The Platform Journey

Marcus and Avanish talk about the following and more:ServiceNow’s history as a platform company from the very beginning (3:05)The cooperation and cohesion of ServiceNow’s internal products and what partners can build (6:49)The importance of committing to an ecosystem as well as a platform—and what companies really want (12:45)The challenge of long-term investment into a platform and ecosystem strategy (24:52)Why you should be cautious of building a platform just because you can (29:00)Guest: Marcus Torres, GM and VP of App Engine Business at ServiceNowMarcus is a people, product and business leader with over 20 years of proven experience building and scaling products within organizations of all sizes across consumer and enterprise markets. Extensive experience in market segments of SaaS, cloud computing, platform, mobile, developer experience, digital marketing, location-based services, and supply chain management.Marcus is General Manager of ServiceNow’s market leading low code business, App Engine. App Engine is one of the fastest growing businesses at ServiceNow. He previously led ServiceNow’s Integration Hub business while driving product strategy for the ServiceNow Platform. Responsibilities include GTM, product management, product strategy, strategic partnerships, M&A, executive engagement and business operations with additional dotted line responsibility across engineering, product marketing and sales.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Marcus TorresFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

In this episode, you can hear Laura and Avanish discuss:Expanding single channels and products to create more value (7:00)The importance of internal alignment on products and partners (10:48)Using modeling to optimize partnerships and platform strategy (13:35)Key measures of success when growing partnership ecosystems (16:47)The benefit of defining clear metrics of success (21:12)Laura’s advice: Start where you know you can have an impact, but don’t be afraid to disrupt (28:57)Guest: Laura Padilla, VP, GLobal Partners, AirtableLaura Padilla is currently the VP of Global Partners and Services at Airtable where she is building the partner and services delivery strategy. She brings over 20 years of leadership experience in leading/building complex business units and new revenue streams to scale small, private companies to +$1B post-IPO revenue including Zoom, Nutanix, Box and Riverbed. Leadership experience across marketing, alliances/business development and partner/channel sales roles in the SaaS, Enterprise Software and Hardware industries. She most recently was at Zoom where she led the global partner and platform sales business unit that was composed of over 300 team members and over $500M in revenue. This included indirect sales with and through VAR’s, service providers/carriers, OEM's, referral partners, ISV’s and SI’s, as well as influenced revenue with technology partners such as Slack, Dropbox, Box, Okta, Five9, Twilio and others. She is known as a function builder where her strength is in scaling new organizations to drive incremental revenue and customer value. Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest, Laura PadillaFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Peter discuss: The power of maintaining a customer-centric approach (4:24)Looking down, not up, to determine how to really fix the source of a problem within your platform (5:39)How to think about delivering true value to the developers on your platform (10:17)Not setting out on the platform journey before you’re ready (16:19)Choosing the right marketing motion for your platform (22:15)Guest: Peter Reinhardt, CEO of Charm IndustrialPeter Reinhardt is CEO & Co-founder at Charm Industrial, where they are developing novel carbon removal & renewable industrial syngas technology. Prior to Charm, Peter was CEO and co-founder at Segment, a SaaS customer data platform that grew to 600 people before it was acquired by Twilio in 2020 for $3.2B. He previously studied aerospace engineering at MIT.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Peter ReinhardtFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark 

In the Season 2 premiere of The Platform Journey, Avanish and Kevin discuss: Driving value to your underlying platform through partnerships (3:35) Reevaluating the way we categorize partners; building network effects to solve customer problems (6:17) Embracing “coopetition” and the importance of transparency when building a platform (9:16) Understanding and communicating the core and context layers of your ecosystem (12:42) Kevin’s key advice for an ISV setting out on the platform journey (15:15)Guest: Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate VP at Google CloudKevin Ichhpurani is Corporate Vice President, Global Ecosystem and Business Development at Google Cloud. Kevin brings nearly 25 years of experience in the technology industry leading global strategy, platform ecosystem transformation, venture capital and mergers and acquisitions. Most recently, Kevin served as Executive Vice President and Corporate Officer of GE. Prior to GE Digital Kevin was a Senior Partner, Global Markets at Ernst and Young and before Ernst and Young Kevin served at SAP as Executive Vice President, Head of Business Development and Global Ecosystem. Kevin holds an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Kevin IchhpuraniFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about Tidemark

Highlights of Avanish, Damien, and Nick's discussion include:Xero’s growth story from one person’s headache to a global platform supporting over 3 million customersThe genesis of Xero’s impressive platform strategyHow the company has created a playground for developers to solve for Xero’s customers in new and innovative waysUnderstanding the role the tension between things that the company could do and things that the ecosystem could do plays in overall platform strategyPracticing transparency both internally and with your partner ecosystemDefining your ecosystem platform principles to strike balance between first-party and third-party propositionsAnd much more!Guests: Nick Houldsworth & Damien TamplingDamien Tampling, Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, XeroDamien leads Xero’s global strategy, corporate development and partnership teams. Prior to joining Xero, Damien spent nearly 20 years at Deloitte in a number of senior strategy, M&A and other executive roles and was a founding partner of Deloitte’s global online and mobile technology practice, Deloitte Digital. He holds a Bachelor of Business from RMIT University, Melbourne and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.Nick Houldsworth, Executive GM Ecosystem, XeroXero is a global small business platform, with over 1000 connected apps in its ecosystem. In 2021 Nick oversaw the launch of the new Xero App Store, and has held board and advisory roles for a number of startups. He is passionate about building a network of innovation through Xero’s ecosystem community to support small businesses worldwide. He is based in Auckland, New Zealand.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guests, Nick Houldsworth and Damien TamplingFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here. 

In this week’s episode, Kathy Tsitovich discusses LegalZoom’s transformation into a platform, with all of the challenges and successes that have occurred along the way.  See key topics from her discussion with Avanish below: The early days of platforms and the LegalZoom customer channel (01:42)Identifying stakeholders in order to guide platform strategy (05:51)Curating valuable, lasting partnerships (09:45)Defining and measuring platform success (14:35)The importance of executive support, organizational alignment, and the long view (17:14)Kathy’s lessons major lessons learned and final thoughts (23:58)Guest: Kathy TsitovichKathy Tsitovich is the Chief Corporate Development & Partnerships Officer at LegalZoom – the industry leader in online small business formations and a leading online platform for legal, compliance and tax solutions.  Within this role, Kathy is responsible for driving company growth through inorganic efforts, a robust integrated partner ecosystem created for LegalZoom’s newly formed small businesses and opening new channels for new user growth via strategic partners. Prior to joining LegalZoom in 2020, Kathy spent more than 20 years at Intuit, where she held multiple leadership roles, including Vice President of Business Development & Partnerships for the consumer group, leading the Global Partnerships team focused on delivering small business partner solutions and integrations via the Intuit Developer Platform. She was also a key member of Intuit’s Corporate Strategy & Development. Kathy holds a patent for algorithms and models for creditworthiness based on financial management data and is a 2014 winner of the Scott Cook Innovation Award for her contributions to QuickBooks Capital.Kathy graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.S. in Business Administration and Finance and is currently the Executive Sponsor of the LegalZoom Women’s Network. Kathy lives in Chicago with her husband, two kids and dog, Bear.  When she’s not catching up on email or writing a “to do” list, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading and playing golf as much as possible during the super short Chicago summer!Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest,  Kathy TsitovichFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here. 

Tom and Avanish kick off the session focusing on what it means to build a platform, and a partner ecosystem around that platform. Then, they dig into where Tom is on the platform journey. He’s been building OneStream for some time and it has grown amazingly well, with a marketplace of over 50 solutions and over 200 partners. They cover… Driving towards constant improvement and platform dependency (7:23)What the true definition of “platform” is and the necessary mindset to achieve platform status (9:27)Recognizing the right patterns early on in the platform journey (15:25)Separating platform thinking from traditional product thinking (17:00)The biggest roadblocks for platform building (19:10)The evolution of cloud ecosystems over the last several years (28:09)Guest: Tom SheaTom is an original founder of OneStream Software™, an original architect of OneStream, and serves as CEO of the company.  He is passionate when it comes to delivering value, success, and support. Tom’s vision is to change the entire CPM ecosystem with a solution that combines power and flexibility with ease of use, deployment, and maintenance. Prior to OneStream, Tom was an original founder of UpStream Software in January of 2000 where he invented and architected UpStream TB and later UpStream WebLink. These products pioneered a new space called Financial Data Quality and achieved a better way to manage data quality for Hyperion products by providing a packaged product (UpStream/FDM) every company could use. Tom is a graduate of Oakland University, where he earned his BS in Accounting and Finance as well as an MBA in Systems Analysis and Design.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest, Tom SheaFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here. 

In this episode, Arshad Matin details Avetta’s impressive platform journey and the critical components to developing a successful SaaS platform that provides value to everyone that touches it. See key topics in his discussion with Avanish below:Understanding Avetta, a two-sided network for supply chain risk management (0:57)Enriching a platform with data and APIs (2:45)The tipping point of ecosystem and network growth (7:50)Providing multiple pillars of value and capitalizing on industry trends (11:10)Creating a “platform mindset”: the win-win-win scenario (17:08)How to approach a platform strategy: key questions to ask (23:42)The importance of humility and empathy while building a platform ecosystem (26:25)Guest: Arshad MatinAs Avetta’s CEO, Arshad is focused on enhancing safety, sustainability, and regulatory compliance outcomes for organizations throughout the world. Prior to joining Avetta, Arshad served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a board member of Paradigm, a leading global developer of software and analytics solutions to the global oil and gas industry. Arshad also held senior leadership positions at Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC), Seismic Micro Technology, and was a Partner at McKinsey & Company.  Arshad also serves as a board member and trustee for ASGN Incorporated (NYSE: ASGN), and several non-profit organizations including the Houston Endowment, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Asia Society Texas Center. Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest, Arshad MatinFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here. 

In this episode, Anu Bharadwaj shares her tricks of the trade as one of the most impressive product and platform minds we know. She draws on her time at Microsoft, where she launched several products for Microsoft Studio, as well as her current role leading operations for Atlassian, to provide some really fascinating insights. How Atlassian got its start (1:23)Anu’s unique  journey from Microsoft to her role as Atlassian COO (3:56)The three key things that led to the platformization of Atlassian (11:44)The impressive proliferation of the Atlassian Marketplace (17:13)The roadblocks and challenges Atlassian has faced with both platform and ecosystem shifts (25:01)Is your product right for platformization? What should you consider when making this determination? (30:11)Why no strategy is better than its execution (31:13)The human side of platform building (32:33)Guest: Anu Bharadwaj Anu Bharadwaj is the Chief Operating Officer at Atlassian. Anu leads transformative projects across product lines at Atlassian, including the enterprise business, cloud platform teams and operations.An accomplished executive with a track record of growing $1B+ businesses, building great teams and shipping blockbuster products, Anu joined Atlassian in 2014 as the Head of Product for Jira, and has held a variety of roles at the company during her tenure. Prior to joining Atlassian, Anu was at Microsoft, launching several products for Microsoft Visual Studio for over 10 years. Anu is passionate about making the world a better place through technology and effective philanthropy. She is a member of OutSystem’s board of directors and serves as the Director of Atlassian Foundation.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.About TidemarkTidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.LinksFollow our guest, Anu BharadwajFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the the full transcript here. 

In this episode, Mike Rosenbaum shares his experience and key learnings on what it really takes to build a powerful platform, drawing on his time leading product management and go-to-market strategy for core CRM products at Salesforce and as EVP of the Salesforce Platform team, to his current role leading Guidewire. The early innings of platform building at Salesforce (3:30)What you should be considering as you chart the platform course for your company (6:07)Getting crystal clear on what you mean by “platform” (8:28)What really made Salesforce unique (12:13)Mike’s cardinal rules for platform building (14:26)A realistic approach to failure (17:38)Always considering your customer’s perspective (23:18)What the highest level of platform looks like (27:40)Guest: Mike RosenbaumMike Rosenbaum is CEO of Guidewire Software, where he has overall responsibility for global strategy, organization, culture, and operations. He is passionate about building great teams and innovative products and platforms that deliver value for customers, partners, and shareholders. Prior to Guidewire, Mike led product management and go-to-market strategy for core CRM products at Salesforce and was also EVP of the Salesforce Platform team. He also served in the US Navy as a submarine officer. Mike’s unique leadership and cloud experience give him the capability to accelerate Guidewire’s role in the P&C industry.Host: Avanish SahaiAvanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow. From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase. Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.LinksFollow our guest, Mike RosenbaumFollow our host, Avanish SahaiLearn more about TidemarkYou can find the full transcript here.