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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.

 

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