Notes

• Shar - re: growth rate. As we scale, operational risk will shift somewhere, but strong leadership & hiring great people is key. Mostly commending us for doing it well so far.
• Adam Sah
  • It wasn’t weird happy accident. We followed a classic Sillicon valley focused model (Alt. is self-serve, which we didn't do, and more ‘popular’ model.) “Valley of doom” is trying to do half-way through. We’re Sun MicroSystems. Instead we’re selling to chosen very large customers, rather than Microsoft.
  • At this stage of the company’s growth recruiting should be becoming easier, not harder. World-class staffing is core to success. We should invest in our internal recruitment processes, to make it predictable!
  • Uncanny valley for consultative sales. Doing something that’s almost good is worse than nothing.
    • Balsamiq analogy - good but you couldn’t take it anywhere. Figma ate their lunch because it could.
    • So - when we go to a new market, create an example workflow that’s not their process, but it’s detailed and relevant. Use that as the sales tool, rather than trying to map their real process live.
    • Creative authenticity with mapped process.
  • Automation
    • Get more fine-grained in the automation levels of processes, work etc.
    • How do we get more automation product-line? Think about manual labor work as internal sales leads.
    • Once you get to full automation, some radical things happen around latency
  • ML
    • Sell hard on these thinks if it’s helpful, but don’t unless it is.
    • Use off-the-shelf, open-source cheap APIs.
• Charlie
  • Thinks that we could hit $700M from 70 customers, in theory. What is the exogenous thread that we can hang on to to drive our growth. Is it ML movement, and us training data.
  • Single biggest problem MSFT, GOOGLE faced in their times… is… having a bunch of talent that is getting super high equity and grandfathered in, and it makes it hard to hire new talent. Our buyback strategy can allow this to be avoided. “Inter-generational Gap”
    • Adam Sah - Guaranteed cash bonus after a certain amount of time. Avoids having increase cost of living that eliminates the perceived value of the cash.
    • Rather than using valuation of the company, you can abstract it to GP or similar.
    • Shar
      • segment into Sales (normal sales comp), ‘Execs’ (Equity), Ops/Biz functions (flexible bonus structures). Ben agreed that diff approaches makes sense.
      • Marshall’s idea - can we create business metrics/objectives to hit to vest equity.
        • Shar - But, it just creates the wrong incentives and/or misalignment of objectives.
  • We’re the only player employing the “wet-ware” chips (agents) alongside automation. Do this.
    • Ben agrees. The borderline of human vs. automation will be a moving target, but we have first mover advantage and are built to follow that target.
      • Joe worries about keeping up on the latest as it progresses
    • John Lee says we shouldn’t be fooling ourselves that we’re the only ones doing this.
• John Lee
  • Using ARR doesn’t really make sense, as it’s not recurring software contracts. [we know this, we use revenue run-rate.] Should target more, perhaps, on cash availability, vs. ARR which is more investor-focused.
  • Selling into new customers is about as tough as selling into existing customers with upselling. Is customer success given as much of a focus/importance. Are we focusing enough on expansion?
  • RPA had so much hype, that there wasn’t an education piece required, and indeed people ignored the realities of how hard it was. There’s been extreme overselling. Massive layoffs, talent seepage.
  • Process Mapping is something interesting to explore. E.g. partnership with the likes of Celonis. Also work with RPA companies, as process mapping provider. Smaller consulting firms also a very good opportunity, esp. process mapping style consultants. It’s a benefit for them to have something we can actually provide to their clients.
    • Shar offered Celonis intros up & down the stack.
• Brian
  • We do quick studies, and adapt quickly. High velocity. We’re still really small. Our job as mgmt is to change quickly, to accelerate and grow faster. We’re adept at doing this, Brian says. But don’t lose it as we grow!
• Ben
  • Don’t need to rewire business, rather than pivot investment in sales/marketing.
  • Why is doubling the target? What are the rate limiters that will prevent us from going higher than that.
• Eduardo
  • Not clear what the perfect marketing edge is. Not a mechanism that shows what ROI we get from investing $x in marketing (or sales). Thus being smart about where we pour concrete. We also don’t know what our ‘killer product’ is. Menu transcription, or AI labelling, or… We can fund these explorations with client revenue, which makes it much safer.
    • Shar - We do 50% GMs. Accenture aim for that in their similar biz, but don’t always reach it. If we can maintain our 50%+ margin, then uncertainty about what our perfect product-market fit is, doesn’t matter so much.
    • Zohar - Don’t focus on segments. Just focus on solving problems for our customers. A la Mckinsey during tough times.
• Ben
  • Explore vs. Exploit. People who find next ops won’t be the same as those making it a success. Mgmt’s job is capital allocation to ensure we are managing the portfolio of opportunities is being supported.
  • Diversification also applies at the “client archetype” too. Diff companies are exposed to certain macro trends. Diversify not just by client but by revenue concentration in industries or business ‘types’.
• Question - how do you get good golden handcuffs?
  • Ben & Charlie - watch for the opposite more, people who just want to sit and vest and work at 60% effort.

Closing Remarks

• John - We’re a well-functioning machine. Don’t get too bogged down with some of this stuff. Hiring will solve itself. Proserv vs. not will solve with more customers. As will AI vs. not AI. SO really delve into finding new use cases with existing customers. Cutting down churn too would account for a large amount of growth.
• Charlie - Fundamentally in great shape. Don’t feel bad if we end up with 3 divergent realities. Idealistic view for new employees, bottom-line for customers, middle view for execs.
• Ben - Handling agility thus far gives a lot of confidence about what’s coming ahead. Continue to look at the couple of risks that we really want to focus and spend exec energy on.
• Shar - At the centre of everything is the manical focus on customer service and serving their needs. That will drive the growth and success. Put the first.
• Zohar - Progress & conservation. Conservative was eschewing VC for PE. How much of that style should we maintain in the future as we grow?
• Brian - We’ve created a lot of enviable momentum, which is creating rich man problems for us (e.g. are we hunter or prey?). Watch out for complacency. Make sure we have a level of manageable anxiety.
• Adam -