SaaS Scaling Secrets
The SaaS Scaling Secrets podcast reveals the strategies and insights behind scaling B2B SaaS companies to new heights. Dan Balcauski, founder of Product Tranquility, leads conversations with successful SaaS CEOs, exploring their challenges, triumphs, and the secrets that propelled their businesses to the next level.
SaaS Scaling Secrets
Navigating Remote Culture While Scaling with Eric Christopher, CEO of Zylo
Dan Balcauski sits down with Eric Christopher, CEO and co-founder of Zylo, a leading enterprise SaaS management platform. Eric brings us insights from over 15 years in the SaaS industry, discussing the evolving dynamics of office culture in the tech community, the challenges of scaling a SaaS company, and the changing venture capital landscape. Dive into Eric's journey, pivotal moments, perspectives on sales and product relationship dynamics, and crucial lessons learned in fundraising for growth-stage companies.
Guest Bio
Eric Christopher is CEO and co-founder of Zylo, the leading enterprise SaaS management platform. After more than 15 years of helping clients discover and adopt breakthrough software solutions, he envisioned a more proactive way for business leaders to manage their SaaS investments - the result is Zylo. Eric's journey to CEO and co-founder started in Sales at ExactTarget (later acquired by Salesforce), followed by six years as SVP of Sales at Shoutlet and Sprout Social before co-founding Zylo in 2016.
Guest Links
Zylo.com
Follow Eric on Twitter and LinkedIn
Hello and welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast that dives into the trenches with the leaders of the best scale up B2B SaaS companies. I'm your host, Dan Balcauski, founder of Product Tranquility. Today, I'm thrilled to speak with Eric Christopher. Eric is the CEO and co founder of Zylo, the leading SaaS management platform for enterprises. After more than 15 years of helping clients discover and adopt breakthrough software solutions, he envisioned a more proactive way for business leaders to manage their SaaS investments. The result is Zylo. Eric's journey to CEO and co founder started in sales at ExactTarget, later acquired by Salesforce, followed by six years as SVP of sales at Shoutlet and Sprout Social before co founding Zylo in 2016. So buckle up as we dive into Eric's journey, explore the secrets behind Zylo's rapid growth, and uncover his strategies for scaling in today's dynamic SaaS environment. Let's get started. Welcome, Eric, to SaaS Scaling Secrets.
Eric Christopher:Hey, Dan. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dan Balcauski:Eric, thank you so much for taking the time today. For the people in our audience who are not intimately familiar with you, can you just briefly introduce yourself? Tell us a little about your journey in the SaaS world.
Eric Christopher:Yeah, you bet. let's see where to start on the personal front. I grew up in the Midwest. I like to share that just being in the SaaS world. I'm very proud to be building a company in Indianapolis. I grew up in Indiana and, I was fortunate enough. I went to Indiana University and then, When I graduated, I landed at where you mentioned earlier, my background with ExactTarget, so I have been spending, I've spent now nearly 20 years in the SaaS world, and, a fun way to get there, I think, being in the Midwest and have an opportunity to work with a company, ExactTarget, very early on that eventually was acquired. So that's kind of how I got into, to really building software companies, as well. And then, I've got three kids, and a beautiful wife, Lauren, smart, and a great person. That's my partner here. And, and that's a little bit about me.
Dan Balcauski:Well, that's fascinating background. And, yeah, we'll get into the Midwest, side later. I am actually a Midwesternite, as well, having grown up in Chicago. I just couldn't stand the winter, so fled to Texas as soon as I was able to. Everyone has... A transformational moment or series of moments in their life. I sometimes refer to it as your superhero transformation moment. What's for you the I'm Peter Parker, a bit by a radioactive spider. I go to sleep, wake up and everything is different moment.
Eric Christopher:that's a great question. I think the last 10 years in general have been an interesting, time period to be, building companies, yeah, obviously, yeah, the pandemic a few years ago, various kind of, chapters within the venture, community and, just how markets are and things like that. I think for me. it was probably the beginning of like around 2010, which is about halfway into my 20 year, time period, was the realization of how many just software companies were being created and how, challenging it could be. it was kind of the catalyst very early on of me seeing this trend of just how many, different software companies, could exist. And, our business, we actually help companies, like, think about controlling it. And I'm not going to talk about necessarily everything about our business, but the interesting thing is it convinced me of how big the market was and how big the opportunities were. And so it gave me a lot of, like, Give me courage and kind of belief that, there's a lot of opportunity to build companies, which ultimately led me to, to wanting to build a company in the SaaS space was just how big the markets are and how big of opportunities are. So, that was kind of a moment for me.
Dan Balcauski:And you, as I mentioned in your introduction and you touched on a bit, you had a background in sales, correct, before jumping in the entrepreneurial side.
Eric Christopher:Yeah, well, I did, I started a company at college. So that was like my beginning, I actually started a web based business in 1999 and then, I left, when I left school and got out into the quote unquote real world, the first job that I, was hired to do at ExactTarget was sales. And I spent, really the first 15 years of my career in either sales or sales leadership roles.
Dan Balcauski:Given your background, I'm curious on your opinion, given what you've seen in the software business, what do you think is the distinction between a good sales organization and a great sales organization?
Eric Christopher:I think sales is uh, I think a profession that. If you haven't done it, I think it's pretty misunderstood. I think, you'll hear that some SaaS companies, like the product should sell itself. You'll hear that, some other companies will describe themselves as like sort of all products are the same and it was the sales culture or the go to market that ended up being the reason that someone, wins a market. I think what. What really separates a great sales culture and maybe one that, might be more just considered average or good, is somehow building this, mindset within the team of curiosity and problem solving and really, having a team do it at scale. And I think that's really hard, I, a lot of sales organizations will adopt sales, methodologies like Medic. is a, is one that comes to mind. I know there's, a handful, but I think, it's building a culture that has, just an immense curiosity to solving problems because I think buyers still today, even though there's a lot of research and there's a lot of information online, there's a really good opportunity for sales to really connect the dots on, and doing a great job advising on selection and things like that. So, That's kind of high level is, curiosity is of problem solving because all the other things like, prospecting and, attention to detail and, target approaches and things like that. Those are the things that all good sales organizations do. I think it's when you get the curiosity is where it separates. to a great sales culture.
Dan Balcauski:So what I heard there was a bit of going beyond the activities, that are normally considered in sales and getting a real curiosity about the challenges the end customers kind of facing and how, how to actually, make whatever you're talking about relevant, but also actually help, like a true sort of value add of like, how do we help the customer actually solve their problem, in the, being intensely curious about that.
Eric Christopher:And why that's so important is like, think about all the sales people you've worked with, how many of them have actually solved the, have been in the, in, in the seat solving the problem that they're selling to the customer, right? Like, I, you think about it at ExactTarget. How many salespeople ever had actually sent an email campaign, yet, you're consulting organizations on helping them, pick a solution that's going to be vital to their business. And so I think curiosity and kind of like being in it truly in the shoes of the prospective customer and what it's like and what the challenges they have, both as an individual. And I think when you get a sales organization that starts to share and compare notes and, on customer wins and how the solutions really, solving problems for them. Then, I think that just kind of continues to unlock. And that curiosity, makes you really be in the buyer's shoes, which is really hard to do actually.
Dan Balcauski:Well, I came from a background of more product management, product strategy. So, there could often be a tension between product organizations and sales organizations, especially if you're doing a lot of sales to say, enterprises, for example, sales may want just this one customization in order to close the deal. Now that you're in the most senior seat at your company, how do you think about that relationship between sales and product? Who's driving the bus?
Eric Christopher:back to the kind of the, that analogy of, or just the description of sitting, in someone's shoes, solving the problem. I think that's the same. I would say that. Probably the same to a product too, being able to truly understand, you're building something and make sure it meets the needs of, of that actual buyer that's sitting, trying to solve that problem. I think there's an approach, there's no one better that can give feedback than the customer or a prospect directly, but also, kind of second. Best and very close to it is the articulation from that curious sales rep, bringing feedback into the organization as well. And I think product is really there to drive a vision. Like I, I look to product in our organization to kind of look where the market's going, where the future is going to be. Cause I think a lot of customers are really focused on day to day. And so I think there's a good friction where you take a lot of the day to day feedback from salespeople. And you help the product organization get that information so they can prioritize what features to build, say over the short range kind of time period. And I think product really has to then really own the long term vision and make sure those decisions are fitting within that long term vision and in that balance. And so I think that's kind of a good way to. Get them to work together, in, in that the product can respond and make adjustments. And certainly you want to build features, that, that will help, particular, it could be a specific customer might have a request, but ideally what you're going to do is rule out things that are going to be very custom only to that one off customer and really try to, build a solution that'll benefit, either all customers is the best, or at least a segment of customers that maybe the solution's focused towards.
Dan Balcauski:Yeah, I think you've highlighted it well, that there's a, definitely a tension in timeframes, of what each organization is being tasked with and incentivized to care about, to a certain extent that helps, make that a nuanced conversation, at the very least to make sure it happens smoothly and regularly at your company.
Eric Christopher:Yeah, exactly.
Dan Balcauski:well, I do wanna shift and talk about Zylo. So for those of the audience who are not intimately familiar with Zylo, what does Zylo do and what is the mission?
Eric Christopher:Zylo, we're called a SaaS management platform. I think now the industry has been established. We, and, I'm proud, I'm always proud to kind of share. we were one of the very early creators or pioneers to the space. So back in 2016 is when we started the business and, our, what we do and what We, live kind of every day towards helping organizations maximize the value of the software applications they're buying and using their organization. So, we have a solution that analyzes financials and contract data, and it also analyzes utilization of SaaS applications. So we could measure, if employees are logging into applications or how they're being used, and ultimately we're helping. Make sure that customers are controlling costs, that they're, the applications that they're using, that they're We're helping serve up data about those applications to them so they can make the best decisions on which, which, software applications to renew, which ones not to renew, maybe look for potential areas of improvement. Like, if they have several different, applications that do the same things, really be able to. help the organization, have a, one source of truth of all those applications and be able to make good decisions on the software that they're using every day.
Dan Balcauski:Got it. So, the helping people understand I've got, 200, 300, 400 SaaS applications my company has purchased, maybe I'm CIO, CTO, and who's actually using what, how is it being used? Are we, can we get rid of seats or whatever might be not actually being leveraged in the organization?
Eric Christopher:Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, I think, a good, like, simple way to think about it too, is like, in our personal lives, many of us use like, software applications or services like mint. com or something like that, where you're tracking all of your expenses and, and things like that and enterprises, every, every employee could be a potential buyer of software. So, there's free trials, there's, just very inexpensive, ways that, or applications that come to market where an employee can expense, one seat or, a handful of seats and those applications quickly become, they quickly grow and, so many examples like we're on Zoom, recording this today, or, Slack, things like that. and all of those applications start with that kind of viral nature. So what we're really trying to do is give, organizations visibility into those hundreds of applications. And then the tools to make sure that you're renewing the ones that you should renew and, consolidate where you should or expand where you should. But, certainly you need to have a, have it all under control and into one kind of pane of glass, if you will.
Dan Balcauski:you're in an interesting perspective. in this space, because you're running a SaaS company and also simultaneously sitting on a bunch of data and seeing customers talk about the SaaS industry in general. Normally I ask about your challenges of scaling sort of your specific company, but I guess maybe ask, I can ask it a little bit broader for you is like, What is one thing about scaling a SaaS company that nobody is talking about, but we should be given your kind of, maybe specific perspective on the market, given your Zylo or in general, is there an area around scaling that we're just not talking about? That's being under uh, under discussed?
Eric Christopher:It's a good question. I think, uh, in our, our business is, is probably what's informing me on this opinion, but I think, when you're building a SaaS, SaaS company, the, probably one of the biggest things that most companies have to do early on is figure out repeatable, Process. And so one way is to, cause really at a SaaS company, you're trying to build a feature set delivers value and repeatable value. And there's like some element of stickiness, where the, the, where the company really can't really turn you off, I that's what, like, that's the ideal state now you, and you want ideal states, the customer's getting a ton of value and they don't want to turn you off, but you know, some of the, there's some companies that, become so sticky that, even if you don't love the product, you can't leave them. So you, you might want to even at least be in that category. But I mean, ideally you want to be liked and you want to, be delivered at a value. But I think one of the areas that is the best way, in my view, to figure that out is to use things like, Services and kind of hands on approaches to, to, to think about how the software should be built, for the customer in mind, I think one of the biggest challenges for a lot of SaaS companies is really. Making the software automated and, without requiring people and that sort of thing. And I think a lot of, especially companies in the enterprise are challenged to do that because, your question earlier about, do you want to build a feature or, build something for one enterprise, versus maybe the greater. And I think that's a challenge is for a lot of, software companies is, serving the enterprise is scaling. services, and then building process that's so repeatable, and I think that takes a lot of time, more time than most CEOs probably are factoring into their business.
Dan Balcauski:So it's this idea, just to see if I understood what you said. So, as you go into the enterprise, there's always some additional thing that you need to deliver, like the promised value. And sometimes that's an additional feature, but it might be a additional sort of service of humans helping sort of bridge that gap of training or other, whatever it might be. And that element of helping to. Create that customization to sell, like to service that enterprise account is very difficult to scale. Is that point you're making?
Eric Christopher:Yeah, at a high level, I think the, there's this idea that, you build one. Application and everyone uses it and every customer you add on, it's just incremental AWS cost or something like that. And I think there's a, when you're building a product for the first time, especially if you're building a new category or something like that, I think it takes. it's people intensive, to build a SaaS company, to get to scale. And I think it takes, more time. I also think that, kind of the point of like, enablement and training internally for, SaaS companies, that's probably another area that I would highlight as well. That's a challenge where, when you're 10, 10 people around a table. information sharing and having people all on the same page. And then you go to 20 employees, then 50, and then 100, and those layers start to get created. it becomes much more challenging to, to enable and make the, each employee an expert on the software and things like that and give a consistent experience as well. And I think that's a challenge, for scale as well. So, so, so scaling people, Yeah, and that's what it is. I mean, that's really, what building a company is making, creating, a way to make a thousand people, be able to deliver the same quality of work that you did when you were 50.
Dan Balcauski:That's an interesting point. I was, I'm curious because, company culture is obviously also a critical factor in scale up success. And I guess before I get into the specifics of, mapping culture out as you scale you mentioned earlier that, obviously you're, you come out of Indiana, which is far outside of the Silicon Valley, heart of most of the technology space. how has that affected your culture?
Eric Christopher:Do you mean specifically being, like, in the Midwest or just...
Dan Balcauski:two, kind of directions I thought would be interesting. One is just understanding, sort of baseline. I mean, you've been in, the Midwest outside of, most of the. What's in the air and, in Silicon Valley. And so has that affected, culture that I guess sort of secondary, which we can get to is the idea that, as you're, you just mentioned, right? Like not only scaling operational processes is difficult, but also scaling culture. So kind of interested in those two facets.
Eric Christopher:I think being located in the Midwest, there are some clear, I think, advantages and strengths. historically, at least I'd say, you've got, a tremendous amount of talent is actually here. where, great universities. there's been, great SaaS companies that have been started here in Indianapolis. So like, we mentioned ExactTarget earlier, which, I think it's, it might, this may not no longer be true, but, very, in the last few years, the Indianapolis was the second largest employee base of Salesforce in the world in one location, So, so there's advantages here that allow for talent and, And being able to build teams. I think some of the challenges that, that I think sometimes, might exist here is being able to show examples of great companies starting. if you're in the Bay area, you're going to see just dozens of companies, that are, global brands that we all know. And, I think that there's. Kind of a clear line of bar of success, maybe to compare yourself to or to motivate and that sort of thing. And I think when you're in the Midwest, a lot of the bigger companies that are here are not SaaS companies. So I think you really have to, find ways to inspire the employees to be excited and to think big. And to get them to believe that we can build, something really big. So, so, so maybe there's a little bit more effort or, just, focus on that, so don't get sort of complacent, just building into a smaller market or something like that. So those are the things at least I tell myself every day is that employees need to see that. And, in, So they can see what great is. kind of, kind of being a, the enemy of, good, or the enemy of great is good, thing. I think, really trying to inspire. I think, relative to building culture, as well, I think it's, it is challenging to be also, competing for talent on a national level. And, over the last few years since remote work and the ability for people to work, anywhere. employees that are here in Indianapolis. One of our advantages was that employees couldn't just go down to the next SaaS company down the street. you've got maybe less competition. You could retain employees longer. And now I think that's also kind of been a more of a level playing field. Also on the flip side, we're able to also hire from different markets. So, we've been able to attract employees from the Bay Area or different places that want, a little bit of a different dynamic. So Those are the some things that come to mind is like, it's like, it's finding a way to sort of connect ourselves, kind of plug ourselves into, the, into the kind of the global ecosystem of SaaS, but also still kind of, be able to build on our core DNA of, the Midwest. I think Midwest is kind of known for being Direct and honest and, hardworking. And, it's kind of, and I think a lot of that is, is candidly true. so it's leveraging those strengths, but also kind of plugging into the, to the global ecosystem is I think the right, kind of way to, to get the best of both worlds.
Dan Balcauski:And you mentioned in there, obviously, the switch in the pandemic, they all went through this, that weird psychological experiment that some of us are still recovering from, and, maybe the benefits there are all the therapists out there in the world. but, you were, are you fully a remote company now at Zylo?
Eric Christopher:we're a hybrid company. we have about half of our employees are located in other places than Indianapolis. So all around the country. And then we have, half that are here in Indianapolis. We have an office that I'm in today. we have a mix. We have some employees that come in, four to five days a week, and then we have some that just come in a couple days a week. We have, Tuesdays and Thursdays is, an office day for Indianapolis employees. It's actually not mandatory. It's just where we all, schedule a lot of our team meetings, make it easy to, get together in person. And, we find the collaboration advantages are nice. And even for the remote folks that are not here, We've got, conference rooms set up where they're zooming in. And so you've got a mix of people that are, in person and some that are, that are remote and it, it seems to build a really nice kind of vibe and camaraderie. and so, I think we're going to continue doing that for the foreseeable future. I
Dan Balcauski:tying it back to, with the point we were talking about before we got on to culture, which is this idea of scaling like human processes. I imagine Zylo's obviously gone some incredible, had some incredible growth over the last couple of years. I imagine things like. Scaling a culture, especially with a shift to remote has been challenging. Is there anything, are there critical elements you think you've sort of built into the company that have helped, as you've gone through that journey?
Eric Christopher:feel like we are, candidly a little bit still in an experiment, constantly experimenting. Like would first say that. I don't think we figured out any secret, thing that, um, has solved like whatever we're trying to solve, this return to office or, fully remote.
Dan Balcauski:Which I don't think anybody has. I think across the board. well,
Eric Christopher:And it honestly seems like, the simplest solution would be just to do one or the other, just have, no office completely, or, just say we're an office, culture and, but, I will say so, so before the pandemic happened in, so I kind of go back to, I was like, Oh, back in 2019, are the good old days. but I, I did, there was this time period. Before the pandemic, where it was pretty well understood in the tech community that everyone had an office and you would be generally expected to like, be hired in that market and go to that office. But at the same time, like, there was always a lot of flexibility to work from wherever you wanted to at the end of the day, for a lot of companies, at least that I've been around, like, you have remote salespeople, engineers would be. Like notorious for, some love to, to program at night or, or you'd hire that killer engineer in another market and it was like, not a big deal to have that awesome engineer located, two hours away, like not a big deal. And so I think it's kind of ironic, like we're kind of back. I guess I feel like I'm sort of really trying to recreate that, where we'd love to have people get together more in person, as CEO, at least it feels better, you get everyone together, that you're aligned, that you can have You know, I feel like sometimes the, your conversations feel like you can have maybe better feedback loops and, and stuff like that. Our exec team actually, works a lot most days together in the office, and I find it a lot easier to kind of walk down the hall and that sort of thing, but we have, a very, I think. A culture where you have the freedom really to work, wherever you want. If you need the flexibility or, we all have different, obligations with life. You've got child care, you've got, families, and that sort of thing. So, so anyway, so I was kind of meandering a little bit around the topic, but I think, what I'm. What I'm sort of really bought into is that whether or not you're getting your team together once a year or once a week or every day, like it doesn't really matter, but I do think when you're together, you can, you can plan and you can establish, I feel like your goals and strategy better. I think it generally works better. But I do think independent work can be done from anywhere. So I think it, it's really hard not to argue productivity and, where you might want to use your home office versus, the, your, your company office or something. I think it, I think it's kind of a good way to think about it is just try to get your planning and collaboration and trust building and. kind of team building, try to do that in person when you can, and then create a structure so that your employees can thrive with their individual work. And that's kind of what we're trying to do at Zylo is we feel like two days is the right level of team kind of time. And then three days to allow people to get things done and to build that around their personal schedules and that sort of thing.
Dan Balcauski:got it. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And, no, it's, I don't think anybody has the perfect, secret, yet by any stretch of the imagination. So I wouldn't worry about, about that. I think it's been an interesting, set of cultural, dynamics, has been some uh, past several weeks has been some viral, memes on, on TikTok of especially younger workers who have really struggled, to adapt because I think, while, if you're, I'm easily mid career at this point, right? I've no longer consider myself, for better or worse early career. but it is somewhat difficult to remember that time when you were, maybe just out of school and you didn't know anything about anything. And, that if you started a company in a remote work environment, you don't. Really no, you don't know how to do anything. You don't know who anybody is. You don't know what all the interpersonal dynamics are. I imagine there's a lot of these, especially, early career workers who've been having, struggling to kind of get acclimated to the working world, which is much different than if you've been doing the same thing 20 years or working with the same group of people, 20 years that you're like, Oh, like I, I already know what Eric thinks about this because, I've had, this would be the thousandth conversation on this topic I've ever had with them.
Eric Christopher:Yeah, it's, when you read the, the news, it's like, it's, I always feel like it's like one, it's the, there'll be an article that'll be the headline. It'll be that the, all C, the, there's a conspiracy that all CEOs are trying to get all employees back to the office and we're doing all sorts of things to, to make that happen and then, and then, the flip side of it will be some, examples of how, Remote work is the way to go and, it's better for the employee, and that sort of thing. And so, I would think most, at least my perspective as CEO is I just really care about. running a success, building a successful company for our customers and then inherently making that a great environment for our team to have fun and be challenged and that sort of thing. And, I think most CEOs, I would say, are just sincerely trying to figure this out. where trying to get the best of both worlds, a great environment for employees. And certainly the workforce has changed and this is very new and hard to figure out. and honestly, too, like our companies, it's not like we're running under the same, expectations, that we need to perform at a high level and deliver a lot of output. And so we have the same pressures, but a completely different work environment and office environment. And I think, Sometimes it's just like, maybe we just need to, kind of just try to work together a little bit and experiment and try things and, just, and it'll end up, we'll get to a good place, but it's just going little time. I think back to my point that I think this is an experiment still.
Dan Balcauski:yeah. Well, and, going back to your original point, we're talking about scaling processes, because one way I think about culture is it's the thing that helps you make a decision in lieu of any other sort of input, right? There's a, there's just a way you think about things. There's a way we treat customers. There's a way that like we think about, what we stand for and how we deliver value and what the right thing is to do, and it doesn't need to be articulated. It's just sort of in the water. so as you're talking about, how do you scale human processes and make sure that, you could, as you grow, personnel, everyone knows, how to. Do basically the same thing. You don't have, everyone sort of inventing everything from scratch. And I just remember, there was a story I'd heard probably several months ago now, but it was, I think a private equity firm that was, they had failed their entire sort of intern class, right. And these are, these are not stupid, interns, right. These are probably top 1 percent of the top 1 percent candidates. but you know, you forget that you do miss certain things like, Oh, I heard, I overheard the partner. Talking to a client and just like, I was involved in that conversation, but I just kind of heard the tone of voice and I heard, the, all the mannerisms, right. And it's just like, that stuff is just sort of in the water there. And as we're in this remote work environment, especially as a newer person, it becomes more difficult to absorb, but, we can talk about culture all day. I did want to. Talk about, obviously the shift in, markets hasn't just been remote work and hybrid, although obviously that's incredibly important, but there's been a significant change in fundraising, over the last couple of years, especially, for growth stage companies. I'm curious, like what's been your experience? Have there been crucial lessons learned, you've learned about the fundraising process from your position?
Eric Christopher:Absolutely. I'll give a little background. We, as a company, we've, we've raised through a Series C, so we, just to give a little perspective, we've raised, just over 70 million in total capital through, through a Series C, and our recent was about half that, and our experience at Zylo is we raised, in 2019, and then we raised again where we closed at, Really the beginning of 23 is when we closed the beginning of this year. So I'll first say that I didn't have a lot of experience of raising capital during the peak times of the pandemic where we saw a lot of, a lot of venture capital, like records amount go in and, that sort of thing. And there's all these, a lot of discussions around a lot of companies that, you valuations. And then we've sort of, we've really gone through this period of correction, I guess, where we're coming back to, to, lower valuations, compress multiples, and things like that. honestly, for me, I think the fundamentals are sort of haven't changed in a lot of ways when I think about 2019 to 2020. although I'll say that pressure of like efficiency and, where venture capital, investors are actually encouraging profitability or cashflow positivity versus growth, which is, that's very different, but I will say that it's, it just feels a little bit of like a, of a correction from when it was growth at all costs. we're kind of gone. we, the pendulum kind of swung all the way back. And I think it feels like we're going to kind of come back to the middle of a lot of what has been standards for the last 10 years or so. And we're just kind of, cycling through this. so, I think that, I think what I've learned is as a business, when you're running your business, I think it's really smart to think about, your core, like, what are the kind of the core metrics that are going to be important to the business and really try to create consistency over time because you can't control like, capital being easy to get or capital being hard to get, but if you can keep your fundamentals, pretty consistent, then you can. survive and maybe thrive through, more challenging times. and, and then, if the good times happen and there's a good opportunistic, opportunity to take with markets are really good, then you can take advantage of that too. But, I think a lot of, What I've learned, I guess at the end of the day is that fundamentals are still very similar. It's just, there's going to be a pendulum swing and you have to kind of just make sure you're running, a business that can, you know, kind of, kind of get through all of that. and, I think sometimes founders. maybe me at times too, admittedly, you kind of end up, kind of chasing the market a little bit, or you try to build things towards an investor or towards like, things, and you really should just focus on your customers and a good business and, things I think will shake out, in your favor.
Dan Balcauski:So you mentioned, they're sort of building towards an investor, like, what would that like in terms of like your product roadmap or in terms of like going in, like, Hey, we're going to go international because that'll be a better story that we're not just U. S. based if we're, we have international, markets to, to talk about. Is that,
Eric Christopher:Yeah, well, I think, a lot of the, from what I've read, and even I've seen a little bit firsthand, There was, venture capital money was so freely available that, I think founders were really, pushing towards the fact that you could get a valuation pretty high, at an early stage. Before maybe you have product market fit before you have, a lot of things that have to be in place really, if you're really focused on your employees and your customers, you have to focus on getting those things first before you go and try to, build into a business valuation. That's much higher. And I think that's like, it's, a lot of, distraction, if you think about, you're trying to build your business towards evaluation or something like that, when you really sure you're focusing on business, fundamentals, if you're going to go after a really high lofty valuation, good to have, repeatability with customers, high retention rates, and at scale versus maybe trying to go off of like, five customers feedback and then go raise a series a or something larger, and then you're really trying to. trying to build up into that, kind of backing into it, if you will.
Dan Balcauski:Yeah, I think maybe I'll leave this company and leader anonymous, but there was a CEO that once told me that they were avoiding running a NPS survey because they were worried the answer was going to come back. And it was better to be agnostic of what their answer would be than actually have a bad number they would need to tell the investor as they were in the middle of raising their Series B. And I was just like, man, that just seems like the wrong, like the carts leading the horse in that case. Like you should just find out what the answer is and then like make the adjustments versus I'm gonna stick my the sand because once I have a number, I've got to disclose it. I
Eric Christopher:yeah. and, look, I, I don't intend to be, like this to set a tone that you do have to, if you're a venture backed business, you have, part of your, you have to appeal to investors and to raise capital. But I guess just saying like, just make sure you're sticking to some fundamentals and some focus. And then, if you mix some of those other things in, that could be fine, but Don't just chase that, don't chase the valuation because I think a lot of companies are really challenged with that now. And it's unfortunate because, there's a lot of great ideas and great things that, that, are, great ideas and great products that may not survive just because they, the irony is they raised so much capital and then, are in a tough spot because they didn't have some of the early fundamentals that are important. Founder dynamics, solidifying your founder dynamics. I mean, I have, two, two co founders that have been with me now, over seven years and, it's, it takes, it, that's a, it takes a time to fortify those relationships and you have to go through a lot, and so it's good to, get some of those things established before you start raising a lot of capital and putting a lot more pressure on your teams.
Dan Balcauski:yeah. Well, well, man, there's so much I would love to continue talking about and I just, we're running out of time. So I do want to start wrapping things up. I've got a couple of lightning round questions for you. Are you okay with that?
Eric Christopher:Yes. Yep.
Dan Balcauski:All right, Eric, how do you define success?
Eric Christopher:Success is I think just improving every day and, and. just constantly raising your bar, each time just being better than the next day. I think that's a good way. That's where I kind of measure my success. Cause you get a lot of hard days and great day, some days feel like they're just unbelievable. You feel like you're making so much progress and then you get setbacks and things like that. And so, I just think just getting better every day and kind of measuring yourself kind of realistically, is a good way to live life in general.
Dan Balcauski:one thing that you mentioned there that I wanted, I do want to point out, cause I do love that answer is comparing against yourself, not against others. Cause I think that there's a lot of misery involved in trying to compare yourself to other people. So if you compare yourself to the benchmark of your own success versus how you used to be, that's a, that is better suited to your mental well being.
Eric Christopher:Totally. And you mentioned TikTok and I think I've now. learned, you can't believe everything you read on the internet. And, so a lot of times you're comparing yourself against not even really the real comparable. So I think just focus on yourself and getting better every day. And, you'll probably end up in a great place. If you just do that,
Dan Balcauski:Amazing. Eric, nobody of any level of success gets there on their own. Has there been a close mentor or other leaders helped you on your journey?
Eric Christopher:the one that always, comes top of mind for me is Scott Dorsey. He was the founder of ExactTarget and he gave me. My first shot, hiring me at ExactTarget right, right out of college. And I learned so much from him and the company. And then I went off kind of on my own for a while. And then, he was really the one that I, when I started having the idea of Zylo starting to come together, was who, was, It was one of the first checks through his venture firm, High Alpha. And I get to work with him every day. So he's a great close mentor of mine and give him a lot of credit to where I am today.
Dan Balcauski:is there something that Scott said to you over those years, any one piece of advice that maybe stands above the others that has been very helpful to you in your career or in building your company?
Eric Christopher:I think one of Scott's, it's a, his general superpower. And I think, and he's really known, well known for being such a great CEO of ExactTarget and they built an amazing culture. So if there's anyone that, is kind of, I feel like to look to for that. And I, i think a lot of, he's a very positive person. And, at least he's, he brings that kind of out in his thinking of, he can look at anything and, and look at the positive of what can come out of it. And I think for me, the thing, it's not one thing he said, I think it's that I always leave believing in myself when I, when I meet with them. So if I'm having a bad day or challenging week, somehow I can walk out of that meeting. With a smile on my face thinking like, actually, what I have, going here is really great. And I just need to kind of, just, go forward, look ahead, look towards the future. And so just being positive and believing in yourself, I think he helps give that, gives me that ability. I
Dan Balcauski:That's amazing. If I give you a billboard, you can put any advice on there for other B2B SaaS CEOs who are trying to scale their companies. What would you put on it?
Eric Christopher:Have like a bunch of trees and it'd be like, it, it's the forest, not the trees or something, like, thinking,
Dan Balcauski:A it visual element. I love it. No one's given that answer before.
Eric Christopher:So, just that, that is such a great, mindset of, you're every day is really hard as a CEO and founder. I think it's like, you're just trying to like, have more wins than losses for the day, and that's like, or even just a neutral day, I think when you think day to day, but when you like zoom out and you see what you accomplish over 12 months or 24 months, it's actually quite a lot. It just never feels like it. And so, I mean, I've just experienced that, just with leadership and building companies and, that's not even just for founders. That's for like any manager leader, I think you, and so that'd be a, just a big, beautiful forest.
Dan Balcauski:It's the forest, not the trees. I absolutely love it. Look, this has been a fantastic conversation, Eric. If folks want to learn more about you or Zylo anywhere on the internet, we could point them to.
Eric Christopher:yeah, go to my Twitter is the best way to find me, Christopher. I'm super easy to find on LinkedIn as well. So, and then our website, zylo.Com is a great way to learn about our business and what we're building. if there's interest out there.
Dan Balcauski:Awesome. Well, we will include those links in the show notes for listeners. Everyone that wraps up this episode of SaaS Scaling Secrets. A massive thank you to Eric for sharing his journey, insights, and invaluable tips for our listeners. If you found this conversation as enlightening as I did, remember subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, growing, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
