Why we founded barista

We all say that we care about our people at the front as they’re the face of our companies. In barista AI we obviously care about their time, as it literally equals money. So, we want to retain the best of them, as top talents are scarce. Yet, for some reason, the sales tech stack today consists of tools that are mostly designated for managers, operations people, executives, and finance personnel, and neglect the people that they’ve been built for, client-facing teams.

At barista AI, we truly believe that what moves the needle in sales is its human capital. There’s nothing more significant when it comes to closing deals than the account executives’ judgment of states. We decided that we want to build a platform that accelerates reps’ soft skills and infuses it with significant data. Our mission is to help reps reach their full potential by putting them in the center and turning generic data into actionable personalized data points.

Data is a commodity, utilizing it is a struggle  

Sales representatives are actually doing much more than sales. In fact, they’re expected to be go to market analysts, when prospecting new companies and industries. Furthermore,  they’re also kind of rev ops when it comes to pipeline reviews and optimization. And if that’s not all, they’re a project manager when orchestrating the deal with multi-personnel on the client side and multi-teams internally. 

Make no mistake, it’s far from being a coincidence. Revenues have been top priority for companies from the dawn of time. In the last two decades of the cloud revolution, it’s not surprising that tons of the industry resources have been put into data gathering and storage. In fact, it feels like a “sales data rush” in many ways. Most companies in the sales software realm invest in databases, to the point that they’re all becoming another version of CRM.  Now, don’t get us wrong: data is power, but with great power comes great responsibility. The abundance of data serves account executives as a double-edged sword. Sure, the more data the more value you may get. Though, unlocking the value of data is time consuming, and there’s nothing more precious than reps’ time. 

We believe that reps need to focus all their efforts on building relationships, and use data for the sake of it. This is why we aim to unlock the power of data by making each data point actionable and connected to the relationship the rep is managing.

Reps should be at the center

It’s true that the best companies sell in a team, and that top reps know how to orchestrate every team member towards closed won deal. Having said that, sales reps often find themselves alone at the front. It’s not because others don’t care, it’s because that’s the way it is for frontline teams. Surprisingly, most of the tools out there are built for large sales teams and aimed to enable growth for the entire revenue organization. As much as it’s crucial, it makes all these platforms prioritize features for the entire organization, and eventually most of their value can just be generated at scale. Thus, the value for the rep is dependent on other team members’ knowledge sharing, on revenue operation and sales engineering teams to manage infrastructure and accessibility. This complex maintenance operation binds the value that the sales rep can have to an internal bureaucracy and leaves little room for freedom of action and customization to the individual needs. 

At barista, we believe that reps should be at the center of their products like they’re at the center of their deals. This is why we are building a customizable product for each and every rep out there. We build a tool that is personalized both for the rep and the buyer, and is infused with data at scale. There are too many tools in the market that are built for the entire org, we are building one just for you. 

Freedom to experiment

Experimentation drives growth. It’s a common practice for R&D and product teams to always test features to the point that it seems inconceivable not to. Same for marketing. A huge chunk of the marketing budget goes to experiment new channels, new brand awareness strategies and ongoing testing. Executives today understand that growth is limited without “fail & learn” processes and top ones are willing to put resources into it. 

It’s time to unlock the value of experimentation for sales calls as well. The challenge is big. A/B testing as we know it cannot be applied in sales. Every call has a different goal, every client is different from the other and every rep has a different style. But that is what innovation is all about. Taking common practices from different industries and applying them to an industry that still suffers from the same problem. The art of selling is beautiful, but it’s also a disguise. The abilities of reps to maneuver deals through exceptional EQ and communication skills hides huge gaps in sales organization growth processes. Just imagine the superpowers reps will have if you could combine the art of selling with the process of experimentation. This is what drives us. 

barista stops sales guesswork

We’re in a new era. Sales may be an art, but there’s no reason on earth that we don’t use science to optimize it. Executives these days know the importance of experimentation. Huge chunk of marketing budgets goes to new experiments to unlock creativity. We cannot imagine a feature comes to live without a testing process in place. Why treat sales meetings differently. At barista our mission is to turn pitch guesswork into conversation experimentation.

Roy & the barista team