---
title: "Forward Deployed Engineers Are Just Professional Services"
episode: 113
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Aimee Menne"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer"
date_published: 2026-09-08
date_modified: 2026-09-14
duration: 00:50:51
word_count: 8290
topics: ["gtm-strategy", "pricing-packaging", "enterprise-sales", "revenue-operations", "sales-leadership"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/aimee-menne-sourcegraph-fde-professional-services/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Forward Deployed Engineers Are Just Professional Services — Full Transcript

> Episode 113 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Aimee Menne.
> Published September 8, 2026 · 00:50:51 · 8290 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/aimee-menne-sourcegraph-fde-professional-services/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** - It's professional services, broadly with lipstick on.

**[0:03]** You know, I would say 22-year-old Amy

**[0:06]** did not have the CRO aspiration at the time.

**[0:09]** I think luckily for my career, I started off at IBM.

**[0:13]** - My guest today is Amy Meni,

**[0:15]** Chief Revenue Officer at Sourcegraph,

**[0:18]** the code intelligence platform that giant engineering orgs

**[0:21]** use to make sense of decades of code.

**[0:24]** Amy's path to the revenue seat

**[0:26]** is one of the most unusual I have come across.

**[0:29]** She studied computer science, started her career

**[0:32]** as a developer, and rose through Solutions Architecture

**[0:35]** and Professional Services before taking on all of revenue.

**[0:39]** - It feels good to win that deal.

**[0:40]** It feels good to launch that customer.

**[0:42]** It feels good to, you know, get to the end

**[0:44]** of this work stream or help them, you know,

**[0:47]** be able to do something that they weren't able to do before.

**[0:50]** Like there is an immense amount of satisfaction

**[0:55]** that I get right from those.

**[0:57]** Like, you know, the adrenaline hit of that.

**[0:59]** Like that FDE-type package is more tied

**[1:02]** to like an outcome that's being delivered.

**[1:04]** And we're agreeing to some dollar amount.

**[1:07]** They're not thinking about that third party.

**[1:09]** They're thinking about, man, the software doesn't work for me.

**[1:12]** You know, I think that maturity curve, right, is very real.

**[1:15]** Learn to do it well, learn to do it consistently first.

**[1:20]** And then you kind of earn the right

**[1:21]** to start to charge for it.

**[1:27]** (logo whooshing)

## 01:29 — Computer science to IBM — and the Navy project that bored her

**[1:29]** - Amy, you studied computer science.

**[1:31]** You started out as a developer.

**[1:33]** Now you run all of revenue at Sourcegraph.

**[1:36]** Walk me through how a developer

**[1:38]** ends up as a chief revenue officer.

**[1:40]** - Yeah, yeah, happy to.

**[1:41]** Thanks for having me.

**[1:43]** You know, I would say 22-year-old Amy

**[1:46]** did not have the CRO aspiration at the time.

**[1:49]** Coming out of college, I was absolutely certain

**[1:53]** I was going to do development,

**[1:54]** kind of path towards, you know, CTO/CIO

**[1:57]** was what I thought was on the horizon for me.

**[2:01]** I think luckily for my career,

**[2:03]** I started off at IBM massive organization

**[2:07]** pretty much immediately threw me on to a project

**[2:10]** with the US Navy.

**[2:12]** And, you know, looking back,

**[2:15]** thankfully that was the first project.

**[2:17]** I was pretty bored through it.

**[2:20]** You know, working on these like very large,

**[2:23]** massive pieces of software, very waterfall.

**[2:27]** You know, you're releasing quarterly, right?

**[2:30]** I was sitting behind a computer and I was like,

**[2:31]** this is just not for me.

**[2:34]** Luckily being at IBM, where they do so many things,

**[2:37]** I was able to move from that really

**[2:39]** into technical consulting.

**[2:43]** You know, IBM has a habit of acquiring software, right?

**[2:47]** Putting their name on it

**[2:49]** and kind of taking it forward from there.

**[2:51]** And so right time, right place for me,

**[2:53]** they had just purchased an asset management software

**[2:56]** called Maximo.

**[2:57]** And they were looking for people with technical chops

**[3:00]** that could learn that and go into the field

**[3:03]** and help, you know, sell that

**[3:05]** and implement it for customers.

**[3:07]** And so it was like pretty early on in my career

**[3:09]** that I made the pivot

**[3:11]** that was more directly customer facing.

**[3:15]** And it really took off from there.

**[3:16]** I spent the first part of my career in consulting.

**[3:18]** I loved it.

**[3:19]** I felt like I got a ton of exposure

**[3:21]** to different industries and technologies.

**[3:25]** I feel like I learned a lot in a short amount of time.

**[3:29]** You're working on RFPs.

**[3:30]** You're putting together proposals.

**[3:32]** Granted, I was doing more of the solutioning aspect of those,

**[3:35]** but you know, you're having to kind of do the full suite

**[3:38]** of things when you're in a consultant type role.

**[3:42]** And so I feel like,

**[3:43]** especially that consultant part of my career,

**[3:45]** I was at this interesting intersection of, you know,

**[3:48]** of course being very customer facing,

**[3:52]** adjacent to sales and working with really,

**[3:56]** really technical products.

**[3:59]** Asset management, right?

**[4:01]** That's like a very complicated comp.

**[4:03]** It's like on the level of ERP systems type complexity.

## 04:08 — Switchfly and Segment: building services practices from scratch

**[4:08]** And so, you know, fast forward

**[4:10]** to make the decision to leave consulting.

**[4:12]** I felt like I got all of this exposure,

**[4:14]** but it felt like a mile wide an inch deep.

**[4:17]** And so when I left consulting

**[4:19]** and really wanted to focus more vertically,

**[4:23]** I started off in travel tech.

**[4:24]** This was actually where Solution Architecture

**[4:27]** Professional Services,

**[4:30]** company by the name of SwitchFly.

**[4:32]** We had kind of the full suite of capabilities.

**[4:35]** We were doing B2B and B2B2C software.

**[4:38]** So like white label behind the scenes.

**[4:40]** You don't even know that you're interacting

**[4:41]** with the software and you are.

**[4:43]** There was a big professional services portion of that

**[4:46]** that I was doing, working with customers,

**[4:48]** trying to understand what it was that they need,

**[4:50]** actually scoping it out, building SOWs,

**[4:54]** working with internal teams to kind of deliver

**[4:56]** that functionality that they needed.

**[4:58]** Honestly, it sounds a lot like FDE

**[4:59]** that I know we'll come back to.

**[5:02]** And, you know, building new capabilities

**[5:05]** and features specific to those customers.

**[5:07]** Took that experience to segment, as you mentioned,

**[5:11]** Solution Architecture team joined them

**[5:13]** about 50 million in revenue.

**[5:14]** We were doing a lot and kind of hit this moment

**[5:17]** where we were trying to figure out

**[5:18]** kind of repeatable playbooks for ourselves.

**[5:22]** Turned that into a professional services organization

**[5:25]** as well, stayed there through the Twilio acquisition.

**[5:29]** And then that landed me at Sourcegraph.

**[5:32]** I was, you know, a lot of it is my passion

**[5:35]** and kind of background as you pointed out

**[5:37]** from the development side of things,

**[5:40]** but it's an extremely technical product.

**[5:42]** We work with the most sophisticated

**[5:43]** engineering organizations in the world.

**[5:45]** And so I feel like so much of my past history

**[5:48]** has led me to this moment.

**[5:50]** I joined on the technical success team.

**[5:53]** We were a small team of six

**[5:56]** at the time when I joined right alongside sales.

**[5:59]** So really this like, you know,

**[6:01]** getting closer and closer to directly revenue,

**[6:05]** it was very organic throughout, you know,

**[6:08]** the entire five and a half years

**[6:10]** that I've been at Sourcegraph,

**[6:11]** I've been right here alongside.

**[6:13]** Similarly, like you're hearing, you know,

**[6:15]** stood up professional services,

**[6:17]** started to sell that, scope that.

**[6:19]** But being the technical product that we are

**[6:21]** and one of our amazing competencies as a company

**[6:25]** is our ability to land and really grow our customers.

**[6:29]** I think that lends itself

**[6:30]** to a lot of my background and experience.

**[6:33]** And so, you know, it is a non-standard

**[6:39]** kind of career path from what you tend to see.

**[6:42]** But I think for me and my journey,

**[6:44]** it actually feels like everything has led to this moment

**[6:48]** in a very weird way.

## 06:50 — The flip: internal work vs. work a customer sees

**[6:50]** - Was there a flip that switched

**[6:53]** and something that changed

**[6:54]** the moment you were doing something for a customer

**[6:58]** versus just developing something behind the scenes?

**[7:02]** - I almost feel like it was an immediate shift for me.

**[7:06]** So I mentioned, you know, at IBM,

**[7:09]** I get put onto this new technology that really,

**[7:13]** very few people at IBM knew how to use.

**[7:16]** And, you know, hungry scrappy, you know,

**[7:19]** 22 year old at the time learning this new technology,

**[7:22]** getting to then immediately be deployed out, you know,

**[7:26]** I'm onsite five days a week, you know,

**[7:29]** in these customer environments

**[7:31]** trying to get the software up and running for them.

**[7:33]** I loved it immediately.

**[7:35]** The problem solving, the figuring out what they need,

**[7:39]** you know, I'm working with a gas utility on this project.

**[7:43]** I'm working with a steel company on this project.

**[7:45]** I'm working with telecommunications company

**[7:47]** on this project, right?

**[7:48]** So different.

**[7:51]** And I think just instantaneously

**[7:53]** that ability to interact with people,

**[7:56]** understand what they need, what they're trying to do,

**[7:58]** what they have in place, where we're trying to go.

**[8:01]** And of course applying, you know, my technical skills

**[8:04]** and actually like making the software work for them.

**[8:07]** It was immediately just this instant

**[8:10]** kind of trifecta for me.

**[8:13]** - Yeah, I've always felt too,

**[8:15]** there's such a difference between doing something internal

**[8:18]** versus doing something external.

**[8:20]** There's like a level of polish.

**[8:22]** And I mean this in a good way,

**[8:24]** a level of adrenaline too, of like,

**[8:27]** oh, I need to be on my A game.

**[8:28]** Like this matters.

**[8:30]** And if I do well, this is a win.

**[8:33]** And I just think it's totally different.

**[8:35]** For anyone who has only done like development or ops,

**[8:38]** like behind the scenes only worked internal,

**[8:41]** like there's just something different

**[8:42]** about doing it for a customer.

**[8:43]** - Yeah, yeah.

**[8:45]** You know, there's, I think you said discomfort.

**[8:48]** There's a stress to it, but it's a good stress.

**[8:51]** You know, athlete my whole life, right?

**[8:54]** Team, you know, big into team sports.

**[8:56]** And like, you kind of get a rush of that

**[8:59]** in a professional environment.

**[9:02]** It feels good to win that deal.

**[9:03]** It feels good to launch that customer.

**[9:04]** It feels good to get to the end of this work stream

**[9:07]** or help them, you know, be able to do something

**[9:11]** that they weren't able to do before.

**[9:13]** Like there is an immense amount of satisfaction

**[9:18]** that I get right from those,

**[9:19]** like, you know, the adrenaline hit of that.

**[9:23]** Yeah.

**[9:23]** - 100%.

**[9:24]** Yeah, I played a number of sports.

**[9:26]** Main one I did was wrestling, middle school, high school.

**[9:31]** And there's such a difference between practice

**[9:33]** and game day.

**[9:35]** And that level of speed and that level of attention

**[9:39]** that you have and adrenaline in that moment is just,

**[9:43]** it's pretty tough to replicate.

**[9:44]** And I think in a business context,

**[9:46]** game day is when you're doing something in front

**[9:49]** of a customer, a prospect.

**[9:52]** And that's when I think some of the best work is done too.

**[9:55]** - Yeah, I agree with that completely.

## 09:59 — The FDE craze: "professional services with lipstick on"

**[9:59]** So walk me through this craze of forward deployed engineer.

**[10:06]** I know everybody's throwing it out.

**[10:08]** Everybody's coming up with their own version too,

**[10:10]** like forward deployed XYZ.

**[10:14]** Is this just the same thing that we've always been doing?

**[10:16]** Just call it something different?

**[10:17]** Why do you think people are hanging onto this so much?

**[10:20]** - Yeah, I think craze is definitely the right word there.

**[10:24]** It's so interesting to see this evolve.

**[10:29]** The original co-founders of Sourcegraph,

**[10:32]** they themselves were forward deployed engineers

**[10:34]** at Palantir earlier in their careers.

**[10:37]** - Part of Genesis of the term.

**[10:39]** - Yeah, absolutely.

**[10:41]** And so it's so interesting to see the evolution of it.

**[10:45]** I actually do believe that it's professional services

**[10:50]** broadly with lipstick on,

**[10:52]** but you're seeing it evolve in different ways.

**[10:56]** The Palantir model I would say is like,

**[10:58]** I'm going into the environment,

**[11:00]** I'm building them whatever they want.

**[11:03]** It's completely custom, bespoke to what they need.

**[11:05]** That's my priority is what is this customer

**[11:09]** trying to achieve?

**[11:11]** And I think that that certainly still exists.

**[11:13]** I mean, that's the work that I was doing at Switchly

**[11:17]** as a solution architect.

**[11:21]** Working with customers, what is it that,

**[11:22]** how do you need our product to work?

**[11:25]** What do we need to build additional capabilities

**[11:28]** to make this work better for you?

**[11:29]** Extremely bespoke, very custom to what they needed.

**[11:32]** Very, very important, right?

**[11:35]** Solving important problems that they had.

**[11:37]** You're seeing extensions of it where it's like,

**[11:40]** okay, honestly more of like solution architecture.

**[11:44]** I would say the way that I think about solution architecture

**[11:47]** where it's like, we've got our software

**[11:49]** and I'm really just trying to help you use our software

**[11:52]** pretty much out of the box, maybe extending some APIs,

**[11:54]** but maybe writing some scripts, right?

**[11:57]** But like helping make my technology work

**[12:01]** in your environment, but not really doing any custom

**[12:03]** development to get there, right?

**[12:05]** Not really extending the product in that way.

**[12:08]** I think we're seeing that theme emerge a lot.

**[12:11]** We do that at Sourcegraph.

**[12:13]** That is one of the core things

**[12:14]** that our field engineering team does.

**[12:16]** I know that's, you know, there's a big splash being made

**[12:18]** with open AI and anthropic doing similar type of scope.

**[12:24]** And so, you know, it's interesting to see kind of

**[12:27]** the different iterations of this,

**[12:31]** but I really feel like when you look at it

**[12:33]** and you boil it down, the heart of what is happening

**[12:36]** is its professional services, you know, for customers.

## 12:41 — The two-question test for a real forward deployed engineer

**[12:41]** - What would be the difference?

**[12:42]** What would be like, oh, this is a proper

**[12:45]** forward deployed engineer.

**[12:46]** They're using that term in the correct way

**[12:50]** versus just throwing it around as a buzzword

**[12:52]** and they're really doing pro serve.

**[12:54]** What would be the line where you would say,

**[12:56]** okay, yeah, that's what that term is for?

**[12:58]** - Yeah, well, I mean, right, Palantir created it.

**[13:02]** So I feel like their definition, you know,

**[13:05]** at least the way that I think about it,

**[13:06]** their definition is kind of the standard of that.

**[13:11]** And I guess kind of two pieces, you know, that's separated.

**[13:18]** One is, you know, are they actually paying?

**[13:21]** Is it a paid engagement, right?

**[13:23]** Is there any type of, you know, billable metric

**[13:29]** to that customer for that work being done, of course,

**[13:33]** would be kind of the first ones of that.

**[13:36]** But I think the second one is, you know, in some cases,

**[13:39]** you literally are just hiring the engineer.

**[13:43]** It's kind of like engineer for rent.

**[13:45]** I'm hiring you to come and like, and do this.

**[13:48]** It could or could not have anything to do

**[13:51]** with a product that they have.

**[13:54]** I think that you see those elements

**[13:56]** of like what I would call true for deployed engineer.

**[13:59]** To me, if you're charging, to me,

**[14:02]** if like you're using your tech,

**[14:03]** if you're trying to embed your tech,

**[14:04]** if you're trying to make your tech more stick,

**[14:06]** if you're trying to make your tech work,

**[14:07]** if you're trying to extend it right,

**[14:08]** all of those things I would argue are professional services,

**[14:13]** not for deployed engineering.

**[14:16]** - Makes a ton of sense.

## 14:19 — When a software company actually needs professional services

**[14:19]** I was hoping we'd get into a little bit.

**[14:20]** I think a lot of software companies struggle with,

**[14:25]** okay, when do I need to bring in professional services?

**[14:29]** And then how do I bake that into my model

**[14:31]** and manage it without completely wrecking my gross margin?

**[14:36]** What would give you a signal

**[14:39]** that they need to start layering in

**[14:42]** a proper professional services organization?

**[14:45]** And how should they start building that out?

**[14:49]** - Yeah, in my experience,

**[14:53]** and I think that internally, culturally,

**[14:57]** this also makes it so much easier

**[14:59]** to stand that function up and integrate it,

**[15:04]** our customers were always pulling us in that direction.

**[15:07]** And so like an example of this at Sourcegraph,

**[15:10]** when I first joined,

**[15:14]** we did not have a cloud offering,

**[15:16]** so all of our customers would install us on-prem,

**[15:19]** so like in their own cloud service provider,

**[15:21]** in their own data center.

**[15:23]** And this wasn't something that we could,

**[15:27]** that we were very good at helping them through.

**[15:30]** It would take them a very long time to install,

**[15:33]** it would take them a very long time

**[15:34]** to get the hardware that they needed to get deployed,

**[15:38]** configured, right, everything in place to maintain it.

**[15:41]** And they were looking to us to help them,

**[15:44]** like it was not uncommon at that point in time

**[15:47]** for it to take six months.

**[15:49]** And so when I say like,

**[15:51]** customers were pulling us in this direction,

**[15:53]** it's like asking us for that help,

**[15:55]** saying that they need this,

**[15:59]** that is so much easier to identify that need

**[16:03]** and build that need and integrate that need

**[16:05]** into your company,

**[16:06]** rather than taking a separate approach of like,

**[16:10]** listen, professional services can be extremely lucrative.

**[16:13]** There are a lot of companies

**[16:15]** that have done exceptionally well

**[16:17]** and professional service has been

**[16:19]** a very big revenue driver for them.

**[16:21]** And so you could say, well, okay,

**[16:24]** here's a potential revenue stream.

**[16:25]** What services could we create?

**[16:27]** What packages could we create?

**[16:28]** And you can take that approach as well.

**[16:32]** And so what's been really interesting,

**[16:35]** even at Segment on the solution architecture side,

**[16:38]** when people would buy Segment,

**[16:41]** it's a Martech platform,

**[16:42]** but you need to go and integrate Segment

**[16:44]** into your website, onto your mobile apps, right?

**[16:48]** There is definitely an implementation component of it.

**[16:51]** And they were struggling.

**[16:52]** And so similarly, they were like pulling us

**[16:54]** in this direction of, hey, we need help.

**[16:57]** And so identifying those patterns

**[17:00]** and identifying those areas

**[17:01]** where customers are actually like raising their hand

**[17:04]** and identifying that like there is a true need

**[17:06]** and you see that, right?

**[17:07]** Emerging in different areas

**[17:10]** is obviously the simplest flag

**[17:14]** for you to know that there's an opportunity

**[17:17]** or maybe you should consider

**[17:20]** building out a dedicated function for that.

**[17:23]** I think as well, this is certainly true for Sourcegraph.

**[17:28]** The largest engineering organizations

**[17:30]** are really the ones that get the most value from Sourcegraph.

**[17:33]** These are the companies with tons of code,

**[17:35]** multiple code hosts, et cetera, et cetera.

**[17:38]** Sourcegraph provides a product capability

**[17:42]** that just doesn't exist for them.

**[17:45]** Those are also the types of companies

**[17:46]** that are very used to working with vendors

**[17:49]** who provide professional services.

**[17:51]** And so there's also a little bit of that tug.

**[17:53]** If you wanna play in the enterprise,

**[17:54]** they're going to have certain expectations.

**[17:56]** They're gonna expect to be able to pay

**[17:58]** if they want for 24 by seven support.

**[18:00]** They're going to expect that somebody can take over

**[18:04]** the maintenance burden for them

**[18:05]** and manage their upgrades if they so choose,

**[18:08]** that they can ship a laptop to somebody

**[18:10]** or give them VPN access.

**[18:11]** These are all things that we experience.

**[18:13]** And so it's like also very interesting how,

**[18:16]** depending on who your product service is, right?

**[18:19]** Who your ICP is, where you play,

**[18:22]** you may also get pulled in that direction.

**[18:24]** That was certainly true

**[18:25]** for some of the professional services offerings

**[18:27]** that we ended up building here at Sourcegraph.

## 18:31 — Product problem or service opportunity? How to tell

**[18:31]** - How do you draw the line between,

**[18:34]** hey, maybe my product needs support

**[18:37]** and maybe there's things we need to simplify in the product

**[18:40]** or help the customer serve themselves versus,

**[18:44]** no, this is actually a real opportunity

**[18:45]** to help the customer and have a value-added service.

**[18:50]** What are some things companies should be looking for

**[18:52]** that would be signs that, hey, no,

**[18:54]** this isn't a product problem where you need more support,

**[18:57]** or it's not really a problem

**[18:59]** that just support is designed to solve.

**[19:02]** You really need to go a different direction.

**[19:04]** What signals should they be looking for?

**[19:07]** - It's really interesting that you asked that

**[19:08]** because I can remember very deliberate conversations we had,

**[19:13]** kind of going back to the example around helping customers

**[19:16]** with implementation and deployment.

**[19:18]** We had many very deliberate conversations.

**[19:22]** Do we go and solve this in the product

**[19:24]** or do we hire a team and centralize that expertise?

**[19:27]** And I think the reality is there's no amount of product work

**[19:34]** that could solve that problem 100% of the way,

**[19:38]** different environments, different network configurations,

**[19:41]** different needs, different tech, et cetera.

**[19:43]** And so for us, we really did think about

**[19:49]** that very deliberately.

**[19:51]** And one of the things that we pride ourselves on

**[19:54]** is being able to work in any customer environment.

**[19:57]** Like that for us is like part of our differentiation.

**[20:01]** And so if that is part of the core value prop

**[20:04]** that we want to take forward,

**[20:07]** if we wanna be able to make that statement

**[20:10]** and stand behind it,

**[20:12]** you have to be willing to do what it takes

**[20:15]** to actually be able to follow through.

**[20:16]** And for us, again, there's no amount of product improvements

**[20:21]** that are going to make that possible 100% of the way.

**[20:26]** And I think you said that it's like,

**[20:28]** there's also a very proactive strategic opportunity

**[20:31]** for us to get closer, get more embedded.

**[20:35]** That there is absolutely like a very,

**[20:39]** there's very clear data that tells us

**[20:41]** that customers who partner with us,

**[20:42]** who have our implementation services,

**[20:44]** who update, who maintain their instance

**[20:48]** and update regularly, et cetera, right?

**[20:50]** Retain and grow at a higher clip than those that don't.

**[20:54]** There's also like a lot of the data to back that up.

**[20:58]** But you have to look at those types of considerations

**[21:04]** or characteristics.

**[21:05]** Could you truly go and solve this in the product?

**[21:08]** I think most of the time, like you would start there.

**[21:12]** But for us in some of these scenarios,

**[21:16]** who we wanted to be and where we want to operate

**[21:19]** and the types of customers we wanna work with,

**[21:23]** again, we were like pulled in that direction of like,

**[21:25]** we have to be able to bring that expertise

**[21:29]** and bring that skill set to make source graph work

**[21:32]** in any environment, any configuration.

## 21:36 — The maturity curve: first hire → playbook → packaging → P&L

**[21:36]** - Well, let's lead with that then.

**[21:38]** So let's assume customers are pulling you in,

**[21:41]** they're asking for a lot of help.

**[21:42]** It seems like you have an opportunity to help,

**[21:45]** not just with the product,

**[21:46]** but build out within context of their specific situation,

**[21:50]** their unique tech stack, industry,

**[21:53]** firmographic design and setup.

**[21:55]** And you're about to build this department.

**[21:58]** I think the biggest things tech companies

**[22:02]** would probably run into is,

**[22:05]** how do I price and package this?

**[22:08]** And what benchmarks should I be looking at

**[22:12]** in terms of staffing capacity, gross margin?

**[22:16]** How many people should I have?

**[22:17]** And how much revenue should a pro serve org be bringing in

**[22:21]** at least relative to the spend?

**[22:22]** - Yeah, it's definitely a maturity curve, right?

**[22:26]** You have to start somewhere,

**[22:32]** you have to make the decision

**[22:34]** and commit to we're gonna build this team out.

**[22:38]** We want to be able to say yes to this capability, right?

**[22:42]** So you kind of start there.

**[22:43]** There was a lot that we had to learn.

**[22:45]** And the same was true at Segment as well.

**[22:48]** The first real task for us

**[22:51]** was to figure out how to do

**[22:52]** these implementations repeatedly.

**[22:56]** We really needed to be able to confidently

**[23:00]** close a new customer and say,

**[23:02]** okay, if they follow this playbook,

**[23:04]** they should be up and running in 30 days, right?

**[23:08]** However many weeks or days that project was expected to be.

**[23:13]** And so you kind of have to start there.

**[23:16]** And you start by learning how to do it, right?

**[23:18]** Bringing people with, hiring people with the right skills

**[23:21]** and capabilities to start to figure out how to do this,

**[23:24]** build the playbook,

**[23:25]** how do we start to be able to do the same thing

**[23:28]** within the same general timeframe.

**[23:30]** Once you start to build out a little bit of that competency,

**[23:34]** then you can start to think about,

**[23:36]** okay, what does the packaging of this look like?

**[23:39]** Because you're thinking about the packaging,

**[23:41]** there's the head count, there's the pricing of it, right?

**[23:43]** But there's also, you're committing to deliverables,

**[23:46]** you're committing to timelines,

**[23:47]** you're committing to these outcomes that you're delivering.

**[23:51]** And that's an important piece of when you think about

**[23:56]** inserting that into the sales conversations,

**[23:58]** when you're talking about, what is this line item?

**[24:01]** Why should I buy it?

**[24:02]** You need to have kind of that level of detail and specificity

**[24:06]** to be able to paint a very clear picture for them

**[24:09]** of what this is, what this looks like,

**[24:11]** what you can expect from us.

**[24:13]** You don't get there from the beginning.

**[24:15]** You get there from deciding

**[24:17]** that you're going to step into this.

**[24:19]** And so we knew that we needed to reduce the time to value.

**[24:25]** We knew we needed to figure out how to help customers

**[24:27]** very consistently get up and running quickly.

**[24:30]** We hired incredible experts that are very seasoned

**[24:36]** with Kubernetes, with all of the different

**[24:39]** types of configurations that our customers might run into.

**[24:45]** And we started doing it, we started learning

**[24:47]** and we started pulling the playbooks out of that.

**[24:50]** And once we had that, we said,

**[24:51]** okay, what does this look like

**[24:53]** for us to actually go and sell it?

**[24:56]** And as well, right, some of that

**[24:59]** is a little bit of a guessing game.

**[25:00]** There's lots of data out there, right?

**[25:03]** Talk to other companies, VCs can share some of that data

**[25:08]** as well, certainly, from my past experience,

**[25:11]** had some data points.

**[25:13]** So there's certainly a starting point

**[25:15]** that you're thinking about.

**[25:17]** But some of it is like,

**[25:18]** you start to have these early conversations

**[25:20]** and the market is going to adjust you

**[25:23]** pretty quickly on what they think is reasonable.

**[25:26]** And you have to really think about

**[25:28]** the value of the package.

**[25:31]** For us, there are a couple services

**[25:33]** that are mandatory attach.

**[25:35]** So if a customer self hosts,

**[25:37]** mandatory, you have to work with our implementation team

**[25:42]** because we know that it leads to better outcomes.

**[25:44]** We know that time to value.

**[25:46]** It's priced at a really, really low reasonable point

**[25:50]** to avoid any friction.

**[25:53]** But there are some services that we have

**[25:57]** that I would say resemble more of what you see

**[26:01]** from forward deployed engineering

**[26:04]** in the way that we're thinking about it.

**[26:06]** And for that, you really have to help them

**[26:09]** have a clear picture of like,

**[26:12]** what is the justification behind this price?

**[26:14]** Well, we're doing all of these things

**[26:15]** and here's what you can expect

**[26:16]** and here's what we deliver and da, da, da, da, da.

**[26:18]** Right, you have to have the playbook

**[26:20]** to really make that clear for them.

**[26:22]** It's like an alignment of value to the services provided.

**[26:26]** And so it's like, that's kind of like,

**[26:28]** this like second step.

**[26:29]** And then it takes time for you to get to the place

**[26:33]** where you're running it as a P&L,

**[26:35]** you've got the utilization targets,

**[26:37]** you're thinking about kind of the margins behind it.

**[26:41]** Like you get there, I would say like,

**[26:44]** that's the third or fourth step in line.

## 26:49 — Pricing and packaging: $10K attach, hour buckets, outcome-based projects

**[26:49]** What are some ways that you price and package?

**[26:52]** Are you doing packages of hours?

**[26:54]** Are you tying it to projects, fractional access to people?

**[27:00]** Does it depend on what you're doing?

**[27:02]** What are some packaging models that you've seen work well?

**[27:05]** Yeah, absolutely depends on what you're doing.

**[27:08]** Like I mentioned, so mandatory attach,

**[27:11]** when customers self-host, we have like the base 10K

**[27:15]** and then we have the advanced 25K.

**[27:18]** And so what that gets you,

**[27:21]** it's essentially a series of activities

**[27:23]** and things that we're doing.

**[27:24]** We're helping you install, we're helping you deploy.

**[27:27]** We're helping you monthly update your instance.

**[27:31]** We're helping you quarterly do maintenance, right?

**[27:35]** Making sure there's not anything that we need to fine tune

**[27:38]** to keep the instance performant, et cetera.

**[27:40]** And so, do you have one instance?

**[27:43]** Do you have multiple instances, right?

**[27:44]** That kind of helps us understand,

**[27:46]** should you be in the 10K package or the 25K package?

**[27:48]** But it's that set fee and you're getting a sense of like

**[27:52]** throughout that annual contract, the different services

**[27:55]** and the touch points that you're getting with the team.

**[27:57]** So, right, that's fairly standard.

**[27:59]** Similarly, that was kind of the base package

**[28:03]** at segment as well.

**[28:05]** You know, they paid that fixed amount.

**[28:07]** We would come in, we would help them to install, right?

**[28:10]** Get the data pipeline up and running,

**[28:12]** get their integrations,

**[28:14]** their downstream destinations configured at six week,

**[28:17]** you know, six week, 12 week project, and then you're done.

**[28:20]** So it was like kind of that fixed cost.

**[28:22]** We've also done it, we have a resident architect package

**[28:27]** where, you know, we have customers who,

**[28:30]** they want things done in a certain way.

**[28:32]** They want onsite trainings.

**[28:34]** They want materials that use their terms

**[28:38]** or use their language or, right?

**[28:40]** Highly, highly customized to their environment.

**[28:42]** And so in those situations, we do sell packages of ours.

**[28:47]** And there was a similar model as well of that at segment two.

**[28:51]** But, you know, what are the types of things you want to do?

**[28:55]** What, you know, work streams are we doing train the trainer?

**[28:58]** Are we coming onsite once a quarter, right?

**[29:00]** Like let's get a sense of what those activities

**[29:02]** are that you want.

**[29:04]** And then you're essentially buying a bucket of hours

**[29:06]** for that year that you burn down.

**[29:09]** And, you know, it works out to avoid, you know,

**[29:12]** it's not feasible to say, oh, we have 200 hours left

**[29:16]** and our contract expires in a week.

**[29:17]** We want to use those, right?

**[29:19]** You net it out to, you know, a weekly breakdown.

**[29:23]** Maybe there's a work stream and, you know, we pull from that.

**[29:26]** But in general, they're buying, you know, a bucket of hours.

**[29:31]** So there's like, you know, that's the second flavor of it.

**[29:34]** The third flavor that we have is,

**[29:38]** and, you know, we were doing this more.

**[29:40]** So Sourcegraph, we split off from our coding agent,

**[29:45]** the coding agent part of our company, AMP.

**[29:47]** And AMP was really doing forward deployed engineer.

**[29:51]** Like you're, you know, you're paying 500k, you know,

**[29:56]** whatever the dollar amount may be,

**[29:57]** you're paying some amount of money

**[30:00]** and you're getting access to these engineers

**[30:02]** that are going to come in

**[30:03]** and we're going to deliver an outcome.

**[30:06]** We're going to help you with this project.

**[30:10]** We're going to help you with this migration.

**[30:11]** We're going to help you activate this workflow, right?

**[30:14]** And so, and, you know,

**[30:16]** maybe we're doing five of those projects for you, right?

**[30:19]** And so it's like more tied to, we're hearing,

**[30:22]** we're hearing this of this emerging theme

**[30:24]** around outcome based pricing.

**[30:25]** But I would say like that FDE type package

**[30:28]** is more tied to like an outcome that's being delivered.

**[30:31]** And we're agreeing to some dollar amount that, you know,

**[30:35]** we attach to that.

## 30:38 — Utilization, fully loaded cost, and running a company inside the company

**[30:38]** - And as it sounds like at the beginning,

**[30:40]** maybe you're operating this at break even,

**[30:43]** maybe even a loss just to get the traction

**[30:46]** with your product.

**[30:47]** As it matures, what should you be working towards

**[30:52]** in terms of utilization and gross margin of the overall org?

**[30:57]** Let's assume it'll probably take some steps to get there.

**[31:00]** But when you're kind of running this at full maturity,

**[31:02]** what does that tend to look like?

**[31:04]** - Yeah.

**[31:05]** Yeah, I mean, you know, when you get to full maturity,

**[31:08]** you have a sense of, you've done enough of these

**[31:13]** that there's like predictability in the pipeline, right?

**[31:16]** So you can correlate and, you know,

**[31:18]** in the same way in sales, we're planning ahead, right?

**[31:21]** Our quarters, our years, you can look at that

**[31:23]** and you can plan out, okay, I should expect

**[31:26]** this many types of engagements, this much money coming in.

**[31:29]** Here's, you know, what my team can handle, you know,

**[31:33]** is it, we're looking for 80% utilization,

**[31:35]** 90% utilization, right?

**[31:37]** What is that that we want them billable?

**[31:39]** And you're, you know, you're forecasting that growth,

**[31:41]** you're forecasting a revenue target,

**[31:43]** you're forecasting head count, right?

**[31:44]** And you're able to have a lot of predictability.

**[31:48]** - You're almost running a company

**[31:50]** within the company at that point.

**[31:52]** - Yeah, absolutely.

**[31:53]** I mean, and I saw this firsthand,

**[31:55]** like when I was at IBM, I had a utilization target.

**[31:58]** I was, you were not expected to be, you know,

**[32:00]** on the bench, you were expected to be

**[32:01]** staffed on projects, delivering for customers, right?

**[32:05]** And so, you know, early on in my career,

**[32:10]** this was something that I myself was,

**[32:13]** I was, I was metric and gold on.

**[32:16]** And so you get, you know, you get,

**[32:18]** you get to that level of maturity.

**[32:22]** You know, one thing that I'm always thinking about is,

**[32:25]** you know, you want to get to that breakeven point.

**[32:27]** Like you said, you, you started a loss, right?

**[32:29]** You kind of have, I feel like you kind of have to,

**[32:31]** you need to really learn--

**[32:33]** - Just to start getting traction

**[32:34]** and know what you're going to do, right?

**[32:35]** - Yeah, exactly.

**[32:36]** So then, you know, the next step you're trying to,

**[32:39]** you're trying to break even from that.

**[32:42]** And, you know, you're getting a sense of,

**[32:44]** okay, well, what's the fully loaded cost

**[32:46]** of like this employee of this team?

**[32:47]** How much can this team handle?

**[32:49]** You know, that's like, that's a really good exercise

**[32:52]** for validating some of your packaging.

**[32:54]** It's like a dimension of it.

**[32:56]** Again, the market, the customer, you know,

**[32:59]** customers are going to correct you.

**[33:01]** If, if they don't feel that your services align, right?

**[33:06]** The value aligns to the sticker price.

**[33:10]** But another kind of useful data point,

**[33:13]** going back to the example of these implementations

**[33:15]** that we do, it's like, you know,

**[33:17]** what's the fully loaded cost of,

**[33:19]** of one of the engineers on this team?

**[33:21]** Okay, how many of these can they do at once?

**[33:23]** Okay, you know, what would that,

**[33:25]** what would that price point need to look like

**[33:28]** for this to make sense for us to even break even?

**[33:30]** Okay, well, what does that look like

**[33:31]** if we want to get a million dollars

**[33:34]** of professional services revenue by the end of the year?

**[33:36]** Right, what does that look like?

**[33:37]** And so those types of data points and conversations

**[33:40]** are also really helpful when you're thinking about

**[33:43]** how to price this, what does it entail?

**[33:46]** How much should we be doing

**[33:49]** for any one of these engagements?

**[33:50]** How many people do I need, et cetera?

## 33:54 — Profit center or adoption lever?

**[33:54]** - Should companies be looking at this as,

**[33:58]** hey, this is something that helps get the adoption

**[34:01]** of my product and kind of running near break even is okay

**[34:06]** or should they be looking at this as a decent profit center

**[34:10]** that they can drive real growth from?

**[34:15]** - I've seen both, I've seen both for sure.

**[34:19]** I think some of that does somewhat depend on,

**[34:23]** a bit on the DNA of the company.

**[34:26]** And I think, I think, and you know, I said this earlier

**[34:29]** but I also think some of that depends

**[34:31]** on where you're operating.

**[34:33]** Like for us, you know, for us operating in the large

**[34:36]** enterprise, professional services are not a one-off thing.

**[34:42]** You know, like they work with tons of vendors.

**[34:45]** They, you know, in some cases just expect to have this.

**[34:49]** I think when you're operating in those types of environments

**[34:52]** with a really extensible type of product,

**[34:56]** a very complicated yet powerful type product,

**[35:00]** you have a real opportunity to turn that

**[35:02]** into a growth lover for your business.

**[35:06]** But, you know, if you're just looking at it as like,

**[35:10]** oh, here's a potential revenue stream.

**[35:12]** Let me go try to make this, you know,

**[35:14]** square peg fit in a round hole.

**[35:17]** That's gonna be really difficult culturally, right?

**[35:20]** Internally, and that's going to require a lot more,

**[35:23]** I think, to make successful.

**[35:25]** It's one of the reasons why I love that, you know,

**[35:28]** where I've found myself in companies really building

**[35:32]** and using professional services,

**[35:35]** the customers are pulling us in that direction.

**[35:40]** Makes a ton of sense.

## 35:41 — In-house vs. partner-led — what outsourcing really costs

**[35:41]** One thing I see too, I've noticed this

**[35:44]** in the go-to-market tech space quite a bit.

**[35:47]** So if you look at companies like Salesforce, HubSpot,

**[35:50]** Clay, they tend to outsource a lot of the services

**[35:54]** to partners.

**[35:57]** And then some companies say, no,

**[35:59]** we're gonna own the full experience.

**[36:02]** On the spectrum to fully outsourcing,

**[36:04]** to fully having in-house,

**[36:07]** what are some of the reasons to go one direction

**[36:09]** or the other if somebody's not sure

**[36:11]** how to sort through that?

**[36:12]** - Yeah.

**[36:13]** I've encountered that as well, even with vendors,

**[36:16]** you know, across tools in our revenue stack.

**[36:20]** Mandatory services, maybe you have to go

**[36:22]** with this outsourced third party.

**[36:25]** From my experience, having, there is such value

**[36:29]** in having that competency in-house.

**[36:32]** So, you know, my experience, what I've seen,

**[36:36]** I've lived through it as an IC,

**[36:37]** I've lived through it now multiple times, right?

**[36:39]** As a leader, there is such value in having

**[36:43]** at least a portion of that experience in-house.

**[36:46]** You know, you're going, you're learning things,

**[36:47]** you're connecting with customers, right?

**[36:52]** You're getting more deeply ingrained.

**[36:54]** You're hearing feedback that leads to improving

**[36:57]** the product in some places.

**[36:58]** You're, you know, going and building something custom

**[37:01]** and you get this idea to go productize that.

**[37:03]** That feedback loop, I have not seen that done well

**[37:07]** when you're strictly using outsourced,

**[37:09]** you know, outsourced agencies.

**[37:12]** I think that you can start to outsource,

**[37:15]** you know, it's super, super helpful

**[37:16]** for like regional type support.

**[37:19]** At Segment, you know, we had multiple vendors

**[37:23]** in different parts of the world to really help us,

**[37:27]** to help us give a very consistent experience globally.

**[37:32]** But, you know, there were absolutely some projects

**[37:35]** that due to the complexity or due to the strategic nature

**[37:39]** of the logo or the, you know,

**[37:42]** what they were trying to accomplish

**[37:43]** that we absolutely wanted our internal teams attached

**[37:46]** to that so that we could learn,

**[37:48]** so that we could strengthen the relationship,

**[37:50]** so that we could use those learnings to go and, you know,

**[37:52]** build out that industry vertical, make our product better.

**[37:56]** So I think that there are very strategic reasons

**[37:58]** for taking that on.

**[38:00]** And then as well, you know, you outsource it.

**[38:03]** There is an overhead to that, right?

**[38:07]** Somebody has to manage those relationships.

**[38:10]** Somebody has to make sure that they are delivering

**[38:13]** the service at the quality that you would expect.

**[38:16]** You know, it's your brand that you're outsourcing

**[38:19]** and having them take forth.

**[38:20]** And so how do you keep them,

**[38:22]** how do you make sure that they get enabled and up to speed?

**[38:25]** How do you make sure that they know, you know,

**[38:27]** how the product is evolving?

**[38:29]** How do you make sure that they're able to provide,

**[38:31]** you know, the level of support

**[38:33]** that you would provide, et cetera?

**[38:34]** And so there's also that very real consideration.

**[38:37]** It can seem very appealing of like, yeah, let's just,

**[38:39]** you know, let's just outsource this, but you have to know

**[38:42]** and you have to be ready to solve

**[38:45]** for those overhead dynamics.

**[38:50]** - I've definitely seen it done wrong

**[38:52]** where a company has completely outsourced

**[38:57]** maybe things like implementation.

**[38:59]** So like, no, we want pure tech revenue.

**[39:00]** It's got the highest multiple.

**[39:02]** Maybe that revenue is gonna dilute.

**[39:05]** And it's like, maybe, but probably what's more damaging

**[39:09]** is a partner not implementing your technology very well.

**[39:13]** And you're not investing enough to manage them.

**[39:16]** As you mentioned, it's not for free.

**[39:18]** It's just another strategy.

**[39:21]** The only time I've seen where maybe it starts to make sense

**[39:25]** is if there's a certain level of industry

**[39:27]** or domain expertise where maybe, hey,

**[39:30]** this is more of a horizontal type of tech play.

**[39:35]** And we have partners that are specialized

**[39:38]** in certain industries, but if you're just expecting people

**[39:41]** to know your product better than you are,

**[39:43]** it seems like a risky bet to me.

**[39:45]** - Yep, yep.

**[39:46]** And you know, you might get to,

**[39:48]** you're trying to do too many things, right?

**[39:50]** It's easier to outsource that.

**[39:51]** Like you're growing really fast.

**[39:53]** You have more customers you can't hire.

**[39:56]** It can seem very, very appealing, truly.

**[40:00]** But yeah, you're spot on.

**[40:03]** Like a customer buys your software,

**[40:07]** they wanna get it up and running.

**[40:09]** And if they are having problems,

**[40:11]** if they're not getting what they need,

**[40:14]** they're not thinking about that third party.

**[40:16]** They're thinking about, man,

**[40:17]** the software doesn't work for me.

**[40:19]** This isn't delivering what I hoped it would.

**[40:22]** And so, right, there's that very real risk to it.

**[40:26]** - Yeah, you're gonna end up getting the blame

**[40:28]** if you don't fully own the experience.

## 40:32 — The RevOps blind spot: nobody supports professional services

**[40:32]** I was wondering, you know,

**[40:34]** 'cause I've run a RevOps agency,

**[40:36]** so I'm helping fast companies,

**[40:40]** B2B SaaS companies grow in scale

**[40:42]** and help them augment the RevOps teams.

**[40:45]** This is an interesting area where I feel

**[40:47]** like RevOps doesn't talk too much about.

**[40:50]** Do you lean on RevOps to help with things like forecasting

**[40:54]** for your professional services,

**[40:57]** helping them with their internal tech stack and tools?

**[41:00]** It's a department that a lot of RevOps people

**[41:03]** are not talking about helping.

**[41:04]** - Yeah.

**[41:08]** Yes and no, I would say.

**[41:11]** Partly, I have an incredible PS leader right now

**[41:16]** who really, you know, you talk about,

**[41:18]** you think of it as like your own business within,

**[41:21]** in the business.

**[41:22]** He really has that level of ownership over it.

**[41:25]** You know, we think about and, you know,

**[41:28]** the available bandwidth and what do we need

**[41:31]** and what's, again, the fully loaded cost, right?

**[41:33]** He's thinking about those elements

**[41:37]** of his team, of the performance.

**[41:41]** We've been fortunate enough to, you know,

**[41:44]** I mentioned kind of, there are packages

**[41:46]** where we sell buckets of hours, right?

**[41:48]** Being able to track that.

**[41:50]** There are some great extensions off of Salesforce

**[41:53]** that exist so that you can do that right

**[41:55]** from within the one system.

**[41:58]** So it's already the tool in our stack.

**[42:00]** We haven't needed to, you know, necessarily go buy a new one,

**[42:04]** able to report, right, in our system of record, et cetera.

**[42:08]** So it's like, we've been fortunate to,

**[42:11]** where we've needed to do that,

**[42:12]** find tools, find plugins, you know,

**[42:15]** connectors within those existing tools.

**[42:20]** I've leaned on a lot our finance,

**[42:23]** our finance team of helping us do some of the analysis

**[42:26]** around this over the past several years.

**[42:30]** But RevOps, you know, certainly overseeing our tooling,

**[42:34]** overseeing the tech stack, making sure that, you know,

**[42:37]** we're reporting on what we need to report on,

**[42:40]** you know, et cetera, et cetera.

**[42:41]** Like they are definitely a key part of that for sure.

**[42:46]** - Yeah, I was just wondering,

**[42:47]** I feel like it's kind of a big miss

**[42:48]** for some RevOps teams to lean in and offer some help.

**[42:54]** It's fantastic you have the leader that you have,

**[42:55]** but I imagine a lot of companies are operating

**[42:59]** without maybe the analytics firepower or technical,

**[43:04]** probably very technical on whatever platform

**[43:07]** they're supporting,

**[43:08]** but technical on the productivity stack

**[43:10]** that the team's using.

**[43:12]** Just wondering if it would make sense

**[43:13]** for those teams to lean in

**[43:16]** and then help in that area of the business too.

**[43:18]** - Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

**[43:21]** Like I mentioned, you know, you're thinking,

**[43:23]** you get to a point where it's more common than not

**[43:27]** that somebody that, you know,

**[43:29]** you bring on a new customer or even existing customers,

**[43:32]** right, they want to leverage these services.

**[43:36]** You know, that becomes part of the forecasting

**[43:39]** and part of the planning.

**[43:40]** And you're thinking about, right, that potential stream

**[43:43]** and like RevOps obviously plays a huge part in that.

**[43:47]** So there is a lot of data analysis that can be done

**[43:51]** looking at different characteristics, right?

**[43:53]** Looking at, you know, this type of customer,

**[43:57]** they, you know, they bought these services,

**[43:59]** they use that, right?

**[44:02]** It's definitely a piece

**[44:04]** that needs to come into your annual planning.

**[44:09]** It needs to be considered.

**[44:11]** And, you know, my professional services leader,

**[44:13]** he, you know, he has a revenue target.

**[44:15]** He has a services revenue target tied to his variable comp.

**[44:19]** Like we want him, you know, we want him and the team

**[44:22]** thinking about that, thinking very strategically,

**[44:24]** thinking very proactively, getting integrated into deals,

**[44:29]** figuring out where there's, you know, early risk.

**[44:31]** Where's a customer trying to do something

**[44:33]** that is, you know, really not by the book

**[44:36]** or not a supported what we would call deployment method.

**[44:39]** Let's identify that early.

**[44:40]** Let's get into those conversations.

**[44:42]** And so it's also like helping us be a lot more proactive

**[44:45]** at some of this identification as a company.

## 44:51 — Staying sharp as a new CRO

**[44:51]** - As a new CRO, where are you going to stay sharp

**[44:56]** and to learn?

**[44:59]** - Well, I am very lucky to have many mentors to lean on.

**[45:04]** That first and foremost, I listened to a lot of podcasts.

**[45:13]** You know, lots of podcasts, I'm always very hungry.

**[45:16]** What are other people doing?

**[45:18]** I try to have connections with folks in my network,

**[45:23]** you know, meet on a quarterly basis, monthly basis,

**[45:25]** try to trade notes.

**[45:26]** What are you doing?

**[45:27]** What are you seeing?

**[45:28]** Here's a problem I'm having, you know, what would you do?

**[45:32]** And so, you know, there's a lot of information out there,

**[45:38]** you know, for folks to learn,

**[45:40]** to hear what people are doing.

**[45:44]** But yeah, I find, and you know,

**[45:47]** I think part of this is like not being behind the computer.

**[45:50]** I like to network, I like to connect, I like to learn.

**[45:53]** And, you know, this whole topic of forward deployed engineer,

**[45:56]** I've had a lot of conversations with people thinking about

**[45:59]** and trying to build this and sharing my notes

**[46:02]** of like what I've seen and what I would do different,

**[46:04]** you know, what I would do differently

**[46:05]** if I was starting this over,

**[46:06]** as they're starting to step into that journey.

**[46:09]** And there's just so much that you can learn very quickly

**[46:14]** from others who have gone through this

**[46:16]** or are trying to figure this out and write your trading notes

**[46:19]** and kind of getting to that place together.

**[46:21]** And like, also listen, I have a fantastic team, right?

**[46:26]** You know, supporting me.

**[46:27]** I have a wonderful, you know, global head of sales

**[46:30]** that I learn from every day.

**[46:33]** And there's a great, you know, collaboration between that.

**[46:36]** And so there's definitely been a learning curve.

**[46:40]** You know, I'd be lying if I didn't say

**[46:42]** there was some imposter syndrome early on,

**[46:45]** but using my network, using my mentors,

**[46:48]** there's great articles, there's books out there, right?

**[46:52]** You know, podcasts like this.

**[46:53]** There's so much that you can learn

**[46:55]** and adapt about yourself.

**[46:58]** - Yeah, I think if you're not feeling

**[46:59]** a touch of imposter syndrome,

**[47:00]** you're probably not challenging yourself enough.

**[47:02]** So I always look at that as a good sign.

**[47:05]** If it feels like I should be in the room,

**[47:06]** then maybe I'm not pushing hard enough.

**[47:09]** But no, I really appreciate that.

**[47:12]** I just think it's, things are changing so quickly.

**[47:16]** And it's really, really hard to keep up

**[47:19]** and then sift through the noise and find the signal of,

**[47:22]** hey, what are people actually doing?

**[47:24]** How are people actually operating?

**[47:26]** And that's what we try to make this whole podcast about too,

**[47:28]** is not just launching buzzwords,

**[47:32]** not just launching strategic things,

**[47:36]** but what are you actually doing?

**[47:38]** What's the execution layer behind

**[47:40]** how you're getting this stuff done?

## 47:43 — Why software companies now look like services companies

**[47:43]** And I appreciate all the details that you have shared

**[47:47]** about this part of the business because,

**[47:50]** especially with AI, a lot of the product moat

**[47:55]** is starting to shrink.

**[47:58]** And a lot of the competitive advantage

**[47:59]** is coming on the value added service side of the business.

**[48:03]** A lot of service, or sorry, a lot of software companies

**[48:06]** are now starting to look a little bit more

**[48:07]** like service companies.

**[48:09]** And there's just an entire industry

**[48:11]** that's never even really thought about doing that.

**[48:13]** That's gonna need to start implementing these teams,

**[48:16]** need to start managing this whole new type of business

**[48:19]** that they haven't had to manage before.

**[48:22]** And it's happening really quickly.

**[48:23]** So I think a lot of the frameworks and roadmap

**[48:27]** that you laid out will be really helpful

**[48:30]** for anybody that's going through that transition right now.

**[48:32]** - Yeah, that's great.

**[48:34]** You just mentioned that we're, through Q2,

**[48:36]** we've been really building out

**[48:39]** our command of the message framework.

**[48:40]** We're really trying to get oriented

**[48:42]** around value-based delivery.

**[48:44]** And one of our core differentiators is,

**[48:51]** we're framing it as adoption-led delivery,

**[48:53]** but it is absolutely a competency for us.

**[48:56]** We've got years and years of experience of doing this.

**[48:59]** We've built out those playbooks.

**[49:00]** We can do it very consistently and repeatedly.

**[49:03]** And it is absolutely a differentiator.

**[49:06]** And to your point, you're seeing this come about

**[49:10]** with a lot of companies.

**[49:11]** And so I think that maturity curve is very real.

**[49:16]** Learn to do it well, learn to do it consistently first,

**[49:21]** and then you kind of earn the right

**[49:22]** to start to charge for it.

**[49:25]** But it is such a core part of the value

**[49:30]** that we unlock for customers

**[49:32]** and the value that they get from our platform.

**[49:33]** It's based off of the people and the experts

**[49:37]** and the domain expertise that they bring

**[49:39]** to those engagements.

**[49:41]** - Absolutely.

**[49:43]** I think everything you're doing

**[49:45]** is really exemplifying the trend

**[49:48]** that the market is going in,

**[49:50]** especially with software companies

**[49:52]** needing to differentiate with their services.

**[49:53]** So I think everything you mentioned,

**[49:56]** it's a huge competitive advantage.

**[49:57]** And people really need to get the value

**[50:00]** out of the technology that they're buying

**[50:02]** as quickly as possible.

**[50:03]** So Amy, I just want to say thank you

**[50:06]** for being on the podcast, being on the show,

**[50:08]** sharing everything you did, going into detail,

**[50:10]** the nitty and the gritty of it.

**[50:12]** And I think it's such a cool thing

**[50:15]** to see a different path to Chief Revenue Officer as well.

**[50:20]** So a lot of people still have in their minds,

**[50:22]** like, oh, I got to go.

**[50:24]** S-D-R-A-E sales manager, that's the only path to CRO.

**[50:28]** But I think we're seeing a lot of these operational routes

**[50:33]** to get to the highest seat in the revenue org.

**[50:36]** And it's excellent to have an example of that on the show.

**[50:39]** So thank you, Amy.

**[50:40]** I appreciate everything you have shared.

**[50:43]** And I can't wait to see what you and Sourcecraft do next.

**[50:46]** - Awesome.

**[50:47]** Thanks for having me.

**[50:48]** Enjoy the chat.