Software Snack Bites
Shomik Ghosh
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Bite size weekly posts & longer form podcasts on Enterprise Software trends I'm thinking and practitioners in the field are thinking about
Available episodes
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6 days ago
#21 - David Dorman (VP Self Serve, Grafana) - Open Source GTM, Developer First Marketing, Product Marketing & Self Serve Tactics
Listen now | This episode is useful for all founders, startup employees, and investors who are interested in product marketing, self serve, and PLG for developer focused, enterprise software products. David Dorman is VP, Self Serve at Grafana and formerly Director of Product Marketing at DigitalOcean. In this episode, we cover learnings from DigitalOcean’s incredible content strategy, what Self Serve means and specific advice that David has for teams in this area, how developer marketing differs from Self Serve workflows, and advice for teams trying to improve their strategies in these areas. This is a tactical episode where David shares specific insights into how teams are structured, metrics to track, and where and how to interact with developers for the hosted product.
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Sep 13, 2023
#20 - Alex Mackenzie (Tapestry VC) & Ian Livingstone (Snyk) - Round Table Explaining New Technologies - Javascript Runtimes, Edge Compute, Observability, Encryption, LLMs & AI
Listen now | This podcast episode is a new format where I introduce everyone to my go-to brain trust to chat new technologies with. This episode can be consumed end to end or you can jump to specific categories that particularly interest you (timestamped below).
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Aug 30, 2023
#19 - Muji (Founder of Hhhypergrowth) - Data Infrastructure Trends, Operational vs Analytical Databases, Benefits of Edge Network Architectures, Emergence of SASE Security, Zero Trust Security
Listen now | This podcast episode is for all of those who are interested in trends like cloud data warehouses, data & AI, edge networks, SASE security, zero trust security and companies like Snowflake, Databricks, Cloudflare, Z-Scaler, Palo Alto Networks, and of course the big cloud providers.
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Aug 23, 2023
#18 - Jake Saper (General Partner, Emergence Capital) - Moats in SaaS, AI's Impact on SaaS, Learnings from Salesforce, Zoom, Gusto & more
Listen now (65 mins) | Jake Saper is a General Partner at Emergence Capital which has backed leading SaaS companies like Salesforce, Zoom, Gusto, Bill.com, and Veeva. Jake is a Board member of companies like Guru, Textio, Ironclad, Maze & many others. When I wanted to do a deep dive into SaaS business models, I could think of no one better than Jake and this episode absolutely delivered. We cover everything from single-player to multi-player product modes, various moats in SaaS, and how SaaS pricing & business models are evolving. We dive into specific anecdotes from companies like Zoom, Guru, Textio and others around how their products scaled. Finally, we end with how AI and LLMs will impact SaaS in the future and how founders should think about using LLMs in their products.
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Aug 16, 2023
#17 - Ian Swanson (CEO of Protect AI) & Emilio Escobar (CISO of Datadog) - Deep Dive into ML & AI Security, Emerging Attack Surfaces, MLSecOps, and LLMs Use in Adversarial and Defensive Security
Listen now | Ian Swanson is the Co-Founder & CEO of Protect AI which secures AI and ML systems. He was perviously the Co-Founder & CEO of Datascience.com which sold to Oracle, where he was VP AI & ML and then was Worldwide Leader of AI & ML at AWS before starting Protect AI. I’m also joined by
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Aug 8, 2023
#16 - Jade Rubick (ex VPE at New Relic, Eng Advisor to Jeli, Flatfile, Mode, Maze & more) - Tactical Advice for Building Effective Eng Teams, Anti-Patterns for Eng Teams to Avoid
Listen now | Jade Rubick is a Eng Advisor to multiple startups (I think the lifetime count is currently 23 startups). He was previously Vice President Engineering at New Relic and has taken on interim VPE roles at multiple other startups over the years. In this episode, Jade joins us to cover common anti-patterns he sees in eng teams, how teams can better communicate, what hiring practices work well and how to think about structuring career paths for employees. Everything from hiring tips, to product & feature development, to adjusting to the current “do more with less” environment and common advice across all startups is covered in this episode. For anyone interested in learning how to run effective eng orgs, this is the episode for you.
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Jul 19, 2023
#15 - Julia Schottenstein (Product Lead @ dbt) - Trends in Analytics Engineering, Data Transformation & Semantic Layer Deep Dive, Open Source to Cloud Product Learnings
Listen now | Julia Schottenstein is a Product Lead at dbt and an active angel investor. Julia was previously a VC at NEA focused on software and data infrastructure. She joins us today to share learnings from product and VC, why analytics engineering is continuing to proliferate, and how dbt has been able to manage and grow the community over time. We dive into the data transformation and semantic layer and cover how dbt thinks about the open source and cloud products, managing feedback from all users to improve the product. We end with exciting trends for the future of data (hint LLMs are mentioned!).
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Jul 11, 2023
#14 - Kiersten Gaffney (CMO of Codefresh, Advisor to AtomicJar, CodeSee, Fermyon, Redis & more) - Detailed Market Tactics for Dev Tools Founders, How Early Stage Companies Should Approach Marketing
Listen now | Kiersten Gaffney is the Chief Marketing Officer of Codefresh and a Go-To-Market Advisor for AtomicJar, CodeSee, Fermyon, Redis & many more companies. Kiersten was previously a marketing leader at Buoyant and Mesosphere, with many years of experience in software infrastructure and developer tools. She joins us today to share detailed tactics for dev tools founders on how to “do more with less”, designing content strategies, and leveraging communities to propel gtm forward. We dive into hiring insights on what marketing personas to hire when and talk about specific tactics that Kiersten employed at previous and current roles to generate qualified leads in the funnel.
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Jun 21, 2023
#13 - Dan Scheinman (Board Member of Zoom, SentinelOne, Arista Networks) - Finding Outlier Founders & Angel Investing from Day One, Demystifying Public Boards, Winning in Competitive Markets
Listen now | Dan Scheinman is a full-time Angel Investor and Board Member of Zoom, SentinelOne, and Arista Networks. He joins us today to share learnings about M&A from his time running Corp Dev at Cisco, backing multiple public companies from day one, and how public boards differ from private ones. There’s numerous anecdotes that Dan shares about how he finds outlier founders, how founders are able to succeed even when they’re building in already competitive markets, and tons of actionable advice for founders today on everything from focus to capital allocation to M&A decisions.
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Jun 14, 2023
#12 - Phillip Carter (Principal PM @ Honeycomb) - All The Hard Stuff when Building Products with LLMs, Actual Results from Leveraging AI
Listen now | Phillip Carter is a Principal Product Manager at Honeycomb, which develops a software debugging product for distributed systems. Phillip recently published one of the most interesting blog posts I’ve read titled “All the Hard Stuff Nobody Talks About when Building Products with LLMs”. The post is excellent and everyone should give it a read. In this episode, we dive deep into what the hard stuff actually is, the pros and cons of LLMs and what teams need to think about when using LLMs in their products. We also talk about the real world results that come from shipping an LLM-enabled product, including the conversion increases that Honeycomb has seen as a result of Query Assistant and how the decision to use LLMs came about. For all the teams wondering how to use LLMs now, this is the episode for you.
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Jun 7, 2023
#11 - Julian Alvarez (CEO of Logixboard) - Building and Scaling a Vertical SaaS Company, Explaining Freight Forwarding & the Supply Chain Industry
Listen now | Julian Alvarez is the CEO & Co-Founder of Logixboard, which is enabling freight forwarders to deliver a modern, digital customer experience to their customers with the Logixboard platform. He joins us today to talk about how to understand customer pain points in a specific vertical and gives a detailed overview of the freight forwarding and supply chain industry. Julian covers how to build a vertical SaaS software company, how scaling in vertical SaaS is different from other industries, and what sort of integrations and technology aspects vertical SaaS software companies need to take into account. For any founders, investors, or generally people curious about Vertical SaaS and the supply chain industry, this is the episode for you.
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May 31, 2023
#10 - Mia Wang (M&A Director at Cloudflare) & Oren Falkowitz (Co-Founder of Area 1 Security) - Demystifying the M&A Process, Tips for Founders on Executing a Smooth Process
Listen now | Mia Wang is the M&A & Strategy Director at Cloudflare. Oren Falkowitz is the Co-Founder of Area 1 Security, a phishing security company, which was acquired by Cloudflare in April 2022. In this episode, Mia & Oren demystify the M&A process for startups (founders and employees) by discussing the real steps and decisions that both sides had to make as the acquisition was being contemplated and completed. Tactical advice is shared all along the way for founders to learn from in order to enable the smoothest M&A process possible in the future.
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May 24, 2023
#9 Kyle Poyar (Operating Partner at Openview) - Detailed Tips & Tactics for PLG motions, Pricing & Packaging, Product Led Sales & Marketing Tips, and Specific Case Studies
Listen now (59 mins) | Kyle Poyar is Operating Partner at Openview focused on PLG, pricing & growth. He writes the amazing and widely read newsletter, Growth Unhinged, which is one of my favorite weekly reads (multiple times a week!). It’s a wealth of information and I highly recommend listeners subscribe. Kyle joins us today to dive into all things PLG. He shares detailed and highly actionable tips with real-world examples of the countless startups he’s studied and worked with. We talk about PLG motions, multiplayer vs single-player, pricing & packaging, marketing tactics, retention and more. We could have gone on for much longer and may have to do a follow-up in the future. This episode is frankly helpful for anyone, founders, startup employees, customers, and investors both public and private.
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May 9, 2023
#8 Seth Rosen (Head of Data Products at Snyk, Co-Founder of Topcoat Data) - A Modern Data Stack Overview, How Product Management & Data Teams Work Together, Future Trends in Data
Listen now | Seth Rosen is Head of Data Products at Snyk and previously Co-Founder of Topcoat Data, acquired by Snyk in March 2022. In this talk we cover, all things data, specifically diving into what the modern data stack is and the components that form it. We cover Seth’s experience working with customers of all sizes while he was running a data analytics consultancy, with tips for how companies can get value from data with a few core systems. Seth also explains what customer facing analytics enables and the path to achieving this. Finally, we dive into how LLMs may affect the data industry and future trends in data.
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May 3, 2023
#7 Brian Chambers (Chief Architect at Chick-Fil-A) - Technology Powering Fast Food, Enterprise Architecture, Edge Compute Use Cases, How New Technology is Adopted in Enterprises
Listen now (75 mins) | Brian Chambers is the Chief Architect at Chick-Fil-A, which is one of the fastest growing fast food restaurants in the US. Brian has been with Chick-Fil-A for 19 years, where the company has gone from $1B to $19B in sales (a nice 19x in 19 years). He’s seen the software architecture evolve from through various technology shifts such as datacenter to cloud, mobile, edge compute, and much more. He joins us today to talk about Chick-Fil-As architecture, how the backend technology maps to real business use cases, and how Architects approach impacting the tech stack especially as waves of technology are occurring. In this episode we talk about managing legacy and cloud systems, when to use new technology vs when to keep something running the same, real edge compute use cases, experimenting with LLMs, and many more areas. For those who are curious as to how a software org works and affects business outcomes in a large enterprise, this is the episode for you.
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