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Feb 1, 2019 · 22m · top-founders

1287 Why He Left Salesforce After $50m+ Acquisition to Build Kustomer.com

Brad Birnbaum · 11m spoken Nathan Latka · 7m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

In this episode of The Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, host Nathan Latka interviews Kustomer.com co-founder and CEO Brad Birnbaum about leaving Salesforce after a $50M acquisition, modernizing enterprise customer support architecture, and scaling Kustomer through a $38.5M venture-backed hyper-growth phase.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Nathan holds 38.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Nathan as informed peer 5.0 Guest teaching 3.0 Guest disagreement 2.0 Nathan pushing back 4.8
05100:0010:0020:004:19–9:49 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Leaving Salesforce and the Case for Modern SaaS Architecture Latka challenges Birnbaum's claim of having zero churn, grilling him on whether he means gross or net negative churn given low-tier pricing. Birnbaum clarifies his metric by explaining that churn is tracked only on accounts above $5k ACV with an enterprise focus.9:53–14:26 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Sponsor Advertisement for the Blinkist Mobile App After an ad read for Blinkist, Latka explores Birnbaum's timeline between Salesforce, Airtime, and founding Kustomer. Birnbaum explains why he transitioned away from consumer back into enterprise B2B SaaS and raised $38.5M.14:27–18:58 · Nathan as informed peer 6/10 Go-to-Market Timeline, Growth Metrics, and Enterprise Scale Latka repeatedly presses Birnbaum for customer count and revenue figures after the guest attempts to stay evasive. Latka backs into revenue estimates and bluntly points out that after raising over $30M, growth metrics need to deliver.18:59–21:32 · Nathan as informed peer 4/10 Team Distribution and Capital Payback Strategy for Hyper-Growth The conversation moves swiftly through team geography, capital payback period, and the Famous Five rapid-fire questions. Birnbaum deflects the book question before sharing his sleep schedule and engineering background.4:19–9:49 · Guest teaching 4/10 Leaving Salesforce and the Case for Modern SaaS Architecture Latka challenges Birnbaum's claim of having zero churn, grilling him on whether he means gross or net negative churn given low-tier pricing. Birnbaum clarifies his metric by explaining that churn is tracked only on accounts above $5k ACV with an enterprise focus.9:53–14:26 · Guest teaching 2/10 Sponsor Advertisement for the Blinkist Mobile App After an ad read for Blinkist, Latka explores Birnbaum's timeline between Salesforce, Airtime, and founding Kustomer. Birnbaum explains why he transitioned away from consumer back into enterprise B2B SaaS and raised $38.5M.14:27–18:58 · Guest teaching 4/10 Go-to-Market Timeline, Growth Metrics, and Enterprise Scale Latka repeatedly presses Birnbaum for customer count and revenue figures after the guest attempts to stay evasive. Latka backs into revenue estimates and bluntly points out that after raising over $30M, growth metrics need to deliver.18:59–21:32 · Guest teaching 2/10 Team Distribution and Capital Payback Strategy for Hyper-Growth The conversation moves swiftly through team geography, capital payback period, and the Famous Five rapid-fire questions. Birnbaum deflects the book question before sharing his sleep schedule and engineering background.4:19–9:49 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Leaving Salesforce and the Case for Modern SaaS Architecture Latka challenges Birnbaum's claim of having zero churn, grilling him on whether he means gross or net negative churn given low-tier pricing. Birnbaum clarifies his metric by explaining that churn is tracked only on accounts above $5k ACV with an enterprise focus.9:53–14:26 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Sponsor Advertisement for the Blinkist Mobile App After an ad read for Blinkist, Latka explores Birnbaum's timeline between Salesforce, Airtime, and founding Kustomer. Birnbaum explains why he transitioned away from consumer back into enterprise B2B SaaS and raised $38.5M.14:27–18:58 · Guest disagreement 3/10 Go-to-Market Timeline, Growth Metrics, and Enterprise Scale Latka repeatedly presses Birnbaum for customer count and revenue figures after the guest attempts to stay evasive. Latka backs into revenue estimates and bluntly points out that after raising over $30M, growth metrics need to deliver.18:59–21:32 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Team Distribution and Capital Payback Strategy for Hyper-Growth The conversation moves swiftly through team geography, capital payback period, and the Famous Five rapid-fire questions. Birnbaum deflects the book question before sharing his sleep schedule and engineering background.4:19–9:49 · Nathan pushing back 6/10 Leaving Salesforce and the Case for Modern SaaS Architecture Latka challenges Birnbaum's claim of having zero churn, grilling him on whether he means gross or net negative churn given low-tier pricing. Birnbaum clarifies his metric by explaining that churn is tracked only on accounts above $5k ACV with an enterprise focus.9:53–14:26 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Sponsor Advertisement for the Blinkist Mobile App After an ad read for Blinkist, Latka explores Birnbaum's timeline between Salesforce, Airtime, and founding Kustomer. Birnbaum explains why he transitioned away from consumer back into enterprise B2B SaaS and raised $38.5M.14:27–18:58 · Nathan pushing back 7/10 Go-to-Market Timeline, Growth Metrics, and Enterprise Scale Latka repeatedly presses Birnbaum for customer count and revenue figures after the guest attempts to stay evasive. Latka backs into revenue estimates and bluntly points out that after raising over $30M, growth metrics need to deliver.18:59–21:32 · Nathan pushing back 3/10 Team Distribution and Capital Payback Strategy for Hyper-Growth The conversation moves swiftly through team geography, capital payback period, and the Famous Five rapid-fire questions. Birnbaum deflects the book question before sharing his sleep schedule and engineering background.

speaking balance: gold is Nathan, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Nathan 62.9% · guest 37.1%0:00 · Nathan 62.9% · guest 37.1%3:00 · Nathan 14.5% · guest 85.5%3:00 · Nathan 14.5% · guest 85.5%6:00 · Nathan 26% · guest 74%6:00 · Nathan 26% · guest 74%9:00 · Nathan 70.6% · guest 29.4%9:00 · Nathan 70.6% · guest 29.4%12:00 · Nathan 17.1% · guest 82.9%12:00 · Nathan 17.1% · guest 82.9%15:00 · Nathan 30% · guest 70%15:00 · Nathan 30% · guest 70%18:00 · Nathan 40% · guest 60%18:00 · Nathan 40% · guest 60%21:00 · Nathan 61.7% · guest 38.3%21:00 · Nathan 61.7% · guest 38.3%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:36 Birnbaum holds the line on confidential customer numbers

Birnbaum explicitly refuses to disclose customer counts or revenue, repeatedly qualifying his answers as mid-market focused to avoid giving exact figures.

 Hardest push from Nathan ▶ 18:37 Latka warns that massive funding demands massive performance

Latka directly confronts Birnbaum's secrecy by insisting that having raised over $30M, performance must be strong or leadership changes will occur.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:31 Birnbaum explains enterprise ACV churn calculation

When Latka expresses disbelief that a SaaS company with $50/mo plans has zero logo churn, Birnbaum clarifies that their core churn tracking applies exclusively to contracts over $5k ACV.

 Nathan holds their own ▶ 7:44 Latka presses on gross versus net expansion churn definitions

Latka demonstrates deep SaaS domain fluency by interrupting Birnbaum to differentiate between gross retention and net negative churn driven by expansion revenue.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicNathan as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementNathan pushing backWhy
Leaving Salesforce and the Case for Modern SaaS Architecture 6426 Latka challenges Birnbaum's claim of having zero churn, grilling him on whether he means gross or net negative churn given low-tier pricing. Birnbaum clarifies his metric by explaining that churn is tracked only on accounts above $5k ACV with an enterprise focus.
Sponsor Advertisement for the Blinkist Mobile App 4213 After an ad read for Blinkist, Latka explores Birnbaum's timeline between Salesforce, Airtime, and founding Kustomer. Birnbaum explains why he transitioned away from consumer back into enterprise B2B SaaS and raised $38.5M.
Go-to-Market Timeline, Growth Metrics, and Enterprise Scale 6437 Latka repeatedly presses Birnbaum for customer count and revenue figures after the guest attempts to stay evasive. Latka backs into revenue estimates and bluntly points out that after raising over $30M, growth metrics need to deliver.
Team Distribution and Capital Payback Strategy for Hyper-Growth 4223 The conversation moves swiftly through team geography, capital payback period, and the Famous Five rapid-fire questions. Birnbaum deflects the book question before sharing his sleep schedule and engineering background.

Statements from this episode (9)

Insight
Birnbaum: Legacy ticketing systems lack customer context and actionability
“When customers go to a company to seek support, most of the time companies are using a standard ticketing system. And those ticketing systems know very little about the customer, right? They a customer may email it, may email in, Hey, I have a problem with thi…”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 2:32
Opinion
Birnbaum: Salesforce relies on proprietary tech modern apps avoid
“The Salesforce platform is 20 years old, right? And if you ever had to use it, it's all built on Apex and Sokol and a whole bunch of very proprietary solutions that, that you know, modern apps don't really use it at this point anymore.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 5:02
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Birnbaum: Kustomer achieved 40% expansion revenue in the current quarter
“If you're talking about churn, including expansion, then we've, our expansion is 40% this quarter, right?”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 8:09
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Birnbaum: 80%+ of recent Kustomer deals are Enterprise or Ultimate
“80% or greater of our new deals in the last two quarters have been Enterprise or Ultimate.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 9:30
Disclosure
Birnbaum details Kustomer funding rounds: $2.5M Seed, $10M Series A, $26M Series B
“Well we did yes, we've done a we did a two and a half seed, a ten million a, and then we just did we just did 26 on the on the B.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 14:16
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Birnbaum: Kustomer counts Fortune 50 companies among its customers
“We do have fortune 50 companies.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 15:36
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Birnbaum predicts Kustomer will 6x its revenue run rate in year two
“We'll, from year one to year two, we'll, we'll six X it.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 16:33
Disclosure
Birnbaum: Kustomer Will Tolerate Longer Payback Periods in Hyper-Growth
“We're going to get a little more aggressive. We're entering that hyper growth mode right now.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 19:27
Opinion
Birnbaum in 2019: Elon Musk's Thai rescue mini-submarine was "amazing"
“I, I'm, I admire everything he does, including the most recent mini submarine that he and his team have put together to help the kids in Thailand. I know they didn't use it, but still amazing.”
Brad Birnbaum Feb 1, 2019 ▶ 19:57
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