I’m happy to announce that I was recently interviewed on the AI and the Future of Work podcast, hosted by Dan Turchin, Founder and CEO of PeopleReign, and formerly of Astound.ai, Big Panda, ServiceNow, and Aeroprise. Dan’s a great technologist, entrepreneur, and visionary so I was happy to sit down with him for this wide-ranging, twenty-five minute chat.
On the podcast, we discuss:
- A bit of my career history and background
- How COVID-19 will change work in Silicon Valley
- Innovation beyond Silicon Valley (one of my favorite topics, given my five years in Europe.)
- The one most important SaaS metric. (Hint: LTV/CAC.)
- The most misunderstood SaaS metric. (I can’t remember what I said, but I should have said CAC Payback Period.)
- A prediction about a workplace activity that is outrageous today but could be commonplace in the future. (I said salary transparency after struggling a bit. I suppose face masks and elbow bumps would have been an easier answer.)
- Thoughts on the best software cultures. (Keyword: winning.)
- My advice to my younger self. (“Put your hands in the air and step away from the keyboard,” in reference to the various troubles I’ve caused myself over email when I should have either said nothing or called.)
The link to the podcast episode is here. I hope you get a chance to listen to it and enjoy it if you do. Thanks for having me Dan.
To the SaaS whisperer:
You put on a master class in how to be a venture-backed SaaS CEO. Should be required listening for first-time (heck, any time) CEOs.
The metrics discussion is the topic for a whole series. Every metric is misunderstood because each one requires context…a point you made on the podcast.
18? Ok. What was it last year? Is that good or bad? Is it trending up or down? And why didn’t you include – insert key data here – in the denominator??
Always concerns me when, for example, I have to ask the CEO if s/he excluded paid POCs from the CAC calculation.
Looking forward to the next discussion. Maybe we pick one company or even one metric and explore the themes we only had time to tease – LTV/CAC, sales cycle, hiring, culture, fundraising, board management.
Great work!
-dan