December 10, 2024 • 43 mins
Dan Balcauski sits down with Avi Kedmi, CEO of SysAid, to explore Avi's remarkable journey from a Java developer to a seasoned tech leader. Avi shares insights on driving a 22-year-old company through AI-driven transformation while maintaining growth and profitability. The discussion delves into the importance of a clear vision and mission, the strategic return of SysAid's founder, and the critical role of product excellence in scaling a B2B SaaS company. Avi also provides his perspective on the current AI landscape and its transformative potential, drawing from his extensive experience in machine learning. Tune in to discover invaluable tips for scaling success and the future of AI in IT service management.
00:55 Avi Kedmi's Journey in Tech
03:36 SysAid's Elevator Pitch
04:43 Joining SysAid and Initial Challenges
09:49 The Importance of Product in B2B SaaS
11:39 Mission and Vision: Driving Change
19:09 Bringing the Founder Back
22:35 The Power of OKRs and Feedback
22:50 Impact of Strategic Decisions
23:47 Accelerating Innovation and Execution
24:08 Balancing Innovation and Profitability
27:56 AI's Role in Business Transformation
36:10 Monetizing AI Capabilities
39:01 Personal Influences and CEO Insights
Guest Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/avikedmi/
https://www.sysaid.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dan Balcauski (00:20):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS Companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withAvi Kedmi, CEO of SysAid.
Avi's journey in tech isfascinating from founding and
selling his machine learningstartup to spending a decade in
executive leadership atLivePerson, where you help
transform it into a globalleader in digital customer
(00:42):
engagement.
Now at SysAid, he's leading a22-year-old company through an
AI driven transformation whilemaintaining double digit growth
and profitability.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Avi to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Avi Kedmi (00:52):
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
Dan Balcauski (00:55):
I am very excited for our conversation today, Avi,
I gave you the folks a littlebit of a taste of your
background in my intro, butcould you kinda briefly
introduce yourself and tell us alittle about your journey in the
SaaS world.
Avi Kedmi (01:07):
Yep.
Sure.
I think I started my journey in.
90, 98, something like that.
And through this journey Istarted as a developer, a Java
developer in the early days ofthe, before the first bubble.
And grew from there to, to buildmyself to be a product leader.
(01:29):
Founder.
And later on an executive in a,in, it's more a Nasdaq company.
I feel like I've done a lot.
I dunno if it's good or bad, butfrom development to product, to
customer success, to supportsales like really different
things.
So happy to be here.
I also have a family and fourkids.
(01:51):
And it's a journey on its own.
I say.
Dan Balcauski (01:55):
You are a very busy man and we appreciate you
taking time outta your scheduleto spend it with us and share
your hard one knowledge.
Look, we all have these momentsin our lives that kind of
transform us.
I kind of think of him as yoursuperhero transformation moment
where I'm a regular, normal,high school student.
As Peter Parker.
I get bitten by a rad,radioactive spider.
(02:16):
I go to bed.
I wake up, up Spider-Man.
What moment has that been foryou in your life?
Avi Kedmi (02:22):
I, I think the, for me it was early in the days,
that moment where you write codeand you see that creation and
that moment that you see thatcreation and your power to
create.
And because it's a machine,eventually you are generating a
product that's like it's codethat you can run.
(02:43):
It some sort of always does whatyou programmed it to do almost
forever, right?
So it's a combination of thatmoment of creation, it's like
birth and at the same time it'sa birth of something that is so
resilient, right?
So I think that was the moment Ifell in love with building, with
(03:06):
just building products.
Dan Balcauski (03:08):
Well, I'm glad you had that experience.
I also started my career as asoftware developer, and mostly
what I remember is all themoments where the machine
wouldn't do what I wanted to doand didn't care how angry I got.
So I realized that maybe alifelong of engineering wasn't
a.
My future and switch to othermore productive paths.
That's awesome.
I and hopefully, these machinescontinue to do what we tell them
and don't take over.
(03:29):
But I, for one, welcome our newrobot overlords and wants to
make sure that they, they'refeel welcome from at least my
end of the microphone.
I wanna pivot a little bit toSysAid and cha and Scaling that
company to set the context foreveryone.
Can you give us just.
Your 32nd elevator pitch on whatSysAid is where it plays.
Avi Kedmi (03:47):
SysAid is a service management.
Software vendor that provides anout of the box software that is
focused on mid-marketorganizations.
And it's a global, it has aglobal footprint.
So we have about 3000 clients.
(04:07):
We sell across more than ahundred countries and the
majority of the use cases arerun it.
So if you are in.
Any company in the world, andyou use our software, it means
that you have VPN issues or youwant a new computer or you broke
your computer, or you're tryingto get access to Salesforce and
you needed someone to provisiona license.
(04:29):
So a lot of it trickles back toit.
And that's our software thatprovides all the help desk, the
ticketing aspects of it, andalso all the automations,
workflows and lately also a lotof ai.
Dan Balcauski (04:42):
Well that's fascinating.
And I know that you weren't theoriginal founder at SysAid.
Can you just kind of give us theshort story of how you ended up
at the company And what was themain challenge that you were
brought on to help solve whenyou joined?
Avi Kedmi (04:56):
Yep.
So it's interesting.
I actually was as I was windingdown from life person as an
executive, I.
Thought, what's next for me?
And it was clear to me that itmeans another startup, like, and
I thought, what's the right,products to build, like business
(05:18):
ideas.
And then I was introduced to thechairman of the board of sis
eight and 20 minutes into themeeting it was clear that this
is a perfect match to me.
So this is how I ended up atSysAid and the reason was that a
lot of the time when you bring ahigh yield CEO, right, that's
(05:39):
not the founder you are broughtin to like fix something really
bad.
Like, the opportunities are, alot of them are like broken
companies and, and this is why alot of the founders just, they
will pick to do another startupversus taking someone else
company.
And in this case, the companywas amazing growing, great
(06:01):
company, great set of clients,great set of people.
So that was the first check thebox.
And the second I looked at themarket and I said, no one yet is
really conquering this marketwith ai.
And through my almost 20 yearsof experience with ai in
building AI products, I'velearned that there are different
(06:23):
different use cases that AI isnot gonna do a good job, it's
gonna be perfect, and IT servicemanagement is one of these
places.
AI needs data, freshness alwayswith the data.
And it needs people to fine tuneit in many cases.
(06:44):
And and it needs users withpatience for it to be sometime,
most of the time perfect andsometime make some mistakes.
And here goes ITSM it mostlyfocused on employees that have
much more patient than like acustomer support was.
Usually they're upset.
They're always upset, right?
And at the same time, this is afully closed environment because
(07:08):
the it not only controls.
The tickets, the knowledge base,the workflows, and helping their
employees, but also in everylaptop, in almost every company
that in the world, the IT teamsalso runs executables that are
helping the it when those issueto monitor and see that that the
(07:29):
laptops are secures, et cetera.
So now you got access to themachine.
Access to the tickets and theknowledge base and all of it.
It's live breathing and pullpulling data, you can generate a
fully AI contained environmentthat's big.
Right?
So I saw that opportunity andthe combination of SysAid being
(07:52):
a great company, I felt it's amatch.
Dan Balcauski (07:56):
Hmm.
Well, and the IT folks, I thinkyou're right, right?
You're in a support role, whichthere is, there's IT help desk
which could be a support rolewhere maybe their in internal
customers aren't happy, but,there's compared to, your
customer support, like, Hey, I'mpaying for this thing and it's
broken.
It's very reactive and like, howfast can we close tickets?
Whereas the IT folks also tendto be tinkerers, right?
(08:16):
They're always kind of lookingfor a better way.
They're technologists they'relooking to like, oh, like, what
if I stitched this thingtogether, this thing together,
wouldn't that be cool?
And, I could, be able to do myjob much more efficiently.
And so, it's a fun market to, toplay in.
I completely agree and I havefond
Avi Kedmi (08:30):
have a,
Dan Balcauski (08:31):
in the IT world.
Avi Kedmi (08:32):
have a statement that I've learned through my year and
a half here is that I say onthis IT market, it's like it's
not going anywhere, and thecompetitors are not waiting for
anyone, right?
Not going
Dan Balcauski (08:47):
Unpack that for me.
Avi Kedmi (08:48):
not going anywhere means.
It's a massive market.
It's just some sort of, if youin four years will build.
A, a company that's solving anIT need like mobile device
management.
Like security management, notnow just open, installed the
company in four years and only ayear or two after you'll go to
(09:10):
market, you can still have amassive and big company that's
successful.
The market keeps growing andgrowing and growing.
It's total addressable market.
So the market is not goinganywhere.
It's just actually, it's growingand at the same time.
The competitors are not waitingfor anyone.
Each one is driving the bus formore products, more ai.
(09:31):
So that, that's a bit unpacking,man, that statement
Dan Balcauski (09:35):
Well, so, so SysAid, you joined obviously you
said, it wasn't broken in themaybe classic sense of the word,
but you know, as you looked atit, what did you feel was really
holding the company back fromachieving its next stage of
growth?
Avi Kedmi (09:49):
I.
Yeah, so I have a philosophy onit that I don't know if all CEOs
would say the same, but I wouldsay companies that are B2B SaaS,
Dan Balcauski (10:03):
Mm-Hmm.
Avi Kedmi (10:03):
most important thing, put aside people, of course, is
the product.
If you have a great product withgreat usability, and it works
well, right, not ups and downs.
And it provides a solve to apain or a need, even with a
(10:26):
mediocre go to market, you'll bea very successful company.
The reverse will not work.
It's very hard to take productsthat are not great to become
massively successful.
That would be my philosophy.
SysAid the need here was.
To take the product from hisglory days and bring it back to
(10:51):
be glory days, innovate a lotmore, modernize the user
interface interfaces, expandmore capabilities, et cetera.
So that was the biggest task inhand for me in this case.
Dan Balcauski (11:05):
So, well, so obviously, so you had this view
or philosophy around, theimportance of, this investment
in the product and, where itcould be, maybe how did you
think about getting theorganization to sort of buy into
that perspective?
Were there elements that youthink were critical to kind of
bringing that into reality?
Avi Kedmi (11:27):
Yeah, so the first thing.
First, it's not an easy change,right?
20 years company, 200 employees.
It's not a 10 people companythat you can change overnight.
And I would say the first thingis about a shared mission and a
clear vision of how you're gonnaget there, and that was one of
(11:49):
my top things that I was focusedon and few months after I
joined.
Here come the mission, which isour mission, is to liberate
organizations by putting AI towork for them and their people.
And when you put a very crispand powerful purpose together,
first people start to changetheir behavior.
(12:12):
What do they think?
What do they build in products?
What do they think when they'rein the finance team?
When you are hiring people, oh,I wanna be part of a company
that's its mission.
So, to take a company to thenext level, it my experience,
and I would say everybody hastheir own way.
It all starts with the top ofthe spear, which is the mission
and the vision.
(12:34):
And once you have that and it'snot yet another one, right, then
things fall in much moretrivial.
Dan Balcauski (12:43):
So mission and vision can be.
Fuzzy concepts.
So just like, how do you thinkabout like, for, like, how would
you distinguish the two?
Because I found that, peoplecould even, talk about mission
and some other person would belike, well, that's not mission,
that's a vision.
Like,
Avi Kedmi (12:57):
I will tell you first, how do you achieve it?
And then what's my perspectiveon what's the difference?
I think through my way ofmanaging and generally I think
it's all about experience.
E experience defines a way forus to be creative and to come
with some brilliancy sometimes.
So I took the management teamlater on, also the larger forum,
(13:22):
and in the management team, Ijust brought them to a room
somewhere in the desert.
It's a true story, and I madesure one of the people there
that HR leader will take all the20 top companies in the world.
And print out their mission andvision and put it on the wall.
And then I put people in theroom and I said, first of all,
(13:44):
just go over it and read one byone and see the power of it.
Right?
And then you will understandwhat's the meaning, right?
So you stand and you see, wow,Tesla is about changing the
world to be more electricrelated, and global warming.
But its vision, which is thefirst part is to build and lead
(14:07):
the whole world intransformation energy for cars.
So you're saying, wow.
So the mission is to transformthe world, and the vision for
now is about starting with cars.
Okay.
So you then go to some othercompanies like Uber, like
Microsoft, like Google, and yousee some of them.
(14:29):
Take a different angle to it.
And then I got the samequestion.
I said, it doesn't matter.
It all connects to well is thepurpose of you in the world and
where you want to go.
And it can be in the mission, itcan be in the vision.
I personally like that themission is big and the vision is
phase one.
(14:49):
That's what worked for methroughout the years.
So, and the Tesla is a goodexample for it, but I would say,
the mission has to be very big.
That's the base start of it.
Right?
So this was my trick of ofbringing people to an experience
that drives creativity fromthem.
And then the other part is younever end these sessions with a
(15:12):
line.
You never.
Right.
It doesn't work like that.
It, when we were out of thisoffsite, we did every week,
another hour and two, we exposedother people in the company.
We got their feedback and youkeep iterating on it and then
you have it.
And once you have it, you see itLike when I think now, and it,
by the way, in all the screenshere in the company, when I
(15:32):
think now I cannot say, wow, howdid we get to it?
I know there were five months.
Of iteration to get to ourmission is to liberate
organizations by putting AI towork for them and their people.
By the way, the last part wastheir people.
You may say, why?
Why are you not liberatingorganization?
(15:52):
Because there's a lot of peoplesaid, this is scary, AI is
scary.
And I said, but you know, thetruth is you've already
outsourced some of your life toai.
You wanna know what it is Whenyour kid comes to you at the
evening and say.
What's the weather in the moon?
20 th 30 years back you wouldsay, let me check this
(16:13):
encyclopedia and let me find itto you.
And then, is it the last versionof the encyclopedia?
Maybe it's the wrong answer.
And now you just tell them, goGoogle it.
You trust Google, you it's moreproductive.
It's fast, and all of it is Nowyou've outsourced to ai.
You just don't call it likethat.
But this is why we've also said.
(16:34):
For them, for their peoplebecause it is important to know
that above all, at the phase oneof all, ai, it takes us as human
being and make us superpower.
That will be the phase one, andwe're seeing it agent assist and
all like we are now becomingmore and more superhuman.
I have a like a, an a, a hiringand I had to write a job
(16:57):
description.
The world is not about writingit.
I gave a prompt.
I wrote it a few times and then.
This case open.
I just said, here is your dog.
Here is your, and it wasperfect, but I had to know how
to talk to it and it saved threehours to me.
Dan Balcauski (17:12):
I love so many parts of that story.
So, just a, it's a quick recapof highlights.
I heard.
So one was, you did that processiteratively starting with kind
of looking at examples and sortof using those as inspiration.
That emotional component is keybecause, it, that iterative
process of expanding the scopeof people that are resonating or
(17:37):
not resonating, I think,'cause Ithink we've all been on the
other side of.
Executive team comes out androlls reveals their new mission,
vision statement, and it's been,it's so like bland and
overprocessed that we all justgo like, what is
Avi Kedmi (17:52):
I yeah I, by the way, if you go to my LinkedIn, the
biggest volumes of comments andviews is a post where I took
Nike.
The company, Nikes famous 1960Guiding Principles.
I dunno if you've seen it ever.
I dunno if you've seen it.
Dan Balcauski (18:10):
I I mean, I probably I have read shoe dogs,
so I'm
Avi Kedmi (18:13):
He doesn't put it in Shoe Dog.
I read it
Dan Balcauski (18:15):
Oh, he is not in Shoe Dog.
Avi Kedmi (18:16):
because I'm not sure he is proud of what's there, but
this is one of the very.
It's a crazy document that'svery aggressive, right?
Like 10 commandments of how youwork here, how we're gonna be
successful, right?
And one of them is like, numberseven was like, it's not gonna
be pretty.
But the and people gave a lot offeedback, et cetera and one of
(18:37):
the people wrote them, which isimportant, all of these mission,
vision, values.
It's not by some three executivesitting in a room and a
consulting company.
It's the people that work.
That the many people at thecompany that feel this is part
of what the, they decide thatthe company should do, so same
goes for the mission vision.
(18:58):
On the mission vision from a 200people, I would say there were
about 50 people involved.
Dan Balcauski (19:04):
There's so many, there's so many areas I'd love
to PPL plumb, but I, there'salso a bunch of topics I want to
go over with you.
So, so I know you did at onepoint also bring the founder
back to the organization.
So I want to understand how thatdecision came to be and how that
figured into kind of this largergetting the company to the next
stage of growth that you weretalking about.
Avi Kedmi (19:25):
so.
I was a founder for seven yearson the company I built, and then
I was 11 years as an executiveat a company that I didn't
found, but I felt it was mine.
And when I joined seas a Ireally, I was worried how much
time it will take me to feel asif it's my company also.
Right.
(19:46):
And literally three days after Ijoined, I said.
I can do it.
I can feel it.
Well, where is the founder?
Where is he here?
Right?
Because that's some sort of thisrock.
And the founder of SysAid wasthe one that wrote most of the
code in the first five, 10 yearson his own.
(20:09):
So, I gave him a call and Isaid, it's time for you to come
back because we need to build anAI platform, and I think you're
the one that's gonna build it.
And he said, I'm comingtomorrow.
10 years.
He wasn't at the company.
24 hours he appeared, I think atthe end.
(20:31):
And it's a dramatic impact, notbecause we have a power of such
a person.
Right.
But it's also, I think it's amessage for a lot of the, for a
lot of the people you know, ofwhat it means when a founder is
still there 22 years after.
So I feel like the board says,we, the board, they, they said
(20:52):
that they anticipated a lot ofmy moves, but this one was not
anticipated and was the bestmove.
Dan Balcauski (21:00):
Interesting.
So I find it fascinating becauseI, especially coming in as a non
founder, CEO, one of thechallenges that I've heard of is
like, when the founders arestill there, that can often
create tension because, like youmentioned really like how long
will it take to become mycompany?
Was there ways that, that eitherdidn't manifest or that you were
(21:22):
able to create ways to worktogether collaboratively such
that that wasn't a attention?
Avi Kedmi (21:29):
I think that I would say at founders and generally
leaders, especially those with alot of passion you have to have
a level of conversation withthem that's very authentic.
And that is also supporting alot of their needs.
So I dunno, maybe it's my agethat I'm, I got to 50 and and
(21:52):
maybe, I don't know, experience,I dunno where it is, but I try
not to fight on things, but moreto understand the other side and
what do they need to excel.
That's what I tried to do and Ifelt that the founder.
Wants a, like he wants a placeto lead something that's big,
that's transformative versus,Hey, just come in, let's fix
(22:13):
bugs.
Right?
So, but it, it also in thesekind of relationships, you
cannot, like, it's not set andgo, it's like you, on a weekly
basis, you gotta spend time withpeople.
They have to feel, and they haveto also truly be part of the
decision making.
So, like.
A few days ago I'm working onthe objective OKRs for 2025.
(22:35):
I'm a big believer in OKRs.
And then I go, I sit with him, Ishare all, and I write notes to
see his feedback.
I just I want people's feedback,especially from people that are
key drivers in the org, whetherthey're in the management or
not.
Dan Balcauski (22:50):
You had said, the board didn't anticipate this
move, but it turned out to be areally good move.
Like how do you think about theimpact that that decision has
had on the organization in sortof meeting those high level
goals that you were trying toset out?
I.
Avi Kedmi (23:03):
Extreme.
Basically, he came in, he had,he took few people with him,
including some product person.
Amazing one, they took fourmonths, they built something.
And we went like MVP betaJanuary 1st.
We started to sell, we, in 10months, we sold to more than 150
(23:24):
clients, this product.
Right.
And it contributed a lot toexpansions.
Ex acquisition just.
Huge impact.
And when people read aboutSysAid today, they already get a
filter of, they innovate withai, and it's real, and those
real customers.
And it's like, it's happeningnot just an idea.
(23:46):
So big impact.
Dan Balcauski (23:47):
So, so, so what do you think that it was, so
obviously, he was able toaccelerate from sort of day one
and sort of get a product, intomarket super quickly.
Like how, like what does thatmean in terms of what he was
able to do versus maybe what thestatus
Avi Kedmi (24:05):
great.
Great
Dan Balcauski (24:05):
Was, was, was everyone else?
Avi Kedmi (24:07):
So it's a great question.
I didn't write it till some likethese PDFs where you can find
all the web that to talks abouthow to transform or how to
accelerate and usually there arethree rules.
The first we talked about sharedvision, people aligned to the
strategy.
(24:28):
The second is split between whatyou have today that works and
it's like a cash cow and makesure it's like profitable and
it's executing.
And the only way you measure itis by growth and profitability,
but you squeeze it a bit, right?
It's you.
You don't go while there onresources and on the right side
(24:51):
you innovate and there you don'tmeasure success on money.
You only measure on the speed onexecution and iterations.
That's the only thing youmeasure, how fast they're
iterating, pushing product tomarket, getting customer
feedback, et cetera.
So this is the second rule, andthe way you do it is by the
third rule, which is align theinnovations to report directly
(25:16):
to the CEO.
Or to a C level if it's a verybig company to a C level cleaned
up, just clean up everyone sothey can run.
So I don't wanna get too muchdetail, but I, that's, we've
cleaned up a lot, includingrestructuring in order for this
few people, not to beinterrupted or not to have days
(25:42):
of meetings and approvals, etcetera.
So again, I didn't invent someof this methodology.
Shared vision, innovation versuscash cow measured by iteration
versus measured by profitabilityand growth.
And the last piece is aligned,the aligned the org structure
differently in these kind ofthings.
So you have swim lenss that donot have anyone blocking them,
(26:05):
and they're not, hey, but youknow, but they're not generating
revenues while, yeah, justdrive, go drive.
Dan Balcauski (26:13):
Yeah.
Well, there's, yeah I love thatidea of yeah, sort of eliminate
or removing the barriers totheir speed of execution,
because I think everyone hasbeen in that role where you're
asked to take on, oh, it's a Clevel, it's CEO number one
priority project, but the, theIC product leader is, two, three
(26:34):
levels down in the organization.
And so, okay, we've made someprogress.
It's time for a QBR and now thatIC product manager, they've
gotta go for a round of reviewswith the their
Avi Kedmi (26:44):
We were exactly, by the
Dan Balcauski (26:46):
and then with the
Avi Kedmi (26:46):
it's crazy.
I remember I came to a meetingwith a small AI team, and then
the person, one of the productmanagers came to the meeting.
Her manager came to the meeting,the director came to the
meeting.
You got like four people thatare.
In the middle, they're verysmart.
(27:07):
Sorry.
They're smart, they're powerfulpeople and they can give, they
can contribute.
But at this point you have anindividual contributor that has
a lot of people to go through todecide and and usually that
doesn't drive things fast.
Dan Balcauski (27:25):
Yeah, you spent a lot of time in those as well on
messaging of like, well, let'snot say this, let's say that
instead, because that'll landbetter, right?
And so you're like, well, well,your customers at the end of the
day don't care about any ofthat, right?
Like you're, I don't know, likeyou're preventing.
People from hearing maybeinformation that wouldn't be
presented in the mostpolitically correct way, but
yeah it does, it, it changes,where you're expending energy.
(27:48):
And that ends up being a sort ofan invisible drag, right?
It's work like, you can't sayanyone's slacking off, but it's
a tax you're paying on thatspeed of execution.
I do wanna talk, you brought upAI a couple of times and you.
You've seen a long arc of ai.
'cause I believe your originalcompany that you had founded was
a, was an machine learningstartup.
Is that correct?
Avi Kedmi (28:07):
Full fledge.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (28:08):
full
Avi Kedmi (28:09):
Full fledge.
We wrote the code in matlab,then moved it to Java.
We wrote three patents.
We fought on them for two yearsor three years.
We, they got accepted.
So, predictive modeling withonline models and offline
models.
Really I, this was a crazyjourney.
Dan Balcauski (28:26):
Do you see those, these as two entirely separate
worlds?
Are there lessons that you'velearned from your early days in
working in machine learning tothis new generative AI world
that we're in today?
I.
Avi Kedmi (28:39):
Yep.
And I think, by the way, this ispart of SysAid success on AI
because a lot of people jump onAI A and think that immediately
human is out of the loop.
It doesn't work like that.
AI can spot a hair from 10 milesforward, but can miss a massive
(29:05):
tree that blocking their eyes,and that's life.
That's ai, right?
And you have to understand thatAI comes with ability to
customize.
Must come with ability tomonitor and fine tune an
approval process must and mustcome with understanding of the
(29:29):
results of it and the ROI andthe success.
If you don't bring these few,you will see companies not using
it eventually because AI willalways have its need for fine
tune and monitoring.
And that's what we've done.
Version one.
Came with it.
And we didn't say let's just,because we knew that will buy us
(29:51):
the trust of the other people.
And you see a lot of thecompanies today, we, they would
say, yeah, AI can just answerinstead of you.
And that's correct, but theperson wants to see what's the
answer.
And if he doesn't like theanswer, he wants to correct it.
That's how life works.
Right.
So, I think this is the bigpart, and I will say this
(30:14):
another one, which is I've seenthrough these 20 years machine
learning life person heavy onNLPs engines and language
models.
Generative AI is just it's soextreme that we could talk on
the scary part.
(30:34):
It's transformative on levelsthat people cannot imagine.
I think people, 90% of the worldof employees, developers,
managers, leaders, the way, whenI talk to a lot of 90%, if not
more, they do not understandwhere are we now in this cycle
(30:58):
of what's going on.
We wanna crisp.
Of a transformation that's soextreme that people will never
imagine how the high tech usedto work.
Dan Balcauski (31:13):
Well, I'm curious about that.
Like, so if you think about theITSM space that SysAid's playing
in, like I guess.
How do you see that, thattransformation playing out over
the next several years?
Or are there early kind of greenshoots you're already seeing and
how people are thinking aboutthe
Avi Kedmi (31:27):
Yeah.
So I think that what you'll,what you're gonna see and seeing
already the first thing thefirst thing that's happening in
this it, in this market.
So while we're going to a worldof fully AI contained, which
means that the whole IT team isrun by ai.
And there are a few peoplemonitoring, fine tuning,
(31:48):
strategizing, AI to the rightplaces, right?
You can see very quickly likesome IT person waking up.
Good morning.
C eight.
I see ticket 3, 3, 4 is open forabout two days and no one is
solving it.
Reach out to the customer, tothe employee.
See what's going on.
Please uninstall.
(32:09):
MS teams and work with thatperson on the time that it's
convenient to them to restart.
Write a summary that summarizewhat I need.
If it doesn't work, go to theweb and find still what are the
issues and come back with asolution and write a script that
maybe will alter how Ms.
Team is installed.
Get my approval before you do itand make sure you're nice to
(32:31):
that person and say warm words,he just got back from vacation.
Report back.
Thank you.
Bye.
Ticket 7, 7, 8.
It's easy.
Do this, like this is wherewe're going.
Phase one of it is havingconversational interfaces for
agents and for employees.
Once you have this, they are nowthe interfaces that connect, and
(32:55):
you'll see in theseconversational interfaces
becoming more and more powerful.
If first part was a lot aboutsmart answers and finding the
right answer, combining it withthe right knowledge base and
generating an answer, you aregonna see a lot more actions
happening.
Right?
Hey, I'm a new employee.
(33:17):
Someone wrote my last name,Tchaikovsky wrong.
It's missing an H, so can youfix it?
This is my last name, right?
So you would see that AI willunderstand it.
It'll find the right tool thatwas built by AI and that was
approved by a human being.
(33:38):
And it would just, okay, got it.
Run it done.
Can you check now?
And knows to go to these fivesystems and if it's missing a
system that doesn't have access,it'll write the integration on
the fly.
We are going there we are goingthere faster.
Than we think.
But I'll tell you a story, aninteresting story.
(33:59):
I was last night in a dinnerwith a friend that I really
appreciate, worked with me inthe past, brilliant guy, and I
haven't met him for six months.
And I said, what are you doing?
He said, I have a big idearelated to the human body and
software, like some crazy idea.
(34:21):
And I said, and I'm like.
In my old thinking, what am Isaying to him?
Wow.
I think it's a crazy idea.
I dunno if you can do it, but ifyou'll do it, it's big.
You're raising money probably,right?
Did you meet a venture?
C and I'm this spiel of what weknow how to do in the last 20
years of startup or find a, anangel give you half a million
(34:41):
dollar, 2 million.
And he said, no, I bought threescreens.
I have a tropic on one.
Open AI on the second, andGermany on the third.
I do 10 hours or 20 hours a daywith all of them, and I think I
built most of the software partof what I need.
(35:02):
I said, what do you mean you'vebuilt most of it?
He said, yeah, I have the API, Ihave the documentation, I have
the logic, I have the website,and I'm like, anyone else in the
company?
And he said, no, it's just meAnd four months of my life.
This is where we are now.
Is it perfect?
Not, does it need to write 50 ora hundred times the prompts
(35:25):
until he gets the right code?
Yes.
We need that eventually today.
A developer that will help himfine tune yes, but what he did
in four months alone, I was likebuilding a company.
This is where we're going.
We're going because the speed ofhow these systems, the Gen AI
are evolving is faster than theadoption curve.
(35:49):
Unique.
Well, in the industry in thelast 20, 25 years, the adoption
was slower than the power ofwhat it could contribute as
value.
Dan Balcauski (36:03):
Yeah.
That's fascinating.
And yeah, I we, we will live incertainly interesting times
coming up in the next few years.
One, one more question on ai,'cause it is a question I get
pretty often, which is, so, soyou've done this work to align
the company on, this world of AIand, increasing the speed of
innovation.
But you know, I'm sure as a CEO,you pressure the board.
(36:25):
It's like, okay, well, when dowe see a return on this
innovation?
How do you, how have you thoughtabout the monetization aspect of
these capabilities?
W how do you think of that inthe life cycle of working on
this bringing this AI vision tomarket for SysAid?
Avi Kedmi (36:38):
Wow.
It's a great it's a great topic.
Analysts Gartner Foster talks alot about it.
I also consult a lot with them.
There are three.
Options that I thought areavailable, and I'll tell you
which one I picked.
We picked as a team one option,which is to say, AI is providing
(37:04):
value.
It's a premium product.
Let's make it expensive, andthen later on it'll be
commoditized.
This is how the world is going.
Option one, right?
Option two is to say, let's makeit some sort of.
No money, free everything,because if we're all about ai
(37:27):
right, then just you cannot havea customer that doesn't use it.
Right?
And the third option, which was,I call it the price of making,
being serious in business, is tosay, let's charge for it, but
not a lot, not extreme, justcharge for it.
So we see that they're serious.
(37:49):
And we picked number three, andit works well for us, but it's a
very simple pricing.
It's a list price on it.
And we made it very simple andit's a, I was in UK in one of
the biggest gym chain luxuryones, great company, and then I,
to prove you to go to market.
I was demoing and I was talkingto the guy, the IT leader, they
(38:11):
are existing clients.
And I said, it's gonna cost youthat.
And he said, that's what it'sgonna cost.
Send the contract.
I'm signing.
Signing it today.
Because he didn't, we didn'tcross his burial to be greedy.
We just wanted to get it out.
But we want to be seriousbecause just enabling it, if you
didn't pay, many times peoplewill not use.
So this is where we landed, butI think some companies are doing
(38:33):
well also by providing it free.
So people are starting to getlike a habit of only using the
AI part.
Dan Balcauski (38:41):
And I, something you just said at the end there I
really loved, which is that thiswhole idea of just access does
not equal value.
Like, just'cause they have itavailable to them, but charging
them something does.
I like the way you phrased it.
It proves that they're serious.
Look, I can talk to you all day.
I do wanna start wrapping thingsup with Some clo rapid closeout
questions.
Are you ready?
Avi Kedmi (39:01):
Ready.
Dan Balcauski (39:02):
When you think about all the spectacular people
you've had a chance to workwith, is there anyone who just
pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect on the
way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Avi Kedmi (39:13):
I will say it's crazy.
I'll tell you that.
It's my wife, but I wannaexplain why it's, there's a
unique story.
I'm married, we're together 25 4years and.
My wife, she's a cell biologyassistant professor in the
Whitesman Institute, so it'svery successful.
(39:36):
She has her own lab.
She's a builder, just machineswithin your body.
And for many years we that wewere together, she never logged
into our bank account.
She.
I'll say she doesn't even have acredit card on her name.
She is, he doesn't care aboutmoney.
She uses it when she needs touse, but it doesn't bother her.
(39:58):
It doesn't takes in her cyclesof right is like, how much do I
have really?
But this allows her to be veryclean of tactics.
And just focus on strategy.
So I would say a lot of heradvices to me when I have
(40:18):
challenges are just brilliantbecause she's not saying, here's
my advice, but yes.
Maybe the employee will saythat, but it is, but it's, the
competitors will also, it's justvery clean into this is what I
would do.
So I think she's the mostinfluential person on this part
of my life.
Dan Balcauski (40:39):
What a what a intimidating intellectual and
powerful partner that you have.
Well, well, thank you to her forsupporting you.
Being a CEO can be taxing.
Is there anything that you dophysically, emotionally,
spiritually, to keep yourself onthe top of your game?
Avi Kedmi (40:58):
I think people so, there's this lot of these,
podcast right by, I'm not gonnasay the name, but these famous
motivator people.
I think doing sports a few timesa week if possible, every day.
I'm not on the every day, butlike, I think sports is one of
the biggest driver of ability tohave clarity in your head.
Dan Balcauski (41:20):
Getting a, getting a sweat can help your
brain get much clearer.
Uh, I completely agree withthat, with
Avi Kedmi (41:24):
But I don't have hobbies.
I would say I wish I had, but Itry to do family work and some
sort of nothing left outside.
Dan Balcauski (41:32):
Well, four, four kids leading a company.
I imagine you have time tosleep.
If I gave you a billboard, youcould put any advice on there
for other B2B Sass e trying toscale their company, what would
it say?
Avi Kedmi (41:42):
I, I would say that I think that if you spend 60% of
your time as a CEO.
On the product, you have a muchbetter chance to accelerate
whatever growth you have.
I think at the end amazingproducts have great success and
(42:07):
not great products.
It's very hard to make themsuccessful with a fabulous go to
market.
And I think that we, especiallywithin an era where people just
expect great products with greatux, that works well.
So I think if as a CEO is Ithink you should spend at least
50, 60% of your time on it.
(42:28):
I think the ROI on it will bemuch bigger than some others.
Dan Balcauski (42:32):
Spend 60% of your time in making your product
excellent.
Love it.
Avi, this has been a blast.
If our listeners want to connectwith you, learn more about
SysAid, how can they do that?
Avi Kedmi (42:40):
I am on LinkedIn.
You can find me easy there.
I would say I don't miss amessage on LinkedIn, right?
I get people asking for a job orpeople telling me their vision
and I usually unless it'ssomeone selling something, I
usually respond.
I values people time and sothat, that's the easiest way to
connect.
Dan Balcauski (43:00):
Awesome.
Well, I will put the link in theshow notes for our listeners,
everyone that wraps up thisepisode of SaaS Scaling.
Secrets.
Thank you to Avi for sharing hisjourney, insights, and
invaluable tips for ourlisteners.
If you found this conversationas excited to remember to
subscribe so you don't miss outon future episodes.
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS Companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withAvi Kedmi, CEO of SysAid.
Avi's journey in tech isfascinating from founding and
selling his machine learningstartup to spending a decade in
executive leadership atLivePerson, where you help
transform it into a globalleader in digital customer
(00:42):
engagement.
Now at SysAid, he's leading a22-year-old company through an
AI driven transformation whilemaintaining double digit growth
and profitability.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Avi to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Avi Kedmi (00:52):
Thank you.
It's great to be here.
Dan Balcauski (00:55):
I am very excited for our conversation today, Avi,
I gave you the folks a littlebit of a taste of your
background in my intro, butcould you kinda briefly
introduce yourself and tell us alittle about your journey in the
SaaS world.
Avi Kedmi (01:07):
Yep.
Sure.
I think I started my journey in.
90, 98, something like that.
And through this journey Istarted as a developer, a Java
developer in the early days ofthe, before the first bubble.
And grew from there to, to buildmyself to be a product leader.
(01:29):
Founder.
And later on an executive in a,in, it's more a Nasdaq company.
I feel like I've done a lot.
I dunno if it's good or bad, butfrom development to product, to
customer success, to supportsales like really different
things.
So happy to be here.
I also have a family and fourkids.
(01:51):
And it's a journey on its own.
I say.
Dan Balcauski (01:55):
You are a very busy man and we appreciate you
taking time outta your scheduleto spend it with us and share
your hard one knowledge.
Look, we all have these momentsin our lives that kind of
transform us.
I kind of think of him as yoursuperhero transformation moment
where I'm a regular, normal,high school student.
As Peter Parker.
I get bitten by a rad,radioactive spider.
(02:16):
I go to bed.
I wake up, up Spider-Man.
What moment has that been foryou in your life?
Avi Kedmi (02:22):
I, I think the, for me it was early in the days,
that moment where you write codeand you see that creation and
that moment that you see thatcreation and your power to
create.
And because it's a machine,eventually you are generating a
product that's like it's codethat you can run.
(02:43):
It some sort of always does whatyou programmed it to do almost
forever, right?
So it's a combination of thatmoment of creation, it's like
birth and at the same time it'sa birth of something that is so
resilient, right?
So I think that was the moment Ifell in love with building, with
(03:06):
just building products.
Dan Balcauski (03:08):
Well, I'm glad you had that experience.
I also started my career as asoftware developer, and mostly
what I remember is all themoments where the machine
wouldn't do what I wanted to doand didn't care how angry I got.
So I realized that maybe alifelong of engineering wasn't
a.
My future and switch to othermore productive paths.
That's awesome.
I and hopefully, these machinescontinue to do what we tell them
and don't take over.
(03:29):
But I, for one, welcome our newrobot overlords and wants to
make sure that they, they'refeel welcome from at least my
end of the microphone.
I wanna pivot a little bit toSysAid and cha and Scaling that
company to set the context foreveryone.
Can you give us just.
Your 32nd elevator pitch on whatSysAid is where it plays.
Avi Kedmi (03:47):
SysAid is a service management.
Software vendor that provides anout of the box software that is
focused on mid-marketorganizations.
And it's a global, it has aglobal footprint.
So we have about 3000 clients.
(04:07):
We sell across more than ahundred countries and the
majority of the use cases arerun it.
So if you are in.
Any company in the world, andyou use our software, it means
that you have VPN issues or youwant a new computer or you broke
your computer, or you're tryingto get access to Salesforce and
you needed someone to provisiona license.
(04:29):
So a lot of it trickles back toit.
And that's our software thatprovides all the help desk, the
ticketing aspects of it, andalso all the automations,
workflows and lately also a lotof ai.
Dan Balcauski (04:42):
Well that's fascinating.
And I know that you weren't theoriginal founder at SysAid.
Can you just kind of give us theshort story of how you ended up
at the company And what was themain challenge that you were
brought on to help solve whenyou joined?
Avi Kedmi (04:56):
Yep.
So it's interesting.
I actually was as I was windingdown from life person as an
executive, I.
Thought, what's next for me?
And it was clear to me that itmeans another startup, like, and
I thought, what's the right,products to build, like business
(05:18):
ideas.
And then I was introduced to thechairman of the board of sis
eight and 20 minutes into themeeting it was clear that this
is a perfect match to me.
So this is how I ended up atSysAid and the reason was that a
lot of the time when you bring ahigh yield CEO, right, that's
(05:39):
not the founder you are broughtin to like fix something really
bad.
Like, the opportunities are, alot of them are like broken
companies and, and this is why alot of the founders just, they
will pick to do another startupversus taking someone else
company.
And in this case, the companywas amazing growing, great
(06:01):
company, great set of clients,great set of people.
So that was the first check thebox.
And the second I looked at themarket and I said, no one yet is
really conquering this marketwith ai.
And through my almost 20 yearsof experience with ai in
building AI products, I'velearned that there are different
(06:23):
different use cases that AI isnot gonna do a good job, it's
gonna be perfect, and IT servicemanagement is one of these
places.
AI needs data, freshness alwayswith the data.
And it needs people to fine tuneit in many cases.
(06:44):
And and it needs users withpatience for it to be sometime,
most of the time perfect andsometime make some mistakes.
And here goes ITSM it mostlyfocused on employees that have
much more patient than like acustomer support was.
Usually they're upset.
They're always upset, right?
And at the same time, this is afully closed environment because
(07:08):
the it not only controls.
The tickets, the knowledge base,the workflows, and helping their
employees, but also in everylaptop, in almost every company
that in the world, the IT teamsalso runs executables that are
helping the it when those issueto monitor and see that that the
(07:29):
laptops are secures, et cetera.
So now you got access to themachine.
Access to the tickets and theknowledge base and all of it.
It's live breathing and pullpulling data, you can generate a
fully AI contained environmentthat's big.
Right?
So I saw that opportunity andthe combination of SysAid being
(07:52):
a great company, I felt it's amatch.
Dan Balcauski (07:56):
Hmm.
Well, and the IT folks, I thinkyou're right, right?
You're in a support role, whichthere is, there's IT help desk
which could be a support rolewhere maybe their in internal
customers aren't happy, but,there's compared to, your
customer support, like, Hey, I'mpaying for this thing and it's
broken.
It's very reactive and like, howfast can we close tickets?
Whereas the IT folks also tendto be tinkerers, right?
(08:16):
They're always kind of lookingfor a better way.
They're technologists they'relooking to like, oh, like, what
if I stitched this thingtogether, this thing together,
wouldn't that be cool?
And, I could, be able to do myjob much more efficiently.
And so, it's a fun market to, toplay in.
I completely agree and I havefond
Avi Kedmi (08:30):
have a,
Dan Balcauski (08:31):
in the IT world.
Avi Kedmi (08:32):
have a statement that I've learned through my year and
a half here is that I say onthis IT market, it's like it's
not going anywhere, and thecompetitors are not waiting for
anyone, right?
Not going
Dan Balcauski (08:47):
Unpack that for me.
Avi Kedmi (08:48):
not going anywhere means.
It's a massive market.
It's just some sort of, if youin four years will build.
A, a company that's solving anIT need like mobile device
management.
Like security management, notnow just open, installed the
company in four years and only ayear or two after you'll go to
(09:10):
market, you can still have amassive and big company that's
successful.
The market keeps growing andgrowing and growing.
It's total addressable market.
So the market is not goinganywhere.
It's just actually, it's growingand at the same time.
The competitors are not waitingfor anyone.
Each one is driving the bus formore products, more ai.
(09:31):
So that, that's a bit unpacking,man, that statement
Dan Balcauski (09:35):
Well, so, so SysAid, you joined obviously you
said, it wasn't broken in themaybe classic sense of the word,
but you know, as you looked atit, what did you feel was really
holding the company back fromachieving its next stage of
growth?
Avi Kedmi (09:49):
I.
Yeah, so I have a philosophy onit that I don't know if all CEOs
would say the same, but I wouldsay companies that are B2B SaaS,
Dan Balcauski (10:03):
Mm-Hmm.
Avi Kedmi (10:03):
most important thing, put aside people, of course, is
the product.
If you have a great product withgreat usability, and it works
well, right, not ups and downs.
And it provides a solve to apain or a need, even with a
(10:26):
mediocre go to market, you'll bea very successful company.
The reverse will not work.
It's very hard to take productsthat are not great to become
massively successful.
That would be my philosophy.
SysAid the need here was.
To take the product from hisglory days and bring it back to
(10:51):
be glory days, innovate a lotmore, modernize the user
interface interfaces, expandmore capabilities, et cetera.
So that was the biggest task inhand for me in this case.
Dan Balcauski (11:05):
So, well, so obviously, so you had this view
or philosophy around, theimportance of, this investment
in the product and, where itcould be, maybe how did you
think about getting theorganization to sort of buy into
that perspective?
Were there elements that youthink were critical to kind of
bringing that into reality?
Avi Kedmi (11:27):
Yeah, so the first thing.
First, it's not an easy change,right?
20 years company, 200 employees.
It's not a 10 people companythat you can change overnight.
And I would say the first thingis about a shared mission and a
clear vision of how you're gonnaget there, and that was one of
(11:49):
my top things that I was focusedon and few months after I
joined.
Here come the mission, which isour mission, is to liberate
organizations by putting AI towork for them and their people.
And when you put a very crispand powerful purpose together,
first people start to changetheir behavior.
(12:12):
What do they think?
What do they build in products?
What do they think when they'rein the finance team?
When you are hiring people, oh,I wanna be part of a company
that's its mission.
So, to take a company to thenext level, it my experience,
and I would say everybody hastheir own way.
It all starts with the top ofthe spear, which is the mission
and the vision.
(12:34):
And once you have that and it'snot yet another one, right, then
things fall in much moretrivial.
Dan Balcauski (12:43):
So mission and vision can be.
Fuzzy concepts.
So just like, how do you thinkabout like, for, like, how would
you distinguish the two?
Because I found that, peoplecould even, talk about mission
and some other person would belike, well, that's not mission,
that's a vision.
Like,
Avi Kedmi (12:57):
I will tell you first, how do you achieve it?
And then what's my perspectiveon what's the difference?
I think through my way ofmanaging and generally I think
it's all about experience.
E experience defines a way forus to be creative and to come
with some brilliancy sometimes.
So I took the management teamlater on, also the larger forum,
(13:22):
and in the management team, Ijust brought them to a room
somewhere in the desert.
It's a true story, and I madesure one of the people there
that HR leader will take all the20 top companies in the world.
And print out their mission andvision and put it on the wall.
And then I put people in theroom and I said, first of all,
(13:44):
just go over it and read one byone and see the power of it.
Right?
And then you will understandwhat's the meaning, right?
So you stand and you see, wow,Tesla is about changing the
world to be more electricrelated, and global warming.
But its vision, which is thefirst part is to build and lead
(14:07):
the whole world intransformation energy for cars.
So you're saying, wow.
So the mission is to transformthe world, and the vision for
now is about starting with cars.
Okay.
So you then go to some othercompanies like Uber, like
Microsoft, like Google, and yousee some of them.
(14:29):
Take a different angle to it.
And then I got the samequestion.
I said, it doesn't matter.
It all connects to well is thepurpose of you in the world and
where you want to go.
And it can be in the mission, itcan be in the vision.
I personally like that themission is big and the vision is
phase one.
(14:49):
That's what worked for methroughout the years.
So, and the Tesla is a goodexample for it, but I would say,
the mission has to be very big.
That's the base start of it.
Right?
So this was my trick of ofbringing people to an experience
that drives creativity fromthem.
And then the other part is younever end these sessions with a
(15:12):
line.
You never.
Right.
It doesn't work like that.
It, when we were out of thisoffsite, we did every week,
another hour and two, we exposedother people in the company.
We got their feedback and youkeep iterating on it and then
you have it.
And once you have it, you see itLike when I think now, and it,
by the way, in all the screenshere in the company, when I
(15:32):
think now I cannot say, wow, howdid we get to it?
I know there were five months.
Of iteration to get to ourmission is to liberate
organizations by putting AI towork for them and their people.
By the way, the last part wastheir people.
You may say, why?
Why are you not liberatingorganization?
(15:52):
Because there's a lot of peoplesaid, this is scary, AI is
scary.
And I said, but you know, thetruth is you've already
outsourced some of your life toai.
You wanna know what it is Whenyour kid comes to you at the
evening and say.
What's the weather in the moon?
20 th 30 years back you wouldsay, let me check this
(16:13):
encyclopedia and let me find itto you.
And then, is it the last versionof the encyclopedia?
Maybe it's the wrong answer.
And now you just tell them, goGoogle it.
You trust Google, you it's moreproductive.
It's fast, and all of it is Nowyou've outsourced to ai.
You just don't call it likethat.
But this is why we've also said.
(16:34):
For them, for their peoplebecause it is important to know
that above all, at the phase oneof all, ai, it takes us as human
being and make us superpower.
That will be the phase one, andwe're seeing it agent assist and
all like we are now becomingmore and more superhuman.
I have a like a, an a, a hiringand I had to write a job
(16:57):
description.
The world is not about writingit.
I gave a prompt.
I wrote it a few times and then.
This case open.
I just said, here is your dog.
Here is your, and it wasperfect, but I had to know how
to talk to it and it saved threehours to me.
Dan Balcauski (17:12):
I love so many parts of that story.
So, just a, it's a quick recapof highlights.
I heard.
So one was, you did that processiteratively starting with kind
of looking at examples and sortof using those as inspiration.
That emotional component is keybecause, it, that iterative
process of expanding the scopeof people that are resonating or
(17:37):
not resonating, I think,'cause Ithink we've all been on the
other side of.
Executive team comes out androlls reveals their new mission,
vision statement, and it's been,it's so like bland and
overprocessed that we all justgo like, what is
Avi Kedmi (17:52):
I yeah I, by the way, if you go to my LinkedIn, the
biggest volumes of comments andviews is a post where I took
Nike.
The company, Nikes famous 1960Guiding Principles.
I dunno if you've seen it ever.
I dunno if you've seen it.
Dan Balcauski (18:10):
I I mean, I probably I have read shoe dogs,
so I'm
Avi Kedmi (18:13):
He doesn't put it in Shoe Dog.
I read it
Dan Balcauski (18:15):
Oh, he is not in Shoe Dog.
Avi Kedmi (18:16):
because I'm not sure he is proud of what's there, but
this is one of the very.
It's a crazy document that'svery aggressive, right?
Like 10 commandments of how youwork here, how we're gonna be
successful, right?
And one of them is like, numberseven was like, it's not gonna
be pretty.
But the and people gave a lot offeedback, et cetera and one of
(18:37):
the people wrote them, which isimportant, all of these mission,
vision, values.
It's not by some three executivesitting in a room and a
consulting company.
It's the people that work.
That the many people at thecompany that feel this is part
of what the, they decide thatthe company should do, so same
goes for the mission vision.
(18:58):
On the mission vision from a 200people, I would say there were
about 50 people involved.
Dan Balcauski (19:04):
There's so many, there's so many areas I'd love
to PPL plumb, but I, there'salso a bunch of topics I want to
go over with you.
So, so I know you did at onepoint also bring the founder
back to the organization.
So I want to understand how thatdecision came to be and how that
figured into kind of this largergetting the company to the next
stage of growth that you weretalking about.
Avi Kedmi (19:25):
so.
I was a founder for seven yearson the company I built, and then
I was 11 years as an executiveat a company that I didn't
found, but I felt it was mine.
And when I joined seas a Ireally, I was worried how much
time it will take me to feel asif it's my company also.
Right.
(19:46):
And literally three days after Ijoined, I said.
I can do it.
I can feel it.
Well, where is the founder?
Where is he here?
Right?
Because that's some sort of thisrock.
And the founder of SysAid wasthe one that wrote most of the
code in the first five, 10 yearson his own.
(20:09):
So, I gave him a call and Isaid, it's time for you to come
back because we need to build anAI platform, and I think you're
the one that's gonna build it.
And he said, I'm comingtomorrow.
10 years.
He wasn't at the company.
24 hours he appeared, I think atthe end.
(20:31):
And it's a dramatic impact, notbecause we have a power of such
a person.
Right.
But it's also, I think it's amessage for a lot of the, for a
lot of the people you know, ofwhat it means when a founder is
still there 22 years after.
So I feel like the board says,we, the board, they, they said
(20:52):
that they anticipated a lot ofmy moves, but this one was not
anticipated and was the bestmove.
Dan Balcauski (21:00):
Interesting.
So I find it fascinating becauseI, especially coming in as a non
founder, CEO, one of thechallenges that I've heard of is
like, when the founders arestill there, that can often
create tension because, like youmentioned really like how long
will it take to become mycompany?
Was there ways that, that eitherdidn't manifest or that you were
(21:22):
able to create ways to worktogether collaboratively such
that that wasn't a attention?
Avi Kedmi (21:29):
I think that I would say at founders and generally
leaders, especially those with alot of passion you have to have
a level of conversation withthem that's very authentic.
And that is also supporting alot of their needs.
So I dunno, maybe it's my agethat I'm, I got to 50 and and
(21:52):
maybe, I don't know, experience,I dunno where it is, but I try
not to fight on things, but moreto understand the other side and
what do they need to excel.
That's what I tried to do and Ifelt that the founder.
Wants a, like he wants a placeto lead something that's big,
that's transformative versus,Hey, just come in, let's fix
(22:13):
bugs.
Right?
So, but it, it also in thesekind of relationships, you
cannot, like, it's not set andgo, it's like you, on a weekly
basis, you gotta spend time withpeople.
They have to feel, and they haveto also truly be part of the
decision making.
So, like.
A few days ago I'm working onthe objective OKRs for 2025.
(22:35):
I'm a big believer in OKRs.
And then I go, I sit with him, Ishare all, and I write notes to
see his feedback.
I just I want people's feedback,especially from people that are
key drivers in the org, whetherthey're in the management or
not.
Dan Balcauski (22:50):
You had said, the board didn't anticipate this
move, but it turned out to be areally good move.
Like how do you think about theimpact that that decision has
had on the organization in sortof meeting those high level
goals that you were trying toset out?
I.
Avi Kedmi (23:03):
Extreme.
Basically, he came in, he had,he took few people with him,
including some product person.
Amazing one, they took fourmonths, they built something.
And we went like MVP betaJanuary 1st.
We started to sell, we, in 10months, we sold to more than 150
(23:24):
clients, this product.
Right.
And it contributed a lot toexpansions.
Ex acquisition just.
Huge impact.
And when people read aboutSysAid today, they already get a
filter of, they innovate withai, and it's real, and those
real customers.
And it's like, it's happeningnot just an idea.
(23:46):
So big impact.
Dan Balcauski (23:47):
So, so, so what do you think that it was, so
obviously, he was able toaccelerate from sort of day one
and sort of get a product, intomarket super quickly.
Like how, like what does thatmean in terms of what he was
able to do versus maybe what thestatus
Avi Kedmi (24:05):
great.
Great
Dan Balcauski (24:05):
Was, was, was everyone else?
Avi Kedmi (24:07):
So it's a great question.
I didn't write it till some likethese PDFs where you can find
all the web that to talks abouthow to transform or how to
accelerate and usually there arethree rules.
The first we talked about sharedvision, people aligned to the
strategy.
(24:28):
The second is split between whatyou have today that works and
it's like a cash cow and makesure it's like profitable and
it's executing.
And the only way you measure itis by growth and profitability,
but you squeeze it a bit, right?
It's you.
You don't go while there onresources and on the right side
(24:51):
you innovate and there you don'tmeasure success on money.
You only measure on the speed onexecution and iterations.
That's the only thing youmeasure, how fast they're
iterating, pushing product tomarket, getting customer
feedback, et cetera.
So this is the second rule, andthe way you do it is by the
third rule, which is align theinnovations to report directly
(25:16):
to the CEO.
Or to a C level if it's a verybig company to a C level cleaned
up, just clean up everyone sothey can run.
So I don't wanna get too muchdetail, but I, that's, we've
cleaned up a lot, includingrestructuring in order for this
few people, not to beinterrupted or not to have days
(25:42):
of meetings and approvals, etcetera.
So again, I didn't invent someof this methodology.
Shared vision, innovation versuscash cow measured by iteration
versus measured by profitabilityand growth.
And the last piece is aligned,the aligned the org structure
differently in these kind ofthings.
So you have swim lenss that donot have anyone blocking them,
(26:05):
and they're not, hey, but youknow, but they're not generating
revenues while, yeah, justdrive, go drive.
Dan Balcauski (26:13):
Yeah.
Well, there's, yeah I love thatidea of yeah, sort of eliminate
or removing the barriers totheir speed of execution,
because I think everyone hasbeen in that role where you're
asked to take on, oh, it's a Clevel, it's CEO number one
priority project, but the, theIC product leader is, two, three
(26:34):
levels down in the organization.
And so, okay, we've made someprogress.
It's time for a QBR and now thatIC product manager, they've
gotta go for a round of reviewswith the their
Avi Kedmi (26:44):
We were exactly, by the
Dan Balcauski (26:46):
and then with the
Avi Kedmi (26:46):
it's crazy.
I remember I came to a meetingwith a small AI team, and then
the person, one of the productmanagers came to the meeting.
Her manager came to the meeting,the director came to the
meeting.
You got like four people thatare.
In the middle, they're verysmart.
(27:07):
Sorry.
They're smart, they're powerfulpeople and they can give, they
can contribute.
But at this point you have anindividual contributor that has
a lot of people to go through todecide and and usually that
doesn't drive things fast.
Dan Balcauski (27:25):
Yeah, you spent a lot of time in those as well on
messaging of like, well, let'snot say this, let's say that
instead, because that'll landbetter, right?
And so you're like, well, well,your customers at the end of the
day don't care about any ofthat, right?
Like you're, I don't know, likeyou're preventing.
People from hearing maybeinformation that wouldn't be
presented in the mostpolitically correct way, but
yeah it does, it, it changes,where you're expending energy.
(27:48):
And that ends up being a sort ofan invisible drag, right?
It's work like, you can't sayanyone's slacking off, but it's
a tax you're paying on thatspeed of execution.
I do wanna talk, you brought upAI a couple of times and you.
You've seen a long arc of ai.
'cause I believe your originalcompany that you had founded was
a, was an machine learningstartup.
Is that correct?
Avi Kedmi (28:07):
Full fledge.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (28:08):
full
Avi Kedmi (28:09):
Full fledge.
We wrote the code in matlab,then moved it to Java.
We wrote three patents.
We fought on them for two yearsor three years.
We, they got accepted.
So, predictive modeling withonline models and offline
models.
Really I, this was a crazyjourney.
Dan Balcauski (28:26):
Do you see those, these as two entirely separate
worlds?
Are there lessons that you'velearned from your early days in
working in machine learning tothis new generative AI world
that we're in today?
I.
Avi Kedmi (28:39):
Yep.
And I think, by the way, this ispart of SysAid success on AI
because a lot of people jump onAI A and think that immediately
human is out of the loop.
It doesn't work like that.
AI can spot a hair from 10 milesforward, but can miss a massive
(29:05):
tree that blocking their eyes,and that's life.
That's ai, right?
And you have to understand thatAI comes with ability to
customize.
Must come with ability tomonitor and fine tune an
approval process must and mustcome with understanding of the
(29:29):
results of it and the ROI andthe success.
If you don't bring these few,you will see companies not using
it eventually because AI willalways have its need for fine
tune and monitoring.
And that's what we've done.
Version one.
Came with it.
And we didn't say let's just,because we knew that will buy us
(29:51):
the trust of the other people.
And you see a lot of thecompanies today, we, they would
say, yeah, AI can just answerinstead of you.
And that's correct, but theperson wants to see what's the
answer.
And if he doesn't like theanswer, he wants to correct it.
That's how life works.
Right.
So, I think this is the bigpart, and I will say this
(30:14):
another one, which is I've seenthrough these 20 years machine
learning life person heavy onNLPs engines and language
models.
Generative AI is just it's soextreme that we could talk on
the scary part.
(30:34):
It's transformative on levelsthat people cannot imagine.
I think people, 90% of the worldof employees, developers,
managers, leaders, the way, whenI talk to a lot of 90%, if not
more, they do not understandwhere are we now in this cycle
(30:58):
of what's going on.
We wanna crisp.
Of a transformation that's soextreme that people will never
imagine how the high tech usedto work.
Dan Balcauski (31:13):
Well, I'm curious about that.
Like, so if you think about theITSM space that SysAid's playing
in, like I guess.
How do you see that, thattransformation playing out over
the next several years?
Or are there early kind of greenshoots you're already seeing and
how people are thinking aboutthe
Avi Kedmi (31:27):
Yeah.
So I think that what you'll,what you're gonna see and seeing
already the first thing thefirst thing that's happening in
this it, in this market.
So while we're going to a worldof fully AI contained, which
means that the whole IT team isrun by ai.
And there are a few peoplemonitoring, fine tuning,
(31:48):
strategizing, AI to the rightplaces, right?
You can see very quickly likesome IT person waking up.
Good morning.
C eight.
I see ticket 3, 3, 4 is open forabout two days and no one is
solving it.
Reach out to the customer, tothe employee.
See what's going on.
Please uninstall.
(32:09):
MS teams and work with thatperson on the time that it's
convenient to them to restart.
Write a summary that summarizewhat I need.
If it doesn't work, go to theweb and find still what are the
issues and come back with asolution and write a script that
maybe will alter how Ms.
Team is installed.
Get my approval before you do itand make sure you're nice to
(32:31):
that person and say warm words,he just got back from vacation.
Report back.
Thank you.
Bye.
Ticket 7, 7, 8.
It's easy.
Do this, like this is wherewe're going.
Phase one of it is havingconversational interfaces for
agents and for employees.
Once you have this, they are nowthe interfaces that connect, and
(32:55):
you'll see in theseconversational interfaces
becoming more and more powerful.
If first part was a lot aboutsmart answers and finding the
right answer, combining it withthe right knowledge base and
generating an answer, you aregonna see a lot more actions
happening.
Right?
Hey, I'm a new employee.
(33:17):
Someone wrote my last name,Tchaikovsky wrong.
It's missing an H, so can youfix it?
This is my last name, right?
So you would see that AI willunderstand it.
It'll find the right tool thatwas built by AI and that was
approved by a human being.
(33:38):
And it would just, okay, got it.
Run it done.
Can you check now?
And knows to go to these fivesystems and if it's missing a
system that doesn't have access,it'll write the integration on
the fly.
We are going there we are goingthere faster.
Than we think.
But I'll tell you a story, aninteresting story.
(33:59):
I was last night in a dinnerwith a friend that I really
appreciate, worked with me inthe past, brilliant guy, and I
haven't met him for six months.
And I said, what are you doing?
He said, I have a big idearelated to the human body and
software, like some crazy idea.
(34:21):
And I said, and I'm like.
In my old thinking, what am Isaying to him?
Wow.
I think it's a crazy idea.
I dunno if you can do it, but ifyou'll do it, it's big.
You're raising money probably,right?
Did you meet a venture?
C and I'm this spiel of what weknow how to do in the last 20
years of startup or find a, anangel give you half a million
(34:41):
dollar, 2 million.
And he said, no, I bought threescreens.
I have a tropic on one.
Open AI on the second, andGermany on the third.
I do 10 hours or 20 hours a daywith all of them, and I think I
built most of the software partof what I need.
(35:02):
I said, what do you mean you'vebuilt most of it?
He said, yeah, I have the API, Ihave the documentation, I have
the logic, I have the website,and I'm like, anyone else in the
company?
And he said, no, it's just meAnd four months of my life.
This is where we are now.
Is it perfect?
Not, does it need to write 50 ora hundred times the prompts
(35:25):
until he gets the right code?
Yes.
We need that eventually today.
A developer that will help himfine tune yes, but what he did
in four months alone, I was likebuilding a company.
This is where we're going.
We're going because the speed ofhow these systems, the Gen AI
are evolving is faster than theadoption curve.
(35:49):
Unique.
Well, in the industry in thelast 20, 25 years, the adoption
was slower than the power ofwhat it could contribute as
value.
Dan Balcauski (36:03):
Yeah.
That's fascinating.
And yeah, I we, we will live incertainly interesting times
coming up in the next few years.
One, one more question on ai,'cause it is a question I get
pretty often, which is, so, soyou've done this work to align
the company on, this world of AIand, increasing the speed of
innovation.
But you know, I'm sure as a CEO,you pressure the board.
(36:25):
It's like, okay, well, when dowe see a return on this
innovation?
How do you, how have you thoughtabout the monetization aspect of
these capabilities?
W how do you think of that inthe life cycle of working on
this bringing this AI vision tomarket for SysAid?
Avi Kedmi (36:38):
Wow.
It's a great it's a great topic.
Analysts Gartner Foster talks alot about it.
I also consult a lot with them.
There are three.
Options that I thought areavailable, and I'll tell you
which one I picked.
We picked as a team one option,which is to say, AI is providing
(37:04):
value.
It's a premium product.
Let's make it expensive, andthen later on it'll be
commoditized.
This is how the world is going.
Option one, right?
Option two is to say, let's makeit some sort of.
No money, free everything,because if we're all about ai
(37:27):
right, then just you cannot havea customer that doesn't use it.
Right?
And the third option, which was,I call it the price of making,
being serious in business, is tosay, let's charge for it, but
not a lot, not extreme, justcharge for it.
So we see that they're serious.
(37:49):
And we picked number three, andit works well for us, but it's a
very simple pricing.
It's a list price on it.
And we made it very simple andit's a, I was in UK in one of
the biggest gym chain luxuryones, great company, and then I,
to prove you to go to market.
I was demoing and I was talkingto the guy, the IT leader, they
(38:11):
are existing clients.
And I said, it's gonna cost youthat.
And he said, that's what it'sgonna cost.
Send the contract.
I'm signing.
Signing it today.
Because he didn't, we didn'tcross his burial to be greedy.
We just wanted to get it out.
But we want to be seriousbecause just enabling it, if you
didn't pay, many times peoplewill not use.
So this is where we landed, butI think some companies are doing
(38:33):
well also by providing it free.
So people are starting to getlike a habit of only using the
AI part.
Dan Balcauski (38:41):
And I, something you just said at the end there I
really loved, which is that thiswhole idea of just access does
not equal value.
Like, just'cause they have itavailable to them, but charging
them something does.
I like the way you phrased it.
It proves that they're serious.
Look, I can talk to you all day.
I do wanna start wrapping thingsup with Some clo rapid closeout
questions.
Are you ready?
Avi Kedmi (39:01):
Ready.
Dan Balcauski (39:02):
When you think about all the spectacular people
you've had a chance to workwith, is there anyone who just
pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect on the
way that you think aboutbuilding companies now?
Avi Kedmi (39:13):
I will say it's crazy.
I'll tell you that.
It's my wife, but I wannaexplain why it's, there's a
unique story.
I'm married, we're together 25 4years and.
My wife, she's a cell biologyassistant professor in the
Whitesman Institute, so it'svery successful.
(39:36):
She has her own lab.
She's a builder, just machineswithin your body.
And for many years we that wewere together, she never logged
into our bank account.
She.
I'll say she doesn't even have acredit card on her name.
She is, he doesn't care aboutmoney.
She uses it when she needs touse, but it doesn't bother her.
(39:58):
It doesn't takes in her cyclesof right is like, how much do I
have really?
But this allows her to be veryclean of tactics.
And just focus on strategy.
So I would say a lot of heradvices to me when I have
(40:18):
challenges are just brilliantbecause she's not saying, here's
my advice, but yes.
Maybe the employee will saythat, but it is, but it's, the
competitors will also, it's justvery clean into this is what I
would do.
So I think she's the mostinfluential person on this part
of my life.
Dan Balcauski (40:39):
What a what a intimidating intellectual and
powerful partner that you have.
Well, well, thank you to her forsupporting you.
Being a CEO can be taxing.
Is there anything that you dophysically, emotionally,
spiritually, to keep yourself onthe top of your game?
Avi Kedmi (40:58):
I think people so, there's this lot of these,
podcast right by, I'm not gonnasay the name, but these famous
motivator people.
I think doing sports a few timesa week if possible, every day.
I'm not on the every day, butlike, I think sports is one of
the biggest driver of ability tohave clarity in your head.
Dan Balcauski (41:20):
Getting a, getting a sweat can help your
brain get much clearer.
Uh, I completely agree withthat, with
Avi Kedmi (41:24):
But I don't have hobbies.
I would say I wish I had, but Itry to do family work and some
sort of nothing left outside.
Dan Balcauski (41:32):
Well, four, four kids leading a company.
I imagine you have time tosleep.
If I gave you a billboard, youcould put any advice on there
for other B2B Sass e trying toscale their company, what would
it say?
Avi Kedmi (41:42):
I, I would say that I think that if you spend 60% of
your time as a CEO.
On the product, you have a muchbetter chance to accelerate
whatever growth you have.
I think at the end amazingproducts have great success and
(42:07):
not great products.
It's very hard to make themsuccessful with a fabulous go to
market.
And I think that we, especiallywithin an era where people just
expect great products with greatux, that works well.
So I think if as a CEO is Ithink you should spend at least
50, 60% of your time on it.
(42:28):
I think the ROI on it will bemuch bigger than some others.
Dan Balcauski (42:32):
Spend 60% of your time in making your product
excellent.
Love it.
Avi, this has been a blast.
If our listeners want to connectwith you, learn more about
SysAid, how can they do that?
Avi Kedmi (42:40):
I am on LinkedIn.
You can find me easy there.
I would say I don't miss amessage on LinkedIn, right?
I get people asking for a job orpeople telling me their vision
and I usually unless it'ssomeone selling something, I
usually respond.
I values people time and sothat, that's the easiest way to
connect.
Dan Balcauski (43:00):
Awesome.
Well, I will put the link in theshow notes for our listeners,
everyone that wraps up thisepisode of SaaS Scaling.
Secrets.
Thank you to Avi for sharing hisjourney, insights, and
invaluable tips for ourlisteners.
If you found this conversationas excited to remember to
subscribe so you don't miss outon future episodes.
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