Tyler Durman
Austin, Texas
Overview
Why do some B2B SaaS startups break out while others fade away? My entire career has been about answering that question. It takes more than a great product. You need a scalable way to acquire customers. That's what I do. In college at UT Austin, I got hooked on the energy of Austin’s budding startup scene. I loved hearing founders talk about solving real problems people paid for. But even then, I could tell that the companies that succeeded weren’t just innovative. They figured out how to distribute their product efficiently and scalably. That realization shaped everything I’ve done since.
About
Why do some B2B SaaS startups break out while others fade away? My entire career has been about answering that question. It takes more than a great product. You need a scalable way to acquire customers. That's what I do. In college at UT Austin, I got hooked on the energy of Austin’s budding startup scene. I loved hearing founders talk about solving real problems people paid for. But even then, I could tell that the companies that succeeded weren’t just innovative. They figured out how to distribute their product efficiently and scalably. That realization shaped everything I’ve done since. While I've learned a lot from every role I've had, I grew the most while being at data.world from its Series A to Series C rounds. The company had just shifted from a freemium community product to an enterprise data catalog platform, and we didn’t have a growth engine. No nurture programs, no content, no lead generation ads, and no SEO strategy for educating buyers to a sale. So I, with my peers, leaders, and teammates, built the campaigns, the scoring model, the reporting, and the demand gen playbooks. By the time I left, we went from 0 to 75% marketing-sourced pipeline over multiple quarters, landing six-figure deals from campaigns we built. While it was a lot of hard work, it was also a disciplined process. We used data to prioritize our work, tested new channels, messages, and audiences, and we scaled what worked. That's what growth marketing should look like for B2B SaaS companies, in my humble opinion. It’s not about hacks or bait-and-switch tactics or running on the marketing tactic hamster wheel. It’s about building a system that captures demand when your market has it and creates it when it doesn’t. You find your channels. Test your messages. Iterate and repeat. That’s how you find go-to-market fit after finding product-market fit. I love partnering with B2B SaaS founders and marketing leaders who want to grow efficiently. Outside of work, I’m usually watching Longhorn football or Formula 1, stoking a fire for a brisket in my yard, or traveling with friends. If you'd like to talk about any of that, send me a message.