Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Business:Investing
My guests today are Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw. Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Lattice, an HR software platform. Miles is a General Partner at Benchmark, an early investor and Board Director at Lattice, as well as a former guest on Invest Like the Best. Jack started Lattice in 2015 and has scaled it into a multi-billion-dollar business that already serves over 5,000 organizations. In our discussion, we look at all aspects of building and scaling a software product from both an investor and operator’s perspective, which made this particularly fun to do. Please enjoy my conversation with Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw.
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
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Show Notes
(00:02:55) - (First question) - How Jack & Miles met at Y Combinator in 2015
(00:04:22) - Lattice found a niche in mid-market HR software
(00:07:55) - Discovering Lattice's true market need
(00:11:14) - Fear of stalling drove the need for business growth beyond initial product
(00:12:06) - Deciding on multi-product focus over up-market expansion
(00:17:01) - Prioritizing quality of usage over frequency for customer health scores
(00:20:06) - Balancing customer health scores and actual needs
(00:24:31) - Prioritized community by spotlighting HR voices
(00:28:20) - Building community helps companies sell a vision or lifestyle
(00:31:05) - Cultivating broad awareness instead of hard-selling
(00:35:33) - Overcoming the culture of 'perfection’
(00:37:22) - Flywheel effect makes suites efficient: lower go-to-market costs, more focus on product
(00:41:06) - The challenges of juggling current needs and future demands
(00:46:27) - Navigating disagreements and trust-building within a company
(00:50:36) - Investors' roles extend beyond founders, focusing on their own goals and interests
(00:51:52) - How transparency eases the founder-investor dance
(00:55:16) - The changing employer-employee relationship
(00:58:37) - Navigating growth from startup to public equity
(01:05:43) - Lattice's ultimate aspiration
(01:07:42) - Evaluating founders' authenticity
(01:11:18) - What Jack & Miles are most embarrassed about, the most proud of, and the most excited for
(01:14:30) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Jack and Miles
Antonio Gracias - Pro-Entropic Investing - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 271]
David Rubenstein - Life, Leadership, and LBOs - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 270]
Gaurav Kapadia - Everything Compounds - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 269]
Marko Papic - A Multi-Polar World - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 268]
Garry Tan - Unwrapping the Gift - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 267]
Eric Mandelblatt - Investing in the Industrial Economy - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 266]
Sebastian Kanovich - Powering Emerging Markets Payments - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 56]
Frank Slootman - Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 265]
Tim Flannery - Simplifying Fund Closing - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 55]
Joey Levin - Building an Anti-Conglomerate - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 264]
Peter Chernin - Betting on Passion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 263]
John Pfeffer - Adapt and Evolve - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 262]
Geoffrey Moore - Building Gorilla Businesses - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 261]
Gavin Baker - The Cyclone Under the Surface - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 260]
Sam Englebardt and Richard Kim - Investing in Immersive Worlds - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 259]
Ricky Sandler - Building an Investment Compass - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 258]
Orlando Bravo - The Art of Software Buyouts - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 257]
Nick Saltarelli - One Foot in Front of the Other - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 54]
Jenny Johnson - Seven Decades of Investing Expertise - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 256]
Doug Colkitt - The Evolution of Markets - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 255]
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