Chris Savage

And what I've learned over and over again is if you get a group of smart people, you get the right balance of a team, they're creative, they plan, they're thoughtful, they learn really quickly, then basically what you need to do is get it out of their way as much as possible and say, the most important thing is for you to ship consistently.

And what I've learned over and over again is if you get a group of smart people, you get the right balance of a team, they're creative, they plan, they're thoughtful, they learn really quickly, then basically what you need to do is get it out of their way as much as possible and say, the most important thing is for you to ship consistently.

And so we encourage everyone on our teams to try to be absolutely shipping constantly. Product teams ship every two weeks. Go-to-market teams are responding to that. So every day there's new things going live in the product, every single day.

And so we encourage everyone on our teams to try to be absolutely shipping constantly. Product teams ship every two weeks. Go-to-market teams are responding to that. So every day there's new things going live in the product, every single day.

And we don't necessarily know which of the things are going to be the biggest or the most impactful, but we do know the customer problems we're trying to solve. And those stay the same as we constantly ship through different solutions. And so really it's about...

And we don't necessarily know which of the things are going to be the biggest or the most impactful, but we do know the customer problems we're trying to solve. And those stay the same as we constantly ship through different solutions. And so really it's about...

speed and the way you get the speed is by creating enough structure and ownership so that the teams know, hey, I have freedom in this lane. And then what we praise is fast shipping.

speed and the way you get the speed is by creating enough structure and ownership so that the teams know, hey, I have freedom in this lane. And then what we praise is fast shipping.

It's also just this basic assumption of like, we don't know all the answers. So if you don't know all the answers, like let's say you're 50% right, 50% wrong when you make decisions. Okay. If you launch one thing a year, that could be bad. You might have a year where your thing just, your one thing sucks.

It's also just this basic assumption of like, we don't know all the answers. So if you don't know all the answers, like let's say you're 50% right, 50% wrong when you make decisions. Okay. If you launch one thing a year, that could be bad. You might have a year where your thing just, your one thing sucks.

So instead, if you could break into smaller pieces, then maybe you can actually ship much faster. You waste less time. The speed of learning goes up and ultimately the pace of improvement is much faster because It actually took us a long time to figure this out of how to do this at scale. And now it's crazy. It's unbelievable.

So instead, if you could break into smaller pieces, then maybe you can actually ship much faster. You waste less time. The speed of learning goes up and ultimately the pace of improvement is much faster because It actually took us a long time to figure this out of how to do this at scale. And now it's crazy. It's unbelievable.

If you were to look in our Slack and see what's happening, every single day, there's new things go out the door. Tons and tons and tons of new things are working incredibly well. And when I go back to what input drives this output, it is shipping customer value every two weeks.

If you were to look in our Slack and see what's happening, every single day, there's new things go out the door. Tons and tons and tons of new things are working incredibly well. And when I go back to what input drives this output, it is shipping customer value every two weeks.

There's been a lot. So the first hard moment I think about when you say that, after we raised money, we had 10 paying customers. We had this amazing forecast. I was pretty sure that in two or three months, we're going to be profitable. And then we didn't close a single deal for like four months. And that was hard. That was painful.

There's been a lot. So the first hard moment I think about when you say that, after we raised money, we had 10 paying customers. We had this amazing forecast. I was pretty sure that in two or three months, we're going to be profitable. And then we didn't close a single deal for like four months. And that was hard. That was painful.

Right at the last second before we raised the money, we were working on this one bigger deal. It was like $10,000 a year. And we closed it. It's like, ah, this is going to be what every deal is like. They're all going to be like $10,000 a year. So then that summer, we just raised the money. We had all these new investors like, oh, let's look at you all. And we're like, yeah, we're going enterprise.

Right at the last second before we raised the money, we were working on this one bigger deal. It was like $10,000 a year. And we closed it. It's like, ah, this is going to be what every deal is like. They're all going to be like $10,000 a year. So then that summer, we just raised the money. We had all these new investors like, oh, let's look at you all. And we're like, yeah, we're going enterprise.

We're going to do $10,000 a year deals. And so that's what we tried to sell that summer and basically couldn't close a single one. And the guy who joined us to help with sales, I remember vividly October of that year, he's on the phone with somebody. He's like, okay, yes, you're going to do it. Fantastic. That's amazing. I'll send over the order form right now. Click.

We're going to do $10,000 a year deals. And so that's what we tried to sell that summer and basically couldn't close a single one. And the guy who joined us to help with sales, I remember vividly October of that year, he's on the phone with somebody. He's like, okay, yes, you're going to do it. Fantastic. That's amazing. I'll send over the order form right now. Click.