SaaStr Podcast #212: Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight Discusses Why Burying Customer Success Under Sales Does Not Work
Update: 2019-02-23
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This post is by Harry Stebbings from SaaStr
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Welcome to Episode 212! Nick Mehta is the CEO @ Gainsight, the #1 customer success platform for corporate services, turning your customers into your best growth engine. To date Gainsight have raised over $156m from some of the world’s best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. As for Nick, prior to Gainsight he was the CEO @ LiveOffice where he grew cloud archiving ARR from $2m in 2008 to $25m in 2011 and drove and negotiated the acquisition by Symantec for $115m in cash. Before LiveOffice Nick was Senior Director of Product Management @ Symantec where he led $378 MM market-leading email archiving / security businesses managing over 180 people across 3 continents. I do also have to say a huge thank you to both Byron Deeter and Jason Lemkin for the intro to Nick over two years ago.
In Episode We Discuss:
- How Nick made his way into the world of SaaS and came to lead the charge in the category creation of customer success as CEO with Gainsight? What were some of his big lessons from being CEO at 2 companies during 2 macro market crashes?
- What does Nick mean when he says, “Customer success will fail if it is just a role and not a strategy?” What can the leader and CEO do to imbue this company wide approach to customer success? What tangible actions are on offer? What works? Where do many make mistakes?
- Nick has previously said, “Burying customer success under sales does not work.” Why does this have such a high rate of failure? What should the optimal sales to customer success relationship look like? What does Nick mean when he says, “Product is to customer success what marketing is to sales.” How should product and customer success work together?
- Why does Nick believe the mythology of the “A player” when business building is fundamentally dangerous? What can leaders and CEOs proactively do to ensure a diverse and differentiated talent pipeline? What question does Nick find most revealing in terms of one’s character and potential? Where do many go wrong in building and scaling their teams in SaaS?
- Why does Nick push back against the “hire fast and fire fast” thesis? What are the negative consequences of it? Why is it short-sighted and premature in many cases? What does Nick suggest for individuals struggling to find their optimal role within an organization? How much time does one give someone struggling to find their role?
Nick’s 60 Second SaaStr:
- Who must fundamentally own the renewal, sales or customer success?
- What does Nick know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
- What would Nick most like to change in the world of SaaS?
- Most surprising action that has moved the needle for a company in terms of retention?
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Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Nick Mehta
Transcript
Harry Stebbings: We are back in the world of the official SaaStr podcast, with me Harry Stebbings and I’d love to welcome you behind the scenes of my weird and wonderful life on Instagram @hstebbings1996, with two B’s. Mostly workouts and mojitos but it would be great to see you there.
Harry Stebbings: And to the episode today and very few people can claim that they truly created and defined a new category in the world of SaaS. Well, our guest today most certainly can. We had such a special discussion on round one over two years ago, I thought it would be incredible to welcome him back for a very special round two.
Harry Stebbings: So with that, I’m thrilled to welcome back Nick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight, the top rated customer success platform for corporate services, turning your customers into your best growth engine. To date, Gainsight have raised over $156 million in funding from some of the best in the world, including the likes of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, just to name a few.
Harry Stebbings: As for Nick, prior to Gainsight, he was the CEO at LiveOffice where he grew cloud archiving ARR from $2 million in 2008 to $25 million in 2011 and drove and negotiated the acquisition by Symantec for $115 million in cash and before LiveOffice, Nick was Senior Director of Product Management at Symantec where he led the $378 million market leading, email archiving security business. Managing over 180 people across three continents. I do also want to say a huge thank you both to Byron Deeter and Jason Lemkin for the intro to Nick over two years ago. I really do so appreciate that.
Harry Stebbings: However, you’ve heard quite enough of me, so now I’m very, very excited to hand over to Nick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight.
Harry Stebbings: Nick, it is absolutely fantastic to have you on the show for a very special round two. As I said last time, I’ve heard so many wonderful things from Byron. He provided more than enough in terms of questions again. So, thank you so much for joining me again, Nick.
Nick Mehta: Harry, it’s so awesome to be back. I listen to your show all the time. I’m really excited to be here.
Harry Stebbings: I mean, my word, that is so wonderful for my ego, but I would love to kick off today with a little bit on you and for those that missed round one, how did you make your way into the world of customer success and come to be the CEO of Gainsight?
Nick Mehta: Some would say that I was born to do customer success. I think that might be revisionist history but there’s a fun story from my childhood. I was eight years old, there’s a photo actually I still have of me with my brother and my dad growing up in Pennsylvania in the US and I remember my dad taking me to work, kind of a take your child to work day and I actually vividly remember him saying, “If you ever go into business, you should either be the person selling the product or the person building the product because once you got the customer, they’re kind of stuck with you.”
Nick Mehta: It’s funny that for those that don’t know what I do, now I run this company called Gainsight which is all about changing that model where it’s not just about building and selling but that you’ve got to re-earn your customers business every day and you’ve got to work to keep them and work to grown them.
Nick Mehta: So, from my childhood, I had this interesting thing planted in my mind and I had a meandering path from there. I’ve always wanted to be in tech. I did a consumer startup. I worked in a big company. I eventually ran another Saas company which I ran and then sold. Then in my last company, I learnt first hand that the world has changed and that you can’t afford to just sell a customer and move on and in these subscri
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