Calendly’s CAC

Approximately seventy percent of Calendly’s new users come from using a Calendly link. That’s a crazy CAC.

But that’s not all.

Customer acquisition cost requires converting customers which requires building something that offers progress (the JTBD).

At first, Calendly’s users were broad. “What that means,” said Annie Pearl “is that product managers had a really hard time prioritizing.”

What the heck to build?

“We’ve made a clear distinction that while a lot of the feature work – that we’ll do to support our target personas of sales teams, customer success teams, and recruiting teams – will impact folks who are not in those personas. Those are the core ICPs that we’re going after. And so, historically, that would’ve always been a sort of trade-off decision and a question. And now I think we have a lot of rigor around our target market and the persona we’re going after. And so, teams can use that to prioritize and deliver better value for those users.”

A lot of people join, but the product may not be built for them.

Calendly’s actions represent Todd Rose’s three features from The End of Average.

We are jagged creatures. ‘Good’ executives are a collection of leadership, insight, and strategy skills. The average ‘good’ is a collection of jagged parts.

We are contextual creatures. We aren’t ‘jerks’, it’s just when we are driving. We aren’t ‘generous’, it’s just while tipping a server.

We are path dependent. The places we’ve been, affect the places we will go.

If a business serves “the average” they won’t find the jagged, contextual, or path-dependent parts that really matter. Calendly’s decision to build for sales teams, customer success teams, and recruiting teams show how their process embraces Rose’s observations.