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Tim Zheng
Founder & CEO at Apollo
Tim Zheng is the co-founder and CEO of Apollo.io, a fast-growing software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that provides go-to-market solutions.12 Here are some key details about Tim Zheng:
Background and Education
Tim studied computer science at MIT, graduating in 2011.13 He has a background as an engineer and aimed to build product-led solutions to complex problems.1
Career Highlights
- In 2011, Tim founded his first company, BrainGenie, an education startup.2
- After BrainGenie grew to 1 million users and was acquired, Tim leveraged his experience to launch Apollo.io in 2015.13
- Prior to his entrepreneurial ventures, Tim interned at companies like Citadel Investment Group, The Boston Consulting Group, and Goldman Sachs.3
Apollo.io
As CEO of Apollo.io, Tim has:
- Guided the company to become a leading all-in-one solution for sales prospecting and go-to-market needs.1
- Adopted a product-led growth model to make sales prospecting more intelligent, automated, and accessible.1
- Led the company to a $1.6 billion valuation, with over 500 team members distributed across 30 countries.1
- Overseen significant growth, with Apollo.io named the 3rd fastest-growing software for 2022 by G2 Crowd.4
Leadership Philosophy
Tim is known for his focus on:
- Improving data quality to compete effectively in the market.4
- Building streamlined workflows and intelligent tools to guide users through the prospecting process.2
- Transitioning from a sales-led to a product-led growth model, which contributed to Apollo's rapid growth.5
Tim Zheng's journey with Apollo.io demonstrates his ability to identify market needs, pivot strategies when necessary, and scale a SaaS company in a competitive landscape.
Highlights
Apollo.io drives millions in self-serve sourced revenue monthly…
But I can’t claim our PLG motion started with a stroke of genius.
Truth is, it’s origins were somewhat less glamorous than you’d expect…
Never overlook the impact a single person can have on an organization.
Let’s flash back to 2017 year. Krishan Patel entered Apollo after being the top-performing SDR at Oracle.
At the time, our young company was still called ZenLeads. Within three months Krishan had been promoted out of the SDR role into an AE role. Then senior AE role. Then, Krishan did something different.
If there is one thing to take from this post — it’s to give people the space to be creative and stretch themselves. To allow them to innovate and push themselves to accomplish more than what they thought they were capable of alone.
Krishan taught himself product. Using Reforge, reading everything, and working with me, he ran a monetization experiment on our self-serve product to generate our first $120K in semi-automated self-serve revenue. It was nowhere near our smooth streamlined PLG funnel today.
For a while, we scraped by.
We called it “Krishan-Led-Growth” because there was a manual “Krishan” step in every sale.
Then, Krishan stepped into product — he ran a marketing experiment to semi-automate a personalized outbound email strategy which outperformed our 5-person SDR team and generated over 150 Opportunities / Month. This marked the beginning of our product-led growth journey. A journey where it would take years before we invested heavily into sales or marketing again.
I’m so glad someone like Krishan pushed themselves, and through that, pushed our company, and the industry forward.
For those looking to bring their company to the next level. I’d encourage you to surround yourself with brilliant people and, after they’ve earned your trust, give them the space to evolve and learn.
Hire amazing people who proactively solve difficult problems.
To me, it’s the people who have made the Apollo journey possible.
Thank you, Krishan.
#plg #hiring
