Jasmeet Sraw, Head of Growth at Insite AI, discusses how AI solutions transform business operations and drive growth. Host Jason Niedle and Jasmeet discuss verticals, connecting various business functions, and the differences between enterprise and SMB sales. Jasmeet emphasizes the need for a startup mindset, the significance of relationships in business, and how AI can enhance speed to insights and information. The conversation also touches on planning for future changes in the industry and the importance of adapting to evolving technologies.
Takeaways
- Believe in what you are doing or selling to your customers.
- Everything is connected.
- Balancing revenue streams is crucial for growth.
- Maintaining a startup mindset is essential.
- Don’t forget customer expansion in your growth goals!
- Internal growth opportunities can be more effective than external ones.
- Sales and marketing strategies should leverage personal connections.
- It’s okay to fail and learn from mistakes.
- Building relationships is key to long-term business success.
Show Notes
BeyondSaaS Transcript
Jason Niedle (00:00)
Today we’re talking with Jasmeet Sraw head of growth at Insite AI about how solutions can transform business operations and supercharge growth.
Welcome to Beyond SaaS. I’m Jason Niedle, founder of Tethos. We are a growth agency. And for 20 years, we’ve been accelerating tech company growth through strategy, branding, lead gen, and conversion.
So if you’re looking to grow, check out tethos.com / podcast for our paper on hyper growth tactics or easier yet, just drop GROWTH in the comments and I’ll DM it to you.
Jason Niedle (00:33)
Today I’m excited to explore tech company growth with Jasmeet Sraw. He’s the head of growth at Insite AI. Insite is a leading AI partner for consumer brands and what they do cuts across sales, marketing, revenue growth, all the way to the IT teams. And they help companies dial in multiple scenarios and then confidently predict how those scenarios will perform over multiple KPIs. So for example, today they might be modeling how tariffs, essentially price increases, may affect the company’s revenue.
and how adjusting certain factors within the company would solve that.
He’s known for being incredibly hardworking with nearly 20 years in business development and a wide range of awards, and he believes that great leadership is about creating value and relationships that stand the test of time. Welcome, Jesmeet.
Jasmeet Sraw (01:13)
Thanks Jason and thanks for the opportunity.
Jason Niedle (01:15)
Yeah, I’m excited to have you here. Before we jump in, do you have a quick tip for our leaders of golden nugget?
Jasmeet Sraw (01:21)
I I always say this and say this a lot is believe in what you are doing or selling to your customers and clients, right? Because for example, yes, I am in the AI industry and there’s this whole people say hype and waves and whatnots, but if you personally don’t believe in it, don’t use it, right? You’re probably not going to convince others to do the same, right? So I use AI to make my life easier.
Jason Niedle (01:48)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (01:48)
to make my
life more productive, To make my work more productive. And because I believe in it so sincerely, that’s where I am very, very confident to say that, yes, my customers, my clients will benefit from it. And, you know, I’m not just, you know, selling something off the shelf and not believing in it. So believe in what you do, what you sell, because that’s the only way you have others start to do that and adopt it.
Jason Niedle (02:11)
100%. So tell our listeners a little bit about exactly what Insite does.
Jasmeet Sraw (02:15)
I think you provided a very concise and clear introduction and overview of Insite AI. We are basically purpose-built for consumer industries and consumer brands and consumer product good companies, right? What we do simply is leverage data tech and AI to help them mimic their business processes and decision-making processes and help them get to decisions faster, right? Now, if that means it’s for sales,
and sales processes and sales decisions, we are able to kind of optimally put together on people and technology to use to help them deliver it better, faster, stronger, And similarly, if it makes, it do to replicate a similar process or initiative in marketing, right? That’s where Insite AI kind of comes in and helps you do that with its data, its tech, with its people.
And at the end of it, I think where we win, where we succeed is we know everything is connected at or joined at the hip within these organizations. So, you know, we are there, in the sky to say, how do you connect the dots across the enterprise with data across these processes? Because, you may be making a decision in one part of the organization and you may not see how it had an impact upstream and downstream.
So our focus and objective while delivering our kind of solutions to customers is actually explaining and making it very, very visible on how each decision can or will contribute to certain upstream and downstream processes and eventually business impact. So that’s where we really kind of succeed and hold our own versus just kind of saying, hey, here’s an AI solution, put in your data and believe magic will happen.
Jason Niedle (03:50)
So it’s super interesting, but I have a lot of questions. Like is it for leadership or is it for someone at the sales level? How do you gather data from these different silos and aggregate them? Is it more of the marketing and sales or more the productivity? there’s so many aspects to this or maybe is it all of it, you know?
Jasmeet Sraw (04:08)
Yes, there are many aspects to it. And like I said, that’s why everything is joined at the hip eventually, but connecting the dots is important. So it typically starts with one, you know, function, one part of the business, let’s say sales or marketing, right? And it’s very persona or role driven. What are you trying to make move the needle on? Hey, I’m trying to grow my revenue. Hey, I’m going to, I’m trying to make the most of my marketing spends. So, what is the not star metric that you’re trying to move the needle on?
That’s where it typically starts. And then you kind of look at it or reverse engineer it to see, let’s work backwards and see, okay, to make these decisions to move the needle on this metrics, what is the process behind it? What data feeds should we look at? And how should we put analytics and AI to use to make it far more efficient and effective to come up with the decision options and the impact that you could draw up with these decisions, right?
So that’s how you typically kind of work. To your point, just getting the data right is a big, big thing, right? How do you get the data not just from within the organization, your agency partners, your channel partners or your retail partners. That’s a big exercise in its own. And that’s where I kind of, we try to kind of not over-hype, but actually highlight how do you use technology in AI.
That’s where they can be very, very efficient and productive. And rather than saying, someone needs to do it, it’s like, hey, that’s where AI and technology can come and help you. So you don’t spend your time trying to figure out which data is right, how do you marry this up to get to a decision that you’re trying to make or mimic a process that you typically kind of run every day, every week, every quarter, right? So that’s where it’s under the hoods. It’s to your point, it’s all of it together, but it pretty much starts with
one part of the business, are you trying to, which metric are you trying to move the needle on? And then how do you work backwards from there to look at the data attack and process to enable it?
Jason Niedle (05:59)
So as head of growth, are you then looking at each of those roles as kind of an ICP? Do you have like a sales ICPs and leadership ICPs? And do you have these different ideal customer profiles that you’re looking at within organizations?
Jasmeet Sraw (06:12)
Yes, I think in my role, the idea is, yes, we understand how and we continue to understand that as organizations evolve. Where are these buying decisions being made right because it’s not just one person deciding typically it may start in the CIO office who are thinking about all the systems and technologies to buy to really kind of start leveraging data so as to say coming from those systems and those technologies. Now
many organizations have their transformation agendas, residing with the CIOs who are also, taking up dual roles of digital and data, right? So the CIO organization is hugely and immensely important to us, not just as a buying group, but as an equal partner and stakeholder, even if somebody in the business that’s your sales or a marketing leader is buying, because eventually, we will have to conduit it through the IT organization where the data and systems reside.
So CIOs I would say are very important. There are many roles that have evolved to be the chief data officer, the chief analytics officer, now the chief AI officer, right? So they become important buying centers and decision makers and equal partners as we work with any enterprise. But then again, we continue to see a lot of questions or needs coming from, the CMO organization or the chief commercial officer organization.
Because those are the folks at the front lines really making decisions every day, really working with their end consumers, customers and clients and saying what needs to be done in the field to kind of continue the momentum with the business, right? So, you know, even though the conversation may start at one and it pretty much, you start to see everyone participate and become a natural and logical part of this entire buying and decision-making process.
Jason Niedle (07:55)
Is it mostly enterprise sales for you guys?
Jasmeet Sraw (07:57)
Yes, it is mostly enterprise sales. But then again, each enterprise that we address within the consumer industries, be it consumer goods or consumer brands, we look at the broad spectrum and say, hey, yes, everybody wants to work with the big companies. But then there are companies that are growing fast, may not have that scale just yet. But it is an appropriate time to start working with them and be part of that growth story and help them right get to, their
kind of numbers or their objectives and visions that they’ve laid out. So we work across the spectrum with, know, SMB businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies to do this at scale.
Jason Niedle (08:35)
So I’m always interested in that tension between the two, that there’s a different way to look at sales in both of those fields. How do you see enterprise sales differently than SMB sales, for example?
Jasmeet Sraw (08:45)
We don’t do anything outside the consumer industries, which is consumer goods and consumer brands. So you were so focused on it. The only adjacent industry that we logically play is in retail, right? So we have great depth in working with these industries. And when it comes to the actual business processes, the atypical business challenges, foundationally or fundamentally, they don’t change, right? Because essentially the same industry.
The scale, the appetite or the bandwidth to do so may change and that’s where you need to adapt, right? And a simple example could be, hey, I might have an enterprise solution suite that can pretty much help everything a CPG company is doing on the revenue growth management side, right? And they have the appetite, they have the need and they have the bandwidth to adopt and use that, enterprise solution suite, right? For revenue growth management.
On the other hand, and if I’m working with SMB and they still need to drive RGM within their organization, but at this point, at this maturity, at this life cycle, they may not either have appetite or bandwidth to do so. So how do you decompose it now to make it suitable for them to start leveraging parts or components or modules of that enterprise solution in tangible ways to benefit them, right?
But keeping in mind that the metrics they are trying to move with the needle on are pretty similar to what a Fortune 500 in the same industry is doing. It’s just a method and the application of how they may leverage a partner like Insite AI to do it.
Jason Niedle (10:16)
Right, because you’re in the same vertical, all the problems are essentially the same, but their ways of managing them might be different. Also, in that same regard, how do you look at the idea that in an SMB you might have a faster sales cycle, but a lower potential margin, right? Or a lower sale amount versus like seven or 10 stakeholders in an enterprise in a sales cycle that might take months?
Jasmeet Sraw (10:34)
Yes.
Right, it’s the balancing act, right? How do you want to think about your portfolio as an organization and where do you want to play? Because you’ve to balance multiple things, their scale, their speed, So, you know, I always think of it in two avenues, just putting my sales hat on, Is, hey, what is stream revenue for me and what is incremental revenue for me, right?
So if you have the right enterprise customers that have vested in you and that are partners with you, you’re able to establish a very strong stream revenue, because they have the appetite and the budgets and the necessary bandwidth to do it. And then obviously you want to start adding incremental revenues on top of it. Yes, you do the whole cup sale, cross selling organization, but essentially,
That’s where some of these SMBs come in because you can use that as a pedestal for your incremental revenues, right? To be your point, could be shorter sell cycles. Could be, it’s not the idea of, there’s this huge deployment that’s going to happen, execution happen, and there are like eight teams that you need to work through and get to the table to actually make it work. It could be as easy as, here’s my right expert, here’s the technology that
you and he or she can put to use very quickly and start driving on some streams for you to help move the needle on business incrementally. So it’s always a balancing act. Yes, I’ve been at organizations in the past where, hey, let’s just focus on because there’s also the mind and bandwidth that you have an organization. Can you focus on everything or do you want to narrow down your scope?
Jason Niedle (12:10)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (12:13)
And where do you see scope? Yes, with enterprise clients, if you’re able to onboard one or two, that might be enough, but here you need to get 10 or 12 to get to that, right? So there’s always this push and pull around it, but I always believe that you need to have a balanced portfolio, right? Because at times, especially like in today’s uncertainty and a lot of things moving in the macroeconomic environment, some of the largest corporations probably will slow down.
Jason Niedle (12:21)
Right.
Jasmeet Sraw (12:40)
In saying, what should we do? How should we enable it? Let’s pause, take a step back, and reset. Some of the SMBs, because they’re on that true trajectory, they are not bound by those guardrails, right? So they’re like, it’s fine. It’s going to affect this. But we can still continue momentum, right? Because we’re not going to… Yeah, so exactly.
Jason Niedle (12:53)
Mmm.
Alright, so there’s a lot of criteria. Yeah, there’s a lot of criteria to look at.
Jasmeet Sraw (13:02)
So it’s just having a balanced portfolio, having a balanced outlook on which customers do you want to onboard and how do you want to work with them, but essentially not lose your core essence of who you are to the industry, right? So that’s really how I look at it. I’m not a big believer of, I’m only going to work with the Fortune 500 set and never going to look at anybody else smaller than that because I believe each type of company, each type of customer has a role to play in our growth story too.
Jason Niedle (13:31)
It’s interesting too because not many people come and talk to me and really just have one vertical, right? And so you can know that with the depth that’s different and then you can address different size entities. So a lot of them have multiple verticals, but then one size entity and you guys have like one vertical with multiple size entities, which is pretty cool. Yeah. So I see that you, that Insite has raised a significant amount of funds and has a fair amount of employees. you consider yourselves more startup or more mid-stage at this point?
Jasmeet Sraw (13:47)
Yes. Yes.
We call ourselves a startup because we don’t lose that mindset, right? As soon as you start kind of thinking about yourself as a bigger organization, the mindset can quickly change to comfort. We don’t want to be in the space, right? We have a long way to go and we continue to invest our efforts and money is in the right direction, and still stay true to our core, how we’ve grown as an organization. So yes, I would always call our.
Jason Niedle (14:01)
Mm.
Jasmeet Sraw (14:22)
So as a startup, because sometimes people ask the question, you’ve been in the industry for at least seven years now, so not a startup anymore. I said, it’s the mindset, it’s not the size, right?
Jason Niedle (14:29)
Yeah, right.
the next year? So what is your growth goal over the next year?
Jasmeet Sraw (14:32)
Obviously everybody wants to, increase their revenues and, really be profitable. But, our focus in addition to that is to continue being considered experts in the industry, right? When you talk to our customer, talk to our clients, we don’t want them to think that we’ve lost any part of our expertise as we grow. So before we say, our goal is to grow two times faster than what we did last year.
But then, probably dissolve some of our equity, right, in terms of brand identity or like the expertise that we carry. That’s not the case. So yes, number one is, hey, continue to grow as experts and considered as experts by your customer clients and prospects alike for the industry, to definitely keep the growth story on from a top line perspective,
Jason Niedle (15:00)
Hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (15:19)
which is definitely one of the areas that is key for me. But the idea there as well is, how can we serve more for our customers? Yes, we started off with one part of the enterprise. We’ve naturally grown with our customers in other areas because they saw our expertise, they saw the success they had with us. So the idea is always what more can I bring to the table?
So instead of saying, I’m going to go now start working with another industry vertical just because I do so well in one, that’s not the idea. The idea is that within the same vertical, what are the challenges can we help our customers with? And a good example is within the CPG world, while everything we do is catering to their core interests, but then digital and e-commerce has become big for these consumer product goods.
And for some of them, essentially, it’s very, very new as well. So they’re also kind of figuring out alternatives and ways and methods to have that as a big chunk of their business, a big chunk of their revenue and growth story. accordingly, we’ve kind of thought through and designed some offerings that cater to that part of the business, but still logically connect to what we bring on as expertise, right? So we are always kind of thinking along how we can help customers do more.
right within their businesses as they also look to expand.
Jason Niedle (16:38)
I think that’s such a great point because here we talk about almost always external growth when people are talking about marketing and sales, but you’re essentially getting to the point of you’re in with these companies that might be really hard to get into. You have someone who’s successful and it’s working. Why wouldn’t you expand internally? Right. And so if it’s about retention and expansion, you can have rapid growth that way almost easier in some ways than going and finding another enterprise organization.
Jasmeet Sraw (17:03)
I was just going to add, even when you go outside to newer customers, right? And if you’re not talking about the newer set of challenges that the industry is facing, they might kind of wave you off as saying, oh, they do only this and they’re great at this, but they don’t understand where the industry is moving because these are the newer set of challenges I’m taking on head on, right? Let’s say expansion into marketplaces and e-commerce.
retailers, or even the fact that, everybody knew things are going to change from a tariff perspective, etc. Right? But nobody’s told me how should I incorporate that or start thinking about it from my data, from my decision-making point of views, right? So if you’re not thinking along, even getting to New York customer becomes harder because you can’t just keep rinsing and repeating the same story over and over again. Right?
Jason Niedle (17:42)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (17:53)
So you gotta kind of stay abreast and stay ahead and proactively determine that what may be focus areas tomorrow might not be and may become critical versus today, which are just run of the mill and more operational in nature.
Jason Niedle (17:53)
Yeah.
You just made me think of something as a marketer, I feel like today is the perfect opportunity because as we record this, this won’t be launched for about a month, but as we record this, the tariffs just hit yesterday. And it’s like the perfect opportunity to reach out to everyone in a way and say, hey, here’s some ways that this might work to model things for your new future, for all of our new future right now. And it’s really interesting way to see everything in that they have a super powerful tool, but they may not know all the ways that you can use it.
They may not know ways that it can be expanded within internally. Like it’s fascinating.
Jasmeet Sraw (18:39)
Yes. And I think it’s just not like the current situation around tariffs, etc. But it’s also, things of certain nature have happened in the past, which nobody expected. So when we’ve worked with our customers, we always kept that as an area to keep in mind when we are either, working alongside them, deploying solutions for them or designing solutions for them. We are always saying, hey,
look at the forward-looking view. Let’s take that into account. What has happened has happened. Always think of what might happen. And that’s where we come in. That’s where you use the predictive nature of analytics or these AI technologies to say, and give them at least a platform to say, OK, what if X happens? What impact may it draw for our business? So giving them that kind of visibility and the flexibility
Jason Niedle (19:05)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (19:29)
to use data in certain ways. I think that’s what we really focus upon. What I was getting to is that with this tariff story also, we know the way we’ve worked with our customers, we can easily integrate this as, in technical policies as a variable into their decision-making processes already without saying, okay, what do we do now? Right? How do we redo everything that we’ve done for you in the past and bring this into consideration?
Jason Niedle (19:47)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (19:54)
Right. So that has helped us stay true and stay abreast of what’s happening in the industry. And when we work with our customers, really kind of think about it ahead of time so that when it happens, they at least know that, OK, what now I just need to adjust certain decisions based on something new that has popped up as they plan for anything new, right. A new product introduction, a new competitor, a new channel.
Jason Niedle (20:16)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (20:19)
That’s how we’ve thought about it. So it’s something we’re gonna like market or make it. Hey, the tariff story, let us help you, right? Because there’s much more to it and we can just help orchestrate all of this better, yes.
Jason Niedle (20:32)
But every time there’s a change, it’s a good story for you and that you can model what the future might look like. It’s really cool. What are you guys doing in sales and marketing to bring in to fill that top of funnel?
Jasmeet Sraw (20:42)
I think, and everybody probably knows this better than I do, but it’s actually the network and the network of networks effect, right? That we carry with our experiences and are working with our customers, right? So there’s a lot of marketing in terms of having our advisors, our
Jason Niedle (20:42)
you?
Jasmeet Sraw (21:00)
industry peers or our customers really talk about it, and help us get to others in the industry to say Insite AI does really, really good work for CPG companies and for consumer brands, right? So definitely using that network to expand our remit is foremost, and we do it in a variety of ways. Obviously, there are like thought leadership channels that we have, our CEO, founder is,
pretty well known for his panel discussions and TED Talks in the past. He’s been an AI advisor to former Walmart CEOs, right? So I think the network effect is really top of mind and how do you leverage that and bring it to more audiences, right, from a marketing perspective. And it’s not just the usual route of, writing white papers and throwing it out on LinkedIn and hoping someone would click through it and come to it. So,
we’re trying to make it as personalized as possible when we are reaching out to either prospects or working with our customers. thinking about that, I think from a sales perspective, obviously focus really is to say, and you ask this question upfront, who are your ICPs? So what message do we take to the ICPs? Because they’re probably getting 30 to 40 every day.
Do we stay relevant? How do we become relevant? And we stay away from the usual piece of, hey, creating glitzy presentations or creating those information brochures. But really, show and tell is our methodology. So everything we do, we have it always ready as a demo, either in the form of a video or a prototype that we can say, hey, see what it can do for you. So rather than talking about it, we want to show it first up
to our ICPs because that really tells its own story versus us trying to kind of use that and put it into words and then try to kind of narrate it. And everybody has their own way of narrating and people then presume certain things. So we’re focusing in terms of our sales efforts is when we are going to these ICPs, what are those atypical challenges we want to address for them? And then attaching a very, very proven prototype, use case, demo,
for that specific use case and saying this is how we’ll go about and do it and this is what you’ll gain as outputs and outcomes. So that’s what we’re doing. Yes, we are in the usual channels of attending industry events, which makes sense for us, right, because obviously you do want to get in front of your audiences. What we’ve also started to do is create really these virtual days where, we will present on a certain theme or use case saying, hey,
this is the art of the possible, right? So we’ll pick up one use case, one success story, really walk them through it. And in that way, also kind of take a lot of feedback and inputs that helps us reinforce some of this solutions that we are taking to market. So it’s like a mutually beneficial
forum to say what we can do for you and bring to the table and then what can we learn from you and reinforce what we already do for customers.
Jason Niedle (23:54)
Perfect. So I like to think about the constraints within a company because if you can get rid of the constraints, you can do more. If you were to take a magic wand to something Insite your company in terms of sales and marketing and you would just get rid of it or change it or modify it or improve it or fix it, what would help you sell better? What would help you get the word out better?
Jasmeet Sraw (24:13)
Uh, think if, yeah, that’s a tricky one because I don’t have as many constraints as I would like to say in a company because I’ve worked with some of the largest companies in the world and you have to work within certain guardrails and certain processes here, we have the ability to define it, right? So we are defining a lot as we go along. And at point, maybe we are going to create the constraints, right?
Hopefully not. But yeah, so we are kind of defining and redefining it and not kind of being very, I would say adamant about that this is the only way we are going to do things and throw everything at it. And we do it like we may change tack every quarter, right? If you see things change work well, we go along and do it. But every quarter we
come back to the drawing board and saying, okay, what part of it can we change? What part of it can we accelerate? What can we replace or displace this with? Because certain things may not work. So we are ready for the bumps that come along, but we are also proactively saying there will be bumps along the road and we will change that as required, right? But not kind of get away from our mission or what we are doing and what we are enabling and which industries I’ll be working with. But if there was a magic one, what I would.
probably do is actually go back to five years and try to show everything that we’ve done till date for our customers in some way, right? Really bring forward and really share, you know, all the tangible business benefits and impact that we’ve driven at our customers, right? Only if there was a way to show that and get rid of maybe.
Jason Niedle (25:38)
Hmm
what does that
full impact over time look like?
Jasmeet Sraw (25:51)
Yeah, what does it look like? Because it’s enormous, right? When I joined the company, I was amazed at some of the work that we were doing, right? Because I’ve been in the consulting industry, both from a technology provider, services provider perspective. And yes, those companies did great things. But when I came over to Insite AI and I saw the work we were doing and the impact that we’re creating, I was like, we’ve not told enough of this to the world. We got to tell more of it to the world, right? And
Jason Niedle (26:15)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (26:17)
probably shout it off. Yeah, that’s what it may have like if the magic wand can allow me to shout it out from the top of my roof, I was gonna go do that.
Jason Niedle (26:25)
There you go. Is there something in sales and marketing that’s working really well for you right now or that used to work and now it’s not working so much? Is there anything that surprises you?
Jasmeet Sraw (26:35)
I think we’ve tried quite a few things in the past, right? But what we’ve done well, I would say, is not try to do everything by the book. We’ve done certain things which are fundamental by the book, which was great early on. But I think as we’ve grown, as we’ve evolved, we’ve changed that, like I said, and we’ve also kind of changed processes if necessary, wherever necessary.
And even said no to things that haven’t worked in the past and were still in the book saying you still should do this, right? You should still spend money on these platforms and these forums. We’re like, no, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. It’s fine. We can come back to it always, right? But that doesn’t mean I have to spend a large part of my budget just because the world knows it. So I think that’s kept us in good stead, right? And I think I’ll give credit to our CXO suite and
they’ve kind of said, hey, it’s OK to fail, right? And if you failed, it’s more important to say no to that and try something else rather than trying to kind of dig yourselves deeper into some hole. So I think that’s been really great about how we’ve gone about both from a marketing perspective and sales perspective.
Jason Niedle (27:42)
Awesome. I want to go back for a minute. It triggered a thought. I’m sure our listeners would love to hear, like, how do you do those quarterly adjustments? Do you jump in a room or a Zoom with the team for half a day? You know, you said you adjust course or look at it every quarter. Like, what is the mechanism? How does that work?
Jasmeet Sraw (27:56)
I think it’s constant feedback flowing through the organization. I would go to my CEO and say, hey, why don’t you go evaluate what I’m talking to customers about? Does the message resonate with you if you’re on the other side of the table? A lot of our team members actually come from the industry. So going to them and saying, hey, what if I said this to you? Would it work as a message? Or do you think you’ll hear it otherwise?
So it’s that constant feedback flowing through the organization and incorporating into our messaging, our discussions, our presentations, our brainstorming with customers. And we’re saying, OK, if you’re getting positive, negative feedback, let’s incorporate it. Let’s use it. So I think there’s this constant feedback stream in the organization naturally that helps us stay true and change that.
accordingly. In terms of formal feedback, yes, we don’t want to like come across as someone today and something else tomorrow. It’s just the way we are delivering it to the market that might need adjustments. And those adjustments is more, I think, inward looking rather than saying we are going to not be present to companies on this platform versus we are going to go invest more in the other platform. It’s not
outward, it’s more inward on how we are messaging, how we are delivering the message, are we being in depth, are we being focused and targeted in the areas with the audiences that we want to speak to in the industry that we operate within. So those are more inward adjustments than anything which is more outward.
Jason Niedle (29:29)
So you’re head of growth. What is your growth philosophy that you can share? Like what is the core of that that you can share with other tech leaders?
Jasmeet Sraw (29:37)
If you are able to make a relationship and maybe you have a great relationship with someone and it doesn’t turn out to be a transaction, that’s fine because I strongly believe at a point it will be. Because if you have been able to establish the relationship, business is easier.
Versus looking at the transaction first and then trying to say, now I’m going to build it into a new relationship because there’s business there. So I always, always believe it’s okay if I don’t have business early on, but I’d rather invest in the relationship because the business will come if somebody trusts you.
Jason Niedle (29:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well said. So you’re working with AI every single day. What should we know about AI ahead, particularly as it relates to growth? And I know we could talk for hours about that, but do tech companies today, how can they use AI to grow better, grow faster?
Jasmeet Sraw (30:24)
Yeah, I think it’s the speed to insights and speed to information now, right? Earlier, if you were researching your target audiences, your target companies, right, you would have, be either be working with external partners or be working through a lot of external reports to orchestrate that information. It really makes sense out of it. I think AI helps us deliver that much, much faster, obviously, you need to keep an eye for the information that it’s giving you and you need to kind of be thorough with.
what you’re producing. But I think that’s where I see a great level of productivity and efficiency in speed to information and speed to insights, right? And even smaller things like when you’re prepping up for meetings with newer prospects or newer companies and really understanding, what are they talking about in the industry. So, you know, I think that has in the whole growth part of it, I think that’s hugely important. AI is delivering.
your speed to insights and speed to information far, better than where we were maybe just even like 12 months or 18 months back. I think that’s definitely one. The second part is on the creation side, right? What do you want to represent in terms of information to customers in various forms and formats? I think that’s also become far, far easier, much more relevant, right?
Because you’re able to do so much with so little now. So I think, that kind of helps you spend time and building that core expertise and being very depthful rather than just being on the surface about everything and saying, hey, this is how you talk about certain things, represent certain things and show it to your customers and prospects alike.
So I think on that part, I’m seeing like on the creation side, it’s far more easier to do it, right? You can really spend time on fine tuning it and refining it in terms of the expertise, right? But just getting to that creative in terms of, you even if it’s as simple as a proposal document, right? Earlier, you’d have like pre-sales do it and somebody would provide feedback. They will incorporate feedback. Then it will come up for review.
So it was always like an ongoing iterative process. With AI technology, it’s so much more simpler so that you focus on the expertise and let the AI do some of the operational nature of it.
Jason Niedle (32:41)
Yeah, I’ve been talking about this idea with, I taught a class last night and I was talking with the students about the idea that AI sets this new threshold and this new baseline and we all have to either stand on top of it or be better than at one of the two. But like there is certainly a baseline that is being reestablished higher and higher and higher all the time.
Jasmeet Sraw (32:58)
Yeah, like I see it like when I came to Insite AI right if this was the you know before the advent of all these new technologies. I would have said I need a sales analyst I need two people on the sales team to do XYZ, right? And I need this system and that system right, and today when I kind of started leveraging this newer technologies that just helps me to be so much better, right?
And then just like as you create your team, you create your team for the right things. Then you actually have people who only focus on customer success or relationship managers, right? And not people who are digging up information, putting information together and creating beautiful presentations, right? So I think a lot of that is gone. like you said, you have to be on the baseline or above it and certainly kind of keep moving along the curve.
Jason Niedle (33:31)
Mm.
Jasmeet Sraw (33:46)
because otherwise, The pace at which AI technologies are growing, some of us can become redundant very soon. And it’s not the idea that it’s going to replace you, it’s just going to supersede you in terms of the pace at which it’s going. So you’ve got to stay abreast, right? Not the other way around.
Jason Niedle (34:01)
Yeah, 100%. So with all this change, like we’re probably in a revolutionary time period in the sense of like the industrial revolution changed everything, right? And we’re in the heart of the information revolution right now and it’s affecting, like I see the government as a symptom of all this, right? And all these problems in the society are a symptom of everything changing. So how are you looking and planning for this turbulent times ahead? Like how are you gonna grow
Jasmeet Sraw (34:12)
Right.
Jason Niedle (34:27)
know, Insite AI when all this is going on.
Jasmeet Sraw (34:30)
I would call it turbulent times to your point, right? All of this needs change because the way the world and technology is evolving, right? And everybody is just finding better ways to do it, right? So I wouldn’t say it’s, and I think it’s evolutionary at this point, right? I wouldn’t put it as revolutionary because that could mean many things. So I would see it as evolutionary and I really like, I don’t know, the…
if you’ve kind of ever got to the book, the Singularity or the Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil. So, he really spoke about it. The Singularity is really when the biological and the technological worlds meet and are one, you know, that’s like the Nirvana state. And when he wrote the first part of it, he thought it’s going to happen somewhere in the 2040s or 2050s, right?
In his latest version, which is Singularity is Nearer, he’s saying it’s going to happen in the 2030s. And it’s not just he’s saying it, he is illustrating it with examples from our real world. And when you read that and you say, yeah, I see that happening. So this is true. This is becoming true, right? Because even, Ray, who’s the author of the book, he’s saying is, I made a mistake saying it’s going to be 2040s, 50s, because I already see certain things I anticipated in 2030s already happened.
Jason Niedle (35:21)
Hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (35:43)
Right? So it just kind of reality strikes you and then you don’t think about all these changes around you as turbulent times, right? You really start to see, this is evolution, right? I need to change. I need to adapt, I need to learn faster. I need to start adopting some of this because it’s just going to help us become better. So I always kind of refer to this book because it’s not just at like technological levels.
Jason Niedle (35:57)
Mm-hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (36:09)
He actually talks about it at global levels, He said there’s going to be a point where, crime will go down, wars will go down because the technology will enable so much fulfillment in terms of just your basic needs that people don’t need to fight over it, right? Over food, over clothes, over basic income, right? So, it’s going to elevate us as a civilization too. So, all these benefits coming is just about
Jason Niedle (36:22)
Hmm.
Jasmeet Sraw (36:33)
how open are you to accepting, anticipating and adopting, versus saying, hey, something wrong gonna happen with this if I do this.
Jason Niedle (36:42)
It’s an evolution, not a revolution. And how open am I to evolve.
Jasmeet Sraw (36:47)
Yeah, and that’s the same way with Insite AI, right? We definitely, you know, know just from an industry perspective, what are the core challenges any typical consumer brand or consumer good company faces, right? And, you know, with predictive analytics and AI, we also kind of put a forecast of what may happen, right? But if you don’t continue to evolve that and thinking that this will solve for all the problems, and that’s why I said I rather spend time on
expanding my remit within the current industry, within my current customer, what more can I do for you versus saying, let’s go start working with banking and financial services, right? So yeah, that’s really what we are focused upon, right? And that’s why I of continue to add layers, which makes sense for our customers, for the industry that we operate in. I think that’s really the focus.
Jason Niedle (37:32)
Well, Jasmeet, this has been really fun. Where can our audience find you?
Jasmeet Sraw (37:36)
So yeah, pretty active on LinkedIn. I strongly believe in that platform. I think it’s just not about making connections, but actually interacting there and sharing what you think may be helpful for other professionals, the businesses, your industry peers.
So certainly that’s one way to find me. Otherwise, always looking for a good conversation in sports, right? And protecting my California teams and, you know, saying they’re the best.
Jason Niedle (38:03)
Awesome. Jasmeet Sraw, S-R-A-W, and that’s at Insite AI, I-N-S-I-T-E.A-I. Jasmeet, thank you so much for being on Beyond SaaS. For leaders in mid-stage tech looking to grow, we drop episodes twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And you can find me, Jason Niedle, at Tethos.com. That’s T-E-T-H-O-S.com. Where, of course, you can grab that free report at Tethos.com/podcast.
And of course, drop any questions, comments, all that below. We really appreciate that. And until next time, this is Beyond SaaS.
