Perspectives on the Modern RevTech stack with Evan Liang, CEO & Co-Founder at LeanData

Perspectives on the Modern RevTech stack with Evan Liang, CEO & Co-Founder at LeanData

Evan Liang-CEO-Co-Founder of LeanData

Evan Liang is the co-founder and CEO of LeanData. Evan founded LeanData in 2012 after managing a data-cleanup project at his last company and felt the pain of cleaning CRM data by hand. LeanData is a company now recognized as a modern revenue tech stack essential – certainly by its nearly 900 loyal customers, but also by Gartner – the largest analyst firm in the world covering the IT market.

Prior to LeanData, Evan was the GM and VP Products at Caring.com, where he grew a small acquisition into the company’s main business, generating over 50% of the company’s revenue over 2 years. Before Caring.com, Evan worked at Shasta Ventures, a leading venture capital firm focused on end-user-driven businesses.

In this episode we speak with Evan about the revenue tech stack, because who better to share his perspective on this fast-evolving landscape within which LeanData sits at the center?

Key Highlights:

4:10 – 6:47 – Key Capabilities of the RevTech Stack – Over the last 20 years, the tech stack has transformed. Today, most companies use a CRM like Salesforce and a Marketing Automation Platform. From there, there are so many great applications that allow you to take the data and automate it, and make sales and marketing systems more effective.
6:47 – 8:16 – Finding the Right Capabilities for Your Company – Before looking at capabilities, identify the problem you are trying to solve. Then look for a solution or a combination of solutions that can work together to deliver that solution.
8:16 – 11:18 – What Attributes to Evaluate in a Tech Vendor – Use peer reviews and references to determine if the solution can deliver what it promises to do. Look for vendors who are customer-first and will serve as partners you can trust. Then think about where you can integrate and optimize across your tech stack.
11:24 – 14:52 – Building vs Buying – There are unique cases, but oftentimes, it’s usually better to buy. IT teams are often backlogged and the time to build the solution is only the starting point – consider how quickly they can make changes or how quickly you can get support if something goes wrong. Tech companies are constantly innovating their solutions to serve a wide network of customers, so it’s likely they have already solved the problems you are looking to solve.
14:53 – 16:16 – Keeping an Eye on Innovation – Connect with peers and see what other people are doing. Which are the ones that really solve your pain points and will be adopted and retained over time? Retention is the true indicator of something that is truly providing value for their customers.
16:17 – 20:24 – What’s Next for LeanData – LeanData is working with a number of partners, like 6sense to help deliver a delightful user experience and a better buying experience. Marketing signals plus sales plays with LeanData in the middle to orchestrate. Connecting 6sense + LeanData + Outreach or Salesloft is truly account-based orchestration that we can now deliver. UserGems + LeanData + Sendoso would be another example. The future of the tech stack is this ability to bring together a techstack that delivers unique experiences that people remember forever. And that’s how we actually make sales and marketing systems much more efficient.

Who Would Evan Like to Take For Lunch?
Lars Nilsson, VP of Global Sales Development at Snowflake

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“Think about the customer and what you’re trying to solve for them, and then go backwards into how the tech can help automate that and make it a reality.”

Evan Liang, CEO & Co-Founder of LeanData

“The future of the tech stack is this ability to bring all this stuff that delivers unique experiences that people remember forever. And that’s how we actually make sales and marketing systems much more efficient.”

Evan Liang, CEO & Co-Founder of LeanData