SaaS Stories
SaaS Stories is my not-so-secret quest to learn what it truly takes to succeed in the world of SaaS—and I’m inviting you along for the ride! I have the pleasure of sitting down with brilliant minds and industry trailblazers to explore their journeys, uncovering the secrets behind their growth, the gaps they spotted in the market, and what really drives them.
It’s not all smooth sailing—there are challenges, unexpected turns, and moments of reflection where they share what they’d love to change about their journey. Think of it as a candid, insider’s look into the world of SaaS, with just the right amount of curiosity, empathy, and wit.
Join me as I dive deep, selfishly soak up all the insights, and hopefully share a little inspiration with you along the way—one SaaS story at a time.
SaaS Stories
From one email to a global SaaS: Sam Spencer on product-market fit, team building, and the power of process
One urgent email changed everything. When a European health agency asked for a metadata registry no one else could provide, we didn’t spin up a pitch deck—we built. That moment of raw product–market fit set Sam Spencer, CEO of Aristotle Metadata, on a decade-long journey of scaling with focus, process, and a bias for the next achievable step.
We talk about the unglamorous truths of SaaS: why your first competitor is almost always Excel; how a scrappy prototype beats a perfect plan; and where AI actually helps (consistency, drafting, complex questionnaires) versus where it falls short (trust, surprise, human connection). Sam shares the hiring philosophy that’s worked for a lean team—consistent interviews, simple work-sample tasks like documenting a cookie recipe—and why early-career talent, coached well, can outperform expensive hires in the long run.
The conversation turns practical and vivid when Sam recounts losing 40% of his small engineering team and choosing a Moneyball approach: define the one metric that matters (ship Tuesday security updates), hire to that constraint, and let process carry the weight. We unpack go-to-market fundamentals that still work—clear positioning around pain, a website you own, steady LinkedIn presence, and network-led B2B referrals—and the leadership habits that give teams autonomy: explicit decision rights, written thresholds for on-call fixes, and honest reasons for hybrid rhythms that speed onboarding and incident response.
I've always been entrepreneur always now to do something speech, but I never knew what that was. And we got an email and they said, We need this. There's nothing else I can need in the world of SaaS.
SPEAKER_00:Do you think that's a very important skill set for success of a SaaS business for bringing up the code? Yes. I think so, yeah. The biggest competitor of Excel are given time and time again. I live in the world of AI, and Excel is yet still the way most people use human connections going to become a more valuable life. Building the product or building the team, building a team is very difficult.
SPEAKER_01:It has to work to make luck for yourself.
SPEAKER_00:I've heard a statistic around more men will start a business, but women are actually more successful at making it last longer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, not all risks play off, but when they do, they they do go really well. If you think you can't take the risk, figure out why and try and break through to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Welcome everyone to another episode of SaaS Stories. Today I'm joined by local Australian Sam Spencer, CEO of Aristotle Metadata. Welcome, Sam.
SPEAKER_01:Hi Joe, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Now let's start with your story. Nell, what led you from government data roles to launching Aristotle Metadata? And how has your SaaS journey evolved since then?
SPEAKER_01:That's a big question. There's a lot of questions that have so I think um I'll I'll start with the beginning because I think you know, probably the thing that people want to know is I was never a like I've always been entrepreneurial, I've always known that I wanted to do something big, but I never knew what that was, and I never knew a lot about marketing. So I'm a I'm a software engineer by trade. That was what my background was, and I was like, you know, I was a coder. And the way that it happened is, you know, just through happenstance, I was working at a government department, and uh I was working on a system, and and we'll probably talk a lot about this, but I was working working on a metadata registry system for a government department based on, you know, an open standard from you know the 1970s. And I was just like the web administrator and I was fixing bugs and I was like, you know, getting into it. And it was, you know, it was an interesting job. You know, I always like to learn things from from this work. And it was interesting in the sense that it was very rare, and um, there wasn't a lot of products like it in the market. And I would be, you know, as part of my job, we get support queries from people using the tool, and we get support queries from people interested in what it was. I was working with a you know, a health department at the time, so we'd get queries from other health departments internationally, um, very periodically, you know, once a month, once every other month. And they'd go, We love this. How did you how did you build it? Where is it from? How can we use this? How can we get it? And I never knew quite how to answer it. And you know, I was like, Hell, where did this come from? And it was basically like a a consultant had come in in the early 2000s and they built this platform and and that was it. And and it was handed over to the department and they're all working on it. And I'd get these emails, and the one that I remember is it was the Croatian Ministry of Health, and we got an email and they said, We need this. There's nothing else like it, we need one. Um, and I was like, What can we do? You know, because when you're a public servant, you you really want to help people. Like I think everybody in the public service is there, you know, you're not there for the money, you're there because you want to help people, you know, and and that goes uh especially in social services um and health places. So I was like, how can we help? Like, what can we do? You know, we get all these people and they they they need this, you know, these are department government departments internationally that need it. Um, and they said, Well, we're not a software company, you know, that's not what we do. We are here to help Australia's uh health and and Australia's population. Um, so that's not our job. And I was like, but it's someone's job, somebody has to do this. So that's when I, you know, I looked at the the standard and I downloaded a copy for myself and I was like, can I build this? And I sat down and I just started building one at Tinkering Online. And and that's really where it came from. And and the probably the most important, the most interesting thing I'll kind of pause on there is because there's a long journey that happened after that is like it was that moment where I learned, you know, after the fact, is that's product market fit. You know, that was when the market was coming to us saying, there's a there's an immediate need. And I'd say, like, the first, the first thing I'd say to you is like, you know, like the the the thing for me was having a need, having somebody who had a problem that needed solving, um, without thinking about cost, without thinking about product, without thinking about about marketing, it's just like there was a need in the market for a particular problem to be solved. And if you can find something like that, that's where you can build a business. Because if if somebody has a need that can be solved, that's when you can start thinking about you know all the other things that go into making a business. So that's that's where it started. Is one email from from a you know, a random European country going, How can we manage our metadata power?
SPEAKER_00:It's so funny. I swear everyone I speak to on this podcast says something similar like someone came to me with a problem and I said, Well, no one else can solve it. I've got to solve it. So that's how they found the gap in the market, um, which is really interesting. But I mean, it's lucky that you have the technical and the software skills to go away and kind of learn how to build this. I always wonder if in the world of SaaS, do you think that's a very important skill set, the success of a SaaS business? Well, being able to code.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I think so, yeah. Like I think it's it's undeniable. Like I think um, you know, it's it's a really important skill to have because it helps you understand how you're gonna scale. And I think the the really big difference for me is like, I think startup means a lot of things. So like everybody talks about startup meeting a hundred different things. But the thing for for me is like your ability to scale is what really makes you assess is can you take the same product like and apply it you know in the same way at different locations and and really you know leverage the ability of code. Um, and I think understanding you know where the software is coming from is really important because you know that's that's where your product comes from, is someone sitting out of building it. And and I think, you know, software engineering and it, you know, we can say that you know AI code is is you know changing the world. I think from my perspective, a lot of people in my industry are going, you know, that's just making a lot of slop is is the term that we use. I think if you can get in and build a prototype, um, you know, you you you really own a lot of the development of the product, which I think is really important.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's really interesting. I'm actually reading Bill Gates' autobiography called My Beginnings at the Moment. And what I'm starting to learn is he was one of the greatest coders of his time. Like he was way ahead compared to everyone else at Harvard. You know, he was taking classes way ahead of his level. Um, so I do think it it's quite an important skill. Though having said that, that there's also a lot of founders that don't have the skill set. And as long as they can hire well and maybe find a good code founder that can code well, it can also work.
SPEAKER_01:I think it can. Like uh, and then you know, I I can only speak to my own experiences. I think um, like I think first of all, for for people who are watching, like, you know, Bill Gates is undeniably one of the, you know, the the the most, you know, the smartest people, you know, uh for what he's built. Um, but I think he had that unique ability to code and to develop you know a marketing plan of what he wanted to do with that as well. Um, I will say, you know, um there are people who can find a technical co-founder really early on, and and that's when it becomes uh about you know building those relationships early and making sure that you know it's somebody who knows you've got skin in the game. But I think with how easy it is to find no code or you know, even just starting with Excel, you know, like a lot of SaaS businesses will tell you their biggest competitor is Excel, you know, um getting and just touching a prototype is really important. Like I think the one for me was I think Airbnb um started, it didn't have an app, it didn't have you know very much of anything, it just had a four, you know. And what would happen is they would email the founders who would go in and they would manually update records, you know, it wasn't automated. Um, so there was still people behind the scene, but they could build, you know, they built a prototype using really simple off-the-shelf tools. And I think it's you know, if you can demonstrate, especially to someone like myself, like again, things about you time and time again in the industry is there's lots of people who are ideas about a business. Um, but if you can demonstrate a working prototype to someone and you can show that you've got you know a real knack for knowing what the problem is and you know, getting some traction, getting early traction with you know, just hacking together a form and a spreadsheet and a you know, a couple of emails and and show that people are interested, you you get it will change the trajectory for that. You know, you'll get a lot of buy-in from a lot of different people early on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. It's funny that you said the biggest competitor is Excel. I see this time and time again. I it's funny, we live in the world of AI and Excel is yet still the way most people use um, you know, let's do things that could be absolutely automated.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I think you know, like it's eventually, like eventually people become involved. You know, you can automate, you take a situation like you and I today, like you could automate sending the email, you could automate sending some questions through, you could automate, you know, scheduling my calendar with your calendar, but at the end of the day, you and I need to sit down on a phone call. And and that's what I think, you know, with with AI especially, is like uh it's it's there's a whole bunch of interesting research going on in the area, but I think what we're seeing is people are more interested now in that human-to-human interaction. You know, I think um I'm less interested in what AI is gonna say your interesting questions are, and you don't want me to AI, I could AI some answers, you know, we could have this podcast over very quickly. You know, we get a we get your virtual avatar at my virtual avatar. You know, you pull out you AI some questions and I'll AI some answers. It'll probably take us about five minutes each. AI could solve it, but I don't think anybody would want to watch that. No, like and no, you're right. You know, that and that's what we're seeing. It's like, you know, like AI is is gonna be really interesting, like you know, using it for kind of brainstorming some topics, but we we never, you know, to like in the pre-preamble, we didn't talk about AI at all, and that's just something that's kind of you know come up from both of us, and and I think it's that human connection that's gonna become even more valuable at our time.
SPEAKER_00:So I agree, and I completely agree. I think that's why video and podcast they're still going well and and people do love to listen because you've got that human element if AI hasn't quite taken over yet. But if you look at blogs or articles, you kind of go, Oh, this was probably written by AI, I don't want to read it. Um, at least I do, anyways. I've got an option.
SPEAKER_01:I think um, you know, and this again, it's it's very much what you're trying to put out there is I think, you know, AI is going to be useful in a lot of areas, and we've we've seen, you know, even internally, like it's it's a way to kind of you know expand your capability to put marketing content out there. You know, I think having good marketing content or having some marketing content, you know, uh depending on your size is really important. And AI can kind of help break through that, and it's very powerful at that consistency of voice, you know. Like, you know, we've we've used it for uh responding to you know requests from organizations that I don't know if you know that we have tenders in the B2B industry that have filled big questionnaires. It's really great for building that consistency of voice, you know. Um, for marketing, you want every page to kind of talk through the same thing. So as long as you're feeding it the right things, it it can be really, really powerful. Um, but I think we're seeing it used in across everything. I've seen AI used for absolutely everything. Um, and I think it as you said, it's like where where do we pick and choose, you know, like and and how do we engage with that content? Sometimes you want an information sheet, yeah, and you want your information sheet to be dry, you know, very factual, very specific. Um and and you know, your large language models are going to be really good at that. But for your podcast, you want, I don't know, you want somebody to come on and go, hey, do you think AR is good? And then the the presenter goes, nah, like, you know, it's overblown and everybody's kind of overhyping it in the industry at the moment. So you get that fresh edge. So it's very, you know, you where I think we're we're we're at the peak of the hype cycle at the moment. I think we're seeing people start to kind of retract from it, and I think we're we're gonna see people applying it in more specific areas.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Coming back to Aristotle metadata, you've scaled through multiple growth phases. Um, what's been harder, building the product or building the team?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, building the team. Like the product's very uh very consistent with what it was when it was first built. Um, I think you know, we've added more features, we've fixed more bugs, it's you know, easier to deploy, but it's still very much the same core that it was when I sat down. And I think, you know, you asked some of the engineers, there's still some of my very messy code floating in there. It's it's still there. Um, but building a team is is very difficult. You know, building a good team is quite challenging. And I think we've been we've been very lucky. Um, and we should talk about luck, yeah. Um, but I think we've been very lucky with how we've hired. Um, you know, we've we've developed, you know, I was I was talking with someone on a plane recently um through some very rough weather. So we're keeping each other calm. And I was listening to them talk about HR and and the importance of consistency. And that was one thing that I picked up from you know, working in government is like every interview is run exactly the same, which means you know, you know, how everybody you interview kind of responds to questions. And that's been really good for us is because um, so two to for two reasons. One, it means that you you're not biasing in any direction, and I think that's really important nowadays, is to be to be doing that. And it also means that on day one, people have a shared experience they can talk to. Um, you know, one thing uh for anybody listening who's who's trying to get an edge, one thing that we do is there's a couple of different things we do around recipe apps and recipes, because you know, um it's hard to describe your business to somebody who's nervous and yeah, interviewing for the first time. Um so again, people to go through these really simple exercises, and it's something that we've seen in in their first week that people will go, what did you do? How did how did you answer that? Like, were you expecting Sam to ask you about cookies? You know, because uh a lot of a lot of metadata, a lot of documentation is ultimately about processes. So I go, Well, how would you write down a cookie recipe kind of thing? Um and uh it gets them, you know, on on week one, but they're they're part of the team because they can go, that was a weird question.
SPEAKER_00:So Yeah, yeah, definitely not one you'd prepare for the head of a an interview at a SaaS company for sure. Very interesting. Um, it you mentioned luck. I I always love the quote that I've heard. I don't know who used his quote, but he says, um, the harder I work, the luckier I get.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Like, and I think it's, you know, I think a lot of the time you see founders who are like, I worked hard and you know, it was it was, you know, it was only because I was working really, really hard and was working like, you know, 12 hour days, things like that. Because I think um, you know, I I I would be doing people a disservice to say that uh uh it's not a lot of hard work to, you know, to build a business, but you do have to one of the things I say is you have to work to make luck for yourself. Um, and that's things like uh, you know, I I've uh you talk about the stereotype, software engineers aren't very outgoing at the best of times, and people are surprised that I am, and it's like, well, it's something that I've practiced and worked at is like you know, I've worked very hard to be able to go to a lot of networking events, and even when you don't want to, you go, I've got you've got to go, you've got to get better at public speaking, you've got to go out there, you've got to talk to people, uh because that's where connections are made. And I think um, you know, uh it's it's you have to recognize the the importance of luck uh when it comes to building a business because some people are unlucky, and it's not because they've got a bad idea, it's not because they've you know they didn't work hard enough, it's not because that they, you know, they didn't, you know, do the right things. Um sometimes it's just a confluence of you know, uh new competitor came in faster, uh once-in-a-lifetime thing like COVID happened, or you know, something happened in their personal life, which meant they just couldn't focus on that anymore. And and I think it's it's really bad for founder mental health to say, you know, it's just hard work, because that's not true. Like I think for any founder who's who who's attempted this and it didn't work out, I think it's important to recognize it it wasn't you and it wasn't because you didn't work hard enough, it's because sometimes luck is just you know, sometimes it's just bad luck, and there's not a lot you could do for that. Um, the thing that I say to people is, you know, you you have to just try stuff anyway, even when it kind of sucks. You know, you have to take breaks and you have to, you know, look after your mental health. But it's like you know, you have to go, well, I'm gonna go to that event and I'm gonna go here and I want to meet these people. And it's like, you know, you're gonna you need to do things to make sure that you've known. Um, and you're gonna go, you know, I think this is my third or fourth podcast now, so I'm really happy to be on. But on my first one, I was like, I don't, I've never done a podcast. I don't I hope I'm not sure what to do. And I don't know if um, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna be any good. I I don't know if anybody's gonna want to listen to it. And I think you need to to quash that and go, well, I'm gonna just do it anyway. Because once you've done your first one, then all of a sudden you meet people like yourself who'll go, Well, would you like to be on this one as well? And it builds those opportunities. And and probably the last thing I'll say is is you know, I I was I was speaking with uh someone about this, about you know, um women in the tech industry and why why the big gap exists. And I think it one of the one of the things that I've seen people talk to is the the level of risks that uh men generally are willing to take. Uh, and that that that is on both ends of, you know, I'm gonna jump off a building into a pool. Um, and on the other end, you've got, I'm gonna try and I'm gonna quit my job and start a company and see where that goes. And you know, not all risks pay off, but you know, when they do, they they do go really well. And I and I think it's one of the pieces of advice that I'd say to you know, women that I've I've uh based on experience that I've met through the industry, is like, I think there's a lot of really exceptional uh people out there, men and women. And I think if you're not if you think you you can't take the risk, figure out why and try and break through that. Because I think that's that's probably the biggest thing we could see is like, and you know, I'm sure you can speak from experience, it's like some days you're just gonna have to take the risk and go, I'm gonna build a SaaS podcast, you know, and that's what I'm gonna do. And and not a lot of people take those risks. And I think you know, congratulations to you for doing it as well as a from one founder to another. But I think breakthrough, take the risk, and understand what your fallback position is because mine was always like you know, if it doesn't go well, I can I'll just go back to the public service, you know. Maybe it won't be as fun, but I've got a backup. So if you've got a backup, take a risk.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. I think it helps to have a backup. Um, it's interesting what you said about women versus men. I've I've heard um a statistic around more men will start a business, but women are actually more successful at making it last longer, just because some of the risks you definitely want to be a little bit cautious with when you are in a business. Um, so that's an interesting one. Coming back to hiring, though, I was just curious what's your strategy for attracting tech talent?
SPEAKER_01:Oh well, we we we advertise jobs. Um, I think uh so for me it's and and and this is about my my unique experience as well. So I'm I really like uh learning and I really like teaching. I really like people who like to learn. And that's probably one of the biggest things we've looked at in uh when we when we site for people is uh looking for people who are interested in learning. And we've um I think uh yeah, so so looking for people who are really interested in learning and and you know supporting early career growth. Um, I think one one thing for uh you know small businesses starting out um is you are competing in a very uneven market, you know. Um we we're competing for the same talent as Atlassian, uh, but their hiring budget, their hiring expertise is about you know 10 times more than we can provide. You know, uh one of our first engineers came to me and he was poached by it last year that there's nothing we could do. So it was a massive increase. And it was just, you know, it's just the difference between building a startup and building a uh you know, a you know, being in an established business. So I think you know, keeping an eye on you know early early talent is is really valuable. Um and that's really um both people who are who are just early in their career and people who've just you know transitioned their career as well. Um, I think Canberra is unique and we we have like a really strong um you know new new migrant cohort, and that's where some of our best talent has come from, is people who have decided to move to Australia. And I think it's really interesting because uh you see a lot of uh a lot of can-do attitude, you know, for Australian can do kind of attitude, which I like to see. There's people who are just like, you know, it's I'm gonna move, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just try and rebuild everything from from scratch in a new country. And it's that kind of, you know, I don't know, micro-entrepreneurial spirit where you go, this is someone who, you know, who who can who's interested in risk taking, who's interested in yeah building something. And and that's been really, really beneficial for us as well. So I think it's you know, look for look for early talent, like and um not necessarily, you know, like look for look for new talent in your area of expertise, because I think that's that's the one thing that we've uh I've been very conscious of is you know, very early on, we had to build an engineering team, um, because you know, I couldn't do it. But if you're a marketing expert, you know, you're gonna have to build a marketing team. So rather than trying to bring in experts at marketing, of which you probably are, you know, bring in a couple of really re really eager interns or really eager first year professionals and and teach them what you know. If you have to, you know, if you're if you're a product focused or if you're a business focused person and you have to get an exceptional early stage CTO, okay, like you're gonna have to do that. But that means that you can kind of be a little bit more uh proactive on on who you bring in, uh like that's something wrong with, but you can be a little bit more uh selective about who you bring on for your expertise because you can teach them, you know. So you give them a really good experience, you give them a reason to want to be there. Um, and I think again, you know, people at early career love to learn. So they get a lot out of the opportunity as well. Um so yeah, that's that's what I would say is like, you know, don't don't overlook the value of really, really good, really, really passionate, hardworking early career individuals.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's actually really good advice because I think what most people or most organizations are focused on is where can I get the best talent? And the best talents usually have been around for many years. They probably are working at a company like Atlassian or some other big brand. Um, but where they're not kind of focusing is you're right, like the the people that are up and coming, that have all the potential, that are willing to learn, willing to take risks. Um, we do this ourselves at our media. We actually bring in, you know, really clever, young, smart people and we train them up. We have a mentorship program, and it's actually worked really well for us. Um, I also find, I think what I was reading in what you were saying there as well is the word agility came to mind. Like people that are just being comfortable with change and staying agile, which I think is gonna be an important skill to have in in our future world of AI and just kind of not knowing what's gonna happen with that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Like I think um, like then like you know, people have said we've got really lucky with our with our hiring. And I think that's not true. Like I think we've been we've been very specific on how we all want to hire. And I think you the especially for like for building a business, you want people who are curious, you want people who, you know, are interested in a little bit more. And that's where, you know, some of our uh explorers wrote questions during interviews, like, you know, what have you done previously? You know, what's your background before you joined, you know, before you you hit your profession, you know, like uh because I love to hear about you know, I was I was a bouncer, like um, I think one of my co-founders, you know, was a manager in a coffee shop before they kind of pivoted into where they are now. Um and it was like hearing those early stage stories about, you know, well, what were you good at before you doing this? You know, has is really valuable. I think the other thing that we can talk a little bit about as well is like, so um, I'm actually uh from my experience getting my MBA, I'm writing a book and I've got a chapter in there around how you find you know top level talent. Um and and you know, I think it's um like it's not as hard as you think because I think people focus on on an individual, not a team. So um I guess you're interested. I'm gonna dive in. So I'm writing this, I'm writing a book. Um, I've got a newsletter on LinkedIn called Mostly Quadrants, and it's I'm basically chapter chatter publishing chapter by chapter. And one of the ones I'll be doing soon, I'm looking to see if we can get it syndicated in there in a in a trade publication before we we put it online, is um this idea that I had around watching the movie Muddy Ball. So I had this really fun experience where that that staff member who I was talking about, where they were poached by it last year. He was a great engineer, a really good friend uh since he's left. Um, and he was poached to to go to another job. And at the same time, one of our other engineers left. And at this stage were five people in the company. So it's not a lot of places where you could say, I lost 40% of my my team overnight. What do I do? And it came from watching Moneyball. I was like, I was freaking out. Like you're like, oh wait, I don't know if we're gonna get through this. So I I watched a movie to get my mind off it, um, which was something that they actually promoted through my MBAs. There were a couple of movies they said, watch this movie and learn some. So I watched I watched Moneyball, like on and and it's really a story about uh a small team, uh uh a major league team in the US who has their staff poached all the time. You know, big leagues come in and they just take their staff. And I was like, Yeah, I get it. You know, I think it was the Oakland Athletics, and they just get their staff poached, you know. Big teams would come in and take their best talent. And this was at the time where you know, baseball was moving from a an intuition-based sport to a statistics-based sport to a data-driven sport, which I found really interesting as well. And what they did was they actually looked at, you know, what are the things that we need to have a successful baseball team? And I think we we see the same thing in business where somebody goes, I need a star performer, I need an amazing person on the team. And that's actually not true. Like um, what they found was what they wanted was somebody who could get to first base, you know. So in baseball, you have four bases around, and if you can get everybody going one base forward, then eventually you're gonna push people off the end, right? And that was the number one statistic they looked at. It wasn't how far they could hit or how fast they could run, or you know, whether or not they were good anything. All they did was say, can we find people who can get to first base? Because if everybody on their team has a high rate, like a high predictability of getting on first base, we're gonna win. Right. And there was this situation that's described in the book in the movie. They lost three people almost immediately. And they lost a guy on like they they lost a catcher, they lost uh, you know, an outfielder, they lost a pitcher, I think. And they said that everybody was like, We we need to find a great pitcher, we need to find a great catcher, we need to find a great outfielder. Like that's what we need. And the guy said, We're not gonna get that, we can't afford them, and if we buy them, they're gonna get poached almost immediately. Um, what we need is we need some like we just need three guys who can stand in those positions and not be bad, and all they need to do is make sure we can get the first base. And I was like, holy shit. Oh, I mean, you can believe that one. Uh you can swear on that's bloodcast. Oh, I've got a few more now. Um, so he said, you know, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna that's all we're gonna look at, and everybody's telling you it was crazy. And they went on to to have the the longest win streak in history from that decision. Um, they won, you know, I think their next 20 games, which has never been repeated. Like they because they've they took a different approach. And the advice that I give to a lot of people when they talk about talent is you're never gonna get that person back. Like Harry, uh, who who you know, again, because because we're prepared for when people leave, he's a really good friend of mine, but we're never gonna replace him. And our question was can we can we publish, can we put out a security update? Not do I have a great UX person, not do I have a really experienced engineer? I was like, can we push security updates every Tuesday? Because that's how how frequently we look we released code at the time. I think it gone to two weekly. Um, and that was it. Can we put can we make sure our clients' sites are secure? They don't need new features, they don't need you know, a better UX, they don't need anything. The only thing that we need to do to make sure we're doing our jobs is release. So we we did that and we we looked for some talent and said we just need a couple of people who can follow the processes we've already built, and that's what we did. So We got a couple of really good junior engineers in that the uh that who've subsequently joined have got experienced. They also left as well, um, which happens in every job and you can't let it get to heart. Um, but we said you you can release, like we're good. And the Saturday after, like Harry gave us this very generous leave, uh leave notice. And the next Tuesday was that was basically our make or break, and we released. And that was it because we we focused on one thing for success. And that's what I would say to a lot of people is like don't focus on the star performer who leaves because it's always gonna happen. You know, they're gonna have family who they need to move for, they're gonna have a different job that comes along. Um, maybe they like, you know, I've had people go, I just want to learn something new, you know. Um, and I said, okay, so as long as you have really good processes that people could kind of follow and feed into when they when they start, and that's something you need to do from day one as a founder, is as long as you've got that, you need you just need to figure out what does our business need to do when that star performer leaves? You know, and in marketing, that might be you don't need someone who can build a two-year marketing strategy. Maybe the most important thing for you right now is do we get our weekly leak to close? Do we are we getting content out there so people still know we're around? You know, maybe it's not the best content, maybe it's not the, you know, maybe it's not perfect content for your strategy, maybe you don't have a strategy, but you might go, as long as we're putting out something each week, then we're still in the market and we're still maintaining our presence. And that buys you a lot of time before you, you know, kind of need to pivot to do the next big thing. So I love that.
SPEAKER_00:I love that story. It just reminds me, like you need to be focused on the next step rather than the big picture that can just overwhelm most people. Like, you know, most people in that instance would be like, you know, we need someone that can hit a home run, but really you just need you, you're right, you just need someone that can get to the first base, and then each player would then make their way home that way. So it's just like, what's the next step? What's the next step? And just being focused on that next step rather than looking at all the other steps that need to get taken, um, it just overwhelms people. It reminds me of a story. There was um I forgot which country it was, but it was their cycling team, and they were very much focused on the podium. And the trainer came in and he's like, forget about the podium, just focus on the pedals. You're just pedaling, that's all you need to focus on, and they ended up quitting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, I think it's it's it's for me, it's really about focusing about you know team dynamics is like, yeah, I think we we've seen in technology, like in the tech industry, we have like the the brilliant arsehole kind of problem, which is someone who you know is exceptionally really good, you know, very, very talented, but can be very difficult to work around. Um, I mean on more than one occasion, people have like admitted to that, which is probably true occasionally. Um, but it's making sure that you're building a team and and making sure that they know you know what their roles are, what what they're doing and what they're moving towards. Because, like you said, like you know, sometimes like the like winning is hard, winning's a big goal. But I think if you know where your fundamentals are, especially in those situations where you've got a you know a make or break, and you're like, I don't know, like uh I put it down to you, we're never gonna get another style player. Well, don't don't focus on that, you know. Like, what can you do? What what else? What are your other options that you you can look at?
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. Speaking of fundamentals, let's touch a little bit on your go-to-market strategy. So in the history of Aristotle metadata, you've got your first client, you know, obviously that they came to you with a need. What what are some other ways and some other marketing campaigns that have worked really well in terms of getting customers?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think um you first need you need to start with your networks. So, well, I guess uh actually no, um before I before I say that, I think it it depends on the industry you're in, right? Um, I think you know SaaS can broadly be broken down as B2C, you know, business to consumer, like uh where you're where you're talking about, you know, you and one person and maybe you know a small interaction there, um, and then B2B, business to business. And I think they they have two very different strategies. Um, I think people talk about B2G, business to government, but I think it's you know effectively the same thing. Like you're you're business to big organizations kind of thing. Um, I think in both cases, networking is really important for for your first couple of you know users. Um and and I think that's that cannot be understated for business to business, is you know, make sure that you know who your first couple of customers are gonna be, because if you've got really good trust in the in the industry, is I think um you you start going down that pathway. Um so hit your networks first, um, and then get their advice on how you want to put this message out, you know, because you've got to listen to their pain, you know, you've got to like have the vision, you've got to know what you're trying to build, but you've got to listen to what they're trying to solve and and react to that. You know, that isn't to say, you know, you don't want to go fully down the path that the customer's always right. Um, and you don't want to fully go down the you know the the Henry Ford quote of, you know, you can have any color you want as long as it's black. You know, you've got to you've got to react to what people are saying. And and sometimes you say, I don't think we want to build that. Sometimes you say, Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do that. Um and and I think you you just need to make sure that you're putting putting messaging out there that supports that. So uh again, I think a lot of people get stuck on perfection. Uh one of the things that I've always focused on is making sure you've got momentum and inertia is really important, you know, making sure that you are you know doing your weekly LinkedIn post, making sure you are putting out through the channels so that people know you that you're there. Um, and making sure you've got you know a web presence. Yeah, a website is probably you know, uh that that you own and control is really important as well. And and I think for any SaaS, because you you really want to work globally, that web presence is more important than anything else. Yeah, we've got clients over in Europe, we've got some clients over in the US, all of who've come through those um through those channels. And and I think the more you can do to drive business to yourself, uh, rather than having to go out and do sales, I think the better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It really all does come down to the fundamentals and the basics of marketing, doesn't it? Like just have a nice website, make sure you're speaking about the pain points, not your features. You know, make sure you're out there on LinkedIn, on all the channels where your target audience is actually trying to find you.
SPEAKER_01:It really does. Like, I think uh, like and I'm gonna I want to do another plug for for the book that I'm working on is so I I I tell us, tell us a little bit about it.
SPEAKER_00:What's it called and when's it coming out?
SPEAKER_01:It's still in draft, um, but I've got a newsletter, so it's called most of the quadrants, and it's based on my experience going through an MBA because I I saw a lot of the material uh is was actually quite contemporary in the sense that you know business, um I and I have a whole opinion about software not changing, but business is is relatively static. A lot of the principles remain the same. And what I saw was uh a lot of the a lot of the things that we worked through were actually you know uh insights that came out in the you know the 60s and the 70s, uh when you know the modern business really started to to change and evolve. Um and a lot of those were very simple frameworks like your traditional swap matrix and your traditional uh you know business model canvases and your BCG matrixes for identifying opportunities. So the joke that I said to a friend is like basically an MBA is mostly quadrants, you know, that's that's where it is. Um, but it's mostly frameworks, and and I think knowing those fundamentals is important. So what I'm working on is actually from a founder perspective, um, taking those and and drafting them in a way that I haven't seen in the the industry so far is to say this is what what you need to learn and this is where it's come from. So you can speak the same language as as as other MBAs, because those fundamentals are really important. And and I think one thing that I've been building there is is enough for people across different sectors to be able to jump in and understand it. Because one of the things that you you you learn about is this concept of a of a T-shape leader, yeah. Like as a founder, and you're probably aware, is you're you're gonna have deep expertise in one area. That's where you've built your career.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I I came to as a programmer, you've come through from a marketing background. But when you start a business or when you become an executive, you need to know a little bit about legal, because there's contracts and you need to know a little bit, because you know, there's probably a release process that I'm gonna have to go through, I'm gonna have to tick a box, right? Um, you learn about finance. So you can invoice people, you learn, you have to learn about marketing, you have to learn about technology, you have to learn about strategy. Um, and a lot of that comes back to having that baseline. So one of the things that I've started pulling together on on the newsletter is, you know, to to kind of gauge interest. Uh, I'm publishing draft chapters as they, you know, as they're relevant. So I think this this month was all about scams, um, and doing a bit of a movie review as part of it. So I say go watch this movie because it'll it'll help contextualize it, uh, which is where the money ball idea came from. Um and and and really it is making sure that you understand the fundamentals of each of the different sectors that you're kind of talking to, because you don't need to be an expert in everything, but you know, when you're a founder, you know, you need to know broadly how how certain things operate.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's really interesting. You mentioned T T-shaped leadership. That's actually the first I've heard of that. It's very interesting. And you've led Aristotle for nearly a decade now. How have you adopted or adapted your leadership style as the company has gone from startup to now, you know, enterprise grade?
SPEAKER_01:Well, firstly, like I'll say, like, I wish I could take tenant credit for things like the T-shirt leader, but again, I think it was a 1967 article from the Harvard Business Review. Uh, that is just one of those tidbits of secrets that you don't learn until you're exposed to them. So it's not a new idea. Um, and I think the the thing that I've learned about leadership is uh I think uh you need to be you know open and you need to, you know, take feedback. But at the end of the day, um, somebody has to make a decision at all levels through an organization. You need to make sure that people know what decisions they break. Uh, because I think like people like to know, like like to have control over what they do. Um and and I I'll give a micro example is we we do a lot through cloud, we do a lot through Amazon uh AWS Web Services. Um, and you know, we had a problem where a database got too big, yeah. Um, and it was there was a reason for that. We were holding a bit more information than we needed, and we could do a bit of a clean out and a purge, but that would require, you know, some in-depth thinking. And I I asked one of my engineers, I'm like, I trust you to deploy all of this. Like you made this for the client, you put everything out there, um, so you're allowed to do that. Um, and and that's all part of our standard processes. And I said, Um if we just made the database bigger, what's that gonna cost? And he he did the calculations, he brought up the the cloud calculator and he said, it's gonna cost us an extra$20 a month. And I said, Okay, we're making a decision right now. And we wrote it down and and I said, Because if the database got full, the client site was gonna stop working, which is nobody wants that. But I basically said, you know, if you can spend less than a hundred dollars on our cloud infrastructure and keep a client like stable for another month, you do that, and then we talk about it afterwards, right? Because sometimes, like just using more space, you just make stuff bigger. So I said, we're just gonna do that. And it changed the behavior of everybody in the team because they all all of a sudden they they knew that they could make a decision, they they had control. And and I think uh, especially in business, people like to know what they could spend. It gives you a really clear sense of control and ownership of work. And I said, you can spend up to$100 a month per client if it solves the problem and buys us a month to talk about it. Because if a situation comes up, I want you to be able to react, and all of a sudden it was that one change of people like, I'm in charge, I'm in control of the things that I'm in control of. And I think that's really important is making sure people can kind of have that authority because you can't make every decision, and that was a really hard lesson. It took me a long time to learn that is you have to stop making decisions, or or precisely, you have to make a decision once and write it down so people know what to do. You know, like they at the end of the day, if if you're not in charge, people kind of won't do it and they'll still defer back to you. So you go, I made a decision. I sat down with you and I said, the decision is you can spend a hundred dollars you know per month to make sure the servers stay up. So that was the decision. That was that was my decision. That's our that's our process. And we wrote it down and it gave them boundaries to work with it as well. And and that that just you know, it's it's those little decisions where you know people get to again feel ownership and control of what they do.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I think it's important to give people autonomy and you know, the ability to kind of make decisions based on a very specific process. And I think that's a very common challenge for a lot of founders and and bosses out there is how do I manage a team in a way that, you know, gives them that level of control and empowers them to do all these things that they're more than capable of doing, um, at the same time, following a process and the strategy that is company-wide.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think it's it just comes down to like writing it down and telling people, you know, this is which so simple, but a lot of us don't do, right? And it it it it was too long, like we're actually going through a big focus on that right now because we've just gone through a bit of a surge for the staff as well. And you know, we've seen that you know some decisions were kind of getting halted and actions weren't happening because you know they were like they were waiting to defer to me. And I'm like, and and it and it it really is like I think twofold is coming from you know giving people a why around certain things are happening. Um, you know, why are we doing this? As an example, we do three days in office and two days at home, or you know, we do a minimum three days in office. And you know, the the explanation I gave, because work from home is a really important thing for a lot of people, is I said, well, we have a lot of new people, like like we have a lot of new people joining. And sometimes being able to sit next to someone and make that social connection carrying them part of the team faster and it helps them answer questions faster. You know, when we have an incident come up, which is you know really rare, um, we need to have people there to react quickly. And the best way for us to do that is sometimes to just grab people and put them in a room. And and I think if you can rationalize why decisions are happening, you know, people may not agree with that sometimes, but they can understand where you're coming from. You know, it's not about you saying, you know, like I'm the boss, so I make the decision. It's like, well, I've looked at the potential problems and this is the decision we've come up with that works the best, you know. Um and and uh I think you know, just explaining it so people can kind of buy in and then and then giving them the the authority to kind of take over from there.
SPEAKER_00:I completely agree with that. Um last question, Poe. A bit of a tradition on this podcast is if you could go in time at any point in your life and give yourself one bit of advice, what would that be?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, um, it's a really tough question. I think um one piece of advice. I think uh I don't know at what point I would do this. Because again, like you're asking a guy who loves sci-fi, like what would I do if I would go back in time? And it's like that's just gonna change everything. Um, I think the one thing that I would say is I'd you know, I would just say you can do it. You know, um, I think uh you know, I think if you're if you're the kind of person who's interested in doing this, is I think um you you need to go through all those experiences. Like you, you know, starting a business is not fun and it is not easy. And I would say to anybody who's interested, like there are uh better ways to have a fun work-life balance. There are um better ways to have a job. Having a job is like uh sometimes a privilege, you know. Like um, you know, there are there are better jobs, you know, and and I say to my team, like I I have a job just like everybody else. Like I, you know, I from day one we were drawing a salary. I I have a board of directors, um, you know, I have people that I have to answer to. We all have a job. Um, and there are better jobs than being a startup founder. Um, but if you're the kind of person who who decides and looks at that says, even though everything rational says this is too hard and it's too big, and I don't think I want to do it, if you say yes, then the the advice that I would give you at each step of the way is when it gets hard, is you can do it. Like, you know, I and and uh it's not about um working longer hours. I think there's a whole bunch that could be said about work-life balance. I think what it is is like, you know, just the persistence of kind of showing up tomorrow, uh and and you know, continuing through. And and if you're seeing traction, you know, following that through. I think I've never had to be in a position where I know there was one situation where I we nearly had to call it quits, uh, but this was the last question. So you don't get to hear that up there. You can hear that on the next. Um, maybe we'll talk about it. Like we can come back on a podcast to talk about when to call it quits. But then if you're going through, you're feeling the traction, but it feels like you're swimming through a tree color. It feels like you're just dragging yourself through a target with this massive boulder on your shoulders, and you don't know if you can keep moving forward. Is like put it down, take take a beat, watch a movie, go watch Moneyball. Yeah, watch, watch, you know, like go to the pod, like go to my my my my newsletter, pick a movie, watch a movie, and come back tomorrow because a lot of the time it's just about showing up day after day, week after week. It's not about doing more hours today, it's not about doing 80 hours, sometimes a good 40-hour week or a good 35-hour week. Try and give yourself a break. But doing that consistently over time is is is where it's at. So I'd say, you know, if I could go back in time, I would say, Sam, you can do it. Like it's gonna suck, it's gonna be hard, you're gonna be carrying a polar on your bag through a bunch of tar and you're gonna be carrying decisions that nobody else is gonna know about because you know you you have to you know keep all the bad stuff to yourself and you tell everybody all the good stuff. Um, you know, it's gonna suck. Uh, but if you're a co-founder who who who hears that story and says, give me the boulder, I'm gonna give it a shot. I'd be like, well, just put one foot in front of the the other, take a rest where you can, you can do it.
SPEAKER_00:I love that advice. It's so true. Just get in there and trust the process, right? Take it one step at a time. Yeah, thank you so much for being on the floodcast. That's it. No, that's it, right? That's all you have to do is just show up day in, day out. It's like the next step, the next step. Again, don't be looking at the home run. Get to the next face.
SPEAKER_01:It's a birthday stage. Perfect.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Sam. I've learned so much. I I love some of the tafsir, you know, from hiring challenges to the questions that you might ask at an interview, the cooking recipe. I might try that one next time. So thank you for everything.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much, Joe, for having me. It was really good to be here.
