Tameem Hourani

If something exists for a day or a month, from a regulatory perspective, you've got to be able to track it, track costs, track all these other things. So that very naturally became a segue into other teams within those customers, cloud-native teams, et cetera. Went from the audit team over to engineering and cloud, and now we're slowly starting to get to security.

If something exists for a day or a month, from a regulatory perspective, you've got to be able to track it, track costs, track all these other things. So that very naturally became a segue into other teams within those customers, cloud-native teams, et cetera. Went from the audit team over to engineering and cloud, and now we're slowly starting to get to security.

So we're a bootstrapped company, right? We never raised funding. We never had the luxury of going out and hiring whoever we wanted. So one of the most important things, and still is today, it's in one of our OPRs, one of our objectives for the year, is staying frugal. We had to be very careful who we hired, who we brought on board.

So we're a bootstrapped company, right? We never raised funding. We never had the luxury of going out and hiring whoever we wanted. So one of the most important things, and still is today, it's in one of our OPRs, one of our objectives for the year, is staying frugal. We had to be very careful who we hired, who we brought on board.

And I'd say the first 10 to 15, maybe even 15 engineers or 15 people wrapped up were engineers. And in our business, if you're an engineer, you're revenue generating directly to the top line. So we're very careful not to hire any roles we didn't need. So I'd say until we were like 30 or 35 people, I did a lot of the QuickBooks and I did a lot of the HubSpot. I want to call it marketing, right?

And I'd say the first 10 to 15, maybe even 15 engineers or 15 people wrapped up were engineers. And in our business, if you're an engineer, you're revenue generating directly to the top line. So we're very careful not to hire any roles we didn't need. So I'd say until we were like 30 or 35 people, I did a lot of the QuickBooks and I did a lot of the HubSpot. I want to call it marketing, right?

We just had like HubSpot campaigns. Now we have Tony who runs a lot for us. I did recruiting, right? I DM people on LinkedIn. I still do sometimes to try to bring good people on board, but we had to be very frugal. And I think by proxy of doing that, we ended up being very disciplined in our interview process. We had very strong engineers and PMs join us early days.

We just had like HubSpot campaigns. Now we have Tony who runs a lot for us. I did recruiting, right? I DM people on LinkedIn. I still do sometimes to try to bring good people on board, but we had to be very frugal. And I think by proxy of doing that, we ended up being very disciplined in our interview process. We had very strong engineers and PMs join us early days.

I think actually all of the first 10 engineers are still with us today. We had a very strong team that could really challenge each other and lean on each other. That created a really good foundation for what we have today. And we're very lucky. I don't think we'd be where we are today if we didn't have that rock solid foundational team of engineers.

I think actually all of the first 10 engineers are still with us today. We had a very strong team that could really challenge each other and lean on each other. That created a really good foundation for what we have today. And we're very lucky. I don't think we'd be where we are today if we didn't have that rock solid foundational team of engineers.

But it's played a very big role in what has turned into 100% company today. We didn't go out and hire a bunch of leaders, right? We were very flat. We actually had no managers until we hit that 30-person mark. It was just a bunch of engineers doing good work. We just had to keep it that way to survive.

But it's played a very big role in what has turned into 100% company today. We didn't go out and hire a bunch of leaders, right? We were very flat. We actually had no managers until we hit that 30-person mark. It was just a bunch of engineers doing good work. We just had to keep it that way to survive.

Are you familiar with Sequoia's rule of threes and tens? I don't know if you've come across that.

Are you familiar with Sequoia's rule of threes and tens? I don't know if you've come across that.

It's just like your business fundamentally changes when you hit these intervals, right? So you're three people, you're 10 people, you're 30 people, you're 100 people. And then the next break becomes 300 and 1,000 and so on. A lot of companies or a lot of people talk about scaling based on revenue, right? They'll be like, hey, you're at 25 million, you're at 50, you're at 100.

It's just like your business fundamentally changes when you hit these intervals, right? So you're three people, you're 10 people, you're 30 people, you're 100 people. And then the next break becomes 300 and 1,000 and so on. A lot of companies or a lot of people talk about scaling based on revenue, right? They'll be like, hey, you're at 25 million, you're at 50, you're at 100.

And yeah, of course, the business changes. But if you look at it from people's perspective, we've almost been like spot on with those breaks. It's right when we hit those intervals, the business just starts to fundamentally change. You need different roles. You need different tools. You need different automation. We've been very cognizant to try to lean on tech to scale out versus people.

And yeah, of course, the business changes. But if you look at it from people's perspective, we've almost been like spot on with those breaks. It's right when we hit those intervals, the business just starts to fundamentally change. You need different roles. You need different tools. You need different automation. We've been very cognizant to try to lean on tech to scale out versus people.

I don't think to your point, people are very scalable. We try to do a lot with the technology we have, and we've got obviously a great bench of engineers. We've automated most of our business processes through tech, so we don't do a lot of manual invoicing. We don't do manual closing of books. We don't do manual recruiting. It's very automated.

I don't think to your point, people are very scalable. We try to do a lot with the technology we have, and we've got obviously a great bench of engineers. We've automated most of our business processes through tech, so we don't do a lot of manual invoicing. We don't do manual closing of books. We don't do manual recruiting. It's very automated.

We've had to do that to be able to maintain the scalability without going out and raising funding. from a revenue or top line, you start to see patterns in what customers look for and that generally becomes consistent over time.

We've had to do that to be able to maintain the scalability without going out and raising funding. from a revenue or top line, you start to see patterns in what customers look for and that generally becomes consistent over time.

You come into these problems you're trying to solve where you might be able to reuse some of your code from prior engagements or pull snippets from GitHub or service licenses, et cetera. There's a lot of reusability in being very niche, being very specific in the solutions we're providing.

You come into these problems you're trying to solve where you might be able to reuse some of your code from prior engagements or pull snippets from GitHub or service licenses, et cetera. There's a lot of reusability in being very niche, being very specific in the solutions we're providing.

One may argue, hey, customers don't like that, but the truth is because we're not doing, we're not a dev shop, we're not just writing code for customers, we're solving problems. The reality is you end up solving the problem faster and solving the problem better for the customer, and you're still providing the same value. You're able to do it in a much better way and customers value that.

One may argue, hey, customers don't like that, but the truth is because we're not doing, we're not a dev shop, we're not just writing code for customers, we're solving problems. The reality is you end up solving the problem faster and solving the problem better for the customer, and you're still providing the same value. You're able to do it in a much better way and customers value that.

They appreciate the fact that you don't need six to nine months to launch something or to do a big bang go live or any of that stuff. We try to avoid that. It's, hey, what's ready to go to production, get in production, start using it. You can generally find a good subset of reusable code that's applicable and that helps you scale. You don't have to rewrite everything from scratch.

They appreciate the fact that you don't need six to nine months to launch something or to do a big bang go live or any of that stuff. We try to avoid that. It's, hey, what's ready to go to production, get in production, start using it. You can generally find a good subset of reusable code that's applicable and that helps you scale. You don't have to rewrite everything from scratch.

We're not even going to get into the whole Gen AI kind of conversation because I think that's a different talk track. But once you've gotten really good at something, the chances are you're going to be a lot more efficient at getting it set up for customers. So that's where we found ourselves now.

We're not even going to get into the whole Gen AI kind of conversation because I think that's a different talk track. But once you've gotten really good at something, the chances are you're going to be a lot more efficient at getting it set up for customers. So that's where we found ourselves now.

So I'm not going to be stepping out on a balcony in Boston in January. It's a very hard question to answer. You go through these milestones of starting a business. I think there's always these really cool milestones you hit. Yeah, like we just did this. I remember one of the first milestones was we closed a deal that I wasn't involved in.

So I'm not going to be stepping out on a balcony in Boston in January. It's a very hard question to answer. You go through these milestones of starting a business. I think there's always these really cool milestones you hit. Yeah, like we just did this. I remember one of the first milestones was we closed a deal that I wasn't involved in.

And I was like, holy shit, we've got a team that can go out and start selling now. Our first million dollar deal was a big deal. And I think that year we did seven of them, which was like, wow, again, just hiring really good people that end up surprising you once they get on board and they get going. That's always super cool. There's always, I think this year we'll hit our $100 million milestone.

And I was like, holy shit, we've got a team that can go out and start selling now. Our first million dollar deal was a big deal. And I think that year we did seven of them, which was like, wow, again, just hiring really good people that end up surprising you once they get on board and they get going. That's always super cool. There's always, I think this year we'll hit our $100 million milestone.

Someone was doing that in Slack the other day. I was like, wow, we're actually at that point. There's just so many things to be proud of. The team, really. It's hard to assemble such a great group of people that really enjoy working together and then just trusting them to do the right thing.

Someone was doing that in Slack the other day. I was like, wow, we're actually at that point. There's just so many things to be proud of. The team, really. It's hard to assemble such a great group of people that really enjoy working together and then just trusting them to do the right thing.

And every day, like in Slack, on calls, wherever it is, you're just so blown away by the feedback from customers, by what the team's playing together. So it's hard to say there's one specific thing I'm proud of. If there's anything, honestly, it's probably that we've gotten this far without raising money. That took a lot of discipline. It took a lot of believing that we could do it.

And every day, like in Slack, on calls, wherever it is, you're just so blown away by the feedback from customers, by what the team's playing together. So it's hard to say there's one specific thing I'm proud of. If there's anything, honestly, it's probably that we've gotten this far without raising money. That took a lot of discipline. It took a lot of believing that we could do it.

It's given us a ton of flexibility to do whatever the hell we want to do. The more people I talk to, the more it's not that common.

It's given us a ton of flexibility to do whatever the hell we want to do. The more people I talk to, the more it's not that common.

So very big sporting company that I may not name because they'll probably sue us. They came to us and I made COVID. I don't remember the exact time. And they're like, hey guys, we need you to do this work for us. We're easy to work with. We have this, that, the other thing. We're really small. We're probably like 15, 25 at the time. We have no legal team, right?

So very big sporting company that I may not name because they'll probably sue us. They came to us and I made COVID. I don't remember the exact time. And they're like, hey guys, we need you to do this work for us. We're easy to work with. We have this, that, the other thing. We're really small. We're probably like 15, 25 at the time. We have no legal team, right?

So we're just, we'll review a contract and then sure enough, we'll sign it. So we're really excited about working with them. Like every single person, I would say, I don't know, 90% of the world's population knows this brand. We get the deal going. We start working with them. They want to migrate to Datadog.

So we're just, we'll review a contract and then sure enough, we'll sign it. So we're really excited about working with them. Like every single person, I would say, I don't know, 90% of the world's population knows this brand. We get the deal going. We start working with them. They want to migrate to Datadog.

Once we're going, we realized, I realized probably halfway through it, it was a fixed fee contract. For those who don't know what that means, it means you got to get everything done before you get paid. In our industry, there's two kind of general types of contracts. There's fixed fee and time materials. Time materials says you get paid for the time you spend on the project.

Once we're going, we realized, I realized probably halfway through it, it was a fixed fee contract. For those who don't know what that means, it means you got to get everything done before you get paid. In our industry, there's two kind of general types of contracts. There's fixed fee and time materials. Time materials says you get paid for the time you spend on the project.

Fixed fee says you don't get paid for anything until the work's done. They kept changing the goalposts and they kept changing the scope and they kept pulling in. And anytime we said, guys, you can't do that, they would threaten us with legal. Miserable project. And I can really understand why people shy away from getting into consulting because of this kind of thing.

Fixed fee says you don't get paid for anything until the work's done. They kept changing the goalposts and they kept changing the scope and they kept pulling in. And anytime we said, guys, you can't do that, they would threaten us with legal. Miserable project. And I can really understand why people shy away from getting into consulting because of this kind of thing.

Like you can have a really tough customer that makes you not want to keep doing it. And it was like, I think it was like a six week project that I'm taking more than a year. And then at the end of it, we're like, guys, just take your money back. We're out. We don't like, we don't want anything to do with this anymore. We don't charge you. We're just, we give up.

Like you can have a really tough customer that makes you not want to keep doing it. And it was like, I think it was like a six week project that I'm taking more than a year. And then at the end of it, we're like, guys, just take your money back. We're out. We don't like, we don't want anything to do with this anymore. We don't charge you. We're just, we give up.

Since then, we never did any more fixed fee without really scrutinizing the scope of the project, something like that. If we didn't go through that, we would have never learned to not do fixed fee and could have been burned by something a lot worse. But I'll never forget that project. And if anyone on the team ever listens to this podcast, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Since then, we never did any more fixed fee without really scrutinizing the scope of the project, something like that. If we didn't go through that, we would have never learned to not do fixed fee and could have been burned by something a lot worse. But I'll never forget that project. And if anyone on the team ever listens to this podcast, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

We still make fun of it.

We still make fun of it.

We're really just scratching the surface, right? If you think about how big we are in relation to the opportunity or to what's out there, we really haven't started doing much in Europe and in Asia. We really haven't started dabbling in like the security space, which J-Dog's investing a ton of money into. We really haven't gotten into verticalization, which is where ServiceNow is making a big bet.

We're really just scratching the surface, right? If you think about how big we are in relation to the opportunity or to what's out there, we really haven't started doing much in Europe and in Asia. We really haven't started dabbling in like the security space, which J-Dog's investing a ton of money into. We really haven't gotten into verticalization, which is where ServiceNow is making a big bet.

There's so much that we have yet to really lean into, and there's a ton to capture too. Right now, we're just like higher. We can't hire fast enough. There's a real world where I think we might have to look at acquiring companies or just acquiring talent in bulk, whatever the hell that means, or finding great engineers and bringing them on board faster. We need to capture the opportunity.

There's so much that we have yet to really lean into, and there's a ton to capture too. Right now, we're just like higher. We can't hire fast enough. There's a real world where I think we might have to look at acquiring companies or just acquiring talent in bulk, whatever the hell that means, or finding great engineers and bringing them on board faster. We need to capture the opportunity.

There's no rush to grow faster. But I don't think we're going to get that opportunity as fast as I think we can without doing some sort of acquisition or mergers or something. Our industry is very fragmented. There's a lot of very small players, 20, 30 people that are really great, like great engineers, that if we were able to join forces with, I think we could do a lot. That's really exciting.

There's no rush to grow faster. But I don't think we're going to get that opportunity as fast as I think we can without doing some sort of acquisition or mergers or something. Our industry is very fragmented. There's a lot of very small players, 20, 30 people that are really great, like great engineers, that if we were able to join forces with, I think we could do a lot. That's really exciting.

It's a very exciting thought. The TAM is not shrinking, right? ServiceNow is a $10 billion company growing to $20 billion. Datadog is $2.5 billion, probably going to $5 billion or $6 billion in the next two, three years, I think $27 billion. Our portion of that TAM is growing as well. It's almost like an exponential, and we need to do something about finding the right team and growing the team.

It's a very exciting thought. The TAM is not shrinking, right? ServiceNow is a $10 billion company growing to $20 billion. Datadog is $2.5 billion, probably going to $5 billion or $6 billion in the next two, three years, I think $27 billion. Our portion of that TAM is growing as well. It's almost like an exponential, and we need to do something about finding the right team and growing the team.

What do you think about the future? What excites me? It's definitely that. It's not, and a lot of people ask me this, are you going to get into other industries? Are you going to start doing SAP? Are you going to start doing Azure? Are you going to start doing AWS? No. I think that's when you start to get diluted. That's when you get distracted.

What do you think about the future? What excites me? It's definitely that. It's not, and a lot of people ask me this, are you going to get into other industries? Are you going to start doing SAP? Are you going to start doing Azure? Are you going to start doing AWS? No. I think that's when you start to get diluted. That's when you get distracted.

There's still so much upside in the industries we're in that we've got to capture, and I really do think that's what we're going to end up doing. It's just going to be a ton of M&A.

There's still so much upside in the industries we're in that we've got to capture, and I really do think that's what we're going to end up doing. It's just going to be a ton of M&A.

I always say I miss working for really good people. Like my boss at Wayfair was fantastic. The founders at Wayfair, oh my God, they're just brilliant humans and they're so impressive. That's a void, right? If you start a company or you decide to go off on your own, that's a void.

I always say I miss working for really good people. Like my boss at Wayfair was fantastic. The founders at Wayfair, oh my God, they're just brilliant humans and they're so impressive. That's a void, right? If you start a company or you decide to go off on your own, that's a void.

You try to be the best person you can for your team and you try to make sure you continue to push and inspire them, but you need to lean on... I really did enjoy working for smart people. That was a really cool experience. I get a lot of it from the people on the team with some really sharp engineers. And it's always awesome reading the stuff they post.

You try to be the best person you can for your team and you try to make sure you continue to push and inspire them, but you need to lean on... I really did enjoy working for smart people. That was a really cool experience. I get a lot of it from the people on the team with some really sharp engineers. And it's always awesome reading the stuff they post.

But that is something I internalize, reflect on a lot. People I still lean on, there's a couple of folks that I'd say over the career, someone, Sanjay Verma, someone I worked for at PTC a long time ago, he always used to tell me, dude, you're going to start a business. You've come to America. It's the best place to start a business. And he was right.

But that is something I internalize, reflect on a lot. People I still lean on, there's a couple of folks that I'd say over the career, someone, Sanjay Verma, someone I worked for at PTC a long time ago, he always used to tell me, dude, you're going to start a business. You've come to America. It's the best place to start a business. And he was right.

There's no better country in the world to start a business, as far as I'm concerned. He's a very mindful, very good anchor from a business perspective that I can always go back to. You want to get super inspired first thing in the morning, go read something about Elon Musk. I think that guy's changing the world. I know he's changing the world.

There's no better country in the world to start a business, as far as I'm concerned. He's a very mindful, very good anchor from a business perspective that I can always go back to. You want to get super inspired first thing in the morning, go read something about Elon Musk. I think that guy's changing the world. I know he's changing the world.

The problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying six or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

The problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying six or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

I'd love to work for him or one of his companies someday. Seven months ago, I would have never told you that my daughter forces you to get out of bed and go to work. I never thought I'd be saying this openly, but having another human that depends on you, there's nothing more motivating than that.

I'd love to work for him or one of his companies someday. Seven months ago, I would have never told you that my daughter forces you to get out of bed and go to work. I never thought I'd be saying this openly, but having another human that depends on you, there's nothing more motivating than that.

You get up and you work and you hustle because you're doing it for this human that you know is waiting for you to come back and feed them a bottle of milk, right? What's the big deal? So I'd say that's another factor without really being able to go home and talk to her yet.

You get up and you work and you hustle because you're doing it for this human that you know is waiting for you to come back and feed them a bottle of milk, right? What's the big deal? So I'd say that's another factor without really being able to go home and talk to her yet.

A few years ago, I'd see people's success and I'd be like, what they're doing is not rocket science. Why have they earned the right to be so successful? Like what they're doing is not really earth shattering. And it'd almost be like this, almost like a jealousy. I'd be very jealous. And I think now I see people doing well and I'm so happy for it.

A few years ago, I'd see people's success and I'd be like, what they're doing is not rocket science. Why have they earned the right to be so successful? Like what they're doing is not really earth shattering. And it'd almost be like this, almost like a jealousy. I'd be very jealous. And I think now I see people doing well and I'm so happy for it.

I think everyone should just take the time to try starting a business. Everyone in their career should try to start a business. And seeing successful businesses, bigger, smaller, younger, older, doesn't matter. It makes me really happy because there's so much to go around.

I think everyone should just take the time to try starting a business. Everyone in their career should try to start a business. And seeing successful businesses, bigger, smaller, younger, older, doesn't matter. It makes me really happy because there's so much to go around.

There's so much opportunity to put a dent in any industry, whether it's tech, whether it's, I don't care what you get into, you open a car dealership and you sell boats. I don't care what it is. I met a guy this weekend at the boat show who quit his job and started these inflatables companies. He makes inflatable chairs and inflatable docks to hang off the back of your boat.

There's so much opportunity to put a dent in any industry, whether it's tech, whether it's, I don't care what you get into, you open a car dealership and you sell boats. I don't care what it is. I met a guy this weekend at the boat show who quit his job and started these inflatables companies. He makes inflatable chairs and inflatable docks to hang off the back of your boat.

And I was so happy for him. And I ended up buying a bunch of stuff. Those things make me so happy. People going out, taking a chance and doing well and being successful and being able to work for themselves. I tell my team this all the time. Everyone on my team that wants to start a business should go out and start a business.

And I was so happy for him. And I ended up buying a bunch of stuff. Those things make me so happy. People going out, taking a chance and doing well and being successful and being able to work for themselves. I tell my team this all the time. Everyone on my team that wants to start a business should go out and start a business.

Don't start a business that competes with us because that's not going to end well for you. But get out there and start a business. And I really hope it works. There's nothing more rewarding in the United States than being able to start your own business and just building your own career.

Don't start a business that competes with us because that's not going to end well for you. But get out there and start a business. And I really hope it works. There's nothing more rewarding in the United States than being able to start your own business and just building your own career.

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars. We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code.

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars. We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code.

With that said, if I do sit next to someone super successful on a plane that's just absolutely crushing it, I'd say don't let off the gas. Fast growth is exciting. Fast growth is rewarding. But that means there's so much more behind it. And you've got a team relying on you.

With that said, if I do sit next to someone super successful on a plane that's just absolutely crushing it, I'd say don't let off the gas. Fast growth is exciting. Fast growth is rewarding. But that means there's so much more behind it. And you've got a team relying on you.

You've got a team of people that go home to their families every night and really need you to do your job well so they can continue doing their job well and you can continue to grow and be successful. And that's really important. And that's easy to lose track of. You get distracted. You can start going different directions. Stay super, super focused and stay frugal.

You've got a team of people that go home to their families every night and really need you to do your job well so they can continue doing their job well and you can continue to grow and be successful. And that's really important. And that's easy to lose track of. You get distracted. You can start going different directions. Stay super, super focused and stay frugal.

Those are really important things. And as long as you do those and you don't start trying to do a million things, I think anybody with the right tenacity, with the right drive can start a business. And it's just an awesome thing about this country.

Those are really important things. And as long as you do those and you don't start trying to do a million things, I think anybody with the right tenacity, with the right drive can start a business. And it's just an awesome thing about this country.

Sure thing. Thanks for having me, Noah. I appreciate it.

Sure thing. Thanks for having me, Noah. I appreciate it.

But when I went to talk about them at conferences, very quickly realized a lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, had the same exact problems. They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use just because of all the regulatory boundaries. My name is Tamim Harani. I'm the founder and SE at RedDev.

But when I went to talk about them at conferences, very quickly realized a lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, had the same exact problems. They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use just because of all the regulatory boundaries. My name is Tamim Harani. I'm the founder and SE at RedDev.

So we're more of a services company. I hesitate to use consulting because we do not want to be consultants. We're very engineering heavy. Started because I've been burned multiple times by consulting firms. And I think there's a very big argument in the tech space of whether you do or don't use consultants or whether they add value or not. And I've been burned by that several times in my career.

So we're more of a services company. I hesitate to use consulting because we do not want to be consultants. We're very engineering heavy. Started because I've been burned multiple times by consulting firms. And I think there's a very big argument in the tech space of whether you do or don't use consultants or whether they add value or not. And I've been burned by that several times in my career.

What we essentially do is we try to be an extension, a very engineering heavy extension of our customer's teams, focused specifically on ServiceNow and Datadog. What we do is we help customers deploy the platforms, we help build products on top of the platforms. So we've got about 40 plus plugins for Datadog that help customers expand the usage of Datadog.

What we essentially do is we try to be an extension, a very engineering heavy extension of our customer's teams, focused specifically on ServiceNow and Datadog. What we do is we help customers deploy the platforms, we help build products on top of the platforms. So we've got about 40 plus plugins for Datadog that help customers expand the usage of Datadog.

And then on the ServiceNow side, we really try to bring an engineering-first approach to the way customers use ServiceNow. It's a very business-heavy platform, very kind of process consulting. Spend six months putting PowerPoints together before you get to use it. That really is not what we're trying to go after.

And then on the ServiceNow side, we really try to bring an engineering-first approach to the way customers use ServiceNow. It's a very business-heavy platform, very kind of process consulting. Spend six months putting PowerPoints together before you get to use it. That really is not what we're trying to go after.

We're very tight to value, get the customers up and running, and really partner with them long-term on the engineering front. Consulting is a hard industry to be valuable at, right? Because a lot of consultants do it because it's very fast cash, like you're charging for time. And there's really not a lot of value in charging for time unless you're providing something very specific.

We're very tight to value, get the customers up and running, and really partner with them long-term on the engineering front. Consulting is a hard industry to be valuable at, right? Because a lot of consultants do it because it's very fast cash, like you're charging for time. And there's really not a lot of value in charging for time unless you're providing something very specific.

As a leader in the tech space in the past, we've had to deal with that. We've hired companies that have gone halfway through a project and said, hey, you're out of time, you've got to buy more time, or we're over budget, or you've got to sign a change order. or you're done with a project, they think they're done and you're like, wait, like half the stuff we agreed on is missing.

As a leader in the tech space in the past, we've had to deal with that. We've hired companies that have gone halfway through a project and said, hey, you're out of time, you've got to buy more time, or we're over budget, or you've got to sign a change order. or you're done with a project, they think they're done and you're like, wait, like half the stuff we agreed on is missing.

It's really a bad experience. What we took on to do is the exact opposite, right? I tell my team, we got to do right by our customers always. And if we miss scope to project, that's on us. That's not on the customer. If we're out of hours, we should have a better job managing a project. That's really helped us grow very quickly in our space.

It's really a bad experience. What we took on to do is the exact opposite, right? I tell my team, we got to do right by our customers always. And if we miss scope to project, that's on us. That's not on the customer. If we're out of hours, we should have a better job managing a project. That's really helped us grow very quickly in our space.

And it's helped us differentiate from a lot of the competitors or other consulting firms that it's just low-level, I don't even want to say engineering work, it's just low-level development, really. And there's a big differentiator there in what the customer is getting from a value perspective.

And it's helped us differentiate from a lot of the competitors or other consulting firms that it's just low-level, I don't even want to say engineering work, it's just low-level development, really. And there's a big differentiator there in what the customer is getting from a value perspective.

I mean, with the whole like Gen-AI craze and all that stuff that's going on now, I really think some of those low-level outsourcing consultant offshore companies are going to be the first to go. It's just such commoditized services, right? And you really got to differentiate yourself. And that's what I found was a big gap in the industry. When I left Wayfair, I was very transparent.

I mean, with the whole like Gen-AI craze and all that stuff that's going on now, I really think some of those low-level outsourcing consultant offshore companies are going to be the first to go. It's just such commoditized services, right? And you really got to differentiate yourself. And that's what I found was a big gap in the industry. When I left Wayfair, I was very transparent.

I said, guys, I'm going to set off to try to do this thing that we really struggled to get right at Wayfair because we've been burned by partners. I just want to be a transparent engineering-led partner team. They were very supportive. They gave me six months. They let me vest. They were one of our first customers, which is pretty sick.

I said, guys, I'm going to set off to try to do this thing that we really struggled to get right at Wayfair because we've been burned by partners. I just want to be a transparent engineering-led partner team. They were very supportive. They gave me six months. They let me vest. They were one of our first customers, which is pretty sick.

It's generally just poor experiences as a customer and having to deal with that is where it all started.

It's generally just poor experiences as a customer and having to deal with that is where it all started.

What really drove us to get going? What really pushed me to leave a safe job, a great job, actually, that I was learning a ton at? Doing a lot of talks at conferences, the problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying 600 or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

What really drove us to get going? What really pushed me to leave a safe job, a great job, actually, that I was learning a ton at? Doing a lot of talks at conferences, the problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying 600 or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars.

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars.

We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code, but when I went to talk about them at conferences, I very quickly realized A lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, have the same exact problems. They're not able to do true CICD.

We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code, but when I went to talk about them at conferences, I very quickly realized A lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, have the same exact problems. They're not able to do true CICD.

They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use, just because of all the regulatory boundaries they've been applied to. So the first thing that really worked for us was helping those customers accelerate their audit requirements. We were using ServiceNow to automate any of their QA testing, validation, cross-checking, 4Is in the finance industry.

They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use, just because of all the regulatory boundaries they've been applied to. So the first thing that really worked for us was helping those customers accelerate their audit requirements. We were using ServiceNow to automate any of their QA testing, validation, cross-checking, 4Is in the finance industry.

You can almost call it a product, but that solution slowly became applicable to the pharma and insurance industries because they're also super highly regulated. So you start to see this pattern of we can help highly regulated customers deploy code faster using ServiceNow. ServiceNow just becomes an enabler. But the solution is that, right? And then you can almost argue that's the value.

You can almost call it a product, but that solution slowly became applicable to the pharma and insurance industries because they're also super highly regulated. So you start to see this pattern of we can help highly regulated customers deploy code faster using ServiceNow. ServiceNow just becomes an enabler. But the solution is that, right? And then you can almost argue that's the value.

I hesitate to say consulting because consultants, a lot of times, it's like, hey, I need you to do these 17 things. I know you're done. We're the exact opposite of that. We're coming with a solution. We're coming with what we believe adds value. And we're helping the customer accomplish that.

I hesitate to say consulting because consultants, a lot of times, it's like, hey, I need you to do these 17 things. I know you're done. We're the exact opposite of that. We're coming with a solution. We're coming with what we believe adds value. And we're helping the customer accomplish that.

And that, I would argue, was our first MVP or our first iteration of the value we're providing to customers. And from there, it just started to snowball.

And that, I would argue, was our first MVP or our first iteration of the value we're providing to customers. And from there, it just started to snowball.

I think it's impossible to start a business with a multi-year roadmap and really think you're going to stick to it. And I'm probably not the first one to say this on this podcast or the last. If I showed you what I had in mind after like six months and where we are today, it's completely unrelated.

I think it's impossible to start a business with a multi-year roadmap and really think you're going to stick to it. And I'm probably not the first one to say this on this podcast or the last. If I showed you what I had in mind after like six months and where we are today, it's completely unrelated.

But that said, what we generally started to lean towards is, okay, we've solved this kind of audit compliance requirement for our customers. What else is a gap that our customers are running into from a ServiceNow slash JDOC perspective? two themes emerged. On the Datadog front, Datadog as a company was really focused on being the leader in progressive cloud native observability.

But that said, what we generally started to lean towards is, okay, we've solved this kind of audit compliance requirement for our customers. What else is a gap that our customers are running into from a ServiceNow slash JDOC perspective? two themes emerged. On the Datadog front, Datadog as a company was really focused on being the leader in progressive cloud native observability.

But when you get to these highly regulated companies, such as banks that are using Datadog that we were already working with, they have some pretty legacy tech, right? They're looking at all this really old stuff that Datadog didn't really care for, but our customers needed to make sure that they could monitor and they could move over to Datadog. So that was the immediate next aha opportunity.

But when you get to these highly regulated companies, such as banks that are using Datadog that we were already working with, they have some pretty legacy tech, right? They're looking at all this really old stuff that Datadog didn't really care for, but our customers needed to make sure that they could monitor and they could move over to Datadog. So that was the immediate next aha opportunity.

What if we could bridge that gap? What if we could go into those customers that are using Datadog and say, hey, we can build product for Datadog that'll allow you to monitor Solaris and HPX and all this legacy tech. And that slowly bled into IT tech versus cloud native. So think like monitoring Zoom calls or monitoring Microsoft Teams and making sure your broadcasts are good.

What if we could bridge that gap? What if we could go into those customers that are using Datadog and say, hey, we can build product for Datadog that'll allow you to monitor Solaris and HPX and all this legacy tech. And that slowly bled into IT tech versus cloud native. So think like monitoring Zoom calls or monitoring Microsoft Teams and making sure your broadcasts are good.

That became a segue into the marketplace presence we have today with Datadog.

That became a segue into the marketplace presence we have today with Datadog.

I think I said earlier, we're probably north of 40 tools now, but that's a pretty nice revenue stream for us as a consulting firm, let's say, like an engineering firm, services firm, where we're not really focused on building product, but as a proxy of building it for customers, we've got a nice little AR that keeps coming through. So that was the Datadog side of it.

I think I said earlier, we're probably north of 40 tools now, but that's a pretty nice revenue stream for us as a consulting firm, let's say, like an engineering firm, services firm, where we're not really focused on building product, but as a proxy of building it for customers, we've got a nice little AR that keeps coming through. So that was the Datadog side of it.

On the ServiceNow side, it was okay, now we're in, we fixed this highly regulated audit requirement. We can do very similar stuff with managing your inventory, managing your CIs, making sure you know how to track containers that are elastic, that are short-lived. The same audit requirements apply there, right?

On the ServiceNow side, it was okay, now we're in, we fixed this highly regulated audit requirement. We can do very similar stuff with managing your inventory, managing your CIs, making sure you know how to track containers that are elastic, that are short-lived. The same audit requirements apply there, right?

If something exists for a day or a month, from a regulatory perspective, you've got to be able to track it, track costs, track all these other things. So that very naturally became a segue into other teams within those customers, cloud-native teams, et cetera. Went from the audit team over to engineering and cloud, and now we're slowly starting to get to security.

So we're a bootstrapped company, right? We never raised funding. We never had the luxury of going out and hiring whoever we wanted. So one of the most important things, and still is today, it's in one of our OPRs, one of our objectives for the year, is staying frugal. We had to be very careful who we hired, who we brought on board.

And I'd say the first 10 to 15, maybe even 15 engineers or 15 people wrapped up were engineers. And in our business, if you're an engineer, you're revenue generating directly to the top line. So we're very careful not to hire any roles we didn't need. So I'd say until we were like 30 or 35 people, I did a lot of the QuickBooks and I did a lot of the HubSpot. I want to call it marketing, right?

We just had like HubSpot campaigns. Now we have Tony who runs a lot for us. I did recruiting, right? I DM people on LinkedIn. I still do sometimes to try to bring good people on board, but we had to be very frugal. And I think by proxy of doing that, we ended up being very disciplined in our interview process. We had very strong engineers and PMs join us early days.

I think actually all of the first 10 engineers are still with us today. We had a very strong team that could really challenge each other and lean on each other. That created a really good foundation for what we have today. And we're very lucky. I don't think we'd be where we are today if we didn't have that rock solid foundational team of engineers.

But it's played a very big role in what has turned into 100% company today. We didn't go out and hire a bunch of leaders, right? We were very flat. We actually had no managers until we hit that 30-person mark. It was just a bunch of engineers doing good work. We just had to keep it that way to survive.

Are you familiar with Sequoia's rule of threes and tens? I don't know if you've come across that.

It's just like your business fundamentally changes when you hit these intervals, right? So you're three people, you're 10 people, you're 30 people, you're 100 people. And then the next break becomes 300 and 1,000 and so on. A lot of companies or a lot of people talk about scaling based on revenue, right? They'll be like, hey, you're at 25 million, you're at 50, you're at 100.

And yeah, of course, the business changes. But if you look at it from people's perspective, we've almost been like spot on with those breaks. It's right when we hit those intervals, the business just starts to fundamentally change. You need different roles. You need different tools. You need different automation. We've been very cognizant to try to lean on tech to scale out versus people.

I don't think to your point, people are very scalable. We try to do a lot with the technology we have, and we've got obviously a great bench of engineers. We've automated most of our business processes through tech, so we don't do a lot of manual invoicing. We don't do manual closing of books. We don't do manual recruiting. It's very automated.

We've had to do that to be able to maintain the scalability without going out and raising funding. from a revenue or top line, you start to see patterns in what customers look for and that generally becomes consistent over time.

You come into these problems you're trying to solve where you might be able to reuse some of your code from prior engagements or pull snippets from GitHub or service licenses, et cetera. There's a lot of reusability in being very niche, being very specific in the solutions we're providing.

One may argue, hey, customers don't like that, but the truth is because we're not doing, we're not a dev shop, we're not just writing code for customers, we're solving problems. The reality is you end up solving the problem faster and solving the problem better for the customer, and you're still providing the same value. You're able to do it in a much better way and customers value that.

They appreciate the fact that you don't need six to nine months to launch something or to do a big bang go live or any of that stuff. We try to avoid that. It's, hey, what's ready to go to production, get in production, start using it. You can generally find a good subset of reusable code that's applicable and that helps you scale. You don't have to rewrite everything from scratch.

We're not even going to get into the whole Gen AI kind of conversation because I think that's a different talk track. But once you've gotten really good at something, the chances are you're going to be a lot more efficient at getting it set up for customers. So that's where we found ourselves now.

So I'm not going to be stepping out on a balcony in Boston in January. It's a very hard question to answer. You go through these milestones of starting a business. I think there's always these really cool milestones you hit. Yeah, like we just did this. I remember one of the first milestones was we closed a deal that I wasn't involved in.

And I was like, holy shit, we've got a team that can go out and start selling now. Our first million dollar deal was a big deal. And I think that year we did seven of them, which was like, wow, again, just hiring really good people that end up surprising you once they get on board and they get going. That's always super cool. There's always, I think this year we'll hit our $100 million milestone.

Someone was doing that in Slack the other day. I was like, wow, we're actually at that point. There's just so many things to be proud of. The team, really. It's hard to assemble such a great group of people that really enjoy working together and then just trusting them to do the right thing.

And every day, like in Slack, on calls, wherever it is, you're just so blown away by the feedback from customers, by what the team's playing together. So it's hard to say there's one specific thing I'm proud of. If there's anything, honestly, it's probably that we've gotten this far without raising money. That took a lot of discipline. It took a lot of believing that we could do it.

It's given us a ton of flexibility to do whatever the hell we want to do. The more people I talk to, the more it's not that common.

So very big sporting company that I may not name because they'll probably sue us. They came to us and I made COVID. I don't remember the exact time. And they're like, hey guys, we need you to do this work for us. We're easy to work with. We have this, that, the other thing. We're really small. We're probably like 15, 25 at the time. We have no legal team, right?

So we're just, we'll review a contract and then sure enough, we'll sign it. So we're really excited about working with them. Like every single person, I would say, I don't know, 90% of the world's population knows this brand. We get the deal going. We start working with them. They want to migrate to Datadog.

Once we're going, we realized, I realized probably halfway through it, it was a fixed fee contract. For those who don't know what that means, it means you got to get everything done before you get paid. In our industry, there's two kind of general types of contracts. There's fixed fee and time materials. Time materials says you get paid for the time you spend on the project.

Fixed fee says you don't get paid for anything until the work's done. They kept changing the goalposts and they kept changing the scope and they kept pulling in. And anytime we said, guys, you can't do that, they would threaten us with legal. Miserable project. And I can really understand why people shy away from getting into consulting because of this kind of thing.

Like you can have a really tough customer that makes you not want to keep doing it. And it was like, I think it was like a six week project that I'm taking more than a year. And then at the end of it, we're like, guys, just take your money back. We're out. We don't like, we don't want anything to do with this anymore. We don't charge you. We're just, we give up.

Since then, we never did any more fixed fee without really scrutinizing the scope of the project, something like that. If we didn't go through that, we would have never learned to not do fixed fee and could have been burned by something a lot worse. But I'll never forget that project. And if anyone on the team ever listens to this podcast, they'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

We still make fun of it.

We're really just scratching the surface, right? If you think about how big we are in relation to the opportunity or to what's out there, we really haven't started doing much in Europe and in Asia. We really haven't started dabbling in like the security space, which J-Dog's investing a ton of money into. We really haven't gotten into verticalization, which is where ServiceNow is making a big bet.

There's so much that we have yet to really lean into, and there's a ton to capture too. Right now, we're just like higher. We can't hire fast enough. There's a real world where I think we might have to look at acquiring companies or just acquiring talent in bulk, whatever the hell that means, or finding great engineers and bringing them on board faster. We need to capture the opportunity.

There's no rush to grow faster. But I don't think we're going to get that opportunity as fast as I think we can without doing some sort of acquisition or mergers or something. Our industry is very fragmented. There's a lot of very small players, 20, 30 people that are really great, like great engineers, that if we were able to join forces with, I think we could do a lot. That's really exciting.

It's a very exciting thought. The TAM is not shrinking, right? ServiceNow is a $10 billion company growing to $20 billion. Datadog is $2.5 billion, probably going to $5 billion or $6 billion in the next two, three years, I think $27 billion. Our portion of that TAM is growing as well. It's almost like an exponential, and we need to do something about finding the right team and growing the team.

What do you think about the future? What excites me? It's definitely that. It's not, and a lot of people ask me this, are you going to get into other industries? Are you going to start doing SAP? Are you going to start doing Azure? Are you going to start doing AWS? No. I think that's when you start to get diluted. That's when you get distracted.

There's still so much upside in the industries we're in that we've got to capture, and I really do think that's what we're going to end up doing. It's just going to be a ton of M&A.

I always say I miss working for really good people. Like my boss at Wayfair was fantastic. The founders at Wayfair, oh my God, they're just brilliant humans and they're so impressive. That's a void, right? If you start a company or you decide to go off on your own, that's a void.

You try to be the best person you can for your team and you try to make sure you continue to push and inspire them, but you need to lean on... I really did enjoy working for smart people. That was a really cool experience. I get a lot of it from the people on the team with some really sharp engineers. And it's always awesome reading the stuff they post.

But that is something I internalize, reflect on a lot. People I still lean on, there's a couple of folks that I'd say over the career, someone, Sanjay Verma, someone I worked for at PTC a long time ago, he always used to tell me, dude, you're going to start a business. You've come to America. It's the best place to start a business. And he was right.

There's no better country in the world to start a business, as far as I'm concerned. He's a very mindful, very good anchor from a business perspective that I can always go back to. You want to get super inspired first thing in the morning, go read something about Elon Musk. I think that guy's changing the world. I know he's changing the world.

The problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying six or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

I'd love to work for him or one of his companies someday. Seven months ago, I would have never told you that my daughter forces you to get out of bed and go to work. I never thought I'd be saying this openly, but having another human that depends on you, there's nothing more motivating than that.

You get up and you work and you hustle because you're doing it for this human that you know is waiting for you to come back and feed them a bottle of milk, right? What's the big deal? So I'd say that's another factor without really being able to go home and talk to her yet.

A few years ago, I'd see people's success and I'd be like, what they're doing is not rocket science. Why have they earned the right to be so successful? Like what they're doing is not really earth shattering. And it'd almost be like this, almost like a jealousy. I'd be very jealous. And I think now I see people doing well and I'm so happy for it.

I think everyone should just take the time to try starting a business. Everyone in their career should try to start a business. And seeing successful businesses, bigger, smaller, younger, older, doesn't matter. It makes me really happy because there's so much to go around.

There's so much opportunity to put a dent in any industry, whether it's tech, whether it's, I don't care what you get into, you open a car dealership and you sell boats. I don't care what it is. I met a guy this weekend at the boat show who quit his job and started these inflatables companies. He makes inflatable chairs and inflatable docks to hang off the back of your boat.

And I was so happy for him. And I ended up buying a bunch of stuff. Those things make me so happy. People going out, taking a chance and doing well and being successful and being able to work for themselves. I tell my team this all the time. Everyone on my team that wants to start a business should go out and start a business.

Don't start a business that competes with us because that's not going to end well for you. But get out there and start a business. And I really hope it works. There's nothing more rewarding in the United States than being able to start your own business and just building your own career.

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars. We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code.

With that said, if I do sit next to someone super successful on a plane that's just absolutely crushing it, I'd say don't let off the gas. Fast growth is exciting. Fast growth is rewarding. But that means there's so much more behind it. And you've got a team relying on you.

You've got a team of people that go home to their families every night and really need you to do your job well so they can continue doing their job well and you can continue to grow and be successful. And that's really important. And that's easy to lose track of. You get distracted. You can start going different directions. Stay super, super focused and stay frugal.

Those are really important things. And as long as you do those and you don't start trying to do a million things, I think anybody with the right tenacity, with the right drive can start a business. And it's just an awesome thing about this country.

Sure thing. Thanks for having me, Noah. I appreciate it.

But when I went to talk about them at conferences, very quickly realized a lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, had the same exact problems. They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use just because of all the regulatory boundaries. My name is Tamim Harani. I'm the founder and SE at RedDev.

So we're more of a services company. I hesitate to use consulting because we do not want to be consultants. We're very engineering heavy. Started because I've been burned multiple times by consulting firms. And I think there's a very big argument in the tech space of whether you do or don't use consultants or whether they add value or not. And I've been burned by that several times in my career.

What we essentially do is we try to be an extension, a very engineering heavy extension of our customer's teams, focused specifically on ServiceNow and Datadog. What we do is we help customers deploy the platforms, we help build products on top of the platforms. So we've got about 40 plus plugins for Datadog that help customers expand the usage of Datadog.

And then on the ServiceNow side, we really try to bring an engineering-first approach to the way customers use ServiceNow. It's a very business-heavy platform, very kind of process consulting. Spend six months putting PowerPoints together before you get to use it. That really is not what we're trying to go after.

We're very tight to value, get the customers up and running, and really partner with them long-term on the engineering front. Consulting is a hard industry to be valuable at, right? Because a lot of consultants do it because it's very fast cash, like you're charging for time. And there's really not a lot of value in charging for time unless you're providing something very specific.

As a leader in the tech space in the past, we've had to deal with that. We've hired companies that have gone halfway through a project and said, hey, you're out of time, you've got to buy more time, or we're over budget, or you've got to sign a change order. or you're done with a project, they think they're done and you're like, wait, like half the stuff we agreed on is missing.

It's really a bad experience. What we took on to do is the exact opposite, right? I tell my team, we got to do right by our customers always. And if we miss scope to project, that's on us. That's not on the customer. If we're out of hours, we should have a better job managing a project. That's really helped us grow very quickly in our space.

And it's helped us differentiate from a lot of the competitors or other consulting firms that it's just low-level, I don't even want to say engineering work, it's just low-level development, really. And there's a big differentiator there in what the customer is getting from a value perspective.

I mean, with the whole like Gen-AI craze and all that stuff that's going on now, I really think some of those low-level outsourcing consultant offshore companies are going to be the first to go. It's just such commoditized services, right? And you really got to differentiate yourself. And that's what I found was a big gap in the industry. When I left Wayfair, I was very transparent.

I said, guys, I'm going to set off to try to do this thing that we really struggled to get right at Wayfair because we've been burned by partners. I just want to be a transparent engineering-led partner team. They were very supportive. They gave me six months. They let me vest. They were one of our first customers, which is pretty sick.

It's generally just poor experiences as a customer and having to deal with that is where it all started.

What really drove us to get going? What really pushed me to leave a safe job, a great job, actually, that I was learning a ton at? Doing a lot of talks at conferences, the problem we were solving at Wayfair was around deploying 600 or 700 times the data production. And if you think about all the public company requirements that wrap around that, it's pretty crazy, right?

You've got to do a ton of audits, you've got to do a ton of paper trails, you've got to make sure your SOX compliance and your PCI compliance, there's all these requirements that are enforced just by proxy being a public company and then by proxy being over a billion dollars.

We solved those problems using platforms like ServiceNow and some custom code, but when I went to talk about them at conferences, I very quickly realized A lot of public companies, especially in the banking sector, have the same exact problems. They're not able to do true CICD.

They're not able to adopt true DevOps methodologies or practices or whatever buzzword you might use, just because of all the regulatory boundaries they've been applied to. So the first thing that really worked for us was helping those customers accelerate their audit requirements. We were using ServiceNow to automate any of their QA testing, validation, cross-checking, 4Is in the finance industry.

You can almost call it a product, but that solution slowly became applicable to the pharma and insurance industries because they're also super highly regulated. So you start to see this pattern of we can help highly regulated customers deploy code faster using ServiceNow. ServiceNow just becomes an enabler. But the solution is that, right? And then you can almost argue that's the value.

I hesitate to say consulting because consultants, a lot of times, it's like, hey, I need you to do these 17 things. I know you're done. We're the exact opposite of that. We're coming with a solution. We're coming with what we believe adds value. And we're helping the customer accomplish that.

And that, I would argue, was our first MVP or our first iteration of the value we're providing to customers. And from there, it just started to snowball.

I think it's impossible to start a business with a multi-year roadmap and really think you're going to stick to it. And I'm probably not the first one to say this on this podcast or the last. If I showed you what I had in mind after like six months and where we are today, it's completely unrelated.

But that said, what we generally started to lean towards is, okay, we've solved this kind of audit compliance requirement for our customers. What else is a gap that our customers are running into from a ServiceNow slash JDOC perspective? two themes emerged. On the Datadog front, Datadog as a company was really focused on being the leader in progressive cloud native observability.

But when you get to these highly regulated companies, such as banks that are using Datadog that we were already working with, they have some pretty legacy tech, right? They're looking at all this really old stuff that Datadog didn't really care for, but our customers needed to make sure that they could monitor and they could move over to Datadog. So that was the immediate next aha opportunity.

What if we could bridge that gap? What if we could go into those customers that are using Datadog and say, hey, we can build product for Datadog that'll allow you to monitor Solaris and HPX and all this legacy tech. And that slowly bled into IT tech versus cloud native. So think like monitoring Zoom calls or monitoring Microsoft Teams and making sure your broadcasts are good.

That became a segue into the marketplace presence we have today with Datadog.

I think I said earlier, we're probably north of 40 tools now, but that's a pretty nice revenue stream for us as a consulting firm, let's say, like an engineering firm, services firm, where we're not really focused on building product, but as a proxy of building it for customers, we've got a nice little AR that keeps coming through. So that was the Datadog side of it.

On the ServiceNow side, it was okay, now we're in, we fixed this highly regulated audit requirement. We can do very similar stuff with managing your inventory, managing your CIs, making sure you know how to track containers that are elastic, that are short-lived. The same audit requirements apply there, right?