The Exchanges

Q Okay, good. That's helpful. So tell me about why you joined TalkDesk. It's kind of unique. I mean, do they see you as a founder or what's your role?

A You know, how TalkDesk sees me, we need to ask Tiago, the founder of the company. You know, I don't think of myself, when you joined three years in, and I did found the company myself, when you joined three years in, you're not a founder anymore, and you have to acknowledge that. Um, I joined generally because I really like the space, and I really like Tiago, the founder. Uh, so it was two, two combinations of Really interesting market. The, uh, the call center space is a twenty-two billion dollar market. It's still dominated by old players like Avaya and Cisco and Genesis, uh, that sell the same system for, for 2030 years. So one side of it was, here's a market which is huge and ready for disruption. The other was, we already had a proven product. Tiago and team, uh, although the team was very small, built a very impressive product that had, um, a couple hundred customers, uh, even by the time I, I joined. I really liked the product and continued using it, uh, for over a year by the time I joined.

AI assessment note: “I joined generally because I really like the space, and I really like Tiago”

Q And were you, the, the relationship around you, uh, and Diago, I mean, was this something where you were like an EIR at DFJ and they put you in with their round of financing or what did you come in kind of before the financing? How did you two meet?

A I came before the financing. So, uh, I actually met Diago through my friends at Storm Ventures. I was an EIR at Storm Ventures. Seven, eight years ago, so, um, a lifetime ago, and, uh, I'm still in very good, very good contact with, uh, all the investors there, and, um, You know, they, they told me, I think, and, and, uh, in the midst of, uh, 2014 that I should meet Tiago. He's just an impressive guy. Uh, and I went on and met him and, and we, uh, met several times during, uh, 20 14 and towards the end of 2014, we said, you know, we like each other enough. We can help each other. And I decided to join.

AI assessment note: “I came before the financing. So, uh, I actually met Diago through my friends”

Q Number two, is there a CEO that you're following or studying currently?

A Um, again, I, I study, follow many, and I think that, um, You know, I just watched, um, uh, you know, Jeff Lawson from Twilio on stage today, and I love how, how, uh, down to earth he is and how hands-on he is about what he does. I really admire what Mark Benioff does. Um, really driving, uh, um, hard, driving a company hard and driving everybody in Salesforce to grow, grow, grow, but at the same time have this compassion side of him and, and, uh, the community side of him. So I love what he does. Uh, and again, I think there's a lot of great CEOs out there and there's no single one you can learn from.

AI assessment note: “Jeff Lawson from Twilio on stage today... I really admire what Mark Benioff does.”

Q Okay, so, so, so the 50,000 customers, when you mentioned seasonal, tell me about that. How do you guys manage churn?

A So this is a little different. Seasonal customers are, so a lot of our customers are e-commerce customers, and they, um, they will have to ramp up towards the, uh, the hot season, which is November, December, January, and then ramp down. So when customers come to us, we usually come up with a solution given bank of users that they can use towards the, um, uh, the end of the, uh, of the year, ramp up their business, and then ramp it, uh, back down. So they're not locked into, you know, 300 users or 200 users they don't have to use. Um, so natural growth happens and this is where customers will add users, but many of our customers do need a seasonality aspect to their business. And we, we work with them to, uh, to offer this flexibility. So not stuck with unused licenses.

AI assessment note: “we usually come up with a solution given bank of users”

Q So are you guys, I mean, have, that sounds like a big obstacle in the way of trying to get to like a net negative revenue churn number. Um, have you guys hit net negative revenue churn yet? And if not, what are some things you're trying to do to drive more than just seasonal usage?

A So we're definitely in a net negative churn, um, uh, world. And if you think of it, we're looking, if you look at the business on an annual basis, this is the nightly will reoccur. So if, if a customer went, uh, from say, 200 agents to 500 agents in year one, they're likely to go from two 50 to maybe 600 in year two. So this is not to reoccur. So on an AR basis, it doesn't really create, uh, churn, especially when you build it into the annual contract. So what we learn to do with customers is, We talk about upfront about the seasonal needs, and we build it into their annual contracts. From revenue perspective, we don't really see this revenue fluctuates, but from users using the platform, we definitely see more users in December than we see in, like, February, a couple months after, despite our natural growth. But then it kind of comes back again, and the next year is even larger.

AI assessment note: “So we're definitely in a net negative churn, um, uh, world.”

Q What, what happened? I mean, that's always like an interesting, people never talk about this, but very rarely when you have two, three, four person co-founding teams, very rarely do all co-founders make it to, you know, the promised land or the end. What was the conversation around that exit? Were you there for that or no?

A Yeah, I was there, and, and, you know, I think A is a personal issue, so I don't want to get, um, into the specifics of this situation, but I can tell you what I know from experience with other companies. In the best of companies, uh, as you mentioned, founders, uh, some founders leave, and they usually do because either they don't find what they do exciting enough, or they couldn't find themselves in a position where they can make the same impact they did in the early stages, and the worst situation is when the founder stays, and I know companies were Two founders that didn't speak with each other and stayed all the way until the end. And this is devastating for the company. So it's really healthy for a company to be in a situation where a founder can actually say, I've done, I've done a great job. I built this company and now I'm ready to take on, uh, you know, my next task or maybe be a CEO in a different company.

AI assessment note: “I don't want to get, um, into the specifics of this situation”