Introduction

In the fast-evolving world of tech, scaling a business isn’t just about having the smartest algorithm or the flashiest product. It’s about understanding the market landscape, building the right partnerships, and telling a compelling story that drives both user acquisition and retention. The latest episode of The Science of Scaling offers a behind-the-scenes look into how Perplexity.ai, with its Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko, is taking on industry giants like Google—and winning by rewriting the playbook.

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From the Audacity of Vision to Market Reality

The episode kicks off with Dmitry recounting his first conversations with Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity's founder. This wasn’t just another AI startup; they had the audacity to challenge Google. In 2023, this sounded even crazier than it does now, but that audacity was precisely what piqued Dmitry’s curiosity.

Dmitry’s initial involvement started as an advisor, fresh off winding down his own startup. He wasn’t ready to jump all in, opting for a “try before you buy” model by advising several companies at once. This gave him intellectual variety and the chance to recover from the founder journey’s emotional rollercoaster. For many, this illustrates a valuable lesson: failure is not a badge of shame, but one of experience. In fact, it can make founders more attractive to VCs looking for battle-tested entrepreneurs.

Rethinking the Go-To-Market: No More Browser Battles

One of Dmitry’s first pieces of advice broke with conventional wisdom: don’t bother chasing browser partnerships like Google did. Instead, focus on mobile carriers and new types of partners where Perplexity’s subscription product, Perplexity Pro, could be bundled for differentiation.

The key wasn’t just identifying potential partners—the real unlock was tailoring the story. Dmitry points out that what often sinks early partnership efforts isn’t product fit, but not articulating how the partnership will tangibly boost the partner’s own retention or customer acquisition. In essence, you win by making the other side the hero of the story.

Business Development: It’s Not Just Sales—It’s Growth Orchestration

As Perplexity moved from founder-led selling to professional sales, the team didn’t fall into the trap of rigid sales roles. Dmitry describes his early mandate as simply: “figure out how we grow.” At this stage, it’s less about the org chart and more about combining social media, communications, partnerships, and even viral moments on Twitter (X) into a holistic growth strategy.

Some partnerships were less about driving immediate business value and more about creating “FOMO”—a buzz that attracts the attention of the companies and customers who matter most.

Power of Early Champions and the Shift to Quality

One of the perennial struggles for tech startups is breaking into enterprise partnerships or carrier deals—these are slow, bureaucratic, and full of red tape. Dmitry’s approach was to start with smaller, more agile partners where an internal champion already existed. Empowering these champions to tell a compelling story internally was vital. Perplexity would quickly determine where the real momentum was by reviewing email threads and identifying passionate advocates, rather than wasting time where interest was lukewarm.

Ultimately, for products like Perplexity, earning trust isn’t just about pure sales tactics—it’s about delivering a genuinely better product, fostering third-party reviews, and leaning into signals like earned media. This philosophy is reshaping the future of SEO and content marketing: you can’t simply game the system; you have to be the system that people trust and talk about.

Leveraging AI for Sales Superpowers

Perhaps most compellingly, Dmitry shares how Perplexity—and AI in general—is revolutionizing the sales process itself. Their team of only four “enterprise growth leads” manage thousands of accounts, largely inbound, by identifying active internal advocates at target companies and equipping them to be effective champions.

Before meetings, they use Perplexity’s own platform to research prospects, understand pain points, and even pre-draft answers to security questionnaires by referencing internal docs. This frees up sellers to spend time on high-value activities and transform how discovery is done—sometimes even live on calls for radical transparency.

The New Era of Scaling

The Perplexity.ai journey isn’t just about AI-powered answers for search; it’s about AI-powered answers for business growth. The key lessons from Dmitry’s experience are timeless:

• Start with a bold vision—but test it cautiously. Try before you buy; recover and learn from setbacks.
• Tell a partnership story that’s about the other side’s success.
• Ditch rigid functional roles for growth hybridists who see the big picture.
• Find and empower internal champions, and don’t be afraid to start small.
• Let your product’s actual value—in reviews and earned media—do the talking.
• Harness AI not just for your product, but to supercharge your own go-to-market and sales processes.

Scaling isn’t magic. But as Perplexity and Dmitry show, it’s as much science as it is art—and sometimes, it takes a moment of “perplexity” to see the path no one else is looking for.

Want more tactical scaling tips and playbooks from real operators? Subscribe to The Science of Scaling podcast, and check out the full episode with Perplexity's Dmitry Shevelenko for even more insights!

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Note: The insights shared in this podcast were initially distilled through advanced AI summarization technologies, with subsequent refinements made by the writer and our editorial team to ensure clarity and engagement.

About "The Science of Scaling" Podcast

Every week during a season, host Mark Roberge—co-founder and Managing Director at Stage 2 Capital and a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School—interviews some of the tech industry's most successful and renowned leaders and managers in the areas of sales growth and Go-to-Market strategy. This is a HubSpot for Startups original podcast, and part of HubSpot's Podcast network. It's available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere you get podcasts.