YouSaid · the spoken record

Branko Cerny

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26
first
2016-03-25
most recent
2016-03-25
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1
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  1. “Yeah, I would have a hard time answering the next five weeks question. But no, to be completely honest with you, we think about the user. And so to us, the ultimate aim is if we can be the environment through the preferred environment through which a business transaction happens, if we can create a suite of really intelligent tools that combine into the ecosystem where a salesperson and potentially even the customer benefit from the technology really facilitating as good a transaction as possible eliminate the information problem and just bring sales and business transactions back to their fundamentals, which is really just a conversation where as a craft of relationship making and ultimately should result in a mutual and beneficial transaction, if we can really elegantly enable that with technology.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Hard to pick a favorite, but recently I read a great novel, finally got around to reading American Gauze by Neil Gaman, and I found it strangely applicable to the world in Silicon Valley where we kind of create heroes and assign heroic status to companies and founders who are just mere humans. And Neil Gayman kind of ponders that in that book as it relates to gods and what makes a god. And so I really enjoyed that one.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And so the entire company sees at all times what our users are saying and asking about. And we found out to be really powerful.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Well, as silly as it may sound, and you bring the point of being distracted and that being a problem, for me, the real productivity tool is a moleskin notebook and a pen. I find that the quality of thinking really varies tremendously with the environment and state that we find ourselves in. And in a startup, you're really trying to beat the odds. And the only way to do that is because you have less resources in the incumbent is to have higher quality thinking, to make better decisions, to be smarter. And so I try to carve out time every day to sit somewhere quiet with a nice view and think about what the highest leverage things are that I can do for the company to thrive. And I write those down in my notebook. That's my productivity hack. But as far as the company, like I said, we're obsessed with talking to users every day. And so we've been really in love with Intercom and their suite of tools that enable real-time direct communication with the user. And we actually have a hooked up source.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I absolutely did. I mean, I went through a couple cycles of fundraising that were more or less successful. And so the very first time that I went out, I think it took a 30 no's to make me realize that maybe my time would have been better spent building more of the company than having another 30 conversation.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Big learning is don't go out until you're ready. I think a lot of founders kind of take whatever piece of wisdom or truism they get about you should This is stressful, but I really hope that it works out. I really hope that I can tell the story well and convince the investors to give me the money so I can make this happen. That comes across and often doesn't happen. It's better to err on the side of going out a month later once you feel really, really strong in the narrative that you have.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, I think the first round of review has consistently some of the highest quality content. On the sales side, I'm part of Pete Kazanji's modern salesperson, which is kind of a low profile but extremely high quality, high frequency illuminating sales salon group. And on the product side, I'd say I really like Nariol's writing on building habit forming products.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “You know, it doesn't weigh on my mind all that much. Many of these investors invested through the Angelist vehicle, and so they're actually a single line item on the cap table. But yeah, we have quite a few. And every single one of them has in some sense been instrumental to getting us where we are. And so I am grateful to have them and not buried by it. And, you know, looking ahead, we're now at the point where we're only going to be in every subsequent round adding one or two or potentially three new line items to the caps table because it's all going to be larger institutional checks. And so don't overdo anything, but I am actually extremely glad that we ended up inviting all the folks that we did into our rounds because it really kind of matters, especially when you're first time founder, to have that big a team of supporters.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think in today's world, we have to do both at the same time. The number one value. The number one value that we have at immediately is thoughtfulness. For instance, everybody gets to work from home Monday morning until noon because then at noon everybody is expected to come in and have really thought through how they want to invest the most precious resource that we have, which is their time for the balance of the week in order to really move the needle for the company. And so we tend to be very thoughtful and methodical. That said, we have done things like completely make 180 on our business model week over week and go from charging the end user to deciding not to charge the end user and eliminate the barriers to entry for anybody to get on a product. And those are things that are the result of intense communication sometimes happen extremely rapidly, but there has to be that thoughtfulness that it's all predicated upon.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And say, yeah, absolutely. I would love to keep supporting you because I trust that you are doing your utmost to make this happen. And so, you know, I think that's how ultimately you get introduced to folks and that's how you get them excited.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Do I feel more excited, more stimulated, more enriched? And do I feel like I can really trust this person at a profound level? And I think the smartest seed investors are investing in the founder's ability to use the seed capital to really figure out the answers to some really hard questions that have never previously been answered and make a lot of mistakes along the way, but learn a ton from them at a higher velocity than others. And that really is just an exercise in trust. I mean, you see more and more seed extensions these days, and it really is often just the founder going back to the well and just saying, hey guys, so remember when I said that it would take 12 months? It's going to take 20 at least. But look at how much we've learned. And that's when you need to have established by then a really profound bond of trust where the investigator”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “You know, it's really a treat having all these guys on board. Silicon Valley is a really small place. And to me, the rule of thumb of who I want on my cap table and how I think about meeting investors and bringing them on board is do I in my gut feel like I can trust this person? Like I can be vulnerable with them and admit making a mistake and then I will be better, stronger founder and person for having had that conversation with them. And I think that for many of the investors anyway that I through kind of the evolution of immediately became introduced to and who became excited enough to put in money and their time, that's very much also how they operate. I can't generalize for all Silicon Valley, but at least in my experience, what I've found is investment in the seed stage is an extremely personal process. It's a process of is that”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “That's a good question. You know, there are certainly companies that are doing a really good job compared to kind of what we're used to. So you have the Slacks of the world, which the famous we don't sell saddles and is the same kind of concept where Stuart was very clear about they're selling a better way of lifestyle productivity, better way of living through your work rather than just a software product. There's companies like Greenhouse that come to mind in VHR space that just a disaster of a space where they came in with really elegant technology and messaging really directed at the end user who's going to end up spending time in the product. And so there are companies that are certainly paying attention and doing a great job.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “So, I think good marketing is all about empathy and building a brand around your product is the exact same thing. And I think that companies You can try to hire like a LA brand firm that work with Snapchat and Tinder and have them try and kind of craft the brand for you. But I think it will just come off as inauthentic if you're not actually living it inside the company. I mean, even when we hire software engineers, we make damn sure that they understand who a salesperson is and how they operate and they can relate and they can get passionate about hosting a monthly happy hour and talking to dozens of salespeople because otherwise something's going to be off. You have to live it in order for the brand to feel authentic.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, it's a good question. I think, honestly, all it has to do with is empathy with who your audience is. The way that we run things that immediately, for instance, the number one priority, we say if nothing else happens in your workday, you have to have talk to at least one user, one customer every single day. And that just creates a really profound sense of connection and empathy with the end user. Whoever it is that is writing the copy for the app store description or that is coming up with the design for a website or the script for our video, they are so in contact, in touch with how the mind of the target audience works and what their lifestyle is like and what they're expecting, what they're passionate about, that they couldn't even write something that is complete with tone death as most of the marketing that you see in traditional enterprise software is.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I mean, those are brands that a millennial salesperson resonates with and that have had a lot of success. The way that we think about brand and the way that I think enterprise companies increasingly will have to is, well, if that's what resonates in their free time and their personal life, then that's the type of messaging that we have to a certain extent embrace because those are the same exact people. They don't change character just because they put on the college shirt and go into work is still the exact same person.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “As long as you get the contracts on it, but that is really changing today. And we talked about the increasing power that the millennial employees have. And when they say, I don't want to use this technology boss, I understand that you want me to do reporting, but it actually is a hindrance in my sales process, and I just won't do it, then they often just won't do it. And we hear it day in and day out from the conversations that we have with our customers. It's the same story of we've adopted all these expensive tools 10 years ago and now the new generation of salespeople, they just don't want to use them. And so it's becoming so important to build not just a product that they can understand, but a brand they can relate to, you know, and going back to the kind of the empathy point and thinking about what is it that a salesperson outside of work does, you know, the Tinder example and the Equinox example.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “You know, I think it's because most enterprise software companies are still today run by the traditional top-down outbound sales model. Meaning that the only audience that they really care about is the very limited set of decision makers at the top of the chain of the company that end up signing the contract, right? When you think about how, say, CRM software traditionally adopted at companies, you got to convince the VP sales ops, you got to convince the VP sales, then maybe the CIO signs off on it, and then everybody else just gets onboarded and essentially, for lack of a better term, forced to use the tool without much saying the matter. And so there isn't really a point in kind of the old way of doing things, in having a consumer brand because it doesn't do anything for you, right? Like, you don't really give a shit if the end user wants to use your product to not.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Realize that if we want to be successful, what we're doing is trying to enable that lifestyle of closing deals from the baseball game and becoming friends with the customer once the deal is done. And so we started out by thinking about that and then we realized, well, obviously we have to build from mobile first because we need to build a product that is powerful and elegant, but mainly that the sales rep can bring with them anywhere that the customer is and anywhere that their lifestyle takes them.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Yeah, you know, that's a part of it. A key insight that we had early on was that in order to be successful with salespeople, we can't just build and sell a piece of software. What we're bringing through the market is a lifestyle. It's an aspirational lifestyle that is more in keeping with what motivates the millennial salesperson. You know, there's this old perception of the coin-operated salesperson that's just motivated by money. But that couldn't be further from today's reality. Really, it's a fun, dynamic, enriching lifestyle that is the draw for somebody to choose sales as their career. And with millennia's lifestyle comes first. And so what we hear over and over again are things like, you know, what motivated me to become a salesperson was the idea of building relationships with the client, having a dynamic day-to-day that is not just spent in front of a computer, having my job be more seamlessly integrated into my lifestyle.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I really believe that that is the way that things are increasingly going to be in the enterprise. Consumerization of the enterprise is a very real trend. The expectations for technology have changed a lot with millennials. We used to be excited to download the coolest new ringtone onto our phone and organize all our photos neatly into our Facebook albums with funny titles. And now fast forward a couple of years.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “While best practices are really important, they can also be limiting. We're trying to break the pattern immediately. We are an enterprise SaaS company, but we are strongly a bottom-up distribution model, which means that we focus on the user first, second, and third is the only thing we obsess about, and that is not the traditional way of enterprise SaaS. Usually it's all about the 50-year-old VP sales ops decision maker making sure that you're appealing as a sales prospect and you signed that 24-month contract and that is just not how we do things. And so what we focus on is the end user who happens to be the millennial salesperson. And those tend to be just about my age. And so in that sense, I'm able to benefit from a lot of empathy with the target audience and from a fresh set of eyes, which I think when trying to break the pattern and create something really innovative can actually be a tremendous benefit.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Love Snick. Of course, he would want to hear the answer to that question. You know, no, you're totally right. I get invited to all these wonderful events with fellow enterprise staff CEOs, and I will often be the youngest person in the room and sometimes even by a couple decades and is humbling, you know, these guys have decades of experience and best practices on me. And what I try to do is listen more than talk and absorb as much as possible every day. And of course, when you're scaling up a company, the pattern recognition and best practices are extremely beneficial. And I'm very cognizant of kind of needing to maintain that humility. That being said, I also think that, ironically or not, it's one of my key unfair advantages in what we're doing immediately because my pattern recognition is not informed by how things used to be.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Value, we needed to get a lot more specific about our problem statement. And that's when we became really passionate about sales and we're immediately really started. You know, we realized sales is really just a series of conversations that are heavily instrumented by technology. And when the technology doesn't map onto how a salesperson would optimally want to run that conversation, it actually becomes a hindrance. The rep has to contort themselves and their sales process to the inadequate tool that they have at their disposal. And so we figured, hmm, if we could build a user environment that enables perfect flow for sales feed and therefore makes business transactions a lot lower friction, so to speak, and then in the end, both parties and the transaction are happier in the end. Now, that would be a really exciting thing, and that's where this all started.”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “And I kind of realized, wow, it becomes borderline impossible to maintain full focus on a task for more than five minutes. And cognitive science tells us that it takes up to 15 minutes to really fully immerse yourself in a task. And so I realized there's a real tension where technology is supposed to help us. But if it doesn't thoughtfully map onto an optimal flow the way that we need it to, it can actually hurt focus and productivity. And that's what originally got me and my co-founder James excited about building more elegant productivity technology. Now originally we started with looking at the mobile email problem in general. You know, we asked ourselves, how can we create a more optimized experience for dealing with inbound communication? Something that understands a little better what I want right now and serves me just that. But quickly we realize that in order to deliver really not”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, well, you know, my biggest passion in life is better understanding how we humans work, right? And what gets us excited, what makes us such that some days we feel at the top of the world and others, it's like hard to power through the day. Spend a lot of time thinking about what gives people that mythical state of flow where times just become more fluid and we're fully immersed in whatever we're doing at the moment. And in studying cognition in college, I kept realizing how easily technology that's supposed to help productivity can actually become really destructive. It's not so long ago that I was in college and the iPhone was already ubiquitous. And so we were all carrying around supercomputer in our pocket constantly buzzing with new information, right?”

    2016-03-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · Immediately's Branko Cerny on The Rise Of Bottoms Up Sales and The Importance of Branding For Enterprise SaaS Companies · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source