# Creating a B2B2C Growth Flywheel

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Kushal Agrawal, Co-founder, Xoxoday.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/Creating-a-B2B2C-Growth-Flywheel
- **Guest:** Kushal Agrawal, Co-founder, Xoxoday
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/kushal1/
- **Recorded:** 2023-05-24
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NFKE6dye60

## Summary

In this NachoTuesday, Andy Karuza interviews Kushal Agrawal, Co-founder of Xoxoday. In this interview, they covered how to create a B2B2C growth flywheel. They also discuss 2023's latest marketing trends and how to achieve product-market fit to scale your sales. Jumpstart your company's growth today with Kushal's incredible insights and growth strategies.

## Product discussed

- **Name:** Xoxoday Plum
- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/product/plum
- **What it is:** All-in-one digital rewards & incentives platform that scales with your business
- **NachoNacho deal:** 25% CASHBACK All Plans. Forever.
- **Estimated savings:** Save up to $2,997/year

## Full transcript

Good afternoon, everyone. This is Andy with NachoNacho, and today we have Kushal from Xoxoday joining us. We're here to introduce his suite of products and learn more about his background. Today, we'll be discussing the B2B2C growth flywheel and how to implement it for your business. So, without further ado, I'd love to hear from Kushal and get elevated on his company and the products they offer. Kushal: "Lovely connecting this evening. I'm Kushal Agarwal, one of the founders at Xoxoday . What we do is help businesses digitize their rewards, incentives, and loyalty programs. These programs exist in various forms in every business. For example, if you want to acquire customers, you run customer incentive programs. If you want influencers to recommend your product, you have loyalty or incentive programs for them. Similarly, for channel partners or sales teams, you provide commissions or incentives. Even corporate employees are rewarded and incentivized. In every business, big or small, you aim to reward, incentivize, and foster loyalty. That's where our suite of products comes in. We help companies digitize any of these programs, from simple to complex. We offer features that make it easy and fast to configure. That's our business." Andy: "Great! Why is this so important for businesses to consider today in such a competitive digital landscape?" Kushal: "Thank you. Loyalty is one of the main drivers for helping businesses grow these days. Every company wants to acquire, retain, or engage their people. If you visualize people in the business value chain, it starts with consumers, influencers, channel partners, sales teams, corporate employees, and support teams. Businesses are constantly trying to acquire, retain, or engage these people. That's why products like Xoxoday become important for brands to use. If they want to move fast, Xoxoday offers a great option. You can go live in less than 60 minutes and start using the product right away." Andy: "As they say, it's a lot more affordable to keep a customer than try to earn a new one, right?" Kushal: "Exactly. It's better if you can get your customers to tell other people about your business. That's the power of loyalty." Andy: "So, Kushal, tell us a bit more about yourself and how you got to where you're at today with Xoxoday ." Kushal: "Sure. Xoxoday , in its current format, wasn't where we started. Initially, we began as a group gifting company, targeting the wedding market. However, over time, we realized it wasn't the business we wanted to pursue. We made a pivot to corporate gifting and experience gifting, which eventually led us to where we are today. Our suite of products focused on rewards, incentives, and loyalty is five years old out of our ten-year company tenure. We have evolved based on market needs." Andy: "And this isn't your first entrepreneurial venture, right? You've launched two other companies before?" Kushal: "Yes, that's correct. I started two companies before, but they weren't as successful. They were during my college days and post-college. However, the third time's the charm, and Xoxoday is going really well. I believe we learn the most from our failures." Andy: "Absolutely. What important lessons did you learn from those failures?" Kushal: "A couple of learnings I can share with the audience. Firstly, starting a company is not a fancy deal; it requires a lot of dedication. If you think you'll just extend what you're doing in your job, you... When it comes to running a business, there are a few key points to keep in mind. First, patience is essential. It's not just about being patient with customers, but also in terms of managing finances, improving services and products, and overall business growth. Second, it's crucial not to lose money. Selling products below their cost price can be detrimental to the profitability and sustainability of a business. Therefore, understanding unit economics is vital. Lastly, unit economics should be considered in the decision-making process. Now, moving on to hiring strategies, we have explored various innovative approaches. For instance, in our office in Bangalore, India, we take advantage of the nearby startup ecosystem. One method involves going to a popular food joint frequented by startup employees. By listening to conversations and engaging with people who share interesting thoughts, we can identify potential hires. This food court is a place where startup employees spend time each day, providing an opportunity to connect with talented individuals. Another approach is attending events where similar companies and competitors have stalls. Engaging with their sales teams allows us to identify promising candidates. Regarding the attributes we look for in potential hires, clarity of expectations is crucial. Hiring managers and leaders need to be clear about the requirements for each role, such as what they expect from a sales manager. We create a concise version of these expectations and search for candidates who align with them. While we are not always 100% successful, we have about a 70% success rate in finding the right fit. Moving on to go-to-market (GTM) strategies in the software business, two prime sources drive success: existing accounts and new customer acquisition. One common mistake is focusing less on existing customers because they already buy the product. However, this is a wrong strategy. We prioritize our existing customers as they have significant growth potential, often around 10 times. Our focus includes retaining, engaging, and upselling to them. In terms of new customer acquisition, we have learned from our mistakes. Many marketers invest in generating inbound leads but fail to effectively convert them into customers. This is an area where proper nurturing and conversion strategies are essential. When we began the company, we faced numerous challenges in the early days. It was a chaotic time with a small team of six or seven people. We had to tackle problems as they arose, and everyone was engaged in resolving them. We embraced a culture of employee engagement, where tasks such as sweeping the floor were taken care of by all of us. The initial phase required us to wear multiple hats and be adaptable to various roles. Additionally, there were challenges related to funding and financial stability. As a startup, we had to ensure we had enough capital to sustain operations and achieve growth. This involved careful financial planning, seeking investment opportunities, and managing cash flow effectively. Another hurdle was building a customer base and establishing our brand in the market. We needed to attract clients and convince them of the value of our products or services. This required targeted marketing strategies, effective communication, and delivering exceptional customer experiences. To overcome these challenges, we maintained a proactive and resilient mindset. We embraced a culture of continuous learning, adapting our strategies based on feedback and market demands. We also fostered a strong team spirit and collaboration, leveraging each team member's strengths to drive the company forward. Overall, perseverance, adaptability, strategic planning, and a customer-centric approach were key to overcoming the early challenges we faced as a company. Won't get some anyone else to kind of get and uh get cleaning the floor so uh. So initial days were quite uh, you know, interesting where we had, uh, chaos was the name of our engagement and, uh, a way of, uh, maybe, uh, not... I mean, it was, it was, it was a way to get bonded together. Over time, we realized, we learned how to make JDS, how to make, uh, what are designations, etc. Previously, we just thought that okay, I need one person in sales, that's it. Sales has, uh, you know, dozens of other variations we never knew. That, so we have learned over a period of time, you know, then we hired a couple of people from, uh, from the chart companies, uh, Google, Facebook, etc. And we realized that, you know, we lack various processes in place in the company, we lacked a lot of basic hygiene stuffs in the company, which actually matters to the employees. We try to improve that and in this journey, we have innovated ourselves and we have more moduled ourselves or modeled ourselves based on the market and its needs and the needs of everything. That's great. Um, what are some of your favorite books that you've read in the last year that you would recommend to other entrepreneurs that might teach them a thing or two? Oh, last year, so all-time everyone. Yeah, so, you know, I started looking businesses in a view of different types of cohorts. So, for example, previously, I had one team for sales doing all hunting, farming, and everything. So, I remodeled the entire sales team into, you know, SMB team, mid-market team, and an enterprise team because, you know, an SMB team doesn't require a hundred thousand dollar guy, it requires a cheaper guy, a ten thousand dollar guy who can sit out of Philippines or India and do the sale. However, if it's an enterprise, you know, it requires a good person who can actually meet and read a client and kind of lies into kind of sell on a similar way. You know, if it's a farming, it can be centrally driven from one country or maybe, you know, a set of people. So, I had read, I had remodeled the entire sales team in such a way that it will deliver great results. Number two, I have reduced a lot of variables in the life of people. So, you know, if you look at our business, there are multiple types of revenue headers. You know, there are GMBs, there are net revenue, there is EBITDA, etc., etc. And, you know, I gave every individual in the company a net revenue target so everyone is speaking the same language now. So everyone is moving towards achieving a common goal of X revenue and I kind of streamline that word of net revenue or culture of net revenue. Everyone is talking about earning money now in the company. A B Tech beat, sales beat, marketing, everyone is talking in terms of net revenue. So these are two things which I tried doing and going really well. We are improving in terms of numbers. So these are two learnings I can probably share which I did last year and it is paying off well for me. That's great. What's one thing you'd like our audience to know about Xoxoday and why they should choose your products over other potential loyalty platforms? Yeah, so see, there are, there are, you know, hundreds of products available in the market. However, the products which we have built, we have, are number one.

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