BeyondSaaS Transcript
Jason Niedle
There we go. Today we’re talking with Anna Schuchla. Sorry. See, I told you as soon as I set the frame that I’m going to mess it up, I mess it up. Today we’re talking with Anna Schuchla, co-founder and executive chair of Botco AI, a truly inspirational serial entrepreneur who can get to the heart of tech company growth. All right, and I’ll jump in and out and I’ll do the longer intros.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, it’s alright, it’s no problem.
Okay.
Jason Niedle
Welcome to Beyond SaaS. I’m Jason Nidl, founder of Tethos. We’re a growth agency and we’ve been accelerating company growth through strategy branding, lead generation and conversion for about 20 years. If you’re looking to grow, check out tethos.com slash podcast for our paper on hyper growth tactics from interviews like these. Or easier yet, just drop the word growth in the comments and I will message you. Today, I’m really excited to explore tech company growth with Anu Shukla.
She is the co-founder and executive chair of Botco AI and has founded numerous companies, has experience in over $1 billion in exits, and is a pivotal leader, as I mentioned, at Botco AI, which is a platform that empowers businesses with AI-powered conversational engagement to streamline interactions. So think kind of instantly enabled AI chat bots that are more accurate than normal and do not hallucinate.
And I hear you have a deep expertise in AI and digital transformation, an honorary doctorate, which is very impressive, and that you educate broadly, including supporting many women in underrepresented causes. So thank you so much for being here.
Anu Shukla
Thank you so much for having me and for that brief but very impactful introduction.
Jason Niedle
I’m excited. So I want to hear all about this, but before I forget, do you have a golden nugget for our listeners so they can get something right away?
Anu Shukla
You know, I would just say that women networking is a really important thing that you should find time for. So recently I went to say a senior living community meetup and I saw an AI robot offering.
that is meant to monitor seniors. And I met so many interesting people, like I would have never thought I would meet them at a retirement community, but I did. So when you get invited to, or get an opportunity to participate in some of these events, take time off from your desk and your Zoom calls and go and meet people in person. I think post pandemic, we forget how important it is to build relationships. And I think I built more
Jason Niedle
Mmm.
Anu Shukla
connections from that one meeting plus found interesting technology that I would have never thought possible. So after that, which is about a month ago, my focus has very much been on let’s have some in-person interactions. So bring back the in-person interaction is my golden nugget to you.
Jason Niedle
I love it. It’s such an interesting through line too, because this is our 21st podcast we started a couple of months ago. And in this idea of like, what is human and what is AI and how do we relate, you know, because technologies is supercharging everything and where is the time for in-person and where’s the time for technology, I think is something that we’re all going to be struggling with. And I’m really glad you brought up the idea of women, because it’s been difficult for us.
to find women in tech for the podcast. And I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit that you’re number one here. Happy for you, but embarrassed for me. And I wanna know, like, why is it hard to find women in tech and what needs to change to get more women in leadership?
Anu Shukla
dear.
you
Yes, you know, I’ve been dealing with this issue for a really long time. 20 years ago, we had an organization called Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, which changed its name along the way to Watermark. It had some of the early people in there. And we used to award a woman
you know, entrepreneur of the year, women entrepreneur of the year every year and invite everybody to support women. you know, people like Dawn Lepore, like really well-known people were brought to this and had a fabulous engagement. And we worked very hard on this issue of women entrepreneurs and women in executive leadership. And, you know, we just concluded that there were just not, there’s just not enough opportunities. Women made
choices, when they had families, they found that more satisfying maybe. things like the internet, for example, when the internet came about, say, hey, there was a time when the internet actually arrived, that created a lot of women entrepreneurs because the barrier to entry was lower. So you didn’t need like a huge amount of money. And then if you had, even if you had a hobby, you could turn it into a business. People looked at that. And now with AI, I’m hoping the same thing happens with AI.
is going to dramatically change the landscape of what’s possible.
Although it requires a lot of money, even with the inference models that are now becoming more popular, and you don’t have to reinvent the LLM every single time you can use what’s out there, maybe this will spawn more interest from women to jump in and take the risk, et cetera. So yes, the representation of women has been typically low and
sometimes when you have these interesting waves and opportunities on our part you know I’m part of a group called the Elevate VC and we only fund under although you know this is an unpopular concept but we do fund and our limited have given us money to fund underrepresented founders and out of which women are definitely a group along with many other different underrepresented founders that we support so this is a
targeted fund to make a difference in generational wealth for entrepreneurs, hoping that that then spawns more investment in other underrepresented founders. So we all know this is an issue, and we all know that we have to all work for changing it. And there have been improvements in these various waves, and it needs to continue to be focused on.
Jason Niedle
Well, and I…
Yeah, on top of the structural benefits and assistance there, there’s a really great argument that it’s just a good business sense and it’s just a good business model. You find people who are working really hard, who have a different viewpoint than maybe you do and are willing to make something happen. So I think it’s critical.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, and when you have like a representation of a mix of people, you generally get better results. So, you know, that’s why, you know, we encourage, we encourage that in the companies that we even fund, that they have a diverse workforce, because it’s a better workforce.
Jason Niedle
So I see that you’re the executive chair of Botco. Is that what we should talk about today or should we talk more broadly?
Anu Shukla
It’s up to whatever your leaders, your listeners are interested in. I’m happy to…
Jason Niedle
They want to know about tech growth, right? But it’s interesting
to hear your story and how you’re growing, you know, either Botco or something else that’s interesting for you.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, well I have gone from being a seeded entrepreneur to a paddled entrepreneur. So I’m now involved in a variety of enterprises, but I have to say like the limited partnership at Elevate VC and some of the educational work I’m including every summer teaching a class in women leadership at Santa Clara University.
Jason Niedle
Mm.
Anu Shukla
So I, know, little, and then I have some ventures in higher education, education of autistic children as well, called the Rising Star Sped Academy. And yeah, a variety of interesting things. I sort of dabble in stuff. But BOTCO is definitely a main focus because it’s so interesting to work with a great team of people. And it’s very much what Beyond SAS is all about, which is rather than focus only on the support
aspects of enterprise AI chat or you know we have sales and inside sales and other AI agents that we build for our clients that allows them to do sort of better inbound, better outbound and to you know to take people to smooth out the customer journey and get them to a buying state you know in a streamlined way.
Jason Niedle
with an AI bot.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, AI bots, that’s what we do. We have a platform that allows you to build them. And at the same time, you know, we’ve done enough work in the platform to prevent hallucinations because enterprises can’t really tolerate hallucinations, especially in healthcare. You can’t tolerate lack of privacy and things like that. So whether you’re launching an over-the-counter drug or you’re marketing a prescription medicine or you’re, you know, letting people know that they can check into your facility for alcohol and
drug addiction help for rehab, whether it’s capturing adverse events in a conversation about a new medicine or new over-the-counter drug that people are using, you know, we do it all and that’s done through fine-tuning our models and creating chatbots that are really focused on
getting you better engagement and getting people along the customer journey and getting them to actually buy your product, make an appointment or whatever your CTA is.
Jason Niedle
amazing. So you have success in a lot of different fields, whether that’s education or co-founding or venture capital. What is the heart of your role and what you do that differentiates you?
Anu Shukla
at Botco or elsewhere.
Jason Niedle
I think let’s go broad, what, yeah, broadly speaking, like what’s your special talent and growth in all these companies? How are you making all this happen?
Anu Shukla
Well, I guess that, you know, other people will have to tell you what my special talent is. All I can tell you is that I enjoy working with smart, like-minded people. I enjoy solving problems. I have a bias towards execution, so take action. So a lot of people have good ideas. And then I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve been through where they go, scented candles. Like, I thought about that, but then what did you do about
nothing, I just thought about it. Whereas in my case, I say, about, you know, if we can have a one-to-one conversation which is personalized, you know, using a chatbot that never goes to sleep, that’s awake 24 hours and…
Jason Niedle
You’re building it.
Anu Shukla
And I’m building it the next day, you know. I also realize that nothing happens without a team. you know, just having a good team, surrounding yourself with a good team and enabling them to be successful as well is very important. So I would say my talent is probably a propensity for execution or action on certain ideas. Not all of them come to fruition. Like I said, it seemed like a good idea. We go down the path and we go, you know what?
It looks like this is not going to be as big or it’s not going to, you we can’t really solve it. Somehow it doesn’t gel, so I will drop it. I’ll drop it quickly so that I can move on to the next thing.
Jason Niedle
So you’ve had these startups and then you’ve also been in a place where you’re past startup and you’re into mid-stage and mature and exits. What needed to change in you as a leader or what needs to change in you and in leader when you go from the startup phase to kind of mid-stage or beyond?
Anu Shukla
Well, the style of face you’re literally doing everything yourself.
and you’re wearing multiple hats and your focus is on getting this job done whether you have to stay late and do it yourself. And working with a close team of people that usually understand you and understand your quirks and they understand how to communicate with you and you know how to communicate with them so you don’t have to spell it out to them, right? As you scale the company, you have to bring in people that are better than you. So for example, I’m a good salesman.
person, I’ve sold some big deals. But I don’t have the patience really to do the blocking and tackling for sales, right? I’m a good strategic marketer. I can see the big picture. I can see positioning. I can define a strategy. I know some execution things that can be done that have worked in the past. But I don’t have the patience to really look at
whether the sentence is right or not, and whether the image is placed correctly with the right aspect ratio on the banner. So you have to bring in people that are better than you, that know this stuff day in and out. So one, how do you attract a really great team? And secondly, how do you delegate to them? And don’t be a controller, don’t be a micromanager, but yet have enough clarity in your communication.
Jason Niedle
Mm-hmm.
Anu Shukla
so everybody’s marching towards the right thing. So you really have to learn to scale yourself and to also let go when you scale a company.
Jason Niedle
Mm.
I love that. So you mentioned bias for action, having a team with members that are better than you and delegating properly, clarity and communication. Those are all great. Is there anything else you wish to tell other leaders about how to grow a tech company or how to grow sales in a tech company?
Anu Shukla
How to grow sales in a tech company? Yes, so I mean, you literally have to build a machine. It doesn’t happen by itself. So you literally have to put in, you know, what is my funnel look like? What am I doing to feed the top of the funnel? How am I moving people down the funnel? And how are we closing? And you have to have a good playbook for that that is communicated. And then what roles do people play? Who fills the top of the funnel, you know,
And you have to also learn in sales how to say no. I mean, I am guilty of this. I never met a deal that I didn’t like. But they’re simply wrong deals for the company. So you don’t want to have a product that is an inch deep and a mile long. You want to basically have a product in SaaS which is very repeatable. So it’s solving a problem, doing it the best, and doing it again and again, and not having a lot of variations from it.
because that makes you into like a custom build shop and agency which is not scalable and the metrics of that are very different.
Jason Niedle
You’re talking
to the guy who built a non-scalable agency.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, yeah,
it can be profitable and it’s very satisfying, but it’s not scalable for a product company. In a product company, you have to have a set of features and you’re like, this is the problem I solve, this is what my ICP is, and just make it a repeatable process. That is what you have to learn and you have to get that product market fit and then you scale.
Jason Niedle
for
Anu Shukla
Once you find it, it becomes a lot easier to sell and you have to have build a book of repeatable business. And every time you go after stuff which is like, okay, you know, let’s just add a video here. And you know, what if we did this and what if the customer needs what we want, but they also need this. And then you go and they don’t really need what we want. They want something else. And then you’re telling your engineers to build that for them. And only they’re the only customer in the world that’ll ever want it. That is a disaster for companies.
Jason Niedle
Mm-hmm,
Anu Shukla
Yeah.
Jason Niedle
absolutely. So what’s Botco’s growth goal in your favorite metric over the next 12 months and what are you doing to get that?
Anu Shukla
So Botco has found some interesting vertical markets that we’re expanding into. So we started off with sort of a broad focus around marketing and engagement chatbots. And then we focused into different verticals that were very niche-y small. And now we have had some big ones. We’ve expanded into some big ones. So we really want to go after these. They’re all related to our core, which is health care and health benefits and addiction.
and things like that, mental health. So they’re definitely in that, we’re expanding a little bit into pharma and clinical trials, for example, which are all related and we’re not building new products, but I find that there are bigger markets we can go after now and use our agents in those markets to solve like really big problems that involve not only AI, but also workflow and which is what we’ve done from day one. So it’s a good match for us.
So I think the goal of, know, Bartko’s goal is to triple this year in revenue and that’s kind of our, and have a footprint in these burgeoning applications where there’s a big need. Yes.
Jason Niedle
Tripling is amazing. So
if you had a magic wand, what’s the obstacle that you would remove that’s kind of slowing down growth or that’s potentially preventing you from tripling?
Anu Shukla
I mean, think that, you know, I think that we would probably need to invest a little money. We’ve been very careful of, you know, being close to breakeven for a long time. That means that, you know, you’re sort of driven by your revenue and you don’t really spend ahead of the revenue. I think that this year we may want to spend a little bit ahead of the revenue.
because we need to invest in some more work in our sales and marketing area, some more investment in that area, so that we can scale into these new markets.
Jason Niedle
it make sense? it hitting the, is it getting out the top of the funnel? Is it getting things through the funnel? Like where do you, where do things kind of slow down?
Anu Shukla
All of it, all of it. think we have to get the top of the funnel bigger, we have to get more qualified meetings, and we have to get more more feet on the street sort of closing the deals.
Jason Niedle
So if you step back and took a broad view, thinking about a lot of the organizations you’ve worked with, is the common sales and marketing mistake or obstacle that people just aren’t doing very well at, and why is that?
Anu Shukla
Common sales obstacle. Well, one is, I mean, if you talk from a sales perspective, I think that salespeople, you know, either they have the enterprise sales mindset or they don’t. And one mistake that companies make is getting a salesperson who’s really more of an SMB person and expecting them to run an enterprise sales cycle.
Jason Niedle
or marketing.
Mmm.
Anu Shukla
where you’re really selling to 10 people and you’ve got to keep in mind compliance, IT, accounting, finance, you know, and your buyer, right? And the application itself. So not all salespeople are used to running a cycle like that. So if you have an S &P guy, you know, that is using to is used to a small velocity of deals, they’re not always going to perform well in enterprise. So finding their finding your right
Jason Niedle
100%.
Mm.
Anu Shukla
target and finding the right person that can go after that target is a big mistake that people make. They go, this guy sells a lot, but what did he sell? He sold a bunch of 10k deals over the phone. He’s not going to go in and sell a big deal to Merck for 500k. It’s not going to be possible. So you’re going to sell it yourself, which is not scalable again.
Jason Niedle
Right. Has anything surprised you lately in sales and marketing, something that either works better than you expected or just stopped working all of a sudden?
Anu Shukla
Well, something that works really well. So we have a typical program where we, you know, we do, you know, the cold emails. We do, you know, we drive people to webinars and then from webinars we, you know, get them to a meeting and then sales cycle starts, right? So it was very surprising to me. And one of the CTAs in the funnel is to get people first to a webinar, then follow.
up and then get them to do a one-on-one meeting, right? Somebody came to our website, directly set up a meeting and without going through any of the other steps and then that meeting led to a very very big sale. So that was, we loved those. They skipped everything and they went straight to, so I love those kind of, I love those kind of surprises.
Jason Niedle
Mm. They skipped all the middle.
Yeah, that’s actually interesting because I saw it on a small case. went to somebody’s site and I wanted their product and they wanted to talk to me and I’m like, I already want it. Just tell me how much it is. Right. And it was, it was three grand or something like that. but I just wanted the price and I wanted to know right away. I didn’t want to go through that whole cycle. and so it is interesting. And then I had a client the other day that we were showing them the deck and he said the same thing to me is like, just get to the bottom line, you know? and I think.
Anu Shukla
Yeah.
Jason Niedle
I think it’s interesting because sometimes you establish your value in a better way through that chain, but sometimes the people already want you and you have to just get out of the way, right? Yeah.
Anu Shukla
I know, really. But
we love those kinds of surprises. Like, talk about getting a qualified lead and closing it in one fell swoop. Right? Why doesn’t it happen more often, is my question. Right, I know.
Jason Niedle
Oof. Yeah, that’s the best.
Maybe you should explore that case and find out, right?
So that’s one type of lead. How are you guys getting leads in the funnel? You said cold emails, one.
Anu Shukla
Yeah, we do cold emails. Of course, there’s PR, so there’s visibility from things that we announce. We do some research reports, and those become the thing that we market as something that fuels the CTA, like if you want this report kind of thing.
Jason Niedle
Mm.
Anu Shukla
And then we do these webinars on interesting topics with guests and people attend those webinars and often those that are interested in the topics are those that are qualified leads for us.
Jason Niedle
So in many ways, very traditional sales funnel, EPR and cold email, which people tell me all the time doesn’t work, but I know it does. Right? Yeah. And then that goes to some sort of a lead magnet, like a research report or a webinar, and then from there, they’re in your system, and eventually you get a meeting and work on it. And these are mostly enterprise deals.
Anu Shukla
It does.
Yes.
That is correct.
These are all enterprise deals. Yeah, be focused on enterprise deals.
Jason Niedle
All enterprise. Awesome.
So I started this podcast not asking any questions about AI and then every single person always asks or talks about AI. So I thought I might as well just throw that in there. What is something that we should know about AI, particularly as it relates to growing a tech company?
Anu Shukla
Okay.
Well, you AI is, you should be using AI a lot. Everybody should be because it really saves you a lot of time, right? But AI is not auto-magical.
So learning how to use AI properly is a skill that people should invest in. So for example, you can’t go to AI and say, make me a video about XYZ. You still have to have an idea of what you want in the video, what every scene should be. And then the AI, you have to work on different engineering prompts, et cetera, to get it to produce it and then stitch them all together, right? And then there are different…
LLMs that are better for certain types of images. Others are not. And there’s multi-language. knowing LLMs, knowing how to use them is important, but you can’t forget the skill that you need to solve your own problem. You need to know the process of how to get there. So I am a big proponent of people using AI, but you also need different guardrails and different things that you implement in a
flow, you want it integrated into your core systems, you want to eliminate any mAnu Shuklaal tasks from in between and streamline the whole thing. you’re at the end and then you start to manage it and then your data will change the next day. So you do have to have, again, this is self-serving for our platform because it solves all these issues. But this is what I live and breathe. So that’s why I bring it up.
Jason Niedle
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you know. What advice would you give, let’s say women in particular, who are looking to become a tech leader or to become a CEO of any sort, really?
Anu Shukla
Well, there’s different ways to get there. You can certainly, you know, rise up in the ranks of a medium or large organization and aim for being a CEO and do that by your accomplishments and by leaning in, as Sheryl Sandberg would say, and by getting the right mentors and producing the right results and working hard. And that’s certainly a very satisfying path that many have taken and succeeded in. Sometimes you may have to leave your company to get that next role and then don’t worry about it.
it. Try not to change your company and your industry in the same move, that’s harder. So if you stay in your industry and go for a bigger role, easier. If you change your industry and stay in the same role, easier. If you try to do both, might be harder. So you know look at it, I followed a different path because I like to create things.
something or another thing. So I didn’t wait for anybody to make me a CEO. I made myself the CEO, right? And now that I’ve been CEO multiple times, and of course I’ve been fired many times as a CEO as well, I actually don’t like to be CEO. I like the role that I have right now. I think I’m, but that’s just where I am in my life, right? I just…
Jason Niedle
Mm.
Anu Shukla
I think the things that are more interesting to me, like I can do six different things if I’m not the CEO of one thing. And that’s what I like.
Jason Niedle
Right,
right, that’s great. So the world feels pretty turbulent externally. How, how are you I could try to do anything and it’s gonna feel turbulent I feel like. Except getting on a call with you, that’s not too turbulent. How do we look ahead? How do we plan to grow our companies? What trends do you see? What do we need to know to navigate through this turbulence?
Anu Shukla
Does it? You turn to buy a car.
You know, first of all, don’t make any sudden moves. That’s always silly. Like I remember in the 2000s, you know, when the market was crashing and burning, you know, people were, you know, trying to rush out and do…
big things and if you stick it out, it’ll generally correct itself, right? You just have to have that timeframe, right? Not everybody has like, I’ll be okay in 10 years, I’ll be okay in 20 years. Not everybody has 10 or 20 years to wait this out, right? So you have to make your rational decisions, you know, with your advisors on say stock market turbulence, right? That’s a different matter, but every stock market…
know, proficient person will tell you, you know, shouldn’t.
You shouldn’t have knee-jerk reactions because the market ultimately corrects itself. But you might have a low tolerance for risk, so you go, okay, I’m going to just reduce my risk a little bit. And that’s perfectly okay. Also, you may say, well, no, I understand I shouldn’t have a knee-jerk reaction, but I’m very anxious. So solve your anxiety by, you know, by taking the move that you need to take, whether the pundits tell you it’s correct or not. If you’re feeling uncomfortable and you’re better off sitting in cash, do it.
That’s what I say. So don’t listen to all this. It’s your money. So that’s one. It’s your 401k. It’s your money. So do whatever makes you, ultimately makes you feel better because life’s too short to be anxious every day. Secondly, you know, I would say, you know, wait and watch because, you know, I think collectively nobody’s going to put up with, you know,
Jason Niedle
Mm-hmm.
Anu Shukla
know, bad times, high prices, no jobs for a long time. People will revolt. People will take action collectively, including you. And so, you know, it will eventually correct itself unless we’re headed for some kind of Armageddon, which I can’t predict, right?
I would protect myself, have plenty of cushion. Normally if you keep a three month cushion for money, you might want to extend that to a year. have some safety nets and be aware of what’s going on around you. And if your capital purchases are very expensive, delay them.
You don’t have to delay them. It’ll come back. mean, people stop buying cars, they’ll slash the prices of cars. Eventually, doesn’t have to be there any the car at some point. But if you can delay it, don’t buy it at its peak price.
Jason Niedle
At some point they’re gonna need the car.
Anu Shukla
So those just practical things for people to do, you know, and then I like the fact that I’m always have been in the last 20 years in the position of giving jobs rather than needing jobs. I’m encouraging AI is a great vehicle. I’m encouraging even if you have a full-time job, get a side gig.
get a side gig going. It’s interesting and you can do it very easily using the powerful AI tools that are out there every day. And it helps you build your cushion.
Jason Niedle
and you’re essentially diversifying yourself.
Anu Shukla
Diversify yourself. Yes. So these are all the things that will help you feel less anxious, will keep you safer, will protect you, and then of course be aware and involved always. So that’s what I do.
Jason Niedle
Very interesting.
and
the news app off my phone.
Anu Shukla
Well, that alone, yeah, I mean, you can be too obsessed with it. I like the governments where I don’t have to worry about what they’re doing. Yeah, like, you know, for me, it’s like you’re working there in the background and you’re doing whatever you need to do. It’s fine. I don’t need to hear every day what you’re thinking, you know? I mean, we pay you to go do your job. Just do your job. Okay.
Jason Niedle
Right? Stability, a common predictability.
All right.
Is there anything I forgot to touch on? Anything that you want to have some last word here?
Anu Shukla
I think you did a good job of bringing up so many things, broad ones, targeted ones, targeted issues, and all my favorite topics. So yeah, I think you did a good job. I don’t have anything much to add beyond that.
Jason Niedle
Perfect.
Well, Anu Shukla, this has been really informative, super interesting. Where can our audience find you?
Anu Shukla
botco.ai on our website you can write to me there otherwise my email is ashokla at botco.ai I’m also on LinkedIn and I’m very responsive on all those channels
Jason Niedle
Right, and BotCo AI is just like it sounds, B-O-T-C-O dot A-I. So very easy to get to.
Anu Shukla
Correct. Yeah,
and Ache of Love is my email, so correct.
Jason Niedle
S-H-U-K-L-A.
All right. Anu Shukla, thank you so much for being on Beyond SAS. 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 Neidl, at tethos.com. That’s T-E-T-H-O-S.com, where you can also grab our free report on how to grow your business at tethos.com slash podcast. Of course, as always, drop any questions for me or future guests and comments and feedback.
And don’t forget to share this episode if it resonated with you today. Until next time, this is Beyond SAS.
