This season features conversations with key decision-makers who have shaped the evolution of today's leading technology platforms and ecosystems. We talk to C-suite executives, board members, investors, and others who must be bought into the platform journey.

In this episode, Avanish and Greg discuss:

• Greg's journey at the intersection of technology and professional services, including his role building EY's global partnerships practice into a substantial business driver
• Why most companies remain confused about partnerships, platforms, and ecosystems, and how successful companies are "built from the ground up" to orchestrate ecosystems
• Microsoft's transformation under Satya Nadella as the gold standard for ecosystem strategy - shifting from competing against everyone to becoming a platform that orchestrates the capital of hundreds of thousands of companies
• Why the future belongs to companies that shift from linear value chains to orchestrated ecosystems where they either orbit around or become the center of mass for other participants
• The urgency for C-suites to think beyond operational AI improvements and envision what their industry will look like in five years

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and served as a Board Member of Hubspot from 2018 to 2023; he currently serves on the boards of Birdie.ai, Flywl.com and Meta.com.br as well as a few non-profits end educational boards. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Greg
Greg is the Founder of Sarafin Advisory which he launched in 2024 to provide companies with actionable advice and insights to help them grow Enterprise Value in an era of immense change and opportunity. Previously, Greg spent over 9 years at EY where he was most recently the Global Vice Chair - Alliances and Ecosystems. Prior to joining EY in 2015, he spent seven years as an executive at IMB, running one of the top five accounts at the firm and then managing the professional services P&L for Banking and Financial Markets in North America. He also held significant leadership positions in financial service technology and digital disruption across industries. In addition, he helped found a health payments dot-com and, prior to that, ran his own software development company.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

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In this episode, Avanish and Andrew discuss:

• Andrew's journey as an "operational CFO" from Sun Microsystems through ServiceNow, WalkMe, Lacework, and now Amplitude, being part of the team that built ServiceNow from $400M to $4.5B ARR
• Why CFOs must "play chess, not checkers" - thinking several moves ahead about decision implications and making strategic investment pivots for anticipated future growth
• The critical difference between multi-product and platform strategies: true platforms have definite customer adoption journeys where products aren't sold independently
• Recognizing platform readiness signals: when customers organically create their own workflows and use cases you never conceived, like hospitals using Amplitude for emergency room optimization
• Building effective teams by mixing "veterans with rookies" to solve problems rather than just "admire problems," and driving focused execution around single key investments
• The "fair exchange of value" approach to pricing and partnerships that emphasizes customer adoption, transparency, and simplicity over complexity

About Avanish Sahai:

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and served as a Board Member of Hubspot from 2018 to 2023; he currently serves on the boards of Birdie.ai, Flywl.com and Meta.com.br as well as a few non-profits end educational boards. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Andrew Casey: 

Andrew Casey is Chief Financial Officer at Amplitude, where he leads Amplitude's General & Administrative organization, which includes finance, accounting, and legal. With more than 25 years of enterprise software experience, Casey brings deep financial expertise combined with extensive go-to-market strategy and business operations experience.

Casey joined Amplitude from Lacework, where he served as CFO and oversaw its successful acquisition by Fortinet. Prior to that, he was the CFO of WalkMe, where he led its Initial Public Offering (IPO) and transformed its enterprise sales motion. Casey’s career also includes senior finance roles with ServiceNow, Hewlett-Packard, NortonLifeLock Inc. (formerly Symantec), Oracle, and Sun Microsystems.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

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• Follow our guest, Andrew Casey
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• Learn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Mike discuss:

• Mike's journey from his early tech roots in Silicon Valley to his role as CRO at Zscaler, including his transformative work growing ServiceNow from $500M to $6B in the Americas region
• The importance of always viewing platform strategy through the customer's lens - helping them achieve outcomes rather than managing multiple point solutions
• How a successful platform requires breaking down silos not just within your own organization, but often within your customer's organization
• The "one team" concept of the three-legged stool: customer, vendor, and partner, all working together toward shared success
• Why ecosystem partners are mission-critical, providing industry expertise and customer insights that vendors can't replicate
• The role of security in enabling productive AI adoption, with Zscaler helping customers leverage generative AI safely at scale
• How to develop meaningful metrics with partners beyond just pipeline generation, focusing on mutual success plans and regular reviews
• The importance of playing the long game with partners - "It's not how you behave when things are going great, it's how you behave when things hit the fan"

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Mike Rich
Mike Rich is a highly accomplished technology sales professional with a career spanning more than 30 years.

During his tenure as President, Americas at ServiceNow from 2011–2023, Mike played a pivotal role in the company's success. Under his leadership, the AMS region experienced unprecedented revenue growth, catapulting from $500 million to $6 billion+.

Mike focused on initiatives like vertical industries that enabled customer-facing teams to partner closely with customers. During his time, the company's overall growth skyrocketed from $80 million to $8 billion. Throughout his career, Mike has kept customer satisfaction as the north star, ensuring that every business decision aligns with the goal of providing unparalleled value to clients and career advancement for employees.

Before ServiceNow, Mike held leadership roles at enterprise software companies Borland, Rational Software, and Kana.

Mike's leadership philosophy revolves around building diverse teams that prioritize achieving desired mutual outcomes. His passion is fostering environments where collaboration, mutual respect, and teamwork are paramount.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

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• Follow our guest, Mike Rich
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In this episode, Avanish and Dennis discuss:

• How Freshworks evolved from a single help desk product to a multi-product platform serving 74,000 customers globally, from small businesses to enterprises like Airbus and Nucor Steel
• The importance of being "pulled" by customers into new markets rather than pushing—recognizing when customers you didn't expect are adopting your products
• The challenges of building and scaling a multi-product company where products are at different maturity levels and target slightly different ICPs
• Why ecosystem strategy is critical at Freshworks, including both technology integrations with thousands of partners and a services ecosystem to source and implement solutions
• Freshworks' differentiated approach of building "uncomplicated" solutions in a market dominated by complexity—particularly for mid-market and low-enterprise customers (up to 20,000 employees)
• Dennis's philosophy of customer-centricity: "When in doubt, go talk to a customer"
• Building an ecosystem strategy that includes both technology integrations with thousands of partners and a global services network, with direct sales in nine countries and partner-led expansion everywhere else

About the Host

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Dennis Woodside

Dennis Woodside is the CEO and President of Freshworks. He joined Freshworks as President in 2022. Dennis has spent more than two decades at innovative companies in Silicon Valley. Previous roles include Chief Operating Officer of Dropbox and sales and strategy leadership roles at Google for more than 10 years, including CEO of Motorola Mobility after Google acquired the company.

Dennis serves on the board of the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula in California and previously served on the boards of the American Red Cross and ServiceNow. Dennis holds a B.S. in Industrial Relations from Cornell University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

About Freshworks

Freshworks Inc. (NASDAQ: FRSH) provides people-first AI service software that organizations use to deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences. More than 72,000 companies, including American Express, Bridgestone, Databricks, Fila, Nucor, and Sony choose Freshworks’ uncomplicated solutions to increase efficiency and loyalty. For the latest company news and customer stories, visit www.freshworks.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guest, Dennis Woodside
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In this episode, Avanish and Lara discuss:

• The four distinct phases of software company growth and what each requires - from finding product-market fit ($0-100M) to demonstrating platform vision ($100M-1B) to scaling enterprise deals ($1B-5B)
• The critical importance of not neglecting your core business while scaling - how ServiceNow used tiered pricing models to continue monetizing their core products
• Why platform and ecosystem strategies are "two sides of the coin" but must be tailored to each company's specific situation - there is no one-size-fits-all approach
• The "win-win-win equation" that must exist for successful partnerships - creating value for customers, partners, and your company
• Creating cultural alignment around ecosystem strategy - including Dave Schneider's innovative approach of inviting partners to ServiceNow's sales kickoff
• How to avoid "throwing money against the wall" with partnerships that lack strategic foundation
• Building unfair advantages at scale through customer relationships, installed base data, and continuous innovation to stay ahead of imitators

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Lara Caimi

Lara Caimi is the President of Worldwide Field Operations at Samsara. Lara brings nearly 25 years of experience to Samsara, where she is responsible for leading Sales and Customer Outcomes. Before Samsara, Lara was Chief Customer and Partner Officer for ServiceNow, overseeing nearly 2,500 global employees across organizations including customer success, professional services, and channel ecosystem. Previously, she served as ServiceNow’s Chief Strategy Officer. Before joining ServiceNow, Lara was a partner at Bain & Company, where she advised technology companies on growth and go-to-market strategy.

Lara holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and English Literature from St. Olaf College, a MIB from the University of Sydney as a Fulbright Scholar, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

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• Follow our guest, Lara Caimi
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Learn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Jim discuss:

• Jim's 46-year journey from IBM to Salesforce, including his role in scaling Salesforce from $22M to $5B in revenue
• How customer demands, particularly from companies like Cisco and Merrill Lynch, shaped Salesforce's platform strategy
• The strategic decision to separate the application layer from the platform
• Creating a successful customer success organization to drive adoption and showcase customer stories
• The evolution of Salesforce's partner strategy and metrics for measuring ecosystem success
• How the "tactics dictate strategy" philosophy helped Salesforce respond to market needs

About Our Guest

Jim Steele is the President of Global Strategic Customers and Partners at Salesforce. Previously, Jim served as Salesforce’s President of Worldwide Sales and Chief Customer Officer for over 12 years, from 2002 through 2014 where he led the growth of the company from $22 million to more than $5 billion in revenue. Jim rejoined Salesforce in 2020 as President of Global Strategic Sales with his primary focus to bring the full power of Salesforce to its largest and most strategic customers. Most recently, Jim has also assumed responsibility for Salesforce's Alliances & Channels organization, the Emerging Business operating unit, and Private Equity practice. 

Previously Jim served as Chief Revenue Officer and President of Yext, President and Chief Revenue Officer of InsideSales.com and President of Worldwide Sales at Ariba. Jim started his career at IBM where he spent over 22 years in executive leadership and senior sales roles including VP and GM of Sales in Asia, based in Tokyo.

About our Host

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the AppExchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guests, Jim Steele
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• Learn more about Tidemark

This season will feature conversations with key decision-makers who have to support the journey to a platform or any ecosystem. We will talk to C-suite executives, board members, investors, and others who must be bought into the platform journey. 

In this episode, Avanish and Kevin discuss:

• Kevin's career journey and his experiences shaping ServiceNow's growth.
• What it means to authentically be a platform company and how ServiceNow approached platform-first scaling.
• How customer feedback drove ServiceNow’s expansion into new domains like HR and customer workflows.
• The key factors for entering new markets, including market fit, size, and differentiation.
• The importance of hiring domain-specific experts and adapting go-to-market strategies.
• Building and leveraging ecosystem partnerships to drive growth and scale.
• Balancing core revenue innovation with new domain expansion to ensure sustainable growth.

Guest: Kevin Haverty

Kevin Haverty was formerly the Vice Chairman, Global Public Sector at ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW). In this role, he worked directly with CEO Bill McDermott on expanding ServiceNow’s strategic footprint in the public sector and mentoring the company’s next generation of early-in-career professionals.

During the past decade, Kevin successfully led and grew ServiceNow’s world-class go-to-market organization. He most recently served as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, and also held the roles of EVP and SVP of Worldwide Sales and VP of Americas Sales.

Earlier in his career, Kevin held several senior sales leadership roles at EMC, Data Domain, Thomsen Financial, and Brocade. He also served 10 years in the U.S. Army National Guard, attaining the rank of Captain.

Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Providence College, where he was a distinguished military graduate of the Army ROTC program. He currently serves on the Board of Sprinklr.  

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guests, Kevin Haverty
• Follow our host, Avanish Sahai

This season will feature conversations with key decision-makers who have to support the journey to a platform or any ecosystem. We will talk to C-suite executives, board members, investors, and others who must be bought into the platform journey. 

In this episode, Avanish and Dave discuss: 

• Dave's background and what led him to start Tidemark
• Tidemark's VSKP framework on how a Vertical SaaS company can win their category, expand their offerings, and then, for a select few, extend through the value chain
• What it really means to be a control point and why it matters
• The mindset (and perhaps mindset shift) that is required to build a strong ecosystem
• The wedges you need to be mindful of and the problems they can cause on your journey
• Thinking about the varying horizons of your product roadmap and how to synthesize them in actionable paths forward
• How to determine if your team is ready for the platform journey

And much more! 

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guest, Dave Yuan
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• Learn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Tyler discuss:

• The opportunity involved in bringing together disparate partner initiatives within an organization (4:35)
• Leveraging a partner ecosystem at Salesforce to create transformative offerings and expand internationally (6:30)
• The importance of building an ecosystem to manage data in the face of AI (9:05)
• Prioritizing customer success and partner growth to drive company value (12:40)
• Changing the paradigm around bringing applications to data (14:50)
• The inherent value of the consumption model in a partner ecosystem (18:30)
• Enabling partners to start delivering value as quickly as possible (19:55)
• Finding support from the top down, and curating the right talent for the ecosystem journey (22:30)
• The importance of simplification (27:10)

Guest: Tyler Prince

As the SVP of Worldwide Alliances & Channels, Tyler Prince is responsible for growing the Snowflake global community of Consulting Partners, System Integrators, ISVs, Resellers and Technology Partners. He brings a deep breadth of experience to his role with more than 30 years of delivering transformational capabilities to partners and customers across many industries. Prior to joining Snowflake, Prince served as EVP, Global Alliances at Salesforce and as Partner & Global Oracle Practice Leader at PwC. Prior to PwC, Prince held various management positions at Oracle, PeopleSoft, IBM and Andersen Consulting. He resides in Chicago, IL where he remains active in the local community as a board member of the American Cancer Society and 1871, a non-profit digital startup incubator.

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guest, Tyler Prince
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• Learn more about Tidemark

In this episode, Avanish and Warren talk about:

• Developing extensions based on user and partner feedback (4:15)
• Thinking of ISVs as customers in their own right (9:10)
• The importance of internal alignment, and transparency both internally and externally (11:55)
• Getting buy-in from the board all the way down for ongoing investment in platform (14:20)
• When to prioritize adoption vs. monetization on your platform (19:50)

Guest: Warren Chen

Warren is Head of Ecosystem Partnerships and Developer Success at Canva, with over a decade of experience in App Platform Ecosystems at Salesforce, Atlassian, and Canva.

Host: Avanish Sahai

Avanish Sahai is a Tidemark Fellow and has served as a Board Member of Hubspot since April 2018 and of Birdie.ai since April 2022. Previously, Avanish served as the vice president, ISV and Apps partner ecosystem of Google from 2019 until 2021. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the global vice president, ISV and Technology alliances at ServiceNow.  From 2014 to 2015, he was the senior vice president and chief product officer at Demandbase.  Prior to Demandbase, Avanish built and led the Appexchange platform ecosystem team at Salesforce, and was an executive at Oracle and McKinsey & Company, as well as various early-to-mid stage startups in Silicon Valley.

About Tidemark

Tidemark is a venture capital firm, foundation, and community built to serve category-leading technology companies as they scale.  Tidemark was founded in 2021 by David Yuan, who has been investing, advising, and building technology companies for over 20 years.  Learn more at www.tidemarkcap.com.

Links

• Follow our guest, Warren Chen
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• Learn more about Tidemark