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 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.

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 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.

2b. If they do not qualify

Before rejecting an application for any of the following reasons, ask how to proceed in the #startup-program channel first:

Later stage than a Series B company
Has raised more than $10 million in funding
Currently a paying customer of AssemblyAI

Sometimes we may want to make exceptions for these cases. If we do end up rejecting them, we will forward them to an onboarding engineer to put them on a better-fitting plan.

If they don’t have a working website and/or they are not able to provide a clear STT use case, you can go ahead and reject them without checking the channel first.

3. Wait for confirmation from the customer

Customers will not be enrolled until we receive confirmation that they are ready to begin receiving credits.

4. Add Startup Package to the Customer Contract in Retool

Go to the Retool Billing & Accounts Management App and ensure that the customer has upgraded their account (customer_type should be PAYG). If they haven’t upgraded their account yet, ask them to upgrade their account. There is also a “SUP-Set up Billing” macro.

Once you’ve confirmed they are on the PAYG plan, add the Startup Program Package in Retool using the the “Update Contract Package” widget. Select “Startup Program Package” from the dropdown and submit.

5. 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.

6. Accept the customer in the Startup Program via Salesforce

a. Navigate to customer’s Startup Application in pylon and click on the Salesforce pop-up window in the ticket’s sidebar. This will open their Salesforce page. You may have to search for the customer in Salesforce using their email if their Salesforce account is not linked.

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”.

7. Respond to the customer

Finally, respond to the customer with SUP Post Program Setup macro, to let them know their credits have been granted.

Enrollment Checklist

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

Check if they are upgraded to PAYG
Add Startup Program Package in Retool
Add them to the SUP Management App in Retool
Accept them in Salesforce
Respond to customer with SUP Post Program Setup macro