How Catalyst Upleveled its Buyer Experience with Scalable, Efficient POCs

The Challenge: Inefficient POC Process Slows Down Team 

Among competitors, Catalyst is known for its superior UX/UI — a critical differentiator that sets it apart in the customer success platform market. While demos allowed buyers to see the interface, Catalyst’s GTM teams knew that buyers needed to go one step deeper— they needed to feel the difference by using the platform themselves. But providing every potential customer with a full proof of concept or trial environment was unscalable for their team.

Catalyst needed a way to convey their unique differentiation and do so at scale, ensuring every prospect could fully experience the product's value without overwhelming their internal resources.

“We ran into a crossroads. We knew customers wanted to see our product and test it for themselves, but we weren't able to scale our trial and POC efforts to meet demand. It was taking up tons and tons of time and we realized that we needed a POC strategy that actually scaled,” said Sean Bernard, Solutions Engineering Lead. 

Unscalable Proof of Concepts

The process of creating trial or proof of concept (POC) instances was manual and labor intensive for the Solutions Engineering team. This extensive time commitment diverted resources away from strategic tasks and limited the number of prospects who could experience the product. 

“As one of the founding SEs, it was up to me to define how we were going to scale our presales motion and I realized we didn't have a scalable way to allow our customers to test. It would take me about six hours to build one Catalyst instance filled with dummy data and key workflows. That was time away from delivering value in customer calls and interacting with potential buyers. That time suck was costly and being the first SE, I was busy enough,” said Sean. 

Inability to Demonstrate Product Differentiators

Without a scalable solution for POCs, Catalyst couldn't effectively showcase its ease of use and approachability, which are key differentiators. Prospective buyers couldn't fully appreciate these unique features, impacting their purchasing decisions. 

Sean explained, "We felt like we were selling ourselves short because we didn't have the ability to provide access to the product so people could actually feel that differentiator. Now we can demonstrate that differentiator in a meaningful way."

Resourcing Struggles Threatened a Competitive Disadvantage 

The inefficient process of creating POCs threatened to put Catalyst at a competitive disadvantage. Competitors with more streamlined trial setups were better positioned to demonstrate their products, affecting Catalyst's competitiveness in the market. 

"Because it took several hours to build an instance, we had to be extremely picky about what customers we provided that access to. It put us at a disadvantage because our competitors could deliver POCs quickly, and if we chose not to, we knew we couldn't showcase our ease of use effectively." 

The Solution: Scalable POCs that Enhance Buyer Experience and Enable a Move Upmarket

With TestBox, Catalyst has transformed its POC process to drive more new business, target larger organizations and leverage resources more effectively. Solutions Engineers can now spin up high-quality environments in a single click, enabling more prospects to experience the product's unique value. 

"We were blown away that TestBox could enable us to create a true live environment of Catalyst that our prospective buyers could actually test and feel out,” said Sean. 

Improved Win Rates

By providing more buyers with a chance to experience Catalyst’s user-friendly interface and features, the Catalyst team is able to close more deals. TestBox was used in more than 30 deals, totaling more than $2.5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

“TestBox has helped us increase our win rate - especially with larger customers - at a more efficient rate.”

Support Sophisticated Enterprise Motions

To support demand from larger enterprise customers, the Catalyst team implemented a value consulting motion, where the SE team builds highly personalized POC environments. Sean and team use TestBox to accelerate the creation of these instances and then further customize those instances to deliver enterprise buyers a highly customized experience. 

“With TestBox, we’re able to run extremely tailored POCs with large enterprise customers where they feel like they're getting that white glove experience, but it's not at the cost of us exhausting too many resources.”

Enhanced Buyer Insights

TestBox provides the Catalyst team with analytics on how prospects interact with the POC environments, allowing them to more strategically engage prospects during the deal cycle. Sean explained, "The analytics on what people are doing in the trial has opened up new creative ways for us to engage our prospects in the deal cycle."

Strategic Resource Allocation 

Automating the instance creation process with TestBox has freed up significant time for Catalyst's Solutions Engineering team. This efficiency not only increased the volume of POCs they were able to spin up, but also improved the quality of customer engagement. 

"TestBox has allowed me to focus on more strategic work and higher value activities like being on calls with customers because I no longer have to spend five or six hours of my week building one instance. Now it’s just a click of a button and within a minute we have a fully baked out instance,” said Sean. 

Results

• Higher Win Rate: Enhanced win rates, especially with larger enterprise customers, through tailored POCs — supported more than 30 deals, totaling $2.5M+ in ARR.
• Faster, Scalable POC Creation: Reduced time to create POC instances from six hours to minutes, saving up to 240 hours per quarter.
• Effective Demonstration of Differentiators: Allowed prospects to feel the superior UX/UI, enhancing confidence in buying decisions. Enabled Catalyst to showcase ease of use and approachability more effectively, improving market competitiveness.
• Enhanced Buyer Insights: Analytics on POC environment interactions allowed for more strategic and creative prospect engagement.

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