On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation (moderated by Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch).   Sridhar built Zoho, a software product firm valued at over a billion dollars, without a rupee of external funding—almost completely bootstrapped. Months before the pandemic, he moved from Silicon Valley to a village in Tamil Nadu, where he is now based. Years before Atmanirbhar Bharat became a slogan, Sridhar championed the cause of self-reliance and the creation of local employment.   We hear about inequality, college debt, and a lot of other issues. Sridhar believes that the private sector has to solve these problems.    "We are entrepreneurs and capitalists, and all of us have a responsibility."   This is Sridhar's passion now.   With exceptional clarity, superlative focus, and a philosophical "zen" like approach to both life in general and building software, Sridhar is the original “Sage of Software 2.0.”   Podcast highlights: 1:43 - What Zoho used to be vs what it is now 6:20 - Doing things right against competitors 9:48 - Starting out without any venture capital 14:51 - The temptation to IPO 18:31 - How to market 44 products 19:52 - Additional potential Zoho products 22:55 - How to stay focused 24:07 - Zoho University Learn more at https://tractionconf.io   Connect with Sridhar Vembu: https://twitter.com/svembu   Learn more about Zoho at https://www.zoho.com/   This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Ali Tamaseb, partner at Data Collective Venture Capital (DCVC).   What are the key traits of billion dollar startups?   Ali embarked on a journey to answer that question with real data.   In the process, he has collected the largest data set on startups (30,000+ data points) to analyze every piece of them and understand what makes super founders and unicorns.    What makes this even more incredible is the fact that he did this manually over the span of four years.    This labor of love was done with the intent of figuring out what really separated unicorn companies from the rest. Was it luck? Was it a specific skillet? A specific journey?   Ali joined us to share his learnings and discuss how you can use them to scale to unicorn status.   Podcast Highlights: 10:24 - The key traits of a Super Founder 21:37 - Eight ingredients of a unicorn 27:30 - The deliberate ideation process behind successful startups 40:37 - Venture capital vs. bootstrapping 41:43 - How to be opportunistic to win big 44: 59 - How to choose between different ideas in different industries 50:33 - Founder stories and failures you can learn from   Learn more at https://tractionconf.io Connect with Ali Tamaseb: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alitamaseb/?trk=storyline-update_share-update_actor-image   Learn more about DCVC at https://www.dcvc.com/   This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Farhan Thawar, VP of engineering at Shopify, a global commerce company that provides tools to start, grow, market, and manage retail businesses of all sizes.   Farhan studied computer science despite his parents’ disapproval, which was because at the time there were computers but no computer industry to speak of and very few job opportunities. He ended up with a job at the food giant Kraft.    It turns out his choice to work with computers was the right one, and he has started and worked at quite a few companies leading up to his current role at the Shopify rocket ship. He is looking to bring in more than 1,000 developers to Shopify. Since Covid, the company has gone permanently remote, so they are looking for top talent, regardless of location.   Lloyed and Farhan discuss a variety of topics including diversity and culture and the way Farhan embraces diversity throughout the organization. They talk about the challenges of building efficient teams and ways to increase productivity and team building. It’s a dynamic and fascinating conversation. Learn more at https://tractionconf.io This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness. There’s a .00006% chance of becoming a billion-dollar company. Now imagine building two in your lifetime. Is it luck, or is there strategy involved? Jyoti is an engineer turned serial entrepreneur with 2x unicorns. Harness recently attained unicorn status with a $1.7B valuation alongside his previous unicorn AppDynamics, which he sold to Cisco in 2017 for $3.7 billion. With a belief that software has the ability to change the world, Jyoti builds products that not only work, but reach multi-billion dollar exits. How? Because he understands that yesterday's "wow" feature becomes today's performance feature.   Podcast highlights:   7:47 - How to street fight your way to $1 billion in ARR 9:57 - What he would (and wouldn’t) do again when building a unicorn 16:13 - How AppDynamics evolved over time 20:33 - How to build a product roadmap that sells 28:41 - How many channels should you use for marketing? Learn more at https://tractionconf.io This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Mandy Sebel, operating partner, people and talent at Radian Capital and former chief people officer at UiPath. Mandy has spent many years in the people and culture space, so we talked about everything from recruiting to onboarding to building a culture that fosters high retention.   Mandy believes that early-stage companies should bring in a leader of people and culture as soon as they can afford it. It is a critical role because attracting and retaining top talent in any organization is the number one key to success.   It is important to have a strong sense of your company’s values and mission, and it is equally important to clearly communicate with future and current employees what those values are. This gets everyone in the organization pulling the rope in the same direction, which leads to success for both the individuals and the company as a whole.    Having people understand this comes through clarity, and clarity comes from repetition. If you want a successful organization, no matter your stage or size, culture and communication are vital. Mandy Sebel Radian Capital Lloyed Lobo Boast.AI   Learn more at https://tractionconf.io This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Vidya Peters, chief marketing officer and interim chief product officer at Marqeta, a card issuing and payment processing company that broke many records with an IPO valuation of $16 billion.    Following her love of math and science, Vidya studied engineering as an undergraduate student. She says her career path was like skiing down moguls, you know where you are starting but you don’t know exactly where you’re going. In her case, she ended up in tech marketing.    When she joined Marqeta, it had $100 million in revenue, but the marketing team was a mere five people. There was no product marketing, and demand generation and PR functions were outsourced. This presented an opportunity for Vidya to build from the ground up.   She gives valuable insights on building a marketing plan, and the short, medium, and long-term strategies that need to be tackled to lead to a successful IPO. She also talks about the importance of PR and how to handle the relationship between the company and the PR firm. Vidya Peters Marqeta Lloyed Lobo Boast.AI Learn more at https://tractionconf.io This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI welcomes Jeff Lawson, CEO and Co-Founder of Twilio, for a lively discussion about how to build high performing software teams.    Jeff goes over his career journey, which included stops at Stub Hub and Amazon before starting Twilio. Along the way, he discovered that it is difficult to put in the time and energy needed to build a product or service if you aren’t passionate about it.    The way to get developers passionate about what they’re doing is to give them ownership of the project. Writing code is a creative problem-solving process. Developers don’t want to work on assignments — they want to solve problems using their knowledge and experience.   Developers work best in small teams. No matter how much the organization grows, keep teams at around 10 people, and give them a single threaded leader. Then that team can own one specific problem, and they will be passionate about solving that problem. As the team grows, divide it into new, smaller teams. This will keep the passion flowing.    You can tell by listening to Jeff that he has an infectious passion for building strong software teams. Resources: Jeff Lawson Twilio Lloyed Lobo Boast.AI Learn more at https://tractionconf.io This episode is brought to you by: Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses, but the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don’t get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI. Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to Seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 Billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline their podcast production. Learn more at ContentAllies.com