Why Tropic Waited Three Years to Hire Their First Demand Gen Marketer
Most B2B startups rush to build demand gen machines. Tropic did the opposite. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, founder David Campbell revealed why his company chose to focus exclusively on brand building for their first three years – and how this unconventional approach drove their growth.
The Unconventional Structure
For a Series B company that’s tripled revenue in recent years, Tropic’s marketing team looks nothing like you’d expect. “How big is it today? I think a six person marketing team,” David shares. “Just a couple of weeks ago, though, it was only a three person marketing team. A company of our size and stage should arguably have a ten person marketing team.”
Even more surprising: “We just hired we’re three years in Series B company… and you would expect that we’d be investing in demandgen at some point on that journey. We just hired the first person for that.”
All-In on Brand
Instead of building traditional demand generation channels, Tropic went all-in on brand building. “Everything that marketing did before that was brand,” Campbell explains. “It was PR strategy, which were able to cultivate organically to get some placements. It was me writing a bunch of crazy s*** on LinkedIn all the time and building brand that way, which I think is actually a better alternative to paying for PR nowadays.”
The Growth Engine Without Demand Gen
How does a company scale without traditional demand generation? For Tropic, it came down to two channels: “We really invested heavy on the brand side, and all of our demand either came inbound through word of mouth and because of the branding stuff or was through our SDR team.”
This approach might seem risky, but it aligned with their larger strategy. “Whether you realize it consciously or not, the power of the right brand influences CSAT, influences sales, influences employee engagement. It really has a profound impact if you’re willing to embrace it.”
Breaking the B2B Marketing Playbook
Tropic’s approach to marketing reflects their larger philosophy about B2B software. “I really do believe that on the brand side, the companies that win that are doing a really good job with that are the companies that fully embrace the idea of a consumer look and feel for their enterprise B2B SaaS brand.”
This extended to their visual identity and messaging. “We want to disrupt procurement. What’s like the least procurement sounding thing we can think of?” David recalls. This led them to choose Tropic as their name, deliberately contrasting with traditional enterprise software naming conventions: “I didn’t want a company that ends in Ly or ify. I didn’t want a brand that sounds enterprise.”
The Millennial Factor
Understanding their audience was crucial to this strategy. “Every CFO literally 100% of the CFOs that I’ve sold to at Tropic are millennials,” Campbell notes. “And this generation, millennials in particular, like me, like these CFOs that I work with, are extremely skeptical of what came before.”
This insight shaped their entire marketing approach. Rather than trying to look “enterprise,” they built a brand that reflected their actual buyers – millennials who’ve “grown up with iPhones” and expect consumer-grade experiences.
Looking Forward
Campbell believes this shift toward brand-first B2B marketing is just beginning. “I think that we’re going to see a lot more of that as younger and younger people come into the workplace and some of these more legacy players age out.”
For B2B founders, Tropic’s experience offers an intriguing alternative to the standard marketing playbook. Rather than rushing to build demand gen infrastructure, perhaps the better strategy is to invest deeply in brand building and authentic market presence. In a world where trust is increasingly scarce and differentiation increasingly difficult, sometimes the best demand gen strategy is not having one at all.