How?
By aligning with changing times.
- Prioritize Retaining Customers Over Gaining New Ones:
$100k+ ACV products are likely to be centrally purchased while those below $10k are handpicked by individuals or small teams. However, $10-100k products represent a significant cost & may be cut if they don't address top buyer priorities. (Emergence Capital 2024 report: http://bit.ly/3yBClzZ )
Consider investing in Customer Success before investing in DemandGen or sales automation esp. if you sell to mid-market.
- Make lead magnets & ancillary collateral your friend:
While you must not overuse AI for LinkedIn & web content, it's a great idea to leverage it for creating content and guides for every point in your ICP's journey.
Use helpful sales collateral from other companies as reference for AI prompts. Explore tools like https://lnkd.in/gtz7wxE6 & Tome App. Leverage tech documentation to create relevant lead magnets for technical buyers.
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Make investing in your product engaging: Justifiably, there's lots of chatter around multi-threading & MAPs. But they're not enough on their own. Build buyer curiosity by sharing insightful peer strategies, custom views & teasers of how a key implementation could look for them, and visualise how much value they're leaving on the table. (Ex: A fintech SaaS startup incentivises buyer action by offering discounts tied to MAP milestones.)
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Ensure your sales org. is in sync: As US Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf said to Joe Rogan, "Danger brings clarity." But that doesn't mean you have to chase danger. Involve your team in testing assumptions around buyer narratives. How are the early buyers & star users articulating what they're able to achieve with you? What are the hidden jobs-to-be-done you're enabling? Is a certain buying signal actually a subset of a greater dynamic? (Ex: It took a DevOps startup 2 years to realise that a majority of their early referrals had been directed to them by a single, somewhat obscure cloud credits program.)
How are you tackling this diffusion of buying behaviours in your domain?
"When we come together, everything is all right. My people, my tribe. My village, my vibe. My Beatles, my Jackson Five. My reason, my rhyme."
And so this year's SaaSBOOMi Annual was a truly memorable one for me & Kevin Kagoo!
🧠 Insightful chats with my personal icons Manoj Agarwal (also an IITK senior!) & Beerud Sheth 💡 Gathering inputs on Aspiro's sales coaching from SaaS stalwarts Ketan Kapoor, Shruti Kapoor, Sreedhar Peddineni, Raghuveer Kancherla & Krish Subramanian 🙏 Expressing gratitude to collaborators & minting new friends Vishalini Paliwal, Sreeraman Vaidyanathan, Ankur Pandey, Vartika Bansal, Aquibur Rahman, Sagar Gupta, Mayank Jain & Udit Chugh 🍻 Fun chats with buddies Nikhil Pandey, Pratyush Choudhury ☁️, Venkatakrishna Jayakumar, Mridul Joshi, Akshay Gugnani & Kanishk Shukla 🏝 Lastly, a rare one for me: amazing rainy weather in beachy Chennai! We sure missed you Shalabh Singh.
Super thankful to SB team for helping us with a small but well placed Pilot Market desk where we showcased Aspiro's generative AI capabilities. SaaS leaders could try out a short sales coaching roleplay with AI versions of their buyers which our tech can quickly set up in <1 minute. Needless to say it was a big hit! 😀 🚀 #saas #saasboomi
