Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Fax to the Future

Shawn Freligh (SVP/GM, Content Lifecycle Automation @UplandSoftware) talks about cloud delivery, AI and Security in managing document workflows and fax integrations.  

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show Shawn. Tell us a little bit about your background

Topic 2 - How does technology like fax maintain a foothold in the market? How has fax technology evolved, in other words “survived?

Topic 3 - AI is a big topic in today’s market. Can fax benefit from current trends in AI?

Topic 4 - Security is of course top of mind for everyone – how do you view the security around fax?

Topic 5 - What markets are still reliant on fax technology and why?

Topic 6 - How do fax and digital transformation come together?

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Sunday, April 16, 2023

How Incumbents Thrive and Survive

How much of an impact has Digital Transformation really had on major markets? How often do unicorns disrupt incumbents? Let’s dig into the data over the last 30 years. 

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CHANGE COMES SLOW AT FIRST, AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN (or does it?)

  • Since 1995, 40% have stayed, 50% have merged/sold, 7-8% dropped out, and 50% of existing move up into F500.
  • The Blockbuster, Nokia and Kodak stories are outliers. 

THE USER EXPERIENCE HAS CHANGED, BUT THE COMPANIES BEHIND IT HAVEN’T AS MUCH

  • Disruption is about more than just newer/better technology
  • Existing brand relationships, trust, physical locations, supply-chains, partner-networks all play a key role for incumbents
  • Everyone is investing in digital transformation, for various reasons - user experience, data analysis, cost cutting, etc.
  • Four paths as an incumbent - [1] Fight back, [2] Double down, [3] Retrench, [4] Move away

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Wednesday, April 12, 2023

SBOM and Software Supply Chain

Rob Szumski (@robszumski, Founder/CEO @Edgebitio) talks about the evolution of software supply chains, SBOMs, and managing software dependencies in the age of cloud-native apps.

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show Rob. Tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to start Edgebit.

Topic 2 - SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) has become a big topic, especially around the cloud-native community. Software and security have been around a long time, why the uptick in discussions around SBOM now? 

Topic 3 - Let’s walk through the day-in-the-life of a typical team these days. Where are there holes in their current toolset and how are things potentially improving? 

Topic 4 - Tell us about Edgebit. Where does Edgebit play a role in the Software Supply Chain? 

Topic 5 - Edgebit take a broad view of a company’s software landscape, but a narrow view of action. Less of a boil the ocean approach. How do you find this approach is appreciated by developers vs. security teams? 

Topic 6 - What are some of the ways you expect to see the SBOM and Software Supply Chain over the next year? 

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Sunday, April 9, 2023

A Framework for Making Sense of AI Chaos

AI is either having its 15 minutes of fame, or completely reshaping every aspect of technology (and maybe every aspect of life), right now. How is everyone comprehending this shift? 

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NEW TECHNOLOGY TRENDS USUALLY COME OUT OF DOWNTURNS

  • SaaS came out of the Internet bubble burst
  • Cloud came out of the Housing bubble burst
  • AI isn’t new, but usable AI is coming out of COVID

HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF NEW +  CHAOS + UNCERTAINTY

  • There’s lots of ways to dive in - learn the basics, build some intro applications, etc.
  • Follow the money, and find the frauds
  • Figure out the ecosystem and how to be involved
  • Figure out what might be sustainable vs. just being a wrapper
  • Don’t get overwhelmed by everything at once. Pick something that interests you, or applies to your job (or a side hustle)

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Wednesday, April 5, 2023

The Evolution of SaaS Business Models

Jamin Ball (@jaminball, Partner @ Altimeter Capital, author Clouded Judgement) talks about SaaS business models, common SaaS terminology in judging financials, models for multiples, the impact of interest rates, vision vs. product

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Topic 1 - Welcome to our guest co-host, Brandon Whichard. Jamin, can you give everyone a quick introduction?

Topic 2 - We’ve been huge fans of the Clouded Judgment Substack since inception in 2020. We regularly reference it during our weekly cloud news and recommend it as required reading for anyone interested in the business side of SaaS. What motivated you to start the substack?

Topic 3 - Can you start with SaaS financial terminology. We hear terms like ARR, customer churn, NTM, EV, LTM, etc. For those new to this, what terms matter the most and why? What picture are you trying to construct about the business from these financial values?

Topic 4 -  One of the sections of your newsletter is “multiples”, can you explain what multiples are and why you use Revenue Multiple as a valuation framework? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this framework? What other frameworks could be used?

Topic 5 - Everyone is talking about the rise of interest rates, how do interest rates affect multiples and valuation? Why should we care about this? Why should employees at SaaS companies know about this? SaaS business models were on an up and to the right trend for a number of years but we’ve recently seen some ups and downs. What are your thoughts on the current and future state of SaaS as an industry sector?

Topic 6 - The newsletter is very focused on financial metrics, how do you as an investor balance these metrics vs. product vision? How much revenue does a company need for this to become value? What metrics should an early startup focus on?

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Sunday, April 2, 2023

Free Lunches Don't Last for Long

Free is great, until it isn’t. Now that the unicorn buffet of VC funding has less cheap money, expect to see more announcements about free stuff no longer being free.  

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FREE AS IN BEER, FREE AS IN PUPPIES, FREE AS IN LUNCH

  • Vendored open source software is free, until it isn’t

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOUR DEPENDENCIES ARE BASED ON SOMEONE ELSE’S COSTS

  • It’s hard to ask for money when something has been free forever. 
  • Vendors will screw this up now and into the future
  • VCs love free marketing, but don’t love on-going costs without returns
  • Set your expectations right about “free” software. It might change without notice.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Open Telemetry

Gordon Radlein (@maascamp, Engineering Director at @Datadoghq) talks about the evolution of Open Telemetry (OTel), Logging, Metrics and Observability.  

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Topic 1 - Welcome to the show Gordon. Tell us a bit about your background, and what you’re focused on these days at Datadog?

Topic 2 - Let’s start with some basics - help us connect the dots between Telemetry and Logs and Metrics and Observability. And how does the Open Telemetry (OTel) project fit into the bigger picture?

Topic 3 - Telemetry has always been a tradeoff between how much data to collect and how much data can be processed. How do you see companies using Telemetry today? Does it usually depend on the company size, or the complexity of the application? 

Topic 4 - How does Datadog offer Open Telemetry to customers today? Has that evolved over time, as the standard has evolved? 

Topic 5 - What are some of the new trends happening around Open Telemetry 

Topic 6 - You’ve been around quite a bit of very large-scale infrastructure in your career. What are some of the tips that you’d give anybody trying to build out or scale their observability environments? 

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