PRE-CALL RESEARCH BRIEF

Prospect: Sarah Chen, VP Product @ FinTechStartup Inc
Meeting time: Tuesday 2pm PT (30 minutes)

===== COMPANY INTEL =====

FinTechStartup Inc (Series B, 25M raised, 80 employees)

Industry: Payments infrastructure (B2B SaaS)

Recent news:
• Announced Series B funding (Sequoia, a16z participation) June 2024
• 3 new hires in product team (LinkedIn posts indicate hiring spree)
• New product launch: real-time settlement (Aug 2024)

Website: fintech-startup.com
• Positioning: Real-time payment infrastructure for modern banks
• Core product: API for settlement, liquidity, compliance
• Customers: 15+ regional banks listed as case studies

Growth trajectory:
• Founded 2021
• Series A: 8M (2023)
• Series B: 25M (2024)
→ Implies: 2M+ ARR (Series B typical for FinTech)

===== PROSPECT INTEL =====

Sarah Chen, VP Product
• LinkedIn: 8 years in fintech, previously lead PM at BigBank's innovation lab
• Background: Stanford computer science, 2 years at Google payment team
• Relevant: Experienced buyer, technical understanding of payments

Likely motivation:
• Series B = rapid growth mode (likely pain: engineering capacity)
• New hires = need better processes/tools
• Real-time settlement launch = scalability challenge

===== PAIN POINTS TO PROBE =====

Primary hypothesis: Product team scaling faster than processes
→ Hypothesis from: Hiring spike, rapid launches

Follow-up probes:
• Sarah, I saw you just hired 3 product people. How are you managing communication now?
• With the real-time settlement launch, how is your team tracking feature requests from customers?
• What's your current prioritization process—how do you decide which features come first?

If she mentions:
• Communication chaos → Offer collaboration tool demo
• Feature request overload → Offer roadmap/feedback tool
• Manual prioritization → Offer data-driven prioritization framework

===== COMPETITIVE INTEL =====

Likely competitors already in their mix:
• Notion (roadmapping)
• Jira (engineering tracking)
• Slack (communication)

Your angle: Consolidation opportunity (all your product ops in one place)

===== YOUR VALUE PROP (how to position) =====

For FinTech startups in growth mode:
We help product teams scale without hiring a program manager. Real-time visibility into features, customer requests, and shipping progress.

Specific angle for Sarah:
Your team likely has feature requests scattered across Slack, email, and customer calls. We centralize that, so your 3 new hires can contribute immediately without a 4-week ramp.

===== TALKING POINTS =====

Opening (2 min):
• Thanks for taking the call. I know Series B is busy—congrats on the round.
• I noticed you just expanded your product team. How's that going?
→ Listen for: process friction, growth challenges

Middle (15 min):
• Share 1–2 customer stories (pick FinTech, Series B-like)
• Demo: Show how 1 feature request flows from customer → prioritized → shipped
• Probe: Does this look similar to how you currently track things?

Close (5 min):
• If interested: Could I schedule a 30-minute session with you + 1 engineer to see if it fits your workflow?
• If not: No worries. If things shift with the hiring, happy to revisit.

===== THINGS TO AVOID =====

• Don't lead with features (she cares about outcomes, not checkboxes)
• Don't compare to Jira (it's their engineering tool, not our competitor)
• Don't ask about budget first (let her see value, then talk money)
• Don't pitch for 60 min (she said 30 min; respect that)

===== POST-CALL ACTION =====

If meeting goes well:
→ Send: Short video walkthrough (not a deck)
→ Ask: Interested in a brief pilot with your product team?

If she's lukewarm:
→ Send: 1 relevant case study (FinTech company)
→ Add to retargeting list: Check back in Q2 when hiring slows

If she's not interested:
→ Ask: Is there someone on your team more focused on product ops I should talk to?
→ Don't burn bridge (VC portfolio companies collaborate)