This startup killed its most profitable product because customers were using it for evil — now it's worth $100 million

pulse

January 24, 2017 6:09 PM

In 2015, Atlanta-based SalesLoft was mulling the death of Prospector, the company's flagship product for finding sales leads.

Salesloft CEO Kyle Porter

Prospector was intended to help companies generate sales leads, but instead, it was being used by customers to gather up e-mail addresses from LinkedIn and send off huge spam blasts. Porter was not a huge fan of this use of the product.

And so, in March of that year, SalesLoft CEO Kyle Porter went around to investors with an unusual request. "On one hand, I have a $4 million business that I don't believe in the future of," Porter recalls saying at these meetings.

On the other hand, he said, SalesLoft had its much newer Cadence, then a meager $75,000 business for helping develop customer relationships, still in its earliest stages, but one he believed could turn into a huge business with the right nourishment and support. If Prospector were to die, Cadence would become the new flagship product.

In other words, SalesLoft was telling investors that it was in the process of tearing up its meal ticket. And worse yet, Porter says, he was asking them to "give us some value based on the old product."

It took guts, Porter says, but he says he's a big believer in radical transparency with investors and employees alike.

It worked, and SalesLoft raised a $10.15 million round in April 2015, led by Emergence Capital Partners. Then, in November 2015, Salesloft discontinued Prospector, putting most of its eggs in the Cadence basket. "It was the hardest decision we made, ever," Porter says.

Now, that bet appears to have paid off: SalesLoft has raised another $14.5 million in venture capital funding valuing the company at $100 million, in a deal led by

The new round will go into the product, into marketing, and into a new San Francisco office.

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