The senior management team of Apollo.io, a B2B sales platform, visited Goa for a company event. Here Himanshu Gahlot and Dzmitry Markovich, vice presidents, engineering, share valuable insights on the company’s growth prospects with Abdul Wahab Khan
What is fuelling Apollo.io impressive 2500% revenue growth since 2021?
Prior to 2019, Apollo was a sales-led growth company, requiring users to go through a sales demo process. After which the company transitioned to a PLG model and allowed users to sign up and start using the free version of the product directly on the website. The company also shifted focus to selling to small and very small businesses as these customers are more likely to sign up and start using the product immediately in a PLG model.
With AI transforming sales intelligence, what innovative AI- powered features are introduced by you?
The company has developed a product that can automatically generate highly personalized emails for each prospect by using AI to analyze data signals like news, job changes, and social media activity. This allows the sales teams to send tailored outreach at scale, improving engagement and conversion. Our conversation intelligence product uses AI to analyze sales calls and meetings and thereby improve sales performance. The company is also incorporating large language models like GPT-3 and Gemini to power features like the personalized email generation product. This will allows us to leverage the latest advancements in natural language processing and generation to enhance sales intelligence capabilities.
Tools like LeadSquared and ZoomInfo are expanding in India. How does Apollo.io differentiate itself from the competition?
While competitors like ZoomInfo focus on the enterprise market, our company specifically targets small and medium-sized businesses. This allows us to provide more affordable sales intelligence solutions. We believe that sales engagement and go-to-market tools should not be prohibitively expensive, especially for small businesses. As such our aim is to offer high-quality sales intelligence at a much lower cost than competitors.
Are there any strategic partnerships in India that you are exploring?
We have not had any major acquisitions or bigger partnerships yet. India is a growth opportunity for us and we are continuously increasing our Indian workforce. The country is the third-largest market for us. Our Indian team has grown from just seven people in 2019 to over 200 people now, including about 160 engineers. The large team allows us to be cost-efficient. The team’s local market knowledge and customer relationships have been invaluable in targeting small and medium businesses.
Apollo.io has embraced a remote work culture. How has this impacted employee productivity and innovation?
Apollo does not have any offices in India and allows employees to work remotely from anywhere in the country. The approach provides flexibility and freedom for employees, especially engineers, to work from locations of their choice, like Goa. It however requires additional rigor in communication and processes. We have implemented measures to build trust and collaboration, such as regular offsite events where the entire team comes together. Remote work model has not hindered our productivity. It allows us to attract top engineering talent from larger tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Uber.
Big tech companies are laying off employees due to AI. But you are doing the opposite and continue to hire staff?
We believe that advancements in AI will actually lead to increased productivity and the ability to build more products faster, rather than causing layoffs. Instead of letting go of trained engineers, the company wants to leverage their existing talent to build more products and features using AI-powered tools. AI and machine learning are a major draw for us in attracting top engineering talent, especially Gen Z and millennial engineers.
