September 9, 2025 • 42 mins
Vantaca is bringing AI innovation to an industry in desperate need of disruption - community management or HOAs. Vantaca CEO, Ben Currin joins Trisha Price in this episode of Hard Calls and talks about how Vantaca is wrapping AI and agentic workflows into traditional SaaS software to improve the way we work with each other and agents.
Product leaders from any industry will gain great insights into how to think differently about their AI projects. You’ll hear about the lessons learned when the team goes all in on letting go of old mindsets, processes, and sunk costs to create a scalable AI strategy that anyone can benefit from.
Ben shares how an acquisition made Vantaca’s AI vision take hold and scale its AI roadmap. You’ll also be surprised to hear his story about how understanding the basics of a car, such as the steering wheel and brakes, is the same thinking that product managers should apply to create a great user experience, and the three things he does to balance these two priorities.
The two also discuss the benefits Vantaca has gained by becoming product-led and how staying close to the customer allows them to develop and iterate better products using some fun new AI tools.
Love the episode? Download and listen to Hard Calls every two weeks in your favorite podcast app, drop us a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, and share this episode with a teammate who’s staring down their own hard call today. Every subscription and review helps more product leaders find the show—let’s build better products together!
Presented by Pendo.
Explore more insights at pendo.io or connect with Trisha Price on LinkedIn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Trisha Price (00:00):
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 releasedits report that 95% of AI projects
failed to yield measurable ROI.
It impacted the stock market and it gotall of us talking about what does it take
(00:24):
to make an AI project drive real outcomes.
In this episode of Hard Calls, I chatwith Ben Currin, the CEO of Vantaca.
About this exact topic.
What I love about Vantaca is thatit'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
(00:48):
of our community and it's one that AIand technology can truly help transform.
Ben shared with me tough decisionshe and his team have had to make to
implement successful AI strategies fromthe inside out and the three things Ben
balances to keep priorities in line.
This is a conversation thatproduct leaders from any industry
(01:10):
will gain great insights and howto think about their AI projects
differently and drive real outcomes.
Welcome to the show, Ben.
Ben Currin (01:19):
Thanks, Trisha.
This is a blast.
Appreciate you having me.
It's been so fun.
Trisha Price (01:22):
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm so excited.
Ben, since the podcast is calledHard Calls, we start every one of
these with you talking to us abouta challenging, hard call you've had
to make anytime over your career orrecent - just share something with us.
Ben Currin (01:39):
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 callin the last, last year or so?
I think, deciding on a direction of whatit means to have an AI strategy is a,
(02:02):
was a really, and is a really hard call.
It's also, I mean, it's hard.
It's the most important and probablybest thing that we've done over the
last several years, but that's hardto say, hey, we've all been, and
this isn't just Vantaca, we've allbeen, you know, spending all of our
time and energy building software forhumans for years and years and years.
And then to think about what does it meanto enable humans to delegate all that
(02:26):
work to AI and like what all is kind ofa 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 bigthing is, is probably the hard call.
And for us it was, you know, this isundeniably the future and it's it is
gonna be a great future and there's gonnabe bumps along the way, but we have to
(02:48):
jump all the way in the pool and notbe afraid of, you know, how many sunk
costs there are or what we have to goback and re-litigate in terms of things
we've kind of held on tightly to before.
Trisha Price (02:58):
I, I can't wait.
I've been incredibly impressed withsome of the hard calls you've made as
it relates to that over this last year.
And I can't wait to dive intoit more over the podcast.
Before we jump into that, maybe sharea little bit about Vantaca and who
Vantaca is and what makes you unique.
Ben Currin (03:18):
Awesome.
Yeah, so Vantaca is a platform in thecommunity association management space.
So what the heck does that mean?
Most of us know what a homeownerassociation is, or a condominium
association, or a co-op.
These are all community associations.
And so Vantaca's customers who wekind of live to serve every day are
(03:43):
the professional management companieswho make that industry happen.
Who are the, you know, are kindathe connective tissue that gets the
billing done to collect homeownerassessments, 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 technologystandpoint, how that manifests
is a couple different layers.
(04:03):
At our core, we are the general ledgeraccounting system for this industry.
So we're kind of a system of record.
And then on top of that, we think of allof our workflows and the ways that these
community association management companiesget work done as a system of work.
So it's where the work happens, andthen kind of the pointy end of the
spear is the system of engagementfor our customers' customers.
(04:26):
So all the way through to how do theycommunicate with their customers,
you know, whether it's email ortext 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 aheadand what we're seeing today is now
with AI, you kind of have this wrapperaround this system of record and system
(04:50):
of work and system of engagement.
That, and I need to find agood way to describe this.
It's almost like a system of orchestrationor delegation where you can kind of
allow agents to do so much of that workthat was happening in the backgrounds,
background with humans previously.
Trisha Price (05:06):
It's such an exciting time and impressive how far
along you are with actual agentsdoing work for your customers.
This isn't like some ideayou have or a strategy.
I mean it is, but it's real and yourcustomers are using it and it's in
production, which I think probablyis fairly unique compared to your
(05:28):
competitors and for your space.
Ben Currin (05:31):
It is and, what's fun, and I think this is the most the the
most fun thing right now, when itcomes to product is our industry,
the community association managementindustry, HOA management, you might be
shocked to hear Trisha that historicallyit has not been the most technology
forward or most innovative industry.
(05:53):
So a, a lot of what we've done, youknow, over the past several years is
work to deliver technology solutionsthat catch this industry up to, you
know, what's happening in in othersectors, and what's really exciting
right now is the community associationmanagement industry in a lot of ways
is leading the way of what's possiblewhen you take a kind of traditional
(06:16):
SaaS system of record system of work andwrap that up with an agentic layer that
can really take on that, that kind ofwork 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 andour customers lead these other services
(06:38):
industries is, is super exciting.
Trisha Price (06:40):
It really is.
And I know you, you have, you wereworking on AI and had already launched
some AI features and products,before, but your acquisition of HOAi.
Really seem to, to leapfrog, andreally, and really push you ahead
from a strategy perspective.
Tell us a little bit about what promptedthat acquisition and how that's changed
(07:05):
your approach to AI within your platform.
Ben Currin (07:08):
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 aboutwhat, what would be possible through
AI, really late 2022, early 2023, kindof when all of us had the aha chat GPT
(07:31):
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 consumersand, and as users of software and hey, how
can we work more efficiently with this?
How can we do a better job internallywith these tools and pretty quickly
(07:52):
in 2023 that curiosity and hungerto be better internally turned into
conviction that this should change theway that work gets done in our industry.
If it's helping us to, whether it'sgenerate code or create content or
whatever the case is, it's helpingus have this transformational growth
(08:13):
in all these areas internally.
Well, why aren't we deliveringthat to our customers?
That it, why aren't we helpingour industry have that same
kind of transformation?
And, and we did startto build, internally.
And, and built some really neat stuffand, and I'm, I'm really proud of a lot
of the things our, our team did build.
We, we launched Scout, which is kindof a, a, a chat based, like research
(08:37):
assistant that kinda ride along withyou in everything that you do and help
you navigate and do your job betterand more efficiently via Vantaca.
But I, I, I'll speak for myself.
I was super hungry for more.
We were, we were making progressand our progress was good.
It looked a lot like the progressthat many kinda leading SaaS platforms
(09:00):
were making in terms of their AIstrategy, but just felt like there was
a transformational thing that couldhappen that we hadn't unlocked yet.
And we were super lucky to connect with acouple of co-founders who had been part of
Y Combinator a couple years before, and ofall things, were laser focused on building
(09:20):
agentic, HOA, community management work.
And, when we got together veryquickly that curiosity of,
okay, well that's interesting.
Let's see if that's something different.
We realized that how, what we sawas 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.
(09:41):
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 muchstronger together because this
system of record, the system ofwork is incredibly important.
You know, the humans are the mostimportant 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.
(10:03):
But the humans are so bogged downwith, you know, busy work and backoff
tasks that you just can't, can'tgo 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 reallyclear that that's, that's the future we
wanted to be, running toward together.
Trisha Price (10:24):
That's incredibly exciting and I think the way you've executed on
that acquisition might be a little bitdifferent than, you know, you didn't
immediately come in and stop one roadmapand that be your only AI strategy.
You didn't just loop it inand sell it as an add-on.
Like you've, you've thought about reallyinteresting ways to make that acquisition
(10:47):
successful, and I think it's been reallysuccessful for you and your customers.
Talk to us about how you executed on it.
Ben Currin (10:55):
Well, one, I think a benefit for us and for the HOAi team, kind of
together coming, coming together is wewere, it was the perfect time to do it.
There wasn't so much baggage, therewasn't so much history to kind of unwind.
So we were able to say, okay, well,what do we believe is possible
(11:15):
with, with these platforms together?
What, what should be possible andhow can we orient around that.
The hard call, and then the thingthat I, I think we are, are hopefully
getting right, but the thing that we'rerunning towards pretty quickly is from
day one, the most important thing forus is to say, well, what do we believe
(11:36):
and what do we have conviction about inthe 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 convictionthat the infrastructure of the system
of record, the infrastructure of thesystem of work has to be both built
for humans and agents to do the work.
(12:00):
Because it, it wasn't putting allof our eggs in one basket or the
other, which is a, a real kindof important thing to consider.
So really looking at every part ofour roadmap and saying, does this
lead to agents being able to do thiswork or be able to ride beside the
human who's ultimately accountablefor the delivery of this work?
(12:22):
And how can that be most complimentaryto the humans, you know, at at
community association managementcompanies doing this work.
And so that was key.
That was kind of the most importantthing is to just go back and, and really
re-litigate everything that we thoughtabout, how to deliver product and, and
what the ultimate requirements are there.
(12:42):
And, and, and as you know, Trishathat that did result in us changing
directions are pivoting in huge waysfrom a, you know, how we thought about
infrastructure and backend servicesand kind of all of those things.
You know, there's some real humanemotions to manage through that, but
it, it was probably the most importantthing that we did as, as part of
(13:03):
that acquisition and, and evolution.
Trisha Price (13:05):
I'm glad you brought that up, Ben.
It's actually something I was gonnaask about next, about the human emotion
and as the CEO, how you led your teamthrough, that emotional change, but also
the mindset shift, right, to this, youknow, everything you build and everything
(13:27):
you have built needs to be executableeasily 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 wholechange management aspect of that.
(13:48):
I think you've done so beautifully.
Tell us how you, how youled the team through that.
Ben Currin (13:53):
Well, Trisha it's nice to that you're saying we've done it beautifully.
We've skinned our knees a bunchalong the way too, so we, we met, we
mess it up just as much as everyoneelse, but I think it all starts with
conviction and where you're going.
And as long as like if that foundationis really solid and if we're all aligned
on that, say this is the future that webelieve in and we're super excited about
(14:16):
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'sjust the details of, of how we get there.
And so I, I think about putting a ton ofenergy around that alignment to, you know,
(14:37):
where are we going, why is it important?
Is that a future thatwe're super excited about?
We believe in and, and will, willit result in our customers winning?
And you know, do we, do we haveconviction that we can get there?
And if that's the case, then we justkeep kind of asking ourselves, are we
doing the next most important thing?
Did we learn something new todaythat causes us to go back and have
to, you know, change our mind aboutsomething we thought yesterday?
(15:00):
I think that's a, that's a hugepart of my job is making sure that
we all understand why we're doingthe big stuff and why it matters.
Uh, and then we can, we can kindof, we can iterate through on,
on a lot of the little things.
Trisha Price (15:15):
I mean, you know this as well as anyone - maybe
product managers, even more thanengineers, but probably both.
I mean, when they've built somethingor they have a roadmap, there's a
lot of like, this is my baby, and youcannot totally change my mind, and I
hear your conviction, but trust me,I've been talking to customers, I've
(15:38):
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 (15:50):
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'shelpful for everyone to share a lot
of, whether it's the product team orsales or engineers or you've gotta
(16:12):
share your individual experiences,but you've gotta also go and whether
it's touch the data or talk to thecustomers 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 thingsthat were important in the past.
Trisha Price (16:30):
Yeah.
So
tell me how you, you've clearlyexecuted both by organic build as
well as acquisition on AI, but it'sequally important in this world of
SaaS to keep the customer experienceand the back to basics as a priority.
(16:54):
How have you managed to balance thosetwo things and how do you, how do you
lead the teams through that balance?
Ben Currin (17:01):
Yeah, I think, I think what's really important is staying.
There's probably three things thatI think if you stay close to these
three things and you find ways tokind of balance these three, and
you can't just go all in on oneversus the other, it's important.
One, like stay close to the customers,whether you're the CEO of the business
(17:22):
or an engineer, or certainly a productleader, but stay close to the customers
and like, listen and ask a ton ofquestions and just be really curious about
how they see the world and what they'reexcited 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.
(17:43):
Uh, it's not enough to, you know, watcha demo or to look at data, you know,
usage data that's not nearly enough.
Like you gotta go touch the producta lot, every day and, and kind of get
conviction that this, whatever we'rebuilding, or this experience is what
(18:04):
the, is, what the demo would lead youto believe or what, what the data says,
because the data can, can be misleadingon that, in, on that front too.
And the last is being data driven as well.
It's, it's one thing to, youknow, 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.
(18:24):
It can certainly confuse you, it canbe conflicting, but if you marry those
three together, I think that's areally important way to stay in touch
and, and again, to get to havingconviction on the direction you wanna go.
Trisha Price (18:39):
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 reallyappreciate and admire about you.
And so I'd love for you to share with ourlisteners today, how did you get close to
the customer and close to the product whenyou first joined Vantaca many years ago?
Ben Currin (19:07):
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 incrediblylucky to join the Vantaca team at a
really cool time, which is kind ofnot day zero, but day like one or two.
So we had just a couple of customers,and we were just starting to kind
(19:27):
of sell the product to strangersand, and figure all that stuff out.
And so everything was like,the experiences were all small.
These weren't millions and millionsof homes that we got managed.
It was, it was less than that.
And our customers, we knew alltheir 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 reallyimportant for me to become deeply, deeply
(19:51):
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 kindof 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 crackat all these support tickets and,
(20:14):
just kind of get first look at 'em.
And for, I don't know, six monthsor 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 whateverthey were asking about in the software.
If I didn't understandit, I'd call the person.
So many of our early customers got alot of phone calls from, you know, a
(20:36):
confused, Ben Currin asking, Hey, Iknow you submitted this, and I don't
know what that means exactly, youknow, and let me ask you some questions
about it, and I'll come back to youonce I understand, what you need.
That was, that was incredibly helpfuljust to get close to, you know, how
our customers are, are winning, howthey're struggling, what matters to them.
(20:58):
And, if you do that, I thinkit'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 arebecause you're really close to it.
You're really close to the customers,you're close to the product.
Hopefully you've got the righttelemetry and data as well.
And, and once you do that it works.
Trisha Price (21:18):
And I know that's something that many of your successful
leaders that are there today, even atthis size and scale, continue to do
and it's, it's worked well for you.
Ben Currin (21:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, it's, I mean, it's anongoing journey and it's, it, it's
probably maintaining that closenessto all three of those things is
harder with scale, not easier.
I think when you're small, like everyonetalks to every customer and everyone
uses the product all the time andyou're close to the data because you
know you're touching it every day.
(21:50):
I think it's easy for people atscale to specialize too much into
some of those areas and lose broaderawareness or, or kind of outsource
their conviction to, you know, toothers on the team in those areas.
Trisha Price (22:03):
I love that.
Going back to Vantaca's roots, youknow, there's something you and I
have a lot in common is when I cameto nCino, nCino had spun out of a
bank and then became a SaaS company.
(22:24):
Vantaca was the same way, right?
Mm-hmm.
It was an idea out of a communitymanagement company and became
its own independent SaaS company.
And with that, there's challenges oftransforming the company from being
(22:49):
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 wereplaying around with new modern product
management approaches and tools.
So talk to me about for, for folkswho are going through that type of
(23:12):
transformation to really becoming productled in a true product centric company,
how you made that successful and howyou continue to invest in yourself and
the team with product-led approaches.
Ben Currin (23:24):
It's a good question.
I think that's, it's complicated becauseyou don't always know, or ever know
when you are making that transition ortransformation to becoming product led.
It like there's probably a continuum.
Trisha Price (23:39):
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 (23:46):
Yeah, exactly right.
There's like that.
At least I haven't had that exactmoment, but maybe, maybe I'll,
we'll, we'll have it at some point.
I think ear early on when, especiallyfor a, you know, whether it's a
company like nCino in, in kind of theexperience you had or Vantaca coming
from frustrated software users andconsumers to, you know, and, and kind of
(24:08):
birthing that into, you know, a better,a better way to solve these challenges.
You go, you have to at some pointgo from just knowing what the right
answer is to being curious abouthow to get to the right answer.
And I think that's kind of the, theinflection point where at some point, and
at some point, you go from just beingable to know the answers because you know
(24:31):
the answers and you've touched it, andyou've lived it, and you're building, you
know, a, a solution that you understandto one, having enough diversity in your
customers, that they have problems thatare unique to them, or opportunities
that are unique that you don't understandor didn't have understanding of.
And as the team is growing andbuilding, you're able to bring in
(24:51):
incredibly talented product managers,product leaders, engineers who don't
have any background in this industry.
And so creating kind of systems orcreating a mindset and a philosophy
with, with those teams to allowthem to go and get that conviction
and go kind of touch, you know, thecustomers and the opportunities and,
(25:13):
and understand where we're going, andthen build the things, to get there.
So I, I think that's reallyimportant and really hard.
But, for all of us, like it is the thingI think I, I, I've, there's lots of
ways to think about kind of differentcompanies being product led or sales led.
And I think if you're a technologycompany and you're selling technology
(25:33):
like you have to you, if you're notproduct led, you're slowly decaying,
in terms of, of how your customers willinteract with your products in the future.
Trisha Price (25:44):
Yeah.
But then again, your sales team'son the front line and know what
it takes to hit their quotas.
And you have to balancelistening to them too.
It can't be your whole product strategy.
But there has to be a goodconnection, which, yeah,
Ben Currin (25:59):
No, there, there has to be, and that's the hardest, I mean,
it's the hardest thing probablyabout product leadership is finding
the balance of all those things.
I mean, inherently salespeople havethis benefit of they're talking to
the industry who isn't yet using yourproduct so they should be bringing in
new perspective and have a diversityof kind of perspective there.
(26:21):
And that's, that's useful.
It's just not the whole thing so youcan't over index, you can't overweight
or underweight any of those things.
Trisha Price (26:29):
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 effortand time into utilizing those tools.
Tell me what that's been like and how youthink about those types of tools impacting
(26:52):
how you build product going forward.
Ben Currin (26:56):
One, it's just fun.
So I think everyone, whether you'rea product manager or a designer or
an engineer, or a product leader orjust, 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'llshare personally where, where I found
(27:17):
it incredibly useful and then whatI, how I think it will add value
to our kind of product systems andour product motions with our team.
Personally, I've found it incrediblyhelpful as a communication tool.
So for me it it like, it, it's one thingto, you know, sit through a discussion
(27:39):
and talk about where we're going andkind of hear what we think is possible
and listen to customer feedback andthen to iterate with the product team to
kind of articulate, here's what I thinkand here's what I'm curious about and
I have this hypothesis and position itin a way that other people can kind of
iterate and take it and make it betterand, and, you know, throw stuff away.
(27:59):
And instead of trying to like do thatthrough, you know, a discussion via with
words or even more challenging, likewriting it up, like, you know, trying
to write a description of this, youknow, this product or this idea that,
that you're curious about is just hard.
But building a clickable prototype inan hour on a Saturday and sharing that
(28:22):
with the team and saying, this is, thisis what I took away from that meeting.
What did you guys take away?
How did the, how did yousee this coming together?
And being able to put those types oftrue kind of real products together
just can accelerate the understandingand the, the kind of, the growth
(28:44):
of, of the idea by, making it morereal for everyone who's involved.
Trisha Price (28:48):
I love that.
So
Ben Currin (28:49):
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 (28:54):
You can get this idea, I mean, you're so close to the product.
You're so close to the customerand 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 (29:05):
The, the and Yeah, exactly right.
That's, and so that's selfishly forme, for, for our, for our teams and
for our kind of product managementsystem for our product leaders.
I think that where this is gonna bemost game changing is to, instead
of just talking to customers andasking them like, what do you want?
(29:25):
What problems are you trying to solve?
And, and really just kind of consumingthat information, you can take that
information and then instead of say,okay, great, I'm gonna, you know,
mock something up or whatever, youcould like, make it real for them.
Like, this is what I heard from you.
This is what you asked for, buthere is what I think actually
would solve your problem.
(29:46):
Like, does that, does that changeits perspective and that cycle time
that used to take, you know, weeksor 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 backtogether and have like a, a totally
different version of this discussion.
I think that's so exciting and thekind of speed of iteration, I think
(30:10):
is gonna massively accelerate.
Trisha Price (30:12):
Yeah, I do too.
It's so fun to watch how product ischanging and how fast they can go.
I mean, I've always said, and I stillbelieve this to be true, that engineering
resources are a company's gold and youreally can't waste a moment of their time.
(30:34):
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 justallow us to do a lot more of that
imagination of the possible andart of the possible, and iterate
and get feedback and get alignment.
Then engage with engineeringto make this real in a way that
(30:56):
I think is changing the game.
Ben Currin (30:59):
I'll, I'll share one funny example.
We've always believed in a lot ofexperimentation, a lot of iteration,
and like just testing out ideas andnot everyone is gonna be perfect,
and it's very hard, even whenyou 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 bedead ends, and that's okay.
(31:21):
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 eraof, of product leadership and product
management gives the opportunity tobe not certain, but have such deeper
customer backed conviction thatwhat you're building is, you know,
(31:43):
you're going down the right track.
I think.
I think that's super exciting.
Trisha Price (31:46):
I do too.
I do too.
So tell me, beyond product, whatare other places in the organization
where you've made similar stridesforward in terms of efficiency and
effectiveness using AI, across Vantaca?
Ben Currin (32:05):
Yeah.
The, the biggest couple of areas thatimmediately come to mind are engineering
itself, so like code gen and the abilityto move much, much quicker on that front.
Tools, whether it's just using Claude,kind of organically or cursor and
(32:27):
combinations of the two and variouskind of automated, QA testing tools.
Like there's so much that's possibleon the whole SDLC, but like the,
the kind of going from productkind of discovery through build.
That's probably the biggest,biggest area of impact.
(32:48):
Another great one is thingslike marketing and content.
Just like having like a, you know,almost like a study buddy be able to
ride shotgun with you and just helpyou move so much faster and kind of
get through, whether it's writer'sblock or whatever the case is.
Those are some of the highlightexamples, but it's everywhere.
I mean, it's, it's every,every part of our business.
Trisha Price (33:06):
It is.
So, Ben, as we, as we start to closeout today for our listeners, you know,
tell us what are you thinking aboutfrom 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 termsof, of how you're thinking about your
(33:27):
product and in the next couple ofyears, or even couple of months 'cause
you guys are moving pretty quick?
Ben Currin (33:32):
Yeah, well, I, I think there's, there's a couple.
I'll, there's a couple of vectorsto kind of go down on on that.
One is going back and lookinginternally and saying all, what
are all the things that humanshad to do in software previously?
And for us it's what are all the waysthat humans have to interact with Vantaca?
(33:55):
And, and they've always had to do that andwear their friction points within that.
Not because something's bad or a bugnecessarily, but just friction points
because hey, this is just a cumbersomething or it's repetitive, or whatever the
case is, and it, it wasn't something thatcould be cleanly automated to kind of
use that word, it's something that wouldbe better delegated if, if you could,
(34:16):
you know, have someone take that on.
So that's one vector is just going andfinding all those friction points and
whether it's, you know, more traditionalkind of, you know, software as service
work, you know, SaaS work to go do that.
Or if it's service as softwarework to where we can go and
allow our human users to delegatesome more of that to, to agents.
(34:36):
Like that's kind of vector one.
And then vector two is like, where elseare, is there friction that we can help
help our customers solve that just wasoutside kind of the realm of possibility
previously, whether it's outside ofVantaca or just outside of what was
possible through traditional technology.
I think that's, those arekind of the two big vectors.
(34:59):
And, and from a, here's the, I'll giveyou an analogy that I don't, I don't
know if it's a good one, so I'll, I'llthrow it out there and you can tell me.
But I think when it, when it does cometo kind of product in the future, we
have as, as a software company andas a system of record, as a system
of work, as a system of engagement.
And now with this agentic layer of kindof orchestration around it, we have
(35:20):
this really cool challenge right now,which my, my analogy here is a car.
And so most of us have ridden ina Tesla, like if you like or don't
like Teslas, we'll put that aside.
Most of us have ridden inone and, and are aware that.
Tesla has this self-driving capabilityand like they FSD full self-driving
(35:41):
and it's pretty tremendous.
If you, if you've checked itout 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 acar in this age of AI, there's way less
stuff, you know, there, you don't havecruise control settings to, you know,
(36:02):
because it just is gonna follow at theright distance, or you don't have, you
know, wiper control speed because it'sjust 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 all11 different climate controls.
It's just, Hey, I want to be, you know,70 degrees in my car, make that happen.
(36:23):
So, but you do, there are certain thingsthat are persistent that are still there
and are sticky and make you comfortable.
Like if I got in a Tesla and there wasno brake pedal or no steering wheel, I'd
be alarmed in 2025, I probably wouldn'tgo, you know, take that car for a drive.
And so I, I think as, as we all buildsoftware there's a lot of work to
(36:44):
figure out like what's a brake pedaland a steering wheel and what's not,
and what should be, what's in theway of a really clean and simple
and, and delightful experience.
So I, I think that's, that's reallyexciting work ahead is to go figure
that out and get conviction about what'sdurable and important and additive to
the user experience and what's in theway, of having a great user experience.
Trisha Price (37:07):
And that, I mean, that is just changing so much.
And that's a different way of thinkingfor your product team, your UX team,
your engineering team is not, howdo I perfect this workflow with the
least amount of clicks, but what'sthe break in the steering wheel and
how do I offload everything else?
(37:28):
You know, make sure my user feelsin control when they need to
be, but offload everything elseto automation and agentic work.
I love that, that I think that'sa, a great way of thinking.
Ben Currin (37:39):
Yeah, totally.
Trisha Price (37:41):
Great.
Well, Ben, one final thing I justcan't not touch on is we have both
built, led software companies in avery non-traditional town, right?
For our listeners, I live inWilmington, North Carolina,
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
(38:03):
It's where nCino, which is where I wasbefore I came to Pendo headquarters
is, and it's also where Vantaca'sheadquarters is and where Ben lives.
And if you don't know where Wilmingtonor Riceville Beach is, you can go look
it up, but it's a pretty small town.
What do we have about250,000 people here, Ben.
Ben Currin (38:21):
I think that's right.
Yeah.
Trisha Price (38:22):
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 listenerscan imagine, non-traditional tech
talent, non-traditional placeto build a software company.
Yet, I think it's created a special anddifferent dynamic and as you guys have
heard from today's episode, Ben andVantaca are very far along on the AI
(38:46):
curve, both using AI internally as wellas launching AI products and features.
So talk to us about how you thinkabout that as an advantage and how
you still manage to make it work.
Ben Currin (39:01):
Well, I think you teed me up probably unintentionally, but maybe
perfectly to say thank you to you and tothe nCino team, or just where nCino was
in their journey when we were just gettingstarted, gave us a lot of confidence
that we could build a real big lasting,impactful software company headquartered
(39:26):
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 anamazing 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 littlebit of, of the results of other people
(39:49):
being able to do it and you havecon, 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 enoughto live here, I think view that as
one of the most impactful benefits to,to working, at Vantaca and to their
(40:15):
family's lives for being able to be here.
So that's, that's amazing.
It's a great place, for people tobe, and we've had so many really cool
success stories of folks who, startedworking at Vantaca, living somewhere
else, in the US and after visitingfor some, you know, team meetings and
some onsites and, and different thingsended up saying, this is amazing.
(40:37):
I'm, I'm gonna move here.
And it's been, you know, a, a great thingnot 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, andit's cool now with whether it's nCino
(40:57):
or Vantaca or kind of the next, thenext crop of, of companies here, to show
more proof points that you can do that.
And we, we can build great companies.
Trisha Price (41:10):
Yeah.
To, to our listeners, whether it'sWilmington, North Carolina, or
it's Raleigh where Pendo is, or youknow, somewhere in Indiana or Ohio.
Totally.
Yeah.
I think you know, what we want and hopeeveryone to take away is yes, there's
a lot of amazing talent in the techhubs of the Bay Area or even New York
or Boston, but, you can do it anywhere.
(41:33):
And in a lot of ways it's, I agreewith you, it's a feature, not a bug,
to be able to get outside and ofthose areas and, and build a real
community of people that buy into thevision and, and execute as a group.
So I love what you've done and Ben,major, congratulations to you and Vantaca.
(41:55):
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 successand your leadership, and appreciate
you coming on Hard Calls today andsharing with us some of your moments
that matter and hard calls, and, andsome of the tips and tricks that have
worked for you in Vantaca to get here.
Ben Currin (42:15):
Yeah, awesome, Trisha thank you for, letting me join
you for a fun conversation.
This has been great.
Trisha Price (42:21):
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you for listening to HardCalls, the product podcast, where
we share best practices and allthe things you need to succeed.
If you enjoyed the show today, sharewith your friends and come back for more.
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 releasedits report that 95% of AI projects
failed to yield measurable ROI.
It impacted the stock market and it gotall of us talking about what does it take
(00:24):
to make an AI project drive real outcomes.
In this episode of Hard Calls, I chatwith Ben Currin, the CEO of Vantaca.
About this exact topic.
What I love about Vantaca is thatit'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
(00:48):
of our community and it's one that AIand technology can truly help transform.
Ben shared with me tough decisionshe and his team have had to make to
implement successful AI strategies fromthe inside out and the three things Ben
balances to keep priorities in line.
This is a conversation thatproduct leaders from any industry
(01:10):
will gain great insights and howto think about their AI projects
differently and drive real outcomes.
Welcome to the show, Ben.
Ben Currin (01:19):
Thanks, Trisha.
This is a blast.
Appreciate you having me.
It's been so fun.
Trisha Price (01:22):
Yes.
Yeah.
I'm so excited.
Ben, since the podcast is calledHard Calls, we start every one of
these with you talking to us abouta challenging, hard call you've had
to make anytime over your career orrecent - just share something with us.
Ben Currin (01:39):
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 callin the last, last year or so?
I think, deciding on a direction of whatit means to have an AI strategy is a,
(02:02):
was a really, and is a really hard call.
It's also, I mean, it's hard.
It's the most important and probablybest thing that we've done over the
last several years, but that's hardto say, hey, we've all been, and
this isn't just Vantaca, we've allbeen, you know, spending all of our
time and energy building software forhumans for years and years and years.
And then to think about what does it meanto enable humans to delegate all that
(02:26):
work to AI and like what all is kind ofa 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 bigthing is, is probably the hard call.
And for us it was, you know, this isundeniably the future and it's it is
gonna be a great future and there's gonnabe bumps along the way, but we have to
(02:48):
jump all the way in the pool and notbe afraid of, you know, how many sunk
costs there are or what we have to goback and re-litigate in terms of things
we've kind of held on tightly to before.
Trisha Price (02:58):
I, I can't wait.
I've been incredibly impressed withsome of the hard calls you've made as
it relates to that over this last year.
And I can't wait to dive intoit more over the podcast.
Before we jump into that, maybe sharea little bit about Vantaca and who
Vantaca is and what makes you unique.
Ben Currin (03:18):
Awesome.
Yeah, so Vantaca is a platform in thecommunity association management space.
So what the heck does that mean?
Most of us know what a homeownerassociation is, or a condominium
association, or a co-op.
These are all community associations.
And so Vantaca's customers who wekind of live to serve every day are
(03:43):
the professional management companieswho make that industry happen.
Who are the, you know, are kindathe connective tissue that gets the
billing done to collect homeownerassessments, 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 technologystandpoint, how that manifests
is a couple different layers.
(04:03):
At our core, we are the general ledgeraccounting system for this industry.
So we're kind of a system of record.
And then on top of that, we think of allof our workflows and the ways that these
community association management companiesget work done as a system of work.
So it's where the work happens, andthen kind of the pointy end of the
spear is the system of engagementfor our customers' customers.
(04:26):
So all the way through to how do theycommunicate with their customers,
you know, whether it's email ortext 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 aheadand what we're seeing today is now
with AI, you kind of have this wrapperaround this system of record and system
(04:50):
of work and system of engagement.
That, and I need to find agood way to describe this.
It's almost like a system of orchestrationor delegation where you can kind of
allow agents to do so much of that workthat was happening in the backgrounds,
background with humans previously.
Trisha Price (05:06):
It's such an exciting time and impressive how far
along you are with actual agentsdoing work for your customers.
This isn't like some ideayou have or a strategy.
I mean it is, but it's real and yourcustomers are using it and it's in
production, which I think probablyis fairly unique compared to your
(05:28):
competitors and for your space.
Ben Currin (05:31):
It is and, what's fun, and I think this is the most the the
most fun thing right now, when itcomes to product is our industry,
the community association managementindustry, HOA management, you might be
shocked to hear Trisha that historicallyit has not been the most technology
forward or most innovative industry.
(05:53):
So a, a lot of what we've done, youknow, over the past several years is
work to deliver technology solutionsthat catch this industry up to, you
know, what's happening in in othersectors, and what's really exciting
right now is the community associationmanagement industry in a lot of ways
is leading the way of what's possiblewhen you take a kind of traditional
(06:16):
SaaS system of record system of work andwrap that up with an agentic layer that
can really take on that, that kind ofwork 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 andour customers lead these other services
(06:38):
industries is, is super exciting.
Trisha Price (06:40):
It really is.
And I know you, you have, you wereworking on AI and had already launched
some AI features and products,before, but your acquisition of HOAi.
Really seem to, to leapfrog, andreally, and really push you ahead
from a strategy perspective.
Tell us a little bit about what promptedthat acquisition and how that's changed
(07:05):
your approach to AI within your platform.
Ben Currin (07:08):
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 aboutwhat, what would be possible through
AI, really late 2022, early 2023, kindof when all of us had the aha chat GPT
(07:31):
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 consumersand, and as users of software and hey, how
can we work more efficiently with this?
How can we do a better job internallywith these tools and pretty quickly
(07:52):
in 2023 that curiosity and hungerto be better internally turned into
conviction that this should change theway that work gets done in our industry.
If it's helping us to, whether it'sgenerate code or create content or
whatever the case is, it's helpingus have this transformational growth
(08:13):
in all these areas internally.
Well, why aren't we deliveringthat to our customers?
That it, why aren't we helpingour industry have that same
kind of transformation?
And, and we did startto build, internally.
And, and built some really neat stuffand, and I'm, I'm really proud of a lot
of the things our, our team did build.
We, we launched Scout, which is kindof a, a, a chat based, like research
(08:37):
assistant that kinda ride along withyou in everything that you do and help
you navigate and do your job betterand more efficiently via Vantaca.
But I, I, I'll speak for myself.
I was super hungry for more.
We were, we were making progressand our progress was good.
It looked a lot like the progressthat many kinda leading SaaS platforms
(09:00):
were making in terms of their AIstrategy, but just felt like there was
a transformational thing that couldhappen that we hadn't unlocked yet.
And we were super lucky to connect with acouple of co-founders who had been part of
Y Combinator a couple years before, and ofall things, were laser focused on building
(09:20):
agentic, HOA, community management work.
And, when we got together veryquickly that curiosity of,
okay, well that's interesting.
Let's see if that's something different.
We realized that how, what we sawas 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.
(09:41):
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 muchstronger together because this
system of record, the system ofwork is incredibly important.
You know, the humans are the mostimportant 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.
(10:03):
But the humans are so bogged downwith, you know, busy work and backoff
tasks that you just can't, can'tgo 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 reallyclear that that's, that's the future we
wanted to be, running toward together.
Trisha Price (10:24):
That's incredibly exciting and I think the way you've executed on
that acquisition might be a little bitdifferent than, you know, you didn't
immediately come in and stop one roadmapand that be your only AI strategy.
You didn't just loop it inand sell it as an add-on.
Like you've, you've thought about reallyinteresting ways to make that acquisition
(10:47):
successful, and I think it's been reallysuccessful for you and your customers.
Talk to us about how you executed on it.
Ben Currin (10:55):
Well, one, I think a benefit for us and for the HOAi team, kind of
together coming, coming together is wewere, it was the perfect time to do it.
There wasn't so much baggage, therewasn't so much history to kind of unwind.
So we were able to say, okay, well,what do we believe is possible
(11:15):
with, with these platforms together?
What, what should be possible andhow can we orient around that.
The hard call, and then the thingthat I, I think we are, are hopefully
getting right, but the thing that we'rerunning towards pretty quickly is from
day one, the most important thing forus is to say, well, what do we believe
(11:36):
and what do we have conviction about inthe 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 convictionthat the infrastructure of the system
of record, the infrastructure of thesystem of work has to be both built
for humans and agents to do the work.
(12:00):
Because it, it wasn't putting allof our eggs in one basket or the
other, which is a, a real kindof important thing to consider.
So really looking at every part ofour roadmap and saying, does this
lead to agents being able to do thiswork or be able to ride beside the
human who's ultimately accountablefor the delivery of this work?
(12:22):
And how can that be most complimentaryto the humans, you know, at at
community association managementcompanies doing this work.
And so that was key.
That was kind of the most importantthing is to just go back and, and really
re-litigate everything that we thoughtabout, how to deliver product and, and
what the ultimate requirements are there.
(12:42):
And, and, and as you know, Trishathat that did result in us changing
directions are pivoting in huge waysfrom a, you know, how we thought about
infrastructure and backend servicesand kind of all of those things.
You know, there's some real humanemotions to manage through that, but
it, it was probably the most importantthing that we did as, as part of
(13:03):
that acquisition and, and evolution.
Trisha Price (13:05):
I'm glad you brought that up, Ben.
It's actually something I was gonnaask about next, about the human emotion
and as the CEO, how you led your teamthrough, that emotional change, but also
the mindset shift, right, to this, youknow, everything you build and everything
(13:27):
you have built needs to be executableeasily 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 wholechange management aspect of that.
(13:48):
I think you've done so beautifully.
Tell us how you, how youled the team through that.
Ben Currin (13:53):
Well, Trisha it's nice to that you're saying we've done it beautifully.
We've skinned our knees a bunchalong the way too, so we, we met, we
mess it up just as much as everyoneelse, but I think it all starts with
conviction and where you're going.
And as long as like if that foundationis really solid and if we're all aligned
on that, say this is the future that webelieve in and we're super excited about
(14:16):
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'sjust the details of, of how we get there.
And so I, I think about putting a ton ofenergy around that alignment to, you know,
(14:37):
where are we going, why is it important?
Is that a future thatwe're super excited about?
We believe in and, and will, willit result in our customers winning?
And you know, do we, do we haveconviction that we can get there?
And if that's the case, then we justkeep kind of asking ourselves, are we
doing the next most important thing?
Did we learn something new todaythat causes us to go back and have
to, you know, change our mind aboutsomething we thought yesterday?
(15:00):
I think that's a, that's a hugepart of my job is making sure that
we all understand why we're doingthe big stuff and why it matters.
Uh, and then we can, we can kindof, we can iterate through on,
on a lot of the little things.
Trisha Price (15:15):
I mean, you know this as well as anyone - maybe
product managers, even more thanengineers, but probably both.
I mean, when they've built somethingor they have a roadmap, there's a
lot of like, this is my baby, and youcannot totally change my mind, and I
hear your conviction, but trust me,I've been talking to customers, I've
(15:38):
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 (15:50):
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'shelpful for everyone to share a lot
of, whether it's the product team orsales or engineers or you've gotta
(16:12):
share your individual experiences,but you've gotta also go and whether
it's touch the data or talk to thecustomers 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 thingsthat were important in the past.
Trisha Price (16:30):
Yeah.
So
tell me how you, you've clearlyexecuted both by organic build as
well as acquisition on AI, but it'sequally important in this world of
SaaS to keep the customer experienceand the back to basics as a priority.
(16:54):
How have you managed to balance thosetwo things and how do you, how do you
lead the teams through that balance?
Ben Currin (17:01):
Yeah, I think, I think what's really important is staying.
There's probably three things thatI think if you stay close to these
three things and you find ways tokind of balance these three, and
you can't just go all in on oneversus the other, it's important.
One, like stay close to the customers,whether you're the CEO of the business
(17:22):
or an engineer, or certainly a productleader, but stay close to the customers
and like, listen and ask a ton ofquestions and just be really curious about
how they see the world and what they'reexcited 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.
(17:43):
Uh, it's not enough to, you know, watcha demo or to look at data, you know,
usage data that's not nearly enough.
Like you gotta go touch the producta lot, every day and, and kind of get
conviction that this, whatever we'rebuilding, or this experience is what
(18:04):
the, is, what the demo would lead youto believe or what, what the data says,
because the data can, can be misleadingon that, in, on that front too.
And the last is being data driven as well.
It's, it's one thing to, youknow, 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.
(18:24):
It can certainly confuse you, it canbe conflicting, but if you marry those
three together, I think that's areally important way to stay in touch
and, and again, to get to havingconviction on the direction you wanna go.
Trisha Price (18:39):
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 reallyappreciate and admire about you.
And so I'd love for you to share with ourlisteners today, how did you get close to
the customer and close to the product whenyou first joined Vantaca many years ago?
Ben Currin (19:07):
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 incrediblylucky to join the Vantaca team at a
really cool time, which is kind ofnot day zero, but day like one or two.
So we had just a couple of customers,and we were just starting to kind
(19:27):
of sell the product to strangersand, and figure all that stuff out.
And so everything was like,the experiences were all small.
These weren't millions and millionsof homes that we got managed.
It was, it was less than that.
And our customers, we knew alltheir 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 reallyimportant for me to become deeply, deeply
(19:51):
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 kindof 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 crackat all these support tickets and,
(20:14):
just kind of get first look at 'em.
And for, I don't know, six monthsor 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 whateverthey were asking about in the software.
If I didn't understandit, I'd call the person.
So many of our early customers got alot of phone calls from, you know, a
(20:36):
confused, Ben Currin asking, Hey, Iknow you submitted this, and I don't
know what that means exactly, youknow, and let me ask you some questions
about it, and I'll come back to youonce I understand, what you need.
That was, that was incredibly helpfuljust to get close to, you know, how
our customers are, are winning, howthey're struggling, what matters to them.
(20:58):
And, if you do that, I thinkit'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 arebecause you're really close to it.
You're really close to the customers,you're close to the product.
Hopefully you've got the righttelemetry and data as well.
And, and once you do that it works.
Trisha Price (21:18):
And I know that's something that many of your successful
leaders that are there today, even atthis size and scale, continue to do
and it's, it's worked well for you.
Ben Currin (21:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, it's, I mean, it's anongoing journey and it's, it, it's
probably maintaining that closenessto all three of those things is
harder with scale, not easier.
I think when you're small, like everyonetalks to every customer and everyone
uses the product all the time andyou're close to the data because you
know you're touching it every day.
(21:50):
I think it's easy for people atscale to specialize too much into
some of those areas and lose broaderawareness or, or kind of outsource
their conviction to, you know, toothers on the team in those areas.
Trisha Price (22:03):
I love that.
Going back to Vantaca's roots, youknow, there's something you and I
have a lot in common is when I cameto nCino, nCino had spun out of a
bank and then became a SaaS company.
(22:24):
Vantaca was the same way, right?
Mm-hmm.
It was an idea out of a communitymanagement company and became
its own independent SaaS company.
And with that, there's challenges oftransforming the company from being
(22:49):
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 wereplaying around with new modern product
management approaches and tools.
So talk to me about for, for folkswho are going through that type of
(23:12):
transformation to really becoming productled in a true product centric company,
how you made that successful and howyou continue to invest in yourself and
the team with product-led approaches.
Ben Currin (23:24):
It's a good question.
I think that's, it's complicated becauseyou don't always know, or ever know
when you are making that transition ortransformation to becoming product led.
It like there's probably a continuum.
Trisha Price (23:39):
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 (23:46):
Yeah, exactly right.
There's like that.
At least I haven't had that exactmoment, but maybe, maybe I'll,
we'll, we'll have it at some point.
I think ear early on when, especiallyfor a, you know, whether it's a
company like nCino in, in kind of theexperience you had or Vantaca coming
from frustrated software users andconsumers to, you know, and, and kind of
(24:08):
birthing that into, you know, a better,a better way to solve these challenges.
You go, you have to at some pointgo from just knowing what the right
answer is to being curious abouthow to get to the right answer.
And I think that's kind of the, theinflection point where at some point, and
at some point, you go from just beingable to know the answers because you know
(24:31):
the answers and you've touched it, andyou've lived it, and you're building, you
know, a, a solution that you understandto one, having enough diversity in your
customers, that they have problems thatare unique to them, or opportunities
that are unique that you don't understandor didn't have understanding of.
And as the team is growing andbuilding, you're able to bring in
(24:51):
incredibly talented product managers,product leaders, engineers who don't
have any background in this industry.
And so creating kind of systems orcreating a mindset and a philosophy
with, with those teams to allowthem to go and get that conviction
and go kind of touch, you know, thecustomers and the opportunities and,
(25:13):
and understand where we're going, andthen build the things, to get there.
So I, I think that's reallyimportant and really hard.
But, for all of us, like it is the thingI think I, I, I've, there's lots of
ways to think about kind of differentcompanies being product led or sales led.
And I think if you're a technologycompany and you're selling technology
(25:33):
like you have to you, if you're notproduct led, you're slowly decaying,
in terms of, of how your customers willinteract with your products in the future.
Trisha Price (25:44):
Yeah.
But then again, your sales team'son the front line and know what
it takes to hit their quotas.
And you have to balancelistening to them too.
It can't be your whole product strategy.
But there has to be a goodconnection, which, yeah,
Ben Currin (25:59):
No, there, there has to be, and that's the hardest, I mean,
it's the hardest thing probablyabout product leadership is finding
the balance of all those things.
I mean, inherently salespeople havethis benefit of they're talking to
the industry who isn't yet using yourproduct so they should be bringing in
new perspective and have a diversityof kind of perspective there.
(26:21):
And that's, that's useful.
It's just not the whole thing so youcan't over index, you can't overweight
or underweight any of those things.
Trisha Price (26:29):
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 effortand time into utilizing those tools.
Tell me what that's been like and how youthink about those types of tools impacting
(26:52):
how you build product going forward.
Ben Currin (26:56):
One, it's just fun.
So I think everyone, whether you'rea product manager or a designer or
an engineer, or a product leader orjust, 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'llshare personally where, where I found
(27:17):
it incredibly useful and then whatI, how I think it will add value
to our kind of product systems andour product motions with our team.
Personally, I've found it incrediblyhelpful as a communication tool.
So for me it it like, it, it's one thingto, you know, sit through a discussion
(27:39):
and talk about where we're going andkind of hear what we think is possible
and listen to customer feedback andthen to iterate with the product team to
kind of articulate, here's what I thinkand here's what I'm curious about and
I have this hypothesis and position itin a way that other people can kind of
iterate and take it and make it betterand, and, you know, throw stuff away.
(27:59):
And instead of trying to like do thatthrough, you know, a discussion via with
words or even more challenging, likewriting it up, like, you know, trying
to write a description of this, youknow, this product or this idea that,
that you're curious about is just hard.
But building a clickable prototype inan hour on a Saturday and sharing that
(28:22):
with the team and saying, this is, thisis what I took away from that meeting.
What did you guys take away?
How did the, how did yousee this coming together?
And being able to put those types oftrue kind of real products together
just can accelerate the understandingand the, the kind of, the growth
(28:44):
of, of the idea by, making it morereal for everyone who's involved.
Trisha Price (28:48):
I love that.
So
Ben Currin (28:49):
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 (28:54):
You can get this idea, I mean, you're so close to the product.
You're so close to the customerand 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 (29:05):
The, the and Yeah, exactly right.
That's, and so that's selfishly forme, for, for our, for our teams and
for our kind of product managementsystem for our product leaders.
I think that where this is gonna bemost game changing is to, instead
of just talking to customers andasking them like, what do you want?
(29:25):
What problems are you trying to solve?
And, and really just kind of consumingthat information, you can take that
information and then instead of say,okay, great, I'm gonna, you know,
mock something up or whatever, youcould like, make it real for them.
Like, this is what I heard from you.
This is what you asked for, buthere is what I think actually
would solve your problem.
(29:46):
Like, does that, does that changeits perspective and that cycle time
that used to take, you know, weeksor 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 backtogether and have like a, a totally
different version of this discussion.
I think that's so exciting and thekind of speed of iteration, I think
(30:10):
is gonna massively accelerate.
Trisha Price (30:12):
Yeah, I do too.
It's so fun to watch how product ischanging and how fast they can go.
I mean, I've always said, and I stillbelieve this to be true, that engineering
resources are a company's gold and youreally can't waste a moment of their time.
(30:34):
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 justallow us to do a lot more of that
imagination of the possible andart of the possible, and iterate
and get feedback and get alignment.
Then engage with engineeringto make this real in a way that
(30:56):
I think is changing the game.
Ben Currin (30:59):
I'll, I'll share one funny example.
We've always believed in a lot ofexperimentation, a lot of iteration,
and like just testing out ideas andnot everyone is gonna be perfect,
and it's very hard, even whenyou 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 bedead ends, and that's okay.
(31:21):
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 eraof, of product leadership and product
management gives the opportunity tobe not certain, but have such deeper
customer backed conviction thatwhat you're building is, you know,
(31:43):
you're going down the right track.
I think.
I think that's super exciting.
Trisha Price (31:46):
I do too.
I do too.
So tell me, beyond product, whatare other places in the organization
where you've made similar stridesforward in terms of efficiency and
effectiveness using AI, across Vantaca?
Ben Currin (32:05):
Yeah.
The, the biggest couple of areas thatimmediately come to mind are engineering
itself, so like code gen and the abilityto move much, much quicker on that front.
Tools, whether it's just using Claude,kind of organically or cursor and
(32:27):
combinations of the two and variouskind of automated, QA testing tools.
Like there's so much that's possibleon the whole SDLC, but like the,
the kind of going from productkind of discovery through build.
That's probably the biggest,biggest area of impact.
(32:48):
Another great one is thingslike marketing and content.
Just like having like a, you know,almost like a study buddy be able to
ride shotgun with you and just helpyou move so much faster and kind of
get through, whether it's writer'sblock or whatever the case is.
Those are some of the highlightexamples, but it's everywhere.
I mean, it's, it's every,every part of our business.
Trisha Price (33:06):
It is.
So, Ben, as we, as we start to closeout today for our listeners, you know,
tell us what are you thinking aboutfrom 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 termsof, of how you're thinking about your
(33:27):
product and in the next couple ofyears, or even couple of months 'cause
you guys are moving pretty quick?
Ben Currin (33:32):
Yeah, well, I, I think there's, there's a couple.
I'll, there's a couple of vectorsto kind of go down on on that.
One is going back and lookinginternally and saying all, what
are all the things that humanshad to do in software previously?
And for us it's what are all the waysthat humans have to interact with Vantaca?
(33:55):
And, and they've always had to do that andwear their friction points within that.
Not because something's bad or a bugnecessarily, but just friction points
because hey, this is just a cumbersomething or it's repetitive, or whatever the
case is, and it, it wasn't something thatcould be cleanly automated to kind of
use that word, it's something that wouldbe better delegated if, if you could,
(34:16):
you know, have someone take that on.
So that's one vector is just going andfinding all those friction points and
whether it's, you know, more traditionalkind of, you know, software as service
work, you know, SaaS work to go do that.
Or if it's service as softwarework to where we can go and
allow our human users to delegatesome more of that to, to agents.
(34:36):
Like that's kind of vector one.
And then vector two is like, where elseare, is there friction that we can help
help our customers solve that just wasoutside kind of the realm of possibility
previously, whether it's outside ofVantaca or just outside of what was
possible through traditional technology.
I think that's, those arekind of the two big vectors.
(34:59):
And, and from a, here's the, I'll giveyou an analogy that I don't, I don't
know if it's a good one, so I'll, I'llthrow it out there and you can tell me.
But I think when it, when it does cometo kind of product in the future, we
have as, as a software company andas a system of record, as a system
of work, as a system of engagement.
And now with this agentic layer of kindof orchestration around it, we have
(35:20):
this really cool challenge right now,which my, my analogy here is a car.
And so most of us have ridden ina Tesla, like if you like or don't
like Teslas, we'll put that aside.
Most of us have ridden inone and, and are aware that.
Tesla has this self-driving capabilityand like they FSD full self-driving
(35:41):
and it's pretty tremendous.
If you, if you've checked itout 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 acar in this age of AI, there's way less
stuff, you know, there, you don't havecruise control settings to, you know,
(36:02):
because it just is gonna follow at theright distance, or you don't have, you
know, wiper control speed because it'sjust 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 all11 different climate controls.
It's just, Hey, I want to be, you know,70 degrees in my car, make that happen.
(36:23):
So, but you do, there are certain thingsthat are persistent that are still there
and are sticky and make you comfortable.
Like if I got in a Tesla and there wasno brake pedal or no steering wheel, I'd
be alarmed in 2025, I probably wouldn'tgo, you know, take that car for a drive.
And so I, I think as, as we all buildsoftware there's a lot of work to
(36:44):
figure out like what's a brake pedaland a steering wheel and what's not,
and what should be, what's in theway of a really clean and simple
and, and delightful experience.
So I, I think that's, that's reallyexciting work ahead is to go figure
that out and get conviction about what'sdurable and important and additive to
the user experience and what's in theway, of having a great user experience.
Trisha Price (37:07):
And that, I mean, that is just changing so much.
And that's a different way of thinkingfor your product team, your UX team,
your engineering team is not, howdo I perfect this workflow with the
least amount of clicks, but what'sthe break in the steering wheel and
how do I offload everything else?
(37:28):
You know, make sure my user feelsin control when they need to
be, but offload everything elseto automation and agentic work.
I love that, that I think that'sa, a great way of thinking.
Ben Currin (37:39):
Yeah, totally.
Trisha Price (37:41):
Great.
Well, Ben, one final thing I justcan't not touch on is we have both
built, led software companies in avery non-traditional town, right?
For our listeners, I live inWilmington, North Carolina,
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
(38:03):
It's where nCino, which is where I wasbefore I came to Pendo headquarters
is, and it's also where Vantaca'sheadquarters is and where Ben lives.
And if you don't know where Wilmingtonor Riceville Beach is, you can go look
it up, but it's a pretty small town.
What do we have about250,000 people here, Ben.
Ben Currin (38:21):
I think that's right.
Yeah.
Trisha Price (38:22):
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 listenerscan imagine, non-traditional tech
talent, non-traditional placeto build a software company.
Yet, I think it's created a special anddifferent dynamic and as you guys have
heard from today's episode, Ben andVantaca are very far along on the AI
(38:46):
curve, both using AI internally as wellas launching AI products and features.
So talk to us about how you thinkabout that as an advantage and how
you still manage to make it work.
Ben Currin (39:01):
Well, I think you teed me up probably unintentionally, but maybe
perfectly to say thank you to you and tothe nCino team, or just where nCino was
in their journey when we were just gettingstarted, gave us a lot of confidence
that we could build a real big lasting,impactful software company headquartered
(39:26):
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 anamazing 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 littlebit of, of the results of other people
(39:49):
being able to do it and you havecon, 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 enoughto live here, I think view that as
one of the most impactful benefits to,to working, at Vantaca and to their
(40:15):
family's lives for being able to be here.
So that's, that's amazing.
It's a great place, for people tobe, and we've had so many really cool
success stories of folks who, startedworking at Vantaca, living somewhere
else, in the US and after visitingfor some, you know, team meetings and
some onsites and, and different thingsended up saying, this is amazing.
(40:37):
I'm, I'm gonna move here.
And it's been, you know, a, a great thingnot 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, andit's cool now with whether it's nCino
(40:57):
or Vantaca or kind of the next, thenext crop of, of companies here, to show
more proof points that you can do that.
And we, we can build great companies.
Trisha Price (41:10):
Yeah.
To, to our listeners, whether it'sWilmington, North Carolina, or
it's Raleigh where Pendo is, or youknow, somewhere in Indiana or Ohio.
Totally.
Yeah.
I think you know, what we want and hopeeveryone to take away is yes, there's
a lot of amazing talent in the techhubs of the Bay Area or even New York
or Boston, but, you can do it anywhere.
(41:33):
And in a lot of ways it's, I agreewith you, it's a feature, not a bug,
to be able to get outside and ofthose areas and, and build a real
community of people that buy into thevision and, and execute as a group.
So I love what you've done and Ben,major, congratulations to you and Vantaca.
(41:55):
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 successand your leadership, and appreciate
you coming on Hard Calls today andsharing with us some of your moments
that matter and hard calls, and, andsome of the tips and tricks that have
worked for you in Vantaca to get here.
Ben Currin (42:15):
Yeah, awesome, Trisha thank you for, letting me join
you for a fun conversation.
This has been great.
Trisha Price (42:21):
Thanks, Ben.
Thank you for listening to HardCalls, the product podcast, where
we share best practices and allthe things you need to succeed.
If you enjoyed the show today, sharewith your friends and come back for more.
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