How we scaled to $100M+ ARR in under two years, and what drove that speed

Two years ago, Crescendo didn’t exist. All we had was an idea. The customer experience industry was (and still is) ripe for disruption. But approaches to disrupting customer service were incredibly siloed. The first wave of AI adoption involved bolting AI chatbots onto existing operations, a bit like bolting an engine onto a horse carriage to create the first car.

I connected with some fellow co-founders and we set out to ask, ‘What does it really take to transform customer care?’ In an AI era where delivering value and fulfilling customer promises is the CX holy grail, could we form a company to do just that?

Two years on, that initial idea and those initial questions have led to a business, which now has an annual recurring revenue of $100M+. As someone who taught himself to code on a computer at his local department store growing up, and then had the privilege of working at some iconic tech companies, it’s amazing to now be sat in this position.

Here are a few key factors I believe enabled us to scale to this size so quickly: a mixture of top-class talent, market-first CX offerings, shrewd investment and acquisitions, and, what every founder needs, serendipity.

A complete rethinking of CX

‘Market first’, ‘market leading’. We’ve all seen these business platitudes, but what they really mean is delivering a product or service that actually improves existing working processes and the customer experience.

In our case, instead of bolting the engine onto the carriage, we thought about it differently, building a new model from the bottom up to reinvent customer care. This led to creating the first AI-native CX solution.

But the product isn’t the only way to differentiate. As we looked for our first pilot customers, our vision was to only charge them for outcomes, as opposed to traditional seat-based pricing or a BPO charging for labour, and apply this to everything. So, if a customer isn’t satisfied or we can’t answer a question, then they don’t pay. The great thing about outcome-based pricing is that you build immediate alignment throughout the chain, from the customer to the client to the actual providers.

A stellar team and culture

Everyone wants to do this, but assembling an amazing team very quickly, with curiosity, fire, passion and relevant experience, has by far and away had the greatest impact out of anything we’ve done – and it happened from the outset. I was very fortunate to join forces with co-founders who had spent a couple of years developing 80-90% of what we needed.

This is where serendipity comes into play – meeting the right people at the right time and all aligning on the same goals and strategy. But after that, finding people who are curious and passionate about the vision takes you so far.

AI rollups as a growth lever

AI for customer service is a noisy market. Therefore, you have to find ways of expanding your distribution.

A key and unique part of our growth strategy is to enable customers to integrate our AI platform to upgrade their performance while simultaneously retraining their staff to work with AI. In turn, this success drives direct business as word gets around about the impact that going AI-native has had on a customer’s operations. It’s a great way to achieve accelerated value.

Ongoing upgrades and lofty ambitions

These factors have been crucial in hitting the $100M ARR mark in under two years. But the process never stops. We’re continuing to innovate and add new capabilities to appeal to more customers and meet their evolving needs and expectations.

Even with consistent growth, it’s important to remain ambitious, perhaps even more so. We want to be a multi-billion dollar organisation, a category leader within CX AI, and establish a market where no one needs to bolt on tools. Sticking to our principles and vision, along with some good fortune, will hopefully take us there.

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