#410 - How Mazy Dar found room in Google and Microsoft's market - and won the world's biggest banks

Speaker A: You're a SaaS founder. You've built something solid, but growth still feels harder than it should. Most SaaS companies don't fail because of bad tech. They fail because they've never become a must have to the right customer. This podcast is here to change that. I'm, um, Tondoben, and this is the remarkable SaaS podcast. Every week I talk to founders in the trenches, facing friction, making bold moves and building companies that last. We dig into real choices around focus positioning, customer pool, team alignment. The things that separate forgettable software from the ones that people can't live without. No hype, no hacks, just honest conversations to help you build something that people would miss if it was gone. If your SaaS should be indispensable but isn't yet, this is your podcast. Let's get into it. The guest of our podcast this week is Maisie Dahr, co founder and CEO of Here.

Speaker B: This is not like a crazy concept. What's crazy is that in this one category of product, the web browser that's the most widely used in the world, it's the one area where the one size fits all seems to be the thing that everyone assumes is the correct answer.

Speaker A: This is Maisie. We dig into how he spent 26 years on the single problem that most people thought was already solved and ended up with the world's biggest banks running mission critical work on what he's built. You'll hear how he spotted a market the Giants couldn't serve and why. Your hardest first market is what makes your product so strong it will help you to win the next one. We'll talk about how you win where the Giants already dominated instead of fighting for the same crowd as everyone else. Well, hi Mazi, thank you for making the time available today and being the guest on the podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: Yeah, likewise. Um, it's been some time since I had a company on the podcast that is actually in the browser space. Um, but I think you've actually started to call it a little bit broader than that. But that's what we're going to talk about later on in this call. Um, definitely enterprise, which I love, and um, all the complexities around that. So to get started, to get you, um, to get a little bit of an idea about you, what drives you, what gives you energy as an entrepreneur,

Speaker B: you know, um, entrepreneurship is something I got to, uh, while working actually at the last company it was uh, a dot com, something that always interested me, but I really got into it at this Company, it's called creditx. Um, and really the problem solving and it starts with what are the pain points? Uh but then extends to everything about what's the product, how do you get the first version going, who are the customers? All of that just uh, really interests me and almost irrespective of domain, uh, I happened to get my start uh in finance, uh by pure accident. It wasn't something I was particularly interested in. Um, uh, but this kind of entrepreneurship irrespective of domain, for me that problem solving uh, uh, is really really exciting.

Speaker A: You're not the first one to tell that and it is fun especially when you have a problem that keeps evolving and keeps uh, expanding. And uh, that's where technology then can be a real big help. Nice bridge to the company. You started this company together with your co founder in 2010 for what I saw what's the big idea behind this? And I realized it came from this company that you already mentioned. Creditex.

Speaker B: Yeah, so my co founder's name is uh, Chuck Doer. Uh, Chuck and I have now been working together continuously for uh, 26 years. Um, and uh, actually met at the previous company that I mentioned, CreditX. So the idea uh, for here came from the pain points that we were experiencing at CreditX. Um, what we were doing was uh, essentially deploying software onto lockdown desktops at banks and hedge funds and asset managers. Um, what we wanted was the sort of like deployment model of the web. Right? Because, and we were already doing that, we were already sort of building web applications and you know, deploying you know every day to uh, production. Uh this is back in 2000. Um, we wanted that deployment model but we wanted the user experience that's more of an app desktop experience that you know, for anybody who knows like trading desktops and you know what, what happens there. You really want something that um, that gives you the performance and the whole user ah, experience uh, that you can only get sort of outside the context of ah, a web browser. Um, so that was ah, a pain point that we had. We ended up solving it in our own way using uh, at the time Java technology. Um, but what we realized was that essentially everybody needs this. Anybody who wants to deploy to an end user who's at a lockdown desktop and needs an app experience like had the exact problem that we had irrespective of what that app did. Uh, so whether it's instant messaging or it's any number of other trading apps or anything else, you have this problem. So what we set out to do was to Build a layer of ah, software that could solve this. And really the idea was to solve it for the industry, um, for the entire finance industry. That's where we got going. Um, pretty early on we made the decision to build the platform using uh, Chromium. So Chromium is the open source guts of the Google Chrome browser. Um, at the time it was still early. Chrome hadn't been out that long. It wasn't as obvious of a call as it is today. Um, but uh, we decided that the world was moving to the web, uh, and that that underlying engine should be Chromium. And we would let people build apps that look and feel like native desktop apps. Uh, but you know, they're actually web apps that could be deployed in the same way as any other web app. Um, so that's how we got going. You know, there's been a through line since we started, uh, to where we are today that we can talk about. But uh, but that's how we got our start.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So then in 2010 the company got, got, got, got founded Open Fin, which you've recently uh, rebranded to here. And um, yeah, the rest is history then. So, I mean. Yeah, now, now I got the picture. Right. So it's much more of a platform that others can use in order to develop these type of applications. Correct.

Speaker B: Well, that's how we got started. Yeah. Um, and look, the, the through line, I would say from actually back in 2000. Right. Which that's when I started working with at Credit X and working on web browsers. Um, the through line is, and the insight is that the traditional web browser is not the appropriate tool for work. Yeah. And so at the, at the time, you know, at CreditX, uh, what that meant was we needed a more engaging experience. We needed desktop app experience, not the experience you get inside a web browser. Right. Um, but then you fast forward to, you know, what we started helping big banks do, uh, like many years ago. Um, you know, they started with the same exact problem. They wanted an app experience. But then they started moving to uh, realizing that you know, what they, they actually want all the apps they're using to be integrated and you know, for, for an end user using multiple apps to do their work, they want them to be able to see information across multiple apps at the same time. They want the apps to be able to talk to one another and share information so that like, if I'm focused on a particular trade or a particular stock ticker, all the other apps that I have can show me information for that trader that Stock ticker as an example. They want to streamline search, streamline notifications. And so what we realized over time was actually it's not so much that they needed an app experience, is that they actually need the browser to be a different kind of web browser. Right. A browser that's like really tuned for productivity and for work in a way that your traditional web browser, Chrome Edge, uh, times Internet Explorer, they're just not designed uh, to provide that kind of experience. Uh, and so where originally what we provided was more of a development platform, what it's now evolved to with here Enterprise Browser is a fully functioning browser for work that improves security, improves productivity and now very importantly also, um, brings AI safely into the entire workflow.

Speaker A: Yeah, and you actually won some prizes with that as well. Right? You know this. The CIO reviews Enterprise Browser of the Year 2025 Best Desktop Interoperability Framework. I mean there's a number of them that I've, that I found. So, um, yeah, definitely, um, yeah, moves things a uh, big, uh, a big bar up.

Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. Look, I remember, um, one of our early investors is a guy named Matt Harris, is the partner at Bain Capital Ventures, ah, responsible for the finance practice. And I remember the first time I met him, this was probably a year before he invested in the company. He sort of said look, I like your idea. Uh, and I don't know if he said this exactly, but it was like, you seem like a smart guy or a nice guy, but you're suggesting that your company, which is now about six people, is going to provide software that the biggest banks in the world are going to build their mission critical apps on top of. And I said yeah. And he said, well that's actually a little bit hard to believe. He's like, I love the ambition. He's like, but it's actually just kind of hard to imagine how that'll happen. Um, and yeah, like fast forward now it's, you know, uh, most of the biggest banks in the world are running mission critical applications on our technology. Um, and as you said a few years ago when we rebranded the company to be called Here Here IO, it was sort of acknowledging that while we got our start in finance, the product we've built is a horizontal, uh, technology product. And the pain points are equally applicable in uh, really any regulated environment. So we started working in national security, more recently in healthcare. And uh, and whether you're talking about that or manufacturing or insurance or you name it, uh, we're seeing these exact pain points. And it all comes down to the Traditional web browser basically works the exact same way it worked when I got my start in the late 90s. Ah. And it is not designed for work. Yeah, Netscape Navigator, um, and it really hasn't changed. I mean, the basics of, you know, the browser UX with tabs going across the top and, you know, the URL bar and all of that, it's like, literally works the exact same way that it did, you know, uh, almost 30 years ago. Uh, and that's what we're acknowledging is to say, look, the browser has become the number one app that's used for work now, and it really needs to be designed for that purpose. And especially today with AI, the combination of how do I integrate AI into my workflow, but also how do I do that safely? Like, that's. It's even a bigger imperative today than it's ever been before.

Speaker A: Let me draw it a little bit back because, I mean, there's thousands and thousands of software companies. I mean, I came from one and I know, of course, many, many others, with the introduction of the Internet at some point in time, and then later on, you know, uh, Salesforce driving software as a service, uh, running applications that were normally running on premise. For example, I came from the ERP world and it was running in a Windows Fed client. Um, for all the good reasons. Um, but, uh, yeah, of course, you always defend what you have. Everybody was then complaining about or arguing like, this will never run inside the browser. Still, everything runs in the browser these days. So if the majority of the world is actually deploying their applications on Chrome and supporting Firefox and supporting Safari and what have you, what are they missing out on not using here, in this

Speaker B: case, all kinds of things. So I love, uh, you know, you bringing up Salesforce, that's sort of like, you know, a really, really great example. Um, within many of the areas where we're focused, Salesforce is a quintessential app. Right? So, uh, wealth advisors use Salesforce. Sales teams, you know, within, you know, global markets use Salesforce. Um, we've been working within contact centers right across industries. You know, many of them use Salesforce. Um, and, you know, I love Salesforce. Um, you know, but it's rare to find an end user who says, this works great. Right? Like, I love the experience. Right. In fact, very few people say that. Um, and, you know, a lot of firms who use it have, like, pretty low. They experience pretty low utilization because the, the teams, you know, they don't always put the data into Salesforce. And then people know it's not there. So they don't check. Right. When they're talking to a client. Right. And so, uh, so you go, okay, well you know, as you said, like, what's missing? Well, what's possible with here is to create dashboards. We call them super tabs, right. Where you've got, let's say a quadrant that's got a Salesforce app in it, right. And then you have all the other information that might be coming from different systems. So it might be, if you're a wealth advisor, it might be, uh, your list of, you know, high net worth clients. It might be a system with their portfolios, it might be market data related to positions in each of those portfolios. Right. So you got a dashboard that is your client view and Salesforce is a component of that right now in here, instead of spending all your time toggling back and forth between Salesforce and your portfolio management system and everything else, you have everything in the same place. And every time you change the name of the client, you click on your list of clients, Salesforce updates automatically to show you information for that client. Right, that's just one example. Yeah, but now that extends to. Well, the AI that your firm selected is also now plugged directly into the browser. So the authorized AI that they, you know, that they have controls around now is in the browser and it can automatically start giving you additional information about that customer. You know, weave it all into your workflow so you know, the, the information comes to you instead of you having to go dig. Right. And look, when, when we talk to people about this, the, the first thing that nearly everyone immediately latches onto is the idea of tab overload. Right? Because virtually every user in any context deals with this every single day. Uh, and this switching back and forth in and out of applications, it turns out, is actually a massive sink in the productive time, uh, that people have. Um, and that's even before you start talking about AI and whether you're using it or you're not using it. Um, so that's very simple. And look, virtually every browser out there suffers from that problem. Like what we've done with here, which, you know, I'd love to tell you that it was my idea, but it wasn't. Like we learned this working with the biggest banks in the world. They're the ones who told us this is the, you know, the layout experience, the dashboard experience, the interoperability experience that we need to get the productivity that we're looking for. So that's, that's where the idea came from. In Production, uh, and we're now applying that, uh, both inside and outside of finance.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. The word productivity, uh, has been mentioned a number of times. Everybody has an idea about productivity and every episode always says you're going to be more productive. But what is then that difference that these banks saw that everybody else is more or less still ignoring?

Speaker B: Look, I think there are a few things that uh, the banks maybe experienced more acutely earlier than other folks. So the idea of app proliferation and just having lots of data across lots of different apps, I think that, uh, they're probably sooner to hit that problem than most everyone has that problem now. But banks were early. They're very high requirements for security and compliance, meaning their environments were very locked down. So if building a flat fat client, you know that it's a tough environment to, you know, deploy applications into. And so naturally people start to say, well, let me just put it in the browser that's instantly deployable. Yeah, that now you're, now you're in this environment where you're, you're toggling and struggling in other ways. Uh, but then also if you think about the stakes for uh, banks, let's say in a trading environment, right. The, the, the ROI associated with getting that productivity is like incredibly high. And so I think they were early to be spending like real dollars on solving that problem before a lot of other folks. Um, but what we find now, like in uh, let's say national security, we, we're seeing the exact same problems. And folks that we speak to there say, well, look, within finance it's about making money, reducing risk. Right. For us, within national security, it's about saving uh, lives and saving taxpayer dollars. Right. And so that, so now the ROI with that is big. You can go to healthcare, go to many other areas now. And I think people recognizing that, that productivity is actually quite important for their

Speaker A: business, um, sometimes it's mission critical. Indeed, it's life savings.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, so that's a big part of our focus. And the other analogy I'll give you, uh, because I think about this a lot is back when I got started working at banks and within the finance space, uh, it was quite common for people to use instant messaging platforms like AOL messenger and Yahoo messenger for work. And uh, today that's really not a thing. If you're probably using Slack or you're using Microsoft Teams, it's got to be secure, it's got to be compliant. Um, but the thing about it is that very few people think of Slack or teams primarily as a Security product.

Speaker A: It's never come up to me when

Speaker B: you think of those products. It's like, well, it is about productivity, it's about collaboration, it's about a better work experience, uh, with your colleagues and all the integrations with the apps that you're using. So that's in the instant messaging category where that evolution happened from something that was designed for individual use like Yahoo and aol to now, you know, Slack and teams designed for work. We see that same evolution happening in the browser category now for the first time, where the traditional browsers like Chrome and Edge and Firefox and Safari, you know, that work really well for personal use. Right. Or like public Internet browsing. That's like really what they're designed for. They don't do the job for work. And you know, we think this new category of enterprise browser that of course needs to be secure, but also really importantly needs to provide productivity, uh, and AI, uh, enablement. And that's what, that's what we're focused on is the combination of those things. We think every firm needs security and needs to be able to use AI effectively in a web browser. And that the traditional browsers are designed to do that.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. Fascinating. Never thought about it that way, but, uh, yeah, thanks for bringing that part up. It all makes sense. But it always makes sense when something is simple and um, is there suddenly and you never thought about it before. Um, and I see the point also that banks were the early ones to pick up on that and then working with that now provides you with uh, a huge advantage compared to other vendors out there. To who? Yeah, I mean, who didn't start in that early phase. And all the benefits that the banks have been enjoying for the last 15, 16 years are now available then to other categories, other software categories out there or at other industries out there. That is, I mean, you rebranded the company to here Enterprise in 2024 had that to do with the fact that you were then also expanding across multiple industries.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. It started with, uh, with the national security intelligence space. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with, uh, a firm called In Q Tel iqt. Uh, they, they started off, uh, as the VC arm of the CIA and they, you know, since now represent multiple federal, uh, intelligence agencies in the U.S. as well as, you know, working with, uh, us uh, allies. And uh, so a few years ago they found us and they said, hey, you know, these, these problems that you're solving for finance. We actually have all these same problems within the, the national security and intelligence Space. And uh, and so that's that, that's where we started working in that environment and, and realized sure enough they're you know, very, very, very similar pain, uh, points around uh, productivity, the need for security, the need for interoperability across applications. Um, and uh, and then we started showing up to conferences as well, like government oriented conferences and you know, and also later uh, to contact center oriented conferences. And so people would look at our product and say look, this is uh, this is really cool. I've never seen anything like this. Why is it called openfin? And you know, and so it just became a point of slight friction that we thought you know, we should solve, uh, with a rebranding. Uh, but we're still very, very focused on the finance space. We're ah, still working with all the same large banks and others within that space. But now we're also working across multiple industries including manufacturing and healthcare and national security and others.

Speaker A: We uh, Talked about the 10 traits that I've defined in my book. First one being remarkable. Uh, software companies acknowledge they cannot please everyone. So that's why I was intrigued to see that initially you were super focused and realized and acknowledged you cannot please everyone. So you focus on the banks who had the problem in the most severe way. So that intrigues me always that companies expand. Ah, what was that moment where you say okay, now we're ready for this. Yeah.

Speaker B: So um, this is actually a really big one uh, for us. And it's one of those, as an entrepreneur I always think about like, could I have learned that lesson faster or sooner, uh, somehow. Um, but you know, when we started, um, because we were dealing with big banks and big product development teams, uh, they, they essentially said to us, look, we want you to be invisible. Right? So you know, we're, we the product, you know, an engineering team, we're going to build the user interface. You know, we want, you know, the Chromium engine, the interoperability engine, the APIs to do this, but we don't want your user interface. Actually the very first version of the product that we uh, had in beta did have a user interface. We learned that lesson and decided, well, we're going to focus on this category of customer. And they've told us this is how they need the product to be delivered to them. And we're seeing that pattern at other firms as well. And so that was a great way for us to get started. Um, what we had not anticipated as, you know, uh, we saw the banks essentially building, each of them building their own browser on Top of our engine. Okay. And they, and each of them designed it in a slightly different way. Um, but uh, they're essentially all solving for the exact same problems. You know, layout, management, creating dashboards, interoperability, storage, notifications. They're all solving the same problems. And so when we decided to start, you know, uh, building a user interface and having a default interface, we knew that uh, some people weren't going to be happy with that. Right. And that, you know, they, they still wanted that level of control around that, uh, the experience. But we also knew that if we didn't provide the interface, we'd leave lots and lots of customers who just don't have the ability to build the stuff themselves. Right. Like mostly firms in the world aren't going to go build their own browser interface. They just want a browser that works. Um, and so when we made that decision, that was hard. Uh, uh, we can't please all of the existing folks that we're working with. But we knew there's a much, much bigger opportunity as well out there and that we had to do that. And that was exactly the decision we made to move to the product as we know it today here, enterprise browser. Um, uh, and that happened just a few years ago.

Speaker A: Let me make a small interruption here. Maisie just described the choice that made everything else possible. When he started, he didn't go after the whole market. He went after one slice, the biggest banks and built only for them just the engine with the banks building their own UI on top of that, exactly how they preferred it. Everyone else who wanted an out of the box ui, they had to wait. That focus is what made the product so good that they could take it into another segment later. Have the patience to serve one slice completely and you will earn the right to serve other markets. This is what remarkable software companies do. They acknowledge they cannot please everyone, they master the art of curiosity and they create new value possibilities. Want to master these trades as well? Simply read my book. I've made the electronic version available for free. Just visit theremarkableeffect.com to grab your copy and inspiration will spark within 10 minutes. Back to the interview. Yeah, exactly. Now it actually brings back memories to one of my first customers when I left unit 4 and started my own business. Also, uh, a company in the banking space for fun fact. And they also had a platform and they weren't successful in tier one, but their opportunity was in Tier two for exactly that reason. Because the tier ones they say, okay, we have the team, we do the development, just provide us with what we need the components, but everyone else is like, why? How? And that's a massive opportunity.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And look, the other dynamic we're seeing now is that, uh, you know, you could argue with, if you're inside a bank, uh, a few years ago, you could argue that, uh, that they're still able to move quickly enough to support their business needs, building a lot of the stuff themselves. I think there, a number of people had already decided, this is not our core expertise, we shouldn't be doing this. Um, but you know, in the last, you know, couple years with, uh, you know, AI adoption now, suddenly and almost overnight, uh, everybody has to take existing platforms that they built and suddenly make them ready for AI. And what's happening is I think we're going back to some of our largest customers and showing them what we've built, you know, and they, and they built on our core technology as well. Right. So it's the same underlying foundation. It's just that we've been able to move faster because we're laser focused on providing this product. And they're looking at that going, well, actually, maybe we need to stop building, uh, on top of your tech and just use the product that you've built.

Speaker A: Um, just because you can doesn't mean you have to. That is the whole thing. They have this builder mentality and it's fun and then nobody's stopping them. But then suddenly, now there is a big reason that all these apps that are relevant, that have massive investments, have to be up to date to the latest technology wave. Suddenly they're in, uh, a capacity constraint.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, one of our, uh, biggest champions said something to me years, uh, ago that really stuck with me and it was basically, uh, how much did that button cost? Right? Because a lot of times people, the idea of control, I can decide what that interface looks like. It's like, that's great. But there is a number associated with that level of ownership and that accumulates over time as well. Um, and I think once folks, particularly now with AI, once they see the complexity, it's not, there's workflow, there's access controls, there's all kinds of considerations. And as you know, I'm sure having done this yourself, you know, um, it's rare to get it right the first time, right. You'll build it and then realize, you know, that you mess this up and that up and you're going to rebuild it. You know, we have the benefit of having worked with so many banks and asset managers and big financial services platforms, and now, uh, within national security and other areas. So we have the benefit of all that learning that's gone into the product. Um, and each individual firm we work with just has, you know, their own vantage point of like, you know, this is what we did. Um, so yeah, so I think we're really, really well positioned to help accelerate the journey for all of these big enterprise customers. And that's what we're really actively focused on.

Speaker A: Yeah, it comes back to the kind of principles of M product strategy, decision making. Um, do you build, buy or partner? That's the same for banks. If the team is large enough and the budget is large enough, it's very easy to say we built, uh, until you hit that moment where it becomes the big constraint. First thing that you now see that your customers are actually um, uh, adopting the rest of the platform as well and say okay, hey, it's not strategic to us, it's your area of differentiation. We focus on what makes us unique. Which is hard enough for the banking world. Talking about the differentiation then, because you mean the products possibly larger in the um, in development now than 15 years that the company is there. Because you started already earlier on with that. Um, but what are the kind of decisions you make in order to ensure that your level of differentiation keeps expanding? Because maybe it's. You have to take it with a piece of salt. Everybody can do this these days.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so look, we uh, in general we're not, you know, we don't build things because we think they're cool, uh, you know, hoping that someone's going to use them. Like all of the best ideas come from our customers. And you know, we're um, we're very much driven by like, what are the needs like in production today? Uh, and also like where do we also see some of these things headed based on feedback we get from customers. Um, but right now there's a really, really interesting thing happening within the browser space. Um, even a few years ago if you told somebody you'd built a web browser, they would probably roll their eyes and say oh God, not the browser wars again. And it just seemed like um, everyone uses Chrome and Edge within enterprise. Why do you need anything else? Um, but suddenly in the last few years you have one category of web browser that's think of secure browser. And you have players like island, uh, and uh, now Palo Alto Network with a browser called Prisma. They're essentially giving you the browser experience, like the Chrome Edge experience.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: But with many additional security controls around it. Right. And so, and they're, they're out selling that to CISOs who, you know, think that's a great idea. And it is like, you know, the browser needs to be more secure for enterprise. But then you now you also have this other crop of browsers that are AI browsers. So you've got like Perplexity, Comet and ChatGPT Atlas. And these are acknowledging that in the world of AI, you need a browser to do things that are different than your traditional web browser and that experience might even be somewhat different. Um, but those browsers really are primarily targeting more of a personal use, consumer market and really not ready for enterprise. Um, then the one other thing that's happening is that in most cases the providers of the browsers are also some of the most significant players when it comes to AI. Microsoft has their own browser, Google has their own browser. Perplexity with Comet has their own browser. That also has this effect of essentially, if you become a user of that browser, you're essentially locking yourself in at some level to the AI that, that that firm provides. And you know that that may or may not be the correct decision. And who knows if that's the correct decision today that the space is moving so fast. So, so in that world our differentiation is we are providing the best of both. We're providing the security and the, the enterprise controls that, you know, island and others provide for enterprise, but also with AI capabilities, uh, and uh, an AI native approach, uh, for the web browser. That is, you know, uh, where you're seeing some of those signs with the consumer AI browsers. Uh, and so, you know, uh, we're really unique in providing that today. My, um, guess, uh, you know, and conviction is that this is going to, like more people are going to catch on because I've never met a firm that said, uh, I either need AI or I need security. Right. It's like if you're a large enterprise, you need both. Uh, and so, you know, we're pretty sure more firms are going to come in this direction in trying to serve this market. But you know, as you said, we've been out there in production for many years now understanding what it really takes to uh, to deliver on both of those things. So we feel like we've got a, a good head start. Um, but yeah, the space is evolving fast and you know, our product is evolving with it.

Speaker A: Exactly. What makes me curious at the end is I think there's a huge education, uh, need here because I think 90% of the companies out there don't even think about the fact that there might be an enterprise browser. And they say we go with the ones that people are actually used to, which can be ads, which can be Safari, whatever, the typical, uh, the default for the platform that they're using, um, and just leave it there. And that's.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Only when the IT team is there and they see the struggles that the company is going through on the IT level and security level on the, on the uptime level, whatever the reason is, they start looking out for something. Majority of companies just say, okay, I'm using this or I'm using all of these and it needs to run that. And if it does check. Yeah.

Speaker B: And look, I completely agree with you on the education front. And one of the other key insights that I think banks were early to identify is that a one size fits all approach doesn't make any sense. Using the exact same tool for your patient portal and your trading applications and your flight control systems as you're using to be on CNN.com and potteryborn.com just, it doesn't make any sense. These are two completely separate activities. One that needs to be very secure, needs workflow, needs like an experience that supports productivity and the other that actually works great in a regular web browser today. Right. And so this, you know, this idea of like. Well, actually everybody needs two of these things. They need one for public Internet browsing and they need one for work. But you know, that model actually already exists in lots of other places. As I said, I use Slack for work and I use WhatsApp and messages to chat my mom and my cousins and my friends. Right. That's like everybody already does that. Many people who work at banks and other enterprises will carry two phones, one for work, one for personal. Right. I have email for work and I have email for personals. This is not like a, uh, crazy concept. What's crazy is that in this one category of product, the, the web browser that's the most widely used in the world, it's the one area where the one size fits all seems to be the thing that everyone assumes is the correct answer. Right.

Speaker A: And to me, because it is a widely spread. Yeah, I mean we've been used to this since, for, for 26 years right now or longer. You know, and we've talked earlier in this call about, okay, now the Netscape browser, it's.

Speaker B: Yeah, but, yeah, look, I think the time has come and very much so, um, because of security, because of AI, for that to change. And so we think that that tide is shifting. Um, but as you said, it is an education process and we're Very much working, uh, on that education.

Speaker A: Yeah. If you would have to rebuild the whole company, um, I mean, maybe you've already done that in 2024. What would you then do differently when it comes to positioning the business?

Speaker B: Yeah, look, I, um, would have wanted to, uh, stick to our guns on providing a user like the full user experience, like a full product. I think we learned a lot from providing the developer SDK, the Chromium SDK that we provided. And I don't know how we could have learned everything without having done that first. But I would have liked to gotten like, gotten started on providing a full turnkey, uh, end user product sooner. Uh, you know, because, you know, I think we didn't realize how hard it is. Right. We thought, well, you know, we're giving you the SDK, the APIs, you know, now you just stand up some Windows and display content. And we, we hadn't appreciated like how much work goes into, you know, delivering this end user product. And uh, yeah, I think in hindsight I would have liked to have gotten started on that earlier.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But I mean at the end, your end users were these, these developers at large banks. So for them it was an end user product and it was good enough.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's a very, very different audience building products for engineers and developers versus a typical end user. Um, but yeah, uh, I think in hindsight I would like to navigate that a little bit differently.

Speaker A: Exactly. We'd like to zoom in for the time that we still have, um, a couple of more questions regarding the scaling of the business. Company, uh, has been around for 16 years right now, had a couple of rounds of funding. A, ah, lot of it of course goes into product development. Um, when it comes to scaling the business, what have you learned there the last couple of years is it might be a decision that you say, hey, if I would have known, I would have done differently or this one particularly turned out better than I expected.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, look, um, I don't know if this is a particular insight that I have, but uh, I would say I've learned that, uh, enterprise sales are hard. Um, it's when I think about, you know, we do now have the who's who of the biggest banks in the world, you know, all as customers using our technology and mission critical use cases across like, you know, tens, uh, of thousands of desktops. Um, but, you know, it takes time. You know, it takes time to like, win them over. It takes time for them to take your product and deploy it into production. Takes time for procurement. All, all of These things are, are hard. So as I think about uh, scaling, it's, it's about how do we address all those points of friction and how do we get the customer from. They see the thing that they like to, they, they're able to quickly evaluate. But then also we've solved for dealing with all the security questions that they have and all the compliance questions they have and. Right. How do we, how do we move uh, through that process more quickly? And also uh, in providing the product the way that we do today is how do we also serve smaller customers. Right. Who have the same pain points. Right. And need the same tools, but aren't the size of a, you know, a JP Morgan or a Goldman Sachs or you know, any of these other firms. Um, and uh, and that is ultimately where I think, uh, you know, that's, that's where we're heading and that's where we're going to see a lot of scale is, you know, in that next level of company that, that has all these problems but would never have thought to go build their own web browser. And you know, uh, um, so that, that, that's a, that's a very, very big focus of ours right now. Um, and we are already, you know, we already do have customers that are much, much smaller. Um, and you know we're, we're able to give them the same tools that banks spent millions and millions of dollars building. We're able to give them all of that, uh, you know, um, almost overnight where they can deploy it out to the end users and start benefiting.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, uh, talking about that, uh, you said the friction and the enterprise sale is hard. It is hard. And but what is in the hardest part is that the convincing that this is the right thing. And you mentioned before the call that one of the things that you, that you really are all about is um, trade number nine from my book. Sell the idea, not the product. Or is it really in that last phase the company. And you have a couple of fans, um, who believe in this and then it's ticking all the boxes from people that can actually kill the deal. What is the part that has been most beneficial for you to accelerate this in enterprise sales?

Speaker B: Yeah, look, without that internal champion, it's, you know, uh, nothing is going to happen. Uh, so, but you know, but the first part is figuring out who that's going to be, uh, and you know, who, who is in a decision making position and is going to like do the work, uh, you know, is very, very difficult. Like even if you want it, even if you've got the budget, it's still very hard to get a product into a firm like that. Um, but, you know, the rest of it is, I mean, you know, in any large organization, right, it's like there's lots of stakeholders, right? There's stakeholders in security and IT infrastructure and compliance. Then the end users, like the line of business that's going to use the product, um, and there are a lot of people that can say no. And getting the folks who can overcome that and get uh, you past that, uh, is a huge challenge. Um, and then things move at a pace where at any point in time, even if it's going well, even if they're on the verge of saying yes, suddenly you'll find, well, uh, that team no longer exists because business priorities changed. Right. I mean like the number of times I've seen that happen, it's just, you know, it used to really like, bother me because I was like, oh my God, we've put so much work into this, you know, but now it's sort of like, it's just a fact of, you know, working in these environments where have people switch jobs, you know, priorities change, uh, suddenly a big market event happens that puts everything in a different light. Uh, so, you know, there's a lot to navigate. It's uh, definitely not for the faint of heart.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Still. Yeah. Zooming into that, um, the trade number nine sell the idea, not the product. Is that how you always start to ensure that the foundation is good in order to get the deal, to keep the deal moving? Yeah. Give an example of that.

Speaker B: Sure. So look, so, uh, it's right in the original name of the company. Okay. So when we started the company, uh, you know, back in the day, we uh, named it Open Fin. Okay. The reason we named it openfin. Like the idea was that within Finance it's a very closed environment. It's sort of like characterized by a lot of like closed systems, right, that are very proprietary and desktop real estate at, you know, um, trading desks and other places within Finance, it's, it's very, very valuable. But it's also controlled by incumbents. So if they're already on that desktop, it's much easier for them to continue deploying, you know, data and applications to that end user. But if you're not, if you're a, ah, startup trying to deploy to those end users, it's incredibly difficult. Closed environment. And so the idea was openness, like bringing openness to finance, uh, and democratizing the trading desk, uh, and then Also, you know, as part of that openness, like interoperability, uh, where if I'm going to use lots of different applications and not just one, you know, uh, closed environment, I need all the apps to talk to each other and work well together. Um, and uh. And yeah, so that, that was very much the early idea, uh, that we ran with that turned into initially, you know, specifically we're providing a Chromium SDK that does a bunch of these things and now that's evolved to a browser, um, that uh, very much encapsulates the same idea that we started with, uh, but now looks, uh, very, very different in terms of, uh, how we deliver that to end users.

Speaker A: Exactly. By the way, I love the name that you've chosen for the company here, uh, because it becomes the place here, which is also an art of storytelling.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's all about getting all the apps you want right here where you need it. Um, so yeah, I, you know, we, we, we went through a whole branding naming exercise, uh, that um, is, ah, I'm sure you've named things and had this experience. It's not easy. Um, but uh, but yeah, it's, it's, it's been great. And it's, it's also, you know, I think people seeing it as a, it is a technology product. It's, you know, it's, it's designed for work, uh, but it's not specifically like a finance product. Right. There's like true. Not a line of financial code, uh, anywhere in our product. But the pain points that banks, uh, were earlier to experience are the same pain points that lots and lots of other folks in the world have today.

Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Last question then. If you would look back at the last 15, 16 years, um, being the entrepreneur, the founder of the company, what would be a do and what would be a don't that you'd like to share with other entrepreneurs that aspire to. Yeah. To create a company as successful as yours.

Speaker B: Wow. Um, so a do I, uh, think is, you know, work on something like you're, you're really, really passionate about and, and also that you have like, real experience in. Um, you know, uh, it's very easy to believe that you'll build something, it'll go viral, you know, and it'll go great. But the reality for most entrepreneurs is, you know, these things take a long time. If you're not really passionate about the thing that you're working on, uh, it's going to be very hard to like, endure, uh, and get to the other side successfully. Um, the uh, so on the don't, I would say don't associate yourself with uh, with people who, you know, don't have the highest level of integrity. Um, and uh, I think that applies to the investors that you take on board, uh, into your company, the people that you hire. You know, there's, and sometimes it's, you know, the easier path. You know, someone's willing to write a check, you know, it's like you need the money, like, let me take that check. Uh, or you have somebody working at the company who's really good at a particular thing but actually, you know, uh, doing things that are against your values. And you know, but I think you've really got to like, stick to that and have that be a, like a fundamental, like first principle. Um, and I've seen that over and over again in, you know, uh, in our trajectory as a business, like how that's paid off. Um, is actually the co founder of Credit X is a guy named John McAvoy. He was also the first investor in Openfin. He's the first person to really come support us and he's the person who said that to us very early on to myself. And Chuck said, look, just, you really, really need to focus on this and not take the easier path and really just work with people who are really, really high integrity people. Um, and I've seen that really pay off for us as a business, uh, in lots of different ways.

Speaker A: Exactly. I can completely agree with that. Uh, it does pay off and possibly takes a little bit, uh, longer or it requires saying no many, many times where you want to say yes, but it does pay off. Thanks for sharing this wisdom. Where can people go to find out more about here, uh, or to say hi to you?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, so, uh, the website is here IO H E R E IO uh, and my email is mazyere IO M A Z yere IO So um, would love to hear from folks who are interested and want to learn more.

Speaker A: Exactly. Well, like I said, thanks for sharing all the wisdom. Um, yeah, there's a lot to explore more, but we only have 45 minutes here and uh, I keep following you. It's uh, intriguing to see how this is going to evolve now. Specifically now you're taking it out of the banking world where I have already taken out of the banking world. So thanks.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Speaker A: And this wraps up my conversation with Maisie Doar, co founder and CEO of here. If you got value from this episode, please share it with other SaaS founders who need to hear this as well. And if you got 10 seconds, a quick rating or review on Apple Podcasts will help more people to find these conversations. Thank you for listening to the remarkable SaaS podcast. If you want more insights like this, subscribe to my daily email. Espresso with torn it's a two minute shot of clarity for SaaS founders who want to create pull, not push. You can sign up along with getting my book@valueinspiration.com See you in the next episode.