---
title: "Why Your Reps Should Never Open the CRM Again"
episode: 103
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Justin Lee"
guest_title: "Head of GTM Strategy & Operations"
date_published: 2026-08-25
date_modified: 2026-09-03
duration: 01:02:29
word_count: 10994
topics: ["revenue-operations", "ai-in-gtm", "pricing-packaging", "sales-compensation"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/justin-lee-superblocks-headless-salesforce-revops/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Why Your Reps Should Never Open the CRM Again — Full Transcript

> Episode 103 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Justin Lee.
> Published August 25, 2026 · 01:02:29 · 10994 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/justin-lee-superblocks-headless-salesforce-revops/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** The role of an SDR is very undervalued, very misunderstood, and incredibly difficult.

**[0:05]** And until you do the role yourself, I think it's very hard to grasp what it really feels like being in the trenches.

**[0:13]** My guest today is Justin Lee, head of GTM strategy and operations at Superblocks,

**[0:19]** enterprise platform where teams build production-grade internal apps with AI.

**[0:25]** But Justin's road into RevOps is anything but typical. He started in FP&A and wrote a single company all the way from Series C to IPO.

**[0:34]** That's right. So that's kind of what almost like I built my career on, is being able to be that gap between people in the room,

**[0:45]** FP&A crunching numbers, and real-life people on the front lines just trying to put food on the table, right?

**[0:50]** And how do we make sure that everyone works cohesively so the company wins what everyone else does as well?

**[0:57]** In this new environment, how do you think about metrics that you should be measuring, benchmarks of these metrics?

**[1:03]** What does good even look like in tech anymore?

**[1:07]** Yeah, 100%. I think this is the most exciting time to be in RevOps, period, full stop.

**[1:12]** And I think the best operators are going to lean in and get back to being technical.

**[1:18]** Hallelujah.

**[1:21]** As long as you're confident in what you're bringing, the communication piece should be the simple part, right?

**[1:26]** Because you just need to think about them as a human at the end of the day, not this ivory tower C-suite.

**[1:31]** Oh man, like am I wasting their time? No, like you're in the room because you have value.

**[1:36]** So deliver the value in a comfortable way and develop that relationship because that relationship is no different than you and anybody else at the company, in my opinion.

## 01:49 — Leaving the post-IPO finance track to cold call

**[1:49]** Justin, you were on the FP&A track right after an IPO, a spot most people would kill for to have in their career, and then you left it to become a cold calling SDR.

**[2:01]** What was going through your head and what made you make that call?

**[2:05]** Yeah, thanks, Andy. Great question. First off, thanks for having me on. I've really appreciated and I'm looking forward to this episode today.

**[2:12]** So just kick off, yeah. Most people probably look for that next promotion, right? Become the manager of FP&A or even maybe go to investor relations, right?

**[2:21]** There's a lot of options for you post IPO from a company like Zora at the time.

**[2:25]** For me though, honestly, like my passion that I found through working in FP&A was I wanted to be closer to the action.

**[2:33]** And what do I mean by that? I mean people who touch revenue, right? Driving deals, whether it's pre-sales, post-sales, I wanted to be close to that action.

**[2:41]** And I'm sure a lot of folks remember sales for early 2000s, 2010s when it was really buzzing, right? You want to be there. You want to be part of that action.

**[2:52]** And so that's why I personally took that opportunity to kind of just pivot fully.

**[2:58]** I knew if I chose FP&A, I would be anchored and kind of almost pigeonholed into that career.

**[3:03]** But this was like the right time to close that chapter with an IPO, nice little bow on top, and then let me take a risk and really try and become an SDR.

**[3:10]** So for me, it was really about the people at the end of the day, right? Getting to know who are the folks on the floor driving these calls because prior, they were just headcount numbers and capacity numbers.

**[3:22]** And do they roll up? Can we make goal? And so yeah, that's kind of the main reason I wanted to figure out or find out what SDR land was about, and it was an incredible experience.

## 03:34 — The shock of 100 dials and missing quota

**[3:34]** What was the biggest shock or difference coming out of your FP&A role, like day one, making 100 dials? Was there any culture shock or did you get bit by the bug the second you got in?

**[3:46]** A lot of emotions all around, right? First off, I just want to say the role of an SDR is very undervalued, very misunderstood, and incredibly difficult.

**[3:57]** And until you do the role yourself, I think it's very hard to grasp what it really feels like being in the trenches.

**[4:05]** And then the good side is the camaraderie that comes with it that you normally don't get, right? Because you are in the foxhole with your co-workers on that SDR team trying to drive meetings.

**[4:16]** And the only thing at the end of the day you have is each other, right? You're just getting rejected left and right.

**[4:21]** And coming from an FP&A world where accuracy and hitting goals and deadlines was the North Star, right?

**[4:31]** And all of a sudden, I go from high performing, hitting deadlines, to not hitting quota.

**[4:37]** And that was an extreme shock, right? That was my first taste of professional failure in a way that really hit.

**[4:44]** And so that was an incredible learning moment, I want to say. And it also helped me in my eventual role of RevOps truly build that empathy and understand what drives these folks on the floor and how I can better connect the floor to leadership.

**[5:01]** And so being that kind of middleman definitely got shaped with my experience for being an SDR.

## 05:08 — FP&A to SDR to RevOps: how the path happened

**[5:08]** So walk me through maybe FP&A, SDR, how did you end up ahead of RevOps role? What was that timeline?

**[5:15]** Because I think it's a really interesting path that you took to get there.

**[5:19]** So I got my SDR shot at Yapo, fantastic culture, fantastic company.

**[5:25]** And unfortunately, I did not hit quota so often and everyone knows in the world of sales, you don't hit quota, you're gone, right?

**[5:34]** However, it worked out. Again, I said the culture was great. So they did try to find a place for me.

**[5:41]** And I think we all came to agreement that my FP&A background coupled with frontline experience sales ops would be the perfect landing spot for me.

**[5:49]** And I got a little lucky with timing because we were opening up a headcount for sales ops.

**[5:55]** So that's how I got my transition into it and honestly never looked back since.

**[6:00]** And it's been a great ride and I, you know, looking forward to what's ahead, especially in the in the era of AI.

## 06:07 — What carrying a bag teaches that a model never will

**[6:07]** What are some of the biggest empathy builders, things that are maybe misunderstood?

**[6:12]** Because there's a lot of people in ops and finance who have never carried a quota, they've never carried a bag.

**[6:18]** What are some things that practically change your approach because you've had that experience in the field?

**[6:26]** I think the level of hunger changed. I think in FP&A or any role that's salaried, right?

**[6:35]** You're not as worried about putting food on the table. And some of these plans get really aggressive where it's 50/50 and literally like whether,

**[6:43]** you know, you can go hit that milestone in your personal life comes down to how well you perform.

**[6:49]** Right. And so that level of stress is so different, I think, to any type of stress.

**[6:56]** Sure, you feel like your own sets of stress in FP&A world, but that is a whole different level of, I think,

**[7:03]** mental strain that folks often don't talk about a lot. Right. I mean, sure, it looks like I have a huge quota, I have to hit it.

**[7:10]** But at the end of the day, like you are not in that seat feeling that heat from an FP&A perspective.

**[7:16]** So that was the biggest difference in terms of empathy. And then secondly, you go through, like, your status quo things, right?

**[7:23]** Like, hey, we bought a tool, so now you should be able to do XYZ. It's never as simple as that, right?

**[7:30]** And so being in that seat really helped me bridge that gap as well in terms of, like,

**[7:36]** there's a group of leadership RevOps, you know, they're in their own meetings, sales isn't invited, and they're thinking systems.

**[7:43]** Now, if you don't talk to your sales reps, you're gonna have that massive gap, right?

**[7:48]** It doesn't matter if you buy the best tool in the market, it doesn't matter if you have the best processes, whatever it might be.

**[7:56]** If the reps don't adopt it, it doesn't mean anything. And the way to get them to adopt it is understanding

**[8:03]** and empathizing with them on a level where they know you know, and that builds trust.

**[8:08]** And so that you just layer on top of that, and eventually you get to a relationship where they fully trust you.

**[8:15]** There's minimal back and forth, and you get to a place where adoption, rollout, enablement is very smooth

**[8:22]** because it comes from a place where reps are, obviously you think about the company first, but reps are just up there, right?

**[8:29]** Like, they're not an afterthought. They're not, hey, they're just a group of people that are gonna adopt whatever we say.

**[8:34]** That's not how it works, right? So that's kind of what almost like I built my career on is being able to be that gap

**[8:43]** between people in the room, FP&A crunching numbers, and real life people on the front lines

**[8:49]** just trying to put food on the table, right? And how do we make sure that everyone works cohesively

**[8:54]** so the company wins, but everyone else does as well.

**[8:59]** Yeah, I feel like there's two different types of RevOps professionals. One's the way you described it.

**[9:05]** Hey, I'm gonna set the policies, I'm gonna pick the tools, and then you just have to do whatever I say

**[9:09]** because I know what's best for the team based on my model. And it kind of feels like it's like I'm on my team

**[9:14]** and you're on your team. And then there's the ones that are really deep in the trenches with the team.

**[9:18]** Maybe even going on some sales calls, maybe even, you know, going to certain events and seeing how

**[9:25]** things are going, and then really, really putting themselves in the shoes of the team that they're

**[9:30]** building policies, tools, workflows, procedures for. And I think if you spend time doing that,

**[9:38]** one, like you said, you're gonna get the respect of the team, but two,

**[9:42]** you're gonna focus your effort on things that actually move the needle. What helps them be

**[9:46]** more effective? What helps them be more efficient? What are things that are gonna actually help them

**[9:50]** hit their quota and avoid doing things that might actually go against it? One of the biggest things,

**[9:56]** you know, you throw any sales capacity model together, it looks better when you have a bigger

**[9:59]** sales team. And I'd say if you know, there's probably nothing worse in a sales position than

**[10:05]** getting your territory carved up into fourths and needing to share it with a bunch of people

**[10:10]** and getting opportunities moved out of your name. Like you spent a whole year building pipeline,

**[10:13]** now everything's getting shuffled around. So I think having that empathy is super, super important

**[10:20]** if you're in RevOps to actually be effective at your job.

**[10:24]** Absolutely. And I think it cuts down communication as well, because there are folks who take

**[10:31]** requirements and can translate them into technical execution. And then there are folks who can really

**[10:39]** understand what the scope is, and how they're going to use it. Because there's a difference

**[10:46]** between translating how the reps work versus what is the most efficient way to get it done.

**[10:52]** Like those are two different things. And if they if they're the same, that's great. But oftentimes

**[10:56]** they're not right. And so I feel like the technical side always thinks about how to get to point B

**[11:01]** in the most efficient way possible. But that's not the same route that reps will take, right? And

**[11:05]** within the reps also, they all each take their own routes. Not saying you want to do bespoke

**[11:10]** bespoke things for each rep, but to a certain degree, everyone has their own flavor. And that's

**[11:15]** what makes them that rep that they are right. So trying to play with their strengths, talking to

**[11:20]** the field always keeping that open loop so that they know that they're heard. And of course, not

**[11:25]** every single time we can take their opinions of course, some things will be mandated top down.

**[11:31]** But I think, at least at the stage we're at super blocks, we're series A, we have like 40 to 50

**[11:36]** people total. That that's when I think, you know, maybe series BC as well. But when you're in that

**[11:46]** intimate setting, I think everyone needs to kind of be heard, but also row towards the same direction.

**[11:54]** And the best way to get there, I think with the most concise communication is to have the

**[11:59]** understanding and open that dialogue up always. Another thing I think people in RevOps heads of

## 12:08 — Communicating up to the C-suite

**[12:08]** RevOps really struggle with empathy, I'd call it as a big bucket and getting in the field and seeing

**[12:14]** what's going on. Then let's assume that you have that part down, you know, what would be effective,

**[12:20]** you know, what's going to be helpful. The other part that's really difficult is communicating up

**[12:25]** with your executive team. And I have found this to be a huge blocker for people in RevOps roles,

**[12:33]** is communicating with that C-suite, the CRO, the CEO, the CFO, advocating for the things that they

**[12:40]** think are important. How have you navigated that in your career trajectory to ahead of RevOps role?

**[12:49]** Yeah, great question. Fantastic question. And I actually think we talked about this in our prep

**[12:53]** call, but I actually had out very fortunate enough to have a somewhat funny experience

## 13:00 — The blueberries meeting

**[13:00]** early on in my career in FPNA at Zora. So my business partners was GNA. And one of the lines

**[13:07]** was obviously office related food snacks, you know, your perks, right, the Silicon Valley perks.

**[13:14]** There's one day I got into work, I got called into a meeting room by I think my CFO,

**[13:19]** CTO and chief people officer at the time. And I think I messed up, right? I'm like, I'm, what,

**[13:26]** 2223, maybe I'm just a young kid, I just got to the valley. Oh, man, I just I already ruined it.

**[13:33]** Lo and behold, I walk into the room. And the topic is, I couldn't even believe it's blueberries,

**[13:37]** like engineers wanted blueberries. And we got rid of it, because I thought it was an extra line,

**[13:44]** and I hit it needed to hit my budget number for FPNA. Right. And so in my head, right, going back

**[13:49]** to that whole numbers versus people thing, in my head, I solve the numbers problem, which then

**[13:56]** cause the people problem. Then I go into the room and the three probably highest C suite level minus

**[14:03]** the CEO, we're all talking about blueberries. And so that immediately put down that wall that I had

**[14:12]** in my head, because a lot of times when you're an operator, you're very, I'd want to say like,

**[14:18]** we lean towards more traditional, like hierarchy thinking, like put your head down, work, execute,

**[14:24]** kind of follow orders type thing. When I got into that room, I realized the only real difference

**[14:34]** is the title and the experience, like we're all human at the end of the day, like,

**[14:38]** for goodness sakes, we have three C suite in here, spending 30 minutes talking about blueberries. And

**[14:44]** so that completely tore down any type of either mental wall I had, or just experience driven,

**[14:53]** kind of thought I had on how they did operate. But then they're all human, right? It's not like

**[14:59]** that we were using complicated words, or, you know, talking about a complicated concept. It was,

**[15:05]** will engineers be unhappy or happy if we have or don't have blueberries. And since then, it's

**[15:11]** honestly like I always have that thought in the back of my head when I go into C suite talks or

**[15:15]** board meetings, whatever it is, it's at the end of the day, like we're all here for the same outcome,

**[15:19]** we're all brooding on the same boat. They're dealing with somewhat of the same problems you are

**[15:26]** at the end of the day, like, as long as you're confident what you're bringing,

**[15:30]** the communication piece should be the simple part, right? Because you just need to think

**[15:34]** about them as a human at the end of the day, not this ivory tower C suite. Oh, man, like,

**[15:39]** am I wasting their time? No, like, you're in the room because you have value. So deliver the value

**[15:44]** in a comfortable way and develop that relationship because that relationship is no different than you

**[15:47]** and anybody else at the company, in my opinion. It always seems so intimidating on the outside

**[15:53]** looking in and I love that you have that story that codifies that experience for you. And then

**[15:59]** when you actually get into it, then you realize exactly what you said, oh, everybody's human,

**[16:04]** everybody has their wants and needs, some people want blueberries, some people want other things.

**[16:08]** And I think that helps get rid of that mental block. I had a similar one when I was at one

**[16:15]** of my first startups, there was a group of the leadership team that all went through the same

**[16:19]** MBA program together. And they would talk about it all the time as if they went to like this

**[16:23]** magical Hogwarts School of Business. And I was like, oh, I don't have an MBA. I don't,

**[16:29]** maybe they know way more about business than I do. So I thought it was important. I went and got an

**[16:34]** MBA. It's like, well, let me do it. And then I realized, oh, this is just like taking another

**[16:39]** handful of classes on a business topic. And I didn't leave with any special powers. I just know

**[16:46]** a little bit more about finance and accounting and marketing. And just a lot more people, I guess,

**[16:51]** is the networking part, right? Yeah, a lot more people. I think the biggest thing for me though

**[16:57]** is like going through it and being like, oh, it's not that special. So I don't have to be intimidated

**[17:03]** by anybody else who has an MBA. 100%. And I probably didn't have to spend what I spent to do

**[17:08]** that, but at the end of the day, it was probably worth it. So I just see this pattern a lot. People

**[17:14]** in RevOps having a tough time being maybe intimidated by the C-suite, just having a tough

**[17:20]** time communicating. So I think step one, realize they're just people don't have to be intimidated

**[17:27]** by the situation. Anything else that you think is good advice when you're sitting in the executive

**[17:33]** room, if you're tagging along to a board meeting, anything else that you would share with the head

## 17:38 — Ask for the walk: touch points that compound

**[17:38]** of RevOps? I honestly, maybe outside of board meetings, but I always ask for coffee or a walk

**[17:45]** or something, right? Like a touch point. It doesn't matter how high they are. Obviously,

**[17:49]** it's easier to be done at smaller companies. But even at Altus Group, like as soon as we got

**[17:55]** acquired, I grabbed the CEO and I was like, Hey, can I go on a walk with you for 10 minutes just to

**[17:59]** talk. And you don't even have to talk about work, right? And most oftentimes you don't because they

**[18:03]** lead the conversation, try to ask about your interests or whatever they, you know, I think

**[18:08]** at that level, the EQ is high enough for them to drive the conversation in a comfortable sense.

**[18:13]** And once you see that, I think that lowers a lot of walls down. So I highly encourage because,

**[18:18]** again, it's a mental blocker, right? No one told you, you can't do that. I think it's a common

**[18:27]** thought we have that like, Oh, don't talk to them or Hey, don't waste their time or Hey, like,

**[18:33]** they're kind of like this untouchable set of folks, right? But I personally think like the

**[18:40]** more proactive you could be about it. And again, you don't have to talk about work, you can talk

**[18:44]** about anything, but just like those little touch points compound over time. And they'll remember

**[18:50]** that you went out of your way, right? And then the more interactions you have, the more human

**[18:54]** they become every single time. So that honestly, I've taken advantage of and it's paid out a lot

**[19:03]** for me. So I highly encourage like, you know, then they could even be engineering, you don't even have

**[19:07]** to be adjacent to them, right? Like, when's the last time you talked to an engineer about like,

**[19:10]** what they're shipping, right? And I think like, we need more of that, honestly. And I think that

**[19:17]** helps you out all around, right? Whoever you're interfacing. I love it. I love it. Coming from

## 19:25 — Making bets when you have no data

**[19:25]** your FPNA background. Another thing RevOps is typically tasked to do is really understand what

**[19:34]** bets we're making and why should we hire salespeople? Should we go into this market? Should we invest

**[19:40]** more in this channel or that channel? Should we bring on this tool or that tool? How do you

**[19:46]** approach things a little bit differently given that you have the financial background and probably

**[19:51]** the analytical acumen to take this to another level? Yeah, absolutely. And it's a very nuanced

**[20:00]** question because you never want to paint the scene or picture as RevOps or the blockers.

**[20:07]** They're the bad guys. They don't want us to have any fun. It's really not about that, right? Like,

**[20:15]** I want this company to work just as much as you do, right? It's not that we're not rowing towards

**[20:20]** the same destination. I just think there might be a better route there. Or if you want to show me a

**[20:28]** route, can we at least explore it a little before we actually scale it? Because I'm speaking of this

**[20:35]** in the perspective of a startup. So obviously, it's a lot different depending on the maturity

**[20:39]** of your company. But at our stage, the unfortunate thing is, yes, I have to think about ROI, but a

**[20:46]** lot of the times we won't have the data points. A lot of times it comes down to back of the napkin

**[20:51]** math and vibes, right? But I am the me myself and the head of finances are probably the two people

**[21:00]** who are always like, Hey, how are we going to get paid on the paid back on this? What's ROI? Like,

**[21:05]** how can you at least prove to us at a small scale it works before we scale because the stage we're

**[21:11]** at right now, like we have to do the brute force work of trial and error to even find out what's

**[21:17]** scalable. But a lot of the times people want to default to what they're comfortable with and just

**[21:22]** say, Hey, hire more folks buy this tool. That's what we did here at XYZ and it worked. But having

**[21:31]** that financial acumen and also just thinking about it from a first principles aspect, right? Like I

**[21:36]** think that's what I started doing a lot more to supplement the lack of data that I can use my

**[21:43]** financial acumen for, right? Because we don't have a lot of the data that I can go like, Hey,

**[21:47]** if we do this, it'll return us. Why? All I have right now is, is really like the trial and error

**[21:55]** brute force things that are working. And then can we take a bet on some of those? And so yeah,

**[22:01]** like it's just like, we want to skip that middle section. That's hard. And it's the difficult part.

**[22:06]** It takes time. It's input, right? A lot of the stuff is manual. You can automate a lot of things.

**[22:11]** It's not scalable, but you have to do that and you can't skip right to the let's let's just scale.

**[22:17]** Because what are you even scaling at the end of the day, right? So that kind of makes me the bad

**[22:23]** guy at times. But it's not that I don't want to pour gasoline on the fire. If you show me the fire,

**[22:30]** let's pour all the gasoline you want on it. But I need to know it. Like there's some promise to it.

**[22:36]** Right. So it's hard right now. Um, definitely because another topic is, you know,

**[22:44]** Hey, can we throw a 20 K dinner? If we grab one client out of the 12 people will invite,

**[22:49]** it'll pay itself back six times over, right? Oh, I've heard that one a million times. Yep.

**[22:55]** That exact line, especially if you're selling enterprise deals can be used to justify literally

**[23:01]** anything. Anything. Right. Exactly. And so the one big deal pays for it all. And that's the trap,

**[23:08]** especially earlier on, and maybe even later on when you have enough budget where you don't even

**[23:12]** care too much, right? Then you can try whatever you want. But again, I think the trap really

**[23:18]** falls into the, they don't want to do that. Like I think, yeah, the, the messy trial and error part

**[23:24]** always wants to get skipped. And, and my ask is just to do that a little bit before we pour some

## 23:31 — Ten push-ups before the marathon

**[23:31]** real money on it. Right. So you tell me, Hey, can I have 500 bucks to run this marathon sponsor me?

**[23:37]** I haven't even seen you do 10 pushups. What, what are we talking? What are we talking about marathon

**[23:42]** for? Right? Like that's what I mean. Like, do I want you to run that marathon? Of course.

**[23:49]** Will the company sponsor you? Of course. Am I going to go raise extra money from other places

**[23:54]** to sponsor your cause? Of course. But show me you can do 10 pushups first or show me you can go to

**[23:59]** the, you can run a mile or something like that. Right. That's all I'm asking. And I think

**[24:05]** there are different, you know, milestones to hit based on what you want to do,

**[24:11]** but I want to see that first milestone first.

**[24:15]** So what I'm hearing is, Hey, when you don't have data, especially if you're a series A,

**[24:19]** maybe even series B stage still, you haven't run a lot of the experiments. You haven't run a lot

**[24:24]** of the tests. So you can't go, Hey, what did this event do last year? And then let's assume an ROI

**[24:28]** based on the investment. You don't have it. So now at the same time, there's still a million trials

**[24:33]** you can run and you're going to have salespeople and marketers and everybody saying, Hey, we should

**[24:37]** do this. We should do this. We should do this. They're going to want to run a hundred trials.

**[24:42]** It's how do we narrow them down? And I would love to hear your thoughts on your decision-making

**[24:47]** process for that. And then after we narrow them down, let's do some proof of concepts.

**[24:52]** Let's do small investments in a few, the ones that show traction. Then we double down and run.

**[24:59]** The part that I think is hard is picking those trials. Maybe you could give an example. If

**[25:05]** people are asking to do a specific event or invest in some specific channel, how do you

**[25:12]** narrow down the bets in lieu of having any data? What process do you go through?

## 25:18 — First principles: fifty ideas become three

**[25:18]** Yeah, a hundred percent. So I think, so first off, when you gather all these ideas and you think

**[25:27]** about it from a first principle standpoint, you often find that the root cause is the same root

**[25:34]** cause across a lot of ideas. So like, let's say you're given, you know, 50 ideas and you apply

**[25:42]** first principles thought process to it. You probably get three ideas, right? Like 15 are

**[25:48]** probably like overlapping in some way, right? Buckets of 15, 15, 15, or how, whatever the

**[25:52]** number is that gets up to 50, right? So that's what I like to do first. Are there commonalities?

**[25:56]** Are there themes across all these ideas? And can we, can we apply that? And then what do we extract

**[26:02]** from that? Usually that takes away about 90% of the noise and leaves most of this, like what I

**[26:09]** would call more signals versus noise, right? From there, I'll go take a look at, you know,

**[26:13]** what were the three or two condensed themes that I'm seeing across all these ideas. And then I

**[26:20]** look at what do we need to do as a company for that quarter or quarter plus one and which of

**[26:26]** those topics most aligns with getting us to that goal for the time period. And so that's like the

**[26:33]** very high level thought process that I apply to it. Of course, there's like nuances and different

**[26:38]** scenarios, but I really push back on asking like, what problem are you really trying to solve?

**[26:44]** Right? Because for, for example, so at Superblocks, we don't have an SDR team. So one of the one of

**[26:51]** the options was obviously to go third party agency that does, you know, email cold calling at scale

**[26:56]** for you, almost like a de facto third party SDR team, right? Now, at the same time, Mark getting

**[27:02]** wanted to also get more brand awareness out there. And so they wanted to go buy a different agency

**[27:07]** that blasts out emails, right? Oh my God, what are we trying to really solve for? Like, it's to me,

**[27:13]** it sounds like we just want at our stage, more brand awareness through cold outbound email.

**[27:18]** So we land, or at least Superblocks lands in someone's inbox. So that later on, when they

**[27:22]** think about it, we're there, right? So just being present versus not. And it's the same problem,

**[27:27]** right? The sales, like, we're not really trying to, it's not going to be the silver bullet to,

**[27:33]** to getting a ton of meetings, right? But it's one layer of a multi-pronged approach that needs to

**[27:39]** happen. So for me, like we're solving for the same problem, but they want two different tooling and

**[27:44]** two different agencies for it, right? So it's really the same problem. Can we solve it with one

**[27:49]** vendor? Just put out different content, right? So that's kind of like one example where like,

**[27:55]** we could have bought two different agencies because marketing wants one, sales wants one,

**[27:58]** but at the same, at the end of the day, it's the same, it's the same concept, right? We're

**[28:01]** just trying to outbound, get a brand out there. And if something converts, something converts,

**[28:05]** and then separately like CS and product wants to push out PRs and new release notes, etc.

**[28:18]** The root is, can we have a mass communication method to the prospects or customers? And then

**[28:24]** if you don't want to do it, do you want someone else to do it? Meaning third-party agency,

**[28:28]** right? So across those three topics, it's all the same thing, but they're all thinking about it in

**[28:34]** their own way. So now we get three different vendors proposed by three different teams.

**[28:39]** And so that's kind of how I approached prioritizing and picking what is actually the problem.

**[28:45]** Yeah. And I think that's usually half the problem, just defining what the problem is. And I think

**[28:50]** oftentimes it could sound like it's different things like you mentioned. And I think if you

**[28:55]** can get it to that point, then you can start to double down on that. I also, I like having a good

## 28:59 — Hypotheses, dumb luck, and measuring the process

**[28:59]** hypothesis. Like, okay, let's have a science background. Like, let's put the hypothesis on

**[29:05]** paper. What are your beliefs? What are the whys? And then how are we going to measure if this

**[29:09]** hypothesis is true or not? And I think sometimes we leave that part out like, oh, we're going to

**[29:15]** do this big brand investment. Okay, great. How do we know that it worked? And it could be anything.

**[29:22]** Is it engagement? Is it, you know, somebody just mentions you more in other things? Like,

**[29:27]** what, what are you going to use to gauge that your hypothesis worked in elevating your brand?

**[29:32]** And I think just going through that disciplined approach can dramatically affect

**[29:41]** the impact that you're having with the initiatives that you're running.

**[29:44]** A hundred percent. And I think it's just going back to like behaviors that compound.

**[29:50]** Like if you, if you start thinking like that, the team starts thinking like that,

**[29:53]** then your customers, meaning, you know, the field start thinking like that. I think, obviously,

**[29:58]** I can't quantify it, but you feel it, right? You're like, you can totally tell by the flow of the

**[30:05]** conversations, how quickly it takes to execute now, how quickly people adopt things. Once everyone

**[30:10]** gets on that same mindset of thinking about it, you know, in a disciplined way, I think it makes

**[30:15]** it easier for everyone. And to your point, if someone has an idea, did it work because of the

**[30:20]** hypothesis or did it, or do we just get lucky? Right. And a lot of the times we think it worked

**[30:28]** because of our hypothesis, but you'd be surprised to find out like a lot of it is just dumb luck.

**[30:35]** Right. And so who's in that seat, connect, orchestrating and connecting and thinking like

**[30:40]** that. And it most of the times is rev ops or finance or both. Right. So that's a fantastic

**[30:48]** point. It's, it's, it's, here's the hypothesis. Let's try it out. And if it worked, did it work

**[30:53]** because of that or a different reason? And if it's a different reason, can we double click into that?

**[30:58]** And most of the times that kind of just gets brushed over until the next time this comes up

**[31:01]** and they're like, Hey, remember that one time it worked? And I'm, and I'll ask, why did it work?

**[31:07]** But we don't care. It worked. Right. So yeah, sometimes it happens despite what you were

**[31:12]** investing in. And that that's why there's a lot of people talk about,

**[31:21]** Hey, measuring the outcome versus measuring the process.

**[31:27]** My opinion, you have to use the outcome as a signal, but not as the defining factor. And you

**[31:35]** have to measure the process. So if you're doing a good job in the process, sometimes, sometimes you

**[31:41]** can make the right bet and you can make the right play. You can call the right move on whatever it

**[31:46]** is. And it just doesn't work out because of dumb luck too, or things that are outside of your

**[31:49]** control. It doesn't mean you didn't do the thing that's within your control to the best of its

**[31:54]** ability. And flip side, things can go really well. Now, if you see a pattern and it's repeating,

**[32:01]** then I would start to evaluate the process, but I, I would challenge teams to really,

**[32:08]** really dig deep underneath the outcome and really ask themselves why they think it happened

**[32:14]** rather than just going off on that and having that fully dictate what the strategy is.

**[32:20]** Yeah. A hundred percent, a hundred percent aligned on that.

## 32:25 — What good looks like now: benchmarks under scrutiny

**[32:25]** Something I think that is interesting. That has been changing quite a bit. You and I came up

**[32:30]** through tech, uh, during the fun days, during the fun time, um, lots of blueberries in every

**[32:37]** single office. You could, you know, stock it up with whatever you want. A little bit different

**[32:41]** world. There's a couple of things that are different. One, the old triple double double

**[32:49]** growth plan. It seems like there are quite a few companies that are scaling at rates well beyond

**[32:55]** that. And at the same time, we're under even more scrutiny than ever to run efficiently,

**[33:02]** to run profitably or close to and justify every single investment that we make in this new

**[33:10]** environment. How do you think about metrics that you should be measuring benchmarks of these

**[33:15]** metrics? What does good even look like in tech anymore? Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a, that's

**[33:22]** a fantastic question. And to be honest with you, um, I probably don't have all encompassing answer

**[33:28]** either, but, um, I mean, funding has totally flipped since AI labs, right? So, you know,

**[33:39]** these multiples that we're seeing are absolutely insane. And the rate at which some of these

**[33:44]** companies are reaching the a hundred million ARR mark are historically never seen before.

**[33:50]** So a lot of our competitors, even like lovable replet, they've grown to, I think they're at like

**[33:57]** 500 million ARR now in the matter of, you know, 24, 36 months, maybe even sooner for a couple of

**[34:02]** those. Um, and so before, yeah, like you said, we were anchored on that triple double double. And now

**[34:08]** it's now we're just trying to figure out what to pour the gasoline on, right? Like, um, I don't

**[34:15]** know if we typically have specific KPIs that were anchored on to show externally, but I know

**[34:25]** internally, what we're focused on is really defining like where we win and we're trying to

**[34:31]** get very granular with it. And so our metrics that we're focused on are less at the company level,

**[34:37]** but more just like, uh, super sales focus, meaning like, where do we win and win? Well,

**[34:44]** and can we take over that smaller piece of the pie, right? And so I think we're almost at, uh,

**[34:52]** an earlier stage where we need to prove out like how we win, who we win against,

**[34:57]** and then double down on that and see if that's repeatable. And then we can start worrying about

**[35:03]** kind of company level metrics. Um, of course you got to worry about your standard burn rate,

**[35:09]** right? Like how long the company has, when do you have to raise next, um, your growth rate,

**[35:15]** um, right. What's your burn multiple CAC payback and our, like, those are all great things to worry

**[35:21]** about. But right now, the only thing I'm focused on is two things. The financial part of me is like,

**[35:28]** how much run rate do we have, right? How much are we burning per month? Now rev ops folks in

**[35:32]** general, like I personally don't think you have to worry about that, right? Like that, like your

**[35:36]** counterpart in finance is probably the one who's worried about that, but you do have to keep that

**[35:40]** in the back of your mind. Now, the more important thing that I'm worried about is how much pipeline

**[35:44]** are we generating and are we winning as long as those conditions are like are favorable and

**[35:50]** conditions being like our ICP definitions, right? Like, so they're between X and YFT,

**[35:55]** they're in this industry, they're of this title, et cetera. And so that's what we're really

**[36:01]** looking at right now is deal to deal pretty much hand to hand combat and where we win.

**[36:06]** And then looking at those metrics and doubling down on that,

**[36:09]** anything beyond that we're, we're really not worried about.

**[36:14]** Are there any old benchmarks that feel like they've slid in a particular way, anything

**[36:21]** on what we used to expect from payback periods, like, Hey, we want it under 12 months or

**[36:27]** anything that we're seeing on conversion rates, like, Hey, if you're converting at a 25% clip,

**[36:33]** that's okay. Anything where you feel like the old school SaaS benchmark, because a lot of

**[36:40]** people have these numbers in their mind of like, what makes sense that just don't apply anymore

**[36:45]** and what the new world might be more appropriate to be measuring.

## 36:52 — Consumption pricing and the margin squeeze

**[36:52]** Well, I think one part that's interesting is definitely the move back to

**[36:59]** consumption based models versus seat pricing. Right. So I know it's not so much like company

**[37:06]** level metrics, but like the biggest difference, in my opinion, is like going back to the usage

**[37:11]** based and then trying to run any analysis on that, because there's so many different factors that

**[37:18]** attribute to your costs now, right? Like, like most people have to then go pay their

**[37:22]** inference providers and your margins not that high, depending on how you deploy or how you consume.

**[37:29]** And so for me, it's been very difficult to then tie that back to what is like the right

**[37:38]** upsell target, what is the right consumption from go live, what is the right quota for sellers

**[37:48]** based on this consumption model versus like a seat pricing. And so

**[37:55]** I don't know if that really specifically answers your question, but that's probably top of mind

**[37:59]** for me right now. No, it does. Because a lot of these metrics were built with assumptions that

**[38:04]** your gross margin is anywhere from 80 to 90%. And now for some of these SAS slash AI companies,

**[38:13]** the margin can be in like the 60% range, sometimes less if you're really burning to grow. So I think

**[38:21]** knowing that your gross margin is significantly condensed, just old benchmarks that people have

**[38:32]** of like, what should a seller's quota be? It's like, well, before when they're closing their

**[38:38]** full quota, there was a lot more margin in that closing. Now it's considerably less margin. So do

**[38:46]** we need to rethink what quotas are? I would like to get into some consumption based questions though,

**[38:53]** if you don't mind me rapid firing a few, because this is the biggest wrench I think in go to market

**[38:59]** is when you're running a consumption based pricing model, which so many companies now

**[39:06]** are converting to when they're used to the nice clean seats and platform fees.

## 39:14 — Quotas, comp and ARR under consumption

**[39:14]** Three questions. And I'm going to let you just noodle on them. And I want to watch your brain

**[39:17]** catch fire as you go through would love to know in consumption world, how do you set quotas?

**[39:24]** How do you build commission plans? And how do you articulate your ARR to the board and

**[39:31]** potential investors? Yeah, great question. Great questions. I'll just grab a popcorn and kick back

**[39:41]** and let you teach me these because in over a decade of RevOps, I still have a tough time with them.

**[39:47]** I think what's really interesting is, and I'll get to the plan and the and the quote apart in

**[39:52]** a second, but I think what we're seeing a lot in these AI native companies is the Palantir model,

**[40:00]** right? So what I mean by that is FDEs and deployment strategists that come in post sales

**[40:07]** that drive the actual activation and the consumption. So that's the model we're following,

**[40:13]** which then leaves the AEs to just get comped on bookings versus like, Hey, can we activate them?

**[40:21]** Right? So yes, of course, they is responsible for selling the right deal, rightly sized,

**[40:28]** and then hoping that they go live with, you know, you have your mutual action plan, you know, you,

**[40:34]** you do, you get alignment with the champion, etc. Right? So that being said, like, we will just

**[40:42]** comp the rep on the bookings. And then it's up to this, like, FDE plus deployment strategist combo

**[40:47]** to actually get them to the consumption that they bought. And so it's kind of off the AEs plate,

**[40:52]** like they're kind of on the hook for it, but not really. And we shifted that responsibility over to

**[40:58]** the specialists. And then as far as the quota goes, this is actually really top of mind for us right

**[41:05]** now, because we were we were reworking them. Since we pivoted into consumption model, AI native

**[41:13]** products, so we like a little bit of context is super blocks relaunched back in April, with the

**[41:19]** usage based model, right? And so instead of seats. And so since then, we've been trying to rework the

**[41:24]** quotas, to your point, right to fit this new model, and how is it fair? The honest I got answered to

**[41:31]** you in the beginning is just like, a little bit combination of art and science, it's not fully

**[41:36]** science, right? We don't like you said, we don't have the historical data, but we do have forward

**[41:40]** looking data. And we do know, and this is going back to the to going like 10 layers deep hand to

**[41:47]** hand knife combat, right? So we know where we would win, we know what we where we're successful,

**[41:53]** what ICP is what industries we win more in. And so we kind of look at the forecast, and then work

**[42:02]** backwards from there. And all so kind of like a hybrid of top down and bottom up, right? So we

**[42:10]** look at the forecast, look at the bottom up, what's realistic based on the competitors we're

**[42:13]** going up against. And then that's where we have that, at least small sample set of what is our

**[42:18]** win rate against certain competitors under these conditions. And so once we look at that, versus,

**[42:23]** you know, what we committed to the board will come up with a number. And so I think it's less to do

**[42:28]** with consumption based pricing there, but more towards like a hybrid approach of what's realistic

**[42:33]** versus what we can do. And that as far as the comp plan goes, again, this is less of consumption

**[42:40]** based, but more because we're series A, it has to be pretty aggressive and favorable for the reps,

**[42:45]** right? Just because there has to be some type of carrot, right? Or else, why not just stay at,

**[42:51]** you know, snowflake or Databricks or whatever. And then as far as ARR growth to execs,

**[42:59]** we focus on enterprise. So I know a lot of massaging takes place when you do a lot of PLG

**[43:05]** motion, right? Like credit card monthly, annualize that, like, is that actual ARR? What's your turn

**[43:09]** rate? How sticky are you? So that's like a whole different conversation itself. For us,

**[43:14]** we focus mainly on enterprise. So ARR is just traditionally in the sense ARR. And that's what

**[43:22]** they've committed to. So not too much confusion on that part for us. No, that's great. I just love to

**[43:31]** hear how people are navigating that. It's really timely with so many people moving to that pricing

**[43:37]** model, because then the commission plan changes, how you set quotas changes. Even when you're

**[43:45]** articulating ARR, there's two audiences. If you're communicating to your current board, it's not a

**[43:52]** big deal. They can understand, okay, here's your actual revenue. Here's what's actually committed.

**[43:57]** The tough part of course is, okay, are you doing another round? Usually they're valuing you on your

**[44:03]** ARR. So how do you come up with the definition? Because you don't want to discount it too much,

**[44:09]** you want to be able to bake in what the usage is. So just hearing people's approaches to that,

**[44:14]** I think is really helpful, because so many people are moving to that model.

**[44:21]** Yeah, it's interesting. And how we're experimenting is just with spiffs for like each quarter. So

**[44:30]** that topic of, hey, you sold them a million dollars of consumption. Are they going to get there? How

**[44:35]** soon are they going to get there? And so what we're trying to experiment with is, you know,

**[44:41]** do you get X amount of months after to keep the account to expand it and make them go live? And

**[44:48]** if so, you get a kicker, right? We're still working through like the mechanics, but we do want to

**[44:55]** experiment with some time gated levers to drive, go live and consumption faster.

**[45:02]** And we'll throw, you know, accelerators on that. But then if you, but on the flip side, right,

**[45:07]** if you don't get them to go live or consume at the rate that they bought, then you might earn

**[45:13]** less money on it. Right? So that's kind of what we're experimenting with. We still haven't found

**[45:19]** what works well. And again, the business could change. But yeah, that's kind of how we're

## 45:23 — Building on a headless Salesforce

**[45:23]** dealing with it. I appreciate you going into the messy world of consumption. One, one thing I want

**[45:34]** to talk about, and I think you've, you've built some really interesting stuff in this area is

**[45:43]** having a completely headless CRM and building your own application layers on top of Salesforce,

**[45:52]** on top of, on top of your CRM. What does that new approach look like in RevOps? And what benefits

**[46:01]** are you seeing on the team? Yeah, a hundred percent. I think this is the most exciting time

**[46:05]** to be in RevOps period, full stop. And the power of AI is, I don't know, this is going to sound

**[46:13]** super corny, but it's honestly incredible. Like, I don't know if you remember trying to

**[46:19]** come up with some Excel formula, right? To model out your capacity, right? And you have to go on

**[46:24]** some Excel forum back in 2002 and hope and pray that someone answered it before you. And they

**[46:30]** probably answered in a slightly different way. So now you got to bang your head against the

**[46:33]** wall for another 30 minutes to get it to work the way you want. Now, folks don't even know about

**[46:38]** that life, right? They don't, they don't, they don't know. They like, you just type something

**[46:42]** into a chat bot and it gives you an answer. Right? So, and I don't know, that's the simplest

**[46:46]** form of AI usage, but even having that at the service level is incredible. And I think the best

**[46:53]** operators are going to lean in and get back to being technical, right? I think even those at

**[46:59]** bigger companies, you know, 10K plus, 5K plus FTE, where they have 50 operators, like platoons of

**[47:06]** operators, I think we're going to see those teams definitely slim down a lot. However,

**[47:14]** whoever I think adopts and truly understands how to utilize AI are going to be the winners

**[47:21]** of like the future like leaders of RevOps, right? And so you even see like the argument of like,

**[47:27]** go to my good engineers are going to replace RevOps. Like, no, they're not. Sure. You're going to have

**[47:31]** the superstar every once in a while. Sure. Of course. Of course you're going to have that

**[47:35]** superstar who can do it all. But the reality is like experience and being able to translate very

**[47:42]** strategic level initiatives to bullet point line item execution detail. That's not going to come

**[47:51]** from your go to market engineer. This is all to say, like, it's a very exciting time. I think

**[47:56]** for RevOps, you need to be in that driver's seat. You cannot just delegate here. Like,

**[48:01]** I think you need to get your hands dirty. You need to be working. You need to build something

**[48:04]** out in cloud. I mean, use any, right? Use super blocks, right? Obviously. But I highly encourage

**[48:10]** everyone and anyone in ops to build something from scratch. And I truly mean build an app,

**[48:16]** right? Not like build and spreadsheet or whatever, like build something from front to end and

**[48:20]** understand how to connect, get familiar with how to connect APIs, how to set up databases,

**[48:26]** what the schema is, just get familiar with these things, right? Because that is going to be the

**[48:31]** biggest superpower. And you see RevOps being the stewards of AI into orgs anyways, right? Like,

**[48:36]** obviously engineering has their side, but the go to market side of the house, it's really RevOps.

**[48:41]** And that's also why I encourage people to talk to folks in engineering, because they'll tell you

**[48:46]** things that you didn't even think about that you can implement here. So that's all to say, like,

**[48:53]** how I'm dealing with it is so obviously, I'm fortunate enough to work at super blocks where

**[48:57]** we have a vibe coding app that can live on top of that layer. So, and we're still small enough where

**[49:03]** I have all the keys to the kingdom, I do not have to ask it for clearance, I don't have to get a

**[49:08]** security checked. Of course, if you're at a, you know, if you need compliance, definitely do that.

**[49:12]** I'm not saying ignore that. But I do have a lot more freedom. And so I have been able to build

**[49:18]** full function and production grade apps for our go to market team. And it's been,

**[49:23]** honestly, an incredible learning and building experience.

**[49:27]** I think it's absolutely a moment for RevOps. And we are lucky we just happen to be sitting

**[49:34]** at the intersection of strategy in tech. And it's just the natural person to

**[49:39]** carry the torch forward. I would love to hear what are some of the practical

**[49:44]** things that you have built some practical applications? What have you built that the

**[49:50]** team is using and just can't imagine not having access to today?

**[49:55]** Yeah, 100%. And so the most exciting things that happened was Salesforce going headless,

**[50:01]** right? I think a lot of operators were excited about that one, because, honestly speaking,

**[50:07]** we were thinking about turning off Salesforce and building our own database layer.

**[50:13]** And then using superbox to build the app layer. Now, there's a bunch of debate on LinkedIn,

**[50:18]** right? Can you build your own? Can you vibe code your own CRM? I'm of the camp, like you know,

**[50:22]** you cannot like at scale. Of course, if you're running a 10 person shop, go for it. But in the

**[50:28]** long run, no. So that's to say we got super excited. So that was like the real first unblocker

## 50:34 — The GTM Center: forecast, calendar, deal updates

**[50:34]** to get an app going. So what I built at super blocks is what we call the GTM center or go to

**[50:41]** market center. And it really houses three main things that reps interact with all the time.

**[50:47]** First is your forecast board, right? I think people are folks, some folks are familiar with Clary,

**[50:52]** or even Salesforce forecasting. And so when headless came out, right, we're pulling everything

**[50:59]** straight from Salesforce. And I'm into and I'm pretty much interfacing that with super blocks

**[51:04]** as the app layer in a Kanban board that they just drag from side to side, depending on what forecast

**[51:09]** stage you're on. And then you can update it directly into the app, or you can just update

**[51:13]** it from slack itself, right? So you can just tell slack, hey, this opportunity update it to 100k

**[51:19]** now and close they move it out a week, then it'll go talk to Salesforce, update it in Salesforce,

**[51:24]** and then reflect in the app. And so that's one layer. The second piece is a calendar. So making

**[51:34]** sure we have visibility into all the hackathons coming up all the AI days, right? A lot of AI

**[51:39]** native companies, this part is super important nowadays, right? It's pretty much the only way

**[51:43]** to win. You go on site, you do a hackathon day, you prove out your product. And then even after

**[51:50]** that, you hold their hands all the way to success so that you can get the win. That visibility has

**[51:55]** been super helpful because not only do sales reps organize all their hackathon notes. So what's a

**[52:02]** deployment model, what cloud are they on, et cetera. Engineers and our forward deployed engineers can

**[52:08]** now go in and look at that and draw insight from our pipeline and upcoming hackathons, right?

**[52:15]** So it's, it's, it's, it drives, it serves a purpose even outside of just sales, which is,

**[52:21]** which has been amazing. And then the third part is they have like, obviously we need deal updates,

**[52:27]** we have weekly forecast calls, but the way that they update is, um, they update it right into the

**[52:33]** app and the app already takes transcripts from granola and Gong and suggests notes and pre-fills

**[52:42]** them out with the human in the loop, um, AE having to confirm, or they can edit, et cetera, and then

**[52:50]** save. So all those three things, whether it's updating deals, updating your forecast, keeping

**[52:55]** track of your hackathons, um, they all route from the go to market center and push out pings and

**[53:03]** notifications and updates through the respective places, whether it's updating the data back in

**[53:08]** salesforce as a source of truth, or updating each of these deal internal Slack channels that we have

**[53:12]** with the updates that they put in there. So now they just really operate straight off the go to

**[53:17]** market center. Um, and can't tell you the last time I think of rep one into salesforce. Hallelujah.

**[53:28]** I don't think anybody said, Oh, my favorite part of the day is opening up salesforce and logging

**[53:32]** my meeting notes and updating my pipeline and forecast. Um, now I think this has taken all of

**[53:38]** the monotony out of the process and really free up to just focus on the stuff that actually moves

**[53:45]** the needle and actually matters and also gives you the information. I want to talk about the

**[53:51]** hackathons in a second because we at lean scale, we implement AI workflows for teams. We've built

**[54:00]** quite a few internally for ourselves. So we have an ongoing forecasting agent that goes through

**[54:06]** all the transcripts, goes through shared Slack channels with prospects, goes through the CRM

**[54:11]** data and lets us know which deals are healthy or not. And has a full, very robust forecasting

**[54:18]** process. We have customer health agents reading every transcript, reading every Slack channel,

**[54:22]** letting us know if there's any issues, things that we need to assess and evaluating your team at all

**[54:28]** times. So we have built quite a few ongoing routine level workflows that are feeding the team

**[54:36]** information to just get us focused on the areas where we can drive an impact. But taking it that

**[54:43]** last mile is no joke. We have done plenty of hackathons where every single person on the team

**[54:51]** has a Claude max account. So they, everybody's building all kinds of stuff every single day,

**[54:56]** but there's only a handful that have surfaced to be production grade. And it did require,

**[55:03]** we have an engineering team, our CTO and his engineers, it did require them to take it that

**[55:08]** last mile to say, okay, yeah, this isn't gonna leak information everywhere. This agent is fully

**[55:16]** contained to this customer. This one is actually going to run every morning. It's not going to just

**[55:22]** sometimes run. So I think all of those little nuances, to me, that's the difference between

## 55:28 — The last mile and the safe playground

**[55:28]** having like a proper team running this or leveraging something like super blocks versus

**[55:34]** Hey, everybody's just going to like vibe code their own thing. But the second you need to

**[55:38]** start sharing it with people, the second you need other people to start using it. And for sure,

**[55:43]** if it's mission critical that it works, you need something to help you take it that last mile.

**[55:51]** 100%. 100%. And, and again, fortunate, obviously, we have that at super blocks. And that that is,

**[55:59]** that is exactly what we do is help you bring it that last mile. And so

**[56:06]** again, like, if you're at a small company, it's, it's okay, like, I'm not saying it's okay, but

**[56:13]** you have a lot more freedom than others. Now, if you do actually want to take a production grade,

**[56:20]** that is the bottleneck that most folks run into. And so even with like hackathons from,

**[56:25]** from other vibe coders, it's it's they have that same problem you just described, right? They'll

**[56:32]** run a hackathon, they'll build, you know, 1000s of really, really fantastic apps that solve the

**[56:39]** problem, because it's created by the subject matter expert. And that's the first part of the power

**[56:44]** that vibe coding tools give you. Now, the second part is, can we production? Can we put it into

**[56:48]** production? And can we roll it out to the greater group? And so the way that we've been thinking

**[56:53]** about it, and how I would think about it, regardless of super blocks is to create a safe

**[56:58]** playground, right? So what can I what environment can I create that's safe for all the folks taking

**[57:05]** into consideration their level of off across your varying tech stack, their permissions? And how do

**[57:12]** we adopt that in an easy way without too much lift from your engineering team. And so that's

**[57:19]** kind of the last mile that super blocks helps you take and creates that safe

**[57:23]** playground in the form of that platform. And so a good example is like, even for me, like even

**[57:30]** working at super blocks, I still started off the cloud route, right? Like I'm creating local

**[57:34]** artifacts, the first time my sales reps go, hey, I'd love to use that. I can't I can't really give

**[57:40]** it to them, right? Because I'm operating off god mode, Salesforce connection, god mode, everything

**[57:47]** across all the API's. And I can't just give them that. And so what super boxes let me do is really

**[57:54]** control that off from the connection, so the integration level. And so certain things are

**[58:00]** read only, right, but they can still chat against it. Certain things are read, right, but never

**[58:04]** delete. So that's that's, that's kind of how we've been helping folks really take that to the next

**[58:13]** note, take that the last mile. Because the last thing you want is someone to vibe code something

**[58:20]** that's really helpful, but it introduces vulnerabilities like a random node NPM NPM

**[58:26]** package, random GitHub repo, and no knock on that, I'm sure they're great. But the off chance that

**[58:32]** you do bring one in. That's when you're like, oh, shit. And I hate that we I hate as humans,

**[58:43]** like, we kind of run into this trap. But it's like, you never are preventative, you're only

**[58:48]** reactionary, right? So like, what I feel like this is one of those topics where people skew towards

**[58:53]** being reactionary than proactive about it. And so we're Yeah, we're just trying to figure out how to

**[59:00]** get in front of folks before that. No, there's real risk involved. You know, you, if you put a

**[59:08]** meeting note to update field app in the hands of 100 reps, but it has God mode access to everything

**[59:15]** like you mentioned, and then they just like, detonate your CRM, like there's real risk to

**[59:22]** letting those out in the wild. So that's why I think, hey, have a team that's dedicated to

**[59:27]** running the production level stuff. I think RevOps is absolutely the team to do it. And you just have

**[59:32]** to have a little bit more technical acumen to take it that last mile and make sure you have it or

**[59:38]** make sure you're using the platforms like super blocks and others to, to help manage the risk and

**[59:44]** help make it easier to deploy some of the solutions you're building out to the team.

**[59:49]** Yeah, 100%. And I think this is where those, you know, more technical or the go to market

**[59:53]** engineers really come into play here and play to their strengths, because they're the ones we're

**[59:58]** going to tell you like, and you're going to learn a lot from them, technically, technically. And so

**[1:00:03]** partnering up with someone who has that technical expertise with you as a subject matter expert,

**[1:00:08]** having all these ideas. And it's not like operators are idea only folks, right? Like we

**[1:00:14]** also execute to a certain degree as long as we know how to and that's where you get that technical

**[1:00:19]** know how and then between that it's it's it's honestly like the most powerful combo I've seen

**[1:00:25]** to date with the tooling to date, right? Like the amount you can accomplish and do in the correct

**[1:00:34]** manner is insane. The output is insane. Yeah, we usually don't have just to be dangerous.

## 1:00:40 — Pairing strategic with technical + wrap

**[1:00:40]** But that's why when I started LeanScale in 2021, the backbone of our company has always been

**[1:00:48]** pair someone strategic with someone hyper technical. And then that's a service we offer

**[1:00:53]** to companies, usually series A, B ones that are hyperscaling. And it's because you really need

**[1:00:59]** both. It's like, okay, you need the person to translate, really understand and have some taste

**[1:01:03]** into what's going on here. And then you need the person who can take it the last mile and make sure

**[1:01:07]** it's bulletproof. So that's how we structure our teams, even like we have tons of pods of those

**[1:01:13]** now. And, and when we're doing this for multiple companies, like that's the combination that always

**[1:01:18]** seems to work. So thank you for building a team in house. You really need all of that expertise.

**[1:01:25]** Justin, I think everything that you laid out is really, really good feedback for anyone who's in

**[1:01:31]** RevOps right now. I think the rigor that you get from your financial background, as well as the

**[1:01:37]** empathy that you built being in the field carrying a quota, carrying a bag, and everything that you

**[1:01:42]** shared on how to communicate with executives and how to implement initiatives that actually move

**[1:01:49]** the needle for your team is really important. And also, I agree with you, this is the moment

**[1:01:54]** for RevOps. If you're in RevOps, there is no more exciting time. I thought that the 2010s were fun,

**[1:02:00]** lots of parties, lots of blueberries in the office, but now you have an opportunity to really,

**[1:02:05]** really have a major impact on your organization and build skill sets that are going to be invaluable

**[1:02:10]** for your career. So Justin, really appreciate you being on the podcast. Thanks for laying out

**[1:02:15]** everything you did and can't wait to see what you and Superblocks do. Likewise. Thank you

**[1:02:21]** so much for having me on, Anthony. I had an amazing time and thanks for having me again.