#411 - Alex David: The question AI made everyone forget

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 Alex David, founder and CEO, uh, of unsurvey, and today the general manager of AI Solutions at G2.

Speaker B: The price is what the price is to the customer. That's what it's worth to them. You have two options. Then you build a product that is profitable within that constraint, or you have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to educate the customer on why they're wrong and why it should be worth more.

Speaker A: This is Alex. We dig into what changes now that everyone can build anything in an afternoon. And the question Alex says most founders forgot how to ask. Will you hear why he is sure most founders have pricing backwards and what that does to everything they build. And lastly, what he changed about how he works and why stepping back made him look more sure, not less. Well. Hi, Alex. Thank you for making the time available today and being the guest on the podcast.

Speaker B: Thanks, Tom. Glad to be here.

Speaker A: Glad you say so. Um, yeah, it's an interesting way how this came together. And, um, I've got a couple of angles I want to explore today. And it starts with the early days of, uh, your time as a pricing specialist being part of Simon Kushi, for example, but also I think you've been teaching at the University of Rochester. Um, that's exact same art of pricing. And then later on, you, uh, you co founded two companies. One got acquired by G2 recently, uh, last year, uh, and we'll talk about that journey after that. But before we start, um, what drives you, what, what gives you energy as an entrepreneur?

Speaker B: Um, it's like, it's maybe a little cliche, but I like to solve problems. Um, I think that there's. It's especially interesting now because it's arguably Easier to build than ever. But I don't necessarily think that means it's easier to solve problems. Um, because you can build anything doesn't mean you build good things. Um, but, yeah, I think ever since I was a kid, I've always liked the idea of trying to figure out why something works the way it does or doesn't and then figure out how to fix it. Um, and so I think that is what eventually drove me, I think, to become an entrepreneur.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's already where you kind of start connecting to this beautiful word curiosity. Uh, exploring why things don't work or why things work a certain way and see if you can make it better. Interesting that you say it's like the building has indeed become easier. Has maybe the problem become harder?

Speaker B: Um, I think for people who actually want to solve a real problem, yes. Um, because I think that there was a natural tension and difficulty to, if you were going to sink resources into something to try and solve a problem, you actually had to think about where to commit those resources. And it made you have to evaluate the problem, the business case, the why behind why you would do something. Um, and I think now if you can hold down a button on your keyboard and say a few words and have AI start building things for you, that tension is gone. You can have something being built while you're drinking your coffee. Um, and it takes very little effort to go down that path. So then the question becomes, you know, are you still asking critical questions as to why you should build something if there's essentially in limited resources towards being able to build? Um, so, yeah, I think a lot of the core skill sets of asking the right questions, exploring the core need, the value, um, maybe have been not forgotten, but maybe left to the side a little bit. Because people are very excited to just build as soon as they have an idea.

Speaker A: Exactly. I see it exactly the same way. Like I said, connected to, uh, curiosity, the trait number four in my book, uh, it's there for a reason at the end, and I completely agree with you that people are starting to forget almost, um, in some ways how to ask those questions or why to ask those questions and be critical about it. Possibly not even because everything got cheaper to build, but maybe because of, um, the fact that they just take things for granted, assume a certain number of things, and then just build. What is the risk of that? I mean, if you look at your own career and what you started building, have you ever got into a point where you said, I should have asked better questions?

Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I would actually, ironically, Say, um, one of the big things I think a lot of product leaders talk about now is how do you get your product managers to, um, start coding and building? And how do you get people into this mode of just go from idea to prototype to execution as quickly as possible. And I would actually argue that some of the most fundamental skill sets of a, of a product person are probably more important now than they ever were before. Right. Being able to actually talk to a customer and understand what their problems are, what their pain points are, figuring out the jobs to be done, um, understanding what is the right mvp. Right. I think we're seeing a lot of feature bloat with an early prototype because it's so easy to add more features. Um, so I think, you know, I'm going down the, the product perspective right now, but that's where I spend a lot of my time is, I think, because it's so easy, a lot of those core skill sets of asking the right questions, understanding the problem, understanding the value, Um, I think that's something that is more important now than ever. Um, and I'd say in my own past, one of the things I was fortunate with, and we can get into it, but, um, the pricing background that I had, right, like pricing as a discipline is very much about understanding. Well, how do you, how do you take maybe something that is intangible and convert it into something that you can monetize, right? How do you try and understand the value of something to a customer and actually quantify that in a way that you can establish willingness, ability to pay, et cetera, and turn it into a price for a product? And one of the fundamental questions, um, you always have to explore in pricing is the price is what the price is to the customer, that's what it's worth to them. You have two options. Then you build a product that is profitable within that constraint, or you have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to educate the customer on why they're wrong and why it should be worth more. Either way, you have certain limitations in that. And so for the most part, the price is based on perception, based on bias, based on a lot of things. This is what it's worth to someone. And if that's your hard line, you have to figure out how to build a product within that constraint. And so a lot of that comes down to figuring out why, what it's worth, all that kind of stuff, and then working from there to build or not build. Or if you can't build something within that constraint, then you don't build Something.

Speaker A: Let me make a small interruption here. Alex just said something about pricing that most founders get wrong. They build the product first, then decide what to charge. Alex flipped it because he knows from experience that price isn't yours to set. It's fixed in the customer's head by what the thing is worth to them. And that leaves two moves. First, build it in such a way that you will make money at a price. Or change the customer's perspective about what it's really worth. For example, through positioning. What you cannot do is ignore the number and just hope. And this is what remarkable software companies do. They acknowledge they cannot please everyone, they master the art of curiosity, and then they offer something valuable and desirable. Want to master these traits 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 was sparked within 10 minutes. Back to the interview. True. I love the way, the fact that you actually, uh, use that word constraint, because that's what it's really all about. Nothing has, uh, a minimum price or maximum price at the end. I always say price is, uh, a story in the customer's head, which is a different translation of it, but it's so true. And that also comes down to another couple of traits that I describe in the book. That the same product, solving the same problem for a customer can be worth for 1x and for the other, uh, Y. And it can be a huge difference. Which is another thing, of course, of building a product and who you're. Yeah, really deciding. That's also where the curiosity comes in. Why you actually saying no to a number of customers and why you're saying yes to another group. Fascinating. So, yeah, the whole. A large part of your early career was in pricing. When you started your first company, uh, from what I see here, it was, uh, Coraly. And that was in 2022. August. Um, that was a pricing optimization engine, right?

Speaker B: Correct.

Speaker A: Now, obviously that's where the pricing passion came in. But then am I right to read or to see online that, uh, there was a pivot then into another company called Unsurvey? Correct. But that is a really interesting, uh, pivot to make from a pricing tool to a survey tool. How did this go about? Tell me.

Speaker B: It is and it isn't. Um, so pricing as a discipline, as with a lot of things, you break it into, um, the B2C or the B2B world. Um, and our focus with Corali was very much how could we do price optimization? And so optimization oftentimes is you test and you optimize. And so it was a fairly advanced methodology around price testing. Um, so anytime you need to do testing, what you're basically talking about is being able to experiment. And that means you need to be able to actually show experiments. So we inherently only worked with companies that had public prices. So, uh, you know, one of our big customers was linktree. We would play with their pricing page, we would run experiments and then find optimal price points for different regions, different markets, things like that. We'd have geographic segmentation, all that kind of stuff. The thing is, most B2B companies do not publish their prices, and so it's not something you can experiment with. Um, so we would have a lot of B2B companies come to us and say, hey, you guys are doing some cool stuff with price experimentation. Can you help us? And we'd say, well, no. Our entire software, the way it works is that it sits on top of your checkout experience and it experiments with your prices as people go through the checkout flow. Um, so if you don't have an online checkout flow, we can't help you. Um, but as a startup, we like money. And so when big B2B companies come to you and offer you money, we try to make it work. Um, and so, yeah, we started talking to and working with a number of B2B companies, and I think we started looking at more of a service angle at that point. Um, and so one of the things in my own background as a consultant, a really big part of doing pricing work is pricing research. And so when you can't do experiments, you do surveys, you do interviews, you go out and talk to customers prospects, and you, uh, try and understand their willingness to pay. You do conjoint analyses, maxdiff, all that kind of stuff. Um, which is great, but if that's not their main product as a company, then you can't have it take up too much time. Um, and so a big thing my co founders, Praveen, Andre and I would talk about is like, hey, we have this thing where we're kind of doing work on the side for some of these B2B companies. Maybe eventually we'll build a product for them, but for right now, we're just using that as supporting us from a cash flow standpoint. So how can we do that as efficiently as possible? Um, and this was when AI was starting to come out. And so we were like, hey, can we use AI to try and do some of the research work here? Um, to help our B2B customers so that we can focus on our more core optimization engineers for our B2C customers. Um, and so that's where like it originally started is like we were doing this research on the side. Can we have AI support it? Um, and I think I'd done throughout my entire consulting work, like research, if you've ever been a consultant, research is a huge part of almost every strategy project. Um, and so I'd done, you know, I don't know how many hundred plus, uh, market research projects in my life. And so as I was starting to explore that more and more with AI, it became very interesting as to like, oh, there's a lot of opportunity here that I would have loved five years ago. Right. And so I think that became more and more interesting and uh, you know, piqued my curiosity. Um, and so I think that, you know, coupled with some other things we were seeing in the market around price, um, optimization and where things were headed, we felt like that was potentially a better place to start investing our time and seeing where we could take that.

Speaker A: Interesting. So then, uh, you closed down the B2C arm, essentially. It was really a pivot.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So then we pivoted more into focusing on these scenarios where we had, you know, a lot of more service agreements and, and doing it. But it was essentially tech enabled service, um, which that was Palantir was not yet a favorite of everyone, but at that point, so that wasn't super great with our investors. But I think they had enough belief in us that they were like, okay, it seems, seems cool enough. And so I think the thing that really unlocked for us was, um, and this gets into a lot of like history of market research, but um, the interview angle, I think, um, being able to actually do something conversationally at scale was just not possible before AI. Um, and I think that's the real big unlock, both for the business but also for me personally was how do we start thinking about taking research to the next level as to where it's never been able to go before. And I think that's what we were really able to unlock here.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I saw a quote from you. People don't want to fill out forms, they want to be heard. Which is exactly what this is all about. I almost hear the story from Drift, how they turn forms into conversational, uh, marketing. But as you see, it's this principle that was applied to marketing also applies to other areas. Um, and it is true, you know, I mean if you look at how we use Google in the early days, and I don't use it a lot these days anymore. And what you these days also give information to AI it's so much more, so much more contextual, so much uh, more details that ah, there's a lot more value in it and people just give it rather than a couple of key search strokes. So that company got founded. Let me see if, uh, July 2024. So you. Yeah, I mean of course it was already in the works. It was sort of a side project. Then you made it officially or official. Um, wasn't that an enormous shift in terms of how you go to market then? I mean shifting from a B2C worlds to a B2B world. And actually, am I right on this, on the B2C side? Because what I also hear is if you have a checkout function which typically can also of course be product like growth type software companies.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean we, it was, it was very different. So a lot of our, our motion with COR was around, well I mean it isn't, it isn't. Our, our sale was still a B2B sale. So our sales process was still a B2B. Um, but it was very different because quarterly was very based on integrations. Right. We were integrated with billing and checkout platform. So we had to maintain those partnerships. There were some co sell motions and things like that that we could do. And we had very good partnerships with all the major bailing players. So that was good. A lot of it was around identifying, you know, suboptimal prices that we saw in market and um, sending them out. And like a very big signal for us was, you know, you had a brand that operated internationally but only charged in dollars. That was always like a great calling card because we could be like, hey, you're in the UK but you're charging dollars. That doesn't make sense. We should have a conversation. Um, and so there were some, some easy things like that where we could reach out and you'd be surprised the like sophistication of a company that would still do that. Um, and you know, we had a stat that was like just by fixing that, that's like a 10 to 15% lift in MRR. So. So like let us fix that for you. So that was great. Uh, but then shifting over into the B2B world, it was very different because a lot of it was around, um, you know, we didn't necessarily have at that point public like companies we could point to of like, hey, we've done this work here. Um, it's a lot harder to be able to showcase an roi. One of the great things about being like a price experimentation platform in the checkout experience is we can very distinctly tell you how much revenue we have influenced. So it was very great to be able to tell an ROI story there. Ah, much harder with a research product. But we got scrappy. Uh, I think that was when again, this is so funny to think about now because of how easy it is now. Um, but we were building all of these AI based hacks on, um, doing outbound and outreach and being able to create our pipeline with a team of three to four people, um, and being able to scale that very quickly. So I think that was different. I will say, at least for me personally. I was a consultant. Selling consulting services is something I had to do for a long time. Um, and a lot of B2B sales is consultative selling. Right? It's going in, it's understanding the problem, it's understanding the pain. How do you solve something today? Can we solve it better? Um, and then I think this comes with, with any founder, but early on you're not pitching a product, right? You're pitching a vision, you're pitching an idea, you're pitching a concept, you're pitching a better version of the future and you're convincing your early customers to buy into that vision, not the product. And then you kind of make the product work underneath that. Um, but so there is a bit of like you just kind of have to do that and either you can or you can't. Like I am by no means a great salesperson. Um, but I think that like, I was convincing enough in what vision I had for the future that at least some people were willing to buy into it.

Speaker A: And you have a ton of experience when it comes to consultation and consultative selling, which is a very important thing indeed. Uh, it is about that. It's um, even if you sell of an out of the box product, typically these products that you sell through a sales motion have such a big impact on a company that there's all kind of stakeholders involved. And um, it doesn't come feature by feature then. Fascinating that you tell that. Um, you just touched upon one thing that we talked about earlier on. Um, one trade that fascinated you or that you picked from my list was the 1 number 8.

Speaker B: Remarkable.

Speaker A: Um, software companies master the art of creating momentum. Um, and this was of course when you had a motion that was running and it was relatively easy to get in touch with people and solve a problem and of course have a conversation about a real roi. Now you had something that was, yeah, starting from Scratch again. Um, so what works best for you when it came to creating that momentum again?

Speaker B: Yeah, the word again there is interesting because I think this is, like, one of the biggest problems that founders have and why they avoid a pivot. Because what oftentimes happens is your. Your company or your product is doing okay, and you're seeing, like, little bits of momentum. And that little bit of momentum is giving you a lot of hope. And so you're very averse to stepping away from it and shifting gears, because you basically have to build your entire momentum again from scratch. Your brand from scratch, everything from scratch, if you're doing a real hard pivot. Um, and so very few companies go after it, and thus, uh, by the time they recognize that momentum is dying out, then it's oftentimes too late. True. Um, so building momentum. I'm not going to say I'm the best at it. I'm not going to say that I know how to do it perfectly. I think there's a couple things that stood out to me in the past, and oftentimes it's around being like, timing is obviously a huge piece of it. Um, and it's how can you build on each piece of the success? And so a lot of it is,

Speaker A: um,

Speaker B: you have to set up the dominoes to fall. Right? And so a lot of it is holding back certain bits of information or delaying certain things so that you can kind of release that at the right time. Um, there's a lot of particular relationships you want to build and take advantage of in the right moment. M. In the right way. But a lot of it also is like, that's all the external momentum, the stuff that helps you with raising funds or like, creating FOMO in your customer base and all that kind of stuff. All of that very important. I will say probably the most important for me personally on the momentum side is the, like, internal psychological momentum that it drives for you in a team. It's loss after loss compounds, um, and really hurts morale. Win after win compounds and really drives morale. And so especially with a small team who's spending, you know, 12, 14 hours a day trying to grind at something, um, really trying to, like, drive internal momentum, which then I've at least personally found. If you can drive internal momentum, external momentum tends to follow. That becomes quite important, I would say, as a leader of whether it's a company, a team, et cetera. But really showcasing, like, this is how the effort is paying off. This is how win after win is compounding. This is how this is working out for the team. Um, I think that tends to be very impactful. Um, and then, yeah, the way you set that up externally becomes huge, too. I think you see it in a whole bunch of different ways, which is like, you know, a lot of PLG companies don't charge. They grow large customer bases, but don't turn on monetization because they want to be able to say, look at how we went from zero to $20 million in a year. And it's like, well, you had those customers for three years, you just didn't charge them. And then once you turned it on, you suddenly had a massive revenue growth. And it's like. But, uh, it tells a good story. Right. And there's a little bit of, like, you have to do the hand, wavy jazz hands, to, like, get yourself there. And once that story is happening, it's real. Right. It's not fake. But you may have, you know, set it up that way. Um, but, you know, we had plenty of investors who told us, don't charge. Don't charge until you hit a certain point. Um, so that once you turn it on, you can have a really nice growth curve in a certain amount of time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so there's all these things you can do to manipulate momentum in your favor. Because I do think it's. It's important.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's an art. And I mean, in my book, I got various examples of that, and one or two you already highlighted there. What is interesting, what interested me was your point about creating that internal momentum which then drives the external momentum. Can you give an example of that?

Speaker B: So I, I was doing most of our, um, sales. And so, you know, I was getting, I don't know, a hundred no's a day.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That's. That's just the, the job of sales. It's a lot of rejection. And once you start getting yeses, you start to figure out, like, all right, what do I share with the team? Um, because I'm not going to be, like, updating every person. I'm like, this is every no. This is every yes. It doesn't make sense. But you can kind of strategically choose, like, hey, here are some of the great logos I spoke with this week. Here are the ones who want to move forward. Here are the ones who are showing a lot of interest. Here are the introductions that we're getting. And I think not saying everything at once when it happens and kind of holding some of it back to be able to tell a bit of a story, even internally, of like, oh, this just happened. Oh, this just happened. And you start to get this feeling of, like, oh, things are happening. Um, and it just helps pick up a little bit of the pace. And I think you then immediately start to notice suddenly people are shipping faster. Suddenly people are, you know, I'm getting text messages at 3 o' clock in the morning of, like, I just had a breakthrough and, like, I want to work through this. And, you know, it's a little bit of, like, you plant those seeds and people maybe don't even realize that that's what you're doing. But there's a little bit of, like, win after win after win that you plant, and people start to get more excited and they start to see more of the, like, oh, I could see where this getting energized again. I want to put more into it, um, because I think that's also the. Not the downside, but, you know, the baggage that comes with a pivot is that, yes, your company is new, the thing you pivoted into in the fresh start, but, like, the people aren't necessarily. And so there's a lot of baggage from your last thing that you did that people are thinking back to and blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of, a lot of weight you kind of have to carry with you through that experience. Um, and so using momentum strategically to try and make that weight easier to carry, um, can be very powerful. And I think then it gets into, okay, how much are we shipping, how much are we building, how much are we bringing to customers? Um, and I think that's how I personally saw it be impactful, is being able to pepper in those wins throughout the week in the right moments.

Speaker A: Yeah. Is that about alignment or is it about conviction?

Speaker B: I think maybe more conviction. I think one of the biggest jobs of any founder is to lead with vision. And I think any founder who tells you, like, they never had any doubt in what they were doing, I'm going to say is full of something. Um, uh, so I think the fact of the matter is that those around them may look at them as someone who never had any doubt. And that means you're doing a good job as a founder because you are the, you are the stalwart of that vision. That doesn't mean you don't feel the doubt.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But you can't necessarily let it show. Um, and so I think that becomes a really critical piece. And so when other people start to falter and when other people start to have doubt, you have to be that stalwart, um, you know, that, that, that block in the storm so to speak, that kind of holds on. And I think that if you can kind of show, like, here's what's driving me. Here are the winds that me excited. Here's why I feel like we're. We're building this momentum, Um, I think that can really help people get through their, like, es and flows of excitement and then get people into that state of. All right, I. I see it. I'm. I got conviction now. Like, I know where we're going with this.

Speaker A: Well said. Well, long story, uh, short, then, um, about a year later, you get a knock on the door, possibly even earlier, um, from a company called G2 who wants to acquire you. What. What went through your mind when you got the call? Or actually did you go yourself and knocked on their door?

Speaker B: Um, so I actually known Godard for a little. Um, the CEO and founder of G2.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, um, he had been an LP in one of our investors. So we had. He's kind of been aware of some of the things going on. Um, and we had, um. You know, I'd always admire him as a. As an entrepreneur, as a founder. And so we've had. We've had a few conversations over the years. Um, and actually we went to G2, uh, trying to get them as a customer. And so one of the things I went to go to with is like, hey, like, at the end of the day, one of the big things you do is you give people a survey. Uh, they take a survey to review a product. Right? That's. At the end of the day, like, that's a big part of G2. Uh, and you're the biggest in the world for that. Um, how cool would it be if instead of a survey, people could just talk about the products that they use and then we could use that as a way of generating reviews? And he really bought into that vision. And so we had the conversations around that. We started to figure out, how do we want to work together on this? That's a really core piece of G2. So it inherently brought up questions of, well, if this is like, core to our entire flywheel and our business proposition, like, should we be outsourcing that to a startup? Um, and I was like, that is a very fair question. Um, and so I think that innately, like, brought things into a more strategic conversation. Um, and then, you know, on a personal note, I had just become a dad. Um, I think for me then it was a big question around balancing, like, a metaphorical baby and a real baby m. Which, you know, a startup is very much A baby, uh, of a different kind. And so I think a lot of it was also just a timing thing. I think Goed is someone who I always respected. Um, G2 was doing some really interesting stuff which I think at that point wasn't really public yet, but a lot of where AI visibility was starting to show up and a lot of what G2 had started to work on for that I think which I was really excited by and thought was really going to pay dividends. Um, which worked out. Um, and then, uh, yeah. And then from a personal standpoint it just felt like this was a good time. And then um, it, it all kind of worked out timing wise and, and with the right setup and then, um. Yeah, and it's been a blast ever since. It's wild to think that it's been a little over a year already. Um, but yeah, it's been a, it's been a really Fun experience joining G2.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting how these things can actually come together and like you say, it's a very logical question for them to ask, okay, why would we outsource something so strategic to our company to a startup? So I mean it's really this critical make, buy or partner type of um, question. Was it possibly also at a moment where G2 started to see what's happening when in the whole buyer cycle that uh, was typically. I mean I know G2 from a long time ago and indeed if you wanted to see how a product was doing, you would go to G2 and explore, start to read all the things whereby now of course you see that people aren't even bothered again to go to those platforms to just put in a prompt in an AI engine and there you go, um, to get those, that type of traffic back.

Speaker B: Um, I mean G2 still has a good amount of traffic. Uh, we still do have a lot of people. I think they come to us now at a slightly different stage. Um, I think it used to be that we would have people come to G2 throughout the entire funnel. Um, and now a lot more of the top of the funnel is people going to AI, but then during the middle and bottom of the funnel people still wind up coming to G2, run comparisons, reading our articles, things like that. So I do think like we see, we see traffic still, it's just different traffic with different intent. Um, but I think the big thing that comes up there is that expectations are always changing. Right. And I think Filling out a 40 question form free chatgpt was fine. Like everyone was doing that, blah, blah, blah, Not a big deal. I think Typeform started to change the game a little bit and making the experience of filling out a form much easier and, um, you know, a lot of respect for Typeform. And Joachim, uh, who was leading Typeform at the time, I think did some really great things there. But I, um, think as that started to shift even more with AI and like, the perception around how do we, um, how do we make that better? And as people's expectations were shifting, how do we shift alongside that? And I think that's one of the things that Godard was looking towards is how do we look at where G2 needs to be in the future as people's user experience expectations start to shift. And I think he saw similar to what we saw, which was, you know, a lot of younger people were already moving towards this idea of voice notes and just talking into their phone and less typing or texting. Um, and I think a lot of people just find that more convenient and AI really made it possible to go from a conversation to a really well written, structured piece of information. And so that fit very nicely, I think, into a vision that Goddard had and we kind of met need with the technology that we had built.

Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, funny enough, as you mentioned, the Typeform Joachim was on my podcast, I think about one or two, two years ago now, when I actually, uh, I interviewed him live on stage at South Summit. So bring back memories to me as well. Um, a small world. Um, what is the biggest lesson that you learned from the acquisition process? You know, it's. I think it's the first time that you've been acquired as a company. I, I personally have a lot of experience with it, um, with both companies that we acquired for the legacy, because they were. They had something that. That was a perfect fit to kind of migrate to our own flagship. But we also had experience on buying technology to get ahead of the game, and those are completely different things. And one of the things that you mentioned, uh, the integration not only of the software, but actually the whole. The brains behind it and, and becoming part of a culture. What did you learn from that?

Speaker B: It feels cheesy to say it, but it's. It's way more about the people than it is anything else.

Speaker A: True.

Speaker B: I, um, think you have your people that you're trying to take care of and make sure, like, you repay the trust that was put in you as a leader of a company.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and then you're having to see, you know, does. Do I think our people will work together? Do I think they will work well together. Do I think that the vision that, you know, in this case G2 had is a vision we would be interested in, that we would be able to get behind? Um, because everything else can kind of be worked out, like, as much as it sounds silly, but, like, the rest is just paperwork in details. It's really the human element that winds up mattering here. And I think I spent a lot of time on calls with, um, Godard and with Tim Handorf, the other founder of G2, who now is my boss. Um, and so understanding how they thought about entrepreneurship, how they thought about running the company, how they thought about their work ethic, how that translated into how people actually to work, all of that I think, was. Was very important. And understanding that, I think, is because, you know, transparently, once, once we got into the conversation with G2, we obviously, like, had broader conversations with other folks because we were like, we might as well do the dog and pony show. Right. And I think we had other opportunities. But I think what it really came down to with G2 was just. It felt like one as a company and where the company was going, it felt like an interesting time in the space and G2 was going to be evolving rapidly and as it has. And I think that was exciting to be part of that. And then I think the other pieces we really believed in, in Godard and the leadership at G2 and what they were trying to put together, I think there were a lot of really, um, exciting leaders that G2 had just recently brought in. Um, and so we're starting to really drive the company in a direction that we were excited about. And yeah, I mean, a lot of phone calls, a lot of dinners, a lot of meeting people. But yeah, that's what it really came down to.

Speaker A: Exactly. I think you've summarized it in the right way. It is far more about people, and that's where it all can really succeed or really collapse. Ah. And I've seen companies that were buying fantastic technology vision sort of aligned. But then, I mean, it all dried up. And a year later, nothing, nothing was left of what was bought, which is, of course a pity. And like you say, you're actually taking care of people, um, so. And they trust you in order to make the right decision. And, uh, yeah, that's a tough one. Um, is there anything you would have, in hindsight, that you would have done differently?

Speaker B: You mean about the acquisition or just in general as an entrepreneur?

Speaker A: I m. Mean, the move in itself, well done differently, done more of. I mean, it's going to Be positive and negative.

Speaker B: Uh, maybe given myself, uh, some time off. I went from uh, founder mode to straight into, uh, building a lot of things at G2. And it's been really, really fun and exciting. But I probably should have tried to give myself like a month off or something like that. Uh, but no, it's been, it's been really exciting since joining G2 and it's been very busy. Um, but uh, yeah, I think maybe to be a little less facetious, um, like being an entrepreneur is hard. I think a lot of people say that. But it takes a toll on you, uh, just in terms of the constant stress, the responsibility, um, and having to, you know, literally be concerned about, you know, will we bring in enough to like pay people's paychecks and things like that. Like, I do think that there's a general toll that it takes on you that a lot of people don't recognize or really appreciate, uh, until it maybe is too late. Right. There's a reason founders have a higher divorce rate, a higher mental health issue rates. Like it takes a toll. And I think, um, recognizing that and taking it seriously and like taking care of yourself is a, is a big thing and I probably could have done that a lot better. Um, and I think it's something I try and do more of now, um, because I have the flexibility to do so. But you know, I have plenty of founder friends who like, you know, they don't take time off. They work six, seven days a week, they work 18 hour days. And I'm like, this is not good for you long term. Like uh, you just, you're kind of hoping that the company is a success before it all catches up with you. Um, which statistically speaking, it won't. Um, so yeah, I think that's something I maybe would have done differently is just taking care of myself a little bit more in that process and giving myself a little bit more time to breathe.

Speaker A: Yeah. It's funny how it always comes in hindsight and now that you are on the other side in a company that has a bigger footprint still. I mean, you have to do the hard work, but possibly there's a number of things that are not on your shoulder anymore and you can look at things with clearer eyes because I mean, if you're in the. Yeah. In the red race, you just do it. And you use the word hope a couple of times, but that is really what it often is about, you know? Mhm. Seeing that every time that this, it's not there, but it's almost there. And that Makes us all go do the crazy things we do. M. So what would you recommend if you. If you look at it with fresh eyes now? Yeah, um, the question that people need to ask more often or harder.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, I see. I see that a lot now that in this, in this world, there's a lot of companies and founders who, who, who are bragging about the, like, you know, six, seven days a week, seven to seven working hours or whatnot of, like, you know, we. We grind all day, every day. And the advice I would give is to think through, like, what is that actually communicating? I. I get that there's a bit of, like, Elon kicked this off with the founder mode concept and really, like, yeah, you need to be grinding. You need to be going hard. And, uh, don't get me wrong, I respect that to a certain degree. But also there's something about the confidence that gets instilled if the founder is like, it's okay, like, I'm going to take the weekend off. I know that this business is going to be successful. I don't need to grind 247 to make that happen. Like, we've hit something that works. We're going to take a day off, we're going to breathe a bit because there's a certain amount of confidence that, that also protrudes. Right. And showcases, and I think that that's worth. Worth not forgetting. Um, also, you do have to pay the bill eventually. So if you are grinding yourself and your team constantly, um, there will be a debt to pay. Um, and so you kind of have to balance that too. And I think the natural inclination is to say, Well, I own 90% of this company or whatever it is, so it's okay for me to do that. I should grind to the ground because it's worth it for me in the end. Not everyone in my company has that equity position, so I can't necessarily ask of everyone the same thing, which is true, but at the same time, like, you still have to be there to lead everyone the next day. So, like, yeah, I would just every now and then take a step back and, like, assess yourself, your health, where things are going. And like, are you. Are you grinding for the sake of grinding or are all those hours that you're spending actually valuable?

Speaker A: Well said. I think that's a nice one to, um, end the podcast with. I always ask at the end, like, what will be you do and what will be you don't? And I think you've answered both here. Thanks so much for sharing all of this. I got so many other questions, but we also have to look at the time. Where can people go, of course, to find out more about G2 if they haven't found the G2 yet, or at least say hi to you.

Speaker B: I, uh, am not as active on X as I probably should be, so, uh, LinkedIn is always a great way to find me. Um, and then G2.com or our new G2AI. Both are good spots to find out more about G2.

Speaker A: Perfect. Well, thank you very much Alex.

Speaker B: Thank you, John.

Speaker A: And this wraps up my conversation with Alex David, founder and CEO of unsurvey and today general manager of AI solutions at G2. 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 ton it's a two minute shot of clarity for SaaS founders who want to create pool, not push. You can sign up along with getting my book@valueinspiration.com See you in the next episode.