The Exchanges

Q We're having you on at the right moment then. So you're still expanding some of these accounts, maybe more. So what is that expansion look like? Why would someone pay you 10 grand a year versus three fifties? It's seat based expansion, feature based expansion, something else.

A It's seat based. So what we're seeing is at one great example, one of our older customers, they started, they built one app and they had about 250 people using it. And then they built their second app and they added additional 300 and there was some overlap of app users. And then they added, now they're at five apps and they're Just shy of a thousand users. So that was one where we landed small and then grew over time. Nowadays, I'd say in the last six months, I hired an enterprise VP of sales. So that also changed our selling motion. So we're landing a lot bigger in the last couple months. The deals that we're looking at, we would land more at the 100,000 range. And then the expansion is like, oh, and then we'll get to Our biggest deal right now is 8000 users, so that one we were like, woohoo, ok.

AI assessment note: “It's seat based. So what we're seeing is at one great example”

Q of money. I don't know to who, but he's about. All right. CMO Looker. So that is a brand, by the way, obviously you don't know Looker, massive multi-billion dollar acquisition. You were the CMO there. So you joined Appify in February, 20, 20. You could have done anything. If you, Jen, if you have this kind of background, what do you see in Appify that gets you so excited?

A You know, there are three reasons I joined. The first was, uh, my relationship with the founder. So it's so critical to me to work with a great executive team. And Hari was the co-founder of ServiceMax, brought that company to, sold it to GE for a billion. So we have this really great set of experiences that work really well together. So that was probably the number one reason. But I also saw in Appify a number of customers that are actively Using the product and actively championing. They're very excited to tell other people about it. That's another signal that I've seen multiple times in my career. And then the third is I love platform products. So even though We are focused on a go to market where we want to sell to a pain point, which right now we're selling to, you know, mobile workforce. So field sales and field service and people who are out there, uh, on customer sites, the platform Apple fly can actually solve any mobile app issue or any even desktop app issue that, you know, you want to make an app out of. So I love that, that platform product, uh, strategy.

AI assessment note: “there are three reasons I joined. The first was, uh, my relationship with the founder.”

Q You know, is that your biggest annual contract right now? 300 DK, something like that?

A Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we've got these big, big contracts. And of course you have to change your entire, uh, the way you run the business. Cause instead of this sort of fast volume, like get them up and running, you have these longer sales cycles. There's like 10, 15 people at the company. You're meeting multiple times to sort of get everybody on board. You sometimes have to work with procurement and, you know, legal and contract negotiation. So it's, it's a complete, like, It is a different business from what it was two years ago. So exciting. And it's absolutely the right thing. But it was funny when I listened to the podcast again, I was like, holy crap. This is wild.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we've got these big, big contracts.”

Q So how do you turn off all the small companies without pissing them off and getting negative G two reviews?

A Yeah, no. And that's, that's been one of the challenges. And I think I would give us maybe like a B plus. So we have a couple of, of our smaller customers. They're up and running. They're super happy. We continue to support them, you know, when they have a bug or they have a question, we're there. Um, but there were plenty of, and one of the reasons we shifted to enterprise, there were plenty of S&B customers that didn't really have the resources for an app building platform. Like they just Didn't have time to build apps. And so in some cases, it was very easy to say like, hey guys, you know, you never really built an app. So let's be friends. And And in some cases we pointed them to other products that we actually thought were better fitted for an SMB, a simpler solution.

AI assessment note: “in some cases we pointed them to other products that we actually thought were better”

Q With COVID, why is that still your go-to-market? Field sales, field services on customer sites, that's just not happening right now.

A Well, and that's the thing. It actually is. So when you take field service into consideration, you start to think about all of the things that the machinery that has to keep running. So there are still medical equipment that needs to continue to run. There's still, you know, all of the, uh, construction needs to still have cranes. They need to still have the tools. So really a good portion of our customer base is in that essential worker space. And The efficiency of them being able to get in and out of a job quickly becomes even more important because they don't want to be kind of hanging out on a job site. They want to get in, fix the things they need to fix and then get out.

AI assessment note: “Well, and that's the thing. It actually is.”

Q Teach me about that. How did you find the anchor point in India to hire that first engineer and customer support rep?

A Yeah. And I, and I think that's a great, great point. It's hard. I would say not for the faint of heart. If you don't know someone in India already who has been there, done that, it's not a good strategy as even though you look at the financing and you're like, wow, that would be great because it turns out it's actually really hard to hire in India. Um, it takes three months. So even when someone accepts a job offer in India, they have to stay in their current job for three months. And very often, They shop your offer. So they accept your offer. They shop it. They may find a better offer. And three months later, when you're dying for this headcount to start, they're like, just kidding. I'm going somewhere else. So it's very painful, um, and hard. And what makes it work is those anchor people. So in our case, our founder, our CTO is originally from India. He spends, you know, Maybe six months, three months, a year out there. He's wonderfully charismatic. So he goes out and everybody gets excited and, you know, pumped up. And, and so he is able to bring in people from his network as well as excite the team we have. And so that's been, that's been able to, and even then we still have people that don't show up on their first day of work.

AI assessment note: “in our case, our founder, our CTO is originally from India”

Q What do you anticipate? I mean, one of the ratios you want to get right early on on building a sales team is the ratio of full on target earnings relative to the quota target. Are you optimizing for sort of the four or five X multiple there?

A Yeah. So what, what we're really looking for right now is, and again, we're at that early stage. We don't know all of the numbers. We were looking for that repeatable motion. So like, is this what an inside sales reps will continue to do every month? So we don't quite know, but what we want to optimize for is how do we make them neutral so that we can say, okay, now we're at the neutral point. Now we can start adjusting and saying, okay, let's raise the quota. Let's figure out what are the other Sort of levers we need to pull in order to make each of our sales reps, uh, more than just neutral to the business.

AI assessment note: “We don't know all of the numbers... what we want to optimize for is”

Q well, what should this thing look like? I mean, obviously it's a big combination. I imagine of their salary, but there's also real equity upside and incentive. You've already done well, so you don't need to make a bunch of cash. You want to maybe be invested in the company. How should people be thinking about structuring comp plans if they're bringing in a new CEO like you to lead?

A Yeah, I think that's important. So the, you know, at this stage, at the post-Series A, when you're looking for, you know, typically it's a product engineering founder looking for a go-to-market type CEO, which is, you know, where I would fit in every time. So the conversation to have is with your board and with your main Series A VC investors. So that was the conversation that Hari had. Rajiv is, uh, from Mayfield is our Main guy. And, um, and so the conversation was between the three of us and figuring out, okay, we're early. What, you know, what's the typical market percent of a CEO coming in at this time? You know, it's, it's a, it's a fairly motivating percent.

AI assessment note: “figuring out, okay, we're early. What, you know, what's the typical market percent”