February 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Dan Balcauski speaks with Rytis Lauris, Co-founder and CEO of Omnisend. They discuss how Rytis bootstrapped Omnisend to $50 million ARR, the challenges of scaling during rapid market changes, and the strategies Omnisend employed to maintain and grow its customer base. Rytis shares insights on the importance of customer communication, the balance between qualitative and quantitative data, and delegation for successful scaling.
00:27 Meet Rytis Lauris: CEO of Omnisend
02:13 The Journey of Omnisend
08:06 The Impact of COVID-19 on E-commerce
13:57 Scaling Challenges and Solutions
20:02 Embracing Vulnerability in Business
21:29 Remote Work and Organizational Restructuring
24:00 Delegation and Leadership Lessons
29:58 Balancing Data and Customer Interaction
37:56 Final Thoughts and Advice for SaaS CEOs
Guest Links
https://www.omnisend.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/omnisend/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rytisl/
Who's Got the Monkey (HBR)
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 SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today.
I'm excited to speak with RytisLauris, co-founder and CEO of
Omnisend.
over a decade of experience indigital marketing and
e-commerce, Rytis hasbootstrapped Omnisend to 50
million a RR by staying preparedfor pivotal market
opportunities.
When he is not scaling hiscompany, Rytis can usually be
(00:41):
found riding his bike, enjoyingtime with family, and pursuing
his goal of reading a book aweek.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Rytis to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Rytis Lauris (00:49):
Hey Dan pleasure to be here and thanks for
inviting.
Dan Balcauski (00:52):
I am incredibly excited to chat with you.
Before we dive into Omnisend, Idid notice that you had this
goal of managing to read a bookweek.
How do you make time for thatwhile running a fast growing
company?
Rytis Lauris (01:07):
That's a good question.
And that's a goal to be honest,I'm not succeeding with that
goal, like in the past couple ofyears during okay, 2
circumstances like that.
They used to be years when theyaccomplished this goal.
It was covid that was veryfavorable for that because no,
no business travel and not muchto do outside of your home.
(01:27):
And that's the first thing.
And second thing, the back inCOVID times, we only had one
kid, now we have two.
So, so that degrade.
So let's see, last year, and itwas kind of like.
Quite away from this goal, but Iread about like 20 few books, so
it was like two, two per month.
So twice less than the goal is,but there used to be years when
(01:49):
then I succeeded.
But I think in general, youalways have to be to have
ambitious goals and and in thiscase it's, that's okay that in
certain years I fell and Ididn't push myself too hard, but
still have it as a north star.
Dan Balcauski (02:02):
Well, I think that's still quite impressive.
And even if you're not meetingthat book a week, I think a lot
of people would feel very happyif they got to check 20 books
off their reading list lastyear.
I gave a folks a little bit of aintro to you in the the
beginning of the episode.
But could you just brieflyintroduce us to your journey in
the SaaS world?
Rytis Lauris (02:22):
So sure.
So Omnisend is this marketinggood automation platform that is
built mainly for those who sellonline.
So basically, if you own onlinestore and you sell sell like
physical or digital goods, etcetera, we help to retain your
existing customers by sendingthem emails.
SMS messages, web pushnotifications.
So basically communicating andinviting them to come back and
(02:45):
to purchase again and again fromyou.
So, yeah, so this is purely SaaSbusiness.
This is my first start at thatattempt, type 12.
I failed twice prior.
None of those.
Okay.
Second startup attempt was, kindof SaaS business similar to what
Slido is now?
Probably this is the companythat succeeded the most of all
out of all those attempts tobuild some similar product.
(03:06):
It was just more kind of.
Built towards like individualspeakers.
Those were on stage and want toengage with an audience.
So that was a kind of a firstSaaS attempt.
And Omnisend is a second.
So yeah, failed twice.
And then start, so basically thefirst product.
Then we, when I started buildingthat, and that like audience
(03:27):
engagement tool, or pollingtool.
That was what, 12 years ago orsomething?
Or maybe 13 years ago?
Yeah, so since then I fell inlove with SaaS.
To be honest, it's a very goodbusiness model.
And the subscription businessmodel is very good business
model.
So it really takes away a lot ofheadaches to be honest.
From any founder of businessperson.
Dan Balcauski (03:49):
Yeah.
Well we all if you'd hit thisamount of success on your first
try I think we'd be even morejealous of you.
So good that you had a couple offailures under your belt to to
get those lessons learned.
you and bring you back down toearth.
Rytis Lauris (04:00):
that's a journey.
I think that's a journey.
It's very important.
And and then there are stillparts of the world where failure
is being a negative thing.
You are from the states which Iadmire, what I admire.
I'm from Lithuania and that'swhere Omnisend was founded.
So, so that's what I admireabout like US business culture,
but failure, it's just a part oflearning and a part of the
(04:22):
journey.
And it's mainly each failureleads you to success.
And the faster you make failuresand the more you learn from
those failures the better chancefor success you have in your
next attempt.
Dan Balcauski (04:32):
Well and you already gave a little bit of a
taste of Omnisend, but for anaudience who maybe is not
familiar with Omnisend as acompany, can you just give us
kind of a 32nd overview of whatit is where you play?
Rytis Lauris (04:43):
Yeah, so it's it's e-commerce enablement, so those
who sell online, those who sellonline.
So we help them to communicatewith their customer base.
So.
Whilst, while customers arepurchasing for first time,
usually there is a loss for thebusiness to acquire new buyer
for those who sell onlinethrough meta like Facebook,
Instagram ads or Google ads forbasically like this op list
(05:05):
global you, you pay more thanactually you earn on the first
transaction.
So if you run an e-commercestore, online, store, your
business model, that you have toretain those customers and
calculate lifetime value.
So once, once Dan is buyingsomething for first time the
online store, lose money, theystart earning some profit once
(05:26):
Dan is buying for a second time,third time, fourth time.
So it's very important towelcome back, to invite back by
presenting new product lines newupdates promoting some sales, et
cetera, et cetera.
So, and, email, email it's thebest performing retention,
marketing or communication,direct communication with your
existing customer base channel.
And so far.
(05:46):
And I mean, there were so many,like Chad gonna kill like every,
like, there were so many killersof email.
But email is the most effectiverevenue driver retention,
revenue driver for any businessand especially those who sell
online.
SMS.
Really adds on top really greatweb push notifications.
They're very effective as, aswell.
They are a little bit or not alittle bit a lot underestimated.
(06:10):
And then I think online storesdon't use them enough.
Back in the days we tried also,like Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp, et cetera.
None of those worked formarketing purposes.
They're great to, to, to serviceas maybe support tool but they
did not work out for marketingpurposes.
Yeah, so that's what we dobasically help to collect all,
(06:31):
connect with your existingbuyers and retain them.
And probably the most importantthing that we help.
To automate a lot of thatcommunication.
So basically you set upautomation, you put your
customers in segments, youprebuilt segments, and the
system that Omni Send does it'sabsolute automatically for you.
So the example would be, Dan isbrowsing something and we set up
(06:54):
automation that once we'reidentify that Dan is browsing
for an.
A tires, let's say.
Why not?
If you have a car, we identifywhat kind of tires is like, is
it motorcycle, is it car, is ita truck, et cetera.
And we start like automaticallypromoting that specific products
phone.
(07:14):
For Dan, when Dan is purchasingsomething, we have a lot of like
post-purchase sequences.
Okay, thank you for order.
We have dispatched, can youleave us a review, et cetera.
After one or two seasons maybewe promote avatars for you and
it's all automated.
You set up it once and thesystem does the job.
Omni understand does the job onbehalf of the marketer or the
(07:36):
owner of online store, and youdon't need to like set up
everything again and again.
Dan Balcauski (07:41):
Well I appreciate that overview and given we just
got on the other side of theholiday season and I did really
well in shopping for mygirlfriend for the holidays.
I probably have you to blame forthe state of my email inbox at
the moment partially so Iforgive you, but you're also out
there doing good work.
So, but I wanna kind of just so,so.
That's kind of the externalfacing, but you did mention, so
(08:02):
in the business world, the windsof change can blow quickly and
unexpectedly.
And you brought up this Covidperiod where, obviously got very
into book learning, but youknow, I imagine, your world of
e-commerce shifted, nearlyovernight.
Take me into that period, kindof running omnis sin.
Like what did you see?
How did you react to what.
Look like an entirely seachange.
(08:22):
'cause you, we shut down, mostretail in the US right?
Everything you bought, you hadto buy online.
How did that affect sort of whatyou were dealing with as a
leader of Omnisend?
Rytis Lauris (08:33):
So I have a bit, like more broad than just a
covid concept.
So I have a strong belief thatthat and it's not just belief
like that there is a gym callingoffer of books like good to
Great Built to Last and never.
So in his book, like Bill toLast, he analyzes what is
common, between the companiesthat stay on top for many years.
(08:56):
So basically kind of he, andfine, just to simplify it, like
my take on from his inside, twothings.
First one is like ability toride the wave.
Whenever it comes theopportunities arise and they,
the opportunities arise for anybusiness.
And the second is resilience inthe hard times, and any company,
any business, any person, wehave good times and challenging
(09:18):
times, difficult times, badtimes.
And that's one of the thing thatmatters.
So that's what I always say tothe team as well.
The main pivotal VA waves, theyare coming unexpectedly and you
cannot predict them.
and it's like for any business,and sometimes they come quite
often, sometimes you have towait for decades for those
(09:39):
pivotal waves to come.
But you have to always be readyto accommodate that
opportunities that arise.
So it's like, wind surfing.
I didn't do windsurf, but like Iimagine it's very similar, like,
like, like that.
At least when you spectate that.
So basically you do a hard jobphysical job and once the wave
comes, either you are able inthat short period of time to
(10:00):
jump on the wave.
If you're ready, physically,mentally, you have skills for
that, then you ride the wave.
And it just, brings yousomewhere.
It's very beautiful.
It's very nice.
It drives results or otherwise,if you do not jump on the wave,
it basically floods you.
So, so that's kind of thing youalways have to be ready to take
(10:20):
opportunities that arise and thesmaller opportunities arise more
often.
Big opportunities are rare, butbut they come to time to time.
So that's that's a mainphilosophy behind that.
Always be
Dan Balcauski (10:31):
Yeah, so, so being prepared to act is
essential, I guess.
What does that mean in practiceor what do you sort of attribute
your ability to capitalize onthat?
Like, were there systems orprocesses that you had in place
that allow you to, so you talkabout this wave, right?
Surfing, like mentally,physically, like what was that
(10:51):
in the context of your business?
Rytis Lauris (10:53):
So I would say mainly it all starts with
people.
And practices and systems areimportant, but it all starts
with great people right peoplein the bus, basically people
that are ready to go extra milewhen it's needed.
At the same time that, thatpeople that know what we do and
really are professionals intheir areas.
(11:14):
So when the opportunity comes,we don't have, there is no, no
way to micromanage.
There is no way to, for any, thebest leader, I believe, to
really to understand everythingwhat is happening.
We basically safe of a team.
Okay, let's.
Go and grab this opportunity,and each person does the best
job they can to really grab thisopportunity.
(11:35):
So, and and they go extra miles.
They don't count their workinghours at that time, et cetera.
So it all starts with people.
And the second thing, like thesystem should be in place
because then you can just, breakas a company if, like, if
product is not ready.
If the processes are not readythey start somewhere like.
Breaking a little bit, butthat's okay.
So that's another thing.
(11:55):
How fast can you be in fixing,so operational excellence and
you don't seek for excellence inthose periods, but at least
having it good enough.
So, so, yeah, so you have tocover kind of quite broad broad
scope of processes, let's say ifit's marketing.
Yeah.
You have to be ready to coverdifferent areas.
So either you have, while you'rea smaller team, you have
universal people or generalistthat can cover broader range.
(12:19):
Once the organization grows,then you divide a little bit.
Okay.
I have pro in this area.
I have pro in this area.
I have pro in this area, so wehave it covered.
And we practice.
So again, I never concept by thesame Jim Collins in this case
just in another book.
So it's about like 20 milesmarch.
That so no matter what happenseach day, you have to practice
(12:41):
what you need to practice, youhave to go 20 miles March.
So basically like, just tosimplify it, he says that if you
want to go from east to west.
Throughout the United States onfoot, you have to go every day,
20 miles.
On bad days, on difficultconditions through the
mountains, you have to still go20 miles.
(13:01):
But at the same time, if it's agood day, if you feel inspired,
et cetera you don't have tooverstretch yourself.
And you still have to be quitepersistent.
Just do 20 miles, don't do toomuch in the good days because
you will get tired and then youwill overstretch yourself, et
cetera.
So that's with persistence.
Even in the difficult times, youcontinue doing what you have to
(13:23):
do.
There is basics.
Yeah.
That you have to do.
You have to send those emails.
You have outreach.
Those, you have to run thosecampaigns.
Maybe they're not working'causethey used to work, they're not
working perfectly.
But you have to do things.
You just, that is just thebaseline of your job.
So that's how you buildfundamentals for the, for the
success for accommodation ofsuccess or opportunities
(13:46):
whenever they arise,
Dan Balcauski (13:48):
So having the people in place and then
persistent practice sort of inthe, on the good and the bad
days.
So that's all good and well inpreparation.
But I'm sure you know thisproduct is called SaaS Scaling
Secrets because we see, the,every company breaks underneath
scaling challenges.
I'm curious, as you were.
As prepared as you might havebeen you cannot, a hundred
(14:10):
percent prepare for everything.
And you said like, we don'tsearch for excellence, but you
know, we shoot for good enough.
And I'm sure there were probablyparts of the system where it
wasn't even like, you're like,oh, that was good enough before,
but now it's not even goodenough.
What existing processes, Iguess, broke under the pressure
of rapid growth?
I guess what were the first sortof challenges that you had to
solve?
Rytis Lauris (14:30):
In our case, probably that to where, yeah,
maybe scaling of the productitself.
Maybe not outside pro processes,but like scaling, kinda the
product.
So a lot of like largercustomers, so mid-size we focus
on SMBs all the way from the momand pop shop to the mid-size.
Pretty, like decent size, tensof millions in revenue.
So that, that is our sweet spotand our ICP currently.
(14:54):
But yeah.
Prior to that we're mainlyserving like m to small
businesses.
Now we do serve mid-sizebusinesses, so that's to, to
accommodate those largercustomers with larger.
Lists subscriber list with more,more like high GMV, more
transactions, et cetera.
So that, that was kind ofprobably the biggest challenge.
And and the second challenge wasreally to provide decent
(15:15):
handholding or support for them.
So it was kind of in the past wemainly had a support team and
only when we start scaling withcustomer success managers, so
account managers, like the samerole is being called sometimes
account managers.
So basically serving thoselarger customers and more, more
personal attention for them.
More more help for them, etcetera.
So that was kind of another areathat was.
(15:37):
New for us, and we had to scaleit rapidly in order to provide
the best service for them.
So probably there were two kindof those main, like main areas
that we had to improve.
And yeah.
Did we do it perfect from afirst attempt?
For sure not, but just,continuously kind of, you.
You launch and we have thisvalues and culture deck.
(16:00):
And it's not just the deck, madeby some HR marketing team that
is, nobody knows about it, butthat's really like the values
and principles that we live.
So yeah.
So then is better than Perfectis one of those principles.
So.
Dan Balcauski (16:16):
Done is better than perfect.
I, yes I applaud that value ahundred percent.
So you mentioned, so that youhad some product scaling as you
started to see some inbound frommore from larger type customers
that maybe had not been in sortof in your sweet spot before.
And then support challenges.
And that reminds me of someother products I've been a part
of where they've had a majorcompetitor sort of shut.
(16:37):
Down.
And then, they get this massiveinflux of customers and they're
like, we are for X-ing oursupport staff right now.
Please bear with us while we getto to bring that up.
I and I imagine that those typesof decisions aren't.
They're not mutually exclusivefrom each other because I'm sure
there are probably resourcesthat you could put against
(16:59):
making improving supportabilityconcerns, right?
You've got your customer supportunder flooding, under tickets,
and they're like, they alwayshave their top 10 list of like,
ticket drivers, right?
That they're asking engineeringto fix.
But then you're also saying,Hey, we also got these giant
opportunities for these largercustomers.
I imagine solving a lot of theseproblems.
During a period like this feelslike sort of repairing an
(17:19):
airplane in mid-flight, how didyou think about prioritizing,
which to solve first when I'msure at the time everything sort
of felt urgent.
Rytis Lauris (17:28):
So that's one of the kind of principles again
that we have Inval valves inCulture Deck is like we built,
we created the most of the valuefor the most amount of
customers.
We never built anything.
Custom for the customer.
So that's the main kind of ideaand principle of prioritization.
So, okay.
So it's to what you say, if it'sa product decision, like to help
(17:50):
serve larger customers.
So like, the support in thiscase, in our case, it was like
both related to serving largercustomers.
So that was kind of like alreadyequalized because the.
The most difficult decisionswhen you have to compare.
I'm gonna improve something for10 customers who pay us 16
bucks, or for one who pays us4,000.
(18:12):
So still the monetary values onthat one customer, and it's very
difficult in that case stillsay, no, we will not do anything
custom.
But in that case, that was kindof a bit easy decision because
both of them were kind of forthe similar.
Profile of customers, the largerone.
So it's very easier.
Just basically listen to thecustomers, and then you
(18:33):
prioritize by, in that case, bymonetary value.
Yeah.
So what our customers arecomplaining more about, how many
customers are complaining aboutthis, et cetera.
It's one thing.
Second thing that is veryimportant, and it's outside the
prioritization, but just to behonest with customers, and you
say, look.
Yes, we have those challengescurrently.
(18:55):
That's what we do in order toimprove.
Please bear with us.
We ask a little bit of patiencefrom you.
Yeah.
We are not an ideal setupcurrently, but give us some time
to prove that in a few months wewill manage to, to scale and it
really works.
It's just, just a very humanvulnerability in front of your
customers and then notpretending that you are better
(19:16):
than you are.
It, it, it kind of put somehuman do you say?
Human face on the producthumanizes the product and
relationship and and vastmajority of customers were
humans.
I mean, all of your customersare humans and they understand
you because, especially duringokay.
For us it was like a lot of ourcustomers had scaling challenges
(19:41):
by themself, so they kind ofrelated with us more maybe, and
it, that was favorable for us.
Dan Balcauski (19:48):
Yeah, they, your clients were also getting,
hammered similarly, right?
So there was some sharedempathy, You're, yeah.
Everyone was going through theyeah.
Well, the entire world was goingthrough a weirdness, but yeah, I
think, I imagine a lot of thecustomers that you serve, like,
like, yeah.
We're also ripping at the seams,so take advantage of that shared
human situation when you can.
Rytis Lauris (20:08):
True, but yeah.
But that's in, in an hesitation.
I mean, and I mean, it's not thesingle occasion that we had some
challenges, but in any occasion,like being vulnerable, being
transparent in front of the eyesof your customers, it is what I
strongly believe and that's whatwe practice.
And, then your customers aremore forgiving for, for you as a
(20:29):
company, as individuals.
Dan Balcauski (20:32):
Well, I'm interested because, the.
If I look at like, the chart oflike e-commerce growth, right?
You see it almost looks like astep function change, right?
From, you have this, 20 years,somewhat linear growth of
e-commerce revenues worldwide,and then just, overnight it just
steps up.
I'm curious, and maybe theanswer is no, but out of, the
(20:53):
ways you had to operate werethere.
When you were thinking, goingthrough the scaling challenge,
was there an area where it kindof required a fundamental change
in how you operate versus justdoing more of the same?
Like, I imagine, right?
It's like, Hey, we've got a tonof customer support tickets and
so we just need more people.
So we're we now are bringing ourfour x-ing our customer support
team just to answer tickets.
(21:13):
Right.
So, so it's like, okay, wellthat, that makes sense.
Was there, were there ways thatyou had to sort of fundamentally
rethink how you.
Approach the business?
Or maybe it was, not even butyou just kind of came up in the
moment.
Was there anything like that?
Rytis Lauris (21:26):
So, well of course, like one area that was
like definite for everyone.
So like going remote that's forsure.
But it was so maybe justamplified that you have to grow
and we kind of.
Hired a lot of people fully,remotely without even having
like fully remote processes.
So.
That really amplified thechallenge that you don't have
(21:46):
like full remote processes inplace, et cetera, and you start
hiring.
And that was the highest likehiring period and headcount
growth period for us in thehistory of our company.
So that.
Maybe there was the, and we hadto implement all the like more
hierarchy.
I think we, that we still we're,had like 250 people now.
So we, pretty lean up untiltoday, and that's what we try to
(22:09):
do.
But but we definitely had tointroduce some hierarchies and
some processes in place becauseyou have more people and like
and they can't meet, et cetera.
So it just, it, it amplified.
But yeah, probably kind of themain thing in any growth, and
especially for me, what is thebiggest challenge, is really to
restructure the organization.
And in our case, like but in ourcase that was like, we grew from
(22:32):
like 80 to 180 very fast.
And that, that was a massiveboost.
And a lot, everything changeshow you have to deal with
people.
How you have to manage alreadystructure, mid-level management
that you have to introduce, etcetera, et cetera.
So, but we still operated forquite a while as being like a 50
people company and the.
(22:54):
Like new newcomers were, and allthe employees were forgiving us
for some time.
And it caught us like a littlebit after that.
So that's kind of my lesson.
Yeah.
Initially you just do things andyou don't overthink and you will
fix later.
Dan Balcauski (23:08):
No, 80 to 180.
I mean, that's gigantic, right?
On a percentage basis of growth.
And, many, I guess, CEOs,founders, right?
When they go from that scale of,a 50 person company to a.
250 person company.
Right.
And the like, where this changeis sort of all the way between a
lot of folks, CEOs and founderssort of struggle because they
(23:31):
sort of find them themselves asbeing a bottleneck when they're
trying to scale their companies.
I guess how has that impacted,like, how have you thought about
that and navigated thosesituations to sort of.
Not impede the progress of yourentire organization.
Right.
Because I'm sure at one point,if you're the co-founder you
owned most of the company andI'm sure at the point of two 50,
you, you own almost nothingdirectly in the company.
(23:53):
So I mean, imagine all that'spretty exacerbated in these
periods of rapid scale.
Like how have you dealt withthat personally?
Rytis Lauris (24:00):
Yeah, so I'm not an exceptional person here and
to be honest, like to learnproperly delegate where that was
the biggest challenge for me asa manager as a Malik, I know
skill skills grow as a ma,managerial skills that was the
most challenging thing to learnand go through.
(24:22):
So, just life pushes you and youshould not be too resilient
sometimes in some occasions.
And and kind of, you all, and inthe past I read those books
about like management, etcetera.
And and once I read that, thereare three things that a CEO has
to do.
(24:43):
First is to drive a vision forthe entire company where when to
go.
Second to hire best people toimplement that vision.
And third is to ensureresources, mainly financial
resources.
So it's either like, funding orbusiness model or VCs or depth
(25:03):
or.
Whatever, but like those goodpeople have to have resources to
our people to, to invest intomarketing, et cetera, et cetera,
whatever, for whatever you hirethose people to do.
And once I read this, I thought,come on, come on, come on.
No.
It's just, it's not that simpleto be a CEO.
So now I think that it's reallytrue if you have right people
(25:26):
and we have resources and wehave.
Vision where we're gonna go,we're gonna do the job.
I'm still quite, I would say indepth of a lot of things that
are happening in Omni.
But what has changed for me, sofrom doing and becoming a
bottleneck, as you said now Istill know a lot of things.
(25:47):
I share a lot of ideas, but Idon't own decisions anymore.
So I share ideas with our kindof executive team with some,
sometimes even like mid-levelmanagement, but just this is
idea and you don't need toimplement just because I came
with that idea.
So I'm still curious.
I love learning, like knowingunder understanding of what is
happening, but but it'sbasically, yeah it's not you who
(26:10):
owns the decision.
And there is a very good articleabout, it's on Harvard Business
Review, and I think this is themost read article in the history
of Harvard Business Review.
Who's got the monkey.
Dan Balcauski (26:23):
Who's got the monkey?
Rytis Lauris (26:24):
Who's got the monkey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (26:26):
for our listeners.
Rytis Lauris (26:27):
So I really encourage every manager to read
that article.
It's really great.
I.
Dan Balcauski (26:33):
So, you mentioned this delegation, right?
You maybe were too resilient.
What I, what that tends to looklike for a lot of really
persistent resilient founders asthey give up things like sleep
and that only lasts so long,
Rytis Lauris (26:45):
I did that as well.
I did that as well.
Dan Balcauski (26:49):
So I guess, if you could go back and maybe give
yourself, two, three years agoa, a bit of advice on, when you
saw yourself holding on tothings like, were there.
Is there a signal?
Like, because I imagine like bythe it's, emotionally having
gone through this, at a muchsmaller scale before, right?
Like after the fact, you'relike, well, obviously I
(27:11):
shouldn't be doing that anymore.
But before it's almost like it'sa total blind spot to you where
you're like, you don't see anyway, like, it's like, it's not
even emotionally registering.
Like, is there a way that youwould, tell yourself to like,
think about like, okay, it'stime to give this thing up
before it got to the breakingpoint, and you're only sleeping
two hours a week.
Rytis Lauris (27:29):
So that article, who's got the monkey, is really
kind of very, it's a greatguideline how to identify the
situation.
So basically when there's alike.
I will not spoil everything, butthere is a situation described
in this article.
So basically you sit in theoffice on weekend and you work
and you see through a windowthat your employees are playing
(27:50):
golf.
So, and because you're waitingfor your decisions and et
cetera, and you are the one tocome first to the office and to
leave the last, the office, sothen it's something wrong.
Yeah.
And this is kind of, probablywas a moment for me that, and it
felt okay in many occasions.
This is how it happens.
A lot of people are waiting for.
(28:11):
For my decisions, et cetera, andI don't know what to do.
Even then I have some ideas whatto do, et cetera, and this is a
wrong thing.
Then that's what they always sayto our managers Now your job is
to ensure that everyone has.
What did you do?
In any minute?
You cannot become a bottleneckin any circumstances.
(28:33):
You cannot, and this is who'sgot the monkey?
So, you should never leave anyquestion on your table.
Yeah.
So probably that was kind of themoment.
Yeah.
That, that I was still kind of Ididn't break too much.
I mean, I didn't break at all.
That's okay.
It was, like, manage manage atsome point to, to identify that,
okay, I have to delegate moreand more.
And again, it's a journey.
(28:53):
It's not that one day you becomea really good in delegating now
you just improve it over theyears and you do less and less,
less because you have moreresources.
You have more people you trust,you.
Start like seeing by yourselfthat you know that someone did
it in a different way than youthought you would do it.
There's nothing bad of it andnothing broke and opposite.
(29:15):
It apparently went better thanthan your original idea, so,
Dan Balcauski (29:20):
Yeah.
Well and I love that becausethere's, as you were talking, I
had this, I, thought in my headof this idea of like a decision
queue, like how many decisionsare waiting for my yes or no.
And that it could be a veryconcrete thing that you could be
like, okay, here's, here are allthe decisions.
And it ties back.
Really nicely to what you saidbefore, you're like, as a CEO
(29:40):
Dow, like I don't really own anyof the decisions, right?
So you've, and I'm sure that'snot, a hundred percent true all
the time, but like for the mostpart you've become very aware of
that.
Where are those decisions knownand making sure that I'm not
sort of in the way of them Iwasn't planning on going here,
but you mentioned reallyunderstanding customers and what
they need, as we were talkingabout this period of growth.
And one thing that we weretalking about before the
(30:02):
recording was your view onreally like how to really
understand what customers needand what most companies sort of
get wrong around this area.
Can you elaborate on that forme?
Rytis Lauris (30:13):
So brought two things and like our experience.
So in the past when we were asmaller company, there were a
lot of people within the companywho actually had the direct I.
Relationship or context with ourcustomers.
And and just because like, in asmaller company, myself, being a
(30:33):
co-founder, sometimes I did asupport job and that's how you
understand your customer's needsand feelings, et cetera.
But once the company grow, wegot stuck in one moment, in, in
one moment.
Too much data driven.
We just became very like niceand comfortable position to be
at.
We kind of implemented a lot ofdata analysis, BI tools, et
(30:55):
cetera, et cetera, that are veryhelpful and they help you to run
business better.
But at the same time, at somepoint we lost the the true like,
honest conversations with ourcustomers and that's what we
changed again and we.
Brought it back.
Like sometimes even forcingpeople to talk to customers and
(31:17):
having a scoreboard of some,someone says maybe it's a shame
board, but you know who thosepeople who build a product,
those people who serves wholeads especially like support
that, and then the customersuccess management, et cetera.
Those people who communicatewith messages, they all.
Always, constantly have to betalking to customers.
(31:38):
That's what they do.
Again, like it goes to to haveat least one conversation per
week with a existing customerbecause like, and then you
combine data, like what your BItool show you and and and those.
Just anecdotal evidences, butthose emotions that you really
feel while you talk withcustomers.
(31:59):
And what do I have in mind?
Just a practical like examplehere.
Sometimes we as a SaaS we launchnew features.
Something.
Yeah.
And there is kind of a smalldetail in it that from the pure
data work, from like this,quantitative analysis, it.
Doesn't show that it is arelevant feature or some detail
(32:20):
within the feature.
While you talk with yourcustomers, you understand that,
okay, they say, okay, I loveyour feature, but this part, it
just pisses me off every time Iuse this feature.
Technically, yeah, this is agreat seller.
It generates me revenue.
That's why I choose yourproduct.
But at the same time, every timeI log into your product, I get
frustrated on this and you willnever, ever see it from the
(32:44):
quantitative data.
It's only the qualitativeinterviews with the customers
where you add this emotions ontop and then you change it and
they say, and in opposite,sometimes I'm like about
positive examples.
Then you have a one hourinterview and they praise
something that you never, everthought that it is important for
your customers.
And they say, oh look.
(33:05):
My ability to copy thosetemplates.
In our case, it's just amazing.
It saves so much time for me andthen so many hours.
But while you look just on thedata, it shows that very few
customers among your customerbase use it.
But for those who use.
It's just a life changer, so,so, the mix of those two, it's
crucially important, likequalitative and quantitative
(33:27):
data and interviews and directlyreally honest conversations.
Sometimes they're not verycomfortable because sometimes
customers complain about how youdo things.
Dan Balcauski (33:36):
yes.
Very rarely comfortable.
I love that point of view andthat perspective and obviously
you've gone through a cyclewhere, you said you, you maybe
lost touch and then you've gotback, made a priority.
But I see this all the time.
And look, I mean, talk to yourcustomers is not new advice.
But I just see so many companiesget away from that and like, I
just don't I guess.
And maybe it was that periodwhere you, it is funny.
(33:58):
It's like you said we became toodatadriven in and Right.
I mean, it's like a lot ofpeople would be like, oh, we
would love to be data-driven.
Like, that would be ideal.
But you actually saw it as anegative.
Like why do you think companiessort of slip into this, like and
don't like stop talking to theircustomers?
Is it because of the discomfort?
Rytis Lauris (34:18):
Yes, I think so.
No, it's just way more conflike, comfortable.
Okay.
Two fix, maybe just being datadriven is it's seen as a holy
grail sometimes, especially whenyou are growing to that stage
that you kind of had no clueabout, like, understanding of
your customers from a.
Quantitative side of Point ofview.
(34:38):
Yeah.
So then you start investing init.
You hire people, you implementBI tools, et cetera.
You invest a lot in this and,okay.
Oh, I see everything now.
I used to have 10 interviewswith customer to understand
that, of customers, tounderstand that.
And now I just see it.
I analyze, I spend hours infront of my laptop, screen, et
cetera.
(34:58):
It's one thing.
Yeah.
It's still, especially on thegrowth stage and the, for maybe
first time founders and thosewho have never been in this
situation, it seems like a holygrail.
And second is, yeah, it's waymore comfortable.
It's just easy, your BI toolwill always open.
Customers sometimes don't showup for your scheduled
conversations.
You, you wait, you don't come.
(35:20):
And especially when you kind ofhave a global.
Global customer base, orsometimes you have to wake up
earlier.
Sometimes you have to schedulein the late nighttime just
because it's more convenient fora customer.
So, and yes, sometimes wecomplain them.
We are unhappy with you.
And this is this is emotionalload.
So, and they like data analysisor BI tools, never complain
(35:43):
about how shitty solution didyou release last week?
Dan Balcauski (35:48):
I, yeah, I mean, I agree, right?
It can get no, I think all thosepoints I a hundred percent agree
with and it can get verycomfortable.
You could look at a dashboardand you could tell yourself
whatever story you want about alot of data points that you're
looking at.
And without that customerperspective, you may be lying to
yourself.
Right?
And we're the, that's the wholething of the scientific method
is like, we are the easiestpeople to, our, we're easiest to
fool ourselves, right?
(36:09):
We're the biggest fool.
We wanna tell ourselves a storywe wanna believe.
But a conversation with thecustomer.
They're not gonna let you getaway with that.
They're gonna tell you exactlywhat they think, and then you, I
mean, you can still sort ofrationalize it away, I guess,
when you walk away, when it'smuch more difficult.
Look, I can talk to you all day,re just but I, to be respectful
of your time in the audience, Iwant to start wrapping things up
with a couple of wrappingcloseout questions.
Is that okay?
Rytis Lauris (36:29):
Sure.
Sure.
Dan Balcauski (36:31):
Look, when you think about all the spectacular
people you've had a chance towork with, is there anyone that
just pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect in the
way that you think aboutbuilding running companies?
Rytis Lauris (36:40):
So in this case, I probably would say my co-founder
here at Omni Sense.
So I think that we are prettylike.
Different people and we managedto fulfill each other and then
to, To grow, to help each othergrow probably in that would be,
and and a lot of peers I don'thave kind of idols in general,
but I spend a lot of timetalking with peers who run
(37:03):
similar stage businesses,similar industry businesses, et
cetera.
And it's it's really helpful.
Dan Balcauski (37:08):
Are there structured ways that you've been
able to establish those peerrelationships or have it been
more organically like, I don'tknow given where you're at in
Rytis Lauris (37:16):
Yeah, so it's kind of initially was like more
organically.
So it's either SaaS vertical ore-commerce enablement or.
Both.
So that's kind of the easiestbecause you share you share a
lot of some companies that aresimilar, growth stage, et
cetera, because then when youface similar challenges and you
relate and then it's on top onthe value PE structure.
So basically I do a lot ofmeetings like.
(37:39):
In once in two months.
We just schedule in advance.
And then, the time comes, yousee in your calendar there is a
scheduled meeting and you spendsome time talking about, okay
what challenges, what learningsdid do you have in the past?
Two year.
Two months?
So that's where you putstructure on top.
Dan Balcauski (37:56):
Right.
Well, if I gave you a billboardand you could put any advice on
there for other B2B SaaS CEOstrying to scale their companies,
what would it say?
Rytis Lauris (38:03):
It's not intent to advertise one company, but just
do it.
Dan Balcauski (38:07):
Just do it.
Rytis Lauris (38:08):
Just do it.
It's a great slogan, and theytruly believe in it.
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of thisslogan.
I'm not that much of a fan of acompany.
It's not that they don't likethat company, but maybe I have
some.
Shorts of Nike.
I'm not kind of one of thoselike fans of Nike, but this,
slogan and this
Dan Balcauski (38:26):
worry, they're not a sponsor.
So,
Rytis Lauris (38:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I'm not, not, not promotingye them, but just the slogan is,
it's just amazing and yeah.
Dan Balcauski (38:34):
Well, I absolutely love this
conversation.
If listeners wanna connect withyou, learn more about Omnisend,
how can they do that?
Rytis Lauris (38:40):
So I prefer using LinkedIn.
So Rytis Lauris there andOmnisend is just omnisend.com.
Probably that's the best way tolearn our website.
Dan Balcauski (38:50):
I will put those links in show notes for our
listeners along with those otherarticles that you mentioned.
Thank you so much.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Rytis for sharinghis journey Insights For our
listeners, you found RytisInsights valuable.
Please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from the leaders of the
best scale up, B2B SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today.
I'm excited to speak with RytisLauris, co-founder and CEO of
Omnisend.
over a decade of experience indigital marketing and
e-commerce, Rytis hasbootstrapped Omnisend to 50
million a RR by staying preparedfor pivotal market
opportunities.
When he is not scaling hiscompany, Rytis can usually be
(00:41):
found riding his bike, enjoyingtime with family, and pursuing
his goal of reading a book aweek.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Rytis to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
Rytis Lauris (00:49):
Hey Dan pleasure to be here and thanks for
inviting.
Dan Balcauski (00:52):
I am incredibly excited to chat with you.
Before we dive into Omnisend, Idid notice that you had this
goal of managing to read a bookweek.
How do you make time for thatwhile running a fast growing
company?
Rytis Lauris (01:07):
That's a good question.
And that's a goal to be honest,I'm not succeeding with that
goal, like in the past couple ofyears during okay, 2
circumstances like that.
They used to be years when theyaccomplished this goal.
It was covid that was veryfavorable for that because no,
no business travel and not muchto do outside of your home.
(01:27):
And that's the first thing.
And second thing, the back inCOVID times, we only had one
kid, now we have two.
So, so that degrade.
So let's see, last year, and itwas kind of like.
Quite away from this goal, but Iread about like 20 few books, so
it was like two, two per month.
So twice less than the goal is,but there used to be years when
(01:49):
then I succeeded.
But I think in general, youalways have to be to have
ambitious goals and and in thiscase it's, that's okay that in
certain years I fell and Ididn't push myself too hard, but
still have it as a north star.
Dan Balcauski (02:02):
Well, I think that's still quite impressive.
And even if you're not meetingthat book a week, I think a lot
of people would feel very happyif they got to check 20 books
off their reading list lastyear.
I gave a folks a little bit of aintro to you in the the
beginning of the episode.
But could you just brieflyintroduce us to your journey in
the SaaS world?
Rytis Lauris (02:22):
So sure.
So Omnisend is this marketinggood automation platform that is
built mainly for those who sellonline.
So basically, if you own onlinestore and you sell sell like
physical or digital goods, etcetera, we help to retain your
existing customers by sendingthem emails.
SMS messages, web pushnotifications.
So basically communicating andinviting them to come back and
(02:45):
to purchase again and again fromyou.
So, yeah, so this is purely SaaSbusiness.
This is my first start at thatattempt, type 12.
I failed twice prior.
None of those.
Okay.
Second startup attempt was, kindof SaaS business similar to what
Slido is now?
Probably this is the companythat succeeded the most of all
out of all those attempts tobuild some similar product.
(03:06):
It was just more kind of.
Built towards like individualspeakers.
Those were on stage and want toengage with an audience.
So that was a kind of a firstSaaS attempt.
And Omnisend is a second.
So yeah, failed twice.
And then start, so basically thefirst product.
Then we, when I started buildingthat, and that like audience
(03:27):
engagement tool, or pollingtool.
That was what, 12 years ago orsomething?
Or maybe 13 years ago?
Yeah, so since then I fell inlove with SaaS.
To be honest, it's a very goodbusiness model.
And the subscription businessmodel is very good business
model.
So it really takes away a lot ofheadaches to be honest.
From any founder of businessperson.
Dan Balcauski (03:49):
Yeah.
Well we all if you'd hit thisamount of success on your first
try I think we'd be even morejealous of you.
So good that you had a couple offailures under your belt to to
get those lessons learned.
you and bring you back down toearth.
Rytis Lauris (04:00):
that's a journey.
I think that's a journey.
It's very important.
And and then there are stillparts of the world where failure
is being a negative thing.
You are from the states which Iadmire, what I admire.
I'm from Lithuania and that'swhere Omnisend was founded.
So, so that's what I admireabout like US business culture,
but failure, it's just a part oflearning and a part of the
(04:22):
journey.
And it's mainly each failureleads you to success.
And the faster you make failuresand the more you learn from
those failures the better chancefor success you have in your
next attempt.
Dan Balcauski (04:32):
Well and you already gave a little bit of a
taste of Omnisend, but for anaudience who maybe is not
familiar with Omnisend as acompany, can you just give us
kind of a 32nd overview of whatit is where you play?
Rytis Lauris (04:43):
Yeah, so it's it's e-commerce enablement, so those
who sell online, those who sellonline.
So we help them to communicatewith their customer base.
So.
Whilst, while customers arepurchasing for first time,
usually there is a loss for thebusiness to acquire new buyer
for those who sell onlinethrough meta like Facebook,
Instagram ads or Google ads forbasically like this op list
(05:05):
global you, you pay more thanactually you earn on the first
transaction.
So if you run an e-commercestore, online, store, your
business model, that you have toretain those customers and
calculate lifetime value.
So once, once Dan is buyingsomething for first time the
online store, lose money, theystart earning some profit once
(05:26):
Dan is buying for a second time,third time, fourth time.
So it's very important towelcome back, to invite back by
presenting new product lines newupdates promoting some sales, et
cetera, et cetera.
So, and, email, email it's thebest performing retention,
marketing or communication,direct communication with your
existing customer base channel.
And so far.
(05:46):
And I mean, there were so many,like Chad gonna kill like every,
like, there were so many killersof email.
But email is the most effectiverevenue driver retention,
revenue driver for any businessand especially those who sell
online.
SMS.
Really adds on top really greatweb push notifications.
They're very effective as, aswell.
They are a little bit or not alittle bit a lot underestimated.
(06:10):
And then I think online storesdon't use them enough.
Back in the days we tried also,like Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp, et cetera.
None of those worked formarketing purposes.
They're great to, to, to serviceas maybe support tool but they
did not work out for marketingpurposes.
Yeah, so that's what we dobasically help to collect all,
(06:31):
connect with your existingbuyers and retain them.
And probably the most importantthing that we help.
To automate a lot of thatcommunication.
So basically you set upautomation, you put your
customers in segments, youprebuilt segments, and the
system that Omni Send does it'sabsolute automatically for you.
So the example would be, Dan isbrowsing something and we set up
(06:54):
automation that once we'reidentify that Dan is browsing
for an.
A tires, let's say.
Why not?
If you have a car, we identifywhat kind of tires is like, is
it motorcycle, is it car, is ita truck, et cetera.
And we start like automaticallypromoting that specific products
phone.
(07:14):
For Dan, when Dan is purchasingsomething, we have a lot of like
post-purchase sequences.
Okay, thank you for order.
We have dispatched, can youleave us a review, et cetera.
After one or two seasons maybewe promote avatars for you and
it's all automated.
You set up it once and thesystem does the job.
Omni understand does the job onbehalf of the marketer or the
(07:36):
owner of online store, and youdon't need to like set up
everything again and again.
Dan Balcauski (07:41):
Well I appreciate that overview and given we just
got on the other side of theholiday season and I did really
well in shopping for mygirlfriend for the holidays.
I probably have you to blame forthe state of my email inbox at
the moment partially so Iforgive you, but you're also out
there doing good work.
So, but I wanna kind of just so,so.
That's kind of the externalfacing, but you did mention, so
(08:02):
in the business world, the windsof change can blow quickly and
unexpectedly.
And you brought up this Covidperiod where, obviously got very
into book learning, but youknow, I imagine, your world of
e-commerce shifted, nearlyovernight.
Take me into that period, kindof running omnis sin.
Like what did you see?
How did you react to what.
Look like an entirely seachange.
(08:22):
'cause you, we shut down, mostretail in the US right?
Everything you bought, you hadto buy online.
How did that affect sort of whatyou were dealing with as a
leader of Omnisend?
Rytis Lauris (08:33):
So I have a bit, like more broad than just a
covid concept.
So I have a strong belief thatthat and it's not just belief
like that there is a gym callingoffer of books like good to
Great Built to Last and never.
So in his book, like Bill toLast, he analyzes what is
common, between the companiesthat stay on top for many years.
(08:56):
So basically kind of he, andfine, just to simplify it, like
my take on from his inside, twothings.
First one is like ability toride the wave.
Whenever it comes theopportunities arise and they,
the opportunities arise for anybusiness.
And the second is resilience inthe hard times, and any company,
any business, any person, wehave good times and challenging
(09:18):
times, difficult times, badtimes.
And that's one of the thing thatmatters.
So that's what I always say tothe team as well.
The main pivotal VA waves, theyare coming unexpectedly and you
cannot predict them.
and it's like for any business,and sometimes they come quite
often, sometimes you have towait for decades for those
(09:39):
pivotal waves to come.
But you have to always be readyto accommodate that
opportunities that arise.
So it's like, wind surfing.
I didn't do windsurf, but like Iimagine it's very similar, like,
like, like that.
At least when you spectate that.
So basically you do a hard jobphysical job and once the wave
comes, either you are able inthat short period of time to
(10:00):
jump on the wave.
If you're ready, physically,mentally, you have skills for
that, then you ride the wave.
And it just, brings yousomewhere.
It's very beautiful.
It's very nice.
It drives results or otherwise,if you do not jump on the wave,
it basically floods you.
So, so that's kind of thing youalways have to be ready to take
(10:20):
opportunities that arise and thesmaller opportunities arise more
often.
Big opportunities are rare, butbut they come to time to time.
So that's that's a mainphilosophy behind that.
Always be
Dan Balcauski (10:31):
Yeah, so, so being prepared to act is
essential, I guess.
What does that mean in practiceor what do you sort of attribute
your ability to capitalize onthat?
Like, were there systems orprocesses that you had in place
that allow you to, so you talkabout this wave, right?
Surfing, like mentally,physically, like what was that
(10:51):
in the context of your business?
Rytis Lauris (10:53):
So I would say mainly it all starts with
people.
And practices and systems areimportant, but it all starts
with great people right peoplein the bus, basically people
that are ready to go extra milewhen it's needed.
At the same time that, thatpeople that know what we do and
really are professionals intheir areas.
(11:14):
So when the opportunity comes,we don't have, there is no, no
way to micromanage.
There is no way to, for any, thebest leader, I believe, to
really to understand everythingwhat is happening.
We basically safe of a team.
Okay, let's.
Go and grab this opportunity,and each person does the best
job they can to really grab thisopportunity.
(11:35):
So, and and they go extra miles.
They don't count their workinghours at that time, et cetera.
So it all starts with people.
And the second thing, like thesystem should be in place
because then you can just, breakas a company if, like, if
product is not ready.
If the processes are not readythey start somewhere like.
Breaking a little bit, butthat's okay.
So that's another thing.
(11:55):
How fast can you be in fixing,so operational excellence and
you don't seek for excellence inthose periods, but at least
having it good enough.
So, so, yeah, so you have tocover kind of quite broad broad
scope of processes, let's say ifit's marketing.
Yeah.
You have to be ready to coverdifferent areas.
So either you have, while you'rea smaller team, you have
universal people or generalistthat can cover broader range.
(12:19):
Once the organization grows,then you divide a little bit.
Okay.
I have pro in this area.
I have pro in this area.
I have pro in this area, so wehave it covered.
And we practice.
So again, I never concept by thesame Jim Collins in this case
just in another book.
So it's about like 20 milesmarch.
That so no matter what happenseach day, you have to practice
(12:41):
what you need to practice, youhave to go 20 miles March.
So basically like, just tosimplify it, he says that if you
want to go from east to west.
Throughout the United States onfoot, you have to go every day,
20 miles.
On bad days, on difficultconditions through the
mountains, you have to still go20 miles.
(13:01):
But at the same time, if it's agood day, if you feel inspired,
et cetera you don't have tooverstretch yourself.
And you still have to be quitepersistent.
Just do 20 miles, don't do toomuch in the good days because
you will get tired and then youwill overstretch yourself, et
cetera.
So that's with persistence.
Even in the difficult times, youcontinue doing what you have to
(13:23):
do.
There is basics.
Yeah.
That you have to do.
You have to send those emails.
You have outreach.
Those, you have to run thosecampaigns.
Maybe they're not working'causethey used to work, they're not
working perfectly.
But you have to do things.
You just, that is just thebaseline of your job.
So that's how you buildfundamentals for the, for the
success for accommodation ofsuccess or opportunities
(13:46):
whenever they arise,
Dan Balcauski (13:48):
So having the people in place and then
persistent practice sort of inthe, on the good and the bad
days.
So that's all good and well inpreparation.
But I'm sure you know thisproduct is called SaaS Scaling
Secrets because we see, the,every company breaks underneath
scaling challenges.
I'm curious, as you were.
As prepared as you might havebeen you cannot, a hundred
(14:10):
percent prepare for everything.
And you said like, we don'tsearch for excellence, but you
know, we shoot for good enough.
And I'm sure there were probablyparts of the system where it
wasn't even like, you're like,oh, that was good enough before,
but now it's not even goodenough.
What existing processes, Iguess, broke under the pressure
of rapid growth?
I guess what were the first sortof challenges that you had to
solve?
Rytis Lauris (14:30):
In our case, probably that to where, yeah,
maybe scaling of the productitself.
Maybe not outside pro processes,but like scaling, kinda the
product.
So a lot of like largercustomers, so mid-size we focus
on SMBs all the way from the momand pop shop to the mid-size.
Pretty, like decent size, tensof millions in revenue.
So that, that is our sweet spotand our ICP currently.
(14:54):
But yeah.
Prior to that we're mainlyserving like m to small
businesses.
Now we do serve mid-sizebusinesses, so that's to, to
accommodate those largercustomers with larger.
Lists subscriber list with more,more like high GMV, more
transactions, et cetera.
So that, that was kind ofprobably the biggest challenge.
And and the second challenge wasreally to provide decent
(15:15):
handholding or support for them.
So it was kind of in the past wemainly had a support team and
only when we start scaling withcustomer success managers, so
account managers, like the samerole is being called sometimes
account managers.
So basically serving thoselarger customers and more, more
personal attention for them.
More more help for them, etcetera.
So that was kind of another areathat was.
(15:37):
New for us, and we had to scaleit rapidly in order to provide
the best service for them.
So probably there were two kindof those main, like main areas
that we had to improve.
And yeah.
Did we do it perfect from afirst attempt?
For sure not, but just,continuously kind of, you.
You launch and we have thisvalues and culture deck.
(16:00):
And it's not just the deck, madeby some HR marketing team that
is, nobody knows about it, butthat's really like the values
and principles that we live.
So yeah.
So then is better than Perfectis one of those principles.
So.
Dan Balcauski (16:16):
Done is better than perfect.
I, yes I applaud that value ahundred percent.
So you mentioned, so that youhad some product scaling as you
started to see some inbound frommore from larger type customers
that maybe had not been in sortof in your sweet spot before.
And then support challenges.
And that reminds me of someother products I've been a part
of where they've had a majorcompetitor sort of shut.
(16:37):
Down.
And then, they get this massiveinflux of customers and they're
like, we are for X-ing oursupport staff right now.
Please bear with us while we getto to bring that up.
I and I imagine that those typesof decisions aren't.
They're not mutually exclusivefrom each other because I'm sure
there are probably resourcesthat you could put against
(16:59):
making improving supportabilityconcerns, right?
You've got your customer supportunder flooding, under tickets,
and they're like, they alwayshave their top 10 list of like,
ticket drivers, right?
That they're asking engineeringto fix.
But then you're also saying,Hey, we also got these giant
opportunities for these largercustomers.
I imagine solving a lot of theseproblems.
During a period like this feelslike sort of repairing an
(17:19):
airplane in mid-flight, how didyou think about prioritizing,
which to solve first when I'msure at the time everything sort
of felt urgent.
Rytis Lauris (17:28):
So that's one of the kind of principles again
that we have Inval valves inCulture Deck is like we built,
we created the most of the valuefor the most amount of
customers.
We never built anything.
Custom for the customer.
So that's the main kind of ideaand principle of prioritization.
So, okay.
So it's to what you say, if it'sa product decision, like to help
(17:50):
serve larger customers.
So like, the support in thiscase, in our case, it was like
both related to serving largercustomers.
So that was kind of like alreadyequalized because the.
The most difficult decisionswhen you have to compare.
I'm gonna improve something for10 customers who pay us 16
bucks, or for one who pays us4,000.
(18:12):
So still the monetary values onthat one customer, and it's very
difficult in that case stillsay, no, we will not do anything
custom.
But in that case, that was kindof a bit easy decision because
both of them were kind of forthe similar.
Profile of customers, the largerone.
So it's very easier.
Just basically listen to thecustomers, and then you
(18:33):
prioritize by, in that case, bymonetary value.
Yeah.
So what our customers arecomplaining more about, how many
customers are complaining aboutthis, et cetera.
It's one thing.
Second thing that is veryimportant, and it's outside the
prioritization, but just to behonest with customers, and you
say, look.
Yes, we have those challengescurrently.
(18:55):
That's what we do in order toimprove.
Please bear with us.
We ask a little bit of patiencefrom you.
Yeah.
We are not an ideal setupcurrently, but give us some time
to prove that in a few months wewill manage to, to scale and it
really works.
It's just, just a very humanvulnerability in front of your
customers and then notpretending that you are better
(19:16):
than you are.
It, it, it kind of put somehuman do you say?
Human face on the producthumanizes the product and
relationship and and vastmajority of customers were
humans.
I mean, all of your customersare humans and they understand
you because, especially duringokay.
For us it was like a lot of ourcustomers had scaling challenges
(19:41):
by themself, so they kind ofrelated with us more maybe, and
it, that was favorable for us.
Dan Balcauski (19:48):
Yeah, they, your clients were also getting,
hammered similarly, right?
So there was some sharedempathy, You're, yeah.
Everyone was going through theyeah.
Well, the entire world was goingthrough a weirdness, but yeah, I
think, I imagine a lot of thecustomers that you serve, like,
like, yeah.
We're also ripping at the seams,so take advantage of that shared
human situation when you can.
Rytis Lauris (20:08):
True, but yeah.
But that's in, in an hesitation.
I mean, and I mean, it's not thesingle occasion that we had some
challenges, but in any occasion,like being vulnerable, being
transparent in front of the eyesof your customers, it is what I
strongly believe and that's whatwe practice.
And, then your customers aremore forgiving for, for you as a
(20:29):
company, as individuals.
Dan Balcauski (20:32):
Well, I'm interested because, the.
If I look at like, the chart oflike e-commerce growth, right?
You see it almost looks like astep function change, right?
From, you have this, 20 years,somewhat linear growth of
e-commerce revenues worldwide,and then just, overnight it just
steps up.
I'm curious, and maybe theanswer is no, but out of, the
(20:53):
ways you had to operate werethere.
When you were thinking, goingthrough the scaling challenge,
was there an area where it kindof required a fundamental change
in how you operate versus justdoing more of the same?
Like, I imagine, right?
It's like, Hey, we've got a tonof customer support tickets and
so we just need more people.
So we're we now are bringing ourfour x-ing our customer support
team just to answer tickets.
(21:13):
Right.
So, so it's like, okay, wellthat, that makes sense.
Was there, were there ways thatyou had to sort of fundamentally
rethink how you.
Approach the business?
Or maybe it was, not even butyou just kind of came up in the
moment.
Was there anything like that?
Rytis Lauris (21:26):
So, well of course, like one area that was
like definite for everyone.
So like going remote that's forsure.
But it was so maybe justamplified that you have to grow
and we kind of.
Hired a lot of people fully,remotely without even having
like fully remote processes.
So.
That really amplified thechallenge that you don't have
(21:46):
like full remote processes inplace, et cetera, and you start
hiring.
And that was the highest likehiring period and headcount
growth period for us in thehistory of our company.
So that.
Maybe there was the, and we hadto implement all the like more
hierarchy.
I think we, that we still we're,had like 250 people now.
So we, pretty lean up untiltoday, and that's what we try to
(22:09):
do.
But but we definitely had tointroduce some hierarchies and
some processes in place becauseyou have more people and like
and they can't meet, et cetera.
So it just, it, it amplified.
But yeah, probably kind of themain thing in any growth, and
especially for me, what is thebiggest challenge, is really to
restructure the organization.
And in our case, like but in ourcase that was like, we grew from
(22:32):
like 80 to 180 very fast.
And that, that was a massiveboost.
And a lot, everything changeshow you have to deal with
people.
How you have to manage alreadystructure, mid-level management
that you have to introduce, etcetera, et cetera.
So, but we still operated forquite a while as being like a 50
people company and the.
(22:54):
Like new newcomers were, and allthe employees were forgiving us
for some time.
And it caught us like a littlebit after that.
So that's kind of my lesson.
Yeah.
Initially you just do things andyou don't overthink and you will
fix later.
Dan Balcauski (23:08):
No, 80 to 180.
I mean, that's gigantic, right?
On a percentage basis of growth.
And, many, I guess, CEOs,founders, right?
When they go from that scale of,a 50 person company to a.
250 person company.
Right.
And the like, where this changeis sort of all the way between a
lot of folks, CEOs and founderssort of struggle because they
(23:31):
sort of find them themselves asbeing a bottleneck when they're
trying to scale their companies.
I guess how has that impacted,like, how have you thought about
that and navigated thosesituations to sort of.
Not impede the progress of yourentire organization.
Right.
Because I'm sure at one point,if you're the co-founder you
owned most of the company andI'm sure at the point of two 50,
you, you own almost nothingdirectly in the company.
(23:53):
So I mean, imagine all that'spretty exacerbated in these
periods of rapid scale.
Like how have you dealt withthat personally?
Rytis Lauris (24:00):
Yeah, so I'm not an exceptional person here and
to be honest, like to learnproperly delegate where that was
the biggest challenge for me asa manager as a Malik, I know
skill skills grow as a ma,managerial skills that was the
most challenging thing to learnand go through.
(24:22):
So, just life pushes you and youshould not be too resilient
sometimes in some occasions.
And and kind of, you all, and inthe past I read those books
about like management, etcetera.
And and once I read that, thereare three things that a CEO has
to do.
(24:43):
First is to drive a vision forthe entire company where when to
go.
Second to hire best people toimplement that vision.
And third is to ensureresources, mainly financial
resources.
So it's either like, funding orbusiness model or VCs or depth
(25:03):
or.
Whatever, but like those goodpeople have to have resources to
our people to, to invest intomarketing, et cetera, et cetera,
whatever, for whatever you hirethose people to do.
And once I read this, I thought,come on, come on, come on.
No.
It's just, it's not that simpleto be a CEO.
So now I think that it's reallytrue if you have right people
(25:26):
and we have resources and wehave.
Vision where we're gonna go,we're gonna do the job.
I'm still quite, I would say indepth of a lot of things that
are happening in Omni.
But what has changed for me, sofrom doing and becoming a
bottleneck, as you said now Istill know a lot of things.
(25:47):
I share a lot of ideas, but Idon't own decisions anymore.
So I share ideas with our kindof executive team with some,
sometimes even like mid-levelmanagement, but just this is
idea and you don't need toimplement just because I came
with that idea.
So I'm still curious.
I love learning, like knowingunder understanding of what is
happening, but but it'sbasically, yeah it's not you who
(26:10):
owns the decision.
And there is a very good articleabout, it's on Harvard Business
Review, and I think this is themost read article in the history
of Harvard Business Review.
Who's got the monkey.
Dan Balcauski (26:23):
Who's got the monkey?
Rytis Lauris (26:24):
Who's got the monkey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (26:26):
for our listeners.
Rytis Lauris (26:27):
So I really encourage every manager to read
that article.
It's really great.
I.
Dan Balcauski (26:33):
So, you mentioned this delegation, right?
You maybe were too resilient.
What I, what that tends to looklike for a lot of really
persistent resilient founders asthey give up things like sleep
and that only lasts so long,
Rytis Lauris (26:45):
I did that as well.
I did that as well.
Dan Balcauski (26:49):
So I guess, if you could go back and maybe give
yourself, two, three years agoa, a bit of advice on, when you
saw yourself holding on tothings like, were there.
Is there a signal?
Like, because I imagine like bythe it's, emotionally having
gone through this, at a muchsmaller scale before, right?
Like after the fact, you'relike, well, obviously I
(27:11):
shouldn't be doing that anymore.
But before it's almost like it'sa total blind spot to you where
you're like, you don't see anyway, like, it's like, it's not
even emotionally registering.
Like, is there a way that youwould, tell yourself to like,
think about like, okay, it'stime to give this thing up
before it got to the breakingpoint, and you're only sleeping
two hours a week.
Rytis Lauris (27:29):
So that article, who's got the monkey, is really
kind of very, it's a greatguideline how to identify the
situation.
So basically when there's alike.
I will not spoil everything, butthere is a situation described
in this article.
So basically you sit in theoffice on weekend and you work
and you see through a windowthat your employees are playing
(27:50):
golf.
So, and because you're waitingfor your decisions and et
cetera, and you are the one tocome first to the office and to
leave the last, the office, sothen it's something wrong.
Yeah.
And this is kind of, probablywas a moment for me that, and it
felt okay in many occasions.
This is how it happens.
A lot of people are waiting for.
(28:11):
For my decisions, et cetera, andI don't know what to do.
Even then I have some ideas whatto do, et cetera, and this is a
wrong thing.
Then that's what they always sayto our managers Now your job is
to ensure that everyone has.
What did you do?
In any minute?
You cannot become a bottleneckin any circumstances.
(28:33):
You cannot, and this is who'sgot the monkey?
So, you should never leave anyquestion on your table.
Yeah.
So probably that was kind of themoment.
Yeah.
That, that I was still kind of Ididn't break too much.
I mean, I didn't break at all.
That's okay.
It was, like, manage manage atsome point to, to identify that,
okay, I have to delegate moreand more.
And again, it's a journey.
(28:53):
It's not that one day you becomea really good in delegating now
you just improve it over theyears and you do less and less,
less because you have moreresources.
You have more people you trust,you.
Start like seeing by yourselfthat you know that someone did
it in a different way than youthought you would do it.
There's nothing bad of it andnothing broke and opposite.
(29:15):
It apparently went better thanthan your original idea, so,
Dan Balcauski (29:20):
Yeah.
Well and I love that becausethere's, as you were talking, I
had this, I, thought in my headof this idea of like a decision
queue, like how many decisionsare waiting for my yes or no.
And that it could be a veryconcrete thing that you could be
like, okay, here's, here are allthe decisions.
And it ties back.
Really nicely to what you saidbefore, you're like, as a CEO
(29:40):
Dow, like I don't really own anyof the decisions, right?
So you've, and I'm sure that'snot, a hundred percent true all
the time, but like for the mostpart you've become very aware of
that.
Where are those decisions knownand making sure that I'm not
sort of in the way of them Iwasn't planning on going here,
but you mentioned reallyunderstanding customers and what
they need, as we were talkingabout this period of growth.
And one thing that we weretalking about before the
(30:02):
recording was your view onreally like how to really
understand what customers needand what most companies sort of
get wrong around this area.
Can you elaborate on that forme?
Rytis Lauris (30:13):
So brought two things and like our experience.
So in the past when we were asmaller company, there were a
lot of people within the companywho actually had the direct I.
Relationship or context with ourcustomers.
And and just because like, in asmaller company, myself, being a
(30:33):
co-founder, sometimes I did asupport job and that's how you
understand your customer's needsand feelings, et cetera.
But once the company grow, wegot stuck in one moment, in, in
one moment.
Too much data driven.
We just became very like niceand comfortable position to be
at.
We kind of implemented a lot ofdata analysis, BI tools, et
(30:55):
cetera, et cetera, that are veryhelpful and they help you to run
business better.
But at the same time, at somepoint we lost the the true like,
honest conversations with ourcustomers and that's what we
changed again and we.
Brought it back.
Like sometimes even forcingpeople to talk to customers and
(31:17):
having a scoreboard of some,someone says maybe it's a shame
board, but you know who thosepeople who build a product,
those people who serves wholeads especially like support
that, and then the customersuccess management, et cetera.
Those people who communicatewith messages, they all.
Always, constantly have to betalking to customers.
(31:38):
That's what they do.
Again, like it goes to to haveat least one conversation per
week with a existing customerbecause like, and then you
combine data, like what your BItool show you and and and those.
Just anecdotal evidences, butthose emotions that you really
feel while you talk withcustomers.
(31:59):
And what do I have in mind?
Just a practical like examplehere.
Sometimes we as a SaaS we launchnew features.
Something.
Yeah.
And there is kind of a smalldetail in it that from the pure
data work, from like this,quantitative analysis, it.
Doesn't show that it is arelevant feature or some detail
(32:20):
within the feature.
While you talk with yourcustomers, you understand that,
okay, they say, okay, I loveyour feature, but this part, it
just pisses me off every time Iuse this feature.
Technically, yeah, this is agreat seller.
It generates me revenue.
That's why I choose yourproduct.
But at the same time, every timeI log into your product, I get
frustrated on this and you willnever, ever see it from the
(32:44):
quantitative data.
It's only the qualitativeinterviews with the customers
where you add this emotions ontop and then you change it and
they say, and in opposite,sometimes I'm like about
positive examples.
Then you have a one hourinterview and they praise
something that you never, everthought that it is important for
your customers.
And they say, oh look.
(33:05):
My ability to copy thosetemplates.
In our case, it's just amazing.
It saves so much time for me andthen so many hours.
But while you look just on thedata, it shows that very few
customers among your customerbase use it.
But for those who use.
It's just a life changer, so,so, the mix of those two, it's
crucially important, likequalitative and quantitative
(33:27):
data and interviews and directlyreally honest conversations.
Sometimes they're not verycomfortable because sometimes
customers complain about how youdo things.
Dan Balcauski (33:36):
yes.
Very rarely comfortable.
I love that point of view andthat perspective and obviously
you've gone through a cyclewhere, you said you, you maybe
lost touch and then you've gotback, made a priority.
But I see this all the time.
And look, I mean, talk to yourcustomers is not new advice.
But I just see so many companiesget away from that and like, I
just don't I guess.
And maybe it was that periodwhere you, it is funny.
(33:58):
It's like you said we became toodatadriven in and Right.
I mean, it's like a lot ofpeople would be like, oh, we
would love to be data-driven.
Like, that would be ideal.
But you actually saw it as anegative.
Like why do you think companiessort of slip into this, like and
don't like stop talking to theircustomers?
Is it because of the discomfort?
Rytis Lauris (34:18):
Yes, I think so.
No, it's just way more conflike, comfortable.
Okay.
Two fix, maybe just being datadriven is it's seen as a holy
grail sometimes, especially whenyou are growing to that stage
that you kind of had no clueabout, like, understanding of
your customers from a.
Quantitative side of Point ofview.
(34:38):
Yeah.
So then you start investing init.
You hire people, you implementBI tools, et cetera.
You invest a lot in this and,okay.
Oh, I see everything now.
I used to have 10 interviewswith customer to understand
that, of customers, tounderstand that.
And now I just see it.
I analyze, I spend hours infront of my laptop, screen, et
cetera.
(34:58):
It's one thing.
Yeah.
It's still, especially on thegrowth stage and the, for maybe
first time founders and thosewho have never been in this
situation, it seems like a holygrail.
And second is, yeah, it's waymore comfortable.
It's just easy, your BI toolwill always open.
Customers sometimes don't showup for your scheduled
conversations.
You, you wait, you don't come.
(35:20):
And especially when you kind ofhave a global.
Global customer base, orsometimes you have to wake up
earlier.
Sometimes you have to schedulein the late nighttime just
because it's more convenient fora customer.
So, and yes, sometimes wecomplain them.
We are unhappy with you.
And this is this is emotionalload.
So, and they like data analysisor BI tools, never complain
(35:43):
about how shitty solution didyou release last week?
Dan Balcauski (35:48):
I, yeah, I mean, I agree, right?
It can get no, I think all thosepoints I a hundred percent agree
with and it can get verycomfortable.
You could look at a dashboardand you could tell yourself
whatever story you want about alot of data points that you're
looking at.
And without that customerperspective, you may be lying to
yourself.
Right?
And we're the, that's the wholething of the scientific method
is like, we are the easiestpeople to, our, we're easiest to
fool ourselves, right?
(36:09):
We're the biggest fool.
We wanna tell ourselves a storywe wanna believe.
But a conversation with thecustomer.
They're not gonna let you getaway with that.
They're gonna tell you exactlywhat they think, and then you, I
mean, you can still sort ofrationalize it away, I guess,
when you walk away, when it'smuch more difficult.
Look, I can talk to you all day,re just but I, to be respectful
of your time in the audience, Iwant to start wrapping things up
with a couple of wrappingcloseout questions.
Is that okay?
Rytis Lauris (36:29):
Sure.
Sure.
Dan Balcauski (36:31):
Look, when you think about all the spectacular
people you've had a chance towork with, is there anyone that
just pops to mind who's had adisproportionate effect in the
way that you think aboutbuilding running companies?
Rytis Lauris (36:40):
So in this case, I probably would say my co-founder
here at Omni Sense.
So I think that we are prettylike.
Different people and we managedto fulfill each other and then
to, To grow, to help each othergrow probably in that would be,
and and a lot of peers I don'thave kind of idols in general,
but I spend a lot of timetalking with peers who run
(37:03):
similar stage businesses,similar industry businesses, et
cetera.
And it's it's really helpful.
Dan Balcauski (37:08):
Are there structured ways that you've been
able to establish those peerrelationships or have it been
more organically like, I don'tknow given where you're at in
Rytis Lauris (37:16):
Yeah, so it's kind of initially was like more
organically.
So it's either SaaS vertical ore-commerce enablement or.
Both.
So that's kind of the easiestbecause you share you share a
lot of some companies that aresimilar, growth stage, et
cetera, because then when youface similar challenges and you
relate and then it's on top onthe value PE structure.
So basically I do a lot ofmeetings like.
(37:39):
In once in two months.
We just schedule in advance.
And then, the time comes, yousee in your calendar there is a
scheduled meeting and you spendsome time talking about, okay
what challenges, what learningsdid do you have in the past?
Two year.
Two months?
So that's where you putstructure on top.
Dan Balcauski (37:56):
Right.
Well, if I gave you a billboardand you could put any advice on
there for other B2B SaaS CEOstrying to scale their companies,
what would it say?
Rytis Lauris (38:03):
It's not intent to advertise one company, but just
do it.
Dan Balcauski (38:07):
Just do it.
Rytis Lauris (38:08):
Just do it.
It's a great slogan, and theytruly believe in it.
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of thisslogan.
I'm not that much of a fan of acompany.
It's not that they don't likethat company, but maybe I have
some.
Shorts of Nike.
I'm not kind of one of thoselike fans of Nike, but this,
slogan and this
Dan Balcauski (38:26):
worry, they're not a sponsor.
So,
Rytis Lauris (38:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I'm not, not, not promotingye them, but just the slogan is,
it's just amazing and yeah.
Dan Balcauski (38:34):
Well, I absolutely love this
conversation.
If listeners wanna connect withyou, learn more about Omnisend,
how can they do that?
Rytis Lauris (38:40):
So I prefer using LinkedIn.
So Rytis Lauris there andOmnisend is just omnisend.com.
Probably that's the best way tolearn our website.
Dan Balcauski (38:50):
I will put those links in show notes for our
listeners along with those otherarticles that you mentioned.
Thank you so much.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Rytis for sharinghis journey Insights For our
listeners, you found RytisInsights valuable.
Please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.