Doug DavidoffThere's been a lot of big news this week in the sales and marketing (or MarTech) world. In this edition of the Black Line Podcast, Mike and Doug question and speculate about the newest acquisitions of PieSync by HubSpot and Costello by Salesloft.
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*Disclaimer: both Mike and Doug salute those involved in these acquisitions and wish everyone the best of luck!
Do these acquisitions mean anything for the MarTech world? Have we entered the third inning? Mike doesn't know, and his reasoning is that you never truly know what's going on in the background. There are a lot of unknowns. Even from a larger standpoint, he doesn't think these acquisitions mean anything. One major point that is brought up from these questions is how everyone is now trying to become a platform, which Doug thinks is a mistake. To him, there are truly only two platforms that currently exist - HubSpot and Salesforce. We've entered the platform wars as everyone is trying to be everything to everyone which is bad news for those companies that are trying to be really good at one specific thing.
Circling back, Doug thinks that there might be a signal here on the buyer's side. He believes this is a sign that we are reaching the third inning. A lot remains to be seen with how these companies are going to integrate internally, but if there's a PieSync 24 months from today, then this wasn't as big of a deal from an acquisition standpoint. This could be the next avenue of maturity. For the buyer, you now have to think differently about your tech stack, and you have to ask yourself where everyone's home base is located. You also have to ask yourself what the risk is with them going out of business because we are relying more and more on our tech stacks. Keep in the back of your head that technology will never be the reason your business succeeds, it'll increasingly be a contributor to why you may not achieve your objectives.