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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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.

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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In this episode, Avanish and Aaron talk about:

• Aaron’s personal journey to the coveted Chief Ecosystem Officer title (2:00)
• How Aaron defines charting the platform journey as an ecosystem leader (4:45)
• Tackling build/buy/partner with a sophisticated view, enabling you to take a completely different approach to how you execute partnerships and ecosystems (7:49)
• The power of harnessing your datasets to drive enhanced outcomes (9:50)
• The recent shift to the importance of profitability and what that means for partnership teams (11:11)
• Tying your ecosystem strategy to your corporate strategy effectively (19:20)
• Understanding the difference between vanity metrics and true business operator metrics (24:18)

Guest: Aaron McGarry

Aaron McGarry, AMG, is a Go-To-Market operator with 17 years of leadership experience at industry giants such as VMware, Salesforce, and Qualtrics. He has a proven track record of building and scaling high-performing teams, driving strategic growth, and delivering operational excellence.

AMG is an empathetic leader and coach, with a deep passion for growing, mentoring, and developing talent, ensuring that his teams reach their fullest potential. Renowned for his Build - Buy - Partner approach and keen expertise in GTM strategy, he has architected and scaled premier Ecosystem and Sales Organizations. 

He played a pivotal role during Salesforce’s meteoric rise from $6B to $26B in revenue, experiencing hyper-growth firsthand. His track record also includes notable milestones such as Rackspace's IPO, SoftLayer's acquisition by IBM, and Qualtrics' acquisition by SilverLake.

Recognized for championing strategic growth and for his operational acumen, AMG serves as a trusted advisor to CEOs and boards of directors across early, mid, and late stage companies. He is a sought-after speaker on topics encompassing GTM strategy, leadership, and team development.

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.

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In this episode, Avanish and Adrienne talk about:

• Changes in the productivity space that have impacted Workspace’s platform strategy (9:55)
• Balancing product and ecosystem developments while you scale (16:10)
• Taking a principle-based approach to building a platform (19:00)
• The necessity of a multifaceted strategy in creating a successful platform (20:30)
• Innovation and “first-of-a-kind” thinking in partnerships (22:50)
• Building a partnership strategy based on product and business goals (24:40)
• Creating missions at the business and team level to achieve your goals (27:40)

Guest: Adrienne McCallister

Adrienne McCallister is the Vice President of Global Partnerships for Workspace and Messaging, where she oversees Workspace’s productivity suite partnerships, as well as all Comms/Messaging partnerships, covering Google's consumer communications products Messages by Google(RCS), Meet, Dialer and Business Messaging.

Adrienne’s previous roles at Google include partnership lead for Android’s U.S. carrier partners, Google’s VR/AR/Lens efforts, helping to launch Chromecast, Google Home and leading its global distribution partnerships, as well as leading strategic content partnerships for Google TV. Prior to joining Google in 2011, Adrienne held senior business development roles at Associated Content (a Yahoo! company), Clearleap (an IBM company) and AOL. Adrienne holds an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia.

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.

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• Follow our guest, Adrienne McCallister
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