Inbox Gold: Turning Emails Into Revenue

In this episode of SaaS Stories, Vadim Rogovskiy, Founder and CEO of EVE, shares how AI-first sales execution is reshaping B2B SaaS growth and why most teams are leaving revenue hidden inside their inboxes.

We explore how acquiring a legacy SaaS business uncovered hundreds of untouched opportunities, inspiring EVE to turn real email conversations into a live, prioritised sales funnel without changing workflows. Vadim breaks down founder-led GTM, AI-powered follow-ups, pipeline prioritisation, and why inbox-driven execution often outperforms traditional CRM-only approaches.

Drawing on experience as a multi-time founder, VC, and operator, Vadim also shares lessons on scaling, hiring with AI, community-led growth, and what separates SaaS companies that scale from those that stall.

Learn how Hat Media helps B2B SaaS teams operationalise demand generation, ABM, and revenue execution at scale.

Transcript

Startup Origins And Accidental Sales

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We could definitely problem in the business I acquired, but then we confirm that there is the same problem for multiple multiple software companies if they are within this million to few million dollars of revenue per year arranged. They do not have a CRM. Once the other founders they wouldn't know it, they will have to acquire a business to get inside it, and those two people are going to do it.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

All of the businesses that you've run, how have you helped them scale and acquire? What has been instrumental to that journey?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Sometimes the founders just don't do it on a college professional level, how like uh GPM people will do it. However, on the founders know how to propose a position of product, you cannot teach these, you cannot teach other people to do it right.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I think the businesses don't need more reasons they need help, seeing the ones they already have. What do you think is the biggest basic revenue model from founders and sales to fall off?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I mean, like the majority of default just don't fall off with customers, with investors, with leads. Genuine human human relationships are gonna become more and more important in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Welcome everyone to another episode of SARS Stories. Today I'm joined by Vadim Rogovsky, CEO and founder at Eve. Welcome, Vadim.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, uh thanks for having me here, Jana.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Absolutely. Let's start where we always start, which is the origin story. You've built Eve after acquiring a 17-year-old company and uncovering hundreds of misleads hidden in founders' inbox. What was the aha moment that led you to found Eve?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Oh yeah, it's a it's a good question. So actually, yeah, I didn't plan to start another zero-to-one journey at the time. Uh, I wanted to take a break from it, but uh it didn't happen this way, right? Because I at first I wanted to um start acquiring companies, like legacy software companies on on uh kind of large fragmented markets, and then uh optimum like transform them using AI and my kind of digital marketing playbook I've been doing in my previous companies. And when we acquired and with my business partner, we acquired the first company um uh called Leader. I at the company, yeah, they've been around for 17 years helping different businesses of different sizes, including some huge corporations, to run uh events, right? Trade shows and conferences. So, and we've acquired it and we wanted to do a obviously a transition from ex-owner who retired, and he had all his all the all the leads and his email because he was using email as a primary channel for sales, and we uh I didn't we didn't find a tool to help us to actually get inside his inbox and actually extract all the leads from there. Uh, I was very surprised because I I I thought these tools exist. Uh, and uh so I had to build one with my uh with my team just to do to just a prototype, and then we realized that we found like 400 leads uh that he never touched for the last six years. Uh and uh yeah, then we gave it back to the sales team and they closed a few deals from there immediately. And then I tested it on a few other companies, including my previous startup that is still around 3D Look. And also the insights were great, and then I thought, well, probably this is the opportunity I want to go after. This is the opportunity I want to double down on. So that's how that's how it started. So basically, I spun off the company uh from there, and yeah, so you it became Eve, and uh yeah, that that's exactly what I've been focused on for the last year.

First Leadership, Third-Party Sales At Scale

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Wow, 400 leads. I'd I'd love to touch on the whole journey that led you to Eve. But first off, let's just go a little bit deep on what Eve actually does. So it looks at a person's inbox and it essentially finds opportunities and leads that already exist but people may have just forgotten about. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like is it yeah, yeah, yeah. The the the thing is that um we identified a big yeah, like we identified the problem in the business I I acquired, but then we confirmed that there is the same problem for multiple, multiple small um uh software companies and and especially service businesses, that often if they are within this million to a few million dollars uh revenue per year range, they do not have a CRM. Or uh they might have a CRM, but they just have it because they kind of that's the expectation they kind of should, but they don't really invest in in you know, like in automating it. And not all of the CRMs actually have AI capabilities. So these companies end up having a big breakdown between in our data and what sits in a CRM, or if they don't have a CRM, it's even easier because they have all this data uh in in spreadsheets, in their notepad, like every uh everywhere else. Yeah, and and we basically understood that in order to help these businesses to start using AI agents, we need to, and actually like uh help them to fix this gap, we need to uh start where they have the majority of their data. And they obviously have the majority of their data in the email. I'm talking about B2B software or service businesses that sell through email, right? And then we connect to their email uh and we use all those data, all the data as the basically the b basis for like we we build like essentially knowledge layer uh for all uh for for all the comp for every company that connects to Eve. And it then based on that we are able to actually identify all the all the all the all the existing customers, all the leads, all the opportunities, rank them, prioritize them, um, organize them, and then actually decide divide them by stages. So end up like having like a we transform their email into sales funnel, and then we uh rank them by priority, and also we help them to follow up, which is which is generate follow-up emails they can send it in in one click. So that's that's basically how it works, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, it's a brilliant idea actually, because everyone's kind of looking at their CRM. When I come in and speak to clients, we're always looking at the CRM to see, you know, who have you already spoken to, who's engaged, but no one really thinks about the email inbox, which actually makes a lot of sense because if I think about it, there's probably 50,000 emails sitting in my inbox right now. But there are definitely conversations that have stalled um that I should probably be re-engaging. Um, but there's also opportunities for upselling and cross-selling with existing clients. So it's actually quite interesting. I guess that it would be fantastic for the system to be able to go through you know thousands and thousands of emails in that inbox and categorize them as different opportunities potentially.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yes. The thing is that first of all, like the value here is divided into two parts. The first part is actually analyzing your historical data. That's what we did in with the company I acquired. We analyzed the last six years of data, right? And we came up with this 400 plus leads. But but then uh that's the ultimate value that actually no one else does it, right? Um, but secondly, it's about just uh regular uh monitoring and uh and regular so that so so we make sure uh uh that the business, our customers have actual up-to-date funnels thing that is sitting on top of their email without any additional input from their site, which is the magical part.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Fantastic. Let's take a step back and kind of road through your entire journey because you founded four companies now, you've raised 20 million plus, you've invested in multiple startups. With that kind of pattern recognition, what makes you say, This is the one I want to build about Eve?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yeah, I think uh it's all about, I mean, yeah, it's all about uh I think in my case, it's all about uh right um the understanding that with this current wave, you know, I you know, and obviously I was watching AI um transformation for since the beginning. Obviously, I've been like I've been building in AI even before AI became a thing. So my first A company, I started it in 2016. We were doing like uh mobile body scanning. Uh it's also like built our own proprietary AI model to scan human bodies using smartphone camera. But uh so I've been in AI for quite a while. But this time when LLMs appeared on the scene, at first I didn't jump in. I was really I wanted to be really patient. I wanted to just avoid, you know, like any FOMO or something. I wanted to stay on the sideline and just watch how it unfold. And uh I was waiting for no, no, and at that time I was literally like, yeah, I I decided I don't want to build anything now. I just uh since from scratch, I wanted to buy and then build. But then ultimately I decided, okay, but now I see the the problem, I see the opportunity, it's a huge opportunity because Agentic AI gives an opportunity to build new software categories for underserved, uh uh for underserved uh like thousands of businesses that previously didn't even use AI. And we it's on the situation that AI still is mostly used by fraction of worldwide businesses, right? Uh still the revolution is not there yet, although we all talk about it. So I finally got the the kind of the unfair advantage and the uh non-obvious insight that became the foundation of E. Because when I was a VC on the investment side before starting this company, I always was looking for, you know, like the answer to the question like why uh why this team is gonna build this, like what's the unfair advantage, what's the non- and what do they know about something, about the market, about the technology that others don't know. I was looking for this not obvious insight. And with ear, it suddenly made all total sense because what we learned by we we only were able to learn it by acquiring the business. So I other like 20 other founders going through YC or like whatever, just uh starting from scratch, they I mean they wouldn't just they wouldn't know it. They will have to acquire a business to get inside it, and no, uh very few people are gonna do it. So in my case, it was just a very clear, honest, very strong answer to the question like why now and what do I know that others don't know that actually prompted me to uh actually double down on this idea, yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, yeah. No, it sounded like I think this is where all the great ideas come from. Or most of the the founders I've had on this podcast have found a gap in the market. Like this didn't exist, I had this problem, I couldn't find it anywhere, so I built it, um, which is fantastic. Now, going through all of the companies and and again, kind of pattern recognition, what works, I'd love to just get some advice from you on your go-to-market strategies. We all of the businesses that you've run, how have you helped them scale and grow? What has been instrumental to that journey?

From Burnout To Rebuilding A Team

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I mean, in terms of go-to-markets, yes, I always was involved in go-to-market. That's kind of my um area of expertise, and I always uh loved it. And I think uh uh since the early days, somehow I understood, I somehow I prioritized growing my personal brand uh and selling through it, promoting companies through it, although it was not even a thing uh until pretty much recently. And I think it's just and it's it and it started through fake through Facebook, obviously, then I got to LinkedIn. But um, and it helped I mean it helped me to find some core people in my previous companies, sometimes even co-founders. Uh, it helped me to find some investors and obviously obviously customers, a lot of them, through my social media uh content. So um, and I think this is I have been always a strong advocate of founder of founder-led uh growth in terms of I mean like as of growth through founder through through founder brand. Because uh yeah, that's the most powerful tool if you can if you can use it in the right way, and it will always stay with the founder regardless of what what they do, all right? And it's not even connected to a particular company, it's just your for permanent asset. And uh yeah, it worked. I mean, now I'm experimenting with different things, like uh uh like uh trying to maybe um like mix some educational content with some uh product content with some you know like uh some provocative uh content, uh etc. Just experimenting with different things this year. I also want to try maybe some new some new format, maybe like an email list, or maybe like I don't know, uh maybe some I experienced I experimented with video content as well. So yeah, like I've been always paying a lot of attention to founder uh to my own brand. Uh well that's it's it's really work. Yeah. So do you want to talk about that or we can switch to something else?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Uh no, no, I would love to. So I I agree. I think founderlit growth is definitely the right strategy, you know, especially for startups that are just starting out, they don't have millions of dollars to spend on advertising budgets. So founder let growth definitely makes sense. I would love to get your thoughts on if they were mid-market to enterprise level B2B companies, you know, obviously founderlet growth doesn't seem scalable or sustainable. So in those cases, would you use maybe the sales team to do the same type of marketing? So, like, you know, uh founders, for example, would do a lot of personal branding, they would put a lot of content up. I guess in larger organizations, would you just delegate that to the to the sales and marketing teams? Or what would be the strategy there?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I think there is something unique about founder led um sales founder that grows because probably founders don't do it. Um sometimes founders just uh don't do it on a very polished and professional uh level, how like uh experienced GTM people will will do. However, founders do it in some unique way because uh only founders know better than anyone else how to properly position the product when you don't have a lot of when you though you have so many gaps there when you essentially fake it until you make it. You cannot teach this, you cannot teach other people to do it, right? And uh that's uh I think it's unique about um the founder led sales because you have to balance a lot of things and you have to essentially um combine a lot of roles, a lot of hats um to make it right. Um and I think only from when it goes from founder it gives uh highest level of credibility and authority. And I think uh yeah, it's just I I cannot imagine a higher GTM person to be able to to to to do to make the same impact. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. Um now you've said that businesses don't need more leads, they need help closing the ones they already have. Um, what do you think are the biggest leaks in revenue funnels from from founders and sales teams?

Entering B2B SaaS And Mentorship Software

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Well, I think they're pretty obvious. I mean, like even like even uh even the follow-ups. I mean, uh I just I mean I I've been working with a lot of uh founders as an investor or or or mentor or just friend, and I've seen that people just don't follow up. I mean, like the majority of people just don't follow up uh with customers, with in with investors, with leads. Um why? Because I don't know, I mean it's a bit sometimes uh a lot of people just not very well organized, and also just uh maybe even not pushy enough. Uh so and I think lack of follow-up is probably the main one of the main obstacles to uh actually for them to to grow. And uh and I think yeah, and what and and with and and uh um and at least I have I haven't seen yet like any smart email apps that kind of just uh look at the content of your emails and if they see that you promise to get back to someone in two weeks that they will uh uh remind you about it. Is this not there yet? You have to manually set up the reminder or something, or or they just will remind you in three days, no matter what, which doesn't work. And what that's what we do at Eve, which is one of this one of the small small features. But yeah, I think lack of co-op, um and also for especially like owners of small businesses, not even startups, but just nor normal like you know service companies, um they just they are uh organized even even worse than that, and that's why it's uh it's hard for them. So it's it's they have a problem of prioritizing the right things at the right time. And they just just they just do the the the the the the uh something that sits on the top of their backlog or they or the or their inbox and they miss a lot of things that just basically uh and that are more important, but they are somewhat somewhat like uh buried uh underneath, right? And and uh and uh th that's like uh like lack of prioritization, I guess, lack of follow-up consistently. I mean this this uh I can identify this as like two of the main blockers in uh in uh like yeah in sales for startups, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. It does make sense. Um I think you know, people get busy, they go in the trenches, they forget that they've sent the email most of the times until it's too late, and then it's like oh, maybe it's too late to follow up. Um coming back to like Eve's AI tool, what is what are some of the things you train it on? Like, are there specific keywords that it goes and looks for to gather these opportunities in the inbox? How does it work?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

At first, we we uh um like um we ask just a few questions during onboarding. We ask uh about uh the like uh your ideal customer profile and your revenue model and pricing, and then everything else we try to take from your like we go to obviously to your website, our agents go to your website and check all the information they can find. They look at they look at some databases, and but also the most importantly, they look at your internal the knowledge we can extract from your emails, attachments, calendar, uh contacts. And then from all of that, we kind of um so we identify all your all your all your contacts uh for the last year you've been you you you've been communicating with, and then we divide them by groups, by categories, using this reasoning that we that we've got by analyzing what we know about your what we can find about your business, and then we are able to identify leads uh among your contacts, right? And then we kind of also then we look at okay, like uh what's your typical sales cycle, we look at uh understand this, we understand the stages, we understand the lengths of uh so like so basically that's how we build the sales funnel. We and then we also have a few important parameters, such as ICP fit, like how close it is to your ICP, and also uh confidence to close, like how uh how close how often are we that you're gonna close a deal. And these parameters change all the time, but based on them, we uh kind of organize your your leads. So to make sure again that you focus only on the most uh on the highest priority things.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah, no, it's it makes a lot of sense. And I think you know, for established businesses, that there's obviously a few inboxes you can go through. It's not just the founders, but it's you know, sales teams, um, even marketing teams, customer service teams, product teams. There's a there's a lot of opportunities in there to extract a lot of leads, actually, that people may have forgotten to follow up with. Um I suppose the net the next step would then be okay, we've got these leads there, we've identified them. We've this is the journey we think they need to go on based on previous communications. What's the message that you find is your biggest go-to-market weapon? What are some key messages that you would go to them with to then help re-engage them?

What Founders Get Wrong In Sales

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Uh you know, like um the biggest go-to-market message that opens doors is definitely the fact that hey, uh, like we're gonna we're gonna basically transform your inbox into source funn without any workflow changes, without any learning curve. Right? Because this is like the majority of AI tools cannot say this. They need to like you need to like put a lot of effort, although it looks very easy when you read LinkedIn posts that someone that someone wrote about it, but it's not that. So in our case, really emphasize the simplicity a lot. And uh yeah, so it clicks uh that yeah, it it clicks very often. Uh and then obviously, yeah, then it's all about quick quick wins. Now we are working on the on getting product to the state where we can very quickly demonstrate very high value. Uh and uh to add to get to this aha moment. And uh for us, like for example, one of AHA moments is when when they when when our uh user adds one more user to the account, like an like a salesperson or whatever. Usually it's the founder who started and then they invite the salesperson. So it's also a good sign for uh for us that they that they kind of have initial trust uh to the product, and now they started to bring on their team. Um and now we're looking, we're going on deeper aha aha aha moments. Uh yeah, then to focus to to to focus on getting our users all the way to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah, yeah. That works for Eve for sure. What about any success stories with with specific clients that you might be able to talk about? Any kind of key messages that that have worked really well? You mean key messages in terms of what, in terms of like the goal to market or uh Well, I suppose once you've got the leads in this in the inbox, how do you then message them to re-engage them?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

In our case, again, it's it's uh yeah, so like as a as a if you're if you're a customer, you you get your um you see yourself funnel uh with leads divided by stages, and then you can click on any of them like a op uh you open the the the the lead details page and what what's important you have a but uh you have a button like generate uh follow up and uh even generate follow-up in one in one click obviously with using all the context from previous communications you all have it you have it in one place because what we usually hear from from from our users and just from people from the market and that's what I've been doing all the time is um I take like a meeting transcript or I take some notes I put them to to my custom chat GPT ask him to write an email then I write an email then I go back and send it and it's not convenient so there in Eve can do it in one click and obviously and and then Eve is going to track a look for responses right yeah that makes sense um yeah no absolutely I think using AI for the context and the initial messages makes sense and um you did mention you were on to AI before AI even became a thing became so popular with the the launch of ChatGPT what do you think now looking back on it and in hindsight what do you think separates organizations that integrate AI meaningfully compared to everyone else that just bolts it on? Yeah I think it's all I mean a lot of obstacles are related to uh data many organizations just still don't understand that AI is uh dangerous in in a good way uh that meaning it can help a lot when when only when you give it the the data without your data it's just the average kind of generalist that uh is not really gonna move the nipple for your organization besides some pretty routine tasks. Uh so and many organizations only now started to understand that first of all they need to invest in kind of organizing this data. And also that's what we're solving with with EU for these small businesses because which is connect to the data they have right but yeah it's all about like organizing the data and then I think another problem is that uh many businesses don't understand that if they cannot explain if they cannot do manually what they want AI to do AI is not gonna do it. So meaning if they first of all like anything we try to automate at Eve at first we do uh we manually like uh like we even imagine that we are AI I mean in the early days we were kind of doing the job of AI for some of our customers just to kind of you know like to feel how ho ho how it works and also to understand if it's even feasible. And then we were able to come up with a pretty detailed instruction to AI. And many businesses still don't understand it they expect they expect some miracles from AI while trying to push some uh very um broad and not detailed instructions and it's not gonna work the uh this way yeah I think I'm definitely guilty of that I've um I've definitely briefed AI to do stuff for me and then obviously been really disappointed with the results because I've briefed it to do something that's technically impossible.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

I can't do it but I was hoping AI could everyone was there.

Founder-Led Sales And Early ARR

Cross-Functional Alignment And Shared Metrics

SPEAKER_01 25:04

I mean yeah of course we all we all tried it maybe one day. Um I guess for for a lot of our marketers and founders that are listening to this podcast um what would you say were the biggest kind of um challenges that you've had to overcome to get to the scaling part of the business I know a lot of them for example are struggling with hiring um a lot of them are struggling with retention of existing customers and then also finding new customers we touched on with the founder led growth what are some other challenges that you've come across from scaling your own businesses that you can share with us you mean mostly in terms of GTM GTM also hiring um leading a team people all the biggest challenges well I think like we started yeah I also talk if we're talking about the AI uh we started to use AI for example in uh uh recruiting very actively I uh I like the I like the this example that we um now I I asked I I ask uh ai to analyze uh like basically to for to kind of support me during the entire uh recruiting pro a process through every stages so first of all of course I or someone from my team designs the requirements but then A comes up with job description and then we start the search and then I put all all call transcripts of all the in in interviews into into into AI basically into my custom uh GPT that has all the context about the company about the business about the expectations and then uh um a i helps me to also uh design like a uh like a like a um a competency a matrix or something or or or something that we use to evaluate a candidates on on the final stages then also helps me with some questions to prompt uh for some particular people to uncover maybe some some some gaps and then uh ai acts as a just a second opinion when we make a a decision and it helped a lot because a few times it really opened our eyes because obviously humans are prone to some a lot of biases like for example recency bias that we remember the last conversation that is better than anyone else and we think that maybe the last candidate was the best because we just remember it better or feel of or we feel it better but AI doesn't have it so AI really opened our eyes in terms of like with zero emotions just helped us to actually uh see the truth right see the facts and uh and not the emotions and that's how we so started to make decisions only when there is alignment with AI or on that and in hiring decisions and so far so good uh it worked well for Eve so it in in in Eve that's how we do it so AI always participates in our has active part in our uh hiring uh decisions um and uh yeah so that's I mean my big uh recommendation to fo to for to founders um also what else um um yeah I think now in in uh in our current you know like startup environment in 2026 um it's all about finding the like uncovering word of mouth I think all investors are looking for startups that uncovered word of mouse uh experienced founders looking for it as well because it essentially means um free marketing but also only this if you find this it means that you can grow exponentially other than that it's the it doesn't work I mean paid marketing doesn't work anymore like uh so like um so now uh it's all about finding this this wedge this perfect combination of product and marketing like uh and market like product market fit uh so so people start talking about you and that's what we're also looking for and I think for founders to get there faster it's very important to really uh yeah I mean prioritize their personal brand for for sure to grow with a personal brand to do it in public all all of these all these tools are yeah I mean they they really work um it's also a part of the founder brand building in public and uh um um and also communities I think what also it's very strong it's investing in communities partnering with different communities I and also I know some businesses that started in the community and then became a business uh like lovable even right so the the the the the point the point is that yeah I I think uh that instead of doing some experiments with paid marketing channels some obvious channels etc I don't think it it's gonna get you any anywhere uh but really trying to um um find some channels that really can activate what of mouse and these channels should ideally also be scalable.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Yeah yeah I agree I I I think um communities definitely are gonna be a must-have especially in the world of AI where people I think are gonna be start to crave some more human interactions communities make a lot of sense um when you said big marketing doesn't really work were you referring to like paid ads for example across all the the social channels I've come I've kind of come to realize that as well they're definitely not as effective as they used to be it's very challenging um but I guess as as an alternative um you know again touching on founderlet growth as well maybe creating lots of content putting it on multiple channels that could be a strategy for AI recognizing you and is I assume a lot of people might be asking AI where to find the best business in the future instead of using the search engines.

Designing A Team-First Sales Culture

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yeah so yeah I I yeah so I mean like yeah like Gen um how how it's called uh uh like not SEO but G E O like Gen AI optimization for sure. Yeah I don't I'm not an expert in that but I see like more and more evidence that people started to receive leads from there. No we even started to receive leads from there right so like yeah I mean like um definitely like yeah all channels just don't work but I think uh um so uh it's just I think uh now it's uh like as soon as you find some combination of a product of a version of your product and some even very niche audience then you have all the means to multiply it like to spread the word super super quickly. But now it's all it's all about finding this because if founders wouldn't find this and will rely on paid marketing then it's a road to not to nowhere they can get to I don't know maybe maybe even like a millionaire or so or something but it's not gonna they can they're gonna plot to and I was there uh as well so I had this experience as well but yeah also looking at new channels like like you said like GEO or so or something um totally makes sense yeah yeah for sure for sure um Vadim in terms of go to market strategies and scaling SaaS is there anything um we haven't talked about that that you feel is important to touch on today uh like what else I think I should uh I can mention um besides yeah I and you know maybe the last thing is we also tried to run an in-person event actually in San Francisco uh before Christmas and uh I invited a few other founders we had the panel at this class and it was focused on AI for small businesses like some different use cases very practical and we had like 160 RSCPs with zero marketing besides just accept my LinkedIn so I want to say that and actually it was a big topic at the event that in real life events are coming back and I think this is also very much uh kind of uh uh like uh how say pretty much uh I would say like the channel that was really like forgotten and not really uh and uh and uh I mean like uh I mean like it was the it was definitely not appreciated for a lot for some time but I I would say that now it's getting back and because now because when you get people in in person uh to listen to your content then definitely un uninterrupted that's the only way you could do it is in real life right and also of course I mean everyone is talking about it that the fact that with all this noise human genuine human human relationships yeah are gonna be are gonna become more and more important in the marketplace. So I think yes I definitely recommend founders to double down on the person events and also try to collaborate with other founders to to to to to to to do it because we for us it all it works better when we bring other founders doing some adjusting things. So we kind of together to kind of kind of cover the big topic yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah no I'm really glad you mentioned that actually you touched on two things that I've been seeing a really good trend in as well so events in-person events face to face obviously that's the best way to grow relationships which is kind of you know what you need to do in the world of B2B and partnerships so connecting with other founders to help you run these events because um you then have a partnership it's so much more easier to run. And I think those are two very unutilized channels in a lot of the B2B SaaS um organizations. So yeah thank you for bringing those to our attention um I've definitely seen a really nice trend here in the APAC region with them. I think you know definitely underutilized as a result of the COVID lockdowns. And I think people were almost a little bit scared to go back to them too soon but that they are becoming a lot more popular now.

Focused Metrics, Clear Comp, High Care

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah yeah no no definitely I mean I I I I I think the the in general uh because the company I acquired it it also kind of in this real life events uh uh a market helping people to capture leads and run events we know that the market uh the in that the that offline events uh last year were bigger than pre-COVID is the first year when they actually surpassed pre-COVID numbers it's really big and uh yeah and then I'm super excited about it yeah fantastic but then my last question for you it's a bit of a tradition on this podcast is if you could go back in time and give yourself one bit of advice could be any point in your life personal professional what would that advice be? Okay and how many years back? You can go as far back as you like okay uh yeah uh okay that uh interesting um what would I say um no probably you know what I think like uh I also have been writing about it on the on LinkedIn a few a few times that I began to appreciate the journey as much as the result I think in the last few years and uh previously I was too anxious uh in my previous in my first companies I was very anxious that I need to get to them to certain milestone or to exit or whatever and um I was and then I will leave then I will do A B C whatever enjoy life like whatever but it's it's not gonna I I then I re I realized with experience I realized it's not the right approach it's not gonna work this well this way because if you don't get there within expected time frame you became you become unhappy and the journey is the most important thing because that's that that that's life and we and I decided and I realized I need to I need to live today instead of deferring it to some moment in the future and I know many people do this mistake. So I probably this is the one thing that to appreciate the journey since day one and uh that thus I would avoid some mistakes when I was too anxious or rushing too much. Yeah that's probably the main the main piece of advice I would give to myself yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Love that it's so true. I was actually listening to this just yesterday um where they were saying you know everyone kind of has the end goal in mind and they're chasing that and they forget to enjoy the journey um so it's the ones that actually do enjoy the journey that are the happiest running the businesses that they run. So I love that you said that it's so true.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Yeah and and if you're happy running the business then you and you you increased your chances yours because because because you're happy in this moment yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Yeah you're in it for the long run. Yeah thank you so much loved having you on the show thank you for all those great insights what an amazing tool who would have thought and you're right nothing like this exists so it's great that you brought it into the world it'll be amazing to see um I would really love to play around with it as well so um definitely keep in touch thanks I really enjoyed the questions thank you