November 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Dan Balcauski speaks with Itai Sadan, co-founder and CEO of Duda, a leading professional website builder for digital agencies and SaaS platforms. Itai shares his 15-year journey of scaling Duda to over a million active websites built by 20,000 agency partners globally. They discuss strategic pivots from mobile to responsive design and shifting focus from SMBs to digital agencies. Itai emphasizes the importance of focus, customer understanding, and internal alignment in overcoming competition and driving growth. The conversation also touches on leadership evolution, managing transitions, and the role of trust and alignment with a co-founder.
01:22 Introducing Itai Sadan and Duda
02:13 Competing in a Crowded Market
04:13 The Inflection Points in Scaling Duda
05:51 The Shift from Mobile to Responsive Design
08:13 Focusing on Web Professionals
14:06 Navigating Internal and External Challenges
30:13 Leadership Evolution and Company Growth
35:49 Closing Thoughts and Advice
Guest Links
itai@duda.co
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Itai Sadan (00:00):
Obviously there's, in a 15 year journey, there's
(00:02):
multiple points in time where,it feels for a second or more
than that, that, you're almostat, you're looking down at a
ledge and things are not whatyou thought they would be.
the question is.
Why are we unique?
Why are customers going to cometo us?
when you're a leader, you reallydon't care.
The first, getting to the firstmillion of a R is like just
(00:25):
survival.
Is it like, am I gonna be ableto make paycheck at the end of
the months?
I still make mistakes untiltoday, and I learned from them.
do your own thing.
I think it's great to havementors and advisors and you
should be talking to people allthe time and get different
ideas, but no two companies arealike.
(00:46):
something that worked for onecompany doesn't necessarily mean
that it will work for yourcompany.
there's no template company.
You need to do your own thing.
Dan Balcauski (01:15):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestores and the leaders of the
best scale up B2B SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeItai Sadan, co-founder and CEO
of Duda, the leadingprofessional website builder for
digital agencies and SaaSplatforms.
Itai has scale Duda to over amillion active websites built by
20,000 plus agency partnersglobally.
(01:35):
He's been CEO for over 15 years.
Usual founder of longevity andhas navigated multiple major
platform transitions whilebuilding a figure business with
more than 400 employees.
Hey Itai, welcome to the show.
Itai Sadan (01:46):
Thank you Dan.
Thank you for having me excitedto chat with you today.
Dan Balcauski (01:51):
Likewise.
Before we dive into your scalingjourney, give us the elevator
pitch.
What does it do to do?
Who do you serve?
Itai Sadan (01:57):
I think you, you said it pretty clearly, I'll
echo some of it.
We're a white label websitebuilder.
We
Dan Balcauski (02:03):
I.
Itai Sadan (02:03):
Digital marketing agencies, web designers and sas
platforms that want to integratea website offering into their
technology stack.
Dan Balcauski (02:13):
Well, the, the website builder is notoriously
crowded.
You got like the Wix andSquarespace, WordPress, dozens
of others.
How do you think about competingin that market where on the
surface a lot of folks arebuilding?
What if you're not an expertlook like very similar
solutions?
Itai Sadan (02:31):
Yeah I think I've heard of those companies that
you mentioned and yeah, thereality there are competitors or
other players in the generalmarket.
But I think in the area that weare focused, our niche is really
being focused on digitalmarketing agencies.
We typically don't service SMBsor consumers directly.
(02:55):
For us, it's very clear that ourcustomer is a digital marketing
agency.
Due to that there, there's avery deep and profound
understanding.
of this customer, of a digitalmarketing agency and its needs.
And our website builder hastaken very specific product
(03:15):
evolution to serve or solve thepains that digital marketing
agencies have.
So I think when you come to Dudaas a digital marketing agency
versus if you come to a Wix or aSquarespace, you would see a,
you would see a quite anapparent difference.
In the platform.
This is a, the tool was builtfor more of a professional user
(03:38):
that is that needs flexibility,needs powerful tools.
Someone who's typically not justbuilding, one or two sites a
year, but many of our customersare building.
Tens, hundreds, thousands ofsites a year, and thus the
requirements are very different.
This is requirements forbuilding websites at scale and
(04:00):
not just building, alsomaintaining them which is a lot
of work.
Dan Balcauski (04:03):
I, yeah, I appreciate the the focus there,
and I think that will give us a,a good jumping off point for
sort of the first area I wantedto explore with you.
So, this is called Sask GalySecrets.
So I'm curious, you've, you'vebeen at the helm of Duda for 15
years.
I mentioned the intro and itscaled the business pretty
significantly over that time.
Looking back over that period,has there been a, a moment, a
(04:26):
inflection point that has reallystood out to you as a, a
crucible decision or area where,you really struggled in your
scaling journey?
Itai Sadan (04:37):
Obviously there's, in a 15 year journey, there's
multiple points in time where,it feels for a second, like, or
more than that, that, you'realmost at, you're looking down
at a ledge and things are notwhat you thought they would be.
And there's transitions andthere's pivots.
Yeah, there's a couple of clearpoints like that, that I can
(04:59):
mention.
I think, first of all, I startedthe company together with a
co-founder.
His name is Amir.
I actually known him since highschool.
And we we were college roommatesafterwards and we worked for the
same company back in the day,but we started the company
really around mobile at the kindof, it was a mobile website
builder in its firstincarnation.
(05:20):
That was our first product.
And about, I would say.
Four or five years in.
So we started in 2010 and thenaround 20 14, 20 15, we had a
lot of success in these first,three, four years.
We got to, hundreds of thousandsof mobile websites on the
platform, suddenly there wasthis proliferation of devices
(05:42):
and there was.
Desktop and tablet and peoplestarted having browsers on in
their cars a new paradigm arose.
So market change.
There was a change in marketdynamic where.
This was responsive.
Web design was introduced andthere was suddenly a solution
where you can build a websiteonce and it runs everywhere.
(06:04):
And we were this mobile playerand it was very clear to us that
we needed to jump on thisresponsive web design bandwagon
and add kind of these otherscreens.
'cause people wanted to build itonce.
It runs everywhere.
Some of the competitors werecoming from the other side.
They were desktop first and theywere.
Trying to add mobile we allcompanies got to more or less
(06:26):
the same point where they havereally similar offerings to the
same market.
And from being a very clearleader in mobile, we were
suddenly not a leader.
We were in a very crowded spacemaybe four or five years in kind
of the first time the worddifferentiation came into our
(06:46):
our lingo.
Or the question is.
Why are we unique?
Why are customers going to cometo us?
Because when you're a leader,you really don't care.
You would ask me you would askme back then in the early days,
who's my customer?
The answer would probably beanybody who wants to use the
product.
That was probably as clear of adefinition of who our customer
(07:07):
was, at that point it, it wasnot sufficient.
We had to.
Compete in this market againstmuch bigger players, bigger
budgets.
And we looked at our user baseand we saw about 50% were small
businesses, but the other 50%were these web professionals,
these digital marketingagencies, web designers.
(07:30):
that user base was growingfaster'cause each one of them
was building multiple sites.
And, to be honest, like thesetwo different
Dan Balcauski (07:38):
Okay.
Itai Sadan (07:39):
right?
Ideal customer profiles, the SMBand this web professional, were
a little bit tearing the companyapart.
'cause SMBs just wantedsimplicity.
Give me the ability to publish asite in two minutes and,
Dan Balcauski (07:52):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (07:53):
about it.
While web designers wanted, giveme sophistication, give me the
flexibility to build what myclients want.
So r and d was very torn betweenthese.
And so was like our marketingteam, at what level do we
message and the sales team, andit really helped us at that
point.
To make a decision that we aregoing to become a web
(08:17):
professional company.
So we basically made thatdecision we didn't fire 50% of
our user base, but we said,going forward, we are not gonna
spend$1 more to acquire S andSMB.
We are gonna be a webprofessional company and we are
focusing, we're narrowing ourlens to focus on.
(08:38):
Really that 50% of our customerbase that was more advanced,
more of these web professionals,that focus brought, I think
first of all it was a reallyimportant decision.
It helped differentiate uscompared to the other companies
in the market, and it also gaveus the sense of focus and.
(09:03):
Clear understanding of who weare, what we're building, and
the product took a much more amuch different kind of
dimension.
And it propelled us to, probablywhere we are today with over a
million sites on the platform in22,000 customers, that the
majority of them are webprofessionals.
Dan Balcauski (09:22):
There's a, a lot you mentioned in that arc there,
so obviously you're.
You're, everything in, inretrospect seems clean, but I'm
sure it wasn't exactly clean atthe time.
You mentioned things like theroadmap, the marketing, the
sales were getting pulled inmultiple directions.
I'm, I'm curious, like, if youtake me back to that time when
(09:44):
that was happening, how did yourealize people are always,
potentially selling to folksoutside their ICP what was going
on when you realized that, okay,we really have sort of a, a
choice to make like was it, wasit clear at the outset that this
was, it was going to be suchlike, Hey we're gonna have to
choose one or the other ofthese?
Itai Sadan (10:02):
right.
So there were, in that storythat I just told, there were
actually two.
Really critical decisions.
first one was moving from amobile product into a responsive
web design product.
The second was narrowing of ourcustomer base to address really
one core ICP, which was the webprofessionals.
(10:23):
So I'll start with the firstone.
That, that by itself was not aneasy move.
We were a mobile only company.
Like the initial name of thecompany was actually due to
mobile.
So the first dec decision toactually move from mobile to be
a fully responsive, I think wesaw different signs that told us
(10:44):
that we had to, that there was adynamic in the market that was
changing
Dan Balcauski (10:48):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (10:49):
we needed.
We needed a change in order tosurvive.
It started maybe from customersasking us about responsive web
design partners asking us aboutit, maybe even some deals not
coming to fruition.
'cause like bigger partners werethinking about, Hey, is this the
right way or should we be.
(11:11):
Going this other way.
So we started sensing that themarket there was a dynamic shift
in the market and we wanted tomove the company with that, with
the market change.
And I think that's a very keyrole that the founders have,
right?
This is it's the essence of,product market fit.
(11:33):
Initially when I launched thecompany, we had a very clear
product, market fit.
The market.
There was, the introduction whenI launched the company, it was
phones were coming into themarket.
iPhone launched in 20 2007,Android in 2008.
SMBs were inundated with trafficcoming from mobile and they had.
Terrible desktop sites thatlook, look really bad even on
(11:56):
the newest phones.
So initially we had a reallygood product market fit, and I
think that started to change asthe dynamic in the market
changed where people did not tobuild dedicated mobile sites but
wanted to.
Move into kind of thisresponsive design, but the thing
was to identify that shiftreally early on and start
(12:19):
building a product.
'cause it takes about, a year ortwo years to build like your
second product, our, which wasthis responsive web design,
Dan Balcauski (12:28):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (12:28):
product and.
The difficulty of coming intothe company and persuading the
management, persuading theboard, persuading the employees
that we needed to do this shiftinto a second product.
So I think that was a bigdecision by itself.
Dan Balcauski (12:42):
So within, within that, no, I, well, yeah, I just
wanna stay on the sort of theresponsive switch.
So looking at the.
How that market evolved.
Was that when you were lookingat having to go into responsive?
Obviously you're due to mobilebefore, so, but besides sort of
the, the naming maybe have setit down one path did you view
that as a sort of a contrarianview at that point?
(13:04):
Or was it just like, Hey, thisis where the market's going,
we've gotta, we've gotta moveover there in order to survive.
Itai Sadan (13:09):
Yeah I think, there were multiple options.
We
Dan Balcauski (13:12):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (13:12):
in the mobile space and maybe developed other
products that were not.
Web presence, right?
We could have gone into otherareas there.
So there's definitely was adiscussion of what is the right
route to take, right?
You're you feel like we're beingdisrupted and there's multiple
avenues and you need to pick oneof them.
We pick.
(13:33):
The avenue of expanding, ofbuilding the second, the second
product that was a responsiveweb design.
We were excited about it.
We thought back then that maybethere's a chance that we will be
the first platform out therethat is truly.
Responsive design for, smallbusinesses.
Evidently we were not, like, ittook us about two years to build
(13:54):
it.
And as I said, some of theexisting incumbents were all,
were also they were desktopfirst and they were adding
mobile.
So we all got to the market atthe same time with a responsive
web design builder.
Dan Balcauski (14:06):
So you mentioned before, like, you having to
manage, obviously the, the teaminternally, but then also you
mentioned the the investors, theboard.
Help me understand that,'causeI, it's like, it's, it sounds
like maybe the, this was a, alarger undertaking than maybe
you first assumed.
So I'm curious how you.
Were how you managed the boardand their expectations as you
(14:30):
guys were navigating thistransition.
Itai Sadan (14:33):
Yeah.
I think early on it was reallydifficult to explain'cause
you're doing really well.
Dan Balcauski (14:39):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (14:39):
see it in the revenue.
You don't see any drive.
It's like if you're identifyingthe trend and the dynamics in
the market changing early enoughthere's not a lot of signs.
Out there that that the end isnearing if you don't do
anything.
So it's hard to persuade peopleat that time.
But I think this, again, this isthe role of the founders
ensuring product market fit andensuring persuading the rest of
(15:04):
the folks on the ship that weneed to shift course a bit in
order to, in order to continueand drive the growth and success
of the company.
And there was enough, like youstart, you say, Hey, I'm gonna
build this second product.
Initially we're gonna take maybea Tiger team to work on it.
Eventually it launches.
(15:25):
Nobody wants to give that newproduct any.
Time of day, right?
Sales is so focused on product Athat's actually generating
revenue.
Marketing doesn't want to giveit any real estate on the
website.
So you have to fight the fightfor this new product to give it
a chance to succeed.
And I think if it really has, ifit's really solving a pain point
(15:49):
and if it really doing what'ssupposed to do, it will start to
gain traction.
And I think as there starts tobe real traction and some
revenue behind it and goodcustomer feedback, marketing is
open to giving it more realestate and sellers are start to
get interested in selling it.
So it takes time and maybe bythe time that it's.
(16:09):
50 50 between the revenue comingfrom the old legacy product and
the new product at that point,or maybe quite a bit before that
people internally really knowwhere the future of the company
lies.
Uh, but
Dan Balcauski (16:22):
Mm.
What.
Itai Sadan (16:23):
transition, probably took two years.
To be truthful.
Dan Balcauski (16:26):
Was there anything that you recall from
that time period?
Again, even focusing on the, onthe board in order to convince
them to maintain or to buildconfidence in the, in the
strategy?
'cause I imagine, two, twoyears, it depends how long
you've been a productdevelopment.
Sometimes that that might belike, oh yeah, of course it's
gonna take two years for a newproduct.
So people might, if you haveoptimistic estimates, maybe you
(16:46):
thought it was gonna be muchless than that.
Sounds about right.
Maybe in retrospect was thereanything that you did to help
shore up confidence from theboard level that, that, that
this approach was gonna pay off?
Itai Sadan (16:57):
Yeah, I think those two years were not easy in terms
of top line revenue for thecompany.
You think of there's product Athat's already generating
millions of revenue and isstarting to see decline.
Product B is gaining sometraction, but you know this,
they're both, it's subsubscription product.
It takes time for that revenueto become somewhat material
(17:21):
meaningful.
So in some ways you're liketaking money out of pocket A and
moving it into pocket B.
But the top line of the companywas pretty flat in those years,
and it was pretty clear we werenot.
Going to be able to raise moneyfrom external investors in that
time.
And we already had, this waspost series B, so we did have
(17:43):
some funds, but it was, weneeded additional financing.
Dan Balcauski (17:48):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (17:49):
I think over, during those two years, the existing
investors came and supported thecompany.
But it was easier for someonewho's internal to really see the
traction, even though it wasearly traction, and to believe
that this product is going toovertake the legacy product and
become so the, the, the futurerevenue driver of the company.
(18:11):
but it did.
Require them.
It did require us to persuadethem.
It did require us to presentdata to prove this.
Dan Balcauski (18:20):
Yeah.
Itai Sadan (18:21):
I'm still very thankful for them, for
supporting those company, thecompany, in those two years.
'cause it was not, if it was notfor them, the company could have
been at.
Dan Balcauski (18:30):
You mentioned as well, it, so shifting internally
in that transaction transition,you mentioned, marketing and
sales.
I wanna focus just on sales'cause this is a common problem
when you have a, a secondproduct or new product or, or
transition of, a business modelwhere, you know, the existing
sales folks, they have theirpitch, they have their demo that
they're, used to talking about.
(18:52):
And now you have this new thingand maybe customers aren't,
asking for it yet.
There's how do you.
Manage that transition on thesales side to seed the success
of this newer product that maybewas a bit of a change from how
the, the sales team was, wasused to talking about it.
Itai Sadan (19:08):
Yeah.
I think if you're buildingsomething, hopefully you're
building it because there'speople out there that, that want
that product, and you've done.
done some of that homework inadvance.
So we did have some customersthat were early adopters of
that, and I think that helpedgive confidence to sales in some
(19:30):
ways that they were they wereadopt.
Some of those were adopting andusing.
And over time as we opened it upmore and more that that
confidence grew.
Dan Balcauski (19:41):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (19:41):
Yeah, you do.
It's not, it's, let's say it's,it wouldn't be enough that just
me and my co-founder would say,Hey go ahead.
Go out and sell it.
Go out and sell it.
You need there needs to be likecustomers out there that are
actually buying it proving thatthere's really arms and ls to
this.
Dan Balcauski (19:56):
Was, was this the type of thing where you had the,
like the entire salesorganization rolled out at once,
or did you guys grab some subsetof the team in order to have
them focus on nurturing andselling the, the new product
given the overlap with yourexisting mobile?
I, I could see either way, butI'm not sure if there was a way
that worked for you guys.
Itai Sadan (20:15):
Yeah.
Yeah, the company wasn't thatbig back then and, we had a a
sales assisted motions throughsellers and we had also, we also
sell on the web until today, weprobably launched it first to
some.
Close customers before we put itas a self-service tool.
So hand handheld, the firstcustomers who were using the
(20:35):
platform got them to adopt it.
These were bigger customers thatmaybe made some commitments to
this.
And then over time we alsoopened it up to self-service to
all our customers.
Dan Balcauski (20:48):
Got it.
And so, earlier in theconversation, you were
mentioned, two differentstrategic pivots.
So the one was the mobile toresponsive pivot, and the other
was the the switch in sort ofcustomer segment focus.
So pivoting back to the customersegment focus option.
So, there, you were, you had SMBand you had these digital
agencies.
You were talking about how itwas, separating the, or.
(21:09):
Or spreading very thinly boththe go-to market motion as well
as the, the product investments.
So walk me through the evolutionof, of that as a problem.
Sometimes, obviously there couldbe folks who are buying it, who
are outside of your target andit's totally fine.
Like, and they might wantdifferent things, but it sounds
like it got to a breaking point.
So I'm curious, like what washappening inside the business at
(21:30):
that time that sort of realizedlike, okay, that we, we've, this
is really forcing our hand andmaking to make a choice.
Itai Sadan (21:37):
So I think the struggle was between kind of the
two ICPs of small businesses andkind of these web professionals
was always there, but we didn'tfor initially, in the early
days, we didn't feel like we hadto make a choice.
We just built one product andwhoever wanted to use it.
when we got into kind of fiercecompetition when around the
(21:59):
responsive website builder, and.
And it really started hurtingour growth.
You see that there's much biggercompanies out there, bigger r
and d teams that have more focusthan you have.
And then that's concerning,right?
Like you're scratching yourhead, how am I gonna beat those?
(22:20):
With a much smaller team,smaller budget, I clearly have.
To make a decision here.
So it's
Dan Balcauski (22:26):
mm.
Itai Sadan (22:26):
like your hand is a little bit forced in some way.
'Cause there's just no way towin.
If you're not focused and youknow you have too many customers
that are, that you're servingand you need to build a for that
customer, B for that for theother customer and C with a
small r and d team.
Dan Balcauski (22:45):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (22:46):
so I, I think that's you know that pain of service
serving multiple customers wasthere for a while, for a long
while.
but at the end we, in order toreally make sure that we
continue.
To grow and make the rightdecision.
We had, we felt like we had tomake, I think on one side it was
maybe a little bit defensive.
(23:07):
We felt like we needed to make achoice.
On the other hand, we wereexcited about making a choice.
'Cause we felt like there's anopportunity there.
Everybody's fighting on the samecustomer.
But hey, we have this.
Other type of customer that isgrowing and we feel like this
other customer is underserved,so let's head the ship in that
direction.
(23:27):
And there's a big tam out thereof web designers, digital
marketers.
We can grow leaps and boundsjust in that market.
And,
Dan Balcauski (23:36):
Well, I, yeah, I'm curious.
Itai Sadan (23:38):
last thing, I would also say, I think the DNA of the
company kind of being veryengineering, a lot of like all
our engineers on is, are in.
kind of, most of our engineersare in Israel.
so there's a very strongengineering culture in the
company.
I think we, we understood betterthe, what the sophisticated
(24:00):
users wanted.
And were probably better atbuilding the products that solve
their pain points versus goingand trying to dumb down and do
simple things for a smallbusiness.
So we were, we were prettyexcited about making this
choice.
Dan Balcauski (24:15):
So you realize you have to make a decision.
I'm curious, like,'cause you,you mentioned, a word like tam
in there engineering background.
Like, did you, like, how did youactually approach making the
decision?
Was it like a very sort ofanalytical exercise?
Like, did you and Amir gettogether and say, be like, this
is what the company looks likeif we go this direction, this
what it looks like.
This is the tam for both.
Like how did you actuallyapproach, like making that.
(24:38):
That choice, like when it cameto you and your leadership team.
Itai Sadan (24:41):
Yeah.
So I think it starts with kindof me and Amir agreeing that
this is like, noodling on it fora while and thinking about it
and agreeing that this is thedirection that we need to go.
And then from there wetypically, do an offside or
something and persuade the restof the management team to be on
board.
And from there it cascadesdownward to the rest of the
(25:03):
company.
Yeah, I think that's probablythe way that it went.
Dan Balcauski (25:07):
And so you guys make this decision to go after
the more sophisticated buyer,okay?
So you come out of yourmanagement offsite or whatever
it ended up being.
Itai Sadan (25:15):
yeah, and we usually come pretty much pretty prepared
there to these offsites.
Like we come with data and therewas a lot of data.
'cause these were two user basesthat we have.
So it's
Dan Balcauski (25:24):
hmm.
Itai Sadan (25:24):
easy, like to look at data like growth rates,
retention rates, things likethat.
So I, we are, pretty analyticalin our decision making.
Dan Balcauski (25:33):
Not, not surprising given the engineering
background of the company aswell.
And, and if you have a volumemarket, right?
That's an advantage of having a,a, a, a volume market of being
able to some, sometimes moreenterprise type companies.
It's just like.
Yeah, if you don't have enoughdeals to, or customer logos to
be able to tell that.
But so using that data to helpyou support that decision, so
you guys make the decision froma leadership level, okay, we're,
(25:55):
we're gonna go after this moresophisticated buyer.
I'm curious then on theexecution of that decision, what
what was the sequence of changesthat you made?
Like, okay, you say like, or wehave all these existing
customers.
I like, what was the strategy orthe plan from there to like say,
okay, given that we've realizedor we've made the decision that
(26:16):
we're not gonna after s and b,like what do we change for
second, third, like that?
Once we have that in place.
Itai Sadan (26:22):
Yeah.
I remember, pretty clearly in,in the early days, think of kind
of our website right.
It was all geared and messagedtowards small businesses a
while, when we startedunderstanding that there's this
other ICP of web professionals,we probably put somewhere in the
navigation, like a link topartners or resellers.
(26:43):
So it was a small part of our goto market.
You would click on that partnersresellers, and there was
probably a page where theoffering for those who are more
professionals was articulatedthere.
time that part of kind ofpartners, resellers, agencies
(27:04):
started to become the majorityof the website.
And to the point that today, ifyou come to the website, the
whole language, everything onthe homepage, and this has been
around like that for for us fora couple of years.
It talks to agencies, it talksto web professionals.
So it was it overtook thecompany over time as we, as it
(27:27):
pro, as we proved out thesuccess and we saw the traction
happening.
Dan Balcauski (27:32):
And so, in this transition, what proved harder
to execute than you expected?
Itai Sadan (27:39):
Ooh great question.
I think I don't, I think thedecision was absolutely right.
If I go back, what would I domaybe differently is just move
faster.
Because I think we were early tounderstand that there's an
underserved market there earlyto come into the market with a
product for digital marketingagencies and web professionals.
(28:00):
And since then, others has, haveseen our success and have
followed.
And now this area as well iswe're seeing more competition
both from existing platformsthat we're, we're initially only
SMBs focused and have createdsolutions for web designers, so
more competitors creeping intospace.
(28:24):
Initially we were there aloneand if maybe if we would've
moved faster and grown faster wewould've had a bigger part of
that market.
Today we're competing there inthat, in this market as well.
Dan Balcauski (28:36):
So I'm curious with that because the previous
response you were talking about,like the.
The marketing landing page andhow the, you grew to eventually,
the agency business was moredominant and so that, took place
over the header.
And so I see a lot of companiesthat get I, I go to a lot of
SaaS websites because I havepersonality problems, but it's
often it surprising how.
Confusing like their hero is oflike, who is this for?
(29:00):
Right.
'Cause I think they are tryingto straddle multiple companies.
So is it, is it within, when yousay like moving faster, is it
within that sort of the switchof like, Hey, like we've made
this decision to pivot over,like, let's just rip the bandaid
off.
Or just saying like, we're foragencies, like versus waiting
for that to be the majority ofthe business.
Itai Sadan (29:17):
I think it's both that and probably mo and not
just that.
I think it's also, the of budgetthat you put into your, your
marketing budget, into yourbranding, into your paid
advertising, just to go faster.
Become a bigger player.
Just accelerate that before,before other people come into to
(29:40):
the space.
Dan Balcauski (29:41):
both of those strategic pivots are
fascinating.
Both the mobile to responsiveweb as well as the the founder
or, or the, the personatransitions.
Those are very difficult.
I think for a lot of folks.
I'm sure there's a lot oflisteners out there who have
tried to navigate similartransitions in their business.
So, so super helpful there.
I'm sure both of those.
Reinvention experiences haverequired leadership and, and
(30:04):
maybe different leadership.
And you've, as I mentioned inthe intro you've, you've been
leading Guda for 15 years now,which is unusual founder
longevity.
I'm curious like how you viewhow you've changed as a leader
from those early garage days tonow.
I guess has there, has therebeen any sort of skills.
That have been most surprisingto you of like, we all lack
(30:27):
self-awareness to a certain,certain regard.
I'm curious, like if there's, ifthere's skills that you've
picked up, you know now later inyour leader career that you know
you didn't realize were gonna beas important as they were.
Itai Sadan (30:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think at every stage of acompany you need to evolve and,
and have embrace differentskills.
The first, getting to the firstmillion of a R is like just
survival.
Is it like, am I gonna be ableto make paycheck at the end of
the months?
It's these type of con concernsas a founder and CEO you wear a
(31:00):
ton of hats at that point.
You're doing the sales, you'redoing the marketing maybe you're
hiring, we've started to hirelike some of the initial folks
on the business side, but it'sstill, you're still doing a lot
of different things thenthinking about getting to the
first 10 million.
at that point you're definitelygrowing that team around you.
(31:22):
There's a little bit of scalethat's starting to happen.
You try out different you startbringing some experts in that
are much better than you are.
You make a lot of mistakes inhiring.
Hopefully you learn from thatand make fewer mistakes.
I still make mistakes untiltoday, and I learned from them.
And then like thinking about, 50million kind of in a RR which we
(31:45):
crossed a while ago, it's,that's a different type of
scale.
Like you really need, you'redefinitely not.
both sales and marketing and anda lot of other things you have.
Hopefully by this time, seniorexecutives that have been there
have done that a couple of timesin other companies.
They're doing it much betterthan you are.
(32:07):
You give them a lot of autonomy.
And I find myself, when thingsare going well in, finance,
sales, product, I don't need toget into those areas as much.
I can be much more on thestrategic side, be much more
managing, getting involved wherethey're asking me to get
involved.
I feel like where.
And so I delegate a lot.
(32:29):
And I enjoy delegating.
I think where I find myselfspending more time is usually
when there's an exec that is notkind of uh, holding his own or
her own.
And I need to get involved theremore than I would've wanted to.
but
Dan Balcauski (32:45):
I.
Itai Sadan (32:45):
yeah.
Dan Balcauski (32:46):
So I love how you painted sort of those different
eras zero to 1 million, a r to10 million, a r to 50 million 50
million plus.
I'm curious, like, was there anyof those, maybe it was, maybe it
was in the transitions of thoseeras.
Or maybe it was some other sortof period or moment in time.
I'm curious where there was achange in how the business
needed to operate that maybewasn't aligned to your sort of
(33:08):
regular way of being that wasmost jarring for you when you
realize you, you had to adaptyour the way you were leading
the company.
Was there any moment like thatsticks out to you?
Itai Sadan (33:18):
So many moments like that, Dan, that I can think of.
One of, for me, like one of the,probably funnier moments was.
I came from a big company beforestarting Duda.
I was at SAP.
And then, one of the things thatI, I wanted to do something like
move to do my own startup.
And, like I, I saw an SAP kindof, which is common for a lot of
(33:42):
enterprises, a lot of thingsthat I've learned.
When I operate my company, a lotof examples of things of how I
don't want don't wanna run acompany.
Dan Balcauski (33:51):
Mm mm.
Itai Sadan (33:52):
And, there's a lot of this wasting of times in
meetings and alignment calls andthat was fun in the early days
starting Duda, that we didn'tneed to do those things'cause we
were like 10 people in the roomin the early days and everybody
knew everything.
So you didn't have to.
Have those type of meetings.
And it's probably when we grewto, I don't know, but we were
(34:14):
probably maybe 20 or 30 peopleand we had already like more
than, one location becauseengineering was in Israel and I
was here with the business team.
I was in California back thenwith the business team.
and I think someone came andsaid to me, this, I remember the
word very succinctly, itai.
There's no visibility.
(34:37):
And I felt, wow, that's suchlike a, an enterprise that kind
of, it, but it, I, he was,whoever that, that was, they
were totally right.
Like, it's now like we arehaving meetings and people are
in a little bit feeling siloedand out and, probably I need to
do like, some kind of.
Company all hands meeting orkind of think about the
(34:58):
communication and how doeseverybody know?
'cause we're no longer 10 peoplein the same room and everybody
knows what's happening.
Like it's starting to be like amore dispersed company.
So you know, you have, as yougrow, there's some of these
things like communication andvisibility that you need to
think about.
Dan Balcauski (35:15):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (35:16):
and obviously the, today the team's almost 200
people, so I put a lot ofattention.
And we have all hands and townhalls and there's a CEO
newsletters that I send out withkind of my thoughts.
So yeah these things develop andand and need to develop as the
company becomes bigger.
Dan Balcauski (35:36):
Well, that's, that's fascinating.
Yeah, it's, it, you, it's likewe, no, we are being
transparent.
But yeah, the big, big companyprocess stuff.
You when you do have 10 peoplein a room, you don't really, you
really need, and then you'relike, oh yeah, there's, there's
a reason this stuff exists.
This has been great.
I do wanna start wrapping us upwith a couple of closeout
questions.
Just I wanna go back for thefirst question on that.
You, you mentioned you startedudo with your co-founder Amir,
(35:58):
who's CTO.
You've known each other sincehigh school.
We've been business 15 plusyears.
What's the secret toestablishing good business
partnerships?
Like why has that worked so wellfor you?
Any advice that you could pullout of like understanding what's
gonna make a successful businesspartner
Itai Sadan (36:14):
Yeah, I think for us it's it's just those years, it's
Dan Balcauski (36:16):
I.
Itai Sadan (36:17):
history.
We've gone through so much overthese years, failures been there
for one another.
I think we have, are veryaligned on our, our values and
the way we see things.
I don't remember, in 15 years, Idon't remember us having really
(36:37):
any significant kind of falloutor anything like that.
We typically agree on a lot ofthings and there's a lot of
trust where, today I don't needto talk to Amir every week.
I can talk to him every secondweek or so.
We meet in a lot of meetingswith the management and other
cases, but we're just, there'sjust this strong alignment
(37:00):
between us that is very naturaland is based on shared history.
We just trust each other to doeach does their best work and we
know that we trust the decisionmaking.
And I think that's thefoundation underlying the
company.
Dan Balcauski (37:17):
Build trust and a lot of years is shared
experience.
Italia, if I could give you abillboard, he put any advice on
there for other B2B sass CEOstrying to scale the companies
who would go on it.
Itai Sadan (37:26):
do your own thing.
I think, and think it's great tohave mentors and advisors and
peop and you should be talkingto people all the time and get
different ideas, but no twocompanies are alike.
something that worked for onecompany doesn't necessarily mean
that it will work for yourcompany.
(37:48):
at the end, there's no templatecompany.
You need to do your own thing.
Listen to all that advice, butit's at the end.
Whatever you think is right foryour company.
Dan Balcauski (37:57):
Do your own thing Itai.
If our listeners wanna connectwith you, learn more about Duda,
how can they do that?
Itai Sadan (38:02):
LinkedIn is a good way to connect with me.
You can send me an email, itaiitai@Duda.co.
one of those things.
Dan Balcauski (38:12):
Awesome.
I will put links to those in theshow notes for our listeners.
Thank you Ty.
That wraps up this episode ofSAS Scale Secrets.
Thank you for sharing yourjourney insights.
For our listeners who findit,Itaisites valuable, please
leave a review and share thisepisode with your network.
Really helps the podcast grow.
Obviously there's, in a 15 year journey, there's
(00:02):
multiple points in time where,it feels for a second or more
than that, that, you're almostat, you're looking down at a
ledge and things are not whatyou thought they would be.
the question is.
Why are we unique?
Why are customers going to cometo us?
when you're a leader, you reallydon't care.
The first, getting to the firstmillion of a R is like just
(00:25):
survival.
Is it like, am I gonna be ableto make paycheck at the end of
the months?
I still make mistakes untiltoday, and I learned from them.
do your own thing.
I think it's great to havementors and advisors and you
should be talking to people allthe time and get different
ideas, but no two companies arealike.
(00:46):
something that worked for onecompany doesn't necessarily mean
that it will work for yourcompany.
there's no template company.
You need to do your own thing.
Dan Balcauski (01:15):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestores and the leaders of the
best scale up B2B SaaScompanies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to welcomeItai Sadan, co-founder and CEO
of Duda, the leadingprofessional website builder for
digital agencies and SaaSplatforms.
Itai has scale Duda to over amillion active websites built by
20,000 plus agency partnersglobally.
(01:35):
He's been CEO for over 15 years.
Usual founder of longevity andhas navigated multiple major
platform transitions whilebuilding a figure business with
more than 400 employees.
Hey Itai, welcome to the show.
Itai Sadan (01:46):
Thank you Dan.
Thank you for having me excitedto chat with you today.
Dan Balcauski (01:51):
Likewise.
Before we dive into your scalingjourney, give us the elevator
pitch.
What does it do to do?
Who do you serve?
Itai Sadan (01:57):
I think you, you said it pretty clearly, I'll
echo some of it.
We're a white label websitebuilder.
We
Dan Balcauski (02:03):
I.
Itai Sadan (02:03):
Digital marketing agencies, web designers and sas
platforms that want to integratea website offering into their
technology stack.
Dan Balcauski (02:13):
Well, the, the website builder is notoriously
crowded.
You got like the Wix andSquarespace, WordPress, dozens
of others.
How do you think about competingin that market where on the
surface a lot of folks arebuilding?
What if you're not an expertlook like very similar
solutions?
Itai Sadan (02:31):
Yeah I think I've heard of those companies that
you mentioned and yeah, thereality there are competitors or
other players in the generalmarket.
But I think in the area that weare focused, our niche is really
being focused on digitalmarketing agencies.
We typically don't service SMBsor consumers directly.
(02:55):
For us, it's very clear that ourcustomer is a digital marketing
agency.
Due to that there, there's avery deep and profound
understanding.
of this customer, of a digitalmarketing agency and its needs.
And our website builder hastaken very specific product
(03:15):
evolution to serve or solve thepains that digital marketing
agencies have.
So I think when you come to Dudaas a digital marketing agency
versus if you come to a Wix or aSquarespace, you would see a,
you would see a quite anapparent difference.
In the platform.
This is a, the tool was builtfor more of a professional user
(03:38):
that is that needs flexibility,needs powerful tools.
Someone who's typically not justbuilding, one or two sites a
year, but many of our customersare building.
Tens, hundreds, thousands ofsites a year, and thus the
requirements are very different.
This is requirements forbuilding websites at scale and
(04:00):
not just building, alsomaintaining them which is a lot
of work.
Dan Balcauski (04:03):
I, yeah, I appreciate the the focus there,
and I think that will give us a,a good jumping off point for
sort of the first area I wantedto explore with you.
So, this is called Sask GalySecrets.
So I'm curious, you've, you'vebeen at the helm of Duda for 15
years.
I mentioned the intro and itscaled the business pretty
significantly over that time.
Looking back over that period,has there been a, a moment, a
(04:26):
inflection point that has reallystood out to you as a, a
crucible decision or area where,you really struggled in your
scaling journey?
Itai Sadan (04:37):
Obviously there's, in a 15 year journey, there's
multiple points in time where,it feels for a second, like, or
more than that, that, you'realmost at, you're looking down
at a ledge and things are notwhat you thought they would be.
And there's transitions andthere's pivots.
Yeah, there's a couple of clearpoints like that, that I can
(04:59):
mention.
I think, first of all, I startedthe company together with a
co-founder.
His name is Amir.
I actually known him since highschool.
And we we were college roommatesafterwards and we worked for the
same company back in the day,but we started the company
really around mobile at the kindof, it was a mobile website
builder in its firstincarnation.
(05:20):
That was our first product.
And about, I would say.
Four or five years in.
So we started in 2010 and thenaround 20 14, 20 15, we had a
lot of success in these first,three, four years.
We got to, hundreds of thousandsof mobile websites on the
platform, suddenly there wasthis proliferation of devices
(05:42):
and there was.
Desktop and tablet and peoplestarted having browsers on in
their cars a new paradigm arose.
So market change.
There was a change in marketdynamic where.
This was responsive.
Web design was introduced andthere was suddenly a solution
where you can build a websiteonce and it runs everywhere.
(06:04):
And we were this mobile playerand it was very clear to us that
we needed to jump on thisresponsive web design bandwagon
and add kind of these otherscreens.
'cause people wanted to build itonce.
It runs everywhere.
Some of the competitors werecoming from the other side.
They were desktop first and theywere.
Trying to add mobile we allcompanies got to more or less
(06:26):
the same point where they havereally similar offerings to the
same market.
And from being a very clearleader in mobile, we were
suddenly not a leader.
We were in a very crowded spacemaybe four or five years in kind
of the first time the worddifferentiation came into our
(06:46):
our lingo.
Or the question is.
Why are we unique?
Why are customers going to cometo us?
Because when you're a leader,you really don't care.
You would ask me you would askme back then in the early days,
who's my customer?
The answer would probably beanybody who wants to use the
product.
That was probably as clear of adefinition of who our customer
(07:07):
was, at that point it, it wasnot sufficient.
We had to.
Compete in this market againstmuch bigger players, bigger
budgets.
And we looked at our user baseand we saw about 50% were small
businesses, but the other 50%were these web professionals,
these digital marketingagencies, web designers.
(07:30):
that user base was growingfaster'cause each one of them
was building multiple sites.
And, to be honest, like thesetwo different
Dan Balcauski (07:38):
Okay.
Itai Sadan (07:39):
right?
Ideal customer profiles, the SMBand this web professional, were
a little bit tearing the companyapart.
'cause SMBs just wantedsimplicity.
Give me the ability to publish asite in two minutes and,
Dan Balcauski (07:52):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (07:53):
about it.
While web designers wanted, giveme sophistication, give me the
flexibility to build what myclients want.
So r and d was very torn betweenthese.
And so was like our marketingteam, at what level do we
message and the sales team, andit really helped us at that
point.
To make a decision that we aregoing to become a web
(08:17):
professional company.
So we basically made thatdecision we didn't fire 50% of
our user base, but we said,going forward, we are not gonna
spend$1 more to acquire S andSMB.
We are gonna be a webprofessional company and we are
focusing, we're narrowing ourlens to focus on.
(08:38):
Really that 50% of our customerbase that was more advanced,
more of these web professionals,that focus brought, I think
first of all it was a reallyimportant decision.
It helped differentiate uscompared to the other companies
in the market, and it also gaveus the sense of focus and.
(09:03):
Clear understanding of who weare, what we're building, and
the product took a much more amuch different kind of
dimension.
And it propelled us to, probablywhere we are today with over a
million sites on the platform in22,000 customers, that the
majority of them are webprofessionals.
Dan Balcauski (09:22):
There's a, a lot you mentioned in that arc there,
so obviously you're.
You're, everything in, inretrospect seems clean, but I'm
sure it wasn't exactly clean atthe time.
You mentioned things like theroadmap, the marketing, the
sales were getting pulled inmultiple directions.
I'm, I'm curious, like, if youtake me back to that time when
(09:44):
that was happening, how did yourealize people are always,
potentially selling to folksoutside their ICP what was going
on when you realized that, okay,we really have sort of a, a
choice to make like was it, wasit clear at the outset that this
was, it was going to be suchlike, Hey we're gonna have to
choose one or the other ofthese?
Itai Sadan (10:02):
right.
So there were, in that storythat I just told, there were
actually two.
Really critical decisions.
first one was moving from amobile product into a responsive
web design product.
The second was narrowing of ourcustomer base to address really
one core ICP, which was the webprofessionals.
(10:23):
So I'll start with the firstone.
That, that by itself was not aneasy move.
We were a mobile only company.
Like the initial name of thecompany was actually due to
mobile.
So the first dec decision toactually move from mobile to be
a fully responsive, I think wesaw different signs that told us
(10:44):
that we had to, that there was adynamic in the market that was
changing
Dan Balcauski (10:48):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (10:49):
we needed.
We needed a change in order tosurvive.
It started maybe from customersasking us about responsive web
design partners asking us aboutit, maybe even some deals not
coming to fruition.
'cause like bigger partners werethinking about, Hey, is this the
right way or should we be.
(11:11):
Going this other way.
So we started sensing that themarket there was a dynamic shift
in the market and we wanted tomove the company with that, with
the market change.
And I think that's a very keyrole that the founders have,
right?
This is it's the essence of,product market fit.
(11:33):
Initially when I launched thecompany, we had a very clear
product, market fit.
The market.
There was, the introduction whenI launched the company, it was
phones were coming into themarket.
iPhone launched in 20 2007,Android in 2008.
SMBs were inundated with trafficcoming from mobile and they had.
Terrible desktop sites thatlook, look really bad even on
(11:56):
the newest phones.
So initially we had a reallygood product market fit, and I
think that started to change asthe dynamic in the market
changed where people did not tobuild dedicated mobile sites but
wanted to.
Move into kind of thisresponsive design, but the thing
was to identify that shiftreally early on and start
(12:19):
building a product.
'cause it takes about, a year ortwo years to build like your
second product, our, which wasthis responsive web design,
Dan Balcauski (12:28):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (12:28):
product and.
The difficulty of coming intothe company and persuading the
management, persuading theboard, persuading the employees
that we needed to do this shiftinto a second product.
So I think that was a bigdecision by itself.
Dan Balcauski (12:42):
So within, within that, no, I, well, yeah, I just
wanna stay on the sort of theresponsive switch.
So looking at the.
How that market evolved.
Was that when you were lookingat having to go into responsive?
Obviously you're due to mobilebefore, so, but besides sort of
the, the naming maybe have setit down one path did you view
that as a sort of a contrarianview at that point?
(13:04):
Or was it just like, Hey, thisis where the market's going,
we've gotta, we've gotta moveover there in order to survive.
Itai Sadan (13:09):
Yeah I think, there were multiple options.
We
Dan Balcauski (13:12):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (13:12):
in the mobile space and maybe developed other
products that were not.
Web presence, right?
We could have gone into otherareas there.
So there's definitely was adiscussion of what is the right
route to take, right?
You're you feel like we're beingdisrupted and there's multiple
avenues and you need to pick oneof them.
We pick.
(13:33):
The avenue of expanding, ofbuilding the second, the second
product that was a responsiveweb design.
We were excited about it.
We thought back then that maybethere's a chance that we will be
the first platform out therethat is truly.
Responsive design for, smallbusinesses.
Evidently we were not, like, ittook us about two years to build
(13:54):
it.
And as I said, some of theexisting incumbents were all,
were also they were desktopfirst and they were adding
mobile.
So we all got to the market atthe same time with a responsive
web design builder.
Dan Balcauski (14:06):
So you mentioned before, like, you having to
manage, obviously the, the teaminternally, but then also you
mentioned the the investors, theboard.
Help me understand that,'causeI, it's like, it's, it sounds
like maybe the, this was a, alarger undertaking than maybe
you first assumed.
So I'm curious how you.
Were how you managed the boardand their expectations as you
(14:30):
guys were navigating thistransition.
Itai Sadan (14:33):
Yeah.
I think early on it was reallydifficult to explain'cause
you're doing really well.
Dan Balcauski (14:39):
Mm-hmm.
Itai Sadan (14:39):
see it in the revenue.
You don't see any drive.
It's like if you're identifyingthe trend and the dynamics in
the market changing early enoughthere's not a lot of signs.
Out there that that the end isnearing if you don't do
anything.
So it's hard to persuade peopleat that time.
But I think this, again, this isthe role of the founders
ensuring product market fit andensuring persuading the rest of
(15:04):
the folks on the ship that weneed to shift course a bit in
order to, in order to continueand drive the growth and success
of the company.
And there was enough, like youstart, you say, Hey, I'm gonna
build this second product.
Initially we're gonna take maybea Tiger team to work on it.
Eventually it launches.
(15:25):
Nobody wants to give that newproduct any.
Time of day, right?
Sales is so focused on product Athat's actually generating
revenue.
Marketing doesn't want to giveit any real estate on the
website.
So you have to fight the fightfor this new product to give it
a chance to succeed.
And I think if it really has, ifit's really solving a pain point
(15:49):
and if it really doing what'ssupposed to do, it will start to
gain traction.
And I think as there starts tobe real traction and some
revenue behind it and goodcustomer feedback, marketing is
open to giving it more realestate and sellers are start to
get interested in selling it.
So it takes time and maybe bythe time that it's.
(16:09):
50 50 between the revenue comingfrom the old legacy product and
the new product at that point,or maybe quite a bit before that
people internally really knowwhere the future of the company
lies.
Uh, but
Dan Balcauski (16:22):
Mm.
What.
Itai Sadan (16:23):
transition, probably took two years.
To be truthful.
Dan Balcauski (16:26):
Was there anything that you recall from
that time period?
Again, even focusing on the, onthe board in order to convince
them to maintain or to buildconfidence in the, in the
strategy?
'cause I imagine, two, twoyears, it depends how long
you've been a productdevelopment.
Sometimes that that might belike, oh yeah, of course it's
gonna take two years for a newproduct.
So people might, if you haveoptimistic estimates, maybe you
(16:46):
thought it was gonna be muchless than that.
Sounds about right.
Maybe in retrospect was thereanything that you did to help
shore up confidence from theboard level that, that, that
this approach was gonna pay off?
Itai Sadan (16:57):
Yeah, I think those two years were not easy in terms
of top line revenue for thecompany.
You think of there's product Athat's already generating
millions of revenue and isstarting to see decline.
Product B is gaining sometraction, but you know this,
they're both, it's subsubscription product.
It takes time for that revenueto become somewhat material
(17:21):
meaningful.
So in some ways you're liketaking money out of pocket A and
moving it into pocket B.
But the top line of the companywas pretty flat in those years,
and it was pretty clear we werenot.
Going to be able to raise moneyfrom external investors in that
time.
And we already had, this waspost series B, so we did have
(17:43):
some funds, but it was, weneeded additional financing.
Dan Balcauski (17:48):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (17:49):
I think over, during those two years, the existing
investors came and supported thecompany.
But it was easier for someonewho's internal to really see the
traction, even though it wasearly traction, and to believe
that this product is going toovertake the legacy product and
become so the, the, the futurerevenue driver of the company.
(18:11):
but it did.
Require them.
It did require us to persuadethem.
It did require us to presentdata to prove this.
Dan Balcauski (18:20):
Yeah.
Itai Sadan (18:21):
I'm still very thankful for them, for
supporting those company, thecompany, in those two years.
'cause it was not, if it was notfor them, the company could have
been at.
Dan Balcauski (18:30):
You mentioned as well, it, so shifting internally
in that transaction transition,you mentioned, marketing and
sales.
I wanna focus just on sales'cause this is a common problem
when you have a, a secondproduct or new product or, or
transition of, a business modelwhere, you know, the existing
sales folks, they have theirpitch, they have their demo that
they're, used to talking about.
(18:52):
And now you have this new thingand maybe customers aren't,
asking for it yet.
There's how do you.
Manage that transition on thesales side to seed the success
of this newer product that maybewas a bit of a change from how
the, the sales team was, wasused to talking about it.
Itai Sadan (19:08):
Yeah.
I think if you're buildingsomething, hopefully you're
building it because there'speople out there that, that want
that product, and you've done.
done some of that homework inadvance.
So we did have some customersthat were early adopters of
that, and I think that helpedgive confidence to sales in some
(19:30):
ways that they were they wereadopt.
Some of those were adopting andusing.
And over time as we opened it upmore and more that that
confidence grew.
Dan Balcauski (19:41):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (19:41):
Yeah, you do.
It's not, it's, let's say it's,it wouldn't be enough that just
me and my co-founder would say,Hey go ahead.
Go out and sell it.
Go out and sell it.
You need there needs to be likecustomers out there that are
actually buying it proving thatthere's really arms and ls to
this.
Dan Balcauski (19:56):
Was, was this the type of thing where you had the,
like the entire salesorganization rolled out at once,
or did you guys grab some subsetof the team in order to have
them focus on nurturing andselling the, the new product
given the overlap with yourexisting mobile?
I, I could see either way, butI'm not sure if there was a way
that worked for you guys.
Itai Sadan (20:15):
Yeah.
Yeah, the company wasn't thatbig back then and, we had a a
sales assisted motions throughsellers and we had also, we also
sell on the web until today, weprobably launched it first to
some.
Close customers before we put itas a self-service tool.
So hand handheld, the firstcustomers who were using the
(20:35):
platform got them to adopt it.
These were bigger customers thatmaybe made some commitments to
this.
And then over time we alsoopened it up to self-service to
all our customers.
Dan Balcauski (20:48):
Got it.
And so, earlier in theconversation, you were
mentioned, two differentstrategic pivots.
So the one was the mobile toresponsive pivot, and the other
was the the switch in sort ofcustomer segment focus.
So pivoting back to the customersegment focus option.
So, there, you were, you had SMBand you had these digital
agencies.
You were talking about how itwas, separating the, or.
(21:09):
Or spreading very thinly boththe go-to market motion as well
as the, the product investments.
So walk me through the evolutionof, of that as a problem.
Sometimes, obviously there couldbe folks who are buying it, who
are outside of your target andit's totally fine.
Like, and they might wantdifferent things, but it sounds
like it got to a breaking point.
So I'm curious, like what washappening inside the business at
(21:30):
that time that sort of realizedlike, okay, that we, we've, this
is really forcing our hand andmaking to make a choice.
Itai Sadan (21:37):
So I think the struggle was between kind of the
two ICPs of small businesses andkind of these web professionals
was always there, but we didn'tfor initially, in the early
days, we didn't feel like we hadto make a choice.
We just built one product andwhoever wanted to use it.
when we got into kind of fiercecompetition when around the
(21:59):
responsive website builder, and.
And it really started hurtingour growth.
You see that there's much biggercompanies out there, bigger r
and d teams that have more focusthan you have.
And then that's concerning,right?
Like you're scratching yourhead, how am I gonna beat those?
(22:20):
With a much smaller team,smaller budget, I clearly have.
To make a decision here.
So it's
Dan Balcauski (22:26):
mm.
Itai Sadan (22:26):
like your hand is a little bit forced in some way.
'Cause there's just no way towin.
If you're not focused and youknow you have too many customers
that are, that you're servingand you need to build a for that
customer, B for that for theother customer and C with a
small r and d team.
Dan Balcauski (22:45):
Mm.
Itai Sadan (22:46):
so I, I think that's you know that pain of service
serving multiple customers wasthere for a while, for a long
while.
but at the end we, in order toreally make sure that we
continue.
To grow and make the rightdecision.
We had, we felt like we had tomake, I think on one side it was
maybe a little bit defensive.
(23:07):
We felt like we needed to make achoice.
On the other hand, we wereexcited about making a choice.
'Cause we felt like there's anopportunity there.
Everybody's fighting on the samecustomer.
But hey, we have this.
Other type of customer that isgrowing and we feel like this
other customer is underserved,so let's head the ship in that
direction.
(23:27):
And there's a big tam out thereof web designers, digital
marketers.
We can grow leaps and boundsjust in that market.
And,
Dan Balcauski (23:36):
Well, I, yeah, I'm curious.
Itai Sadan (23:38):
last thing, I would also say, I think the DNA of the
company kind of being veryengineering, a lot of like all
our engineers on is, are in.
kind of, most of our engineersare in Israel.
so there's a very strongengineering culture in the
company.
I think we, we understood betterthe, what the sophisticated
(24:00):
users wanted.
And were probably better atbuilding the products that solve
their pain points versus goingand trying to dumb down and do
simple things for a smallbusiness.
So we were, we were prettyexcited about making this
choice.
Dan Balcauski (24:15):
So you realize you have to make a decision.
I'm curious, like,'cause you,you mentioned, a word like tam
in there engineering background.
Like, did you, like, how did youactually approach making the
decision?
Was it like a very sort ofanalytical exercise?
Like, did you and Amir gettogether and say, be like, this
is what the company looks likeif we go this direction, this
what it looks like.
This is the tam for both.
Like how did you actuallyapproach, like making that.
(24:38):
That choice, like when it cameto you and your leadership team.
Itai Sadan (24:41):
Yeah.
So I think it starts with kindof me and Amir agreeing that
this is like, noodling on it fora while and thinking about it
and agreeing that this is thedirection that we need to go.
And then from there wetypically, do an offside or
something and persuade the restof the management team to be on
board.
And from there it cascadesdownward to the rest of the
(25:03):
company.
Yeah, I think that's probablythe way that it went.
Dan Balcauski (25:07):
And so you guys make this decision to go after
the more sophisticated buyer,okay?
So you come out of yourmanagement offsite or whatever
it ended up being.
Itai Sadan (25:15):
yeah, and we usually come pretty much pretty prepared
there to these offsites.
Like we come with data and therewas a lot of data.
'cause these were two user basesthat we have.
So it's
Dan Balcauski (25:24):
hmm.
Itai Sadan (25:24):
easy, like to look at data like growth rates,
retention rates, things likethat.
So I, we are, pretty analyticalin our decision making.
Dan Balcauski (25:33):
Not, not surprising given the engineering
background of the company aswell.
And, and if you have a volumemarket, right?
That's an advantage of having a,a, a, a volume market of being
able to some, sometimes moreenterprise type companies.
It's just like.
Yeah, if you don't have enoughdeals to, or customer logos to
be able to tell that.
But so using that data to helpyou support that decision, so
you guys make the decision froma leadership level, okay, we're,
(25:55):
we're gonna go after this moresophisticated buyer.
I'm curious then on theexecution of that decision, what
what was the sequence of changesthat you made?
Like, okay, you say like, or wehave all these existing
customers.
I like, what was the strategy orthe plan from there to like say,
okay, given that we've realizedor we've made the decision that
(26:16):
we're not gonna after s and b,like what do we change for
second, third, like that?
Once we have that in place.
Itai Sadan (26:22):
Yeah.
I remember, pretty clearly in,in the early days, think of kind
of our website right.
It was all geared and messagedtowards small businesses a
while, when we startedunderstanding that there's this
other ICP of web professionals,we probably put somewhere in the
navigation, like a link topartners or resellers.
(26:43):
So it was a small part of our goto market.
You would click on that partnersresellers, and there was
probably a page where theoffering for those who are more
professionals was articulatedthere.
time that part of kind ofpartners, resellers, agencies
(27:04):
started to become the majorityof the website.
And to the point that today, ifyou come to the website, the
whole language, everything onthe homepage, and this has been
around like that for for us fora couple of years.
It talks to agencies, it talksto web professionals.
So it was it overtook thecompany over time as we, as it
(27:27):
pro, as we proved out thesuccess and we saw the traction
happening.
Dan Balcauski (27:32):
And so, in this transition, what proved harder
to execute than you expected?
Itai Sadan (27:39):
Ooh great question.
I think I don't, I think thedecision was absolutely right.
If I go back, what would I domaybe differently is just move
faster.
Because I think we were early tounderstand that there's an
underserved market there earlyto come into the market with a
product for digital marketingagencies and web professionals.
(28:00):
And since then, others has, haveseen our success and have
followed.
And now this area as well iswe're seeing more competition
both from existing platformsthat we're, we're initially only
SMBs focused and have createdsolutions for web designers, so
more competitors creeping intospace.
(28:24):
Initially we were there aloneand if maybe if we would've
moved faster and grown faster wewould've had a bigger part of
that market.
Today we're competing there inthat, in this market as well.
Dan Balcauski (28:36):
So I'm curious with that because the previous
response you were talking about,like the.
The marketing landing page andhow the, you grew to eventually,
the agency business was moredominant and so that, took place
over the header.
And so I see a lot of companiesthat get I, I go to a lot of
SaaS websites because I havepersonality problems, but it's
often it surprising how.
Confusing like their hero is oflike, who is this for?
(29:00):
Right.
'Cause I think they are tryingto straddle multiple companies.
So is it, is it within, when yousay like moving faster, is it
within that sort of the switchof like, Hey, like we've made
this decision to pivot over,like, let's just rip the bandaid
off.
Or just saying like, we're foragencies, like versus waiting
for that to be the majority ofthe business.
Itai Sadan (29:17):
I think it's both that and probably mo and not
just that.
I think it's also, the of budgetthat you put into your, your
marketing budget, into yourbranding, into your paid
advertising, just to go faster.
Become a bigger player.
Just accelerate that before,before other people come into to
(29:40):
the space.
Dan Balcauski (29:41):
both of those strategic pivots are
fascinating.
Both the mobile to responsiveweb as well as the the founder
or, or the, the personatransitions.
Those are very difficult.
I think for a lot of folks.
I'm sure there's a lot oflisteners out there who have
tried to navigate similartransitions in their business.
So, so super helpful there.
I'm sure both of those.
Reinvention experiences haverequired leadership and, and
(30:04):
maybe different leadership.
And you've, as I mentioned inthe intro you've, you've been
leading Guda for 15 years now,which is unusual founder
longevity.
I'm curious like how you viewhow you've changed as a leader
from those early garage days tonow.
I guess has there, has therebeen any sort of skills.
That have been most surprisingto you of like, we all lack
(30:27):
self-awareness to a certain,certain regard.
I'm curious, like if there's, ifthere's skills that you've
picked up, you know now later inyour leader career that you know
you didn't realize were gonna beas important as they were.
Itai Sadan (30:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think at every stage of acompany you need to evolve and,
and have embrace differentskills.
The first, getting to the firstmillion of a R is like just
survival.
Is it like, am I gonna be ableto make paycheck at the end of
the months?
It's these type of con concernsas a founder and CEO you wear a
(31:00):
ton of hats at that point.
You're doing the sales, you'redoing the marketing maybe you're
hiring, we've started to hirelike some of the initial folks
on the business side, but it'sstill, you're still doing a lot
of different things thenthinking about getting to the
first 10 million.
at that point you're definitelygrowing that team around you.
(31:22):
There's a little bit of scalethat's starting to happen.
You try out different you startbringing some experts in that
are much better than you are.
You make a lot of mistakes inhiring.
Hopefully you learn from thatand make fewer mistakes.
I still make mistakes untiltoday, and I learned from them.
And then like thinking about, 50million kind of in a RR which we
(31:45):
crossed a while ago, it's,that's a different type of
scale.
Like you really need, you'redefinitely not.
both sales and marketing and anda lot of other things you have.
Hopefully by this time, seniorexecutives that have been there
have done that a couple of timesin other companies.
They're doing it much betterthan you are.
(32:07):
You give them a lot of autonomy.
And I find myself, when thingsare going well in, finance,
sales, product, I don't need toget into those areas as much.
I can be much more on thestrategic side, be much more
managing, getting involved wherethey're asking me to get
involved.
I feel like where.
And so I delegate a lot.
(32:29):
And I enjoy delegating.
I think where I find myselfspending more time is usually
when there's an exec that is notkind of uh, holding his own or
her own.
And I need to get involved theremore than I would've wanted to.
but
Dan Balcauski (32:45):
I.
Itai Sadan (32:45):
yeah.
Dan Balcauski (32:46):
So I love how you painted sort of those different
eras zero to 1 million, a r to10 million, a r to 50 million 50
million plus.
I'm curious, like, was there anyof those, maybe it was, maybe it
was in the transitions of thoseeras.
Or maybe it was some other sortof period or moment in time.
I'm curious where there was achange in how the business
needed to operate that maybewasn't aligned to your sort of
(33:08):
regular way of being that wasmost jarring for you when you
realize you, you had to adaptyour the way you were leading
the company.
Was there any moment like thatsticks out to you?
Itai Sadan (33:18):
So many moments like that, Dan, that I can think of.
One of, for me, like one of the,probably funnier moments was.
I came from a big company beforestarting Duda.
I was at SAP.
And then, one of the things thatI, I wanted to do something like
move to do my own startup.
And, like I, I saw an SAP kindof, which is common for a lot of
(33:42):
enterprises, a lot of thingsthat I've learned.
When I operate my company, a lotof examples of things of how I
don't want don't wanna run acompany.
Dan Balcauski (33:51):
Mm mm.
Itai Sadan (33:52):
And, there's a lot of this wasting of times in
meetings and alignment calls andthat was fun in the early days
starting Duda, that we didn'tneed to do those things'cause we
were like 10 people in the roomin the early days and everybody
knew everything.
So you didn't have to.
Have those type of meetings.
And it's probably when we grewto, I don't know, but we were
(34:14):
probably maybe 20 or 30 peopleand we had already like more
than, one location becauseengineering was in Israel and I
was here with the business team.
I was in California back thenwith the business team.
and I think someone came andsaid to me, this, I remember the
word very succinctly, itai.
There's no visibility.
(34:37):
And I felt, wow, that's suchlike a, an enterprise that kind
of, it, but it, I, he was,whoever that, that was, they
were totally right.
Like, it's now like we arehaving meetings and people are
in a little bit feeling siloedand out and, probably I need to
do like, some kind of.
Company all hands meeting orkind of think about the
(34:58):
communication and how doeseverybody know?
'cause we're no longer 10 peoplein the same room and everybody
knows what's happening.
Like it's starting to be like amore dispersed company.
So you know, you have, as yougrow, there's some of these
things like communication andvisibility that you need to
think about.
Dan Balcauski (35:15):
Hmm.
Itai Sadan (35:16):
and obviously the, today the team's almost 200
people, so I put a lot ofattention.
And we have all hands and townhalls and there's a CEO
newsletters that I send out withkind of my thoughts.
So yeah these things develop andand and need to develop as the
company becomes bigger.
Dan Balcauski (35:36):
Well, that's, that's fascinating.
Yeah, it's, it, you, it's likewe, no, we are being
transparent.
But yeah, the big, big companyprocess stuff.
You when you do have 10 peoplein a room, you don't really, you
really need, and then you'relike, oh yeah, there's, there's
a reason this stuff exists.
This has been great.
I do wanna start wrapping us upwith a couple of closeout
questions.
Just I wanna go back for thefirst question on that.
You, you mentioned you startedudo with your co-founder Amir,
(35:58):
who's CTO.
You've known each other sincehigh school.
We've been business 15 plusyears.
What's the secret toestablishing good business
partnerships?
Like why has that worked so wellfor you?
Any advice that you could pullout of like understanding what's
gonna make a successful businesspartner
Itai Sadan (36:14):
Yeah, I think for us it's it's just those years, it's
Dan Balcauski (36:16):
I.
Itai Sadan (36:17):
history.
We've gone through so much overthese years, failures been there
for one another.
I think we have, are veryaligned on our, our values and
the way we see things.
I don't remember, in 15 years, Idon't remember us having really
(36:37):
any significant kind of falloutor anything like that.
We typically agree on a lot ofthings and there's a lot of
trust where, today I don't needto talk to Amir every week.
I can talk to him every secondweek or so.
We meet in a lot of meetingswith the management and other
cases, but we're just, there'sjust this strong alignment
(37:00):
between us that is very naturaland is based on shared history.
We just trust each other to doeach does their best work and we
know that we trust the decisionmaking.
And I think that's thefoundation underlying the
company.
Dan Balcauski (37:17):
Build trust and a lot of years is shared
experience.
Italia, if I could give you abillboard, he put any advice on
there for other B2B sass CEOstrying to scale the companies
who would go on it.
Itai Sadan (37:26):
do your own thing.
I think, and think it's great tohave mentors and advisors and
peop and you should be talkingto people all the time and get
different ideas, but no twocompanies are alike.
something that worked for onecompany doesn't necessarily mean
that it will work for yourcompany.
(37:48):
at the end, there's no templatecompany.
You need to do your own thing.
Listen to all that advice, butit's at the end.
Whatever you think is right foryour company.
Dan Balcauski (37:57):
Do your own thing Itai.
If our listeners wanna connectwith you, learn more about Duda,
how can they do that?
Itai Sadan (38:02):
LinkedIn is a good way to connect with me.
You can send me an email, itaiitai@Duda.co.
one of those things.
Dan Balcauski (38:12):
Awesome.
I will put links to those in theshow notes for our listeners.
Thank you Ty.
That wraps up this episode ofSAS Scale Secrets.
Thank you for sharing yourjourney insights.
For our listeners who findit,Itaisites valuable, please
leave a review and share thisepisode with your network.
Really helps the podcast grow.
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