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How to Steal Customers From Giants 600x Bigger than Your Startup | Pigment, Eléonore Crespo

EO12:42Added Aug 31, 2026

Eléonore Crespo is the co-founder and co-CEO of Pigment, an AI performance management platform that brings a company's finance, supply chain, HR, and sales data into one place so teams can make the best possible decisions. Since the beginning of the journey, Pigment has raised over $400 million, is growing 2x year over year, and counts companies like Figma, Brex, and Anthropic among its customers.

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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Transcript format

  1. Intro

  2. 00:00We compete against legacy player SAP,
  3. 00:03Oracle that are very dusty but that have
  4. 00:05been here for a long time. Some of them
  5. 00:07have been built before I was even born.
  6. 00:09And so since day one [music] we actually
  7. 00:12decided to climb Mount Everest and to
  8. 00:14build a product and a platform that was
  9. 00:16enterprise ready. We live in a world
  10. 00:18where [music]
  11. 00:19decision makers are looking after the
  12. 00:22best decision makers out there. You need
  13. 00:24to have fast forwardlooking companies
  14. 00:26[music] telling we love pigment, we love
  15. 00:29that platform and we will tell the
  16. 00:30entire world that this is true and
  17. 00:32people will follow. So it was not easy
  18. 00:33but today it has an amazing compound
  19. 00:35effect. So sometimes you know taking the
  20. 00:37hard route can bring you to an easier
  21. 00:39route over time and sometimes you know
  22. 00:41you start easy and then it gets hard. So
  23. 00:43you have to pick your battle. I'm Krespo

  24. What is Pigment?

  25. 00:46co-founder and coco of Pigment. Pigment
  26. 00:49is an AI performance management
  27. 00:50platform. We bring data within one
  28. 00:52platform. So you bring your finance
  29. 00:54data, your supply chain data, your HR
  30. 00:56data, your sales data and the goal is
  31. 00:58really to make the best possible
  32. 00:59decision on that data. We've raised over
  33. 01:02$400 million since the beginning of the
  34. 01:04adventure. This year we are growing. We
  35. 01:06are still on a 2x trajectory in terms of
  36. 01:07AR. We were on the same trajectory last
  37. 01:09year.

  38. Even the Most Innovative Companies Got It Wrong

  39. 01:21When you are in Europe, you for sure are
  40. 01:24going to live in a small country. France
  41. 01:26is small. Entrepreneurship in France at
  42. 01:28that moment was clearly not as big as
  43. 01:30what it is today in the world. But still
  44. 01:32you could see and you you started to
  45. 01:34have the first few unicorns that were
  46. 01:36really inspiring and actually my
  47. 01:38co-founder was a very very big
  48. 01:39inspiration for me because you had built
  49. 01:41one of the first French unicorns that
  50. 01:43was very famous at the time I did my
  51. 01:45studies and I did actually at that time
  52. 01:47a minor in entrepreneurship because I
  53. 01:49knew that this career of potentially
  54. 01:52building a company at some point would
  55. 01:54definitely have to be part of my
  56. 01:55journey. I wanted to have a big impact
  57. 01:57on the world and I just needed to find
  58. 01:59the right moment. So Google was my very
  59. 02:02first job and I actually worked for the
  60. 02:05CFO of Google IMIA and the CFO of of
  61. 02:07Alphabet. I was really exposed to
  62. 02:08everything planning at Google, strategic
  63. 02:11planning, strategic decision making. But
  64. 02:13I was pretty naive. I saw that whenever
  65. 02:15they had to make a strategic decision,
  66. 02:17they would have the best possible tools
  67. 02:18internally to do that. You know, Google
  68. 02:20is one of the most innovative company
  69. 02:22out there. So you would imagine they are
  70. 02:23very well equipped. And I was very very
  71. 02:25surprised actually that everything they
  72. 02:28were doing there was made on Google
  73. 02:30spreadsheet pretty much. So they would
  74. 02:32you know really trying to understand
  75. 02:34their business do their revenue forecast
  76. 02:36understand their margin understand their
  77. 02:38budget. Most of it was done on Google
  78. 02:41spreadsheet but Google spreadsheet has
  79. 02:43never been built for that scale has
  80. 02:44never been built for that amount of
  81. 02:45data. When you have to combine data from
  82. 02:47multiple business dozens of countries it
  83. 02:50just doesn't scale that way. So that was
  84. 02:52very surprising to me. I thought this
  85. 02:54problem probably has to be cracked
  86. 02:55because if Google doesn't do it right,
  87. 02:57I'm pretty sure thousands of companies
  88. 02:59out there do it wrong too. After that, I
  89. 03:01joined Index Ventures and I was very
  90. 03:03lucky to be with some of the best
  91. 03:05founders in the world. You could think
  92. 03:07about the founder of Figma, the founder
  93. 03:09of Data Dog, the founder of Revolute in
  94. 03:11Europe. I was working with the most
  95. 03:13fastforward companies out there that
  96. 03:15were equipped with the best technology
  97. 03:17because these founders are the early
  98. 03:19adopter of the technology and yet
  99. 03:21[music]
  100. 03:21that's the topic they were struggling
  101. 03:23for. They were preparing for an IPO.
  102. 03:25They were post IPO. They were trying to
  103. 03:26understand their finance data. They were
  104. 03:28trying to understand how to improve
  105. 03:29their margin, how to optimize their
  106. 03:31quota, their sales territory, their
  107. 03:34revenue, but they were not equipped.
  108. 03:35They were not equipped at all to do
  109. 03:37that. Even with AI, a lot of companies
  110. 03:39will keep using Excel for quite a while.
  111. 03:41Now I do think that Excel has it own
  112. 03:43limit. Excel was created to be a very
  113. 03:45flexible platform that would help you
  114. 03:47build quick models. But what's happening
  115. 03:50obviously at a company of a certain
  116. 03:51scale is that you need to bring together
  117. 03:54the right data, the right people with
  118. 03:56the right governance, the right security
  119. 03:57and the right modeling to really [music]
  120. 03:59help them take these decisions. So
  121. 04:01imagine Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a
  122. 04:04company where you have literally
  123. 04:06hundreds of business units, hundreds of
  124. 04:08countries, thousands of product and all
  125. 04:10of a sudden you have to understand
  126. 04:13what's happening in your business. You
  127. 04:14have to understand your supply chain.
  128. 04:15You have to understand your revenue. You
  129. 04:17understand your margin by product by
  130. 04:19business unit by contract. Can you do
  131. 04:21that in Excel? Does that scale? No. When
  132. 04:24you have to look at billions of rows,
  133. 04:25billions of sale, that is not the
  134. 04:28technology that you want to use. And we
  135. 04:30realized that this problem was real. And
  136. 04:32it was really everywhere and it was a
  137. 04:35massive market to go after and that's
  138. 04:37what we decided to create pigment.

  139. The Hard Path is The Fast Path

  140. 04:41We come in the market. We are in front
  141. 04:43of companies in the likes of SAP, Oracle
  142. 04:46that are very dusty but that have been
  143. 04:47here for a long time. Some of them have
  144. 04:49been built before I was even born. As a
  145. 04:51VC I had seen many many times founders
  146. 04:55that were starting in a category but
  147. 04:57where what they were building was not a
  148. 04:59must-have. It was a nice to have. We
  149. 05:01really wanted to create a platform that
  150. 05:03would become a must-have. We live in a
  151. 05:06world where decision makers are looking
  152. 05:09after the best decision makers out
  153. 05:11there. Today, a lot of people are
  154. 05:13looking at the CEO of Entropic. It's one
  155. 05:15of our customers, the CEO of OpenAI, the
  156. 05:17CEO of these companies to think about,
  157. 05:19you know, the future of their own
  158. 05:20companies because especially in our
  159. 05:22category, as you can imagine, we serve
  160. 05:25CFOs, we serve large finance team. When
  161. 05:28you serve this type of customers [music]
  162. 05:29or when you serve strategic decision
  163. 05:31maker, you need to build trust as early
  164. 05:34as possible. People need to trust you,
  165. 05:36right? If you want people to trust you,
  166. 05:38you need to have fast forwardlooking
  167. 05:40companies telling we love pigment. We
  168. 05:43love that platform and we will tell the
  169. 05:45entire world that this is true and
  170. 05:46people will follow. We wanted to create
  171. 05:48that network effect. So since day one,
  172. 05:51we actually decided to climb Mount
  173. 05:53Everest and to build a product and a
  174. 05:55platform that was enterprise ready. But
  175. 05:57getting their very first customers was
  176. 05:59very hard, very very hard because you
  177. 06:01know we were based in Paris at the time.
  178. 06:03We didn't have a very big US presence
  179. 06:06and we needed to go after these very
  180. 06:08large tech companies here in the valley
  181. 06:10that had never heard of us where we had
  182. 06:12zero brand awareness. One difficult

  183. Why Enterprise Sales is Harder than Founders Think

  184. 06:14moment lot of founders get wrong is how
  185. 06:18difficult it is to sell to large
  186. 06:19companies. You think perhaps that your
  187. 06:22product is enterprise ready. You're
  188. 06:23ready to sell to enterprise. That's not
  189. 06:24the case at all. What we do is quite
  190. 06:26different from a lot of SAS companies
  191. 06:28out there. We compete against legacy
  192. 06:32player that have been here for 15, 20,
  193. 06:3530 years and hence they have built a
  194. 06:38platform end to end that brings a
  195. 06:40variety of features and functionality.
  196. 06:42[music] And in order to be really
  197. 06:43relevant in the world of enterprise
  198. 06:45performance management, business
  199. 06:47planning and to bring and deliver value
  200. 06:49to our customers, we couldn't just ship
  201. 06:51one feature or we couldn't just ship one
  202. 06:53product. We needed to deliver the entire
  203. 06:55platform because the first use case we
  204. 06:58were shipping at the time were already
  205. 07:01embarking dozens hundreds of people on
  206. 07:04the platform to work on a variety of use
  207. 07:07cases. In order to do that and in order
  208. 07:09to bring that value we needed to come
  209. 07:11with a superior platform from all angle.
  210. 07:13We needed to build this incredible what
  211. 07:15we call the elastic canva which is an
  212. 07:17incredible computation engine that
  213. 07:19really helps you model any data on
  214. 07:21pigment. And we need to build the most
  215. 07:24incredible UX for anybody to adopt the
  216. 07:26platform. And in order to do that, we we
  217. 07:29would not be able to ship a product in a
  218. 07:31month. It took us sometimes we started
  219. 07:33end of 19 and the product was truly
  220. 07:35ready in 21. And we actually carefully
  221. 07:37picked our investors on what help they
  222. 07:40could bring us. So could they actually
  223. 07:41open some doors for us? Could they
  224. 07:43really help us also find perhaps some US
  225. 07:46executives that could help us open doors
  226. 07:47for us? And that's really how we managed
  227. 07:50to create this first mode and this first
  228. 07:53advantage of being able to open as many
  229. 07:55doors as possible and to find our very
  230. 07:57first customers because again these
  231. 07:59customers I I think if they didn't have
  232. 08:01VCs backing us and telling them to use
  233. 08:03our product I'm not sure they would have
  234. 08:06been able to really go after that and I
  235. 08:08have amazing stories. Figma is one bra
  236. 08:10is another one where they really were
  237. 08:12the first one to say yes we are going to
  238. 08:14go after the platform. I even remember
  239. 08:16the CFO of Karta at the time that was
  240. 08:19also one of our very first customer that
  241. 08:22immediately wanted to become an angel
  242. 08:23because he saw the potential and that's
  243. 08:25really what made the beginning of the
  244. 08:27adventure. So it was not easy but today
  245. 08:28it has an amazing compound effect. So
  246. 08:30sometimes you know taking the hard route
  247. 08:32can bring you to an easier route over
  248. 08:34time and sometimes you know you start
  249. 08:36easy and then it gets hard. So you have
  250. 08:38to pick your battle.

  251. Your Team is the Deck

  252. 08:43Before we launched our product, we had
  253. 08:45raised about 25 million. We didn't do
  254. 08:48like a proper fundraising. Some investor
  255. 08:50went to us and and asked us if they
  256. 08:52could actually put a term sheet out
  257. 08:53there. But I think what they saw goes
  258. 08:56back to trust and credibility. If you
  259. 08:59want to raise pre-launch, you need to
  260. 09:01have a very very strong story around
  261. 09:04what you've done, the team you've put
  262. 09:06together. It all goes back to the team.
  263. 09:07The team is the most tr critical piece
  264. 09:10where investors will spend a lot of time
  265. 09:12looking and digging. When you are not in
  266. 09:14the Gartner magic quadrant, for
  267. 09:15instance, for us, when you do not have
  268. 09:18thousands of reference already to share,
  269. 09:20people have never heard of you, they
  270. 09:22have never read about you in the Wall
  271. 09:23Street Journal yet, the only way to
  272. 09:26scale yourself is to hire people that
  273. 09:28are smarter, better than you, and that
  274. 09:30can help grow the company to the next
  275. 09:32phase. In the first one year and a half,
  276. 09:35two years of the company, we had brought
  277. 09:38together the highest caliber team of
  278. 09:41talent. We have one of the best
  279. 09:42engineering team on the planet actually
  280. 09:44that is building that product. We also
  281. 09:46hired people that were former finance
  282. 09:48analyst, former revenue operation
  283. 09:50analyst, so former persona of ours. When
  284. 09:53you go uh to a customer and you say that
  285. 09:56yes perhaps your product was just born
  286. 09:59two months ago but in your team you have
  287. 10:01people that are experts in the ecosystem
  288. 10:03that have been selling similar platform
  289. 10:05for the past 15 years and that can then
  290. 10:08tell to your customer that this is the
  291. 10:10best platform out there. That's a very
  292. 10:11strong message. So that's one advice I
  293. 10:13would give actually is to try to find
  294. 10:15people from the ecosystem that have the
  295. 10:18right level of expertise and that would
  296. 10:19create that trust and uh I think that's
  297. 10:22the only recipe for success. So that's
  298. 10:26the number one tip I would advise
  299. 10:28anybody is to think about the values of
  300. 10:31your company and write them and have
  301. 10:32them very clear to you day one and keep
  302. 10:34them forever at your company and make
  303. 10:36them evolve if need be. Calibration is

  304. The Two Hiring Stages that Reveal Everything

  305. 10:38also a very good tip for any one out
  306. 10:41there. What I mean by calibration is
  307. 10:44being able to go um in the market before
  308. 10:46you hire for a role and asking to meet
  309. 10:49the best CFO out there, asking to meet
  310. 10:51the best CRO, asking to meet the best
  311. 10:53salespeople to understand what best look
  312. 10:55like and how can that apply to your
  313. 10:57company. And for me the I think the most
  314. 11:00two critical stages of a hiring process
  315. 11:03are around the case study and the
  316. 11:06background check you are going to do on
  317. 11:08the person. The case study is really
  318. 11:10what what is going to reveal to you if
  319. 11:13the person is a doer, if the person is
  320. 11:16ready to get their hands on, their hands
  321. 11:18dirty to solve a problem and if the
  322. 11:21person is ready to listen. And the
  323. 11:23second moment is a background check that
  324. 11:25you're doing on a person. Calling people
  325. 11:27that the person has not even referred to
  326. 11:29you, but trying to understand who that
  327. 11:31person is from that angle. And we really
  328. 11:33try to do that consistently. And this is
  329. 11:35really when you learn the most. And you
  330. 11:37have to dig dig dig. You never hesitate
  331. 11:40to ask question that hurt to the person
  332. 11:42even if you don't know them. That's
  333. 11:43okay. At worst they don't answer. But
  334. 11:46you really want to understand as much as
  335. 11:48possible about the person. You really
  336. 11:50try not to shy away from showing to the
  337. 11:52person during the interview process the
  338. 11:54reality of the job, the difficulties of
  339. 11:56the job, what they were really going to
  340. 11:58do and never trying to oversell or
  341. 12:00underell the company. Being very honest
  342. 12:02to oursel. Now don't get me wrong, we
  343. 12:04made tons of hiring mistakes. We made
  344. 12:06tons of them. Every hiring mistake that
  345. 12:09we've made has caused mistakes
  346. 12:11everywhere else in the company. That's
  347. 12:13where you start having a lower bar at
  348. 12:15everything you do. But the most
  349. 12:17important always is to try to understand
  350. 12:19why you made this mistake and what you
  351. 12:21are looking for next, not to make them
  352. 12:23again. That is the only thing that
  353. 12:25matters whether it's day one or whether
  354. 12:27it's today.