The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enable business around the globe to leverage the world-changing potential of their data. My guest is Herman Heyns, CEO of Anmut Herman is an experienced professional with nearly 30 years experience in Finance, Technology, Data & Analytics and Value Management. He was a former lead partner at Accenture, KPMG and EY.  In 2018, he founded Anmut together with Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge University. The company was started to solve a big problem. They saw the world-changing potential of data being lost because most organisations don’t understand the real value of it. They set up Anmut to value data. They do so by translating the intangible idea of data into an asset business can better manage and with that earn higher returns on their data investments and ultimately drive more change. Doing so, Anmut democratises the value of data, for all those businesses that aren’t Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Netflix or Microsoft. This inspired me, and hence I invited Herman to my podcast. We explore the opportunity many organizations leave unexplored by not treating their data like they treat their physical or financial assets. We dig into why that is the case and what we can do about it to create a sizable advantage. We also discuss Herman’s POV and experience in what it takes to create a software business worth making a remark about.  Here are some of his quotes: How we do business can be a lot more gracious. How we solve business problems can be a lot more elegant and actually better for all stakeholders, not just for the investor. Thinking differently about how we solve business problems has, can create an enormous amount of value. It became apparent to me that the vast majority of organizations talk about data being very important, but they don't actually look at it as an asset. In other words, they don't apply the same disciplines, they were to their physical or financial assets. Because they're not actually putting the performance measures in place to look at the data as an asset and reward people for looking at it responsibly, they miss an enormous amount of their value potential. For some companies the value of their data is more than 50% of the total value of the company. So not looking at that asset you’re leaving an enormous amount of value on the table. During this interview, you will learn three things: That we leave lot of value locked up because we don’t use the power of technology enough to enable our customers to connect the dots How we can help our customers create transformative change by helping them to make small changes to the human behaviour of their employees Why our potential as a software business is often undermined because we don’t fully understand ourselves what value we deliver to our customers  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help us all feel 'in our zone' more quickly at work. My guest is Dr. Shama Rahman, CEO of NeuroCreate Dr. Shama Rahman is an accomplished musician, vocalist, songwriter, with a PhD in philosophy, neuroscience and complexity. In December 2017 she founded Neurocreate – a startup at the junction of AI, Neuroscience and cognition. It was founded around the vision that peak performance is not just for highly trained elites, but within reach for all of us.  It’s on a mission to creating a positive and symbiotic relationship with technology which enables us to be more mentally productive, creative, and flexible.  This inspired me, and hence I invited Shama to my podcast. I think we can all agree that soft skills such as creativity and problem solving are becoming more and more important today. That’s a blessing if those skills come natural to you – but what if they don’t. As such we explore how technology can help and give us all that advantage. We discuss the journey from the moment that sparked the idea for this innovation, and the lessons learned along the way.  Here are some of her quotes: We are trying to get you to this peak performance mental state code flow, but by training you to think more creatively. We're doing this using a mixture of AI, because of its ability to be interactive, and obviously the pattern detection that it has, but in a very symbiotic design that actually encompasses the neuroscience of creativity. I don't think anybody is not creative. I think everybody's creative. I think it's just a skill. Or another way of putting it: it's a muscle that you use. It's all like practices, tools, techniques. And so all we're doing is we're digitizing things that people are doing already, but in a way where the AI allows you to look at things beyond your normal perspectives During this interview, you will learn three things: How real value can be created by removing people’s blind spots and unconscious biases. Why 70% of innovation fails because we’re prototyping the wrong thing – we’re barking down the wrong tree That you can create compelling advantage – advantage people talk about by going specific and niche i.e. knowing exactly for who’s it for, and what’s it for. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enables banks of any size grow meaningful and trust-led relationships with their customers in a world that’s increasingly digital. My guest is Zor Gorelov, Co-founder and CEO of Kasisto Zor Gorelov has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. He was the co-founder and CEO of SpeechCycle, a market leader in cloud-based contact center optimization solutions for the telco market. SpeechCycle was acquired by Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR). Before that, Zor founded and ran BuzzCompany.com, a provider of enterprise collaboration and messaging software, which was acquired by Multex.com (MLTX). He has held multiple engineering and product management positions at Microsoft and Computron Software. His interest in speech and natural language technologies dates back to the early 90’s when he worked at Bell Labs. And this is where his latest company comes in: Kasisto. The company was founded around the mission to create technology that gives financial institutions the power to produce Humanizing Digital Experiences that build valuable relationships.  This triggered me, and hence I invited Zor to my podcast. We explore the challenges banks face as their relationship with their customers becomes very transactional and what needs to be done differently to continue to grow valuable and engaging relationships. We also discuss Zor’s vision to create a software business that’s worth making a remark about. Here are some of his quotes: Our long-term belief that the conversational user interface is the most natural, most intuitive way for consumers to interact with computers. The vision of the company is to be able to enable better financial decision making using conversational AI. The idea is to democratize financial services. And make sure that everybody gets the best possible advice. We believe it is so important because as consumers shift to digital, the relationship between banks and their customers become very transactional. People go in and check their balances, pay their bill, look up some transactions, and then they move on. And the whole concept about, humanizing that experience is to add intelligent conversational systems that can help the consumers better understand and better manage their money, but also help banks better engage those users on the channels as well. During this interview, you will learn three things: Why designing our software solutions for trust is underrated – consequently more often than not, trust erodes, rather than increases. How we can create human/machine combos that deliver value larger than the sum of its components. That true value is not coming from replacing an old function with a new gimmick. It comes from creating net new experiences – enabling things that users are not able to do already. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that is transforming the way we rent residential property by shifting the focus to the needs of the tenant, not the agent. My guest is Mayank Mathur, CEO of Avasa.ai Mayank Mathur is a technology entrepreneur with over 15 years experience in the industry. He co-founded a capital markets technology startup in India, developing trading platforms and blockchain solutions for brokers, banks, exchanges, and other financial institutions based globally. Mayank is an ex-Technology banker having spent about 9 years advising global technology companies on M&A, and equity / debt fund raising. His current PropTech venture in London (UK) is focused on simplifying the home search experience for residential tenants. The way he’s doing this inspired me, hence I invited him to be a guest on my podcast: We explore how and why process of renting real estate has effectively not changed in the last 100 years – and what enormous waste, stress and financial drain this leads to for everyone in the process – and even beyond. We discuss how Mayank is creating a new category and what his view on what it takes to become a remarkable software business.  Here are some of his quotes: The big idea is that tenants, residential tenants today are wasting a lot of time and energy on home search. We want to reduce that time to less than 10 hours, make sure that all of these tenants are super relaxed during that process after they are starting a new chapter in their life. It has to come in a very relaxed manner rather than them being hassled about it or them being totally stressed out about it. Historically, there has been no player in the market that looks after the interests of the residential tenants We choose a business model which is centered around: How do we ensure we earn some money working with the tenants, but we don't want to completely or at all displace the other side of the equation because there is an important role that estate agents play. The estate agents actually absolutely love us. They basically like us because a we bring what's called in the industry as hot leads. During this interview, you will learn four things: How you can identify underserved markets and create a new category by analysing existing markets and approach the problem from the ‘other end’ How to stick to your guns and play the infinite game in the early stage of your business when short-term ‘low-hanging fruit’ type opportunities are luring.  How to create a well-functioning funnel by giving partners what you have in abundance – creating win-win situations. That innovating the business model is probably even more important than innovating the product. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to solve the demand/supply gap in the accounting industry. My guest is Enrico Palmerino, CEO of Botkeeper. Enrico’s background has been in automation, decision trees, and accounting with a triple major from Babson College in Quantitative Methods, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management. While in college he co-founded ThinkLite which automated lighting analysis, design, and manufacturing. ThinkLite grew from dorm room to 46 on Inc's 500 List. A a result of that, Enrico was ranked 2nd among America's Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25 by Bloomberg Businessweek. After successfully exiting ThinkLite, he invested in a small accounting firm, joining as the company's Managing Director, and helped grow it from 7 to 40 people in the 3 years. Beyond this he advises, consults and invests in several startups. Botkeeper caught my eye by its claim to create the future of bookkeeping, and this triggered me to invite Enrico to my podcast. We explore what’s inhibiting the accounting industry to transform, and why the combo of blending tech and people in the right way is the secret to a better future. We also discuss Enrico’s vision to what it takes to build a remarkable software business. Here are some of his quotes: There are two big problems that we're trying to solve in the accounting space: The one being, just there's a major shortage of people to do the work. The huge supply demand gap and by the numbers, at least in the US, you got exponentially more businesses forming year over year. And then if that wasn't bad enough, the other challenge you have is in many industries there's been this over amplification of all these little micro niche apps for the accounting sector. All those apps don't talk to each other, which means more siloed data sets that require more manual entry, and an unpleasant experience. So the big problem we're trying to solve is two things. It's, how do we automate as much of the basic pre accounting or compliance accounting and bookkeeping work? And then how do we consolidate the app stack [to] free up the limited supply of accountants that are out there, to do more critical thinking, consulting, advisory, and complex accounting. During this interview, you will learn three things: How, by looking at the big picture “app-stack” of our ideal customers we can find major opportunities for remarkable productivity improvements That to solve the shrinking workforce problem we see in many industries we need to approach the problem from a different angle to really solve it. How to orchestrate 3x growth in a market of “Late Adopters” by creating a pull effect.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on how to architect a tech-company that delivers sustainable transformative impact to its customers, society and the business at large. My guest is Hugo Spowers, Chief engineer and founder of Riversimple. Hugo is an Oxford University trained engineer and entrepreneur. His first business was in motorsport, designing and building racing cars and restoring historic racing cars. He left motorsport for environmental reasons and set up OScar Automotive in 2001 (which became Riversimple in 2007) on the basis that a step change in automotive technology is both essential and possible. Hugo is responsible for all technical aspects of the cars and for the architecture of the business itself. He is considered a thought leader on the Circular Economy. At the Real Innovation Awards in October 2019 hosted by the London Business School, Hugo was awarded the George Bernard Shaw Unreasonable Person Award “for someone who has shown enormous tenacity and stubbornness in pursuing an idea despite the difficulties encountered along the way”. This inspired me, and hence I invited Hugo to my podcast. We explore what it takes to drive remarkable transformation in a market through technology and how it is possible to design a business that delivers environmental, social as well as financial returns without it being in conflict.   Here are some of his quotes: “I'm interested in the big picture because that's where I think the real breakthroughs lie. I set the company up to really make a step change in the environmental impact of personal transport. I assumed that the future for environmentally sustainable cars was better batteries, and that requires big budgets, big labs, basic science, not my sort of field at all. And after about six months, I found out about hydrogen fuel cells. And I realized that the breakthrough is hydrogen fuel cells was not through making better fuel cells. The breakthrough is in building a different sort of car. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to unlock the hidden value inside unstructured data and with that take grow the value we can deliver. My guest is Adam Carte, CEO of Luminoso Adam previously served in a number of C-level positions. As the CEO of Cadre Proppants, a mining company, where he doubled revenues doubled. As the COO of Niotan, Inc. a chemical manufacturer. And as the CFO of The Trigen Companies, an energy company, where he led the turnaround and doubled profits, and doubled its equity value in less than three years.  He also has been an Operating Partner to Denham Capital Management, and a founding member and Partner of Fairlead Advisors. At Fairlead, Adam has led negotiations for acquisitions, divestitures, equity and debt financings, strategic partnerships, licensing agreements, and company restructurings for over 20 different companies across a broad range of industries. Today Adam is the CEO of Luminoso, where he leads the company’s efforts in building products that turn conversational text data into business-critical insights. This triggered me and led me to invite Adam to be a guest on my podcast. We explore the opportunities that arise when you look at the abundance of unstructured data we have at our disposal, but hardly get value from. We dig into the inhibitors to unlock that value and how, by democratizing it, this allows companies of any size to explore value scenarios previously unattainable.   Here are some of his quotes: The challenge that we faced early on was: Unstructured text is everywhere. Unstructured text is in everything that humans do. Usually it’s survey data or customer tickets, and they [businesses] need some way to analyze it and they don't have it. The traditional way to solve that problem would be to go find a sophisticated data science team, build a supervised model, which takes a number of months. And then you can start to get insights from that data. But most people don't have that sort of time. During this interview, you will learn three things: Why it’s key to start paying attention the fact the real gold in your business software solution is the data, not the process or the transactions you manage  That just because getting answers from data is complex doesn’t mean it needs to be the job of data-scientists. What if you’d democratized that thought and start addressing a much larger audience? How to stand out in a dense market which is loaded with hype – How do you cut through the noise and reasonate? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on the art of product innovation and my guest is Dr. Teresa Jurgens Kowal, author of The Innovation Anwer Book and president of Global NP Solutions. Teresa is a strategic innovation provider. She is an accomplished visionary and results-oriented professional with extensive industry experience from creative research to effective portfolio management through stream-lined new product development processes.  Prior to founding Global NP Solutions, Dr. Jurgens-Kowal acquired over 12 years of experience in leadership and management positions with ExxonMobil Chemical Company and a total of 16 years as a practicing Chemical Engineer. She has extensive experience leading successful teams, managing the product development life cycle, and defining the portfolio strategy.  Our joint passion for innovation and new product development let me to invite Teresa to my podcast. We explore the misconceptions about innovation, why many organizations are challenged to deliver innovation worth making a remark about, and what to do to remove the roadblocks. Here are some of her quotes: The word innovation is largely overused. And my personal definition of innovation is bringing something new to customers that deliver value to them. And that might be new technology. It might be an old technology introduced to a new market, or it might be a different combination of things. All of that starts with having a strategy. And there are several levels to strategy. Most organizations, companies, firms have a corporate strategy, which is tied around growth goals, geographical expansion, those kind of things. 60 to 70% of CEOs put innovation as a top five priority. On the flip side, 60 to 70% of CEOs do not think that their organizations are innovative During this interview, you will learn three things: That innovation is not defined by what you think, but by what your customers experience Why our obsession with our direct competition is causing the biggest conflict in the potential success of innovation. How one can avoid being disrupted by paying close attention to what’s going on in tangential industries as much as your own industry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to takes our ability to make critical decisions to a completely new level. My guest is Graham Mills, Co-founder and Managing Director of techspert.io. Graham is a scientist by training. He completed his PhD in pancreatic cancer chemoresistance at the University of Cambridge, having further worked scientifically in R&D at Genentech and Avidity Biosciences. His commercial experience comes from roles in venture capital at both Abingworth and Johnson & Johnson’s corporate venture fund, all of which preceded his most entrepreneurial endeavours, both as co-founder of smoking cessation startup Abdicare, followed by Biotechspert, which has evolved today into techspert.io. techspert.io was born out of the frustration with the challenges in connecting to the right experts at the right time. Current solutions on the market have evolved based on decades old principles, closed networks and manual subjective matching - which make it error-prone, biased, slow and highly costly. techspert.io was founded to solve this – and their approach inspired me, hence I invited Graham to my podcast. We explore what why our ability to make better more informed decisions on the topics that really matter needs a complete overhaul, and how this can spark competitive advantage. We also dig deeper into the question: What’s the secret to create a remarkable software business. Here are some of his quotes: “We were setup about three years ago, really recognizing that, first of all knowledge, in many ways is how companies stay competitive and make some of the most important decisions around the world today, really access to high quality knowledge on demand. Yet, while we realized a huge importance of this knowledge exchange and access, the way through which companies were identifying and accessing it felt like it was designed in the 90s and remained there. The way people currently go about solving these issues is one, they ask someone in their company, and if not, then they either pay a lot to a consultancy to go away and do an eight week project, or they just Google it. The challenges when you're Googling, the information you look at it's probably because someone is paid to be the top of Google SEO and that's not necessarily the right insight for your type of product and your type of company.  During this interview, you will learn three things: How one way to grow value and defensible differentiation is to focus on quality and objectivity over volume and bias. Why focusing on playing the infinite game is going to bring you further than trying to win the short-term game. That growing your empathy skill is key to deliver remarkable value – not only understanding the ‘pain point’, but also deeply understand how your customer feels, what they care about, and what powers they have to deal with. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to transform the way executive assistants can support their executives through courageous help and ambitious growth like never before. My guest is Paige McPheely, Co-founder and CEO of Base. In 2013 she co-founded 33Vincent, an executive assistant service that matches busy executives with experienced and top-quality EAs. As the company grew, she got frustrated that there were no tools built for the unique workflow of EAs. That’s where she started to imagine how much more impactful a talented EA could be with the right setup. This led her to found Base in 2018, with the goal of solving this problem for EAs everywhere. This inspired me, and hence I invited Paige to my podcast. We explore the challenge executives and their assistants face to optimally work together: inadequate technology, manual processes, communication inefficiencies, competing priorities, and so on.   Here are some of her quotes: We were seeing more and more frequently that entrepreneurs and people even in large businesses didn't necessarily want someone sitting outside of their office. They just needed some fractional, very focused support. We began to run into a series of roadblocks for a number of different reasons. But I'd trace it all back to the fact that there's no standard, either definition, or process on how to become an executive assistant, and how to work with an executive assistant. We think of assistance as this luxury. That you can only work with an assistant once you've achieved a certain level in your career. So, our big idea behind that is to completely debunk that. That if you are a high performer of any capacity, you have to have at least some access to an assistant.. We actually believe it helps us to go faster. It's increasing our velocity, and it's maximizing our impact. During this interview, you will learn three things: How you can create your own category and transform decades old approaches by taking a 30000 ft view and ask some critical (but simple) questions That you have an opportunity to create your own ground swell, by leveraging abundance Why the way you make a difference is not a matter of working harder, but by understanding your super powers and use those smarter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices