December 2, 2025 • 41 mins
Dan Balcauski speaks with Steve Holm, CEO of Copper. Steve shares insights into the challenges of integrating big company experience into startups, the importance of a differentiated product for the right customers, and the cultural shifts necessary for growth. Steve discusses his return to Copper to turn around the company by focusing on an ideal customer profile and reinforcing a unified vision, ultimately driving product innovation and aligning the entire organization. This episode explores practical strategies for guiding a company through transformation while maintaining a focus on customer outcomes.
01:53 Steve Holm's Journey with Copper
03:17 The Early Days at Copper
04:54 Leaving Copper and New Ventures
07:09 The Return to Copper
12:24 Challenges and Strategic Shifts
14:21 Focusing on Ideal Customers
18:34 Cultural and Product Innovation
21:11 First Moves in the Turnaround
21:38 Defining the Ideal Customer Profile
22:02 Creating a North Star Vision
25:02 Decisive Leadership in Action
27:03 Cultural and Team Changes
31:23 Measuring Success Through Customer Outcomes
33:50 Reinforcing the Vision
Guest Links
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Holm (00:00):
Well, I'm sure many people are familiar with this
(00:02):
story arc where, you start toscale, you start to grow and you
think you need.
Big company experience withinyour startup and you hire
certain types of people withcertain type of experience
doesn't always go well.
And I don't think it went aswell as it could have at Copper.
it changed the dynamic.
the soul of the company wasaround.
The product experience and theintegration with Google
(00:24):
Workspace and making it reallyeasy for small to medium sized
businesses to sign up.
churn started to outpace newbusiness, which is obviously a
huge problem.
what's gonna get us out of thisis an innovative, differentiated
product experience for the rightcustomers.
I believe that decisiveness isvery critical, especially at
certain points in your company.
(00:45):
I'd rather make a decision andbe wrong, than take a year to
make a decision.
Dan Balcauski (01:10):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestorage and the leaders of the
best scale at B2B SaaSCompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeSteve Holm, CEO of Copper, CRM,
the Google Workspace native CRM,serving thousands of businesses
across a hundred plus countries.
Steve Scale copper from startupto 25 million a RR and is a
(01:30):
rare.
Boomerang, CEO, who returned toturnaround, the company he
helped build as employee numberfour with broad industry
experience.
From his time at Dropbox, Domo,and podium, Steve brings a
combination of design sense,product vision, and operational
expertise to scaling SaaScompanies.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Holm (01:47):
Thanks for having me.
I'm really excited to be here.
Dan Balcauski (01:50):
The excitement is shared from this side of the
microphone as well.
Before we dive into your scalingjourney, give us the elevator
pitch.
What does Copper do?
Who do you serve?
Steve Holm (01:57):
Yeah, like you said, copper is a CRM that is built
for Google Workspace users.
So if you use Google Workspace,then Copper integrates with your
emails, calendars, documents andactually can live inside of
Google Workspace.
And most recently, which we'lltalk about more is we serve our
ideal customers are professionalservices companies, so.
Consulting agencies,construction, financial
(02:18):
services, and so we've nicheddown in the past few years to
get more vertical specificaround professional services.
Dan Balcauski (02:25):
Nice.
And so I imagine the sort ofGoogle Workspace integration is
giving you that sort of seamlessworkflow so that you know you
don't need a whole other UI togo outside of your workflow to
go manage, kind of ingrainedright in your rest of your
workspace flow.
Is that the idea?
Steve Holm (02:40):
Yeah that's right.
We called it zero input CRM whenwe first started out where.
One of the big challenges withCRM, especially many years ago
was having to copy and paste andmove between applications.
And so we know that a lot ofpeople use Google Workspace and
they spend a lot of time therein email calendar and documents.
And so we put CRM inside thereand we also have a web
application that you can, andmobile applications that you can
(03:03):
go to, and it syncs that dataright into those applications
without you having to go backand forth.
And so that concept of zeroinput, CRMs always been a big
one for us.
Dan Balcauski (03:12):
You also mentioned the niching down, and
I do want to return to that in abit later in our conversation.
But first I mentioned a littlebit in the intro, you were
employee number four way backin, I think 2014 when you joined
the company.
What drew you to, take the leapand joined as employee number
four, such an early stage.
Steve Holm (03:30):
Yeah I was, so, I was at a company called Base
CRM, which was bought byZendesk, which is now Zendesk
cell.
And I was one of the earlydesigners there and that was my
first intro into CRM.
And, through my, throughout mytime there, I a lot talking to a
lot of the customers that weserved.
(03:50):
I realized there was a big needto integrate into, into where
they actually do work instead oftry to pull them into the CRM.
And so, I had recently leftthere and was trying to figure
out my next move, and I met thefounder, the original founder of
Copper his name's John Lee.
And we chatted.
And ultimately I just thoughtwhat a cool idea to align
yourself with a company likeGoogle and their workspace
(04:12):
product.
To.
To realize that zero input ideathat we had.
And so, I just felt like it wasa unique opportunity to join a
small startup, which I wanted todo, to have a lot of impact and
autonomy.
And then I felt like the spacewas, I was really interested in
it and the vision around GoogleWorkspace was something that I
felt was very compelling.
Dan Balcauski (04:30):
And when you joined, you mentioned you were
working for the company thateventually got sold to Zendesk,
or was that in a design rolewhen you first joined the
company or was that the idea?
Steve Holm (04:39):
I started out as a designer.
That's my background, that's mypassion.
I love design and so I was aproduct designer there and at
the time we didn't have productmanagers and so we were, design
kind of filled both roles andjust really enjoyed the space.
Dan Balcauski (04:54):
And so you joined 2014 and then, you helped grow
the company significantly, butthen like six years later you,
you decided to leave.
What kind of led you to leavethe company at that point?
Steve Holm (05:07):
Well, I'm sure many people are familiar with this
story arc where, you know youstart to scale, you start to
grow and you think you need.
Big company experience withinyour startup and you hire
certain types of people withcertain type of experience
doesn't always go well.
And I don't think it went aswell as it could have at Copper.
And it changed the dynamic.
(05:27):
I think we, the soul of thecompany was around.
The product experience and theand the integration with Google
Workspace and making it reallyeasy for small to medium sized
businesses to sign up.
And some of these folks came inand decided we needed to go
after the enterprise and kind ofchange the DNA of the company.
And it didn't quite work out.
And so I felt like my, as muchas I loved it and I built that
(05:49):
from scratch, I just felt likeit was time for me.
It was a good time for me to godo something else.
And so I ultimately decided toleave.
Dan Balcauski (05:56):
So, so new management comes in, Hey, we're
we got to a certain level ofscale.
We gotta put our big boy pantson.
Let's get the people who haveseen this movie before.
But they come with a set ofstrategic initiatives and maybe
cultural, practices that weren'ta fit.
I guess when you left, that'smaybe the what push, was pushing
you out.
Was there stuff you were hopingto learn at the next stage of
your journey when you when youleft Copper for the original
(06:19):
time?
Steve Holm (06:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had been at, start at smallstartups, right?
With Copper being, four peoplewhen I joined,
Dan Balcauski (06:25):
Mm-hmm.
Steve Holm (06:26):
and then grow, had grown to 200 plus people and,
and I wanted to go to a biggercompany and have some, a
different type of experience.
I was living in the Bay Area atthe time and wanted to go
experience the bigger.
of scaled up company experienceand so ultimately decided to go
to Dropbox and help lead theirecosystem team which was
something I was very passionateabout with integrations and
(06:48):
automations and partnering andbringing data in.
And so I felt like it was a goodfit for me at the time and
ultimately decided to jump overand join Dropbox.
Dan Balcauski (06:58):
Well, fine company.
I have a few friends who havespent some time at Dropbox and
have had nothing but positivethings to say about it.
They've got an office here inAustin.
I, and I've had to.
Pleasure of sampling thecafeteria, and it was definitely
top notch.
But besides that you are nowthough leading boomerang, or
excuse me, you're Boomerang,CEO, so you came back to copper.
And so how did that happen?
(07:19):
You're, you go to Dropbox you'reoff pursuing this leading this
ecosystem team.
How did you make your way backto the company?
Steve Holm (07:25):
Yeah I had a stop in between.
I went to a company calledPodium, which I really enjoyed,
which was kind of a localbusiness, CRM and so I was there
and.
I'd always stayed in touch withboard members and even the, they
brought on a new CEO after theoriginal founder had left and we
stayed close and I knew him welland we chatted and ultimately
(07:46):
the company kind of plateaued abit and I think.
In my opinion, what happened isthe company turned from a
experience and really the soulof that, of our company was
around the product experienceand what we were doing in terms
of innovation and all of that.
And it turned into a sales andmarketing company where we had,
that, that leadership at thetime had said, well, we have
(08:07):
product market fit.
Let's just go scale sales andmarketing.
And kind of went in to keep thelights on mode with a product
and it flattened out and churnstarted to catch up.
And churn started to outpace newbusiness, which is obviously a
huge problem.
And so I, the board and a fewfolks had asked me what I
thought.
We needed to do what I thoughtcopper needed to do.
(08:29):
And so I told them, I, I gavethem my opinion on, on, one was
figuring out an ideal customerto focus on.
I feel like CRM being a generic,horizontal CRM isn't gonna work
in this world that we're headedtowards, especially with ai.
And so I felt like finding theideal customers to focus on
based on.
they're using the product basedon their NRR based on certain
(08:50):
metrics we could go find out whoour ideal customers are and
niche down and focus on that.
And then second, it was, to meit was back to the roots of
product innovation and productexperience, especially in a
crowded space like CRM, ifyou're not innovating and
keeping up and even gettingahead of where cr m's gonna be
you're gonna get passed upquickly.
And so finding an ideal customerfocus and innovating on the
(09:12):
product.
It was my pitch to them and theysaid, well, why don't you come
do it?
And I said, ah, I don't know.
I don't know if if that'ssomething I wanna do.
And as I thought about it, Ijust thought I had unfinished
business in CRM.
I felt like I hadn'taccomplished everything that I
wanted to, and I felt like thespace still has a need for.
For what Co Copper offers.
(09:33):
And so ultimately I decided tocome back and help with this
kind of resetting the company'svision and taking us to where,
the next version of copper willbe.
Dan Balcauski (09:41):
I don't want to scoot past that.
'cause that would be, that'squite the decision.
Right, like you've left thiscompany, the growth trajectory
has taken a turn for the worstof the interim.
You're having conversationswith, folks telling'em your
advice that you're, I imaginethere's a set of.
Thoughts going through yourhead, risks of coming back,
(10:02):
coming into that situation.
I guess, how did you think aboutthose risks and like, you said
like there was unfinishedbusiness.
Eventually you saw like therewas, there's a positive vision
that sort of got you past that.
But I just kinda walk me throughwhat your decision process was.
Steve Holm (10:16):
Yeah I thought about it a lot and like I said, I, at
first I said, I don't know thatthis is the right thing for me
to do and as I thought about itmore and I did more.
Looking into the space and wherethings were headed and where
things are in terms of themarket and the type of customers
that are out there to serve, I.
I'm a pretty kind of risktolerant type person.
I think that's what's maybehelped and maybe hurt me in my
(10:39):
career.
I don't know.
But but I, talked to my wife alot and, said, a, this is not
gonna be easy.
This is not gonna be like acushy job that I go take any
means.
I, I've got a lot of learningand growing to do in this role,
but I just felt like my skillsetand what the company needed.
Really matched up And I thought,I need, I, what got me to a,
(11:01):
design and product lead was justtaking a chance, right?
Taking a chance on a startup andkind of going after something
and being uncomfortable andstretching myself a bit.
And I thought, well, this is aunique opportunity to take that
next step in my career to trysomething new.
And I did feel like there weresome.
Some skills that I have.
I don't have many skills, but Ido have a few.
(11:21):
But the skills and the strengthsthat I do have really, again,
lined up with what I felt likecopper.
Needed and needs and ultimatelyI felt like I, I had a cast of
people at Copper that could helpaugment the skills that I don't
have around some of thego-to-market motions and all of
that.
And so, yeah I think thosethings all lined up and I said,
let's do this.
Let's I'm ready to go take thischance and let's do it.
Dan Balcauski (11:44):
Well, there's always an interesting, situation
for anyone who's ever taken anyjob, right?
You go through an interviewprocess, right?
You try to ask really probingquestions.
Figure out, what's going on.
You outlined a, the productinvestment had fallen off and
pivoted more to a sales andmarketing company.
They kind of lost their focus onkind of target ICP and.
(12:05):
All that may have been true, butI'm sure now, day one, you walk
in and you're like, oh, thenthere's also all of these other
things going on.
So take me to that time, youwere the prodigal son returned
with this idea of, hey, yeahwe've gotta lay out the
strategic vision.
What did you actually find whenyou walked back in the door?
Steve Holm (12:22):
Yeah, yeah you.
Dan Balcauski (12:23):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (12:24):
you'd never know until you get in there and start
to dig and learn.
And so there were manychallenges.
I think set aside the, thegrowth was slowing down and
churn was really, spiking.
There, there were many culturalchallenges.
I think the product and salesand customer support team were
at odds.
They weren't the same.
They weren't on the same page.
(12:44):
Product was thinking we're aproduct led growth company, and
sales and marketing werethinking, well, we have these,
we're gonna go sell to largercustomers that need high touch
motions.
And customer success was like,what is the product doing?
They're not building anythingthat our customers are telling
us.
And so there was a huge, huge.
Split between what everyonethought we should be doing at
the company, and everyone wasvery passionate about it.
Dan Balcauski (13:04):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (13:05):
So that, and, there was cashflow pressures and some
debt we had to figure out and,venture debt and, needing to
raise some capital.
There was all sorts of thingsthat I was like, there was a few
times where I was reallyquestioning my life decisions.
No, no doubt.
But, you take it one day at atime and keep going and figure
out how to, get, overcome someof those challenges.
Dan Balcauski (13:25):
So I imagine I I guess, anyone who's kinda walked
in that situation is probablylike, well, yeah there's
probably a ton of problemsbehind the door.
I guess, you're seeing all ofthese problems like, but you're
in the CEO here and you've gottaset this, the.
Order of operations of what ismost important in the company.
And so kinda given all thoseproblems, I'm just curious like
(13:45):
how, like what was your processfor really figuring out, okay,
what these are the, of the 50things that like we go, could
do, these are the things, threethings we actually can do.
Like what sources of informationare most valuable?
Because, you just say like, Hey,everyone's really passionate
about sort of their point ofview, right?
So, of course like, well, I goin and I talk to the, head of
marketing and I talk to thesales leaders and I talk to the,
(14:07):
the individual reps.
Right?
But everyone has their opinionsand you're, they're looking to
you to synthesize that.
I guess just walk me through,like what was most valuable to
you in like putting somestructure to what seemed pretty
chaotic of a situation?
Steve Holm (14:21):
Yeah, there were a few things.
Number one was.
Looking at our customers, whoare our customers and who are
our most successful customers?
I think we had become obsessedwith the churning customers and
how do we fix churn and all ofthat.
And I said, well, let's look atwho, who are our most successful
customers, and try to find somethemes there and what are they
(14:43):
doing that makes themsuccessful?
And how, what of product.
do they have that makes themsuccessful, but also what
motions do we have with them,that help them become successful
in terms of activation andonboarding and all those things.
And so really that was.
A big part of it was looking atcustomer behavior, trying to
(15:04):
find themes, looking at, revenueby customer segment, net revenue
by customer segment, conversionrates by customer segment and
size and other like, likelooking through a bunch of
lenses around industries andsize and annual versus monthly
plans, and just really trying tofigure out who are our best.
And why are they our bestcustomers?
(15:25):
ultimately my number one goalwas to align us in the same
direction.
Like we had to pick a customersegment to focus on, then
ultimately create a vision andrally everyone around that
vision to get everyone marchingin the same direction, solving
needs for a certain type ofcustomer.
Dan Balcauski (15:43):
Well, you come from a design and a product
background.
And I also come, I have abackground in, in product,
previously engineering and thenproduct.
And so I'm big fan of yeahputting the customer first.
But it and I know that this is apersistent problem in companies
because you walk in though andeverybody's.
(16:03):
Says like, yeah we know who ourcustomer is.
You even hinted at it before,right?
You're like, we go to customersuccess, or, and they're like,
oh yeah, we sell to these, largeaccounts.
So you get the product team, sayproduct led growth.
So, what do you think washappening there that, got
everyone?
So like, or, this is a generalpattern, but, applied
specifically to what you saw atCopper.
Like how is, how does thatknowledge not get, so like how
(16:25):
does it not get consolidated?
How does so end up so dispersed?
Steve Holm (16:28):
Well, for a couple reasons.
Many reasons, but a few that Ireally can call out.
One is, I think.
The product team was so all inon product led growth.
Were like, we're gonna make thisa product led growth company
where we don't need sales andmarketing and everyone can
onboard themselves and.
They had an idea of what type ofcustomers were the best in their
(16:51):
world.
Sales was like, we need a largerdeal.
Of course sales is like, they'drather sell one large deal a
month than 50 small deals amonth.
So they're like, we need largedeals.
And customer success was like,well, need to just focus on our
largest customers and make surethey don't churn.
And so all these differentdepartments had their own.
(17:11):
they're all right.
They're all right and they'reall wrong, right?
They're right because they'reindexing on the most recent data
and the things that are comingtheir way and the strategy that
they have.
But it, no one was reallylooking at it holistically terms
of like, number one, who are ourmost successful customers, like
I said, but also, how can we winin the market?
(17:31):
Like, what does the market looklike?
And.
How can we go win long term andwhat's the strategy to win in
terms of positioning ourselvesand finding the right customers?
And so, you can always index offthe last customer call you had,
but that doesn't mean it's aholistic view of who your ideal
customers are.
And so, it, it took.
took a lot of looking at dataand also looking at the market.
(17:53):
Like I said, I think that wasanother big piece was saying,
can we win against the HubSpotsand the sales forces of the
world?
Why would someone choose us overthem?
And where can we go find a nichethat we can dominate in?
And so lining up those twothings, which not everyone had
thought about.
Again, people were like justfocused on their, my myopic
world of their department versuslike a bigger sort of strategy
(18:15):
and positioning exercise.
Dan Balcauski (18:17):
Yeah.
So, and the.
Understanding the targetcustomer profile?
Huge.
I didn't want to be myopic we'llput that, we'll put that on the
table.
I guess were there other sort ofbig cultural issues that you
found besides a lack of focus ona coherent customer profile that
you were having success with?
Steve Holm (18:34):
Yeah, culturally, our product team and we call it
EPD, engineering Product and
Dan Balcauski (18:39):
Mm-hmm.
Steve Holm (18:39):
our EPD team had been very, I don't know,
content, I guess, where theprevious leadership had said,
we're gonna, we're gonna just gosell and market this, and you
guys can ship one thing a year,but just keep the lights on,
make sure we're performant.
And so there wasn't a lot ofurgency.
(19:02):
Around innovation.
And there wasn't a culture of,let's go ship fast and learn
fast and iterate fast andreally, focus on innovation and
iteration and all of thosethings.
And so, and that was somethingthat I feel very passionate
about, needs to happen.
And so there was a big.
Shift in how we work from anengineering and product and
(19:22):
design standpoint.
That was a big one.
'cause I said what's gonna getus out of this is a, is an
innovative, differentiatedproduct experience for the right
customers.
And I don't care if you can selland market the heck out of it.
already tried that, but churn'scatching up to us.
So it's gotta be, support, butmainly the product that you're
selling, what's, what problemsdoes it solve?
And how do we go from like avitamin type product to a
(19:44):
painkiller product where yougotta have it.
It's not a nice to have.
So, so it was engineeringproduct and design really
shifting that culture to bemore, customer driven,
iterative, innovative,differentiated.
That was a big cultural focusarea of mine when I first
started.
Dan Balcauski (20:01):
So you realize this, it's lack of focus on the
customer.
You realize this sort of lack ofurgency or.
Innovation maybe, being toohappy with where you're at and
just kind of keeping the lightson so you realize these things
need to change what, what areyour first moves?
Like, what do you, like, how doyou start, because you're
effectively in a turnaround,right?
You've, I'm sure you, you've gotfinancial issues.
(20:23):
You mentioned venture.
You've ventured venture debtbefore, right?
This covenants clocks areticking.
You've got equity growthtargets.
You've got people doing theirown things like, like how do you
start effect these change?
You mentioned before, one thingI really liked about what you
mentioned before was you'relooking at data, but looking at
data on people tend to do veryoften.
(20:44):
I think it's just the way humansare wired is focusing on the
negative.
Like what's the problems?
All these people are churning tofigure out how to not make them
churn.
I did really appreciate yourreframe of like, actually, like,
some of that's gonna beinevitable, but if we're gonna
figure out where to invest let'sfigure out where the bright
spots are.
And I think that's too often notthe path, the default path.
So I think that's really sharpthere.
Talk about like, okay, so nowyou realize this, like what do
(21:06):
you do?
What are your first sort ofmoves to like, right?
The ship in this direction?
Steve Holm (21:11):
Yeah very first move was.
The first, well, okay, let meback up.
The first move I wanted to dowas lay out a plan for the plan.
And so, first week I said,here's what we're gonna do.
I said, step one is, figure outwho our ideal customers are and
establish a compelling vision.
And mission for those customers.
(21:31):
And second was positioningourselves.
And third was, tracking metricsto know if we're successful or
not.
So I laid out a timeline.
Dan Balcauski (21:38):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (21:39):
here's what we're gonna do.
I don't know what it's gonnayield yet in terms of results,
but this is what we're gonna godo.
so, flashed up a timeline, thevery first outcome that I wanted
was a clear.
Ideal customer profile, a clearmission and vision for that
customer profile and somepositioning for that, how we can
(21:59):
position ourselves to win forthat ideal customer profile.
And so I actually, I was like, Idon't have a ton of experience
in this, but I have a closefriend who works at one of the
big ad biggest ad agencies inthe world, and he, his job is to
go into companies, giantcompanies and create a North
star.
Vision for them.
And so I said, Hey, you're aclose friend of mine.
(22:20):
Help me out here.
You know what sort of assets anddeliverables and, content do we
need to pull together in orderto establish a compelling
direction for the company andget.
Everyone on that same page, likeget every single person in the
company speaking the samelanguage, understanding where
we're headed.
And so, he helped me with thisframework, which is amazing.
A North Star vision that talksabout, differentiators and it
(22:43):
talks about, the problems you'regonna solve and why you're
unique.
And and even down to,archetypes.
What type of archetype are youin your space?
You look at sort of thecompetitors in your space and
what archetype do they take onversus you and
Dan Balcauski (22:58):
What would be an example of that?
Like what's an example of likean archetype in that?
Steve Holm (23:00):
is the sage is an archetype, which
Dan Balcauski (23:03):
Okay.
Steve Holm (23:04):
about we help people.
Understand their data and wefacilitate them learning and
growing and developing and we'relike a companion to them.
Running their business.
Dan Balcauski (23:14):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (23:15):
a sage archetype.
And then there's, theauthoritarian archetype, and I
can't remember all their names,
Dan Balcauski (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Holm (23:21):
power archetype, where it says, we know exactly
what you need to do and you needto do it this way.
Dan Balcauski (23:25):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (23:26):
so it, it really manifests in the way these
companies talk to theircustomers and the way they
establish themselves.
And so, we wanted to find ourunique archetype and that's just
a part of that North Starvision.
But it was a fun part of it,establishing.
What is our tone and how do wespeak to our customers, which
influences obviously ourmarketing material, but also our
product and how we speak to ourcustomers and the product and
(23:47):
the type of things it does.
And ultimately that North Staris meant to not only give you
purpose for now.
But give you a long runway thatyou can go run against for a
long time.
And so, a lot of companies failbecause they think, just think
about the now or the next yearor whatever, and establishing a
vision for that.
But if you can establish avision that can take you out for
a long time and you're, you haveclear steps that you're working
(24:10):
towards, then I think you havesomething pretty powerful that's
lasting that you can, it's notjust a.
Go generate, 20 million inrevenue in the next three.
That's not a vision, right?
That's like a tactic.
And so this North Star was avery meaningful process that we
went that ultimately gave uscontent and really a stake in
(24:30):
the ground around who we are andwhere we're going.
Dan Balcauski (24:33):
I love that.
And just you mentioned you hadthis friend at this firm.
Did you bring in him or a thirdparty to help you run that?
I like these type of things.
Like they could look very simpleif you read.
About them in a book or a blogpost.
Then you get into the room witheveryone and you're trying to
like argue about what yourdifferentiators are, or like the
different factors that definethe different customer segments
in the marketplace.
(24:53):
And all of a sudden things getreal messy.
So I'm just curious, like, didyou facilitate all that yourself
or were, did you help bring inlike a third party to help?
It is.
Steve Holm (25:02):
I I don't know if this is right or wrong, but this
is what I felt like had to bedone, was that I had to make
some decisions and I couldn'tdesign this by committee.
So I got data from everyone onour team, but ultimately I
brought him in and he's a closefriend, so I just went to his
house every day where I'm like,Hey, I'm coming over.
We're gonna hang out and you'regonna help me with this.
And I, I help him with whateverthings he might need and just a
(25:23):
close friend that was excited tohelp out in any way he could.
And he did it for largecompanies.
So he was like, well this willbe a fun experiment to see how
this works for a smallercompany.
And so, I led it and decided theoutcomes that I wanted because
number one I, like I said Idon't, it wasn't a time to
design by committee.
It was a time to, to bedecisive.
(25:44):
I do believe that decisivenessis very critical, especially at
certain points in your company.
And I'd rather make a decisionand run after it and be wrong,
than take a year to make adecision.
And so part of me was like, wejust gotta make a call.
We just gotta go make a call.
And now it wasn't, I didn't wantto ignore any data or come up
(26:04):
with something that wasn't,rational or rooted in some,
information.
And we had that information andI got enough information to say,
let's go create this and let'sjust do it.
And so him and I sat togetherand did it, and we pulled in
people as needed, but it wasn'ta thing where we got everyone
together and collaborated on itand, that, that, that was just
what I felt like needed tohappen at the time.
(26:25):
There is a strong time and aplace to collaborate with
everyone on the team and jam andget stuff done, but this was a
moment where company was inchaos.
We had to make a decisive tocreate a, a stake in the ground,
a mountain.
We needed to climb up and so Ijust took the reins and did it.
Dan Balcauski (26:40):
I think the kids might refer to that as founder
mode these days.
But.
Steve Holm (26:44):
yeah, maybe that's probably, yeah.
Fair enough.
Dan Balcauski (26:46):
Well, I, so, that definitely has there's no one
way to do anything in the world.
So I could definitely see theappropriateness of acting,
especially in that thosecritical moments and needing to
move forward even if thedecision is, is not optimized
and is not full.
Kumbaya consensus building.
I'm curious though, like whetherit was that or, you also
mentioned as it pertained tolike the product design
(27:08):
engineering teams, this urgencyas you roll this out, right?
You come with this plan and yourealize, you have this other
cultural issue of urgency howdid you manage, how did people
react to that to that change?
And how did you manage throughthrough the folks who were
there?
Like, was it, was this like, I,you hear some turnarounds where
it's just like, alright, allthe, we're clear the decks,
(27:29):
everyone's gotta get off andwe're putting everyone back on.
Like, was it that approach orlike how did you think about
changing the cultural dynamicsthat we were talking about?
Steve Holm (27:37):
Yeah.
We I had to let some people go,there was some people that in,
in leadership and otherwise thatjust weren't, I felt like they
were and they're great people,smart people, but at that given.
in time for what we were tryingto do.
They were more part of theproblem than part of the
solution.
And as I observed how we weregonna move forward, it became
(27:58):
very clear, very fast who wasgonna be, part of the solution
and who wasn't.
And so we made some decisionsquickly to exit some folks and
promote some folks and hire somefolks and get the right, right
team in place.
And some of that happened rightaway.
And some of it happened overmonths of time and all that.
There was.
There was some people, even somepeople that I was, that I felt
(28:18):
were that had, that really werealigned to where we wanted to go
and very passionate about it.
And so I had a clear space forthose people to come in and take
more of an active role.
And so it was kind of.
Feeling out the culture, feelingout, the people that I felt like
could go on this journey with meand that were gonna be really
instrumental in this journey andcreating the team to do that.
(28:41):
And, that was a challenge and wedid layoffs and we got to
cashflow positive and extendedall those things.
But ultimately it was about theright team and the right
resource allocation and all ofthat.
And then.
You asked how did they
Dan Balcauski (28:54):
Yeah.
Steve Holm (28:54):
That part was tough, but they, everyone was starving
for a unified direction that notonly, was not only a marketing
message or a positioningmessage, it was a vision and a
mission and a strategy thatinformed everything from
marketing to how we handle ourcustomer success programs, to
(29:15):
what our product roadmap isgoing to be.
And so they, they were.
So excited to just be on thesame page for once.
Even if they didn't agree withwhat page we were on, they were
like, at least we're on the samepage and we're rowing in the
same direction.
And I don't have to fightcultural battles that I was
fighting all the time.
You know what I mean?
Dan Balcauski (29:33):
There's nothing worse.
You get in a room and everyonehas, everyone thinks that the
top level direction is somethingdifferent, right?
It's like, all right, well, atleast we agree.
Maybe this is not the ideal, butat least we're all aligned on
what we have to get out thismeeting for you said something
else about, finding those folksinside who wanna step up.
I was chatting with the CEO onthe show.
I don't know.
20, 30 episodes ago who also wasdoing a turnaround and he kind
(29:53):
of talked about, I dunno if thisis a term he used, but almost
like hidden gems in theorganization.
Maybe you have a IC productmanager, they're like, they've
got a VP of product and adirector of product and it's
them.
And he found out that like, Hey,this person is awesome and
they're getting, all of, none oftheir ideas are making it to me
because they're all getting,intermediated by these other
layers of management.
(30:14):
So like, how do I move thatperson?
So like, oh, we're gonna put youin a box here and you're just
gonna report to me so I canleverage your full.
Talents and ability.
So it's not necessarily aboutshipping people out, but like
moving the org structure in away that like gets the people in
the right chairs, right?
That's not even necessarily give'em a promotion, just like let
them do their job without,spending 50% of their time
making PowerPoint decks tojustify to their third line
(30:34):
manager why this is a good idea.
And then, going through endlessrevisions before you get some,
watered down version of that sixmonths later.
Right.
Steve Holm (30:41):
Oh, a hundred percent.
I like that.
Hit Hidden Gems.
We have had few many of themand, our product leader now was
one of those that was kind ofreporting down in the chain we
had to clear space for him totake a leadership role and give
him some autonomy to, to goafter it.
With guardrails with this newNorth Star in mind, with that
direction, let'em go, let thesepeople go.
(31:02):
And, we owe it to them to givethem space to go innovate and
try new things.
And I feel like that's such aimportant part of someone's
career to have that ability togo try some things.
And some will, will succeed andsome will fail.
But we're taking a lot of shotson goal and that was the culture
that we wanted to create.
Dan Balcauski (31:20):
You mentioned earlier that, you laid out this
plan for a plan.
I'm curious, like, you, so youstart making these cultural
changes, you refine this ICP.
How did you know that this resetwas finally working?
Like what change told you thatthis was like really taking
hold?
Steve Holm (31:40):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I think a few things.
Number one was, Our team wasaligned around it and their OKRs
and their initiatives started toline up towards it.
So like our roadmap reflectedwhat our strategy was.
That was based on our new ICPand our new vision.
(32:01):
Sales and marketing started to.
Demo the product in a differentway.
And our customer support teamstarted to onboard people in a
different way that was based onthis new direction.
And so it started to becomeclear that everyone knew, and by
the way, we have a weeklyplayback that I would repeat it
once we had it.
I would, I said, I want everyoneto tattoo this on your
(32:23):
foreheads.
We're gonna repeat this.
We're gonna know it everyone, Idon't want anyone at this
company to ever feel like.
I don't know why we're doingwhat we're doing.
Like I've been at so manycompanies yeah.
that's the.
That's the feeling, that's thevibe, is like, why are we doing
this?
What's going on?
What, how does, how is what I'mdoing helping contribute to, at
the highest levels of thecompany?
And so, I wanted everyone toknow it.
(32:44):
And so we repeated it everysingle week.
And so, number one was I feltinternally we had all aligned
based on our behavior, based onthe way we were talking and the
projects we were working on.
That was huge.
And then number two was westarted to talk to customers.
I went on a, a.
Just a initiative to go talk toas many of our customers as I
could, especially those ICPcustomers, and tell them the new
(33:06):
vision and tell them this newdirection and tell them what our
roadmap was and get their takeon it.
And it became very clear thatthey're excited and we were, we
had, I don't know if we'd strucka bullseye yet, but we were like
really close to the bullseye andpeople really liked what we were
saying in terms of.
What jobs to be done.
We were focused on what theroadmap looked like, how we were
gonna position ourselves, how wewere gonna specifically
(33:28):
verticalize our automations andintegrations for these specific
types of customers.
And so getting confirmation fromexisting customers, multiple
times over and over again waslike, okay we're onto something.
We're onto something here.
Dan Balcauski (33:43):
And I, going back to this.
This plan.
So talking to customer, gettingthe feedback from customers, the
conversations internally werehappening in, in a way.
I guess, kinda just thinkingabout like the in internal
conversations or you said youwere repeating it every week.
Were there any rituals or.
Kind of practices that you foundeffective for reinforcing that
message of that direction?
(34:04):
A lot of folks maybe have like aweekly all hands or, some CEOs
write a weekly, newsletter.
Like, I dunno, like how did youthink about really ingraining
that, that message in theorganization?
There's always a one of thethings about being a product
leader, product strategy islike.
If you feel like you told themthe product strategy this week,
it's like you need to say itagain.
Like, then you need to say itagain.
(34:24):
Right.
So it's it tends to be one ofthose things that you are saying
all the time, but like,potentially Right.
Those folks aren't in directmeetings with you.
Right.
And, especially we're in aremote environment now, maybe,
folks aren't, hearing it at thewater cooler because they're,
they're only communicating withtheir teammates via Slack or in
Zoom calls.
Were there rituals that youfound effective in helping to
ingrain that message?
Steve Holm (34:44):
Yes, absolutely.
One, one that I spoke about wasour weekly playback just
literally.
Repeating it and maybe to makethis more concrete our strategy
and our ICP and all that cametogether, but we, it, the
outcome and the asset thatreally helped was we had a.
Four jobs to be done frameworkthat came out of it, that made
us different, that made usunique, that we could rally
(35:06):
around, and that was we help ourcustomers connect with leads,
win new clients, deliverprojects and services, and
create repeat customers.
And so we feel, felt, and feellike that's unique because most
CRMs focus on just closing thesale, winning the deal, versus
actually delivering the projector service and creating repeat
customers.
And so.
(35:27):
That framework.
We said we're gonna take thosefour things.
And that's a framework not onlyfor marketing, where we can go
talk about those things on ourwebsite and our campaigns and
marketing material, but when weonboard customers let's go and
say, okay, how do you connectwith leads?
Let's help you connect with yourleads this way.
How do you win clients?
How do you.
Deliver your projects.
What project management tools doyou use?
We can maybe replace those, andthen how do you create repeat
(35:50):
customers?
And so that those four pillarsthat, that framework we could
use in every part of thebusiness.
Our roadmap changed where we hadthose four things and we said,
here's the things inside thosefour buckets that we're doing
to.
that those jobs to be done to,help further our mission.
And so we had a really clearframework to, connect with
leads, win clients, deliverprojects, and create repeat
(36:12):
customers.
And we could all repeat thatverbatim.
And we knew what it meant forour teams.
Dan Balcauski (36:17):
You're making my product management heart go a
flutter.
Because, I don't know, just putit into context for our
listeners or make it thecontrast clear.
We help our customers deliverservices, get repeat customers,
how that sounds, versus we'regonna grow a RR 20% next year by
(36:40):
going into the enterprise.
Right?
Like those are those because,'cause exhibit B is what most
companies talk about as theircompany strategy.
It.
It's a total eye roll.
Like you don't know, like, whatdo I do with that?
Like I, I can't execute.
But like with those job storiesthat you've outlined?
(37:01):
Yeah, I'm sure there's nuanceand everyone has slightly
different takes on it, but it's,first of all, it's grounded in
the customer and their outcome,which.
Generally, maybe it's just me,but I always found inherently
more motivating than, somerevenue target.
Like, oh, revenue target's greatfor the investors or for Wall
Street, like, whatever.
I guess the CEO's bonus is tiedto that.
But like, it doesn't motivate melike as a product leader, as a
(37:22):
designer, or and it's just, it'sso much more actionable at every
level of the organization.
I think it is beautiful.
I love it.
So.
Steve Holm (37:33):
you.
Just one thing you said, westarted to change our success
measurements to not a RR orchurn necessarily.
It was we shipped a formsproduct.
Not how many customersimplemented that form, but how
many leads are our customersgetting from that contact form
that's on their website, right?
Like, we wanted to measure ouroutcomes as our customer's
(37:55):
outcomes.
Like you're successful as aproduct and customer success
team.
If they're getting the outcomethat your, the thing you shipped
was trying to get them.
have right in instead of usethat thing, who cares if you use
it if it's not getting value?
It's like, the forms product,again, it was the OKRs were
around getting our customers toget around 30 leads per month
(38:17):
from their website based on theforms that we're putting on
their website.
And that tho that's how wechanged our mindset around
measuring outcomes that we'recustomer focused.
That's big.
I think that's.
I don't think a lot of companiesdo that, and I had a good leader
at podium that helped establishsome of that in my mind
previously.
Dan Balcauski (38:33):
And, a lot of times in B2B, the amplitudes mix
panels of the world don't wantto have you say this, but usage
can be an anti metric.
Like, I don't wanna useQuickBooks more as a business
owner.
Like, that's not my joy.
Like, I would prefer ifQuickBooks just sucked it on my
bank statements and generated ap and l that I could use for
taxes.
Like, I don't wanna log in.
More.
(38:53):
Right.
And we get very excited aboutthat, and I think that just
opens up the domain of how couldwe, whether it's, you see that
with Intercom and their Finn AIcomponent, right?
Of like, Hey, it's not thatwe're like adding more bells and
whistles for your customer sportagents.
We're having our AI resolvetickets before it ever hits a
human.
Right.
No one ever has to log in,right?
But if you're focused on likehow many users logged in and
(39:14):
press these buttons in asequence like it, it grounds you
in a product world versus acustomer focused world.
So, you have all all my love andfor that whole process you just
outlined there.
Thank you for going to suchdepth.
Steve, I can talk to you allday, but we are running up on
time, so I wanna be respectfulof yours.
Do a couple of rapid closeoutquestions.
I, there's so many topics wedidn't even get a chance to, but
(39:35):
I think it was well worth it forthe deep dive on that
transformation turnaround thatyou work through in copper.
And I'm sure that the work neverend.
So, best of luck as you goforward.
But just let's let's close outwith a couple rapid fire
questions.
Maybe it's this gentleman atpodium that you mentioned, but,
I'm a big believer knowing ifsuccess gets there on their own.
Who's someone who's had adisproportionate effect of the
way you think about being aleader or growing companies of
(39:57):
all the spectacular people youhad a chance to work with.
I.
Steve Holm (39:59):
Yeah, maybe this isn't the answer that, that
you're looking for, but I, I.
I think my wife, maybe this is acheesy answer, I don't know my
wife is probably the person I'mmost grateful for because.
She's been supportive and provi,she's been my rock as I question
my life decision sometimes,right?
And I'm like, we're gonna dothis and this could have this
(40:20):
impact on our family.
And she's like, let's go for it.
And I think you're capable.
And she's there every step ofthe way.
And I am most grateful for heras my.
Therapist and my partner and my,she helps me with strategy on
things and she's not a techperson, which helps me bounce
ideas off her that brings itdown.
Us in tech, we're in this bubblewhere we talk certain way and
think things resonate withcustomers when they absolutely
(40:41):
do not.
And so she can help me come downto earth and talk the way normal
people talk and so I'm probablymost grateful for her.
Dan Balcauski (40:48):
I was not looking for any particular answer.
That is perfectly acceptableresponse.
Look Steve, if listeners want toconnect with you, learn more
about copper, how can they dothat?
Steve Holm (40:58):
We are@copper.com.
That's probably the best way.
Go to copper.com.
Look us up on LinkedIn at,copper, CRM and you can see what
we do.
And sign up for a trial if you'dlike and check us out.
That's probably the best place.
Dan Balcauski (41:09):
Awesome.
Well, I'll put that link in theshow notes for our listeners.
Thank you so much, Steve.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you, Steve for sharing hisjourney and insights.
For our listeners who foundSteve's insights valuable,
please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
It really helps the podcastgrow.
Well, I'm sure many people are familiar with this
(00:02):
story arc where, you start toscale, you start to grow and you
think you need.
Big company experience withinyour startup and you hire
certain types of people withcertain type of experience
doesn't always go well.
And I don't think it went aswell as it could have at Copper.
it changed the dynamic.
the soul of the company wasaround.
The product experience and theintegration with Google
(00:24):
Workspace and making it reallyeasy for small to medium sized
businesses to sign up.
churn started to outpace newbusiness, which is obviously a
huge problem.
what's gonna get us out of thisis an innovative, differentiated
product experience for the rightcustomers.
I believe that decisiveness isvery critical, especially at
certain points in your company.
(00:45):
I'd rather make a decision andbe wrong, than take a year to
make a decision.
Dan Balcauski (01:10):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestorage and the leaders of the
best scale at B2B SaaSCompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeSteve Holm, CEO of Copper, CRM,
the Google Workspace native CRM,serving thousands of businesses
across a hundred plus countries.
Steve Scale copper from startupto 25 million a RR and is a
(01:30):
rare.
Boomerang, CEO, who returned toturnaround, the company he
helped build as employee numberfour with broad industry
experience.
From his time at Dropbox, Domo,and podium, Steve brings a
combination of design sense,product vision, and operational
expertise to scaling SaaScompanies.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Holm (01:47):
Thanks for having me.
I'm really excited to be here.
Dan Balcauski (01:50):
The excitement is shared from this side of the
microphone as well.
Before we dive into your scalingjourney, give us the elevator
pitch.
What does Copper do?
Who do you serve?
Steve Holm (01:57):
Yeah, like you said, copper is a CRM that is built
for Google Workspace users.
So if you use Google Workspace,then Copper integrates with your
emails, calendars, documents andactually can live inside of
Google Workspace.
And most recently, which we'lltalk about more is we serve our
ideal customers are professionalservices companies, so.
Consulting agencies,construction, financial
(02:18):
services, and so we've nicheddown in the past few years to
get more vertical specificaround professional services.
Dan Balcauski (02:25):
Nice.
And so I imagine the sort ofGoogle Workspace integration is
giving you that sort of seamlessworkflow so that you know you
don't need a whole other UI togo outside of your workflow to
go manage, kind of ingrainedright in your rest of your
workspace flow.
Is that the idea?
Steve Holm (02:40):
Yeah that's right.
We called it zero input CRM whenwe first started out where.
One of the big challenges withCRM, especially many years ago
was having to copy and paste andmove between applications.
And so we know that a lot ofpeople use Google Workspace and
they spend a lot of time therein email calendar and documents.
And so we put CRM inside thereand we also have a web
application that you can, andmobile applications that you can
(03:03):
go to, and it syncs that dataright into those applications
without you having to go backand forth.
And so that concept of zeroinput, CRMs always been a big
one for us.
Dan Balcauski (03:12):
You also mentioned the niching down, and
I do want to return to that in abit later in our conversation.
But first I mentioned a littlebit in the intro, you were
employee number four way backin, I think 2014 when you joined
the company.
What drew you to, take the leapand joined as employee number
four, such an early stage.
Steve Holm (03:30):
Yeah I was, so, I was at a company called Base
CRM, which was bought byZendesk, which is now Zendesk
cell.
And I was one of the earlydesigners there and that was my
first intro into CRM.
And, through my, throughout mytime there, I a lot talking to a
lot of the customers that weserved.
(03:50):
I realized there was a big needto integrate into, into where
they actually do work instead oftry to pull them into the CRM.
And so, I had recently leftthere and was trying to figure
out my next move, and I met thefounder, the original founder of
Copper his name's John Lee.
And we chatted.
And ultimately I just thoughtwhat a cool idea to align
yourself with a company likeGoogle and their workspace
(04:12):
product.
To.
To realize that zero input ideathat we had.
And so, I just felt like it wasa unique opportunity to join a
small startup, which I wanted todo, to have a lot of impact and
autonomy.
And then I felt like the spacewas, I was really interested in
it and the vision around GoogleWorkspace was something that I
felt was very compelling.
Dan Balcauski (04:30):
And when you joined, you mentioned you were
working for the company thateventually got sold to Zendesk,
or was that in a design rolewhen you first joined the
company or was that the idea?
Steve Holm (04:39):
I started out as a designer.
That's my background, that's mypassion.
I love design and so I was aproduct designer there and at
the time we didn't have productmanagers and so we were, design
kind of filled both roles andjust really enjoyed the space.
Dan Balcauski (04:54):
And so you joined 2014 and then, you helped grow
the company significantly, butthen like six years later you,
you decided to leave.
What kind of led you to leavethe company at that point?
Steve Holm (05:07):
Well, I'm sure many people are familiar with this
story arc where, you know youstart to scale, you start to
grow and you think you need.
Big company experience withinyour startup and you hire
certain types of people withcertain type of experience
doesn't always go well.
And I don't think it went aswell as it could have at Copper.
And it changed the dynamic.
(05:27):
I think we, the soul of thecompany was around.
The product experience and theand the integration with Google
Workspace and making it reallyeasy for small to medium sized
businesses to sign up.
And some of these folks came inand decided we needed to go
after the enterprise and kind ofchange the DNA of the company.
And it didn't quite work out.
And so I felt like my, as muchas I loved it and I built that
(05:49):
from scratch, I just felt likeit was time for me.
It was a good time for me to godo something else.
And so I ultimately decided toleave.
Dan Balcauski (05:56):
So, so new management comes in, Hey, we're
we got to a certain level ofscale.
We gotta put our big boy pantson.
Let's get the people who haveseen this movie before.
But they come with a set ofstrategic initiatives and maybe
cultural, practices that weren'ta fit.
I guess when you left, that'smaybe the what push, was pushing
you out.
Was there stuff you were hopingto learn at the next stage of
your journey when you when youleft Copper for the original
(06:19):
time?
Steve Holm (06:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had been at, start at smallstartups, right?
With Copper being, four peoplewhen I joined,
Dan Balcauski (06:25):
Mm-hmm.
Steve Holm (06:26):
and then grow, had grown to 200 plus people and,
and I wanted to go to a biggercompany and have some, a
different type of experience.
I was living in the Bay Area atthe time and wanted to go
experience the bigger.
of scaled up company experienceand so ultimately decided to go
to Dropbox and help lead theirecosystem team which was
something I was very passionateabout with integrations and
(06:48):
automations and partnering andbringing data in.
And so I felt like it was a goodfit for me at the time and
ultimately decided to jump overand join Dropbox.
Dan Balcauski (06:58):
Well, fine company.
I have a few friends who havespent some time at Dropbox and
have had nothing but positivethings to say about it.
They've got an office here inAustin.
I, and I've had to.
Pleasure of sampling thecafeteria, and it was definitely
top notch.
But besides that you are nowthough leading boomerang, or
excuse me, you're Boomerang,CEO, so you came back to copper.
And so how did that happen?
(07:19):
You're, you go to Dropbox you'reoff pursuing this leading this
ecosystem team.
How did you make your way backto the company?
Steve Holm (07:25):
Yeah I had a stop in between.
I went to a company calledPodium, which I really enjoyed,
which was kind of a localbusiness, CRM and so I was there
and.
I'd always stayed in touch withboard members and even the, they
brought on a new CEO after theoriginal founder had left and we
stayed close and I knew him welland we chatted and ultimately
(07:46):
the company kind of plateaued abit and I think.
In my opinion, what happened isthe company turned from a
experience and really the soulof that, of our company was
around the product experienceand what we were doing in terms
of innovation and all of that.
And it turned into a sales andmarketing company where we had,
that, that leadership at thetime had said, well, we have
(08:07):
product market fit.
Let's just go scale sales andmarketing.
And kind of went in to keep thelights on mode with a product
and it flattened out and churnstarted to catch up.
And churn started to outpace newbusiness, which is obviously a
huge problem.
And so I, the board and a fewfolks had asked me what I
thought.
We needed to do what I thoughtcopper needed to do.
(08:29):
And so I told them, I, I gavethem my opinion on, on, one was
figuring out an ideal customerto focus on.
I feel like CRM being a generic,horizontal CRM isn't gonna work
in this world that we're headedtowards, especially with ai.
And so I felt like finding theideal customers to focus on
based on.
they're using the product basedon their NRR based on certain
(08:50):
metrics we could go find out whoour ideal customers are and
niche down and focus on that.
And then second, it was, to meit was back to the roots of
product innovation and productexperience, especially in a
crowded space like CRM, ifyou're not innovating and
keeping up and even gettingahead of where cr m's gonna be
you're gonna get passed upquickly.
And so finding an ideal customerfocus and innovating on the
(09:12):
product.
It was my pitch to them and theysaid, well, why don't you come
do it?
And I said, ah, I don't know.
I don't know if if that'ssomething I wanna do.
And as I thought about it, Ijust thought I had unfinished
business in CRM.
I felt like I hadn'taccomplished everything that I
wanted to, and I felt like thespace still has a need for.
For what Co Copper offers.
(09:33):
And so ultimately I decided tocome back and help with this
kind of resetting the company'svision and taking us to where,
the next version of copper willbe.
Dan Balcauski (09:41):
I don't want to scoot past that.
'cause that would be, that'squite the decision.
Right, like you've left thiscompany, the growth trajectory
has taken a turn for the worstof the interim.
You're having conversationswith, folks telling'em your
advice that you're, I imaginethere's a set of.
Thoughts going through yourhead, risks of coming back,
(10:02):
coming into that situation.
I guess, how did you think aboutthose risks and like, you said
like there was unfinishedbusiness.
Eventually you saw like therewas, there's a positive vision
that sort of got you past that.
But I just kinda walk me throughwhat your decision process was.
Steve Holm (10:16):
Yeah I thought about it a lot and like I said, I, at
first I said, I don't know thatthis is the right thing for me
to do and as I thought about itmore and I did more.
Looking into the space and wherethings were headed and where
things are in terms of themarket and the type of customers
that are out there to serve, I.
I'm a pretty kind of risktolerant type person.
I think that's what's maybehelped and maybe hurt me in my
(10:39):
career.
I don't know.
But but I, talked to my wife alot and, said, a, this is not
gonna be easy.
This is not gonna be like acushy job that I go take any
means.
I, I've got a lot of learningand growing to do in this role,
but I just felt like my skillsetand what the company needed.
Really matched up And I thought,I need, I, what got me to a,
(11:01):
design and product lead was justtaking a chance, right?
Taking a chance on a startup andkind of going after something
and being uncomfortable andstretching myself a bit.
And I thought, well, this is aunique opportunity to take that
next step in my career to trysomething new.
And I did feel like there weresome.
Some skills that I have.
I don't have many skills, but Ido have a few.
(11:21):
But the skills and the strengthsthat I do have really, again,
lined up with what I felt likecopper.
Needed and needs and ultimatelyI felt like I, I had a cast of
people at Copper that could helpaugment the skills that I don't
have around some of thego-to-market motions and all of
that.
And so, yeah I think thosethings all lined up and I said,
let's do this.
Let's I'm ready to go take thischance and let's do it.
Dan Balcauski (11:44):
Well, there's always an interesting, situation
for anyone who's ever taken anyjob, right?
You go through an interviewprocess, right?
You try to ask really probingquestions.
Figure out, what's going on.
You outlined a, the productinvestment had fallen off and
pivoted more to a sales andmarketing company.
They kind of lost their focus onkind of target ICP and.
(12:05):
All that may have been true, butI'm sure now, day one, you walk
in and you're like, oh, thenthere's also all of these other
things going on.
So take me to that time, youwere the prodigal son returned
with this idea of, hey, yeahwe've gotta lay out the
strategic vision.
What did you actually find whenyou walked back in the door?
Steve Holm (12:22):
Yeah, yeah you.
Dan Balcauski (12:23):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (12:24):
you'd never know until you get in there and start
to dig and learn.
And so there were manychallenges.
I think set aside the, thegrowth was slowing down and
churn was really, spiking.
There, there were many culturalchallenges.
I think the product and salesand customer support team were
at odds.
They weren't the same.
They weren't on the same page.
(12:44):
Product was thinking we're aproduct led growth company, and
sales and marketing werethinking, well, we have these,
we're gonna go sell to largercustomers that need high touch
motions.
And customer success was like,what is the product doing?
They're not building anythingthat our customers are telling
us.
And so there was a huge, huge.
Split between what everyonethought we should be doing at
the company, and everyone wasvery passionate about it.
Dan Balcauski (13:04):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (13:05):
So that, and, there was cashflow pressures and some
debt we had to figure out and,venture debt and, needing to
raise some capital.
There was all sorts of thingsthat I was like, there was a few
times where I was reallyquestioning my life decisions.
No, no doubt.
But, you take it one day at atime and keep going and figure
out how to, get, overcome someof those challenges.
Dan Balcauski (13:25):
So I imagine I I guess, anyone who's kinda walked
in that situation is probablylike, well, yeah there's
probably a ton of problemsbehind the door.
I guess, you're seeing all ofthese problems like, but you're
in the CEO here and you've gottaset this, the.
Order of operations of what ismost important in the company.
And so kinda given all thoseproblems, I'm just curious like
(13:45):
how, like what was your processfor really figuring out, okay,
what these are the, of the 50things that like we go, could
do, these are the things, threethings we actually can do.
Like what sources of informationare most valuable?
Because, you just say like, Hey,everyone's really passionate
about sort of their point ofview, right?
So, of course like, well, I goin and I talk to the, head of
marketing and I talk to thesales leaders and I talk to the,
(14:07):
the individual reps.
Right?
But everyone has their opinionsand you're, they're looking to
you to synthesize that.
I guess just walk me through,like what was most valuable to
you in like putting somestructure to what seemed pretty
chaotic of a situation?
Steve Holm (14:21):
Yeah, there were a few things.
Number one was.
Looking at our customers, whoare our customers and who are
our most successful customers?
I think we had become obsessedwith the churning customers and
how do we fix churn and all ofthat.
And I said, well, let's look atwho, who are our most successful
customers, and try to find somethemes there and what are they
(14:43):
doing that makes themsuccessful?
And how, what of product.
do they have that makes themsuccessful, but also what
motions do we have with them,that help them become successful
in terms of activation andonboarding and all those things.
And so really that was.
A big part of it was looking atcustomer behavior, trying to
(15:04):
find themes, looking at, revenueby customer segment, net revenue
by customer segment, conversionrates by customer segment and
size and other like, likelooking through a bunch of
lenses around industries andsize and annual versus monthly
plans, and just really trying tofigure out who are our best.
And why are they our bestcustomers?
(15:25):
ultimately my number one goalwas to align us in the same
direction.
Like we had to pick a customersegment to focus on, then
ultimately create a vision andrally everyone around that
vision to get everyone marchingin the same direction, solving
needs for a certain type ofcustomer.
Dan Balcauski (15:43):
Well, you come from a design and a product
background.
And I also come, I have abackground in, in product,
previously engineering and thenproduct.
And so I'm big fan of yeahputting the customer first.
But it and I know that this is apersistent problem in companies
because you walk in though andeverybody's.
(16:03):
Says like, yeah we know who ourcustomer is.
You even hinted at it before,right?
You're like, we go to customersuccess, or, and they're like,
oh yeah, we sell to these, largeaccounts.
So you get the product team, sayproduct led growth.
So, what do you think washappening there that, got
everyone?
So like, or, this is a generalpattern, but, applied
specifically to what you saw atCopper.
Like how is, how does thatknowledge not get, so like how
(16:25):
does it not get consolidated?
How does so end up so dispersed?
Steve Holm (16:28):
Well, for a couple reasons.
Many reasons, but a few that Ireally can call out.
One is, I think.
The product team was so all inon product led growth.
Were like, we're gonna make thisa product led growth company
where we don't need sales andmarketing and everyone can
onboard themselves and.
They had an idea of what type ofcustomers were the best in their
(16:51):
world.
Sales was like, we need a largerdeal.
Of course sales is like, they'drather sell one large deal a
month than 50 small deals amonth.
So they're like, we need largedeals.
And customer success was like,well, need to just focus on our
largest customers and make surethey don't churn.
And so all these differentdepartments had their own.
(17:11):
they're all right.
They're all right and they'reall wrong, right?
They're right because they'reindexing on the most recent data
and the things that are comingtheir way and the strategy that
they have.
But it, no one was reallylooking at it holistically terms
of like, number one, who are ourmost successful customers, like
I said, but also, how can we winin the market?
(17:31):
Like, what does the market looklike?
And.
How can we go win long term andwhat's the strategy to win in
terms of positioning ourselvesand finding the right customers?
And so, you can always index offthe last customer call you had,
but that doesn't mean it's aholistic view of who your ideal
customers are.
And so, it, it took.
took a lot of looking at dataand also looking at the market.
(17:53):
Like I said, I think that wasanother big piece was saying,
can we win against the HubSpotsand the sales forces of the
world?
Why would someone choose us overthem?
And where can we go find a nichethat we can dominate in?
And so lining up those twothings, which not everyone had
thought about.
Again, people were like justfocused on their, my myopic
world of their department versuslike a bigger sort of strategy
(18:15):
and positioning exercise.
Dan Balcauski (18:17):
Yeah.
So, and the.
Understanding the targetcustomer profile?
Huge.
I didn't want to be myopic we'llput that, we'll put that on the
table.
I guess were there other sort ofbig cultural issues that you
found besides a lack of focus ona coherent customer profile that
you were having success with?
Steve Holm (18:34):
Yeah, culturally, our product team and we call it
EPD, engineering Product and
Dan Balcauski (18:39):
Mm-hmm.
Steve Holm (18:39):
our EPD team had been very, I don't know,
content, I guess, where theprevious leadership had said,
we're gonna, we're gonna just gosell and market this, and you
guys can ship one thing a year,but just keep the lights on,
make sure we're performant.
And so there wasn't a lot ofurgency.
(19:02):
Around innovation.
And there wasn't a culture of,let's go ship fast and learn
fast and iterate fast andreally, focus on innovation and
iteration and all of thosethings.
And so, and that was somethingthat I feel very passionate
about, needs to happen.
And so there was a big.
Shift in how we work from anengineering and product and
(19:22):
design standpoint.
That was a big one.
'cause I said what's gonna getus out of this is a, is an
innovative, differentiatedproduct experience for the right
customers.
And I don't care if you can selland market the heck out of it.
already tried that, but churn'scatching up to us.
So it's gotta be, support, butmainly the product that you're
selling, what's, what problemsdoes it solve?
And how do we go from like avitamin type product to a
(19:44):
painkiller product where yougotta have it.
It's not a nice to have.
So, so it was engineeringproduct and design really
shifting that culture to bemore, customer driven,
iterative, innovative,differentiated.
That was a big cultural focusarea of mine when I first
started.
Dan Balcauski (20:01):
So you realize this, it's lack of focus on the
customer.
You realize this sort of lack ofurgency or.
Innovation maybe, being toohappy with where you're at and
just kind of keeping the lightson so you realize these things
need to change what, what areyour first moves?
Like, what do you, like, how doyou start, because you're
effectively in a turnaround,right?
You've, I'm sure you, you've gotfinancial issues.
(20:23):
You mentioned venture.
You've ventured venture debtbefore, right?
This covenants clocks areticking.
You've got equity growthtargets.
You've got people doing theirown things like, like how do you
start effect these change?
You mentioned before, one thingI really liked about what you
mentioned before was you'relooking at data, but looking at
data on people tend to do veryoften.
(20:44):
I think it's just the way humansare wired is focusing on the
negative.
Like what's the problems?
All these people are churning tofigure out how to not make them
churn.
I did really appreciate yourreframe of like, actually, like,
some of that's gonna beinevitable, but if we're gonna
figure out where to invest let'sfigure out where the bright
spots are.
And I think that's too often notthe path, the default path.
So I think that's really sharpthere.
Talk about like, okay, so nowyou realize this, like what do
(21:06):
you do?
What are your first sort ofmoves to like, right?
The ship in this direction?
Steve Holm (21:11):
Yeah very first move was.
The first, well, okay, let meback up.
The first move I wanted to dowas lay out a plan for the plan.
And so, first week I said,here's what we're gonna do.
I said, step one is, figure outwho our ideal customers are and
establish a compelling vision.
And mission for those customers.
(21:31):
And second was positioningourselves.
And third was, tracking metricsto know if we're successful or
not.
So I laid out a timeline.
Dan Balcauski (21:38):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (21:39):
here's what we're gonna do.
I don't know what it's gonnayield yet in terms of results,
but this is what we're gonna godo.
so, flashed up a timeline, thevery first outcome that I wanted
was a clear.
Ideal customer profile, a clearmission and vision for that
customer profile and somepositioning for that, how we can
(21:59):
position ourselves to win forthat ideal customer profile.
And so I actually, I was like, Idon't have a ton of experience
in this, but I have a closefriend who works at one of the
big ad biggest ad agencies inthe world, and he, his job is to
go into companies, giantcompanies and create a North
star.
Vision for them.
And so I said, Hey, you're aclose friend of mine.
(22:20):
Help me out here.
You know what sort of assets anddeliverables and, content do we
need to pull together in orderto establish a compelling
direction for the company andget.
Everyone on that same page, likeget every single person in the
company speaking the samelanguage, understanding where
we're headed.
And so, he helped me with thisframework, which is amazing.
A North Star vision that talksabout, differentiators and it
(22:43):
talks about, the problems you'regonna solve and why you're
unique.
And and even down to,archetypes.
What type of archetype are youin your space?
You look at sort of thecompetitors in your space and
what archetype do they take onversus you and
Dan Balcauski (22:58):
What would be an example of that?
Like what's an example of likean archetype in that?
Steve Holm (23:00):
is the sage is an archetype, which
Dan Balcauski (23:03):
Okay.
Steve Holm (23:04):
about we help people.
Understand their data and wefacilitate them learning and
growing and developing and we'relike a companion to them.
Running their business.
Dan Balcauski (23:14):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (23:15):
a sage archetype.
And then there's, theauthoritarian archetype, and I
can't remember all their names,
Dan Balcauski (23:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Holm (23:21):
power archetype, where it says, we know exactly
what you need to do and you needto do it this way.
Dan Balcauski (23:25):
Hmm.
Steve Holm (23:26):
so it, it really manifests in the way these
companies talk to theircustomers and the way they
establish themselves.
And so, we wanted to find ourunique archetype and that's just
a part of that North Starvision.
But it was a fun part of it,establishing.
What is our tone and how do wespeak to our customers, which
influences obviously ourmarketing material, but also our
product and how we speak to ourcustomers and the product and
(23:47):
the type of things it does.
And ultimately that North Staris meant to not only give you
purpose for now.
But give you a long runway thatyou can go run against for a
long time.
And so, a lot of companies failbecause they think, just think
about the now or the next yearor whatever, and establishing a
vision for that.
But if you can establish avision that can take you out for
a long time and you're, you haveclear steps that you're working
(24:10):
towards, then I think you havesomething pretty powerful that's
lasting that you can, it's notjust a.
Go generate, 20 million inrevenue in the next three.
That's not a vision, right?
That's like a tactic.
And so this North Star was avery meaningful process that we
went that ultimately gave uscontent and really a stake in
(24:30):
the ground around who we are andwhere we're going.
Dan Balcauski (24:33):
I love that.
And just you mentioned you hadthis friend at this firm.
Did you bring in him or a thirdparty to help you run that?
I like these type of things.
Like they could look very simpleif you read.
About them in a book or a blogpost.
Then you get into the room witheveryone and you're trying to
like argue about what yourdifferentiators are, or like the
different factors that definethe different customer segments
in the marketplace.
(24:53):
And all of a sudden things getreal messy.
So I'm just curious, like, didyou facilitate all that yourself
or were, did you help bring inlike a third party to help?
It is.
Steve Holm (25:02):
I I don't know if this is right or wrong, but this
is what I felt like had to bedone, was that I had to make
some decisions and I couldn'tdesign this by committee.
So I got data from everyone onour team, but ultimately I
brought him in and he's a closefriend, so I just went to his
house every day where I'm like,Hey, I'm coming over.
We're gonna hang out and you'regonna help me with this.
And I, I help him with whateverthings he might need and just a
(25:23):
close friend that was excited tohelp out in any way he could.
And he did it for largecompanies.
So he was like, well this willbe a fun experiment to see how
this works for a smallercompany.
And so, I led it and decided theoutcomes that I wanted because
number one I, like I said Idon't, it wasn't a time to
design by committee.
It was a time to, to bedecisive.
(25:44):
I do believe that decisivenessis very critical, especially at
certain points in your company.
And I'd rather make a decisionand run after it and be wrong,
than take a year to make adecision.
And so part of me was like, wejust gotta make a call.
We just gotta go make a call.
And now it wasn't, I didn't wantto ignore any data or come up
(26:04):
with something that wasn't,rational or rooted in some,
information.
And we had that information andI got enough information to say,
let's go create this and let'sjust do it.
And so him and I sat togetherand did it, and we pulled in
people as needed, but it wasn'ta thing where we got everyone
together and collaborated on itand, that, that, that was just
what I felt like needed tohappen at the time.
(26:25):
There is a strong time and aplace to collaborate with
everyone on the team and jam andget stuff done, but this was a
moment where company was inchaos.
We had to make a decisive tocreate a, a stake in the ground,
a mountain.
We needed to climb up and so Ijust took the reins and did it.
Dan Balcauski (26:40):
I think the kids might refer to that as founder
mode these days.
But.
Steve Holm (26:44):
yeah, maybe that's probably, yeah.
Fair enough.
Dan Balcauski (26:46):
Well, I, so, that definitely has there's no one
way to do anything in the world.
So I could definitely see theappropriateness of acting,
especially in that thosecritical moments and needing to
move forward even if thedecision is, is not optimized
and is not full.
Kumbaya consensus building.
I'm curious though, like whetherit was that or, you also
mentioned as it pertained tolike the product design
(27:08):
engineering teams, this urgencyas you roll this out, right?
You come with this plan and yourealize, you have this other
cultural issue of urgency howdid you manage, how did people
react to that to that change?
And how did you manage throughthrough the folks who were
there?
Like, was it, was this like, I,you hear some turnarounds where
it's just like, alright, allthe, we're clear the decks,
(27:29):
everyone's gotta get off andwe're putting everyone back on.
Like, was it that approach orlike how did you think about
changing the cultural dynamicsthat we were talking about?
Steve Holm (27:37):
Yeah.
We I had to let some people go,there was some people that in,
in leadership and otherwise thatjust weren't, I felt like they
were and they're great people,smart people, but at that given.
in time for what we were tryingto do.
They were more part of theproblem than part of the
solution.
And as I observed how we weregonna move forward, it became
(27:58):
very clear, very fast who wasgonna be, part of the solution
and who wasn't.
And so we made some decisionsquickly to exit some folks and
promote some folks and hire somefolks and get the right, right
team in place.
And some of that happened rightaway.
And some of it happened overmonths of time and all that.
There was.
There was some people, even somepeople that I was, that I felt
(28:18):
were that had, that really werealigned to where we wanted to go
and very passionate about it.
And so I had a clear space forthose people to come in and take
more of an active role.
And so it was kind of.
Feeling out the culture, feelingout, the people that I felt like
could go on this journey with meand that were gonna be really
instrumental in this journey andcreating the team to do that.
(28:41):
And, that was a challenge and wedid layoffs and we got to
cashflow positive and extendedall those things.
But ultimately it was about theright team and the right
resource allocation and all ofthat.
And then.
You asked how did they
Dan Balcauski (28:54):
Yeah.
Steve Holm (28:54):
That part was tough, but they, everyone was starving
for a unified direction that notonly, was not only a marketing
message or a positioningmessage, it was a vision and a
mission and a strategy thatinformed everything from
marketing to how we handle ourcustomer success programs, to
(29:15):
what our product roadmap isgoing to be.
And so they, they were.
So excited to just be on thesame page for once.
Even if they didn't agree withwhat page we were on, they were
like, at least we're on the samepage and we're rowing in the
same direction.
And I don't have to fightcultural battles that I was
fighting all the time.
You know what I mean?
Dan Balcauski (29:33):
There's nothing worse.
You get in a room and everyonehas, everyone thinks that the
top level direction is somethingdifferent, right?
It's like, all right, well, atleast we agree.
Maybe this is not the ideal, butat least we're all aligned on
what we have to get out thismeeting for you said something
else about, finding those folksinside who wanna step up.
I was chatting with the CEO onthe show.
I don't know.
20, 30 episodes ago who also wasdoing a turnaround and he kind
(29:53):
of talked about, I dunno if thisis a term he used, but almost
like hidden gems in theorganization.
Maybe you have a IC productmanager, they're like, they've
got a VP of product and adirector of product and it's
them.
And he found out that like, Hey,this person is awesome and
they're getting, all of, none oftheir ideas are making it to me
because they're all getting,intermediated by these other
layers of management.
(30:14):
So like, how do I move thatperson?
So like, oh, we're gonna put youin a box here and you're just
gonna report to me so I canleverage your full.
Talents and ability.
So it's not necessarily aboutshipping people out, but like
moving the org structure in away that like gets the people in
the right chairs, right?
That's not even necessarily give'em a promotion, just like let
them do their job without,spending 50% of their time
making PowerPoint decks tojustify to their third line
(30:34):
manager why this is a good idea.
And then, going through endlessrevisions before you get some,
watered down version of that sixmonths later.
Right.
Steve Holm (30:41):
Oh, a hundred percent.
I like that.
Hit Hidden Gems.
We have had few many of themand, our product leader now was
one of those that was kind ofreporting down in the chain we
had to clear space for him totake a leadership role and give
him some autonomy to, to goafter it.
With guardrails with this newNorth Star in mind, with that
direction, let'em go, let thesepeople go.
(31:02):
And, we owe it to them to givethem space to go innovate and
try new things.
And I feel like that's such aimportant part of someone's
career to have that ability togo try some things.
And some will, will succeed andsome will fail.
But we're taking a lot of shotson goal and that was the culture
that we wanted to create.
Dan Balcauski (31:20):
You mentioned earlier that, you laid out this
plan for a plan.
I'm curious, like, you, so youstart making these cultural
changes, you refine this ICP.
How did you know that this resetwas finally working?
Like what change told you thatthis was like really taking
hold?
Steve Holm (31:40):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I think a few things.
Number one was, Our team wasaligned around it and their OKRs
and their initiatives started toline up towards it.
So like our roadmap reflectedwhat our strategy was.
That was based on our new ICPand our new vision.
(32:01):
Sales and marketing started to.
Demo the product in a differentway.
And our customer support teamstarted to onboard people in a
different way that was based onthis new direction.
And so it started to becomeclear that everyone knew, and by
the way, we have a weeklyplayback that I would repeat it
once we had it.
I would, I said, I want everyoneto tattoo this on your
(32:23):
foreheads.
We're gonna repeat this.
We're gonna know it everyone, Idon't want anyone at this
company to ever feel like.
I don't know why we're doingwhat we're doing.
Like I've been at so manycompanies yeah.
that's the.
That's the feeling, that's thevibe, is like, why are we doing
this?
What's going on?
What, how does, how is what I'mdoing helping contribute to, at
the highest levels of thecompany?
And so, I wanted everyone toknow it.
(32:44):
And so we repeated it everysingle week.
And so, number one was I feltinternally we had all aligned
based on our behavior, based onthe way we were talking and the
projects we were working on.
That was huge.
And then number two was westarted to talk to customers.
I went on a, a.
Just a initiative to go talk toas many of our customers as I
could, especially those ICPcustomers, and tell them the new
(33:06):
vision and tell them this newdirection and tell them what our
roadmap was and get their takeon it.
And it became very clear thatthey're excited and we were, we
had, I don't know if we'd strucka bullseye yet, but we were like
really close to the bullseye andpeople really liked what we were
saying in terms of.
What jobs to be done.
We were focused on what theroadmap looked like, how we were
gonna position ourselves, how wewere gonna specifically
(33:28):
verticalize our automations andintegrations for these specific
types of customers.
And so getting confirmation fromexisting customers, multiple
times over and over again waslike, okay we're onto something.
We're onto something here.
Dan Balcauski (33:43):
And I, going back to this.
This plan.
So talking to customer, gettingthe feedback from customers, the
conversations internally werehappening in, in a way.
I guess, kinda just thinkingabout like the in internal
conversations or you said youwere repeating it every week.
Were there any rituals or.
Kind of practices that you foundeffective for reinforcing that
message of that direction?
(34:04):
A lot of folks maybe have like aweekly all hands or, some CEOs
write a weekly, newsletter.
Like, I dunno, like how did youthink about really ingraining
that, that message in theorganization?
There's always a one of thethings about being a product
leader, product strategy islike.
If you feel like you told themthe product strategy this week,
it's like you need to say itagain.
Like, then you need to say itagain.
(34:24):
Right.
So it's it tends to be one ofthose things that you are saying
all the time, but like,potentially Right.
Those folks aren't in directmeetings with you.
Right.
And, especially we're in aremote environment now, maybe,
folks aren't, hearing it at thewater cooler because they're,
they're only communicating withtheir teammates via Slack or in
Zoom calls.
Were there rituals that youfound effective in helping to
ingrain that message?
Steve Holm (34:44):
Yes, absolutely.
One, one that I spoke about wasour weekly playback just
literally.
Repeating it and maybe to makethis more concrete our strategy
and our ICP and all that cametogether, but we, it, the
outcome and the asset thatreally helped was we had a.
Four jobs to be done frameworkthat came out of it, that made
us different, that made usunique, that we could rally
(35:06):
around, and that was we help ourcustomers connect with leads,
win new clients, deliverprojects and services, and
create repeat customers.
And so we feel, felt, and feellike that's unique because most
CRMs focus on just closing thesale, winning the deal, versus
actually delivering the projector service and creating repeat
customers.
And so.
(35:27):
That framework.
We said we're gonna take thosefour things.
And that's a framework not onlyfor marketing, where we can go
talk about those things on ourwebsite and our campaigns and
marketing material, but when weonboard customers let's go and
say, okay, how do you connectwith leads?
Let's help you connect with yourleads this way.
How do you win clients?
How do you.
Deliver your projects.
What project management tools doyou use?
We can maybe replace those, andthen how do you create repeat
(35:50):
customers?
And so that those four pillarsthat, that framework we could
use in every part of thebusiness.
Our roadmap changed where we hadthose four things and we said,
here's the things inside thosefour buckets that we're doing
to.
that those jobs to be done to,help further our mission.
And so we had a really clearframework to, connect with
leads, win clients, deliverprojects, and create repeat
(36:12):
customers.
And we could all repeat thatverbatim.
And we knew what it meant forour teams.
Dan Balcauski (36:17):
You're making my product management heart go a
flutter.
Because, I don't know, just putit into context for our
listeners or make it thecontrast clear.
We help our customers deliverservices, get repeat customers,
how that sounds, versus we'regonna grow a RR 20% next year by
(36:40):
going into the enterprise.
Right?
Like those are those because,'cause exhibit B is what most
companies talk about as theircompany strategy.
It.
It's a total eye roll.
Like you don't know, like, whatdo I do with that?
Like I, I can't execute.
But like with those job storiesthat you've outlined?
(37:01):
Yeah, I'm sure there's nuanceand everyone has slightly
different takes on it, but it's,first of all, it's grounded in
the customer and their outcome,which.
Generally, maybe it's just me,but I always found inherently
more motivating than, somerevenue target.
Like, oh, revenue target's greatfor the investors or for Wall
Street, like, whatever.
I guess the CEO's bonus is tiedto that.
But like, it doesn't motivate melike as a product leader, as a
(37:22):
designer, or and it's just, it'sso much more actionable at every
level of the organization.
I think it is beautiful.
I love it.
So.
Steve Holm (37:33):
you.
Just one thing you said, westarted to change our success
measurements to not a RR orchurn necessarily.
It was we shipped a formsproduct.
Not how many customersimplemented that form, but how
many leads are our customersgetting from that contact form
that's on their website, right?
Like, we wanted to measure ouroutcomes as our customer's
(37:55):
outcomes.
Like you're successful as aproduct and customer success
team.
If they're getting the outcomethat your, the thing you shipped
was trying to get them.
have right in instead of usethat thing, who cares if you use
it if it's not getting value?
It's like, the forms product,again, it was the OKRs were
around getting our customers toget around 30 leads per month
(38:17):
from their website based on theforms that we're putting on
their website.
And that tho that's how wechanged our mindset around
measuring outcomes that we'recustomer focused.
That's big.
I think that's.
I don't think a lot of companiesdo that, and I had a good leader
at podium that helped establishsome of that in my mind
previously.
Dan Balcauski (38:33):
And, a lot of times in B2B, the amplitudes mix
panels of the world don't wantto have you say this, but usage
can be an anti metric.
Like, I don't wanna useQuickBooks more as a business
owner.
Like, that's not my joy.
Like, I would prefer ifQuickBooks just sucked it on my
bank statements and generated ap and l that I could use for
taxes.
Like, I don't wanna log in.
More.
(38:53):
Right.
And we get very excited aboutthat, and I think that just
opens up the domain of how couldwe, whether it's, you see that
with Intercom and their Finn AIcomponent, right?
Of like, Hey, it's not thatwe're like adding more bells and
whistles for your customer sportagents.
We're having our AI resolvetickets before it ever hits a
human.
Right.
No one ever has to log in,right?
But if you're focused on likehow many users logged in and
(39:14):
press these buttons in asequence like it, it grounds you
in a product world versus acustomer focused world.
So, you have all all my love andfor that whole process you just
outlined there.
Thank you for going to suchdepth.
Steve, I can talk to you allday, but we are running up on
time, so I wanna be respectfulof yours.
Do a couple of rapid closeoutquestions.
I, there's so many topics wedidn't even get a chance to, but
(39:35):
I think it was well worth it forthe deep dive on that
transformation turnaround thatyou work through in copper.
And I'm sure that the work neverend.
So, best of luck as you goforward.
But just let's let's close outwith a couple rapid fire
questions.
Maybe it's this gentleman atpodium that you mentioned, but,
I'm a big believer knowing ifsuccess gets there on their own.
Who's someone who's had adisproportionate effect of the
way you think about being aleader or growing companies of
(39:57):
all the spectacular people youhad a chance to work with.
I.
Steve Holm (39:59):
Yeah, maybe this isn't the answer that, that
you're looking for, but I, I.
I think my wife, maybe this is acheesy answer, I don't know my
wife is probably the person I'mmost grateful for because.
She's been supportive and provi,she's been my rock as I question
my life decision sometimes,right?
And I'm like, we're gonna dothis and this could have this
(40:20):
impact on our family.
And she's like, let's go for it.
And I think you're capable.
And she's there every step ofthe way.
And I am most grateful for heras my.
Therapist and my partner and my,she helps me with strategy on
things and she's not a techperson, which helps me bounce
ideas off her that brings itdown.
Us in tech, we're in this bubblewhere we talk certain way and
think things resonate withcustomers when they absolutely
(40:41):
do not.
And so she can help me come downto earth and talk the way normal
people talk and so I'm probablymost grateful for her.
Dan Balcauski (40:48):
I was not looking for any particular answer.
That is perfectly acceptableresponse.
Look Steve, if listeners want toconnect with you, learn more
about copper, how can they dothat?
Steve Holm (40:58):
We are@copper.com.
That's probably the best way.
Go to copper.com.
Look us up on LinkedIn at,copper, CRM and you can see what
we do.
And sign up for a trial if you'dlike and check us out.
That's probably the best place.
Dan Balcauski (41:09):
Awesome.
Well, I'll put that link in theshow notes for our listeners.
Thank you so much, Steve.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you, Steve for sharing hisjourney and insights.
For our listeners who foundSteve's insights valuable,
please leave a review and sharethis episode with your network.
It really helps the podcastgrow.
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