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Each week, Revenue Operations expert Rosalyn Santa Elena shines the spotlight on founders, CEO's and Revenue Leaders from hyper-growth companies and dives deep into the strategies they implement to drive growth and share their learnings through the process.
Rosalyn brings you the most inspirational stories from revenue generators, innovators and disruptors, as well as Revenue Leaders in sales, marketing, and, of course, operations.
Let's unpack everything that optimizes and powers the revenue engine with this brand-new podcast from Growth Forum https://www.growthforum.io
Rosalyn: Welcome to the
Revenue Engine Podcast.
I'm your host, Rosalyn Santa Elena,
and I am thrilled to bring you the
most inspirational stories from
revenue generators, innovators and
disruptors, revenue leaders in sales, in
marketing, and of course in operations.
Together we will unpack
everything that optimizes and.
The revenue engine
Growth Forum production.
Are you ready?
Let's get to it.
Product led growth or PLG has
become a significant go-to-market
strategy for many organizations, but
it isn't easy, and many of today's
tools are not purpose built for plg.
So what can companies do to be
successful with product to LED growth?
Arjun Saksena: Salespeople
often hate their CR R m.
Why?
Because they are hard to use, difficult
to customize, and expensive to maintain.
This means leads and
opportunities don't get updated.
Things get missed, and
sales can suffer in.
Insightly is the modern
CRM that teams love.
Easy to use, flexible enough to
support your unique needs and
scales with you as you grow.
This helps you sell.
Grow faster and build lasting customer
relationships in Insightly is trusted
by more than a million users worldwide.
For more information, visit
insightly.com/get insighting.
Rosalyn: In this episode of The Revenue
Engine Podcast, Arjun Saksena,, the
CEO and founder at humanic AI shares
his insights on what PLG is, how
to be successful with product led.
And how to bring together data
insights and campaigns into one
view to accelerate your revenue.
. So super excited to be
here with Arjun Saksena,.
Did I say that right?
? Yes.
Perfect.
The founder and c e o at Humanic ai.
So for those of you who are not familiar,
human AI is the AI powered c R m.
Built for today's modern product
led growth companies that brings
together data insights and campaigns
into one powerful no-code solution.
I love that.
No-code part . So welcome Maren, and
thank you so much for joining me.
I am super excited to share your
story and just learn from you.
Thank
Arjun Saksena: you Rosalyn, for
inviting me on your podcast.
Um, super honored.
Yeah.
So brief background about me.
I'm Argen Saxena.
. I've had 20 odd years of product and
engineering roles at Adobe, um, Yahoo.
Ever know, a couple of other startups.
But most importantly, I was at, um,
Adobe Creative Cloud for a number of
years building out, you know, most
people don't realize that Creative
Cloud is basically a big social network.
We had, you know, close to 400 million
Adobe IDs when I was there and Wow.
Uh, you know, we don't see it as such.
Uh, and there was all this, um,
you know, understanding of what
we can do with all this data.
So I stood up, uh, the first sort of
personalization, um, to understand
from data and, and how to get people
to get more out of Photoshop and
Illustrator and in design and,
you know, all these other tools.
And that's sparked, uh, you know, real
idea that this product usage data or
user activity that people do is, mm-hmm.
a leading indicator of revenue outcomes.
So, uh, what people are doing in
a PLG product led growth motion
eventually will translate into revenue.
So several years later, um, you know, um,
we started Humanic last year, uh, which
loosely stands for Human plus machines.
So we are bringing in.
You know, the data, the insights, and the
human touch together to drive outcomes
and unlock revenue, um, you know, for
Rosalyn: people.
Awesome, awesome.
You know, I, you touched on this a little
bit, but I mean, I think, you know,
oftentimes, like I, I interview a lot
of founders, right, and CEOs on this
show, on this podcast, and a lot of times
they're, you know, they're faced with a
problem or there was like a challenge.
They were trying to.
Solve, or there's maybe some
kind of aha moment, right?
Or event that happens and then
they decide to start a company.
And sometimes it's by accident,
sometimes it's, you know, intentional.
But what was the case with Humanic?
Like what led you to start the company?
Yeah,
Arjun Saksena: so.
I think ever since I moved to the
Bay Area, you know, after graduate
school I wanted to be, you know, I
wanted to be, start a company which
is sort of very typical of very many
people who moved to the Bay Area.
I was, you know, very early on, I had a
professor at USC who introduced me to the
world of, you know, startups and things.
And I was always jazzed by this idea of
being a founder and it took me longer to.
Become one, uh, than I had initially,
you know, uh, just upon, but at a
fundamental level as a product manager
in a large company, you know, you are.
you.
Execution is such a big problem that
most product managers end up for the
most time executing on things versus
trying to do product market fit and,
you know, strategy and things like that.
The chances or the opportunities to
do that is, you know, when you are
in a larger setup are limited and not
everybody can, can be achieved then
like most people need to execute.
So over the years, um, you know, , the
way to do it in a, you know, in a free
way was to have an idea that is big
enough that you can execute on and be
able to use your, you know, my product
and engineering, um, sort of experience
to do it the way without any sort
of, you know, uh, guardrails to say
you can't do that, uh, type of thing.
Yeah.
So that was, that's the thing that
make, you know, um, excites me.
Keeps me going for, for the last, you
know, uh, several years that, you know,
it is that, that, uh, the joy of creating
something and not having any, um,
anybody outside of yourself and resources
that, you know, puts a limit on that.
. I don't know if that makes sense.
Yeah,
Rosalyn: no, I love that.
And it's funny because you
said that you, you know, have
always wanted to be a founder.
I'm like the opposite where
I've never wanted to be like a
solopreneur or start my own business.
But yeah, kind of found myself here.
Um, you know, so let's talk
about PLG a little bit, right?
Because I mean, I think plg
are a product led growth.
It's becomes just such a common.
Right.
It's almost become like a buzzword,
kind of like the AI ml, like before.
Um, but there's still I think some
misunderstanding about, you know,
what it means to be truly product led.
So, I mean, what is product
led, I guess, mean to you?
And maybe from your perspective, what
are some of the considerations that, you
know, businesses should be thinking about
to determine if PLG is right for them?
Yes.
I think the
Arjun Saksena: number one
thing that product, you know,
in theory product led looks.
Very straightforward, like it makes a
lot of sense, but product led is really,
It's way harder to become product
led than it might seem in theory.
So people look at Can and Calendly and
Slack, which is in a Dropbox, which
are, you know, fantastic companies
and most of the people that today.
Percolators advisors come
from, you know, Dropbox.
They have like, you know, um, they are
the PayPal of the generation where, um,
you know, slack and Dropbox have created
so many leaders around in this PLG space.
But what most people in the start out and
what we see with our customers start to
do plg, they very quickly are actually
not doing plg and they have to hire
salespeople and do the sales motion.
So there is so much on the
product side that if you.
, you know, not focused on the user and then
building for the user, you end up, you
know, defaulting to a sales led motion.
Mm-hmm.
. So I, I see this dichotomy where people
want to be plg, but because it doesn't get
as much traction as, as you think it will,
you go, go back to your sales led motion.
You want it, it's aspirational
over time, but most of your revenue
is still coming from, you know,
your sales led, uh, motions.
Um, so the.
So I think it, it is, uh, it,
it takes, it requires a lot
more tooling to be in place.
It requires a lot of mindset to be, yeah.
And to be in place for people to
believe in themselves longer, to
build that product, you know, without
revenue and, and just have that
confidence that it will happen.
But it's such a strategic play.
. You know, most people, I would say lose
that patience and default to what they
know has worked, which is sales lab.
Yeah.
. Yeah.
They can sell, they find people
who they can sell to personal
connections and networks, and that's
how they start building the product.
True.
PLG is very hard.
Like the way the Atlassian folks have
done it is, you know, just out there.
I don't know how you.
Do that, uh, in today's market and
have that patience to be at something
for 20 years to have no salespeople.
And then that's sort of, you
know, the, the holy grail of every
Rosalyn: PLG company.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that.
Um, you know, I think about, you
know, once an organization actually
decides that PLG makes sense for the
business, or maybe it's one area of
the business, you know, maybe they have
sales led and they still have product
led, but some of the biggest gaps.
or maybe challenges that I keep seeing
are, you know, related to couple things.
One, you know, having the right
indicators and sort of insights
of that product usage data.
Um, two, identifying and discovering,
you know, users and then prioritizing
them, right, kind of for next
steps, like what to do with that.
What, what to do with them.
And then three, you know, understanding
sort of the when to engage,
right, when to engage those users.
And then making sure that you're
connecting and mapping those users
to those accounts and existing
customers as well in your c R M.
So, I wanna tackle kind of maybe
each of these, cause I'd love
to get your perspective on this.
You know, first, I mean, product
usage data, it's so valuable, right?
Yeah.
But it's only valuable if you're
leveraging it the right, you
know, leveraging the right.
And, and looking at the right insights.
So maybe what are you seeing organizations
that, you know, what do they do right
here and maybe some of the things
that they're doing wrong, you know,
and do you have any advice maybe
for how they can better leverage the
product data that they're getting?
Yeah,
Arjun Saksena: so I think the way that
we see it, that there are multiple
tools for product and growth managers,
like an Amplitude Mix, panel Heap,
Google Analytics, and you know,
obviously Amplitude and uh, mix Panel
Heap have been around for a while and.
Built a huge, huge business, but they
are more platform players and they were
started about 10 years ago maybe if
Google Analytics has been around for
longer than that, and they allow you
to do a lot of things, but it requires
like, Um, you know, a dedicated like
cognitive load to do, to understand
and utilize these, some of these tools.
And then there are customer success
tools like, uh, vitally or a
Planner and Gainsight, et cetera,
which is for paid customers.
And the gap that we see, the white
space opportunity is the revenue leaders
or the go to market teams that have
to today rely on either a product.
Data science person or even
a customer success person to
get that product usage data.
Mm-hmm.
, they, they don't have, there is no
today, no process or a team that's
attached to a revenue, revenue team to
say you need for user activity data.
Here it is.
And there is no billion dollar tool
today in the market where people can
deploy it and say, you know, here is, you
know, here's all the product use data.
Here's all the payment data.
Now go make sense of it.
Mm-hmm.
. So I think that is the wide
space opportunity in the
industry, uh, which is mm-hmm.
, which is there.
So user activity data is in, you know,
we, we see two leaps that are larger.
Call them like, you know, over 20
million that have all these user
activity data in a snowflake.
Then they do reverse ctl, put
it in, you know, some of these
PLS tools that have come up.
And that is, you know, those are targeted,
um, for the, the larger companies like
the, uh, MIRO or, or you know, some of
these 20, 30 million plus companies.
But there is a whole bunch.
5 million to 20 million a r type companies
that don't have the sophistication
of having snowflake and reverse CTL
and, you know, instrumentation in
place, um, all the billing data in
stride because it's all fragmented.
And for those revenue themes, there's
a real challenge to say, I know I
need this, but there is no way to do.
, uh, today.
And that's so, you know, um, you have to
sort of, basically that's what Humanic
is building this what we call the small
loop to say, if you are five to 20
million arr and you are in a plg, you are
a PLG company that is growing rapidly.
You have 20, 30, 40, a hundred
thousand users that are coming up.
You put them all in a CRM
like a HubSpot and Salesforce.
You don't have any way
of prioritizing who's.
doing what?
What is their payment and what
is their user activity and how
will I, how do I see trends?
Like how do I see this person is
connected to the other person?
Mm-hmm.
. And that's why, you know, you need a, what
we call a ramp to a HubSpot or a staging
crm or a PLG CRM that is built to say,
put your a hundred thousand users that are
coming in from user activity in a humanic
tool, and you use your CRM for upsell.
in a PLG motion.
Revenue teams use a CRM for upsell
motions where you're doing six, seven
figure deals with, you know, you
get Boeing or something and you, you
can't sell them on, on Celler, but
for everybody else, you need a way.
And that's the gap in the industry, uh,
that there is, there isn't a CRM that is
built purpose-built that is data first.
Uh, like, you know, HubSpot and Salesforce
or everything else that they do.
They're not data.
Uh, there is no way to
connect Stripe or segment.
Any of these tools natively, unless
you have three people trying to do
that for you, at which point, you
know, you might as well use, use a
vendor versus hiring three people to,
uh, reconfigure sales for a HubSpot.
Rosalyn: Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that.
And I think that kind of feeds
into, you know, my next questions
really around that PLG motion.
You know, we have.
Understanding the people, right?
Because many users, like, I
mean, I do this all the time.
I sign up for something on a website and
then I don't ever use it or you know, or
they sign up and then they don't use the
product like in a very meaningful way.
Right?
Or perhaps, you know, sometimes
they're not the right persona
for your product, for kind of,
for a longer term revenue play.
. Right.
And so when it comes to understanding
those users and those personas
in the product data, you know, I
guess what recommendations maybe
do you have for how organizations
should be prioritizing these?
Arjun Saksena: Yeah, so I think
there are two, two sort of, um, one
starting with, you know, your never
converted users one way that mm-hmm.
, every PLG company that is growing
rapidly can unlock revenue.
is that they can, they, they,
today most companies don't have a
process for never converted users.
Like people like you.
Yeah.
Or, or me who, everybody's
logging into all these sites.
Every day you're creating all these
accounts, and typically what we
have seen that there is 10 x more
never converted users that try
via product than your active user.
So if you have 20,000 active
users, you probably have 200,000
people that started a trial.
But they never did anything.
And these 200,000 people, people
don't have a process tool or
anything that they're doing for them.
And out of these 20,000, these are, you
know, we would call win back campaigns.
If you can even identify on a regular
basis, a monthly basis, 5% or 10%
that try, like say they try to make
a payment and the payment failed.
Mm-hmm.
or the, did a bunch of, you know,
activity that get, you know, that
you, you, you consider as vital you
can set up marketing automation.
for these network converted
users and start to bring
five, 10% people every month.
Uh, and that is something that
I would encourage every sort of,
uh, PLG company that has that.
that kind of, you know, 10 x
multiple to look into because
that's what they are looking into.
The other thing is the onboarding on
the PLG side and many times is not.
It is, it's not triggered
based on, uh, user activity.
It's, um, timed.
So somebody joins in and everybody
who logs into a system, they, they, if
they really don't want to, they don't
wanna be receiving emails forever.
mm-hmm.
, they wanna unsubscribe.
So it is much better for you.
Less is more Like if I, if
I log in and I don't receive
emails, I remember that company.
I'm like, they did not send me
,
Rosalyn: all this
Arjun Saksena: junk.
You know, unsubscribe in,
you know, various ways.
So the other thing is on the onboarding
side, make sure that you have more of
these triggered user activity based.
You know, when somebody does something,
then send them something versus
saying, I'm going to bombard you.
You know, that era of.
I'm going to blast you with
all this, and I'm gonna convert
some of this that is gone.
Like, no, you get no responses from,
you know, bombarding people again
and again, um, with different things.
You have to be very, uh, personalized.
You have to really show that you care.
Uh, yeah.
As a, as a PLG company,
because that's the whole thing.
If you care, people will come back.
If you, if you, you know, try and
maximize your stuff, then you're going.
What product led is about.
It's, it's, you know,
Rosalyn: sales led.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
I think that actually kind of talks,
you kind of talked about a little bit
already, but you know, I think about
like a lot of the companies that I've
worked for, you know, kind of knowing
that like when and how to engage, right?
Those product users, is
that key to revenue, right?
Either converting a freemium to paid
or maybe converting from a consumption
base to a committed revenue, you know,
contract Or even, like you mentioned,
upselling, right, to an existing.
Customer because you wanna make that
process as frictionless as possible.
Right.
And and also for the marketing
and sales teams, right.
Having that right data available to them.
Mm-hmm.
is so critical to kind of understand
when and how right to engage.
Arjun Saksena: Yeah.
I think the revenue leaders have been,
the go to market teams have been second
class citizens for the last 10 years of.
Tools like a snowflake or an
amplitude or something else?
Yeah.
Like they are the last people that
have any priority to get, get the data.
It's like the product people have
first dips on whatever they wanna
do with the data, which is great.
Uh, and there's a bunch of tools, uh,
that they can use, like an Iterable
or an intercom that's connected.
Mm-hmm.
, but the same.
, like we need to make the
go-to-market lasers, first class
citizens of user activity data.
And that's what Humanic is about.
Yeah.
Rosalyn: Yeah.
So let's talk a little
bit more about Humanic.
Um, you know, so what are some of
the benefits that you see, you know,
of having this kind of purpose-built
CRM right, for PLG companies?
And then maybe how does that make
it different right, from these
other CRMs that people are commonly.
Arjun Saksena: Absolutely.
So the number one thing that
a go-to-market or PLG company
needs to prioritize thing.
Um, uh, so one big difference is
that when a, when a company is
like two to 40, two to 50 range,
they buy a crm like a HubSpot.
Mm-hmm.
typically they'll have HubSpot,
MailChimp, uh, maybe an intercom,
and they buy the crm and the hope
that they will, that will supercharge
the growth, but they don't use it.
Because the, the default is that Stripe
becomes, like if they have PLG and
payments, stripe is the default in the
US where that'll become your default crm.
You'll know your monthly, your annuals,
your refunds, your forecasting,
everything is from Stripe, and then
you, no, like very few people log
into for this kind of information,
especially not on the revenue side.
So, There is a crm, nothing changes in
that CRM till you go change something.
So if you are two or three people and you
are, you know, meeting daily on Slack and
whatever, you know, I didn't put anything
in crm, so I'm not gonna check it because
it's not, it's not, it's not up to date.
Like we've had 15 other conversations.
So yeah, more, I think 70 to 80% on
the teams, unless there is like a
gun to their head or a discipline
enforced by a sales leader.
Stop using crm.
Offer some.
Till they become much bigger
and they need all of this
coordination in an organized way.
So when you're starting up, your
Stripe is your default crm, and
then Segment, which is your user
activity data is the other place,
uh, where you have this information.
The first thing you need is you
need to combine the payment data
with the user activity data.
So you need to see if somebody's
been paying you for a while and they
are in the lowest quadrant of usage.
Mm-hmm.
, no matter what company
you are in, that is a.
. Mm-hmm.
. Right?
Whether you put it in Snowflake
and do all these other things, then
number one thing you need to know,
somebody's been paying us for a
while, they aren't using the product.
Right?
Yeah.
So I think it's that simplicity that
we are focused on to say, if you have
10, 20, 30,000 users, the number one
thing you need to identify is this.
Who's paying you a bunch of
money, isn't using the product.
Mm-hmm.
, who's, mm-hmm.
paid you a bunch, but you know who,
who's just starting paying you.
But they are crazy users.
Yeah, those are your evangelists, right?
You can upsell to them.
So before we apply machine
learning and all this rocket
signs that we have, mm-hmm.
, um, that's the framing that you need
in that early stage PLG motion where
you five to 20 million a r r, you have
some product, you have some users, but
you need a system where it's updating
on your own every time you log into.
things would've changed.
Yeah.
Because your stripe is telling you new
people have joined, new people have,
you know, some people have churned.
You have that data.
So that becomes, you know, that becomes
your, um, uh, guru place to find relevant.
You know, what, if you did a marketing
automation, how did it impact you?
It impacted you.
Mm-hmm.
, because there was some
subscriber movement that.
and, and like I said, it, it
requires strategic product focus
to remain true to being plg.
Uh mm-hmm.
and, and even if you have a battle
sales motion, like once you reach a
limit or you have that you are going
to continue to invest, like you were
saying earlier, before our podcast
started, like, PLG is here to stay.
So even if you are HubSpot or a Salesforce
and you have like hundreds and thousands
of salespeople, you still have people,
small companies, you know, that are
coming in and joining Salesforce.
So you always will need a purpose-built.
Plg, C R M.
Even if you are a larger company,
but the problem is exacerbated for
smaller companies because their revenue
teams need to unlock revenue month on
month, quarter on quarter, but mm-hmm.
they just don't have any way of accessing
data that, that they already have.
They have this data, but they,
they don't have a way to access
it on a daily basis and make out.
Or marketing automation optimizations
based on that live data.
Yeah, yeah.
Rosalyn: No, that is completely,
and that resonates so much with me.
You, even though we're just doing audio,
you can see me like nodding and nodding.
It resonates so much.
I mean, I see a problem with that
in my past life as a practitioner.
Right.
Kind of being on the op
side, supporting the revenue
Arjun Saksena: team.
Yeah.
Sorry, I'll add more to it.
So yeah, this is a, a dysfunction
that exists even in larger companies.
Mm-hmm.
You may imagine that there is a.
Hundred million company that
has all this sorted out.
And the big thing about
marketing has always been that
this will be a big, huge loop.
Like all this data will
come into this platform.
And you know, we used to do that at Adobe.
Adobe is a marketing cloud company.
They are one of the biggest players
and they sent a billion emails a year.
And everything is supposed to be
all this, you know, grand vision to
say it's seamless, it's beautiful.
But as you and I know, and everybody
listening knows that's not the truth.
Yeah.
It's
Rosalyn: just
Arjun Saksena: not the case.
Even if you are, even if you have
Snowflake and you have reverse
CTL and you have Amplitude data
coming in, and you want to create
this big PLS machine mm-hmm.
chances are it's, it's the right
data isn't coming in, it's not,
it's breaking, it's not live.
It's not true.
So our focus at Humanic is
to say Stripe is a hundred
percent accurate all the time.
When you have a subscriber,
you gotta, they gotta pay you.
Stripe works, segment works.
Let's put that together first.
Make sure that you are, even if you're
in a larger company, if you have these,
these tools available to you, let's
get you that information first before
we boil the ocean and say, let's put
Snowflake and let's do this real time.
Which as you know, if a hundred people
are involved in putting that stack.
, uh,
Mm-hmm.
, there are a hundred ways to fail and a
hundred ways you don't trust the data.
Yeah.
The issue is also today that once
the system becomes so big, it people
don't trust, people won't make Alban
calls or reach out to their customers
if they, if they even, you know, if
the detect like this may not be true.
And most people, when they look at charts
and graphs, they believe that they don't.
till they Yeah.
Cross question five times before
calling a customer . Yeah.
So I think the bigger, bigger loop, the
larger loop that some of our other players
in the PLS space are focused on have
those challenges around trust and things.
Um, so we are focused on this, like, this
is live data, this is true data, this is
what the company's running on, and we are
making go to market teams, modern revenue
teams, first class citizens of this.
. Yeah.
Love.
That's our focus, that
that's sort of act one.
And then, you know, we'll,
we'll see about Act two and
Rosalyn: everything else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I love that.
I mean, that's already a huge problem
to solve and it's definitely a big gap,
I think, at least from my perspective
that I've seen it, the market, just
with companies that I work with as
well as being, you know, employees and,
Arjun Saksena: you know, a lot of people.
The other difference between us and
many of the, you know, folks around
us is that most of the other pls c.
Use crm like a Salesforce
as a source of truth.
Yeah.
They pull from Salesforce,
they do whatever magic and
put it back into Salesforce.
Now, our fundamental assumption is
that in our ICP five to 20 million,
the CRM is not your source of truth.
It has got so much garbage that there
is an industry about cleaning up cr.
and the companies that come in and make
hundreds of thousand dollars just cleaning
up your c r m because when you start, you
put so much crap into that, that by the
time you have 20 people in the company,
you dunno what is, what is right and
what is a lead and what is not a lead.
Yes.
So that is something that is, you know,
we, we don't, we don't, we push into
a CRM like anything that is of value.
But, mm-hmm.
, we don't clutter CRMs with more, with, you
know, raw leads unless they are processed.
So that's another sort of
fundamental difference that we
see with our competitors as to.
You know where the
Rosalyn: problem is.
Yep.
Yeah.
Well, I love that.
I love that.
I definitely, definitely
resonates with me, . Um, okay.
So, you know, when I think about the
Revenue Engine podcast, right, I'm always
hoping that others are gonna learn how to
accelerate revenue growth, power, their
revenue engine, and, you know, as a, as
a, you know, Two-time founder, I think
multi-time, multi-time founder, you know,
are there things that maybe you wish you
knew earlier or maybe that you might do
differently if you could, you know, kind
of hit the reset button and do it again?
Um,
Arjun Saksena: I think the
biggest thing is that when I was
starting out, I always expected.
You know, somebody like I had
this vision that I'd find some
mentor, some advisor who, who will
sort of tell me how things work.
Mm-hmm.
. And so it'll accelerate my path and
I'll, you know, a lot of people look,
go to entrepreneurship schools at
Harvard and Stanford and other places.
But the best advice I've figured out, I
think it was from, uh, some Twitter posts.
. It's like, go do your
first shitty startup.
There is nowhere to learn
by reading books and things.
Uh, and you know, theory
because it's a practical thing.
Yeah.
You have to be able to hire
people based on your yourself.
And you know, where I've got to is, you
know, I've got to a point where I've.
where I, I know that I can figure
out anything that I set my mind to.
Yeah.
And once you have that belief
that you can figure out how to
get to the next level mm-hmm.
, you will keep figuring it out.
So if I knew this like years ago that
I can figure this out without waiting
and asking and reading and going to
school, uh, I would be further ahead,
Rosalyn: Oh, I love that.
I love that.
That's great advice cuz a lot of
times I think when I ask for that,
you know, a lot of times people say,
look, they wish they had a, you know,
sought out more mentorship or more
advisory type work, or looked at
other people who have done it before.
But I love that just kind of believing
and trusting in yourself, right?
And just
Arjun Saksena: pushing yourself
the mindset that you have, and then
belief that you can figure it out.
Like you figured out all, I figured out
so many things in our personal lives.
Yeah.
And you know with kids, if you have
raising kids, like there's every day
you're like, how the hell do I fix this?
, ,
Rosalyn: I definitely know that pain
Arjun Saksena: So if you can think
from first principles and you know,
figure out how to guide your child.
Without, like, you know, after the
first, like when you have a child,
you have, you don't ask for advice.
Like there is nobody because it's
so personal and it's so individual.
Yeah.
Starting a company is very similar.
It's so personal, it's so
individual that nobody can give
you advice that translates exactly.
Um, to what you're trying to do.
So the only thing you really have
is the ability, the confidence
to say, I will figure this out.
Yeah.
And the more you do, The more
and the more you believe that you
can, you will figure this out.
Um, yeah.
You know, the, the better it is for you.
Yeah.
Rosalyn: I love that.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
That's super helpful.
Well, thank you so much for joining me.
Um, but as we wrap up, before I let
you go, um, I always ask two things,
one, you know, what is the thing about
you that others would be surprised?
To learn.
And two, what is the one thing that you
really want everyone to know about you?
Arjun Saksena: Tough questions,
uh, . What is something that, um,
Rosalyn: that people might be
surprised to learn about you?
And it could be the same thing.
I've had that a lot of times with guests
where the surprised and the thing they
really want people to know is the same.
And if there isn't anything, you
know, maybe is there something
that, you know, maybe that you
just wanna leave people with?
Yeah,
Arjun Saksena: I think I al always
said that, um, like if you are.
. Um, . So one of the things that I'll
leave people with, and this is a
personal note, that there are, yeah.
Um, you know, lots of, um, lots of,
uh, support groups and things and, you
know, for, um, you know, women and um,
uh, sort of other sort of underserved,
um, sort of founders and things.
But one of the categories that doesn't
get any sort of love overall is.
, you know, mid-career, um, folks at
large companies, you know, which
is sort of what was my background?
Um mm-hmm.
, you know, Lots of people on in large
companies have this aspiration to be
founders or start their companies,
but they never can let go because they
have, you know, so many other priorities
and, and things, uh, and they want
to be armchair sort of entrepreneurs.
Um, do it part-time, get
involved fractionally.
My only thing is that if you
have that desire that you
wanna be founder, it's all.
, like, yeah, if you, you know,
they, what they call the ships.
Mm-hmm.
and, and there's no going back.
So it's almost a waste of time if
you're a fractional entrepreneur.
Mm-hmm.
. Um, if you are working for a large
company, like a Cisco or something, and
you ever had the desire, just do it.
Like don't be a fractional
entrepreneur and, um, think.
You know, you'll, you'll get to a
point and then you will ramp up.
It'll not happen.
Mm-hmm.
unless you give it a hundred
percent for and stick to it.
Rosalyn: Yeah.
I love that.
I love that.
Thank you.
That is great advice.
And I, and I actually feel the same way.
I do think that, you know, a
lot of people, we kind of try
to build something on the side
and, and you could be successful.
It's not that you can't, it's
just that I think sometimes if you
really want to, um, build while.
, if you really wanna build, sometimes you
have to just, you know, you have to just,
you have to dedicate yourself to it.
I, I have
Arjun Saksena: actually, I would,
I I'm, I'm saying the opposite
thing, like, if you are a fractional
entrepreneur, it'll not go anywhere.
Rosalyn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
I think it's just, you
just, you just have to
Arjun Saksena: have to cut the
cord and there has, there is no
rational for cutting the court.
Nothing can explain.
Why you cut the cord, you just feel right,
like, you know, it's like skiing you
top of the Martin or like a bungee jump.
You're top of the bungee
and you just, you just gotta
Rosalyn: do it.
Yeah.
You just
Arjun Saksena: gotta do it.
So that, that's, that would be my role.
A lot of people ask me why I'm
doing what I'm doing and I get up
at four o'clock, do whatever else.
It's just, it just feels
right and uh, that's it.
That's awesome.
Rosalyn: That's amazing.
Thank you so much for sharing
all of that, and thank you for
being a guest on the podcast.
Really appreciate just your
time and your insights.
I think there's a lot of great
learnings here and great advice as
well around being an entrepreneur.
So thank you,
.
Arjun Saksena: Thank you very
much for having me, Rosen.