Canva Ecosystem Marketing, Indy Sen on Product Marketing KPI's

Speaker A: Welcome everyone to a deep dive into the craft of product marketing with the best product marketers in the world. Each week we sit down with product marketing experts at some of the fastest growing technology companies. I am your host, JD Prater, head of product marketing at Assembly AI and this episode is brought to you by Sharebird.com today we are welcomed by Indy Sen. He leads ecosystem marketing at Canva Indy. Welcome.

Speaker B: Thank you, J.D. it's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, really excited to dive in to your background product marketing with you. You have had a very illustrious career and so lots of good logos on that resume. And so let's get started. Uh, when you think about your own journey, what pulled you into product marketing in the first place and how's that perspective evolved across Salesforce, Box, Mulesoft, Google Cloud, and now Canva? Look at those logos.

Speaker B: Thanks, jb. Yeah, you know, it's really funny. I mean, you look back where you started and where you are now and one thing I'll say is that that story was not as linear as one would think, right. There were a lot of fits and starts, all this, some, some highs and lows. But if I look back, yeah, super proud of like having been able to work and learn from some of the best people in the field at some of these companies and also contribute to them. But going back to what got me into the space, I didn't start my career in technology. I have been in the B2B space for the last 20 years out of college. I went into consulting like many people did back at that time. And I learned a lot. And I realized two things. One is I do love the world of dynamism, like its potential to have like an impact not just on society and the economy, but also driving new innovations. And very quickly I gravitated, uh, towards working with more technology based projects with like technology companies. So I really like that portion of it. At the same time, I realized after a couple years that I'm not sure I really like consulting as much as I just like solving problems. And yeah, I think that those are things that related. But what I really enjoyed was actually working on longer projects where I got to see the impact that I had on the business. Right. As well as on the teams that I was helping from the outside as a consultant. So, you know, there's a saying, you can either tell the time or you can build a clock, right? And uh, for me, I think consulting was very much about telling the time, but industry was about kind of building that clock right? And then depending on what types of firms and projects you work on, you do see that line of impact in your career. You got to recognize what really motivates you. And I think for me, I wanted to make that transition. So I ended up using business school as a sort of a trampoline to kind of make that career switch. And this was at a time where it's kind of ironic. Like, I remember in my mind, I was like, oh, well, I'd love to work for the Googles of the world, or those kind of things. And I had a conversation through a bunch of connections, and they're like, indy, the problem with you is that you're a consultant, right? And we want people with a technology background who've been an operator. And which is really ironic because fast forward a couple of years from there. Like, one, Google hired me directly from another company. And then two, when I was there, I was like, man, this place is filled with, like, McKinsey BCG people, those kind of things, right? So anyway, what got me into product marketing was really one that motivation to be a career switcher. And then the second thing I would say, my origin story for product marketing is the following is around the time I was getting started in business school, I remember exactly where I was in my apartment in Boston catching up the Apple keynotes. You know, this is where Apple was on the rise back again. I was one of the early adopters, uh, of ipod in my family. And I was just all over how they announced their products and talked about it. And I remember, like, that famous Steve Jobs keynote where he announces the iPhone, where he's, you know, he goes, today I'm going to talk about not just one product, but three products. Revolutionary Internet communication device. A, uh, video, ipod and phone or something. And we're all like, oh, my. Awesome. How much money is this gonna cost me? And then very quickly, you kind of see, he does that rhetorical trick and he's like, don't you get it? These are all the same things, right? And boom. That was the iPhone.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I remember outside of just the gadget lust and that kind of thing, I just remember how excited I was about just the storytelling component of that. I was like, I don't know whose job it was to put that narrative together, right? Like, the suspense, the kind of that narrative of being like, here's where we are now. Here's where we could. What if we had something that did this right? To me, that was enthralling. And I didn't know it back then, but that was product marketing. Right. So once I realized that after, in the middle of business school, I tried to curate my job search to all these kind of product marketing roles. I had a real conviction that's what I could do and what I wanted to do. The path to getting there, though, was not as straightforward. I remember getting my first job as an intern at Salesforce because I was really good at Excel and, um, analysis and so which just so happened to be fitting within the product marketing team. So that's how I got into product marketing really, you know, was through. And, you know, I thanked my consulting days for being like an Excel whiz, but that's what got me my first job in pricing strategy at Salesforce. And then when the time came to join full time, I actually had the opportunity to almost pick my role. Right. And at that time, you know, I didn't know where it would lead, but it's obviously led me to the path that I'm on today even is I got an early job at what was Salesforce's AppExchange. That. That team. So AppExchange, for the listeners who may not be familia, is Salesforce's enterprise marketplace. And so my job was as a product marketer to come in and build that whole platform motion, talk to our developer and technology partner audiences and sort of like, you know, have them come and build on top of our platforms. Right. This was outside, but complementary to what Salesforce was doing as a business and one where, you know, very quickly and luckily we were able to put some really good points on the board. So I'll say, yeah, uh, 15 years in, I haven't really looked back from like, product marketing. And it's funny, like, I've taken some, you know, twists and turns in the roads, as I mentioned, and we can get into any one of these companies I've been at. But it's interesting because now I'm sort of like coming back full circle to my first love of marketing, which is just building a platform motion at Canva. And yeah, uh, so that's how I got into product marketing and what's led me to where I am today.

Speaker A: That's awesome, man. There's so much I want to dive into, but I'm actually curious kind of what you were talking about there around ecosystem, marketplace, platform marketing. You've had this quote, uh, it's on your LinkedIn bio. So for all the listeners out there, go connect with with Indy, go check out his LinkedIn bio. And it says a good platform is a good story. And A good story is also a good platform. Can you unpack? Like, what does that mean?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Ah, you know, it's funny, I put that years ago on my profile, but it's kind of a motto that I've used with some teams who've I've worked with to kind of guide what we're trying to do. You know, I think in technology especially, right. In our technology space, it's very common for us to be with our storytelling around, like, speeds and feeds, how innovative our products are and why you would be dumb not to use them, right? And very few companies still can get away with that type of stuff. But if you think about the old days where there were no other alternatives, like when Oracle was the only game in town for databases and so on, right? Like today, you know, we all are working in companies where no doubt there's a lot of competition, but where hopefully we're gaining and building a trust through more like authentic storytelling. And so for me, when I think about that quote, it really comes down to two things. One is storytelling, right? I think it's so important, especially as a marketer. This is something you can directly influence. It's so critical to kind of building. And in my experience, specifically in building a platform motion, a lot of companies will build tools like APIs, SDKs, frameworks, because they know that the growth of their business is going to be dependent on it. And they're like, hey, come build with us. And I think the metaphor I've often used is that, uh, I think a lot of companies lead with their technology prowess or their market power and are like, well, it's either our way or the highway. Like, we're the leading database in this or that kind of thing. And if you don't build with us, then that's okay, but good luck to you. And as a storyteller, I think it's just way more energizing. And it doesn't matter how big of a company you are, but when you're working with people who are going to make some tough decisions on, um, which kind of technology they want to make a bet on, I think nothing, it's silly not to kind of, I would say, to couch your value proposition in a deeply human sort of authentic way. And what I mean by that, you know, the analogy I sometimes use is that a lot of technology vendors in the past would lead with the meme I use is the Empire telling a stormtrooper to join them or die. Right? Versus, like that famous picture from Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, when Yoda Uh, is Luke's advisor and Luke is carrying him on his back, but he's basically enabling the hero's journey that Luke has and throughout Star Wars. And to me, it's really about from a storytelling perspective, especially when you're trying to put a platform, is how do you make sure that you can tell a really compelling story in market? Because in return you get a good platform and when you have good platform, then that's a gold mine for storytelling. And what I've seen both at Salesforce, at Box, at Google Workspace, now at Canva, is once you've gotten people to adopt your technologies and build on top of them those success stories, right, if they've built the right app at the right time, it's just a recipe for a thousand flowers blooming from a storytelling perspective. So that's where I come in from, is like you have to lead with a good story to get people to build on your platform, but then in return, that platform yields an amazing story that you can tell in market and whether you know it's a complimentary story to your core product motion. Right. Like Canva, Salesforce, all have a great product in itself, but it's these add ons, these integrations, this powerful platform motion that's made these companies the size that they are, right. Or are putting them on the trajectory that they can be so nice. That's the perspective of what yielded that insight. And it's been a guiding light in what I try to do every day.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I can totally see that. I can tell you've got a real passion for it. It can really, that comes out. And of course, you know, who doesn't love some Empire Strikes Back references? So yeah, for those listening, please, we're talking the original 1, 2, 3 right now, not the, not 4, 5, 6.

Speaker B: So anyway, that's right.

Speaker A: I really appreciate that and it's such a good thing to unpack, especially on the platform side. A question for you to kind of dive a little bit deeper as you think about ecosystem. And in some ways this means that the company has to be at a certain level. Right. Like early stage startups aren't really going to have ecosystems. And so is that something that you look forward in your next role or you look for a company, is there an ecosystem or do you like, is there an ecosystem that I can build? I'm trying to think through how you evaluate follow up question. So second, kind of tangential there too is what is ecosystem? Break it down. So I'm sure some of us on here are Like, I'm with you, I get it. Maybe they're SaaS, maybe they're early stage startup and they're thinking through like what is this ecosystem marketing? So kind of break down what that entails. Maybe your day to day or week to week, what that's like to be an ecosystem marketer.

Speaker B: Yeah. So let me start with that part. My day to day, basically at Canva, what we call ecosystem and also like at other companies, people will either say ecosystem or community. Right. I think some of those words are interchangeable, community as well as platform. So at Canva, ecosystem is basically our internal name for our team, but we're really the team that powers all the enabling technologies, so be it. APIs, SDKs, our apps marketplace and other frameworks that developers and technologies can build on to build basically apps that integrate inside of Canva for our users of the core Canva product to just in the sidebar have uh, all this rich functionality that's coming from third party developers. Right. And to like help them internally or actually we just had a analyst roadshow where I was describing, it's almost like design apps for that. If you remember that Apple campaign about, there's an app for that. We have north of 600 applications in our apps marketplace now. Anything from like photo editing, image upscaling apps that leverage AI to get the job done, to deep integrations with like, you know, Asana Monday, uh.com, salesforce and so on. And then by the same virtue, my day to day I work with partners who build those type of applications. And then now that we've exposed a bunch of like rest APIs to bring canvas functionality onto other platforms, we're also helping our customers mostly I would say, as well as like large technology partners to build integrations that incorporate canvas technologies. So my day to day is really about kind of packaging up, like first of all coming up with the story. And of course this is like a narrative that's evolving, but uh, describing these technologies in a way that's palatable to the developers and partners who we are trying to recruit to come and come and build on our platform as well as to tell that story to probably our larger customers, I would say, who are interested in building custom workflows. So we launched these technologies about a year and a half ago, around the time I started. Now it's all about talking about the new developments around it, the innovations that our platform has, and luckily enough also with the traction that we've had with partners. Going back to what I was talking about with the platform Good story thing is now also educating our users and prospects on stories of success that we're seeing not just with like enabling developers and technology partners and why they're working with us and therefore validating the platform play that Canva has but also very quickly and more and more. You'll probably see this over the next couple of months. Certainly a big goal for me is to tell that story about like how we're enabling customers to do more with Canva via these rich functionality that we're adding to it. So I would say that's my day to day as a product marketer. I think everyone who's a product marketer listening to this. It's not very much different from what a core product marketer would do. I bide my time between working with product sales and marketing. I would say in my first year at Canva I worked mostly with our marketing and business uh, development teams because I was more partner facing. Now I'm across both our partner and our developer audience. More specifically where now I'm spending more time with product which is great. You know like sometimes I've been at jobs where I only spend time with product and other times I've been at jobs where I mostly spend my time with sales. But as a product marketer you have the ability to be across and you have to be across all those three sort of areas, especially in enterprise software. Going back to your initial question JD is it's probably not that much different from like what a core product marketer would do. I would just think the main difference is who my audience is and what my motion is. For now, you know my team, we're not really gold as much on revenue, although that's probably going to change very soon. But it's more about the adoption. One, are we getting the right partners and the right amount of developers interested in building on our platform? Do we have a uh, great pipeline from that standpoint? And then two, we were gold mostly on adoption. So I've uh, brand developer marketing and developer relations at companies like Mulesoft and I was never really responsible for a dollar like that was the icing on the cake. So I do think revenue is very much something and as a product marketer I've certainly been responsible for that component as well. But when you're building an ecosystem and a platform motion, the only thing other change other than the audience is probably your initial metrics. But having that mindset that you can bring as a strategic product marketer on being like okay, these are our goals, here's the portfolio of activities, the full funnel strategy that we'll enact to kind of like make this a reality and then um, if your goals change, then adapt as quickly as you can.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. I know. It's so fun hearing you like say Canva and developer, you know, I think like breaks my brain in a way. I'm like, yeah, marketer, like this is what we do as marketers. So really cool to see you activating developers on Canva and the ecosystem around it and totally get it. Very important role. I can also 100% see how important storytelling is because you've got to uh, convince people like, hey, this is a platform that you want to be a part of, this is a platform M you want to build on and then showing that mutual value. That's not an easy one.

Speaker B: No, it's not. It's not your right. I mean especially if you think about those audiences, typically way more technical than your average user and they've been burnt a lot sometimes by other technologies. Like I mean you think about the number of products or platforms, whether it was Google or Twitter, where overnight they changed their developer stance or even Unity, to take a recent example, for whatever business reason they made a change, but that completely eroded the trust with developers and their partner community. Right. So it's a special audience, one that you have to handle with equal care. And I'm sure every marketer, you know, at the end of the day you are probably the front lines on uh, what that customer experience is going to be from the get go. You're bringing customers to the table and uh, you can't take them for granted, especially not in SaaS when you know, it's uh, recurring revenue. It's all about that motion that you're building. It's not a one time transaction, it's a recurring sort of motion with them. So yeah, to me it's very important not just to come up with your chest thumping and saying like, hey, you know, join us and when we were talking about that metaphor about the empire, but it's also not as easy as just to say that hey, we have a platform and M, therefore everybody's going to come and build on it. There's so many companies now, you know, it's easier than ever to spin up like uh, platform motion or I take that back, maybe not easier than ever, but a lot of Companies now have APIs and like integration frameworks. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be successful in getting a lot of people to build on it. Right. So There's a good amount of care and attention that needs to be brought in to kind of make that a reality.

Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, this is fascinating. I love that we're going a little deeper here on the ecosystem side. I think this will be hopefully new for a lot of the listeners, but, uh, let's transition a little bit into this operator builder of like global PMM teams. Right. And you've been in a lot of bigger companies, global teams. We know Canva's hq. Australia, correct?

Speaker B: That's right, yeah. Sydney, Australia.

Speaker A: Sydney, Australia. But big group here in sf, Right? Is there an office here in SF or kind of just global remote?

Speaker B: Yeah, we actually just recently opened up our SF campus. So it's a smaller office, but I would say in the California Bay area we have probably north of like 60 employees. We also have hubs in Austin, Texas, in London. But yeah, like the center of gravity is still very much Sydney in terms of where just the bulk of our team is. Our leadership team is mostly there in sf. We actually do have quite a bit of a go to market leadership here from the marketing as well as sales. But yeah, so we're definitely geographically distributed. The pandemic, when it hit Canva and I wasn't there for that, but I think very quickly they realized that, hey, you know, there's a big world out there and we need to really think of ourselves as a global company. And that paved the way for some really cool initiatives that the team put into place to just to make sure that we are remote friendly as well. So, yeah, the headquarter is Sydney, Australia. Correct.

Speaker A: Very cool. Let's talk briefly about building a product marketing team in a global environment. Multiple offices around lots of time zones. How do you approach that? How do you even think about that? And has anything changed in how you think about this? You know, coming out of COVID Yeah.

Speaker B: So coming out of COVID it's such a good question because, uh, today I actually experienced this a little bit before COVID too. When I was building out, our product marketing team at WeWork was, you know, the center of gravity was New York for WeWork, and I was based in the Bay Area. A lot of our other leaders on the technology side of the business were based in the Bay Area, but I got on a plane at least like twice a month to go to New York and spend a couple days there. And that sounds fun. New York's a great city, but it's. Right. It was still that old school thinking where, oh well, you're meeting with the SVP. I was just a lowly VP. And of course there were SVP's and whatnot, other fancy titles. So there was some meetings where there was that old school thinking being like, well, you know, this person wants to have a meeting about this stuff and he wants everyone to be in New York. I was like, I get it, you know, but there were so many times even during that stint where I would literally be in the process of taking off, like wheels up, and then I check my phone and right then the last message I get in is like, oh, meeting canceled. I was like, why am I flying out there if the meeting is canceled? So I think Covid has taught us a lot to be respectful of people's times and giving employees more flexibility on, like, where they were. We're probably the pendulum swinging a little bit more back towards return to office and those kind of things. But to answer your question about what that taught me about building teams in that environment, and especially post Covid, in my mind, if you're hiring the right people, one, yes, of course you have to make sure that once they're on the ground that they're delivering, that their resume matches their experience and that they're able to bring things to the table. But within a couple of months, it's very clear whether somebody's going to make the cut or not. Right? Someone who's led teams, been on teams, been led by other great leaders. I think what I've always appreciated and what I always try to bring to the table is once you have built that trust, that rapport with someone, you know, it doesn't make sense to kind of be in their shorts about where they work and when. Yes, you do want to see results. You want to be able to track progress and have those conversations. Especially even for me, like managing up right, it's very clear that I need to give people updates on where I'm at. Exactly. With some projects, initiatives I'm spearheading. But we've been way more accepting now and I do hope that we keep on swinging the pendulum this way around. I think not everything has to be a meeting. Not everything has to be in person. Work can be done quite well now over things like Zoom via, like Async tools. You know, Canva itself has some great tools where now when you're delivering a presentation, you could record yourself. Loom has all these bespoke technologies that do these kind of things. But more and more we're in an environment where it's possible to work Async now. That's work. Right? But when I Think about team building, morale, kind of direction, setting the stage. I think that's where the in person stuff is very hard to substitute. So what I mean by that is that I don't think, I'm not the type of person who's going to say like, oh there's a big meeting, we all got to be there. But I think what I realized is that when you do travel and when you get people together, let's make sure when it's those critical points in time where either there's an inflection point in the business where either you got to set some new context or if you're meeting somebody and you have to give them some tough feedback, ideally that should be done in person versus over zoom. Like it can be super impersonal. Right. But I do think that there's a balance to be struck. So for me, the through line in these leadership roles that I've had has always been about the people being available for them and uh, being an authentic leader, not dictating. I boil it down to there's micromanaging and, and, and what I would contrast that was, is the macro managing. I do care deeply about results and setting that foundation. But at the end of the day, if I hire somebody for their skill set and they start delivering, I'm not going to be over prescriptive on how they do it and where they do it, as long as the work gets done and we can review it together. So my philosophy has always been if we're lucky enough to hire the right people or to be able to coach the right people into new roles and those kind of things, to me it's all about basically enabling that in ways that make sense for those employees.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. No, I love that. So much. Good advice there. That's. I hope everyone listening was taking notes. So let's uh, continue with advice again. Illustrious career. Talk to me about maybe what's one piece of advice that you wish you had earlier in your product marketing career? Or maybe another way to say it is like what would you wish you could go back and tell yourself 10, 15 years ago? Like hey Indy, here it is, here's my little nugget. You know, so travel back in time. What would you say?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's, it's funny, I would say two things but I'll build on the second one more is like the first one is I think as, ah, it may not seem like it. I mean we're two guys talking on a podcast and we're both super. Dialogue is great. And it sounds like we both know a lot, but I do feel like as a career switcher, going back to from where I started, I do feel like I was maybe a little timid at first right in my career and even though I had already quite a bit of experience coming in post MBA even and that kind of stuff, but I was so excited about this new field of technology that I was in. I was very starry eyed and I especially when you get excited. I got my first job at Salesforce. So while I was an intern there, the economy imploded in between my internship and getting a full time offer. So when I picked the job and I had the choice to pick which team I was on, I was so damn excited. And I was running around the hallways being like, oh my God, I got the job that I wanted. And so that leads me to really my word of advice here is that as cool as a company that you're working for or as excited as you are at the end of the day, I would say don't be impressed, be involved, right? And what I mean by that is like yeah, you might be working for Apple, you might be working for Google or for that matter and the hot startup of the day, that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, especially as a product marketer, I would say don't lose sight of the fact that outside of maybe the CEO or one of the top executives or even a general manager, is that as a product marketer, going back to the themes of what we were saying is like you have such a prized vantage point on the business. And what I mean by that is that by sitting at the intersection of sales, product marketing, customer success, like all these other touch points that as a cross functional leader you're collecting inputs from, you have such a unique perspective to offer, right? And I think as a product marketer, typically when I've hired for product marketing, I screen for people who are curious, who take pride in their craft, who can be like, you know, champions, ambassadors if you will, of like the product, right? Like I call it the three Cs of product marketing recruiting. And with uh, that type of talent, don't be afraid to kind of come in with a point of view because what I've experienced in my career at these technology companies, and I'm sure it's true for other industries that if you're in product and there's not a knock on any one of those lines of businesses, but typically a lot of those specific lines of business can be quite siloed like engineer Will think about engineering product, will think about product sales, will think about sales and uh, customer success. Will think about customer success. But product marketing, you are product marketer, but you're basically, you're kind of a servant leader across all those areas. Right. And that gives you that vantage point. So going back to don't be impressed, be involved, I would say don't forget that you have the ability to kind of really influence things by collecting that data and leading with that data that you're getting from all these different signals and helping these teams kind of look outside of their silos. And I'm not saying that every team is siloed, but product marketing, you have ah, such a unique vantage point and I think it's a waste to lose sight of that big picture. So I would say going back to indie of yesteryear being like, hey, yeah, you might have gotten that job, but don't forget you're smart, you're capable and you, you can pattern match. You've made some good bets on being curious about the business, learning about the industry and those kind of things. And you can kind of really come in and help and be not just. Well, it's still servant leadership at its heart, I think, but also you can lead and not by virtue of having a title or a large team, but you can connect those dots between market research and product requirements. You can connect those dots between customer gripes and uh, what a good sales pitch looks like. Going back to the storytelling, if you have a sense of where the puck is going, I would never to come up with story that's not authentic, but you know where the industry is going. Build that scaffolding from a storytelling level to enable you to tell that story six months, nine months from now. And those are the types of things where I think product marketing has such a unique vantage point. So that's what I would say. Don't be impressed, be involved. And don't forget that you're sitting across an amazing vantage point which outside of being, you know, the CEO really or gm, if you're working at a larger company, not many people in the business really have it.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a really good reminder. First off, love being involved, not impressed. Great. Love the alliteration. But I also just love the uh. It's so true, right? I found myself was doing the exact same thing earlier in my career as well of like, I got the thing. Oh, wow, I got it. And then, yeah, you know, then it's like the next bigger thing and you're like, oh my gosh, I got the next bigger thing. And then, you know, you work your way up and you're just like, actually, it kind of sucks up here. No, no, no, no. But you know what I'm saying.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: No, but I. I think you're 100% correct in that. Uh, just being involved and such a good reminder to everyone listening, all you PMMs, like, you have such a unique vantage point of being able to see all these different teams, what each team is working on, and then realizing you're also the glue, you're the connector, and you're getting all those and absorbing those insights and audience research, market research, you're pulling from the outside, coming in, and you're able to like, swirl this together to say, here's a great story. Here's how we should talk about the pitch. Here's how, hey, customers. Hey, product. And you're just now able to dole out all these, like, really helpful insights. And it's really elevates you when you can do that because most of these teams aren't talking to each other and that's where you can win is because you're able to like, talk to all the teams and bring that insight.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Add, uh, J.D. if I may.

Speaker A: Yeah, please.

Speaker B: One thing to that also is that sometimes you can maybe get too involved or maybe you'll spend way too much time with sales or with marketing, and then you lose sight things like product. So one thing that I just recently had to remind myself of, and it doesn't matter at what stage you're in your career, sometimes you can be so, like in the weeds working. For example, my first year at Canva, I was so focused on partnerships and enabling some partners in market with threading the needle with our greater marketing teams to run campaigns and all of that. I probably didn't spend as much time with the product team that I could have. Right. And now I am, and I'm super grateful for it. I have so many things where I'm already like, oh, my God, I didn't realize we didn't have this. Let's activate that. Let's start cranking the levers on a couple of things. So I would say it's always good to also take a step back. Right. One of my mentors who was our CMO at Salesforce when I was there, and now he's actually boomerang back to Salesforce. He's a great guy. He's one of the people who hired me at WeWork. Kendall Collins. He's the chief business officer at Salesforce. I consider him a mentor. And he was saying, hey, you know, as you think about your next play, Indy, think about what's that feed that you want to subscribe to, right? To me, as a product marketer, no doubt, we have such a rich feed because we're talking, as we were saying, you're across product, you're across sales, across marketing, you're consuming all this great information. And if you're a good product marketer or just by nature, the demands of the job required to be able to synthesize all those things, right? And thinking about that feed, thinking about, for anybody who's listening, where you're like, oh, my God, all I'm doing is sales enablement. And I'm just so sick and tired of it. Do take a step back and think about, okay, well, why does this matter? And, uh, maybe there are things that you can inject from other areas that support, like, let's say if your job is indeed like really super focused on sales enablement, maybe you can spend some time with other folks in the organization to make you even a better person at that sales enablement area. Right? And then, of course, once you start having more span of control and working across other areas of the business, I think that feed gets bigger. I don't know if this necessarily the right metaphor, but you don't want to kind of get too deep or doomscroll too much, because if you're just continuous seeing the same thing, it gets repetitive. You can get bored, you can get burnt out even worse. And I would say it's always good to take a step back. So don't be impressed, be involved, but don't get too deep. Because again, you owe it to yourself and to the business to be able to have that vantage point. And don't lose sight of the big picture.

Speaker A: Um, I'm guilty of that one. I have done it. It's such a great reminder for those listening. So.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, lastly, let's wrap up something a little bit different. What's inspiring you right now outside of marketing? Maybe outside of Canva? What's going on?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, let's see. Outside of Canva, I'll say two things. One is, you know, you and I were just talking about our kids earlier, like, as we were warming up the show, Right. And, uh, I know you have young kids. Mine are older now, but there's still something where as a parent, you always get to see the world through their eyes and them discovering something, whether early days as a child, like eating blueberries for the first time. I still to this day, remember my daughter's eyes when she ate her first blueberry. And right now, I'm having a lot of fun with my son in particular, because he just loves basketball and he's really into it. I didn't grow up in the US So he started talking like sports commentator on espn about the metrics and all that stuff. And I need a cheat sheet sometimes. I still to this day don't. My daughter is very much into softball. She was talking the other day about, like, RBIs, and I was like, oh, that's great, honey, great. And then I have to, like, Google rbi. I was like, what the fuck is an rbi? You know? And again, I did not grow up with the sport, but I do appreciate them more. And with the kids, I'm having a lot of time. So by dint of being here in the Bay Area, uh, for now, 15 years, we're definitely warriors fans. And we watched play in game and it was like pins and needles. And I would say what inspires me is one to be able to enjoy this with my children. But also, Steph Curry, man, is such a guy. I think he's still underrated, but. But yeah, like, just seeing him play just gives you life. I'll share this one story was during the Olympics. They were playing France, the Dream Team. And I was conflicted because. So that's where I grew up. I grew up in France, so I'm also a French citizen. And I was definitely conflicted. But when Curry just started putting the buckets in, I was just like, this guy's a generational talent, one of one. And then they win and he gives the speech. And I kid you not, I start tearing up because he's so humble. Yeah, yeah, I think it's an act. That's the thing. But that's what inspired me. That was genuinely awe inspiring. And then I'll end with the second anecdote. The, uh, other thing outside of work, it's something that I've done over time. And I know this is an audio podcast, but I think when we were chatting earlier, you saw my bookshelf. So the lower level of my bookshelf is all graphic novels and literally Batman comic books. And so I've been a huge fan of Batman as a character ever since I was a kid. And, uh, just recently, I was like, you know what? I need to get my head outside of work for a little bit. And I just consumed this whole arc, this recent story arc of Batman called Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder. And it's this new story where it's almost like an Elseworlds story where Bruce Wayne is not rich, he's this blue collar kid, but he's fighting the oligarchs in other settings. Gotham City. And I swear to God, it's one of those things where it's good. And then I heard it was good. So I was reading. I was like, okay, this is an original spin. Elma was up for a retelling of that kind of thing. But then there were just some panels in that comic book that were just like. It's like pure cinema, man. And I don't know if they would ever make a movie. They don't have to. But just appreciation for that art form, going back in it again and seeing what sparks that I would say joy or storytelling. And it was a good reminder that it doesn't take much to kind of be inspired or just like take things, you know, you don't have to be glued to the tv, to your phone. Just sit back, enjoy a good book, a good cup of coffee and taking time to yourself. That's also something that inspires me. Or at least the reminder that you can do that. Right. And kind of replenish and renew. So I would say those two things. Discovering the world through the eyes of my kids when they get deep into some new things and then sitting back and enjoying a good Batman comic book. Yeah. Nice.

Speaker A: Those are good ones. Tangential story. Well, Andy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Super excited. Where can people connect with you if they want to learn more about you?

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say the best place, especially for this audience is just find me on LinkedIn connect or shoot me a note. And you know, if you're in the area, happy to like. The sharebridge community is such a great one. And so I've made a lot of friends along the way and there's uh, anything that I can do to help, let me know. Thanks for having me, JD and thanks for the sharebreak community. This is a great conversation. Thank you.

Speaker A: Perfect. Thank you so much. Connect with Indy. His LinkedIn profile will be in the show. Notes also check out. He has given a lot of AMAs on cher. Burgered his answers. They're great. And thank you all for listening. Stay tuned. Next episode dropping soon. Thanks.

Speaker B: Thank you. This show is produced by sharebird, a site where leaders from top companies share their expertise. Our mission is to make the best product marketing content knowledge accessible to all. Get the latest tips and best practices@sharebird.com.