---
title: "There Is No APAC Playbook: Going International, Then Walking Away"
episode: 136
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Bhavik Vashi"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer, Siro"
date_published: 2026-10-09
date_modified: 2026-10-21
duration: 00:51:24
word_count: 8875
topics: ["gtm-strategy", "ai-in-gtm", "sales-enablement", "sales-leadership", "pricing-packaging"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/bhavik-vashi-siro-there-is-no-apac-playbook/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# There Is No APAC Playbook: Going International, Then Walking Away — Full Transcript

> Episode 136 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Bhavik Vashi.
> Published October 9, 2026 · 00:51:24 · 8875 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/bhavik-vashi-siro-there-is-no-apac-playbook/

## 00:00 — Intro: from KPMG accountant to Model Building Guru to CRO

**[0:00]** My guest today is Bhavik Vashi, Chief Revenue Officer at CIRA, where he's building the

**[0:08]** go-to-market for AI sales performance aimed at the part of the economy almost nobody in

**[0:13]** software is serving. Home builders, real estate, auto dealerships, home services, medical aesthetics,

**[0:19]** the trades. Bhavik has spent 15 years in B2B SaaS go-to-market and his arc is one of the

**[0:25]** more unusual ones I've come across. He started out as an accountant at KPMG, joined AnnaPlan at

**[0:32]** Series B with the actual job title model building guru, and left a decade later as general manager

**[0:39]** of Asia, having gone through the IPO in 2018 and the $10.4 billion Tamabravo take private in 2022.

**[0:48]** Along the way, he moved to Singapore, stayed for 10 years, and then did the whole thing again at

**[0:53]** Carta, where he built the international business from zero across Asia Pacific, the Middle East,

**[1:00]** and Africa with full P&L ownership. Earlier this year, he walked away from all of it, the region,

**[1:06]** and the reputation, and the recruiter calls, and moved his family to New York to run revenue at a

**[1:12]** Series B company. We get into why he left, what actually breaks when you take a US playbook

**[1:17]** overseas, and his thesis on where AI belongs in a sales conversation and where it never should.

## 01:25 — Walking away from APAC: reversible vs. irreversible doors

**[1:25]** You spent 10 years building something in Singapore that most people in our world would take in a

**[1:31]** heartbeat. The recruitment inbound was coming in, companies were calling because they needed

**[1:36]** someone who could open up APAC like you, and then you left. Walk me through what you were thinking.

**[1:43]** Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me. It's fun to have this chat. Just hearing you give the

**[1:51]** intro was an interesting reflection on my professional journey so far, starting from

**[1:57]** Model Building Guru, which is a title that I don't hear very often anymore, but reminds me of the

**[2:02]** very humble beginnings and some of the best days as well. To your question, yeah, this was not a

**[2:12]** straightforward move. This was a very thought through, hopefully good move, but certainly an

**[2:22]** intentional move. It was particularly difficult because at the stage that I'm at now, and the

**[2:30]** stage that the world is at, Asia Pacific and international markets are just becoming increasingly

**[2:36]** exciting. Every AI company and increasing number of AI companies are all expanding to Asia and

**[2:46]** international right now. I had started to become somebody that companies look to, to say, "Okay,

**[2:54]** we need to set up an APAC, go to market." There's a handful of people in Singapore and maybe Sydney

**[2:59]** that are really good at doing that. Having done it twice, I think it started to get some really,

**[3:04]** really interesting and compelling offers. The reason that I decided to forego most of those

**[3:11]** and do the very unconventional thing, which was move all the way across the world to New York,

**[3:17]** a city that I've never lived in before, and to participate in this AI moment over here was

**[3:24]** just this concept of reversible and irreversible doors that I've thought about throughout my career.

**[3:30]** The simple premise is I felt that if I took another APAC gig with each subsequent gig that

**[3:40]** I would take, I would become more and more valuable in that role and in that capacity.

**[3:45]** Frankly, I believe in the region so much that over the next 40, 50 years, I don't think those

**[3:51]** opportunities are going anywhere. I think if anything, they're just going to get more and more

**[3:55]** interesting and compelling and impactful, and so I could see myself just spending the rest of my

**[4:00]** life there. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I may someday end up deciding that that's what I

**[4:08]** want to do, but it certainly felt like it would become harder and harder for me to make a move

**[4:16]** like this, come to this side of the world, try something completely different, and that's just

**[4:22]** something that I felt was more fleeting, slightly a shutting door, if I will, that I just felt like

**[4:30]** right now was the right time to walk through it. Yeah, I think if you have Anipline and Carta

**[4:37]** opening up APAC on your resume, that door is always going to be open, so I think that makes

## 04:42 — Shipping US staff to Singapore, and the two things US companies miss

**[4:42]** a ton of sense. Before we get into everything you're doing at Ciro, I know a lot of companies

**[4:47]** that are trying to go to market in Asia, and I've seen the playbook where they just ship over

**[4:55]** somebody from the US to Singapore, never lived there, never done sales there, never gone to

**[5:00]** market there, and then they're just hoping for the best. For any company that's trying to go to

**[5:06]** market there, what do they need to know and what do they need to do? It is a tale as old as time,

**[5:13]** and I have lived through it kind of twice. I would say with Anipline it was certainly better.

**[5:23]** In Anipline, we had Aqua hired our way into our Asia Pacific business with a small local

**[5:31]** consulting firm where we took kind of the three top guys and they became the nucleus of our APAC

**[5:37]** office, but yet very much still subject to US-centric strategies, policies, procedures,

**[5:49]** playbooks, pricing, and so on and so forth. Then there was that tension that most leaders

**[5:56]** in international markets would feel, and then obviously I went over at the time being new to

**[6:01]** the region, to be honest with you, and kind of got the best of both worlds. I was able to understand

**[6:06]** what we were trying to do from a corporate perspective, and I had seen how much success

**[6:11]** we'd had in the US for three years of hyper growth and trying to figure out what elements of that

**[6:18]** would apply, but at the same time immersing myself into the local team, which was already about 15,

**[6:24]** 20 people, and literally living there and speaking to those customers every day to really figure out

**[6:32]** this Venn diagram between the US and international and where's the overlap, and then where are they

**[6:40]** actually quite divergent, and where does it force you to change the way that you go to market,

**[6:45]** which I think was invaluable learning for me, and it was very helpful my second time

**[6:50]** when I was at CARTA where they had basically made that mistake. They had sent a couple folks from

**[6:55]** the US out to international board meeting. Somebody said, "Hey, you guys need to go international."

**[7:01]** Cap table's venture private equity is not a US only industry, so go conquer the rest of the world.

**[7:07]** They said, "Great, we'll ship a couple of our people out there, start running around Asia and

**[7:13]** selling deals," and of course there was some of that. You can definitely create a certain level

**[7:18]** of initial traction because you've got a great product, and there's a brand, and you'll get your

**[7:22]** early adopters, but yeah, it ran into some familiar challenges when it came to scaling the business,

**[7:29]** making sure it was both sustainable and scalable, which is hard, but also fast growing.

**[7:36]** What those things are, man, I could spend like an hour unpacking all of that,

**[7:42]** but I think the simplest explanation is probably twofold. One, everybody as a person is a reflection

**[7:49]** of the experiences that they've had in their lives, and just that deep appreciation for every

**[7:54]** single person that you are now interacting with to hopefully create some genuine value for them,

**[7:59]** their business, and along the way, sell something and make a buck for your company as well.

**[8:04]** That value exchange is deeply built on the premise of understanding their perspective,

**[8:10]** their lens, and their life experiences relative to yours, and I think that is the

**[8:18]** piece that gets taken for granted when American companies built in America, selling in America,

**[8:25]** you already have that shared experience, generally speaking, with your buyer,

**[8:29]** but when you go internationally, you don't have any of it, and that's where a lot of this stuff

**[8:33]** can fall apart. The second, which is maybe more business or economics in nature, is unit economics,

**[8:40]** right? Generally speaking, and software was displacing the cost of labor, and when the cost

**[8:51]** of labor is so fundamentally different in the market that you're selling to, then the entire

**[8:59]** value proposition or the return on investment calculus for a discerning pragmatic customer

**[9:07]** is very different, and a lack of acknowledgement around that is generally just seen as like

**[9:15]** dismissive and poorly researched, but it is one of the pieces that most people miss. You try to go

**[9:22]** into Indonesia or Thailand and try to charge your U.S. list prices kind of look silly because the

**[9:29]** math upon which that's built doesn't add up anymore, and in the SaaS days, the incremental

**[9:35]** cost of software was zero, so it was particularly egregious. Now with AI native companies, you could

**[9:41]** argue that, you know, obviously the cog scales with the usage and stuff, so the pricing dynamics

**[9:46]** are a bit different today than they were when I arrived, but broadly speaking, still very true.

**[9:51]** So these are two very, very kind of simple high-level things that I'd call out, but like I said, I could

## 09:55 — Regulation, segment and 50 countries: there is no APAC playbook

**[9:55]** spend a long time talking about how to do APAC go-to-market. Yeah, and without giving the entire

**[10:03]** dissertation on it, just a couple things that I'm curious that come to mind, and I'm sure people

**[10:09]** listening, if they're thinking about going to market APAC, they've never done it before, they're

**[10:13]** considering it. I'm sure first, let's say, is your product even going to make sense in the region?

**[10:18]** It's like doing that type of market analysis, but then it sounds like Singapore, Sydney, those tend

**[10:26]** to be the beachheads that give you access. Are there any considerations about, okay,

**[10:33]** which one you go to start and why, and then are there any general regulatory or cultural things

**[10:41]** you need to have considerations for in your marketing and sales process that might be different

**[10:46]** than how you're going to market in the US? Yeah, it's very company-specific. I'll try to give you

**[10:55]** a couple really useful checks that any company can do. So first thing is, are you selling into

**[11:04]** a problem that is at all regulated, right? So if you're fintech, you're legal, you're taxed,

**[11:15]** maybe even carbon credits and sustainability, there are a lot of areas where your ability to

**[11:23]** go to market is going to be significantly influenced and impacted by local regulation,

**[11:30]** and that is a beast, because Asia Pacific is a region of more than 50 countries that you might

**[11:39]** feasibly want to sell a customer in, and especially when you expand it to cover like the Middle East

**[11:45]** and Africa and some of the other regions that I was responsible for, and so fundamentally,

**[11:50]** there is no APAC playbook. There is no international playbook. That's a misnomer at the get,

**[11:58]** because you've got 50 different sovereign countries you're selling into, each with their

**[12:02]** own tax code, each with their own set of laws, each with their own leadership. So that's a big one,

**[12:08]** and that will influence your decisions. Markets like Singapore and Sydney, for example, are

**[12:16]** generally more agreeable with either a common law framework or just a legal environment that

**[12:24]** is more similar or familiar to the US or to Western Europe, which is why people start there.

**[12:31]** That's one piece of it, but there are some really regulated markets, Hong Kong, China,

**[12:37]** obviously being one, even parts of the Middle East that have Sharia law and things of that nature,

**[12:42]** where yeah, the barrier to entry is a little bit higher, but so is the potential reward

**[12:47]** if you do it right, and so you should really think through what makes sense for your business.

**[12:53]** The second piece is which segment do you serve? Are you fundamentally striving to serve enterprise

**[13:00]** customers, mid-market SMB? Those will lead you to very different countries as well. Most of the

**[13:06]** enterprise opportunity in Asia Pacific is in Japan, Korea, Greater China, across China, Taiwan,

**[13:15]** Hong Kong are the three biggest enterprise opportunities. Singapore only has six to eight

**[13:24]** companies that most companies would classify as enterprise. Australia only has a handful as well.

**[13:30]** You have to lump all of Southeast Asia together to get to 25 or 30 meaty enterprise or strategic

**[13:38]** accounts. That's a big part of it, but at the same time, the countries I mentioned are

**[13:46]** the hardest to go to market from a language perspective, first of all, culture, regulations,

**[13:55]** the mixed bag, but just general nuance, cultural nuance, I'll call it, even the ways of working and

**[14:02]** organizational behavior and politics, direct versus indirect models, selling yourself,

**[14:10]** going through partners, how you establish trust, credibility, brand, et cetera.

**[14:16]** These are tradeoffs that you have to think about, and maybe most companies get comfortable starting

**[14:20]** in Singapore and Sydney, again, for the first reason and the second reason that there's enough

**[14:25]** to get something going, to get comfortable, to hire the leadership team and the local talent,

**[14:29]** to then give you the conviction and the confidence to go try a big audacious goal like conquering

**[14:36]** Japan or Korea or greater China as a market. And then the last one I kind of touched on there,

**[14:41]** which is, yeah, these are, like I said, this is back to every person you deal with as a product,

**[14:47]** some total of the experiences they've had, and all of these are just massively, culturally and

**[14:53]** philosophically sometimes different countries. And so you've got to figure out where you could

## 14:57 — Partners you want vs. partners who want you

**[14:57]** do that mapping. Do you recommend trying to navigate through partnerships if you're initially

**[15:04]** going out? I imagine it would make it easier for things like hiring, language, those type of

**[15:11]** aspects. Does that tend to be the path of least resistance? If you can find the right partners,

**[15:17]** then yes, I think finding the right partners is difficult. Again, grouping them into broadly two

**[15:23]** categories. I would say you have the partners that you probably really want, but it's unlikely

**[15:31]** that you're going to get meaningful mindshare and strategic alignment with those partners because

**[15:38]** you have no reputation, brand, credibility, or history in the region. So why all of a sudden

**[15:45]** is Samsung going to become a huge distribution channel for you in Korea? Like, on what basis

**[15:52]** are they going to partner with you versus software companies, service providers that

**[15:58]** have been there for 30, 40 years in the region, right? And maybe your tech is better, maybe your

**[16:05]** product is better. There maybe are a few companies today like Entropic and OpenAI, which are just

**[16:10]** big enough that everyone's like, okay, yeah, no, I get them. No, we'll partner with them, right? But

**[16:15]** if you're not in that bucket, like it's going to be pretty tough because it's a very relationship

**[16:20]** driven industry across all these. The one thing that all of these international markets have in

**[16:24]** common is they're very relationship driven. How you build those relationships, very different,

**[16:28]** which is also complex. But so that's the reality. And then there's going to be a host of people who

**[16:33]** want to partner with you, who may not be the partner you, the people you want to partner with.

**[16:39]** There are unfortunately a lot of these, I won't call them exploitative, but kind of just

**[16:46]** kind of arbitrage-y type partners who are like, hey, I'll help you go to market in APAC. Hey,

**[16:52]** this is my whole business model. Like, I know people, I can connect people. I know the strategy.

**[16:57]** I'll be like your easy off-ramp. And some of them are good, don't get me wrong, but a lot of them

**[17:01]** are not that good. Because again, if they were really that good, I don't know that they'd be

**[17:09]** running a services business to help like those kind of tier two, three, and four companies expand to

**[17:15]** APAC. They might do it for a tier one company themselves. It generally tends to be more

**[17:24]** valuable for everyone involved. So yeah, it's tough. I think my experience, I don't think you

**[17:31]** can start from zero with partnerships unless you have some crazy brand or some crazy good connections

**[17:37]** that have facilitated those partnerships for you. I think you need to get out there and prove a

**[17:43]** direct business. And there are a great number of like zero to one, one to 10 people out in APAC.

**[17:50]** Some of us have, like I said, I would have made my career off of doing that because, hey, I love

**[17:54]** building so much. And two, you know, the more you do it, the more muscle memory you develop and

**[18:03]** kind of grow to love it. And there's a lot of those folks out there. So it's not too hard

**[18:07]** to find, you just got to qualify and make sure you get a good core team. Then once you have some

**[18:12]** traction momentum, the partnerships will start to reveal themselves or emerge in a way that makes

**[18:17]** sense for your industry and your product as well. I was going to say the old playbook would have

**[18:22]** been Kalbabik, but I guess that one's off the table for the foreseeable future. I'm still always

**[18:28]** happy to talk shop on APAC and international. I have like accumulated a strangely useful amount

**[18:36]** of information and connections. So wherever I can be helpful, I try to be.

## 18:45 — "Something Big Is Happening": why he moved to New York

**[18:45]** So you built up an extensive amount of experience. And like you mentioned,

**[18:51]** you could have continued to just build your entire career off of that. And it's not slowing

**[18:56]** down. So there's plenty of opportunity there. What did you start to see? Because obviously,

**[19:02]** there was a massive shift in go to market between how we did things in the 2010s to what post COVID

**[19:09]** looked like and everything today with AI. What trends did you start to see that made you think,

**[19:16]** hey, there's probably some really good opportunities brewing right here.

**[19:20]** I mean, it's probably what many of us have felt like this feels like a very collective experience.

**[19:27]** So it's probably not particularly unique, but I had kind of lived and operated in the

**[19:35]** predominantly in the pre AI world still. And so when I, I remember when I first, you know,

**[19:42]** use chat GPT, I was like, holy shit, this is really cool. And then it's like, okay,

**[19:46]** but this is really cool. And a lot of cool things happen. We are coming out of like blockchains and

**[19:51]** NFTs and other theoretically cool things. Not those that I understood as much or nor did I get

**[19:58]** as much immediate value out of them, but it was it was a, it was kind of coming off the back of

**[20:03]** COVID back of those things. So you kind of there was a maybe an inherent skepticism to some degree,

**[20:09]** they're kind of like, okay, cool. And it would hallucinate. And it was obviously not amazing at

**[20:13]** the first pass, but kind of kept my eye on I was somewhat of an early adopter. I remember being

**[20:19]** like the first one in some of my friend's circles or just like in my common life, being like, oh,

**[20:24]** you can chat GPT or I remember I started using perplexity really early when they tried to come

**[20:29]** up with like a better search. And I was like, guys, I don't Google anything anymore. This

**[20:32]** thing is way better. And some of this, some of these other things, and then it started to see it

**[20:39]** really permeate into the workplace. And that's when I was like, yeah, this makes sense. Like,

**[20:46]** as this will be a consumer revolution, it'll be a big time B2B revolution here. And right around

**[20:55]** that time, there was this blog, maybe as an article read it something someone posted called

**[21:01]** something big is happening. I think that was the title went viral, I think, and I found it,

**[21:06]** I read it, I remember reading it in my bed with a cup of tea with my wife. And I was just like,

**[21:12]** oh my god, this guy's right. Like this, this is just this is just true. Like, if you believe

**[21:18]** that this stuff is going to change the way that we all live and work and interact with each other

**[21:24]** over the next 2030 years. Like it's happening right now, we are living through it. And just that

**[21:31]** awareness of that fact made me realize that I had this unique opportunity to hopefully steer my own

**[21:41]** career in a way that made me feel as close to this change. And as involved and aware and educated

**[21:49]** about this change, that's going to dictate the rest of my life and my children's life. I have

**[21:53]** two young boys, like I just knew I needed to be a part of it. And unfortunately, there is no way

**[22:03]** or there was no way to be a part of that in Singapore, to the extent that you could in

**[22:09]** Silicon Valley or New York right now. And that was that was just true. And I felt it would be true

**[22:15]** for at least the next couple of years. And the opportunity cost of that those couple of years

**[22:20]** felt very high, given the rate of change. And that's when I kind of made this mental decision to say,

**[22:26]** okay, right. It's like if someone told you, like you can go back in time and buy like real estate

**[22:31]** in New York, in like the early 1900s, you'd be like, man, I wish I could go back and do that. It's

**[22:37]** like, well, this feels like that moment to like, hey, I wish I went back to 2025 and just jumped

**[22:41]** into the AI thing. Not because I'm guaranteed going to, you know, be successful or make money

**[22:48]** or anything of it's just like, it's a moment in time, this is happening, like I want to participate.

**[22:53]** So it was it was really that simple. And then it was just more about like, figuring out how and

**[22:58]** what and why and when and personal stuff and professional stuff. But yeah, the strategic level

## 23:05 — AI in go-to-market: incremental for digital

**[23:05]** I made up my mind. It makes a ton of sense. And I obviously fully agree with that. This is a moment

**[23:14]** and you kind of choose to be part of it or not. In the context of go to market, where do you think

**[23:21]** the biggest impacts will be over the next couple of years? We're starting to see a lot of them. I'd

**[23:28]** say this year was when like, I'll call it more early adopters really starting to leverage real

**[23:35]** use cases. But where do you see this going and go to market over the next couple of years?

**[23:40]** Yeah, I, first of all, you know, obviously, it's hitting all functions across all industries

**[23:49]** right now. It's doing it at different rates and differing levels of adoption, which tracks to how

**[23:57]** technology adoption curves tend to go, you've got your early adopters, you cross the chasm,

**[24:02]** and then you'll have kind of this, this long tail as well. On the go to market side,

**[24:08]** I think the I call it like the instrumentation of go to market has been this trend. Most of my

**[24:15]** career even, which is, you know, quite a while now where we've been trying to really streamline the

**[24:22]** way that we everything from, you know, sourcing and kind of top of funnel like, obviously all the

**[24:31]** martech that came out to try to get the pipeline in the first place and to reach audiences and

**[24:35]** consumers and then just like instrumenting them through the funnel and all the way to the kind of

**[24:41]** the middle of the bow tie and then beyond as well. I spent a large part of my early career in customer

**[24:46]** success and how do you kind of engage those customers and create a lifetime value of that

**[24:51]** customer to offset your CAC and beyond and so all of that instrumentation had already been happening.

**[24:57]** We already had tools and software for everything pretty much to varying levels of efficacy and AI

**[25:04]** is just like pouring a lot of gas on that fire and then obviously forcing you to rethink the tools

**[25:10]** you use or how they are built or why they're built the way they are and we're all kind of figuring

**[25:15]** that out right now. There was this overreaction of like, okay, all the SaaS is dead and it's like,

**[25:20]** well, actually, hold on a second. Looks like Salesforce and Anthropics just did a partnership.

**[25:23]** Actually, Salesforce is going to feed a lot of these agentic workflows and it's just going to

**[25:27]** be more like headless with agents running around grabbing relevant data and context and like I

**[25:33]** think we're going to still see how it plays out but to me this is just, I think the change for

**[25:40]** GoToMarket on the on the digital side will be somewhat, and I'm really zooming out to say this,

**[25:47]** somewhat incremental. Like, it was already happening. It will just continue to happen.

**[25:53]** Maybe it'll be my selling agents against your buying agents and it'll get really weird but like,

**[25:59]** it still feels like a continuation of what was happening already where I think it could be

## 26:04 — Transformative for the real economy: overlapping adoption curves

**[26:04]** potentially transformative is this kind of that long tail of adoption curve because you basically

**[26:12]** have these overlapping adoption curves of people who are just kind of coming along for the ride

**[26:18]** when it comes to digitizing, first of all, like I went out to Indonesia and Thailand and India,

**[26:25]** the markets I started like, a lot of receipts have been written down on paper, so a lot of

**[26:29]** cash hand transactions have still happened. I've seen people keeping little ledgers,

**[26:33]** like that world still exists largely in many of the markets. I've seen it firsthand

**[26:39]** and so like these people were just going to be brought along for the ride of digitizing,

**[26:45]** storing and computing then in the cloud, then having some kind of application which is basically

**[26:51]** like an interface to a database, like all of this was still, is still, was still happening

**[26:58]** for these in-person traditional real economy businesses and now AI has come and it's like,

**[27:05]** it's almost going to be this overlapping curve and some of them may just skip the first one

**[27:09]** altogether and just go straight to the second one, right? It's going to feel absolutely

**[27:15]** transformative for these businesses. It's going to feel like night and day, like and I'd be

**[27:22]** kidding myself, I knew exactly what it's going to look like but I know that the delta between the

**[27:28]** current state and the future state is so much bigger there which is a large part of the reason

**[27:35]** that I was attracted to the zero opportunity which was this, which is basically that. It's like

**[27:39]** building kind of the end-to-end sales performance system for these traditional physical real economy

**[27:47]** businesses to accelerate their journey on this AI adoption curve and that to me felt very obvious

**[27:57]** but also like very exciting because like I said, I don't know exactly how this plays out. We might

**[28:03]** be part of defining what that looks like and that's really exciting to me. It feels very early

**[28:11]** for the real economy market and there's not a lot of competition. I do tons of these podcasts. Very

**[28:18]** few people are actually targeting. I've heard tons of people talking about it and tons of people

**[28:24]** saying it's a huge opportunity but not actually putting together meaningful solutions for these

**[28:29]** type of companies. Is there anything in your opinion that kind of makes this, hey a lot of

**[28:37]** these companies share these similar workflows, share these similar processes where it feels like

## 28:43 — Horizontal products, verticalized go-to-market, and the in-person moment

**[28:43]** one solution can serve more horizontally? Totally. One of the most exciting things is

**[28:51]** if you think about my career, by chance really this was not intentional but by chance I've spent

**[28:56]** my career at companies that have had horizontal products that with extremely verticalized and

**[29:07]** sometimes functionalized go-to markets. So it's like a single product that can solve a lot of

**[29:13]** different problems for a lot of different people depending on how you use the capabilities of that

**[29:19]** said product and you package a subset of the capabilities into a solution that has a tangible

**[29:30]** business benefit and ROI. In AnaPlan we served every single industry. It literally didn't matter

**[29:36]** what industry you were in. We could serve you. We could also serve every department. It could

**[29:40]** be sales, it could be finance, it could be supply chain, it could be marketing. My simple grandma

**[29:45]** explanation of AnaPlan is like hey this thing is like Microsoft Excel on steroids in the cloud.

**[29:52]** Yeah you could do a lot of things with that. You could make a shopping list, you could make a three

**[29:55]** statement P&L, you could make supply demand balancing algorithms. You could do all kinds

**[30:00]** of stuff right and it was just our job as a vendor and through our network of go-to-market

**[30:08]** professionals and our partners to consult genuinely customers to figure out like what problem are you

**[30:15]** dealing with? What impact would you like to see on your business? Now let us work with you to

**[30:21]** take our software capabilities and create a solution that actually helps you and that was

**[30:27]** what made that job very fun. At Carta we did the same thing which is taking a suite of capabilities

**[30:35]** but taking them across founders, investors, asset allocators, law firms, tax firms across venture,

**[30:45]** private equity, private credit, like different asset classes. Same suite of capabilities, same

**[30:50]** fundamental software but just used in different ways for different people for different benefits

**[30:57]** and in this case compounding benefits when multiple player like multiple people were on the same

**[31:01]** system and zero to me and any kind of I guess software or or sales system that will transform

**[31:10]** the real world will have to do the same thing because there is still more in common than not

**[31:15]** and then there's going to be some industry specific nuance which I think these days is always going

**[31:19]** to be last mile configurations by the customers themselves. Like I said the software will be

**[31:25]** foundational and then there's going to be just a ton of stuff you can build on top of it.

**[31:29]** I think of our industries it's like something has to happen in person. I know it sounds basic

**[31:34]** but it's like are you going to build or are you going to buy a house without ever seeing it in

**[31:42]** person? You could like but like you kind of want to go see it like you want to just get the vibe you

**[31:48]** want to see what's around smell it see it feel it like it's a big decision it's a it's a high ticket

**[31:54]** item that's another common thing it's a little bit high ticket big decision emotional decision

**[32:01]** in person feels if not necessary certainly desired by the consumer it's like buy a house

**[32:09]** okay buy a car you know get a major procedure done like medical aesthetics

**[32:18]** make a major like luxury purchase or a I don't know just like a high ticket purchase like a

**[32:27]** retail purchase so you go to the brick and mortar sill maybe you know some things you need to feel

**[32:32]** them it's like try on the right pair of gloves the right pair of shoes does it fit right like

**[32:38]** there are these use cases where it's like yeah I get it they need I would go in person too it's

**[32:42]** worth worth my time it's better experience that's a key that's a key dimension and then the rest

**[32:50]** is pretty pretty similar there's just like a lot of money that these all of these companies across

**[32:55]** all these different industries will spend to generate the leads to effectively get these

**[33:01]** people to the in-person thing and it's like whether it's the tour whether it's the into the shop into

**[33:08]** the into the dealership so on and so or if they're coming to you as well so there's the other version

**[33:13]** of in person like they come to you or you go to them it's like okay you need a new roof you

**[33:19]** need new windows you need something fixed like I have to come see it I have to come maybe fix it

**[33:23]** myself so it's it's it's the money it takes to get to the in-person and then the in-person interaction

**[33:29]** is a pivotal moment in that sales process with a significant you know inflection on the trajectory

**[33:39]** of that particular deal and we know that to be true there's emotional reasons there's there's

**[33:47]** actual you know economic reasons for all the parties involved like and how can you basically

**[33:53]** optimize that moment and that's that's the commonality across all the industries we serve

**[34:00]** and there's a lot of pre-work that needs to be done well to get there and there's a lot of

**[34:03]** post-work that needs to be done as well and so can we streamline all of that and make sure that we

**[34:10]** put an in-person seller as present as prepared as possible in that moment so that they can just

**[34:19]** focus on being human and executing the art of selling and salesmanship and that is that's kind

**[34:30]** of like how we see the world and everything else because kind of like remember the commercial

**[34:35]** everything else has mastercard it's like for everything else there's zero right it's like

**[34:38]** you focus on being the human being in person executing the art of selling for all the for

**[34:44]** everything else there's zero so that's kind of how we see it i think so at a high level

## 34:51 — How Siro supports sellers before, during and after the meeting

**[34:51]** i think it makes a ton of sense and i also agree there's a lot of those products everything you

**[34:57]** mentioned i'm not going to want to buy online i know there's some some people might want to buy

**[35:02]** a car online i still want to go test drive it especially if it's a car i haven't seen before

**[35:07]** i practically how how does ai come into that equation so sounds like there's some pre-work

**[35:15]** that might be some prep but maybe what would be like a good bread and butter example of how it

**[35:20]** supports before how it supports after and then how it makes sure that salesperson does their best

**[35:27]** job in that in-person moment yeah totally uh good question so the way that i would describe

**[35:34]** zero to somebody is kind of two i would say two levels right it's like first is like okay

**[35:40]** you don't know anything about anything and you're just talking to someone's like look

**[35:44]** sales is an art and a science we kind of all generally get that okay so zero brings a science

**[35:58]** so that you can focus on the art okay kind of get that what does it really do it's like

**[36:04]** basically we are an end-to-end sales performance system and we record every conversation

**[36:13]** period whether it's with your prospects it could be internal it can be

**[36:17]** record every single conversation and then we use ai on top of that to help you run

**[36:26]** evaluate and improve your business and we manifest that in a multitude of different ways so

**[36:34]** classic bread and butter use case right everything leading up to an appointment let's use use for

**[36:41]** example we'll use one of the ones that's top of mind for me because i just met this customer one

**[36:45]** of our medical aesthetics customers right basically people go in like the core of the issue is you go

**[36:51]** into a clinic and you want to have a procedure done um whether it's liposuction or laser hair

**[36:58]** removal or maybe you need uh hair put in like like any medical aesthetic procedure as you can

**[37:05]** appreciate these things you're gonna go in person you're gonna want a consultation you're gonna want

**[37:08]** to figure out what's going on zero will take care of the end end for the business so when you think

**[37:15]** about the before it is prepping you for what's about to happen um any context that you have from

**[37:24]** the forms i filled out online maybe there was an intake call that happened with your receptionist

**[37:29]** beforehand so we've we've captured all of that we've pumped it in we've given you great preps

**[37:33]** like hey anthony bob is coming in today he found us through the website these are the things he said

**[37:37]** all like full briefing right in the moment record the conversation right so it's like hey need to

**[37:45]** record this conversation for training quality purposes uh yes okay great get your consent

**[37:50]** record now we're recording so i don't have to worry about remembering every single thing you

**[37:54]** said i've got my note taker first of all second i'm in the moment i'm talking to you and zero is

**[38:01]** real time listening and coaching me in the moment and and it's kind of coming up and we can manifest

**[38:07]** this in different ways but it could be on your phone your desktop you can text you it can do a

**[38:10]** lot of different things say hey because you know as a salesperson there's a million things you're

**[38:14]** supposed to do you're supposed to build rapport you're supposed to do some discovery you're supposed

**[38:18]** to understand my needs you're supposed to map it to your value proposition you're and you know

**[38:22]** ultimately at the end you got to ask for the sale every company will have a sales process that they

**[38:27]** they want you to execute because they know that it's serves the customer well so zero will basically

**[38:32]** be real time listening and saying hey she you know anthony mentioned something about his dog earlier

**[38:39]** like you know follow up on that or hey you know he mentioned this earlier but then he just said

**[38:44]** something that doesn't line up ask a question to clarify so you understand what he's looking for

**[38:48]** so it's like this real time almost like an earpiece you know just helping you be the best that you

**[38:55]** can in this pivotal moment before you leave the room and i haven't had the interactions haven't

**[39:00]** shared the information that i'm meant to share haven't discovered some of the things that i want

**[39:05]** to about you and as soon as you leave the room it'll do you know two things for me one it'll have

**[39:12]** it'll be waiting my follow-up to you presumably i'll have a follow-up hey thanks for coming in

**[39:16]** blah blah blah here's what we discussed here's the my action items it's like one one button click

**[39:20]** again because it recorded everything transcribed and analyzed it's like one button click i followed

**[39:24]** up with you and then once i've executed my follow-ups like i've done my job it will also call me or it

**[39:29]** can call me for a debrief and say okay hey not bad um here's what you did well here's what you could

**[39:35]** have done better which is like that thing that every sales manager is supposed to do with every rep

**[39:40]** and it's like real-time coaching it's still fresh in my head i'm like oh yeah dude i forgot to

**[39:45]** mention that new product we had or you know he said this thing and i didn't do this thing or maybe

**[39:49]** sometimes in certain industries like hey from a compliance perspective you were supposed to

**[39:53]** mention this you didn't make sure you put it in your email now make sure you like get that right

**[39:57]** so there's so many use cases for that so you get the debrief call and last piece is like okay all

**[40:02]** this has happened normally a sales rep like okay now i gotta go fill out my crm right because like

**[40:06]** the rest of the world needs to know what just happened right now and in this case you don't you

**[40:10]** don't lift a finger zero has already done it for you it's like because we we know everything that

**[40:14]** happened we know exactly all the custom objects and fields in your sales force or hub spa whatever

**[40:20]** you're using and we've extracted all of that from the conversations like you wanted these products

**[40:25]** this is the next step this is the closed day whatever totally configurable so that's like the

**[40:30]** running the business we have said run evaluate and improve right that is all just the running of the

**[40:35]** business and then there are like a million more things we do on the evaluate and improve side

**[40:41]** when it comes to analytics scorecards reporting on the improved side it's coaching personalized

**[40:48]** coaching plans you know role plays training and certification so you can just kind of start to

**[40:53]** imagine like oh shit if all of this was happening i'm pretty sure my sales team would be operating

**[40:58]** like as close to you know optimal performance as i could imagine and then the the million dollar

**[41:05]** moment is like great all of that happening it's happening at scale it's happening every time

**[41:10]** and now it's happening in a way that's proactive and personalized so it's like hey anthony you're

**[41:15]** good at certain things and you're not so good at others i'm good at certain things and i'm not so

**[41:19]** good at others and it's actually developing both of us both are developing our strengths but also

**[41:25]** our weaknesses in a way that resonates with us because it has user level memory and context

**[41:32]** but it also has organizational context and instruction and so it's bringing all of that

## 41:37 — Will every in-person conversation be recorded?

**[41:37]** together in a way that frankly which is impossible pre-ai should we expect in the near future that

**[41:44]** in-person sales meetings consultations will be recorded i think you should i i'm betting on that

**[41:53]** i think that it is pretty much inevitable at this point that every aspect of our lives is recorded

**[41:58]** and i know that sounds quite 1984 but like it's kind of true it's like when facebook came out

**[42:05]** right and it was like oh you know be careful what you put on the facebook because you know they have

**[42:09]** your data and then they'll sell it to advertisers and it's like we all gave up it's like the shit is

**[42:13]** useful and so we're all on facebook and we're on instagram and we're on youtube and the algorithms

**[42:18]** tiktok and the algorithms are going nuts and they know so much even our ai chat gpt knows so much

**[42:23]** about us so yes i do believe that the value that these tools can bring will naturally in a free

**[42:33]** market capitalism kind of way lead us all to forgoing some level of like risk or privacy

**[42:43]** type consideration because we'll say well the values far outweigh the cons and we see this in

**[42:49]** the data like every single one of our customers obviously goes through this process ask customers

**[42:54]** to record get the consent and we've looked at it because we have all the recordings literally 99%

**[43:01]** of the time consent is obtained less than one percent of the time it's almost like wait pause

**[43:06]** never mind i don't want that like turn it off and obviously we will it's fine like it's it's just

**[43:11]** like okay great well then now you're relying on my memory to try to serve you and it won't do all

**[43:15]** this other stuff but fine you know so yeah i think we're going to move to a world where everything is

**[43:20]** recorded and you seeing this left and right like it's not just us obviously you see like granola is

**[43:24]** very popular with companies now everyone's granolaing everything now there are some new

**[43:29]** like wearables that are coming out that people are can record with and those scare me even a little

**[43:35]** bit more because in the consumer context people are not as good about getting consent like you

**[43:39]** would just not know like people are just recording all over and in the u.s it's fine i think 39 states

**[43:44]** are 38 or 39 states there's just single party consent so you actually don't have to tell

**[43:48]** someone you're recording them which i find quite strange um we tell all of our customers to tell

**[43:53]** their customer like tell their customers that they'll you know get the consent i think it's

**[43:57]** best practice but yeah if it's going there from a consumer perspective obviously businesses who have

**[44:02]** like real value real gdp creation possibilities are going to adopt that technology that's my belief

**[44:09]** and where we're seeing it play out in our go-to-market our numbers well there was even a moment where

**[44:16]** i would get on sales calls before and it was like oh this is a serious one everybody kick

**[44:21]** out the recorders right we need we need we need to have an off-the-record conversation yeah now i'm

**[44:25]** like i know you're running some transcriber behind the scenes anyway so who cares just keep it in i'm

**[44:31]** just gonna walk in every conversation assuming i'm going to be recorded totally but it will it will

**[44:37]** be interesting i'm even thinking like you go to a restaurant does your server have a little recorder

**[44:42]** so they never get your order wrong or they have receipts when you ask for it medium rare and then

**[44:47]** you complained about it after i don't know but yeah yeah i do think it's going to be a weird

**[44:52]** world i i agree the utility is just going to be so tempting tantalizing like how do you give that

**[44:59]** up but i think there's if we thought our privacy was gone before it's going to be a whole new level

**[45:07]** agreed yeah and like i said i i genuinely like i don't know truly how i feel about it right

**[45:15]** i i like that is a whole different can of worms of what the world is going to look like from for

**[45:21]** my kids and will just every single piece of data and context be stored forever in somebody's

**[45:29]** ai memory and this kind of gets like black memory but i will say i think we're heading in that

## 45:36 — In-person sales as a path to financial freedom

**[45:36]** direction and i think it's kind of inevitable and so what i as i said earlier what i wanted to do

**[45:43]** is find a way to participate in it that feels a like genuinely useful and genuinely um ideally

**[45:52]** like purposeful like if you think about at least for us what we aim to do we want to make in person

**[45:59]** sales the most accessible path to financial freedom is actually remarkable what percentage of the world

**[46:06]** still operates in in-person sales it's one of the oldest industries in humanity to sell something

**[46:14]** to someone else barter face to face like this is like deeply core and primal as a species for us

**[46:22]** and it continues to be this very accessible path you don't need a formal education

**[46:26]** you don't need some fancy degree this is something that anyone can do if they put in the work

**[46:31]** they get the right support they get the right coaching and they can be successful and our

**[46:37]** product we genuinely believe just gives is just empowering it gives more people access to the

**[46:44]** tools and the support that they need to be successful in this capacity and what that translates to for

**[46:50]** the individual users of our platform is like not being in credit card debt like paying off their

**[46:56]** mortgage like or maybe just being able to work less hours and spend more time with their family

**[47:01]** because all this admin is like the benefits for the individual users of our platform these

**[47:06]** in-person sellers across predominantly america right now and hopefully someday the world

**[47:12]** are are just so are so real and so tangible and frankly heartwarming when you meet someone like

**[47:19]** man i freaking love this thing like this thing like has made my life so much better it's like

**[47:24]** i i can get out of bed and be like all right this thing is happening it's inevitable well at least

**[47:28]** like we're participating in a way that feels really good yeah you can't avoid the wave so

**[47:35]** you know do find a way to find the noble thing and you're right it is very accessible i mean

**[47:42]** i know if people can also build up their skills then they can start to stack whatever their

**[47:48]** industry in and start to move into higher end products within their industry and make

**[47:52]** a serious career out of it i mean i know servers that pull in over 200k

**[47:57]** because they're working at some of the finest restaurants but if you had some time to build

**[48:02]** your skills through that and and you get the coaching that you need then it does make it

**[48:06]** accessible to anybody and i think that's that's an incredible thing when we have and the other

**[48:11]** thing you know anytime you join a startup uh like this the exciting thing is as i alluded to before

**[48:16]** is like not only is like what we do today which i just described but it's what we can and should

**[48:23]** do going forward like hopefully we're at the forefront of defining what the use cases and

**[48:28]** potential benefits of this type of technology look like in these industries specifically

**[48:33]** working closely with our customers and just learning from them be like oh what else would

**[48:36]** be super helpful oh okay that's really interesting like you know we've got great stuff it's like hey

**[48:41]** you it would be great if you could just build the quote for me it's like because they we already

**[48:44]** discussed everything they wanted the measurements of the blinds and this is like yeah sure we could

**[48:48]** do that and it's like the thing you mentioned is like hey i you know the rep turnover in these

**[48:53]** industries is really high um one because there's this huge standard deviation between top performers

**[48:59]** and bad performers but also just because of the nature of the industry people move around it's

**[49:03]** like well now all of a sudden even at the consumer like at the individual level zero becomes like

**[49:09]** almost this canonical like source of truth of who you are as a seller like what are your strengths

**[49:16]** what are your weaknesses what's the proof of the stuff you've done it's almost like this living

**[49:19]** breathing resume artifact in a way that you know like a linkedin is like what you write about

**[49:24]** yourself but zero's got everything for you and so there's just like there's like an infinite

**[49:29]** number of possibilities and exciting things that this could do to hopefully benefit a lot of people

**[49:34]** which is what makes it so exciting to work on it is exactly the kind of stuff that wouldn't be able

**[49:39]** to work on um at a singapore at least not to the extent that um the opportunities are available

## 49:46 — Wrap-up

**[49:46]** here in the u.s at the moment well i think you're absolutely right you're in the right place at the

**[49:51]** right time to make the most of the moment and i love how you're approaching it and helping people

**[49:57]** better their skills especially through through the art of sales and i just think it's so cool i

**[50:03]** really appreciate everything that you've shared everything about okay how do you go to market an

**[50:07]** a-pack what are the things to consider you know it's really difficult i appreciate the offer

**[50:12]** sounds like if anyone's going to market a-pack give bob a good call he probably knows someone

**[50:15]** who can help you or join your team um but really seeing the moment and taking that brave step to

**[50:23]** come out of something where you had such a reputation but knowing that this is a special

**[50:28]** point in time in history that you wanted to be part of i really respect what you're doing and

**[50:33]** spending the time in new york so i really appreciate everything you share today thank

**[50:37]** you for being on the podcast and i can't wait to see what you and zero do next yeah thank you so

**[50:44]** much for having me it's been a blast to a little bit you know lockdown memory road a little bit

**[50:50]** with you and then also just um yeah i guess rehash some of the reasons why i'm pretty excited about

**[50:56]** what we're building here and how excited i am to be here in new york now yes anybody who needs

**[51:02]** anything related to a-pack feel free to message me on linkedin i'll try to be as helpful as i can

**[51:08]** and also if anybody found any of my my zero stuff super interesting encouraging you to reach out as

**[51:13]** well we're hiring pretty much across all functions so if it's really exciting to you you could join

**[51:18]** the join the party as well incredible thank you buffett thank you so much thanks for having me