Aside

What do they actually do

Aside is a desktop app (macOS) that listens locally to a seller’s live Zoom/Google Meet/Teams call and surfaces real‑time, doc‑backed suggestions pulled from company knowledge (docs, CRM, Slack) and past winning calls. It also captures notes during the meeting and generates a post‑call summary, without joining as a meeting bot and with a focus on privacy (hides on screen‑share; claims end‑to‑end encryption and no use of customer conversations to train external models) Aside homepage.

Highlighted capabilities include instant “cheatsheet” answers, sub‑second search across docs and past calls, talk‑ratio nudges, live translation, live summaries/notes, and the option to extend live suggestions with custom tools/APIs. It’s positioned for technical sales teams and available via a self‑serve plan with enterprise options and a 7‑day trial Aside homepage Pricing.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Technical account executives selling complex or security‑sensitive products: They get deep technical/compliance questions mid‑call and often defer answers (“let me get back to you”), slowing deal momentum. They need accurate, doc‑backed answers in‑call to keep the conversation moving.
• Solutions engineers and pre‑sales specialists: They field detailed implementation questions across many products/customers and waste time hunting for docs or past recordings. They need fast, precise references surfaced during the call.
• Sales managers and enablement leaders: They can’t scale 1:1 coaching and struggle to capture what worked on real calls. They need automated debriefs and reusable lessons to standardize coaching across the team.
• Less‑experienced AEs/SDRs running discovery: They miss buying signals or talk too much. They need prompts for follow‑ups, talk‑ratio nudges, and simple scripts to stay in control of conversations.
• International or multilingual sales teams: Language barriers and slow translation workflows cause delays and errors in live calls. They need live translation and multilingual support to respond accurately without pauses.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run 6–8 week, no‑risk pilots with small technical AE/SE teams from founder networks (YC and early contacts), with white‑glove onboarding, custom HubSpot/Slack connectors, and daily check‑ins to demonstrate time saved on calls Aside homepage Pricing.
• First 50: Productize the pilot learnings into a repeatable demo/playbook and run targeted outbound to mid‑stage SaaS plus content on eliminating “let me get back to you,” backed by customer notes; add a simple referral credit to drive intros Aside homepage.
• First 100: Pursue larger pilots→enterprise deals with 1–2 AEs while shipping integrations/APIs and a self‑serve trial for smaller teams; offer enterprise onboarding, multilingual support, and call‑log import, then use 1–2 strong case studies to expand seats Pricing.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Conservative TAM: the global sales‑enablement platform market is about USD 5.23B in 2024, which matches Aside’s core use case of live enablement/coaching on calls Grand View Research. Adjacent “conversation intelligence” estimates range roughly USD 23–25B (2024–2025), indicating upside but with overlap to adjacent categories Market.us Future Market Insights.

Bottom-up calculation:

Using Aside’s public Personal list price ≈ $40.83/month (~$490/seat/year) Pricing: 1% of the USD 5.23B sales‑enablement market is ≈ $52.3M, which implies ≈ 106,700 seats at $490/yr. Even 0.1% is ≈ $5.23M, or ≈ 10,700 seats Grand View Research.

Assumptions:

• Seat price benchmark ≈ $490/yr from public Personal plan; enterprise ARPA may be higher or discounted per seat Pricing.
• Aside maps primarily to the sales‑enablement category for conservative TAM; conversation intelligence figures are overlapping upside, not additive Grand View Research Future Market Insights.
• Seat counts assume B2B sales reps/SEs actively running live calls; penetration depends on technical‑sales segments first.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Gong: Enterprise revenue‑intelligence platform that records/analyzes sales calls for post‑call insights, coaching, and CRM/forecast tie‑ins; has added some in‑call features (e.g., Gong Assist) but remains centered on post‑call analytics Gong Gong Assist announcement.
• Chorus (ZoomInfo): Conversation intelligence that auto‑records and transcribes calls, surfaces talk‑time/objection signals, and provides coaching dashboards and deal insights; offers real‑time cueing via integrations but is known for centralized recording + post‑call analytics Chorus Docs.
• Avoma: Mid‑market meeting assistant with live transcription, AI note‑taking, CRM updates, and an in‑call “AI Coaching” assistant; positioned as lower‑cost, self‑serve with live features and automated notes/CRM syncs Avoma Real‑time transcription.
• Clari Copilot (formerly Wingman): In‑call battlecards and live coaching cues tied into Clari’s broader revenue platform, linking conversation signals to pipeline and forecasting workflows Clari Copilot Product writeup.
• Jiminny: Conversation and coaching tool with explicit live‑coaching workflows (private coach streams, real‑time chat cues) plus automatic summaries and CRM logging; aimed at teams wanting coach‑in‑the‑moment support and deal‑risk alerts Jiminny Live coaching docs.