Eran Zinman, Co-Founder & Co-CEO @Monday.com: Going Upmarket, International and Multi-Product |E1247

Eran Zinman 0:00 It was still hard for us to raise funds back in the days, because people didn't get the idea. We grew from 6 million of ARR to 18 the year after, and then from 18 to 50, and 50 to 120, you know, in three years. What I found about founders is that you try to avoid the hardest things in your business. If something is very painful, that's the right time to get into it and fix it.

Harry Stebbings 0:22 Ready to go? (instrumental music plays) Eran, I am so excited for this. I- I heard so many great things from Avi, from Nino, from Rajiv. I spoke to pretty much the whole cap table. It was a lot of fun. But thank you so much for joining me today.

Eran Zinman 0:46 Thanks for having me. I'm excited for this.

Harry Stebbings 0:48 Oh, so am I. Listen, I've wanted to do it for a while. I'm like the biggest Monday nerd.

Eran Zinman 0:52 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 0:52 I love SaaS. Uh, many reasons why I'm m- just per- per- perpetually single. Um, but I wanna start, I heard you're a really great video game player.

Eran Zinman 1:01 Oh, wow.

Harry Stebbings 1:01 And this is

Harry Stebbings 1:02 a commonality in great founders that I've interviewed. So why are video games correlated to success in founders?

Eran Zinman 1:10 Oh, wow. You- you've really done your research, huh? That's, um-

Harry Stebbings 1:13 Yeah.

Eran Zinman 1:13 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 1:13 Yeah, I told you. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 1:14 Um, yeah. I- I actually, I l- I love video games. I actually play to this day. So, uh, it's been an old habit of mine just as a- as a kid, uh, which I still keep. Uh, but, um, when I was young, I used to play a lot of strategy games. Um, one of my favorites ever was, um, I don't know, uh, if you remember, uh, but it was called, uh, Command & Conquer, uh, Red Alert 2.

Harry Stebbings 1:38 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Eran Zinman 1:38 It's a- it's a strategy game. And, um, I think if- if you play the right games, you can learn a lot from them, uh, especially strategy games. Because, uh, you, on one hand, you need to see the big picture all the time. Um, you need to understand the strategy, you need to understand what's going on, but also handle the tactics, uh, know all the details, act quickly, and I think that's, uh, kinda similar in business, I guess, uh, to some extent.

Harry Stebbings 2:02 Totally is. I- I remember Tobi at Shopify saying to me that he, uh, he thought that it was more relevant if you had, like, managed clans in games before-

Eran Zinman 2:11 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 2:11 ... than if you'd been to university, I think. And I thought that was rather apt. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 2:15 I agree. It's as hard as- as- as doing that in-

Eran Zinman 2:18 in business.

Harry Stebbings 2:19 Now, dude, you know, Monday is not your first business. And I remember after your first business, you said something which is, "Failing is part of our success." And I just wanna dive into this, because I think it's important. What have you learned about embracing failure over the years, and how do you think about that statement?

Eran Zinman 2:35 Yeah, that's something that really goes with me, uh, in my journey. Because, uh, prior to Monday, my first startup, um, I was in the middle of, uh, uni. And, um, basically, um, I built, uh, I think the product is not, doesn't matter that much, but basically built, uh, some sort of a search engine, tried to compete in a category, (laughs) which is extremely competitive. I built a search engine for, uh, user reviews. But I think the more interesting part of it, it- it was a complete disaster. Like, I- I built a product, um, and, um, I worked on it for about 14 or 15 months, uh, before, uh, launching it. And, um, after 14 or 15 months, I didn't raise any money, I just felt I wasn't ready, it was a big failure. Like, um, I ran out of money, personal money, um, and ran out- out of energy. And, um, I remember, um, thinking to myself after I closed that company, you know, "I wasted all my resources, you know, personal, financial, um, I'm at- I'm at point zero, I must've learned something. I didn't spend all that time without learning anything." And, um, after a lot of processing, I- I realized that, I've learned that the reason I failed in that company is that I was afraid to fail. (laughs) You know, it- it might sound weird, but I was so afraid of negative feedback from customers. I was afraid people were gonna write about me on- on TechCrunch or, uh, um, on a blog post. I- I thought people were gonna be critical of my product. I don't know. I was just afraid. Um, and I swore to myself that, "When I build my next company, I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna fail often. I'm gonna be happy about failures, because I wanna learn as quickly as I can, and improve, and get actual feedback from users." Because after 14 months working on that product, people gave me feedback that if I've shown them, like, a mock-up or, like, an early version, I would get the same feedback and I would be in a totally different place today. And we keep that DNA up until today in Monday. We fail, we tell people, "Try it out. A/B test. Get feedback from customers. Just learn." And, uh, it's a big part of our DNA today as a company.

Harry Stebbings 4:47 As much as one can get used to failure, it's never easy to accept. When you look back at the different challenges you faced, what internal fail has been the most challenging to accept?

Eran Zinman 4:57 Look, I think, um, you know, growing up, you know, writing code, I was always this, uh, like, smart kid, you know, in- in school, in- in uni. And, you know, when you're building an actual product that people need to use, nobody care about your achievement, or knowledge, or how much you know about anything. It's all about the product, is it good enough, do people really want it? It's a different kind of feedback. Um, and, you know, people, it's- it's not about an exam. It's not about, uh, somebody saying, "Great job." It's about actually succeeding in the real life. And I think I was not ready for that. Um, I- I tried to not fail, I tried ev- I wanted everybody to clap and say, "This is an amazing product." And this is not the way you build things. You need to get feedback, you need, uh, to get people involved, get their opinions.

Harry Stebbings 5:42 Let's go back to 2012. You and Roy are sitting together, Dapulse.

Eran Zinman 5:48 Yeah. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 5:49 Love the name. Uh, I know, it really is brilliant. Uh, gen- genuinely, I actually like it. Um, I remember. Do you know what's so funny, dude? When I emailed you for the first time, your email was @dapulse.

Eran Zinman 6:00 Oh yeah.

Harry Stebbings 6:01 ... yeah. You didn't-

Eran Zinman 6:02 That, that was the, that, that was the company name.

Harry Stebbings 6:04 Yeah, you didn't respond. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 6:07 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 6:08 Um, but my question is, you're sitting with Roy. How do you guys come up with the idea for Dapulse, now Monday?

Eran Zinman 6:14 Initially, you know, both Roy and I, we, you know, I, I had my own startup. Uh, Roy also had a startup, and I remember us sitting down. I was working in a company called Conduit. Uh, R- Roy was working at Wix, uh, which you're p- you're probably familiar with. And, um, you know, it's, it's count- I guess it's a little bit counterintuitive because I think a lot of founders, when they think about starting a new business, they often try to think about something that nobody thought about before or a new idea. And, um, this is one approach, but we took a very different approach. You know, the, I would say the work management, project management, um, industry was always packed with a lot of tools, but we, we kind of had a different view about the market. We said, "Look, if we look at the market today, you know, CRM, what's the leader? Salesforce, uh, for example. You know, IT might be service now, but who, who's the leader today about managing work and processes? Like who is it? Like, w- who, who's the number one vendor that people rely on to manage the core of their work, apart from like the CRMs and, and the service part of it?" And when you think about it, there was none. And we just felt there's such a huge vacuum today in the market, and it doesn't make sense that there, there isn't one company that became like the dominant player in that market. So we said, "Let's try to tackle that opportunity." But one principle that was very important for us from, from day one, and I think it was a critical component of our success, uh, we said, "We wanna take a very different approach to how we're gonna do it." Because, you know, we, both of us, we didn't consider ourselves to be like the best managers on the planet. I don't know what's the best way to manage a team, uh, or a group of people or, you know, a business. But I can give people the tools to do it, and they know what's best for their business. So from day one, we said, "Uh, we don't know exactly what's the solution for every business, um, but we're gonna give people the ability to customize Monday, or Dapulse back then, for their needs, because they know best about what's right for their business." So since day one, nothing in the product is rigid. Everything is 100% flexible. They can change it to their needs, and basically, our own customers build their own product on Monday today.

Harry Stebbings 8:30 S- so we go with the idea that, hey, we want it customizable so people can make it fit their business. When we launch, do we have immediate traction? Like, is there initial success that we know we have? How did that go?

Eran Zinman 8:44 No, I mean, the first few years was, uh, (laughs) really challenging, I would say. Um, so when we started in 2012, uh, our main focus was around communication. Uh, if you remember back in the days, there were other players like Yammer. Um, I think there was, uh, HipChat. Uh, it was the days before Slack. So we, we initially thought that it will be more focused around communication and collaboration. But one thing that we found is that a lot of those tools are under the category of, you know, yeah, we can use it, but it's a nice-to-have tool. It's not something that is kind of managing the core work of businesses. So we pivoted from that. Uh, I think the first, um, year and a half, um, uh, we kind of focused on communication, and then we kind of pivoted the business to focus more o- on that flexible management. And that was a big pivotal moment in, in the life of the company.

Harry Stebbings 9:36 How was that pivot? Often, founders are faced with the dilemma of, "I'm told that resilience and persistence is important, and I should just keep going," and then we're also hearing of pivots where a pivot is required. How do you advise founders on whether to keep going and be persistent versus when to change direction and pivot?

Eran Zinman 9:56 Yeah, this is a extremely tricky part because, um, you know, both Roy, my, my co-founder, and I, we're, we're software developers. So my, our natural instinct is to go to the office and, you know, write code. That's, uh, (laughs) that was our go-to. We always felt that we're one feature away from, uh, getting the right product. And, you know, after, um, you know, we, we kind of spend like 70 or 80% of our seed round, we, we sat down and, and said to ourselves, "Look, something is not working. Uh, it's not about the next feature. We need to talk more with customers. We need to understand what they're looking for." And we, we've done something that's very not natural for us. Um, we went and, and again interviewed a lot of potential customers. And instead of showing them what we built, we actually interviewed them and asked them how they managed their businesses. So we kind of took that into our own, uh, pivoted as a company.

Harry Stebbings 10:50 Okay, and so we pivot, and then we go to the more, kind of, uh, known product that we have today, which is obviously Dapulse, uh, this time now Monday. Um, did we get customers then? Was that immediate traction when we released that V1?

Eran Zinman 11:03 So, um, when we had like the initial version of the collaboration tool, we had about three or four paying customers. One of them was Wix. Um, so we had a little bit of traction, but when we pivoted the company, that was a really, you know, um, meaningful moment in the life of the company. Uh, we launched our payment system. And I remember to this day, uh, the first time a new customer has actually paid for the software without us talking to them. I actually, um... If you want to know an actual story, um, I bought a TV. I actually mounted it to the wall, and I built a dashboard that, uh, showed the number six. That was the amount of customers that we had. And, uh, every time a new customer came in, there was like a, a big, like, uh, um, you, you know, like Homer Simpson sound, uh, like, "Woohoo."

Harry Stebbings 11:52 (laughs)

Eran Zinman 11:52 Uh, so I remember one day we sit down writing code, and I hear this woohoo in, in the background, and six turns into seven, seven turned into eight. And, um, you know, I remember even one day that, uh, we had three new paying customers in one day, and I was so excited. I call Roy, my co-founder. I told him, "Look, we got three new customers in one day. We can conquer the world. I'm sure of that, like, uh, with that momentum."

Harry Stebbings 12:16 How much are these customers paying at the time?... average.

Eran Zinman 12:19 Very, very little. Uh, it was per seat, it was about, I would say, $12 per seat. But the exciting part was that we never talked to them. They got the principle of the product, they got the value, just onboarding, um, that was the exciting part. It just felt like we, uh, we built something that can turn into a machine, uh, and I think that's more than anything what excited us, uh, at that time.

Harry Stebbings 12:43 I love that. One thing I- I find challenging is horizontal products and getting to the first 1,000 customers or 1,000 users. When you think about that, Monday is, the joy of it is, it's a horizontal product, but then the challenge is, is it's a horizontal product, and so your product marketing can't be that tight. Um, when you think about getting the first customers, how do you think, or what are your biggest lessons in scaling to the first 100 or 1,000, given what you've seen?

Eran Zinman 13:09 You know, initially I thought that most of our customers were gonna be startup companies or tech companies like us. Uh, but, uh, we started to do marketing on, actually Facebook was the first platform that we started to do performance marketing on. And I think what's great about it is it has such a broad audience and it brought us a lot of, um, customers that we couldn't expect to have. Like, we got, you know, churches, hotels, retail, um, airplane manufacturing. Over the years, we found that, and- and up until today, 70% of our customers are actually non-tech companies. Uh, and that- that's amazing, because it just opens up the TAM and the audience of the company so much.

Harry Stebbings 13:50 And we're gonna dive into that, 'cause it's an incredible start. Um, but at this point, we've- we're getting customers, okay, we've got the woohoo coming in.

Eran Zinman 13:58 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 13:58 Uh, you do it much better than me.

Eran Zinman 13:59 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 14:00 Um, but we've got that coming in. But you spent 70 to 80% of your seed round at this point. Your runway is pretty tight. What happens now in terms of funding?

Eran Zinman 14:10 Um, so actually, here, I give a lot of credit to our, um, board members. Specifically, you mentioned Avi. Um, you know, I would say the typical investor has seen that a company spent 80% of their, um, seed round and didn't reach, like, product market fit. You know, maybe would kinda give up on the company or send that company to do, like, a round A, uh, and try their luck outside. But, you know, something I give, um, Avi from, uh, Entree Capital a lot of credit, uh, he saw the potential. He told us, I- I'll never forget this, "I believe in you guys, even though, you know, I- I don't know why, but, uh, I believe in you guys. Uh, don't go- don't do an A round. Just go out, uh, I'll give you the money, let's do a convertible. Uh, just scale what you're building." And, um, I- I think this was a pivotal moment for the company, because if we would go and try to raise funds, you know, it's- it's a long process, especially when you don't have momentum. Maybe the company wouldn't be what it is today, but because he gave us this runway, uh, I think it really helped us kinda leverage the momentum we already had.

Harry Stebbings 15:14 Was that the A?

Eran Zinman 15:15 Yeah. So that- that's complicated. So, uh, we finished, we- we kind of ran out of money from the seed round. We actually, um, just to give you some data, we raised, um, 1.4 million, uh, for, uh, at a, I think it was 2 million pre. So, uh, that, yeah, that's back in the days. Uh.

Harry Stebbings 15:34 Good times. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 15:35 So, yeah, for investors. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 15:36 (laughs)

Eran Zinman 15:38 Um, yeah, uh, 30% of the company. Um, but basically, um, we got this convertible and, um, when we went into the A round, actually our existing investors put the money in to, uh, kinda, with the convertible to get us into an A round. I think it- it was still hard for us to raise funds, um, back in the days because people didn't get the idea. Um, maybe we didn't, also didn't do a good job, uh, raising money, both Roy and I, but, um-

Harry Stebbings 16:09 What did they not get about the idea?

Eran Zinman 16:11 Look, it's- it's a good question. You know, I always felt like this company is gonna be a huge success. What they don't get, like, I- I- I didn't get it. Like, it's- it's- it's-

Harry Stebbings 16:21 I mean, I- I can- I can tell you, if you want my perspective.

Eran Zinman 16:23 Yeah, yeah, I'd li-

Harry Stebbings 16:24 You- you are- you are selling, like, low ACV contracts, bleh, we like enterprise. Uh, PLG was not as notable as it is now in terms of being able to scale into massive businesses. And you're selling to hospitals and to hotels and to churches. Like, dude, this isn't a really big business. Like, this is like SMB play. You can't make money selling to SMBs, right? And so we've got all these investor heuristics which tell us this isn't a good business.

Eran Zinman 16:53 Yeah, so this is great feedback. Um, but, uh, I- I always felt like, uh, you know, it's- it's all temporary. Like, eventually we'll go up market, eventually we'll sell to large enterprises. I always believed in our ability to execute, uh, and to change the company to kind of fit to the next stage. And maybe that's something we didn't communicate well enough to investors, or didn't build up confidence around, um, around that. We got a lot of nos, I was- I'll- I will tell you that, uh, in our A, B and C rounds.

Harry Stebbings 17:20 Wow. So is that when you raised the seven and a half million A?

Eran Zinman 17:23 Yeah, yeah. With the convertible it was, uh, seven point something, yeah.

Harry Stebbings 17:27 Okay, so we raised seven and a half million for the A. Then what? How do we think about expansion then? 'Cause there's expansion across quite a few different verticals. Like, I guess where- where- where should we start? I think the best place to start is, like, multi-product. When did you go, okay, we need to add a second product?

Eran Zinman 17:44 That's very late in the game. Uh, we actually built up our product, our- our second product, I mean, uh, like two and a half years ago. Uh, back then, we- we focused on the main product. Uh-

Harry Stebbings 17:54 How do you reflect on that decision? Was that a mistake to wait that long?

Eran Zinman 17:59 No, I don't think it was a mistake. Um, maybe we could have done it sooner, but I- I feel it was the right decision at the

Eran Zinman 18:06 time.

Harry Stebbings 18:07 Okay, so we wait years for that.

Eran Zinman 18:09 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 18:09 What do we expand on next? We've got seven and a half million. Where do we go now?

Eran Zinman 18:13 Okay, so something that I feel we've done, uh, which was really meaningful, uh, in- to make the company successful and scale, um, we- we actually built a very powerful performance marketing engine. Uh, we call it BigBrain. It's a tool we built within the company, uh...... to track every campaign, uh, every user. Um, we, we made a early decision in the life of the company to build this tool internally. It was very tempting to use off-the-shelf software for that, to do analytics, monitoring, but, like, um, you know, we were very ambitious. We said, "We're gonna build a huge company." I don't know where we got the confidence, but we just said, "If we're gonna build a huge company, we'll need to build our own tool, because there's gonna be a main part of our ability to scale this machine." So we built this tool. We invested heavily into- into that. Um, so we tracked everything, every click, every view, uh, every ad that any user saw, all the way through the sign-up funnel conversion, uh, expansion and so on. And with that, we built a very efficient marketing machine. Now, when I say efficient, I think, uh, a lot of founders get this wrong, and maybe this is an important message. Um, something that we optimized for from the very beginning was cash flow. Um, and I- I- I think a lot of SaaS metrics are, uh, optimized not for cash. If you think about standard SaaS metrics like LTV, CAC, um, um, M- ARR, w- whatever, they never mention cash. Like, it's not about cash. It's, like, more about around accounting, predictability. But we always try to optimize for cash. What I mean by that is that, let's say we raise seven million, okay? I wanna invest this in the most efficient way in performance marketing. So what's the best way to do it? We said, "We wanna invest into performance marketing, and we wanna collect cash on cash as quick as possible, um, from our customers." So we've done a lot of A/B tests to get people to pay more annually, to improve, um, speed to conversion, to find campaigns and keywords that get customers to onboard faster and pay more, like, quicker for annual subscription. So you turn that five million, so every, let's- let's say million we invest into performance marketing, you get 70 or 80% back after a month. Uh, we built a very efficient machine around that. So we actually managed to turn five million of money raised from investors into a 15 million, one-five, performance marketing budget. Uh, so we built a very efficient machine that recycles money, uh, and kind of reinvested that back into the business. I think our customers has been, uh, the biggest investor of, of Monday, uh, more money than we ever raised from, uh, investors.

Harry Stebbings 20:59 When you think about building that cash cycle that is at velocity and at speed, is it multiple things that lead that to be very efficient? Or is it one or two things which really drove it, like annual payments, like you... I don't know, you tell me.

Eran Zinman 21:15 A lot of things. Anywhere... First of all, we track the expenses. We- we- we asked Facebook, we asked Google to... "Can we pay you? Can we prop- p- postpone the payments? Like, can we drive campaigns and pay you every 90 days?" for example. So we optimized the expense on one hand. On the other hand, we optimize for campaigns. We actually pick campaigns based on their return, how fast it is to get customers on board. Um, we optimized onboarding, we optimized the payment form. There's a lot of steps involved into that. The point is, we optimize for that. We optimize for that KPI to make the business very efficient. And that's something that's... it- it's a key part of our DNA up until today. Monday is really efficient in terms of cash flow. It's a huge part of our DNA, it's a huge part of how we think about our business. And, um, we- we started it from- from day one, literally.

Harry Stebbings 22:05 Okay, so we have built, we're building this. We've got big brain. We're building this performance marketing machine. It's starting to work, and we're building this cash flow cycle. Um, first, how much revenues were we at when we raised the seven and a half?

Eran Zinman 22:17 I don't remember exactly, but I would say around probably three or four million of ARR.

Harry Stebbings 22:22 Wow.

Eran Zinman 22:23 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 22:23 Okay. Fuck, I really miss these times.

Eran Zinman 22:26 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 22:26 God, now- now you do an A when you've got, like, you know, a design partner. (laughs)

Narrator 22:31 (laughs)

Eran Zinman 22:31 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 22:32 Uh... (laughs) Um, that wasn't a joke. (laughs)

Narrator 22:34 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 22:34 That was- that was me crying in my studio. Um, okay. And so we have this performance marketing machine, it's working. When do we go out and raise the B? 'Cause then you raised 25 from Insight, correct?

Eran Zinman 22:45 Oh yeah. So, um, when we raised our B round, we- we raised 25 million from, uh, Insight. That was kind of, um, I would say a better round for the company.

Harry Stebbings 22:55 Why do you think it was better?

Eran Zinman 22:56 Well, first of all, uh, you know, Insight is a strategic investor. Um, you know, doing a, like a small investment like this, 25, is- is... Back then, it wasn't their sweet spot. They were more kind of growth investors. So, it was also, uh, you know, um, a- an investor that can kind of further invest into the company, um, in- in later rounds. But, uh, I think they really understood the, um, the potential of the business, the ability to scale. You know, getting a new investor, uh, was, again, great we meant for the company. Um, so we raised 25. I think when we raised that round, we had like seven million of ARR. That's kind of what I think. Um...

Harry Stebbings 23:36 What was the price on the round?

Eran Zinman 23:38 Um, I think it was around 100 million pre. Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 23:42 Uh-huh.

Eran Zinman 23:42 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 23:42 Okay. Starting at 20% dilution.

Eran Zinman 23:45 Yeah, yeah.

Harry Stebbings 23:45 Okay.

Eran Zinman 23:45 Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah. And then, uh... Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.

Harry Stebbings 23:50 So we raised 25. Let's ask the question of upmarket. SMBs and kind of lower ACVs is kind of where our home is. When did we decide to go upmarket?

Eran Zinman 24:00 After we've done the B round with- with Insight, um, you know, a few- a few things happened. One, we- we branded the company as Monday. We- we changed names from Depulse. Um, and I think it was, uh, about a year after that we... I remember that board meeting. It- it was in New York, and, uh, you know, o- one thing that Roy and I said, uh, you know, always, that "We're never gonna have a sales s- uh, a sales team in the company." Um, and I remember that we had this board meeting and- and, um, we came to the board and said, uh, "Look, we're probably wrong, and- and we have to have a sales team in order to scale the company to the next level."... and, uh, we built an amazing sales team. You know, going forward to today, we, we have more than 1,000 people in our sales team, but it was not obvious, uh, back in the days.

Harry Stebbings 24:47 Why did you decide then was the right time?

Eran Zinman 24:50 Being developers and product people, uh, and building this incredible performance marketing engine, we felt that we can scale the company to infinity. But what we found is that having a, a, a great product is not enough, because when you wanna scale within existing customers, you know, the product plays a very important component, but there's other things. You need relationship with people. You need... Th- they want somebody to talk with. And I just felt that, um, it wasn't a good product for our customers. Like, they had their own processes, they care about security, they care- cared about governance, they wanted help with onboarding people into the product, and software is not enough. Um, and we... As I said, we was, we were always ambitious. We, we... I remember Roy and I talking, and we said, "We don't wanna be a- an SMB company forever." Like, uh, "We have such huge potential, uh, we wanna be doing both SMB and go upmarket, and this is what we have to do, so let's do it."

Harry Stebbings 25:52 A lot of founders are told, "Wait until you're pulled upmarket by large enterprises." Is that good advice?

Eran Zinman 25:58 It worked for us. I, I, I, I think, let's say, the opposite is also not optimal. I think that if you start as a small company and you have a- an amazing VP of sales, you know, they can sell anything, even if your product is really crappy. That's, that's a curse. It's, it's, it's not something positive, because we work so hard to improve the product, because every improvement, you know, just improve our marketing machine, it improved the retention of our customers, and it's built a DNA, a special DNA in the company. And then when we felt that we're missing p- like, people knocking on our door saying, "We wanna scale," and there was nobody around to help them, it just felt, "We have to do it. We have to mature, we have to add this layer, um, into the company in order to scale to the next phase."

Harry Stebbings 26:43 Okay, I get you. But a lot of other people say, and I, I see this myself as an ambassador, it's such a different company to build, an enterprise business. Not just sales teams. You need customer success, you need, uh, you mean you need SDRs, you need AEs, you need CS, you need security, SOC 2s, compliance. Is it a completely different business to build?

Eran Zinman 27:05 I think there's a difference between, um, a company that pivot into the enterprise, uh, b- and, and a company that s- wanna sell to the enterprise in addition to selling to SMB and mid-market, and, um, we didn't pivot into the enterprise. It's not... A l- a lot of companies say, "Look, um, you know, we tried SMBs, we tried it mid-market, we spent so much energy and effort, you know, uh, converting those customers, we might as well just focus on the large ones and get a higher ACV." That wasn't our strategy. We wanted to capture like, w- we call it like a pyramid, the whole pyramid, the baseline of the SMBs and mid-market, but also the, the tip of the pyramid with the large enterprises. So, it was always about h- adding that layer, but also making sure the product is good enough for SMBs and mid-market.

Harry Stebbings 27:57 When did you start to see PLG tapering off, and really wanting to implement the sales team alongside it? What, what sort of level of revenue was it?

Eran Zinman 28:06 I think it was around probably 40 or 50 million of ARR. Um-

Harry Stebbings 28:10 Whoa.

Eran Zinman 28:11 ... yeah.

Harry Stebbings 28:11 Wow, okay. And so we're still on the 25 million from inside at this round?

Eran Zinman 28:16 Yeah. Look, we, we grew really quickly. We grew from six million of ARR to 18 the year after, and then from 18 to 50, and 50 to 120, you know, in three years. So, it was like super rapid growth. You know, I think it was 40 or 50 million, maybe even 60, that we kinda added the sales team.

Harry Stebbings 28:35 Do you appreciate how strange that growth is? And what I mean by that is like, when you were doing it, are you like, "Whoa, we know that we are one of the special ones"?

Eran Zinman 28:44 Y- you want it... Uh, I'll tell you something funny. Uh, you-

Harry Stebbings 28:46 Yeah.

Eran Zinman 28:46 ... mentioned, uh, Jason Lemkin. Um, uh-

Harry Stebbings 28:50 Don't tell me you cold emailed him and he didn't respond.

Eran Zinman 28:53 No, no, no. I... Y- uh, one of the reason I didn't reply to your email is that I, I don't use email. But, uh, um, I actually made, met Jason, uh, a few years ago. I, I was one of h- of his biggest fans. You know, when we started in 2012, 2013, like, um, you know, nobody knew about SaaS, anything. I, I became like the biggest geek o- on SaaS ever. I read every article, um, he put on SaaStr. And, um, you know, he wrote answers on Quora, if you remember, and, um, I remember, I, I went to Roy and I s- I told him, "Look, uh, uh, you know, I read an article from Jason. He, he said that when you get to one million, you get, need to get to 10 in, in four quarters, and then once you get to 10, you need to get to 100 in, in like..." I don't remember, like five or six quarters. And I said, "Look, we have to do it. We have to do it, you know? Jason said so." Uh, and when I met Jans- Jason a few y- uh, later, uh, I told him like, uh, "You know, thank you for the guidance and everything, and like, we... it was very ambitious to get to that goal." And he told me, "You know, I always talking about like, the best companies, the, the... like, what investors wanna (laughs) invest into that." And just... I, I took it as grant, like, literally, uh, this is what we need to do. (laughs) So, uh, I guess igno- ignorance is a bliss sometimes.

Harry Stebbings 30:08 Dude, that growth is incredible. When you look back at that growth, what broke first? 'Cause scaling companies is very hard. What was the first thing to break in that intense period of hyper-scaling?

Eran Zinman 30:20 I think at some point when we reach, uh, 50 or 60 million, um, you know, the performance market engine was working really well, but-

Harry Stebbings 30:26 Yeah.

Eran Zinman 30:26 ... at some point you understand that if you wanna reach to one billion... We- we're... Actually when we got to 50, we built, um, a dashboard of, uh, the road to... We called The Road to One Billion. Um, uh, we built it, uh, like a vertical TV in the office showing that we wanna reach one billion, uh, by the year 2023, uh-... you know, we actually missed the point one year. And, um, it was like a vertical dashboard and we said, "We are here, 50 million. We need to get to 1 billion." Um, and we put it for everybody to see, um, on, in every office around the world. And I remember when we sat down, uh, we said, "We cannot do it just with the performance marketing engine," because when we ran the math, um, we had to invest so much money into performance marketing in 2022 or 2023. It didn't add up. Uh, so it was obvious to us that in order to scale to that magnitude, uh, it's, it's not enough to have a very efficient performance marketing engine. We need to build a very robust sales team and to expand our customers, because eventually, you know, when you reach 1 billion, um, and you want to grow 30%, you have... The majority of revenue need to come from existing customers.

Eran Zinman 31:40 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 31:40 Oh my God. I mean, yeah. In- insane numbers. I, I read, and I ... Our teams are amazing now for research, so when I say, "I read," I was given the numbers. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 31:52 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 31:52 Um, but I read that you spent, in 2023, 17 million a month on performance marketing.

Eran Zinman 32:00 Yeah. Something like that. Li- a little bit less, but around that, yeah.

Harry Stebbings 32:05 How did you spend so efficiently in performance marketing when so few others did?

Eran Zinman 32:13 Again, it's all thanks to the, um ... this amengin- amazing engine that we built. Um, and, you know, and also taking into account we're very efficient in terms of cash flow. You know, over 25%, uh, free cash flow positive, so again, we just scaled this cash flow machine, uh, to the extreme.

Harry Stebbings 32:31 Did you focus on a small number of channels and really hammer them? Did you spray and pray and see what worked? How did you approach the kind of portfolio approach to channel spend?

Eran Zinman 32:43 We, we never spray and pray. (laughs) We don't believe that pray, uh ... I mean, I pray sometimes, but, uh, it doesn't help you with performance marketing. Uh, we measure everything, uh, when we, uh, build a new campaign, we track everything. We A/B test everything.

Harry Stebbings 32:57 Why was YouTube so successful? Like, Monday has crushed YouTube.

Eran Zinman 33:01 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 33:01 You know this as well as I do. But why?

Eran Zinman 33:05 Um, so first of all, the rebrand was a key part of that. That wa- that was the, one of the main reason we rebranded the company, because we wanted to pick a name that's, um, people can remember. Because when you see an ad, you have about five seconds of attention, uh, to capture people. And again, we managed to track, uh, when people saw the ad. We, we'd not just track links, but also people viewing the ad. And we saw there's a great ROI on that, um, and we managed to get a great presence on YouTube, and it was, again, cost-effective to do it, um, the way we've done it.

Harry Stebbings 33:40 What channel did you spend on that you wish you hadn't spent on?

Eran Zinman 33:44 Look, Facebook was amazing for us, because I think it just changed the trajectory of the company. Uh, but definitely, you know, AdWords, YouTube. We tried ev- we're, we're doing everything, uh, today.

Harry Stebbings 33:55 But which one's least effective?

Eran Zinman 33:58 Least effective?

Harry Stebbings 33:59 Yeah, which one are you like, "We spent on it and it was a waste of money."

Eran Zinman 34:01 That's not the way I look at it, because it's, it's not about effectiveness. Um, it's different audience, um, when, when people search on Google, they have a specific intent. "I'm looking for a project management tool." But some people are not searching for a project management tool, but are browsing Facebook. And those are two different audiences, but both of them can be potential customers. Some people have intent, some people have, you know, "I need a new platform" in the back of their minds. "I'll just go on Facebook," and you know, I got suddenly a commercial about Workman. They do, "Aha," you know, "maybe it's an opportunity," or "I'll go on YouTube." So it's a different kind of audience that, uh, we kind of target.

Harry Stebbings 34:41 Dude, is it not like the most expensive ad word, like CRM? Like, and respectfully, the competitive land field or landmines that you kind of face is intense. Is it not the most expensive ad word buy?

Eran Zinman 34:54 It is, but it's very cost-effective for us. Uh, and people, um, you know, if, if we go forward, um, we, we built our multi-product strategy. So, so basically what happened, maybe I'll give you some background before we talk about, uh, marketing around that. Um, so basically people, we got everybody using Monday, uh, and one thing that was super surprising for me is that a lot of people use Monday as a CRM, and because it's so customizable, you can build your own boards, which is like kind of the equivalent of a table, and they build contacts, they build like deals, they build dashboards, automation, like a full-fledged CRM. Like, why? Like, it takes so much effort to do that, and I'm not talking about a few hundreds or even a few thousands. Tens of thousands of accounts build CRM on top of Monday, and the same goes for dev, the same go for service. Uh, those products were not born out of thin air. They were born because customer demand, and when we interviewed people, like, "Why did you do ... Why did you go all that effort to build a full-fledged CRM when you could just buy off-the-shelf product?" And they said like, "We want control. I have an idea what's the best CRM for me. I don't want to use like off-the-shelf product that's very rigid, it's built in a very specific way." And, and they told me, like, um, "You know, our only option basically was to go to Salesforce because it's enterprise ready. You can customize it," but the cost of doing that and the complexity of customizing that software, and Cephale is just an example. I'm talking broadly about enterprise products. Um, it, it, it ... they look for something different and we gave them, on one hand, the freedom to build their most amazing CRM, but they've done it themselves. No third-party vendor, no special IT team. They build themselves, and they felt proud about that CRM. So eventually we said, "Look...Let's build a CRM product. Let's package the Monday platform into a full-fledged CRM and build, like deep feature, uh, you know, call recording, call analysis, email marketing, and we've done that. And that strategy has been a huge success, our multi-product strategy. You know, the CRM today is growing faster than what Monday did back in the days.

Harry Stebbings 37:15 Wow. What's the CRM product today at revenue-wise?

Eran Zinman 37:19 Uh, it wouldn't disclose this, uh, on a quarterly basis, but the last invested- investor day, uh, which was, um, last year, uh, it was growing from almost zero to 25 million in, in one year, so,

Eran Zinman 37:33 uh...

Harry Stebbings 37:33 Are we seeing like the complete bundling of SaaS tools? You mentioned there are the cool recording elements, you mentioned, you know, quite a few different products within that which kind of bluntly kill a load of other adjacent products. Are we seeing the bundling of SaaS tooling again?

Eran Zinman 37:48 Look, I don't think Monday will replace all S- SaaS tools on the planet, but our vision, our grand vision is that we built... From day one, we built a platform. We didn't build a product. I think that's something that a lot of investors got wrong about what we're building, or maybe we didn't explain it properly, but we didn't build a work management or project management tool. From day one, you know, the equivo- we built the equivalent of force.com, uh, which is for Salesforce. Uh, we built a generic platform, not about work management, not about CRM, just the building blocks. And then work management was the first implementation, and then came CRM, and dev, and service. And we... The effort that it takes us to customize the platform as a CRM, as dev, is minimal compared to the compound value that we get because we build it on our Monday platform. And eventually, I see, definitely see a future where a company buys several tools and consolidate on Monday for the core business use cases, whether it's CRM, work management, dev, service. And the compound value of using several those tools, the flow of data, automations, processes is a huge value add. And I feel we have, you know... I'm, I'm... The reason I'm excited so much about the future of the company is I really feel, uh, uh, you know, from the bottom of my heart is that we have one of the biggest opportunities today in the software market, and we have to execute in order to deliver that. But I really feel that like, uh, we got everything right. Uh, we just need to scale the company to the next phase.

Harry Stebbings 39:24 What do you know now about going multi-product that you wish you'd known when you went multi-product?

Eran Zinman 39:29 Maybe one lesson is, it's not just about the product itself. Uh, go-to-market is as important, and every product has a very different go-to-market. It's unbelievable. It's so different. Um, different buying dynamics, different buyer, different decision process, different way people consume ads. Um, they're all special in their own way.

Harry Stebbings 39:51 As a result, do you have to build independent teams for every product? How do you think about how the company changes with the additional product line that's built?

Eran Zinman 40:00 Yeah, that's exactly how we think about this. We have, uh, different business units dedicated for each product. Every product is in different phase. So, you know, CRM is more mature, and then dev, and then service, and obviously work management is kind of the most mature product. But, um, you know, every product has its own team, its own marketing efforts, dedicated salespeople, uh, and we scale them. It's like small startups, uh, within the company.

Harry Stebbings 40:24 Dude, when you look at the revenue lines today, like Monday is... Like the... What was Monday core revenue?

Eran Zinman 40:33 Um, again, we're a public company, so I think the... I mean, we announced we reached one billion of ARR about, like three months ago, I think, so...

Harry Stebbings 40:40 Okay, great. And so we've got a billion of ARR, and then CRM is like 25 as we said in investor day. 40-

Eran Zinman 40:45 Yeah, that was like a year before that. But, uh, it's bigger today.

Harry Stebbings 40:48 What, what, what smaller line of revenue today will be one of the biggest lines of revenue in five years time?

Eran Zinman 40:55 Definitely CRM will be very dominant going forward. Um, um, dev as well. I... Actually, the momentum we got from Monday service is unbelievable. It's still early days.

Harry Stebbings 41:06 Who do we compete against for Monday service?

Eran Zinman 41:10 Uh, with CRM, we compete with, you know-

Harry Stebbings 41:12 HubSpot?

Eran Zinman 41:13 ... HubSpot, Salesforce a little bit, Zoho. Service, we can see, uh, uh, Jira Service, uh, um, Freshdesk, um, a little bit ServiceNow, although they're very focused on enterprise.

Harry Stebbings 41:25 When we look at the names that you just mentioned, like on CRM alone, respectfully, wow. How do you advise founders who are told, "Oh, that's a really horribly competitive industry?"

Eran Zinman 41:37 For me, it sounds like it's an opportunity to disrupt that industry. Uh, you know, there's players that have been dominating each one of those industries for a very long time. People, you know, um, willing to pay a lot of money to use those tools. They bring a lot of value, and I think it's just an opportunity to disrupt that market. That's how I look at it.

Harry Stebbings 41:57 Do you, do you pay attention to competition?

Eran Zinman 41:59 When I built my first startup, um, I, I remember that I used to log into, you know, TechCrunch or read tech news, and every time I saw a competitor that I felt was competing with me, I felt this weird feeling in my stomach. And then I swore to myself, "And I'm never gonna do it again, and I'm just gonna focus on myself and my journey." And, um, so I don't.

Harry Stebbings 42:19 So you don't pay attention to competitor products?

Eran Zinman 42:22 I mean, we analyze them and we look at them and see what they're doing, but I, I'm not feel... I, I don't feel like we're... That's what's gonna stop us in any way. I feel, if anything, um, it's in our hands. Uh, I feel it's in our control, uh, in a way, in our execution ability.

Harry Stebbings 42:41 Okay, so when we think about execution ability with an eye moving forwards, you're an incredibly insightful, smart founder. Um, everyone is questioning horizontal software's ability to sustain in the next wave of AI.How do you respond to the question of Monday sustaining when we live in a world of agents when we see a new generation of AI impact all of SaaS?

Eran Zinman 43:10 For me, this is one of the things that excites me the most, because, uh, and what we've already seen once we now built a lot of AI functionality is that people use AI inside Monday. So, and, and it's so easy for them. We took the same principles of easy user experience and custom- customability, and instead of building, like, a dedicated AI product, we just allowed our own customers to integrate AI into their own workflows. So we helping them today make their own work more efficient, uh, using Monday.

Harry Stebbings 43:41 Can I ask, d- do agents not make Monday a simple system of record or a database, given they do all information and data collection, retrieval, and, like, migration, and then bring it back to Monday? And is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Eran Zinman 43:57 I think it's an amazing thing. I think that there will always be room for a system of records. I, I don't think that anybody would be willing to put their future into an AI bot without having the ability to question, you know, what's going on, see dashboards, graphs, analyze the data. Uh, so I think it's very important to track the data. I don't think that will go away. Maybe some of the work being done by people will be done by AI, but it doesn't take away the fact that you need to analyze the data, you need to see it, you need to track it. Um, and also, I think there's still gonna be a substantial human element, um, that will be part of that. Um, so I don't think that, you know, SaaS tools will go away. I think, if anything, some of the work can be replaced by AI. But still, the fundamental principle of why those tools exist, uh, is, is strong and will remain going forward.

Harry Stebbings 44:46 Do you think AI will change the future of SaaS pricing?

Eran Zinman 44:49 For sure. Um, you know, I think a lot of SaaS tools have been very focused on seat count. And, you know, once you replace, you know, human labor with, with AI functionality, uh, pricing should adjust and maybe be more focused on consumption in addition to seats.

Harry Stebbings 45:05 Can I go to the IPO? Why did you decide to IPO when you did? You know, we live in a world now where there are such extended windows of private capital. You don't need to IPO as we're seeing with, you know, Stripe, Databricks, Starlink. How did you think about when was the right time?

Eran Zinman 45:21 Yeah, I mean, going back to that decision, first of all, it was more random that you might think. (laughs) Uh, but, uh, we just felt that, uh, you know, eventually we want to build a huge company. Um, and when we look at the, you know, the most inspiring SaaS companies in the world today, they were all public. And I think, you know, it adds a layer of maturity, uh, into the business. Um, I really like the fact that we're a public company, because first of all, you know, public market investors really surprise me. They're way more sophisticated than what I thought. I thought initially when we went public, I thought that, you know, it's all about the private market, those investors. But public market investors are super sophisticated and smart. And, uh, and also I think that cadence of quarterly, you know, earning reports really add a great cadence to the company. Um, so all in all, I think it was a great move for us as a company.

Harry Stebbings 46:18 You go out at seven and a half billion.

Eran Zinman 46:21 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 46:22 How does that feel?

Eran Zinman 46:23 (laughs) Um, you know what? Y- y- you tell me you like stories, so let me, let me tell you a story. Um, I'll tell you about the day of the IPO. So, uh, it was a long two weeks, uh, in New York. Uh, it, it was actually on the, uh, on the edge of the COVID kind of lockdown. So, uh, I think it was one of the first IPO that was done in person, um, after the COVID lockdown, actually. And, uh, it was all on Zoom, because before COVID we used to take like a private jet and meet investors and do like a bus tour. But it was mostly on Zoom. So we were exhausted, like, uh, the day before the, the IPO. Um, so here it is, the IPO, the big day, okay? Um, we go to NASDAQ. It's, it's a beautiful ceremony. Um, I remember seeing kind of the opening of the trade day. And then, um, you know, a few hours go by. I do a bunch of, um, interviews on TV, uh, newspapers, and it's like 4:00 or 5:00 PM. And, um, I look up to my left, I see Roy, my co-founder, doing interviews as well. And we're alone. Like, literally alone. Everybody left. We're alone. Um, and, um, I, I had like this blazer, uh, that I never wear, but, uh, for the IPO, uh, we were-

Harry Stebbings 47:45 (laughs)

Eran Zinman 47:45 ... both of us, uh, matching suits. We took off the blazers and, uh, we walked to the hotel, like, uh, 25 minutes, like with white T-shirts. Uh, we walked to the hotel. I go to my hotel room and, uh, I sit down on the bed and just stare at Netflix for like three hours. And that's it. That's, that's the IPO day. That's, uh, the anti-climax of the IPO.

Harry Stebbings 48:11 Uh, was that hard? Because it's like, you know, triathletes or ironmen or people who run a marathon. There's so much build-up, and then it happens and it's like, "Oh."

Eran Zinman 48:21 Yeah. (laughs) The day after, when I woke up, um, I opened my iPhone, uh, opened the stocks app and added Monday, and that was the most exciting. I felt it in- throughout my whole body when I saw the Monday ticker, uh, inside. It just felt real.

Harry Stebbings 48:41 What was the first 24 hours' performance?

Eran Zinman 48:43 Uh, I think we went up like, uh, 10 or 15%. So it was-

Harry Stebbings 48:47 Okay, great.

Eran Zinman 48:47 ... it was good. Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 48:48 It's a tough morning when you wake up-

Eran Zinman 48:49 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 48:49 ... and it's like down 10%. You're like, "Oh, fuck."

Eran Zinman 48:51 Yeah, yeah. (laughs) . Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 48:54 Uh, I,

Harry Stebbings 48:55 I, I totally get it. Can I ask, does... Like, you, you mentioned Roy there. You are co-CEOs. That is a crazy arrangement, um, in traditional startup land. It's worked phenomenally well for you, which is amazing. What have you done to make co-CEOs work?

Eran Zinman 49:12 When we started the company, actually Roy was the CEO and, uh, I was the CTO.Um, so we didn't start as co-CEOs, but, um, I remember like a week into the company he told me, "Look, I want us to do everything together." So I told him, "Of course, like, we- we're co-founders." But he told me, "No, everything. You know, raise money together, do, like... Be co-CEOs." I told him, "Okay." And, uh, we would meet investors and, um, it was weird because I would sometimes talk about the business and he would talk about technology, and then (laughs) in our next meeting we'll switch roles. Um, I think we got everybody kind of confused. Uh, but after a while, he just told me, like, "Let's make it official. Kinda name ourself co-CEOs just so we don't have to explain it to everybody." What's so special about him is that h- he's one of those people that has no ego. Like, he wanna do what's best for the company. He doesn't care about his own title or to be on top of somebody else. And I think we have this amazing relationship where we both wanna do what's best for the company and we don't care about, kind of, our personal perspective. And, um, we're, we're kind of the same and different. Um, we spend a lot of time together. We actually... We walk home every day, like walking. We, we live in Tel Aviv, so we walk every day. Um, we spend hours just to think and talk about things.

Harry Stebbings 50:26 You walk home every day together?

Eran Zinman 50:28 Yeah. Almost every day, yeah.

Harry Stebbings 50:31 Wow.

Harry Stebbings 50:32 What have been your biggest lessons on board management? You have a great board.

Eran Zinman 50:36 Uh, wow. It's a big topic. Uh, first of all, my number one rule is never surprise the board. Never. That's, like, the worst thing you can do.

Harry Stebbings 50:45 Yeah.

Eran Zinman 50:45 Uh, actually, one of the things we built into BigBrain is, um... I don't know if Avi told you, but, uh, we used to send every day, like a daily SMS of the company performance, uh, every day to our board members. Whether it was good or bad, it was automatic. So when they came to the board meeting, they knew the numbers better than I do. Like, (laughs) they saw everything. Like, the board meeting was basically done on, on the numbers and the metrics because, uh, they had full transparency, and, um, that's something that I really believe inside the company and also for our board members. And if we had something that, uh, we wanted to make a decision about, we always talk with each one of them individually before the meeting, because the last thing you want is to get into an ego fight. Uh, so just get their opinions and change the things, uh, before the meeting so, uh, we talk more about the future than waste time on disagreements.

Harry Stebbings 51:35 That's so interesting. I wonder if that's possible still for a fund. Like, I wonder... I'm just wondering now if I could actually have that with my investors, or at least my board-

Eran Zinman 51:43 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 51:43 ... where, like, whenever we had a change of marks or a new investment or whatever it was, you get... Hmm, interesting. Okay. Uh, one, one to think about. Uh, listen, I could talk to you all day.

Eran Zinman 51:54 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 51:54 I wanna do a quick-fire with you. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

Eran Zinman 51:59 Okay. And just no, no tricky questions. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 52:01 There's ne- never a tricky question. What do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

Eran Zinman 52:06 Maybe something that's not intuitive is about setting goals. Um, most people when they set goals, they try to figure out what they can do. I never think about it this way. Un- I'm thinking about what I want to achieve and then try to figure out a way to do it. Because when you build, like, a plan for next year bottom-up, uh, people will kind of think about a plan of what they've done last year and let's do it again with small adjustments. I always think about, you know, how can we do above and beyond? And then it just changes how people think about what can be done and how they can achieve it.

Harry Stebbings 52:38 Why don't you email?

Eran Zinman 52:40 I never got anything good out of an email. Like, uh, I try... I, I, I'm an extreme believer in focus. Um, you asked me about investments. I don't do investments. I focus 100% on the company, and I always try to set my own priorities, because I think all those tools really dis- distract you. I always try to f- look inside and try to understand what's most important for the company. And when you start kind of being managed by external tools, I think it's a huge distraction for the company.

Harry Stebbings 53:08 It sounds wonderful, dude, but how do you actually do that? Because when you have, like, investors, board members, customers, they get in touch by email. You set up investor meetings by email.

Eran Zinman 53:19 Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 53:20 So how do you not do email? Just... I'm, I'm so fascinated.

Eran Zinman 53:24 (laughs) No, I mean, we have other people in the team that use email for, to coordinate meetings and other things. It's not like a company rule. Uh, I just don't do it myself.

Harry Stebbings 53:31 And so you Slack and WhatsApp? And-

Eran Zinman 53:34 Yeah, we use Monday a lot, uh, to sync. Uh, we use Slack, uh, WhatsApp, uh, kind of more instant, uh, communication channels.

Harry Stebbings 53:41 What have been your biggest lessons on priority setting? Uh, y- you're a fascinating mind-

Eran Zinman 53:46 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 53:46 ... in terms of focus. What's your biggest lessons on priority setting?

Eran Zinman 53:51 I think that, um, eventually what I found about founders is that you try to avoid the hardest things in your business, because they're usually the hardest to change. And I always think to myself, uh, if something is very painful, that's the right time to get into it and fix it. Um, and I always try not to avoid, um, going down and deep into the hard things, because I think eventually those are the things that causes stress, and once you deal with them, uh, it just changes your mindset and the course of the company. So I always try to focus on the hardest things and try to figure out what's not working, uh, in the company.

Harry Stebbings 54:30 God, I love Israeli founders. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 54:32 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 54:33 It's like the opposite. Europeans are like, "I take the easy thing and I do that first." (laughs)

Eran Zinman 54:39 (laughs) We, we have resilience, so I'll give us that. Yeah.

Harry Stebbings 54:41 Uh, that, that's amazing. What's the single hardest element of your day job as co-CEO of Monday?

Eran Zinman 54:47 I think, uh, finding the right balance. I think that, uh, for many years I was not... Uh, I didn't have the right balance of, you know, uh, family life and work life, and I was really stressed, and I- I've, I've made a decision a few years ago to make a change. I spend a lot of time with my family today. Uh, I, I'm more efficient.

Harry Stebbings 55:04 What have you changed to allow yourself to do that?

Eran Zinman 55:07 Actually, I went to therapy, and, uh, one of the things my therapist told me, um, which really resonated with me, she told me that...You know, I can do the, the extra meeting. I can do the extra thing, but, uh, at the end of the day, I'm, I'm a leader in the company. I'm leading the company, so people look at me. And when I'm exhausted, when I'm stressed, um, when I don't, don't have patience, it just reflects on everybody else, and I need to take care of myself in order to be able to take care of the company. And it really hit deep, uh, on me. And I just felt, um, I should treat myself like a professional athlete. I should be at my peak all the time.

Harry Stebbings 55:46 I mean, you look wonderful, but how do you... (laughs) Uh, no, you do. You, you really... Fantastic hair, by the way.

Eran Zinman 55:51 Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

Harry Stebbings 55:52 I've been thinking for the last hour this is, like, solid hair. Um, how do you... (laughs) Uh, you're like, "He's thinking about SaaS." No, no, I'm just thinking of our product right now.

Eran Zinman 55:59 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 55:59 How do you look after yourself well today, then?

Eran Zinman 56:02 Actually, I exercise, uh, every morning. I try to-

Harry Stebbings 56:05 What time do you get up?

Eran Zinman 56:06 (clears throat) I have, uh, three little kids, so I have, uh... Um, my baby usually wakes me up at, like, 6:00 AM. But, um, I try to exercise every morning before I go to work, and then, uh, I try to spend time with my family in the evening. Uh, it's, it's not always possible, um, but it, it's, it's really something that charges me, um, as a human being.

Harry Stebbings 56:28 Do you need much sleep?

Eran Zinman 56:30 Yeah, I, I got the Oura Ring, so, uh, I've, I've improved my sleep. Uh, it's very important.

Harry Stebbings 56:35 So when do you go to bed if you get up at 6:00?

Eran Zinman 56:38 Uh, well, I'm, I'm embarrassed to say, but, uh, usually, like, 10:00 PM.

Harry Stebbings 56:43 Wow, okay.

Eran Zinman 56:44 Yeah. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 56:45 Yeah. That, that'll do it.

Eran Zinman 56:45 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 56:46 Do you, do you watch, do you watch your diet? Are you healthy?

Eran Zinman 56:48 Yeah. Well, I hope so, but, um, yeah, like I said, I try to optimize my sleep, my nutrition, my exercise regime. I just feel the need to be, uh, sharp. I need to be at my peak. I need to take care of myself in order to take care of the company, so I really treat this, like, uh, professionally, I guess. Um, I, I listen to a lot of podcasts about just supplements and, and just healthy living, I guess.

Harry Stebbings 57:14 Okay. You can be CEO of another company for a day. Which company would you choose to be CEO of?

Eran Zinman 57:19 I think I, I'm, I'm fascinated by Microsoft. I think that's a, a company that, that's done one of the biggest transitions in the history of software or, you know, tech. Um, it had its lows, it had its highs, but I think I'm, I'm really interested to understand, like, what was the transition? I think that, you know, uh, Satya, the CEO of Microsoft has done a tremendous job pivoting the company, so it will be interesting to see this from the inside, I guess.

Harry Stebbings 57:45 I totally get you and agree. If you were Marc Benioff today, what would you do with Salesforce?

Eran Zinman 57:51 Salesforce is an amazing company. (laughs) Uh, it's an inspiration. Um, and, and, you know, he, he deserves so much credit for building the SaaS industry. Um, so-

Harry Stebbings 58:01 If you could ask him one question, what would you ask him?

Eran Zinman 58:05 Oh, wow.

Harry Stebbings 58:06 I've got him on the show in about five hours.

Eran Zinman 58:09 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 58:09 Answer-

Eran Zinman 58:10 Oh, wow. Um, I think he, he is one of the people that probably knows the best in the world of how to build, you know, a sales machine at scale. So, I think there's so much I can learn from him about how to do it, uh, things he's probably forgotten that I didn't learn yet. So, probably a question around that, I guess.

Harry Stebbings 58:29 What about the way your parents brought you up are you deliberately not doing with your children?

Eran Zinman 58:35 Oh, wow. That's a, that's, that's a good one. Look, I think my parents, uh, first of all, I love them and, uh, I appreciate the, the way they raised me. Um, and I think they taught me a lot of important lessons. I think my dad taught me to go deep on everything I do, everything. He always asked me, like, "Why?" He always asked me to... He forced me to understand every decision. Everything that I said, he always asked me, like, "Explain to me why." And I think it just developed a sense of me that I always try to understand why and dig deep. Um, and I think my mom told me a lot about compassion and how to deal with people, uh, and to be ambitious, um, and to be a winner, I guess. And maybe something that I've learned along the way that maybe I do differently, um, uh, i- is also to accept, um, you know, different paths of how people grow up and what they care about and what's not. I try to be very open with my kids and try to understand what they care about. And I'm not, I'm not trying to push them in any way and just let, let them be who they are. I often, often think about, what is a successful person? Like, what defines success? What... Is it status? Is it money? Is it professional career? Is it happiness? And I don't know what the answer is. Uh-

Harry Stebbings 59:53 It's mar- it's market cap. (laughs)

Eran Zinman 59:56 (laughs) I, I just want my kids to be happy. Uh, I don't know how, what's the best way to achieve it, but that's what I want for them.

Harry Stebbings 1:00:02 When were you happiest?

Eran Zinman 1:00:04 With my family, for sure. That's, uh, that's the moment I find peace, uh, inside. Um, I love the company. It's, it's one of the most meaningful things I've done in, in my life. But spending time with my kids, it's like, uh, the best thing for me and my wife.

Harry Stebbings 1:00:20 What stage of the company did you find most unnatural for you as a CEO?

Eran Zinman 1:00:26 Everyone- every, every stage. (laughs) Now. (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 1:00:30 (laughs)

Eran Zinman 1:00:30 I've never done it before. Uh, it's a new experience for me. Uh, and I learned a lot of things along the way. But, uh, I wanna continue in this journey and I wanna keep learning and evolving as a person.

Harry Stebbings 1:00:41 Final one. What question are you never asked by employees, by investors, by board members that you should be asked, do you think?

Eran Zinman 1:00:50 I don't know what's the answer, but nobody asked me why we built this company. Like, why, why, why were we the... Why did we go on this journey? Being an, being an entrepreneur, it's not intuitive wh- why people do it. It's, it's a, it's a big question.

Harry Stebbings 1:01:04 Why did you decide to be an entrepreneur?

Eran Zinman 1:01:06 My quest in life is to find out exactly, but I think it's a combination of trying to prove myself, um, I don't know to whom, but, uh, maybe to myself, um, and do something meaningful and good, uh, that affects other people. Um, but, uh, I don't have the full answer yet, I guess.

Harry Stebbings 1:01:25 Eran, listen, I so appreciate you putting up with my deep-

Eran Zinman 1:01:28 (laughs)

Harry Stebbings 1:01:28 ... and meaningful questions, my, you know, bluntly meandering around different topics. You've been fantastic, so thank you for joining me.

Eran Zinman 1:01:35 Thank you, Hari. It's, uh, been a pleasure.