Software product marketers are typically charged with creating demos for potential customers. These allow people interested in the product to see how the functionality in the application will whet the appetite of the buyer.
Arcade, a startup started by two former Atlassian employees, decided to attack this problem with a simple Chrome extension to make quick demos that people can use in different settings.
Today, the company announced that the product, which has been in private beta for the past 8 months, is now available to the public. The startup has announced that it has received $7.5 million in total seed investment.
Arcade founder and CEO Caroline Clark says the product is about empowering people to quickly create interactive displays. “We allow product marketers or anyone in marketing to build interactive product clips that they can embed on websites, social media and blog posts,” she says.
“The whole goal of our product is to allow customers to try before they buy, to understand what the product can do before they invest in a credit card, before they deploy their own information,” she added. Go through the entire application process.
In case you’re wondering that’s what the free trial is for, she has this to say about getting potential customers interested even before they get to that point. “There are many different parts of the journey before they get to the free trial…and our main goal is that if they’re in a social media campaign or even a blog post outside of the website property, they can see it. In that context, how does the product work, Clark explained.
Image Credits: Play center
Since entering private beta earlier this year, the company reports that more than 1,000 companies have used the product and delivered 4,000 demos. Today they have eight employees, but Clark reports they are hiring specifically in customer success and sales.
As a female founder, she’s seen how much investment dollars flow to women, and she says it’s probably no coincidence that many of her early investors were women. As she builds her own employee base, she is looking to find diverse talent to fill as many roles as possible. One way to do this, she says, is to control what you can control in the process.
“What I do is look at my reach. I’m very focused on underrepresented groups, so you can control the reach, but you can’t control the inflow, so we try to compensate for that. [with direct outreach],” she said.
The $7.5 million in seed funding was raised in two tranches. The company raised $2.5 million in January from Upfront Ventures, Sequoia and several industry angels, led by CEO Mathilde Collin and Shippo CEO Laura Behrens Wu.
The second piece, a $5 million investment, was led by Joan Chen at Foundation Ventures, along with several other industry angels. Chen will join Arcade’s board under the deal.
