My firstminute | Ross Mason, MuleSoft, Dig Ventures

What do you think the average for a startup to reach product-market fit is? 📊

The answer: 2-3 years. 

Ross Mason took 6 years to reach product-market fit with MuleSoft but it was worth the wait when he sold the company to Salesforce for $6.5bn.

Ross discusses his journey as Founder of MuleSoft. From the search for product-market fit to the changes in his confidence between 10 million and 2 million in revenue. Ross is the co-founder of MuleSoft and Founder and Managing Partner of Dig Ventures. 

In this episode from April 2020, we covered everything from scaling MuleSoft in a recession through to being bought by Salesforce for $6.5bn, to how we use the Coronavirus to come out stronger, to how to go about fundraising in those times, to how to know who is essential in your team, to how do Enterprise SaaS customers respond to a crisis like this.

Transcript

00:00:00:27 - 00:00:33:21
Speaker 1
First minute capital is $100 million seed stage fund sector agnostic and proudly backed by a number of top technology founders, including 30 unicorn founders. The My First Minute series is about learning from prior generations of successful entrepreneurs and sharing that insights and lessons with the next generation of tech founders. The series has two focuses. One, How They Got Started in their careers that first minute, if you will.

00:00:33:25 - 00:00:50:23
Speaker 1
And two, how they see the world today and what they're most excited about. My name is Spencer Cooney. I'm a co-founder and general partner at first, Bennet Capital, and today I'm speaking with Russ Mason.

00:00:53:05 - 00:01:31:20
Speaker 1
Really couldn't be more thrilled to be chatting to Russ. I'm going to do the bio extremely short because I think everyone really knows Russ as background. But it's and Russ, you must correct me if I get your professional history wrong in 30 seconds, but is that it's it's a career that's taken him from computer science degree in the UK to being a CEO for the first time in 2005 and an integration consultancy which then has, as I've read, Russ talk about his frustration with that donkey work led him to think about the mule project, which then became Mule Soft itself.

00:01:32:00 - 00:02:10:07
Speaker 1
Fast forward 13 years of blood, sweat and tears and you have an IPO, a very successful one, followed by a six and a half billion dollar exit to Salesforce. Easy, right. And then I think the other sort of key to things really to say that Digg Ventures, which Russ and Melissa Lester run across London and Geneva is originally Russ family office is kind of graduating into being a top tier early stage fund focused on Pre-Seed seed, B2B enterprise, SaaS businesses, investing in the US and Europe.

00:02:11:03 - 00:02:32:25
Speaker 1
And we work very closely with them and think the world of them as a as a, as a investing entity. Russ has also written a book which you might have to come to later. And I think last but not least, in terms of if you were to plot a founder success against how nice a person they are, I think Russell's anomalously top right at that growth.

00:02:33:20 - 00:02:52:19
Speaker 1
So it's really fun to have you. Russ. Thank you for taking time out. What may be the easiest way to slide into this is just for people to hear a little bit about those very early days of MuleSoft.

00:02:53:01 - 00:02:53:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:02:53:15 - 00:03:04:16
Speaker 3
Okay. So good morning or afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining today as a great intro. Thank you. I feel a bit shy and embarrassed. I hate people talking about me, but.

00:03:05:12 - 00:03:06:27
Speaker 2
It was really good. Yeah.

00:03:06:27 - 00:03:31:16
Speaker 3
So I've never lived through a pandemic kind of thing anyone has because they already had this type of scale since maybe in 1913 when we had the Spanish Flu or something like that. And but what I have lived through with MuleSoft in the early days, so we I founded MuleSoft in 2007. It was a venture backed company. We raised 4 million.

00:03:31:16 - 00:04:00:09
Speaker 3
And in 2006 and by the middle of 2008, we started to see people start to get worried about the financial crisis. And it was particularly bad for us because our software was, I think about 50 to 70% of our customer base were banks or financial institutions. And overnight we lost we lost some customers whose went out of business like Fannie Mae.

00:04:01:10 - 00:04:04:18
Speaker 3
We were in conversations with loads of other they just dropped off the radar.

00:04:05:02 - 00:04:07:04
Speaker 2
And anyone.

00:04:07:04 - 00:04:28:15
Speaker 3
Who remembers 2008 was in bank at the time. There was a deck that went around. I forget the VC, I think it was Sequoia prepared, attacked that basically said that all pretty much was happening right now. All companies need to hunker down. They need to cut their burn down significantly and hunker down for the winter because we don't know what's going to happen.

00:04:28:15 - 00:05:02:12
Speaker 3
And it has a lot of echoes of what's happening right now, which is there's something pretty big and global happening. Everyone is changing our behavior is changing the economic landscape shape. It's changing our lives in particular, more so than I think the financial crisis did. But we don't know when the end is in sight, and we don't know whether everything from the stimulus that we're doing or even we don't even know whether we can contain this thing or do we have to keep living in semi isolation for the next three years?

00:05:02:20 - 00:05:25:08
Speaker 3
There's a lot of unknowns right now, so it's pretty interesting. Build a company in this sort of time because it like everyone says this, but it really forces you to think about what's important to me and my business. And I remember my board coming to me towards the end of 2008 and they really had this sort of look in their face like, Oh, I think this might be it.

00:05:25:08 - 00:05:27:00
Speaker 3
What do you think? Do we close the doors on this?

00:05:27:22 - 00:05:28:05
Speaker 2
And I think it's.

00:05:28:05 - 00:05:58:09
Speaker 3
Really weird because what they were really saying was, you know, we're ready to write off an investment and and I it was it was tough because they weren't saying we wanted to shut down. They're just saying, what do you think? And in my minds, and this is quite critical for this type of time, is if if you really are going after something, that there's a real need in the marketplace and you really have a reason to be operating and delivering that capability, and you believe the demand is there and we're going to continue to be there.

00:05:58:25 - 00:06:17:07
Speaker 3
And there's really no reason to to shut it off. But you have to think about what you're going to build next. And I went back to them. I said, look, give me a weekend to think about it. And I looked at an opportunity. I looked at every organization I realized, and I understood how much pain they were in integrating software and systems together.

00:06:17:25 - 00:06:35:19
Speaker 3
And I looked at the competition and I realized they weren't delivering what they needed to. They weren't even thinking about the right way. And so I felt like we had a head start. Even though we'd lost like a bunch of our customers. It was very unlikely we were going to make any sales in the next 12 months. But I felt we should continue doing it.

00:06:35:19 - 00:06:42:02
Speaker 3
And it was great because in one way, had I really understood what we were about and what we had to do moving forward.

00:06:42:15 - 00:06:43:05
Speaker 2
And.

00:06:43:28 - 00:06:46:04
Speaker 3
You know, beyond what you hear, I think.

00:06:46:18 - 00:06:47:03
Speaker 2
From.

00:06:48:16 - 00:07:04:19
Speaker 3
Some of these other podcasts and LinkedIn articles and what I really cared about as a founder then was What the heck do I do next? I know I'm going to make cuts, but how do I how do I decide what they are? How do I how do I figure out whether my products really has a market fit right now?

00:07:05:04 - 00:07:18:10
Speaker 3
Do I and is there a point where I give up and I you know, hopefully we can talk about some of these things in my thoughts, at least on on that stuff, which is far more gritty and probably a bit more important to a lot of the people on this on this call.

00:07:19:00 - 00:07:45:09
Speaker 1
No, definitely. And I would love to explore more how you found that belief in those hardest days to continue, as you said, perhaps just for a momentary stepping back. And I was, I guess maybe three quarters of the code know well what MuleSoft did and does. But for those less familiar with application networks and APIs and kind of enterprise software, what what does MuleSoft do?

00:07:46:01 - 00:08:17:02
Speaker 3
Right. So MuleSoft basically connects the world's applications, data and devices, right? So and we do it for probably the Fortune 2000 and maybe beyond at this point with under Salesforce. And we help people connect things the right way. So, you know, there's a lot of people in our space that do integration software that you would might have heard of Tipco and IBM and Oracle, and they'll Boomi and Apogee and now a whole bunch of functions and service companies and other types of widgets.

00:08:17:21 - 00:08:29:00
Speaker 3
There's, there's lots of people trying to solve the how do I connect two or more systems or two more data sources together? And MuleSoft gets very good at helping organizations.

00:08:29:21 - 00:08:29:26
Speaker 2
To.

00:08:29:26 - 00:08:52:23
Speaker 3
Stop thinking about connections and start thinking about reusable assets. Treat your data components as reusable things that should be available to different parts of the organization. And ideally, what we were trying to get to is more self-service within the organization so people could do more on their own. And so essentially we connect things, but we also make those connections reusable through API as well, microservices.

00:08:53:05 - 00:09:03:08
Speaker 1
And maybe to bring that to life with one example of how you talk about, for instance, Wells Fargo or Bank and how they might use it just a very short example of how that is in practice.

00:09:03:08 - 00:09:10:23
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we, we were almost market agnostic. So, you know, BP ran run the transformation program on us.

00:09:10:24 - 00:09:11:08
Speaker 2
And.

00:09:11:25 - 00:09:56:16
Speaker 3
HSBC, their whole open API initiative, which is basically making all consumer banking functions available through APIs, is built in our platform. Bank of America did something very similar in the healthcare space. It's a lot more about heavy connectivity. It's not they're not quite as far ahead, which is unfortunate given current climate, but everything from e-commerce and everyone from, you know, Ralph Lauren to Ted Baker to Isaac's Coca-Cola, McDonald's, like we just had a lot of different companies, all the different the what was interesting about the way we approached it, because we were talking about connections, but talking about really changing digital and digital capabilities into assets.

00:09:57:11 - 00:10:03:23
Speaker 3
Our conversation was quite often with the CEO and the CIO, which set us apart from the rest of the global players.

00:10:05:04 - 00:10:23:22
Speaker 1
And if we customize back to some of those moments, some of those board meetings you mentioned in oh eight, do you do you remember specific moments where you were most doubtful of the future of the business and where you had where you were wavering and the need for MuleSoft to exist?

00:10:24:25 - 00:10:27:29
Speaker 3
So weirdly, I'm a I'm a I'm an idiot. I think.

00:10:29:18 - 00:10:30:03
Speaker 2
I.

00:10:31:00 - 00:10:52:27
Speaker 3
I was a wavering back then. And I think if and it wasn't because I was certain, it was just there was actually a bit of, well, what else am I going to do right? So if I give up now and I can't go work for anyone else, I already hated working for other people. I think if you spoke to any of my former bosses before I did, you know, they were like, Oh God, he was hard to manage.

00:10:52:27 - 00:11:23:22
Speaker 3
And I guess I just didn't work within that environment. I wanted to create something, you know, a different type of environment. So I didn't it was interesting. I never really doubted, you know, I didn't know we would have the outcome we're going to have. So just be clear. I'm not saying I had no doubt that we were going to be IPO company, but I had no doubt that we were trying to solve a problem that people really needed to solve and which was connectivity and integration.

00:11:24:24 - 00:11:57:13
Speaker 3
And, you know, I always thought, well, even if I can't figure out as long as I can hire really good people around me to help me figure it out, we going to you know, we'll get the flywheel moving. So back then, I think my certainty is actually what got the investors over the line. I will say for my companies now that I, you know, I work with so you know, you mentioned Digg Ventures, but before Digg Ventures I did about 40 angel investments in the US over a period of four years and I actually like it when they come to me in a bit more.

00:11:57:13 - 00:11:57:29
Speaker 2
Vulnerable.

00:11:59:01 - 00:12:23:14
Speaker 3
Because I like to know how they're thinking. I think I'm a bit of an anomaly, I'm a bit resistant. Maybe I push down stress so I don't really understand. I'm feeling it until I get sick or something. And but back then I wasn't I wasn't dealing with uncertainty. But the reality was I was certain that the problem was there and people really, really because of it, whether it was a financial crisis or not.

00:12:23:29 - 00:12:34:09
Speaker 3
And I think that's the key right now because, you know, if you look at a list of 100 companies, it's hard to justify a lot of those companies really existing in what they're offering to market today.

00:12:35:02 - 00:12:56:01
Speaker 1
And before we kind of turn that, turn the torch to that to to the future, does I think one of the most unusual elements of the MuleSoft story is, you know, in the end, as you say, you've got some of the best investors in the world, whether it was NEA or Salesforce or Lightspeed, Cisco, etc.. You had your IPO.

00:12:56:01 - 00:13:11:24
Speaker 1
You had a huge one of the largest enterprise acquisitions of the last decade. But the beginning was tough. And that that period that you took to find product market fit. Am I right in saying it was five, six years until you felt you had a product market fit?

00:13:12:07 - 00:13:12:15
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:13:13:09 - 00:13:14:29
Speaker 1
And so I think.

00:13:15:13 - 00:13:22:25
Speaker 3
I better have more doubts there. I put in more doubts when we had 10 million more revenue than we had when we had 2 million in revenue. And we're going through the financial crisis.

00:13:23:07 - 00:13:23:17
Speaker 2
Okay.

00:13:24:06 - 00:13:48:28
Speaker 3
Because the challenge with finding product market fit is sometimes and quite often it doesn't take off for quite some time. And you can build a company to 10 million revenue and then 20 and then 30, 40, you can you can pretty get to about 30 million and a lot of companies and you've got to get there in the mix where run out of steam a bit because there's a bit of a growth threshold that has to happen in terms of the way you operate.

00:13:49:17 - 00:14:10:13
Speaker 3
And and I think I had more doubts in those times. But weirdly, when the economy was short and we were losing our customer base for some reason and maybe because I hadn't experienced before, because it didn't seem to worry me, it seemed to worry the people around me. And I guess, well, I think we keep going as we see what happens.

00:14:11:14 - 00:14:29:11
Speaker 3
And and, you know, for us, we decided, okay, we're not going to do any sales. So, you know, one of the hard questions we had to answer is, okay, we're going to reduce our burn. Who are we going to let go of? And the reality is, is some companies should keep their salespeople and maybe reduce their engineering team.

00:14:29:19 - 00:14:51:04
Speaker 3
Other companies probably get rid of their salespeople, but retain their engineering depending on how mature they are, whether they found any market fit. And luckily with some good guidance from my board, we decided that, okay, we don't need to make any sales next 12 months, but we do need to keep the product running and get to a point where we can come back out to market.

00:14:51:04 - 00:14:53:04
Speaker 3
And that's kind of what we were the way we dealt with it.

00:14:53:20 - 00:15:20:04
Speaker 1
And I on that guidance, most of the founders darling in their early stage, some of them found product market fit, some of some a pretty moderate product market fit or even pre-launch. The significance of of mentors for you, whether they were people on your board or not in those early years, was it something major for you or were you you found kind of you rely more on inner resilience or what was that?

00:15:20:10 - 00:15:21:13
Speaker 1
What was that dynamic like?

00:15:22:01 - 00:15:22:15
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:15:22:17 - 00:15:53:10
Speaker 3
And now I think this is because of me. I know. I think I've matured a lot in 13 years and MuleSoft, I think in the early days I had no idea how to use a good advisor. I wasn't thinking about enough. About what question? I was very much in my own head. I wasn't thinking about enough, about the questions I should be asking, which is actually why I like founders to tell me when they're stressed or struggling to figure out where to go next because you just can't figure it all out in one go.

00:15:53:22 - 00:16:12:11
Speaker 3
You can go from working as a developer somewhere or working as a product manager somewhere and then suddenly run a company. And it all intuitive to make sense to you. It's important that you, rather than having to figure out the answers for yourself or your questions to ask, is just raise your hand every now and again and say, Look, I don't know how to even think about this problem.

00:16:12:11 - 00:16:13:00
Speaker 2
What should I do?

00:16:13:16 - 00:16:35:13
Speaker 3
And I didn't do enough of that. And to that end, I don't think I got enough out of out of the mentors I had at the time. So it was reasonably good. It could have been, you know, I give myself a D, I should have really been asking more thinking more about how to leverage them.

00:16:36:09 - 00:17:00:26
Speaker 1
When you conscious of and then I promise you will you indulge me lots about questions about you which I know it's something that you mentioned, but does this were you aware of how you were perceived as a CEO but by colleagues? Is that was that would that characteristics you identify self-identified as as a CEO?

00:17:00:26 - 00:17:10:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think I was I think my leadership style has grown a lot. I think back then I was a bit like a bit of a benevolent dictator.

00:17:10:20 - 00:17:11:29
Speaker 2
Um, I.

00:17:12:20 - 00:17:36:07
Speaker 3
You know, I was coming in as a specialist, but I didn't leave a lot of room for others until, until it wasn't till I hired some really good operational people. Then I realized, okay, I don't know, you know, I got to let people do what they they need to do and really learn from them as well as help teach them what I know.

00:17:38:02 - 00:18:01:16
Speaker 3
And, you know, that was that was actually a really fun transition in some ways because I think in the beginning, certainly I carried too much weight, too much burden on what we had to do and the strategy and direction and messaging and the way represented ourselves. And in reality, you can you can bring others into that either in a formal or informal capacity, which I learned too late.

00:18:01:16 - 00:18:42:29
Speaker 1
I think it's super interesting today. I think it's you know, the message from all investors to founders is extend your runway, cut your costs. This is obviously totally exceptional times, incredibly difficult times for the societies, let alone let alone businesses and early stage businesses that those who those who have to fundraise, those founders who are facing existential crises, where they know they've got three, six, nine months of runway left, if you're in a position where you you are going to have to go to market to raise more money to keep your business alive, assuming that you're not going to hit profitability in that period.

00:18:43:22 - 00:18:48:11
Speaker 1
What's your advice to and how do you go about fundraising in this type of environment?

00:18:49:23 - 00:18:50:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean.

00:18:52:19 - 00:18:54:19
Speaker 3
I can tell you, you you know, we've looked at.

00:18:55:01 - 00:18:55:16
Speaker 2
I don't know.

00:18:56:01 - 00:19:18:03
Speaker 3
I've pretty looked at 15 mills, probably looked at 50 companies this year. There's only a few of them, I think, to go raise money right now. And and the challenges is I think the founders take this is a bit of a hit sometimes, but quite often it's just that the space they're playing in right now just may not make sense.

00:19:18:10 - 00:19:45:14
Speaker 3
Right. So you've got to understand it because we do B2B, the SAS, so we very much enterprise and we think about what enterprises are going through. Well, every enterprise literally, you know, in the last three weeks have gone fully digital, which is an opportunity, actually. But it also means that trying to figure out how to keep their operations going when people can't be in the same room together, they're trying to figure out how to keep the network running and keep it up.

00:19:45:14 - 00:20:12:18
Speaker 3
We don't see going when people can interface with each other. And what you find is even in enterprise i.t, there's a lot of interactions that happen to support the digital activity. And so if your product or service or your offering isn't giving them something that those people care about right now, it's going to be tough, right? It could be tough to find product market fit.

00:20:13:03 - 00:20:33:25
Speaker 3
And it also means that investors are going to have a harder time, you know, really mapping what you're doing and what they think people are going to need. Now, it doesn't mean that, you know, so the challenge, I think, is really first to look at what you're building, what your proposition is. And be very honest with yourself, is is this something the world needs right now?

00:20:34:17 - 00:20:55:13
Speaker 3
Right. And there's just you know, there's a ton of things which they're in the top 20, but they may not be in the top ten. And I think that's a bit tough. But the other thing to bear in mind is the world isn't over, right? We will go back to some normalcy. We'll still be pulling email algorithms. We're still developing software.

00:20:55:23 - 00:21:24:27
Speaker 3
We still need tools to enable other parts of the organization. We still need better e-commerce solutions, etc., etc.. So there's still plenty of opportunity out there. It's just you're going to have to fight. You have to work a lot harder to find the right investor. I think so. A little known story that I probably spoke to about 70, almost every VC firm you can you could have named in 2005, 2000, six to get one term sheet for MuleSoft.

00:21:26:16 - 00:21:35:25
Speaker 3
So that's a that's a ton of legwork, right? That's that's a ton of conversations. And it's sort of 69 no's and one. Yes.

00:21:36:03 - 00:21:39:07
Speaker 1
And 69 very regretful VCs as well.

00:21:40:19 - 00:21:41:16
Speaker 2
Yes.

00:21:41:16 - 00:21:57:29
Speaker 3
Well, you know, the thing is, the reason why I once said no is because there really been a wave of integration by people to sit and it all fails. It was all terrible and it was like, I can't do this again. It was just a nightmare the first time, which I hated. But I now I get it and I understand what they went through.

00:21:58:15 - 00:22:19:16
Speaker 3
But but, you know, you're going to have to you're going to have to work a lot harder, I think, to raise money in this market. I think founders may need to reduce their valuation and maybe some of their targets and how much they want to raise. I don't think that's a bad thing. I've seen, you know, valuations go up on ideas and, you know, a team.

00:22:20:03 - 00:22:48:20
Speaker 3
And while that's attractive, it's not worth 20 million yet. And so I think there'll be a correction in the market, especially for new people. I think the people that need a raise right now, first look at your product, really be very honest and pretty good as me mentors to sort of say, do you think we have the right products or is there space for something like what we're building in this market and only take your picture around that and then obviously talk to a lot of the investors because I think there'll be different appetites right now.

00:22:48:20 - 00:22:52:04
Speaker 3
There'll be a big range of appetite to to back certain things.

00:22:52:26 - 00:23:18:27
Speaker 1
And to go back to something you touched on earlier, those who have had to reduce their team sizes, what advice would you give them both in terms of how to handle that compassionately and to and to, you know, now more than most periods is is an incredibly difficult time to let people go. And also. But how, as a CEO, is it founded to understand who you think is essential in your team and who is it?

00:23:19:17 - 00:23:19:27
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:23:20:15 - 00:23:47:14
Speaker 3
Well, you know, I'll answer the first the second bit first because a short one and you know, who do you keep? Who do you let go? And the reality is, is you you probably need to know what are you going to spend time on in the next 12 months? If you really think it's sales and you have a product that you can sell, then it might be that your engineering might be, you know, you might have had hired, you know, ahead of the curve for engineering and reduce the headcount by one or two.

00:23:47:14 - 00:24:17:02
Speaker 3
That and keep yourself or higher sales if you don't have any. And on the flip side if if really the strategy is okay Hankook hunkered down weather out the storm lower burn build build good product with the small team and then come back out fighting when the dust has settled a bit, then obviously things like anyone in marketing or sales is probably higher, higher risk, but it depends on the individual company.

00:24:17:14 - 00:24:24:20
Speaker 3
There's just no rules on it. It just depends on where you are and whether you can really drive revenue. Right now, it's better to keep building product.

00:24:25:28 - 00:24:48:28
Speaker 1
And then in terms of maybe lessons you learn from from, I'm sure there were many periods of rapid expansion, but also contraction in the MuleSoft story, just in terms of how you handle that and is probably the hardest thing that most CEOs have to go through is is letting like laying off team that they that they clearly value highly any any kind of yeah instinctive tips on that.

00:24:48:28 - 00:25:08:13
Speaker 3
Yeah so I it is super hard everyone says the same thing. Don't be afraid to show emotion. Like it's just hard. Like, you know, when you start a company and you hire first ten people, you kind of hide that person thinking they were part of the band and that's what you would agree with. And then you've got to change, change narrative.

00:25:08:13 - 00:25:30:03
Speaker 3
And it's just that conversation is difficult. There's loads of line on how to, you know, how to do the right things there. I think one of the other important aspects of this is how you communicate to the rest of the team. And the team needs to know that there's a plan, even if the plan is a little bit open ended, that you don't have all the information.

00:25:30:14 - 00:25:47:16
Speaker 3
I think a lot of families get wrapped up with having all the chess moves where in reality I think more frequent updates with the team just saying, you know, this is the direction we're heading, this is how we're thinking about it. It just keep people in the loop so they don't feel like they're on their own.

00:25:48:09 - 00:25:50:05
Speaker 2
And then the other thing is.

00:25:51:26 - 00:26:08:00
Speaker 3
For employees knowing what they can do to help. Right? It's one thing to say, oh shit, the world's changed and we're going to do. That's just terrifying for everyone. But if you if you say that and then, you know, in this, what you really need to do is, is look after our customers, make sure.

00:26:08:15 - 00:26:09:04
Speaker 2
That they.

00:26:09:04 - 00:26:18:23
Speaker 3
Are getting what they need and we know where we offer our renewals, that kind of stuff. Just help making sure people know either to keep doing the job the we've been doing do.

00:26:18:25 - 00:26:19:28
Speaker 2
Better or.

00:26:20:16 - 00:26:33:03
Speaker 3
What they need to do in order to to sort of help steer the company in the right direction, which actually is requires a lot of like it's good to sort of switch to daily, daily scrums because obviously everyone's remote, they're not seeing people. So in a.

00:26:33:03 - 00:26:33:16
Speaker 2
More.

00:26:34:04 - 00:26:53:26
Speaker 3
Consistent daily interactions, probably better than it once we all hands you all. Yes I mean nothing those are the things it's basically people just need to know what's going on and need to know how you're thinking. And you all have to make some tough decisions.

00:26:54:10 - 00:26:54:21
Speaker 2
Of course.

00:26:55:02 - 00:27:12:04
Speaker 1
And you mentioned earlier this wave of enterprises going digital, a lot of SAS founders on the line. Any thoughts around how to prioritize a pipeline in either in this kind of environment or or in the early stages of the business in general?

00:27:12:25 - 00:27:13:07
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:27:13:07 - 00:27:45:25
Speaker 3
So actually this is really important, right? So if you were to answer the question, am I a pain killer or am I a vitamin, you know, am I actually solving a problem in this climate or my is making something better? Frankly, your buyers right now are looking for pain killers. They're looking to figure out how to keep keep their organizations, not from fracturing to keeping up productivity to a certain level, solving the same problems they have to solve before, but like foster and smarter.

00:27:46:11 - 00:28:08:04
Speaker 3
So how do you figure out whether you you know, you've got product market fit for a painkiller instead of a vitamin? Well, first step, obviously, ask people, you know, talk to your prospective customer. And we do this as VCs all the time. We actually talk to CEOs and chief data officers and anyone who might be buyers of technology to understand what's on their priority list.

00:28:08:21 - 00:28:26:13
Speaker 3
And it's a really good idea right now to go and talk to your customers or prospects if you can get on the phone and just ask them, are we in your top three, three, top five, top ten, or do we not even make the top 20? If you have four conversations like that and no one's saying that you're in the top five, that's a problem.

00:28:26:28 - 00:28:34:23
Speaker 3
If you're in the top five decile one out of five conversations, that's also a problem. So you have to first know whether you know your customers heads up.

00:28:36:24 - 00:28:37:11
Speaker 2
And then.

00:28:38:18 - 00:28:59:21
Speaker 3
Once you know where they're at, then you can change your messaging. And then this the sales pipeline is really about having a what you're really trying to do is in every conversation, sift the signals from the noise, right? So if we just have a first meeting, if you tell someone we're going to reduce the cost of X, chances are everyone's going to say yes.

00:29:00:06 - 00:29:24:03
Speaker 3
So one of the key indicators from getting that from a 10% quantified to a 20% quantified and we actually just did this with one of our portfolio companies. We we help talk through their sales process and how to break it up into stages so that you can accurately, more accurately understand if you're really all for any product market fit in the early sales cycle further down the.

00:29:24:03 - 00:29:26:00
Speaker 2
Funnel, that's.

00:29:26:00 - 00:29:47:15
Speaker 3
Super important because what everyone of your investors and board is looking for is are you making progress? And it can't all be qualitative. There has to be some quantitative indicators that this is going the right way. And for a lot of people that might not be revenue for the next six months is going to have to be, you know, strong pipeline with a view to close in the next three months.

00:29:48:12 - 00:30:10:02
Speaker 1
Really, really helpful. And I'm very keen to open it up to questions in just one moment, but please have please to have questions ready if you have some for Ross too, two short ones Ross one is is lots of people on the line will have great entrepreneurs around them who starting thinking about starting all sorts of B-to-B SAS type businesses.

00:30:10:22 - 00:30:20:06
Speaker 1
What's the the key thing you'd like them to know about Dick and how you guys are and how you operate and your and you're clearly by strategic value that you bring to people.

00:30:21:07 - 00:30:21:20
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:30:22:17 - 00:30:47:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. If you think about starting right now, I think now's a great time to start a company if you can bootstrap for a few months, because obviously when a market changes this rapidly, no one can keep up, right? So suddenly, yeah. Especially in the B2B world, the problems that both sort of marketing, sales and I.T leadership were solving at the beginning of this year have all gone out the window.

00:30:48:06 - 00:30:52:21
Speaker 3
They're all now trying to figure out how do I how do I operate when my customers no longer go to.

00:30:52:21 - 00:30:54:13
Speaker 2
Stores or how.

00:30:54:13 - 00:31:20:20
Speaker 3
Do I operate when my employees never can get in the meeting room and get level seven things? So I think there's a whole range of of the things that matter now that didn't matter before for enterprises. And so for any new founders is going to look at the whitespace that this this change has created. And that's where I'd want to see ideas being placed like a new SAS application for slightly better CRM.

00:31:20:20 - 00:31:52:13
Speaker 3
For some subsection of the market's pretty interesting right now. People change their systems very easily, but if they can find ways to automate processes, find ways to help their employees because the remote self served at a self education better get certified and have more purpose and alignment with the with the organization they're working is working within all that stuff is pretty interesting right now and then if you want to get in touch with us, it's just hello at Digg Ventures and you know I think.

00:31:53:04 - 00:31:53:12
Speaker 2
Our.

00:31:53:22 - 00:32:05:01
Speaker 3
Skill set is both men and I both have very recent operational experience in the B2B and SaaS space, very strong networks. And we're we're pretty good at running these.

00:32:06:10 - 00:32:06:28
Speaker 2
These sort of.

00:32:07:18 - 00:32:12:03
Speaker 3
Playbook seminars on on sales and in product market fit and go to market strategy.

00:32:12:22 - 00:32:16:25
Speaker 1
And we're happy to go right into the beginning. Pre-Seed sort of first money into business.

00:32:17:05 - 00:32:26:25
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. Oui, oui, oui. We come in early, we like to take bets on founders and ideas or.

00:32:26:25 - 00:32:55:14
Speaker 1
And now turning over to Q&A, I'm one from Dash Dashers, a founder based in Boston, building an operating system for Wet labs all around lab automation, which is obviously timely. And the kind of second sense dash this question is what does the enterprise i.t. Adoption of new software look like during a crisis? What about if it helps the company with the crisis due to better remote culture?

00:32:56:15 - 00:33:14:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think right now the problem number one is, is allowing companies to keep functioning even though they've gone from the employee base completely digital. So anything in that space, obviously, we know Zoom's exploded, but there's low loads more. So the collaboration.

00:33:16:05 - 00:33:17:00
Speaker 2
And.

00:33:18:06 - 00:33:44:16
Speaker 3
Collaboration sharing tools are going to do well in the short term. And so obviously that's one area. I also think things like employee wellness has been interesting. There's been this sort of rethink of human capital management over the last couple of years. We've noticed, you know, a lot of companies coming through the pipeline, tackling different parts of benefits, things like that.

00:33:44:28 - 00:34:13:02
Speaker 3
But I actually think wellness is going to be pretty important because it's part of the human condition is to be around other people. And if we're all out for three months, just helping people think about how to how to spend their time the right way, even when they're working, has changed a lot. So anything in that space, I imagine you could you could convince MuleSoft or anyone else to to get involved with.

00:34:13:29 - 00:34:38:08
Speaker 3
And then, of course, on the other side, which is customers, is where the revenue comes from. A lot of change. That, too, is the consumer. You know, the delightful. Q Is consumer experience still matters. But what matters more right now is trust the ability to connect with other humans, you know, whether it's banking, whether it's health care, whether it's, you know, consumer purchasing.

00:34:39:13 - 00:35:08:15
Speaker 3
So there's there's a lot there around a behavioral change. You know, travel behaviors changed, communication behaviors changing purchasing behavior is going to change a lot. You know, a lot of people don't have a lot of money right now. More people think about saving. They're thinking about, you know, planning better for the future in cases ever happens again. So any products that sort of lean into the realization of people having because this has happened, also pretty interesting.

00:35:09:13 - 00:35:30:17
Speaker 1
Not totally separate thematically from that, but a question from Amber, a founders, writer and marketing platform in S.F.. Thanks for your great insights. How did your sales cycle change in oh eight? Did you adapt? Sales Package New Target personas, discount pricing? In short, what was the most successful adaptation you introduced during this time?

00:35:31:22 - 00:36:15:12
Speaker 3
Well, I think the first adaptation was we did away with sales. We had a very small sales organization. It just didn't make sense because we'd been selling to banks. That's where we we've got, you know, got our early traction and the bottom just fell out. And so what we did, we, we, we hunkered down and we defined a product strategy that we thought would be appealing to people outside of banking, just banking, and then we started building that and then myself and I had a couple of executives we'd actually did we did the sales for the next nine months and we did it because we weren't supporting that many customers.

00:36:15:12 - 00:36:35:18
Speaker 3
We there wasn't a ton of inbound, but we could spend time really thinking about like what do people outside of financial services need? And we started building and selling towards that. So that was the shift is pretty making a bit more generic for better or worse. I do not recommend people go generic when you're small, but we did because we didn't really have any other choice.

00:36:35:18 - 00:36:38:16
Speaker 3
We didn't know what other vertical to go after. We didn't have any insights at the time.

00:36:39:07 - 00:36:45:27
Speaker 1
Henry Mason is a, b, c. At dawn of that you ask question like if you're if you're there Henry otherwise I can read goes out to you.

00:36:46:15 - 00:36:47:25
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for your or your.

00:36:48:03 - 00:36:56:17
Speaker 1
Insights something that we're saying whether it be to be SAS investor some of our companies are trying to adjust their marketing message from.

00:36:56:17 - 00:36:57:13
Speaker 2
A maybe a boom.

00:36:57:15 - 00:37:08:15
Speaker 1
Times focused thing like, you know, drive more opportunity to a ROI thing. I'm just curious if that was relevant to you at MuleSoft and whether it spoke to buyers.

00:37:08:15 - 00:37:10:14
Speaker 2
More to do that? Yeah.

00:37:10:28 - 00:37:31:05
Speaker 3
Absolutely. I think marketing messages generally need to be very aligned to the sentiment of the market, kind of the base level it ought to be talking, you know, interesting. I just I'm doing the the MuleSoft connect.

00:37:31:21 - 00:37:32:07
Speaker 2
And.

00:37:33:10 - 00:37:53:15
Speaker 3
Events remote this year and we've changed all our messaging. I was going out with a more visionary next next decade this is what's going to happen and we've decided to not do that because it's tone deaf. You know, our audience are looking about the next decade. They want to know what's happening in the next three, 3 to 9 months and how they should be preparing themselves.

00:37:54:18 - 00:38:18:29
Speaker 3
And I think any marketing message is the same as you need to know where people, people's concerns are, meet them where they are, and really position your products around the things that you really do, help move the needle for them. And again, it comes back to that market fit question hour wise was a really good one because everyone in every department is being asked to justify their spend right now.

00:38:19:13 - 00:38:34:04
Speaker 3
And if you can help and justify by giving them a calculator or giving them a model that they can just say, Look, this is what we really save. This is what we'll save in the next two years. We should keep working with X that makes your life a lot easier, more prescriptive. You can be the better.

00:38:35:06 - 00:38:40:29
Speaker 1
Dominic, who is the founder of Ahead, the same as business story. BLOCK Dominic, you're unmuted. Thanks.

00:38:40:29 - 00:39:02:02
Speaker 2
As well as Russell for the insights. For me, it would be really interesting to see or get your opinion on the experience of integration partners, agencies or other partners and combination of enterprise sales and how you would expect them to engage in the next couple of months. Because most of the time those partners of course, are project based and might separate them not.

00:39:02:26 - 00:39:05:01
Speaker 1
Just over and hide that that was integration partners.

00:39:05:01 - 00:39:16:19
Speaker 3
Yeah, integration partners are much easier to work with if you if you have a very clear, clearly described function. So Salesforce was easy because it was it was recognized as CRM.

00:39:17:19 - 00:39:17:22
Speaker 2
Know.

00:39:18:04 - 00:39:48:18
Speaker 3
People like Marketo even even G Suite and like intellectual 365 are all great candidates for working with integration partners because they can easily plug them into a reference architecture and so providing you re fit in an existing category, I think it's very easy to work with integration partners and it's a lot harder if you're trying to create a category like we were at MuleSoft because we're getting shoehorned into one thing, but it wasn't really our value proposition, and so it was very hard for us.

00:39:48:18 - 00:39:49:00
Speaker 2
To.

00:39:50:01 - 00:40:16:04
Speaker 3
Make the case with the integration partner, to keep plugging us in. I think in the context of the coming months, what really matters with integration partners is it's it really comes down to, okay, what categories a company still to invest in, right? So, you know, they still got to invest in anything to manage remote workers, human capital management.

00:40:16:04 - 00:40:36:24
Speaker 3
They're still going to invest in infrastructure, especially if they're doing more business online. So shifting to e-comm more rapidly. And so yeah, it's a bit hard to sort of give you a very direct answer, but I think the key with integration partners is you have to have a category that they understand before it makes it easy to work them.

00:40:36:24 - 00:40:38:13
Speaker 3
Otherwise you're just banging your head against a brick wall.

00:40:38:18 - 00:40:46:15
Speaker 1
A question from Ash. I'm guessing that's at General Atlantic. How do you think the M&A and IPO landscape will change? post-COVID?

00:40:46:27 - 00:41:07:06
Speaker 3
Oh, it's a great question. Well, I think there's going to be a ton of M&A. There'll be a lot of cash is going to be king for the next 6 to 9 months. And and I think a lot of companies will get bought, but I don't think it will happen until, you know, frankly, I think there's going to be a much bigger recession.

00:41:07:18 - 00:41:27:25
Speaker 3
So, you know, if you follow the stock market, you'll know there's been bouncing around like crazy, but it's sort of recovered the last two weeks. I think all that all that's happening is the stimulus being provided by the central banks and the Fed in the US is is trying to persist a bubble state. But the reality is is that bubble is is already burst.

00:41:27:25 - 00:41:49:23
Speaker 3
We can't burst it. And I expect when you know, Q2 and Q3 earnings come out this year, we're going to see big, big drop offs in the stock market, which will make a massive difference to valuations in the private and public sector. And anyone who has cash will be acquiring quite aggressively. I don't think anyone's going to be appearing for the next 18 months.

00:41:50:08 - 00:42:03:07
Speaker 3
And unless they really do need to raise cash, which is interesting, but that's why IPO is used to exist. But in the last seven or eight years, you haven't needed an IPO to to raise capital because there's so much private money.

00:42:03:16 - 00:42:15:03
Speaker 1
A great question actually from someone without a name is it would be interesting to hear more about that transition from carrying the burden alone to sharing it with others. What did that process like for you?

00:42:16:19 - 00:42:39:29
Speaker 3
It feels amazing once you figure it out. That's a really good question. I'm not sure I can I can do just almost like a post that should be because it's a very personal journey, I think, for individuals. But essentially there's a realization that I you know, I came to the realization that MuleSoft to me were totally separate. And what I really wanted was other people to own the company.

00:42:40:23 - 00:43:01:12
Speaker 3
And I used to hold the founder CEO title in Absolute Riviera. You know, I was very proud of that. And I realized after the crisis, actually what I really cared about was building a lasting company and in fact, I, I said, you know, after 2000, I set on a journey to do myself out of a job. I went the opposite direction.

00:43:01:12 - 00:43:28:14
Speaker 3
I decided to hire a CEO and I became CTO. And then I hired a CTO and that left me floating in the organization. And when I was floating in the organization, people like, why would you do that? And it just gave me a brand new perspective across the whole organization because everyone else had functions and I didn't have a function and it allowed me just to do my best work and really figure out what you yourself needed to be by not be encumbered by the challenges of being CEO or CTO.

00:43:29:11 - 00:43:46:27
Speaker 1
I think I'm looking forward to the to the capital case because I think it's those are those areas that you just touched on that is super interesting. And I would certainly have to retrace Patrick from the storefront, if you can hear me. I just unmuted you. You had a question around product market fit in in an open source world.

00:43:47:15 - 00:43:49:16
Speaker 1
You're unmuted if you can hear us.

00:43:50:07 - 00:43:56:21
Speaker 2
Ross So, you know, there are a lot of open source company and we had one and we were getting amazing traction.

00:43:56:21 - 00:43:59:22
Speaker 1
There was a lot of enterprise companies deciding.

00:44:00:06 - 00:44:02:11
Speaker 2
To use our solution and we are.

00:44:02:11 - 00:44:06:09
Speaker 1
Still looking for this perfect market fit and the way to monetize on.

00:44:06:09 - 00:44:12:00
Speaker 2
The on the open source and then wondering what was this perfect market.

00:44:12:00 - 00:44:12:10
Speaker 3
Fit.

00:44:12:18 - 00:44:16:22
Speaker 1
For you when you were like, okay, this is the perfect way and let's go with it.

00:44:17:18 - 00:44:18:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:44:18:05 - 00:44:41:07
Speaker 3
So I mean, I look at a lot of open source companies. I really like open source companies that the adopter is a completely different person to the buyer. And I don't mean that, as you know, developers develop infrastructure, software, then by it I mean that there's a reason why the buyer knows about you and has to buy you.

00:44:41:07 - 00:45:05:19
Speaker 3
And the reason being is because most open source companies, what they do is they build great products that developers adopt and then they rely on bottoms up adoption to get enough traction in the organization where somebody says, okay, maybe we should buy a subscription to this. And the challenge of that journey is in a bottoms up adoption doesn't really translate well into purchasing decisions ever.

00:45:05:29 - 00:45:27:10
Speaker 3
It just hasn't. I've looked at open source companies for the last ten or 15 years, and unless you've got a really high volume and you might because your, you know, your storefront and you have to have another strategy, what I like to do is have a really good bottoms up adoption strategy and then a top down sales strategy and then have the two meet in the middle.

00:45:28:02 - 00:45:45:02
Speaker 3
And I'm not quite sure where you are, but what if I look at open source companies? I always ask the founder, How do they think about that? Who would they go to? What would they sell? What does that person see? You know, how do they assess that you're the right product for them without having to go to development to make a decision?

00:45:45:20 - 00:45:59:07
Speaker 1
And there's actually a question linked to that. Rami, the founder of Compose, a messaging platform, it's not open source related, but but is a bottom up sales approach more resilient during a during difficult times?

00:45:59:07 - 00:46:15:22
Speaker 3
No, I mean, a bottoms up sales approach is really good. If you got super high volume, it's always challenging if you don't have that volume. We didn't have that volume. We you know, it actually harmed us for a very long time because we you get this false negative that you get a lot of adoption and you make some sales.

00:46:16:11 - 00:46:41:01
Speaker 3
But you, you know, to give you some idea, at MuleSoft, we were we had our big breakthrough in pre 2014, maybe 2013, 2014. We didn't change anything about the product. All I did was, you know, myself from the CTO and the head of Customer Success figured out a better messaging strategy and we went after something very different and we got what we did because mesh is the other product differently.

00:46:41:17 - 00:47:10:29
Speaker 3
But it was a message that CEOs really cared about and tackled the problems that they cared about and they were they were problems that developers cared about. And we just realized we had to focus our messaging and go outbound and actually create demand versus relying on inbound and depending on the the open source company, you know, there's very few in my mind that we can really go beyond ten or 20 million in revenue during inbound only.

00:47:11:11 - 00:47:15:10
Speaker 3
And some point the quick you can get out on selling and targeting the better.

00:47:15:10 - 00:47:29:17
Speaker 1
I think we have a question from, if I'm not mistaken, from a former MuleSoft and bench against. You had a question for Russ around the conversations he's having with CXOs and and what patterns they're seeing that are emerging.

00:47:29:17 - 00:47:29:25
Speaker 3
Yeah.

00:47:29:25 - 00:47:37:16
Speaker 2
So Russ you mentioned that there could be a good opportunity for people to start a business in this time. So I'm.

00:47:37:16 - 00:47:39:28
Speaker 1
Curious to see, you know, you're probably speaking to a lot of.

00:47:39:29 - 00:47:47:24
Speaker 2
CISOs across industries. Are you seeing any new pains and challenges emerging for them during this crisis that could.

00:47:47:24 - 00:47:49:27
Speaker 1
Be an opportunity for new founders and.

00:47:49:27 - 00:47:50:21
Speaker 2
Entrepreneurs.

00:47:50:21 - 00:47:55:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, the the immediate challenges.

00:47:55:11 - 00:47:56:02
Speaker 2
Is.

00:47:57:13 - 00:48:04:18
Speaker 3
Especially for i.t they're right in the center of this this new fix to organize ation.

00:48:04:28 - 00:48:05:07
Speaker 2
Whether.

00:48:05:07 - 00:48:14:16
Speaker 3
They want to be or not. And I think that's one of the problems. Right. A lot of the companies and CIOs have been on these transformation journeys for a couple of years now, maybe three or four, but they haven't.

00:48:14:28 - 00:48:15:18
Speaker 2
Really.

00:48:16:02 - 00:48:36:12
Speaker 3
Gone digital. And what's happened overnight, we switched on a you know, we've turned a switch and consumers and employees went and they're just trying to figure out how to make that work right now. So the guidance for them is really around like how what the new normal, what they really care about is what the new normal will look like.

00:48:36:20 - 00:49:18:09
Speaker 3
How are we going to work? When are we going to insist that people get together when you know, if we have another outbreak, how do we keep the the engine running? So anything that helps them, I think about the CIO. I kind of want to know a bit more in a benchmarking on dev teams to make sure that everyone's functioning well because we're not in the same room anymore, understanding, you know, better dashboards on how certain assets in my organization performing better governance around application deployment so that I can give people more autonomy at home, but still not have a massive mess on my hands when things might get back to a normal.

00:49:19:01 - 00:49:19:18
Speaker 2
So they're not.

00:49:20:01 - 00:49:34:28
Speaker 3
You know, there's not many they have a lot of apps. I think they're trying to figure out which are they need and how do they need to be connected and what workflows do they need to support. And then on the consumer side, they're trying to figure out, depending on who you are, how, you know, what's the right engagement model.

00:49:34:28 - 00:49:53:02
Speaker 3
When people, you know, for banking, for example, they need to know you exist. They need help with loans. I need help with mortgage payments. The systems are in place to support that. Right now. How can we help that, you know, become a bit more of a hero to the customer versus, you know, the big ugly bank or the, you know, the slow government agency.

00:49:54:27 - 00:50:09:14
Speaker 1
Thank you again. And we have a we have a nicely bullish question for I think it might be, Richard, from fundamental. Yeah. Which is a surgical stimulation you're unmuted. But I know it's a question you have around rollouts and fundraising for it.

00:50:09:25 - 00:50:35:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thanks, Spencer Ross, thanks for your insight. You talked earlier about kind of painkillers and vitamin and we're definitely a painkiller as a as a surgical and a medical training, remote training system. So I'm really interested in the whole landscape within M&A and whether or not we could build a plan that says, here's a rollout strategy for scooping up some of the market that's there.

00:50:35:04 - 00:50:47:04
Speaker 2
Some of the competitors who may not raise money over the next be able to raise money and keep themselves going over the next few months. How you recommend taking that to ABC and putting that together?

00:50:47:15 - 00:50:52:26
Speaker 3
But you know, I think you you have e throughout the map and.

00:50:53:28 - 00:50:54:05
Speaker 2
You.

00:50:54:05 - 00:51:11:13
Speaker 3
Help them understand the vision. If they bite there, then I think as a VC, I want to know, okay, what do you know about these companies? How do they plug in and? What are the gaps between the different products? Do you need to round up? A lot of companies was has one or two which also make things a lot easier.

00:51:11:13 - 00:51:12:10
Speaker 2
And then.

00:51:13:25 - 00:51:29:15
Speaker 3
You know, what's the product like? What is the the what is in a consumer and them buying and how quickly can you prove that that's what the market needs? You know, I think even with roll up strategies, it's not a whole lot different. You still got to make sure what you're bringing to market is really what people want.

00:51:30:02 - 00:51:30:16
Speaker 2
And.

00:51:31:27 - 00:51:44:15
Speaker 3
And of course, I, you know, I don't know if you've really got a good customer base and you have a good signals from what you've got, you know, where the gaps on the product yet. But if you have that that makes things a bit easier.

00:51:46:01 - 00:51:58:11
Speaker 1
I might I might pick on we've got lots of multi-stage funds on the line, but then from a I could say a one word answer. Ben, have you seen any multi have you seen any rollout fundraises in the last and the last couple of months where specific.

00:51:58:11 - 00:51:59:15
Speaker 3
Companies are raising.

00:51:59:16 - 00:52:02:09
Speaker 2
To to fund specifically acquisitions?

00:52:03:17 - 00:52:08:02
Speaker 1
Yes, exactly. No, I can't say.

00:52:08:02 - 00:52:09:15
Speaker 2
I see anything specifically yet.

00:52:10:05 - 00:52:12:18
Speaker 3
Although I think there's a lot of sentiment.

00:52:12:18 - 00:52:16:11
Speaker 1
Going around that there is there is opportunity for that.

00:52:16:11 - 00:52:19:02
Speaker 3
I think it's obviously something that later stage investors, growth.

00:52:19:02 - 00:52:22:00
Speaker 1
Investors have have had in their playbook for a much longer.

00:52:22:16 - 00:52:25:01
Speaker 3
But I think it's definitely something when we talk to some.

00:52:25:01 - 00:52:25:05
Speaker 2
Of.

00:52:25:18 - 00:52:46:22
Speaker 1
Our a later stage and a more mature companies, it's something we're saying to them is keep your eyes out, keep your eyes out for areas in in your product roadmap that you could potentially accelerate by by looking at smaller companies who who may otherwise not not successfully make it through this scenario and give them a home to really kind of succeed in that way.

00:52:46:22 - 00:52:49:01
Speaker 1
So I think whether it's a later.

00:52:49:01 - 00:52:50:17
Speaker 3
Stage company that's already well funded.

00:52:50:17 - 00:52:56:20
Speaker 1
That could and can can play that role, or whether it's new funding going into that kind of roll up, I think that's definitely a chance to do that.

00:52:56:20 - 00:52:57:19
Speaker 3
And something we should all be.

00:52:57:19 - 00:53:17:26
Speaker 1
Looking at and again to our playbook. Great. Thank you, Ben. Sorry for picking on you without winning. Wesley, I think you are unmuted and it was a question had for us around how MuleSoft would have pivoted in a in a COVID type world. But over to you. Yeah, I guess it was just that really, if you are pre-revenue and you're going back.

00:53:17:26 - 00:53:19:09
Speaker 2
Then knowing what you know now.

00:53:19:29 - 00:53:21:28
Speaker 1
How you might have adapted your plans.

00:53:22:07 - 00:53:22:25
Speaker 2
And I guess that.

00:53:22:25 - 00:53:25:21
Speaker 1
Goes for fundraising as it does in terms of go to market.

00:53:25:21 - 00:53:41:10
Speaker 3
I, you know, I think was actually we just had this conversation with at MuleSoft and you know, for our customer base as we are now, not pre-revenue, obviously speed is really important. I think if we're pre-revenue.

00:53:41:28 - 00:53:45:04
Speaker 2
And I'm.

00:53:45:04 - 00:54:18:29
Speaker 3
Not sure this would have been a good market for us to sell into so pre-revenue we might have hunkered down and come up with a plan to accelerate our product, which is what we did the last time around, actually. Because the thing is, if you're doing small integration deals with a with an organization, it's very hard to get leverage or lift from that, like an integration goes in and then it disappears and no one knows you exist and there's no upsell opportunity.

00:54:18:29 - 00:54:39:26
Speaker 3
So for us, it was very clear that it was pretty better to strip down the organization. We lived through the crisis, and I think whether it was a pandemic or the financial crisis for us, pre-revenue or, you know, we had 1 billion in revenue. We, you know, we just hunkered down and invested in product knowing that at some point things were course correct.

00:54:39:27 - 00:54:45:00
Speaker 3
We'd have a better market fit afterwards.

00:54:45:00 - 00:55:05:06
Speaker 1
I apologize for not fitting in all of the questions, but we should let Ross go with a final something that Melissa and I prepared, which is which is ten. One word answers for us is that either or was this and so no thinking please just straight into them Geneva or London or London.

00:55:05:27 - 00:55:06:14
Speaker 2
Right.

00:55:07:08 - 00:55:09:02
Speaker 1
pre-IPO or post IPO.

00:55:11:18 - 00:55:12:11
Speaker 2
Got a.

00:55:12:19 - 00:55:15:02
Speaker 3
Pre and post was like a really fun period.

00:55:15:23 - 00:55:16:29
Speaker 1
That way too long and also.

00:55:17:11 - 00:55:17:21
Speaker 2
I.

00:55:19:29 - 00:55:21:03
Speaker 1
Apple or Netflix.

00:55:22:14 - 00:55:23:04
Speaker 3
Netflix.

00:55:23:28 - 00:55:25:14
Speaker 1
Reality or simulation.

00:55:26:05 - 00:55:26:21
Speaker 2
Reality.

00:55:27:03 - 00:55:29:29
Speaker 1
Taylor Swift or Drake.

00:55:29:29 - 00:55:31:27
Speaker 3
I don't know why, but Derek Green.

00:55:33:03 - 00:55:45:24
Speaker 1
Founder of DC Founder Chips or MASH Chips. V-shaped Recovery. U-shaped Recovery or L-shaped Recovery.

00:55:45:24 - 00:55:46:12
Speaker 2
V-shaped.

00:55:47:00 - 00:55:49:24
Speaker 1
Okay, so you're bullish power or money?

00:55:50:17 - 00:55:51:24
Speaker 3
I didn't understand the question. Actually.

00:55:52:23 - 00:55:58:08
Speaker 1
That one was just about whether you think sharp bounce back longer sort of recession or full on global depression.

00:55:58:24 - 00:56:02:26
Speaker 3
Oh, no, actually, I think it's going to be we're going to have a pretty big recession. So the opposite.

00:56:03:04 - 00:56:06:04
Speaker 1
Okay. For you or Alex, sort of you sunk into an out.

00:56:06:23 - 00:56:10:00
Speaker 2
Of power or money. Uh.

00:56:10:18 - 00:56:11:10
Speaker 3
Power, I guess.

00:56:11:23 - 00:56:24:22
Speaker 1
I think that's a trick question. I think one comes with the other anyway, or at least the latter. Would you rather fight two sized forces, or would you rather fight one horse sized duck.

00:56:24:22 - 00:56:26:05
Speaker 3
100 duck sides, horses?

00:56:27:06 - 00:56:32:00
Speaker 1
And very last one, Mike Moritz or Scott Sandel.

00:56:32:00 - 00:56:33:09
Speaker 3
Uh, Scott Sandel.

00:56:34:17 - 00:56:36:08
Speaker 1
I know you got some World Heritage, so I thought.

00:56:37:27 - 00:56:38:01
Speaker 2
That.

00:56:38:22 - 00:56:58:06
Speaker 1
Was really on balance. Ross Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. And thank you for dining in. Thank you for the questions, but genuinely grateful to you for taking the time and sharing so much past and present and insight. So thank you everyone for.