#354 - Ash Didwania, CEO of Workzone, on Achieving Growth Without Sacrificing Profitability

This podcast interview focuses on the entrepreneurial challenge of revitalizing a 20-year-old SaaS business in a market with hundreds of competitors. My guest is Ash Didwania, CEO of Workzone.

Ash took the helm of Workzone in December 2023 after the company was acquired by Big Band Software. Despite being profitable with a sticky customer base (7-year average customer lifetime), long-tenured employees (9-year average), and a must-have product, Workzone had been experiencing a six-year decline in revenue. Instead of the typical turnaround approach of immediate disruption, Ash took a counterintuitive path - learning first, focusing on existing strengths, and engaging deeply with customers before making changes.

And this inspired me, and hence I invited Ash to my podcast. We explore what it takes to reverse a multi-year revenue decline while maintaining 40%+ EBITDA margins in a highly commoditized market. Ash shares how he challenged the conventional wisdom about business turnarounds by taking a path few would dare to follow. His counterintuitive approach transformed not only the company's financial trajectory but also reshaped how the entire team viewed their mission, their customers, and their path to growth.

Here is a quote that captures one of Ash's most striking business lessons:

"Throwing money at a problem can get you short-term results. It will not get you long-term sustainability. And so again, one of the thesis here was because we want to grow in a sustainable fashion while also improving our EBITDA margins, in some ways that acted as a forcing function, which is despite the fact that we were profitable, we did not want to tap into the profit pool and start deploying investments before identifying levers of growth that already existed."

By listening to this podcast, you will learn:

1. How to turn around a declining SaaS business without sacrificing profitability or disrupting what works
2. Why deep customer understanding can be more valuable than new feature development
3. How to create organizational focus through a single metric that aligns every team member
4. The power of planning for multiple contingencies (Plans A, B, C, and D) in sales and go-to-market

For more information about the guest from this week:

Ash Didwania

Website: workzone.com