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Startup Program Playbook

How to Handle Onboarding for Our Startup Program

This playbook will cover how to handle applications for our Startup Program as well as how to onboard customers who qualify for them.

Note: If an applicant fails to qualify for the program, handle them like any other sales opportunity, do some basic discovery, and then surface as a sales lead if applicable.

Program Overview

The specifics of the program are determined by other teams like Marketing, Sales, and CX, but Support handles managing the program and onboarding customers who qualify. Prospects must apply through this page.

When you receive an inquiry for the program, here are the steps you should take:

  1. Verify that the customer meets the eligibility requirements.

  • A Series B company or younger.

  • Has raised less than $10 million in funding.

  • Currently has an operational product or scheduled release within the next 4 months.

  • Currently not a paying customer of AssemblyAI.

  • We also have a preference for not accepting Gmail accounts, but use your judgment on whether the applicant would make a good fit for the program. We have a macro titled “SUP-Gmail” to encourage Gmail applicants to provide a company email.

  1. Inform the company that they have qualified and share the details of the program with the customer.
  • To accept a customer into the Startup Program, respond to their application with the SUP-Acceptance Letter macro found in Pylon.
  • If the customer indicates they are a YC company, respond to their application with the YC-Acceptance Letter macro.

Important There are separate Macros and terms based on the selected model of interest from the customer. To know the model they are interested in, review the right sidebar of the Pylon ticket and scroll to find the “SUP - Models Interested In” section. For example, if it is Streaming, use “SUP-Acceptance Letter Streaming” or “YC-Acceptance Letter Streaming” if it’s a YC company. Additionally, all SUP participants are granted up to 200,000 hours while YC companies are granted up to 500,000.

OR inform the customer that they failed to qualify.

If they do not meet the eligibility requirements, respond with a rejection notice stating why. There are various macros titled “SUP-Ineligible…” in Pylon, or you can write a new response if you cannot find a fitting macro.

  1. Wait for confirmation from the customer whether they want to take advantage of this offer.

If they haven’t upgraded their account yet, ask them to upgrade their account. There is also a “SUP-Set up Billing” macro.

  1. If they confirm enrollment, accept the customer in the Startup Program via Salesforce.

    a. Click on the Salesforce pop-up window in Pylon to open their Salesforce page or search for the customer in Salesforce.

    b. On the customer’s Salesforce page, scroll down to the “Accept into the Startup Program” section and click the edit option for the Type field.

    c. Change the Account Type to “PAYG-Startup Plan”.

  2. Add Customer to Retool SUP Management App In the Retool Startup Program Management App, use the “New SUP Participant” workflow for the appropriate model by clicking “Add Customer”. From there, fill out the company name and usage email. Make edits to the default allowable credits and credit distribution if needed. The allowable credits should match what is stated in the acceptance letter you sent to the customer. This value will differ based on their chosen model and whether or not they are a YC company. Make sure to double-check.

  3. Change the plan from default to the Startup Program Plan (latest edition) In Metronome, change the customer’s plan to “Startup Program Plan”. Choose the latest edition of the Startup Program plan. It could be labeled by month/year or V3. If unsure, ask another Support team member. See here for how to change a customer plan.

Video Demo on Customer Enrollement

Enrollment Checklist

Make sure all of the following are completed when enrolling a customer into the program:

  • Check if they are upgraded to PAYG

  • Accept them in Salesforce

  • Add them to the SUP Management App in Retool

  • Change plan in Metronome

  • Respond to customer with SUP Post Program Setup macro