The Real Reason SaaS Companies Struggle with Arman Eshraghi, CEO of Qrvey

We're thrilled to have Arman Eshragi, CEO of Qrvey, join us. Arman is a seasoned entrepreneur and tech visionary with a rich background in founding and scaling successful SaaS companies. In this episode, Arman shares his journey from starting his first company at just 18 to his current mission at Qrvey—building a comprehensive analytics layer for SaaS applications.

We'll explore the crucial aspects of meeting quarterly targets, the importance of effective communication in senior management, and the balance of transparency with different types of investors. Arman provides a pragmatic perspective on AI, dissecting the hype around Gen AI and emphasizing the need for sustained and realistic advancements in data analytics.

Tune in as Arman reveals how Qrvey leverages AI for text analytics, building dashboards, and more while sharing valuable insights on team building, the significance of multi-tenancy in modern software, and the cultural practices that foster leadership and constructive communication at Qrvey.

Guest Bio
Arman Eshragi is a seasoned entrepreneur and tech visionary with over 25 years of experience in the software industry. Arman is the founder and CEO of Qrvey, a cutting-edge SaaS platform that harnesses the power of data, analytics, and AI to help businesses make smarter decisions and drive growth. Before Qrvey, he was the visionary force behind Logi Analytics. Where he held multiple leadership roles, including CEO, CTO, and board member, and drove the company's growth for nearly 18 years. Arman is also a dedicated mentor to entrepreneurs and executives through his work with the Inkspire Education Foundation.

Guest Links
www.qrvey.com
www.linkedin.com/in/aeshraghi/

Transcript

Dan Balcauski: 0:20

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. Our guest today is Arman Eshragi, a seasoned entrepreneur and tech visionary with over 25 years of experience in the software industry. Arman is the founder and CEO of Qrvey, a cutting edge SaaS platform that harnesses the power of data, analytics, and AI to help businesses make smarter decisions and drive growth. Before Qrvey, he was the visionary force behind Logi Analytics. Where he helped multiple leadership roles, including CEO, CTO, and board member and drove the company's growth for nearly 18 years. Arman is also a dedicated mentor to entrepreneurs and executives through his work with the Inkspire Education Foundation. I've had the pleasure of appearing on Arman's own podcast, SaaS Scaled. See, we have very similar naming for our podcasts, and I can tell you he's firsthand, he's a wealth of knowledge and experience. Join me as we explore Arman's unique stories, the challenges he's overcome, the key learnings that have shaped his career and helped him build and scale multiple successful SaaS companies. Let's dive in. Welcome Arman to SaaS Scaling Secrets.

Arman Eshraghi: 1:19

Thank you very much for having me, Dan. So happy to be here.

Dan Balcauski: 1:23

I'm very excited about our conversation today and excited for a follow up conversation. I, you, I had the blessing of being on your show and you peppering me with questions and now it's my turn. So, and I have no doubt it will be a treasure trove for our listeners. So really stoked about today. For. Obviously I gave you just a brief intro there, but for folks who aren't intimately familiar with Qrvey or your journey, briefly introduce yourself and tell us a little about your journey in the SaaS world.

Arman Eshraghi: 1:52

Sure. First of all the questions I asked you and the answers that you provided, fantastic. We loved it. Great information. If somebody wants to check it out very good information for providing those generously to us during that short amount of time. Thank you so much. Questions you answered. So, yeah, about myself a little bit I'm a classic entrepreneur. I would say, I started my first company at the age of 18, first year in university, by the way, by the time I graduated the company had some 50 something employees. I started the second company when windows came to market. That shows my age with my wife. And then the third company when I came to the U. S., Logi XML, and then we renamed it to Logi Analytics which I started in 2000, but the prototyping started late 98. And then the fourth company and by the way, Logi XML came to market. When XML came to market, that was the time that XML was invented, essentially birth of data with mixing it with web. And then the fourth company, Qrvey, when I started, that was the time that microservices and serverless technologies, and essentially. I would say cloud became the new operating system, and we brought Qrvey to market. And so, so, a serial entrepreneur starting company is mostly around data, analytics, and automation.

Dan Balcauski: 3:16

That's so interesting. You've had obviously entrepreneurial blood pumping through your body for quite a long time now and no need to attach any years to that. But you know, you said you started your first, Company at 18, if we were to go back and see maybe Arman and kind of the period of 12 to 18, would we have noticed anything different or that would portend this entrepreneurial journey that you've been on in your adult life?

Arman Eshraghi: 3:44

You mean if, for example, it was a different experience during 12 to 18, maybe I had chosen a different path after 18? That's what you

Dan Balcauski: 3:51

Yeah. Well, I mean, what would you have noticed anything unusual? I mean, all the, maybe all the other kids are out playing baseball cricket or what it might be. And you're there's something different about about Arman, would we have noticed anything unusual.

Arman Eshraghi: 4:02

in general, I really strongly believe that, uh, your future is shaped by people around you, right? So, depending on where you are at that particular time, and people around you that inspire you, they are actually shaping your future. There is an old proverb that you know, saying show me your friends and I will tell you the future. Essentially maybe people, I don't know, maybe people that at that time I admired most, were people that actually created something from nothing. And that really creation mind, that I can really go there and just make, changes. I can create something from nothing. To me, the most interesting, right? So when I got to the point that and to be honest with you, also, that was the age of microcomputers. So it just happened for me to meet my best friend a Commodore 64 at that time, and then I sat down in front of it, connected to TV, and then started Putting some commands there and very soon I realized that actually I can train this guy and every day it gets a smarter and that was fascinating to me. I couldn't sleep that night and that very obviously was really the future for me. And I wanted to really get into the software world and just that was, something that I fell in love with it in teenage age and end of high school and that essentially probably, the rest is history.

Dan Balcauski: 5:37

Oh, fascinating. Yeah. There's a big factor of timing and luck. I think they back in one, I can't think it was, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. They talked about how Bill Gates was one of the only high school students in the entire country who had access to a full scale computer because of his dad's job or something like that. So, all roll our dice and we end up at the right point in time and it sounds like you were certainly lucky in that regard. You mentioned, you. Look at someone's friends or who they look up to. You can see who they're going to be in the future. What did, were your family entrepreneurs or were there other entrepreneurs in your sort of network at 18? I can't, I was interested in, going to college and getting a job. I didn't even know like starting a business was even an option. What was it that sort of, led to that path?

Arman Eshraghi: 6:22

Me, there are different definitions, of course, for entrepreneurship. My mother was just not working. She was taking care of kids. I had one, I have one brother, one sister, three of us, we were full time job for my mother. But if you look at really the way she was thinking, even in a very simple kind of task, going to the kitchen, creating a food, coming back, I would say that had that kind of inspiration to me because she could really think on the fly. with whatever plan we had and craft, something that was really very much creative thinking. I think she was at heart entrepreneur. Did she have the opportunity? No. Like most women, she had to really just take care of kids. She had to take care of the house and her spouse and But if she had the opportunity, I'm a strong believer that she would have been one of the best entrepreneurs of the time. And I had a great admiration for most of women like my mom, that actually, supported the family and supported people like me, that any success I may have in my life, Partially it's because of her and because of the family that you are in, right? So my father was actually also not entrepreneur in a classic way of doing that, but he was helping farmers to modernize their farms. So even if he didn't have his own company, but at any venture when he goes there and just helps some farmers to modernize, back there we lived in Iran, and it was the modernization of the country at that time, and before these Islamic kind of, changes that happened but at that time it was the modernization time and he was really going and helping the villagers to really, upgrade and modernize. So by itself is a kind of entrepreneurship, even if it's not your company, you are just being trained to help farmers.

Dan Balcauski: 8:24

Well, way to go. Mom and dad were definitely grateful for their influence and what they've been able to produce through you. So. Let's switch a little bit to present day. So, obviously we're, we've been talking about Qrvey for those of you who are wondering how that's spelled, it's a little bit unique. So it's Q R V E Y. So, if you're at your computer trying to figure out what we're talking about, that's the company. Tell us a little bit about Qrvey and its mission to get started.

Arman Eshraghi: 8:49

Sure when we started Qrvey and the name, by the way, is one of my talents that I choose names that nobody can pronounce, including LogiXML, or Qrvey, or, some other name, but Qrvey in particular

Dan Balcauski: 9:02

It's not quite as bad as ChatGPT. Let's be It's not, ChatGPT might be worse. It's luckily it's the most successful product of all time, despite its

Arman Eshraghi: 9:10

Yeah, it's less nerdy than that, but so you're right. So, Qrvey when we started, the idea was that in my previous life, every venture that I started tried to really complete the picture, do a little bit better than the previous one. So, my previous venture, Logi Analytics it was, focused on data visualization side, right? So visual analytics. So you get the data, you visualize it in a way that people can really go there and just see the data more clearly. And we were one of the pioneers on web based. So we were one of the very first, if not the first, that essentially was the purely web based reporting dashboarding in the market. And at the time that I'm talking about 1999 98, right? And then when we started Kve, I thought that I wanted to complete that picture. The data visualization is, and even at the time I started, KVE was a little bit of commodity at that point. So it starts, that problem is already solved. People know how to bring the data out, to visualize it, how to create the charts. But what we wanted to do, we realized that's the tip of the iceberg. And in order to have really a very successful data visualization. and a self service manner. You have to really build a great foundation. And I try to really build a complete analytics layer with Qrvey. And when we started Qrvey, it had three components. Collect, Analyze, Automate. Or we simplified to Ask, Analyze, Act. So even the logo that we created at the first day that we started Qrvey represents those circles that you collect data, you analyze it and the tip of the cue was analyze it and then you automate the data. So, so that kind of full cycle, full circle and the complete analytic layer for any SaaS application is that can take that layer, add to the application, and really go to market with a very rich self service data analytic layer that helps their end users to comprehend data, to automate it to collect data in any way they want with complete no code, with complete self service that was the vision behind Qrvey.

Dan Balcauski: 11:35

Got it. And I'm going to get a little nerdy here cause I'm a huge data nerd. So, I love the idea because there's very little. I think differentiated value in creating your own sort of visualizations, or if that's a solved problem, you want to get that off the shelf. But you did point out that, that had been somewhat commoditized and you talk about this analytical layer. Knowing, very little about, the, that part of it. Like, why is that so important? Like, why is that something like that companies don't just have already? Like, why is that a challenge for folks?

Arman Eshraghi: 12:07

Sure, so the software industry in general is moving from more simple use cases to more comprehensive and more sophisticated use cases. In old days, you were going to create this software or deploy this software for one organization, one group of people, and they were using the software, whatever the software might be, a CRM. or ER or accounting software, whatever you can think of, or HR management, whatever it is. So in now, in modern age, what really is happening is that your software is going to be used by multiple tenants, by multiple groups, by multiple departments. And the software, especially the data side of it, needs to be multi tenant. And none of the products in analytic business, analytic world was designed that way, including my previous venture. So it was not designed with that multi tenancy in mind. And when you design the software with multi tenancy in mind, that multiple tenants can come in and each one see their own, it's, each tenancy, its own data, and also they can bring their own data if they want to customize it without touching the other tenants. Data Activities, Jon Feinberg, CEO, B to C, B to D, B to C, D to D, B to D to D Whoever the vendor is, whoever the owner of the CRM application and product is, can upgrade, can downgrade, can deploy different content, can decide to all of these tenants which one should create, should receive the content, should not. It's just totally different kind of way of thinking and different level of sophistication than just thinking about, I write software and I deploy to this single customer and done. And then the next customer comes in, I go to that customer and give that customer another copy of software. So, so we try to be a platform for that kind of multi tenancy for the new age.

Dan Balcauski: 14:16

Got it. That makes total sense. So obviously, you've got a ton of experience, both as an entrepreneur, know, as a third odd company that you've started, plus you have experience in this data analysis visualization space, going back to the late 90s. I'm curious though, even though it was your third company, what, what surprised you about building and scaling Qrvey that, you wouldn't have expected after given all that experience coming in?

Arman Eshraghi: 14:43

To be honest with you, every single company you start, it's going to be different. I don't expect, when it's time for me to go and start the next, company, I would say, Hey, that's it. I already have done it so many times. I can just do it very easily this time. No, it's just a piece of cake. No, that's not going to happen. Right. So it's really every single time, depending on the market, because market is different, depending on the landscape that you are in, depending on the use case, you expand your vision with the next product, the technology, underlying technology is changing. There are so many parameters that essentially is going to change at any given time. So it doesn't matter how many times you do it, still it's going to be a challenging task. If it was otherwise, just imagine people could just go and just, after a few times they just start any company they want, scale it to any level they want, and it would not have been it would have been a totally different world, I would say. So it's going to be

Dan Balcauski: 15:48

only have Elon, I guess we only have Elon in that domain, I guess, maybe Steve Jobs as well. No one else seems to have pulled it off multiple times.

Arman Eshraghi: 15:55

Yeah, exactly. So, but even, I mean, if you look at, people like Elon and Steve Jobs, and you ask them, is it easy? It's not easy. They don't have an easy life. If their life was so easy even a single, day, they come up and they get up and say, okay, today is very easy. I have a very easy life. I don't believe it. I think it's just every single day, you are up to the challenge.

Dan Balcauski: 16:20

Got it. Well, you SaaS Scaling Secrets. So what is one thing about scaling a company that nobody is talking about, but we should be?

Arman Eshraghi: 16:31

Not sure if I'm qualified to answer that considering that, I have not followed from that aspect, analyzed all of the input in the market from different blogs. But I would tell you that, in my case at least, what I think is important the way I personally like it and the person I do it is that There are times in the company that there are good times, there are bad times. It's not going to be every single day. A bad day is not going to be every single day. Good day. There are times that you have to really, communicate with investors, communicate with employees, communicate with customers, with partners, whoever part is involved in your business. And not always you have a good news to share. Sometimes it's bad news to share. And I think having that kind of credibility in front of them and that kind of trust that you bring to them and you say, this is really what I wanted to explain, even if it's not necessarily something that you know, you are so looking forward to do it, still you do it, I think that is something that helps the team. To trust each other, help investors to trust the company, helps the customers to trust the company because we communicate in a very transparent, in a very straightforward, in a very clear way, in a very honest way. Right? So we know that this is really the plan. This is what we are going to do. This is the problem. We know the problem, but this is the solution that we think it will do it. And this is the timeline. And I think that way of communicating, I think over time, it helps you to scale the business. Maybe in short term, some of these actions may not be seen as kind of super helpful because, maybe you could go faster a little bit with a different way of communication, but I'm a strong believer that if you are a long term person, and when I see somebody that is so long term thinker, like Bill Gates, for example, I have to believe that such a person, he has been communicating very clearly with all parties around him, and he has been able to gain their trust. Otherwise, you would not have been able to really go with such a long journey and just, thrive and still have people trust around him, right? So that's, to me, the trust part is very important, because without the trust, you can't do anything. And if you need that trust, if you want to gain that trust, you have to really be very truthful. And that way of communication tends to define It's not easy, but it's a must have, and that

Dan Balcauski: 19:25

that makes

Arman Eshraghi: 19:25

to scale.

Dan Balcauski: 19:28

sense. And I think, you opened up a bunch of different threads there. So I'm going to see if I can chase them down maybe in a piecemeal fashion. So, you mentioned some different stakeholders. So let's focus for a little bit on the, maybe the internal team and the, your employees and your executives, et cetera. Obviously, you know, Maintaining that transparency and building that trust is something I think a lot of executive CEOs want to build and maintain. What is the things that you've done culturally to engender that? Are there like rituals or practices that you have at Qrvey that, help you to maintain that transparency? Because I guess. I've heard from friends of mine who are CEOs, more private conversations, right? They'll be like, something is always breaking, right? Like you're almost schizophrenic. You go from one meeting and like, you have this great success and you go to another meeting and something is completely broken. So you could. Constantly be in this state where, yeah, I'm being transparent every day. Something's breaking. But you know, you also want to make sure that you maintain, not everyone needs the level of transparency that you're seeing to see everything gets broken because they're just going to get distracted or so how have you sort of created that culture in a healthy way at Qrvey?

Arman Eshraghi: 20:52

You're right. I mean, there's a fine line to walk, because absolutely, you're right. If you overshare everything, maybe you are even disturbing the team. And I have been in that situation that some people in the company, have been telling me that Arman, You're just oversharing the information. Maybe you don't need to really tell us all of these things. Does it help us? Doesn't help us. But they know that they can trust me if they ask me any question and the answer that I provide, if I can provide the answer, I will be very honest with them. And if I cannot answer, I will tell them that I cannot answer for Whatever the reason might be. I'm not saying that all the time I can just tell everything to everybody. That's not what I, would suggest. But what I'm suggesting is when people ask me and I answer, they can count on my answer. Right, so, so in that case, I'm not trying to really be diplomatic, be kind of answering like a politician. There is a difference between a business person like me and a politician. And if, I'm a politician, I think that probably not the style of the company, the culture I want to establish in my company. And I would like to really, have that kind of culture that people around me that can come in and just ask me questions freely and even challenge me and even tell me that if I'm wrong, if I'm right, if there's a better idea. So that's really the kind of culture that I think can really help the company to a scale versus people around me come to me and become a yes man. Because they know that if they tell me something I don't like to hear, I may not like them or change them. That's not a good culture. So, it's up to me that how to nurture that. Do I want really people in the room when I go to the conference room challenge me? Ask questions? Freely talk about what they think? And, or I want them to just say yes, whatever you say is correct, and essentially I encourage people to be more thinking like me. I would go with the first route. I would never ever will do the second one. In fact, if I go to the conference room and I see some people over there never challenge me, why should I invite them to the next meeting?

Dan Balcauski: 23:17

Fair enough. That all makes sense as it pertains to your sort of direct interactions with folks, as you build out your team, your executives, other managers, are there things that you're either doing with them or you're screening before they come into the company to ensure that they have that same sort of transparent mindset? Or how are you engendering that as the company grows?

Arman Eshraghi: 23:45

Yeah, good question. So, it's very essential for us at Courvet to make sure people understand three things very well before they join Courvet and we clarify that with them. Number one, they need to be helpful. If they don't have the mentality of serving others and then be served, it's not the right company for them. Because everyone at Qrvey need to really think about others and how to serve others, how to help others, and then we'll be helped, right? And the others might be customers, the others might be co workers. We need to help others and then we will be helped, rather than thinking about ourselves all the time and we want to help ourselves first. That's not the mentality that will play well at Qrvey. Number two, they need to communicate constructively. Qrvey. So if they don't communicate it's a problem. And if they don't trust others, they will not really be truthful and they will, that will kill the communication. So I will go to the root, when the communication does not exist, that why that trust does not exist. Because if the trust was there, the truth was there. If the truth was there, communication and constructively communicating was there. So that needs to be kind of diagnosed. When that, in any department, that does not exist, why? Right? We need to cure that by being truthful to each other and trusting each other. The third is about really being a leader. Being, not a manager, but lead rather than follow. We don't need a lot of soldiers. We need leaders. We need people that when I ask them to do something, rather than follow my instruction, they come back and say, Arman, why you want me to do this? And I need those people. And then I need to explain to them in a clear manner. And if they come back and say, Arman, there's a better way to accomplish that. That person is a leader, and we need those leaders in the organization. So everyone who wants to be extremely successful as part of Qrvey, needs to really follow those, be helpful, communicate constructively. And also, be a leader, not a soldier. And that way, we really build a team that we can really, be different than anybody else. I would love when customers come to us and say, Arman, we love your team. Sometimes in early years, when product didn't have the maturity, I literally heard from several customers that they came to me and said, Arman, we bought your product, and we You know, signed a contract and it's a multi year contract and you are OEM business and we bought it not because you had the best product. We bought it because we loved your team and we thought the product would improve over time and they were right. Product, got better and better every release, every quarter, but the team was the main asset. The team was there and they thought that's exceptional.

Dan Balcauski: 27:00

That is fantastic. So be helpful, communicate constructively, be a leader, and it will be reflected. Hopefully is same with you and your company's results and customers relationships. That's amazing. Going back to something you said before, right? We were talking about making sure you're transparent with everyone. You're talking about your internal team, but then also you brought up your investors as stakeholders who you want to be transparent with. This is a very hot topic on this podcast because there's a lot of CEOs Obviously have external investment. And do you think about communicating and managing, investor relationships, and especially this capability to be very transparent about the bad news. Like, is that something that you think about early on when you're even starting to go in? Fundraise before you've established a relationship. Is that something you're screening for? How do you think about that?

Arman Eshraghi: 28:03

Yeah, so this is a very important point actually, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify that. There are two different worlds when it comes to investors. Either you are really working with an investor that has invested his or her own money. Or you are working with an investor that is not his money. This is Somebody else's money. He's just there to manage it. There are two different rules. It's not the same, and it's a very big mistake to just, name both of them an investor and just, just implement and apply the same rule to both of them, because there are totally sometimes opposite rules. So,

Dan Balcauski: 28:49

a really good

Arman Eshraghi: 28:50

right, so, so in, in my case, when I start a business, first I work during the first maybe 5 to 10 years, I work with people that is their own money when they invest in my company. I first start working with those people, right? And those people are my investors, but it's their own money. And then, at one point, you bring the institutional investors in, and that's the time that you're ready to really go there and just Rapidly scale at a different speed. You are not at that phase really trying to still figure out things. You are at that stage have built a machinery with all of the metrics you want. And then you are ready for institutional investors to come in and invest. Because that, again, is a different world. Now, with regard to the investors I mentioned, that I need to be extremely transparent with them are the ones that use their own money. They come in, they invest their money, big or small, but that's THEIR money. And then I need to be extremely transparent with them at any given moment. There is no exception to that rule, right? Bad or good news, I need to go there and not sugarcoat it, and just tell them exactly the way it works, the way I think, the way, we can move forward, whatever. Now, when you are working with institutional investors, which I have worked with them as well, and I have, some experience there, it's a different rule. The way it works, you need to formulate it. I will not tell people that they should not be transparent. Don't take me wrong, but what I'm telling is there are some framework the way you need to communicate. You need to be really more, careful about the way you communicate because the partner from the firm, you don't want to put that partner in a tough situation. So while you need to communicate, In a good way, still you need to be mindful of the champion that you have in that VC firm that is essentially the person that brought the investment to you from the firm that is your champion. And you need to really work with that person to make sure you see all sides of that rather than just very simply go there and communicate.

Dan Balcauski: 31:23

Well, so, so that's a very interesting perspective. I want to double click on that a little bit. So you, so we're talking about you're the CEO, you're the leader. You've got some bad news and you just said something very surprising, which is I don't want to put that partner in a bad situation. It sounds like you're the one in a bad situation. What is it that you're thinking about that you're saying, I don't want to put them in a bad situation? What does that mean to you?

Arman Eshraghi: 31:44

It is all about the way you communicate. And it's the same thing that you are telling, but you are, there are different ways to communicate. And if you communicated in a way that, with particular way of communication, Then, the partner, you give the partner no choice, but go to other partners of the firm and essentially pass whatever communication you have to them. Because that person is obligated to go back to the VC firm and meet with other partners on Monday or in weekly basis and just share everything, all the things that they need to update each other, versus you really provide that as a particular framework, the way you communicate that it is designed that while it's truthful, but at the same time, it is really giving the picture With a different kind of, way that maybe the partner doesn't need to really go there and just You know exactly because you need to keep in mind again the way you communicate the partner has to just pass that communication to other partners how that partner would look like so just be mindful of that without being wrong or incorrect but be mindful of that.

Dan Balcauski: 33:07

just to make it a little bit more concrete for our listeners. I don't know if there's a sort of. Could you give like a compare contrast? Like if there was, has there been a situation in the past that you've learned from where you've maybe you did it, the non-ideal way and versus kind of what you've, like how you would frame that now, just to give a little bit more concrete sense of how that communication differs between the two ways of going about it.

Arman Eshraghi: 33:30

Sure for example you know in case of you know I have some investors working with me that is their own money if they call me on Monday And say, hey Arvind, what's up? And something just has happened 10 minutes ago, or 2 hours ago, or on Friday. Let's say, for example, a customer just called and said, we may not move forward with the contract. I don't mind sharing that news with them, right? Because I just heard about it and I have not even verified it. I have not even met with the customer yet to see if he can find any remedy to the situation. But still, I will communicate that with my kind of investor who's, it's his own money. And I would say, hey, this is the case I just heard from this customer. I have not met with them. I might be able to remedy the situation, But it seems like they don't want to really move forward with the contract. So, this is the case. Case A. Versus, if I'm really communicating with my partner at the VC firm, first of all, we normally, meet quarterly at a board meeting. And should I really go there and just send an email and immediately say, hey, this is the communication from this customer that said I may not want to communicate contract or forward, move forward with the contract? No, I wouldn't do it. I would first go meet with the customer, see if I can find a remedy. What is the situation? I will go and exhaust all of my options. And then at the end of a week or two, when I have all the aspects figured out, And then if that's really something that it's a material change and impacts the company greatly, then I will communicate with that partner, right? So I would be mindful of if I just pass that information to that partner, while I have not yet really gone through all of these things I should, That partner has to go to other partners and just pass that news, and it's not a good situation. Let's just go through that. Let's just understand it, comprehend it, fully grasp it. Maybe it's not even material to your quarter. Maybe that's fine, that contract doesn't move forward, but your target for the quarter still is not in Jewellery. Still you can meet your target, why you should put that part in a kind of odd situation. So I hope that example, provides some ideas.

Dan Balcauski: 35:52

it does. It does. And I think that's a fantastic example as well. I love that because it reminds me of how most employees should think about communicating with their employees. A lot of senior managers of, if you're there's one of like talking in your one on one and just, there's time for venting and just, Hey, this, everything's going wrong. And I don't, I'm stressed, et cetera. But you know, if you're going and just sending emails, everybody, everything's on fire and like, people are like, well, what? What am I supposed to do with this? Like, do you, are you asking for my help or like, should we stop everything and like go dive into the situation? So there's a, there's a, an art to also being an employee as well as a CEO and dealing with investors having that proper level of communication and being sure your ducks are in order before you go pull that make that phone call if needed. So, Look, I would love to talk to you about, Fundraising and investment all day. I'm also watching our time and I want to be mindful of that. I wouldn't let you off the interview without giving your background in data and analytics without getting your perspective on the world of data and AI. Given your perch in the world of, being so enmeshed in analytics and making decisions with data, you can't throw a stone these Hearing somebody talk about it and I, what do you, what's a contrarian view you hold about AI's role in the future of SaaS?

Arman Eshraghi: 37:18

I think honestly, when people say AI, they are mostly excited about the Gen, the Gen AI today, right? So, and I want it to be fair because Gen AI is one of the types of AI. It's not everything about AI. Many types of AI we have used it already for 10 years and we have benefited from that. And we should not, lose that kind of insight and just So, GNI is great. It's very, kind of, visually, and very much something that makes sense. We, in daily basis, we can really take advantage of it. So, obviously, we are very excited about it, and I get it. Is it overhyped the way it is today? Yes, I think it's overhyped. And why I think it's overhyped? And it will go a little bit more pragmatic in the next six to 12 months because there are still something there we need to figure out. It reminds me of, for example, big data 10, 12 years ago that became huge and everybody thought that it would solve all of the problems that human being has. And then, we learned, To be practical and pragmatic about it. And then it reminds me of autonomous cars that five, six years ago, everyone, all of us probably thought that by now we have robot taxis everywhere in all country. And it's still, it's not a reality. It's

Dan Balcauski: 38:38

I want to bet against my brother on that note. I he claimed 2021, you'd be able to get a robo taxi in Austin. And so I've yet to collect Jake. I'm coming for it.

Arman Eshraghi: 38:47

And then, these things are moving forward and they are very promising progress there, but it takes time. Gen AI, in order to really be real, and really get where it can really impact the businesses in a meaningful way, and have a great return on investment, for a massive amount of investment, there are many different things we need to still figure out how to do it, from legal aspects, from accuracy of data, from, energy consumption, part of it, from the kind of understanding what's going on, configurability of it. So you can really protect your privacy, your data. There are a lot of things that is still, we need to figure out in order to really make sure that this is really kind of scale and can be used. So, but nonetheless, I'm a strong believer that what data analytics. This is going to help us, human beings, to really answer questions easier, cheaper, faster, better than ever. That's the journey. We are within that journey. We should see that progress will be made, and we are going to gain more insight, better insight, more accessible insight, easier and better, faster. And all of these technologies, one way or the other, are going to help us to really make that happen. And that has a great impact in our civilization. And we can, when we are, when we can ask questions and gain insight faster and better insight, I think that's helpful to us to people that, want to be insightful and want to do better with their insight. It's very helpful. And that's the impact of data analytics and AI.

Dan Balcauski: 40:39

I think you're painting a very pragmatic and accurate picture of the current state versus the hype cycle. And that being said, are there areas, within Qrvey, either your internal operations or in your product roadmap, where you've been able to, where you think the use cases are at a level of maturity, that they're able to be used. And obviously you made a very strong distinction there between the LLMs the generative AI or chat GBT versus, AI that's been around for many years, right? There's other just, Standard machine learning models, right, that have nothing to do with neural networks that we've been using for decades all the way back, 40, 50 years at this point. So AI, everything old is new again in the world of AI we're in a one cycle of many are there use cases that you found are really helping unlock growth within either Qrvey from an internal operations perspective, or that you feel are ready for primetime in your product?

Arman Eshraghi: 41:38

No, we see a lot of opportunities actually. And with, every quarter we have a new release and there is no single release that doesn't have something related to AI there that helps people. Very recently we added a capability that you can just explain the formula you want and it constructs the formula for you much easier than really construct it yourself. And it, you can change it if you want, but at least you don't have to really spend a lot of time and find the right formula that, hey, just compare the last five quarters and see which quarter has the highest growth, or for example, many things that you can describe in English and it just gives you the formula very easily, right? So that's a incremental change. That's something that you added, or for example, now we can just type what we want and it. Builds the chart, builds the dashboard for us in the coming release, and then you can change it. If you disagree with the decision that AI has made for you, that this is the best way to analyze your data or visualize, you just change it. But it gives you a kind of, a jumpstart. It's like, for example, you wanted to write a blog post, which we do very often, and then we ask AI, this is my topic, this is the outline, and then draft a kind of blog post at this level of English with these characteristics and it does for you and then you change it you just go there and just modify it all of these are adding QA team testing part we are helping the coding change for writing the code we are getting help from AI so many different aspects I think we are getting help from AI in text analytics AI is very important in order to provide you the sentiment if you want to describe What you just created for other users, that what this chart, what this data means, you have tons of data in front of you. Can you give me the outliers? AI does that for you, very kind of looking at the data, bringing the outliers to you. So we have all of those capabilities now in the product and all of this is important and You take a step by step to improve the product and they gradually get there. My only point is that each of these improvements is important, but it takes time. So does it, is it going to happen overnight? If our expectation is 12 months from now, we just sit here and we have a prompt that we just tell something and everything is done perfectly with full accuracy and there is no problem. That's too much. It's not going to happen next year. Right. But if our expectation is that every quarter I should see some improvements and gradually move forward and every quarter I'm going to get something that's better than the previous quarter, and it's smarter, it's more insightful, faster, more in then that's not a bad expectation and it should be met.

Dan Balcauski: 44:31

I love that. So, manage your expectations, everyone. Wise words from Arvid. Arvid, we are running up on time. I've got a couple of lightning round questions for you to wrap up. Are you ready?

Arman Eshraghi: 44:41

Sure.

Dan Balcauski: 44:42

Well, first is, obviously you're successful and nobody of any success gets there on their own. Has there been a leader, a mentor maybe another executive who's really helped you along the way on your journey?

Arman Eshraghi: 44:56

Many of them actually I would say, I cannot single out a single a person that says this person, 90% came from this person. I can really think of a hundred. And each of them helped me 1%. And, but there have been all the time people that really surrounding me and using their wisdom the most helpful people around me are the ones who are helping other people. Those are inspiring to me, and those people that make other people happy. Because those people to me are, have been most inspiring. I always in my life tried to follow that and be someone that when I get to where they are, I can make other people happy and I can help others. So that's to me the most inspiring part, the part that I would love to learn most.

Dan Balcauski: 45:46

And you could put any advice on that billboard for other SaaS CEOs trying to scale their company, what would you put on their billboard? Besides go become a Qrvey customer, of course,

Arman Eshraghi: 45:57

for SaaS companies, it's so different from company to company, but there are some simple rules that I would say, pay attention to the team you build, because that's everything. Without a good team, you can't do, you cannot do anything. And if you have a great team around you and you have built a great team, the team can figure it out. Everything, any problem you might have, they solve it, they give you the best advice, they help you. So I will focus on really the team that you are building around yourself. And of course, when you are searching for investment and investor, that's very crucial because that's oxygen that you need for your business to secure. That's the runway. Also, be very careful about the type of investment Be careful about the investor that you bring on board and the amount of investment that you are seeking. If you are not making good decisions on these dimensions, then it's not going to, serve you well. So just be mindful of those.

Dan Balcauski: 46:55

we're going to have to give you 10 billboards to fit that on there, but all good advice. Arvind, this has been an absolute pleasure. If folks want to learn more about Qrvey or connect with you, how can they do that?

Arman Eshraghi: 47:06

Yeah, so, honestly, on the Qrvey side, I'm always available to interact with people on LinkedIn and Twitter and if anyone has any idea to share, I'm more than happy to hear from them. And please visit Qrvey. com. We try to, communicate our mission there and also LinkedIn. If you want to personally reach out to me and I will be happy to hear from you.

Dan Balcauski: 47:29

Awesome. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes so folks don't have to figure out how to spell Qrvey on their own. And also a LinkedIn to Arman's social media profiles. Everyone that wraps up this episode of SaaS Scaling Secrets. A massive thank you to Arman for sharing his journey, insights, and invaluable tips. For our listeners, if you found this conversation as enlightening as I did, remember to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes. Till next time, keep innovating, growing, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible.