Ready to build your own Founder-Led Growth engine? Book a Strategy Call
Frontlines.io | Where B2B Founders Talk GTM.
Strategic Communications Advisory For Visionary Founders
Actionable
Takeaways
Break Silos for Innovation:
Foster cross-departmental collaboration to unlock new value and drive innovative solutions, as seen in Ariel's experience with Dynamics 365 at Microsoft.
Listen to Customer Problems:
Focus on deeply understanding customer pain points rather than jumping to solutions, ensuring your product genuinely addresses their needs.
Evangelize Relentlessly:
Consistently communicate your vision across all channels, including social media, analyst briefings, and customer interactions, to build a new category.
Operationalize Excellence:
Implement rigorous processes, automation, and detailed playbooks to drive efficiency and scalability, ensuring every aspect of the business is optimized.
Adapt and Evolve:
Stay adaptable to market shifts and be willing to pivot strategies based on customer feedback and emerging trends to stay ahead of the competition.
Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Unicorn Builders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Ariel Katz, CEO of Sisense, an embedded analytics platform that’s raised over $275 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Microsoft Journey: Ariel spent 21 years at Microsoft, witnessing its growth from a small R&D center in Israel to a global giant, and shared insightful experiences working with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.
- Cultural Evolution: Highlighted the cultural shift at Microsoft under Satya Nadella, emphasizing empowerment, collaboration, and a growth mindset that revitalized the company’s innovation.
- Sisense Vision: Ariel joined Sisense in 2022, recognizing the opportunity to transform traditional BI into a developer-first embedded analytics platform, aiming to redefine the category.
- Market Evangelism: Discussed the challenges and strategies in evangelizing a new category, emphasizing the importance of customer and analyst education and consistent messaging.
- Customer-Centric Approach: Ariel stressed the importance of understanding customer problems over solutions, focusing on how embedded analytics can seamlessly integrate into users’ workflows.
- Operational Excellence: Shared insights on achieving operational excellence through rigorous processes, automation, and detailed execution to scale the company beyond $100 million in revenue.
Recommended Founder
Interviews
Spike Lipkin
CEO and Co-founder of Newfront
Spike Lipkin: the GTM Story of Newfront ($2.2 Billion Valuation)
Sean Duffy
Co-Founder & CEO of Omada Health
Sean Duffy: the Story of Omada Health ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Jason Zintak
CEO of 6sense
Jason Zintak: The GTM Story of 6sense ($5.2 Billion Valuation)
Henrique Dubugras
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Brex
Henrique Dubugras: the Story of Brex ($12 Billion+ Valuation)
Sean Duffy
Co-Founder & CEO of Omada Health
Sean Duffy: the Story of Omada Health ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Andrew Farah
CEO of Density
Andrew Farah: Density’s Enterprise Hardware Playbook – When Great Product Becomes Great Marketing ($1B+ Valuation)
Omair Tariq
CEO & Founder of Cart.com
Why Cart.com spent $5 million on a domain name as their first marketing strategy | Omair Tariq
Harrison Rose
Co-Founder of Paddle
Harrison Rose: the Story of Paddle ($1.4 Billion Valuation)
Kyle Clark
Team Member of Beta Technologies
Kyle Clark: the Story of Beta ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Doug Winter
CEO and Co-Founder of Seismic
Doug Winter: The GTM Story of Seismic ($3 Billion Valuation)
Tomer London
Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gusto
How Gusto scaled to 400,000+ customers without traditional sales: The consumer-first B2B playbook ($9.5B Valuation)
John Kim
CEO & Co-Founder of Sendbird
John Kim: The GTM Story of Sendbird ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Raj De Datta
CEO & Co-founder of Bloomreach
Raj De Datta: the GTM Story of Bloomreach ($2.2 Billion Valuation)
Justin Borgman
CEO and Co-Founder of Starburst
Justin Borgman: the Story of Starburst ($3+ Billion Valuation)
Jerome Ternynck
Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters
Jerome Ternynck: the Story of SmartRecruiter ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Kevin Busque
CEO and Founder of Guideline
Kevin Busque: the Story of Guideline ($1.1B+ Valuation)
Tom Jermoluk
CEO of Beyond Identity
Tom “TJ” Jermoluk: The GTM Storyteller of Beyond Identity ($1.1 Billion Valuation)
Alex Israel
Co-Founder & CEO of Metropolis
The wild GTM story behind Metropolis raising $2B to take a company private and get their tech adopted faster | Alex Israel
Kyle Hanslovan
CEO & Co-Founder of Huntress
What happens when you outgrow your messaging? w/ Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan
Philip Cutler
CEO and Founder of Paper
Philip Cutler: The GTM Story of Paper ($1.5B Valuation)
Jeremy Johnson
CEO & Co-Founder of Andela
Jeremy Johnson: the Story of Andela ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Rodrigo Liang
Co-Founder and CEO of SambaNova
Rodrigo Liang: the Story of SambaNova ($5+ Billion Valuation)
Satyen Sangani
CEO & Co-Founder of Alation
Satyen Sangani: The GTM Story of Alation ($1.7 Billion Valuation)
Jean Paul Chauvet
CEO of Lightspeed
Jean Paul Chauvet: the Story of Lightspeed ($2+ Billion Valuation)
Joshua Motta
CEO & Co-Founder of Coalition
Joshua Motta: How Coalition Created the “Active Insurance” Category ($5B Valuation)
Barr Moses
Co-Founder & CEO of Monte Carlo
Barr Moses: the GTM Story of Monte Carlo ($1.6 Billion Valuation)
Martin Mao
CEO of Chronosphere
Martin Mao: The Story of Chronosphere ($1.6 Billion Valuation))
Sal Sferlazza
CEO and Co-Founder of NinjaOne
The power (and importance) of being founder-led w/ NinjaOne’s Sal Sferlazza ($5B)
Marcelo Lebre
President of Remote
Marcelo Lebre: the Story of Remote ($3 Billion+ Valuation)
Jeff Denworth
Co-Founder of VAST Data
Jeff Denworth: The Story of VAST Data ($9.1 Billion Valuation)
Joseph DeSimone
Chairman and Co-Founder of Carbon
Joseph DeSimone: the Story of Carbon ($2.5 Billion Valuation)
Renaud Laplanche
Co-Founder and CEO of Upgrade
How Upgrade built 6 billion-dollar products by designing for multi-product from day one | Renaud Laplanche ($6B Valuation)
Karl Siebrecht
Co-Founder & CEO of Flexe
Karl Siebrecht: the Story of Flexe (1+ Billion Valuation)
Marc-Alexander Christ
Co-Founder of SumUp
Marc-Alexander Christ: the Story of SumUp ($8.5 Billion Valuation)
Michael Witte
CEO & Co-founder of Workrise
Michael Witte: Workrise: the GTM Story of Workrise ($3 Billion Valuation)
Doron Myersdorf
CEO of StoreDot
Doron Myersdorf: the Story of StoreDot ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Dave Wessinger
CEO and Co-Founder of PointClickCare
Dave Wessinger: the Story of PointClickCare ($5 Billion Valuation)
Michel Tricot
Co-Founder & CEO of Airbyte
Michel Tricot: the Story of Airbyte ($1.5 Billion Valuation)
Dave Link
CEO and Co-Founder of ScienceLogic
Dave Link: How ScienceLogic Used Partnerships to Build a $155M ARR AIOps Platform
Steffen Tjerrild
Co-Founder, CFO & COO of Synthesia
Steffen Tjerrild: The Story of Synthesia ($1 Billion Valuation)
Abhay Parasnis
Founder and CEO of Typeface
Abhay Parasnis: the Story of Typeface ($1 Billion Valuation)
Doug Winter
CEO and Co-Founder of Seismic
Doug Winter: The GTM Story of Seismic ($3 Billion Valuation)
Henry Kim
CEO & Co-Founder of Swiftly
Henry Kim: The GTM Story of Swiftly ($1B+ Valuation)
Johanna Småros
Co-Founder & Chief Sustainability Officer of RELEX Solutions
Johanna Småros: the Story of RELEX Solutions ($5.7 Billion Valuation)
Des Traynor
Co-Founder of Intercom
How Intercom survived by cannibalizing their own business model before competitors could | Des Traynor
Arif Nathoo
CEO and Co-Founder of Komodo Health
Arif Nathoo: the Story of Komodo Health ($3 Billion Valuation)
Ajay Kulkarni
CEO of Timescale
Ajay Kulkarni: the Story of Timescale ($1+ Billion Valuation)
Hari Ravichandran
CEO & Founder of Aura
Hari Ravichandran: the Story of Aura ($2.5 Billion Valuation)
Gary Hoberman
CEO & Founder of Unqork
Gary Hoberman: the GTM Story of Unqork ($2B+ Valuation)
Kevin Busque
CEO and Founder of Guideline
Kevin Busque: the Story of Guideline ($1.1B+ Valuation)
Dimitri Sirota
CEO & Co-Founder of BigID
Dimitri Sirota: The GTM Story of BigID ($1.25 Billion Valuation)
Federico Larsen
CTO and Co-Founder of Copado
Federico Larsen: the Story of Copado ($1.2 Billion Valuation)
Sean Henry
CEO & Co-Founder of Stord
Sean Henry: How Stord Built a Commerce Enablement Platform ($1B+ Valuation) That Rivals Amazon’s Logistics Network
Justin Borgman
CEO and Co-Founder of Starburst
Justin Borgman: the Story of Starburst ($3+ Billion Valuation)
Raj De Datta
CEO & Co-founder of Bloomreach
Raj De Datta: the GTM Story of Bloomreach ($2.2 Billion Valuation)
Zeb Evans
CEO & Founder of ClickUp
How ClickUp survived the 2021 growth at all costs era and came out stronger ($300M ARR)
Martin Mao
CEO of Chronosphere
Martin Mao: The Story of Chronosphere ($1.6 Billion Valuation))
Sean Henry
CEO & Co-Founder of Stord
Sean Henry: How Stord Built a Commerce Enablement Platform ($1B+ Valuation) That Rivals Amazon’s Logistics Network
Dave Wessinger
CEO and Co-Founder of PointClickCare
Dave Wessinger: the Story of PointClickCare ($5 Billion Valuation)
Jean Paul Chauvet
CEO of Lightspeed
Jean Paul Chauvet: the Story of Lightspeed ($2+ Billion Valuation)
Oren Kaniel
CEO & Co-Founder of AppsFlyer
Oren Kaniel: The GTM Story of AppsFlyer ($2 Billion Valuation)
Waseem Daher
Founder and Executive Chair of Pilot
Waseem Daher: The tech-enabled services model that investors hated: How Pilot combined software and humans when everyone wanted pure SaaS | Waseem Daher (Pilot.com)