Kowalah - Buy Better
You may have noticed I’ve been publishing less on the blog recently, and that has also resulted in fewer newsletter updates over the past month - but it’s for good reason!
Over the last three months I’ve been busy building a new AI-powered product to help buyers, which was launched this weekend.
Kowalah helps buying groups to run great buying processes, to pick the right technology vendors and to reduce the fear of messing up.
You can see a quick demo of how the platform works here, and then I’ll share why there is a need for Kowalah and how the product came to exist.
If your company plans to buy any type of software in 2025 I think you’ll find this valuable.
Buying is hard
Through my work with Go-To-Market teams we consistently talk about buyer enablement - giving your buyers the tools and guidance to help them navigate their buying process.
But I’ve always had a niggle in the back of my mind.
Firstly, when anyone mentions buyer enablement, or if you Google it, you’ll find it is actually sales enablement rebranded.
The reason a specific product or piece of content has been created is actually a technique to help sellers keep their deals on track.
The classic example is the “Mutual Action Plan”, positioned in many cases as a helpful aid to the buyer, but suspiciously ending with the contract signature, not the successful go live of the product - there is very little truly independent content to help a buyer with their buying process.
Secondly - we know from numerous sources of research, not least the recent 6Sense Buyer Experience Report, that buyers travel 70% of the way through their buying process before they engage with vendors.
So if the ‘buyer enablement’ is coming from the vendors what do buyers have access to before they have spoken to any vendors?
G2 and other analysts provide useful domain knowledge - but they don’t help the buyers to run their process.
Thirdly, as I travelled on a ferry to a Greek island this summer I was reading “The Jolt Effect” - the most recent book from Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna - the minds behind The Challenger Sale.
Through analysis of many millions of sales calls they uncovered that the biggest reason buyers stay with the status quo is not because they are happy with the current situation, or that they don’t see the value in changing, but because they fear making a mistake and having that mistake attached to their name.
They have less FOMO and more FOMU as the authors say (Fear of Messing Up!!)
It is easier to say no than it is to say yes - this is a huge waste of time, effort and expense for a buying process that might have lasted over 11 months just to result in a “we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing.”
Introducing Kowalah
These three insights were the catalyst for creating Kowalah:
Most buyer enablement is actually sales enablement
Buyers do 70% of their buying process before they speak to vendors
Buyers are scared of messing up, so its easier to say no
I set out to create a platform that buying groups can use, independent of any vendor, to guide them through their buying process and interactions with vendors.
Kowalah acts as a buying consultant - becoming an integral part of your buying group.
A buying consultant that has experience across every software category
A buying consultant that has all the context of your internal meetings and emails
A buying consultant that has the collective wisdom of every customer buying that category of product
A buying consultant that is always on, happy to answer stupid questions and spend time bringing new members of the buying group up to speed
My goal with Kowalah is to create a tool so useful that you invite it to every one of your internal and vendor meetings.
You feed Kowalah knowledge, so that any member of your buying group can ask:
How did we get to this point?
What haven’t we asked that we should have done?
What should we be doing next?
Guiding you through your buying process, and giving you, and the CFO that will sign off on your project, the confidence to say yes.
My ask to you
I’ve launched Kowalah with the most basic features, so that I can get early feedback from buying teams about the types of questions they really ask, and the documents and templates they really want to see in the platform.
If you, or someone you know in your team is currently planning or running a buying process for any kind of technology I’d love to speak with them and understand how I can develop Kowalah to help them run a great buying process, to pick the right vendor and to remove their fear of messing up.
You can forward this email to them or direct them to www.kowalah.com - reach out to me at charlie@kowalah.com or charlie@revopscharlie.com or on LinkedIn/X.
I look forward to seeing how the product develops!
