Apr 29, 2021 · 47m · saastr
Building a Second Unicorn: A Deep Dive with Harness and AppDynamics Founder Jyoti Bansal
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In this fireside chat with Sandhya Hegde, multi-time enterprise founder Jyoti Bansal unpacks the advantages, enduring challenges, and tactical frameworks of scaling Harness after AppDynamics, sharing deep insights on enterprise sales transitions, talent grooming, and company building.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 4.4 Guest disagreement 0.1 Jason pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 12:52 Jyoti refutes the idea that PMF is easier the second time
Jyoti gently pushes back against the assumption that experience eliminates product-market fit errors, emphasizing that first-time assumptions are still routinely wrong.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 15:42 Sandhya interrupts to demand concrete hiring criteriaSandhya actively cuts in on Jyoti's narrative to steer him toward explaining his exact decision-making framework for vetting rising talent.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 37:45 Jyoti explains why pure top-down sales fails with modern developersJyoti delivers an insightful masterclass on why classic executive-only selling models fail in modern software without practitioner groundswell.
Jason holds their own ▶ 21:10 Sandhya demonstrates expertise on capacity-based sales leadershipSandhya showcases her deep understanding of enterprise scaling by citing and elaborating on the transition from deal-focused to capacity-focused sales leadership.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Why Return to Founding After Retirement | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya introduces Jyoti warmly and poses an open question about his motivation to start another company after a major financial exit. Jyoti gives an extended personal reflection on why retirement felt unfulfilling and how his passion for solving developer problems led to Harness and Unusual Ventures. | |
| Advantages of Being a Second-Time Founder | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya prompts Jyoti to share what became easier as a second-time founder. Jyoti explains the drastic difference in fundraising and board dynamics, noting how VCs psychologically treat second-time CEOs as instant experts. | |
| Persistent Startup Challenges: Product-Market Fit and Recruiting | 3 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sandhya asks whether company strategy is easier, and Jyoti clarifies that finding product-market fit and recruiting remain just as difficult. He explains that initial assumptions still fail and former star employees cannot simply be ported into an early-stage startup. | |
| Framework for Spotting and Grooming Rising Stars | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya interrupts to ask for Jyoti's specific framework for identifying high-potential rising talent. Jyoti outlines his three-pillar framework: high intellect, high curiosity/learning speed, and high ambition. | |
| Sales Evolution: From Early Hustle to a Predictable Machine | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Jyoti explains the transition from early-stage hustle to building a predictable sales machine. Sandhya demonstrates substantial domain knowledge by citing Jyoti's published framework on capacity-based sales leadership versus deal-closing leadership. | |
| Surprises and Mental Adjustments of Starting Over | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya asks about early operational surprises at Harness. Jyoti describes the mental adjustment of moving from running a 1,000-person company down to the one-foot level, handling everyday minutiae without shortcuts. | |
| Strategic and People Mistakes: Learning to Pivot Faster | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya inquires about previous mistakes Jyoti sought to avoid. Jyoti categorizes startup mistakes into strategy and people, openly acknowledging how AppDynamics lagged by a year in the mobile APM transition. | |
| Achieving Unicorn Status in Today's Market | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya asks about the emotional impact of Harness reaching unicorn status. Jyoti contextualizes the milestone, explaining that market expansion has made the decacorn the new unicorn, making $1B feel like just the beginning. | |
| Contrasting Go-To-Market: Top-Down vs Sandwich Model | 4 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya asks Jyoti to contrast AppDynamics' top-down enterprise model with Harness's positioning. Jyoti educates on modern developer go-to-market dynamics, introducing the sandwich model that merges bottom-up developer adoption with top-down executive selling. | |
| Audience Q&A: Tipping Points from Hustle to Machine | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya passes along an audience question regarding the specific tipping points between sales hustle and scalable machinery. Jyoti provides a clear quantitative breakdown of ARR benchmarks and their corresponding hustle-to-machine ratios. | |
| Foundational Advice and Jyoti's Five-Point Formula | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sandhya asks for Jyoti's core advice to first-time founders. Jyoti shares his foundational 5-point formula covering TAM expansion, product quality, sales mastery, customer obsession, and intentional culture. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Bansal: Only about ten companies globally excel at software delivery and CI/CD
“There are only, like, maybe 10 companies in the world who are very good in software delivery, where, like, you know, CI, CD, software delivery, their shipping code very fast, and these are, like, your Googles, and Facebooks, and Amazons, and Netflix, and they …”
Bansal: 20 VCs rejected AppDynamics before its initial funding
“I pitched about 20 VCs, you know, who rejected me before I got any funding for Abdanos.”
Bansal: Board management dropped from 20-30% of time to 1-2% at Harness
“I spent a lot of time managing our board and industries. Like maybe about 20 to 30% of my time would go in there. We had, you know, All sorts of investors who needed just a lot of management. Doing it second time at Harness, it's much easier. I spend maybe one…”
Bansal: Investors treat second-time founders as instant experts despite unchanged abilities
“You know, you have an exit and the next day, you know, you start a company, you're second time CEO now. And just psychologically now everyone thinks you're an expert on everything because now you're second time CEO. So even though you are really the same perso…”
Bansal: Finding product-market fit is just as hard for second-time founders
“The finding the product market fit is still the same iterative process. Like, you know, we had to pivot at harness as well. We have to do like, you know, some of the assumptions were wrong and you have to pivot and correct goals and, you know, iterate through …”
Bansal: Second-time founders cannot just rehire former stars for early startups
“Most of those people, you know, it's great that they've been now, you know, significantly you know, grown in their careers and where they are in their journeys and work. So for them to come into a very early startup, you know, many times doesn't make sense. Li…”
Hegde: Early startups need deal closers, not capacity-focused sales leaders
“The funny thing is you can't really hire the capacity leader early, right? Because that's not the person you need early. Like you actually do need the person who can get in there to close individual deals.”
Bansal: B2B startups take 12 to 18 months to find product-market fit
“If you have to go through a journey, like, you know, like a startup journey, like in the B to B kind of space, like, you know, you start
You start with an idea. It takes like, you know, somewhere in the 12 to 18 months to find your initial product market fit,…”
Bansal: AppDynamics was a year behind the market in mobile APM
“So the mobile APM, we were at least a year behind in market at Appdynamics because we were, you know you know, we were just not paying attention enough to it, right? And then we had to catch up and like build a good mobile APM you know, for mobile apps a year …”
Bansal: The decacorn is the new unicorn benchmark
“The Decacorn is the new unicorn now, like, you know, right now billion dollar was a special part. And now it's like, you know, it's, you gotta be ten billion dollars to be really special over the company these days.”
Bansal: 90% of Harness's competition is companies building internal tools
“The interesting thing is like, you know, the, our competition about 90% of the time is people building it themselves, right? So we are, you know, so it's because they were not really good products to do this.”
Bansal: Pure top-down sales fail without developer bottom-up adoption
“That doesn't work anymore, because if you just go to go to the someone who's a decision maker, And unless you have bought buy-in and already ground up adoption from developers and the practitioners, no decision maker wants to give a tool or a product to their …”
Bansal: Harness gets 40% of revenue from SMB/mid-market vs AppDynamics's 5%
“So at Harness, we do it differently that, you know, we look at like, you know, 40% of our business comes from SMB mid-market and 60% comes from large enterprise. You know, at AppDynamics, it was 95% coming from large enterprise and, you know, very small part w…”
Bansal: Sales transitions from 80% hustle at $1M ARR to 90% machine at $25M+
“Getting to the first million of revenue, I would say is about 80% hustle and maybe 20% machine and process in there. Getting from a, you know, let's say a million to ten million dollars of revenue will be part maybe, you know 60% hustle and 40% machine. When y…”