Scaling a $100M+ Disruptive Innovation

Venture Lifecycle Stage. Build and Scale.

Approach. A major economic recession wasn’t an auspicious time to expand a business. Moreover, Axiom had already tried and failed to open a Boston presence once before. To succeed this time, I decided we needed to return to the basics. We would not take for granted that what had worked in other cities would work in Beantown.

We started by getting to know our prospective clients and their problems, confirming problem-solution fit. We identified different Jobs to be Done, or patterns that described different struggling situations paired with outcomes desired by customer groups. Then, we zeroed in on the prospects with a “bleeding neck problem,” applying an empathetic and consultative sales approach. In parallel, we hired a team of attorney consultants, who provided our service, with the skills and experience to help our targeted customers make the progress they desired.

Results. Defining product market fit is hard, but you’ll know it when it happens. This was the case at Axiom. We identified the right target market and delivered the right message (“product language fit”) through the right channels. The service providers we hired delivered on our promises. Once the fly-wheel began to turn, word-of-mouth accelerated, and our customers helped us grow.

The office opened with one customer engagement, and we quickly grew the customer base and MRR by over 10x while expanding from 1 to more than 20 employees.

This was a general management role with full-stack responsibility for starting and running Axiom’s Boston office. As a company-wide executive leadership team member and drawing on my big-company experience from IBM, I also contributed to the dialog and initiatives to maintain Axiom’s culture and build practices and processes to scale the business.