Objectives
Our client, a category leader, had strong enterprise customers, deep technical talent, and a respected market position.
But leadership knew something uncomfortable. The next phase of growth would not come from the existing platform due to increased competition and structural changes.
A new product direction was required.
At the same time, tolerance for failure was low for large consumer brands on our client's platform. Their agencies depended on stable execution. The technology landscape was shifting rapidly, with companies such as Google, Facebook (Meta), and TikTok. If a new initiative failed publicly, the damage would extend far beyond the budget.
The mandate from leadership was simple to state and difficult to deliver: Create new revenue while protecting existing relationships and credibility.
Challenges
The company lacked neither smart people nor effort. More than 80 engineers were fully committed to maintaining and expanding the core platform. Earlier attempts to create a cross-channel video capability had consumed energy but had not reached convincing market adoption.
Skepticism inside the organization was rational.
Common concerns surfaced repeatedly:
- Will this work at scale?
- Will agencies approve the workflow?
- Will brands change behavior?
- Will sales teams risk existing accounts?
The CPO owned growth, and the CEO owned market credibility. No one wanted a visible miss.
Decision
Early discussions looked like many innovation programs. Lists of features. Many reasonable paths. No clear forcing function.
We recommended the leadership team to pause and realign.
Before deciding what could be built, we needed agreement on what would be worth building.
Three principles aligned the room:
- The product must make customers materially more effective, not marginally better.
- Existing assets must create an unfair advantage.
- Technical success without commercial readiness would still be a failure.
The conversation shaped into:
- Where is customer pain obvious
- Where is our data defensible
- Where will a buyer move fast
We had our strategic answer: Video Marketing.
Brands were managing thousands of variations across multiple platforms. Signals were fragmented. Optimization required heavy manual coordination. Yet the company already had performance intelligence across the open web.
If that intelligence could power automated decisions across YouTube, Meta, X, and other digital platforms, value would be immediate.
Other good ideas were set aside. Focus is uncomfortable. But diffusion is fatal.
Execution
Work accelerated, but in a different way than before.
We started with Product, marketing, strategy, and finance operate in concert rather than sequentially. Capabilities were demonstrated to the client's customers while they were still being formed. Early feedback shaped priorities in real time.
Some of our buyers helped refine the offer, and objections surfaced early, when they were cheaper to address.
We replaced internal debates with external evidence. Client's leaders joined the demos, and decisions moved faster.
Confidence grew from exposure to reality, not optimism, after this turning point:
During one early session, a major enterprise brand saw the system in action. Their reaction was immediate. They said they had not seen anything comparable. They wanted access as soon as possible.
From that moment, the internal question changed. It was no longer a question of whether the product should exist but how quickly it could be scaled responsibly.
Measurable Outcome
Within 14 weeks, the company had validated a production-ready SaaS product with real customers. The original expectation had been six months simply to reach that level of readiness.
Within six months, the enterprise launch was live across product activation, pricing, sales enablement, and customer success.
But the deeper result was organizational. The company built a repeatable way to connect product ambition to market proof.
What Would Have Happened Otherwise
If the prior approach had continued, another year would likely have passed before meaningful market validation.
Competitive exposure would have increased, and internal confidence would have weakened.
Strategic valuation at acquisition could have been affected.
Speed mattered, and more so, clarity about where to place the bet mattered more.
Why This Matters
Large teams do not produce innovation; clear choices do. What unlocked progress was alignment on:
- Where the advantage truly existed
- What customers would love the most
- Which evidence leadership required
- How GTM behavior had to evolve
Once those became visible, investment and momentum followed.