My guests today are Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw. Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Lattice, an HR software platform. Miles is a General Partner at Benchmark, an early investor and Board Director at Lattice, as well as a former guest on Invest Like the Best. Jack started Lattice in 2015 and has scaled it into a multi-billion-dollar business that already serves over 5,000 organizations. In our discussion, we look at all aspects of building and scaling a software product from both an investor and operator’s perspective, which made this particularly fun to do. Please enjoy my conversation with Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw.

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For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

(00:02:55 ) - (First question) - How Jack & Miles met at Y Combinator in 2015

(00:04:22 ) - Lattice found a niche in mid-market HR software

(00:07:55 ) - Discovering Lattice's true market need

(00:11:14 ) - Fear of stalling drove the need for business growth beyond initial product

(00:12:06 ) - Deciding on multi-product focus over up-market expansion

(00:17:01 ) - Prioritizing quality of usage over frequency for customer health scores

(00:20:06 ) - Balancing customer health scores and actual needs

(00:24:31 ) - Prioritized community by spotlighting HR voices

(00:28:20 ) - Building community helps companies sell a vision or lifestyle

(00:31:05 ) - Cultivating broad awareness instead of hard-selling

(00:35:33 ) - Overcoming the culture of 'perfection’

(00:37:22 ) - Flywheel effect makes suites efficient: lower go-to-market costs, more focus on product

(00:41:06 ) - The challenges of juggling current needs and future demands

(00:46:27 ) - Navigating disagreements and trust-building within a company

(00:50:36 ) - Investors' roles extend beyond founders, focusing on their own goals and interests

(00:51:52 ) - How transparency eases the founder-investor dance

(00:55:16 ) - The changing employer-employee relationship

(00:58:37 ) - Navigating growth from startup to public equity

(01:05:43 ) - Lattice's ultimate aspiration

(01:07:42 ) - Evaluating founders' authenticity

(01:11:18 ) - What Jack & Miles are most embarrassed about, the most proud of, and the most excited for

(01:14:30 ) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Jack and Miles