Transcript:
Harrison Rose:
So the US for us is a very large market, if not the largest. And they get to benefit from the luxury that they’re existing in a huge market in their own right. They don’t have to think about Europe until they’re quite late in their journey. But per your comments in doing so, they grow a lot slower than anyone else [internationally]. And I think one way we’re encouraging to think about that earlier is by providing them with the infrastructure that they can just turn on – like pricing in euros and accept a bunch of local payment methods in a region. And because, whether they like it or not, European people are visiting their website. It’s just in dollars. And they’re not paying in methods that they want – and actually being helping them optimise for that traffic might help them see the opportunity a little bit earlier. Europeans, particularly those coming out of some of the smaller countries, obviously think about how am I going to sell more broadly than this. Much more quickly. An example that comes to mind is something like Peakon – which is based out of Copenhagen. I speak with one of their co-founders, Casper, all the time. He’s gonna give me some advice on our New York expansion just next week. But I know they’ve got local sales teams all over the place and have had them for a long time – and they’re growing like crazy. And they’ve known that they’ve had to optimise for this very early in the journey.
Stephen Cummins: [00:00:51] Welcome to 14 minutes of SaaS! The show where you can listen to the stories and opinions of founders of the world’s most remarkable SaaS scale-ups!
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[00:01:30] This is the concluding episode of a two-episode interview with Harrison Rose, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of Paddle. He talks about how they’re going to market. And SaaStock, where we’re having this conversation, is a perfect event for them because of the high percentage of CEOs, CMOs and founders of SaaS ScaleUp companies. The attendees approximate very closely to their ideal buyer persona.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:01:57] So it’s a very horizontal play. You just fit into the stack. But, you know, there seems to be a virology in what you’re doing. I suppose two questions. One. Do you find yourselves periodically getting deep into different verticals, even though it’s a horizontal play because of its virality? And second. Is there a built in virality in the platform in that … when they sell on to their customers, do the customers know that they’re dealing with Paddle – and do they have a chance to trial it themselves – and have a look at it themselves?
Harrison Rose:
[00:02:28] It’s an interesting question. And it’s probably a hard one for us to think about, actually, because I quite strongly believe if we’re doing our job correctly, people don’t necessarily know that we’re there. We’re powering the infrastructure for these people to be able to sell their product globally. And if we’re doing a good job, they still have real ownership over their brand, over the end-to-end customer experience … because it’s obviously so important to these SaaS businesses when it comes to acquisition and retention. All the things we know about, there’s a lot more intelligent people than me that talk about these things. So I think that’s just doing our job correctly. In reality, it would be great if everyone knew that we were doing such a great job of helping these people.
I think the onus is on us actually to go out and tell the stories and hopefully rely on some of those SaaS businesses to credit us with their ability to go to market. And I’m hoping we can get referrals in a way that’s not throwing up around in the face of every single person that hits the paddle check-out because nobody wants that. And PayPal are an interesting example here in my view, because PayPal … is something that lots of SaaS businesses have had to implement because its a very popular payment method. I think the way that they’ve got very big is that they have a huge consumer brand. And consumers want to pay via PayPal – they know it’s safe. They see it everywhere. They see the ads. And because they’ve got such a strong consumer brand, it’s a prerequisite. And it’s necessary for businesses to implement that tool, even though they don’t necessarily always enjoy implementing that tool with their APIs, and all the boring stuff I won’t get into. And that’s one way to approach this problem. It’s not the way we’re thinking about right now. Instead, we want to be a B2B company building a fantastic tool for software businesses to run and grow and that they enjoy usin. And we’re happy to see it in the background and not force ourselves upon anyone or in front of anyone in the way that maybe others have.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:04:09] So I guess in a sense your old school, because you’re B2B – you’re moving up into the enterprise – very much so. They’re big ticket deals. And hence, I guess we’re going to see more and more of you at events like this – where you do get a very select and, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders, a lot of major companies here. So I guess you’re gonna be a bit Old-School the way you go to market more and more in the future … and actually pressing the flesh and doing a lot of face to face meetings. Is that right?
Harrison Rose:
Yeah …sure. I mean, it’s been interesting for us because we’re 150 people based in London … we’ve actually grown exclusively our outbound sales for the 7 years we’ve been going – pretty much – and working with existing cell phone companies, talking to them about the absolute fire that exists in their organization – that is billing and all the things that surround that – and trying to make their lives easier. It’s easier to go to existing software companies every time they scale because they’ve absolutely felt that pain and know they’ve got six engineers dedicated to fixing that fire over there in the corner …. that maybe they call a special project as someone told me earlier in this conference, just because they think that sounds sexy.
But conferences like this are good because they attract software companies …that have reached some scale. They themselves are looking for new customers. And the thing that’s drawing loads and loads of people over to our booth is …. and where face to face work pretty well … is that they come to us for advice on how they should actually accelerate that growth, and how should they be going to market next. And whilst they know billing is a pain for them right now … they know that the next step in that journey is moving up, market internationalising for the first time. And they ask us for both advice on who’s done that effectively and what did they do. Because we have all the data around it. But also, hopefully we can provide them with the infrastructure to allow them to do so effectively as well. So its really fun to speak to scaling software businesses at an event like this who all obsess on growth and continue to grow the business, isn’t it? Super excited about it and how this amazing buzz around the place … then actually enable people to actually execute upon all these great ideas they come away from a conference like this at. I think it creates a really, really cool energy and the team really enjoy it.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:06:19] I mean, with all the rich data that you’re getting, which is the beauty of having a platform where transactions, real transactions go through it – not just opinions. With all of that data and with the knowledge you’ve got now of helping companies grow and expand, are you tempted to … maybe you done it already … create big events or create communities around Paddle? You know, is that part of your plan over the next year or two to build that community?
Harrison Rose:
[00:06:45] So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of benefits to community, both brand and allowing people to self-serve insight … as you’re saying. That will absolutely happen. And I don’t know when. I won’t give you any ideas in case of VP success we’ve hired kills me.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:07:01] So that means it’s coming. Thanks. Cheers Harrison!
Harrison Rose:
[00:07:05] [laughter] But … we absolutely do want to productise some of those suggestions as well. Like we have all the data on when we’ve seen companies internationalise, how much revenue they were getting out of a location before they localise the products in that region. And then what impact did it have on the revenue in that region? Having done that localisation, for example, there’s no reason that we can’t spot trends in that data … and then serve up that insight or that suggestion to people within the products itself. And it might need some coaching, or some people to talk to about how that’s going to work, how we’re going to showcase the results, and why it’s a good thing. The ones who’ve done that three times – and they’ve seen the impact we can have on their revenues … I’m sure they’ll be eating suggestions like wildfire eventually. And so I think community yes … but also actually building some of these suggestions and the ways in which we’re driving revenue into the product … which is what I was talking about earlier in terms of some of the focus that we might have moving forward.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:07:54] So if we look at the Standard and Poor 500, S&P 500, if you take the top 250 that internationalized earlier …. then the 250 that international later. They [the former] grow 5 percent per annum faster … and compounded that’s 63 percent over 10 years.
Harrison Rose:
Yeah.
Stephen Cummins:
Would you agree that it we take us companies, for example … I know you’re going the other way with some of your customers. Would you agree that they very probably internationalised later than they should? And is that the case with European companies?
Harrison Rose:
[00:08:22] Yes. I think to start with the US, it’s very interesting. So … the US for us is a very large market, if not the largest. And they get to benefit from the luxury that they’re existing in a huge market in their own right. They don’t have to think about Europe until they’re quite late in their journey. But per your comments in doing so, they grow a lot slower than everyone else. And I think one way we’re encouraging to think about that earlier is by providing them with the infrastructure that they can just turn on – like pricing in euros and accept a bunch of local payment methods in a region. Because, whether they like it or not, European people are visiting their website. It’s just in dollars … and they’re not paying in methods that they want – and actually being helping them optimise for that traffic might help them see the opportunity a little bit earlier. And that’s kind of how I think about not I guess.
Stephen Cummins:
And with the US … it’s pretty predictable that would be the case, because they’ve got the best, the nicest market, most homogenous, very rich, early adopter. All of those things. It’s like a formula for actually making that decision far too late in terms of optimisation.
Harrison Rose:
[00:09:26] Yeah, agreed! Whereas Europeans, particularly those coming out of some of the smaller countries, obviously think about how am I going to sell more broadly than this. Much more quickly. An example that comes to mind is something like Peakon – which is based out of Copenhagen. I speak with one of their co-founders, Casper, all the time. He’s gonna give me some advice on our New York expansion just next week. But I know they’ve got local sales teams all over the place and have had them for a long time – and they’re growing like crazy. And they’ve known that they’ve had to optimise for this very early in the journey. And hopefully we can enable some other people to do so.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:09:59] Actually I interviewed one of their founders – and it’s coming out soon. Not that founder.
Harrison Rose:
Phil? Was it Phil?
Stephen Cummins:
Yeah it was Phil. [episodes 70 and 71]
Harrison Rose:
He’s cool!
Stephen Cummins:
And it’s coming out pretty soo on 14 Minutes of SaaS.
Harrison Rose:
Nice! Recommended!
Stephen Cummins:
Okay, excellent. Excellent. Actually, I’ll ask you one more about about Paddle. What will that look like? Now you talk about … because obviously one of the best ways to increase your revenues is to enrich the product and have a super enterprise version or whatever you call it …. What will these kind of nudges or hints or access to data, you know, are you going to give them access to content? Or are you going to give them contextual kind of nudges and nuggets, snackable pieces of information based on their behaviours … and based on the data you’ve got on all the other companies using your platform? How might it look?
[00:10:45] Yeah, I think the latter. The idea is the latter. Right now we have an account management team that I personally invested a lot of time in serving up these suggestions as people right now. And they’ll continue to do that. And they’ll continue to coach the biggest customers as people right now. They’re the biggest areas for impact as individuals to these companies … but certainly serving up these very actionable nuggets to software companies over and over again … so that we constantly iterate and experiment our way towards success together.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:11:12] Harrison … you kind of hinted on that earlier … but what are you not good at that you think you could get better at it? Or that you’re interested in improving?
Harrison Rose:
[00:11:25] So many things! Yeah, I think I struggle with knowledge share sometimes. And with certain individuals. I’m quite intense … like I talk about things very quickly. I throw a lot of information at people very quickly … and some people have described like an on-boarding experience with me is like one of the most terrifying things they’ve ever seen in their lives. It’s just like …’Oh my God, this is so much information. I am so overwhelmed right now.’ And I think something I can get better at is actually, I guess, communicating or trying to upskill, educate, share knowledge with people in ways that it’s more easy for them. It can seem like I’m more than happy to sit in a room and talk about a topic for like two hours, a thousand miles an hour … and then just assume that everyone learned all those things and will retain them forever, without any slide deck or any takeaways or whatever.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:12:14] So we could have talked for two hours and done a series.
Harrison Rose:
Yeah. Yeah. Sold!
Stephen Cummins:
Okay. I’ve got two more on questions the other side. What’s the one thing … a personal quality that you feel has helped you be successful so young.
Harrison Rose:
I think a piece of advice I would give to others … and I think I try and lean into a lot … is that particularly as someone who’s never done this before, like you have to be absolutely obsessed with and ferocious about learning. Like unless you constantly are looking back on yourself six months ago and thinking ‘How on earth did I even function? What an idiot I was!’ ….. you’re probably not learning quickly enough. And I think … I hope it’s a skill I have .. and a skill that I would continue to try and improve. But like, you have to be able to ferociously learn at a faster rate than the company is growing … otherwise, you’re not going to be able to deliver the service that you owe it essentially … and you’ll be replaced. And that’s normal. And that’s okay too, but you have to learn quickly when you’re growing as fast as we have been. And I’m sure some of your listeners are as well.
Stephen Cummins:
[00:13:15] Ok. And that leads into the last question. I’ve changed it because of the answer you gave. Given that you read ferociously and you’re learning … give me a business book in the last 18 months that you’ve read … or audiobook or whatever … that you’ve loved.
Harrison Rose:
[00:13:29] Yeah, the one I normally reference here is a book that’s called ‘StandOut’ by Marcus Buckingham, which has really helped me understand some of my positive behaviours as a leader, but also some of my negative traits. And even being able to identify those and try and rectify them … I think its been really help me. And that’s where I’ve thought about maybe some of this learning stuff … or how I might be perceived by others who would like ‘Oh my God, this is so much … very fast!’ And that’s a that’s a great one.
The one I’m focused on right now is ‘What got you here won’t get you there’ [Marshall Goldsmith] … which was recommended to me by an executive coach. Again, really, really helpful talking to you about how to get to that next level as a leader, I guess. And how to do the best job you possibly can for those beneath you … and how that changes over time. And the things you need to do, the way you need to behave is going to evolve. And that’s okay … but trying to take you on that journey a little bit.
Stephen Cummins:
Okay. Harrison, your energy is incredible. I’m sure anybody sitting around there listening to this can tell that you’re absolutely driven. And you’re on a fast journey. Thanks for sharing so much information in such a short amount of time. I appreciate it.
Harrison Rose:
Thank you very much. It’s been great!
Stephen Cummins:
Cheers, thanks a lot!
Harrison Rose:
Thank you!
Stephen Cummins:
[00:14:45] And of course, we did a memorable and immensely popular interview with the CEO and co-founder of Peakon, Phil Chambers in episode 70 and 71 of 14 Minutes of SaaS. Have a listen to that if you haven’t heard it so far.
Next week we have Eric Boduch, founder and VP of marketing and chief evangelist of Pendo, a product analytics platform that drives product adoption, customer loyalty and innovation.
[00:00:00] You’ve been listening to 14 minutes of SaaS. Thanks to Mike Quill for his creativity and problem solving skills, and to Ketsu for the music. This episode was brought to you by me, Stephen Cummins. If you enjoyed the podcast, please don’t forget to share it with your network, subscribe to the series, and give the show a rating.
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