Elliot Kolt

Growth Marketing Leader. Full Stack Marketer. Coffee Connoisseur ☕

Executive Summary

A seasoned growth marketing leader, Elliot has a robust background in early-stage B2B SaaS, focusing on strategy and execution in high-growth startup environments. With expertise spanning full-stack online marketing, Elliot has managed acquisition budgets exceeding $10 million annually and is proficient in a comprehensive suite of marketing disciplines, including technical SEO, paid search, social and video ads, affiliate management, and conversion rate optimization. Elliot has held professional certifications for Google Adwords, Adwords Video Advertising, Digital Sales, Mobile Site Development, Optimizely, Agile, Google Analytics, and Hubspot. He also loves a flavorful and intense cup of coffee, and has a cultivated a collection of espresso, french press, pour-over, and cold-brew machinery including several Oji towers imported from Japan to satiate his appetite for a delicious brew.

Key Achievements

  • Revenue Growth: Led ARR growth @ Prodigy from approximately $700K to over $3.3MM, leveraging minimal marketing budgets and aggressive outbound sales strategies to achieve nearly 5x revenue growth with excellent CAC/LTV metrics. Helped exceed 100% YoY revenue growth @ Base CRM. Reversed a 7 quarter decline @ Clarizen, culminating in 3 consequtive quarters exceeding revenue targets, growing ARR from $28MM to $42MM. 
  • Team Leadership: Recruited and managed a team of four in-house professionals and various outsourced contractors at Prodigy. Recruited and managed a team of 3 in-house marketing professionals at The/Studio, while simultaneously overseeing an in-house 60 person call center sales team in the Phillipines. Additionally, oversaw a team of five SDRs and one EMEA marketer at Clarizen, and supported the North America sales team. Provided coaching for a 6 person SDR team at Huddle.
  • Marketing Strategy: Transitioned from event and outbound email focused strategies to a digital content, PR, and AR-centric approach during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in significant pipeline and revenue growth at Prodigy. Implemented Account-Based Marketing (ABM) programs at Clarizen, Prodigy, and others using tools including Terminus, Demandbase, Marketo, Hubspot, Mutiny, and Salesforce.
  • SEO & Social Presence: Increased SEO visibility tenfold and developed an engaged social community at Prodigy, generating over $5M pipeline and $300K ARR quarterly. At Base CRM, optimized keyword targeting, fixed critical crawl issues, and eliminated redundant SEO pages, resulting in greater than 200% YoY non-brand organic traffic growth, over 112% YoY organic search qualified pipeline growth, and over 105% organic search channel revenue growth. At Huddle, led a complex website redesign and migration project, optimizing the URL structure, and implementing SSL, optimized meta tags and SEO elements sitewide, plus developing conversion focused responsive design, leading to regaining and surpassing original domain authority within six weeks while increaing organic traffic increase by 17% and improving conversion rates by 32% in this timeframe. At eDriving, grew social following by 7x earning over 110k active Facebook followers for DriversEd.com, plus an additional 16k followers for portfolio brand SpeedingTicket.com, and drove DriversEd.com properties to be ranked in the top 10% of all social media presences by engagement level by Klout. 
  • PR Impact: Enhanced PR visibility at Prodigy, contributing to more than $100K in direct response ARR quarterly, while significantly boosting CEO recognition and providing lift to inbound and outbound channels. Developed strategic positioning documentation and reports at Clarizen and engaged industry analysts at Gartner to capture a favorable "Visionary" magic quadrant position.
  • Product Strategy: Spearheaded a product strategy shift towards financial technology / lending @ Prodigy, resulting in significant business development milestones and ultimately positioning the company for a strategic acquisition by Upstart. 
  • Demand Generation: Reversed a seven-quarter decline at Clarizen, driving a 24% average QoQ SQL growth and achieving profitability with three consecutive quarters exceeding targets for opportunities and revenue. Increased inbound MQLs by 125% YoY at Base CRM while reducing CPL by 9%, and increased spend to qualified pipeline rate 4x, leading to 138% YoY growth in revenue from demand gen channels. Utilized an events & outbound email focused strategy with aggressive SDR outreach to drive significant pipeline and revenue quickly at Prodigy, and shifted rapidly to a digital content, PR, and AR centric strategy amidst the Coronavirus pandemic to achieve continued success and growth in the face of market turbulence. Increased monthly qualified trial leads from 1400 to more than 2400 in the span of 8 months at Huddle.

Technical Skills

  • Adobe Illustrator / InDesign, CMS (Drupal, WordPress, Sitecore)
  • SQL, JS/jQuery/PHP, HTML/CSS
  • Data Analysis, Web Analytics, Email Marketing, Marketing Automation
  • IIS, Nginx, Git, SFDC & CRM Administration
  • Sandler & Challenger sales systems

Exits

  • Prodigy: Successful $110 million acquisition by Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST). Rebranded as Upstart Auto Retail
  • Clarizen: MBO by K1 investment Management, followed by acquisition by Planview, Inc.
  • Base CRM: Acquired by Zendesk, rebranded as Zendesk Sell
  • eDriving: DriversEd.com acquired by CIP Capital
    • Merged with IDS to form eDriving
    • eDriving e-learning portfolio acquired by Aceable
    • eDriving acquired by Solera

Additional Involvement

  • Alchemist Accelerator Program Member: Class 37
  • Alchemist Accelerator - Mentor

With extensive experience in growth marketing, coupled with technical expertise and strategic acumen, Elliot is a valuable asset in driving significant business growth and navigating competitive markets.