Nick Mehta is the CEO @ Gainsight, the #1 customer success platform for corporate services, turning your customers into your best growth engine. To date Gainsight have raised over $156m from some of the world’s best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. As for Nick, prior to Gainsight he was the CEO @ LiveOffice where he grew cloud archiving ARR from $2m in 2008 to $25m in 2011 and drove and negotiated the acquisition by Symantec for $115m in cash. Before LiveOffice Nick was Senior Director of Product Management @ Symantec where he led $378 MM market-leading email archiving / security businesses managing over 180 people across 3 continents. I do also have to say a huge thank you to both Byron Deeter and Jason Lemkin for the intro to Nick over two years ago.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
How Nick made his way into the world of SaaS and came to lead the charge in the category creation of customer success as CEO with Gainsight? What were some of his big lessons from being CEO at 2 companies during 2 macro market crashes? What does Nick mean when he says, “customer success will fail if it is just a role and not a strategy?” What can the leader and CEO do to imbue this company wide approach to customer success? What tangible actions are on offer? What works? Where do many make mistakes? Nick has previously said, “burying customer success undel sales does not work”. Why does this have such a high rate of failure? What should the optimal sales to customer success relationship look like? What does Nick mean when he says, “product is to customer success what marketing is to sales”. How should product and customer success work together? Why does Nick believe the mythology of the “A player” when business building is fundamentally dangerous? What can leaders and CEOs proactively do to ensure a diverse and differentiated talent pipeline? What question does Nick find most revealing in terms of one’s character and potential? Where do many go wrong in building and scaling their teams in SaaS? Why does Nick push back against the “hire fast and fire fast” thesis? What are the negative consequences of it? Why is it short-sighted and premature in many cases? What does Nick suggest for individuals struggling to find their optimal role within an organisation? How much time does one give someone struggling to find their role?Nick’s 60 Second SaaStr:
Who must fundamentally own the renewal, sales or customer success? What Nick know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? What would Nick most like to change in the world of SaaS? Most surprising action that has moved the needle for a company in terms of retention?If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Nick Mehta
SaaStr 619: 3 Lessons from Building a Marketing Engine to Grow Pipeline from Millions to Billions with Samsara CMO Sarah Patterson
SaaStr 618: Scaling for the Enterprise: Top 5 Lessons on the Upmarket Journey with Airtable CEO Howie Liu and Coatue Management General Partner Caryn Marooney
SaaStr 617: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents: Rippling VP of Sales Matt Plank on How to Ramp Up Sales in the Early Days. Hosted by Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond
SaaStr 616: Secrets to SMB at Scale with Hubspot CEO Yamini Rangan and SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 615: Where Venture Capital Really is Right Now, With Accel, Iconiq Growth, and Salesforce Ventures at G2 Reach
SaaStr 614: CRO Confidential Presents: Gong SVP of Sales Jameson Yung on Creating a Category. Hosted by Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond and SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin.
SaaStr 613: How Top CMOs Drive Growth in the Age of the Self-Serve Buyer with Klaviyo SVP of Marketing Kady Srinivasan, Talkdesk CMO Kathie Johnson, SmartBear CMO Cynthia Gumbert and TrustRadius Found
SaaStr 612: How to Manage 100+ SDRs Across 4 Continents with Snowflake VP, Global Sales Development Lars Nilsson
SaaStr 611: How to Scale a Platform and Ecosystem to $10B with Atlassian CRO Cameron Deatsch
SaaStr 610: The Playbook to Achieving CEO/CRO Harmony with Algolia CEO Bernadette Nixon and CRO Michelle Adams
SaaStr 609: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents How to Survive in a Competitive Market with Divvy CRO Sterling Snow. Hosted by Founders Fund Partner Sam Blond.
SaaStr 608: AMA with SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin at SaaStr Annual 2022 - Part 2
SaaStr 607: AMA with SaaStr Founder & CEO Jason Lemkin at SaaStr Annual 2022 - Part 1
SaaStr 606: Your Real Valuation: How Focusing on Delivering Customer Value Generates Business Value with Gusto Co-Founder Josh Reeves
SaaStr 605: Increasing Runway Without Sacrificing Growth with Norwest Venture Partners' Sean Jacobsohn & Scott Beechuk and Andreessen Horowitz GP Kristina Shen
SaaStr 604: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents How to Fundraise in Late 2022 with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 603: SaaStr CRO Confidential Presents the Ultimate Guide to Sales Compensation, Quotas and Recruiting with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 602: Secrets To Combining PLG and Enterprise Sales with Grammarly CEO Brad Hoover
SaaStr 601: What It Takes to Forge Your Own Category with Braze Co-Founder and CEO Bill Magnuson
SaaStr 600: Founder Confidential with HubSpot Founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah, & Founder and Executive Chairperson Brian Halligan
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Insight Story: Tech Trends Unpacked
Zero-Shot
Fast Forward by Tomorrow Unlocked: Tech past, tech future
The Unbelivable Truth - Series 1 - 26 including specials and pilot
Acquired