The Exchanges

Q Let's move forward to RevOS. Did you learn anything out of, like, did you learn about the idea or come up with the idea for RevOS while you were at Elastic? Or how'd you come up with the idea?

A You know, me and my co-founder at Lustig, we were like engineers. And I think you also have a number of engineers here on your show who are like startup founders, entrepreneurs, and every entrepreneur believe like, so that we just need to build a great product and then they will come, you know. But what we learned also, the sales is actually a very, very important part of the exercise. But what we also got to learn that sales is actually, it's not, it's not an art, you know, some people believe like, okay, you need to really hire a great salesperson, and then he will go and sell everything you give to him or her. But the sales is just like a process. It's not a, it's not an art, it's a science. And this was like a part of what we now believe in Revos and what we actually bring as Revos to the market. Because we see this revenue operations and this revenue process building is essential for every company. And this is actually where we're going in with our new product.

AI assessment note: “what we also got to learn that sales is actually... not an art, it's a science”

Q You took the customer health score concept and then also launched a Udemy course. How is the Udemy course doing?

A Oh, um, that's a good point. Um, we actually did like a interesting pre-sell to that. I think we earned maybe some few thousand dollars of revenue with pre-sell this course. However, the course itself, I would not do it again, to be honest, because it's actually mostly, um, it's very hard to promote it. It's actually not very workable in a sense. And we're actually going to close it or do it for free or give it, give away it for free on EDME. We, um, a German company, and Udemy has some very complicated taxation forms we need to fill, and all the revenue there is like maybe a few hundred bucks right now, so we're just like, hey, you know what, we just better open it and just maybe push it on our website instead of Udemy.

AI assessment note: “all the revenue there is like maybe a few hundred bucks right now”

Q You took the customer health score concept and then also launched a Udemy course. How is the Udemy course doing?

A Oh, um, that's a good point. Um, we actually did like a interesting pre-sell to that. I think we earned maybe some few thousand dollars of revenue with pre-sell this course. However, the course itself, I would not do it again, to be honest, because it's actually mostly, um, it's very hard to promote it. It's actually not very workable in a sense. And we're actually going to close it or do it for free or give it, give away it for free on EDME. We, um, a German company, and Udemy has some very complicated taxation forms we need to fill, and all the revenue there is like maybe a few hundred bucks right now, so we're just like, hey, you know what, we just better open it and just maybe push it on our website instead of Udemy.

AI assessment note: “all the revenue there is like maybe a few hundred bucks right now”

Q mid-market-y than a Zapier, but less enterprise-y than a MuleSoft. Can you explain exactly, like, a connection that one of your customers uses you guys to facilitate? For example, my audience knows, or maybe they do it on Zapier, they're thinking, oh, yeah, I connect my Airtable to my Google Calendar using Zapier for 10 dollars a month. What's a connection that one of your customers might do through Elastic?

A Well, it's definitely, it's very, very, very, very different from our different IsoDirect customers or our OEM customers, but one example could be, like, we have a very interesting customer in educational space, Which is, uh, you could imagine now, um, very hot space in the recent news and related. And they do, uh, for example, a student onboarding student, uh, alumni connection and student management system, which composed out of, I don't know, seven, 17, 18 different systems. And they definitely do work with systems like Moodle. They do work with systems like Active Directory. They are very much cloud-affimed. So they go cloud-first strategy. So they connect a lot of Azure services through Elastic. Then we definitely have a big bunch of our customers from the EOP perspective. So people connecting SAP, SAP by design, SAP R three, ECC six and HANA and variety of e-commerce systems. But I mean, things like Salesforce, I think, and since like, uh, uh, Marketo is definitely also on the list.

AI assessment note: “one example could be, like, we have a very interesting customer in educational space”

Q Okay. And give me more of the backstory. When did you launch the company?

A Um, actually we launched the company in, uh, um, 2000, uh, 13. Um, basically me and my, one of our co-founders. So we were three co-founders initially. Uh, two of us was working in this integration area. So we were working for a large companies here in Germany who were doing a lot of integration and, uh, enterprise service bus products. And before Elastica, I was working for a company called Talent, which is, uh, one of the world biggest, uh, open source, uh, data and application integration vendors, the IPO recently, uh, which is a really huge success. And, uh, this is really a very interesting company. Um, but at the same time we saw how complicated is it for To the cloud. How much different is it? Technologically, but also for the business perspective to sell the service and not like, you know, a piece of software, which is throw over the fence and then never see the customer again.

AI assessment note: “actually we launched the company in, uh, um, 2000, uh, 13.”

Q Let's move forward to RevOS. Did you learn anything out of, like, did you learn about the idea or come up with the idea for RevOS while you were at Elastic? Or how'd you come up with the idea?

A You know, me and my co-founder at Lustig, we were like engineers. And I think you also have a number of engineers here on your show who are like startup founders, entrepreneurs, and every entrepreneur believe like, so that we just need to build a great product and then they will come, you know. But what we learned also, the sales is actually a very, very important part of the exercise. But what we also got to learn that sales is actually, it's not, it's not an art, you know, some people believe like, okay, you need to really hire a great salesperson, and then he will go and sell everything you give to him or her. But the sales is just like a process. It's not a, it's not an art, it's a science. And this was like a part of what we now believe in Revos and what we actually bring as Revos to the market. Because we see this revenue operations and this revenue process building is essential for every company. And this is actually where we're going in with our new product.

AI assessment note: “what we also got to learn that sales is actually... it's a science”

Q Okay, what about team today? Have you guys added additional people? You were 20 people a year and a half ago, two years ago.

A Yeah, right now we're, I think, almost double, but more than double is the number of people. And again, right now, again, We are, we are working in a bigger organization, a bigger scope, and definitely we found a very good combination of, let's say, services expertise of our parent company. So we're adding more and more people within our parent company to the services division who understand what we do, understand our product implemented to the customers, but also we grow significantly on the product side. So I think right now in Elastica only we are right now around about, I don't know, 50 people, maybe a little less And, uh, in total context of M wise, we are more like, I don't know how it's under 70, but again, this is not, don't hold me for the numbers.

AI assessment note: “in Elastica only we are right now around about, I don't know, 50 people”

Q Okay, what about team today? Have you guys added additional people? You were 20 people a year and a half ago, two years ago.

A Yeah, right now we're, I think, almost double, but more than double is the number of people. And again, right now, again, We are, we are working in a bigger organization, a bigger scope, and definitely we found a very good combination of, let's say, services expertise of our parent company. So we're adding more and more people within our parent company to the services division who understand what we do, understand our product implemented to the customers, but also we grow significantly on the product side. So I think right now in Elastica only we are right now around about, I don't know, 50 people, maybe a little less And, uh, in total context of M wise, we are more like, I don't know how it's under 70, but again, this is not, don't hold me for the numbers.

AI assessment note: “right now in Elastica only we are right now around about, I don't know, 50 people”

Q Yeah, this makes a ton of sense. Okay, so six customers today, you're using these landing pages to get new customers. How do you go from six customers to a thousand customers?

A Yes, that's a very good question. Um, we are currently experimenting with search engine optimization. You know, we are big believers in this, like, you know, validating and testing hypothesis fast and cheaply. And this is actually where we now invest our resources and time to really see, like, if we could possibly generate some, um, compounding effect On the infrastructure and also resources we actually deliver. And additionally to that, we, um, launched our product, which is now available. I think we launched it on Dublin, by the way, where we last time at, um, we, uh, launched it, um, on the conference and, uh, and also opened the registrations for it. So actually we have like a free plan where everyone can build its own customer health score like in minutes.

AI assessment note: “we are currently experimenting with search engine optimization”

Q Who is doing this the best? I mean, you mentioned churn zero. There's a lot of companies that sort of say, Hey, score your customers, but who do you think is doing this the best right now?

A Um, I think there's a good question. So there was definitely on top, but, um, I think there's definitely, um, very few players right now on the market, which actually can do it. Um, scientifically proven good. You know, the problem with Hellscore is like, it's very much biased, right? In the sense that when you build it, you just build it on top of your gut feeling and very few people can definitely validate it and you need some data science expertise to validate it. But, uh, we see a lot of interesting approaches definitely from companies like Vitaly. Um, and Tatango is doing a very good job in content. Uh, they are very, very, very nice, but Tatango is rather old system. You know, it's, It's a bit clunky. You know, it's developed like Melbourne 10 years ago. I think you had like a founder of Satango here. They do an excellent job in, in this like educating the market. But what we see is there's definitely a merge between this customer success management system as a separate system, like a separate silo and the revenue stack in general. So we see many companies, once they advance in the development, they establish a revenue function. On top of, like, individual silos. Therefore, these individual solutions making less and less sense.

AI assessment note: “we see a lot of interesting approaches definitely from companies like Vitaly.”

Q Yeah, this makes a ton of sense. Okay, so six customers today, you're using these landing pages to get new customers. How do you go from six customers to a thousand customers?

A Yes, that's a very good question. Um, we are currently experimenting with search engine optimization. You know, we are big believers in this, like, you know, validating and testing hypothesis fast and cheaply. And this is actually where we now invest our resources and time to really see, like, if we could possibly generate some, um, compounding effect On the infrastructure and also resources we actually deliver. And additionally to that, we, um, launched our product, which is now available. I think we launched it on Dublin, by the way, where we last time at, um, we, uh, launched it, um, on the conference and, uh, and also opened the registrations for it. So actually we have like a free plan where everyone can build its own customer health score like in minutes.

AI assessment note: “we are currently experimenting with search engine optimization”

Q Who is doing this the best? I mean, you mentioned churn zero. There's a lot of companies that sort of say, Hey, score your customers, but who do you think is doing this the best right now?

A Um, I think there's a good question. So there was definitely on top, but, um, I think there's definitely, um, very few players right now on the market, which actually can do it. Um, scientifically proven good. You know, the problem with Hellscore is like, it's very much biased, right? In the sense that when you build it, you just build it on top of your gut feeling and very few people can definitely validate it and you need some data science expertise to validate it. But, uh, we see a lot of interesting approaches definitely from companies like Vitaly. Um, and Tatango is doing a very good job in content. Uh, they are very, very, very nice, but Tatango is rather old system. You know, it's, It's a bit clunky. You know, it's developed like Melbourne 10 years ago. I think you had like a founder of Satango here. They do an excellent job in, in this like educating the market. But what we see is there's definitely a merge between this customer success management system as a separate system, like a separate silo and the revenue stack in general. So we see many companies, once they advance in the development, they establish a revenue function. On top of, like, individual silos. Therefore, these individual solutions making less and less sense.

AI assessment note: “we see a lot of interesting approaches definitely from companies like Vitaly.”

Q And how are you getting these customers? What are you willing to spend to acquire them?

A Oh, this is, um, actually right now, um, we, we do have a very strong inbound, uh, which we built over the years. Uh, And this inbound channel actually works pretty well for us. Um, there are very interesting channels, which we found through, for example, Quora. Google is one of the very, obviously a good channel. Um, um, there are a number of websites which are working very well and the rest of it doesn't really work. Um, but apart from that, we actually have a really, um, partner and channel sales here where we go over them to the markets through partner partners and channels. So the channel, the channel, uh, way of selling is really prevailing. And I believe for this year, we would also mostly focus on partner and channel sales.

AI assessment note: “we do have a very strong inbound, uh, which we built over the years”

Q And then now let's dive into the, now we understand the economics, let's dive into the product a little bit. So launch, 2013, sell in 2017. You've grown nicely inside of another company. What has changed about the product over the past two years?

A What we see is that the market where we're working in expanding dramatically, right? And, uh, there are many, many additional areas which are now included or, or Integration is becoming more and more important ever since actually this development. Um, and as a part of it, I was it that obviously by growing markets, there needs to be a specialization and definitely what we see now, a bigger market fragmentation and bigger specialization by, I think Gartner counted like 98 IPAS vendors now, and they actually know who is IPAS and who's not, you know, like one of the IPAS but not IPAS at all. And this is actually means that Each IPOS vendor needs to define their own category, find their own place in the bigger market, growing market, but there still needs to be a good niche in this market. And what we see now is the specialization is kicking in. So the different areas where we specialize in different areas where our competitors specialize. Like Zapier, for example, for small customers, MuleSoft is like for big enterprises, like, I don't know, Fortune 50, and then somewhere in between.

AI assessment note: “What we see is that the market where we're working in expanding dramatically”

Q And then now let's dive into the, now we understand the economics, let's dive into the product a little bit. So launch, 2013, sell in 2017. You've grown nicely inside of another company. What has changed about the product over the past two years?

A What we see is that the market where we're working in expanding dramatically, right? And, uh, there are many, many additional areas which are now included or, or Integration is becoming more and more important ever since actually this development. Um, and as a part of it, I was it that obviously by growing markets, there needs to be a specialization and definitely what we see now, a bigger market fragmentation and bigger specialization by, I think Gartner counted like 98 IPAS vendors now, and they actually know who is IPAS and who's not, you know, like one of the IPAS but not IPAS at all. And this is actually means that Each IPOS vendor needs to define their own category, find their own place in the bigger market, growing market, but there still needs to be a good niche in this market. And what we see now is the specialization is kicking in. So the different areas where we specialize in different areas where our competitors specialize. Like Zapier, for example, for small customers, MuleSoft is like for big enterprises, like, I don't know, Fortune 50, and then somewhere in between.

AI assessment note: “What we see is that the market where we're working in expanding dramatically”