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Badger Maps
SaaS B2B

Badger Maps is a field sales route planning app that combines maps, route optimization, scheduling, and CRM data to help field sales reps save selling time.

badgermapping.com · Founded 2012 · 55 public sources · Updated 6 days ago

Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 55 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →

How Badger Maps Grew

Route planning and mapping software for field sales teams

How did Badger Maps grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

Badger Maps has grown through several channels, including SEO, video content, podcasting, social media and advertising, direct sales, and word of mouth. Many new customers came through referrals from existing users, and the company emphasized retaining current customers through customer success and multi-channel availability. The company also acquired new customers by directly approaching people in industries and companies it judged to be a good fit.

Channels

24 channels · grouped by how Badger Maps grows

  • Word of mouth

    · 7 mentions · 6 sources
    “But a lot of times then that person's manager is like, oh, how are you doing? How are you getting so much done? What's going on here? What is this thing you're using? Oh, that's really cool. Why can't we buy that for the whole team? ... So now that person's manager buys it for the eight people......”
    high
    Show 6 more quotes
    “a lot of times, then that person's manager is like, Oh, how are you doing? How are you getting so much done?...what is this thing you're using?...So now that person's manager buys it for the eight people, eight other people on his team. And then...they get it for all the regions next. So now you'...”
    high
    “Many of our new customers come to us because they were referred by people they know who are already using our solution. Our current customers are our best salespeople and so we need to invest in retaining them.”
    high
    “Many of our new customers come to us because they were referred by people they know who are already using our solution. Our current customers are our best salespeople and so we need to invest in retaining them. ... We get most of our deals from happy customers telling other field salespeople abou...”
    high
    “Benson has never relied on cold outbound. His acquisition engine runs on a mechanism that most SaaS companies theorize about but rarely engineer deliberately: referral loops amplified by job mobility. “I’ve always observed that our customers come from hearing about us from other customers. And so...”
    high
    “Referrals, not polite praise, are the real signal of PMF.”
    medium
    “Look at who is using your product most, giving most referrals, has the lowest churns and best LTV, etc Use current customer data (demographic/psychographic, usage stats) to create a profile of hobbies, interests, influencers, etc that will help your marketing messaging Identify “High Value” custo...”
    medium

  • Direct sales

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “Basically, I was a professional salesperson. So I was bringing all these tools to bear that most startups didn’t have because most startups don’t have a professional salesperson on staff from day one. ... before we even had the thing built, I was interacting with hundreds of prospects. Ultimately...”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “And then the other way, I presume you're also doing this is through outbound sales, where you can kind of go and try to land a, you know, a business enterprise customer, and get them to buy x number of seats. So you have sort of a bottom up and a top down approach to doing this. And both have wor...”
    medium
    “And then the other way, I presume you're also doing this is through outbound sales where you can kind of go and try to land a business enterprise customer and get them to buy X number of seats. So you have sort of a bottom up and a top down approach to doing this. Steve Benson (19:04.990) And bot...”
    high
    “We acquire other new customers by directly approaching people in industries and companies that we think are a good fit.”
    high
    “Badger Maps runs 5 full-time salespeople and a customer success and deployment team. A support team in the Philippines handles single-seat inbound deals, while the core team focuses on multi-seat and longer sales-cycle opportunities.”
    high

  • SEO

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “We try to keep the cost of acquisition down there. We try to do a lot with like SEO and help them just find us on the Internet and stuff.”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “we try to keep the cost of acquisition down there, we try to do a lot with like SEO and help them just find us on the internet and stuff.”
    high
    “Things like SEO or SEM skills, some different marketing things that are very specialized, but not a full-time employee. That's a great place.”
    medium
    “Twelve years later, the company sits at $8M ARR with no paid outbound acquisition, no venture funding dependency, and a product-led growth engine powered almost entirely by word-of-mouth and an SEO moat competitors cannot close.”
    medium

  • Podcasting

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “My podcast is specifically for outside salespeople. I bring sales experts on and have them talk about their area of expertise but through the lens of “this is for field salespeople”, so talk about the thing you’re an expert in for that audience. And so that’s been a really great way for me to kin...”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “I’ve been a sales podcast junkie for years and have been a guest on dozens of them. I host the Outside Sales Talk podcast (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/outside-sales-talk/id1378407033?mt=2) where my listeners get actionable tactics and tricks from well-known sales experts to become more su...”
    high
    “Steve Benson launched the Outside Sales Talk podcast specifically targeting field and outside salespeople, the exact ideal customer profile for Badger Maps. Rather than chasing download volume, the goal was to create a highly relevant resource for potential buyers, turning listeners into qualifie...”
    high
    “So, what is this strategy? Podcasting. But not in the way you think. Highlights include: Getting Into Podcasts in the First Place (03:11), Having More than One Podcast (07:19), Working out the Model to Get Revenue from Podcasts (12:01), Benefits and Advantages of Having a Podcast (18:08), and more…”
    medium

  • Founder-led sales

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “His founder-led sales approach grew it to 6,000 customers and a 50-person team. In this episode, Steve explains how a $9 individual seat becomes a six-figure enterprise deal through land-and-expand, why he talked to 50+ prospects before building anything...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “Founder always has to be first sales rep! 2012”
    high
    “On the Predictable Revenue Podcast, host Collin Stewart spoke with Arvind Ramasamy, founder of StaffAgent.AI, about what actually drives traction: listening to customers, iterating fast, and doing the hard work of founder-led sales.”
    medium

  • Organic social media

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “Many of them started to market their product from the day they started building their product. If you start marketing your product after you've launched, then you're probably too late. And marketing doesn't necessarily mean content marketing or running paid advertising. It simply means getting th...”
    medium
    Show 2 more quotes
    “We also make sure to maintain our presence on the internet, social media, and also by advertising.”
    medium
    “Benson generated a $20,000+ deal at IBM by being in a lunchroom at a 20,000-person company and having a casual conversation with a prospect who didn’t know the product existed. No campaign, no sequence, no SDR — just physical presence creating incidental discovery.”
    medium

  • Referrals

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “We don't have to have a huge podcast. You have to have a podcast that is very specifically valuable in some way to a very specific group of people, your ideal customer profile. And some people have larger TAMs than others, and so it can be more broadly applicable. But if 300 people are listening ...”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “One salesperson signs up at $9 a month. Their manager notices the results and buys it for the team. The regional VP rolls it out nationally. That pattern turned individual seats into six-figure annual contracts with Fortune 500 companies.”
    medium
    “Referrals, not polite praise, are the real signal of PMF.”
    medium

  • Advertising on social media

    · 2 mentions
    “We also make sure to maintain our presence on the internet, social media, and also by advertising.”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “We acquire other new customers by directly approaching people in industries and companies that we think are a good fit. We also make sure to maintain our presence on the internet, social media, and also by advertising.”
    medium

  • LinkedIn

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “you can...go to LinkedIn and figure out, oh, well, this is the person at that company who is doing that exact thing...you can reach out to them directly through LinkedIn”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Use LinkedIn to build a target list of 100 ideal companies before any founder-led sales outreach: Steve recommends identifying the exact title, industry, and company size of your perfect customer, then finding mutual connections for warm introductions.”
    medium

  • Outbound

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “So you can get introductions, these people, you can reach out to them directly through LinkedIn, you can figure out their email and email them directly, you can just call them directly, you can call the company and, and, and ask for them, right.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “You can get introductions to these people. You can reach out to them directly through LinkedIn. You can figure out their email and email them directly. You can just call them Directly, you can call the company and ask for them.”
    high

  • Viral growth

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “We just updated it from, like, a iPhone. I don't know what it was. It was like a nine or something or an eight. I I don't know what it was. It was really old, and now it's now it's, like, the 14 to the 15. So that just happened last week.Nathan Latka11:49That's the big update.Steve Benson11:50>> ...”
    medium
    Show 1 more quote
    “Highlights include: Identifying the Problem and Validation (00:42), Finding Product-Market Fit (10:20), The Importance of Product Launches (12:38), Harnessing Virality and Word of Mouth (17:47), and more.”
    medium

  • Enterprise sales

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “So, we were able to prosecute big enterprise sales deals early on, I remember. We had a big deal in the beginning of 2014 for just over $300,000 and we only had four people at the company and one of them was me and I wasn’t paying myself. $300,000 goes a long way.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Badger Maps grew its largest deals by starting small within a single team or division and expanding organically as results proved out. A deal that began with 10 seats grew to 100, then 200, and was on track to reach 1,000 seats across an entire organization. This land-and-expand motion reduced th...”
    medium

  • Personal network

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “Nik's founder-led sales approach started at a dinner party, where a woman introduced him to her company's enablement team. They loved the prototype, asked where to sign, and Nik realized he didn't even have a purchase order or legal terms.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Validating Within your Network (03:53)”
    medium

  • Conferences

    · 1 mention
    “Highlights include: Conferences as a Lead Generation Channel (02:07)...”
    medium

  • Cold Calling

    · 1 mention
    “Highlights include: Referral, Referral, Referral (06:30), Cold Calling When the Math is Easy (15:50), Self Service for Cost Reduction and Customer Engagement (21:00), The Moment You Realize You Might Have Something Good (23:15), and more…”
    medium

  • Cold outreach

    · 1 mention
    “Their business, built on cold outbound, worked at first. But behind the early wins was a model that couldn’t hold.”
    medium

  • Virtual Event

    · 1 mention
    “So there are other types of people, types of end users that use our product and so we have kind of ramped up our sales into those types of people but mostly we’re just focusing on the types of sales reps that are still in business.”
    medium

  • Partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “Badger Maps integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, Zoho, and other CRMs, and lists on their app exchanges. Salesforce AppExchange is the top source of inbound leads because Salesforce buyers signal willingness to spend on add-on tools for their field teams.”
    high

  • Original research reports

    · 1 mention
    “Steve talked to 50+ prospects before the product was built, asking them to describe their problems rather than pitching a solution. He asked a critical question after each conversation: 'Would you buy this?' Those who said no revealed the real objections. When the product launched, Steve reached ...”
    high

  • Product Demo Video

    · 1 mention
    “And you don't have to look past the the the GIF you built, the animated GIF in your website header. Think it's I look at a lot of product demos. It's the most one of the most powerful I've seen because literally in a five second GIF, you understand exactly what Badger Maps does...Does it this mus...”
    medium

  • Press

    · 1 mention
    “I am trying to do more PR stuff and get the word out and so I’m working pretty closely with our marketing and PR team. Just trying to drive awareness of the product because in order to grow and get back to where we were and meet our expenses, we’ve got to bring in some new revenue. So I’m trying ...”
    high

  • Webinars

    · 1 mention
    “Webinars are still big and anytime that I can speak to a group of people, I take the opportunity. I like to speak to groups of people and I talk a lot about sales and how to run a sales team, especially how to run a sales team in a time of economic crisis, that’s a big topic for me that I have a ...”
    high

  • Product Hunt

    · 1 mention
    “Then one day someone posted Polly on Product Hunt and they went viral overnight. They were getting thousands of new signups every month and struggling to keep the servers running.”
    medium

  • Video content

    · 1 mention
    “Youtube - Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwBoC5KcHIU%26list=PLYAFWkWnQLHn3Zeow6iHaDE75nJ9KyKNk) is the link to some more videos on YouTube that I made for outside salespeople.”
    high

How 3,289 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — Badger Maps’s highlighted.
  • Social media
    64% ◀
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    64% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    58% ◀
  • Email
    47%
  • Community
    37% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    35% ◀
  • Partnerships
    32% ◀
  • Events
    24% ◀
  • Paid ads
    23%
  • Outbound/Sales
    19% ◀
  • Press/PR
    17% ◀
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    12%
  • Podcasting
    4% ◀
  • Influencer partnerships
    3%
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