Misfit Founders
Misfit Founders
Building a Winning Customer Engagement Strategy with Accoil's Co-Founder
Curious about the secrets behind successful product analytics and entrepreneurship? Our latest episode promises to unlock the essence of product-led growth and the delicate art of maintaining minimalism while tracking crucial metrics. We discuss the acquisition and transformative journey of Sherlock, a once-popular product analytics tool, shedding light on the importance of founder instincts and clearly defined roles within a team to foster early-stage development.
Ever wondered how to launch a customer engagement analytics strategy that stands out? We explore the practical integration of tools like HubSpot and Intercom, and highlight the unique advantages of using Accoil Analytics for tracking churn and retention. You'll hear about the electrifying moments from industry events like SaaStock in Austin, where refining product communication and validating market understanding became key takeaways.
Finally, join us as we navigate the entrepreneurial maze, drawing from Peter Preston's diverse career across journalism, management consulting, and marketing before co-founding Accoil Analytics. Reflecting on past experiences with ThinkTilt and Atlassian, we delve into the challenges of acquisition integration, the thrill of reuniting with former colleagues, and the ongoing quest for innovation. This episode is a treasure trove of practical insights and inspiring stories for anyone interested in product development and entrepreneurship.
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There's a terrible sales pitch for my own product here, but something that we talk a lot about is founder kind of gut feel. You should, I think, try to trust your gut sometimes and you're that close to customers I don't know that you need to go big into analytics.
Speaker 2:A product's not going to be for everyone. You have two products with identical value outcomes from the feature. If their interfaces are different, you're going to have customers that will be like I hate this product and I like this product right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having that conversation, initially with your co-founders if you have them or your team, to say who's responsible for what, and then how are you personally going to make sure that you're fulfilling that role? If I'm being honest, of course, yeah, I've had moments where I'm going like what are we doing? You know like we want to run back into the little walled garden that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, First of all, I'm trying to figure out when we actually first met, when we actually first talked not met, because we never actually met in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first time that we talked Were you on like chris cook's marketing roundtables never, no so that's not it. I was too good for that, though I don't need any marketing um, yeah, I, I don't know, I don't know, I feel like, but in that, in that alassian space, there are a few people that you kind of just knew right, and you were one of those. When did you start, jexo?
Speaker 2:Back in 2018. It was 18, okay.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was that long after you started.
Speaker 2:So I know you and a couple of other amazing folk from pro forma. That's where I managed, and yeah I've learned about what you do and the team and there and so on. So I think that's kind of the first time we met. But we also live in a I mean to live, at least from my end, because I'm not in the Atlassian ecosystem anymore in a world where everyone kind of knows everyone, although they might have not met in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true. So well, let's start with an introduction. What is it that you do, Peter? Introduction what is it that you do?
Speaker 1:Peter, we're starting a product analytics company and it's actually I'll keep the story kind of short, but we, years ago at Proforma I think we wanted a way to understand how our customers were actually using our products, and we found it really difficult. Even in the Atlassian space, they don't give you a whole lot of data about who's using your products, how they're using it, all that sort of stuff. So we went looking for solutions to that and we found this product called Sherlock, and got to know the founder, derek, who's actually here in Austin with us.
Speaker 1:So we brought him down to help with this this week and so pumped to meet him. But we were customers of this product called Sherlock and we kept trying to make it do things it wasn't really built to do. It's a product-led sales tool. It's meant to kind of take intent signals from how customers are actually using your product and feed that into HubSpot, intercom, that sort of thing as product-led sales or product-led growth. And we really wanted it to tell us how our new features were doing, what kind of impact that latest release had on engagement or activation et cetera.
Speaker 1:And so we kind of hammered Derek for a while like make your product do something it wasn't built to do. And then last year 2023, we found out that Sherlock had been acquired, but the acquiring company was going to sunset the product, and so we got in touch with Copper CRM, who had bought it and just made them an offer to take it off their hands. So we've got the IP now and taking it back to market, and we are now we have the opportunity to make it do what we want. Um, which is a bit broader. It's not just product-led sales now, it's um, as I mentioned before. Just when you have a new product launch, a new release from that date of change, what impact has that had on your customers, on revenue churn, etc. Etc. So it's it's event-based product analytics with a bit of a twist that we're excited to talk about this week.
Speaker 2:You know, when you told me the story, you told me about Sherlock and you told me that you guys bought IP and stuff, and I find it so interesting and it also makes me realize what small of a world we live in, because we were trying out Sherlock back in 2019, 2019, 2020. I think it might have been closer to 2020. And it was an amazing tool, I think, for us.
Speaker 2:We, like yourself, there were some things that we couldn't track with Sherlock, that we found that well, you know, would love to also have this, the ability to do this and this, and that I think it also made us realize and we had a kind of like a pivot at that point where we decided to take a step back and be a bit more minimalist when it comes to tracking in the early days, because the one thing that I've noticed is, especially with companies that do product lead, they try to throw everything at their strategy yeah right, just like okay.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, right, just like OK. Well, product led means this and we need to track all of these things. Where, in reality, when you're starting out and your product is small and you have a small customer base and you have a very specific strategy to go to market, do you need to be tracking all kinds of metrics and so on? But it seems like and we were doing this because Nicky and I were thinking, well, let's do product-led properly. We want to have our product talk for us, but we need to track all of these things. And we've done courses. Wes Bush is in Austin this week as well for SaaS Talk and I remember doing Wes's course. He had a course on CX yes, I remember that one. Yeah, and we've done that course and we were like okay, so we need to take this framework and split it like this and set up all of these processes and set up all of these tracking metrics.
Speaker 2:And I remember us looking at ShareLock. It was quite expensive for us at that point as well, because we were the startup, we were bootstrapped, we didn't have money for it and so on, and I think that the fact that it was a wonderful tool, that was hitting the points right. There were some things that we didn't have in there, but also added to with the fact that the pricing was quite steep for us. We decided but hold on, what are we doing? Let's break for a second. Do we even need at this stage of where we had Swanlee, our release management app, and I think we launched our second app, and I think we launched our second app and we were thinking, well, we can start smaller and gradually grow from there. I think that was way better of a strategy of us putting that break and just figuring out what is the minimum that we need at that stage, because even these things, I don't know how you're doing. A coil, how do you pronounce it? Product name A coil.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have a word with Simon about this. A coil, yes, a coil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to ask you about the meaning of that word and where did that come from? Because I know you have a story there, but you're probably looking at this with your product as well is things take time to set up properly, and not just the product itself, but also how you organize your team, your processes and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:So it takes a lot of time. Everything around it, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:So I think that you have to have a proper buying and you have to have a proper need for something really well put together and complex. So yeah, both Nick and I love Sherlock. We also like their branding and the application and so on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so did we and, being customers of it ourselves, I really like the product. I think you make a really good point in that when you're a small team, you have to pick and choose where you basically put your energy right and what we found it's nice to hear you say that, because what we've really found is that I think the sweet spot for a product like Sherlock a coil is actually slightly larger companies, not that small, tiny startup where you're stretched thin as it is already so slightly bigger companies with a bit more revenue, a bit more momentum behind you and you really want to sort of ramp that up. Something that we talk a lot about is founder kind of gut feel right and as a product owner, you're always going to rely on that, or you should, I think, try to trust your gut sometimes.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Not always and you're not going to get it right every time, but when you're smaller especially, and you're that close to customers, I don't know that you need to go big into analytics. It's a terrible sales pitch for my own product here, but the reality is.
Speaker 2:The thing is, you know your market, you know what your basically perfect customer persona is, and I think that's some advice that you would give every single product organization and I am as well is don't try to sell to people that don't need your yeah product. They sell to your focus on your perfect customer persona and you know, then you're going to have a harmonious business in the sense. Yeah, rather than trying to jamming and we were doing this at jigsaw as well, which was well, you know if, if someone would come in and they would have this very complex setup and they would need this and this and that, literally, I would tell the lead you don't need Swanlee, go and use big picture, because it's more fit for you, for example.
Speaker 2:And I think that honesty and that transparency and just being not trying to just get every single conversion even if it doesn't make sense, makes you a better product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:So right. So you know you're targeting bigger organizations or SMEs.
Speaker 1:It's sort of that like where we're really thinking. The perfect fit is sort of, let's say, 10 to 50 employees, maybe up to like 10 million in revenue, and you really want to ramp it up from there. So you have someone who can pay attention to your analytics, and what we're trying to do is make it a lot less complicated to get started and to actually use your analytics. So when you mentioned before, like this tidal wave of event data coming out of your products, we don't think that you need to track all of that. We think that you can pick the things, that you can pick the events that actually mean something to your customers and to you. What does activation really look like? What does adoption really look like?
Speaker 1:You don't need to track every single thing that's happening in your product, because some of them if you're weighting them on a scale of like zero to 10, might be a one or a two, and so why dwell on those things? So I think there's a way to right size your analytics, but you need to have the people with the capacity to do it, and again, at a small startup, that may not be the case, and you're also that much closer to your customers when it's a team of three, let's say and you are just getting going, your revenue is just getting kicked off, you can talk to customers. It's a lot easier than I don't know I don't think any of us do it enough but you're just a lot closer so you can actually hear them tell you like, what are we doing in your product? Here's how we use it. You get your use cases directly from them. You don't have to necessarily look at how they're using it yet, because they'll tell you that. And then the bigger you get, the more removed you get.
Speaker 2:And that's when I think the analytics tools really come into their own get, and that's when I think the analytics tools really come into their own. Where does the product sit in the, you know, customer success team stack of tooling? Does it replace mixed panel? Is it a replacement for Pendo? Does it sit somewhere in between these?
Speaker 1:somewhere in between these, I'd say somewhere in between. And something that we talk a lot about is, you know, is it an all or nothing sort of thing? And what we've settled on recently is that you can, actually we can coexist with Mixpanel. We can coexist with Pendo, I think, like Pendo is a great product. It's also big, you know. And again, going back to that, that team size, if you don't have someone to run that product, then you're probably not going to get the value out of it that you need.
Speaker 1:Where we're trying to be different in the analytics space in particular, is letting you. You control what the analytics what, what the scoring looks like, and kind of answer that. So what question? And where we see a lot of the analytics tools just track everything right and they'll give you. You know, this event happened 10,000 times but you kind of go so what? And on the back of that, so what if you can answer? That, which I think is what we're trying to help people do, is answer that. So what? What does that mean for our customers?
Speaker 1:For us, our approach is a bit different in that we think that teams are already using HubSpot, you're already using Intercom, so we're going to put that data there, where you're already using it. So I think tools like Pendo are great, vitally for CES teams create products. Nothing bad to say about them at all. I just think we've taken a bit of a different approach to how you can use and leverage your event data and it's kind of being like the data hub and then you can then use a coil to tell your customer comms tools. Now is the right time to reach out either get conversions, reduce churn, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the things that I think I know for sure that that's one of the things that the features that appeal to us quite a lot back in 2020, around Sherlock was the so what because it gives you the scoring.
Speaker 2:And especially if you're a team that's just implementing some sort of customer success product-led strategy, you need all the help that you can get. So if you can have an expert there that's holding hands with you and guiding you through stuff and that's in the form of a software as a service, amazing. I remember us using ProfitWall. Profitwall is like, compared to some of the other tools for churn and retention, and kind of like MRR ARR. What I liked about it, apart from the fact that it was completely free?
Speaker 2:a small startup, but it would ask you to provide data in a very specific way and then you already had all of the dashboards presented. Yeah, that makes it a bit more rigid, but for someone starting out in tracking, churn tracking, retention and things like that, this is very helpful. So that's why I compare it to ProfitWell, because Sherlock was doing that quite a bit and it sounds like you're chasing the. So what answering that question for customers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we were, I think. I looked at ProfitWell every day for years, like probably even on the weekends. So, yeah, big fan of ProfitWell. But yeah, to your point, like that's what we're trying to do with the coil is answer that so what? And then allow you to do something with that, not just have the answer in your head, but so what, it's so what. So over here in the tools that we already use, the teams are already using, here's how we're going to engage with our customers.
Speaker 2:FRANCESC CAMPOY FRIEDMANN and you're at. We're actually in Austin at SaaS Talk as well, and you have a booth here as well. It was a last minute booth. Mark MAND me about that because you also launched really recently, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:We are sort of in the process of a slow burn launch here, but it's actually your fault that we're here, guilty, but getting involved with SaaS Talk was great, so I have to say thank you for that. Yeah, we joined the startup program and then so we have a growth booth so just a little table, but it was a really great way to get involved and I mean, you know we're here to sell a product. This is like the perfect place to do it. It's all the right people, the energy of it has been fantastic and the onboarding as someone, as a company, getting involved in the startup program but also sponsoring, I guess has been fantastic. So, yeah, this is a really exciting week for us. I mean, this is like meeting the market for the first time really. We've been to a few events and talked to customers and potential partners and I think through that process we've been refining the way that we're talking about it, and this week is kind of I think this is the test now the test bed, for do people understand what we're talking about?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so how dialed in are we? We're never going to get it 100% right, right, but I think that's the test this week.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that process. You know mentioned that I'm starting a company as well in the creative space and so on, and this is probably one of my favorite um segments of of launching, which is basically refining the communication and and how you present your uvp, because in the early days, when you start having calls with people saying, oh, I'm doing this, it sounds so rough, so unpolished, and as you talk to more people it gets more and more refined. And when you feel like you, you reach that point where you're such a smooth talker about your product, right, and also on the other, on the other side, you get the aha and aha and the glimmer in someone's eyes oh wow, I need this, or I understand this and this is amazing. I think that's, at least for me, that's a very rewarding moment in the launch path of a product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we were in Las Vegas Was it last week, two weeks, I don't even know anymore. It's been a big trip. So in Las Vegas for Was it last week, two weeks, I don't even know anymore it's been a big trip. So in Las Vegas for Atlassian's team event, same sort of thing Wasn't necessarily like the ideal customer base for us there, but yeah, having that opportunity to interact with people and then when someone leans in, you know you get that look or something. You know the eyebrows go up or some sort of look, like you said, a glint in the eye it's almost addictive, like, well, I want to try that again. That line worked. And you know, you kind of make your notes and you go, okay, that's, that's now part of my pitch. And you just, yeah, it's so much fun to do that. And when you see people kind of get excited about what they can do with your product, it's yeah, it's a bit addictive, I'll admit.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, yeah, it is 100%. I'm curious do you find the talking about Sherlock helpful in those discussions? Right, because there's a story there right, I mean the past, yeah.
Speaker 1:The past, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Sherlock was quite notorious. I mean, I suppose, if I know about Sherlock and you just bought the IP of it, it wasn't like an obscure tool. Yeah, it grew at one point to certain notoriety. So do you find that you talking about Sherlock? The fact that you have the IP of the platform is a positive. In those conversations, let me put the or as well, because I can see a downside of this as well. And do you get many comments of or, let's not say comments? People are not that good at giving you, telling you what they think, right, but it can come across from when you're talking to someone. Has it been at any point someone thinking, oh, if they sunset the tool, why are you buying a sunset tool? Does it not mean that it wasn't that successful or it wasn't that needed if they censored it?
Speaker 1:right, because you know, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what I'm saying. That's happened, yeah, plenty yeah so far.
Speaker 1:It's been helpful to explain it and the reason is like talking to you a couple months ago when you said like, oh, we used that and so there's this connection there. That's happened more times than I thought it would, which has been really encouraging Just random conversations with people at some of these events or just sort of through networks and whatnot. And then people go oh yeah, I use Sherlock and that number has continued to grow. So that's been really encouraging and everyone has good things to say about it, so it's including myself. I really like the product. So explaining yeah, they got acquired, and then the acquiring company sort of let the product go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you explain that? I think we've found that it's not as big of a deal as maybe we were first worried about, right, so it was a bit of a concern. It's like, do we talk about that or not? It's been more of a net positive than not to share that story. I think very quickly, though, that will change and this week we're probably this may be the last week here at SaaS Talk to talk about it, because Derek's here with us Derek being the founder of Sherlock, yeah, and he's here to help us talk to people about their product data at large as well, not just about the product that he had built.
Speaker 1:So I think, following this week, we're probably going to start dialing that down and say there's a new story here, we don't need to go into that and introducing it to a whole new market. I think we're going to kind of make that pivot now. So yeah, fair question it's definitely that's weighed on my mind a lot Like how do we message around that without it seeming like this thing was dead? Why would you, why would I want it?
Speaker 2:The thing. The reason why I was also curious is because not necessarily the stigma of something being buried, because I know we also live in a world, especially in SaaS, software as a service and technology in general, where there's so many examples of companies buying other companies and just closing down the product that they originally had maybe took some parts, took the team and so on. So I would expect your answer to be the answer that you gave me, which is not a lot of people care. Right, because it's such a standard thing nowadays to happen, because it doesn't necessarily mean that the product was terrible and no one wanted it, because I don't think that's the case. But you know, companies have different strategies and that's why, every single time I'm using a tool and the company acquires that tool, I'm thinking, oh please give me at least a version of this, even if you close the doors of this.
Speaker 2:Give me something else. I can continue to use.
Speaker 1:Well, you've been through it I mean we went through it with ThinkTilt and Proforma as well, where everybody has great ideas and great plans, right, like we're going to integrate this. It's going to be a beautiful thing, and it's not as easy, either technically, or staffing it up is difficult, or the company changes strategic direction, which is kind of what happened with the Sherlock product that you know, at some point, say, change of leadership or whatever you know, someone just decides like, nah, they seem like a good idea at the time. That's not where we need to be heading right now. Oh well, you know, sort of a sunk cost kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if integrations and acquisitions ever go as smoothly as everyone wants them to, and that's just the reality of it, right that there's. There's always more friction than you think there's going to be in this sort of like kumbaya experience of it'll all just sort of fit, and that's not always the case. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of expectation and and uh around that reality that, yeah, this may go well, it may not. But often those products do kind of go away at some point right where either integrated in or just sort of yeah, directionally change their mind I also think that it's.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not that often that you hear buying the IP of a tool and that's quite interesting and intrigues me. There's definitely probably value there and you guys have a strong strategy to bring a really good product to market, because otherwise you wouldn't have done it right, you would have just built something off the ground. So there is a significant core there and principles, and I guess that's why you're also Is Derek?
Speaker 1:Is he an advisor or yeah, just an advisor with us at the moment, yeah, yeah, so he's off doing his own thing, but yeah, he's including. He's built a product data masterclass, which is just great, like if this is not shilling his course here, but just if anyone wants to understand how product data actually works or like the best way to implement it. He's teaching that now. So he's got his. He's got plenty of his own stuff going on, but he was gracious enough to share his time with us, which has been super helpful. He's a great guy. Really Meeting him for the first time here as well in person, but it's nice to have someone with that depth of experience just around and probably asking lots of stupid questions.
Speaker 2:Tomorrow when I'm at the Expo, I'll see if I can. Is it going to be at your booth? Yep, I'll come by see if he recognizes me. I think we had one or two calls back in 2020 when he was pitching us Sherlock.
Speaker 2:He definitely doesn't recognize me. He's probably been having thousands and thousands of demos. You never know. You never know. Maybe I have a very familiar face. Right, I want to talk a bit about your history as an entrepreneur, as a founder, so I don't know much. Pre Proforma, you were working at Proforma. You weren't part of the co-founding team correct. Yeah, I was not yeah, so you were working with them. Tell me a bit about your history before that. Where to start? What kind of odd jobs have you done?
Speaker 1:I've done a lot of odd jobs. Yeah, literally plenty of odd jobs, I guess. To keep it somewhat related to where we're at today, I got into management consulting shortly after graduating from college and primarily worked in government space. I was a journalism student, so I was brought in to write stuff and I would write requests for proposals and all sorts of just a lot of writing. And that ended up taking me to Saudi Arabia on a project there and I just got exposed to a lot of different cultures and stuff, including technology and stuff like that there. Fast forward a couple of years, we left Saudi and decided to do something a bit stupid and crazy perhaps. Bought a carpet cleaning business, as you do on the Gold Coast in Australia, so clean carpets on boats and hotels for a couple of years and had a crew doing that Sounds profitable though it's a profitable business, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 1:I lost a lot of weight doing it. It's the best exercise ever. So you were doing it. I was doing it because I knew nothing about it. So I thought the best way to learn this and the way that I can manage other people doing it is to just do it myself. So I cleaned carpets for 12 months and there's way more to know. I won't go into the details of it, but it's actually there's a whole lot of science behind it, and the chemicals and all that sort of stuff which fascinated me, sold that business.
Speaker 1:Sold that business and, on the back of learning how to grow that business and promote that business, I thought I'd team up with a friend and start a or join a marketing agency as a partner at this marketing agency, and we worked with clients ranging from hypnotherapists to fleet management companies to just broad range of things, and how I ended up really in where I am now. I was giving a talk at a HubSpot user group and Simon, who's now a co-founder at Accoyle, was one of the co-founders at ThinkTilt took advantage of the Q&A session after my talk, and so there I am, standing on stage, go to Q&A and you know these events. Sometimes you don't get many questions, sometimes you get a bunch, and just so happened this one night. There's this guy in the crowd who doesn't give the mic to anybody else.
Speaker 1:Can just answer he's just peppering me with questions. I'm on stage, you know it's lights, and there's just this guy that I've never met in the audience just asking me, like grilling me. Just another question, another question, another question. And I'm sitting up there thinking, well, it's this guy, you know what are we doing here, people and eventually got off the stage, had a chat and then, within a couple weeks, was asked to go and work with the ThinkTilt team, so joined ThinkTilt as one of I we were 12 people by by the time we got acquired, so still a small crew, ostensibly in marketing, but spent my time doing support, sales, pre-sales solutions, engineering, you name it.
Speaker 1:We kind of did all the things and then, uh, think till got acquired by atlassian in 2021 and then spent some time in Atlassian two years there, getting to know that and see what that looks like on the other side, yeah, which is, yeah, eye opening, Great people and a great experience and then came out of came out of Atlassian and decided to team up with the ThinkTilt crew again. So Kate Simon and myself are giving it another go and we've brought back a few other think tilters as well, so they'll be publicly announced in the not-too-distant future, but yeah, so it's exciting.
Speaker 2:We're kind of getting the band back together you were working for think tilt and now you're kind of like on the other side of the fence. You're part of the co-founding team. Yeah, did anything change? Is is it different?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's different, but I I think what, what attracted me to working with, with kate and simon again, was the nature of the relationship in the past and got along very well, still get along very well. I think we've we've found a way to work together where it's very open and if you have an opinion on something, if you don't want to do something or you feel strongly about it, we can put it all on the table. So there's a really strong relationship there. And that was the case as an employee, just as it is now.
Speaker 1:I think obviously I've got a bit more heft that I can throw around. I can actually make decisions instead of suggestions now, but by and large it hasn't changed that much. So a bit more responsibility on my shoulders. I guess that's the nice part about being an employee, right, you can kind of go oh well, you made a bad decision Even though you're a sweetheart. So, yeah, there's more responsibility, but that, I think, has made it a bit more fun. So having a seat at the table I guess has been enjoyable, but I don't think the nature of how we work together has changed much.
Speaker 2:How did this come across, the three of you partnering up? Was it something that happened over time, of, oh, you know, now, now that ThinkTilt has been acquired and we're kind of like free agents after a while with Atlassian, maybe one day we should partner up, we should start our own thing or was this something that was spontaneous? How did, how did it all happen?
Speaker 1:so the the idea for this product analytics product for a coil never actually died and it's kind of something that we kept talking about, even while we're at Atlassian. It wasn't necessarily saying, hey, we're going to go build this thing, but you're still working its ass, still looking at the same, trying to get the same signals out of your product. And simon, in particular, being on the product management team at atlassian and trying to steer the way excuse me, steer how proforma was being integrated into tajira wanted those same signals. So it's something that we kept talking about because we'd been discussing it, as with our own product. And then even at atlassian, you still have the same questions. It's like what, how do I justify my roadmap? And so it's an idea that never sort of died, but it wasn't necessarily yes, in two years we're gonna go do this thing. Uh. So it fully opened here.
Speaker 1:Uh, so kate and I actually got laid off from atlassian. We were in that round in what? Last year sometime. Yeah, people that got let go. And so I got the email saying you know, you're basically like you're done uh, close your laptop, send it in or whatever. And the first person that called me was Kate and I answered the phone and I just go, hey, kate, and all I hear is laughter, just laughing. How about this? How?
Speaker 2:did you feel, Were you? Was it contrasting her reaction to it versus yours?
Speaker 1:I think getting laid off, let go, being made redundant, whatever you want to call it, is a bit confronting. No matter what, even if you don't feel like this company is the best fit for you, you kind of want to do everything on your own terms. I do. Anyway, I want to make sure that I'm the one that sort of says no, you can't fire me, I quit. You know, like I wouldn't suggest that, but uh, you know. So you want to be the one that controls it, or I do, yeah, and so in that way, it was really confronting. Right, it's like the control has been taken away from me. Time for you to go. Uh, I've been thinking about leaving and you know it sounds like I'm trying to make excuses here, to sort of make this seem better than it was, like I was let go. That's fine. It hurt a bit. It definitely hurt. It was a sting and a bit of a blow on the ego.
Speaker 1:But after the dust settled, it felt like the right thing, and so what happened was Kate and I, after the laughter died, decided, you know, we'd like to work together, and so we went, basically hung our shingle up and went to the Atlassian Marketplace vendors and said, hey, we can help you grow your business. So we did some consulting for about a year and over the course of that time that's when we started talking to Simon about you know, hey, maybe we should get back together and do something. And then now, like coming full circle back to that Sherlock story, the only reason that we knew that Sherlock was available was I just happened to look up the Sherlock website one day, and it's the same day that they'd put up a notice saying that we're taking it down, right, and that was sort of like the moment of let's go do that. You know, I think just everything fell into place. It felt like all right, well, we've got the team, we know each other, let's go.
Speaker 2:And off we went. So did you knew anyone at Sherlock or the acquiring company?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was Copper CRM that bought Sherlock, yeah, and we just kept in touch with Derek and so saw the website say we're taking this product down. Flick Derek a note. And that's how we got introduced to Copper to have that conversation. So, yeah, knew Derek loosely, you know, having been customers of his in the past Similar to yourself, right Like. Yeah, you kind of like, will he remember us?
Speaker 2:I would have probably considered if I would have been on that page in the same day that they put the announcement, as you did. I would have probably really considered reaching out to Derek and seeing if that product was helpful.
Speaker 1:It was his idea. He sort of nudged us in that direction. It was more of a consolation. Hey, derek, sorry to see that the decision was made to take this thing down, which is too bad, because it's your baby, right, and it was his idea. Maybe you guys should have a look at that.
Speaker 2:I would have probably been a bit more evil in that sense, and as soon as I saw that, I'll be like hey, derek, do you know? The cog base is available for sale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's how that came to be and that's how Kate Simon and I sort of formalized that working agreement, or whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interesting. So this formalize that working agreement or whatever you want to call it. Interesting, so this is your first ever product baby, Something that you are owning, that you are a founder of.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And how does it feel? Is it stressful, is it intense?
Speaker 1:Do you feel like?
Speaker 2:you don't belong.
Speaker 1:All of the above all the time. Yeah, yeah, of course I mean you swing through all these emotions and I mean coming to SassDoc has brought all of that up for me. I'll be honest, we played in the Atlassian world for years, very comfortable there. Don't know everything, but at least you know. We were at a team in Las Vegas and you walk around and you know people. It's like you're meeting old friends, right.
Speaker 2:So it's very comfortable and Tinktail was quite popular at one point, so people know you had a good reputation and that of course helps everything there.
Speaker 1:It makes it really easy still having worked at Atlassian, still know a bunch of people on the floor so it feels easy. Saas talk big bad world of B2B SaaS out in the real world outside of the Atlassian ecosystem definitely has sort of made me sit back and go okay, are we ready for this?
Speaker 2:It is scary. It is scary.
Speaker 1:It is scary.
Speaker 2:And this is one of the things that I've Look, we've never actually. I mean, we launched a standalone product in the late years of Jexo which was Goose Lead, the road mapping, but we never actually done anything with it. But it's always been quite daunting. To me, it feels like a marketplace is kind of like a bit of a safe grounds in a sense. You can cling on certain strategies to make your product gain momentum, whereas when you're out there in the desert of SaaS businesses it's a bit more daunting. I've noticed that the same principles apply, which is the reason why SaaS talk works so well. The reason why other events like this is because it's pretty much the same but at a different scale and wider topics, which is, if you're part of the SaaS community and you make partnerships and friends and you're there, they're similar like with Atlassian world Yep, you get momentum and you get invited to certain things. You talk at this event and you're slowly building up that reputation. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think, for that reason, it's exciting to kind of step out and do that. But yeah, if I'm being honest, of course, yeah, I've had moments where I'm going like what are we doing? You know like we want to run back into the little walled garden that is, you know, the Atlassian marketplace, which I still think is a great place to do business, but we have this product that we can go take it out to a bigger, broader market, so let's go.
Speaker 2:And we also know that it's comfortable. But there's also a lot of limitations especially with the Atlassian marketplace and the middleman in between and all of the challenges of not having the visibility that you need over all of the information that you need. So that must be a relief now that you have a product where you can plug in whatever tracking and analytics and all of that stuff. So I guess that's the benefit and you can do whatever planning pricing that you need to.
Speaker 1:A lot more flexibility there. We do plan to go into the Atlassian marketplace and that's, of course, causing its own. It's funny to have that as two parts of the business where one is sort of, yeah, do whatever you want, structure it however you want, and the other is this, more rigid, you're playing by someone else's rules, sort of space. Yeah, so figuring out pricing is going to be difficult to try to get parity across those two where, as you know, on the marketplace, you know you're tied to, like, jiri usage. So how do you, how do you square that with a publicly available app that you can price however you want? So, yeah, there will be challenges to that, but I don't know, I'm excited both ways. I think it's, it's at last thing, it's still a great company to kind of be around, and so I don't think we're gonna we're not going to like walk away from that by any means, but yeah, it's exciting to kind of step out and have a swing at the the real, like the big bad market.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, and speaking of question marks and such, what has been so far for you personally the biggest let's call it black box when it came to starting into SaaS outside the ecosystem, Because there's stuff that applies from Atlassian ecosystem to running the loan product and so on. But there's also a lot of unknowns. What was that? The one of the biggest unknowns for you that you had to tackle or will tackle?
Speaker 1:That's a that's a difficult one to answer, actually. Uh, I think there's. There's just a lot. I think what's been interesting is, I think, if you were to sort of come up with your own product idea and build that, you're there from the very start. And so I think for me one of the biggest challenges has been understanding what this existing product was and how it was positioned and how it was marketed and built and all that sort of stuff. And then how do we actually take that and make it our own?
Speaker 1:So that's been a very different experience because it's not necessarily you know, I wasn't around when the idea came up and of course, plenty of people join companies that they're not the creators or the founders or whatever, but having this thing where we're kind of taking it back to market what worked, what didn't work, how are we going to go about figuring that out? I think that's been the I wouldn't say black box necessarily. It's just been like that's something that I spent a lot of time thinking about is do we? That's something that I spend a lot of time thinking about is how much do we lean on the history of the product versus how much do we set a new path for it and do we wipe the slate clean to say this is a coil. Now no more Sherlock, everything that we're doing from this point forward is completely new, fresh and our own. Or how much do we pull forward from the history that's there? So that's been an interesting one.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, I feel like, as you said, in the Atlassian marketplace, you're still running a business, you're still operating on principles, right, like there are certain ways that you can promote and market and sell a product.
Speaker 1:So I don't feel like I'm learning all of that from the start, but it's a different, it's more challenging, so maybe that's it. So we're going into product analytics, which is a pretty red ocean, you know. Oh yeah, lots of big players, well-established, great products already exist in this space, whereas working in the Atlassian ecosystem, you could kind of you could pick a niche or niche even, however you want to pronounce it, and you can kind of like claim that ground right in that ecosystem where it's a bit easier to kind of say this is us, we're the only ones doing this over here, and you're kind of in that ecosystem. That's kind of protected a little bit and feels like a bit of a safer place to play. So going into product analytics is maybe that's the thing that kind of makes me sit back a bit is we've got big competition now and we're not necessarily trying to go head-to-head with these big tools, but they're out there, people know about them, so I'm doing a lot more addressing that, answering those kind of questions from customers.
Speaker 2:In All, right, I'm going to dig deeper here. Go for it. And I'm going to ask a different question. Structure it differently. What is your today? What is your biggest fear around your business?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think my biggest fear is that we're not going to be fast enough to find that fit and, as we've talked about, it was a great product, really enjoyed using it. We're making changes to it, so we are kind of changing the direction a little bit and it's based on kind of a scratch your own itch kind of thing. Like this is the direction that we want to take. The product is to move away from strictly like productled growth, product-led sales and move it into make it valuable to product teams, make it valuable to engineering teams. So there's a bit of a we're adding on to it. But with that comes complexity around. Who are we messaging to? How are we positioning this?
Speaker 1:So I guess maybe my biggest fear is that we don't move fast enough in the right direction. Just where is the real traction going to come from? Should we be making these changes at all? Because the product worked as it was for certain teams and now we're talking about we think it can do something more bigger. So that's the unknown right now. Is that actually going to work? But coming to conferences like this is is.
Speaker 2:This is why we're here right, so we can, we can. This is your validator, because that would have been. My next question is like how, how do you know? How do you kind of like address that fear? Because I think that's one of the things that, uh, some founders face, which is, you know, we all have a lot of fears about you know our business, especially in the early days, I mean, along the way there's always something that comes up that's like damn it, what if, what if?
Speaker 2:But I think, especially when you start, it feels like those what ifs are not necessarily weightier, because you can be a founder that's been in business for 20 years and has a hundred million ARR or something like that, and that's, you know, you have some questions that are quite weighty, but it feels like big questions to answer.
Speaker 2:And there's a bigger fear when you're at a stage where you're more established and such and you know that you have something and the product is working and you have that market validation and so on.
Speaker 2:You have like a big team with a lot of professionals that can help you answer or kind of like put those fears to rest. It's a bit different than when you're in the early days and it's kind of like a make or break moment, and the one thing that I see a split is I talk to founders which have these fears, these what ifs, but they don't know how to put those fears at ease, right, or how to figure out, right, how do I get to the answer of that? How do I answer this question for me? That kind of like itches me and is a big fear factor moving forward, whereas talking to people sounds for you right, that's one of the most important things, and especially in places like this, I suppose, and that's probably one of the things that you realize is no one knows you here and it can be daunting, but in the same time, it can be really good for your business. Yeah, because that's when you get the real feedback from people that don't give a damn about your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's ultimately what we're after, right, but that's also that can be a very scary thing, even for established companies. I mean, it's something that has come up a lot in the past year Working with other businesses. This is one of those things that probably every single phone call. It's like well, talk to your customers more. I mean it's like the get out of the office thing, like go talk to people, what are they doing? Why are they looking to solve this problem? What is the real problem? What is their workflow? Looking to solve this problem, what is the real problem, what is their workflow?
Speaker 1:And just understanding that and looking for those, the right angle or the pitch or whatever you want to call it that makes someone's eyes light up. Like you need to go see that. Whether it's Zoom or in person, I think in person is way better, just a stronger connection that you can actually see it. You can see someone react to what, what you're saying. So I it's. That to me is like one of those just principal things. You just need to go and talk to people and it can be a bit scary, you know, like I'm not saying I'm, I'm great at it, but you know, you just got to get out and give it a go, and if someone walks away thinking like, oh, that was a bunch of crap, they're probably not going to think about you again anyway. So like I think that getting that out of my head is has been really helpful, that a lot of these moments are very fleeting, right?
Speaker 1:unless they come back and talk to us, they're probably not going to think about us again yeah and so there's not this huge like weight on my shoulders anymore, feeling like what does everyone think about us? A product myself, you know all that sort of stuff, and um, that's been very liberating, just to kind of go all right like we're gonna give it a crack and if, if this doesn't land well, we can always, we can pivot, we can change that, uh, but yeah, getting out and talking to people that's to me that, like that's the core of it is really understanding who you're talking to and who you're selling to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, and I think he, he have the right attitude there, which is I'm going out there I don't give a damn whether I mean in the sense of I'm not gonna have feedback affect me, yeah, right, but it's something that I need a lot. Yeah, I need it, but it won't affect us. And how we you know how we figure out things moving, moving forward. Um, an emotional reaction or um, yeah, because I it's very hard, it's very hard to be in a, in an environment where no one knows you and no one cares, and you, you go and talk to people and people still don't care or they don't have the reaction that you expected. Yeah it. It can be demoralizing, demotivating and also hurtful, because you think I didn't do a good job at either presenting the product or at my vision with this product and having the maturity to not take that to heart and actually say, right, here's the feedback that we got from this expo or whatnot. Let's see what this means for our product or our business.
Speaker 1:How did you handle that? You know as a new founder. How did you handle that?
Speaker 2:Well, in the early days it was just. It was very hurtful, especially when we started and we were doing Swanly and we realized we were having demos here and there and people just didn't have that aha moment, so much so that we almost closed shop eventually. The way we dealt with it was one we had a moment where we said we're going to give it one last try.
Speaker 1:What did that mean? Like what was one last try, Like another year or so?
Speaker 2:we were demotivated. This was happening in end of 2018, beginning of 2019. We had launched the product for six months. We had launched the product for six months. We had, in january 20 um 20 uh 2019, we had our first paying customer. It was an interesting moment. It was like, oh yeah, yay, we can pay for the server of for for swanley. But in the same time it was it's still a bitter taste after all of the rejection and the demos and no one got it it felt like, really, do you really want to pay for this product? Us?
Speaker 2:right, we were at that point where we were thinking, why is he paying for the product? Because everyone else that we didn't really got it and didn't commit to it really didn't really got it and didn't commit to it. But then I we had a moment where we we said, well, maybe we shouldn't be doing this, but let's see if there's anything that we can do more proactively to change this. And what? What that action was was to start doing research and figuring out what people wanted from this area, which was release management at that point in the JIRA and Atlassian. Yeah, so we started doing some digging and we started finding some interesting, you know, requests from from users of JIRA, from Atlassian and so on. And I think that's when we had a bit of an aha moment of, well, we didn't do much market validation of our product.
Speaker 2:We thought that we should be building all of this. No one wants it. But here's a panel of people giving feedback passionately around a product Like why don't we build that? That's the feedback, that's what people need. And we built a couple of we called it magnet features and then that kind of changed. We started thinking about oh well, if people are posting these, what are they talking about? What are they searching about? Let's start changing our listing to reflect that. And that kind of like had a significant turn. It was this period, at that point, where we were excited because we thought we had something right and we were excited to explore it. And we were excited to explore it and as we started launching these and seeing results and seeing kind of like customers paying for the product, that was very motivating.
Speaker 2:When you have a demo with someone and they say, right, I like what you're doing and this fits with my organization, I'm going to pay for this. Then you can have other people, you can be at events and people say, well, yeah, I don't know, I don't think anyone needs this, my organization doesn't need this. You still know that there's a group of people out there that find the product useful. That kind of overshadows any other, because a product is not going to be for everyone like overshadows any other, because a product is not going to be for everyone. Right, even if you have the, you have two products with identical value outcomes from the features. If their interfaces are different, you're going to have customers. That'll be like I hate this product and I like this product right yeah although they come to the exact same outcome.
Speaker 2:So we kind of started I wouldn't say zoning out, because you can't All of that feedback. You have to take it in it's analytics, it's information that you put to good use to work later. Right? Oh, five people said the same thing. Okay, maybe we can address this. They didn't like that, we can address it. So it's not like you're ignoring the negative feedback. You're still collecting it, but it doesn't affect you, yeah, anymore it's the same thing with, you know, podcasting and me being a bit more of a public person. So I have people that you know are, let's say, um, a bit of trolls and so on and don't like this or don't like that. But because the majority find the podcast that I do, or this or that, very valuable, that doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that's how we got over potentially being in an awkward position where we're in a room where no one knows us and you just kind of like get because you get that. Sometimes like people say, oh so what do you do? And they kind of like have that lean back stance of and raised eyebrow of okay, then let me see if this is a good product or not, especially at SaaS. Events Haven't been on the other side at SaaS Talk of being an exposee right, but there's a lot of people here that are into software as a service, either working for companies or owning companies and so on. So you know, there may be from the from the attendees perspective, of a bit more like that drilling that, because I know I've been an attendee and I was going to um competitors with pendle or this or that and I'll be like so what, what makes you special right?
Speaker 2:like that kind of like let me validate you yeah, let me validate you before I talk to you, right? So I don't know. You might get some of that here.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, that's been happening at other events too. Yeah, what makes you different?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny hearing someone be that blunt with you, but I also appreciate it because it means I've got to figure out how to articulate that in a way that they stick around and continue to be interested and, as you said, not for everybody all the time, like there will be people at the elastin event. We we spoke with some pretty big companies and it's like there's. We know we're not for gigantic enterprises. Right that we can. We can stop this conversation right now yeah you know like we're not a good fit for you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming by they go to pendle or whatever next door, they're just there yeah, there's other there's, they're better fit products and that's fine.
Speaker 1:I think getting being comfortable doing that has been really helpful, uh, because, as you said, you know, at the top of the show here, it's just, it's like having that honesty and the ability, and it's almost like the confidence to say like not, we're not a good fit for you.
Speaker 1:It's not that we don't want your money, it's we don't need it and this isn't going to work out for either of us really in the long run. And having the confidence to just say no, like go, go talk to them, uh, or or suggest something else, or you can walk them over to, you know, a consultant booth, and it's like actually you just need someone to help you do this, you know, like just you're there for the greater good, really, and I think that that helps you play well in a space. But, yeah, I'm, I think that's that's what I'm most excited about this week really is having those conversations and see what questions people come up with, because this is going to be a bit different from the alassian space where I kind of know the questions we're going to get, but here it may be a bit more pointed.
Speaker 2:I think I can foresee one common question. It's going to sound silly, but is people saying how do you pronounce your company?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, your name.
Speaker 2:Do you think that's going to happen? It does.
Speaker 1:It does happen already. It does happen yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so tell me the story around a coil name.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about Simon. Simon has basically just wanted to name a company this for a long time. And a coil Does it have a meaning? It means to gather and bring together, so it's actually quite. It's an appropriate name for analytics, because you're collecting data and you're making sense of that. So it makes sense in that way. But the name has grown on me a lot. I like it. I think we can educate people on how to say it. But that has been one of the little sticking points over the past couple months where we've I've gotten a quill, you know, and I don't know how people look at the letters and get to.
Speaker 2:It's something that sounds french you know, it's just like that, doesn't?
Speaker 1:make it? I don't see that. How did you? How did you get a quill from a coil? I don't know. But yeah, it has come up a few times.
Speaker 2:But well, I guess it's a. It's also a conversation starter at the end of the day, right, so you can warm up with, uh, with a bit of a conversation about the name of the company. Yeah, and I agree like there have been quite a lot of companies in sas as well which had the weirdest name ever yeah, thankfully we've gotten away from that, though, right Like the original Twitter was like TWTTR or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's not uncommon right to have something that people don't really know how to pronounce, and I think it might be also non-native English speakers that struggle with this more. Yeah, could be, and that's the one thing, because-.
Speaker 1:Well, the first draft of our booth that I proposed to the team, it just had the logo and the name, so Akkoil Analytics, and then all the design was it's pronounced Ak-boil. If you ask us anything else, why? Let's just get this out of the way right now. So I think we may lean into that at some point if it continues to be a thing. But I like to sort of fast forward here and say no, everyone's going to know it, it's fine, we'll educate the market and then here's some confidence for you. I think we'll be able to make this thing go, and at that point other people can do it for us. Once we establish it as a brand, then off we go.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. The other thing that I wanted to mention this is the first time that you're basically the founder of a product business. But does it feel like a novelty for you? Because, just thinking of your history so far in the last few years you helped run ThinkTilt. You were part of that team when it got acquired. You spent a couple of years at Atlassian. You got quite a deep dive into how that entire operation works. They're a product company previously working for a product company. Does it feel novel or is it? Well, I've accumulated all of this knowledge around what it means and what it takes to build a product business that I feel more confident going into it.
Speaker 1:I'm learning something new every day. Right, that's the reality. So having having more responsibility, like overseeing the finances of the company now and owning that that's that's new I've. That's new in the sense that this is a product company, so I've owned owned a number of businesses before, predominantly like more services side. So, you know, managing that is not new, I think.
Speaker 1:Where the novelty for me is being in this sort of like startup, the space where there's sort of expectations that people have when you say like, yeah, we're launching a software company and it's like, oh, a startup, and I can call whatever you want, but like, there's this expectation that that's like, oh, a startup, you can call it whatever you want, but there's this expectation that you're going to burn fast and hot and it's like you're shooting for the moon. So that to me, is novel. Where there's these expectations that other people have of you and of the company and the product that it's like you're going to be the next Google in the product that it's like you're going to be the next Google. Like it'd be nice, I guess. But you know, what does startup mean to everyone else? And do we even consider ourselves a startup?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't know. You know, I think we're just trying to build a good product, be sensible with the way that we run it operationally and, in that regard, kate is a fantastic operator, climate's a great operator. Uh, I'm. I personally just feel like I'm really blessed and lucky to to have teammates that have been around the traps a few times and I can learn from them. I think I'll bring some strengths as well, but yeah, it's a good team, so I'm comfortable okay always learning, but comfortable but you're the baby founder.
Speaker 2:I'm the baby founder In this group.
Speaker 1:There's another t-shirt.
Speaker 2:I'm bringing it all up.
Speaker 1:You've got Simon, the sweetheart baby founder.
Speaker 2:I need to find something for Kate For.
Speaker 1:Kate, yeah, we'll see what she allows me to get away with.
Speaker 2:Yeah so well. With yeah um so well. Oh yes, I wanted to ask because you mentioned are we a startup, are we um? Are you bootstrapped?
Speaker 1:we are raising right now. So we're raising a small round yeah and the intent is to do one like that's the, that's the thinking right now family last words of anything that might get me in trouble.
Speaker 1:Uh, no so. Yeah, so we are raising right now, uh, doing a small round, um, with the intent of the idea is to make this a 10-year business at least, and and the reason that's important to me anyway, and I think collectively, is that we're trying to build something that can kind of grow on its own momentum, right, like we want to build a sound business that we're not necessarily looking to flip it and run away from it, right so, like I did, Well look I I have.
Speaker 1:There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the approaches, like there's no judgment on any of it. It's just, I think, for it's kind of one of those things like at this point in my life do I want to work 80 hours a week?
Speaker 1:not really you know, I've got kids, I've got a wife, I've got a little farm that we pretend like we're farming, and so there's a lot going on. When do you have time for this business, though? Exactly yeah, I mean so I guess that's what I'm trying to say is I think we envision this as more stable, maybe, and less frantic. Lifestyle business.
Speaker 2:I don't know Profitable yes. It's a very kind of like not taboo, but the lifestyle thing, Lifestyle business. But what does?
Speaker 1:that actually mean yeah. So I think I mean to a degree, yeah, like I think we want to have that balance. I personally want to have that balance and I want to be around, hang out with the kids, that sort of thing. So looking at how I spend my time has been really, really important and I like the idea of startup, I like the idea of like really pushing hard on things, but I've been like just more and more indoctrinated into the whole 37 Signals kind of stay up I think Jason Fried calls it that we're trying to build a profitable business that we can keep around for a while and if at some point an opportunity comes around and someone wants to purchase one of the products that we have, open to anything but going to be very deliberate with it, I think. And that's kind of the approach that we're taking with this okay, and then what?
Speaker 2:what are you looking? Um, basically, what are what's the most exciting bit for you that you're looking for as as this business grows? What?
Speaker 1:excites you about it. This is probably gonna sound kind of kind of corny, but I actually I really like helping people and in whatever capacity I I can, it's not to me that doesn't sound corny.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's.
Speaker 1:That's my life goal as well so I mean and and if you can do it through a product like I, I believe in the product that we have. We are using our own product right, and so I can see what it can do for other people. And I would love to just have stacks of user stories, case studies, testimonials that say, yep, with this we were able to 10X our revenue. Whatever it is, our conversion doubled, our churn dropped, it was cut in half. That, to me, is the most exciting part, like if you can see those wins for for other people, that means that we're doing well. But also I just that.
Speaker 1:That's the most fun part to me is like we're providing something of value. And yeah, I, maybe it is. Maybe it's not corny, but yeah, to me it feels a bit like that, like it's not corny, but to me it feels a bit like that. It's a bit trite to say I'm just here to help, but that is what excites me about this and providing these tools. If we can help other people grow their business, then that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I think nowadays, a lot of us do start businesses because of that, especially product businesses, because you're trying to help people, yeah, um, as as much as you can. I mean, I think I think there's definitely founders out there that fixate over a specific problem, as in, that's what they love solving that specific problem more than in general, helping people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, yeah, um, think of elon musk, right so he's like he has a lot of things that he's a lot of. I don't want to put it in a very uh, odd way, but he it seems like he's fixated on a couple of topics, yeah, and that works out for him, that's what he loves and likes to do, and so on. I don't think I'm like that. I think I've never had a okay, I want to solve this problem in the world, specifically More of a. If I have a contribution, I'm fulfilled, I'm satisfied, I'm happy, and it sounds like you're the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this company is a vehicle to do that. That's how I look at it and I believe that there is a problem there that we can solve. And so, right now, fixated on that. But, yeah, in a bigger picture sense, yeah, it's more like how can we help? Yeah, that sort of thing, which is also dangerous, I find, because I'm I often feel compelled like, yeah, I'll get on a call, you know, and maybe I shouldn't be spending so much time on phone call. It's like I've got a job to do as well, that, you know. Like, at some point I need to find that balance where, if anyone wants to ask questions, I'm happy to to. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Let's go. That's a topic that we could be chatting about for a long time, because I know exactly what you're talking about. We love, we still love. But in the early days of Jigsaw we were on all kinds of calls with everyone that had a simple question or a plethora of questions, and we had to figure out how to kind of like scale that down, because we realized nikki was spending most of her week in demo calls and in customer success calls. Yeah, right, um, so there's a balance to be had there. Or, although you enjoy it, I enjoy it as well, she, she was enjoying it as well. It's like, okay, so I, you know I shouldn't be talking to, uh, to customers 24 seven. Although I love to talk to them, it's still like you have to somehow limit it and be smart about you know how you help them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, instead of my regular three questions, I'm going to ask you one single question, which I'm quite interested in being through this period of starting this business. What would be one piece of advice that you would give anyone that's maybe a step or two behind? Let's say they're just getting started, just at the concept stage, they're just putting together the initial thoughts of their product business. What would be one advice that you'd give that person?
Speaker 1:oh wow, okay, you said you're gonna go easy on me, uh, oh I said'm switching Instead of three questions I'll give you one, you get one Harder.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, what would?
Speaker 1:Advice. I don't know if I'm in a position to give advice to anybody, to be honest, Can I say that's bullshit.
Speaker 2:And you know why? Because we tend to think that the people that should advise us are these very successful individuals that have been you know they're a thousand steps ahead and been through all of it, done everything, tried everything. But as I was growing up as a founder at Jexo, I realized how beneficial it is for others to even learn from someone that's one, two steps ahead.
Speaker 1:That's more relatable. I appreciate that framing of the question too. I'm with you on that one. So I think in that context, one of the things that I think I've had to learn myself recently and I'm constantly sort of fighting myself on this is I wanted to be across everything in the company. And we've got you've got a team for a reason and we've decided who's responsible for which areas of the business.
Speaker 1:And for me it's kind of it's not so much like staying in my lane right, it's not like stay in your lane and do nothing else, it's make sure that I get the financial stuff down. I've run small companies before I understand it, but am I doing it properly? Am I doing that the best that I can without getting distracted on the product side and like, actually I'd like to do that today. It's like no, I've got my responsibilities here and I think for me it's just been the discipline to set aside the time to focus on those parts of the business and say I own the finances, that's my responsibility in the company. So I'm actually just blocking off time every week to do that, and if it's not necessarily actively managing it, it's are there lessons that I can be learning? So, going and looking how can I make myself better at that particular thing instead of spreading myself across the whole company?
Speaker 1:Obviously, I want to know what's going on, but having that conversation, initially with your co-founders if you have them or your team, to say who's responsible for what, and then how are you personally going to make sure that you're fulfilling that role. So yeah, it doesn't sound like advice, but I think it's more like know your role but just have the discipline to actually to be able to fulfill that and if you have to learn, be open about it, go seek those resources. That's been helpful to me, say, like running this kind of business, there are nuances that I wasn't familiar with, necessarily before I've been around it, but not sitting in these. You know the sort of like sitting at the startup, the founder table where it wasn't my responsibility before, so I understood what someone else was doing, but now that it's mine to own, I actually need to go deeper on that. So it's kind of just instilling the discipline in myself to do that and I think that would be something to maybe pass on is pick a part of the business and really own that.
Speaker 2:I also think you're way too modest of trying to not frame that as advice. I do think that that's really good advice to have, and again coming from someone that you know. If someone watching this and they're just getting started, that is a lot fresher and more applicable to their state versus you know someone that might be already a hundred million ARR type of business well, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I know that you also have to run to Sastok, set up your booth and do all of that. All of that stuff, really, really great conversation I can't wait to. I need to have Simon on and Kate. Thank you so much. Appreciate the chat.
