Cultivating Teamwork, Persistence, and Practice with Matan Or-El, CEO of Panorays

Dan Balcauski, sits down with the dynamic and innovative CEO of Panorays, Matan Or-El. They explore the unexpected challenges and triumphs of scaling a SaaS company, navigating the cybersecurity market's skepticism, and adapting to the digital landscape during a pandemic. Matan shares his journey from the Israeli Air Force software unit to co-founding Panorays, emphasizing the importance of maintaining balance and mental well-being in the entrepreneurial journey. From basketball to building enterprise-focused security solutions, get ready to uncover the strategies and insights of a seasoned entrepreneur in the SaaS world.

Guest Bio
 Matan Or-el, the Co-Founder & CEO of Panorays, is a seasoned entrepreneur. Matan established his first startup at just 18 years old. With a rich background in building enterprise-focused security solutions, he brings a unique blend of technical expertise and business acumen to the table. Under his leadership, Panorays has become a pivotal player in enhancing the cyber-resilience of industries worldwide.

Guest Links
panorays.com
Panorays on LinkedIn and Twitter
Matan on LinkedIn and Twitter

Transcript

Dan Balcauski: 0:10

Hello and welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast that dives into the trenches with leaders of the best scale up. B2B SaaS Companies. I'm your host, Dan Balcauski, founder of Product Tranquility. Today I have the privilege of interviewing Matan Or-el, the Co-founder and CEO of Panorays, a seasoned entrepreneur, Matan has been at the forefront of cybersecurity innovation, establishing his first startup at just 18 years old. With a rich background in building enterprise-focused security solutions, he brings a unique blend of technical expertise and business acumen to the table. Under his leadership Panorays has become a pivotal player in enhancing the cyber resilience of industries worldwide. Join me as we explore Matans entrepreneurial journey and gain insights into the strategies that propel Panorays to its current success. Let's dive in. Welcome Matan to SaaS Scaling secrets.

Matan Or-El: 0:50

Hey, Dan. Happy to be here.

Dan Balcauski: 0:53

I am very excited for our conversation. Matan, happy new year to you. And for folks in the audience who are not intimately familiar with you or Panorays, can you just briefly introduce yourself and tell us a little about your journey in the SaaS world?

Matan Or-El: 1:06

So I'm Matan Or-El I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Panorays. Like every other, probably Israeli entrepreneur. I started my, career in Israeli Air Force software unit. I was there for about seven years, so I'm technical by background, from Linux security, software engineering. Did kind of all my background over there. I was few years in Imperva. Um, I'm a small company kind of in a, through the IPO. We went, there, and Panorays is my fourth startup. I did two B two Cs earlier in my career when I was 18 and 24. and another B2B security startup. after Imperva, and Panorays, that's what I do in the last kind of, seven and a half years.

Dan Balcauski: 1:49

you flagged a particularly interesting, data point there, which you started a company at 18. I wanna circle back to that in a second, but you know, if say there was a researcher that was observing young Matan between 12 and 18, what would they see that would stand out to them that would portend this entrepreneurial future that you've built for yourself?

Matan Or-El: 2:13

as a kid I was probably, a geek like, software engineer. I a geek around things to learn I was, probably got great grades. during those time, even though I wasn't listening too much, I would say like that, I'll be very honest. But, got very good. Scores during, study. I think one of my friends told me back then that I live a life of three people or four people, because I had so many circles I was in, I was, studying and I was, in, in the basketball team for like, for the region I was in. I played piano and then kind of music and created music. So I had and had so many friends, so I couldn't Spend. he was like, you can't spend one minute sleeping or doing nothing. You cannot. So I was just all around, from my perspective is just being efficient. I just wanted to be efficient and do more and create more and learn as much as possible. So that's probably me as a kid.

Dan Balcauski: 3:14

I could see how that diverse set of interests and skillsets would be of use as an entrepreneur. As I mentioned before, you flagged a interesting data point in your intro that you founded a company at 18. I gotta admit that didn't even realize at 18 that was an option. How did that happen? Like did you have entrepreneurs in your circle of friends or in your family? Like what leads an 18-year-old Matan to be like, I'm gonna start a company?

Matan Or-El: 3:45

So basically I had, like after 18, I did kind of, the software Elite Engineering course in, in the Army. So from Now I know how to, I have a skill and a new skill I can use and put to use. and I think, for me was I always had ideas and now I can actually implement some of those. And I have friends from that kind of, from around that I can use to do more and more things with that knowledge or with that ideas. So one, one idea in particular, was something we wanted to do and it started as a really fun project with friends from home. nothing more like, we use like We were two software engineers and some friends from home. We had the same mission, same thing we wanted to do and built. it was back then when, internet just kind of began to work and search engines were, the big thing. I think there were, there was no, search engine back then. It was like more portals of, websites, and news websites. so we wanted to do something more fun, and lifestyle in that kind of, realm. and because we knew we had technology, and we knew technology and we know, so we actually were better Websites than any auto websites because we had support. there was no iPhone spec back then, or no smartphones. but you know, even in the old Nokia, we can send pictures on wap on technologies that were old and suddenly we had that kind of, amazing technology in our web, amazing websites. So I think, we had a lot of success where, it just came from, the idea and want to create something people will enjoy from. That's it. No, no financial thinking or anything like it back then. Yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 5:31

Oh man. Well, I gotta say at some points, along this journey of being a podcast host, I've thought of renaming my podcast to the Israeli Entrepreneur Hour because, there's something in the water in Israel where, you guys punch above your weight in terms of, entrepreneurial, drive and spirit for sure. and so it's a, it's quite impressive and best of success to, to, to everyone taking that path. and I think we all have a lot to learn from, whatever's swimming in the water there. I do wanna shift a little bit to, Panorays and, your experience, founding and growing and Scaling that business. for our listeners, can you just briefly kinda give us a sense of what Panorays is? I introduced it as a, cybersecurity, platform, but help us understand. And what it does and a little bit of its vision.

Matan Or-El: 6:15

Sure. So what we do at Panorays. We enable and maintain cybersecurity trust between companies and their third parties, suppliers, business partners, or however you wanna call them. we basically automate a process which is very complex and, I know many people don't like it, of sending a lot of security questionnaires back and forth with your vendors to assess their security. so we do that automatically. We automate that and we actually make sure, they're safe and their security health is good. While, we keep sharing the data on an ongoing basis or have integrations with those vendors on the ongoing. So that's basically what Panera does.

Dan Balcauski: 6:55

And I know there are some companies that are in the world of like helping For example, like software companies with like SOC two compliance. that's not this is, more like, Hey, I'm gonna bring on, a software tool as a new, as a vendor to my company, and I wanna make sure that they comply with my enterprise security requirements. is that more in that realm

Matan Or-El: 7:17

Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the breaches are caused, from the weakest leak on the supply chain. Companies that are smaller, it doesn't have the measurements of security. and you want to make sure those companies, as you say, the suppliers that you work with have some measurements that you agree on as a company, so you want to Ask questions, you wanna, understand that, information when you are onboarding them. so that's kind of why we do it can be a law firm which had sensitive data like agreement, and it could be, like you say, a SaaS vendor that, have some integration or some of my, customer data or employee data or any data that might be, interesting for hacker. yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 7:53

And you'd said in your intro that you were had founded a couple of B2C companies, was Panorays your first B2B venture

Matan Or-El: 8:00

I had a one B2B security venture before that as well. Yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 8:04

How did your interest get peaked in security and in the space that Panorays, plays in specifically,

Matan Or-El: 8:09

First of all in the Army, I was a security guy as well and understand really well the space. and after I kind of, I wanted to grow a few years kind of to learn more and I, I just hit up, and went to Imperva when we were like a small startup, as well and grew with that company, for the IPO and learned kind of, all the gist of how a company actually, how you do it how you do that on the B2B side, and understand a lot of how business should operate. so that's kind of, intrigued me. I think, Speaking with some of the founders there. And Shma, one of the founders of Imperva, the CTO is one of our early is the first investor in the company and still very much evolved, I think, taking, from that generation. And you spoke about the Israeli water in general, so we have generation of companies that actually, went out of companies. So when I left Imperva, I said to Hai, I want to do something on the security ward and That actually clicked. So there is a lot of companies that went out from Imperva. There's a lot of, actually, there's companies that actually came out from Panorays as well. it's kind of, it's how it works here. security war was always, something I really appreciated and I know, by heart. So that's something I really wanted to be helpful in. yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 9:23

now that you're, CEO and Co-founder and you've nurtured, Panorays from its infancy to its kind of current scale, as you think about that Scaling journey, I. Were there specific unexpected challenges in Scaling a company? I mean, it sounded like you had quite a bit of experience, either leading or growing companies yourself before. And so did anything really sort of surprise you given your, previous experience as you were Scaling Panorays?

Matan Or-El: 9:54

yes, from few angles. One every stage is different. Friend, right? And you can speak, elaborate about every stage of the company and what needed to be in each stage. But, as you ask the question, I think it, it more talks about events or things like that ha have happened that kind of enlight me. And I think, I dunno if I could have picked like, A different period of time of, establishing a company in this seven and a half years. We had a worldwide pandemic We had, war, financial crisis. I think we went through, quite a time. but

Dan Balcauski: 10:28

we compressed a century into a decade

Matan Or-El: 10:30

yeah. yeah. I think, yeah, I know I always say, what's come next? It's an alien invasion, and now there all the

Dan Balcauski: 10:37

Well, the AI is coming for us

Matan Or-El: 10:38

yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 10:38

whether they come from another planet or we're creating them natively.

Matan Or-El: 10:41

Exactly. so I'm not saying anything and everything, anything gonna happen. Right. And I think, one of the occurrences, and I'll give that as an example, when Covid hit that was, a really sta strange environment to be in, right? It's, we're in security. Most of the sales we kind of looked at, we did some inside sales over the phone, kind of, over Zoom. But a lot of what we did was actually traveling, meet people, have that conversation online, a lot of, shows and so forth and so on. And when it hit, I said, guys, we're insecurity. Everything is okay. I think we're still a necessity. Everything, will go, well, but we need to change immediately, kind of what we do. So I. and I think there was a lot of podcasts and webinars about what happened in Covid, but went fully digital with, from webinars to digital marketing, to inbound motion, outbound motion, everything POC to show we were explaining the value online. So that was a big change that was driven from something that just, happened and As as an entrepreneur, I think as you adjust, the fast, the faster you adjust to change, the better you, you can actually, get it and make an impact, and not be dragged on what is really happening. and Covid was actually the best, Q2 of 2020 was that, wow. long time, was the best quarter we ever had and the best quarter ever after that was Q3. So we didn't, the growth didn't stop because of covid. It even accelerated. so yeah,

Dan Balcauski: 12:21

I was just the other day looking at COVID-19, reminded me that the 19 stands for 2019, and I was like, oh, no. The clock ticked over to 2024. That was 25 years

Matan Or-El: 12:30

Yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 12:30

and it again, yeah, going back to your previous comment, it feels like, we experienced quite a lot in the last five years where it's like, oh, that feels just like yesterday and also a lifetime ago simultaneously, which is a weird, psychological, experience for sure. You've mentioned So before, so just so I can get a little bit of context for our listeners, with, Panorays, obviously, founded, and based in Israel, were you a, a fully in-person company, before Covid, or had you already sort of, gone beyond international remote, work, et

Matan Or-El: 13:01

no. we had both, I mean we had both the kind of, per in-person selling kind of, more that notion as well. And that was most of how we did business. even if, I was, I was spending most of my time still is, but even back then in the us and traveling a lot and meeting people, and doing all that. we did have I think one rep back then that did kind of, just, the zoom and sell over that. We had the infrastructure, but that was not mainly the business and how people interact, right? So people wanted to per, people in person. yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 13:37

Not nearly as deep as you, but I've dipped my toe into the cybersecurity, market, before, and cybersecurity folks are a pretty skeptical bunch. so I imagine maybe a shift to not meeting people in person, took some getting used to. Were there any. Sort of particular challenges that you think you felt faced in the security market as you made that pivot? Or, did everyone sort of be like, well, this is sort of the new normal, we're just gonna have to adapt? It sounds like people kept buying given you had a sort continued record growth. I.

Matan Or-El: 14:07

I think in general you are right, but, you mentioned that cybersecurity, there is the buyers, right? the CISOs, they're very suspicious about kind of, everything that is happening. there are pacts, they're getting tons of emails from tons of companies. They want to sell something for them. They probably already have, or even if it's something new, it sounds pretty similar to what they already have. getting the time span from those guys, especially early on, right? When you don't have that brand name or you don't, you just, pick up and have that conversation. Going from, meetings and having that to kind of, online, is a whole different, mechanism. So there were few challenges kind of, as I mentioned, kind of to pick the interest. I mean, everybody understood they need to go online and understand how they do that now online, but I think it refined a lot of our messaging. It refined a lot of, how we actually not, Making those CISOs angry when, there was a lot of companies that were just pushing and pushing emails, over emails, to the, to those companies. But having kind of, an approach where you can get more attention, from relationship from, a really concise, message or, an outbound where you actually did the research on the user. So you are not coming to him and say, and start, ask questions or, you are under understanding the situation and coming with knowledge of what you wanna propose as something that might be helpful for him and not just, a cold call of, Hey, that's what we do and by us, because it doesn't really work. Right?

Dan Balcauski: 15:52

Yeah. Yeah. No, you hit on a lot of points there. And for anyone who isn't really familiar with the cybersecurity market, go to RSA or one of these conferences, and you will also become suspicious it seems like every Cybersecurity's pitch is everyone's an evil actor and they're out to get you, so you get hammered. even if you don't believe it on a conscious level, you get hammered with that message a million times in a row by everybody trying to sell you something, and you're gonna start looking at everyone like they're Trying to, pull one over on you and steal all your Secrets and your money. I don't blame them being a suspicious lot. and they also are the ones who have to deal with the, the major, incidents. And that you, it doesn't take too many of those to become, extra cautious, right. All the rest of us can kind of be blissfully ignorant. it's a, it's an interesting, it's an interesting market. And I think the other thing that you mentioned, Which is, highly valuable, but heavily overlooked. Especially as there's a lot more of these automated AI tools and outreach campaigns. I, my inbox as well as a business owner is full of what is clearly AI generated, nonsense. And it's like, look like you could have done, five minutes of research and made this way more compelling. And it's this, the minimal amount of effort, can go an incredibly long way. Right. We're having an insight, understanding what that business is about, what they're trying to achieve, whether you've read their, their S one or listened to their recent analyst call, right? And just have a sense of what their goals are, where they are in the market. there's so much information out there and it just takes a little bit of effort to, make an impact, right? If you're gonna do the outreach at all, right, versus a spray and pray

Matan Or-El: 17:23

Completely agree. You should invest in, your future customers, right? So you should, understand who they are. They, their tension span is, and special insecurity is just crazy. you said RSA, if you walk the floor over there, there is so many vendors with the same messaging that you. You are kind of lost of understanding what they do sometimes. and that's an issue, for for probably one of the most, hectic, roles out there, which is the cso. yeah,

Dan Balcauski: 17:52

I wanna go back to. so many open threads that we've opened that I could talk to you all day about them. I think one thing I want to go back to this Covid shift and the remote work, especially as you as a CEO are trying to, grow a company, and obviously it sounds like you were having financial success right as you were going into this, Hey, like everyone's need to work from home and every, the world's kinda shutting down and we can't get on planes, et cetera. how did you think about Maintaining a culture at Panorays and making sure that, people felt like they were part of a company or like, were there specific, things that you learned or tactics that you implemented to make sure that the company didn't just become a, you know, group of individuals and state, it actually felt like a company.

Matan Or-El: 18:36

Sure. So that's actually a great example where culture comes into play. I think, from day one, we invested a lot in culture. and basically, this is something I'm saying all the time. I really believe in people and that's what build the organization in the end of the day. So my philosophy around that is. Just bring the best person you can bring to, to the role. Present them with ownership responsibility, any tool they need, and let them grow. and for us, it created a lot of things around the organization, One is of course ownership. So people really own what they do, and wanted to be impactful and make an impact. I think what we also were able to create, and I think it's one of the most, core, in our core, values, is the teamwork. I think we really like to work together, and, winning together, learning from losing together, doing everything together in that sense. So I think when Covid hit for us, when we were in the office all day together, kind of creating that something we dream of creating and everybody remote, I was very, concerned about what, what might happen to the culture and from that to, to what we can achieve together and so forth and so on. I'm happy to say that actually it was It wasn't the other way around, but it was different. But we actually maintained the culture that we had, and we did some activities. it's, it'll sound super funny in a way. Yeah. Yeah. not cliche, but you know, we thought about all those encounters that happened in the office and we not encounter when Covid hit. you still have team meetings, but you don't see people, you still have kind of, work meetings, but now there is no the meeting in the kitchen and eating together or, we encourage people from the team to actually do those breaks. We call them coffee breaks, to meet people they don't know from the company or they didn't haven't meet. It was random. So you just pick a room and you see someone just to have a connection again. And a connection is something we really miss during Covid. and that's part of many things that we did in order to create that culture. I mean, of course we are still re remain in the same structure, same kpi, same target, same conversations about what we need to move and the targets. But we invested a lot in the employee engagement through that time and with the bigger picture of what the company should achieve. And I think it really Maintained, I wouldn't say it's harder to achieve, because we were not work from home first kind of, company. but we maintained the culture that we had and when Covid ended, we came back to the office. Everybody was thrilled to see kind of, each other.

Dan Balcauski: 21:27

Are you fully back in an office culture now or are you still split like kind of doing a hybrid?

Matan Or-El: 21:32

so it depends. we're, our company have offices in Israel, US New York, but people are around, London in UK and Singapore. So it's kind of differs from, place to place Israeli. It's mostly come in. I mean, as a culture we really believe in people. So I don't mind what do you do? But, the impact that you make is what's important. but I think, when we opened the office, people just wanted to come in. today there is about two to three days, that mostly all the people in Israel come to the office. there is people that come five times a week. So it really kind of, differs. In the US we see less, people coming in, again, as from the culture perspective. but yeah, so that's gonna differ, but most people just like go in. Yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 22:18

Yeah. I don't think anybody has, has the perfect sort of answer yet. there's not any consensus across the board. and I could see how cultural impact, sort of country culture, would also, influence, that decision for sure. you mentioned something on, giving folks ownership and just that ability to sort of, hey, like, we're still holding you the KPIs and execute. Has that, one of the, one of the challenges that I've heard has been, that, that may work, for, very seasoned, folks who you bring in the door if folks like someone like yourself, like, oh yeah, I've been at four other startups. We grow'em, seed IPO and like, this is my fifth rodeo. Yeah. I can imagine. Hey, give that person, a target and a project and go after it. Where I've heard, that breakdown is really on the more junior talent. because I think one of the things that. we take for granted is that in-office, learning is not just the HR training or the, the training that you get from your team. It's being around and seeing how people interact or overhearing conversations of your coworkers and, understanding just. How, just what's in the, what's in the air and how things are done. and a lot of junior employees just, suck that up and learn the job. Not because they asked a bunch of questions, but just through observation. Like, it's how we learn as children and babies, right? No one taught us, the asked, nobody taught me English. I just learned from observing my parents these weird sounds that came out of their mouths. Right. And I think we forget that. Have you Have so I understand like in a broad sense, like, this idea of like, just give people ownership and let them run. But have you had any of those challenges with maybe more junior employees, and have you had to implement any, specific sort of tactics or systems to help make sure that those folks can be successful as well?

Matan Or-El: 24:05

Yeah. sure. I mean, it's. way we think thought about it, in the beginning and still now, is bringing those good people in that are able to drive change and drive impact. So even if they're junior, they're able to actually promote Their, what they're in charge of or what, and their ideas. Of course, there is the obvious structure of team leaders, directors, VPs, that can help them get to the results. we specifically use, a mechanism we call the initiatives. It's basically, every company calls that a bit differently. OKRs or have different implementations of that. I saw many Close and different implementations, but basically what's the most impactful thing you can do as a company And then kind of breaks down from the objectives to what every person can do. Now the junior people are of course managed and they might not lead a project, but they will see someone else and be part of the team that someone leads that project that needs to move a KPI from A to B. So he'll see that project and. Once his time comes, he will lead a project or try to move a KPI and he will be part of the team that actually moves the needle anyway, right? So he'll be impactful anyway in his role or in the ideas. He will be collaborating with the team in order to create. So for us, it's very important to grow people from within the company. And we had few cases where, it went like that from, different roles inside the company. I'll say people move inside the company to different, really different roles. and also promoted, from, we have few VPs in the company that were, with us from the beginning as the individual contributor. it kind of, came a whole way.

Dan Balcauski: 25:56

yeah. So it sounds like making sure that you can give them projects that stretch them, but that they can handle with the support systems around them that, with measurable targets so that you can help kind of provide them the, a growth with a safe, almost a safety so that they can, grow with you. that's awesome. You mentioned something before I wanted to circle back on too.'cause you mentioned this idea of sort of teamwork being core, and, as it pertains to, to culture, right? Like if that's sort of core Are there ways that you have built into your company's sort of hiring process to kind of filter for that kind of, that competency or that experience or that, willingness to really sort of be part of the team? any Secrets if that's a sort of a core folks thing that people wanna screen for in their hiring? Like have you learned any, way about like successfully identifying that in, in talent?

Matan Or-El: 26:44

Yeah, I mean, yes. So o once you kind of, promote, teamwork or any core, you wanna make that as part of e every part of the company system, right? From, I'll give you an example and then we'll go for hiring, but for instance. When we want to promote, let's say there is, we want a deal. we actually announced that and even in early days, we announced it for the whole company. And then we would go and say thank you for all the people in that team that were part of that deal and promote that it's not, The account executive that closed the deal in the end of the day, but it's the SDR r or the marketing that brought a lead or, legal that helped them kind of, with the contract and the, so that's what's pushed really the deal forward. you take a value and then kind of, you promote that now with hiring, I think, At the beginning, I'll take it to, to two angles. At the beginning, you have a lot of control of who's coming in, right? as you scale more and more as the CEO, you kind of, I met everyone until we were about, I. Know, 60, even 70 people, it was super important to me just to meet them for one interview, for one half an hour, to touch and to see that I'm bringing someone to the organization I'm counting on. Right? and through time when you pass that 100 and 200, you cannot really do that. so at the beginning, I, and this is something, once the core team is like that, everybody looks for the same criteria. So it, it's important to do that at the beginning and look for people with Or great social skills, or they're great contributors. You ask questions to see how they work in a team to, are they more individual contributors, from the roles, do they take credit or they give credit to someone else? I mean, there is a lot of ways of actually understanding is that person a team player or not? And that's, part of the core value. And we want to make sure this would be aligned because when someone will be, and we weren't correct all the time. Right? I think, there is no organization that was like that. Once there is someone in the organization that will try to take credit and put people aside, or you'll see all those elbows and not talking about friction, but real elbows, when trying to work together, it won't work in a team and it's very fast. you identify that. So yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 29:09

that's, that's great. I love the story you mentioned at the beginning about The celebrating the team effort, all the way from marketing to the SDR, to the account executive. it's, it's a weird thing often that the sales team is the only one with the gong in the organization. and, they get to, they get celebrate and. I think too often, we miss all the, upstream work. I mean, obviously the sales folks are head held to that, that real tight number. but there's plenty of marketers that are held to a real tight number too. it's important to, to share that and make sure it's a, understood. It's a team effort. I love that aspect of it. I could talk to you all day, Matan about all these, there's so many threads we've opened up that I won't be able to chase down. But, to be respectful of your time and the audience's time, I do wanna wrap up with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?

Matan Or-El: 29:54

sure, let's do that. Yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 29:56

Alright. Matan, how do you define success?

Matan Or-El: 30:03

able to go through and hit the target that you made for yourself.

Dan Balcauski: 30:09

I love that. Able to hit the target you made for yourself. Success is a journey and I believe that you are successful. and no one successful gets there on their own. Has there been a close leader or mentor that has really helped you on your journey?

Matan Or-El: 30:27

Well, there is plenty of people that help me through the journey from, my investors and partners and, other CEOs that I'm consulting all the time. So there is many, I can name them all. I would say, maybe it's surprising, but I'll say it anyway. One of the most impactful people in my life is actually my dad. he was, and he's still a CEO of a company, in the food industry for many years. Different industry, different thing, and he is really helpful for me. Since day one in this. And one advice that he gave me when I was, when I was a child, so I was, I think eight or nine and I started to play basketball. And I was, I was sitting in the house doing nothing like any, eight 9-year-old or playing the computers. I dunno what I did. And he kind of, he came to me and asked me, Do, what do you want to do? And I said, I wanted to be in the NBA, I want to be a basketball player. And he said to me, so what are you doing about it? And I'm saying, I have two practices a week, with my coach, and that's what I do. So he said, what do you think Michael Jordan is doing right now? And I'm, I thought, and I said, he's in the court. he's, that's what he does, right? And he said, so why aren't you in the court if that's what you wanna do? Since that day, every day, until I, I was 18, I was in the court playing basketball. That's what I did every day. And that's kind of what brought me kind of, for that persistence I would say like that. work hard, play hard kind of mentality or if you want something, you go and get it. I know it was supposed to be a rapid response, but, hopefully they

Dan Balcauski: 32:08

I love that Shout out to Papa Orl, for that, amazing piece of advice. and yeah, any of the greats, right? There's a dose of talent and there's a, metric shit ton of hard work, right, that is required to get to that level. And, I think we too often just chalk it up to talent and forget that they tried, worked really hard to get there. I will say, kind of circling back to my very first question to you, about, what sparked you on your entrepreneurial journey? I will say after doing a bunch of these episodes, my two biggest predictors of if you're gonna be an entrepreneur is if you're Israeli and if your father was an entrepreneur, because, that seems to be a fairly common theme among my guests, for, I don't know if that's sample bias, but, I'm willing to, play some bets on it. are there any habits that you've cultivated to help you stay on the top of your game? Either, mentally, physically, emotionally?

Matan Or-El: 32:53

From that aspect, I think it's all balance. I still play basketball, a few times to keep in shape, physical shape, mentality, family. I'm along with my family on regular days. I'm hearing a lot of music, just to keep, to keep everything because, the life is, we're so busy. We're so busy right now. and there is not a dull moment, but, Every, piece of the schedule that you can promote and be yourself with, in that environment is important. this is a long journey. it's not just, a month, right? yeah.

Dan Balcauski: 33:26

Exactly. Exactly. I love that. balance, very important. And I had heard a piece of wisdom the other day that I'd never really put together, but you know, if you have a, whatever kind of practice is, if it's a sports practice or meditation or spending time with your family, there's a certain amount of, even if you're gonna take a five minute break. gives you that sense of control and allows you to say like, okay, the world is happening around me, but I'm going to stop doing that for now. And like that could be very refreshing. And so as you say that, that piece of advice just also washed back over me. hopefully that's useful to maintain the sanity and emotional health of any other entrepreneurs out there who are listening. Matan, if I could give you a billboard and you could put advice on there for other B2B SaaS CEOs who are trying to scale their business, what would you put on that billboard?

Matan Or-El: 34:10

So that's, I can put you in the sentence, but I need to explain, I think, find the most impactful thing for your business in order to drive impact. I. and just execute on that. But I truly believe in that in the broader way. And I'll elaborate for just one second. You, we talked earlier in the conversation about being able to move from, a company that have a product market fit or, from that realm to a bigger company. Now, in each stage, you probably should shoot for, Kind of the most impactful thing you can do. So at first, right? We, you don't invest on metrics funnel. You just want to get few customers out of the gate. Fir First of all, you want design partners, then you want customers, then you want, To make the process repeatable. So you want to go through and fix on that. And I think, when we're speaking about the later stages of the company, you kind of have that repeatability. You're starting to build that machine that help you get through the funnel from marketing, SDRs, BDRs, account executives to kind of ease to sale. I think there comes a whole new science About what should I invest now in order to improve my machine? How do I make more impact than what I'm investing? I'll give you an example. Should I invest now my efforts around the MQL to SQL conversion, getting more leads out of that juice because that's something I don't do as well, or the conversion on the sale side is much more important because if I fix that, and I'll get More juice and more wins from the opportunities, actually more impactful. what metrics do I'm lacking? What metrics do I need to improve? And then to invest my efforts in teams in order to correct or make impact on that realm. long answer again, but,

Dan Balcauski: 36:12

the world's largest billboard. I might re summarize, maybe put a billboard form, it'd be focus on the most important thing,

Matan Or-El: 36:20

find it

Dan Balcauski: 36:21

and that's going to change

Matan Or-El: 36:21

Find it and execute it and it's gonna change. Yeah, exactly.

Dan Balcauski: 36:25

Awesome. Awesome. Perfect. Oh, Matan, thank you so much for sharing your incredible journey and insights. Before we wrap up, how can our listeners connect with you or follow Panorays, ongoing story.

Matan Or-El: 36:35

Panorays.com and social media Panorays, it's is the way to, to look at the company, and myself, you can find me and hit me on LinkedIn, on Twitter, or any other way. I would love to, to be helpful in any way possible.

Dan Balcauski: 36:48

Awesome. We will put those links in the show notes for our listeners. Everyone that wraps up this episode of SaaS Scaling Secrets, a massive thank you for to matan for sharing his journey, insights, and invaluable tips. For our listeners, have 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.