Podcasts about stickiness

Så tänker investerare när de kliver in i B2B SaaS-bolag – med Erik Syrén från Monterro Hur resonerar en investerare när de utvärderar ett B2B SaaS-bolag? Och vad händer egentligen efter att investeraren har gått in som ägare? I det här avsnittet av Sälj- och Marknadspodden pratar Anders Hermansson med Erik Syrén, tidigare entreprenör och vd på Lime Technologies och idag verksam på Monterro, där han bland annat sitter i investeringskommittén och är ordförande i flera portföljbolag. Samtalet handlar om vad som kännetecknar starka mjukvarubolag, varför nöjda kunder och låg churn är så centralt, hur ägarresan ser ut efter en investering och varför pengar sällan är den viktigaste produkten en investerare erbjuder. De pratar också om AI:s påverkan på SaaS-branschen, skillnaden mellan lättkopierade funktioner och verklig defensibility, samt varför affärskritisk mjukvara med hög stickiness fortfarande kan vara mycket starka bolag även i en AI-driven värld. Läs transkribering Anders Hermansson (00:06) Hej och hjärtligt välkomna till Sälj och marknadsbådde från Business Reflex. Jag heter Anders Hermansson. Tack för att lyssnar. Idag tar vi vi pratar om hur investerare resonerar när de tittar på bolag att investera i. Och vi pratar även om hur investerare agerar när de väl är inne i bolaget. Svaren på de här frågorna är såklart väldigt olika beroende på vilken typ av investerare man är. Och idag ska jag intervjua en av Sveriges tyngsta entreprenör inom B2B-planbara. Han sitter i en lång rad styrelser och arbetar idag på Montero där han sitter i deras investment board. Montero, för er som inte vet, är ett bolag som investerar i Scalapse, alltså ett bolag som har tagit sig en bit på sin resa men vill komma vidare därifrån. Personen i fråga heter Erik Syrén och han kommer inledningsvis att berätta om sin väldigt intressanta resa från studentrummet till framgångsrikt entreprenör och till investerare. Så häng med nu på en mycket intressant intervju om ur ägarperspektivet. Anders Hermansson (01:16) Erik Syrén, hjärtligt välkommen till Sälj marknadsbotten! Erik (01:20) Tackandes. Anders Hermansson (01:22) Grunt att ha det här jätteroligt med en sådan erfaren tungviktare inom SAS-branschen i podden. Erik (01:29) Vi får se om det blir något innehåll som är värt att lyssna på. Det håller vi tummarna för. Anders Hermansson (01:32) Ja, du är ödmjuk också. Han är Ödmuk också. Det är fantastiskt. Ja, vad roligt. Vi ska ju prata om, titta på det här lite grann ur investerarperspektivet idag och prata om kanske två aspekter. Dels hur det är bolag som du representerar när Montero, hur ni gör när ni tittar efter bolag som ni kan tänka er att in i och sedan även prata lite grann om hur ni agerar när ni väl har gått in i ett bolag. Erik (01:36) Och glimtar i ögat. Anders Hermansson (02:00) Men du har ju en rik och intressant historia inom det här gebitet. Kan inte du berätta lite grann om din resa och så fram till nu? Erik (02:10) Absolut. Så jag i slutet av 90-talet så pluggade jag i Lund och jag satt på ekonomihögskolan i Lund och så tittade ut genom fönstret och utanför dörrarna så hade vi Framtidsfabriken, hade Bord.com, vi hade Ericsson Mobile, vi hade Axis, vi hade Klick och så vidare. Så väldigt fina tech- och mjukvaruföretag och för mig som student Där och då kändes som att jag satt i huvudstaden i dotcom. Allt bara bubblar. fanns alla möjligheter. Medan jag kände själv att jag inte kollade egentligen på vad var på it och it bolag och jag kunde inte se skillnad på ett it konsultbolag eller mjukvaruföretag eller e-commerce bolag utan för mig var det bara en blandning av av det jag lärt mig efteråt är att det ingen annan som kunde det heller på slut 90 talet. De blandade ihop de här typen av bolag men men. Anders Hermansson (03:05) Nej. Erik (03:08) Då blev jag väldigt inspirerad och kände att det där vill jag hålla på med. Jag vill lära mig mer om tech och det kändes som att det hände någonting. En revolution som jag vill vara med på. Så när jag var klar med studierna så letade jag jobb på något litet mindre mjukföretag som jag kunde vara med och driva. Träffade på ett bolag som hette Lundalogik på den tiden. som utvecklar och säljer CRM-system hade de börjat fokusera mer och mer mot. Det var fem, sex stycken i Lund som drev det här företaget. Och tänkte väldigt mycket när de drev bolaget som ett litet mer traditionellt mjukvaruvare. Som ett traditionellt bolag med lönsam tillväxt. När vi har pengar så kan vi växa. Det passade väldigt bra med min småländska bakgrund. Den där typen av bolag känner igen. Anders Hermansson (04:04) Just bootstrapping. Erik (04:05) Ja, numera bootstrappingen. Så jag hoppade på det jobbet, började driva det där bolaget, blev delägare och drev detta med mina kompisar, kollegor, vänner. Och vi drev bolaget fram till 2008, då mina kollegor ville göra något annat i livet. De är lite äldre, så de kände att det kanske är värt att… att titta på en mer strukturerad process och kanske sälja bolaget. Så vi sålde 100 % av bolaget till Bisnode och ingick i ett konglomerat med över 4 000 anställda, en data provider, numera är det ju Danner Bradstreet. De köpte mjukvaruföretag för de kände att priset på data går ner. Det är inte värd så mycket att sälja personlig information, elektritinformation eller företagsinformation. Anders Hermansson (04:47) Ahoj! Erik (05:03) som de hade haft monopol på och varit väldigt starka på att kunna diktera priserna hela tiden. Men nu kände de att det blev mer och mer än… Ja, priserna gick ner och det blev mer än standardvara med uppgift. Så då ville de tänka om att om vi kan ta hand och hålla det i mjukvara inkluderat, då kan vi också skapa större värde för kunderna och därmed kan vi ta högre pris. Så det var tanken att man köpte lite mjukvaruföretag. Anders Hermansson (05:18) Mm. Erik (05:31) Men att vara ett snabbväxande mjukvaruförtag och komma in i ett konglomerat med massa olika bolag, olika varumärken, olika kulturer var helt fel för oss. Där och då ett entreprenörs drivet snabbväxande mjukvaruförtag. Så efter ett par tre år i den strukturen så landade jag tillsammans med management i Bisner och att det är bättre att gå skilda vägar. Så vi gick ut i en strukturerad process. Anders Hermansson (05:41) Mm. Erik (05:57) träffade vi kanske 30 olika private equity bolag, investerare i mjukvaruföretag. Där och då var min känsla när jag sprang runt mellan de här bolagen att jag fick utbilda dem, mer eller mindre, hur det är att riva ett mjukvaruföretag. Och framför allt hur det är att konkurrera med Salesforce och Microsoft som var de stora giganterna på serien marknaden. Och hur man kan, trots att de är stora, globala, så kan man hitta Anders Hermansson (06:15) Mm. Erik (06:26) vatikaler, nischer lokalt där man kan bli marknadsledare och man kan marknaden så pass stor som man kan bli ett stort bolag ändå. Och man kan hitta nya sätt att positionera och differentiera sig. Alla såg bara risker med att konkurrera med de här stora aktörerna. Efter några månader in i den här processen så träffade jag en helt ny spelare på marknaden som heter Montero. Tre stycken. Anders Hermansson (06:35) Mm. Erik (06:54) killar, två stycken med liknande bakgrund som mig som operatörer som har drivit mjukvaruföretag själva och en kille som kommer från Cobrids Finance och Bankvärlden. Och redan i första mötet så hittar vi väldigt väldigt väl. Istället för att prata risken med att konkurrera med Salesforce Microsoft så pratar vi möjligheten att konkurrera och hur vi kunde ta en helt unik position på en lokal marknad. Anders Hermansson (07:03) Mm. Erik (07:23) Så känslan hos mig var ju att vi byggde upp. Vi började diskutera strategier och affärsplanen i första mötet. Och efter mötet så landade vi i att vi gör management buyout tillsammans med Montero. Vi landade där att vi köper bolaget tillsammans. Som hette då Lime Technologies. Efter ett halvår in i den processen så satt jag och Peter, min ordförande, och satt och diskuterade. Anders Hermansson (07:36) Mmm, okej. Erik (07:52) Både högt och lågt. Efter ett och tre landar vi in i hur ett framtida ägande av Lime, hur skulle det kunna se ut? Vad hade varit en bra ägare efter Montero? Och där och då kände jag att jag hade ägt bolaget med mina kollegor, mina partners. Jag hade ingått i ett konglomerat med 4 000 anställda och jag var PE-ägt där och då. För mig fanns det en sak kvar att jag hade velat pröva och det var att notera bolaget. Så då sa vi att låt oss driva ett projekt och en tanke mot att en dag ska vi kunna först notera Lime. Hur skulle bolaget se ut då? Då kan man ju tänka att det är mycket med IFRS och rapportering och policies och sådana saker. Det vi pratade om var mycket mer hur bolaget vilken karaktär på bolaget ska ha vilka marknader ska vi vara på hur mycket recurring revenue hur mycket mycket revenue ska vara utomlands vilka marknader ska vi vara på i så fall hur ska management se ut vilken funktionalitet måste vi ha i produkten vad kan vi göra organiskt vad kan vi göra inorganiskt och sen la vi på rapportering och policies på det och vi jobbade med det ifrån 2014 Anders Hermansson (09:15) Öster. Erik (09:20) fram till 2018 i december. Anders Hermansson (09:23) Vad var drivkraften att notera bolaget? Erik (09:29) Dels så det ju så att om du har en ägare som är private equity så ingår det i spelet att de köper, de utvecklar och de säljer. för en private equity aktör så är det ju att deras syfte är ju att skapa returns till sina investerare. Och gör man driver man ett bolag med en ägarstruktur med majoritetsägare som är PE så kommer du vara till salu. Någon gång när det är en bra avkastning för investerarna. Så syftet var egentligen att skapa att vi behöver göra en ägarförändring och montera och ville sälja. är stora syftet och det stora syfte för min sida var ju att då kan jag gå upp som huvudägare i bolaget. Jag kan fortsätta jag på att sälja någonting. Jag kan fortsätta vara ägare i bolaget i en noterad miljö. Anders Hermansson (10:14) Ja, och tack. Erik (10:27) Och våra anställda kan vara ägare så vi kan äga bolaget tillsammans. Och sen tyckte jag också att fin tanke att då kan vi bygga en Evergreen som kan verka länge länge länge. För det är väldigt stor och viktig del i mitt liv, Lime. Och det vi har byggt tillsammans är det företaget. Så vi gjorde noteringen 2018. Anders Hermansson (10:32) Mm. Mm. Jag fattar. Erik (10:54) Den 6 december och om man vill titta tillbaka på den tiden så var det lite turbulent på aktiemarknaden även då. Under andra halvåret var det lite räntorop marknaden och den dagen vi noterade var den sämsta dagen på Stockholmsbösen det året. Så då fick man ju lite vänta vad vi gjort. Hela Asien föll när vi gick upp och ringde klockan. Sen så blev det väldigt väldigt bra. Hela noteringen och Anders Hermansson (11:10) ⁓ okej. Nej. Erik (11:24) 2019 och sen kom 2020 pandemin. Det har hänt mycket under de här åren men noteringen blev väldigt bra. Det ingick också i planen att när jag var klar med det operativa på Lime så skulle jag joinna Montero. Det hade vi i P1 och jag pratat om länge. Jag hade varit med som rådgivare, investerare och har varit med som bolgplank till många av våra Montero-investeringar vi gjort genom åren. Anders Hermansson (11:30) Alla kan. Erik (11:54) Så jag tyckte det var väldigt spännande att det skulle kunna vara en möjlighet för mig på nästa steg. Sen så kom ju pandemin. Min långväga kollega Nils Olsson som var försäljningschef väldigt länge på Lime, också vice vd och CEO på Lime. Han börjar bli mogen för att ta över. Så när vi såg ljuset tundan efter pandemin 2021 så lämnade jag över staffettpinnen till Nils. och hoppade på Montero fem och ett halvt år sedan ungefär. På Montero så är min roll att jag är ordförande i sex av våra bolag. Jag kan komma in på det vad det betyder men vi är väldigt mycket hands on. Vi jobbar väldigt nära våra management team och våra ledningsgrupper. Så det är min huvudsakliga uppgift. Sen sitter jag på investeringskommittén. Där vi går igenom alla kris och alla investeringar vi gör och vilka bolag vi investerar i. Och sen sitter jag vår styrelse. Så det är min roll på mot här. Anders Hermansson (13:02) Vad saknar du mest från vd-rollen? Erik (13:09) Mm? Dels saknar jag fokuset att vara delaktig i någonting där man känner att man kan bli mätbar varje dag. Det vill säga att blir lite svart, alltså ett och nolla, blir lite svart och vitt. Det vill säga att när man gör affärer går bra, man rekryterar lite folk, man känner att man har releasat några funktioner som varit bra och uppskattade av våra kunder. Anders Hermansson (13:23) Mm. Erik (13:39) Man har skapat ett kundvärde och nöjda användare ute hos på marknaden. Då får man rätt god feeling och en sån här feedback som man bara känner. Det här funkar. Det är bäst. Den är väldigt direkt och å andra sidan så är den ju också lika tung när man tappar en medarbetare som slutar hos dig eller du tappar en affär. Då är vi inte världens bästa CRM-system längre. Vi är inte världens bästa arbetsgivare längre och då mår du lite dåligt. Det blir lite en kris. Anders Hermansson (13:49) Den är direkt. Erik (14:09) Så då kommer du dina dippa också. Men just den där att vara företagsledare, levande med ditt bolag och entreprenör hela tiden. Du blir lite manu-depressiv brukar jag säga. Det går lite upp och ner. Alla duktiga entreprenörer har varit psykolog på något sätt. Eller någon gång. Ibland ligger man under skrivbordet och gråter lite grann och tänker nu gick det åt helsike. Och det kan jag sakna. Anders Hermansson (14:11) Tack Just det. Mm, exakt. Jag med. Exakt. Erik (14:38) Jag saknar de här kickarna när det går jäkligt bra och när man känner att man levererar högt kundvärde och medarbetarna utvecklas eller när man gör en stor affär. Samtidigt kan jag sakna de här dipparna när man bara känner att det gick åt helsike. Det har jag på Montero också för vi driver i vår låda vårt företag. Men vi är så många fler. Anders Hermansson (14:48) Pista. Så man får ta tag i det igen. Mm. Erik (15:05) som delar på den där manor depressiva. har 30, 33, 34 bolag idag som vi är majoritetsägare i. Vi gör mycket add-on förvärv, alltså tilläggsförvärv till våra bolag. Jag har sex, jag är ordförande i. Jag har väl en tre till som jag sitter i styrelsen i. När man ringer runt och tar mina fredagsamtal med alla bolagen. Det är alltid något som går bra, något som går dåligt. Man kan glädjas. Så det jämnar ute lite mer. Så jag får inte likt. Anders Hermansson (15:35) Just det. Men det kanske är lite mer som att på styrelsenivå är det mer som ett sju-punktsmedel än att vara en direkt siffra på varje. Erik (15:45) Ja, men så är det. Så det finns lite för- nackdelar med de här två uppläggen, men jag har kul på jobbet. Det är det viktiga. Anders Hermansson (15:47) Lite smodare kurva på något sätt. Ja, det är väldigt viktigt. väldigt viktigt. Ja, men grymt. Vi kanske skulle komma in lite grann på det här med då kopplat till Investeringskommittén och det här. Hur tittar ni på saker? Och jag måste säga, alltså det är ju nästan fånigt, men det finns väl… Vi har ju faktiskt lyckats prata nu i några minuter utan att nämna AI, men nu kommer det liksom. Det här med att titta på bolag och deras förmåga att skapa värde och sådana saker. Hur gör Montero och du och ni när ni tittar på bolag och också ur perspektivet om det har påverkat ert perspektiv över huvud taget med AI? Erik (16:34) Det enkla svaret är absolut. Vi lever med det här och känner både lugnet och stressen varje dag. Vi insåg väldigt snabbt att det här är en extremt stor möjlighet för våra portföljbolag. Många av de här sakerna vi sitter och kämpar med, att man sitter med en tech… Anders Hermansson (16:37) Ja, eller hur? Erik (17:00) skuld i man sett i produkten eller man behöver migrera en kundbas och behöver lägga in en produkt i harves mode eller man behöver utveckla ny funktionalitet. Länge har ju utvecklingsordning inom bit by software varit en flaskhals. Vi har ju haft långa roadmaps där det har varit diskussioner hur vi ska prioritera roadmapen. Där vi har kommit till ett läge där vi kan åstadkomma väldigt mycket. Mycket mer effektivt och öka produktiviteten i våra utvecklingsavdelningar. Och då gäller det att fånga de här möjligheterna. Fånga den här förändringen. nu kommer vi tillbaka igen till 90-talet här. Det är nästan som jag känner att jag kommer tillbaka till. Då kom eran i slut 90-talet med internet. och alla möjligheter som uppstår med mjukvara, internet och att alla fick en PC på skrivbordet. Och samma känsla har jag här och nu att vi är i en sån stor omställning och jag befinner mig mitt i den omställningen tillsammans med mina bolag. Och stressen är ju att alla bolag Anders Hermansson (18:11) Mm. Hmm. Erik (18:28) måste känna vilka möjligheter som finns här ute och ta vara på den. Samtidigt kan jag inte säga till dem vad best practice är. För vad har hänt sedan november, december med Claude och Claude Cowork till exempel. Alltså det har ju hänt extremt mycket och när det är optimalt Anders Hermansson (18:38) Nej, nej, exter. Erik (18:53) Hur ska jag bygga mitt utvecklingsteam? Hur ska jag jobba inom product management? Hur ska jag jobba med QA inom inom inom inom R &D? Hur ska jag jobba med releaserna och övriga avdelningar? Marketing, sälj, customer support, etc. etc. Så det här förändrar ju hela sättet hur vi driver våra bolag och det skapar sådana möjligheter. Och så var det ju alla de här transformeringarna jag varit inne i. Anders Hermansson (19:08) Exakt. Mm. Erik (19:22) mobil, internet och så vidare så har det alltid uppstått nya möjligheter för nya aktörer. Så det kommer ju att dyka upp nya spelare på marknaden som kan wipe code, kan göra någonting väldigt väldigt snabbt. Det är en enorm möjlighet för nya entreprenörer, för våra barn och ungdomar att driva bolag. De kan ju ta fram en produkt såhär snabbt, alltså mjukvaran i produkten. Anders Hermansson (19:30) Mm. Jag har faktiskt, jag har senaste tre veckorna så har byggt en SaaS-plattform själv. Den tog 30 år att bygga, konstaterar jag. För det är 30 år, 29 år och 11 månaders erfarenheter som på en månad nu är en SaaS-plattform för hela go-to-market-processen inom B2B. Erik (20:06) Du ser där vilka möjligheter nu och jag menar det är också intressant. är ju att precis där du sa 29 30 års erfarenhet domain expertis alla de saker för ofta får man höra här. Vi kodade över konkurrenten då som kommer upp som nytt. Ja men då kanske de kan konkurrera ut Lime eller Pythagoras eller Planema eller Pir. Jo men det man inte får glömma bort är ju att många av här bolagen har levt i 20 år 30 år. Anders Hermansson (20:18) Mm. Erik (20:36) Det är inte bara kod de har genererat. kanske är 20 procent av personalkosten är kod. Det andra handlar ju väldigt mycket om integration, nätverk, att vara compliant, supporten, implementation, domänexpertis. Allt det där är 80-90 procent av övriga erbjudandet som gör att du differentierar dig. Och då gäller det ju att dra nytta av möjligheten att kan göra med kod, att generera bra Anders Hermansson (20:38) Det ses. Erik (21:05) mjukvara och kombinerar det med övriga produkter dutehandhållen. Så i alla de här förändringarna kommer det uppstå nya nya aktörer. Det kommer vara existerande som inte hoppar på tåget som inte förstår förändringen som inte orkar med att göra förändringen som kommer bli utkonkurrerade och det kommer vara en rad befintliga som fattar möjligheten och kommer bli mycket mycket större i morgon. Tack vare AI och de möjligheterna som dyker upp. Och min stress och möjlighet är ju att hjälpa de här bolagen att göra transformationen. Att bli mjukvaruföretag som drar nytta av AI som verktyg och i sina produkter. Det svåra i det här är ju att veta exakt hur ska en utvecklingsavdelning se ut? Hur är den optimal? Vi har inga best practice. Det enda vi gett är att vi måste anamma förändringen. Vi måste vara på de här sakerna. Vi måste utveckla de första funktionerna. Jag kanske inte vet hur ett gränsligt AI-gränssnitt ska se ut optimalt i mjukvaran. Det kanske är så att det ska vara en chat där man chatta och en agent gör saker och ting i mjukvaran. Eller så kan det vara en kombination av det gamla gränssnittet eller något helt nytt. Det enda jag vet är att vi måste vara på det här och om vi gör det så lär vi oss väldigt mycket av våra portföljbolag. Vi träffar ju extremt mycket bit och software bolag. Samtidigt så kan vi ta med oss den erfarenheten in i nya bolag hela tiden. Så det finns väldigt få aktörer som i och att vi fokuserar på bit och software så bygger vi upp mycket erfarenhet kunskap och vi bygger upp en best practice över tid. Om vi bara är på den förändringen. Anders Hermansson (22:53) Och höjst är. Hur är det med bolagen i Köfir? Jag har varit med i många, dels själv i vissa startups men också delaktigt som en marknadspartner till startups. Då har alltid varit att vd måste lägga mycket energi på att leta pengar. och ringer vd-arna runt med hjälp av kassinstytet så att de andas och leta pengar. Står folk i kö utanför Montero och knackar på vill komma eller hur funkar det? Scoutar ni efter bolag på något sätt eller hur ser det ut just nu? Erik (23:33) Man önskar ju det var en kö utanför med de finaste bolagen som står här utanför och säger kom igen hjälp oss. Men men faktum är att vi har blivit större och större och vi har ett ganska bra brand i Norden. Hur har det kommit sig då? Jo men det är ju att vi har långvariga. Vi har vatt på den här marknaden sedan 2012. Anders Hermansson (23:39) Ha Erik (24:03) Det vi gör är väldigt mycket likt ett mjukvaruföretag. Vi är ute och gör olika event. Vi har det som kallas Nordic Software Summit i augusti, den 20 augusti, där vi samlar 1500 entreprenörer och C-level-nivåer i mjukvaruföretag inom B2B Software i en stor summit under en hel dag. Där vi nätverkar, Vi har bra presentatörer som kommer att presentera olika viktiga topics, till exempel AI eller pricing eller liknande ämnen. Och hela syftet är inte att de ska känna att vi säljer till dem, utan hela syftet är att bygga ett varumärke där vi är relevanta inom BTP-software. Sen gör vi på liknande sätt så sätter vi upp en turné, Nordic Software Tour, där vi åker runt i hela Norden. Anders Hermansson (24:51) Mm. Erik (24:58) ut till alla de lokala återna i Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim, Nordra Finland, södra Danmark och så vidare för att träffa mjukvårdföretagen på sin hemmaplats eller hemmaarena. Vi gör poddar i det här forumet, väldigt viktigt för oss. Vi skriver mjukvårdförebycker, vi frukost och luncher för att hitta forum där vi kan visa vår erfarenhet och kunskap. Anders Hermansson (25:02) Mm. Erik (25:25) Vi kan ge vår erfarenhet kunskap till mjukfart företagen, även nystattade startups. För vi vet att lyckas dem så kommer de växa in i vår ICPA, i vår målgrupp. Våra sellitprocesser varar kanske två till fem år. Det vill säga vi ska träffas ett antal gånger både hos dig och hos oss för att lära känna varandra. Dela med oss av idéer och Anders Hermansson (25:36) Mm. Mm. Erik (25:54) problem vi har utbyta dem. Lite gå tillbaka till 2012 när jag träffade Peter Thomas första gången. I mötena ska vi diskutera strategi och affärsplan och bygga upp saker och ting tillsammans för att kvalificera varandra om vi vill göra någonting tillsammans. Det man kan säga är att många bolag när de träffar oss står inför inflection point där de där de känner att. Men vänta nu. Anders Hermansson (26:03) Mm. Mm. Mm. Erik (26:23) Jag saknar kunskapen att lägga till ett kontor eller gå in på en ny marknad eller hur ska jag göra här pricing projektet eller nu ska jag ta och flytta upp och skapa en ny produkt. Hur gör jag det när man står inför de där skifterna och man tycker att man saknar erfarenhet och kunskap. Det är ofta då vi kommer in och hjälper de här entreprenörerna hjälper management teamet med den erfarenheten och blir. Anders Hermansson (26:50) Okej, det är väldigt långt ifrån dumma pengar låter det som såklart. Erik (26:54) Vi egentligen så här, du behöver ha dumma pengar och behöver ha minoritetsägare där du vet exakt hur du ska driva ditt bolag. Då ska du inte gå med oss, ska du inte, då ska du inte, ska inte vi vara där. Ofta är inte ditt, bolagen vi investerar i är inte perfekta. Det finns inga perfekta bolag som vi investerar i utan ofta har de några stycken röda lampor och gula lampor så någon måste ha hjälp med. Men man kommer ofta tillbaka till att det vi vill ha och det vi söker det är Anders Hermansson (26:58) Mm. ⁓ Nej. Erik (27:24) Nöjda kunder, det är en väldigt bra grej. Och att churn rates är låga. Alla bolag som ligger på över 10 procent och inte riktigt satt den här product market fitten. De försöker vi nog undvika vanligtvis. Nummer två så är det också viktigt med produkterna. Att det är stabila, fina, bra produkter. Anders Hermansson (27:25) Just det. Mm. Erik (27:53) som har en tydlig differensering och då produkter pratar jag både mjukvara men så pratar jag också de andra sakerna runt omkring som differensierar företaget mot sina konkurrenter. Och sen så det tredje det är ju att det finns en kultur ett DNA i bolaget där man är värderingsstyret att vi kan stå för vad bolaget är. Och då kommer man ofta tillbaka till grunderna och entreprenörerna, vilka de är och vilken bakgrund de har och vilken filosofi de har. Och hur de driver bolag helt enkelt. Anders Hermansson (28:22) Mm. Ja, jag fattar. Det låter som att det kan man inte få reda på i pitchdäcket. Det är processen att lära känna varandra som säkerställer det. låter som att är väldigt annorlunda, en lång process som bygger på kvalitet och dialog istället. Erik (28:52) Ja, och tittar du på processen när vi lär känna ett bolag så är det väldigt mycket möten, olika event, olika mötesplatser. Det kan vara på event och kan vara webbinarie och det kan vara fysiska möten på vårt kontor och deras kontor för att lära känna varandra och hitta varandra. Så att absolut, och den ser ju väldigt likt ut. Anders Hermansson (28:57) Hmm. Mm. Erik (29:22) ett vanligt mjuk, alltså om du säljer enterprise mjukvara i en lång komplicerad process, då är det ungefär så. Och vi gör ju det här, vi är fullt medvetna om att entreprenörerna gör ju det här väldigt sällan. Så vårt jobb i den här är att hålla dem i handen och skapa tryggheten i att ja, men det här gör vi tillsammans. Vi hittar det här partnerskapet tillsammans. Och komma tillbaka till det, pengarna. Anders Hermansson (29:29) Mm. Just det. Erik (29:52) Nej, det är det. Det är inte vår produkt. Vår produkt är att vi sitter på massa erfarenheter och kunskap. Att vi har 35 andra bolag i ett nätverk som vi delar kunskapen och erfarenheter med mellan varandra hela tiden. Jag tänkte själv att du har… Ja, istället för att du sitter som CTO i ett bolag så kan du alltid ringa till 35 andra CTO’er och bolla din utmaning. Det är ju en enorm möjlighet. Anders Hermansson (30:17) Mm. Just det. Ja, verkligen. Annars kan man bli lite ensam. Jag fattar. Vad heter det? Behöver man vara lönsam också, Erik (30:29) Det måste man inte alltid vara. Det måste finnas en underliggande lönsamhet. Vanligtvis tittar vi på bolag som har hittat en product market fit. Vi investerar inte i startups utan vi investerar i det vi kallar scale-ups till tillväxtbolag. Om det ligger någonstans mellan 20-30 miljoner i återkommande intäkter upp till 400-500 miljoner i återkommande intäkter. Det är någonstans ett bolag vi investerar i. Och sen har vi då skapat en playbook eller en process eller en metod hur vi driver våra bolag under sju till åtta års tid som är ungefär genomsnittstiden som vi är ägare i våra bolag. Och då har vi lite olika faser och i de här olika faserna så finns det olika delkomponenter vi kan använda. Det kan vara så att du har behov av hjälp med pricing, rekrytering, gå till nymarknad, konvertera dina räkenskaper till IFRS eller ta fram en transfer pricing modell. Alla avdelningarna du har är ett mjukvaruföretag, support, sälj, finans, utveckling, AI. Så alla de specialistområdena har vi också på Montero. Och under de specialistområdena så har du delkomponenter som vi till hand och hålla som vi försöker standardisera. Så vi kan hela tiden plocka från den verktygslådan. så säger vi om okej, nu har vi problem med pricing. Då tar vi in de här två experterna som är duktiga på det och som kan hjälpa er att driva den typen av projekt. Om ni vill det. så, men det viktiga i alla de här i de här projekten är det att Anders Hermansson (32:14) Mm. Mm. Erik (32:21) att man har ägandeskapet, att ägandeskapet ligger hos bolagen. Det får aldrig bli att vi körlar eller att vi håller för mycket bolagen i handen, utan ägandeskapet måste alltid ligga i bolaget. Och det är alltid management som ansvarar för driften av företagen. Och sen blir det att… Anders Hermansson (32:38) För fråga, man tänker så här, de första 100 dagarna, finns det någon sådan liksom, vad händer? Erik (32:45) Vi kommer från en värld där vi säger att de första hundra dagarna måste vi tillsammans med bolaget lära känna varandra och tillsammans bygga upp budget eller vad heter det, affärsplan och strategi för att hitta det här. För bolaget sitter ju på DNA1, sitter ju på marknadskunskapen, de sitter på domänexpertisen, medan vi kommer ju med erfarenheten från från att driva BTP-software. Ibland så har vi lite domänexpertis men inom det området de är inom men framförallt så är det bolag som sitter på det unika där. Och det gäller ju att det smälter samman. Vår erfarenhet och bakgrund tillsammans med deras domänexpertis och bolagsexpertis är det som skapar det här unika. Vi kan ju ha hypoteser när vi köper ett bolag men det Ofta tar det några månader att lära sig och sätta alla de där blocken på plats. Nu är det så att vi träffar i bolagen så länge, alltså två till tre, fyra, fem år innan. Och vi har ju ett antal möter där vi sitter och diskuterar budget eller affärsplan och strategi. Vilket gör ju att ibland får vi lite snabbare stadt. Så vi kan påbörja det här förändringsarbetet redan. dag ett, dag två. Så det beror lite på hur situationen är och vilket bolag vi kommer in i. Likadant så är det så här att vissa bolag måste ha mycket mer action i. Det vill säga att där måste vi kanske göra management komplettering eller förändringar dag ett. Vi kanske måste rekrytera säljare, vi kanske måste bygga en marketingorganisation och då vet vi det. Och då är handlade tiden väldigt viktigt att Anders Hermansson (34:09) Jag fattar. Mm. Mm. Erik (34:37) att agera på det snabbt. andra bolag så kan ju bolagen vara mer mogna. Det kanske redan ha en organisation med 150 anställda och har kommit en bit på vägen. Då handlar det mycket mer om att justera och kanske mer fokusera på några stora grepp. Kanske göra &A eller gå till ny marknad. Så jag tycker det är viktigt att man anpassar sig efter de olika bolagens situation. Anders Hermansson (35:02) Hur ofta? Erik (35:07) Man läser de där, men vi har blivit, om man tittar på de senaste tiden så har blivit mycket mer metodiska även under de första 100 dagarna. Hur vi onbordar och skapar en struktur i bolaget för att kunna växa. Det vill säga att vi sätter många av de här grundinvesteringarna, det är ER, PSS, TIEM eller sätter olika managementfunktioner på plats. Sätter rapporteringen på plats. Ofta de där sakerna måste vi göra de första 100-200 dagarna. Anders Hermansson (35:07) Öster. Just det. Erik (35:38) så att vi kan gasa på skalningen sen med tillväxt. Anders Hermansson (35:41) Jag tänkte fråga lite om styrmodell och sånt där. Har ni en som ni då tycks ha så här? Nu gör vi så här. För det kan ju vara en chock för en vd, en entreprenör som har drivit sin egen låda och sen kommer man P.E. ägd och så smäller det till med rapportering och sånt på ett betydligt mer strukturerat sätt än man kanske gjort förut. Erik (36:02) Det jag lärde mig 2012 när jag ute i min första eller den strukturerade processen där jag träffade 30 olika private equity spelare. var att jag var en entreprenör som körde väldigt mycket på. Jag jobbade ju väldigt mycket i marknaden och bland mina medarbetare, mina kolleger och hade ju väldigt mycket anekdoter. Jag tog ju mycket på kundinformation och medarbetare information. Jag hade full koll på marknaden, men jag hade inte lika bra koll. Anders Hermansson (36:29) Mm. Erik (36:32) Jag var inte lika datadriven, intent. Jag var väldigt fokuserad på kassaflödet och förutom faktura och de där bitarna och det brukar vara så på entreprenörer. Jag hamnade i en dd-process med en private equity och då boomade jag en forecast mitt i det arbetet. Och där jag boomade en del saker jag hade sagt med på anekdotstadie och magkänsla. Och där och då på sommaren svod jag att jag inte skulle hamna i den situationen igen. Så då skapade jag det, jag gick tillbaka och jobbade med mina rådgivare vid den tidpunkten. Jag gjorde modeller, gjorde bottom-up-analyser och gjorde ett ordentligt modellarbete för att ta fram affärsplan. Och det jag landade i var ett fullständigt rapportpaket på alla avdelningar. Så jag blev datadriven. Och det jag lärde mig där och då, det var att… Att kombinera den här kundnärheten, medarbetarnärheten, marknadsnärheten ihop med datan. var det som skapade dynamiken. Det det som skapade margin. Och det är nödvändigt för att ta de här bolagen till nästa nivå. Och ibland kan det vara en liten chock när man kommer in med en rapportpaket och säger, men det här måste vi plocka fram. Det är viktigt att… Men de… Nästan alla säger tack, god gul, att vi gjorde det här. att vi satt den här CIFO på plats, att vi skapade den här styremodellen och vi blev datadrivna. För två år senare när det har jämförelsetalen, du kan verkligen bli datadriven, du kan fatta besluten tillsammans med marknadskunskapen. Det där skapar margin och det skapar en stort värde för de här tillväxtbolagen. Och du måste göra det. Om du ska gå från startup till en scale-up. Du måste ta det steget. Det är en tydlig inflection point. Anders Hermansson (38:32) Just det. Ja, jag fattar. Bra poäng där. Det är väl många som vill bli datadrivna men man behöver nog en extern påverkan för att orka ta steget. För man känner ju att man kanske har örat mot marken i sin egen verksamhet. Det inte riktigt det som prioriteras då. Hur mycket styr och mycket coachar ni? Jag fattar inte situationsdrivet men det måste väl finns någon… Erik (38:54) som brukar vara. Anders Hermansson (39:01) Någon filosofi sådär. Erik (39:04) Jo, men det är väldigt mycket coaching. Jag har ju samtal med alla mina vd-ar flera gånger i veckan, men jag ett strukturerat, inbokat samtal med alla där vi har en tydlig agenda där vi går igenom. Och då är det ju, då kan man tycka att det är väldigt operativa frågor i mångt och mycket vi diskuterar. Men det små bolag, det går inte att säga hur många procent jobbar strategiskt, hur många procent jobbar operativt. Det där blandas hela tiden upp och ner i de här två frågorna. För att kunna vara… Jag brukar säga att lång sikt byggs upp av väldigt många kortsikt. Du måste dela upp det där och leverera mot dina kopier eller datapunkter varje dag. Och ska du få till den här strategiska förändringen så måste du få det hända kortsiktiga. Så att det handlar ju väldigt mycket om att det är mycket coachande där vi bollar saker och ting. Jag hamnat i den här kunds situationen. Vad tycker du? Hur ska vi göra? Lite erfarenhet i kunskap i den. Vi funderar på den här typen av funktionalitet i våra produkter. Hade skapat det här värdet för våra kunder? Ska vi göra det organiskt, inorganiskt? Hur ska vi skapa den förändringen? Och ibland handlar det om som en vd. med det här manodepressivet jag pratade om tidigare. Och för mig som ordförande handlar det ju väldigt mycket om att vara psykologen ibland. Ibland ska jag ju pusha när de känner sig för bekväma och ibland ska jag lugna ner dem när de är stressade. Och hela tiden var den där personliga, anledning till coachen som de kan hålla i handen. Som sitter på erfarenhet och kunskap. Anders Hermansson (40:51) Hmm. Just det. Erik (40:58) Nej, men jag tycker nog att det är extremt mycket kortskning där vi driver ett bolag tillsammans. Den här vi känslan är ju det viktiga. har ju inga tjänstemän som driver våra bolag i management, utan de har instrument, de är delägare i våra bolag. Vi sitter i samma båt, så går det bra för bolaget, så går det bra för dem och det går bra för oss. båtprincipen är jätteviktig för oss att vi gör det här tillsammans. Anders Hermansson (41:05) Mm. Mm. Mm. Erik (41:28) En. Anders Hermansson (41:30) Det är en ganska stor grej ju. De entreprenörer som jag har kontakt med och sådär. Att ge upp majoriteten till någon annan. Hur tänker ni och pratar ni om det där med… Erik (41:46) Det som jag har respekt för, för det är ju ens baby som man har levt med och man har skapat över många många år. Det är inte helt enkelt att överge den frågan. Det som är viktigt i det tycker jag är just det här att det tar tid att vilja känna varandra. Att en sån här process är en kvalificering för båda parter. Anders Hermansson (42:01) Nåååå Erik (42:12) Därför är viktigt att vårt renomi, vårt varumärke ute på marknaden är extremt viktigt för att entreprenörer ska våga släppa in oss i företaget, att lämna nycklarna till oss att vara med och driva det här företaget. sen är det så här, det funkar inte så. Det inte så att en entreprenör lämnar nycklarna till oss, för då har vi nästan failat hela det här. Utan vill inte management och entreprenörer vara med och driva det här bolaget tillsammans. Anders Hermansson (42:24) Mm. Erik (42:41) Då är inte vi heller med, utan det här är väldigt, väldigt mycket ömsesidigt att vi gör någonting tillsammans. Vi driver bolaget i partnerskap tillsammans och därför är så viktigt med den här dynamiken tillsammans så att. Antiponörerna och management de sitter ju på det jag pratar om tidigare. sitter på erfarenheten, domäne, expertisen, kundkontakten, medarbetarna. Allt det som är värdet i bolaget sitter de ju på. Sen. Anledningen till att vi måste ha majoritet är ju framför allt för att vi vill ha en koncentrerad, vi kan inte äga 150 bolag i vår portfölj. För vi har inte en organisation för att hantera det. Jag kan hantera sex bolag som ordförande, jag kan inte hantera fler. Vilket innebär att jag måste ha fler, eller vi måste ha fler liknande profiler som mig hela tiden. Så köper vi två bolag till så måste vi ha en som kan hantera de här två bolagen. På det sättet är inte vår modell särskilt skalbar. Det vill säga att vi måste anställa människor som bygger på det här. Bygger det här företaget. Och det som händer då, det är just den här dynamiken att de sitter på extremt mycket makt trots att de är minoritetsägare. Så det optimala vi söker är att vi äger någonstans mellan 55 till 80 procent. Anders Hermansson (43:50) Mm. Erik (44:09) Och så sitter management och entreprenörerna kvar med stor del. Det viktiga i det är ju att som jag pratade om båtprincipen, men ofta är ju exiten i nästa steg när vi säljer bolaget. När vi har tagit bolaget till 3, 4, 500 miljoner och vi vet hur man säljer ett bolag av den size till. Och vi har byggt upp ett nätverk med massa olika private equity spelare, strategiska köpare. Anders Hermansson (44:28) Mm. Erik (44:39) så knackar på dörren och tittar på våra bolag hela tiden. Vi tror oss veta att vi kan få bättre betalt för den typen av bolag än många andra. Så det är ju ett värde vi också levererar till våra entreprenörer och våra management team. Att man krokar arm och gör en resa tillsammans. Exiten i steg nummer två är minst lika viktig som exiten i steg nummer ett. Och vill man, man… Anders Hermansson (44:50) Mm. Jästän. Mm. Ja. Erik (45:07) Det viktiga är att man lär känna varandra över tiden. Anders Hermansson (45:10) Jag fattar. Om man nu är entreprenör och har sitt bolag och som du säger, hittade lite olika triggersteg inflection points där man började ta ett lite större, så att säga, okänt steg som en tydlig signal på att det kan vara smart att utvärdera i alla fall någon som Montero. Men vad skulle du säga? Vad skulle du ge för tips till en entreprenörer som då kanske äger mycket stor del av sin bolag tillsammans med övrigt management när de börjar tänka på det här med att ta in externa ägare. Erik (45:50) Till att börja med så ska du inte ens innan du börjar tänka tanken så tror jag du ska ändå kanske ta lite luncher och vara på din del event och lära känna lite av de här potentiella köparna som du tänker det hade kunnat vara en bra partner för lite. Kommer tillbaka till det jag sa. Det är en kvalificering för båda parter. Det inte så att du får göra det sex månader innan eller tolv månader innan utan du kan ha en dialog med många. Anders Hermansson (46:08) Mm. Erik (46:20) av oss, även mina kollegor i branschen, två, tre, fyra år och ta lite tips och råd på vägen. det är lite vår grej helt enkelt. Vi delar gärna med oss vår erfarenhet och kunskap för då får man testa lite det här, vilket värde vi levererar, vilket värde vi kan skapa för ditt bolag. Så det är det ena att vara lite mer långsiktig och kvalificera. Sen så tror jag att Anders Hermansson (46:27) Mm. Mm. Erik (46:50) Det låter kanske enkelt att men jag tror att kvalificera vad är det för någonting de kan leverera förutom pengar. För pengar är ganska lätt att få om du har ett fint bolag och det är lätt att lockas av vem som sätter högst prislapp på företaget. Men ofta är ju bolaget mer viktigt än så. Det vill säga Anders Hermansson (47:05) Mm. Ja, ja. Erik (47:20) Vad vill du att bolaget ska ta vägen? Vad vill du att medarbetarna ska ta vägen? Hur vill du att det ska utvecklas? Vill du vara med på resan framåt? Och hur kommer då bolagets andra exit eller hur ska bolaget utvecklas och ta vägen? Att bygga upp den planen tillsammans med en potentiell investerare. Det tror jag är en smart grej att göra. Anders Hermansson (47:35) Mm, jävlar. Just det, så att man inte ser Montero, vad heter det, intåget som ett slutstation, så att säga, utan det är ett steg på vägen någonstans. Erik (47:58) Exakt. Och att värderingarna mellan dig och en potentiell investerare är de är hyfsat likvärdiga och att ni kan funka bra tillsammans. Sen tror jag att ett misstag jag ser väldigt många är att de raisar pengar lite löpande, de tar in lite affärsänglar och så tar du in en affärsängel som köper 5 procent och så tar du in en som köper 7 procent och en 10 procent. Anders Hermansson (48:12) Mm. Ja, exakt. Erik (48:26) Och så VIP så har du en cap table med 60 namn där det inte betyder någonting för dem. Du kanske har fortfarande kontrollen över bolaget. Du kanske har sålt 30 procent eller 40 procent. Men det enda du måste göra är att hantera en massa aktieägavtal och du måste hantera en massa olika affärsänglar. Ska du göra det? Försök göra den här ägarlistan så kort som möjligt och göra det rejält. Det är också någonting jag tror på. Anders Hermansson (48:32) Ja precis. Mm. Mm. Erik (48:56) Återigen, gå inte bara på pengarna eller värderingen utan gå på det långsiktiga. Det kommer att vara värdeskapande för företaget över tid. Anders Hermansson (49:01) Mm. Det är jäkla bra avslutning men jag måste få ta ett varv till runt AI-grejen här. Det finns ju dom som säger att AI då är liksom… vad kallar man för? Sa… Sa… Sa… Gaddon eller någonting. liksom hela… Nej nej, varför ska vi hålla på köra på appar? Jag kan ju som vanlig användare bara promta fram det jag själv vill ha, att säga. Erik (49:17) Mm, stämmer. Anders Hermansson (49:26) Hur ser ni på… Vi pratade mycket om AI. När vi pratade tidigare så är AI en stor möjlighet i form av produktivitetsökning som är helt galen. Jag har ju pratat med andra mjukhårdbolag som säger att vi har slut på idéen nu. Den här product roadmapen åts upp i natt av mina 190 klådagenter som bara tuggar i sig den. Det är ena sidan av det. Fantastiskt. Med den följer ju… Då är en konkurrens situation när andra kan göra likadant om de har huvud på skraft. Men det här med liksom hur ser du att det påverkar möjligheterna för hela SAS-branschen vad det gäller att uppfinna värdeskapande bolag helt enkelt när så mycket av värdet numera inom olika områden kan pluppa ut ur chatgrippet till heliklod. Erik (50:19) Jag tror så här att man ska vara lite försiktig att klumpa B2B-software och SAS och sätta alla i en kamm. Det är väldigt stor skillnad mellan SAP och ett mjukfaderföretag som gör någon form av dashboard. Om man går tillbaka fem till tio år så var det ganska coolt att driva ett SAS-bolag som var Low Touch eller No Touch. Anders Hermansson (50:46) Mm. Erik (50:47) Du marknadsförande på webben, kunde betala mjukvaran med ett kreditkort och så bara drog du den. Och sen så en product led growth modell. Ja, tittar man lite på de bolagen idag som har kanske inte så affärskritiska. De kanske har lite svagt usage. De kanske inte har så många integrationspunkter. Stickiness är ganska lågt. jag pluggade i Lund, om vi går tillbaka till Lundatiden igen, så pratade man om bindningar. Tekniska bindningar, juridiska bindningar, sociala bindningar mellan företag. Antalet bindningar gör ju att man bygger stickiness. S och P, vi kan ta ett exempel med Lime egentligen. 2005 försökte jag sälja till Göteborgs energi. Anders Hermansson (51:26) Mm. Erik (51:41) Vi fick inte göra det. Vi omsatte 30 miljoner. Vi var för små och vi hade inte de processerna och policy som behövdes. 2012 försökte vi sälja till Göteborgsenergi igen. Det gick inte. Vi omsatte 100 miljoner. Vi hade inte isosatveringar eller liknande ITIL-processer på plats. 2026, för ett par månader sen, sålde vi till Göteborgsenergi. Nu omsätter vi över 800 miljoner, 550 anställda och har alla de där sakerna på plats. Att implementera Göteborgsenergi, att sälja till Göteborgsenergi tar flera år. Att implementera produkterna hos dem, alltså mjukvaran, kommer ta tolv månader kanske, 18 månader. Både Microsoft och Salesforce har gått bet på denna implementation, de misslyckats med denna implementation. Samma sak i ett energibolag nere i Tyskland. tar väldigt lång tid, är svåra implementationer, krävs mycket integrationer, mycket folk som är involverade. Och då det inte bara att ta data och migrera data eller att integrera, utan det handlar ju om en förändringsledning. få det här företaget att anamma ett förändringsarbetssätt, processer och rutiner. Och det är ju en jäkla skillnad på det företaget och den typen av produkter. Jämfört med Low Touch produkt. Så när vi sitter och tittar på investeringar och tittar på så försöker vi undvika den här typen av mjukvara som är mycket Low Touch, liten usage, hög könnivå som är lätt att kopiera och när de differenserar sig så pratar de om funktioner i produkten. Ja men funktioner i produkten har aldrig varit lättare att ersätta, att kopiera. Däremot Anders Hermansson (53:19) Mm. Mm. Hej då! Erik (53:37) att konkurrera med den andra delen om du har jobbat med enterprise och implementation, support, att du har andra saker som gör att du differentierar dig. De är ju mycket större mots, mycket större valggrava, mycket svårare att konkurrera mot. Så den typen av affärskritisk mjukvara med många antal bindningar och hög stickiness, den typen av bolag gillar vi. Anders Hermansson (53:51) Mm. Mm. Mm. Jastu. Erik (54:06) och som är affärskritiskt och hög användande i grad i bolagen. Anders Hermansson (54:10) Just det. Och där har man inte utsatt för att bli satt Erik (54:15) Det kommer ta mycket längre tid i alla fall att bygga den typen av företag för att komma tillbaka till det. Du måste bygga upp den erfarenheten kunskapen. måste ha kundreferenserna. Du måste bygga upp de där processerna. Du måste bygga en organisation. Det handlar om att bygga ett bolag och då räcker det inte med att min son sitter hemma och webcoda ett CRM system. Och det kommer det vara en del mindre företag. Anders Hermansson (54:24) Ja. Erik (54:40) kommer ha någon student inne eller någon duktig medarbetare som kan göra ett enkelt CRM system. Ja, och det kan man ju funka för en eller två eller tre användare. Men jag tror att de flesta företag inser att… Tittar du på trenden de senaste 30 åren så har vi gått ifrån att göra egenutvecklade mjukvaror till att köpa standardiserade mjukvara ifrån en leverantör för man vill ha någon som… Alltså så kan man hålla ansvarig för implementation, support, uppgradering och så vidare. Sen så jag tror inte den förändringen kommer svänga tillbaka. Jag tror inte bankerna kommer börja skriva egen ut med egen mjukvara, utan de vill ha en standardleverantör. Däremot kan det vara mindre bolag som lockas och det där för att spara lite pengar. Men jag tror över tid kommer det kosta mer pengar att förvalta den mjukvaran och jag tror att alla bolag Anders Hermansson (55:24) Mm. Erik (55:36) som har en sund affärsidé i grund och botten så kommer det vara mer lönsamt att driva sitt bolag och fokusera på den saken än att göra allt annat som en stödssystem till ens företag. Anders Hermansson (55:48) Ja, just det. Ja, men grymt. Erik, tack så jättemycket för alla bra insikter och inspel här. Det här är jätteinspirerande och jag hoppas att våra lyssnare uppskattar all din klogskap också. Tack så jättemycket för att du var med i Sälj Marknadspodden, måste jag säga. Erik (56:04) Tack Andes och tack alla ni som lyssnade. Anders Hermansson (56:07) Ja, grymt! Ha det så fint! Erik (56:10) Det samma. Anders Hermansson (56:11) Det var allt vi hade att bjuda på från Sälj och marknadspodden för den här gången. Jag hoppas verkligen att ni tyckte det var lika intressant och inspirerande som jag att lyssna på Erik. Det är alltid härligt med en person som har en så otroligt tung och gedigen erfarenhet och samtidigt är så villig att dela med sig av den. Både the good and the bad and the ugly. att säga. Underbart. Vi vill bara avsluta med vårt ständiga tips som kanske gäller nu mer än någonsin i dessa AI-tider. Vad ni gör där ute så ska ni vara relevanta. Hejdå! The post Podd #251 – Erik Syrén om att investera i bolag appeared first on Business Reflex.

This Dhamma talk was offered on June 13, 2026 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Take the 2026 AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and AIE WF tickets!On the product side, everyone is getting Computer - Perplexity, Manus, Cursor, and so on. Meanwhile on the research side, agentic evals like TerminalBench and GDPVal are also assuming computer (Harbor). On both ends, the consolidating LLM OS stack has become a standard toolkit, and Daytona is one of a small set of AI Infra companies that are booming because of it.“The end of localhost” has been Ivan Burazin's obsession for more than a decade.Something that is all too familiar…Long before agents became the default way people talked about software development, Ivan was already chasing the idea that development should not depend on a fragile local machine. CodeAnywhere, one of the first browser-based IDEs, was an early attempt at that future: move the development environment into the cloud, make setup reproducible, and free developers from the endless “works on my machine” tax.The thesis was directionally right, but the market wasn't ready yet.However, agents changed that. They do not care about a laptop, desk setup, or favorite editor. They need a computer they can access through an API: something stateful enough to keep working, fast enough to spin up instantly, flexible enough to resize, isolated enough to be safe, and composable enough to run the messy real-world workflows that real software engineering actually requires.Daytona isn't just selling “sandboxes” in the narrow code-execution sense. It is the latest version of Ivan's original localhost thesis.In this episode, Daytona's CEO joins swyx to explain why AI agents need more than code execution boxes: they need composable computers, stateful sandboxes, instant startup, dynamic resources, and infrastructure that can survive workloads going from zero to 100,000 CPUs.We go deep on the new agent compute market: Daytona's hard pivot from human dev environments to AI sandboxes, the New Year's Eve MVP that customers begged for, why Daytona runs on bare metal with its own scheduler, how one customer runs almost 850,000 sandboxes a day, and why RL/eval workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of usage in just months. Ivan also explains why agents need Windows and macOS machines, why CLI may matter more than MCP, why Kubernetes is painful for this workload, and why the future AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS.We discuss:* How Daytona grew out of CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the “end of localhost” thesis* Why Daytona pivoted from human dev environments to AI sandboxes* Why agents need composable computers instead of disposable code execution boxes* The New Year's Eve MVP that customers chased API keys for* Why Daytona chose bare metal, stateful snapshots, and its own scheduler* How Daytona spins up one sandbox in ~60ms and 50,000 sandboxes in ~75 seconds* Why Daytona's biggest customer runs ~850,000 sandboxes a day* How RL/eval workloads create zero-to-100,000 CPU spikes* Why RL workloads went from 0% to roughly 50% of Daytona usage* Why customers compare Daytona against EKS/GKS and say they're “never going back”* Why every AI agent may need a computer, including Windows and macOS environments* The Apple licensing constraints that make macOS sandboxes hard* Why CLI gives agents more power than MCP* How open source helps agents integrate Daytona* Why agent-generated PRs may break today's CI/CD assumptions* Why AI SaaS companies reselling tokens may face a cold shower* Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWSIvan Burazin* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanburazin* X: https://x.com/ivanburazinDaytona* Website: https://www.daytona.io* X: https://x.com/daytonaioTimestamps* 00:00:00 Hook* 00:01:12 Introduction* 00:03:15 CodeAnywhere, Shift, and the end of localhost* 00:05:58 What Daytona is: composable computers for AI agents* 00:08:07 The pivot from dev environments to AI sandboxes* 00:10:17 The New Year's Eve MVP and customers begging for API keys* 00:12:56 Bare metal, stateful sandboxes, and Daytona's scheduler* 00:17:28 60ms startup, 50,000 sandboxes, and 850K daily runs* 00:21:53 Spiky RL/eval workloads and the new agent infra problem* 00:28:12 RL workloads, Kubernetes pain, and dynamic resizing* 00:33:31 Why every AI agent needs a computer* 00:38:48 macOS sandboxes and Apple's licensing problem* 00:44:28 Why CLI may matter more than MCP* 00:48:11 Open source, GitHub stars, and agent integration* 00:53:11 Git, CI/CD, and agent collaboration bottlenecks* 00:58:15 Founder life and building a 25-person infra company* 01:02:44 AI SaaS, token resale, and API-first business models* 01:06:10 GPU sandboxes, data centers, and compute growth* 01:09:48 Why the AI cloud may look more like Stripe than AWS* 01:11:26 Closing thoughtsTranscriptIntroduction: Daytona, CodeAnywhere, and the End of LocalhostSwyx [00:00:02]: Okay, we're in the studio with Ivan Burazin, CEO of Daytona. Welcome.Ivan [00:00:07]: Thanks for having me, man.Swyx [00:00:08]: Ivan, you and I go back.Ivan [00:00:10]: Way back.Swyx [00:00:11]: How I don't even know how, you found, did you reach out or, for Shift.Ivan [00:00:17]: I reached out to you. The reason was you - we were just - we were thinking about I was one of the co-founders of CodeAnywhere, the first browser-based IDE, and so we were thinking a long time of, localhost should die. And you had this article.Swyx [00:00:29]: End of localhost.Ivan [00:00:30]: Then I reached out to you because of that, and then we talked, and I was actually at a different job and learning about I was the head of, developer experience, and you were quite well-versed in that, and I actually reached out to you, among other people, how do we go about that? What are the key things and whatnot at this point in time? And you were nice enough to take the call, and I remember I was late on your call with you.Swyx [00:00:51]: I don't remember.Ivan [00:00:52]: I remember because I was with my then I'm thinking of a girlfriend or wife at that point in time, I'm not sure. It's the same person, so that's great, and I was late ‘cause we were, in, Italy on, vacation, and then I was late for something. I felt so bad, and you were so nice to be, good about.Swyx [00:01:10]: The reason I'm nice is because I'm also late to other people, so it's like, who's, who's without sin here, yeah, so I have to, for those who don't know, InfoBip Shift, there's this whole thing that, you did in the past, and, and that was basically one of the inspirations for me starting AI Engineer, which is like, I have to thank you for giving me that push to be like, “Oh, you can, you can build and sell conferences?”Ivan [00:01:34]: I remember you asked you asked me at the beginning to give me advisory shares, and I was so focused on what we were doing, I said no, and I should've took the advisory shares. So I'm sorry, dude. But anyway.Swyx [00:01:43]: We're not, we're not venture backed.Ivan [00:01:44]: No, it doesn't matter.Swyx [00:01:45]: It's Yeah, anyway, so I think what's impressive about you is that CodeAnywhere is the thing that you've been trying to build, and, you kind of put it on hold and then came back after InfoBip. Just give us the story, do you - the story and the origin story, going into Daytona.From CodeAnywhere and Shift to DaytonaIvan [00:02:05]: Sure. Like, really way back, me and my co-founder have been together. I say this, I've said this multiple times, it's like we were married and divorced and married. Some people actually ask me is my co-founder my partner. they thought it literally. It's not literally, but we have done multiple companies together, and to your point, we had this shift where we went from the CodeAnywhere to the conference called Shift, and then back to, Daytona. We originally started stacking servers, doing like virtualization in the early 2000s and, routers and doing basically all these things, at a foundational level, and that was a services company which we sold to focus on what my co-founder actually invented, which was the very first browser-based IDE, right, I say the first. Before us was actually Heroku. They did it for a very short time until they became Heroku. But outside of them, we were the only one, and it was called.Swyx [00:02:55]: There was Cloud9.Ivan [00:02:57]: Cloud9 came out slightly after us. There was Replit, which came out when we stopped doing it, Replit came out, and they have been successful since then, which is great. There was Nitrous.io. There was quite a few that existed at the time, but it was like too early. But the interesting part is that we, at that point in time, because there was no VS Code, there was no Kubernetes, and Docker had just started when we Or I'm not sure if it was even public at that point in time. And so we had to build everything to the whole stack ourselves and that was the key learning that we brought into and that we've been using in Daytona today. So it was super early. There's about 3 million people used CodeAnywhere. It was slightly, it was angel-backed more than venture-backed. We ended up paying everyone back because it didn't have that sort of scale. But, three years ago, we started something similar with Daytona, which is not what we are today, but it was automating dev environments for human engineers, the basically the underlying stack of CodeAnywhere. And then we did a hard pivot last January to sandboxes. And so here we are.Swyx [00:04:01]: Historic pivot, yeah, and, it's one of those things where, I had independently invested in CodeAnywhere, but also in E2B, and then both of you pivoted into the same thing, and I'm like, “F**k.”Ivan [00:04:12]: You invested, you invested in Daytona. You invested in Daytona. But you were the first If we had not got your check, we wouldn't have done it.Swyx [00:04:18]: No way.Ivan [00:04:19]: No, it was like, “We have to get him on board first,” and you were that kicker that we, that got us off the ground.Swyx [00:04:23]: No, because you were putting me on your pitch deck, man. I was like, “Man, this is like a good trip if I don't invest.”Ivan [00:04:29]: That's because it was your quote. It's like we.Swyx [00:04:30]: Yeah. It's the end of localhost.Ivan [00:04:31]: Did a bunch of research about end of localhost and who was interested in that,.Swyx [00:04:34]: No, that's like, I put, I wrote that blog post, and every single company in that field reached out to me, and then every VC who was receiving those pitches then also had to call me and, talk it, talk through it with me.Ivan [00:04:47]: It's finally happening though.Swyx [00:04:48]: It was really super interesting.Ivan [00:04:48]: It's finally happening.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening.Ivan [00:04:49]: Yeah, it's finally.Swyx [00:04:49]: It's finally happening, with maybe sort of non-human users. Yeah, so what is Daytona today? Let's get like a quick description. I'm wearing the shirt.What Daytona Is Today: Composable Computers for AI AgentsIvan [00:04:58]: You're wearing the shirt. Yes,.Swyx [00:04:59]: It says, I think your branding is very good. Like, it's very consistent. It runs AI code. Like, it cannot be simpler.Ivan [00:05:05]: Exactly, but we're gonna probably have to change that.Swyx [00:05:07]: Oh, s**t.Ivan [00:05:07]: It's also a subset of what we do. Unfortunately, we really love this, Run AI Code is super simple. People interpret it different ways. I think we've given out 5,000, 6,000 of these shirts. People wear them with pride because it doesn't really market about us.Swyx [00:05:21]: Yeah, Daytona's on the back.Ivan [00:05:22]: It markets the back. It markets to the person itself, so I think we did a really good job on that one. But it is also a subset of what we do, because people, when they think about Run AI Code, they just think about these small, let's call it isolates, code execution boxes that, you send some code, you get an output. Whereas what Daytona is today is essentially composable computers for AI agents. It is, the market calls them sandboxes which can be misleading.Swyx [00:05:44]: All these things. All these things on.Ivan [00:05:45]: Yeah, exactly, ‘cause it can be misleading ‘cause people usually think about sandboxes as a demo or a test environment versus a production-grade environment. But what Daytona does, if you think of the laptop that you have in front of you or the computer that's over there, or, my wife is an architect, so she has like a Windows with a 3D graphics card inside to do 3D rendering. Like, as humans, we have different computers or different compositions of computers. And our belief is strongly that agents today and going forward will need all these different compositions of computers to do different types of tasks. And so we offer that basically through an API.Swyx [00:06:19]: Yeah, to give people - I'm trying to sort of front-load all the aha moments or the wow moments so that people can, stay engaged and click like and subscribe. the market is exploding, right? Like, you have been reporting 74% month-on-month growth, and it also, it's just been growing for a while. Like, it's been going like this. And every single - It's not just you guys. It's every single.Ivan [00:06:41]: Everyone, yeah.Swyx [00:06:42]: Sort of, compute provider. I don't know if you agree with me saying compute provider or not.Ivan [00:06:48]: It's fine.Swyx [00:06:48]: Yeah. So like organically PLG-driven growth, but also enterprise is doing super well, I think I wanna rewind to January of last year when you did the pivot. Like, so you obviously called this market early, and you were positioned for it, and you are now one of the market leaders. But what was the insight that made you do the pivot?The Pivot: From Human Dev Environments to Agent SandboxesIvan [00:07:06]: The insight that made us do this pivot is the quarter before that, so end of 2024, when we had - Basically, we did a demo with - I don't I think we discussed this as well, Devin was not public. You actually gave me access to Devin at that time. So Devin.Swyx [00:07:25]: I did?Ivan [00:07:26]: Yeah, you gave me access.Swyx [00:07:26]: I don't think I was supposed.Ivan [00:07:27]: Yeah, exactly.Swyx [00:07:28]: Yeah, I.Ivan [00:07:28]: So it doesn't matter. You.Swyx [00:07:29]: Yeah. I gave like three friends access.Ivan [00:07:31]: Yeah, or it was a call and you showed it to me. It doesn't matter. but OpenDevin was available, which is now called OpenHands. And so we're like, “Oh, this seems to be a thing. This is not public. Let's take our for human automation of dev environments and take, OpenDevin and launch that as a SaaS.” And we did that. Not very many people signed up and used it, but a lot of people reached out that were building agents, and they were like, “Hey, my agent needs a compute sandbox runtime,” whatever you wanna call it. I forgot what it was called at that point. And then we were like, “Oh, amazing. This is a new market. Here is our infrastructure. Here's our product, and go.” And what we found really fast, soon, was that people did not like what we had built. It didn't work. And I remember talking to people at the beginning when we're doing this, the sandbox we're building for agents. People were like, “Oh, why is it different? It's the same thing. We have like EC2, we have VMs, we have all these things.” But we saw that everyone we gave it to, it was like 20, 30 people, they all said, “No.” Like, “This is not what we need. This sort of breaks.” And basically, me and my co-founder not knowing a lot about - ‘cause we're infra people. We're not AI people. So I basically took it upon myself to like watch every single podcast that exists, including all of, all of these and all that, and sort of get up to date, read all the blogs, like get, understand what's going on.Swyx [00:08:45]: Do you wanna shout out who else was useful, just in case people are also looking.Ivan [00:08:49]: Generally we -, I looked at There's a few of podcast, different segments and different types. So there's you guys, No Priors, Bill Gurley's was great while.Swyx [00:09:04]: VG2, yeah.Ivan [00:09:05]: Yeah, while it was around. So there's a few. 20VC is interesting from a different dynamic, and some are different dynamic. But there was, also Red Points.Swyx [00:09:14]: We're not really about the compute market.Ivan [00:09:15]: It was also already - Sorry?Swyx [00:09:16]: You're, you want - You're looking at the agent infra market.Ivan [00:09:19]: I was looking at the agent market and the AI market in general and sort of understanding who are the players, what the perception, and how that goes. And like obviously you complement this with like going to conferences, going to events, going to meetups, reading white papers, like doing all the things that you have to do to understand what's happening. And so when we figured, when we sort of had an idea of what we had to build, literally over the New Year's Eve, literally on New Year's Eve, I half vibe coded the first MVP, first minimal viable product of what Daytona is today. And I went to sleep at like 3:00 AM or something like that. I was doing - I just put my like baby daughter and wife to sleep and, Happy New Year's, and go back to just, doing this. And I sent it to my co-founder, my CTO, and he saw it in the morning. He's like, “This is absolute garbage.” “Do not show this to anybody at all, but the idea is good.” And so he took two weeks, and he rebuilt it.Swyx [00:10:09]: Did it like look like that? Listen, I - It was rough idea.Ivan [00:10:12]: Oh, not even, not even close. Like it was it was way worse. But it was like a very - It was a simplistic view of what it should be. Like, it worked, but it was not ideal. And so he went, we went down the whole, which is his job as CTO, to go, and he came back with this version. We then called all the people that had said like, “This is garbage,” a quarter ago. And we set up these calls, and we gave it to - We just demoed it to everyone. And all the calls went long, every single one. They were 15-minute calls, and they all went to like 25, 30 minutes or whatnot. And everyone said, “We need, we want access.” There was no login, just an API key, ‘cause it was just a beta or an alpha. And they said, “Oh, we want access.” And we're like, “Sure, yeah. Okay, thank you very much.” But after like the next day, if we'd not send it, every single one, like every call that we did, everyone came back, “Where is my API key?” Like everyone wanted it. We're like, “S**t.” Like this is it. Like I've never felt So one, the understanding to your point was like most people thought it was the same infrastructure for humans and agents. We understood a quarter ago it's not. We just didn't know what was the right primitive. And then when we came, and we can talk about what that is, and we gave it to these people, I've never seen, I've never experienced - I've done multiple companies in my life. I've never experienced this, that people literally call you if you do not give them access. Like they want access right now. And so it's like, okay, they don't want this. the thing that they want doesn't seem to exist, or they have not found it, and they really want what we want. And then when we understood that we're onto something, and then when you think about the size of the market, like the market for human engineers and enterprise is a very large market, so think GitLab or whatnot. But the market for every single agent that will exist ever in the future is just like, what is that market? How big is that? And we're like, “We are all in on this.” And so that is where we made sort of the cut between the old product and the new one.Bare Metal, Stateful Sandboxes, and the Lambda + EC2 ModelSwyx [00:12:02]: Yeah. But it wasn't composable at the time?Ivan [00:12:05]: It was very - It was basically just a Linux box that you could change, that you could define number of CPUs, disk, and RAM. Like that is what you could do, but you couldn't have multiple operating systems, you couldn't resize it on the fly, you couldn't add a GPU, you couldn't do like all the things. It was just the, just the first sort of variation of that, yeah.Swyx [00:12:22]: Was it bare metal from the start?Ivan [00:12:24]: It was bare metal from the start. And so the interesting thing that we thought about right away, so our.Swyx [00:12:29]: Which, give people the background, what is the normal path?Ivan [00:12:32]: Yeah, so, basically most providers run this on top of VMs. And also.Swyx [00:12:37]: Firecracker.Ivan [00:12:38]: Yeah, they run on Firecracker and VM. And so we also fire - We can get - We have multiple isolation layers and we can do that. But the common way to do it is that they, one, that the state of the machine, or the hard disk is not part of the sandbox itself. And the other thing is they're not meant to last forever. So most of them are preemptible, like they can There's a time that they can live. And so our thought was when we were going into this is, agents will be like humans in the sense of you don't want your laptop to be shut down until you're done with work. Like, and you want to close the lid and open the lid, it's the same state. So you - Agents would want that, like the pause and come back. They want those two things. But also agents really want speed, right? Can they get it? So when we thought about it's like we need something insanely fast, how to make it fast, how to make it long-running, and stateful. And so those two things, it's like combining a Lambda and an EC2, right? Those two things together. And so we didn't have an idea how others did it, ‘cause we didn't know too that there was a market around this. It was more like, okay, this is what we need, what they need. And we looked at Kubernetes, it wasn't wasn't good enough for that. We looked at Nomad, it didn't enable that. And so our history in rewriting our own scheduler at CodeAnywhere is basically what my CTO came up with. Like, he's like, “Oh, the learnings from there,” and he brought it. And the funny thing is, our third co-founder, when he saw it, he's like, “Dude, what is this? This is like 2008.” Like, we went back in time, and he's like, “Exactly.” And so the reason why Daytona is like super fast, and you see this on benchmarks, is we essentially, we run on bare metal. We have our own scheduler, we use the underlying, disk, CPU, and RAM of the underlying machine, which means your IOPS are insanely fast because there's no, there's no network between an EBS or something like that. But also the snapshot, the point in time, the templates, are also preloaded on the bare metal machines. So when you fire off a sandbox from a template or a snapshot, you're essentially directed to the bare metal machine where that snapshot is based on that NVMe drive, and then it literally just turns on that machine, and it's local. There's no network latency, anything on there. And so that is sort of the specificities that we, when we're thinking from first principles, what a computer would look like for an agent, that is what we came up with, and that's what we created.Benchmarks, 60ms Startup, and 50,000 SandboxesSwyx [00:15:02]: Yeah. I should maybe, I don't know if you endorse this, but there's someone that does compute SDK, you guys do very well on there, with like the TTI, right? I. is this a, is this a is this a relevant benchmark for you guys? I don't know.Ivan [00:15:16]: I don't know, and it changes every day. So today RKL is.Swyx [00:15:18]: I don't know what RKL is. Never heard of it.Ivan [00:15:20]: Yeah. RK, yeah, so it is there.Swyx [00:15:22]: You are, at least a third of the next tier of performance, and then, there's a lot of other better-known names that are very slow to start.Ivan [00:15:31]: Yeah. We've been the number one by far for a long time, and now there's different, there's different definitions also of sandboxes, different isolation patterns, different other things. So RKL runs it literally on the S3, the data, so it's very different, and they spin up a sandbox, spin up a container for that, so it's a different type of thing. So the definition of a sandbox is something that we can all, we all need to get along with. But yeah, we're insanely fast on getting these things, up and running. And so you can see even there that it's a zero point 0.10 to 0.11, so.Swyx [00:16:03]: Close enough. Yeah. what else do you need, right?Ivan [00:16:05]: Yeah. So the benchmarks itself, so, in this, in I don't think the benchmarks equate to market ownership or revenue or anything like that. and I've seen this with multiple benchmarks, not just in sandboxes, but in general benchmarks around.Swyx [00:16:20]: It's table stakes. It's just like.Ivan [00:16:21]: Exactly. But it doesn't hurt.Swyx [00:16:22]: Just roughly check.Ivan [00:16:22]: Like you definitely have to be up there and you have to be competing so that people know that, oh, this is definitely one of the top. Because this is only one dimension of what customers look for. There's other things like how many can you spin up consecutively? There's a feature set, there's support, there's like all different things that people look at, but you definitely have to be there, on the benchmarks.Swyx [00:16:40]: How many people do people spin up consecutively?Ivan [00:16:43]: So we have.Swyx [00:16:43]: Or concurrently, is the Concurrency, right?Ivan [00:16:45]: There's three metrics that we look at. And so one is like time to spin up one, and so our time to spin up one is 60 milliseconds with network latency. So request, spin up, reply, 60, the whole thing, 60 milliseconds. That is one. But if you wanna spin up 50,000 at once, we are now at about 75 seconds. So it takes about 75 seconds to spin up concurrently 50,000. Some others, there's public data around this, like take 2,000 seconds, which is 30 minutes. Like there's different variations of that. And then there is the so it is speed of one, speed of like multiple, and then how many can you consistently have up and running. And so we basically have right now no limit to how much we can add because we basically own our own metal. But the biggest customer of ours does like about 850,000 every single day is sort of where they're, where they're just shy of a million every single day that they're running, we do have a request for half a million concurrent, which is literally half a million CPUs somewhere running. So that's an interesting.Swyx [00:17:44]: They pay by like vCPU seconds.Ivan [00:17:47]: By seconds, yeah.Swyx [00:17:47]: Or whatever. Yeah. Okay, and so and then, and the other thing is, the sleeping and the resuming, ‘cause it's all the stateful resumption of all these things, how, what kind of workload are people putting through this, right? Like how is it Do we measure by gigabytes in memory, gigabytes in storage? I don't In like network attached storage. I, what are the costly ones of, out of all these features?Workload Economics: CPU, RAM, Network, and StorageIvan [00:18:15]: The most expensive thing are CPU.Swyx [00:18:18]: Okay. Yeah, of course.Ivan [00:18:18]: The second one, yeah Then it's RAM, then it's disk. We actually don't charge.Swyx [00:18:22]: Which is snapshotting, right?Ivan [00:18:23]: No, it's actually the, snapshotting's part of it, but basically the size of your hard disk, of your machine. So do you have 10 gigabytes, do you have 20, do you have 50, do you have whatever? And then the transference of that. Right now, currently we don't charge for, network at all at Polychron.Swyx [00:18:37]: Oh, you gotta, yeah, you gotta fix.Ivan [00:18:38]: Yeah. It is very much a it's a larger and larger part of our bill, so we're working around, that part there. Obviously, that is the least, expensive, so the hard disk is the least expensive, so it's basically CPU, RAM, for us network, ‘cause we don't charge the customer, and then hard disk, is how it's split up. But there's also different types of workloads, so we basically split it up into two types of workloads in Daytona. One is what we call background agents or long-running agents. and the other is, basically RLs and evals, which I put sort of together. And so they have very different patterns of usage, and if you look at the usage of a background And I'll just name names of companies, not specifically.Background Agents vs. RL/Evals: Two Usage ShapesSwyx [00:19:21]: Yeah, open, all hands.Ivan [00:19:23]: Yeah. So like a background agent's a Cognition, a Lovable, a like all these things are Harvey. These are all long-running, background agents. And so if you look at their usage patterns, their usage patterns are similar to human, which is like follow the sun. Basically, the usage patterns of that is like noon is probably the highest, and the midnight is the lowest, and then weekends are lower. weekday is higher.Swyx [00:19:42]: Yeah, that's a fun question. How global is it? Is it very US-centric or?Ivan [00:19:46]: The US is a large part, but we have currently, we have Asia, Europe, and the US regions.Swyx [00:19:52]: So it's quite global.Ivan [00:19:53]: Yeah, it's quite global. We have it all over. It's interesting that our I talked to you a bit about this. Our number one city by user.Swyx [00:20:01]: Hmm.Ivan [00:20:02]: Is Singapore.Swyx [00:20:04]: Oh, wow. Amazing.Ivan [00:20:05]: Which is an interesting one, right? Not by revenue, just by just like by individual head count.Swyx [00:20:09]: Really?Ivan [00:20:09]: Just like an interesting thing.Swyx [00:20:10]: Singapore is, Singapore is weirdly high in the adoption charts of AI for the population. It's like an, seven, eight million population. And it's like keeps showing up.Ivan [00:20:20]: No, it's quite interesting. We were quite shocked, and I was like, “Oh, this is interesting.” And also one that's up there.Swyx [00:20:24]: There's a reason I'm doing AI using Singapore. it's because I'm from there.Ivan [00:20:27]: We're there. We're gonna, we're gonna be there as well. and it's interesting that Japan is in the top or like Tokyo's in the top, which is in all the tech cycles it has never been. It has never been, so it's quite interesting that they're.Swyx [00:20:39]: I think the Japanese just love AI. Yeah. It's that, and then it's Brazil. That's it.Ivan [00:20:44]: Brazil has always been in.Swyx [00:20:45]: I think.Ivan [00:20:46]: Even when I look, if you look at like GitHub's data and ask historically with CodeAnywhere, it was always like US, Western Europe, and then you'd have like India, Brazil, China, like that would be there. But like Singapore was not in, specifically Japan was never in sort of that top, that top.Swyx [00:21:01]: Yeah. Weird pockets.Ivan [00:21:01]: Weird. Yeah, so it's very global.Swyx [00:21:02]: Okay, so actually that, but that's helps you to distribute your load through, all time?Ivan [00:21:08]: The interesting thing is like we have those kind of loads, but if you look at the researcher loads, they're quite different. So what they are is like if you give them concurrency of 10,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 CPUs at ARMb, when they fire off a run, it's just 100%. And then it just runs, and then it stops. So it's very, the usage pattern is squares basically, right? And it's also not follow the sun, because people will fire it off at midnight before they go to sleep but then wake up and so it's very unpredictable, so you don't know where that is. So the shapes of the usage are quite different than we have had before. And also what's interesting is when it's sort of a follow the sun, even if you have a high growth company, you can sort of predict your usage patterns and have enough capacity for that, because it's sort of, it grows in a, in a way you can project. When you have companies doing sort of like evals and RL, they're super spiky. So they're gonna come in, it's like, “We're gonna use nothing, then can we have 100,000?” Right? And then go back down. And then 100,000, go back down. So it's very different, right? And.Swyx [00:22:09]: Do you want to lock them into commits so.Ivan [00:22:11]: Yeah, we do.Swyx [00:22:12]: Yeah, okay.Ivan [00:22:12]: We so we have to lock them into some sort of commits to have that capacity, because we have to have, basically we have to have the capacity for peak. Right? And so right now, Daytona's mean utilization is 15%, 1-5.Swyx [00:22:25]: Oh my God.Ivan [00:22:26]: So it's very low.Swyx [00:22:27]: Because it's very spiky.Ivan [00:22:27]: It's very spiky, but we get up to 90%. so we have these things. And so what we're, what we're looking at right now as a company is similar to Cloudflare where you can like geo move things around, but that works really well for basically the background agent where it's follow the sun. But this, it's not. Like it's a very different shape. Obviously with scale you figure these things out, but that's an interesting new problem that we have, as a compute provider in the agent space. And when we were doing the conference recently, and so we talked to like Nikita from Neon and.Swyx [00:22:57]: I should bring it up.Ivan [00:22:58]: Parag from Parallel and whatnot, everyone has the same problem. Whereas the usage is super spiky, and this is something that has not happened before, that you have these types of like it was always, it the amplitudes were not this high, right? So it's quite interesting use case and problem solve.Compute Conference and Spiky Agent InfrastructureSwyx [00:23:12]: Yeah, I don't know if we're gonna bring this up again, but let's just talk about the conference, you had like 1,000 something people at the Warriors game, at the Sorry, where is it? What's.Ivan [00:23:22]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Ivan [00:23:23]: Chase Center.Swyx [00:23:24]: I went. It was, it was very impressive. Obviously, you can, how to throw a conference, what did you learn? you put, you pulled together all these impressive names.Ivan [00:23:33]: What I.Swyx [00:23:34]: What were you looking for?Ivan [00:23:35]: My thesis behind the Compute Conference was let's bring together people that are building infrastructure for AI agents. Because when I think of what we're building, it is the agent is the primary user, what are the ergonomics and usage patterns of agents, and so we can do that. And what I found, this was a theory, it wasn't proven, is that we all have these problems, as I touched onto. And I was, as I was talking on stage, it was like we all have the same underlying infra problems, which is this spiky workloads, unpredictable workloads that we've never had before, in human, compute or human infrastructure. And it's, again, it's the same when I was talking to Parag or when I was talking.Swyx [00:24:20]: Lynn. Nikita.Ivan [00:24:21]: Lynn, Nikita. Lynn especially, I was talking to her the other day as well. Like the It is a very interesting type of problem to solve because I can touch on Cloudflare because there's a lot of like talk about that recently as to how they solve that, which is they have a bunch of geos, and basically, as users work in different places, and depending on your tier, they can move you around the geos. And so that how, that's how they get the higher utilization. But you can sort of predict these, and it's If it's something in You'll rarely get a spike that is 10 orders of magnitude. Like you'll get a like let's say one of your customers has some like an exponential curve. What is that to I'm using Cloudflare as an example. 10%, 20%, whatever it is. I don't, I don't have this data, I'm just assessing. It's surely not 10x, right? It's surely not something there. And so how do you go out and solve this problem? And we're all solving this in different ways. So we have.Swyx [00:25:11]: She also has the same thing.Ivan [00:25:12]: Yeah, I know specifically that like Neon had that issue as well. Like how are we solving these spiky loads and things like that ‘cause we talked about it. And so the interesting thing for me to actually internalize was, yes, everyone that's building for agents first is going through this, and we're all solving similar problems, which is quite.Swyx [00:25:28]: Let me let me double-click on this. Okay. So for example, Neon, I happen to know that they're very sort of S3 oriented, right? so they're just like fully bet on S3. And you get to benefit from S3's distribution and infrastructure. So I would imagine that Neon doesn't have to care, whereas Lynn maybe has to care a bit more because obviously she's doing GPU inference. And, for listeners, we did an episode with her, one and a half years ago. And you have to care. But like, right?Ivan [00:25:54]: Parag cares for sure, and Nikita.Swyx [00:25:58]: And Parag is C of, Parallel.Ivan [00:25:59]: Parallel, yeah.Swyx [00:26:00]: Former CTO of Twitter.Ivan [00:26:01]: Twitter, yeah.Swyx [00:26:02]: They are the search.Ivan [00:26:03]: Yeah, they're search, yeah.Swyx [00:26:03]: I You and I know but the listeners don't know.Ivan [00:26:08]: Yeah, we can put it down in the screen, and so ‘cause we, when we were talking.Swyx [00:26:11]: I'll put it up on the, on the screen.Ivan [00:26:12]: Yeah, right.Swyx [00:26:12]: People can look it up if they need.Ivan [00:26:14]: Look it up. And, yes, but they still have CPU and RAM, allocation that you have to have up and running. And so CPU and RAM, you have to allocate that and have that ready. And so there's basically two ways to do it. One is you either over-provision and you can handle the bursts, or two, you basically have, I don't know if this is a term, just-in-time compute, which is like as your load becomes, as your usage comes in, you can fire off requests for VMs or bare metals at other cloud providers and then get them up and running.Swyx [00:26:43]: This is if you go above 100%, right?Ivan [00:26:45]: Yeah, this is.Swyx [00:26:46]: Like your overflow.Ivan [00:26:46]: If your overflow, like spillage or whatever you do.Swyx [00:26:48]: You probably lose money on it, but it doesn't matter, right?Ivan [00:26:50]: It, not Well, you might, you might not That is a more cost-effective way to do it but it's a slower way to do it. Because basically what you have to do is you have to like queue your requests, spin up these just-in-time compute, get it all ready, provision it, and then get your workload there. And so if the time isn't important that much, that's fine, and you can do that. But if your customer, and especially for, let's say, the RL training runs, the reason why a lot of people come to us is because GPUs are more expensive than CPUs, right? So you want your GPU running at, what, 100% the entire time. And so when you're running runs on CPUs, when the when the CPU cycle is like down and spinning up the next one, you want that to be instantaneous so that your GPU doesn't go down, right? And if you then have to like go out and provision machines, you're essentially telling the GPU that it has to wait, and that's incurring our cost. So there's things that you have to try to solve for there.RL Workloads, Declarative Images, and Kubernetes ReplacementSwyx [00:27:43]: Yeah, let's talk about the different workload, right? You said that, what was it? A few months ago, you had zero RL workload and now it's 50%.Ivan [00:27:52]: It will be this one, 50%, yeah.Swyx [00:27:54]: Let's talk about how different it is, right? Like I imagine, for example, a lot less dynamic code generation of like arbitrary code. Like here, it's probably all the same code. You're just doing parallel runs or something, I don't know.Ivan [00:28:05]: Yeah. So you'll have multiple Depends on the like for each run, you'll have a snapshot. And they, for the most part, they actually do use our declarative image builder, which is like, “Oh, we, the agent wants these dependencies, these env vars.”Swyx [00:28:17]: These ones, yeah.Ivan [00:28:18]: Yeah, the declarative image builder, it.Swyx [00:28:20]: Which is a very modal like thing that they.Ivan [00:28:22]: Yeah. And so we build it on the fly and then we propagate that snapshot, and you can spin up as many sandboxes as you want against that snapshot. And then if you have to do changes, the model can, or like it could be also be automated. It's like, “Oh, now for the next run, we need to install these things or remove these things or whatever to get, a task done,” and then it goes off and runs that. So yes, that is something that it seems that they prefer. The number one reason I found, or should I say, let's take a step back. What we are competing against in that environment is essentially managed Kubernetes. So EKS, GKE, whatever. That is what the vast majority run on. And anyone that has tried Daytona versus GKE, EKS is like, “I'm never going back.” That has always been. There's a few reasons. One is the ergonomics. So if you have, if you're using Kubernetes to spin that up, you have to essentially manage the interface interactions with that. Daytona, although as a compute provider, it's more akin to a Twilio and Stripe from a consumption perspective than it is an AWS. Like you have an API, an SDK, it's quite like easy and seamless to get these things up and running, that's one. The other is the speed to which we spin up, which we mentioned earlier, which is much faster, and the scale to which we can go to. We haven't got into features, but an interesting feature is that it's very hard to OOM, or out of memory, our sandboxes, because we can dynamically on the fly.Swyx [00:29:48]: Resize.Ivan [00:29:49]: Resize, which is like impossible on almost any other thing. There are some technologies that enable you to do that, but it's like a very hard thing. And so we actually saw this when, the Terminal Revenge team is, brought us actually. So thank you, Alex and the team, that brought us into this whole space.Swyx [00:30:05]: It's just very rare that, a framework would just say, “Guys, just use Daytona.”Ivan [00:30:11]: Yeah, I think it says it somewhere. Yeah.Swyx [00:30:13]: Yeah. I was like, “What is this?”Ivan [00:30:15]: There's all, there's multiple there, but they also mention a few other places. and so Daytona specifically-We have, the, just jumping on themes here We, I don't know where it says Data Center.Swyx [00:30:27]: I, there.Ivan [00:30:27]: Doesn't matter.Swyx [00:30:28]: There's a very strong recommendation, which is, very unusual. Which is, it's.Ivan [00:30:33]: We do not pay them for this, just.Swyx [00:30:34]: I know, yeah. They just like you.Ivan [00:30:35]: Yeah, they like us. yeah, and also a thing, so, Data Center has multiple isolation sets underneath. The customer doesn't have to know what they are. But basically we have Docker, which is a container, that's hardened with Sysbox. So it's Docker's, isolation that is a security equivalent to a VM, but it's still a container. And that is the default, and they, especially in these training workloads, really like that as an interface to be able to use just a basic Docker container, and we enable Docker and Docker. Which for these RL runs, if you need to do a Docker compose or Kubernetes, you can spin up a K3S inside of these things, which unlocks a huge amount of workloads that you can do that you cannot do on other providers. So just on that part is much more interesting. And so we went that, through that. We showed them that we could do that, and they enjoyed that quite a bit. They being the general venture people.Swyx [00:31:28]: Those people, yeah.Ivan [00:31:29]: And Harbor people.Swyx [00:31:29]: Harbor people, do are they, are they a company yet?Ivan [00:31:33]: As far, I do not know.Customer Pull, Slack Connect, and the Computer Use BetSwyx [00:31:35]: Okay. All right. Yeah. It's like super obvious that like, there's a lot of excitement and success around these things, okay, so yeah, tell us more, right? Like, this is an exploding workload, Harbor adopted you, which helped speed things along. But what are you learning as this new workload comes online?Ivan [00:31:53]: There's a couple things that we learned, which we chat about in the beginning. We, and this has led our story, as we mentioned, we like talked to a lot of customers along the way, and we add more features and more tool sets as we talk to customers. And it's interesting that And I think it's that the ecosystem is so small and/or the models get smarter, where when we see one user come with a request, we know it goes on a roadmap if like three to five customers come with the same request in that week. It's like very bizarre. It happens so many times, which is.Swyx [00:32:27]: Because they're all friends.Ivan [00:32:28]: Sorry?Swyx [00:32:28]: They all, they're all friends. They're all in the same group chat.Ivan [00:32:30]: Yeah, probably, yeah. ‘Cause and they're like, “Oh, can you do this?” And I'm like, “Okay, this is interesting. We'll put it on a feature request.” And then the next one's like, “Oh, can you do this?” “Okay.” It's all the same, right? It's always the same. And so what we try to do, and I personally try to do, I try to be on as many call, quote-unquote “sales calls” I can. I'm in every Slack channel. We literally have about 1,000 Slack Connect channels, something like that. It's an interesting, there's so many interesting things you find out when you have all the Slack channels. You can also see where people, transfer between companies. You see leave Slack channel, enter Slack channel. It's an interesting thing. Also, just I digress, I feel that Slack Connect is literally LinkedIn what it should be. You have a list.Swyx [00:33:08]: LinkedIn charges you to, use your own connections, but Slack doesn't, right? Slack is like, do it for free. It's more lock-in. It's great.Ivan [00:33:15]: Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. It's one of the reasons.Swyx [00:33:17]: You're gonna pay Slack for life.Ivan [00:33:18]: Exactly. You're there for life. So that's interesting. And so one of the things, the newer things we were talking about earlier is we made a big bet and put a lot of investment on computer use. that is not seen publicly the light of day. We haven't GA'd that yet, but we have.Swyx [00:33:32]: Is there a thing I can pull up?Ivan [00:33:33]: There is computer use there. It's right up a bit.Swyx [00:33:36]: Oh, yeah. Okay.Ivan [00:33:38]: What we have, what we talked about and what we've seen publicly is there's this theme now about, the human emulator where And Elon from XAI has talked about this publicly, and if you think about the models today, they're actually quite sophisticated and they can do a lot of work, but they still don't have access to all the tools. Like, I'm a strong believer that the most efficient way for an agent to work is essentially headless or through, terminal or whatnot. But if we, if we look at knowledge work in general, there's about 100 million knowledge workers in the US, about a billion in the world, and knowledge workers, and the salaries of them aggregate to 10 trillion in the US 50 trillion worldwide.Swyx [00:34:24]: Wow.Ivan [00:34:25]: Something like that. And if we look at, the five most important sectors of that, so like healthcare and government and financial services and whatnot, that's about 56% of that. So let's say it's about half of that. So in the US it's about 25 trillion, and most of them, most of that work is actually still locked into legacy apps inside of Windows, which is not going anywhere for a very long time. Like, people just won't invest in that. How much of it? our assumption is the following: if, in the RPA market, which is similar market, well, not the same 25% of, these white collar, workers', work is automated. If an agent is more sophisticated, can go through more runs, figure stuff out, let's say it's, 40%, right? And so if you take 40% of that, you get to essentially, $10 trillion a year.Swyx [00:35:17]: That's a TAM.Ivan [00:35:18]: That is a that is a TAM. So that's the TAM of the models, right? That's not our, essentially ours. But you get to that size, and to be able to do that, you essentially have to give agents these computers with the legacy. So computer use, either Mac or Windows or Linux. Linux we also obviously have and others have. But Windows specifically is something very new, and the only option right now is an EC2 with, Windows or on Azure. Both of them take anywhere from three to five minutes to spin up. We've created an actual sandbox, so it's a second instead of milliseconds, but you have, point in time snapshots, you have, forking, you have all the things that you have from a sandbox, but essentially enables you to hopefully unlock all this value. And so that's been our big push and bet, but we've sort of, kept our ear to the ground. What is sort of the next things in the market?RPA Returns: Why Agents Still Need ComputersSwyx [00:36:06]: Yeah, knowledge work, and building, and sort of RPA, the next wave of RPA. I got very excited about RPA kind of during COVID times. The UI path was IPO-ing. And it was, a very hot Isn't it, Eastern European?Ivan [00:36:20]: It is, Romanian.Swyx [00:36:21]: Romanian?Yeah, it might be the only Romanian, big unicorn okay, yeah. This I don't I don't, I don't have like a I think there's, I think there's a stage being set for the resurgence of RPA, ‘cause everyone understands that, yeah, no one wants to deal with these shitty apps and no one's gonna rewrite them. Like, you just have to do, a remote operation and programmatic operation of them.Ivan [00:36:45]: If you wanna unlock it, my own setup was basically the following. So I was doing a board deck recently, last month, whatever, and I'm like, “Okay, let's just, let's just do automated.” So, all our data's in, ClickHouse and PostHog and QuickBooks, where everyone else's is, and I'm basically, connected that all to, my Cloud code, like go off and go Cloud code whatever. Go off and, here's the integrations, go do that. It pulled out the first report, which was great. It connected to Brex and all these things, pulled it, which was great, and then I say, “Okay, now pull out this, and this,” and I kept getting, really well McKinsey-style design reports, but the data said partial data. all the missing data, partial data. Like, it can't access all the things, and I got so frustrated, and so I got, I got, my Mac Mini virtual sandbox with OpenClaw. I gave it its own account in our company, and then I went to all these services and created a read-only account, so literally like an intern in your company. And so I would say, “Now go and do this report,” and it would get the same, or like, “I can't via the MCP or the API or whatever. I can't get all the information.” I'm like, “Go log in.” And it will log into the website, then go in, export the data. It'll export the data and do the thing end to end. So even for things that have today APIs, not all of it is exposed, and I to get value, I get immense value right now, but it has to be a computer usage, unfortunately, and so I spend a bunch of tokens just on that, but I get the job done. And so if even a startup like ours, and using all the hottest tools, still needs a computer agent what hope does, Goldman have to have a headless, right?Swyx [00:38:22]: Yeah, what a - Why isn't Microsoft doing this?Ivan [00:38:27]: I'm pretty sure, Satya had a post yesterday.Swyx [00:38:29]: Oh, okay. I see.Ivan [00:38:29]: Which was like, “Every agent needs a computer.”Swyx [00:38:31]: I see, I see.Ivan [00:38:32]: So they have launched something recently.Swyx [00:38:34]: Yeah, they have Microsoft Power Automate, I'm sure, I'm sure, they're gonna have their version.macOS Sandboxes, Apple Constraints, and the Windows OpportunityIvan [00:38:39]: Version of that, yeah.Swyx [00:38:39]: You're gonna try to do yours, and it - I always know there's always demand for Mac, but I know it's, tricky to host, macOS sandboxes.Ivan [00:38:49]: We will have macOS sandboxes fairly soon. The problem with macOS, OS sandboxes is, I'm deep in this, I don't know how much interesting is.Swyx [00:38:55]: No, it's.Ivan [00:38:56]: MacOS has this problem.Swyx [00:38:57]: It's a licensing thing, right?Ivan [00:38:58]: Licensing thing. So one, you're allowed to run only two parallel VMs per machine, so that's one. Two, you can only license to a different user every 24 hours. So if you come in and theoretically, if I wanna charge you per second and I charge you one second, I have to have it idle for the rest of the day. I can't have anyone else doing that. So the pricing will be different in the sense that I will have to - we would have to charge for 24 hours, and that's not even, that's not even the most difficult thing. But the, thing above that is, from a security perspective, they enable you to do memory snapshot, pause, resume, but only on the same physical drive, physical machine. And so what you can do in, Windows world or Linux world is that I can move in the background, your snapshot from one to the other and manage load, right? Here, if you wanna do that, you essentially have to have your.Swyx [00:39:49]: Yeah, snapshots. Yeah.Ivan [00:39:50]: Your.Swyx [00:39:51]: It's like.Ivan [00:39:51]: Physical machine.Swyx [00:39:52]: You can't break it up.Ivan [00:39:53]: You can't, you can't move things around that, and all of that is, that part is, from a security standpoint, if it is written. Like, I understand the security aspect of that, but it disables you from doing these agentic, like really scalable agentic workloads.Swyx [00:40:08]: You need to do a vibe-coded, clean room implementation on macOS that you can then - That's like Clean OS or something. I don't know.Ivan [00:40:17]: So. We have.Swyx [00:40:18]: ‘cause like Linux was originally like a clean room rewrite of Unix.Ivan [00:40:21]: Okay. Yeah.Swyx [00:40:21]: Or something like that, right? Like same thing to macOS. Someone needs to do it.Ivan [00:40:25]: Someone will do that, and someone will have some long-running agents for a few days to figure this stuff out. But yeah. So definitely we - we're really close to offering something ‘cause people do want it, but the pricing will be different, and the feature set will be sort of stringent.Swyx [00:40:38]: Yeah, nobody's gonna use this. like, the labs, the labs will because they want to automate macOS.Ivan [00:40:42]: They have to do RL. They have to do RL again. But even if you The - So the point is with the RL part, if you, if you do RL on macOS, then the next iteration of the model comes out, it will be able to use these tools significantly. Then you actually need to run those, that somewhere. So you're gonna have to have that, later on. And from, if anyone at Apple is listening, I very much feel that they are shooting themselves in the foot of the scale of the revenue of compute or licensing they could get if they would just enable a concurrency model similar to what you can get on a Windows and a, and Linux.Swyx [00:41:17]: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure they've heard this before. They just don't care. Yeah, it's And maybe they will change their mind with the new CEO.Ivan [00:41:24]: Yeah. We'll see.Swyx [00:41:25]: We'll see.Ivan [00:41:25]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:26]: High hopes.Ivan [00:41:26]: High hopes.Swyx [00:41:27]: Okay. But I, it's very clear the market opportunity is huge in Windows, and you can go for a long time on just Windows, but your customers are gonna want both. and I think, it is interesting to me that, this is the sort of God application of agents, right? Like, I don't It was - How big was OpenClaw for you guys? Like, was it, was there, a significant bump.OpenClaw, Agent Labs, and the B2B2C Sandbox MarketIvan [00:41:54]: Not for us because we.Swyx [00:41:54]: Because you already.Ivan [00:41:55]: We're kind of positioned differently. Whereas although it's completely PLG and we have individual developers that use it, most of the users that use Daytona are sort of a B2B2C. Sort of it's either B2B or B2B2C. So, in the researcher world, it's B2B, so you're selling to, labs and neo labs and things like that. But on the long-running agents, it's mostly, from a scale revenue perspective, it's mostly B2B2C, where you have a app layer agent that uses you at a big scale.Swyx [00:42:26]: Like a Manus. Yeah.Ivan [00:42:28]: Like a Manus Lovable type of thing.Swyx [00:42:31]: Yeah. I think that's the question of, well how, um-Uh, yeah, B2B to C is basically to me what I've been calling an agent lab, which is kind of like you're not in a model lab, but you're making a very good wrapper that is a platform that other people can sign up so they don't have to code those things. Yeah, it sound, it sounds like a much better market than the direct OpenClaw market.Ivan [00:42:56]: I've like - We I've done multiple things. So the CodeAnywhere's part of our career path R in the calendar, was very much an end user developer product. And so that is great. It You can get a lot of developer love, and I feel that we do as a company have a bunch of developer love. But it's a different type, where it's people building these things. Again, it's more akin to a Twilio because you don't really run - As a person, you wouldn't run Twilio. I don't know how many people remember. It was like ask your developer billboard and whatnot. And people really love Twilio, but they only used it inside of like, “Oh, I'm building this app or service for thing.” And so we're very much directly to that. And you also know that I used to work for a competitor for Twilio, so it's kind of ingrained, in my DNA.Swyx [00:43:35]: People don't know InfoBip is that big.Ivan [00:43:38]: Yeah, it's.Swyx [00:43:39]: Because.Ivan [00:43:40]: It's a billion euro.Swyx [00:43:40]: They're all American. They're like, “Whatever's in Europe doesn't matter to me.” But like it's the, it's the same size or bigger? Same size?Ivan [00:43:46]: It's about half the size.Swyx [00:43:47]: Half the size?Ivan [00:43:48]: Yeah, about half the size.Swyx [00:43:48]: It's like, yeah.Ivan [00:43:48]: Still huge. Multiple billions a year. Yes.Swyx [00:43:51]: That's crazy.Ivan [00:43:51]: Exactly, and so that - These are like really interesting and large revenue-generating, very sticky businesses. Whereas when you're selling to the - When your focus is the end developer, it is a very hard sell because they're very price sensitive, very price conscious, very around that. And there's very It's very hard to scale. Your cap is the number of people that are willing to spin up - First of all, wanna spin that up, and then spin up multiple of these. Whereas if you're in the enterprise one, like we know everyone's talking about like how many tokens they're spending, I'm spending. Like a lot of companies today are like, “If this is our company, spend as much as you can.” Like basically that is where we're going. And so if you think about that paradigm, where you're selling to companies that say, “Spend as much as you can to generate, productivity,” versus, “Oh, I'm a single person. I have this much budget, and I'm doing this thing because it's fun or it's helping me out or whatever.” Like it is a different, it's a different go-to-market, I think, strategy.MCP, CLIs, and Sandboxes as the Agent RuntimeSwyx [00:44:50]: Yeah, there's a lot of discussion. I'm just kind of going through like the mental list of things that are in your favor, which is, for example, MCP versus CLI. Like obviously you want CLI. It's been very good for you. I feel like it's maybe a drop in the bucket or maybe it's huge. I'm just checking whether it's like these are big trends.Ivan [00:45:10]: Those things you - work well in our favor, to your point just because every.Swyx [00:45:13]: They're kind of drop in the bucket, right?Ivan [00:45:15]: I think it's like sort of all the things come together. And so there's so many things that impact that. To your point, like OpenClaw wasn't huge for us, but like having the agent SDK, from Anthropic, so or Cloud Claude Code was very interesting. The reason why it was interesting is that a lot of, let's call them app I don't know what to call them, app layer agent companies, essentially they are like, “Oh, I can create this new app, this new agent. All I need, I just use Claude Code, and I throw it into a sandbox, and then I have my interface to the human to that.” And so that enabled so many more companies to actually offer this, and then they would pull on sandbox. So that was, that was interesting. And to your point, like MCP, versus the CLI, the MCP is an interface against an API, whereas the CLI is like you can actually go do things. Like this is it. The difference between integrations and actually running scripts or data or analysis against a thing. So being able to use a CLI very well enables the agent to do more things, and it's because that people will invoke a sandbox, they'll run it in the CLI, and but it'll do anal-analysis on that data and then give you an actual result versus just, pulling data from an API source.Swyx [00:46:29]: Yeah, it's a layer of indirection basically, it's the same thing as agentic search versus RAG, which where you're.Ivan [00:46:34]: Exactly, yeah.Swyx [00:46:34]: Just like you just win whenever people put more agents into their workflow. And so like it doesn't really matter, but I'm just kinda teasing out like what else have people heard about that like it's sort of, “Oh yeah, this is another sandbox use case. Oh yeah, that's another one.” Am I, am I missing any big ones?Ivan [00:46:51]: The thing, the thing that people, which is the computer use stuff, which I think is probably the most interesting one, is, and to your point, we've talked to so many people over the last year. It's like, “Oh, like why do you need a sandbox? Why do you need this? Why this?” And to your point, it's like, “Oh, I need sandbox for this. I need sandbox for that. I need sandbox-” It's like, “Oh, I need it for every single thing.” And so basically what I, what I - and it sounds like a broken record, it's like you use a laptop every single day, right? And you are n of one. It's just you. But now imagine how And by the way, the laptop, the computer PC market, the PC market is about equal to the cloud market in total. So it's about 150, 180 billion a year. Something like that. It's about roughly the three cloud hyperscalers is about equal to like Apple, HP, Lenovo, whatever, It's a little bit less, but it's sort of like that. And now imagine And that's just like, so how big is the addressable market? What, how many people are there in the world now? What's the last data?Swyx [00:47:45]: Let's call it eight billion.Ivan [00:47:46]: Eight billion. And so let's say you can have two computer, like you have one personal and one business, whatever. Like so it's double that, right? and so that's 16 billion, right? How many agents are gonna be running in two years, in 10 years, in 100 years? Like And for every single task, they will need one of these. And so how big is that? That market is essentially quote unquote “infinite”. You will get to the point, and Dylan Patel was at the conference talking about, from SemiAnalysis, that talks usually about GPUs, was also talking about how CPUs will now be a bottleneck because it will be the constraint. You won't be able to grow, or we won't be able to have enough of these because there won't be enough CPUs to basically do.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. Well, I actually had a really good podcast with Doug Oliphant, who, which was his president at SemiAnalysis, where they've basically been like, yeah, it's been a GPU shortage first, but then it's cascaded down to memory and now to CPUs.Ivan [00:48:35]: CPU, yeah.Swyx [00:48:35]: It-What's next? So networking. So, networking actually has been in shortage for a while if you're looking at, just GPU networking. But, yeah, it's really crazy the amount of computer use that's going on, yeah, cool. I, other questions are, just the one very big part is the open sourceness which you didn't have to do, your competitors don't do, like it's not, a lot of people are worried about keeping their projects open source because some competitor can just slot fork it. I don't know if there's any reflections on just being an open source company.Open Source, Trust, and Enterprise ProcurementIvan [00:49:15]: Yeah. There's a bunch. So we the original product that we did was open source.Swyx [00:49:19]: Yeah. CodeAnywhere.Ivan [00:49:20]: So doing that was actually very good for us. There's basically a saying of, What's the saying? Like, companies that are, that are doing really well, measure themselves against, free cashflow, that are kinda okay, it's EBITDA, then, it's, it goes all the way down.Swyx [00:49:36]: The worst is like GitHub stars.Ivan [00:49:37]: GitHub stars. GitHub stars are the worst, yeah. So you go all the way down to GitHub stars. And so our original one was GitHub stars. That's what we talked about, we're at the point we're talking about revenue, so we're we've gone up the stack on that. And so we started.Swyx [00:49:47]: No, profit.Ivan [00:49:48]: Yeah. We haven't, we're, we'll get there. We'll get there. But basically at that point we did stars and GitHub and it was useful, and the original variation that we did, it we split the core into its own repo and it was Apache 2.0, so very, permissive. And then we basically would bundl

Once you've sold the licenses you are done. Right? Well, not so fast, young Jedi. While the salesperson happily turns around and goes hunting elsewhere, the customer has high expectations about the treatment they get after the sale.Even today I see organizations who treat Customer Success teams as an afterthought and then wonder why they see churn or nastygrams from their customers. But it doesn't have to be this way. We discuss this topic with Chad Stephen.Chad has led cross-functional teams of 65, scaled Customer Success orgs through 4x ARR growth, cut renewal process complexity by two thirds, and reduced time-to-value by 50% — more than once, at different companies ranging from early-stage to scaled SaaS, across industries from FinTech to HealthTech to Restaurant & Hospitality.In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:What is customer success, really? — The most important definition centers on one thing: driving value for clients. Renewals, onboarding, and account management are elements of CS, not the definition of it.The buyer vs. the end user — The person who signs the contract is rarely the one logging in every day. A good CS function speaks to both audiences and translates value into something meaningful for each.CS as a function, not just a job title — Customer success can be owned by a team, a role, or — dangerously — "everyone," which usually means no one. The discipline matters regardless of what you call it.The QBR trap — Quarterly business reviews that run 80 slides and double as sales pitches miss the point entirely. The best QBRs focus on the customer's problems, not the vendor's product roadmap.Proactive vs. reactive CS — Waiting for a customer to come to you with a problem is reactive. True proactive CS means monitoring usage metrics, NPS surveys, and engagement signals before a crisis happens.The relay race handoff — The baton cannot hit the floor between sales, professional services, and customer success. There must always be a clear, singular point of contact at every stage of the journey.When to involve CS in the sales cycle — CS should never be absent from a deal entirely, but timing matters. Bringing them in too early creates confusion; the right moment builds the bridge between "excited to sign" and "ready to succeed."The hunter vs. farmer problem — When account executives are compensated only for net-new deals, they make poor customer success managers. Misaligned incentives produce misaligned behavior.Compensation drives behavior — If you want your CS team to own renewals and upsells, you have to pay them for renewals and upsells. Comp plans and job expectations must align, or you get animosity and dropped balls.Start CS early — even at Series A — Smaller organizations often default to the AE managing the account post-sale. The sooner a dedicated CS function exists, the better. Stickiness in SaaS is decreasing, making the long-term relationship even more critical.Onboarding is the most critical phase — Getting a customer up and running quickly, with a clear understanding of the value they bought, sets the tone for the entire relationship. A poor start rarely fully recovers.Keep it simple — Over-engineered CS motions with 12 segmentation layers and elaborate playbooks often collapse under their own weight. Always ask: How does this actually drive more value for the customer?You can find Chad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadstephen/. And he has a website at https://www.doublewindconsulting.com/.Reach out by emailing hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or subscribe to our newsletter and articles on Substack at whatsyourbaseline.substack.com.

What makes a university—and its surrounding city—sticky?In this episode, David J. Staley explores a powerful concept shaping the future of higher education: stickiness—the ability of a college or university not only to attract students, but to inspire them to stay, build careers, and contribute to the region after graduation.Drawing on a recent consulting experience at a Midwestern university, Staley reflects on a familiar challenge: institutions successfully bring students in, only to watch them leave for opportunities elsewhere. He contrasts this with “sticky” ecosystems like Ohio State and Columbus, where a dynamic interplay between university strengths and regional opportunities encourages graduates to remain and thrive.The episode introduces the idea of a “stickiness index”—a framework for assessing how well institutions and cities retain talent. Factors include:Alignment between academic programs and local job marketsInternship and career pipelinesSocial connections and campus engagementQuality of life and affordabilityEntrepreneurial and innovation ecosystemsStaley argues that stickiness is not accidental—it requires a deliberate, collaborative strategy between universities, civic leaders, and employers. It also calls for a reimagining of alumni engagement, shifting from long-term connection-building to immediate post-graduation retention efforts.Importantly, he reframes the common narrative of “brain drain” as something more subtle: “brain leakage”—where talent is developed locally but gradually seeps away due to lack of opportunity or connection. For institutions facing enrollment pressures and questions about value, a focus on stickiness offers a compelling path forward—one that integrates enrollment, student experience, workforce development, and regional vitality into a unified strategy.

Download your free personalized $100M scaling roadmap in under 30 seconds: https://www.acquisition.com/roadmap?el=yt-alex-486r&htrafficsource=youtube Most struggling entrepreneurs are working hard in a bad business and don't even know it. In this episode, Alex breaks down the five structural advantages that separate businesses that compound from those that stall. No amount of hustle can fix a structurally bad business. Choosing the right industry does more work for founders than they'll ever do themselves.In this episode00:00 Stickiness: logo vs. net revenue retention03:50 Examples of sticky and non-sticky businesses07:32 Pricing for high gross margins09:41 Operating in expanding industries and markets11:21 Low operational complexity and low capital expenditure14:33 Building a moat with uniqueness, know-how, and brandingMore Value:Join The Live Scaling Workshop In Las Vegas: https://www.acquisition.com/o-vegas Download your free personalized $100M scaling roadmap in under 30 seconds: https://www.acquisition.com/roadmap?el=yt-alex-486r&htrafficsource=youtube Discover The Easiest Business I Can Help You Start (Free Trial): https://www.skool.com/hormozi Free Books and Video Courses: https://www.acquisition.com/training Get the $100M Book Bundle: https://shop.acquisition.com/pages/100m-book-bundle Follow Alex Hormozi's Socials:⁠⁠LinkedIn ⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠YouTube ⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Acquisition ⁠DISCLOSURE Information shared here is for educational purposes only. Individuals and business owners should evaluate their own business strategies, and identify any potential risks. The information shared here is not a guarantee of success. Your results may vary. Copyright © 2026.

Payments alone rarely make a software platform unforgettable. The moment merchants start using your product to access working capital, manage cash flow, move money through payouts, and keep reconciliation tight, the relationship changes. I sit down with Whitney Ganibegovic, Senior Sales Executive at Worldpay (now part of Global Payments), to unpack why embedded finance is quickly becoming one of the most practical drivers of retention, account growth, and long-term platform value for ISVs and software platforms.We get specific about what platforms still underestimate: embedded finance does not have to be a massive multi-year build with a new compliance team and a brand-new support motion. With the right partner infrastructure, platforms can add value-added financial tools while staying focused on the vertical software that made them successful. Whitney shares why expanding from embedded payments to a broader financial suite can increase customer lifetime value, lift revenue per merchant, and create real platform dependency because these tools plug directly into daily workflows.We also dig into where many rollouts go wrong. “Embedded” does not automatically mean adopted, so go-to-market timing, vertical nuance, and marketing automation matter. Whitney explains why working capital is often the simplest entry point, how payments data enables smart pre-qualification, and which metrics go beyond surface-level revenue: multi-product adoption, engagement, cash flow penetration, contribution margin, retention, and net revenue retention. The guiding image we keep coming back to is the “nonstop flight” experience: one login, one place to operate, fewer handoffs, less stress.If you care about embedded finance, fintech strategy, and building software platforms merchants cannot replace, listen now. 

What if the thing that holds your relationships together isn't chemistry, compatibility, or effort, but something far more powerful? In this opening message of The Glue, we uncover how God's grace, received by us, becomes the very force that can stabilize, restore, and strengthen our relationships. And if that's true…what would it look like for that grace to start showing up in your everyday life?

What if the thing that holds your relationships together isn't chemistry, compatibility, or effort, but something far more powerful? In this opening message of The Glue, we uncover how God's grace, received by us, becomes the very force that can stabilize, restore, and strengthen our relationships. And if that's true…what would it look like for that grace to start showing up in your everyday life?

Dr. Richard Davidson, PhD, is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a pioneer in the scientific study of meditation. We discuss how meditation changes your brain and body, how just 5 minutes daily can improve focus, stress resilience and your overall health, and we cover different types of meditation. We also address common myths such as the idea that meditation is to "clear your mind." And we discuss common challenges with meditation and how to overcome them. This episode offers both the science and the practical tools to build a consistent meditation practice to improve your mental and physical health and help you flourish. The episode show notes are available at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Joovv: https://joovv.com/huberman Waking Up: https://wakingup.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Richard "Richie" Davidson (00:03:33) States of Mind vs Traits (00:09:06) Wakeful Brain Activity vs Deep Sleep (00:11:55) Sponsors: David & Eight Sleep (00:14:31) Brain Activity Across Sleep, Wakefulness, Meditation & Insight (00:19:27) Mediation & Sleep Compensation?; Meditation Timing & Liminal States (00:23:05) Types of Mediation, Shifting from Thinking to Being (00:28:32) Self-Monitoring, Undistracted Non-Mediation, "Stickiness" (00:35:30) Tool: Beginning Daily Meditation, "Richie's 5 Meditation"; Health Benefits (00:39:39) Meditation Practice History, Kindness & Nurturing Goodness (00:45:07) Sponsor: AG1 (00:46:31) Beginners, Expect Chaos in Mind, Exercise & Lactate Analogy (00:52:47) Tool: Beginning Mediation, Embrace Anxiety; Meta-Awareness, Flow (00:57:51) Creativity; Capturing Thoughts, Unconscious Mind (01:03:03) Meditation for Kids; Flourishing, Tool: Parent & Teacher Meditation (01:10:12) Sponsor: Joovv (01:11:34) Beyond Stimulus & Response (01:14:22) Meditation Need; Gaining Insight Into Mind, Transcendence (01:18:00) Contemplating Death, Long-Term Meditation (01:21:33) Richie's Meditation Practice; Tools: Pairing Meditation, Appreciation Practice (01:26:07) Consistency, Balancing Discipline vs Surrender (01:29:52) Social Media & Validating Existence, Digital Hygiene (01:37:31) Meditation & Impulsivity; Discipline & "No Go's", Phone (01:42:08) Physical Discomfort & Pain During Meditation; Retreat Practice (01:46:50) Phone Detox, Self-Control (01:52:07) Sponsor: Waking Up (01:53:29) Overcoming Resistance, Making Peace With Your Mind (01:58:37) Meditation & Connectivity; Consistency, Prayer; Sleepiness; Meta-Awareness (02:05:49) Tools: Pillars of Flourishing; Appreciation Practice, Loving-Kindness Practice (02:15:39) Awareness & Insight, Tools: Outside View; Task Connection (02:19:43) Cultivating Flourishing, Familiarity with Resistance (02:25:23) Psychedelics, Guides, Clinical vs Non-Clinical Use (02:32:15) Neuromodulation & Meditation, Sleep; Tool: Pre-Sleep Meditation (02:37:25) Open Monitoring Meditation & Creativity (02:41:12) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Segment 1: Tom Gimbel, job expert and founder of LaSalle Network, joins John to talk about the ‘no hire, no fire’ work environment, the demise of remote work, the impact of AI on the economy and jobs, and how geopolitical uncertainty could be good for the labor market. Segment 2: Philippe Weiss, President, Seyfarth at Work, joins John to […]

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.Today's episode dives into how data and market structure are shaping private markets.We sat down in MSCI's New York office with Luke Flemmer, the Head of Private Assets at MSCI to discuss how standardization and normalization of data can help bring efficiency, transparency, and liquidity to private markets.Luke brings a unique perspective to private markets. He was previously Managing Director, Head of Digital Strategy for Alternative Investments at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and was Co-Founder and CEO of Lab49, a global solutions provider of investment and risk technology to asset managers and investment banks.When the ION Group acquired Lab49, Luke became Co-Head of ION's Capital Markets Division, delivering software and solutions to the group's global financial services customer base.Earlier in his career, Luke worked in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. He is a CFA charterholder.Luke and I had a fascinating conversation about private markets market structure and how MSCI is playing a role in driving standardization, normalization, and transparency of data in private markets. We covered:Parallels to market structure evolutions in equities, fixed income, FX, and derivatives.Tradeoffs of transparency for private markets participants.What it will take to build transparency and price formation in private markets.Where investors will still be able to find durable alpha.What standardization and normalization of data means for secondary markets.Analogies between Greek mythology and private markets.How secondaries has gone from a trade to a portfolio management tool.How index creation will impact private markets.Thanks Luke for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion at the intersection of private markets and market structure.Show Notes00:00 “Data Wants to be Free”00:28 Welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast01:02 Sponsor Spotlight: Ultimus Fund Solutions01:57 Private Markets, Data, and Market Structure02:17 Meet MSCI's Luke Flemmer04:26 From Robotics to Finance: Automation Needs Standardization05:18 Fixed Income's Transformation: From Trading Floors to E-Trading06:42 Connecting the Data Across the Lifecycle07:58 Harmonized Data → Transparency → Liquidity08:44 Scaling vs Information Asymmetry10:38 What More Transparency Does to Returns and Alpha11:15 Benchmarking Privates Like Publics: PMEs and Comparable Data12:35 Manager Skill and Illiquidity Premium14:14 Company-Level Data & Bilateral Origins16:19 The Ship of Theseus Parable and Should Privates Become Public?23:17 COVID, Denominator Effect, and LP Scrutiny23:50 The New Baseline for Private Funds24:15 Wealth Channel Tailwinds and the Rise of Active LP Portfolio Management25:23 Using Public Liquidity to Balance Private Illiquidity26:15 The 85/15 Public-Private Index: Why Blend Public Equity with Private Equity27:16 Daily Pricing Private Equity: Solving the “Stale Marks” Problem28:15 Smoothing, Stickiness and Forced Secondary Sales29:20 What Tech/Data You Need to Nowcast PE Daily (and What's Still Missing)30:31 Price Formation Feeding Better Indexes31:34 From Secondaries to Derivatives: Lessons from Fixed Income NAVs33:14 Building Trust in Private Benchmarks: Data Scale and Adoption Over Cycles33:53 Unlocking 401(k)s: What Must Be True for Wealth to Go Big in Privates37:05 Liquidity, Suitability, Risk & Factor Decomposition39:05 Durable Private Markets Alpha (and the Index Question)41:51 Standardizing the Language: Defining “Liquidity” and MSCI as the Connective Tissue (Wrap)A Word from Our Sponsor, Ultimus This episode of Alt Goes Mainstream is brought to you by Ultimus, the full-service fund administrator and transfer agent powering asset managers in private and public markets. As alts go mainstream, you need real expertise to handle complex fund structures, connect with key distribution partners, and handle sophisticated compliance, reporting, and transparency demands.That's Ultimus: high-tech, high-touch solutions for over 450 clients and 2,500 funds with $775B in assets under administration. Backed by an expert team of over 1,200 employees, they place client service at the core of their business, helping you navigate complexity during your fund structuring or launch and then supporting you through every stage of growth. Whether you're already in the market or thinking about entering private wealth, you can trust their team's deep expertise in retail alternatives to help you reach your goals.Learn more at ultimusfundsolutions.com or email info@ultimusfundsolutions.com.We thank Ultimus for their support of alts going mainstream.Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

We discuss the recent market dislocation where SaaS stocks are crashing while the broader market hits all-time highs. We break down the three main fears driving the sell-off and debate which companies—like Adobe and Salesforce—are actually at risk. Finally, we share how we are handling the volatility, with Jeff buying more Shopify and Jason using a "barbell strategy" to stay sane.02:27 Housekeeping03:53 Episode Setup06:37 Three AI Threats to SaaS: 09:23 Is AI Really Different? 12:59 Stock Spotlight: Adobe18:35 The Real Issue: Moats, Stickiness, Switching Costs, and Resetting SaaS Multiples23:18 LLMs Aren't Free23:49 Why SaaS Stocks Are Selling Off25:11 Shopify vs. Toast27:06 Disruption Timelines & Valuation Reratings29:19 Earnings Season as the Reality Check31:53 Tactical Moves: Selling Puts for Margin of Safety33:02 Barbell Portfolio Strategy: Growth on One Side, Dividends on the OtherCompanies mentioned: ABNB, ADBE, ASAN, CRM, CRWD, ENPH, EPR, MNDY, MSFT, NOW, O, PYPL, SHOP, SQ, TEAM, TOST, TTDFind where to listen & subscribe,  portfolio contests, and contact information at https://investingunscripted.com*****************************************To get 15% off any paid plan at fiscal.ai, visit https://fiscal.ai/unscriptedListen to the Chit Chat Stocks Podcast for discussions on stocks, financial markets, super investors, and more. Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube*****************************************Join our PatreonSubscribe to our portfolio on Savvy Trader

Is social media a distribution channel or the heartbeat of your brand? This week, we're joined by Eric Stark, co-founder of Slate and former NFL social leader, to unpack why most brands are fundamentally looking at social the wrong way. Eric dives into the transition from "posting for performance" to "creating for brand longevity," offering a masterclass in building creative workflows that empower teams rather than draining them. We explore how to maintain high-quality storytelling in an era of 3-second attention spans and why the "move fast and break things" mentality might actually be breaking your brand's reputation. Whether you're a solo creator or leading a massive department, Eric's "hill to die on" for 2026 will change how you view every piece of content in your library.Key Takeaways:// Social as Brand Identity: Why treating your social channels as a distribution arm for other departments is a mistake—and how to pivot back to brand-first marketing.// The "Stickiness" Factor: What separates the brands that own the cultural conversation from those that are just adding to the noise of the scroll.// Workflow = Quality: How optimizing your internal creative process actually yields better creative results, not just faster ones.// Short-Form Storytelling: Strategies for balancing the need for speed with the rising consumer expectation for high-production value and authentic narrative.Connect with Eric: LinkedInDiscover Slate: Website____Join the MHH Collective! The MHH Collective is a community for marketers and business owners to connect, ask real questions, and grow their careers together. Join for access to live Q&As with industry experts, a private Slack community, and ongoing resources: https://www.marketinghappyhr.com/mhh-collectiveSay hi! DM us on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - We can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join the MHH Collective: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest marketing trends, open jobs and MHH updates, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

My guest today is ⁠Gokul Rajaram⁠, Founding Partner at Marathon Management. Gokul is one of the most prolific product builders and investors of the last twenty years. He has built the core ad and product businesses at Google, Facebook, Square, and DoorDash, working at each company during its most formative scaling periods. Alongside his operating career, Gokul has invested in more than 700 companies, giving him an unusually broad view into how products are built and scaled. This conversation is about how product building is changing with AI. We discuss the one thing Gokul believes is truly future-proof in AI, why companies like Zendesk and Slack are more exposed than Salesforce or NetSuite, and the only sources of defensibility.  We also talk about everything Gokul has learned from helping build the most important ads businesses, including the only three ways an ad business can make money, how those constraints shape product decisions, and what consumer behavior change threatens every major platform. Gokul shares lessons from working closely with Larry and Sergey, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Tony Xu. Please enjoy my conversation with Gokul Rajaram. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Ramp's mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ramp.com/invest⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Vanta⁠. Trusted by thousands of businesses, Vanta continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit ⁠vanta.com/invest⁠.  ----- This episode is brought to you by ⁠Rogo⁠. Rogo is an AI-powered platform that automates accounts payable workflows, enabling finance teams to process invoices faster and with greater accuracy. Learn more at ⁠Rogo.ai/invest⁠. ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠ ⁠WorkOS⁠⁠. WorkOS is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit⁠ ⁠WorkOS.com⁠⁠ to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- This episode is brought to you by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ridgeline⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ridgelineapps.com⁠. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). Timestamps (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best (00:00:53) Meet Gokul Rajaram (00:02:05) How Product Development is Changing with AI (00:07:32) Philosophy of Product Management (00:10:19) What is Future-Proof in AI Era (00:11:25) Building AI Applications Today (00:15:03) Systems of Record vs Agent Companies (00:16:58) Which Legacy Software Companies Are Most Exposed (00:22:15) Stickiness in the AI Era (00:24:10) Learning from Larry Page and Sergey Brin (00:28:15) Learning from Mark Zuckerberg (00:31:31) Learning from Jack Dorsey (00:35:40) The Art of Great Product Design (00:36:49) Weekly CEO Communication (00:40:27) Three Ways to Succeed in Advertising (00:44:27) What Should Scare Major Ad Platforms (00:48:24) North Star Metrics (00:50:09) Self-Serve Products (00:54:50) Careers in the AI Era (00:59:03) Stay Long Enough to Have Impact (01:00:10) Founder Authenticity and Superpowers (01:02:21) Navigating the Idea Maze (01:03:42) Role of Boards (01:06:31) Excellence in Customer Acquisition  (01:09:11) The Kindest Thing 

After spending back-to-back VIP days with multiple multi-seven-figure leaders, Kelly noticed a powerful pattern: The businesses ready to scale fastest weren't missing strategy — they were missing identity. In today's episode, Kelly breaks down why backing up to the identity of your brand may be the most important move you make heading into 2026. In an economy where information is commoditized and AI is everywhere, the businesses that win are the ones that lead movements, not transactions. This episode will challenge you to rethink how you cast vision, create belonging, and build a brand people want to stay loyal to for years, and not just buy from once. In this episode, Kelly explores: Why logic alone no longer converts buyers (and, how movements outperform marketing tactics) The difference between customers who transact and customers who stick around How to create "stickiness" (and ultimately, lifetime value) through identity and conviction Why the heart and soul of your brand matter more than ever in 2026 TIMESTAMPS: 03:06 – 05:40 — What Kelly noticed after multiple VIP days with 7-figure CEOs 05:41 – 07:55 — Why growth stalls when identity isn't clear 07:56 – 10:20 — Logic vs. emotion: how people actually decide to buy 10:21 – 12:45 — Transactions vs. movements (and why LTV suffers) 12:46 – 15:05 — How identity creates brand "stickiness" 15:06 – 17:30 — Service-based businesses and the lost art of stewardship 17:31 – 18:55 — Why AI makes conviction and humanity non-negotiable RESOURCES: Grab your copy of Conviction Marketing: https://www.amazon.com/Conviction-Marketing-Kelly-Roach/dp/B09S259DWK Subscribe to Kelly's Substack channel: https://kellyroachofficial.substack.com/  Follow Kelly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellyroachofficial/  Follow Kelly on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.roach.520/   Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyroachint/ 

Gm! In this episode Jun Bug and kdot co-founders of BULK join us to discuss building a high-performance perpetuals exchange on Solana, testnet rollout plans, covering latency and reliability challenges, validator-based architecture, decentralization trade-offs and incentive structures. Enjoy! -- Follow Lightspeed: ⁠https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq⁠ Follow BULK: https://x.com/bulktrade Follow kdot: https://x.com/kdotcrypto?lang=en Follow Jun Bug: https://x.com/junbug_sol Follow Danny: https://x.com/defi_kay_ Join the Lightspeed Telegram: ⁠https://t.me/+QUl_ZOj2nMJlZTEx⁠ -- Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ -- Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:04) Why Perps Are So Hard to Build on Solana? (16:27) BULK's Testnet Launch (21:36) Incentives, Stickiness, and Long-Term Users (25:32) One Exchange, Infinite Market (35:38) Network Congestion and Perps on Solana (46:34) propAMMs in Perps Trading (58:16) Closing Comments -- Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Danny, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Welcome back to Snafu with Robin P. Zander. In this episode, I'm doing something a little different: I step into the guest seat for a conversation with one of my good friends, Andrew Bartlow, recorded for the People Leader Accelerator podcast alongside Jessica Yuen. We dive into storytelling, identity, and leadership — exploring how personal experiences shape professional influence. The conversation begins with a reflection on family and culture, from the Moroccan textiles behind me, made by my mother, to the influence of my father's environmental consulting work. These threads of personal history frame my lifelong fascination with storytelling, persuasion, and coalition-building. Andrew and Jessica guide the discussion through how storytelling intersects with professional growth. We cover how early experiences — like watching Lawrence of Arabia at a birthday sleepover — sparked curiosity about adventure, influence, and human connection, and how these interests evolved into a career focused on organizational storytelling and leadership. We explore practical frameworks, including my four-part story model (Setup → Change → Turning → Resolution) and the power of "twists" to create momentum and memorability. The episode also touches on authentic messaging, the role of vulnerability in leadership, and why practicing storytelling in everyday life—outside high-stakes moments—builds confidence and executive presence over time. Listeners will hear lessons from a lifetime of diverse experiences: running a café in the Mission District, collaborating with BJ Fogg on behavioral change, building Zander Media, and applying storytelling to align teams and organizations. We also discuss how authenticity and personal perspective remain a competitive advantage in an age of AI-generated content. If you're curious about how storytelling, practice, and presence intersect with leadership, persuasion, and influence, this episode is for you. And for more insights on human connection, organizational alignment, and the future of work, check out Snafu, my weekly newsletter on sales, persuasion, and storytelling here, and Responsive Conference, where we explore leadership, work, and organizational design here. Start (0:00) Storytelling & Identity Robin introduces Moroccan textiles behind him Made by his mother, longtime practicing artist Connects to Moroccan fiancée → double meaning of personal and cultural Reflection on family influence Father: environmental consulting firm Mother: artist Robin sees himself between their careers Early Fascination with Storytelling Childhood obsession with Morocco and Lawrence of Arabia Watched 4-hour movie at age 6–7 Fascinated by adventure, camels, storytelling, persuasion Early exposure shaped appreciation for coalition-building and influence Identity & Names Jess shares preference for "Jess" → casual familiarity Robin shares professional identity as "Xander" Highlights fluidity between personal and professional selves Childhood Experiences & Social Context Watching Lawrence of Arabia at birthday sleepover Friends uninterested → early social friction Andrew parallels with daughters and screen preferences Childhood experiences influence perception and engagement Professional Background & Storytelling Application Robin's long involvement with PeopleTech and People Leader Accelerator Created PLA website, branding, documented events Mixed pursuits: dance, media, café entrepreneurship Demonstrates applying skills across domains Collaboration with BJ Fogg → behavioral change expertise Storytelling as Connection and Alignment Robin: Storytelling pulls from personal domains and makes it relevant to others Purpose: foster connection → move together in same direction Executive relevance: coalition building, generating momentum, making the case for alignment Andrew: HR focus on connection, relationships, alignment, clarity Helps organizations move faster, "grease the wheels" for collaboration Robin's Credibility and Experience in Storytelling Key principle: practice storytelling more than listening Full-time entrepreneur for 15 years First business at age 5: selling pumpkins Organized neighborhood kids in scarecrow costumes to help sell Earned $500 → early lessons in coalition building and persuasion Gymnastics and acrobatics: love of movement → performance, discipline Café entrepreneurship: Robin's Cafe in Mission District, SF Started with 3 weeks' notice to feed conference attendees Housed within a dance studio → intersection of dance and behavioral change First experience managing full-time employees Learned the importance of storytelling for community building and growth Realized post-sale missed opportunity: storytelling could have amplified success Transition to Professional Storytelling (Zander Media) Lessons from cafe → focus on storytelling, messaging, content creation Founded Zander Media (2018) Distributed small team, specializes in narrative strategy and video production Works with venture-backed companies and HR teams to tell stories internally and externally Provides reps and depth in organizational storytelling Why Storytelling Matters for Organizations Connects people, fosters alignment Enables faster movement toward shared goals Storytelling as a "powerful form of connection" What Makes a Good Story Robin: frameworks exist, but ultimately humans want: Education, entertainment, attention Sustained attention (avoid drift to TikTok, distractions) Framework examples: Hero's Journey (Joseph Campbell) → 17 steps Dan Harmon's 8-part structure → simplified version of Hero's Journey Robin's preferred model: 4-part story structure (details/examples forthcoming) The Power of the Twist, and Organizational Storytelling Robin's Four-Part Story Model Core idea: stories work best when they follow a simple arc Setup → Change → Turning (twist/reveal) → Resolution Goal: not rigid frameworks, but momentum, surprise, payoff The "Turning" (Twist) as the Sticky Moment Pixar example via Steve Jobs and the iPod Nano Setup: Apple's dominance, market context, long build-up Choice point: Option A: just reveal the product Option B (chosen): pause + curiosity Turning: the "tiny jeans pocket" question Reveal: iPod Nano pulled from the pocket Effect: entertainment, disruption, memorability Key insight: The twist creates pause, delight, and attention This moment often determines whether a story is remembered Why Flat Stories Fail Example (uninspiring): "I ran a cafe → wanted more marketing → now I run Xander Media" Improved arc with turning: Ran a cafe → wanted to do more marketing → sold it on Craigslist → built Xander Media Lesson: A reveal or risk creates narrative energy The Four Parts in Practice Setup The world as it is (Bilbo in the Shire) Change Something disrupts the norm (Gandalf arrives) Turning Twist, reveal, or surprise (the One Ring) Resolution Payoff and return (Bilbo back to the Shire) How to Use This as a Leader Don't force stories into frameworks Look at stories you already tell Identify where a disruption, surprise, or reveal could live Coalition-building lens Stories should move people into shared momentum Excitement → flow → aligned action Storytelling Mediums for HR & Organizations Employer brand ≠ separate from company brand Should be co-owned by HR and marketing Brand clarity attracts the right people, repels the wrong ones Strong brands are defined by: Who they are Who they are not Who they're for and not for HR vs Marketing: The Nuance Collaboration works only if: HR leads on audience and truth Marketing supports execution, not control Risk: Marketing optimizes for customers, not employees HR understands attraction, retention, culture fit Storytelling at the Individual Level No one is "naturally" good or bad at storytelling It's reps, not talent Practical advice: Know your ~15 core stories (career, company, turning points) Practice pauses like a comedian Notice when people lean in Opinionated Messaging = Effective Messaging Internal storytelling should: Be clear and opinionated Repel as much as it attracts Avoid: Corporate vanilla Saying a lot without saying anything Truth + Aspirational Truth Marketing and storytelling are a mix of: What is actually true What the organization is becoming Being "30% more honest" builds trust Including flaws and tradeoffs Example: budget brands, Southwest, Apple's office-first culture Why This Works Opinions create personality Personality creates stickiness Stickiness creates memory, alignment, and momentum Authenticity as the last real advantage We're flooded with AI-generated content (video, writing, everything) Humans are extremely good at sensing what feels fake Inauthenticity is easier to spot than ever One of the few remaining advantages: Be true to the real story of the person or organization Not polished truth — actual truth What makes content feel "AI-ish" AI can generate volume fast Books, posts, stories in minutes What it can't replicate: Personal specificity Why a story matters to you What an experience felt like from the inside Lived moments Running a café Growing into leadership What lasts: Personal story lesson learned relevance to this reader relevance to this relationship What content will win long-term Vulnerability Not oversharing, but real experience Personal perspective Why this matters to me Relevance Why it should matter to you Outcome Entertainment Insight Shared direction The risk of vulnerability (it can backfire) Being personal doesn't guarantee buy-in Example: inspirational talk → employee openly disagrees Emotional deflation Self-doubt Early leadership lesson: You can do your best People will still push back Leadership at higher levels gets harder, not easier Bigger teams → higher stakes Better pay Benefits Real expectations First "real" leadership pain points: Bad hires Mismatched expectations Disgruntled exits Realization: Conflict isn't failure It's a sign you've leveled up "Mountains beyond mountains" Every new level comes with new challenges Entrepreneurship Executive leadership Organizational scale Reframe setbacks: Not proof you're failing Proof you're progressing Authenticity at the executive table Especially hard for HR leaders Often younger Often earlier in career Often underrepresented Anxiety is normal The table doesn't feel welcoming Strategy: Name it "This is new for me" "I'm still finding my voice" Own it Ask for feedback Speak anyway Authenticity ≠ no consequences Being honest can carry risk Not every organization wants change Hard truth: You can't change people who don't want to change Sometimes the right move is leaving Guiding advice: Find people who already want what you offer Help them move faster Vulnerability as a competitive advantage Almost any perceived weakness can be reframed New Nervous Different When named clearly: It builds trust It creates permission It signals confidence Getting better at storytelling (practical) It's not talent — it's reps Shyness → confidence through practice Start small Don't test stories when stakes are highest Practice specifics Your core stories Your pitch Energy matters Enthusiasm is underrated Tempo matters Pauses Slowing down Letting moments land Executive presence is built Incrementally Intentionally Practice, Progress, and Learning That Actually Sticks Measure growth against yourself, not "the best" The real comparison isn't to others It's who you were yesterday MrBeast idea: If you're not a little uncomfortable looking at your past work You're probably not improving fast enough Important distinction: Discomfort ≠ shame Shame isn't a useful motivator Progress shows up in hindsight Looking back at past work "I'd write that differently now" Not embarrassment — evidence of growth Example: Weekly newsletter Over time, clearer thinking Better writing Stronger perspective Executive presence is a practice, not a trait Storytelling Selling Persuasion Presence Core question: Are you deliberately practicing? Or just repeating the same behaviors? Practice doesn't have to happen at work Low-stakes environments count Family Friends Everyday conversations Example: Practicing a new language with a dog Safe Repetitive No pressure Life skills = leadership skills One of the hardest lessons: Stop trying to get people to do what they don't want to do Daily practice ground: Family dynamics Respecting boundaries Accepting reality These skills transfer directly to work Influence Communication Leadership Why practice outside of high-stakes moments When pressure is high You default to habits Practicing in everyday life: Builds muscle memory Makes high-stakes moments feel familiar How to learn (without overengineering it) Follow curiosity Pick a thread A name A book An idea Pull on it See where it leads Let it branch Learning isn't linear It's exploratory Learning through unexpected sources Example: Reading a biography Leads to understanding an era Context creates insight The subject matters less than: Genuine interest Sustained attention Career acceleration (simple, not flashy) Always keep learning Find what pulls you in Go deeper Press the gas Where to find Robin Ongoing work lives in: Snafu (weekly newsletter on sales, persuasion, and storytelling) https://joinsnafu.com  Responsive Conference (future of work, leadership, and org design) https://responsiveconference.com   

Sam, Asad, and AJ are back to debate the hard numbers shaping the GTM landscape in 2026. The consensus? The freeze is thawing, but the rules have changed. Sam predicts we've entered the "Year of the Deal." Investors are exhausted, founders are tired, and the market is finally ready to clear—even if that means restructuring cap tables to take the win and move on. Asad brings the sobering data on the "Great Concentration," revealing that almost half of venture capital went to a surprisingly small number of companies, while AJ argues that without a compelling AI narrative, traditional SaaS assets will face a brutal valuation ceiling.   Chapters: 00:36 Welcome to 2026: Intro and Hosts 02:30 Quiz Pro Quo 08:56 Sam's Prediction: The Year of the Deal 13:53 AI-Native vs. Traditional Investment Trends 16:42 Founder Exhaustion and the Acceptance of Lower Exits 19:40 The VC Perspective on Clearing "Vintage" Funds 24:00 Advice for Seed Founders: Shut Down or Sell? 28:22 Sam's Bearish Take on OpenAI's Financials 31:12 Testing the Stickiness of AI Models 38:03 Asad's Prediction: The Era of Capital Concentration 43:21 Why 2026 Will See Increased Layoffs 46:37 The Confusion of a High-Churn Job Market 50:19 Shoutouts and Personal Reflections  

Bitcoin holds around ~$90K as Brady and John frame the current range as a “higher floor” era with potential upside catalysts still intact“Healthy hopium” segment compares Bitcoin adoption to the internet's S-curve and revisits how skeptics routinely dismiss exponential technologiesDiscussion of long-horizon Bitcoin returns using a “wealth table” framing: short-term noise, long-term trend clarityLynn Alden's view: recent selloff lows may hold as liquidity conditions improve and excess “Bitcoin treasury company” activity gets washed outETF adoption story accelerates: Morgan Stanley launches branded Bitcoin and Solana ETFs, notably skipping EthereumBank of America/Merrill opens advisor access to multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs with a framed 1–4% allocation for suitable clientsETF flows remain resilient: outflows are modest relative to the drawdown, suggesting a stickier, longer-term holder baseMacro/politics: Supreme Court tariff case is approaching a decision, with markets likely reacting in a messy, sector-specific way rather than a clean “tariffs on/off” binaryHousing policy: Trump floats MBS buying to compress mortgage spreads and proposes restricting institutional purchases of single-family homes, with questions on feasibility and real impactDefense policy whiplash: conflicting announcements trigger sharp moves in defense stocks, highlighting policy-driven volatility risk Swan Private helps HNWI, companies, trusts, and other entities go beyond legacy finance with BItcoin. Learn more at swan.com/private. Put Bitcoin into your IRA and own your future. Check out swan.com/ira.Swan Vault makes advanced Bitcoin security simple. Learn more at swan.com/vault.

On this episode of Chit Chat Stocks,  Ryan dissects Monday.com (Ticker: MNDY), concluding with his decision on whether to buy the stock or not. We discuss:(00:00) Introduction(03:37) Growth Metrics and Business Model(06:19) History(09:30) Understanding the Product and User Experience(12:20) Market Position and Competitive Landscape(15:16) Financial Analysis and Valuation Insights(33:28) Profit Margins and Stock-Based Compensation(43:25) The Stickiness of Software and Customer Retention(49:53) AI's Impact on Task Management Software(57:30) Management Dynamics and Company Valuation*****************************************************Sign up for our stock research service, Emerging Moats: emergingmoats.com *********************************************************************Chit Chat Stocks is presented by Interactive Brokers. Get professional pricing, global access, and premier technology with the best brokerage for investors today: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/ Interactive Brokers is a member of SIPC. *********************************************************************Fiscal.ai is building the future of financial data.With custom charts, AI-generated research reports, and endless analytical tools, you can get up to speed on any stock around the globe. All for a reasonable price. Use our LINK and get 15% off any premium plan: ⁠https://fiscal.ai/chitchat *********************************************************************Disclosure: Chit Chat Stocks hosts and guests are not financial advisors, and nothing they say on this show is formal advice or a recommendation.

Despite Briony never seeing Game of Thrones, everything points to it in this week's Comfort Zone! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ania Aliev was so eager to buy her business, she worked the deal while in labor at the hospital. It's been worth it.Register for the webinar: Tax Issues: Entity and Deal Structuring - Thu Oct 30 - http://bit.ly/43tlhIPTopics in Ania's interview:Rushing to get a deal closed before giving birthUsing her people skills to connect with sellersSearching only in the Eastern USBuying an AED sales and service companyMyths about AEDsFiguring out the best pricing modelLack of competition in the industryDealing with “Mom brain”Willingness to say “I don't know”Stickiness of customersReferences and how to contact Ania:LinkedinLife Support SystemsLearn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:The Acquisition LabGet complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund TeamGet a free review of your books & financial ops from System Six (a $500 value):Book a call with Tim or hello@systemsix.com and mention Acquiring MindsConnect with Acquiring Minds:See past + future interviews on the YouTube channelConnect with host Will Smith on LinkedInFollow Will on TwitterEdited by Anton RohozovProduced by Pam Cameron

Sue spent years leading high-performing teams in New York City's recruitment world. Then came burnout, long commutes, and layoffs. With a newborn and a toddler at home, she decided to stop building other people's companies and start her own. In this episode, we unpack what it really takes to pivot from paycheck to purpose — fear, patience, and the discipline to design a life around freedom, not frenzy.We dive into what founders get wrong about scale, how “stickiness” beats speed, and why being your own bottleneck can kill your dream faster than any competitor. From cash flow realities to the myth of overnight success, Sue shares the emotional and tactical lessons of rebuilding after collapse.TL;DR* The courage equation: Real growth = equal parts fear and excitement.* Don't go back to burnout: Layoffs can be a chance to rebuild — not return.* Cash flow kills faster than failure: Design for early revenue before “scaling.”* Patience > virality: Shark Tank stories aren't the norm — steady wins.* Stickiness beats scale: Differentiation creates sustainability.* AI advantage: Use GenAI for leverage, not replacement — efficiency still needs execution.* Don't be your own bottleneck: Founders must delegate or automate to grow.Memorable lines* “If you're doing the right thing, you should feel equal parts fear and excitement.”* “Nobody knows you're here until you tell them — at least eight times.”* “Fast growth is sexy, but slow cash burn wins the long game.”* “AI can't replace human grit — it just compresses the distance between idea and action.”Guest: Sue Bortone — Founder & Executive Coach, former NYC recruitment leader helping professionals rebuild their second act.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suenorelle/Website: https://www.nobletalent.group/Why it mattersFreedom isn't found in escaping failure — it's earned by rebuilding smarter. Every founder in transition has to bet on themselves twice: once to leave, and again to last.Call to ActionIf this conversation lit something up for you, don't just let it fade. Come join me inside the Second Life Leader community on Skool. That's where I share the frameworks, field reports, and real stories of reinvention that don't make it into the podcast. You'll connect with other professionals who are actively rebuilding and leading with clarity. The link is in the show notes—step inside and start building your Second Life today.https://secondlifeleader.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dougutberg.com

In this episode, product growth leader Sandhya Ganesh talks with host Shannon Peavey about the way Tinder builds product-led growth into its culture and its business strategy. She defines common acronyms for measuring success and shares details of her unique path from engineer to product manager. Sandhya offers advice on developing the right mindset to cultivate explosive success.Chapters:1:08: Sandy defines “growth product” and “product-led growth”5:22  Acronym soup10:08 Stickiness metrics11:02 The marketing-product growth partnership14:14 Sandy's journey from engineer to growth product manager19:06 Critical skills and mindset for product growth21:54 How approaches differ in B2B vs. B2C26:00 Strengthening relationships with your teammates28:33 How Tinder tested rewards programs30:45 The importance of secondary and counter-metrics33:00 Why to hypothesize when experimenting34:15 Why failure needs to be part of the cultureWhere to find Sandhya:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandhya-ganesh/Resources:Deloitte Consulting https://www.deloitte.com/Tinder https://tinder.com/Lending Club https://www.lendingclub.com/

What if everything you thought you knew about brand loyalty was just a myth? In this episode of Predictable B2B Success, host Vinay Koshy speaks with Ethan Decker, founder and president of Applied Brand Science, to shake up your assumptions about what drives actual brand growth. Ethan's fascinating journey from computational ecologist to global brand science expert is just the beginning; he dives deep into the science hiding behind successful brands, exposing why "brand stickiness" might trump loyalty in the real world. Together, they unpack the truths about buyer behavior, the importance of staying in touch with reality (not just PowerPoint reports!), and why even the biggest, most revered brands rely on a vast sea of casual customers rather than a handful of loyalists. From quirky brand mascots to the overlooked power of simple, sticky messaging, even in the B2B tech world, Ethan explains how to make your brand memorable and trusted. If you're ready to question some of marketing's most sacred cows and uncover research-backed strategies for growth, this conversation will leave you rethinking how your own business wins, retains, and reacquires customers. Don't miss these transformative insights, tune in now! Some areas we explore in this episode include: Ethan Decker's transition from science to marketing and its impact on his work.The science and evidence-based principles behind brand growth.The myth of brand loyalty versus the concept of brand stickiness.Common misconceptions businesses have about their customers.Measuring brand stickiness: recommended metrics and methods.B2B branding examples, including Volvo and Salesforce.The "Tourist Economy" model and its application to B2B.The "Banana Curve" or long-tail distribution of buyers in B2B markets.Rethinking customer retention versus acquisition and debunking loyalty myths.Integrating sales and marketing for effective revenue and brand growth.And much, much more...

John Kosar of Asbury Research breaks down the Asbury 6, which are metrics measuring different aspects of the market. 4 indicators are currently positive, while 2 are negative. John emphasizes that these are short-term projections, but says that the economy as a whole seems relatively stable. “We're following the money…to be in the right places” when money gets “sticky – and that's where the profits are.”======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day. Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

There are so many sticky things in nature, but what's the nature of their stickiness?Could slug mucus or frog ooze be used in medical treatments?Ann puts on her spider-woman gloves to find out.Featuring:Ella Tyler, wife of the late Prof Mike Tyler.Prof Andrew Smith, Biology, Ithaca College.Prof George Murrell, Director Orthopaedic Research Institute, St George Hospital, NSW.Production:Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer.Petria Ladgrove, Producer.This episode of What the Duck?! was originally broadcast in 2022 and produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and the Kaurna people.Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.ore the mysteries of nature.

Episode Summary:Your best client just sold their business for $8 million and calls to say they're moving everything to Goldman Sachs. This devastating scenario happens to 70% of advisors, but Jeff Armstrong has the antidote. As a former business owner who ran a company for 23 years, Jeff reveals the blind spot costing advisors their most valuable relationships. While most advisors focus on managing wealth outside the business, Jeff shows how becoming the expert on your client's largest asset creates unbreakable loyalty. He shares why 97% of business exits disappoint owners and the actions that transform you from replaceable vendor to irreplaceable quarterback.About the Guest:Jeff Armstrong built and ran a laser printer repair company for 23 years before joining Cultivate Advisors. He helps financial advisors avoid losing clients to "big league" competitors by becoming business optimization experts.The Brutal Reality:Devastating Statistics: 50-70% of business owners fire their advisor after liquidity events when investment banks suggest they need "serious players."Hidden Epidemic: Only 30% of businesses attempting to sell complete transactions. Of those that sell, 90% disappoint owners. This means 97% of exits fail expectations.Shared Blind Spot: 99% of business owners cannot answer: What's my business worth? What multiples apply? What drives value? Most advisors share this blindness.The Cultivate Solution:Target Market: Businesses generating $1-15 million annually, matched with former business owner advisors who've successfully exited.Partnership Model: Cultivate functions as team extension, creating "alley-oops" for investment planning and tax strategies as business performance improves.Process: Free business valuation, gap analysis, prioritized roadmap. Owners implement independently or engage ongoing support.Creating "Stickiness":Becoming Irreplaceable: Help optimize their most valuable asset, and Goldman Sachs becomes irrelevant. You're their strategic partner, not just money manager.Personal Trainer Effect: Business owners need accountability and implementation. You become associated with success at the source.CEPA Training Revolution:Implementation Gap: Traditional training provides knowledge without application skills. Cultivate's immersion events bridge this gap.Viral Success: November event sold out after going viral within Edward Jones's 1,400 CEPA network.Implementation Strategy:Start Small: Pilot with one client. Cultivate includes you in calls and provides quarterly reporting.Full Integration: Real-time business metrics create natural wealth management conversations.Connect with Jeff:LinkedIn: Jeff Armstrong  Email: jeffa@cultivateadvisors.com  Website: cultivateadvisors.comBottom line: While other advisors wait for liquidity events, smart advisors help create them and build unbreakable relationships. Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.comSupport the show

Senior living executive Kate Bertram shares how authentic, courageous leadership can boost engagement, retention, and culture. Learn why “Creating Stickiness” is more than just her book—it's a blueprint for the future of aging services.Kate Bertram is a senior living executive, workforce strategist, and author of Creating Stickiness. With over two decades of experience, Kate helps providers build cultures where people want to stay and grow residents and staff alike.Link to book. [00:00] Introduction by Matt[01:00] Kate Bertram's journey into senior living and the moment that changed everything[04:00] Leadership as “business with soul”—how Kate found purpose[05:25] The two leadership traits that matter most: authenticity and courage[08:50] What courageous leadership looks like under tight margins[11:55] Why people really leave (or stay) in senior living roles[16:30] Burnout vs. belonging: How to create meaning in daily work[20:47] Why most “total rewards” programs fail—and how to fix them[26:35] Where to start: The crucial first step to transforming culture[29:46] The gap between HQ initiatives and frontline reality[30:21] Balancing margin with mission: Dual stewardship in action[33:23] The Tide story—and why even small decisions leave big marks[34:16] Kate's closing thoughts on workforce, the future, and her book

Daniel catches up with Jaryd Terkelsen, Co-Founder of Beforeyouspeak Coffee - Australia's number one functional coffee brand, stocked in over 3,000 retailers and the official coffee partner of the Alpine Formula 1 team. What began as a simple idea to make coffee healthier has grown into a performance-driven brand recognised worldwide. Daniel and Jaryd explore how focusing on a niche audience sparked rapid growth, why tying products to daily habits creates staying power, and the importance of discipline and focus in scaling a business without losing momentum.   Exclusive Offer for our Listeners Long-standing CUB Member Ari Galper, Founder of AriAI - the world's only trust-based proprietary AI sales growth advisor - is offering an exclusive deal to our listeners: Experience a free live demo of AriAI at www.AriGalper.ai and be sure to ask for a special CUB discount.

The belief that women are in some way inferior to men has been around for centuries. And throughout that time, women have suffered the consequences. Economists have lately been trying to understand more about the origins of gender biased norms, to help create better policies to challenge them. Their work can build on insights from sociology, anthropology and gender studies, but also raises important questions about the roles of men and women in society. So what should policy attempt to change?  Siwan Anderson of Vancouver School of Economics and CEPR talks to Tim Phillips about what we know on these topics – and the most promising directions for future research.

Sign up to Orbit Flows here: orbitflows.com?via=theaireportSummaryIn this conversation, Ethan Reeves shares his journey from a young programmer to co-founder of Orbit Marketing, discussing the evolution of AI and its impact on marketing. He emphasizes the importance of email marketing, trust, and authority in building successful businesses. Ethan also delves into the challenges of navigating the SaaS landscape, the significance of having a structured process in place, and the joy of creating and building products that provide value to users.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Ethan Reeves and His Background02:57 The Evolution of AI and Machine Learning05:36 Founding Orbit Marketing and Its Journey08:43 The Power of Email Marketing and Newsletters11:31 Trust, Authority, and Credibility in Email Marketing14:09 The Role of Personal Stories in Newsletters17:23 Orbit Marketing's Approach to Client Engagement20:13 Building Trust Through Value in Email Communication23:05 The Challenges of Building AI SaaS Products26:02 The Myth of Easy Software Development28:58 The Reality of SaaS Valuations and Market Expectations32:53 Navigating the Vaporware Landscape35:41 Building a Sticky Software Product37:31 The Evolution of OrbitFlows39:22 The Power of Context in AI42:02 Creating Value and Reducing Friction44:28 The Importance of Stickiness in Software46:00 Execution and Vision in Startups49:56 The Pace of Development56:56 Aiming for the Stars: The Future of OrbitFlowsSign up for the newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribeJoin the community: https://www.skool.com/the-ai-report-community/about

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training Most agency owners don't wake up dreaming about selling. You want freedom, better clients, and to stop living in Slack at 2 a.m. But here's the truth: The same moves that make your agency attractive to a buyer are the ones that give you freedom as an owner. I built and sold an 8-figure agency and bought 10 more and now I'm sharing 8 elements of a sellable, scalable agency. Whether you ever sell or not, these are the foundations that make your shop stronger. Let's break them down. 1. Stop Being the Accidental Owner Most of us stumbled into agency life. That's fun—but long-term it's not a strategy. You've got to shift from “operator” to agency CEO, and that means: Setting and communicating vision (over and over). Coaching your leadership team, not everyone. Knowing your numbers. Being the face of the agency. Building strategic relationships. When your team knows where you're going, you stop being the bottleneck. 2. Build More Than Referrals Referrals are great, but if 90% of your deals are coming from “word of mouth,” you've got a problem. Getting most of your leads from any singular channel is usually a red flag. When I'm looking at buying  a business, one of the first things I'll ask is how many channels they have for building their pipeline, how can I increase those channels and make them more predictable. If I'm looking at this, you as the agency owners and CEO should too. I recommend the three-legged stool: inbound, outbound, and strategic partnerships. When you've got multiple reliable channels, downturns don't crush you. That's how my agency grew through 9/11, '08, and even COVID. 3. Predictable Revenue = Power Buyers want to know: can we forecast revenue six months out? That means retainers, long-term contracts, and expanding client accounts. If you land a $20k/month retainer, your mindset should be: “How can I build this account over time to grow it to $100k?” And don't just deliver results—show them wins constantly. Stickiness comes from proof, community, and processes that make leaving painful. 4. Don't Let a Whale Sink You If one client is 20%+ of your revenue, you're on thin ice. Does this mean that you should say no to big clients? Heck no. Take the whale and then go get more. Turn today's whales into tomorrow's minnows by leveling up your client base. 5. Leadership That Runs Without You If your agency can't grow while you're gone for six months, you don't have a business—you have a job. Owners shouldn't be doing marketing, sales, or any type of delivery. A-players cost more, but they 10x the results and give you your life back. Your job isn't to run projects, sales, or delivery—it's to lead the leaders. 6. Profitability Isn't Optional Know your EBITDA. If you're not profitable and reinvesting, you're stalling. And if you don't have a compelling growth story (even how you're leveraging AI), buyers—and clients—will pass. 7. Track KPIs Like a Pro If you can't instantly tell me your close rate, show-up rate, or pipeline health, that's a problem. Great agencies have dashboards, not excuses. 8. Get Audited Financials (Every Year) I've chatted with agency owners who thought they were making $1M profit—but after an audit, it was half that. Multiples dropped, deals crumbled. Don't let your “guesswork” numbers cost you millions. Get audited, stay real. Before You Even Think About Selling… Don't sell unless you know what's next. Plenty of agency owners with 7-figure profits and freedom think they're “done,” only to end up depressed because they tied their identity to the agency. Fix what you don't like. Keep what works. Only exit when you're moving toward something you actually want. What To Do Next If you're serious about building an agency that gives you freedom (and the option to sell someday), start here: Agency Valuation Calculator. See what your agency's really worth today. Agency Playbook. Jason's 8-system framework to shift from operator to CEO. Agency Blueprint. Get a personalized roadmap to spot value gaps and growth opportunities.

If you're thinking about adding payments to your software company's tech stack, listen to this first. Today's guest knows that turning payments into a prolific growth engine isn't as simple as plugging in a processor; it's about knowing when you have the “right to win” and building the infrastructure, team, and go-to-market strategy to make it work. In this episode, Andrew Mosawi of JMI Equity and a self-named “dinosaur in the world of embedded payments”, joins CJ to unpack how embedded payments are reshaping industries, why certain platforms are perfectly positioned to own the payment flow, and when you're better off staying out of the game. They share the frameworks for sizing the TAM, deciding which vertical plays make sense, and forecasting revenue in a world where payments don't behave like SaaS, while also referencing real-world use cases. The conversation covers the common mistakes companies make when entering payments, standout examples of companies that have done this well, and the right and wrong questions you should be asking before starting out.—LINKS:Andrew Mosawi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmosawi/JMI Equity: https://www.jmi.com/CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222Mostly metrics: Companies mentioned:Mindbody: https://www.mindbodyonline.comBlackbaud: https://www.blackbaud.comToast: https://pos.toasttab.comShopify: https://www.shopify.comFlagship Advisory Partners: https://insights.flagshipadvisorypartners.comBCG “Fortune Favors the Bold: Global Payments Report 2024”: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/fortune-favors-bold-global-payments-reportRELATED EPISODES:The Art of Stacking S-Curves: Olo's Winning Vertical SaaS Strategy with CFO Peter Benevides - Efficiency Metrics, Management, and Consolidation - Tony Boor's CFO Playbook for Scaling Blackbaud - —TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Preview and Intro(02:17) Sponsor – Aleph | RightRev | Navan(06:50) How the Payments Ecosystem Has Changed in the Last Two Decades(09:02) The Inflection Point That Brought Payments Into the Mainstream(10:23) The Size of the Payments Pie in 2025(11:49) Why Not Every Company Should Do Payments(14:23) What Makes a Company Well-Positioned To Offer Payments(15:50) Sponsor – Rillet | Pulley | Brex(19:42) Having a Strategic High Ground To Offer Payments(21:35) The Stickiness of Embedded Payments(24:14) What “Embedded Payments” Means(27:12) Different Models Used for Embedded Payments(32:14) A Typical Take Rate for Embedded Payments(36:45) The Accretive Nature of Embedded Payments and Other Benefits(40:14) The Next Phase of Payments: Other Finance Solutions(44:56) CJ's Mental Model for Assessing Payments at PartsTech(47:45) Running a Payments Function Versus a Traditional Software Function(50:46) Sales Dynamics: Traditional SaaS Versus Payments(52:01) Companies That Have Done Embedded Payments Well(53:05) The Right and Wrong First Questions To Ask Before Starting in Payments—SPONSORS:Aleph automates 90% of manual, error-prone busywork, with the power of a web app, the flexibility of spreadsheets, and the magic of AI. Get a personalised demo at https://www.getaleph.com/runRightRev automates the revenue recognition process from end to end, gives you real-time insights, and ensures ASC 606 / IFRS 15 compliance—all while closing books faster. For RevRec that auditors actually trust, visit https://www.rightrev.com and schedule a demo.Navan is the all-in-one travel and expense solution that helps finance teams streamline reconciliation, enforce policies automatically, and gain real-time visibility. Visit https://navan.com/runthenumbers for your demo.Rillet is the AI-native ERP modern finance teams are switching to because it's faster, simpler, and 100% built for how teams operate today. See how fast your team can move. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/metrics.Pulley is the cap table management platform built for CFOs and finance leaders who need reliable, audit-ready data and intuitive workflows. Switch in as little as 5 days and get 25% off your first year: https://pulley.com/mostlymetrics.Brex offers the world's smartest corporate card on a full-stack global platform. Plus, they offer modern banking and treasury as well as intuitive expenses and accounting automation, bill pay, and travel. Find out more at https://www.brex.com/metrics#EmbeddedPayments #payments #PaymentsInfrastructure #PayFac #PaymentsStrategy This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mostlymetrics.com

This week on Swimming with Allocators, Earnest and Alexa welcome Evan Finkel and Charlotte Palmer from Integra Global Advisors. Evan and Charlotte discuss their approach to venture capital investing, focusing on emerging managers while also sharing insights into evaluating new fund managers, emphasizing the importance of transparency, unique investment theses, and consistent communication. The conversation also covers challenges in the current VC landscape, including the competitive fundraising environment and the need for succession planning. Key takeaways include the value of building strong LP-GP relationships, the potential of smaller funds to generate alpha, and the critical role of motivation and differentiation for emerging managers. Also, don't miss our insider segment as Jason Kropp from Sidley discusses the complexities of cross-border venture capital investments, highlighting the importance of tax optimization, international investment structures, and navigating regulatory uncertainties in the current global investment landscape.Highlights from this week's conversation include:Evan's Background and Journey (1:09)Charlotte's Journey to Allocator (3:04)Integra Overview and Differentiation (4:41)Geographic Focus of Clients (8:24)Motivation and Competitive Landscape for Emerging Managers (11:13)Market Correction and Emerging Manager Archetypes (15:29)Diligencing Differentiated Perspectives (19:37)Off-List References and Deeper Diligence (23:51)Insider Segment: Complexities of Cross-Border Investments (24:48)LPAC Involvement and Value (28:56)How LPs Should Give Feedback (31:00)Questions GPs Should Ask LPs (34:18)Assessing LP Commitment and Stickiness (38:40)Succession Planning in VC Firms (42:55)Lessons Learned as LPs (47:31)Final Thoughts and Takeaways (50:00)Integra Global Advisors is a registered investment advisor (RIA) functioning like a multi-family office. The firm invests across the entire investable universe but on the venture side, the team specializes in early-stage investments across the U.S., Israel, Latin America, and Europe. Focused exclusively on emerging managers, Integra provides capital and strategic partnerships, actively engaging in LPAC positions to help funds succeed. Learn more at www.integraga.com.Sidley Austin LLP is a premier global law firm with a dedicated Venture Funds practice, advising top venture capital firms, institutional investors, and private equity sponsors on fund formation, investment structuring, and regulatory compliance. With deep expertise across private markets, Sidley provides strategic legal counsel to help funds scale effectively. Learn more at sidley.com.Swimming with Allocators is a podcast that dives into the intriguing world of Venture Capital from an LP (Limited Partner) perspective. Hosts Alexa Binns and Earnest Sweat are seasoned professionals who have donned various hats in the VC ecosystem. Each episode, we explore where the future opportunities lie in the VC landscape with insights from top LPs on their investment strategies and industry experts shedding light on emerging trends and technologies. The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this podcast are for general informational purposes only.

Podcast: Gospel TalksHosts: George Binoka & Jeff MusgraveEpisode Date: June 3, 2025Episode Summary:In this stirring episode of Gospel Talks, George Binoka and Jeff Musgrave explore the eternal significance of gospel-centered relationships. Drawing from Luke 16 and the parable of the unjust steward, they unpack Jesus' radical call to leverage our temporal resources—time, talent, and treasure—for eternal gain. The discussion centers around the idea of “forever friends,” a term George and Jeff use to describe those whom we reach with the gospel and with whom we'll share eternity.They argue that gospel relationships are not only spiritually binding but also the most enduring relationships possible—outlasting circumstances, cultures, and even death. The gospel, they contend, is the ultimate “relationship retainer,” binding people together with supernatural glue.Jeff issues a challenge from Scripture: if the world invests its resources with intensity to gain temporary returns, how much more should the sons of light pour themselves into eternal investments? They also highlight how hoarding the gospel is not merely ineffective—it's dishonest. Faithfulness to Christ involves faithfully stewarding the gospel for others.George offers personal stories of unlikely friendships forged through the gospel—relationships that defy natural compatibility but endure because they're built on eternal truth. Together, George and Jeff call listeners to take risks, invest deeply, and partner in the work of disciple-making, reminding us that the only thing we take to heaven is people.Chapter Breakdown:00:00 – The Concept of Forever FriendsIntroduction to the term “forever friends” and how the gospel preserves relationships eternally.02:54 – Eternal Friendships in ScriptureJeff unpacks the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16) and Jesus' call to make friends for eternity.05:44 – Investing in Eternal RelationshipsComparison between worldly zeal for profit and Christian investment in souls.08:37 – Leveraging Temporal Wealth for Eternal GainWhat it means to steward time, talent, and treasure with eternity in view.11:16 – The Dishonesty of Hoarding the GospelJesus calls it dishonest to withhold the gospel from others; spiritual stewardship is a matter of truthfulness.14:30 – The Stickiness of Gospel RelationshipsOnce you've gone deep with someone spiritually, every other conversation becomes easier—gospel relationships stick.17:16 – Taking Risks for Eternal FriendshipsTrue friendship demands boldness; the gospel may threaten friendships, but it's also the only way to make them eternal.20:04 – The Transformative Power of ConversionConversion is miraculous, relational, and permanent—God turns strangers into family.22:43 – Partnership in the GospelSpiritual friendships mature into co-laboring partnerships for the kingdom.25:48 – The Value of Eternal RelationshipsNothing on earth is more valuable than souls; everything else we leave behind.27:01 – New ChapterClosing reflections and call to action: pray for laborers and consider supporting The Exchange monthly.Support the Mission:Partner with The Exchange to help multiply eternal relationships. For just $25/month, you can help extend the reach of gospel training and discipleship worldwide. Learn more at www.exchangetotheworld.com (or your donation link).Subscribe & Share:If this episode...

Here is a narration of my latest ‘a calm presence', inspired by this quote from Indy Johar's May 12th, 2025 Substack posting, The Stickiness of Want  - And the Systemic Amnesia Behind It :We—you, me, everyone in this room—are the last generation with viable agency before degenerative volatility locks us into conflict and collapse. The window is painfully small but gloriously open.'This posting was written while traveling in India and Japan in April and May of 2025.The narrated version was recorded in one take on May 21, 2025 on the streets of Hakone-Yumoto, Japan with the Haya River and lively birdsong in the background.See the Transcript of this episode for the complete posting.  *END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODESHey conscient listeners, I've been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). It's my way to give back.In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. Your feedback is always welcome at claude@conscient.ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads or BlueSky.I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. Claude SchryerLatest update on March 26, 2025

Dr. Luis Luarca, PhD – An expert in business operations consulting with over 20 years of experience. Specializes in improving business operations and enhancing employee motivation through modern, effective processes. Has successfully transformed 80+ organizations, primarily in the manufacturing sector, across both the U.S. and Mexico. Key Topics Discussed: Dr. Luarca's Consulting Approach: Focus on optimizing both business processes and employee motivation. Use of data-driven strategies to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness. Development of a “stickiness” within organizations to ensure long-term positive change. The Power of Employee Motivation: How employee satisfaction impacts the quality of work and attention to detail. Creating work environments where employees are invested in their jobs, leading to better customer experiences and internal collaboration. Dr. Luarca's 80+ Transformations: Insights into the challenges and success stories of working with manufacturing organizations. Strategies for driving change management and operational improvement in diverse organizational settings. The role of employee engagement in creating a positive, productive culture. The Importance of “Stickiness” in Business Operations: How organizations can develop a lasting impact on employees and operations. Ensuring that improvements continue to resonate with employees, customers, and vendors over time. Takeaways: Data is Key: Using real-time, relevant data to drive decisions in improving operations. Employee Motivation Drives Success: When employees are satisfied and engaged, the results speak for themselves. Creating a Positive Work Environment: A happy workforce creates a ripple effect across all stakeholders—employees, customers, vendors, and their families.

“For any culture change initiative to survive, you've got to go where the sunshine is.” - Andy Goram In this episode of the People Dividend podcast, host Mike Horne speaks with Andy Goram about the concept of 'stickiness' in organizations. Andy shares his insights on how to create a thriving workplace culture through his seven steps to stickiness, emphasizing the importance of engaging storytelling, integrity, effective leadership, and consistent communication. The conversation also touches on the significance of employee retention and the need for organizations to embrace human values in the modern workplace.   Key Points: Stickiness in organizations leads to better employee engagement. Finding early adopters is key to driving culture change. Employee retention is more important than ever in today's labor market.   Links:  Learn more about Mike Horne on Linkedin Email Mike at mike@mike-horne.com Learn More About Executive and Organization Development with Mike Horne Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikehorneauthor  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikehorneauthor/,  LinkedIn Mike's Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6867258581922799617/,  Schedule a Discovery Call with Mike: https://calendly.com/mikehorne/15-minute-discovery-call-with-mike     Learn More about Andy Goram  https://www.bizjuicer.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/andygoram/ https://x.com/stickyfrom https://www.instagram.com/sticky_from_the_inside_podcast/ https://www.youtube.com/@StickyFromTheInsidePodca-ub8hp  

In this episode, we discuss recent market activity, Virtuals revenue, and the stickiness of PumpFun. Finally, we reset, and looked into activity on Bitcoin and Ethereum, and gave our outlooks for each asset in 2025. Thanks for tuning in! As always, remember this podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely their opinions, not financial advice. -- Resources Bitcoin December 2024 Update: https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/bitcoin-december-2024-update Ethereum December 2024 Update: https://app.blockworksresearch.com/flashnotes/ethereum-december-2024-update -- SKALE is the next evolution in Layer 1 blockchains with a gas-free invisible user experience, instant finality, high speed, and robust security. SKALE is built different as it allows for limitless scalability and has already saved its 45 Million users over $9 Billion in gas fees. SKALE is high-performance and cost-effective, making it ideal for compute-intensive applications like AI, gaming, and consumer-facing dApps. Learn more at skale.space and stay up to date with the gas-free invisible blockchain on X at @skalenetwork -- Ledger, the global leader in digital asset security, proudly sponsors 0xResearch! As Ledger celebrates 10 years of securing 20% of global crypto, it remains the top choice for securing your assets. Buy a LEDGER™ device now and build confidently, knowing your precious tokens are safe. Buy now on https://shop.ledger.com/?r=1da180a5de00. -- Follow Marc: https://x.com/marcarjoon Follow Dan: https://x.com/smyyguy Follow Ryan: https://x.com/_ryanrconnor Follow Danny: https://x.com/defi_kay_ Follow Blockworks Research: https://x.com/blockworksres Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ Join the 0xResearch Telegram group: https://t.me/+z0H6y2bS-dllODVh -- Timestamps: (0:00) Introduction (1:37) Market Outlook (8:16) Virtuals Revenue Numbers (13:54) The Stickiness of PumpFun (22:41) SKALE Ad (23:23) Ledger Ad (23:57) Bitcoin's Outlook in 2025 (37:26) Ethereum's Market Dominance -- Check out Blockworks Research today! Research, data, governance, tokenomics, and models – now, all in one place Blockworks Research: https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ Free Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on 0xResearch is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Boccaccio, Dan, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

This weeks episode is a bit of a diary dump. Verbal diarrhoea if you will!I've been feeling a bit stuck, if I'm totally honest. Creatively constipated, and it's been tough. As I've been grappling with the unfolding of my new identity since Poppy's death, the penny has well and truly finally dropped as to what that means for me as a creative. How this grief and life changing loss has sculpted my creative identity and the rut I'm in at the moment. It's very kitchen table-esque style. It might make sense to some of you and if it does, I'd really really love to hear from you. I know I need community in this experience to see me through, I want community in this experience.So if you identify as a creative in any shape or form and relate to this or have navigated through this creative ickiness in grief, please do reach out. I'd really love to be in touch and find ways we can navigate through this together. Find our creative selves again and welcome all the new unfolding parts of ourselves.Big love,Amber xxxConnect with The Grief Gang community:Enquire about Grief Gang 1:1 and group circle mentoring hereBook onto a Grief Gang group circle hereInstagramTwitterFacebookYoutubeTikTokSubstackWebsiteIf this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Share this episode with someone who might need to hear it today!Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/thegriefgang. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this podcast, I talk about an important quality of Magic mechanics: stickiness. What is it and how do we use it? This podcast dives into the topic.

To submit a relationship question for an upcoming episode, email us at TheMedicinPodcast@gmail.com (we can keep it anonymous!)We (Chase & Mimi) are back to answer more of your juicy relationship questions! These come directly from YOU, our audience. In this episode we are discussing listener questions... "Is manifesting real?""My partner is depressed""My partner left. I hope we get back together like you and Chase."Medicin Drop Newsletter: We giveaway one of our favorite wellness products every week! Join HERE!OUR LINKS + DISCOUNTSMushyLove Latte (discount: MEDICIN)Immune Intel AHCC (discount: MEDICIN) Our favorite Reishi KING CoffeeLiving Libations Dental ProductsOrganifi (20% discount: MIMIFIT)See all our favorite products on The Medicin CabinetCONNECT WITH USOur websiteMimi's IG // Chase's IG // The Medicin IGSound from Zapsplat.com

7:00 w David Knobel & Evelyn Pyburn on Montana Lacking "Stickiness" - Ford's Loss on EV Bought by Rich Dems full 2596 Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:00:58 +0000 KXQzsn9a2OruYR4CqenKttPonSBPrTiL Montana Talks with Aaron Flint 7:00 w David Knobel & Evelyn Pyburn on Montana Lacking "Stickiness" - Ford's Loss on EV Bought by Rich Dems Montana Talks with Aaron Flint ON DEMAND 2020

Have you ever had someone join your team, only to quickly realize that this business model wasn't for them? Kristen has been noticing a significant issue: the stickiness problem. This has become a common theme in the social selling industry. But why do so many people come in and exit just as quickly?    In today's episode Kristen dives into the reasons behind this problem and explores ten strategies to improve retention and help your team members stick around.   Let's look at a few highlights: Stickiness refers to the ability to retain new team members effectively. It's about how many people join your team and how many actually stay and thrive. Kristen emphasizes that addressing these issues requires strategic changes in how leaders bring people onto their teams and support them once they join Consider what shifts you need to make in your approach to help people stick to your team. What questions can you ask during the vetting process? How can you better support new members in their initial days How can you work with new team members to adjust their expectations and recognize smaller, incremental successes rather than expecting immediate, large wins?   Not everyone is cut out for social selling, and it's crucial to differentiate between those who are serious about the opportunity and those who are merely wishful thinkers.   Remember, it's your team too. There is work you have to do to keep the "right" team members. Reflect on these points and consider the shifts you need to make to ensure you're attracting and retaining the best people for your team. What questions can you ask to ensure you're bringing in the right people and setting them up for success? The success of your team starts with your leadership and the standards you set. Pinpoint EXACTLY what's missing from your social media strategy and create a page that instantly magnetizes the RIGHT people to your business. Head to https://www.kristenboss.com/gift to grab my FREE Instagram Audit guide and finally stop wondering, “Am I doing this right?” Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question

We encounter sticky surfaces and sticky substances everyday, but what exactly IS “stickiness?” In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the physical properties of stickiness and look at some very sticky examples from the natural world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We encounter sticky surfaces and sticky substances everyday, but what exactly IS “stickiness?” In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the physical properties of stickiness and look at some very sticky examples from the natural world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We encounter sticky surfaces and sticky substances everyday, but what exactly IS “stickiness?” In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the physical properties of stickiness and look at some very sticky examples from the natural world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.