Jad Naus
Deal Partner, a16z. On 1 show, 1 appearance, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
1shows
1appearances
28statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Jad Naus said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Naus: Software startups selling into traditional industries should not avoid offering services
“Don't shy away from the services, especially in these industries.”
Naous: Legacy BI and Hadoop are only practical for executive decisions
“Well, you can say maybe we should use Hadoop or BI. Unfortunately, these are kind of older generation tools. They require specialized skills and abilities to be able to use them. And so they need armies of analysts to use. These are really only affordable for …”
Naous: Workplace automation shifts enterprise labor from rote tasks to decision-making
“With automation, this structure changes. So you move from rote work being a big chunk to being a small chunk, but you're still working eight hours a day. So you are doing a lot more of the other stuff, meaning the decision making and everything else.”
Naous: Operational analytics is expanding across all industries and non-executive roles
“And this trend is actually happening everywhere. We see it happen by role, by sales, customer success, engineering. We see it also happen by industry, construction, manufacturing, groceries, et cetera. It's impacting the work of the operational folks, not just…”
Naous: Enterprise workers are becoming data-driven operational analysts
“Now everyone is becoming an analyst because they're going to be doing a ton more decision-making and using data to actually do those decisions.”
Naous: Operational workers require a new class of self-service analytics tools
“And so what this really tells us is that there's a new category of tools that's needed. It's a tool for operational workers to observe and act on their own data. These are operational analytics tools.”
Naous: Startups disrupt traditional sectors using digital UX and operational analytics
“First, choose a tech phobic industry. Second, provide a digital user experience. Finally, use operational analytics to create efficiencies. You undercut the existing players with lower pricing, and then you build an operational mode to make sure that you're co…”
Naous: All enterprise data stack layers must be redone for operational analytics
“Every single layer will need to refocus on being operational, immediate, and self-service. So ETL, storage, processing, analytics, access, and presentation, all those layers are going to need to be redone in order to get to operational analytics.”
Naous: User engagement, not revenue, is the primary KPI for operational tools
“And with that, the primary KPI to measure is user engagement. How many operational people are actually using your stuff? Revenues, on the other hand, is a lagging indicator.”
Naous: Operational analytics software must be end-to-end and simple to adopt
“Well, first you gotta build an end-to-end domain-specific product. What this means is that the product that you build should be easy to adopt for your customers without them having to learn or do a ton of integrations.”
Naous: Operational analytics software must directly link to core business KPIs
“If your product doesn't have a clear path from what you're doing to the impacts that you're providing to those KPIs, it will be a very tough sale.”
Naous: Role-focused startups must master one persona before expanding
“Go for depth. Don't go for breadth. Make sure that you solve all problems for that role. Make sure you make those people extremely successful, and only then should you go to any adjacent spaces or any adjacent roles.”
Naus: Marketing roles have evolved into technical marketing engineering
“What has happened over the past few years is the rise of this kind of marketing engineering role to a certain degree.”
Naus: Automation will force enterprise middle managers to become operational analysts
“Everybody is going to end up becoming more of an analyst in that sense in the enterprise.”
Naus: Operational intelligence requires immediate answers, unlike eventual legacy BI
“The first one is that it has to be immediate. It can't be eventual like BI. You can't just say, oh, I need to answer this question and then get an answer like three months later. It has to be answered in the moment.”
Engineering monitoring disciplines are expanding into marketing, product, and sales
“And now we're actually seeing these kinds of engineering disciplines kind of migrate into other functions of the org, right? Like marketing seems to have been the first one to go after that and then product management, and we're actually seeing now people tryi…”
Naus: ROI-based software sales will expand into non-IT operational roles
“That same kind of sale hasn't yet happened in these other orgs. It's a little harder to prove the ROI. But I think it'll get there.”
Naus: Operational intelligence software must be self-service for non-technical users
“It has to be self service, not full service. You can't have somebody else going and doing all the work for you. Those tools have to actually give you insights that are catered to you. And you have to actually be able to ask questions yourself out of these tool…”
Naus: Every layer of the data stack must become usable by non-technical workers
“I think every layer, functionally each layer is going to remain the same, like at the core, it's going to be doing the same things. But each layer is going to have new non-functional requirements. Each layer is going to have to be usable by a non-technical per…”
Naus: ETL modernization is difficult due to domain specificity and manual integration
“I think two reasons why ETL has been so hard. The first one is it actually requires domain specificity. Like, ETL for healthcare is not going to look the same as, ah, ETL for financials. For ride sharing or whatever, like the ontologies, the things that they c…”
Naus: Traditionally non-IT industries will benefit most from operational intelligence software
“And I think that, ah, the industries that are going to win the most out of operational intelligence are going to be these kind of like, ah, traditionally non-IT buyers.”
Naus: Businesses now view analytics and observability as essential operational tools
“I think there's a lot of, I think a lot of what's actually happening is people are now starting to see analytics and observability as urgent, as necessary to running their business.”
Naous: Digitization makes enterprise processes much more observable
“Luckily, if you're already automating, then you're also digitizing, and that makes it much easier to get the data that you need to make good operational decisions because, as I said before, digitization makes processes much more observable.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jad's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 a16zLEDGER | Deal Partner, a16z | 1 +1 | 28 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |