#481 A Decade in Data

This week our CEO, Jordan Husney, shared an internal report on 10+ years of data revealing trends in the adoption of our agile collaboration software.

This has been illuminating to us. We’re reflecting on where we’ve been; we’re realizing the opportunity in front of us.

It’s rare to see a company like us in the wild today. From 2018 to 2019 we were ahead of the remote collaboration boom. While we found product/market fit pre-Covid, we saw an incredible amount of growth from 2020 to 2023. 2021 was a record year for VC investment and also the year we took in 8M capital led by M12.

After this peak we saw the cooling of this boom, best characterized by the SVB banking crisis in 2023. Investors shifted from a philosophy of growth at all costs to one of profitability and real-world application.

Since this time we have survived as a company, but with a shrinking team size we haven’t been able to thrive on this timeline of events. Verticals such as Education/EdTech and E-commerce/Retail have waned. The remote collaboration vertical has all but disappeared.

We have an easier time closing and keeping customers in FinTech/Neobanking than any other sector. We’re also seeing this in AI/Machine Learning, DevOps/Developer Tools, and Cybersecurity.

The take-away here: even if we’re not in a booming sector, we can focus our sales and marketing efforts to close customers who have the confidence and capital to spend, and have a need for the tooling to succeed in a growth phase.

The best time to pivot was years ago. The next best time is now.

Hindsight is 20/20. When we realized the funding in 2021, we should’ve pivoted.

The expectation was to take the funding and chase the growth directly. In reality funding validates the need to think about what’s next.

Culturally, while we worked well together and did high-quality work, we were divided by the need to ride the S curve we were on and an instinct to kick off the next S curve.

We should’ve started our mission to get data-driven workflows into all kinds of organizations much sooner. We learned that in the cooling period there’s an opportunity to provide new technology in regulated industries and government where adoption is slower.

After a boom the new normal has to set in. The companies who can succeed at this point can move forward.

If you feel the need to pivot, the best time is the moment you sense it. Riding the S curve and slow tail of adoption can happen within one division of your company. Your new S curve can exist in another.

The AI boom is apparent. We need to focus on what’s next. Here’s my hot take:

Once again, we are seeing high levels of funding. As the AI boom settles, the challenge will be to make AI work in real-world, grown-up applications. The concern will shift to security, privacy, and regulatory needs. Organizations will want to protect their proprietary data. Organizations that leverage AI to make sense of their data will bring on the next boom.

These advancements will be in the real world: healthcare, manufacturing, energy, etc.

Software will have to take a back seat.

We’re seeing a healthy uptick in meetings this week.

…continued to build our AI-enhanced pipeline for sales. Companies everywhere are making sense of AI in their business and work. We’re working to shore up our sales team.

…kick off Shape Up cycle 13. We’re taking learnings from our revenue opportunity and building out the workflows that match the data.