Venture with Grace
00:41:09 · Ashley Kramer
[00:41:09] S1: you two? All right. First one is definitely any customer I've talked to will tell you, I ask this first, how have we been supporting you? Like, what can we be doing better? From like a, do you feel supported? You're investing in us. We wanna make sure we're investing in you. And that's more of like the go to market team and the product team and how we're supporting them. I would say the number one thing, because you're right, you can build features and functions and capabilities. And I used to say this as a product leader, seek out the customer's problems, not their solutions, because as long as you understand the problem, you're probably gonna build the solution in a different way and it might actually serve them better. Maybe not, but it might not. And it might serve more than just that one customer. But what I will say in this evolving age of AI, as we're moving more into how you interact with AI, where I think ElevenLabs really got it right was our open, flexible, designed architecture. So every organization, particularly the big enterprises, gonna have different nuances of systems they use or different ways that they connect with their customers or they're getting information within their organization. So being able to have that flexible approach where we're not just bringing them in a solution or we're not just putting what we're building in a black box that they can't really understand or they can't iterate on. Being able to have this and send our FDE team in to help them and understand the solutions that's right, and then allow them to take it and scale from there is what I think becomes really powerful. So they understand the problems they have and mostly the solution they need, but we're able to go in and customize it for them, but then make it so they can maintain it and scale it from there versus having to, we'll continue to partner with them, but always having to come back to us. And then based on what we learn, we're able to take that and serve other customers, but it's still customized to what they need so they still have that deep competitive advantage.
00:43:12 · Grace Gong
[00:43:12] S0: So I really like that. Basically, essentially it's one, you really go in to understand the problem and then basically you can multiply the solution to a different set of group of people by maybe leveraging the FD squad. But I'm curious when you're thinking about partnerships, how do you think about who to partner? Because obviously I'm sure 90% of people probably want to partner with ElevenLabs on something. How do you justify Sometimes when you're selling something, have to give out a freemium solution. I guess the question is maybe two part. One part is about how do you decide on which type of partnership would you take? Because I think in the AI land, the partnership is very different than the SaaS level because there is channel, there's different things. I feel like in the AI world, I constantly seeing people doing very interesting partnerships. For example, Quirky, Saria Cafe, I don't think it's a partnership, it's people are doing very interesting GTM solutions. And then on the other hand, it'd have to translate into the revenues. I personally felt like, for example, at the very beginning, when you're talking to especially a really large enterprise customer, you probably have to give them, like, enough benefit for them to, like, care and then, like, maybe invest more resources into it. But how do you make sure that, like, they eventually would purchase, like, a large amount of product or, I guess becoming, the outcome would kind of justify the cost of acquiring the customer as well.
00:44:58 · Ashley Kramer
[00:44:58] S1: I think you sort of put the lead at the end there, which is like, you wanna be focused on the outcomes that they're looking to achieve. And the way I always look at it, whether it's the largest enterprise in the world or a mid market company that might become the next largest enterprise in the world because they all have that potential is not trying to boil the ocean. It's okay to have a North Star of like where you wanna take this transformation, but being able to focus on a single use case or workflow that can be truly transformational, partnering together on that. And sometimes we do it alone and direct with our team and our FTEs. Sometimes there's GSIs that already have established the relationship. And so we go in together with them because they know, okay, this is a great opportunity for ElevenLabs to come in and help this customer get to the next level from where they are. Sometimes it's being part of other solutions like value added resellers and allowing them to take our world class research and models and build specifically on top of that. And so the approach from my mind has always been an all, make sure, I mean, my main goal as CRO of ElevenLabs is to make sure that every business in the world can realize the value of what we bring when it comes to the interaction layer and conversational AI. And I'm not ignorant to the fact that I can't hire a 100,000 salespeople And there's a lot of other connections that exist between the different partners that we work with. And so we take an all approach and we wanna partner, we wanna go direct and we wanna be part of distribution models as well.
00:46:42 · Grace Gong
[00:46:42] S0: I love that. So I wanna touch upon the personal development side a little bit more, since I feel like you have becoming... You are a senior leader of your company. How do you think about ensembling the team, but also investing your time into... I wouldn't say training, but also put together the right team as well. So I guess, first of all, I think you also mentioned this in a different podcast, every three to four years you may switch to a new different position for new challenges. And then you would talk to the employee about, Hey, what is your goal? And then here's my goal as well. Let's help each other achieve the goals. So when you're thinking about planning out your own career journey, first of all, how do you understand what's your superpower since you have a lot of superpowers as you have worked at multiple different roles. So how do you think about what's your unfair advantage? And then what would you say is the active thing that you do when you're selecting the next company to join?
00:47:52 · Ashley Kramer
[00:47:52] S1: So for me, I think, I wouldn't call it a superpower, but it's kind of been just my mantra is like, very rarely say no to opportunities, particularly like within organizations, that's how I ended up with four C level titles at GitLab, is I'm always up for the unique challenge, but when you're holding roles like CMO and CTO at the same time, you've gotta make sure you have an incredible team around you. And I did have that benefit there, I have that benefit here. So for me, it's kind of funny, I was just thinking about this over the weekend. I think the most lessons I've learned is actually from leaders that I look at and think like, well, I never want to make somebody feel that way again, right? Like I never want somebody to come out of a meeting feeling like that. And so I've even had moments at this company where I'm trying to get to know the team, I move fast, I'm pretty direct, and I think that's for somebody that's not for others, but I find myself slowing down and pausing and saying like, okay, the intent behind the why behind why I'm asking this question is I'm a constant learner, and, you know, I've held all of these different roles because I never say no, but I also realize that you have to understand all of the people around you and they're not all just like you. We're not cookie cutters for a reason. And we all bring unique things to the table when it comes to skill sets, when it comes to just how we operate, how we feel, our emotions. And so the majority of time that I invest, of course, need to make sure I'm there to support the team and what they need and how they operate and how we're going to market and serving customers, but also how they feel when they go home at the end of the day. Because the one thing I'll say about the majority of companies that I've been with, and particularly for ElevenLabs is people come to this company because of the mission and the culture. There's low ego, everybody's extremely hardworking and we're in it for the good of the business as a whole, not for us individually, not for just our team, but for the good of how can we get this great technology, these great models and this great AgenTek platform to the world.
00:50:10 · Ashley Kramer
And I think too often leaders, and again, this is the learnings I've had from the past where I felt this way, which is do I make sure this is an environment that people continue thriving, feel good about their work, even when it's not the best of days? And even when it's not, I've certainly had situations where I'm like, boy, that was not my best work, but I need somebody to help bring me along and get me over that slump or whatever it is. And so that's how I try to stay true as a leader. I'm positive I'm not perfect. I try to call myself on it, I try to be the first one to call myself on it, but that's kind of a lead by example. And that's another thing I would say that the founders have done a really amazing job of at this company is just from the top down, having that very low ego, always learning and listening, but extremely hardworking and on an extremely important mission together. I love that.