The buzz about "GONG"
And why automated applications are the friction-free future with the power to deliver on the original promise of "software-as-a-service."
Let’s set the stage with context. Conversational intelligence to drive increase in revenue is big business because it addresses two key pain-points for most businesses — selling more, selling smart.
This is evidenced by the public market ascribing a forward price/earnings multiple of approx. 80x to ZoomInfo Technologies which dabbles in the space and most recently acquired “Chorus AI,” a competitor to Gong for half a billion dollars. This pricey deal happened in the summer of 2021 but despite the overall equity market drop ZoomInfo continues to be valued higher (at about $23B) that before its Chorus AI acquisition.
This brings me to the star of this piece: “Gong.io”
CEO Amit Bendov sat down for a conversation with CNBC “TechCheck” anchor Jon Fortt on his podcast “Fortt Knox” and dropped a considerable amount of eye-opening information. (Full conversation linked below)
Sitting pretty with a last reported valuation of $7.25B Gong is primed to capture value from the shift toward what Gartner describes as the “transition from experience- and intuition-based selling to data-driven selling, merging their sales process, sales applications, sales data and sales analytics into a single operational practice.” About 60% of B2B sales organizations will make this pivot by 2025, Gartner adds.
“We’re growing like crazy but not spending like crazy,” says Amit Bendov, CEO of Gong. Wise words from the CEO of a company that’s blitzscaling with employee numbers jumping from 300 to 1,000 within a year. Bendov’s experience leading a tech company through the dotcom bubble informs much of that prudence and his view of the market today. He shared with Fortt how it drives his bias towards action.
Using natural language processing Gong can seamlessly track sales conversations across a plethora of applications including Google voice, Slack, Salesforce, Twilio etc. Which is why it should come as no surprise now that now “Gong for Psychology,” “Gong for Medical Professionals,” are among the many marketing phrases being bandied about because this software truly delivers on the promise of having software service you in the course of your work without you, as the end user having to lift a finger. A silent observer that overtime gives you suggestions to convert prospects to customer, and customers to higher spending, more engaged customers.
Unsurprisingly this resonated with investors with Gong’s cap table reading like the who’s who of VC land from Coatue to Sequoia to Index Ventures. But this wasn’t the case at first as he discusses with Fortt how difficult it was for them to raise funding initially.
“Most people did not want to invest in Gong.”
-Amit Bendov, Gong CEO
“Autonomous applications will bigger than Software-as-a-Service.” Bendov predicts.
What’s profound about Bendov’s approach is he doesn’t think of Gong as an AI company instead he calls it a company focused on solving a businesses sales, product and customer-related problems. Leading with business problems allows them to make their products their customers didn’t know they needed but after using it can’t imagine they lived without.
“We boiled it down to people not having to do anything” Bendov explains in this fireside chat with Index Ventures’ Nina Achadjian.