September 16, 2025 • 36 mins
Host Dan Balcauski speaks with Kaveh Rostampor, CEO and co-founder of Planhat, a customer platform designed to help businesses acquire, grow, service, and retain customers. Kaveh shares insights from his journey in scaling Planhat, emphasizing the importance of bootstrapping, maintaining a clean cap table, and creating an expectation document to ensure employees' success. He also discusses the impact of martial arts on his business approach, the benefits of raising investment capital, and strategies for building and retaining a high-performing team. The episode provides valuable lessons for SaaS entrepreneurs on balancing growth with long-term value creation.
01:05 Meet Kaveh Rostampor: CEO and Co-Founder of Planhat
01:50 Kaveh's Journey from Martial Arts to SaaS
03:48 What is Planhat?
04:56 Bootstrapping vs. Raising Venture Capital
06:58 The Impact of Funding on Business Decisions
13:50 The Importance of a Clean Cap Table
17:34 The Role of Board Members in Scaling Companies
20:41 The Importance of Thoughtful Hiring
21:19 Building Strong Management Teams
22:17 Scaling Internal Teams and Maintaining Quality
22:58 Setting Clear Expectations for New Hires
23:59 Defining Performance Metrics
29:21 Retaining Top Talent
30:55 Rapid Fire Questions
Guest Links
twitter: @rostampor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaveh-rostampor/
www.planhat.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
kaveh rostampor (00:00):
Hey, it's in the management that it happens.
(00:01):
It's not in some two hourmeeting once per quarter, where
all the magic happens.
It's the day to day decisionsthat people make, high standards
is not about the things you say.
Internally it's about the peoplethat you don't keep in the
business.
Oh man.
I say don't listen to anybody.
Don't listen to this part.
Don't listen.
Don't read article.
(00:21):
Like just focus on your ownthing.
Build a good product.
Build a good team.
If you build a good product anda good team, all the good things
will happen to you.
Customers will come andinvestors will come and they'll
give you money and you, it'll begood.
Dan Balcauski (00:58):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withKaveh Rostampor, CEO, and
co-founder of Planhat, thecustomer platform that helps
companies acquire, grow,service, and retain lifelong
customers.
Kaveh Bootstrap Planhat to over$10 million in a RR before
raising capital and successfullybuilt sizable operations across
(01:20):
continents.
Kaveh is a seasoned operatorbringing 20 years of software
experience to the table.
When he is not leading PlanHead.
He serves on the boards ofseveral companies and is a
dedicated martial artist andproud father of three.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Kaveh to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
kaveh rostampor (01:34):
Thank you for having me, Dan.
Dan Balcauski (01:36):
I am very excited for our conversation today.
It's been a long time coming,but we finally made it happen.
I gave folks a little bit ofyour introduction in the
background, but for folks who.
Haven't been closely followingyour career.
Could you please just brieflyintroduce yourself?
Tell us a little about yourjourney in the SaaS world.
kaveh rostampor (01:53):
Yeah, sure.
So, as you said, my name is ve.
I grew up in Sweden.
Stockholm in Sweden.
And I've been in California nowfor 13 years and I've been in
SaaS for 20 years.
Before that I was a martialartist fighter.
And yeah, so 20 years ago Ijoined a startup and I was a
SaaS B2B company.
(02:14):
And, I was there for a long timeand learned how to do business
there.
And I've been founding twocompanies.
One of them is Planhat and,yeah, as you said, like I've
been on a bunch of differentboards of startups, scale ups,
public companies, and have hadthe chance to learn about
business from that angle too,yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:34):
So you mentioned you brought the martial artist
piece back in there.
So I'm curious, you were wasthis like competitive, like you
were like making an income doingmartial arts?
kaveh rostampor (02:44):
Oh man.
I wish that I was making anincome but no, but I was pretty
good at it.
I been a swish champion severaltimes.
I've been competing for thenational team, but martial arts
at least back then, this is nowsome time ago, so I.
There was, you wouldn't makeyour money out of it at best.
You dreamed about going to theOlympics and win a gold medal.
But there was the, it's not likeFormula One or tennis anything
(03:08):
like that.
Dan Balcauski (03:09):
I'm curious out of, out of your experience
training in such a disciplinefor so long, have you found
getting hit in the facerepeatedly in those martial arts
practices has helped you in yourbusiness career?
kaveh rostampor (03:24):
I don't know if hitting being hit in the face
has helped.
Only that piece has not helped,but no, but I, as with, I think
any sport at the higher levels,as I've been an athlete, is take
a lot of those things with you.
If it's discipline, hard work,or not complaining, and, focus
on these things, obviously thatobviously helps.
Dan Balcauski (03:46):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
For, you mentioned we mentionedPlanhat, which is a company
you're currently running andScaling.
For folks who aren't familiarwith that, can you just give us
a brief, kind of 32nd overviewof what Planhat is and where you
guys play?
kaveh rostampor (03:58):
Yeah.
So
Dan Balcauski (03:59):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (03:59):
is we're building a unified CRM, and so
we help companies to acquire, toservice, to grow and retain
their customers.
So you can think of it as wethink of it as a new generation
CRM productivity tool in one.
Think of it as a platform thathas, all the power and
expectation you have with CRM.
(04:21):
So if it's data governance,security, stability, and these
things and you combine that withsort of the productivity tooling
where people actually like to dotheir work.
So try to combine that in one.
And we started out this businessfocusing on the post being a
post-sale CRM.
So focusing on customer successgrow, improving growth and re
(04:42):
net retention for companies andsort of broaden ourselves since
then.
Dan Balcauski (04:47):
Got it.
Got it.
And one area that I findparticularly interesting about
Plant Hatch's journey is youguys were.
Bootstrapped specifically for avery long time in your journey
until you were well past whatmost folks would consider.
You'd raise venture capital andfrom my understanding,
profitable but eventually youdid raise funding.
(05:09):
So I guess, can you, could you.
Just take me through briefly, Iguess, what was your early sort
of view on, bootstrapping thebusiness versus, maybe more
traditional path of gettinginstitutional capital, and then
what eventually changed to thefact that you guys decided to
take a significant amount ofequity funding?
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (05:26):
Yeah, so the business was bootstrap for the
first I think seven years.
Six, seven years.
and the thinking there was, Iknow I always thought very long
term about our business andcompany,
Dan Balcauski (05:38):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (05:38):
And, try to take long term decisions.
And one thing that, it is veryimportant as companies grow is
that, you wanna, for me and forus, it's always been important
to be control of the cap tableof planet.
We focus a lot on what we callreal value creation, which is,
I.
Do you generate cash?
Can you pay your bills?
Do you actually have customersthat are willing to pay for your
(06:00):
product and services?
And if they are, then you arecreating value for them.
that was a big part of sort ofplanet's focus in the early
days.
And yes, we raised our biground, we raised$50 million.
A couple of years ago now.
And the thinking there was thatit's a, it was a bit
opportunistic.
It was a lot of demand and a lotof investors being very
(06:21):
interested in our business.
But it was also that we, theambition levels of the company
has been increasing every yearso to.
Go after the big opportunitiesthat we see.
We think that having a big warchest and having a lot of
capital is important.
So as the cost base of thecompany increases, as the
ambitions increases.
(06:41):
You.
You also wanna have a bigger warchest and not go month to month
or quarter by quarter andlooking too much on just the
cash that you're generatingevery month.
Dan Balcauski (06:51):
Well, you how?
Oh, that's that's fantastic.
You highlighted, this focus on,real value creation.
And I'm curious, like, how, ifat all, did your decision making
around growth investments changeor not After.
Raising this significant round,I guess, obviously, I mean, I'm
sure there were ways that youguys had thought before of
(07:13):
investing.
Like now that you had thatadditional capital, did that
actually change how you sort ofviewed different opportunities
you might invest in?
kaveh rostampor (07:20):
So I would say both yes and no.
So the thing is that if you're abootstrap for the first seven
years of the business, it's veryhard to sort of, switch that and
start burning tens of millionsof dollars every year.
That's sort of nothing DNA orthe culture of the company.
So being financially disciplinedand focusing on.
things that creates value, whichis like sales building products,
(07:44):
focusing on marketing campaignsthat works and whatnot is, has
always been with us.
So I think that's just a, that'sjust a positive positive thing.
Now that said, I think that the,we when we have a bigger balance
sheet and war chest, thedecisions we take when it comes
to giving ourselves time to.
(08:05):
Figure out new products, figureout the platform, figure out
what segments of the market thatwe want to go after, what
verticals we want to go after.
I think that that has changed.
So just the liberty of beingeven more long term on the way
we think about decisions hasdefinitely changed.
So I think that in, in thatsense it's definitely the, I
(08:26):
mean now in hindsight that thecompany didn't go bankrupt in
the early days or.
We are a bigger company withhundreds of customers and global
operations and a big work.
Just, I think that now inhindsight, it was, it definitely
feels like the right decisionsto make.
I think I.
Dan Balcauski (08:42):
So, post that funding, I guess, were there any
investments that you could thinkof that you made post-funding
that maybe you wouldn't haveconsidered During the bootstrap
phase?
kaveh rostampor (08:53):
Yeah,
Dan Balcauski (08:53):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (08:54):
Before the bootstrap days, we always had
that, this.
The sort of vision of, again, asI said, like building a next
generation CRM, for lack of abetter word.
Dan Balcauski (09:02):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (09:03):
But that's a hard thing to do when you're a
small bootstrap business.
So you need to start on a, in avery specific niche.
And for us it was.
Post-sales and customer success,B2B and certain deal sizes,
right?
That's where we operated nowwith the funding.
It enabled us to build out theplatform more and enable the
(09:24):
business to go more broader andwider after other other
segments.
Dan Balcauski (09:30):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (09:31):
So, so that, I say that's sort of the biggest,
that's sort of the biggestthing.
So that, that's definitely beenon en enabler.
Dan Balcauski (09:37):
So it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but
like I guess kind of what I hearin that answer is a little bit
of like, when you're bootstrap,there's a certain need to focus
on, let us go capture the demandthat's already there, versus
there's a little bit moreflexibility for maybe painting
into a vision that doesn't quiteexist in the marketplace that
maybe is gonna require.
Not only the level of productdevelopment, but probably the
(09:59):
level of market education ofwhat a unified, full end-to-end
customer CRM looks like, right?
That maybe people aren'tsearching, they're not typing
that into Google because thatthing doesn't really exist yet.
kaveh rostampor (10:11):
Correct, correct.
Dan Balcauski (10:13):
It, well you mentioned, the culture aspect of
it.
'cause you said like you getthis, check and it's not in the
DNA of the company.
Right.
And so you as the CEO and, butprobably you've, that's seeped
into how, employees at thecompany bring you sort of
project ideas.
Right.
How do you, I guess.
Change that, sort of posture inyourself.
(10:34):
Was this something that, youhad, your sort of board members,
were sort of encouraging to do,and then how do you communicate
that to the sort of the broaderteam in terms of this sort of
wider expanse to sort of takesome of these longer term bets?
kaveh rostampor (10:49):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I it be it come, it's organic.
It's not it's not a, you you get$50 million in your bank
account.
You go out and have a big
Dan Balcauski (10:58):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (10:59):
office next day and tell everybody that, eh yes
to all the crazy projects andthere's crazy ideas that you
guys had.
So that, that.
That
Dan Balcauski (11:07):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (11:07):
I don't think that that happens for anyone.
It's more organic.
It's more that, hey I don'tknow.
Say that on the product ortechnology side, you already
have a.
A roadmap for what you wannabuild the next I don't know, 2,
3, 6, 12 months.
And it's not like you changeeverything.
The next day you get a bigfunding round.
Same thing with go to market.
(11:28):
It's you don't go out and hire500 new salespeople when you
don't have the managementbandwidth or.
Do any crazy marketing campaignsbefore you're ready for them.
So it's not that dramatic, Iwould say, at least for us, it
wasn't that dramatic.
It's been very organic andgradual, but the ambitions
changes, right?
You for us, and I think that we,in hindsight, we did do some
(11:50):
crazy bets that didn't work out,which which is what it is.
But you are more, you take morerisk.
You, for us, we doubled down onthe, on, we have a business
that's sort of equally in sizein Europe and North America or
in Americas.
And for us to sort of doubledown on that strategy and not
being a regional player and wantto be global player was one
(12:14):
thing that we doubled down on.
And be like, okay, we are hereto stay.
We
Dan Balcauski (12:17):
Hmm,
kaveh rostampor (12:17):
going to hire even more stronger people,
talented people in theseregions.
They're more expensive.
now have the cash to invest inthis and so on.
So, yeah, that's
Dan Balcauski (12:27):
got
kaveh rostampor (12:27):
thought about it.
Dan Balcauski (12:29):
it.
A little bit more organic andless Mosi Sun saying you need to
be crazier not crazy enough.
kaveh rostampor (12:33):
So we're boring that way.
Dan Balcauski (12:36):
Fair enough.
Well, you had mentioned in, inhindsight, it looked like the
path you had taken bootstrapfor, the period of time Nixon
period being, growing a big,profitable company and then,
taking the growth equityinvestment later was the right
thing.
I guess as you look back inhindsight, is there anything
that you wish you would've doneor anything that you would've
changed in that path?
kaveh rostampor (12:57):
Oh man.
No.
I feel like we did the rightthings.
We did take some risk.
I think, I do think that weoverhired for a period there
Dan Balcauski (13:04):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (13:05):
We knew about the risks of that some of the
things didn't play out the waywe wanted.
so no, I'm not regretful of anymajor things that we did.
I wanna say, so I know that thisis a bit boring.
Like I don't have a good storyof we took the money and burn it
on some crazy campaign and itpaid off.
That didn't happen for us.
(13:25):
And also we didn't we didn'tjust truck along either.
Like we, we yeah, we doubleddown on these big markets and
that, I think that that was a,that's a big bet in itself to
actually wanting to build aglobal business ballsy and we
sort of went after it.
So I, I think I, I don't haveany big regrets that, that I
think that we did.
Dan Balcauski (13:43):
Yeah.
Well, hey, that that, that's allto the good.
But we're always if there'shistory could play out in so
many different ways.
Well, kind of transitioning alittle bit, like you'd mentioned
earlier around keeping a cleansort of cap table was really
important to you.
And I guess, for our listenersor anyone who's, might not be
familiar with this concept canyou just explain what, keeping a
(14:05):
clean cap table means to you andwhy you think it's so important?
kaveh rostampor (14:09):
Yeah.
So, okay, so, okay.
What it means, I think is Ithink most of your listeners
know what the, what sort of highat the highest level means.
But I think that, think aboutwhat typically happens a lot of
businesses, right?
Is that an idea, you wanna starta company, you have an idea
maybe there's a few of you.
So you know, you have aPowerPoint, you go in.
People raise, pre-seed round orpre pre-seed round and seed
(14:33):
round and I don't know, a seriesA and a series B and A add-on
and C and D and f and g and allthese things.
And I think the for and.
I'm not an expert in this atall, but I don't know.
You give up, you get dilutedevery time you raise capital,
right?
One is that you get pre shareson your business.
And the second thing, you justget more di diluted early on,
(14:53):
and then by the time that Idon't know, you have a few
million dollars or$5 million or$10 million in a RR, you are a
sizable business.
You're out there, you'refighting a good fight, but.
A lot of your business is ownedby other people, if it's friends
and family and early stageinvestors and whatnot.
And and and again, I'm not anexpert here, like these
(15:14):
investors, they call you andthey have, somebody wants to
sell their share.
Somebody wants you to growfaster or slower.
Somebody has an opinion on how,what kind of products you build
and, you don't want you to hiretheir friend or, I don't know,
all kinds of things thathappens.
And so I think that if wecategorize that journey as a.
Messy cap table, put it thatway.
(15:36):
Right.
Dan Balcauski (15:36):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (15:37):
And and we are on the opposite, right, that if
you bootstrap for a long time,obviously you then have a very
clean cap table,
Dan Balcauski (15:45):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (15:46):
you don't have so many people on the cap table.
And I would say that the peopleyou want to have on the cap
table are the people that workfor your company, the employees,
because these people are.
They care about your business.
They're they give their time andenergy into this business.
I consider that more of a cleancap table.
Nobody calls you and have anopinion on what current products
(16:07):
you should build or, Wanting tosell their shares or for you to
go left or right or whatnot.
So, yeah, so that's what I meanby that.
And then but at the end of theday, like this comes from like
bootstrapping helps with this.
The
Dan Balcauski (16:20):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (16:21):
you bootstrapped, the easier this
becomes.
and
Dan Balcauski (16:26):
curious.
I like how did you come to valuethis as an approach?
Was this from experience runningprevious companies or did you
have sort of mentor who is whokind of taught you this?
I would imagine like mostentrepreneurs are, especially
maybe your first business.
This is not something thatyou're like trying to keep front
of mind of as a concern.
kaveh rostampor (16:42):
So, yes.
So yes to all those things.
So I had I was at anothercompany.
That company grew to be verybig.
That company, I think the firsttime we got external funding or
money into that business.
The company was well above ahundred million dollars in a RR,
when the company went public, Ithink 80% or so of the company
was owned by the management teamand employees and founders and
(17:03):
whatnot.
So obviously.
That's how I learned businessand from the founder of that
company was very influentialthere.
So I'm very appreciative forthat.
and also like having friends andseeing other companies how
things are done and what happenswhen these companies grow.
I.
And also as a board member too,I've been a board member of a
bunch of businesses over theyears and just seeing how yeah,
(17:25):
what happens in the boardroomand, all the good and the messy
things that happens in ourboardroom as the company are
scaling, I.
Dan Balcauski (17:34):
Well, I'm curious from your, experience, on both
sides of the table, as Imentioned the intro, you're not
only CEO but you also sit onboards of, several companies.
I'm curious, what patterns haveyou noticed about the folks who
typically sit on these boardsand how that influences company
direction?
kaveh rostampor (17:52):
Yeah, I think I think a lot of startups scale
ups until they get sold amajority investor, like a
private equity firm, or if theygo public times.
I think the boards are, havevery bad compositions of the
boards.
There is early stage investors Imean great people, but no.
(18:13):
Invest, no experience in runningor building businesses.
And the early stage funds, they,I think, again, great people
very willing to take risks andwhatnot, but any fund typically
has a fund cycle and an agendawhere at some point they need to
sell these stocks.
Right?
So I think that early stagefounders and businesses or scale
(18:36):
ups need.
It will benefit more from havingmore operators on their boards.
So being other people that arebuilding businesses.
And it could be that, I don'tknow, you you have a I think
that the.
If you have a board ofconsisting of, I don't know,
some tech, deeply technicalpeople that can help your
technical teams or product andengineering teams, with sparring
(18:59):
and network and whatnot, if youhave commercially strong people,
marketing people and productpeople and so on, I think that
if a board is com built likethat, then they can work with
the management teams of actuallyhelping them to get the
businesses to the next stepversus.
Investors that many times comefrom school or, don't have so
much life experience.
(19:21):
So I think that's I think that'sa learning what you speak about
in the board.
Meetings are obviously importantyeah.
Dan Balcauski (19:26):
So, so you're leaning more towards sort of
operator experience, I guess.
If there's folks out there whoare, I mean sometimes they're,
as part of taking investment,you're gonna get, a board
member, either board seat or anobserver seat.
Or, maybe there's other waystheir people are putting
together their boards.
I guess, are there particularquestions that you think about.
Asking, future board members tohelp sort of, screen for these
(19:50):
type of things.
I mean, obviously have you run acompany before?
Have you built a company before?
Is it would be sort of top ofmind.
kaveh rostampor (19:57):
But they, I just wanna say that too, have
met some phenomenal people.
That are now investors, that areex operators.
And I think that they're just,there's some people out there
just amazing and incredible,
Dan Balcauski (20:08):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (20:08):
Incredible.
What kind of questions to ask?
No, I'm not a, I'm not an expertin oh, this is the 10 interview
questions you should ask.
But I do think that thinkingabout what it is that, that
you're signing up for, I thinkis is smart and a good thing to
do.
Another thing with this is thepre shares that is added on top,
right?
And just thinking about that,hey, you want the people that
(20:31):
work for your company, youremployees, to point being able
to sell some of this stock and,adding pressures on pressures
doesn't necessarily make thateasier.
O over time, just to bethoughtful about these things.
I don't think these, any ofthese things are new to people,
but just be thoughtful aboutthese things.
I think
Dan Balcauski (20:49):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (20:49):
yeah.
Is smart.
I.
Dan Balcauski (20:50):
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, I mean it's it's one ofthese things that is not usually
widely discussed because it'susually, it's so niche.
It happens rarely, but there's,these rare events that happen in
our life that are incrediblyhigh leverage for future
situations.
So, it's not just just, oh,hiring an engineer.
Right.
It's like we've, hiring hundredsof engineers, on a daily basis
(21:11):
or whatever it might be.
kaveh rostampor (21:12):
I
Dan Balcauski (21:13):
Yeah, I.
kaveh rostampor (21:13):
I think just another thing on this, I think
that it is I think the way Ithink about it and we think
about, it's like it's moreimportant.
So I've been a board member atmy companies, and I say this
every time.
It's Hey, look, board members,investors don't build companies
like management teams and peopleworking in companies.
They are the people building thecompany.
And like there's no way that youcould be on a board and, join a.
(21:38):
Meeting once per month orquarter and somehow change the
direction of a business if youdon't have a strong MA
management team and leadershipin, in, in place.
So I do think that, try to buildmanagement teams and a talent
pool in your company that are Ithink that the, the fo that's
where the focus should be.
(21:59):
That's
Dan Balcauski (22:00):
That's where it.
kaveh rostampor (22:01):
or doesn't happen in your business.
so I think, I think that, yeah,I think about it that way
instead Hey, it's in themanagement that it happens.
It's not in some two hourmeeting once per quarter, where
all the magic happens.
It's the day to day decisionsthat people make,
Dan Balcauski (22:17):
well, that's a perfect segue into the next
topic.
I want to switch from the boardlevel into like actually running
and scaling that internal teamsis like one challenge that you
know, a lot of.
CEOs I talked to you on thispodcast run into is, during,
scaling, rapid expansion,maintaining consistent quality
becomes a challenge.
And I guess I'm curious, like,how have you sort of approached
(22:39):
sort of setting and maintainingthose sort of high standards at
Planhat as you've scaled?
kaveh rostampor (22:46):
Yeah, Oman.
I think that's the mostdifficult thing when you are a
small, if you're a five 10 manteam, it's relatively speaking
easier than if you're a hundred,200 three, 400 man company.
So okay, for us, we have this wehave this thing where we do
we'll be.
wanna be very clear withexpectations for people when
they sign up to our business.
(23:08):
So being employees that arejoining.
We obviously think that we havea great place to work.
We think the planet is amazing.
We want talented and strongpeople to join the team.
But we have this concept of anexpectation document that we put
together.
So the hiring manager putstogether an expectation
document.
We sort of document and writeout all the things we're
expecting.
(23:29):
For this new hire that we wannabring on board.
So it's it's something that wespend a lot of time on.
We do this in all commercialopera ops roles and whatnot.
Where we say that, okay, likethis is, for example, this is
the vision of the role.
This is where the person willreport into this is what we
expect is good performance forthis role after say, six months
(23:50):
or 12 or 24 months in thebusiness.
So we're sort of.
to document down on the visionthat we have for what what great
performance is for this
Dan Balcauski (23:59):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (23:59):
And then what we do is that we sort of break
that down and make it very verytangible.
We say that, Hey, if you wannaachieve this goal, say after 12
months in the company or createthis much value after 12 months
in the company, what are thethings that we expect you to do
just after one month?
What are the things we expectyou to do after two months,
three months, six months, and soon.
And then we say that these arethe metrics that we will, or
(24:22):
things that we will measure youon.
And just and this is not only tomeasure you, to hold you
accountable to it, but also holdourselves accountable to helping
you achieve these things.
Because if you follow this path,we believe that you will achieve
these goals that you have after,say, 6, 12, 24 months in the in,
in this role.
And then what we say is that wetry to say this is what we mean.
(24:45):
If you achieve these things,then that will be, we sort of
define we try to document anddefine great performance at any
point in time.
And we also define badperformance and mediocre
performance.
Okay.
So it's a pretty extensivedocument and what we do is that
before hiring anybody we sharethis document with the person
(25:06):
that, hey.
This is what we're trying to dohere together.
you ready to sign up for this?
So it's very,
Dan Balcauski (25:14):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (25:15):
yeah, black or white.
And and this is a way that thisis just, this is sort of a way,
a vehicle for us to keepourselves.
To high standards that we wannahave in the business.
Now this document doesn't becomethis Hey, you didn't meet
certain metrics, you're out.
Like it doesn't work like that,but it's a guiding principles or
(25:37):
guiding document that helps usachieve the high standards.
So, we always say that highstandards is not about the
things you say.
Internally it's about the peoplethat you don't keep in the
business.
That makes you having a highperforming team of a team of
with the, with just, with theaverage output or standards very
(26:00):
high.
So
Dan Balcauski (26:01):
I.
kaveh rostampor (26:01):
really.
Dan Balcauski (26:02):
Well, that's fascinating.
And that's a really that's quitean elaborate system and I think
it, it's beyond what I thinkmost companies do, even those
well beyond your scale where,you've, it's, I mean, I heard a
bunch of things, but one is sortof working from sort of a year
out, backwards into the supernear term, a month into the job,
three months, six months intothe job.
(26:23):
But then also looking at, whatis.
Not what is, all, hey, these aremetrics, but also what does
excellent performance look like?
What is good or acceptable andwhat does bad performance look
like?
Most folks kind of don't thinkabout that as well, and I think
that's super powerful.
There's old coach of mine gaveme a framework that kind of maps
that, which is he called it theThree Rocks, which is rockstar
rock, solid rock bottom.
(26:44):
So,
kaveh rostampor (26:44):
Good.
Dan Balcauski (26:44):
Which I.
Well, I didn't come up with it.
I give him credit.
But I'm curious, is thatsomething that's sort of evolved
over time?
Has there been, because I mean,I that's, as I've mentioning
that's quell quite wellarticulated and structured have,
were there kind specificinfluences or perspectives and
sort of shape that approach?
kaveh rostampor (27:02):
I don't know.
It came it evolved into, withinthe business.
Been a main big driver of thisin the business.
So the hiring manager fills thisout.
There's a conversation,typically say with me in the
business or the hiring manager'smanager, they discuss it in
depth and align on it so thatit's aligned.
I think at the end of the day,like it, it has to do with one
thing to.
(27:23):
Doing what you can to set theemployee up for success.
And I do think that a lot oftech companies, I think
especially tech companies andespecially fast growing
companies, there's thismisunderstanding that happens
when the person is getting thejob that the
Dan Balcauski (27:38):
The hiring manager.
kaveh rostampor (27:39):
I.
Has this, yeah, has notarticulated what success
actually means and how to get tosuccess in a proper way, which
sets up the person for not beingsuccessful.
And it just, as everybody saysvery costly.
Lemme just break it down for youas an example.
One thing that we do is to saythat the first month as an
example, we're a product.
(28:00):
We're a product first company.
So that first month or firstcouple of months in the job of
almost any role you need to.
You need to know the product,you need to know what the hell
it is that we do.
as an example, we hired ageneral, a new general counsel a
couple of months ago that was onher expectations stock two that
(28:21):
month one, month two, monththree.
Like you need to focus and learnthe product because legal, but
deeply understanding the valuethis product creates for our
customers.
Understanding the technicalitiesof this platform and how it
works is your time to learn it.
It's super important for us.
So that's an example, like webreak it down, say, Hey, knowing
(28:44):
the product, what does thatmean?
As you said, if you wanna be arock star on, on Dan's scale,
like what does that mean Afterjust one month?
How much do you know?
What can you do in the productand so on, so forth.
So it's it's a great method.
I am I'm super about it.
I just another thing on thispeople ask me sometimes other
friends, founders say that, Hey,how can you guys be cashflow
positive at this scale andgrowing this much?
(29:05):
And I said that this is one ofthe things that enables us.
We don't do like people that arehere, they are performing above
average to great.
In average in the scoring ofthese metrics.
And if that happens, then valueis created across the business.
Dan Balcauski (29:21):
Well, I, on the flip side, it's not only about
sort of acquiring folks butretaining them.
And I know that you hadhighlighted one of our previous
conversations that you werepretty happy with.
How low rate of turnover thatyou've had at with the employees
at Planhat.
I guess.
Has there been anything that youfeel that you guys have done
intentionally that have beenreally effective in helping you
kind of retain top talent duringyou know what is probably
(29:43):
imagine the company's changingquite a bit.
So the fact that people stickaround and able to grow with you
is pretty impressive.
kaveh rostampor (29:48):
Yeah.
Oh, super happy about that.
So, We talk about this a lotlike the people that are, How
many talent the people that wehire do we lose?
And then like after two months,three months, six months, or a
year and so on.
And we're very proud of thisfact that like senior people or
people that have been here for along time, there's almost zero
(30:09):
churn on people there.
We don't lose people.
That's been here for some time.
And
Dan Balcauski (30:14):
And again.
I
kaveh rostampor (30:14):
I don't know.
It's good, good management, ifyou like, but it's, I think more
than anything, like if peopleare successful, then they tend
to stay around, right?
If people are learning, they'redeveloping, they're growing,
they get challenged and they'resuccessful.
They're part of something thatis successful, I think that'd
be, wanna stick around?
Dan Balcauski (30:31):
Yeah.
Well that's impressive.
'cause it, the companies thatare scaling at that level can
quickly outgrow you, right?
If you're in a leadershipposition and all of a sudden
you're growing a, anorganization that's, maybe twice
as big or more multiples ofthat, larger than you, you might
be felt comfortable with.
So it's good if you can keepthose folks around as the
company kind of grows aroundthem.
Well, KA I could talk to you allday but I wanna be respectful of
(30:54):
your time.
I, I wanna close out with a fewrapid fire lightning round
questions.
You ready?
kaveh rostampor (30:59):
Let's do
Dan Balcauski (31:00):
Good.
All right.
What's a what's a contrarianview you hold about AI's role in
our future?
kaveh rostampor (31:08):
Oh.
Oh, man.
I know.
I dunno a good answer to that.
I think that nobody reallyknows.
I don't know.
I don't wanna comment on this.
This is I dunno.
It's super exciting.
Now, I'll tell you that I thinkit's super exciting with all the
things that are happening.
But I don't have any, I Goodone-liner for you here.
Dan Balcauski (31:24):
He he does not wanna be pinned down to a
prediction that will bedisproven in six days.
So, the AI.
kaveh rostampor (31:30):
I am, and we, the people that work for our
company, we're not the kind ofpeople that are like, oh, I have
strong opinion.
I saw the light.
I'm an expert because I read twoarticles about I we, yeah.
Have, I don't have that.
Dan Balcauski (31:40):
Look, we all have transformative moments in our
lives.
I like to think of him assuperhero transformation
moments.
One day, you're Peter Parker,normal high school student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
You go to sleep, you wake up.
The next day, you're Spider-Man.
What moment was that for you inyour life?
kaveh rostampor (31:56):
Oh man.
I think so.
One was the, so I sort of dividemy life into maybe three.
One is the latest being thathey, become a parent.
That's obviously amazing and allthe things that comes with
parenthood.
That's awesome and that'samazing.
And professionally, sort of, Ihave two.
One was that I was a martialartist.
I was a fighter.
I was in the gym and.
(32:17):
Fighting, traveling around theworld and fighting people in a
ring.
And then the other things I'vebeen doing business and been in,
b2B enterprise and software fora long time.
So the The first part.
I was training a lot, I had acoach there that was very
influential too.
sort of realized to how, who Ibecame later on.
he was, deep into his craft.
(32:39):
And he taught me a lot, aboutjust being all in, being very
focused and going deep into yourcraft.
I think that affected me a lot.
And also this you don'tcomplain.
If you want to go in what'srequired of YouTube winner and
be a Swedish champion, a worldchampion and be in this and that
all it was very, it was cool andin business, I worked for this
other company, I said.
(33:00):
I worked closely with thefounder and the CEO of a
company.
The company's name was Meltwaterand he taught me a lot, too.
A lot about business.
Gave me a chance.
That was my first job, so justgimme a chance.
That was just fantastic for me,obviously, and
Dan Balcauski (33:15):
And.
kaveh rostampor (33:15):
me a lot about business, how to do business,
what not to do, what to do, whatto focus on, and whatnot.
So those will be veryinfluential for me.
Dan Balcauski (33:22):
Fantastic.
Well, running and Scaling abusiness can be taxing
spiritually, physically,emotionally.
Are there any habits that you'vecultivated that keep you on the
top of your game?
kaveh rostampor (33:33):
Yeah, I talk Yeah, I about this a lot.
Internally.
I say that, that you, it's veryimportant to eight hours per day
out every day and day, well.
And if you could do you do that.
You can go really hard for areally long time.
I think if you don't do thosethings it gets very tough.
So that's my that's my hack.
And I'm pretty good at all, allthree.
I am.
(33:53):
I sleep very well.
I work out every day and I tryto eat healthy.
So it helps.
It works.
Dan Balcauski (34:00):
Very important.
When you think about all thespectacular people you've had a
chance to work with, learn from,is there anyone who just pops to
mind who's had a reallydisproportionate effect on your
growth success?
kaveh rostampor (34:10):
Yeah.
I think the people I mentionedwell, has been very influential
for me.
I think that the co-founder ofPlanhat STEM is ko.
He is just a fantastic,fantastic person.
He phenomenal and I think wecompliment each other really
well.
I think it's had a huge effecton obviously our business and
our company and what it is.
Dan Balcauski (34:31):
The importance of good partners is there anything
from your relationship withNicholas or like how you guys
came together that is we couldlearn from and take advantage of
'cause I guess you, you don'talways know upfront if it's
gonna work out in the depths.
kaveh rostampor (34:45):
Yeah, no.
I think in, when building a techbusiness, I talk about this also
a lot to to some people likefriends, is a tech company like?
It's now I'm focused onobviously B2B and enterprise.
What is it that part of it isabout building products and
building technology.
The other thing is to sellproducts and technology, take it
to market.
(35:05):
And so there's a commercialaspect of building a tech
company and a product technicalaspect.
So I think that if you are twoco-founders.
Should, one of you should bevery good at one of them and the
other on the other, so that youcompliment each other.
Nicholas is a fantastictechnologist.
he's just fantastic, man.
He is phenomenal, phenomenal.
Dan Balcauski (35:27):
well, we appreciate Nick List and his
compliments for sure.
If I gave you a billboard, youput any advice on there for
other B2B Sass CEOs trying toscale their companies, what
would it say?
kaveh rostampor (35:36):
Oh man.
I say don't listen to anybody.
Don't listen to this part.
Don't listen.
Don't read article.
Like just focus on your ownthing.
Build a good product.
Build a good team.
If you build a good product anda good team, all the good things
will happen to you.
Customers will come andinvestors will come and they'll
give you money and you, it'll begood.
Dan Balcauski (35:59):
Don't listen.
kaveh rostampor (36:00):
you to join their podcast.
All the good things will happen
Dan Balcauski (36:02):
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
Don't listen to this billboard.
Go build a good product.
Con this has been fantastic.
If listeners wanna connect withyou, learn more about Planhat,
how can they do that?
kaveh rostampor (36:11):
Go to our website planet.com.
I know we are on LinkedIn.
We are we're not on Twitter orso much, but yeah,
Dan Balcauski (36:20):
Awesome.
kaveh rostampor (36:20):
check the link, social media.
Send us an email.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (36:25):
Well, I will put those links in the show notes
for listeners.
Thank you so much.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Kaveh for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners, you foundKaveh's insights valuable.
Please review and share thisepisode with your network.
Until next time.
Hey, it's in the management that it happens.
(00:01):
It's not in some two hourmeeting once per quarter, where
all the magic happens.
It's the day to day decisionsthat people make, high standards
is not about the things you say.
Internally it's about the peoplethat you don't keep in the
business.
Oh man.
I say don't listen to anybody.
Don't listen to this part.
Don't listen.
Don't read article.
(00:21):
Like just focus on your ownthing.
Build a good product.
Build a good team.
If you build a good product anda good team, all the good things
will happen to you.
Customers will come andinvestors will come and they'll
give you money and you, it'll begood.
Dan Balcauski (00:58):
Welcome to SaaS Scaling Secrets, the podcast
that brings you the insidestories from the leaders of the
best scale up.
B2B SaaS companies.
I'm your host, Dan Balcauski,founder of Product Tranquility.
Today I'm excited to speak withKaveh Rostampor, CEO, and
co-founder of Planhat, thecustomer platform that helps
companies acquire, grow,service, and retain lifelong
customers.
Kaveh Bootstrap Planhat to over$10 million in a RR before
raising capital and successfullybuilt sizable operations across
(01:20):
continents.
Kaveh is a seasoned operatorbringing 20 years of software
experience to the table.
When he is not leading PlanHead.
He serves on the boards ofseveral companies and is a
dedicated martial artist andproud father of three.
Let's dive in.
Welcome Kaveh to SaaS ScalingSecrets.
kaveh rostampor (01:34):
Thank you for having me, Dan.
Dan Balcauski (01:36):
I am very excited for our conversation today.
It's been a long time coming,but we finally made it happen.
I gave folks a little bit ofyour introduction in the
background, but for folks who.
Haven't been closely followingyour career.
Could you please just brieflyintroduce yourself?
Tell us a little about yourjourney in the SaaS world.
kaveh rostampor (01:53):
Yeah, sure.
So, as you said, my name is ve.
I grew up in Sweden.
Stockholm in Sweden.
And I've been in California nowfor 13 years and I've been in
SaaS for 20 years.
Before that I was a martialartist fighter.
And yeah, so 20 years ago Ijoined a startup and I was a
SaaS B2B company.
(02:14):
And, I was there for a long timeand learned how to do business
there.
And I've been founding twocompanies.
One of them is Planhat and,yeah, as you said, like I've
been on a bunch of differentboards of startups, scale ups,
public companies, and have hadthe chance to learn about
business from that angle too,yeah.
Dan Balcauski (02:34):
So you mentioned you brought the martial artist
piece back in there.
So I'm curious, you were wasthis like competitive, like you
were like making an income doingmartial arts?
kaveh rostampor (02:44):
Oh man.
I wish that I was making anincome but no, but I was pretty
good at it.
I been a swish champion severaltimes.
I've been competing for thenational team, but martial arts
at least back then, this is nowsome time ago, so I.
There was, you wouldn't makeyour money out of it at best.
You dreamed about going to theOlympics and win a gold medal.
But there was the, it's not likeFormula One or tennis anything
(03:08):
like that.
Dan Balcauski (03:09):
I'm curious out of, out of your experience
training in such a disciplinefor so long, have you found
getting hit in the facerepeatedly in those martial arts
practices has helped you in yourbusiness career?
kaveh rostampor (03:24):
I don't know if hitting being hit in the face
has helped.
Only that piece has not helped,but no, but I, as with, I think
any sport at the higher levels,as I've been an athlete, is take
a lot of those things with you.
If it's discipline, hard work,or not complaining, and, focus
on these things, obviously thatobviously helps.
Dan Balcauski (03:46):
Yeah.
Fantastic.
For, you mentioned we mentionedPlanhat, which is a company
you're currently running andScaling.
For folks who aren't familiarwith that, can you just give us
a brief, kind of 32nd overviewof what Planhat is and where you
guys play?
kaveh rostampor (03:58):
Yeah.
So
Dan Balcauski (03:59):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (03:59):
is we're building a unified CRM, and so
we help companies to acquire, toservice, to grow and retain
their customers.
So you can think of it as wethink of it as a new generation
CRM productivity tool in one.
Think of it as a platform thathas, all the power and
expectation you have with CRM.
(04:21):
So if it's data governance,security, stability, and these
things and you combine that withsort of the productivity tooling
where people actually like to dotheir work.
So try to combine that in one.
And we started out this businessfocusing on the post being a
post-sale CRM.
So focusing on customer successgrow, improving growth and re
(04:42):
net retention for companies andsort of broaden ourselves since
then.
Dan Balcauski (04:47):
Got it.
Got it.
And one area that I findparticularly interesting about
Plant Hatch's journey is youguys were.
Bootstrapped specifically for avery long time in your journey
until you were well past whatmost folks would consider.
You'd raise venture capital andfrom my understanding,
profitable but eventually youdid raise funding.
(05:09):
So I guess, can you, could you.
Just take me through briefly, Iguess, what was your early sort
of view on, bootstrapping thebusiness versus, maybe more
traditional path of gettinginstitutional capital, and then
what eventually changed to thefact that you guys decided to
take a significant amount ofequity funding?
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (05:26):
Yeah, so the business was bootstrap for the
first I think seven years.
Six, seven years.
and the thinking there was, Iknow I always thought very long
term about our business andcompany,
Dan Balcauski (05:38):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (05:38):
And, try to take long term decisions.
And one thing that, it is veryimportant as companies grow is
that, you wanna, for me and forus, it's always been important
to be control of the cap tableof planet.
We focus a lot on what we callreal value creation, which is,
I.
Do you generate cash?
Can you pay your bills?
Do you actually have customersthat are willing to pay for your
(06:00):
product and services?
And if they are, then you arecreating value for them.
that was a big part of sort ofplanet's focus in the early
days.
And yes, we raised our biground, we raised$50 million.
A couple of years ago now.
And the thinking there was thatit's a, it was a bit
opportunistic.
It was a lot of demand and a lotof investors being very
(06:21):
interested in our business.
But it was also that we, theambition levels of the company
has been increasing every yearso to.
Go after the big opportunitiesthat we see.
We think that having a big warchest and having a lot of
capital is important.
So as the cost base of thecompany increases, as the
ambitions increases.
(06:41):
You.
You also wanna have a bigger warchest and not go month to month
or quarter by quarter andlooking too much on just the
cash that you're generatingevery month.
Dan Balcauski (06:51):
Well, you how?
Oh, that's that's fantastic.
You highlighted, this focus on,real value creation.
And I'm curious, like, how, ifat all, did your decision making
around growth investments changeor not After.
Raising this significant round,I guess, obviously, I mean, I'm
sure there were ways that youguys had thought before of
(07:13):
investing.
Like now that you had thatadditional capital, did that
actually change how you sort ofviewed different opportunities
you might invest in?
kaveh rostampor (07:20):
So I would say both yes and no.
So the thing is that if you're abootstrap for the first seven
years of the business, it's veryhard to sort of, switch that and
start burning tens of millionsof dollars every year.
That's sort of nothing DNA orthe culture of the company.
So being financially disciplinedand focusing on.
things that creates value, whichis like sales building products,
(07:44):
focusing on marketing campaignsthat works and whatnot is, has
always been with us.
So I think that's just a, that'sjust a positive positive thing.
Now that said, I think that the,we when we have a bigger balance
sheet and war chest, thedecisions we take when it comes
to giving ourselves time to.
(08:05):
Figure out new products, figureout the platform, figure out
what segments of the market thatwe want to go after, what
verticals we want to go after.
I think that that has changed.
So just the liberty of beingeven more long term on the way
we think about decisions hasdefinitely changed.
So I think that in, in thatsense it's definitely the, I
(08:26):
mean now in hindsight that thecompany didn't go bankrupt in
the early days or.
We are a bigger company withhundreds of customers and global
operations and a big work.
Just, I think that now inhindsight, it was, it definitely
feels like the right decisionsto make.
I think I.
Dan Balcauski (08:42):
So, post that funding, I guess, were there any
investments that you could thinkof that you made post-funding
that maybe you wouldn't haveconsidered During the bootstrap
phase?
kaveh rostampor (08:53):
Yeah,
Dan Balcauski (08:53):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (08:54):
Before the bootstrap days, we always had
that, this.
The sort of vision of, again, asI said, like building a next
generation CRM, for lack of abetter word.
Dan Balcauski (09:02):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (09:03):
But that's a hard thing to do when you're a
small bootstrap business.
So you need to start on a, in avery specific niche.
And for us it was.
Post-sales and customer success,B2B and certain deal sizes,
right?
That's where we operated nowwith the funding.
It enabled us to build out theplatform more and enable the
(09:24):
business to go more broader andwider after other other
segments.
Dan Balcauski (09:30):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (09:31):
So, so that, I say that's sort of the biggest,
that's sort of the biggestthing.
So that, that's definitely beenon en enabler.
Dan Balcauski (09:37):
So it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but
like I guess kind of what I hearin that answer is a little bit
of like, when you're bootstrap,there's a certain need to focus
on, let us go capture the demandthat's already there, versus
there's a little bit moreflexibility for maybe painting
into a vision that doesn't quiteexist in the marketplace that
maybe is gonna require.
Not only the level of productdevelopment, but probably the
(09:59):
level of market education ofwhat a unified, full end-to-end
customer CRM looks like, right?
That maybe people aren'tsearching, they're not typing
that into Google because thatthing doesn't really exist yet.
kaveh rostampor (10:11):
Correct, correct.
Dan Balcauski (10:13):
It, well you mentioned, the culture aspect of
it.
'cause you said like you getthis, check and it's not in the
DNA of the company.
Right.
And so you as the CEO and, butprobably you've, that's seeped
into how, employees at thecompany bring you sort of
project ideas.
Right.
How do you, I guess.
Change that, sort of posture inyourself.
(10:34):
Was this something that, youhad, your sort of board members,
were sort of encouraging to do,and then how do you communicate
that to the sort of the broaderteam in terms of this sort of
wider expanse to sort of takesome of these longer term bets?
kaveh rostampor (10:49):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I it be it come, it's organic.
It's not it's not a, you you get$50 million in your bank
account.
You go out and have a big
Dan Balcauski (10:58):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (10:59):
office next day and tell everybody that, eh yes
to all the crazy projects andthere's crazy ideas that you
guys had.
So that, that.
That
Dan Balcauski (11:07):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (11:07):
I don't think that that happens for anyone.
It's more organic.
It's more that, hey I don'tknow.
Say that on the product ortechnology side, you already
have a.
A roadmap for what you wannabuild the next I don't know, 2,
3, 6, 12 months.
And it's not like you changeeverything.
The next day you get a bigfunding round.
Same thing with go to market.
(11:28):
It's you don't go out and hire500 new salespeople when you
don't have the managementbandwidth or.
Do any crazy marketing campaignsbefore you're ready for them.
So it's not that dramatic, Iwould say, at least for us, it
wasn't that dramatic.
It's been very organic andgradual, but the ambitions
changes, right?
You for us, and I think that we,in hindsight, we did do some
(11:50):
crazy bets that didn't work out,which which is what it is.
But you are more, you take morerisk.
You, for us, we doubled down onthe, on, we have a business
that's sort of equally in sizein Europe and North America or
in Americas.
And for us to sort of doubledown on that strategy and not
being a regional player and wantto be global player was one
(12:14):
thing that we doubled down on.
And be like, okay, we are hereto stay.
We
Dan Balcauski (12:17):
Hmm,
kaveh rostampor (12:17):
going to hire even more stronger people,
talented people in theseregions.
They're more expensive.
now have the cash to invest inthis and so on.
So, yeah, that's
Dan Balcauski (12:27):
got
kaveh rostampor (12:27):
thought about it.
Dan Balcauski (12:29):
it.
A little bit more organic andless Mosi Sun saying you need to
be crazier not crazy enough.
kaveh rostampor (12:33):
So we're boring that way.
Dan Balcauski (12:36):
Fair enough.
Well, you had mentioned in, inhindsight, it looked like the
path you had taken bootstrapfor, the period of time Nixon
period being, growing a big,profitable company and then,
taking the growth equityinvestment later was the right
thing.
I guess as you look back inhindsight, is there anything
that you wish you would've doneor anything that you would've
changed in that path?
kaveh rostampor (12:57):
Oh man.
No.
I feel like we did the rightthings.
We did take some risk.
I think, I do think that weoverhired for a period there
Dan Balcauski (13:04):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (13:05):
We knew about the risks of that some of the
things didn't play out the waywe wanted.
so no, I'm not regretful of anymajor things that we did.
I wanna say, so I know that thisis a bit boring.
Like I don't have a good storyof we took the money and burn it
on some crazy campaign and itpaid off.
That didn't happen for us.
(13:25):
And also we didn't we didn'tjust truck along either.
Like we, we yeah, we doubleddown on these big markets and
that, I think that that was a,that's a big bet in itself to
actually wanting to build aglobal business ballsy and we
sort of went after it.
So I, I think I, I don't haveany big regrets that, that I
think that we did.
Dan Balcauski (13:43):
Yeah.
Well, hey, that that, that's allto the good.
But we're always if there'shistory could play out in so
many different ways.
Well, kind of transitioning alittle bit, like you'd mentioned
earlier around keeping a cleansort of cap table was really
important to you.
And I guess, for our listenersor anyone who's, might not be
familiar with this concept canyou just explain what, keeping a
(14:05):
clean cap table means to you andwhy you think it's so important?
kaveh rostampor (14:09):
Yeah.
So, okay, so, okay.
What it means, I think is Ithink most of your listeners
know what the, what sort of highat the highest level means.
But I think that, think aboutwhat typically happens a lot of
businesses, right?
Is that an idea, you wanna starta company, you have an idea
maybe there's a few of you.
So you know, you have aPowerPoint, you go in.
People raise, pre-seed round orpre pre-seed round and seed
(14:33):
round and I don't know, a seriesA and a series B and A add-on
and C and D and f and g and allthese things.
And I think the for and.
I'm not an expert in this atall, but I don't know.
You give up, you get dilutedevery time you raise capital,
right?
One is that you get pre shareson your business.
And the second thing, you justget more di diluted early on,
(14:53):
and then by the time that Idon't know, you have a few
million dollars or$5 million or$10 million in a RR, you are a
sizable business.
You're out there, you'refighting a good fight, but.
A lot of your business is ownedby other people, if it's friends
and family and early stageinvestors and whatnot.
And and and again, I'm not anexpert here, like these
(15:14):
investors, they call you andthey have, somebody wants to
sell their share.
Somebody wants you to growfaster or slower.
Somebody has an opinion on how,what kind of products you build
and, you don't want you to hiretheir friend or, I don't know,
all kinds of things thathappens.
And so I think that if wecategorize that journey as a.
Messy cap table, put it thatway.
(15:36):
Right.
Dan Balcauski (15:36):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (15:37):
And and we are on the opposite, right, that if
you bootstrap for a long time,obviously you then have a very
clean cap table,
Dan Balcauski (15:45):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (15:46):
you don't have so many people on the cap table.
And I would say that the peopleyou want to have on the cap
table are the people that workfor your company, the employees,
because these people are.
They care about your business.
They're they give their time andenergy into this business.
I consider that more of a cleancap table.
Nobody calls you and have anopinion on what current products
(16:07):
you should build or, Wanting tosell their shares or for you to
go left or right or whatnot.
So, yeah, so that's what I meanby that.
And then but at the end of theday, like this comes from like
bootstrapping helps with this.
The
Dan Balcauski (16:20):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (16:21):
you bootstrapped, the easier this
becomes.
and
Dan Balcauski (16:26):
curious.
I like how did you come to valuethis as an approach?
Was this from experience runningprevious companies or did you
have sort of mentor who is whokind of taught you this?
I would imagine like mostentrepreneurs are, especially
maybe your first business.
This is not something thatyou're like trying to keep front
of mind of as a concern.
kaveh rostampor (16:42):
So, yes.
So yes to all those things.
So I had I was at anothercompany.
That company grew to be verybig.
That company, I think the firsttime we got external funding or
money into that business.
The company was well above ahundred million dollars in a RR,
when the company went public, Ithink 80% or so of the company
was owned by the management teamand employees and founders and
(17:03):
whatnot.
So obviously.
That's how I learned businessand from the founder of that
company was very influentialthere.
So I'm very appreciative forthat.
and also like having friends andseeing other companies how
things are done and what happenswhen these companies grow.
I.
And also as a board member too,I've been a board member of a
bunch of businesses over theyears and just seeing how yeah,
(17:25):
what happens in the boardroomand, all the good and the messy
things that happens in ourboardroom as the company are
scaling, I.
Dan Balcauski (17:34):
Well, I'm curious from your, experience, on both
sides of the table, as Imentioned the intro, you're not
only CEO but you also sit onboards of, several companies.
I'm curious, what patterns haveyou noticed about the folks who
typically sit on these boardsand how that influences company
direction?
kaveh rostampor (17:52):
Yeah, I think I think a lot of startups scale
ups until they get sold amajority investor, like a
private equity firm, or if theygo public times.
I think the boards are, havevery bad compositions of the
boards.
There is early stage investors Imean great people, but no.
(18:13):
Invest, no experience in runningor building businesses.
And the early stage funds, they,I think, again, great people
very willing to take risks andwhatnot, but any fund typically
has a fund cycle and an agendawhere at some point they need to
sell these stocks.
Right?
So I think that early stagefounders and businesses or scale
(18:36):
ups need.
It will benefit more from havingmore operators on their boards.
So being other people that arebuilding businesses.
And it could be that, I don'tknow, you you have a I think
that the.
If you have a board ofconsisting of, I don't know,
some tech, deeply technicalpeople that can help your
technical teams or product andengineering teams, with sparring
(18:59):
and network and whatnot, if youhave commercially strong people,
marketing people and productpeople and so on, I think that
if a board is com built likethat, then they can work with
the management teams of actuallyhelping them to get the
businesses to the next stepversus.
Investors that many times comefrom school or, don't have so
much life experience.
(19:21):
So I think that's I think that'sa learning what you speak about
in the board.
Meetings are obviously importantyeah.
Dan Balcauski (19:26):
So, so you're leaning more towards sort of
operator experience, I guess.
If there's folks out there whoare, I mean sometimes they're,
as part of taking investment,you're gonna get, a board
member, either board seat or anobserver seat.
Or, maybe there's other waystheir people are putting
together their boards.
I guess, are there particularquestions that you think about.
Asking, future board members tohelp sort of, screen for these
(19:50):
type of things.
I mean, obviously have you run acompany before?
Have you built a company before?
Is it would be sort of top ofmind.
kaveh rostampor (19:57):
But they, I just wanna say that too, have
met some phenomenal people.
That are now investors, that areex operators.
And I think that they're just,there's some people out there
just amazing and incredible,
Dan Balcauski (20:08):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (20:08):
Incredible.
What kind of questions to ask?
No, I'm not a, I'm not an expertin oh, this is the 10 interview
questions you should ask.
But I do think that thinkingabout what it is that, that
you're signing up for, I thinkis is smart and a good thing to
do.
Another thing with this is thepre shares that is added on top,
right?
And just thinking about that,hey, you want the people that
(20:31):
work for your company, youremployees, to point being able
to sell some of this stock and,adding pressures on pressures
doesn't necessarily make thateasier.
O over time, just to bethoughtful about these things.
I don't think these, any ofthese things are new to people,
but just be thoughtful aboutthese things.
I think
Dan Balcauski (20:49):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (20:49):
yeah.
Is smart.
I.
Dan Balcauski (20:50):
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, I mean it's it's one ofthese things that is not usually
widely discussed because it'susually, it's so niche.
It happens rarely, but there's,these rare events that happen in
our life that are incrediblyhigh leverage for future
situations.
So, it's not just just, oh,hiring an engineer.
Right.
It's like we've, hiring hundredsof engineers, on a daily basis
(21:11):
or whatever it might be.
kaveh rostampor (21:12):
I
Dan Balcauski (21:13):
Yeah, I.
kaveh rostampor (21:13):
I think just another thing on this, I think
that it is I think the way Ithink about it and we think
about, it's like it's moreimportant.
So I've been a board member atmy companies, and I say this
every time.
It's Hey, look, board members,investors don't build companies
like management teams and peopleworking in companies.
They are the people building thecompany.
And like there's no way that youcould be on a board and, join a.
(21:38):
Meeting once per month orquarter and somehow change the
direction of a business if youdon't have a strong MA
management team and leadershipin, in, in place.
So I do think that, try to buildmanagement teams and a talent
pool in your company that are Ithink that the, the fo that's
where the focus should be.
(21:59):
That's
Dan Balcauski (22:00):
That's where it.
kaveh rostampor (22:01):
or doesn't happen in your business.
so I think, I think that, yeah,I think about it that way
instead Hey, it's in themanagement that it happens.
It's not in some two hourmeeting once per quarter, where
all the magic happens.
It's the day to day decisionsthat people make,
Dan Balcauski (22:17):
well, that's a perfect segue into the next
topic.
I want to switch from the boardlevel into like actually running
and scaling that internal teamsis like one challenge that you
know, a lot of.
CEOs I talked to you on thispodcast run into is, during,
scaling, rapid expansion,maintaining consistent quality
becomes a challenge.
And I guess I'm curious, like,how have you sort of approached
(22:39):
sort of setting and maintainingthose sort of high standards at
Planhat as you've scaled?
kaveh rostampor (22:46):
Yeah, Oman.
I think that's the mostdifficult thing when you are a
small, if you're a five 10 manteam, it's relatively speaking
easier than if you're a hundred,200 three, 400 man company.
So okay, for us, we have this wehave this thing where we do
we'll be.
wanna be very clear withexpectations for people when
they sign up to our business.
(23:08):
So being employees that arejoining.
We obviously think that we havea great place to work.
We think the planet is amazing.
We want talented and strongpeople to join the team.
But we have this concept of anexpectation document that we put
together.
So the hiring manager putstogether an expectation
document.
We sort of document and writeout all the things we're
expecting.
(23:29):
For this new hire that we wannabring on board.
So it's it's something that wespend a lot of time on.
We do this in all commercialopera ops roles and whatnot.
Where we say that, okay, likethis is, for example, this is
the vision of the role.
This is where the person willreport into this is what we
expect is good performance forthis role after say, six months
(23:50):
or 12 or 24 months in thebusiness.
So we're sort of.
to document down on the visionthat we have for what what great
performance is for this
Dan Balcauski (23:59):
Mm-hmm.
kaveh rostampor (23:59):
And then what we do is that we sort of break
that down and make it very verytangible.
We say that, Hey, if you wannaachieve this goal, say after 12
months in the company or createthis much value after 12 months
in the company, what are thethings that we expect you to do
just after one month?
What are the things we expectyou to do after two months,
three months, six months, and soon.
And then we say that these arethe metrics that we will, or
(24:22):
things that we will measure youon.
And just and this is not only tomeasure you, to hold you
accountable to it, but also holdourselves accountable to helping
you achieve these things.
Because if you follow this path,we believe that you will achieve
these goals that you have after,say, 6, 12, 24 months in the in,
in this role.
And then what we say is that wetry to say this is what we mean.
(24:45):
If you achieve these things,then that will be, we sort of
define we try to document anddefine great performance at any
point in time.
And we also define badperformance and mediocre
performance.
Okay.
So it's a pretty extensivedocument and what we do is that
before hiring anybody we sharethis document with the person
(25:06):
that, hey.
This is what we're trying to dohere together.
you ready to sign up for this?
So it's very,
Dan Balcauski (25:14):
Yeah.
kaveh rostampor (25:15):
yeah, black or white.
And and this is a way that thisis just, this is sort of a way,
a vehicle for us to keepourselves.
To high standards that we wannahave in the business.
Now this document doesn't becomethis Hey, you didn't meet
certain metrics, you're out.
Like it doesn't work like that,but it's a guiding principles or
(25:37):
guiding document that helps usachieve the high standards.
So, we always say that highstandards is not about the
things you say.
Internally it's about the peoplethat you don't keep in the
business.
That makes you having a highperforming team of a team of
with the, with just, with theaverage output or standards very
(26:00):
high.
So
Dan Balcauski (26:01):
I.
kaveh rostampor (26:01):
really.
Dan Balcauski (26:02):
Well, that's fascinating.
And that's a really that's quitean elaborate system and I think
it, it's beyond what I thinkmost companies do, even those
well beyond your scale where,you've, it's, I mean, I heard a
bunch of things, but one is sortof working from sort of a year
out, backwards into the supernear term, a month into the job,
three months, six months intothe job.
(26:23):
But then also looking at, whatis.
Not what is, all, hey, these aremetrics, but also what does
excellent performance look like?
What is good or acceptable andwhat does bad performance look
like?
Most folks kind of don't thinkabout that as well, and I think
that's super powerful.
There's old coach of mine gaveme a framework that kind of maps
that, which is he called it theThree Rocks, which is rockstar
rock, solid rock bottom.
(26:44):
So,
kaveh rostampor (26:44):
Good.
Dan Balcauski (26:44):
Which I.
Well, I didn't come up with it.
I give him credit.
But I'm curious, is thatsomething that's sort of evolved
over time?
Has there been, because I mean,I that's, as I've mentioning
that's quell quite wellarticulated and structured have,
were there kind specificinfluences or perspectives and
sort of shape that approach?
kaveh rostampor (27:02):
I don't know.
It came it evolved into, withinthe business.
Been a main big driver of thisin the business.
So the hiring manager fills thisout.
There's a conversation,typically say with me in the
business or the hiring manager'smanager, they discuss it in
depth and align on it so thatit's aligned.
I think at the end of the day,like it, it has to do with one
thing to.
(27:23):
Doing what you can to set theemployee up for success.
And I do think that a lot oftech companies, I think
especially tech companies andespecially fast growing
companies, there's thismisunderstanding that happens
when the person is getting thejob that the
Dan Balcauski (27:38):
The hiring manager.
kaveh rostampor (27:39):
I.
Has this, yeah, has notarticulated what success
actually means and how to get tosuccess in a proper way, which
sets up the person for not beingsuccessful.
And it just, as everybody saysvery costly.
Lemme just break it down for youas an example.
One thing that we do is to saythat the first month as an
example, we're a product.
(28:00):
We're a product first company.
So that first month or firstcouple of months in the job of
almost any role you need to.
You need to know the product,you need to know what the hell
it is that we do.
as an example, we hired ageneral, a new general counsel a
couple of months ago that was onher expectations stock two that
(28:21):
month one, month two, monththree.
Like you need to focus and learnthe product because legal, but
deeply understanding the valuethis product creates for our
customers.
Understanding the technicalitiesof this platform and how it
works is your time to learn it.
It's super important for us.
So that's an example, like webreak it down, say, Hey, knowing
(28:44):
the product, what does thatmean?
As you said, if you wanna be arock star on, on Dan's scale,
like what does that mean Afterjust one month?
How much do you know?
What can you do in the productand so on, so forth.
So it's it's a great method.
I am I'm super about it.
I just another thing on thispeople ask me sometimes other
friends, founders say that, Hey,how can you guys be cashflow
positive at this scale andgrowing this much?
(29:05):
And I said that this is one ofthe things that enables us.
We don't do like people that arehere, they are performing above
average to great.
In average in the scoring ofthese metrics.
And if that happens, then valueis created across the business.
Dan Balcauski (29:21):
Well, I, on the flip side, it's not only about
sort of acquiring folks butretaining them.
And I know that you hadhighlighted one of our previous
conversations that you werepretty happy with.
How low rate of turnover thatyou've had at with the employees
at Planhat.
I guess.
Has there been anything that youfeel that you guys have done
intentionally that have beenreally effective in helping you
kind of retain top talent duringyou know what is probably
(29:43):
imagine the company's changingquite a bit.
So the fact that people stickaround and able to grow with you
is pretty impressive.
kaveh rostampor (29:48):
Yeah.
Oh, super happy about that.
So, We talk about this a lotlike the people that are, How
many talent the people that wehire do we lose?
And then like after two months,three months, six months, or a
year and so on.
And we're very proud of thisfact that like senior people or
people that have been here for along time, there's almost zero
(30:09):
churn on people there.
We don't lose people.
That's been here for some time.
And
Dan Balcauski (30:14):
And again.
I
kaveh rostampor (30:14):
I don't know.
It's good, good management, ifyou like, but it's, I think more
than anything, like if peopleare successful, then they tend
to stay around, right?
If people are learning, they'redeveloping, they're growing,
they get challenged and they'resuccessful.
They're part of something thatis successful, I think that'd
be, wanna stick around?
Dan Balcauski (30:31):
Yeah.
Well that's impressive.
'cause it, the companies thatare scaling at that level can
quickly outgrow you, right?
If you're in a leadershipposition and all of a sudden
you're growing a, anorganization that's, maybe twice
as big or more multiples ofthat, larger than you, you might
be felt comfortable with.
So it's good if you can keepthose folks around as the
company kind of grows aroundthem.
Well, KA I could talk to you allday but I wanna be respectful of
(30:54):
your time.
I, I wanna close out with a fewrapid fire lightning round
questions.
You ready?
kaveh rostampor (30:59):
Let's do
Dan Balcauski (31:00):
Good.
All right.
What's a what's a contrarianview you hold about AI's role in
our future?
kaveh rostampor (31:08):
Oh.
Oh, man.
I know.
I dunno a good answer to that.
I think that nobody reallyknows.
I don't know.
I don't wanna comment on this.
This is I dunno.
It's super exciting.
Now, I'll tell you that I thinkit's super exciting with all the
things that are happening.
But I don't have any, I Goodone-liner for you here.
Dan Balcauski (31:24):
He he does not wanna be pinned down to a
prediction that will bedisproven in six days.
So, the AI.
kaveh rostampor (31:30):
I am, and we, the people that work for our
company, we're not the kind ofpeople that are like, oh, I have
strong opinion.
I saw the light.
I'm an expert because I read twoarticles about I we, yeah.
Have, I don't have that.
Dan Balcauski (31:40):
Look, we all have transformative moments in our
lives.
I like to think of him assuperhero transformation
moments.
One day, you're Peter Parker,normal high school student.
You get bit by a radioactivespider.
You go to sleep, you wake up.
The next day, you're Spider-Man.
What moment was that for you inyour life?
kaveh rostampor (31:56):
Oh man.
I think so.
One was the, so I sort of dividemy life into maybe three.
One is the latest being thathey, become a parent.
That's obviously amazing and allthe things that comes with
parenthood.
That's awesome and that'samazing.
And professionally, sort of, Ihave two.
One was that I was a martialartist.
I was a fighter.
I was in the gym and.
(32:17):
Fighting, traveling around theworld and fighting people in a
ring.
And then the other things I'vebeen doing business and been in,
b2B enterprise and software fora long time.
So the The first part.
I was training a lot, I had acoach there that was very
influential too.
sort of realized to how, who Ibecame later on.
he was, deep into his craft.
(32:39):
And he taught me a lot, aboutjust being all in, being very
focused and going deep into yourcraft.
I think that affected me a lot.
And also this you don'tcomplain.
If you want to go in what'srequired of YouTube winner and
be a Swedish champion, a worldchampion and be in this and that
all it was very, it was cool andin business, I worked for this
other company, I said.
(33:00):
I worked closely with thefounder and the CEO of a
company.
The company's name was Meltwaterand he taught me a lot, too.
A lot about business.
Gave me a chance.
That was my first job, so justgimme a chance.
That was just fantastic for me,obviously, and
Dan Balcauski (33:15):
And.
kaveh rostampor (33:15):
me a lot about business, how to do business,
what not to do, what to do, whatto focus on, and whatnot.
So those will be veryinfluential for me.
Dan Balcauski (33:22):
Fantastic.
Well, running and Scaling abusiness can be taxing
spiritually, physically,emotionally.
Are there any habits that you'vecultivated that keep you on the
top of your game?
kaveh rostampor (33:33):
Yeah, I talk Yeah, I about this a lot.
Internally.
I say that, that you, it's veryimportant to eight hours per day
out every day and day, well.
And if you could do you do that.
You can go really hard for areally long time.
I think if you don't do thosethings it gets very tough.
So that's my that's my hack.
And I'm pretty good at all, allthree.
I am.
(33:53):
I sleep very well.
I work out every day and I tryto eat healthy.
So it helps.
It works.
Dan Balcauski (34:00):
Very important.
When you think about all thespectacular people you've had a
chance to work with, learn from,is there anyone who just pops to
mind who's had a reallydisproportionate effect on your
growth success?
kaveh rostampor (34:10):
Yeah.
I think the people I mentionedwell, has been very influential
for me.
I think that the co-founder ofPlanhat STEM is ko.
He is just a fantastic,fantastic person.
He phenomenal and I think wecompliment each other really
well.
I think it's had a huge effecton obviously our business and
our company and what it is.
Dan Balcauski (34:31):
The importance of good partners is there anything
from your relationship withNicholas or like how you guys
came together that is we couldlearn from and take advantage of
'cause I guess you, you don'talways know upfront if it's
gonna work out in the depths.
kaveh rostampor (34:45):
Yeah, no.
I think in, when building a techbusiness, I talk about this also
a lot to to some people likefriends, is a tech company like?
It's now I'm focused onobviously B2B and enterprise.
What is it that part of it isabout building products and
building technology.
The other thing is to sellproducts and technology, take it
to market.
(35:05):
And so there's a commercialaspect of building a tech
company and a product technicalaspect.
So I think that if you are twoco-founders.
Should, one of you should bevery good at one of them and the
other on the other, so that youcompliment each other.
Nicholas is a fantastictechnologist.
he's just fantastic, man.
He is phenomenal, phenomenal.
Dan Balcauski (35:27):
well, we appreciate Nick List and his
compliments for sure.
If I gave you a billboard, youput any advice on there for
other B2B Sass CEOs trying toscale their companies, what
would it say?
kaveh rostampor (35:36):
Oh man.
I say don't listen to anybody.
Don't listen to this part.
Don't listen.
Don't read article.
Like just focus on your ownthing.
Build a good product.
Build a good team.
If you build a good product anda good team, all the good things
will happen to you.
Customers will come andinvestors will come and they'll
give you money and you, it'll begood.
Dan Balcauski (35:59):
Don't listen.
kaveh rostampor (36:00):
you to join their podcast.
All the good things will happen
Dan Balcauski (36:02):
Yes, exactly.
Yes.
Don't listen to this billboard.
Go build a good product.
Con this has been fantastic.
If listeners wanna connect withyou, learn more about Planhat,
how can they do that?
kaveh rostampor (36:11):
Go to our website planet.com.
I know we are on LinkedIn.
We are we're not on Twitter orso much, but yeah,
Dan Balcauski (36:20):
Awesome.
kaveh rostampor (36:20):
check the link, social media.
Send us an email.
Yeah.
Dan Balcauski (36:25):
Well, I will put those links in the show notes
for listeners.
Thank you so much.
That wraps up this episode ofSaaS Scaling Secrets.
Thank you to Kaveh for sharinghis journey and insights.
For our listeners, you foundKaveh's insights valuable.
Please review and share thisepisode with your network.
Until next time.
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