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
Why Most SaaS Companies Get AI Wrong with Zach Garippa, CEO of Order.co
Dan Balcauski hosts Zach Garippa, CEO and co-founder of order.co, an AI-powered procurement platform managing nearly half a billion in annualized spend. Zach shares insights on the importance of solving customer problems before building technology, emphasizing efficiency in decision-making, and embedding AI to enhance business processes. They discuss order.co's approach to integrating AI, decision-making strategies in a growing company, and the value of customer-centric technology.
01:46 Order.co's Unique Business Model
03:37 The Role of AI in Order.co's Success
16:05 The Importance of Embedded AI
22:58 Enhancing Customer Experience with AI
25:17 Maintaining Decision-Making Speed
28:27 Empowering Decision Makers
40:29 Rapid Fire Closeout Questions
Guest Links
So put differently if our customers don't like us and use us. We're not making any money. So that's how I think it should be. This is the wave and you don't want to be the person like yelling at the clouds to stop raining. Like I have friends who've built just like Monster AI products. Like it, if we took a demo, you'd be like, holy shit. I can't believe that exists. But then the funny thing is then you're like, but what problem? What problem does this solve? my journey was find the problem first, and then just like never stop solving that problem versus build the tech first, and then go seek out a problem. the only thing worse than having a product with no problem. Is having a product with a lot of money and no problem because that's a good way to spend a lot of money. Keep going. That's it. Just keep going.
Dan Balcauski:Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast that brings you the inside stories from the leaders of the best scale up, B2B SaaS companies. I'm your host, Dan Bakowski, founder of Product Tranquility. Today I'm excited to welcome Zach Garippa, CEO, and co-founder of order.co. Founded in 2016. order.co is an AI powered procurement platform that oversees nearly half a billion annualized spend across hundreds of customers. Before founding order.co, Zach worked at Morgan Stanley, but he credits his street smarts to his summers as a doorman on Park Avenue. Zach, welcome to the show.
Zach Garippa:Dan, I'm excited, man. I'm here for the scaling and the secrets. Let's do it. I'm honored
Dan Balcauski:Yes, well, uh, we will dive into all those. Before we dive into your scaling journey, can you give us the elevator pitch? What does order.co do? Who do you serve?
Zach Garippa:a hundred percent. order.co believes we should do the work for businesses, so what we want to do is build a very familiar. Almost B-to-C, like user experience for businesses. We then want to have heads of procurement, heads of finance just dump their whole brain into our system of how things should work. And we connect the dots and we wanna do as much work for folks between A and B and B and C, and C and D and so on and so forth. One order is operating at its best. We sell the businesses, we completely simplify the buying and paying experience, and then we wanna automate and eliminate. All of those workflows that ET had done for the business to kind of uplevel, whether you are the front desk retail person at one of our customers or the CFO, we just want everyone spending time, you know where they wanna be spending time to make the biggest impact for the business.
Dan Balcauski:Got it. And so, uh, one, uh, interesting part of order at co. So, it's a little bit difficult to tell from external, so maybe just clarify this up at the front. Would you classify yourself as a traditional SaaS business model or more of a marketplace business model, or a little bit of both?
Zach Garippa:The option C, a little bit of both. So not invented by us, but certainly something we, uh, ride the coattails of. It's sometimes called SaaS plus. So what that means is there's a SaaS platform. So order.co is a platform, but we actually monetize, uh, you know, most of our revenue from payments. So why we like this hybrid is it creates, in my opinion, the most aligned incentives. So put differently if our customers don't like us and use us. We're not making any money. So that's how I think it should be. And then SaaS Plus is sometimes the area that kind of combines really this like traditional SaaS background with like Marketplace or for us it's embedded financial products.
Dan Balcauski:Understood. We appreciate that clarification. So look, uh, AI is the hypest of hype cycles. Right now everyone has raced to add AI products with mixed success. And uh, when we were talking off camera, you had mentioned how, you know, you've been, you feel like you've been ready for this moment since the early days of the company, and now feel like you're in a place to lead rather than react to this new cycle. So, uh, I'm curious if you could just unpack what you mean by that.
Zach Garippa:Yeah, a hundred percent. So first of all, I'm in the camp of an AI bull. That's not me saying I'm biased as someone who wanted to start a company, especially in as a founder. But I think it's coming. And I think really the line to draw is like how to make it most useful for people. So I wanted to start there is even use myself. Like I want to use AI more. Sometimes I just like don't know how or where to use it. I use chat GPT every day. And then other than that, I text friends, I text family, I text founders. I'm like, what are you doing? Okay? And then I try it. And so why I kind of start there is one I think. My opinion, But a pretty general opinion. This is the wave and you don't want to be the person like yelling at the clouds to stop raining. So it's like, okay, first embrace the wave. Step two, how do you embrace the wave? Something that we are proud of. Is that like this kind of underlying thesis of ai? I can't tell you what or how it's gonna look exactly in 5, 10, 20 years. I don't really think many can. I think something that I can tell you is people, regardless of. If you're one of our customers, regardless if you're you, regardless if you're me, you're gonna expect your software or AI to do more and more of the work for you. I think that that premise is something thematically we got really right when we started, so it would be totally disingenuous if in 2016 we were pitching this as an AI software. We didn't even think of things that way. I don't even think the market thought of things that way at the time. I think the way that we always wanted to present ourselves is, okay, when people log into order, doesn't matter who you are in the business. So I'm also a big believer of like platforms. We want as many people in order as possible. What they will expect over time is the platform itself to get smarter and smarter the more you use it. That theme we've sincerely invested in since we started. We actually didn't even know. Another way of doing it. So it's like fast forward, I think that's really gonna matter because something that we pride ourselves in is we have very nuanced understanding of not only business problems, but individual locations at businesses and individual users at businesses. A more relatable example is I could infer what podcasters would find helpful and you would be like. Okay, but like, get a little more specific. I think that distinction is going to really matter in the coming years. You don't want something helpful for podcasters. You don't want something helpful for, you can get more and more specific, but you want something helpful for Dan to make a really successful podcast By some skill, by some luck. That's what we have. We have 10 years of. Kind of nuanced data at the customer level. And what our job is, is to make AI a lot more approachable, a lot more useful. And what we wanna do is pioneer how AI is helping you today in service of the vision tomorrow versus the future of ai. But then the future is always X number of years away.
Dan Balcauski:Well, it's probably not unheard of for anybody who had listened to this podcast to understand, right? Like boards are, have probably since you know, the chat gt moment in late 22, uh, hey, like, you've gotta integrate ai, what's your AI strategy? And so, we've seen a lot of. Experimentation, some working a lot not. But you did talk about this, idea of like, hey, we, we kind of were positioned from the first steps of 2016 to sort of take advantage of this moment. I'm curious, like, what was it like, what do you think that, like concretely you guys have done that you think it allowed you to kind of really again, not like just ride this instead of just being overwhelmed by it.
Zach Garippa:Yeah, so, so I'll give you like a pretty salesy answer, but it's not the intent, and then I'll make it more concrete.
Dan Balcauski:Sure.
Zach Garippa:wanna sit at the intersection of work workflows. That's what I think we did well. Like we from the start have a lot of workflows and a lot of data like flowing through order. So now it's like kind of why that matters. Lemme give you an example that's really like old. So 2018 ish, we got SoulCycle as a customer. They've been a long time customer. We think the world of both like them as a brand, but also them as a team. So they were in hypergrowth mode at the time. And opening new locations was very complicated because in each new location there was rules that needed to be followed. So there was, in this example, there were local contracts, there were national contracts, there were regional contracts, and any missed day or delayed opening would be massively problematic. So very frequently, and this is 2018, a user would go on to order. And build one cart across, call it 200 vendors and you know, a thousand products simultaneously. So they are logging into order building all of this. Think of like an Amazon-like user experience. Once it's added to the cart, we know who you are in the organization and we also know the ship to date. So we were doing things like GL code, kind of like AP automation. Type work at the point of purchase, which is a bit novel at the time.'cause usually you wait until an invoice happens. But I'll actually keep extending this example. Once you hit submit from the cart, we never even had the ability of not getting you all of those things at the timeline. You dictated at the price points you wanted, meaning like, let's say something's outta stock, which would happen all the time. Our system already said, okay, here is the, in this case product. So this skew is what you wanted. We will find that skew elsewhere and the system just literally did the work for you. I've often equated this to, if you remember like MapQuest, in the MapQuest days, we used to like print out directions and I used to like sit shotgun with my parents, like, turn left here. Now the funny thing is with MapQuest is if you turn left and there's traffic, you're just like kind of fucked. Like what are you Like? You're just like, oh shit. Then you like bust out a map. Then Waze comes along and that doesn't even like enter your conscious, like of course problems happen, but you're just kind of navigated through. Why I kind of dovetailed into that is that's what Order did in 2018, and that's one example for one user where whenever SoulCycle needed a location opened, they had peace of mind that it would be open in exact accordance with their, business rules and procedures. So why I wanted to go into that more of a detailed example is you can infer, you can make, this is what fitness studios want to do. We were like, no, this is like literally exactly what SoulCycle and these exact users need at this exact time, and they're exact pricing tolerance. So that's the type of data we have for our customers. And then all we're trying to do. Is, kind of hit this seesaw of like, do you want to do this or do you want us to do it? And we're kind of good either way. We never want people to relinquish control. I think at the end of the day, people are still people and they have opinions and they want, uh, you know, things done a certain way. We, we just wanna be the conduit to help you execute what you want. And then again, this key theme of, but if you do that once, you should have an expectation as a user of any software. That it will help you do it better the next time and better the next time and better the next time. So I think that theme is something we take a lot of pride in, in, in what we invested in early. But I think that theme can be overlooked today because the tech is so good. Like I have friends who've built just like Monster AI products. Like it, like if we took a demo, you'd be like, holy shit. Like, I can't believe that exists. But then the funny thing is then you're like, but what problem? What problem does this solve? And they're like, and they're like, well, I'll find the problem. I think every founder has different journeys. I, my journey was find the problem first, and then just like never stop solving that problem versus build the tech first, and then go seek out a problem.
Dan Balcauski:Let me see if I can, maybe encapsulate what you just told me about the, like the SoulCycle example and maybe relate it to a bit of a broader theme, but you could tell me if this is on track with what you were saying. So, what I think I heard with that Solar SoulCycle example was the. Basis of your ability to sort of ride this AI wave was in the kind of understanding of that customer profile in their use cases and their needs to be able to then leverage that as either machine learning or AI is sort of in general, was able to sort of. Do better things on top of that, it was like this foundation of user context to be able to feed it in versus just everyone just maybe tacking on generic sort of AI capability. Is that the direction or the theme of what you were saying?
Zach Garippa:Uh, yeah, I think a hundred percent. Now, I think user context is a hundred percent right, and generic is the enemy, I would argue always, but especially in the world of ai, any sort of generic assumptions you're making are going to be commoditized. They're just not gonna matter. And reusing the example with me, if I book travel, I don't want. A late flight. I do early flights. That's not good or bad. It's just like a hundred percent of the time. I always do early flights. So if there's an AI that does an amazing travel, but it's recommending non-United and not early, I'm not gonna take it. I, so there's just like an endless amount of these examples where it's like, it's all about the user preference. And the spectrum I always wanna operate on is, none of this is good or bad. If you like late flights and delta go nuts. But any AI software that's like, I am the best travel ai, if they don't have that uniqueness of our preference, we're just not gonna use it. So I always recommend, or this is something that, you know, we try to do with the business. It sounds cheesy, but sometimes cheesy is underrated. Keep the customer at the center. Don't forget that there are people using your software and they have problems actually, if you stay grounded in that reality. That's kind of the centering mechanism to keep you as someone who's trying to develop software, who's maybe trying to take over the world and build this great business. It kind of keeps you grounded of like, yeah, to build a successful business, just keep solving customer problems. That's the answer.
Dan Balcauski:Yeah, cheesy and cliche tend to be cheesy and cliche for good reason, uh, although we tend to ignore them at our peril. Well, and you might have hinted at this before where you were talking about some of your buddies building these killer demos, but like there's a lot of companies, uh, maybe like the contrasting external example that you've seen of like, there's a lot of companies rushing into bolts. AI onto our products right now. I guess from your perspective, what do you see these companies sort of getting wrong and how they're approaching AI implementations?
Zach Garippa:I, I think there's two themes on the tougher way to get adoption. You never say never. I'm never gonna underestimate other companies and also ai, but I would say there's two themes where. I see things potentially getting wrong. One we hit, so I'll just kind of recap it briefly, but it's start with AI for AI's sake because the market feedback as an entrepreneur is you can raise money off of that. I think that that's just a dangerous place to start because the only thing worse than having a product with no problem. Is having a product with a lot of money and no problem because that's a good way to spend a lot of money. Okay, so that that we discussed briefly, I would say. The second one is I've always been a big believer of embedded, and I'll define that a little bit. So what order is, just as an example, is we're an embedded FinTech. So what that means is when you're on order, we don't sell you financial products randomly when you're on order. There are financial products at the point of need. And then people adopt the financial product. So a concrete example at using order, we believe a world where everything is in order. So we want every single thing a business needs, whether it's a product, a service, a subscription, doesn't matter. We have reinvented the way a business connects to their vendors. So why I bring that up in this context is let's say you want a cleaning service for your business or a florist or a. We'll stick with services, plant watering service. In order for you to do that, we make it incredibly easy to spin up a single use virtual card or, or credit card type product, and you go pay the vendor. That experience is embedded at the time of need. It's there. Alternatively, imagine if I just called you right now during this podcast, it was like, do you want a credit card for a low, low rate of you're just like, I'm not. I'm not in that mode right now. That is going to be, in my opinion, a big, big theme for AI as well. Embedded wins Using my travel example, or I could, I could example hop a bit, but if like I have to like learn a new app for travel and then learn a new app for hotels or learn, it's everything needs to be embedded. I would love to go to one place. Where when I need travel, that's what happens. And then I need an Uber. That's what happens. And then I need a hotel. That's what happens. So I think AI is actually gonna follow kind of the his, the history of some of these other like waves. FinTech being a good one, where embedded FinTech pro products tend to outlast bolt on FinTech, drawing that juxtaposition for ai. I think embedded AI products, things that can solve multiple workflows and more complex problems will certainly outlast like widgets where it's like, oh, I could do this thing really well. A different version of saying this is pre ai. There was always this battle of you never wanted to be a point solution. Like you never wanted to solve, just like one little problem. You want there to be a platform. You wanted to solve a lot of problems for a lot of users. That's gonna be the same with ai, in my opinion. I think because it's, the barrier to entry to build is so low and because truly the tech is just like incredible. Like in my experience, this is a one of one. Similar enough to like mobile or similar enough, but it's, it's different. I think this is a one of one, but because the barrier to entry to build an AI product is so low, like you still have to like get customers. You still have to sell it. You still have, like, there's other, there's all these other parts of building a business that are important and for all of those who are looking to build in the AI space, I think if the value or if the AI is embedded. That's the place to be versus the bolt-on, add-on, or whatever the kind of opposite of embedded is.
Dan Balcauski:I think, you know, you said a bunch of thi good things there. You know, one of them was, you know, at the beginning was this. Idea of, Hey, we have ai. Maybe that gets you some investor money, but it lands pretty flat with customers.'cause AI's an enabling technology. I have compared it to, SaaS companies don't go and say, Hey, we've got a Redshift database behind, or Oracle database running our services. Like nobody gives a shit. Don't like, like, Hey, we've got ai. And maybe, I guess maybe that was useful in. 2015. But now it just is like, okay, well, so does everybody else like, uh, that, that means nothing to me. How does that help me with my problems? And then I also really, I, I like your travel example.'cause every time I see an open AI demo, they keep on thinking, all I do is try to book travel with AI every day. And it never works as well as me just going to like Kayak or booking.com or something. Right? Because it's like, all right, they've spent a lot of years. Putting all the knobs and dials there that I know I need to actually get this thing to work. And they have my credit card information and, it's not, dog slow. I'll probably put my foot in my mouth here in, in 24 months when they finally do solve that problem. But, uh, right now, uh, it's not, uh, it's not the, uh, all end all be all that. I think they're hoping I
Zach Garippa:And yeah, Dan, it's, it's so funny you say that. So use your Expedia, uh, or Kayak example. I'm more bullish on platforms, so on Expedia or Kayak, for example. You can do a lot of these things already. I'm more bullish of their ability to leverage ai. Now that could be buying some of these new technologies. It could be building. So I, I think again, the broader theme here is excitement, but I think you nailed at least my perspective as well, or, or we share a perspective of if Expedia embedded AI to help us move more frictionless, I would use that all day. But I'm with you. Where I've actually sampled I travel's top of mind is we travel a lot for work and there's just like a bunch of shit to do. I, I can't use any of the AI products yet, but I totally appreciate this is probably the way it's going. I think that theme is the theme here. It's like when we sell to businesses, they know and believe Full stop AI will transform their work, but then similar to the conversation we're having, then it's like, but how? Then they're like, uh, well, I've tried this and I've tried, so it's. To me, it's like a particularly interesting environment because like users are generally curious and embracing of the new technology, but in the same breath, they don't know how to do it. They, they, they're, they're seeking actually the promise that AI is set to deliver. So I think it's just super fascinating and it's a exciting time to build in that space.
Dan Balcauski:Yeah I, there, I've never kind of said this publicly before, but like, as you were talking about tying it back to this idea of, of the AI's embedded concept, like, any, uh, customer journey. You know, can be divided up into many stages, but at least, the simplest one is three of like set up, execute the job clean up. And you know, if we look at like how. SaaS software as a service took over from the world of perpetual software. It wasn't because the software itself necessarily did the job better, which is the functional task. It was the fact that like, oh, instead of having to put in an IT ticket to provision a server and install the software and, and set it up and do all the patching, I just put in my login credentials and all of a sudden software's there ready to use. It seems like. There the, tying it back to your embedded concept, there's an advantage of like thinking about where does AI fill in those experience gaps that already exist in the process. And tying it back to our travel example would be something like, I don't have a problem booking a flight or booking a hotel room. That's like a pretty straightforward thing. And like if you're just gonna make AI do it, like you're just literally jamming the technology in a place where the solution's already. Big enough, but what happens when, oh, my flight got delayed, or I, you know, I ended up getting stranded in Munich for 24 hours and now I'm dealing with a long reimbursement thread with Lufthansa or United or whoever trying to get like, whatever. It's like that would be like. Hey, like AI knew about my trip. It knew about the delay. It just handles it, it emails, you know, the airline requesting reimbursement, you know, submits my receipts. That's the part that I could really love the, the AI to like,'cause it knows about the trip already versus this, you know, let's jam it into the front end and be like, oh, it's, you now have. AI traveled power, travel booking, like, you're like, well, okay, the other thing kind of did it good enough. So, uh, it, it's a, it's an interesting yeah, it is an interesting world. Uh, we're evolving it and I think we're where people are trying to yes, force this technology into a problem that's already pretty well served by, you know, the existing tools versus making it more of an enhancement of customer experience areas that maybe were, uh, glossed over or not. Possible to handle as, as seamlessly as before. I, I wanna pivot a little bit because I can talk to you about, uh, AI and, and product development, uh, all day. But, uh, I do wanna focus a little bit on you know, your leading order. Uh, you guys been around for, you know, almost a decade. The company's grown significantly since the founding. And, that can, has have all sorts of, implications on, you know, you as a leader and, and managing organization at different size. So, like w. I wanna focus on sort of decision making and like when you're scaling fast, there's often this tension between moving quickly and making sure you get it right. And I'm curious how you think about, decision making speed and, because those are the things that like. Obviously when there's, 10 of you in a room, or maybe it's three of you, you know, when you're, you're just the founders, right? It's like there's no, uh, you know, lack of time between, you know, thinking, Hey, we're gonna do something and actually doing it. But as this organization scales, uh, those things inevitably slow down. So I'm curious like how you've thought about maintaining decision making speed and, and like your philosophy around that.
Zach Garippa:Yeah, I, I heard a funny analogy on this, and then I'll, and then I'll address. Directly, but like if me and you were playing catch, I have the ball, you know, the ball's covered to you, or I'm gonna keep it and I'm gonna throw you the ball, and then so on and so forth. Okay. Then you had a third person, now you're like, who, who's throwing the ball to who? Then you had a fourth, then you had a fifth. And then the funny analogy that I heard is then you put blindfolds on all of them. And that's what running a business is like.'cause you actually have all of these individually. Well intentioned people who if they knew it was them, they are accountable and they're ready to step to the moment. So it's funny that like of course scaling people, you need good people. You need, I'm actually gonna move that to the side'cause I actually think that that's super well covered and there's like a lot of resources of screening and, but what I always find interesting is you actually have, as your business grows really good people. Where they are ready to be accountable. So the problem is like no one knows who's throwing the ball, where is the ball? Who's catching the ball? So we spent a lot of time kind of at the intersection of kind of what you said, it's like how decisions are made. So to kind of break that down a little bit, what we do at, at order is first stamp the enemy. So it's like, what's the worst, what's the worst outcome at order? It's indecision. So everyone knows, or I do my best to remind them. If you make the wrong decision, that's better than no decision. Like no decision is the enemy now it's, we just want to make decisions quickly. And then I half joke, we just need more decisions to be right than wrong. It's like more baseball rules apply as opposed to like perfection. So that's what we try to do early because there are these like inflection points of a business. Like we're about 150 people now. Yeah, to the point you made when it was me and my two co-founders, like decision making was so easy. It just really, it really was because it was so quick. The feedback loop is immediate, like you almost don't realize how good you have it strictly from a decision making process because there's no confusion. You know why all decisions have gotten made then. This was a little bit of a generalization, but it was about right for us. Then it's like, then you're like 10 people. That mattered. Then you're like 50. Now there's like people in different rooms or offices, then there's like a hundred that, so it, it just gets so much more complicated. So I think what we try to, to practice what we preach is one stamp. The enemy indecision is the killer. Just you need to make decisions quickly that's balanced by don't be rash. Don't just like, we're not gonna make decisions of. You know, life or death situations right now on a podcast. So there is just like a, a calibration, but speed matters and you just don't want one meeting to turn into another meeting where some folks call it analysis paralysis, but I actually think it's way worse than that. It's just no one wants to make a decision. I think two, just put someone in charge of making the decision and then I think there is something to make sure they're empowered to make the decision. I wouldn't put you in charge of making. A complex people decision at order, that's on me. But I would try to say as explicitly as possible, like, Dan, do you feel good about making this decision? And if you say no, I'll say, okay, what? What do you need to feel good about it? Or perhaps you're like, I'm not the right guy, and then you move on. But I think the two kind of themes here is just make a decision. That's the one, and I can't stress that enough. And then two, be more deliberate. Then you think you need to be. Otherwise it's seven people playing catch and everyone's like just who's throwing the ball? To who? Just like some, someone needs to like step up and be like, Dan is gonna throw the ball to Bianca. And then everyone's just gonna be like, okay, that works. So I think that's kind of the role of the ceo. Someone needs, especially amidst massive ambiguity to be like, this is happening to this. Does everyone feel good about that?
Dan Balcauski:I wanna go back to something you said at the beginning, which was, you know, you said you, it's important to sort of name the enemy. The enemy is, is indecision. I, can you just unpack that? Like tan tangibly, like what does that look like? Inside the company? Is that, is that you you know, is that some part of your, like, something you say at your monthly all hands is this you know, how, how do you instantiate that as a value inside the company?
Zach Garippa:Yeah, so I think a, a couple of different ways. So I can use kind of like tangibly the way I do it, but then how I try to encourage other folks. So first of all, it's like there almost like has to be a topic. So in this case, let's use raising money. Okay. So first I try to disarm how much ambiguity there will be in the process. So with raising money, I'm speaking to our CFO, who's amazing. I'm like, we will have incomplete info at best. There's no way we have every perfect angle of how each of these phones we're pitching will end up. That's impossible. So I try to write up front disarm. We are not going for perfect. We are going for the best decision right now based on all of the information we have. And then what I try to encourage. Is it then your ability, either you CFO, or in this case mine, your ability to iterate based on the things that are coming at you. So I think that's the nuance that I try to break. I can give some examples. So I think what people get nervous about is the decision as if, if it's final, I'm like, no, make a decision.'cause you just want the next card to turn over and then you behave and, and react. And then the next card. And then the next card. I think so much of it is actually. What happens because of the decision and how you react to it versus the decision itself. But I totally empathize with anyone who's like, Ooh, shit. This is a big decision. Like, let's think about this. I encourage you to think about it, but I encourage and, and overtly reward folks at the company who are like, what's the data that you are basing this off of? I'm really just trying to assess, is it rash or not? So a little more binary. Mm-hmm. Once they make the decision, I have their discipline. I know what, what factors they were looking at. I then assume the decision is not gonna play out as you expected. It just usually doesn't. However, that's not the important part. The important part is what did you think at the time? And then how can we react and course correct. So that's like quite tangibly like what I do and how I do it. I would say one other hack that has benefited me quite a bit is I assume. Problems that I face have been solved before. So even when I'm feeling like a little bit of my feelings, maybe it's a tough day. Maybe you're feeling a little on an island. I'm like, okay. Someone had to have solved a similar problem to this before. So my personal hack is I talk to a shit ton of people all the time. And now I know the, their experience or their knowledge gained is not perfect. Perfectly replicable to mine, but I'm like, I could pick up patterns and themes. So a concrete example is, you know, excitedly where we're, uh, you know, talking to some, like a tighter group of investors to raise money At the moment, I've never raised a round of this size, but I know people who have now, they haven't raised a round of the size at my company, but that's okay because. As different things hit me, it's still my job to make a decision. There's no option not to make a decision. So I'm like, okay, really it's what's the best decision? So a very tactical hack is I do activate my network a ton, and then I'm just like, based on your experience, what did you do? And then I write things down a ton. I do that with internal folks. I have, a great executive team, and I lean on them quite a bit. I'm like. When was the time that this happened? Or if you like, I just like mine info, and then I'm like, okay, this is as much information as I need. I need to make a decision. Sometimes I'm compulsive enough where I'm like, and I need to make it by end of day tomorrow then. Then there's no out. I can't be like, Ooh, ooh, Dan. I just need a little more info I set in the day tomorrow, so like at some point. Mm-hmm. A decision has to be made.
Dan Balcauski:You're, you're saying decision making deadlines. And what it kind of reminded me of, I think, is it Frank Sluman, the guy, the old, uh, ex, uh, CEO of a ServiceNow and Snowflake he had a whole thing about, you like, leave a meeting and people will be like, yeah, we'll, we'll come back next week with an answer. He's like, no, you'll come back tomorrow with an answer. And so like, really like setting those deadlines to, to make decisions. I'm curious as you've, you mentioned before about, questions to understand like, hey, like do you feel. Comfortable or good would make the decision. I can't remember exactly the, the word you used to describe it. I'm curious if there's anything else you've learned about managing everyone else so that they feel safe, moving fast. Like if there's, if you've debugged that process and there's been things that you've learned that have helped kind of make people move faster in that regard, you know, whether it's psychological safety or, or something else. Because I can imagine, you know, many people may have been in other companies where like getting a decision wrong was like, career ending, right? And like, and so maybe there's, there's, uh, things that they need to know or, or get a culture to when they're in this en in that environment.
Zach Garippa:Yeah, I think a really good question'cause it's so much easier said than done, right? Like the spirit of, of a lot of what you just said is so much easier when you're hanging with the pal on a podcast talking about this. But now it's like, okay, you're in a room, you're pacing behind revenue. And a decision needs to be made of door number one. Or like, it's like once you introduce stakes, once you introduce reputation, like there's all of these other factors. So I think one really good question how we do it is, is tactically, so I think some of the things that you know, are most in my control is like truly give them an out early. If they can't do it. So what I mean by that is I literally, will I ask like, Dan, how do you feel about making this decision? Like, I, I try not to be like, oh damn, but this is your job. It doesn't matter if it's your job. Like, how do you feel about making this decision? Because people's, you know, risk tolerance is different. I think as a founder or someone as an early employee. Inherently you, you are more risk on than perhaps a different path of life. So I actually think maybe it's you or maybe someone you know, you know, that started a company. They're just like more comfortable making the decision. So, so first of all, I think you don't want to like, essentially throw decisions and judgment calls at people who don't feel super comfortable doing it to be clear. That's not to say like you then exclude them from the decision making process, but the hack here is be super explicit upfront. Of how do they feel about it? And then again, making this tactical and continuing this thread. Let's say we're in a room and they're like, we don't feel great about it. I'm not gonna like put them on blast in front of a room. I'm gonna take a social cue and then be like, okay, we'll circle back to it. And then I circle back to them in a one-on-one, and then I'm just, what do you need? To feel good about the decision. Oftentimes it's like information. Oftentimes it's like, I don't know this, but if I knew this, so I, I would recommend, it's almost like when people find themselves in these situations, like words can't express how helpful it is to over communicate, but I always go with like, let's say I put you in a position to make a decision you're ill-equipped to make, and you get it wrong. That's all me, man. Like, it's like so disingenuous to like, give you shit for it. So I would say the, the two tactical things here, one, over communicate, overdo the explicit nature of here is the decision, here is when the decision needs to be made. Dan, you are the most obvious choice. Or whatever the, the, prerequisite is. It's like, Dan, are you good to make it? And then the explicit nature of it just helps. So much of the downstream negative impacts of now take that, you know, meeting example where you know, Frank Sluman is like everyone just is like, yeah, yeah, we'll come back and we'll decide. That's the worst answer. At least next week is better than we'll decide. And then tomorrow is better than next week. Like everything is on the spectrum. So I think my kind of answer to like more of the psychological safety question is. Just gauge the temperature of the person and the room and then assuming that part is done, which is the the key piece, you ha as a culture you can't penalize for making a wrong decision. You like really can't. Because of that will create a feedback loop of like, I have to measure 17 times before I cut once. That's not the culture we want here. Make quick decisions if it's wrong. I can live with that. You made the decision, but then it's also, we're not gonna throw up our hands and be like, it's all over. Okay, what, what now do we have to do to react to the changing landscape? So I, I think my key here, and this is what I try to encourage like most people to do, is people view decisions as like binary. People view decisions as, did I make the right or the wrong? I just view decisions on a spectrum. You either made the decision or not. Once you make the decision, the next thing happens and then the next thing happens. So I think I try to encourage people to not view things. In this case, decisions ever is binary.'cause then you always overestimate the rescue. Oh, it's such like a human nature thing to do. If you think the weight of the world is on your shoulders, even using your very good prompt, I'll kind of morph it for a second. Probably not someone's job was dependent on one decision, but I totally believe and empathize with people who feel that way. So it's like, you wanna, like, this decision is a, at the last decision you'll ever make. So it's all of these like tactics upfront where you try to add humor, you try, even if it's a big decision, it's like you try to get out in front of it. And then it's like, whatever happens, run it together, Dan. Like, right, wrong or otherwise, what am I gonna leave you stranded? So it's, it's a lot of those like mental, model tactics and that works.
Dan Balcauski:Zach, there's a bunch of stuff I didn't want get a chance to ask you, but we're running outta time, but I wanna be respectful of yours and the audiences. So I wanna wrap, close this out with a couple of, uh, rapid fire closeout questions you up for it.
Zach Garippa:That's still man.
Dan Balcauski:Awesome. What's, uh, one book you've recommended most frequently to other founders? Leaders?
Zach Garippa:Endurance. It's the story of Ernest Shackleton and I would say there is no better story of resiliency and just being able to jump from problem to problem with no loss of enthusiasm than that book. So that's my number one by mile.
Dan Balcauski:That is an excellent book. They found a ship by the way recently, so,
Zach Garippa:Do you see? You see this guy. This is a Lego work in progress of endurance the ship.
Dan Balcauski:oh wow.
Zach Garippa:I didn't even know you were asking that question. Okay. This, that's just, that just was there.
Dan Balcauski:Awesome. Look outside of work, what's something you're passionate about or do to recharge?
Zach Garippa:I play with my kids. I got three boys, a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 2-year-old. So me and my wife and the boys like to hang. And then my other answer is I'm a hooper. I'm still just waiting for the Knicks to call me for an old washed up basketball player. I play a lot of basketball still.
Dan Balcauski:Uh, I, I, I wouldn't wait too long for that phone call, but, uh, but best of luck. Either way. Look, I think you're successful. Um, I don't think anyone of any success gets there on their own. When you think about all the spectacular people you've had a chance to work with, learn from, is anyone just pops to mind? Who's had a, a effect on the way you think about building leading companies?
Zach Garippa:Yeah, so I'll name one, but this is a hard one to do shortly'cause I operated that same principle, like I think I'm just the product of a lot of people who've helped me out. There was no need for them to help me out. Someone that I'll call out is this guy Mark Hawkins. He taught me a lot of things. He was the former, uh, president, CFO of, of Salesforce. He's an investor, he's a friend, he's a mentor. He taught me a lot of things, one of which is when I am successful, I wanna be like that. He always has time for everyone. He always goes out of his way. But I also think he taught me, you know, how to run a company. And, and to this day, I will text or email him seemingly innocuous. Questions and problems. And he helps. So I wanna give him a shout out. But I operate under the same principle. There's a lot, there's a lot of people and you don't forget them either.
Dan Balcauski:How, uh, how do you stay sharp as CEO? What do you do to continue to learn and grow?
Zach Garippa:Okay? So a little bit of a founder stereotype, but I swear by it a lot of biographies and a lot of auto biographies. A ton. A ton. I read multiple per month. Or I listen to them on, on podcasts. A plug I could give is, there's a great podcast called Founders by David sra, and he just recites these I'm obsessed with them because it's a lot of the themes we discuss. It's like problems have existed since the dawn of time. And it's fascinating how much you can learn from history. And I realize I sound like a nerd, like high school me would've beat up this version of me, I think. But don't underestimate history and biography and autobiographies or, or how I stay sharp.
Dan Balcauski:That, that, that podcast is amazing. That guy is a true truly dedicated to his task. And, um, yeah, he gives you sort of the, the ins and outs of, of every, person in history who you think had the blessed life, and then you realize like all the hell they went through constantly. So, uh, it definitely helps you realize that, uh, yeah, you are not alone. Um, and it hearkens back to what you said before, like, somebody else has gone through this and like that's a good repository of if you ever feel, like, you know, whatever you did, get the magic wand. Go listen to some of these stories, and you're like, oh my God, these people suffered through. It's sobering. Uh, look, if this has been great. If I gave you a billboard, you put any advice on there for other B2B sios trying to scale their companies, what would it say?
Zach Garippa:Keep going. That's it. Just keep going.
Dan Balcauski:Awesome. Zach this has been fantastic for our listeners, wanna connect with you, learn more about order to co. How could they do that?
Zach Garippa:Go on order.co. I think we spend a whole lot of time trying to educate the market of a new way of solving problems for your business and that you could find me, I, I should be way better on X and Twitter. I am not. So just shoot me an email. I'm a weird guy who responds to all my emails.
Dan Balcauski:All right. Well, uh, I maybe, uh, your famous last words, I, I give my condolences to your inbox but we'll include those links in show notes for our listeners. That wraps up this episode of Sask Senior. Thank you to Zack for sharing his journey insights. For our listeners who found Zach's Insights VA valuable, please leave a review and share this episode with your network. It really helps the podcast grow.
