Todd Olson. He’s the CEO and founder of Pendo, a product experience platform that helps product managers deliver successful products. Before Pendo, Todd served as VP of products at Rally Software Development which he led through its public offering. Todd joins Rally in its acquisition of 6^th Sense, the company he founded and served as president and CTO.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Good to Great
What CEO do you follow? – Aaron Levie
Favorite online tool? — 15Five
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew more at 21, than I thought I knew”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:42 – Nathan introduces Todd to the show
02:17 – Pendo provides a solution that helps companies build an application to improve its experience
03:00 – Optimizely uses Pendo to understand the people who are in their trial and onboarding flow
03:32 – Pendo is different to Intercom’s space
04:01 – Pendo is a SaaS company
04:21 – Pendo was launched in 2013
05:11 – Todd experimented with different technologies
05:26 – “Every product has key set features”
05:45 – Todd founded 6^th Sense and sold it to Rally
06:24 – First year revenue is zero
06:55 – Todd invested $1.2M to start Pendo
07:11 – Pendo has raised a seed round
- 07:44 – It was a million dollar convertible note
08:15 – Pendo has raised a total of $31M
08:26 – Team size
08:55 – “All of our customers are top-tier”
09:43 – Average customer pay per month
09:52 – Pendo serves mid-market to enterprise companies
10:20 – Todd shares what drives their expansion revenue
10:50 – Pendo increases prices by adding products to existing plans
10:55 – Pendo has tier-prices based on features
11:17 – Todd shares why adding products is their main expansion driver
12:30 – Average number of customers
12:45 – Future target market
13:00 – Average customer churn
13:35 – Pendo has a net negative churn
13:49 – Todd explains net negative churn
14:54 – CAC and LTV ratio is healthy
15:26 – Pendo’s expansion plan
15:44 – Average MRR
17:25 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Treat all your customers as if they are top-tier customers.
Expansion drivers will depend on what suits the company.
Be more confident.

Resources Mentioned:

Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 614: Pendo Raises $31M Helping 200 Customers With In App Messaging To Drive Usage with CEO Todd Olson

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders