Are economic downturns a good or bad environment for creating demand?

Geoff Lewis · Oct 5, 2022

Rippling's value proposition is uniquely suited to the current environment because it lets businesses flatten the G&A curve — accomplishing more, faster, without adding headcount

Companies are trying to cut costs while improving the efficacy of administration and HR, so a suite that removes headcount needs is especially valuable

Scope: framed as the reason Bedrock quadrupled in by co-leading the Series D

13:07 20VC: The Rippling Memo: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on The Conviction Building Process to Write a $200M Check and Co-Lead Rippling's Series D | Why No Competitor Can Out Execute Rippling | Uncapped SAFE's Why You Should Never Do Them and Why Geoff Broke The Ru

Geoff Lewis · Oct 5, 2022

The macro downturn is net positive for Rippling even though it is hard on Rippling's customers

Rippling is a do-more-with-less, cost-savings tool that removes administrative work and shows clients tangible time and headcount savings, which is driving the upgrade volume he sees anecdotally

Scope: challenging for the customer base itself; jury is out if a true recession brings mass layoffs, which would hurt any enterprise SaaS company

36:48 20VC: The Rippling Memo: Bedrock's Geoff Lewis on The Conviction Building Process to Write a $200M Check and Co-Lead Rippling's Series D | Why No Competitor Can Out Execute Rippling | Uncapped SAFE's Why You Should Never Do Them and Why Geoff Broke The Ru

Mike Salguero · Apr 5, 2023

ButcherBox is not seeing recession-driven churn, partly because post-COVID customers prioritise health and see cooking restaurant-quality meat at home as a saving versus eating out

Customers say they save money by cooking a steak at home instead of paying $75 at a steakhouse

Scope: a recession is 'not' good for the business overall

59:29 20VC: The Memo: Scaling to $600M Revenues with No Venture Funding, The Most In Detail Breakdown of Consumer Subscription Unit Economics & Why D2C and Consumer Subscription is Not a VC Backable Model with Mike Salguero, Founder @ ButcherBox

Doug Adamic · Sep 8, 2023

Tough economic times are the best times to create demand, not the hardest.

The tighter money is, the more attention companies must pay to what they let employees spend on their behalf — so a solution that drives value on that spend becomes more urgent, and Brex's pipeline is building well right now.

Scope: framed as a mindset; specific to spend-management value propositions

11:16 20Sales: Why Everyone is Responsible for Demand Generation, How to do Great Sales Discovery, How to Reduce Sales Cycles and Create Urgency and Deal Reviews; Good and Bad Reasons to Lose a Deal with Doug Adamic, CRO @ Brex

Chris Degnan · Nov 10, 2023

The claim that CFOs have stopped spending is false — CFOs are still spending on products that solve a real pain, while nice-to-have tools will struggle.

Businesses have to keep moving or die; he sees spend in real time, and he himself refuses to buy nice-to-have tools like sales forecasting software because he has no pain there.

Scope: applies to products addressing genuine pain, not nice-to-haves

36:25 20Sales: Five Lessons Scaling Snowflake to $1BN ARR, Why Customer Success is BS and Should Be Removed, Why All Sales Reps Should Do Eight Calls Per Week & Why You Should Hire a Head of Sales Sooner Than You Think with Chris Degnan, CRO @ Snowflake

Steve Goldberg · Dec 13, 2023

Budget has fully retreated to the CFO, but CFOs are not shut for business — they will fund big deals outside the normal budget cycle if you're solving a genuinely large problem

Salesloft just closed one of its biggest deals ever, and at Salesforce during the 2008 financial crisis they closed some of the largest deals in company history at that point, because change and problems drive big purchases

Scope: Requires that you are solving a truly big problem

20:20 20Sales: How to Close Sales When Selling to CFOs, How to Guarantee You Win Every Renewal, Core Questions All CFOs Ask Today When Buying, Why Revenue Operations is the Most Important Role in a Company with Steve Goldberg, CRO @ Salesloft

Stevie Case · Jan 25, 2023

In the current environment the value drivers that close deals have flipped — cost savings, efficiency and risk reduction move from the bottom of the list to the top, displacing growth as the lead pitch

Everybody still has to grow, but customers now want to see efficiency and reduced spend, so the emphasis in value-based selling has to shift even though the selling motion itself doesn't change

Scope: mechanics of how they sell and present value props stay the same; growth still matters

41:58 20Sales: Why You Should Not Do PLG and Enterprise Sales at the Same Time | How To Move Into Enterprise Sales Gradually | How To Make a Comp Plan For Sales Teams | Why Discounting is Good and Can Be Used with Stevie Case, CRO @ Vanta

Frank Fillmann · Mar 22, 2023

Buyer priorities have shifted to cost and efficiency, and vendors who haven't rebuilt their messaging and value prop around those priorities will become irrelevant

Customers now want to do more with less and more financial buyers are in the process, so messaging must move in alignment with their changed priorities

33:07 20Sales: The 3 Profiles of a Sales Rep, How to Negotiate in a Sales Process, How to Sell to a CFO & How You Should Shift Sales Messaging in a Downturn with Frank Fillmann, CRO @ Salesforce Australia

Carlos Delatorre · Jan 24, 2025

Moving upmarket to large enterprises was the right go-to-market response to COVID because large enterprises believed there would be a 'day after' even if they didn't know when

Enterprises with long horizons were willing to overhaul a travel program precisely when no one was traveling, so they'd have a great program when the world resumed

65:12 Long horizon enterprises keep buying through downturns