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Modo Energy are building a global data analytics platform for renewable energy assets. Their all-in-one platform initially targets investors, developers, owners, and operators of battery energy storage assets offering long-term forecasts, asset benchmarking, trusted price indices, real-time market screens and an enterprise grade data API.

After 18 months of rapid growth and the signing of their first US customer, we are thrilled to be doubling down by supporting Modo’s $15m series A led by our friends at MMC.

Since we backed Modo’s seed round it’s been impressive to watch how quickly the business has launched new products, markets and transformed themselves into a disruptive media brand setting the narrative of their industry.

Modo encapsulates many of the qualities that I believe will be required for the next generation of SaaS companies to succeed. The founders, Quentin & Tim, possess not only unique market insights from working in the energy sector, but an obsessive curiosity with assimilating information from outside of their domain and weaving these insights into how they build their products, company and culture.

Their decision to start a media org probably best exemplifies this. It’s been Modo’s sole marketing strategy to date, resulting in 90% of their ICPs in the UK now either using their product or accessing their content. Modo’s media strategy consists of 3 core pillars:

• Energy Academy: high quality, educational videos explaining the battery energy storage and renewable energy markets
• Transmission Podcast: providing insights from thought leaders, energy experts and cleantech specialists
• Written long-form research, market updates and explainers

Below is some thinking around why verticalised media arms are a powerful, yet underappreciated flywheel to building a differentiated and defensible GTM motion for verticalised software companies.

If you are leveraging media to building vertical software, I’d love to chat. Get in touch on jamie.tomalin@triplepoint.co.uk

Distribution > Product

Starting a new software company has never been easier. Would be entrepreneurs have been treated to the boon of sophisticated, scalable, and easy-to-use infrastructure as a service, e.g. AWS, Snowflake, OpenAI, React, Stripe. The playbooks for customer acquisition, company building and fundraising have been open-sourced by YC and VC thinkbois.

I firmly believe that if you are curious and obsessed, it is possible to learn anything on the internet and starting a software company is no exception.

The second order consequences? Well, the average SaaS company now has more competition. G2 has over 115,000 software companies listed, including 655 CRM and 523 ATS. Much of SaaS is becoming increasingly competitive and dare I say, commoditised. Buyers are overwhelmed and the resulting rise in CAC is well documented.

In some ways, the start-up world is increasingly behaving like the purveyors of commodity goods, relying on government lobbying to maintain market positioning and becoming increasingly dependent on distribution from cloud marketplaces. Veeva is an interesting case in point, a vertical SaaS poster child for the life sciences industry, but they’ve recently been hiring for Government Affairs roles, “responsible for reviewing and analyzing proposed federal legislation and regulations and develop(ing) strategies and messaging to advance Veeva’s mission.”.

So what? Cloud penetration is only half way there and with the massive increase in GPU compute & ML, IOT devices and robotics, huge swaths of physical industries like Bio are now ripe for disruption.

I’d agree, and it’s exciting. BUT, the laws of category creation tend to dictate that >75% of value will accrue to the category leader. As the barriers to new product creation fall, how do you win? Increasingly, the burden of innovation is not solely in the product features, but in the distribution and brand. If every company is using the same GTM playbook, winners will seize the opportunity to differentiate

The Argument for (Owned) Media

As Quentin highlights below, the astute are transitioning away from paid media, be it traditional (TV, print ads) or digital advertising (display ads, PPC, social media ads) and embracing owned media and content marketing.

Before the internet, marketing budgets were spent on adverts, billboards, (junk) mail, radio, and magazines. These tactics are interruptive and annoying. They get in the way. They break the continuity of experience and make brands look desperate. This is all, well, just ugly. On the other hand, media and content enable something far more powerful — building an audience.

Now that content creation is cheap and distribution is free, forward-thinking businesses have been working to build their own audiences. In the early 2010s, this trend was coined ‘content marketing’, because it’s still marketing but for a different purpose. Rather than raising brand awareness, companies use content to create brand affinity. Instead of annoying customers through interruption (like adverts), they can delight them through engagement. Think about it. If Company X releases a new product or feature, do they want customers to be aware of it, or do they want them to be advocates and tell all their friends?

Quentin, CEO of Modo Energy

As content marketing has become ubiquitous having owned media reduces exposure to platform risk (algorithm changes), provides access to first-party data to help lower your costs of market reach and affords the brand more leverage to customise the user experience & build community.

At it’s core owned media is about autonomy and control. Through your digital channels (websites, blogs, and email newsletters) and experiential programs (events, hackathons, conferences), a company aims to build direct relationships with the audience.

In a world where the cost to produce incremental content trends to zero, the ability to create meaningful customer relationships and trust in your brand is crucial. Engendering loyalty and brand advocacy demands valuable content and personalised experiences.

It is perhaps unsurprising that we are starting to see the emergence of artisanal SaaS, Linear is living proof that design, experience and taste matters. How do you convey you are human in the midst of a LinkedIn feed of AI generated and serotine optimised content? Perhaps this is why Sam Altman only tweets in lower case

The human element of video is what makes it defensible, at least for now. While Synthesia and others will improve quickly, there is still an opportunity to produce personalised, human content to capture your audience.

Audio and video. In B2B, video and audio content has lagged written content by a country mile. Why? Cost perceptions, willingness to be on camera are key reasons of course, but I also believe companies have shied away from video because it feels ‘risky’. Video and audio content encapsulates a time element to the media, which makes it raw and honest (unless you bring in Steven Spielberg of course). It shows people and companies for who they really are — from body language to natural pauses in conversation, it’s much more personal.

Quentin, CEO of Modo Energy

And Modo is by no means alone in this pursuit. Several companies are pursuing iterations of owned and rented media. Maybe there is something here …

• Profitwell (now part of Paddle) most notably built out their Recur media arm and pioneered many of the tactics now in use by companies like Modo. They even filmed a documentary of their acquisition.
• Next-gen CRO Vial has launched the First In Human podcast and various video series
• SupportLogic has launched the SXLive Library for video series and live events
• Recursion via Valence Labs initially started substack updating the bio community on the latest papers at the intersection of AI and drug discovery and have since launched Portal a platform to house community discussion on the research bleeding edge
• Sales tool Lavender has launched their media arm LavenderLand
• Skoon Energy have aggregated a 40k+ subscriber base of installers with their Heat Geek Youtube channel
• Shopify launched its own media studio, producing Own the Room on Disney+
• Intercom have published 260+ podcasts, with 75K+ listeners/month
• Mailchimp launched Mailchimp Presents
• Slidebean have published 250+ videos with 160K visits/month
• Salesforce announced Salesforce+
• Clio online training academy
• HubSpot acquired the Hustle
• Pendo acquired Mind the Product
• Outreach acquired Sales Hacker
• AudiencePlus has launched a SaaS to help you launch owned media (!)

Verticalised Media for Verticalised Software

Media companies are fantastic at driving traffic, but suck at monetisation. The influencer world has shown there are alternative methods to capture value from your audience, predominately focusing on consumer goods, e.g. Logan Paul & Prime, Mr Beast & Feastables, Kim Kardashian & Skims.

B2B SaaS may be the best business model ever created and I believe we are at the start of a new generation of companies building owned audiences and capturing the value with their software.

For verticalised software, this strategy makes even more sense. For these companies, there may only be a few thousand customers in their ICP. A spray & pray approach to paid marketing is an inefficient use of capital and spamming risks burning limited leads. Sending emails more than once or twice (at a push) per week will find you firmly in my blocked folder. I am not alone, as the max average touch points per lead per week (TPPLPW?) from inbound has reduced from 3.1 to 1.4.

Bloomberg, the canonical media x software hybrid, has been sitting on the answers for a while. Their owned media strategy results in roughly 5 TPPLPW. By deliberately embedding Bloomberg research and product analytics in much of their content, customers and prospects constantly have the brand front of mind.

This might sound quaint, but if the objective is to win the category and control the conversation, it is important to first “win the hearts and minds” of the community. As Profitwell founder Patrick Campbell has highlighted, much can be learned in marketing from the psychology of insurgencies.

Thought of another way, owned media is maximising a company’s surface area to get lucky.

These concepts are not new. Solugen, a disruptive US synbio company, provide a case study in the benefits of maximising touch points. Early in the company’s history they figured out where one of the executives at a key buyer lived. Tracing out his drive to work they bought every single billboard on the way to and from their office. Needless to say, he soon reached out.

Building on the playbooks of Bloomberg and Profitwell, Modo aim to generate 3+ TPPLPW and have created a brand that is synonymous with battery energy storage. To date, 90% of the ICPs in the UK are either using a Modo product or regularly consume their content. Modo are building for an industry forecast to grow at a 23% CAGR to 2030, and so as new customer logo’s emerge Modo is perfectly positioned as a trusted reference point.

This strategy works particularly well in complicated industries undergoing disruption or change. In Modo’s case, we’re facing a generational transition of our energy systems from centralised power stations running on fossil fuels to a more decentralised grid system underpinned by renewable energy assets and distributed energy reserves. The resulting disruption has created an educational void where Modo have stepped in with their Energy Academy, offering a series of videos and deep dives which make understanding topics like the balancing mechanism, capacity markets and generation stack digestible. For many companies in the energy markets, Modo’s content has become the hub to help ramp new recruits or upskill existing team members.

An older example is Illumina, whose tools and platforms have become synonymous with DNA sequencing. Their platform has supported the emergence of whole new fields of genomic research & drug development and through their Science and Education hub they provide content, tutorials and explainers to support the industry.

Undervalued Talent & Cultural Inertia

I sat down with Modo’s Content Lead, Neil Weaver, to get the inside scoop on building an owned media engine.

Neil’s background is worth noting, prior to Modo he was a special needs teacher in Birmingham. While he didn’t have marketing experience, he did know how to convey information in an easily digestible manner, was curious to learn and work hard. Talent can come from surprising places.

• Start small and learn the basics. The first videos and podcasts you produce are going to be awful. Start by first identifying your customers pain points, understanding the persona’s you wish to address and where your audience lives. Modo’s Energy Academy was born from industry grumbles around educating new employees on the energy transition.
• Hire highly organised, fast-learning generalists to build the new media arm of the company. Give them a budget and space to self-educate on how to script, produce, shoot, edit and promote content. By learning from the ground up, they will bring the rest of the team along with them, and create a culture of story telling. Every teenager wants to be a Youtuber, there is lots of exceptional, undervalued talent out there.
• Build production capability in-house from scratch — own equipment, studio, and experience. It is tempting to outsource, but apps like Riverside have made this much easier.
• Be deliberate. Identify the owned media channels you plan to leverage, such as self-hosted podcasts, videos, your website and email lists. Establish content creation guidelines, editorial calendars, and approval processes to ensure consistency
• Focus on zero-click content, be anti-click bait. 80% of people don’t watch a video beyond the first 70 seconds. This is not about cringe memes or self-serving content. You must provide immediate, actionable insights benefitting your audiences daily lives. You should aim to produce content your audience would enjoy watching on a Saturday.
• Be a champion of the whole industry, your brand should be a positive agent. Collaborate with industry influencers & thought leaders. Start by interviewing your customers, feature their content on your blog rather than just your own. You will benefit from their brand and the validation.

One of Modo’s key moats is its culture. They hire with their media strategy in mind, considering if this candidate could also be in front of the camera. Building a media org requires personality and so is not without risk. Modo aim to be smart, but approachable. Data, insights and benchmarks are at their core.

The 90–9–1 rule tells us that 90% of people on social media do not share any content. There is an immense cultural inertia to overcome for any organisation to aggressively execute against a modern media strategy. Would you really want to put a talking head video on LinkedIn for all your friends to see?

The energy sector is quite an antiquated industry, Modo’s culture is unique and disruptive. This plays to their advantage, established brands want to align themselves to the younger innovator and are willing to provide content on blogs and podcasts. In turn, Modo benefits from the validation of being associated with these more established brands.

For instance, there have been numerous prospects who initially wouldn’t have been interested in taking a sales call, but are more than willing to spend an hour chatting on Modo’s podcast. Once you have the relationships, the opportunity for future partnerships present themselves.

A key factor to executing on this playbook is c-suite buy in, the founders must be 100% aligned with the strategy. It can be challenging to prove the tangible value of owned media on key business outcomes like brand awareness and revenue generation. It can be tempting to focus on vanity metrics like # views, shares etc. but in the world of verticalised media 1 view from a buyer persona is worth 1,000x anything else.

The benefits of owned media can also extend to later in the funnel, by focusing some audience building on the existing pipeline we can help improve conversion and deal velocity. Exclusive content and merch available only to paid subscribers can be an interesting lever to pull here. Likewise, if you build an audience within your existing customer base this can act as a driver for expansion & retention.

However, at risk of undermining my entire argument, the realities of building owned media requires a reliance on gut decision. Founders must be comfortable knowing that they won’t be able to measure ROI with a high degree of granularity. It will not suit every business and every vertical, but for those that can execute effectively on this motion I believe they will gain distribution advantage that could just make the difference in the crowded world of SaaS.