Chaos To Clarity

In this episode, Eric continues the conversation with Katy Trost, CEO Coach/Advisor at Katy Trost, Founder of PeraCEOs, and CEO Coach and Board Member of many other ventures. Katy works with CEO’s on not only their business strategy, but also their personal brands. One of the common misconceptions she addresses is that a personal brand should not be just about the current venture of that individual - but instead it should reflect one's mission, vision and values both within their current occupation, but also holistically across the whole spectrum of things that they care about.Personal branding goes beyond your public image - even if you’re not concerned with publicity, your team, investors and clients have a perception of you, and only by being intentional with the way that you present yourself and communicate with others will you build a winning culture around you.Katy shares a 4 week transformational story with a leader who was to be promoted to CEO but lost out on the opportunity due to not performing as a leader. Once they ran some assessments and gathered for an offsite, Katy’s client had a breakthrough moment and truly understood the potential task at hand if he were to become CEO. Once he saw the prospective outcomes of changing the culture of the 350 employee company and aligned himself with that goal, a 180 transformation happened and a success story was born.If you don’t have a great team - you’ll never become a great CEO. If you’re too busy doing delegatable work and have no bandwidth to focus on high impact tasks, your business will never scale. To help figure out your weakest link, rebuild trust and reignite their function, our coaches suggest that you run a mind map exercise and build a clear path. If no path can be found, it’s time to look for another candidate.Tune into the full episode to learn more on the roadblocks to becoming an exceptional CEO!HIGHLIGHTS:00:17 The HERO Mindmap02:12 CEO’s Personal Branding Playbook08:30 Katy’s 4 Week Transformational Story15:31 Focusing On Your Vision18:02 Bad Executive Team = Failing CEO 23:56 The Transition From Start to ScaleConnect with Katy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katytrost/Check out her webpage - https://katytrost.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 Katy Trost, CEO Coach/Advisor at Katy Trost, Founder of PeraCEOs, and CEO Coach and Board Member of many other ventures. Katy moved to the United States from Germany 7 years ago and started her US coaching career in New York. She found herself working in the tech industry, and soon located her passion working with leaders that are in the scale up stage. Now she’s working with clients across the US and in European business hotspots.Katy enjoys working in chaotic environments with CEO’s who are in the scaling stage. She’s a master at bringing executives from chaos to clarity and helping her clients navigate towards an organized and sustainable method of work. She starts her process with rigorous questioning to identify the top priorities, and typically sees positive and impactful outcomes within the first 3 - 5 months of an average engagement. The markers of success that Katy looks for during her client engagements and the outcomes she pursues is a healthy and excellent leadership structure, a strong business operating system and a high performing culture. Ultimately this comes from figuring out how to achieve alignment between teams and build clear roadmaps for responsibilities, metrics and goals. When it comes to the core competencies of Katy’s work, for CEO’s it’s typically leadership development, performance and personal brand, while for the organization itself the focus shifts to strategic clarity, execution and fundraising. All of that ties into having difficult conversations with the executive team and building a culture of high performers.It’s no secret that becoming a truly exceptional CEO is no easy task. There is no one-size-fits-all, linear trajectory towards excellency, and an expensive MBA is not going to save you when you’re trying to navigate the seas of executive leadership. Both Eric and Katy agree that continuous improvement and intentional reflection are key to winning at leadership and for that we need other people who can help us reflect, keep us accountable, and give us feedback that we might have a hard time self-evaluating.Tune into the full episode to learn how to level up your leadership game!HIGHLIGHTS00:59 What Does Katy Do?03:00 How To Juggle Working In Multiple Countries04:04 The Challenges CEO’s Face In The Scaling Stage.06:26 What Does a Successful Engagement Look Like?12:40 Core Areas of Focus for Katy14:48 Achieving CEO Excellency 17:43 The 15 Commitments of Conscious LeadershipConnect with Katy - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katytrost/Check out her webpage - https://katytrost.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 solo episode, which follows the two-part interview with Trisha Price, Chief Product Officer at Pendo.io, Eric talks about the fact that it’s never too early to measure customer success.Too many startups are so laser focused on building products that they end up disregarding customer data, which is the one thing that will accurately show them what to prioritise and build next.Product isn’t about building features, it’s about building customer outcomes - which requires a deep understanding of the actual problems your customers face. When building a new product or feature, you should always start with the question “What does success look like for our customers”, and work backwards from there.Once you understand the criteria by which your customers derive value from your product, you’ll have a much easier time measuring the right things and attributing them to outcomes, letting you make educated, data-driven decisions in every facet of your 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/

In this episode, Eric continues the conversation with Trisha Price, Chief Product Officer of Pendo.io.Pendo.io is on a mission to elevate the world’s experiences with software, and so far they’ve raised a total of $469.5 million in funding, and have amassed a team of 800+ members.Continuing the conversation on data and measurement, Trisha speaks on how to focus on the right metrics that will drive retention and renewals. Her approach is to identify which feature usage correlates with long-term retention, and steer new clients to try out and adapt those features as soon as possible.Trisha approaches driving usage through a set of bespoke guides that are segmented based on their current experience with the platform. Getting the right, personalized message to users in the right moment is crucial to make sure that adaptation becomes a streamlined and seamless process, and doesn’t put the burden of discovery and implementation solely on the Customer Success team.To get a true understanding of the right time to reveal features and push for implementation, you must whiteboard the customer journey. At the end of the day, you’re the only one who cares about your product releases - your customers care about solving their problems at the appropriate time in their journey. It’s very easy to get caught up in focusing on the day 1 of the customer's journey, instead of seeing the full picture and understanding that you need to provide continuous education in bite-sized chunks.Product Leadership is a newer role in the grand scheme of things, but it’s not at its infancy anymore - so a big sign of a great product leader is someone who’s built their core principles. For Trisha, it’s all about driving customer value and finding interesting and hard problems to solve for your customers. You need to play the long game, understanding that outcomes won’t be driven overnight, so you won’t really know if your new feature is a success from the get go. Trisha’s technical background has typically landed her roles where she’s both the CPO and the CTO, and this exact background drives her curiosity to understand product on a molecular level giving her an edge due to her holistic vision of what is possible to achieve. Not having a technical background often drives a lot of insecurity in Product Leaders and Managers, and even though Trisha doesn’t deal with this fallacy herself, she suggests that the way to overcome it is to have an engineering partner that you can truly trust - which is also the model they currently have at Pendo.Check out the full episode to learn how to create the ultimate customer experience!HIGHLIGHTS: 00:00 How To Improve Your Retention Rate02:26 Drive Sticky Feature Usage With Guides04:35 Mapping The Customers Journey08:45 Timing Is Everything11:32 Trisha’s Principles as a Product Leader14:11 Overcoming the “I’m Not Technical Enough” Fallacy18:42 Trisha's Leadership PrinciplesConnect with Trisha - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-price-3063081/Check out Pendo.io - https://www.pendo.io/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 Trisha Price, Chief Product Officer of Pendo.ioPendo.io is on a mission to elevate the world’s experiences with software, and so far they’ve raised a total of $469.5 million in funding, and have amassed a team of 800+ members.Trisha’s journey to becoming the CPO at Pendo starts with her gaining a technical background. She is a math major, and her first role out of college was a software engineering role at a finance software company out of Boston. Back then, the responsibilities of a product manager weren't as clearly defined as they are now, so Trisha had to wear many hats in her role.During this time, Trisha was able to discover that her true north star was solving big problems and providing value to customers. Instead of focusing on how to code, she wanted to focus on what to code and ultimately drive new and innovative products, so product management was the perfect role for her.Early stage startups often don’t have a clear roadmap on how to prioritize data implementation. Trisha mentions that startups need to make sure they’ve first and foremost established their product market fit, and then move on to usage as your main indicator. Having a relentless focus on outcomes is a must, and in order to achieve that you need to bring in analytics from the get go, while understanding that data is only worth something if you’re able to properly determine the outcomes that are being driven. Once asked about a client's success from Pendo, Trisha tells a story about a business that’s outside of the tech world - the banking giant Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley at the time were focusing on retention and their top priority. Prior to Pendo, they were certain that their Customer Success team was working flawlessly, however, it took them losing a very large client to start looking for a problem they didn't even see coming. Turns out, they had neglected a crucial part of the implementation process, effectively steering their client to their competitor due to an abundance of manual processes with Morgan Stanely's platform. This is where Pendo came in. Their "Happiness Marker" feature helped Morgan Stanley realise that clients expect them to drive continuous improvements and innovations, and gave them the data to support making the decisions that lead to high retention rates.HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 Trisha’s Journey to Becoming CPO at Pendo02:25 Making Sure You’re Building the Right Things09:48 How Should Start-Ups Invest In Data?13:21 Pendo’s Morgan Stanley Success Story17:42 The Importance of Measuring Outcomes Connect with Trisha - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-price-3063081/Check out Pendo.io - https://www.pendo.io/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 solo episode, which follows the two-part interview with Chandika Jayasundara, Co-Founder and CEO of Creately. In this episode Eric talks about the importance of not being afraid of change, and pursuing innovation at all cost.Denying the necessity of adaptation when all signs show that its time to pivot is a huge reason why businesses fail and products fall into obscurity.If you’re a founder and you’ve built something, your biggest fear is losing it all. This same fear is what will cloud your judgement and let you fall victim to a sunk cost fallacy. Really ask yourself - does a sacrifice today open the opportunity for a much bigger win down the line?If so - it might be time to take that leap.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 continues the conversation with Chandika Jayasundara, the Co-Founder and CEO of Creately. Creately is a visual collaboration platform that helps teams ideate, plan and execute on an infinite workspace, and as of August 2023 they have reached over 10 million users.During the first part of the conversation, it was established that Chandika is a risk taker. When faced with the uncomfortable truth of having their platform built on a foundation that was on its way to irrelevancy they pivoted to a new, Javascript built platform that was not nearly as feature rich - fully knowing that they might lose clients in the short run.This same theme of courageous business decisions is continued upon in this part of the conversation. Chandika is great at avoiding sunk cost fallacies, and pivoting to new horizons. This isn’t by any means dumb luck - Chandika is able to make these decisions fruitfully due to his deep understanding of his market and great foresight into what his ICP will need in the future.His conviction stems from a mindset that isn’t afraid of short term losses if that helps them avoid falling into obscurity in the future. Chandika talks about the difference between a good business and a “Home run” business, and mentions that he pursues the second at all cost - while making sure the current status quo can sustain them during the growth spurt stages when risks are taken and innovations are born. Chandika’s first core company value is growth. Whether on a work project or a personal matter, his mentality is that without growth you’re not really doing much. Second value is trust -  in this case meaning that any decision should be explainable and accessible to anyone, as when you don’t have a clear, presentable “why” is when unwanted politics come into play, causing team members to lose trust in the transparency and process of their peers. When it comes to personal principles, Chandika values his ability of being present in every single conversation, which is something that gets lost in the distracting nature of modern business. He also likes to dig deep before making decisions, and really view the whole picture prior to calling shots - both in his business and personal life. That also means giving the benefit of doubt to everyone who surrounds him, even if prior situations might indicate that open mindedness is not a requirement when dealing with a particular individual. Tune in to the full episode to learn more on what steps you need to take to stay relevant in a competitive market for 15 years!00:00 Bet Everything on the Path of the Future02:35 Finding True Conviction07:30 Chandika’s Value & Leadership Principles10:57 Personal Principles13:42 Trust is a Non-Negotiable16:23 Reaching the Next Stage of GrowthConnect with Chandika - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandika/Check out Creately - https://creately.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 Chandika Jayasundara, the Co-Founder and CEO of Creately.Creately is a visual collaboration platform that helps teams ideate, plan and execute on an infinite workspace, and as of August 2023 they have reached over 10 million users.Chandika’s founder's journey starts during his childhood - he always had a mind for tech, and loved solving problems using technology while also being a natural creative. He started his first small venture back in school with a group of friends building apps and websites for companies. After graduation, Chandika was focused on learning more on how large enterprises operate their day to day and figuring out how he could help them reach their business goals.His idea for Creately stemmed from the difficulty of aligning data, visuals and knowledge in the same place so participants could swiftly catch up to what’s going on in high complexity projects. In the early days of Creately in 2007/2008, the status quo for products in this space was either a lackluster feature set, or an offering that’s built exclusively for enterprises and inaccessible to those without a 7 figure budget allocated for this particular problem.Creately found their initial product validation early on, and built their first MVP. The first roadblock they ran into was adaptation. Using a browser for prototyping was unheard of in 2008, and considered too much hassle by a good portion of their ICP, so Creately had to downscale their initial offering down to a flowcharting and diagramming tool so they could effectively go to market.At the end of 2009, they launched with a “dumbed down” version of their initial tool, and saw a good bit of success. Their UX was much better than Microsoft Visio at the time, which was their status quo competitor at the time. One of the features they pioneered was real time collaboration, which was practically unheard of at the time.In 2019, a big challenge that Creately faced was the fact that they were on borrowed time due to their platform being built on Flash, which was rapidly becoming outdated. They needed to pivot to Javascript, and ultimately transfer over millions of existing clients to a new platform that wasn’t nearly as feature rich as their previous model. This ended up being a good thing in the long run, as this new Javascript based platform would unlock doors for Creately to acquire larger clients and open them up to enterprise level profits.Tune in to the full episode to learn more about Chandika’s journey building Creately!00:00 Chandika’s Founder's Journey03:21 Why Creately Was Born07:39 Lessons Learnt Building Creately12:32 Too Many Features Can Be a Bad Thing16:26 Rebuilding From Scratch 20:28 Avoiding Sunk Cost Fallacies22:19 Rising With the TideConnect with Chandika - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandika/Check out Creately - https://creately.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 solo episode, which follows the two-part interview with Krish Ramineni, Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, Eric discusses the perils of sunk-cost fallacies and the ultimate consequence of over-investing in unfruitful projects: driving your business into the ground. All too often, founders become excessively attached to the product they've been developing, even when the rational choice would be to start from scratch. Avoiding this common pitfall played a significant role in the success story of Fireflies.ai. They have secured a $14 million USD Series A Round, expanded their team to over 75 people, and earned a household name status in their category.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 of Chaos to Clarity continues the conversation with Krish Ramineni, the Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai.Krish's approach to pricing stems from Atlassian, Calendly, and other product-led giants. The goal is to avoid wasting time on negotiations and keeping pricing transparent to make the enterprise sales cycles more efficient.Krish and Eric dive deep into the concept of eliminating friction in the buyers journey. Krish predicts that those who are focusing on activity metrics will be replaced by AI, and only true relationship builders with backgrounds that are relevant to the product they sell, will retain their sales positions.A great way of eliminating friction in the buyers journey is implementing a product-led growth motion. Instead of having your salespeople focusing on outbound, they can effectively have an infinite amount of leads with a functional product-led motion. Having a functioning PLG motion is a huge selling point when trying to attract top-tier salespeople, as the concept of brute-force outbound is rarely anyone's preference nowadays, and has proven to be ineffective in this economic downturn.Tune in to this episode to learn more about how to eliminate friction in your sales process!HIGHLIGHTS:00:00 Krish’s Approach to Pricing03:20 Eliminating Friction in the Buyer's Journey07:21 How PLG and Sales Align12:25 Be True To Yourself as a Founder16:07 Surviving the Economic Downturn19:15 Fireflies Market Expansion Plans21:02 Krish’s Growth Journey as a LeaderConnect With Krish - https://www.linkedin.com/in/krishramineni/Try Fireflies.ai - https://fireflies.ai/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/