Increasing outreach volume 3X by switching to Close

For some companies, finding the right combination of CRM and sales tools takes years of trial and error, messy migrations, and disgruntled sales reps. But that’s not always the case.

For Newchip Accelerator, the switch from HubSpot to Close for their outreach team was quick, painless––and, most importantly––impactful.

As an online startup accelerator, Newchip guides startup companies raising anywhere from small preseed to series A.

Their accelerator program is industry agnostic, but primarily targets startups who already have a little traction: money raised from institutional investors or personal connections, those who have already taken grant money, or startups who are already producing revenue.

Keagan Wernicke, Newchip’s Chief Marketing Officer, noticed an early 2021 drag in his team’s prospecting volume. He knew his team was feeling constrained by the tools and workflow inside of HubSpot, and it was time for a change.

A strategic move for pricing and prospecting

“HubSpot is a great CRM, and we still use it for our Venture Associates,” Keagan says. “But it’s not the best solution for SDRs or people in outreach roles, like our Venture Analysts.”

The outreach team’s workflow was suffering at the hands of HubSpot’s contact-based pricing and lack of calling power:

We couldn’t afford to add all of our top-of-the-funnel leads in with contact-based pricing. And as we audited our number of dials, I decided HubSpot was not the right solution. We needed something better suited for volume of calls and email sequences. By making a few workflow changes and moving to a Close Professional license for this team, we increased our output 3x.

‍Keagan Wernicke

“I had used Close in previous roles before,” Keagan says, “As the leader of our deal flow, it was a no-brainer for me. I knew it was a perfect solution for what we needed with our outbound analyst team.”

The Close dialer and sequences have become pivotal for the Newchip Venture Analysts, and a simple sum-up from this team says it all:

“Close vs. HubSpot for this type of work is a night and day difference.”

Ambitious growth goals for 2022

Over the next year, Newchip Accelerator plans to scale its program aggressively––and heavy prospecting will need to fuel this growth. But it’s a challenge Keagan feels his team is well-equipped to tackle.

We’re the world’s largest remote accelerator, and each month, we take in as many startups as Y Combinator and TechStars take in a year. We have a lot of conversations with potential applicants to make this happen, and we’ll have to expand our Operations team to handle this demand. We’re going to double our team in size––and that wouldn’t be possible without Close.