Beyond early positive quantitative signals, the team was swimming in qualitative validation, with one customer mentioning “the people that work at Confluent are a differentiator” compared to competitors he was evaluating in his buying journey.

The initiative has also substantially impacted business operations, providing valuable frameworks, tools and dashboards for monitoring key milestones along the pay-as-you-go journey.

“We've got a new definition for what it means to take a pay-as-you-go user into sales’ hands and how we define ‘sales ready,’” says Kelsey. “How much do they need to be spending with us and at what rate? Are they using our IP? If so, how much? All of those definitions and processes really originated from growing this team.”

Not only that, but there’s a new level of communication in play that promises to improve the product experience itself. 

“The Cloud SDR team is really on the frontline with customers getting active with Confluent Cloud,” says Christian. “And they are able to pass those insights directly to our product team, who then are able to complete that feedback loop and design better onboarding and customer experiences within the actual product UI.”