 Live from Seattle, Washington, it's The Cube at Tableau Conference 2014. Brought to you by headline sponsor, Tableau. Here are your hosts, John Furrier and Jeff Kelly. Okay, welcome back. And when we here live in Seattle, Washington for The Cube, this is our flagship program. We go out to the events, extract the scene from the noise. I'm John Furrier with my co-host Jeff Kelly, analyst at Mojibon.org. And we'd love to go talk to the senior leaders of the companies that are hosting the event Tableau Data 14 Conference, and Kelly Wright, EVP of Sales for Tableau Software. Welcome to The Cube. Thank you, thank you for having me. So you're under the, you're in the pressure cooker seat. So sales is everything, right? You guys are a public company, you have to perform. Performance is happy customers, they pay you money. You collect the cash, you put it in the bank and invest it into your business and do it again and again. You've done very well as a company, you guys have been great. So I got to ask you about where Tableau is today. Share with the folks a little bit of the history. We've been big fans of the company. Obviously we are, you know, me personally being an entrepreneur love when companies get built by the founders and don't have to raise money to start the company. They get critical mass and take the extra growth capital. And you guys have done that. You've been a real big success story as an entrepreneurial venture. Oh, thank you. So share the culture and kind of where you guys are now and with the customer base, the culture. Wow, that's a lot of questions, all in one. Well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure being here. You know, you asked about what it's been like on this whole journey and a lot of the people that were here at the beginning, we're all still here, right? So I was the first salesperson at Tableau. I joined a month before we started version one and I've seen how things have changed and evolved and the truth of the matter is we have a lot more people, we have more customers. But the culture of the company has stayed really sound from the beginning. We were a bunch of people who were very, very passionate about this mission to help people see and understand data. And that's still our mission today. So from the day I started to now, it's all been focused on empowering people to answer their questions more. And so the culture of the people that started were very passionate, really excited about the mission, really a group of company builders who want to roll up their sleeves and go make things happen. And yes, we're a bigger company now, now we're a public company, but we're still just barely, barely scratching the surface. I mean, there are 55 million companies out there in the world. We have 20,000 customers, so we have a long, long way to go. I love that you're a senior leader of the company. You've been there as the first salesperson, it's awesome. So I've got to ask you, I mean, there's always a moment in time where you go, will we make it? Or that moment where you go and the flywheel's going, could you share just some color around? Cause startups are very hard. People think they're easy, oh yes, anyone can do that. So share with a moment where you go, oh my God, it's going to be tough shipping, whether it's shipping a product or hiring or personnel or in an aha moment where you said, oh my God, we're doing it. Okay, well, when you're in this company building mode, it's just, you put your head down and you go, and you just go, go, go. And it's always about going and finding the next customer, making sure that customer's excited, ecstatic, hiring more people on the team, making sure the culture is still viming. And we really just took the focus of doing things one day at a time and treating each customer like their gold. And that's still what we do. Our customers are our lifeblood, right? And that's what's keeping us going. So there were certain times during the whole journey, I mean, I remember 2009 when the economy was slowing down, Tableau actually still grew at a really healthy clip, but it was harder. But there was really no time that I felt, oh, this is a huge uphill battle. It was an uphill battle all the time. We're still kind of the underdogs, right? You were the fog in the boiling water. You didn't know you were. There's tons of customers to help. We haven't helped tons of them yet. And it's just doing things to make sure that we're building good products, empowering people. So when was the moment when you were going, wow, we're really doing this. Did you take any break and pause and say, hey, Christian, we're doing it, we're making it? Well, you know, I think one of the moments that really resonated for me is we worked so long to say, is Tableau going to make it? Just keep doing what we're doing, believe in what we're doing, believe in that mission. And for a long time it was, can we make it to be a public company? Can we ever get to that moment? And I remember the day, it was May 17th last year, 2013 when we were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. And we had brought tons of customers, I mean, not customers, we had brought a lot of employees. So we had over 100 employees filling out the floor. And in that moment when we had the management team and Christian was ringing the bell, just looking out at all these people who had helped us build Tableau and get to that day, I think that was a moment of just a lot of pride. And it's funny talking about it right now because where I just came from is just ringing the bell again at the closing bell. That's awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that because a lot of those steps are very hard. I mean, Jeff and I talk to stuff all the time. We'll get a big pile of money from the VCs, four or five guys. Oh, you were- Well, we didn't get a big pile of money. Well, I know, I was thinking why it's such a great story because the pile of money could complicate it. Being hungry actually is motivating. So, and then having that customer product success is a great test month. So we think, I mean, I think you guys are a great testimonial to successful startups. We appreciate it. Thank you. So let's dig into the sales strategy a little bit. So as you've grown up, Tableau, when you started off, you really this, you know, this very nimble underdog, you were kind of going in there with really disrupting the old guard BI players. A lot of, more about kind of, I think of a desktop focus, a single user kind of focus. You've expanded, you've got enterprise licenses now, you've got cloud now, you've got mobile. How has the sales strategy evolved over that time period to adopt or to adjust to these new, kind of the new ways of reaching your customers? Well, you know, our model is actually really quite simple. I'll go back to what I had talked about before. If we help people see and understand data. So everything about what we're trying to do is to help people to be able to answer their own questions and to empower them with flexibility and agility and self-service. And as we add additional products, it's really just extending the number of people that we can help. Some people want to work in the cloud. So Tableau online is better. Some people want to do it on their desktop. So they're doing it more with Tableau desktop. Some people out in the server. And so as long as our sales people are looking for, what is the best way that I can help this customer to be able to be more self-sufficient in answering their own question. And then we really hear what's the customer's use case. Then to answer that, we have different products that actually fit that in. So in terms of how our sales strategy is working, the sales strategy is the same as it always is. So we don't really focus on what to do with this product line versus that product line or this product line or small customers versus big customers. It's really all in this landed expand. Let the customer buy as big or as little as they want to get started. Work with them very closely to make them successful. And then as they're successful, they'll come back to buy more. And we have all these different ways that they can buy software and types of software that they can buy to be able to address their needs of self-service, agility, and answering their own questions. Well, I wonder, has the buyer, the profile of the buyer changed at all? So I know obviously the table is all about the end user, the person who's interacting with the software or interact with the data as you like to focus on. But as you move to larger accounts, larger enterprises, are you still dealing directly with that user when you sell? Are you dealing with the central IT more often? And I guess that was kind of my question. How do you evolve to that changing buyer profile? It's a great question because if I were to roll back the clock to almost 10 years ago when I was starting, we were actually interacting mostly with the business user, so the end user. And over time, we're interacting with the C suite, we're interacting with the VP of IT, we're interacting with the business users, and actually we're working with both groups a lot. So what happened early on was we'd start with the business and over time as they bought more and more and more, they would bring us into IT. And now actually we're seeing a shift that sometimes it's the IT and the C suite that's coming to us and they're saying, hey, we wanna be able to empower our user community to answer their own questions, but we need to be able to do that in a more secure, governed control type of way and is there a way that we can balance with Tableau? So we see it happening in both. I think one of the interesting changes that we're seeing is there is a cultural shift that's going on right now. And companies are now starting to realize that the way of the past is very different than the way of the future. So the way of the past was if you had a question, you threw it over the fence to this central group that was report writers, and these report writers knew how to code and they were very, very specialized and the user that had the question, they had absolutely no idea how to operate those systems. Well now that companies are saying as data is coming in at such a fast clip, it just takes too long. They have to empower people to be able to answer their own questions, otherwise they end up being at a standstill. And so as we start having more discussions with the enterprise and the C-suite, those folks who are in IT and the CIOs who realize, hey, there's a shift that's going on and we need to be doing things in the way of where the world is going, not the way that we've done it in the past. It makes that conversation quite a bit easier. And so now we're seeing more and more conversations that are along those lines of how are we going to keep our organization to be competitive going into the future. So I got to ask you about the international expansion. We were talking earlier with your colleague Dave Martin and also when we were at the HP Big Data event. And I had also had a conversation with Dave DeWalt, CEO of FireEye, huge international. He says, John, my big growth opportunities public company, you got you guys. He says, international's huge growth opportunity for us. It is for us. So you have a TAM, 55 million customers. You have one of those unique products that all customers need. So that's good, check. Growth is on the horizon. So how are you going to attack that new territory? I mean, international and to grow. I mean, channel strategy, indirect, big part of it. You guys are enabling people to create value. That seems to be the formula for a great indirect strategy. You built a successful direct sales force, congratulations, but that can take time. Yeah. Well, you know our model for international, international is a huge opportunity for us. So we are putting a lot of resources and time into expanding internationally. We have our headquarters over in Amia. We have headquarters over in APAC. We are now just, we opened up offices in Japan and in Germany. We opened up operations in India. We are opening up another, a bigger office in Australia. And even in Latin America, Brazil and Mexico, there's a fair amount going on. Now, as we're going to market, it actually is pretty similar. So we're building direct sales force in all of those regions, but international, as you start doing more international, the channel becomes even more increasingly important. And it is, we're focusing a lot of time and energy on the channel here in the States, but in places like Amia and certain locations over in APAC and certainly in Latin America, there is just the way of doing business tends to be more around the channel. Well, localization has always been a nice thing of having in-country operations. That's always been kind of the international playbook. But with data, I can be complicated. So having people in-country in a channel delivering value, is that the preferred way? You guys, is that what you're saying? Is that kind of thing? You know what? Well, the interesting part about Tableau is as we talked about, it's agnostic. Anyone can use it. And so when we go into a new country, there's two ways that we can go in. We can go in with our direct team and we can go in with empowering our channel. And we actually have customers in over 100 countries throughout the world, right? And we have partners operating in a large number of those. So our partners often are the ones that are the local feed on the street. They're going and they're having the conversations and they're providing the local support in the language and in the culture that it is. Now, when we actually open up offices in those different regions, we try to be very aligned, not only just putting our salespeople in, but having our entire company all lined up behind it. So we have our sales team. We have our marketing. We have our product. So when we go into Japan, for instance, we want to be able to have the website in Japanese. We want to be able to have the product localized in Japanese. We want to be able to have support staff that can help. And then, of course, having the partner ecosystem where the partners are able to help us make those customers all really successful. Have you had channel conflict yet in the US? I mean, as you guys get the channel going, has there been some channel conflict on orders and on the accounts? Yeah, well, you know what? Our channel, we're developing a lot in the channel, but we're still pretty early in our channel development and we're spending a lot of time to make sure that our channel is really successful as well as our customers being successful. And the truth of the matter is we can't go and help all the people that we want to help without embracing the channel. And there's system integrators that they're in there and they're doing huge multi-year projects and we're working closely with them. And when we talk about the channel, we're working with resellers, but also OEM and technology partners and system integrators. So lots and lots of channel activity going on. Yeah, I think you just touched on, what I think is going to be one of the challenges for Tableau is that you can't, as you expand so fast, you can't keep your finger or your pulse on the customer quite as closely as maybe you'd like. You've got to count on the channel to do some of that. Absolutely. And Tableau is, of course, known for being very customer focused. I mean, at this show here, the crowds are cheering and Christian, as he's giving his keynote and different visualizations are being demoed on stage and the crowd's standing on their feet. To keep that kind of customer focus as you expand, I think is a challenge, but it sounds like you really got to focus on developing those relationships with your partners and your OEM partners, et cetera. So that they kind of understand that the Tableau approach. Is that good to be able to get it? I totally agree. Actually, I think you can even see at this show today, if you go down to that partner expo hall, there are so many partners here, way more partners than we've ever had before. And when I was checking in with them, even yesterday, where the show hadn't even started, they're getting a huge number of leads that are coming in and there's so many opportunities for us to work together with our partners. In fact, this year, not only did we build of being really growing our partner sales team, but we had a whole series of partner summits this year. And we traveled around the world, we had one in Amia, one in APAC, one here in the States, of being able to really train and enable our partners, not only how to sell Tableau, but to work with them in a conversation of what's the best way that we can engage with them and make them really successful. So when we think about our ecosystem, it's not just about our customers. It's now about our customers and about our partners, and we're all part of the Tableau family. So talk about this show here. So obviously, one of the things that you guys have, that you do a great job is you're such walking testimonials as customers. What channel partners do you have as customers and that are top references now that you're showcasing and what end users are you showcasing here at this event? Can you name names and... Yeah, well, I think you can actually go downstairs and look in the partners of who we are. And we're doing lots and lots of partner with whether it's Vertica or with Altarix or with Teradata, where we're doing joint sales and a lot of the SIs that you'll see here, they're using Tableau internally in a pretty big way. And then in terms of customers, we have showcases all over the place. I think we have 100 customer speakers that are here. So there are hospitals. We have Barnes-Jewish and Seattle Children's who are talking about how they're using Tableau actually in the operating rooms and with nurses and to be able to help save lives. We have education institutions who are using Tableau for how they can teach better in school, how the teachers can have their administration going. And we also have a number of corporate customers who are helping with that as well. So one of the things that we always talk about when we talk about startups, you guys aren't a star, certainly, but company building is a great team. You guys are on that next generation of building out. You always get the question, high touch sales, indirect, low cost or automated self-service if you're kind of a platform. Inside sales is a great strategy for expanding out growth, but it's hard. You guys have an inside sales organization. You are building it out. Is that a big part of your increase in your customer service? Because a lot of, you've got great fans. Loyalties high, product is good. So are you building out of support organization? We got started predominantly with inside sales. So we started with inside sales and then enterprise sales came later. And with our inside sales, we still have a very, very robust inside sales. We have kind of both models. Some customers prefer to be interacted with field, face to face. And so we have field folks that are all over, in our, all our major regions. And we have a lot of inside folks. And the same is true when we look at how we're going to support them. So we have technical folks and services folks and training folks that will go out and meet the customer on their site, help to enable them, setting up center of excellence, all that. And then we have a large number of that, that is done remotely. The benefit we have at Tableau is actually, Tableau's pretty easy to use. And so we don't always have to sit down and do it beside them. So how about sales compensation, if you will? Not with numbers, but like, I mean, culturally is it? We're hiring. Do you eat what you kill? Like in the early days of Cisco sales guys were making, you know, zillions of dollars. Does Tableau have the kind of product pricing mix where you guys have a lot of like, huge compensation rewards? So how does that work? You know what, we focus on having our salespeople be really excited about working here, having it be a very good, Compensation motivates behavior, as you know, right? I mean, compensation tries behavior. How do you guys? So we have a lot of salespeople that have been here for a very long period of time. So we have a huge opportunity and we focus on the opportunity to help more customers. And then the opportunity to have a really good career progression path here. So yes, I'm not gonna answer your question, but you can keep on asking it. That was a great try, John. So I wanna talk a little bit about the competitive landscape. So, and again, maybe, you know, because you've been with Tableau since the beginning, how has it evolved? Again, when you guys started, you were very much the disruptor going in. Let's name some names. We're still the disruptor. You had SAP Business Objects, you had Cognos, Hyperion, you guys are going in there and saying, no, that's the old way, this is the new way. Since then, some of those old players are starting, they're focusing now on being very self-service, kind of emulating a lot of things Tableau did. Now you've got also kind of even newer companies, newer startups out there that are coming, even some are maybe mobile focused or cloud focused. What's the competitive landscape look like for you? And from a sales perspective, again, how do you adapt as you've got a coming from, you know, from the new guys, you've got a coming from the old guard, you guys are a target. When you're this successful, you're always gonna be a target. What's it like from your perspective? You know, one of the things that we actually really focus on at Tableau, as we talk about this a lot internally with our team, is we can only control what we can control. We can control what our products are. We can control what our customer success is. We can control how we engage with our customers. And so we spend a lot of time just focusing on what it is that Tableau can do. And as we're now talking more about data discovery and agile analytics and self-service, there's a lot of noise out there. A lot of other players who are saying that they can do the same thing and that they can do it as well. And our strategy is really, if you think you can use that, so why don't you go download their product and download our product and see how long it takes. And we actually encourage people to go out and test it out and try. And what we find is when someone is really interested in self-service and helping people to answer their own questions, then the answer to them becomes really clear. When it is a question of, we just want traditional old pixel, perfect reporting. Yeah, then there are a lot of people that can play in that game, but we're finding the conversations changing quite a bit. When they really want self-service, then we actually feel like we're pretty well positioned competitively. So are a lot of your deals going up in competitive environments where you've got Tableau lined up against business objects against, I don't know, good data against whoever. Is it a lot of that? Or do you have a lot of people who are trying the product love it and just say, hey, we want to go with Tableau? You know there's both, but the majority of our deals are actually when we're competing against a status quo. They actually aren't even looking at other businesses. They might have it in their company, but it's not solving their need and their requirement. So a lot of people are just using what is already commissioned on their computer. Now there are situations where there is a competitive bake-off and we love competition. I mean, that's what sales people do, we go and compete. But we're finding that the conversation is shifting and where we tend to really focus our time and energy is with those companies that are really looking for the new way. Kelly, I got to get the hook here, but I want to ask you two final questions. One is an easy one. What's it like working with Christian? It's great working with Christian. You know what? We've worked together all for so long and it's really, we say it's like we're a family, right? We know each other, we know each other's families, we know each other's kids and it's pretty much the same as it was when I started almost 10 years ago. Nothing's really changed. The second question, share with the folks out there that are watching. What is the culture of Tableau? If you could, every culture has their own little weird tweak that makes them so unique. Intel, it's Moore's Law. What's Tableau's cultural? Well, you have to go ask all the Tableau people if they think our culture is weird. Probably people would say what's weird. A unique tweak that makes them so successful. You know what? Moore's Law was first called weird. I think people that work here are really, really passionate about what we do. We're passionate, we're mission focused and people have a lot of fun at what they do. They work hard and they play hard and it's a very fun place to be, but we go fast. Yeah, certainly not weird, that's for sure. I didn't mean that. No, it's okay. Weird in a good way. Yeah, a good thing. A good thing. It's usually the best deals are the ones that no one sees that doesn't look like it's gonna, and you guys were certainly a great winner. Well, we're hiring. So everyone in the world, we're hiring. We couldn't get the sales comp out of her, but we tried our best. Kelly, seriously, thanks for coming on Q. We appreciate it. We know the journey you've been on has been fantastic. It's a world win. Now you just got to go the next leg of the journey, which is build a global 50 million customer business. Thank you very much for the time. Thank you for having me. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break. Live in Seattle, Washington, the Q. Thank you.