Granola accelerates enterprise sales and saves 15 hours every month with Verbatim

Challenge

Turning organic buzz into enterprise credibility

Thanks to its intuitive AI Notepad and early adoption in VC circles in 2024, Granola had racked up enough word-of-mouth buzz to multiply its growth in the first year.

As the company’s ICP quickly expanded from agile startups to global enterprises, the first GTM hire, Shreman Shrestha, realized buzz alone wouldn’t be enough to maintain the momentum. “Our sales team has great answers to enterprise buyers’ biggest questions,” he explains. “But what helps even the most sceptical buyers are testimonials from other companies like them or in heavily regulated industries..”

While Granola already had a healthy supply of success stories from logos like Brex and Vanta to tap into, Shreman understood that, “if you can’t tell the Enterprise story clearly and compellingly, you risk losing the opportunity.”

During the first year of Granola, he and his team already had their hands full running Granola’s high-volume, 100% inbound sales motion, in addition to managing all the other growth initiatives that accompany rapid scale. They couldn’t spare any bandwidth to coordinate with customers and interview them — let alone turn those raw insights into a fully realized social proof engine. Plus, even with the right resources, writing case studies takes special expertise that Granola didn’t have time to hone in-house.

It was time to find a content specialist. One willing to own not just the writing but the end-to-end case study lifecycle. When multiple trusted voices in Shreman’s network pointed him to Verbatim, he knew he’d found the ideal partner to help Granola stand up this mission-critical content function.

"Launching a social proof function would require a dedicated full-time contractor or expertise we couldn’t spare in-house as we rapidly scale. We heard that Verbatim had really mastered that for other companies, so partnering with them was a no-brainer." 

Solution

Building trust on autopilot with Verbatim’s social proof engine

After aligning with Shreman on strategy and brand voice, Verbatim quickly started taking the wheel on every case study. The team reaches out to customers with session prep materials and facilitates thoughtful interviews that ask all the right questions. “Verbatim knew exactly how to show up in front of some of our biggest and most important logos,” Shreman says.

Once an asset is drafted, the Verbatim team manages internal review and customer signoff. For every piece, they go out of their way to wrangle the photos, logos, and last-minute legal checks needed for a timely launch. And because Verbatim’s drafts usually only need a light pass, it takes Shreman and his team minimal effort to arrive at a published case study that both Granola and its customers are excited to put their names on.

The results are stories that speak directly to enterprise buyers’ most urgent concerns, solidifying trust on every level. They cover everything from careful descriptions of Granola’s data security and compliance controls to sweeping accounts of the organization-wide time savings and collaboration gains the product has unlocked. “The team excels at showing, not telling,” Shreman shares. “Instead of just saying nice things about us, they actually highlight the impact we’ve made on our customers.”

With the whole process running on autopilot, Shreman and his team now rack up validation without stepping away from other crucial growth activities.

Today, compelling success stories featuring Brex, Vanta, and other enterprises live on Granola’s website, building immediate credibility with leads who land there. After all, few things move prospects along faster than reading about a peer succeeding with Granola.

“Verbatim owns the entire case study lifecycle, from scheduling interviews and drafting to securing the customer’s final signoff. We hardly even touch the copy now because they nailed it early on.”

Results

Granola scales its inbound funnel while shipping 4 case studies in under 5 months

By partnering with Verbatim, Granola backed up its organic buzz with an enterprise social proof engine that closes deals faster.

The results?

• 4 high-impact case studies shipped in under 5 months
• 15 hours saved per month

Now that Granola has expanded its product line and won even more enterprise partners, there are only more stories to tell, and he has no doubt the Verbatim team will rise to the challenge.

“The deeper we expand into the enterprise market, the more case studies we’ll need to publish. Verbatim is the natural partner to help us deliver on that necessity.”