Chaos To Clarity

Today’s bonus episode follows the 2 part episode with Jan Arendtsz, Founder & CEO of Celigo - an iPaaS platform that simplifies the integration of business applications and data sources in the enterprise.During those two episodes, Eric and Jan discussed what it takes to truly grow a platform business. Many founders want to go after a broad market and grow their company into an industry staple. As a startup, the likelihood that you’ll succeed increases if you find a narrow market and focus on an underserved niche.The way Jan did it was he scaled a consultancy first and foremost to 100+ members which allowed him to learn everything there is to know about his target market and build products based on the desired outcomes of their ideal client profile.Check out the full episode to learn more on how to create the next big platform!Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

This episode continues the conversation with Jan Arendtsz, Founder & CEO of Celigo - an iPaaS platform that simplifies the integration of business applications and data sources in the enterprise.In the previous part we established the story of how Celigo had to make some hard decisions that were ultimately for the best. In more recent history, they had to pivot to a new product even after they found what was supposedly working. Jan’s reason is simple - the Total Addressable Market(TAM) was too small to fulfil his ambitions, so they started working on a model that would work across a variety of verticals. Celigo really built their platform by the book. Starting out with years of consulting experience to understand their market, then building a few platform iterations that were both scrapped and kept, finding product-market fit, increasing their TAM, and trying to solve larger problems as they scale. This approach has made them true experts of both their market and their product, and allowed them to scale while maintaining longevity in the market.Now they’re focused on revamping their go-to-market strategy and making sure they’re disciplined with targeting the right type of client. A very difficult but necessary step when scaling is figuring out which customers you’ve outgrown and letting go, as the drain that a customer who’s no longer a great fit brings onto your team can significantly lower efficiency and morale.When asked about his leadership principles, Jan focuses on being fair and consistent - towards both his employees and customers. He’s also evolved to be a great listener, which is a very important trait in a leader. Tune into the full episode to learn more on how Jan built a platform that scales!HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 The Inflection Point07:01 Why Most Platforms Fail09:43 New Challenges With Scale13:07 Achieve True Focus15:20 Jan’s Leadership Principles18:22 Learning to Let GoConnect with Jan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/janarendtsz/Check out Celigo - https://www.celigo.com/Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

In this episode, Eric is joined by Jan Arendtsz, Founder & CEO of Celigo - an iPaaS platform that simplifies the integration of business applications and data sources in the enterprise.iPaaS stands for Integration Platform as a Service, which is a new term for an industry that’s been around since the 90s. Their predecessor was the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) model which was led by companies like Informatica before the cloud model became standard. Jan’s path to entrepreneurship began with him working as a software engineer for a couple of years and quickly realizing that it’s not his true calling. He chose to stick with it for a while to build a solid technical background, after which he joined a consulting firm to learn a bit more about the business side of running a software company. When he got to his late 20’s, he had gathered enough experience to go out on his own and start a company.Although Jan got the idea for Celigo way back in 2004, it wasn’t the first venture he pursued when he went out on his own. For about 5 years he ran a consultancy that focused on processes and integrations, and he managed to scale that business to 100+ employees before ultimately starting Celigo in January of 2011.At the beginning Celigo encountered a major roadblock - their platform was built to be operated by technically advanced users, effectively making their platform inaccessible for the average business user. Their first iteration wasn’t up to par, so Jan made the tough decision to scrap the platform and start from scratch. It turned out to be the best decision they made.Tune into the full episode to learn more on Jan’s journey to founding Celigo!HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 What does iPaaS mean?01:42 Jan’s Journey Into Entrepreneurship04:48 The Inception of Celigo12:32 Finding Product-Market FIt15:47 Becoming a Victim of Your Own SuccessConnect with Jan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/janarendtsz/ Check out Celigo - https://www.celigo.com/ Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

Today’s bonus episode follows the 2 part episode with Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel - a Series D startup that provides the developer experience and infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized Web.

AI is currently disrupting how we approach building UI by increasing the speed at which we’re able to articulate an idea and build the first model. 

These prototypes also enable us to get to the feedback stages much earlier in the process and with much less waste.
This is an absolute gamechanger in how we approach building UI, and a lack of AI integration in this use case will cause a ton of waste.
Check out the full episode to learn more on how AI is changing the way we build UI!Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

This episode continues the conversation with Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel - a Series D startup that provides the developer experience and infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized Web.Eric and Guillermo discuss the benefits of using AI as part of the support structure for your SaaS product. Guillermo makes a great point that AI is more trustworthy when it comes to data privacy, however, AI does hallucinate from time to time and requires monitoring.Open source has become standard practice in many verticals, but AI is not one of them. Guillermo is excited for projects that are doing open source AI, however, since model quality is dependent on data quality, open source AI might not be a sustainable option.Guillermo believes that every business will become AI powered, it’s just a matter of time. Right now, developers delegate tasks to AI co-pilots, and this trend will continue to grow as we better understand how to utilize AI and better tools become available. Similar developments can be seen across other business functions, including go-to-market teams.The new wave of cloud technology has shown that there’s been a market shift from enterprises buying products for large teams to individual consumers looking for products that fit their workflow. This means that companies that are solely focused on enterprise sales and have made their product inaccessible to individual users are losing out on a rising amount of market share, which in the current economic landscape cannot be ignored.Tune in to the full episode to learn about the current gap in AI technology!HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 Are AI Tools Trustworthy Yet?09:57 When Will AI Tools Become Open Source?15:12 What’s the Future of AI App Development?18:32 How Cloud Technology Demand Has Changed20:46 Should You Dumb Down Your Software? Connect with Guillermo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg/Check out Vercel - https://vercel.com/contact/sales Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

In this episode, Eric is joined by Guillermo Rauch, CEO of Vercel - a Series D startup that provides the developer experience and infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized Web.At the start of his career, Guillermo taught himself Javascript which led him to receive international job offers at the age of 17. He quickly realized that his true passion was in building companies, more specifically creating tools that increase productivity for developers. Guillermo chose to focus on Javascript due the web apps that were developed by Google and Amazon and how they transformed both the user and the developer experience. Having the ability to peel back and look at how popular web apps work inspired him to share the way these apps work with others - which is how Vercel came to be.When asked about the meaning of AI in app development, Guillermo mentions that he recently arrived at the term “AI Native UX”, which means that products and apps get developed with an emphasis on utilizing AI to its maximum capacity. He considers that to be the new north star to unlock for Vercel clients, and something that the industry as a whole should focus on.Listen to the full episode to learn more on how AI is changing app development!00:00 Guillermo’s Path to Entrepreneurship. 02:24 Why Javascript?05:32 The Advancement of Cloud Technology09:17 Where Will AI Take Developers?16:32 Implementing AI Correctly19:25 AI Driven User ExperienceConnect with Guillermo - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg/Check out Vercel - https://vercel.comDon't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

Today’s bonus episode follows the 2 part episode with Mikael Dia, Founder and CEO of Funnelytics - a software that allows you to visually map and analyze how people flow through your marketing funnels. Eric speaks on how to prioritise the right things when building your product. Although user experience, support and marketing will grow your business, you won’t see profitable outcomes unless your product solves a real problem.Quality of life improvements are important, but they aren’t the end all and be all of product development.It's incredibly difficult to build the right product if you don't truly understand your customer and shape your product around their needs. The solution needs to develop organically based on the priorities of your client, instead of your guesses.Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to build the right product!Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

Today’s episode continues the conversation with Mikael Dia, Founder and CEO of Funnelytics - a software that allows you to visually map and analyze how people flow through your marketing funnels. An extremely difficult puzzle that any SaaS company has to solve is finding product-market fit. To better understand their market and generate brand awareness, Funnelytics released their mapping tool for free, which turned out to be a double edged sword. The good part is that they grew like wildfire through word of mouth and user generated content, driving 8000 monthly signups across a variety of industries and company sizes. The bad part is that with such a large scope of client profiles, figuring out the optimal route for your product development and truly understanding your ideal client profile (ICP) becomes a huge challenge - but by narrowing down the persona based on usage and adaptation metrics, Funnelytics were able to figure out exactly who they serve and what their main use case is.A less known exercise that is necessary to ensure that product-market fit is achieved is to find your anti-ICP. Some clients might look great on paper, but will ultimately drain your resources by being a quasi-fit. For Funnelytics, their tool is not a great fit for agencies that aren’t measured by their performance such as social media/branding agencies. The reason why it’s their anti-ICP is because fundamentally these agencies aren’t data-driven, even if they want to be. That leads to a huge workload for Funnelytics to educate and guide these agencies on how to be data-driven, which makes no business sense for them.As a serial entrepreneur, Mikael has had the chance to develop strong leadership principles and the best way to describe them is - efficient. The way Funnelytics operates is with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, timelines and check-in points, and their hiring strategy is to look for those who are best suited for their roles from day 1 and to let them strive. Check out the full episode to learn more on how to achieve product-market fit and do PLG the right way!HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 The 3 Biggest Challenges With Funnelytics03:32 Finding Product-Market Fit Through Product-Led Growth13:52 The Anti-Ideal Client Profile17:34 How To Succeed at Product-Led Growth27:30 Mikael’s Leadership Principles Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/Check out Funnelytics- https://funnelytics.ioDon't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

In this episode, Eric is joined by Mikael Dia, Founder and CEO of Funnelytics - a software that allows you to visually map and analyze how people flow through your marketing funnels. Mikael’s background is in Civil Engineering, where he would spend 8 hours a day making autocad drawings - which he absolutely hated. The decision to become an entrepreneur came from a family accident that showed him how finite and precious life is, so he made the decision to start pursuing his true goals and get out of a routine that wasn’t working for him. Mikael’s entrepreneurial journey started over a decade ago with his first real venture being a Mandarin language school in London - even though he doesn’t speak Mandarin himself. His biggest lesson from building that initial business was that marketing fundamentals don’t change - you need to understand your buyer and why they’re buying, the rest will fall in place.The inception of Funnelytics came from Mikael’s own pain running his marketing agency. When working with clients, he would use a whiteboard to draw diagrams of the customer's journey and build spreadsheets to demonstrate results and ROI. Strategy is presented through pictures and drawings. Results are presented through numbers and spreadsheets. The A-HA moment for Mikael was realizing that there is a true market need to align these strategic and data points for clients to draw a holistic picture. There’s a real Catch 22 for small businesses when investing in marketing. There’s not a ton of financial wiggle room for new projects, so demonstrable ROI is a must. Evaluation requires marketing analytics, which you can typically hire for when you already have a multi person marketing team. Scaling to that point requires successful marketing, so often it seems like an impossible task to get this right. Funnelytics understands this, so their offering is tailor-made for the small and medium businesses that need to fill a gap that they can’t afford to hire for.Check out the full episode to learn more about an entrepreneur's journey from learning about how to build an online business all the way to running a successful SaaS company!HIGHLIGHTS:00:13 How Mikael Became an Entrepreneur06:36 Biggest Lesson Learned From Mikael’s First Business08:13 Why Mikael Founded Funnelytics 14:37 Who Needs Marketing Analytics Most?18:43 Funnelytics Growth Pains Connect with Mikael - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/Check out Funnelytics- https://funnelytics.ioDon't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/

I Asked 5 SaaS C-Suite Executives About Their Leadership Principles..This episode is a quick recap of parts of the conversations we've had on Chaos To Clarity over the last year. Now we're moving into a new season, focused on Series A and Series B founders and the pivotal moments that took their companies from an idea to capturing venture capital.Stay tuned!Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit FullCycleProduct.com  Don't forget to subscribe to the Chaos to Clarity Podcast for more invaluable episodes to help you grow your business and stay ahead of the curve!To reach out to Eric, visit https://chaostoclarity.io/