Episode 2
Billion-Dollar B2B: Sahir Azam of MongoDB Talks Product Evolution, Atlas, and Refining Go-to-Market
It used to be cool to build a B2B software company to a hundred million in revenue, but you know what is cool now? Scaling a B2B tech company to a billion dollars in annual recurring revenue, and potentially a market value of 50 billion, or even a hundred billion! Welcome to the Billion-Dollar B2B Podcast, a show where your host, Dharmesh Thakker, breaks down the secrets to a cloud-first, business-to-business tech company in today's fast-paced market.
On this episode, Dharmesh is joined by Sahir Azam, Chief Product Officer at MongoDB, to talk about the fast paced evolution of the B2B environment and dynamics, the best practices around pricing, demand generation and sales, and the two factors that will ultimately determine if a business is truly scalable. If you want to learn more about building scalable businesses, B2B technology and how to better navigate a $75 billion market, this episode is definitely for you!
Jump straight into:
00:35 - The 500 million business: On the astounding evolution of the B2B ecosystem - “We're in one of those once in a generation sort of platform shifts, software is eating the world.”
02:20 - On Sahir’s career trajectory and the evolution of MongoDB’s market strategy - “Even from the early days, we constructed both a product roadmap and a go-to-market strategy that allowed us to think about the entirety of the $75 billion market that we're going after.”
09:22 - The rise of Atlas: Why a transformation mindset is key to building a scalable business - “It's not just a new product or a new skew that we're launching, this is really a company business model transformation.”
15:02 - Open source vs cloud product and Sahir’s philosophy around pricing - “There's a dichotomy from who monetizes and buys the technology versus who's actually the one benefiting from the true result of the foundational open source technology. With SAS, those things become aligned.”
22:52 - On MongoDB’s best practices around demand generation - “We’re in a massive market, so to be able to reach the entirety of that market we need multiple ways of monetizing and interacting with customers.”
30:06 - The secrets behind an effective and engaged sales team, and the importance of building strategic relationships with competitors - “You’ve got to make sure your people are spending their time on the right portions of the journey.”
36:09 - On MongoDB’s future inside a $75 billion market - “The reality is we're a very small percentage player in the overall environment. We have to focus on what is happening really, how do we get to scale?”
Resources
The views expressed here are solely those of podcast guests, not Battery.
The information provided in this podcast is solely intended for the use of entrepreneurs, corporate CEOs and founders regarding Battery Ventures’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies. The information is current as of the date it was published. The contents are not intended to be used in the investment decision making process related to any product or fund managed by Battery Ventures. Battery Ventures provides investment advisory services solely to privately offered funds. Battery Ventures neither solicits nor makes its services available to the public or other advisory clients.
Investments identified above are for illustrative purposes only. No assumptions should be made that any investments identified above were or will be profitable. It should not be assumed that recommendations in the future will be profitable or equal the performance of the companies identified above. For more information about Battery Ventures’ potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies, please refer to our website. For a complete list of portfolio companies, please click here.
Content obtained from third-party sources, although believed to be reliable, has not been independently verified as to its accuracy or completeness and cannot be guaranteed. Battery Ventures has no obligation to update, modify or amend the content of this podcast nor notify its audience in the event that any information, opinion, projection, forecast or estimate included, changes or subsequently becomes inaccurate.
