Sameplan

High-Level Overview

Sameplan is a customer-facing collaboration platform designed specifically for sales teams and their prospects to manage complex enterprise deals more efficiently. It serves sales professionals by providing a centralized hub that aligns sellers and buyers, streamlines communication, and increases deal transparency, ultimately helping close more business and accelerate sales cycles[2][3]. The product addresses the challenge of managing high-value, multifaceted sales processes that often get lost in email threads or disconnected tools.

Founded in 2019 and later acquired by Outreach, Sameplan leverages a customer-centric approach to improve sales collaboration, making it easier for teams to track progress and forecast outcomes confidently. Its impact on the startup ecosystem lies in demonstrating how deep sales experience can be translated into SaaS solutions that fill critical gaps in enterprise sales workflows[1][2].

Origin Story

Sameplan was co-founded by Carlo Candela and Brent D'Adamo, with Carlo’s background as a sales professional at Heap inspiring the creation of the platform. Carlo identified a significant market gap: existing tools like Salesforce did not adequately support transparent, collaborative deal management involving customers directly. Before coding, the founders conducted extensive interviews with 60-70 sales reps to deeply understand their pain points, which shaped Sameplan’s feature set and user experience[1][2].

Starting lean with contract workers and a small core team, Sameplan evolved from a simple checklist tool into a robust platform based on continuous customer feedback. This iterative, user-driven development was key to its early traction and eventual acquisition by Outreach, a leader in sales engagement software[1][2][3].

Core Differentiators

• Customer-Centric Design: Sameplan was built from direct sales experience and extensive user research, ensuring it addresses real-world sales challenges.
• Collaborative Transparency: Unlike traditional CRM tools, it enables both sellers and buyers to engage in a shared, transparent deal management process.
• Centralized Deal Hub: Acts as a single source of truth for complex enterprise deals, reducing reliance on fragmented communication channels like email.
• Lean and Iterative Development: Started as a minimal viable product and evolved through continuous customer feedback, enhancing usability and relevance.
• Integration Potential: Positioned to complement existing sales tools by focusing on the collaborative aspect of deal management rather than replacing CRM systems[1][2][3].

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Sameplan rides the growing trend of customer-facing SaaS tools that emphasize collaboration and transparency in B2B sales. As enterprise deals become more complex, sales teams require platforms that go beyond traditional CRM functionalities to actively engage prospects in the sales process. The timing is favorable due to increasing digital transformation in sales and the demand for integrated, seamless workflows that reduce friction and improve forecasting accuracy[2][3][4].

By focusing on the intersection of sales and project management, Sameplan influences the broader ecosystem by pushing sales software toward more interactive, customer-inclusive models. Its acquisition by Outreach reflects a market consolidation trend where specialized tools are integrated into larger platforms to offer comprehensive sales engagement solutions[1][2][4].

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Sameplan’s future under Outreach likely involves deeper integration with Outreach’s sales engagement suite, enhancing automation, AI-driven insights, and broader enterprise adoption. Trends such as AI-powered sales forecasting, real-time collaboration, and unified sales ecosystems will shape its evolution.

As sales processes continue to digitalize and buyers demand more transparency and involvement, Sameplan’s model of customer-facing deal collaboration is poised to become a standard feature in enterprise sales technology stacks. Its influence will grow by enabling sales teams to close deals faster and with greater confidence, reinforcing the shift toward more transparent, buyer-aligned sales methodologies[1][2][4].