Why building inside your competitor is a better strategy | Pieter Boon @ImpactPilotv

saas.unbound is a podcast for and about founders who are working on scaling inspiring products that people love, brought to you by https://saas.group/ , a serial acquirer of B2B SaaS companies. In episode #14 of season 6, Anna Nadeina talks with Pieter Boon, co-founder of ImpactPilot, a Customer Success (CS) platform designed specifically as an add-on for HubSpot. Pieter spent his career in post-sale roles — from Google's ads team to a SaaS startup he helped sell to a unicorn. Now he's building Impact Pilot, a customer success tool that lives inside HubSpot, not next to it. Three months after launch, HubSpot announced a competing feature. Here's what happened next. In this episode: → Why standalone CS platforms create "ghost towns" of stale data → The difference between customer support and customer success (and why it matters for retention) → The classic first-hire mistake that sets CS teams up to fail → How to use AI in customer success without damaging real customer relationships → Why Pieter raised only $500K — and what he used it for → The one tactic that keeps customers renewing: celebrate their wins with them This episode is for B2B SaaS founders and revenue leaders thinking seriously about post-sale growth, churn, and when (and how) to build a CS function. ----------- Episode's Chapters ----------- 0:00 — Introduction & Welcome 0:34 — Pieter's Background: From Google to SaaS Startup Founder 2:04 — Customer Support vs. Customer Success Explained 3:11 — Do All SaaS Companies Need a CS Team? 5:05 — Why Impact Pilot is Built Inside HubSpot (Not Standalone) 10:09 — Why HubSpot Over Salesforce? Narrowing the ICP 12:21 — Bootstrapping to Angel Round: The Fundraising Mindset Shift 15:04 — How to Start Customer Success as a SaaS Founder 19:07 — Using AI in Customer Success: Use Cases & Guardrails 31:02 — What "Being Active on LinkedIn" Actually Means 34:42 — Building Your First CS Team the Right Way 39:51 — Biggest Win, Biggest Challenge & One Founder Hack Pieter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieter-boon/ ImpactPilot - https://impactpilot.io/ Subscribe to our channel to be the first to see the interviews that we publish - https://www.youtube.com/@saas-group Stay up to date: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SaaS_group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/14790796