Protect the Hustle | A SaaS Podcast

Topics covered in this episode Why providing customers with a desired outcome is crucial How to align customer success properly within an organization and how to measure it The scoreboard Nick recommends using to help rationalize feedback Customer outcomes + great customer experience = customer success Check out the making of Nick's rap song, "Who's Fired Up?" here.This is a ProfitWell Recur Studios production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space.

Topics covered in this episode The primary reasons for Moz's failure and what Rand would've changed about the operation The implications of creating an anti-active usage product The lessons Rand extracted from early failure and how he picked back up again as a secondary founder The cruciality of leveraging your resources—namely, people and product—to optimize for the right thing This is a ProfitWell Recur Studios production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space.

This is a ProfitWell Recur Studios production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space.

Topics covered in this episode The saga of Brian Halligan's purchase of Jerry Garcia's guitar The differences of running a company with 2 to 20 people, 20 to 200 people, 200 to 2,00 people, and beyond Recognizing that mistakes happen but ensuring that mistakes do not happen more than once Maintaining high-performance and how slacking in one area can lead to the downfall of the entire company Everything is tied together. There is no hero ball in a Scale-Up Death by overeating vs starvation by not executing Going into other markets after championing marketing automation Staying focused on the long arduous journey of creating a great company The hunger to be a pillar company in Boston that makes your children proud. Staying motivated by going after big meaty problems and staying determined with horizon planning

Welcome to the first-ever episode of Tradeoffs, where Hiten Shah (of FYI and Product Habits) and I talk through the product decisions of popular companies and the potential tradeoffs they made as a result. We break down how these choices shaped the growth of these companies and what it means for their future. Starting it off is our conversation about online streaming juggernaut Netflix.You can find a full blog write up here, as well as subscribe to get the show delivered to your inbox weekly.

Company culture means a lot of things to a lot of different people, not because culture has a lot of definitions, but because culture has been co-opted by perks, ping pong tables, and snacks in the kitchen. In reality, culture is behavioral, it’s the collection of habits that we accept and tolerate within our company and it will make or break your business.Culture is hard though, because it's your responsibility to hire the right people, nurture the right behaviors, and let people go when they aren't fitting the future. As a group, we're pretty terrible at this, particularly that last one. To help, on this week's episode of Protect The Hustle, we interview one of the most prolific figures in People Operations and HR, Patty McCord, the former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix and author of Powerful, a book that's taken high growth companies by storm. We discuss how Patty went from Texas border towns and Oregon lumber yards to making the tough decisions to push Netflix to a $160B market cap, which included redefining what HR is supposed to be inside a company. Topics covered in this episode: How HR and People Operations became legal and anything but helping people do their best work within a company How writing down your values is pretty much the last step in the culture cultivation process How to model behavior instead of punishing or negatively reinforcing people How management has ultimate responsibility for all of this How to apply these learnings to your hiring process How to nurture your current team and stamp out politics How to let people go who are no longer a fit for the mission

Every company goes up market eventually, especially in B2B. Most do so by expanding their offering, few actually make the leap from abandoning the low end of the market and going right at the enterprise instead. So how do you get there? Transitioning from the startup market to the enterprise world requires strategic pivoting and a proactive group effort. May Habib has witnessed this first hand, as she played a pivotal role in the market transition of content intelligence platform Qordoba. May oversaw a considerable transformation with Qordoba, moving from the low end of the market as a content localization product to selling to giant enterprises like Marriott, Visa, and Condé Nast. She's steadfast in the mindset that training is everything, and you must prioritize heavy coaching, transparency, and feedback in the process. Listen here to see how she did it so successfully.Topics covered in this episode: Transitioning markets (from startup to enterprise) through strategic pivoting Training your team for proactivity through heavy coaching The value of transparency and feedback in your process of transition This is a ProfitWell Recur Studios production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space.

People are the hardest part of building a company.Think about it - when you’re building a company, your people are the company. And if you’re terrible at finding great people, hiring great people, and keeping great people, then your company is going to fail.Mike Volpe is an excellent example of someone who is great at all three of those. Currently the CEO of lola.com, he was able to put together one of the most all star marketing teams of the past couple of decades during his time as the CMO of HubSpot.In this episode of Protect the Hustle, Mike walks us through his methodology for recruiting, hiring, and retaining stellar team members that allowed him to build the marketing department at HubSpot into what it is today.This is a ProfitWell Recur Studios production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space.

Topics covered in this episode Having a product team that can say “no” in order to stay on plan Choosing one singular focus and target customer instead of trying to do everything The future goals of Yesware Keeping product and sales focus, and how it's made Yesware successful Getting your team aligned and on board with direction The Characteristics of a great salesperson This episode is produced by Dan Callahan, Benjamin Hillman, and Patrick Campbell. Additional support by Steve Cerasoli and Allissa Chan.Written by Mary MattonProtect the Hustle is a ProfitWell Recur Production. All rights reserved. 

If you ask someone to define “culture” in your office, you might get a response about ping-pong tables or beers on tap. But we know culture constitutes something so much greater. It’s the collection of habits you accept and nurture within your organization. It’s molding the same foundational principles that drive the core of behavior, but also having fiercely diverse views in all other aspects. And this is where your skeptics come in. While skeptics can be incredibly difficult to deal with at times, they are key to building a solid culture, which is something Katie Burke, Chief People Officer at HubSpot, believes to her core. She discreetly recognizes the difference between skeptics and cynics, embracing feedback from skeptics as the way to ultimately grow (and better) your organization.Topics covered in this episode The advantage of staying truly unique in your market Building a successful culture with consistency, time, energy, and effort Recognizing the value in skeptics Evolving your culture through feedback