The Remarkable SaaS Podcast

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to grow customer trust by bridging the growing gap between the online and offline world. My guest is Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca.Gregg is a seasoned SaaS executive with a passion for building and bringing to market products in emerging categories. He led Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s social marketing product line, where he integrated $1 billion of M&A investments into the Salesforce product portfolio. Prior to that, he drove product strategy and development for Salesforce Chatter, helping define the category of enterprise social networking. Earlier in his career, Gregg was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group and worked in sales, marketing and product roles at several startups. He graduated from Stanford University and holds a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.Gregg joined Invoca as CEO in 2017, and under his leadership, the company has experienced multiple X growth. In 2019, The Software Report ranked Gregg #3 on the list of Top 25 Growth Leaders. Meanwhile, Invoca won multiple industry awards, such as “Best Call Tracking Platform Award”, “Artificial Intelligence Excellence Award”, and the “Hot Vendor Award” in conversational intelligence.This triggered me, and hence I invited Gregg to my podcast. (Note: we recorded this podcast in February 2020, just as the Coronavirus pandemic was starting to sweep through Europe and North America). We explore the growing challenge for many brands to live up to their customers’ expectations and grow trust in a world that’s increasingly digital, but where human interaction is a critical component as well. We also discuss Gregg’s experiences in successfully scaling his company while growing their ability to help their customers make a meaningful difference.Here are some of his quotes:The problem with more complex products and services is oftentimes people start the purchase journey in digital, but they end up getting consultative advice as part of the buying process.The problem for a marketer is: once you escalate out of the digital channel to these human-to-human conversational channels, typically marketers haven't been able to understand the impact of their marketing investments on that human to human conversation.As I like to say: if you have your best friend, and you tell them all your secrets and the things that you're really worried about in life, and then two weeks later, they show up, and they don't remember any of that information, they're probably not going to be your best friend for very long.So really, what we do from a technology point of view is trying to help bridge that gap between what happens in the digital world and then what happens in the conversational interactions between a consumer and the representatives of a brand.During this interview, you will learn four things:That a critical to way to look at you company is not only how you are solving a meaningful problem for your customers, but also how your customers perceive you as a company.How to accelerate momentum by smartly adjusting make, buy partner decisions based on different market conditions and where you are in your product market fit life-cycle.How to use communication as a weapon to grow alignment, motivation and trust inside your business. Mastering this will give you surprising insights and levels of engagement.That the biggest tailwind you can have is with customers that are excited about what you have done for them and their business.

This podcast interview focuses on the need to clearly define Artificial Intelligence so we can use it to its full potential in our strides to improve the well-being of people. My guest is Prof. Dr. Dagmar Monett, Professor of Computer Science, Berlin School of Economics and Law.Professor Dagmar Monett has more than 30 years of research and teaching experience. She’s the co-Founder of the Artificial General Intelligence Sentinel Initiative, AGISI.org, which is "dedicated to understanding intelligence in order to build beneficial AI and risk/benefit analysis tools to monitor the social and economic consequences of AI to help improve the well-being of all humanity."She’s also the co-Founder of the Competence Center Digitalization at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. At this moment, she’s focusing on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Software Engineering methods and techniques, and Computer Science education.The mission behind AGISI.org is this: ‘To make giant leaps in Artificial Intelligence research in order to change the world for the better.’ That triggered me, and hence I invited Professor Monett to my podcast. We explore why it is so key to have clear definitions for Artificial Intelligence – and how that helps drive the innovation we are hoping for.Here are some of her quotes:We were seeing that people were concerned about how defining AI is essential for bringing in the field forward, but also why we don't have a definition till now where everybody agrees upon.There is a lot that we unconsciously assume about defining concepts that people don't understand well. So our goal is to bring clarity and understanding in this area and specially in defining artificial intelligence.We want to understand intelligence better in order to advance humanity … using intelligent algorithms, intelligent systems, intelligence programs better may be dependent on that.By listening to this interview, you will learn three things:Why you should be clear from the start how you’re using AI so that you don’t compromise ethics around security or privacyThat trust should be earned and that starts with good products, good behavior, good communication, and good interactionWhy it is important to not only have a solid understanding of AI on the development side, but equally important to have it on the business side more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to unlock the potential of people with physical challenges and enable them to be active in society. My guest is David Hojah, President, co-founder, and CTO of LoroHis background is in medical devices, engineering, and healthcare innovation. He is passionate about empowering people with physical challenges to live independently and making a great social impact.David has invented and developed many medical devices, such as adjustable dental instruments, wheelchairs that convert into a walker, a medical drone for emergencies, and a medical app tracking health for people with chronic diseases. He also built an autonomous personal transporter for wheelchair users that can convert any manual wheelchair into an electric wheelchair.Loro is David's third company. He has received awards, nominations, and news coverage from organizations including MIT, Harvard University, MIT Hacking Medicine, ALSA, Harvard Innovation Lab, Fit4Start in Luxembourg, Microsoft Imagine Cup, and TechCrunch.Loro is an AI-powered smart, personalized companion for wheelchair users to navigate safely and to communicate efficiently. A person with physical challenges can’t interact with the world the same way as the able, but there’s no reason we can’t use tech to close that gap.That inspired me, and hence I invited David to my podcast. We explore the challenges of creating solutions that are life-changing – what mindset do you need, what’s the secret sauce to such approach, how do you make critical decisions, how to make tangible progress, and create something remarkable.Here are some of his quotes:I got inspired by Stephen Hawking. He inspired me both personally and professionally. I do believe there are many people like Stephen Hawking out there. They're just missing accessible technology to be the next Hawking. To be the next engineer, designer, whatever they want to be.They're brilliant, they're intelligent, they're very, very smart, but the only problem: they're stuck in their body, they cannot move their body, they cannot talk. Their mind is like, with the whole universe, they can do many things. The only challenge is; if we unlock their potential, so they can talk, they can communicate first, then they can do many things with their ability.Then we can move on to another level: How to make them more independent. How to make them more engaged and help them to be employed.We want those people to be active in society. To be engaged. To do more, not just for them, but for everyone.During this interview, you will learn three things:That there’s no lack of good ideas – what separates you in doing something remarkable is in turning these ideas into solutions that matter.Why it’s critical to get crystal clear on the real problem and what its value proposition is. If you don’t get this right, you won’t survive for long.How to remove bias – ways to seek the truth – finding out what’s right and what’s wrong. Doing your homework here paves the path for your success.

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to amplify the impact humans can make by a factor 10. My guest is Ajeet Kushwaha, Co-founder and CTO/CPO of SeekifyAjeet is a serial entrepreneur, but started his career as a software engineer. In 2010, he co-founded his first company, HealthChakra.com, a saas based practice management platform for doctors. In 2011, he cofounded HealthKart, and in 2012, 1MG. In 2015, he built ‘Joe Hukum’, a chatbot SaaS platform, that was acquired by Freshworks in 2017, where he then became the Director of Product Management.In the middle of 2019, he then founded Seekify - a Customer Experience Automation Platform, which helps businesses deliver wow customer experience by automating it without losing the human touch.And this triggered me, hence I invited Ajeet to my podcast. We explore the opportunity we have to enable humans to 10x the impact they can make if we go beyond the notion of just ‘automation’. We also discuss Ajeet’s perspective on what it takes to create a remarkable software business.I personally believe in the compounding effect as to how we can keep getting better incrementally every day. I believe very fundamentally that a healthy competition is always when you compete with yourself and not to the world, because then you have the possibility to the best in the worldWhile working at Freshbooks (a business software company), we realized that how only automation or how only human intervention cannot lead to a better experience. All these things needs to operate in tandem, hand in hand.That thought led to the case: Can we bring something in this in the scene where we empower these customer facing teams to deliver a better customer experience by bringing automation together. Can we create an intersection of these and make sure that automation is enabling, augmenting human in a way, that they can deliver the customer experience, which a customer really is looking for.During this interview, you will learn three things:That too often our solutions are reactive to how people want them to work. But what if we make them much more like a GPS – with self-healing characteristics based on what’s actually happeningHow momentum is created by being very picky about selecting your customersWhy the biggest impact is made when you take the mindset that every problem comes with a solution. It’s that determination that helps us win the biggest battles.

This podcast interview focuses on the big idea behind Cognism, a sales acceleration platform, and the lessons tech-entrepreneur James Isilay learned on his journey of delivering remarkable impact with his business.James Isilay is the co-founder and CEO of Cognism, one of the fastest-growing SaaS companies in the UK. Last year, Cognism grew from $2.5M to $7M in ARR and was voted by LinkedIn as one of the UK’s Top 25 Startups. He’s an inspirational and enterprising businessman, who approaches work with unrivalled technical and organisational skills, perseverance, precision and total dedication.Before founding Cognism, James was employed as an Algorithmic Trader at Axpo Group and as a Quantitative/Technical Analyst at EGL Trading. James has a Masters in Engineering in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College London.He is an expert in lead generation, sales management and alpha discovery using algorithmic technologies, natural language processing and machine learning.What triggered me to invite James to my podcast is their story to accelerate sales by enriching prospect data with critical event data. We explore what’s broken in B2B sales and the new ways to solve the problem. We explore the lessons learned by James starting and scaling his tech-start-up, and what decisions helped him to realize the impact they’re creating today.Here are some of his quotes:The biggest thing that causes failure in a lot of companies is just poor sales process and bad sales process.Sales is actually your first problem as a CEO that you need to address and get right.And then, when you got that right, then you've got time to get your other bits right. But if you get sales wrong, you don't really have much of a chance.People waste a lot of people time pulling leads off LinkedIn, putting them through several tools to build a data set that then is not very highly responsive to outreach. So you waste, you burn time across the whole process.Whereas, if you can just get that list built correctly and efficiently and then engage that list in an effective sales cadence and get a high response, then you're saving time across every aspect and you're getting a better outcome on the actual new business that you're generating. That's pretty much the majority of the battle.During this interview, you will learn three things:Why it’s important to not only solve a highly valuable problem, but also pay attention to how urgent/critical this is to your ideal customer.Why, the moment you have success, you need to continuously keep thinking about how you upgrade ‘the system’ – nothing is staticHow to go about collecting feedback – and why it’s key to get that from real customers, those who are completely neutral and honest to tell you what works…and what sucks.

This podcast interview focuses on a key aspect to drive product innovation and that is mastering human-centered design. My guest is Brian T. O’Neill, founder and principal of Designing for Analytics.Brian T. O'Neill is a designer, advisor, and founder of Designing for Analytics, an independent consultancy which helps organizations design innovative products powered by data science and analytics. For over 20 years, he has worked with companies including DellEMC, Global Strategy Group, Tripadvisor, Fidelity, JP Morgan Chase, ETrade and several SAAS startups. He has spoken internationally, giving talks at O'Reilly Strata, Enterprise Data World, the International Institute for Analytics Symposium, Predictive Analytics World, and Boston College. Brian also hosts the 5-star podcast, Experiencing Data, where he reveals the strategies and activities that product, data science and analytics leaders are using to deliver valuable experiences around data. In addition to consulting, Brian is also a professional percussionist and has performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. What triggered me to invite Brian to my podcast was one of his quotes about the fact that 85% of AI, analytics, and big data projects fail. That’s why we explore why this is the case, and what needs to be done different in order to be successful – creating software products that people find worth making a remark about.Here are some of his quotes:I started to see really, really bad survey results over 10 plus years. What I'm specifically talking about here is the success rate for delivering data projects.The theme here is the success rate on launching successful data initiatives hovered around 10 to 25%. So that means there’s failure rates up in the 75% plus.My general feeling was: There's a lack of a focus on the human aspect of analytics and data science projects and products right now. We're trying to use the data science and analytics hammer, and we're looking for stuff to hit. But no one's really aware why do we need holes? Who needs a hole? And where do they need the hole? Instead, it's just hit nails wherever we can and hope that someone maybe needs a hole there.During this interview, you will learn three things:That a first step in succeeding data projects is to stop forgetting about the value of fun and engaging with people.Why it is key to define the owner of value creation in your team – i.e., someone that owns the problem and the accountability for analytics and data science solutions to product value.That we have lost the humanity aspect in solution design – and a way to fix that and get some real wins is to spend time developing soft skills

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to change the way life-science companies run clinical trials and thereby save both lives and billions of dollars. My guest is Kim Walpole, Co-founder and CEO of Trials.ai.Kim is an organizational development and management consultant, skilled in helping individuals; groups and organizations increase their effectiveness. Her work with companies like Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth Ayerst, Orbital Sciences and Homeland Security gives her a unique perspective on leadership development, strategy and organizational growth.Throughout her career, she founded multiple companies: Optimum Training & Consulting in 2004, Wembli in September of 2011, and in 2016, her 3rd company, Trials.ai, after her best friend was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died waiting for a promising treatment.What began as a passion project has turned into a mission-driven, venture-backed startup that is turning the clinical trials ecosystem on its head.Kim is on a mission to build AI-enabled technology to help research organizations optimize clinical trial protocols for speed and success – because patients don’t have time to wait.And that inspired me, hence I invited her to my podcast. We explore the big problem around planning and executing clinical trials and how, by blending technology and people in the right way, major breakthroughs can be created. During our conversation, we uncover a number of important lessons to accelerate innovation at large.Here are some of her quotes:We are on a mission to get treatments to patients faster.We do that by leveraging artificial intelligence to optimize clinical trial protocols.What we're doing is essentially developing technology that really brilliant research teams can use to construct their protocols from the ground up.A major problem for life science companies, is that almost 50% of their clinical trials are failing because of poorly designed protocols.What ends up happening is that billions of dollars get squandered in preventable mistakes.I had spent over 12 years consulting and pharma biotech companies, and loved my work. And then, about four years ago, my best friend Paul was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.That was that wake-up moment for me where I realized: ‘Okay, why are we continuing to approach this process in such a traditional, manual way? Why are we not using technologies to make this smarter, faster, easier?’By listening to this interview, you will learn three things:That it’s helpful to make a broken process more efficient, but even more valuable if you fix the root cause.That falling in love with the big idea can grow blind spots and bias inside your organization. That’s dangerous. As such it’s critical to build your secret weapon: a culture of insatiable curiosity. Don’t get married to the way you are thinking about things today.Why instead of asking yourself: ‘Are we doing this the right way’, you’re better of asking ‘Are we doing things the best way’ – and then look 5 years down the line, trying to predict where your industry is going.

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to make B2B sales 10 times more effective. My guest is Lucas Pedretti, Co-founder and CEO of QymatixLucas is a self-proclaimed innovator with an MBA and 20 years’ experience in international management, business administration, and marketing of technological products. He’s worked for companies like Festo, Belden Inc. and Omron Electronics. Besides being passionate about sales, he’s an avid traveler and a Social Media aficionado.He strongly believes that “In the near future, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be the decisive factor in medium-sized companies to remain competitive.”And that put him on a mission to make a dent in the world – and specifically the world of B2B sales by augmenting sales leaders around the world to sell more, fasterAnd this triggered me, hence I invited Lucas to my Podcast. We explore the sizeable problem many B2B sales leaders are struggling with and how this can be resolved with technology in ways that provide exponential results. We discuss the role of AI to augment people, and not to automate them out of a job. Last but not least, we discuss Lucas’s take on what traits are essential to create a remarkable software business.Here are some of his quotes:The vision is that B2B sales is still done by people, by humans. It is still done very ineffectively, and it can be 10 to 20 times more effective if they use new technologies.I identified the problem 20 years ago, and the problem is still there. But now that technology has advanced, it has moved. My vision is to bring this technology to the people that are struggling in sales.Most of the critical sales negotiations are value-driven. You still need people to communicate with each other to understand the need and the problem of each other.They're very, very ineffective. They are mainly intuition-driven, or they run from one urgency into the next one. They cannot really focus on what brings most for their company.And as you say, it's a one-to-one plus three. So it's humans working with technology. The technology alone, it's only half of the solution.During this interview, you will learn three things:That we should not underestimate how long it takes to create a business out of a good idea. That you need grid – grid to stay there for a long time to build something of value.That it is critical to develop courage to quickly pull through on the things that are right for the business even if this means saying goodbye to ideas, people or key investments that at one point in time seemed the right thing.Why you shouldn’t fall in love with the product or the vision – fall in love with the problem – a problem you’re passionate about solving.

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to help any marketer hit the right nerve with their ideal customers by making every word resonate. My guest is Jonathan T. Mall, CEO of Neuro Flash.After his studies in the Netherlands and the UK he was seduced by the opportunity to optimize consumer experience using machine learning and led the Science team in a IBM Big Data Venture.He got obsessed with understanding how people think. Because the better we understand how and what people think, the better we can understand ourselves and communicate effectively with others.This was the spark to make him found Neuro Flash, a marketing intelligence institute, using Big Data and Neuromarketing to understand, predict and influence how people react to persuasive content.And this inspired me, hence I invited Jonathan to my podcast. We explore the big problem in the market to make meaningful connections with those we aim to serve. We also discuss how technology can be used to not only create short-term impact, but more importantly, help companies build the foundation for the long run. Last but not least, we discuss what it takes to be remarkable at what you do as a business software company.Here are some of his quotes:We use machines to predict what people think about words, sentences or images. And well, with that, with that power, you can obviously communicate extremely effectively because we can ensure that every word, every sentence, every image is expressing exactly what you want to express to sell your product, to motivate yourself, to tell you stories for anything regarding marketing.So, we don't need to ask people anymore about what they think.We can all use the machines to predict what people think.That's really the opportunity.During this interview, you will learn three things:What value we can unlock when we focus on technology to democratize highly scarce experts – enabling any companies of any size to compete with the biggest brands out there.That being successful in marketing is not about how many people you reach, but how many people you make believeWhy it’s important to have the courage to not do things

You are about to listen to a very special edition of my podcast – edition #100. And what a moment to have this coincide with the launch of my new book, ‘The Remarkable Effect’. I wrote this book specifically for you - Tech-entrepreneurs-on-a-mission, and the leaders in your marketing, product and sales team that help you in shaping the software business you’ve always aspired to run: Remarkable and Impactful. For me, remarkable is more than just a word. It’s a vision.It’s the art to create meaningful impact to prospects and customers.Impact that’s worth making a remark about. Something they would miss if it was gone.Being remarkable is something that I believe every company can achieve. In this special episode, I share the backstory of my book and the stories that inspired it. I’ll reveal the ten traits I’ve identified that define a remarkable software company. I will also explain how, by stacking those traits behind each other, it will not only help you stand out in your category but also create clear leverage of value, exponential value, not just incremental – hence ‘The Remarkable Effect’. Enjoy!