How Grammarly’s Evolution from B2C to B2B Propelled It to a $13B Valuation

Yuriy Timen is a seasoned growth and marketing advisor with 15+ years of experience scaling technology companies. Yuriy joined Grammarly as the company’s first marketing hire in 2012 when it had just 10 employees and left in 2020 as Global Head of Marketing and Growth. Since then, Yuriy has advised more than 40 companies, including Airtable, Canva, Oyster, Whimsical, and Otter.ai. He specializes in marketing, product-led growth, and hiring and developing high-performing growth teams.

Key Takeaways:

• Grammarly started by building a web app with a 7-day free trial marketed to students through paid channels like Facebook and Twitter, and through SEO given the high volume of students searching online for help with their writing.
• After realizing the global market opportunity for professional knowledge workers was much larger than for students, Grammarly pivoted its product, business model, and growth strategy to serve this new customer segment.
  • Product: Grammarly created browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, built plugins for Microsoft Office apps, and launched a mobile keyboard, all of which helped it integrate into existing prosumer workflows.
  • Business Model: The company also introduced a freemium business model with a free tier that gave prosumers more time to experience the value of Grammarly's product before needing to make a purchase decision.
  • Growth Strategy: Grammarly cracked YouTube as the perfect channel for explaining its nuanced core value promise to knowledge workers.
• In 2018, the company launched Grammarly Business and began selling to entire teams of professionals, with enhanced admin and security features, function-specific value props, and updated ad campaigns to reposition it as an enterprise solution.
• As Grammarly has gained traction with businesses, it has benefitted from word of mouth within and across professional teams that has helped the company to land and expand within enterprises.

Yuriy Timen

• Website: https://www.yuriytimen.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriytimen/
• X: https://x.com/TheTimenator

Phil Carter

• Website: https://www.philgcarter.com
• Substack: https://philgcarter.substack.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philgcarter
• X: https://x.com/philgcarter
  
  

Podcast Production by Podders: https://podders.io

Chapters

• 5:06 Grammarly’s initial product for students
• 8:22 SEO efforts to reduce user acquisition costs
• 12:21 Grammarly’s pivot from students to knowledge workers
• 20:27 Cracking YouTube as the perfect marketing channel for prosumers
• 26:21 Launching Grammarly Business in 2018
• 32:30 How Grammarly benefited from word of mouth within teams
• 36:00 How AI will impact the productivity software landscape
• 41:51 Why AI will ultimately benefit companies in the application layer
• 43:13 Lightning round