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Every product leader has to make them: the high-stakes decisions that define outcomes, shape careers, and don't come with easy answers.
The Hard Calls podcast, hosted by Trisha Price, features candid conversations with product and tech leaders about the pivotal decisions that drive great products and the pressure that comes with it. From conflicting priorities and unclear success metrics to aligning teams and navigating executive expectations, you will hear compelling stories and best practices that drive business outcomes and help you make the Hard Calls.
Real decisions. Real stakes. Real leadership.
Presented by Pendo
Learn more at pendo.io/
Follow Trisha Price on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-price-3063081/
Trisha Price: If you build
software or lead people who do,
then you're in the right place.
This is hard calls, real decisions,
real leaders, real outcomes.
A few weeks back, MIT released
its report that 95% of AI projects
failed to yield measurable ROI.
It impacted the stock market and it got
all of us talking about what does it take
to make an AI project drive real outcomes.
In this episode of Hard Calls, I chat
with Ben Currin, the CEO of Vantaca.
About this exact topic.
What I love about Vantaca is that
it's bringing AI innovation to an
industry in need of disruption,
community management, and HOAs.
If you've ever been a part of an HOA,
you know, it's such an important part
of our community and it's one that AI
and technology can truly help transform.
Ben shared with me tough decisions
he and his team have had to make to
implement successful AI strategies from
the inside out and the three things Ben
balances to keep priorities in line.
This is a conversation that
product leaders from any industry
will gain great insights and how
to think about their AI projects
differently and drive real outcomes.
Welcome to the show, Ben.
Ben Currin: Thanks, Trisha.
This is a blast.
Appreciate you having me.
It's been so fun.
Trisha Price: Yes.
Yeah.
I'm so excited.
Ben, since the podcast is called
Hard Calls, we start every one of
these with you talking to us about
a challenging, hard call you've had
to make anytime over your career or
recent - just share something with us.
Ben Currin: It's a, that's a fun
question, and I think there's micro
hard calls every day, to maybe zoom out.
What's a big memorable hard call
in the last, last year or so?
I think, deciding on a direction of what
it means to have an AI strategy is a,
was a really, and is a really hard call.
It's also, I mean, it's hard.
It's the most important and probably
best thing that we've done over the
last several years, but that's hard
to say, hey, we've all been, and
this isn't just Vantaca, we've all
been, you know, spending all of our
time and energy building software for
humans for years and years and years.
And then to think about what does it mean
to enable humans to delegate all that
work to AI and like what all is kind of
a sunk cost of what you've built so far?
And is that okay and is it not okay?
And do you wanna hold on tight to it?
So, I mean, that, that kind of big
thing is, is probably the hard call.
And for us it was, you know, this is
undeniably the future and it's it is
gonna be a great future and there's gonna
be bumps along the way, but we have to
jump all the way in the pool and not
be afraid of, you know, how many sunk
costs there are or what we have to go
back and re-litigate in terms of things
we've kind of held on tightly to before.
Trisha Price: I, I can't wait.
I've been incredibly impressed with
some of the hard calls you've made as
it relates to that over this last year.
And I can't wait to dive into
it more over the podcast.
Before we jump into that, maybe share
a little bit about Vantaca and who
Vantaca is and what makes you unique.
Ben Currin: Awesome.
Yeah, so Vantaca is a platform in the
community association management space.
So what the heck does that mean?
Most of us know what a homeowner
association is, or a condominium
association, or a co-op.
These are all community associations.
And so Vantaca's customers who we
kind of live to serve every day are
the professional management companies
who make that industry happen.
Who are the, you know, are kinda
the connective tissue that gets the
billing done to collect homeowner
assessments, finds vendors, pays
them, does all that back office work.
That's what we do.
That's who we are.
And from a from a technology
standpoint, how that manifests
is a couple different layers.
At our core, we are the general ledger
accounting system for this industry.
So we're kind of a system of record.
And then on top of that, we think of all
of our workflows and the ways that these
community association management companies
get work done as a system of work.
So it's where the work happens, and
then kind of the pointy end of the
spear is the system of engagement
for our customers' customers.
So all the way through to how do they
communicate with their customers,
you know, whether it's email or
text or any kind of communication.
How do they transact with their customers,
accept payments, engage with vendors.
Kind of all that work, that's,
that's the core of what we do and
what we've done for a long time.
And now just to kind of like look ahead
and what we're seeing today is now
with AI, you kind of have this wrapper
around this system of record and system
of work and system of engagement.
That, and I need to find a
good way to describe this.
It's almost like a system of orchestration
or delegation where you can kind of
allow agents to do so much of that work
that was happening in the backgrounds,
background with humans previously.
Trisha Price: It's such an exciting
time and impressive how far
along you are with actual agents
doing work for your customers.
This isn't like some idea
you have or a strategy.
I mean it is, but it's real and your
customers are using it and it's in
production, which I think probably
is fairly unique compared to your
competitors and for your space.
Ben Currin: It is and, what's fun,
and I think this is the most the the
most fun thing right now, when it
comes to product is our industry,
the community association management
industry, HOA management, you might be
shocked to hear Trisha that historically
it has not been the most technology
forward or most innovative industry.
So a, a lot of what we've done, you
know, over the past several years is
work to deliver technology solutions
that catch this industry up to, you
know, what's happening in in other
sectors, and what's really exciting
right now is the community association
management industry in a lot of ways
is leading the way of what's possible
when you take a kind of traditional
SaaS system of record system of work and
wrap that up with an agentic layer that
can really take on that, that kind of
work that humans were previously having
to do all manually in their software.
So that's exciting.
Getting, getting to kind of, you know,
lead and have, and see the, the community
association management industry and
our customers lead these other services
industries is, is super exciting.
Trisha Price: It really is.
And I know you, you have, you were
working on AI and had already launched
some AI features and products,
before, but your acquisition of HOAi.
Really seem to, to leapfrog, and
really, and really push you ahead
from a strategy perspective.
Tell us a little bit about what prompted
that acquisition and how that's changed
your approach to AI within your platform.
Ben Currin: Yeah, so to, to rewind
even further, I think, we got really
curious organizationally, not just me,
not just our product team, but we got
really curious as a, as a company about
what, what would be possible through
AI, really late 2022, early 2023, kind
of when all of us had the aha chat GPT
moment of like, wow, this is different.
This is a, this AI feels more real than,
you know, what, what we had previously
kind of all, you know, thought of as AI.
And we got curious first as consumers
and, and as users of software and hey, how
can we work more efficiently with this?
How can we do a better job internally
with these tools and pretty quickly
in 2023 that curiosity and hunger
to be better internally turned into
conviction that this should change the
way that work gets done in our industry.
If it's helping us to, whether it's
generate code or create content or
whatever the case is, it's helping
us have this transformational growth
in all these areas internally.
Well, why aren't we delivering
that to our customers?
That it, why aren't we helping
our industry have that same
kind of transformation?
And, and we did start
to build, internally.
And, and built some really neat stuff
and, and I'm, I'm really proud of a lot
of the things our, our team did build.
We, we launched Scout, which is kind
of a, a, a chat based, like research
assistant that kinda ride along with
you in everything that you do and help
you navigate and do your job better
and more efficiently via Vantaca.
But I, I, I'll speak for myself.
I was super hungry for more.
We were, we were making progress
and our progress was good.
It looked a lot like the progress
that many kinda leading SaaS platforms
were making in terms of their AI
strategy, but just felt like there was
a transformational thing that could
happen that we hadn't unlocked yet.
And we were super lucky to connect with a
couple of co-founders who had been part of
Y Combinator a couple years before, and of
all things, were laser focused on building
agentic, HOA, community management work.
And, when we got together very
quickly that curiosity of,
okay, well that's interesting.
Let's see if that's something different.
We realized that how, what we saw
as possible for the industry, if
we zoomed way out, if we looked,
you know, three or five years out.
What we saw looked exactly the same.
It was the kind of the same picture,
and what we realized is to get
there, we really needed each other.
We were much better and much
stronger together because this
system of record, the system of
work is incredibly important.
You know, the humans are the most
important part of this industry.
It's how we build relationships,
it's how we build community.
You need a place to kind of operate from.
But the humans are so bogged down
with, you know, busy work and backoff
tasks that you just can't, can't
go do all the things that you know
are possible in this industry.
So when you put those things together,
kind of Vantaca as a system of record and
the system of work and HOAi, it was really
clear that that's, that's the future we
wanted to be, running toward together.
Trisha Price: That's incredibly exciting
and I think the way you've executed on
that acquisition might be a little bit
different than, you know, you didn't
immediately come in and stop one roadmap
and that be your only AI strategy.
You didn't just loop it in
and sell it as an add-on.
Like you've, you've thought about really
interesting ways to make that acquisition
successful, and I think it's been really
successful for you and your customers.
Talk to us about how you executed on it.
Ben Currin: Well, one, I think a benefit
for us and for the HOAi team, kind of
together coming, coming together is we
were, it was the perfect time to do it.
There wasn't so much baggage, there
wasn't so much history to kind of unwind.
So we were able to say, okay, well,
what do we believe is possible
with, with these platforms together?
What, what should be possible and
how can we orient around that.
The hard call, and then the thing
that I, I think we are, are hopefully
getting right, but the thing that we're
running towards pretty quickly is from
day one, the most important thing for
us is to say, well, what do we believe
and what do we have conviction about in
the future now that we didn't a month
ago or a quarter ago or a year ago?
And for us it was, it was total conviction
that the infrastructure of the system
of record, the infrastructure of the
system of work has to be both built
for humans and agents to do the work.
Because it, it wasn't putting all
of our eggs in one basket or the
other, which is a, a real kind
of important thing to consider.
So really looking at every part of
our roadmap and saying, does this
lead to agents being able to do this
work or be able to ride beside the
human who's ultimately accountable
for the delivery of this work?
And how can that be most complimentary
to the humans, you know, at at
community association management
companies doing this work.
And so that was key.
That was kind of the most important
thing is to just go back and, and really
re-litigate everything that we thought
about, how to deliver product and, and
what the ultimate requirements are there.
And, and, and as you know, Trisha
that that did result in us changing
directions are pivoting in huge ways
from a, you know, how we thought about
infrastructure and backend services
and kind of all of those things.
You know, there's some real human
emotions to manage through that, but
it, it was probably the most important
thing that we did as, as part of
that acquisition and, and evolution.
Trisha Price: I'm glad
you brought that up, Ben.
It's actually something I was gonna
ask about next, about the human emotion
and as the CEO, how you led your team
through, that emotional change, but also
the mindset shift, right, to this, you
know, everything you build and everything
you have built needs to be executable
easily by humans and needs a great UI
for human humans too, as well as agents.
And that probably took some training,
changing in skillsets, bringing
in new people, just like the whole
change management aspect of that.
I think you've done so beautifully.
Tell us how you, how you
led the team through that.
Ben Currin: Well, Trisha it's nice to that
you're saying we've done it beautifully.
We've skinned our knees a bunch
along the way too, so we, we met, we
mess it up just as much as everyone
else, but I think it all starts with
conviction and where you're going.
And as long as like if that foundation
is really solid and if we're all aligned
on that, say this is the future that we
believe in and we're super excited about
and no matter what we want to get there.
Then all the other kind of hard things,
and whether it's sunk costs or uh, pivots
or trade-offs, all that stuff are, that's
just the details of, of how we get there.
And so I, I think about putting a ton of
energy around that alignment to, you know,
where are we going, why is it important?
Is that a future that
we're super excited about?
We believe in and, and will, will
it result in our customers winning?
And you know, do we, do we have
conviction that we can get there?
And if that's the case, then we just
keep kind of asking ourselves, are we
doing the next most important thing?
Did we learn something new today
that causes us to go back and have
to, you know, change our mind about
something we thought yesterday?
I think that's a, that's a huge
part of my job is making sure that
we all understand why we're doing
the big stuff and why it matters.
Uh, and then we can, we can kind
of, we can iterate through on,
on a lot of the little things.
Trisha Price: I mean, you know
this as well as anyone - maybe
product managers, even more than
engineers, but probably both.
I mean, when they've built something
or they have a roadmap, there's a
lot of like, this is my baby, and you
cannot totally change my mind, and I
hear your conviction, but trust me,
I've been talking to customers, I've
done my discovery, I know the data,
I have the facts, and I'm convicted.
I know you've experienced that.
And yet you're, you're powering through.
Ben Currin: Yeah.
Yeah, exactly right.
And that, that is, that's hard.
And I think for everyone, you can't
- that, that kind of conviction, you
can't outsource that to anyone else.
Everyone has to get there and it, it's
helpful for everyone to share a lot
of, whether it's the product team or
sales or engineers or you've gotta
share your individual experiences,
but you've gotta also go and whether
it's touch the data or talk to the
customers and, and kind of get to that
level of, of conviction on your own.
Otherwise, it, it's hard.
and it's easy to hold on to things
that were important in the past.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
So
tell me how you, you've clearly
executed both by organic build as
well as acquisition on AI, but it's
equally important in this world of
SaaS to keep the customer experience
and the back to basics as a priority.
How have you managed to balance those
two things and how do you, how do you
lead the teams through that balance?
Ben Currin: Yeah, I think, I think
what's really important is staying.
There's probably three things that
I think if you stay close to these
three things and you find ways to
kind of balance these three, and
you can't just go all in on one
versus the other, it's important.
One, like stay close to the customers,
whether you're the CEO of the business
or an engineer, or certainly a product
leader, but stay close to the customers
and like, listen and ask a ton of
questions and just be really curious about
how they see the world and what they're
excited about and what they're scared
about, and kind of everything in between.
So stay close to the customers.
Two, stay close to the product itself.
Uh, it's not enough to, you know, watch
a demo or to look at data, you know,
usage data that's not nearly enough.
Like you gotta go touch the product
a lot, every day and, and kind of get
conviction that this, whatever we're
building, or this experience is what
the, is, what the demo would lead you
to believe or what, what the data says,
because the data can, can be misleading
on that, in, on that front too.
And the last is being data driven as well.
It's, it's one thing to, you
know, listen to customers.
It's one thing to touch the product,
but at the end of the day, like you have
to be grounded in some sort of data.
It can certainly confuse you, it can
be conflicting, but if you marry those
three together, I think that's a
really important way to stay in touch
and, and again, to get to having
conviction on the direction you wanna go.
Trisha Price: Ben, you're a leader
who doesn't ask things of your team
that you also are not willing to do.
And it's one of the things I really
appreciate and admire about you.
And so I'd love for you to share with our
listeners today, how did you get close to
the customer and close to the product when
you first joined Vantaca many years ago?
Ben Currin: Yeah, I know you've, you've
heard me say this, so you're put putting
me on the spot with, with a funny story.
But I, well, one, I was incredibly
lucky to join the Vantaca team at a
really cool time, which is kind of
not day zero, but day like one or two.
So we had just a couple of customers,
and we were just starting to kind
of sell the product to strangers
and, and figure all that stuff out.
And so everything was like,
the experiences were all small.
These weren't millions and millions
of homes that we got managed.
It was, it was less than that.
And our customers, we knew all
their names and we knew 'em
well, and we knew their kids.
You know, it was kind of that, that phase.
But when I joined it, it was really
important for me to become deeply, deeply
fluent in not only the product certainly,
but, but how our customers use the product
and every bit about their business.
And so what I did, this is kind
of a, a strategy because everyone
was busy and no one had time to,
you know, just teach it to me.
I, I talked to our, at the time,
one man support team, and said,
Hey, I want to, I wanna take a crack
at all these support tickets and,
just kind of get first look at 'em.
And for, I don't know, six months
or so, at my first six months, the,
the first few hours of every day,
every support ticket would come in.
I'd try to solve it, go recreate whatever
they were asking about in the software.
If I didn't understand
it, I'd call the person.
So many of our early customers got a
lot of phone calls from, you know, a
confused, Ben Currin asking, Hey, I
know you submitted this, and I don't
know what that means exactly, you
know, and let me ask you some questions
about it, and I'll come back to you
once I understand, what you need.
That was, that was incredibly helpful
just to get close to, you know, how
our customers are, are winning, how
they're struggling, what matters to them.
And, if you do that, I think
it'd be an interesting strategy
for a product leader today.
If you do that, for a few months,
it's hard not to have conviction about
what the most important things are
because you're really close to it.
You're really close to the customers,
you're close to the product.
Hopefully you've got the right
telemetry and data as well.
And, and once you do that it works.
Trisha Price: And I know that's
something that many of your successful
leaders that are there today, even at
this size and scale, continue to do
and it's, it's worked well for you.
Ben Currin: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, it's, I mean, it's an
ongoing journey and it's, it, it's
probably maintaining that closeness
to all three of those things is
harder with scale, not easier.
I think when you're small, like everyone
talks to every customer and everyone
uses the product all the time and
you're close to the data because you
know you're touching it every day.
I think it's easy for people at
scale to specialize too much into
some of those areas and lose broader
awareness or, or kind of outsource
their conviction to, you know, to
others on the team in those areas.
Trisha Price: I love that.
Going back to Vantaca's roots, you
know, there's something you and I
have a lot in common is when I came
to nCino, nCino had spun out of a
bank and then became a SaaS company.
Vantaca was the same way, right?
Mm-hmm.
It was an idea out of a community
management company and became
its own independent SaaS company.
And with that, there's challenges of
transforming the company from being
IT and automation to product led,
and clearly you've been successful
with that and you continue to do it.
Like even last week, I know you were
playing around with new modern product
management approaches and tools.
So talk to me about for, for folks
who are going through that type of
transformation to really becoming product
led in a true product centric company,
how you made that successful and how
you continue to invest in yourself and
the team with product-led approaches.
Ben Currin: It's a good question.
I think that's, it's complicated because
you don't always know, or ever know
when you are making that transition or
transformation to becoming product led.
It like there's probably a continuum.
Trisha Price: Yeah, you don't wake up And
so yeah, you don't Wake up one day and
you're like, we, we climb the mountain.
We're product led.
We passed the exam.
Ben Currin: Yeah, exactly right.
There's like that.
At least I haven't had that exact
moment, but maybe, maybe I'll,
we'll, we'll have it at some point.
I think ear early on when, especially
for a, you know, whether it's a
company like nCino in, in kind of the
experience you had or Vantaca coming
from frustrated software users and
consumers to, you know, and, and kind of
birthing that into, you know, a better,
a better way to solve these challenges.
You go, you have to at some point
go from just knowing what the right
answer is to being curious about
how to get to the right answer.
And I think that's kind of the, the
inflection point where at some point, and
at some point, you go from just being
able to know the answers because you know
the answers and you've touched it, and
you've lived it, and you're building, you
know, a, a solution that you understand
to one, having enough diversity in your
customers, that they have problems that
are unique to them, or opportunities
that are unique that you don't understand
or didn't have understanding of.
And as the team is growing and
building, you're able to bring in
incredibly talented product managers,
product leaders, engineers who don't
have any background in this industry.
And so creating kind of systems or
creating a mindset and a philosophy
with, with those teams to allow
them to go and get that conviction
and go kind of touch, you know, the
customers and the opportunities and,
and understand where we're going, and
then build the things, to get there.
So I, I think that's really
important and really hard.
But, for all of us, like it is the thing
I think I, I, I've, there's lots of
ways to think about kind of different
companies being product led or sales led.
And I think if you're a technology
company and you're selling technology
like you have to you, if you're not
product led, you're slowly decaying,
in terms of, of how your customers will
interact with your products in the future.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
But then again, your sales team's
on the front line and know what
it takes to hit their quotas.
And you have to balance
listening to them too.
It can't be your whole product strategy.
But there has to be a good
connection, which, yeah,
Ben Currin: No, there, there has to
be, and that's the hardest, I mean,
it's the hardest thing probably
about product leadership is finding
the balance of all those things.
I mean, inherently salespeople have
this benefit of they're talking to
the industry who isn't yet using your
product so they should be bringing in
new perspective and have a diversity
of kind of perspective there.
And that's, that's useful.
It's just not the whole thing so you
can't over index, you can't overweight
or underweight any of those things.
Trisha Price: So I think recently you
played with some of the new tools like
Lovable or Bowl to do some prototyping,
and I think your team did too, in
terms of, of putting some effort
and time into utilizing those tools.
Tell me what that's been like and how you
think about those types of tools impacting
how you build product going forward.
Ben Currin: One, it's just fun.
So I think everyone, whether you're
a product manager or a designer or
an engineer, or a product leader or
just, you know, anyone within the
business who's curious, like it,
it's a blast to kind of, to, to use
these tools and see what's possible.
What, what I've found, I'll, I'll
share personally where, where I found
it incredibly useful and then what
I, how I think it will add value
to our kind of product systems and
our product motions with our team.
Personally, I've found it incredibly
helpful as a communication tool.
So for me it it like, it, it's one thing
to, you know, sit through a discussion
and talk about where we're going and
kind of hear what we think is possible
and listen to customer feedback and
then to iterate with the product team to
kind of articulate, here's what I think
and here's what I'm curious about and
I have this hypothesis and position it
in a way that other people can kind of
iterate and take it and make it better
and, and, you know, throw stuff away.
And instead of trying to like do that
through, you know, a discussion via with
words or even more challenging, like
writing it up, like, you know, trying
to write a description of this, you
know, this product or this idea that,
that you're curious about is just hard.
But building a clickable prototype in
an hour on a Saturday and sharing that
with the team and saying, this is, this
is what I took away from that meeting.
What did you guys take away?
How did the, how did you
see this coming together?
And being able to put those types of
true kind of real products together
just can accelerate the understanding
and the, the kind of, the growth
of, of the idea by, making it more
real for everyone who's involved.
Trisha Price: I love that.
So
Ben Currin: I, I, oh, I
guess that's for me, love.
That's so, that's selfish.
That's like, that's what I, yeah.
Like that's, that helps me.
Trisha Price: You can get this idea, I
mean, you're so close to the product.
You're so close to the customer
and you have ideas and you wanna be
able to share them with your team.
What an easy, quick,
modern way to share them.
Ben Currin: The, the
and Yeah, exactly right.
That's, and so that's selfishly for
me, for, for our, for our teams and
for our kind of product management
system for our product leaders.
I think that where this is gonna be
most game changing is to, instead
of just talking to customers and
asking them like, what do you want?
What problems are you trying to solve?
And, and really just kind of consuming
that information, you can take that
information and then instead of say,
okay, great, I'm gonna, you know,
mock something up or whatever, you
could like, make it real for them.
Like, this is what I heard from you.
This is what you asked for, but
here is what I think actually
would solve your problem.
Like, does that, does that change
its perspective and that cycle time
that used to take, you know, weeks
or months or, or longer in the worst
case, can be shortened down to like,
okay, thank you for that feedback.
Give me an hour and we'll come back
together and have like a, a totally
different version of this discussion.
I think that's so exciting and the
kind of speed of iteration, I think
is gonna massively accelerate.
Trisha Price: Yeah, I do too.
It's so fun to watch how product is
changing and how fast they can go.
I mean, I've always said, and I still
believe this to be true, that engineering
resources are a company's gold and you
really can't waste a moment of their time.
But you have to be able to play,
you have to be able to prototype, to
innovate and be a product company.
And I think these tools just
allow us to do a lot more of that
imagination of the possible and
art of the possible, and iterate
and get feedback and get alignment.
Then engage with engineering
to make this real in a way that
I think is changing the game.
Ben Currin: I'll, I'll
share one funny example.
We've always believed in a lot of
experimentation, a lot of iteration,
and like just testing out ideas and
not everyone is gonna be perfect,
and it's very hard, even when
you kind of organizationally and
culturally give that permission that,
Hey, we're gonna build some stuff.
Let's get some feedback.
Some of 'em are gonna be
dead ends, and that's okay.
It is hard to get people to build it,
not knowing if it's gonna be right.
And I think this, this kind of next era
of, of product leadership and product
management gives the opportunity to
be not certain, but have such deeper
customer backed conviction that
what you're building is, you know,
you're going down the right track.
I think.
I think that's super exciting.
Trisha Price: I do too.
I do too.
So tell me, beyond product, what
are other places in the organization
where you've made similar strides
forward in terms of efficiency and
effectiveness using AI, across Vantaca?
Ben Currin: Yeah.
The, the biggest couple of areas that
immediately come to mind are engineering
itself, so like code gen and the ability
to move much, much quicker on that front.
Tools, whether it's just using Claude,
kind of organically or cursor and
combinations of the two and various
kind of automated, QA testing tools.
Like there's so much that's possible
on the whole SDLC, but like the,
the kind of going from product
kind of discovery through build.
That's probably the biggest,
biggest area of impact.
Another great one is things
like marketing and content.
Just like having like a, you know,
almost like a study buddy be able to
ride shotgun with you and just help
you move so much faster and kind of
get through, whether it's writer's
block or whatever the case is.
Those are some of the highlight
examples, but it's everywhere.
I mean, it's, it's every,
every part of our business.
Trisha Price: It is.
So, Ben, as we, as we start to close
out today for our listeners, you know,
tell us what are you thinking about
from product strategy for the future.
How you think about, you know,
now that you've executed on this
acquisition, like what's next?
What's really cutting edge in terms
of, of how you're thinking about your
product and in the next couple of
years, or even couple of months 'cause
you guys are moving pretty quick?
Ben Currin: Yeah, well, I, I
think there's, there's a couple.
I'll, there's a couple of vectors
to kind of go down on on that.
One is going back and looking
internally and saying all, what
are all the things that humans
had to do in software previously?
And for us it's what are all the ways
that humans have to interact with Vantaca?
And, and they've always had to do that and
wear their friction points within that.
Not because something's bad or a bug
necessarily, but just friction points
because hey, this is just a cumbersome
thing or it's repetitive, or whatever the
case is, and it, it wasn't something that
could be cleanly automated to kind of
use that word, it's something that would
be better delegated if, if you could,
you know, have someone take that on.
So that's one vector is just going and
finding all those friction points and
whether it's, you know, more traditional
kind of, you know, software as service
work, you know, SaaS work to go do that.
Or if it's service as software
work to where we can go and
allow our human users to delegate
some more of that to, to agents.
Like that's kind of vector one.
And then vector two is like, where else
are, is there friction that we can help
help our customers solve that just was
outside kind of the realm of possibility
previously, whether it's outside of
Vantaca or just outside of what was
possible through traditional technology.
I think that's, those are
kind of the two big vectors.
And, and from a, here's the, I'll give
you an analogy that I don't, I don't
know if it's a good one, so I'll, I'll
throw it out there and you can tell me.
But I think when it, when it does come
to kind of product in the future, we
have as, as a software company and
as a system of record, as a system
of work, as a system of engagement.
And now with this agentic layer of kind
of orchestration around it, we have
this really cool challenge right now,
which my, my analogy here is a car.
And so most of us have ridden in
a Tesla, like if you like or don't
like Teslas, we'll put that aside.
Most of us have ridden in
one and, and are aware that.
Tesla has this self-driving capability
and like they FSD full self-driving
and it's pretty tremendous.
If you, if you've checked it
out in the last few months,
it's gotten pretty amazing.
And what I think it, the evolution is,
is now if you look at the interior of a
Tesla and like what is the interior of a
car in this age of AI, there's way less
stuff, you know, there, you don't have
cruise control settings to, you know,
because it just is gonna follow at the
right distance, or you don't have, you
know, wiper control speed because it's
just gonna wipe, you know, wipe the,
the, the water droplets when they fall.
And there's way less stuff, right?
You can, you don't need all
11 different climate controls.
It's just, Hey, I want to be, you know,
70 degrees in my car, make that happen.
So, but you do, there are certain things
that are persistent that are still there
and are sticky and make you comfortable.
Like if I got in a Tesla and there was
no brake pedal or no steering wheel, I'd
be alarmed in 2025, I probably wouldn't
go, you know, take that car for a drive.
And so I, I think as, as we all build
software there's a lot of work to
figure out like what's a brake pedal
and a steering wheel and what's not,
and what should be, what's in the
way of a really clean and simple
and, and delightful experience.
So I, I think that's, that's really
exciting work ahead is to go figure
that out and get conviction about what's
durable and important and additive to
the user experience and what's in the
way, of having a great user experience.
Trisha Price: And that, I mean,
that is just changing so much.
And that's a different way of thinking
for your product team, your UX team,
your engineering team is not, how
do I perfect this workflow with the
least amount of clicks, but what's
the break in the steering wheel and
how do I offload everything else?
You know, make sure my user feels
in control when they need to
be, but offload everything else
to automation and agentic work.
I love that, that I think that's
a, a great way of thinking.
Ben Currin: Yeah, totally.
Trisha Price: Great.
Well, Ben, one final thing I just
can't not touch on is we have both
built, led software companies in a
very non-traditional town, right?
For our listeners, I live in
Wilmington, North Carolina,
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
It's where nCino, which is where I was
before I came to Pendo headquarters
is, and it's also where Vantaca's
headquarters is and where Ben lives.
And if you don't know where Wilmington
or Riceville Beach is, you can go look
it up, but it's a pretty small town.
What do we have about
250,000 people here, Ben.
Ben Currin: I think that's right.
Yeah.
Trisha Price: Maybe a little more now.
Yeah, that everyone started now.
Now we're probably gonna grow after this.
No, I'm just kidding.
But as you guys, as listeners
can imagine, non-traditional tech
talent, non-traditional place
to build a software company.
Yet, I think it's created a special and
different dynamic and as you guys have
heard from today's episode, Ben and
Vantaca are very far along on the AI
curve, both using AI internally as well
as launching AI products and features.
So talk to us about how you think
about that as an advantage and how
you still manage to make it work.
Ben Currin: Well, I think you teed me
up probably unintentionally, but maybe
perfectly to say thank you to you and to
the nCino team, or just where nCino was
in their journey when we were just getting
started, gave us a lot of confidence
that we could build a real big lasting,
impactful software company headquartered
in Wilmington, North Carolina.
I was, very, I don't know, not worried,
but aware that it might be a bug, not
a feature to be headquartered here.
Although we love it and it's an
amazing place to live, it's an
amazing place to raise our kids,
like, you know, all those things.
But I think seeing you see a little
bit of, of the results of other people
being able to do it and you have
con, you know, the confidence to try.
And what we've found over the last,
you know, eight years or so is it is
absolutely a feature, not a bug for us.
Our team members who are lucky enough
to live here, I think view that as
one of the most impactful benefits to,
to working, at Vantaca and to their
family's lives for being able to be here.
So that's, that's amazing.
It's a great place, for people to
be, and we've had so many really cool
success stories of folks who, started
working at Vantaca, living somewhere
else, in the US and after visiting
for some, you know, team meetings and
some onsites and, and different things
ended up saying, this is amazing.
I'm, I'm gonna move here.
And it's been, you know, a, a great thing
not only for them, but for the Wilmington
community to bring in super talented,
amazing, smart people and their families.
So that's great and selfishly, I'm,
I'm very, very grateful to be here.
It's a spectacular place to live, and
it's cool now with whether it's nCino
or Vantaca or kind of the next, the
next crop of, of companies here, to show
more proof points that you can do that.
And we, we can build great companies.
Trisha Price: Yeah.
To, to our listeners, whether it's
Wilmington, North Carolina, or
it's Raleigh where Pendo is, or you
know, somewhere in Indiana or Ohio.
Totally.
Yeah.
I think you know, what we want and hope
everyone to take away is yes, there's
a lot of amazing talent in the tech
hubs of the Bay Area or even New York
or Boston, but, you can do it anywhere.
And in a lot of ways it's, I agree
with you, it's a feature, not a bug,
to be able to get outside and of
those areas and, and build a real
community of people that buy into the
vision and, and execute as a group.
So I love what you've done and Ben,
major, congratulations to you and Vantaca.
I know it is the best is yet to come,
and it's still early innings for you.
But it's been so fun to watch your success
and your leadership, and appreciate
you coming on Hard Calls today and
sharing with us some of your moments
that matter and hard calls, and, and
some of the tips and tricks that have
worked for you in Vantaca to get here.
Ben Currin: Yeah, awesome, Trisha
thank you for, letting me join
you for a fun conversation.
This has been great.
Trisha Price: Thanks, Ben.
Thank you for listening to Hard
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