 Hey everyone, this is Carlos and the founder and CEO at product school today. I'm here with a fellow European founder His name is Peter Janosik. He is the founder and CEO at SmartLook. Hey Peter Hi, Carlos. Hi everyone Happy to have you on the show. I think it's important to highlight also really cool companies that are building stuff for product leaders and you guys have an incredible run and You're building a global company. So I saw the news that you recently announced that Cisco is Announcing their intention to to acquire your business. So congrats on that. Thank you and Yeah, after taking a look at your website so that you guys are covering so many different use cases for product managers from heat maps to Back reports to other types of analysis analytics. So but before all of that Why don't you tell me more about that founding story? What was that problem that you were trying to solve back in 2016? Right so so I can start if I have to describe that I need to start a bit sooner it was roughly 2012 when I was building my my first SAS product it was a smarts up live chat solution for e-commerce sites and In that product we wanted to build a combination of two solutions like live chat and session recording technology because It's quite often that when you are solving live chat tickets with with the customer you Don't know what happened and the customer Is not able to explain what happened before he started or she started to write you some Tickets about the problem on your website. So initial idea was let's let's combine these two technologies that someone like the owner of the website or agent Time to help you Solve some problem on your website can see actually what was happened Few seconds before they started to write you a ticket So that was the first idea, but it didn't work as we expected we made a little bit mistakes From business perspective, but also from product perspective. So we decided in 2016 to spin off session recording technology and launch it as a separate project called smart look and that's that's how it started Okay, so session recording was your first Feature at least the first one that started getting some traction Yeah, actually the initial idea was just to build super simple scalpel tool It should not be a solution. It was just a tool for recording customers Actually, but the idea was super easy just everyone who own Who has Google Analytics on their website should have smart look as well because Smart look can give you an answer. Why something happened on your website You know the data on you can get the data from Google Analytics But you don't know why people are leaving your website where people are unhappy and so on this was the initial idea then of course we realized that We need to focus on bigger companies that this Not everyone need or have time to analyze user behavior to improve conversions to to improve digital experience only like bigger companies or companies That have dedicated teams like product managers you designers or marketers these companies with these teams are Idol customer for smart look so we decided to change Initial idea and improve that adjust that to be able to keep grow This is a classic Situation that a lot of founders find right like you build something So it's hopefully as a solution to your own problem But there has to be a solution for many other people Hopefully some of them are willing to pay so this becomes a business and I'm just curious to know who were those initial Customers for it in terms of users was was this the product manager or the engineer or somebody else? initially It was focus earlier focusing on product managers and marketers these two groups were the most important or relevant ones But We were targeting small companies and then we realized that we need to go up market and target bigger ones bigger companies because these companies has People who had time to analyze user behavior and improve digital experience. Mm-hmm. And Peter. Where are you based? Check your public so cool So, you know, I've hosted so many different founders of product companies in the podcast and most of them are based in the US specifically The San Francisco or New York, so I'm curious to know like from your own perspective How was it to to start growing your business and start landing some customers that? Maybe didn't hear about you or they were as I was they were more familiar with other competitors that were based in the US Actually, as I said, I know it was not my first sauce company so I had some previous experience from previous sauce product and I And we did a lot or we made a lot of mistakes and we want we didn't want to do the same we didn't want to do the same mistakes so We decided we basically they're focusing on not repeating the same mistakes and it helped us to to grow one of that one of the things we changed was that We were really focusing on product that growth. So we were offering Smart with product for free for almost first year. We were just gaining the customers. We're not focusing on Building payment gateways or we didn't focus on business model on anything like that We were just focusing on the product and we wanted to be sure that people are using the product And they are interested in the product and they really want to use it And we didn't want to spend our development time on anything else only on the product And that helped us to to spread the product extremely fast in the beginning So tell me more about that because I think that is fascinating that you were able to focus on the user first Make sure that they had a great experience Even if they weren't willing to pay her you use the word product let growth and that's incredible because back in 2016 17 That wasn't really that mainstream Obviously after a year or so when you start having true funds true hardcore users That are not pain. What was that moment for you to test some? Paid tears and see if you could turn your product into a business When when it was or the question is where we decided to to implement some first paid packages actually it was Roughly year after we released of our official Website and started offering Smart look and people can create an account and just use it so roughly 10 or 12 months after after that time because we we raised money in 2016 and We didn't have enough money to continue when to grow so we had to earn some money somehow So we decided to implement First paid package, but it was super simple something for 20 bucks or so So we said like let's let's launch something just to be able to continue. But in that time. We already had 100,000 signups and roughly 50% of these signups were active So you're saying that yes by launching a peep peep here You were able to start monetizing some of your existing users and that was enough to get you going Yes, yes, and we didn't have to plunge anything any expensive package It was just because we had as I said 100,000 signups So we we were able to somehow communicate with 100,000 users and Roughly half of it were actively using the product And then kind of the moment of truth when you try to go more as you say upmarket right start landing Larger accounts. Hopefully companies that are going to have many users many employees using your product What was that moment like for you? How were you able to structure your product and your company? So then you could start actively going to larger companies that maybe didn't have any users using your product yet She may be good to mention is that the why we decided to go upmarket and that was the because of the high churn we realized okay, so we Even if we have 50,000 active customers and some of them started to pay We saw that after couple of months they Don't have time to use it in Long-term or they just wanted to try it and because they don't have anyone in the team who can do that in long term So we decided that okay, so we need to focus on someone who really understand Digital experience who really know why it's important and that was all before COVID So now it's much easier and everyone understand like how digital experience is is important, but in 2017 No one's focusing on that So much is today. So the but there were companies with professionals or professional teams full of prognoses or you designers who Understand that that's something pretty important for them. So We realized okay. We need to focus on these companies and now How to change that so basically whole communication? We had to change the logo It was 2018 so GDPR Was like the big thing. So we needed to be like trustworthy like people were sending the data to our platform So we had to change everything like communication style of like how it looks how our logo looks Marketing channels we have to change that as well. So basically all would be Where are you today as a company how how big is it? 90 people 3,000 paying customers Something like that. I hope this enough to to understand like how big we are It's really incredible. I mean, I know how chill you are about it But it's like a lot of work that went behind the scenes in a relatively short period of time because if you started in 2016 now in 2023, it's an incredible journey and now to hopefully Be in in conversations with Cisco about the opportunity of joining forces. It's just another big Big step. I was looking at your product and I saw also the evolution from being a session recording Feature into a digital experience platform that includes heat maps crash reports Analytics and other features and so I want to learn more about that because I kind of I've seen a lot of companies that target product managers Kind of fall in this trap like they usually start being very successful with one feature They start talking to larger companies get excited and say, okay Well, in order to land this big account, we need to offer more than just a feature We need to be a pain killer instead of a vitamin, right? We're going to be the platform for everything But it's hard right? It's really room. It's it's a lot of work And I just want and a lot of them unfortunately have not successful like a lot of companies They were successful with one feature couldn't make the transition to be a multi feature or multi product Company so in your case What was that evolution like? Mm-hmm. I think it was all connected with with the turn and trying to find like How to minimize turn what to bring to customers that they really see the value in the long term and One of the things we heard quite often was that we don't have time to analyze all the sessions We have millions of sessions every month and we don't have time to analyze that So we had to think like how to help them How to help our managers or you designers to find the right moment they are looking for or to find Some bad user experience their customers had so That's why we decided to combine session recording technology with product analytics Which is basically event-based analytics when you track all the actions call it events what customers are doing and Then you can just connect that actions with the sessions or replace session replace and you can Find immediately if something bad happened Or if you need to find just Specific segment of the customer and we can show you exact moment when customers did that moment So you don't need to watch the whole session So initially it was just about like watching 30 many sessions no one had time on that So that generated a quite a lot of charm like people didn't have time on that Yeah, and once you connect that with events and like try to build as much as possible some actionable automatic insights for example, like if someone had some JavaScript error or someone had some Rage clicks or some other was similar situation so you can filter it by many possible like with many different filters and From one million sessions you were able to go and to have like 30 sessions and we can show you only 30 customers who really had bad experience and It was that experience in some very critical channel critical funnel, which is pretty important for you So you can just lost a lot of money There and you can improve it what that's a trend. We've seen we've noticed in very successful Product companies like yours that are able to not just show data to the customer But also insights as you meant as I heard you use the word insights multiple time. I have to capture Literally what's happening how to summarize what's happening across millions of sessions or users and be able to Summarize it in a way that a product manager in this case can drive action. So just curious to know How are you guys making that happen? I know there's a lot of buzz now around artificial intelligence, but like What type of technology or other process you are using to make sure that when you are presenting a Insights or a summary of a lot of sessions to a decision-maker. You are providing the right information Yeah Because we we have a lot of data about the customer So we know like from which browser they came to our website or to product We know like what device they use how often they came to their website or product or mobile app And you can combine all this information and to see basically just find the segments Which are not behaving as other or as you expect that they should behave and based on that you can build These insights because you can tell them like alright, so you have One million sessions, but only customers from Spain with this browser they have issue in this form because there is some new update and You know that this update calls this issue so you can just Show these specific customers to your product manager They can immediately see that it happens or it is happening only for this specific group of customers And how are you thinking about in AI to help you get those insights faster? Yeah, that's That's extremely hard in our case because there is billions of events on each websites or mobile app and every Website and app is a bit different. So it's it's hard to use AI in this situation, but of course it's something we We can use in the future or just use it for a specific part of your website, but not like to keep it and That to say that alright, let's learn based on this data It's not as simple as it looks and we tried a couple of tests, but it's not possible to just Do it automatically these days But we definitely want to Improve in the future or use more Another thing that I've seen happen across the board in the in the product stack is the ability for these tools to integrate with each other Even for the companies that are trying to play more of a platform game and cover in multiple use cases It's impossible to cover all of the use cases that a product team needs So I saw in the website integrations with tools such as Slack with CRM's with analytics company. So can you tell me more about how you're thinking about? Integrations or the data that either you or other platform captures can flow seems seamlessly Yeah integrations are pretty important because then you can have more use cases how to use smart look So it's then it's not connected with Product managers only but you can have data in your CRM Do you can see SSS person or account manager or customer sexes manager what? What customer was doing on your product or in your product before you contact before you have some session with them I'll call with him. So You can use the data in other rules. So that's that's pretty important or you can have Slag notifications so you can get these insights much faster than just Checking your email or logging into into smart look product and see there. So if something happened if there is some anomaly Let's say like you you measure something and there are some anomalies so you can get this notification immediately slack and react much Then you can react faster And Peter just curious to know about your current team. You mentioned this at around 90 to 100 people 90 90 people. Yeah, 90 people. How are you guys look structure geography? Most of our team is in a checker public because we have great engineering here great engineers great product people. So and that's 60% of our company and We have one person in the UK and That's it. I think few people in Slovakia But she Republic is the majority of our team. Of course Not everyone is native Czech Person we have people coming to check Republic from different countries so Yeah, but the important for us is to keep the team in the Czech Republic and to Meet each other quite often I agree. There is tremendous talent technical and business talent in in Europe and originally from Spain I moved to Silicon Valley many years ago and I'm always intrigued about from other founders who didn't make that move Obviously, you you're a living proof that you can build a very successful company. You can raise capital You can even potentially get acquired You can land customers in the US without being here So curious to know if that this is something that ever crossed your mind or what was your decision behind? They stay in in Europe and keeping most of your team there It was my one of my goals that I wanted to prove that it's possible to build from Czech Republic global SAS successful company with majority of customers from US because 30 or maybe 40% of our revenue is coming from the US So that's something what I wanted to prove and it's possible. Of course it's I Think it it was possible thanks to our our approach like product growth approach that we were able to Head customers or get gain new customers Through marketing channels and through product growth activities So kind of the recipe that I'm trying to to extract although There's no recipe. There is no silver bullet But but kind of the the journey is you focus on the product at the very beginning For even more than a year you created that community of loyal users that really wanted to use your product Even if that product was was free and then from there you started testing monetization with those with those customers and then from there you start branching out into probably larger larger companies more features But like there is no replacement for those few years of like building the right product Making sure that you have a small group of people that actually love what you would you have Yes, but basically you summarize it quite well, but also listening to customers Initially my role was more as a product manager than than a CEO. So I was really just working on the product building product with engineering team listening to customers trying to help them on with their issues and Yeah, more like Prevented than the CEO. I would say Because that's something also that kind of happens right there is no school where they teach you how to become a CEO and So curious to know when how do you how do you evolve from like being a web developer or a product manager into like? Oh my god, now there's more people here How do you handle now a company of almost a hundred people as the CEO? I think it's Because you are growing organically We were fundraising. We did two or fundraising rounds So roughly it was to 3.5 million in total. So it was not So much money Comparing us based sauce companies. So we were growing organically and we bootstrap Many years as well. So that helped me to Cain these skills, I would say if I can call it like that. So because we didn't grow in number of people so fast as other companies or other let's say our competitors It helps us to learn from our mistakes and Still like continue with Solid growth. Yeah, but but still, you know, it's a pretty big transition when you stop You do code less and focus more on other type of Situations that you haven't faced before. Do you have any formal training any mentors anyone around you? That was helping you navigate certain situations I Don't think so. I know Actually, I Decided to have first mentor just six or seven months ago because I realized that like all right now when you have almost 100 people It's not it's not just about common sense. You really need to You really need to be a good manager and you need to study it a bit But I think that they tell 100 people in the team it's still like common sense and just be transparent and listening people try to help them and That's it Now when you have 100 plus people in the team, it started to be more complicated you need to build managers or other and other manager layers and It's something you should probably learn from her and what's your relationship with the product team specifically? I'm asking because I can imagine for a product CEO It's it's hard to let go certain certain Things that you are great at to create a space for all the leaders to shape your vision I found great Co-founder and CTO so I kind of move move this or like Cpo role a bit to him a couple years ago. So it's thanks to that I was able to Stop focusing on Product as I was focusing in the beginning and I was focusing more on on marketing sales and customer success but Now I see that it's something I would change I would there are I would stay Connected with product team on a regular basis all the time So now I'm coming back to the product team and trying to be connected on a regular Bases with product and engineering people again because it's it's pretty important to to be connected with the product team whole time My last question for you is what's next for a smart look That's I Think that It's it's connected with the Cisco announcement or Cisco acquisition So I think that week Finally or not finally, but we can play in the first league with them like or our technology can play in the first league with them I see The market is kind of Converge it or that on the market there are like couple of segments one of them I already mentioned the digital experience analytics. It's typical for smart look. There are product analytics We also cover part of the product analytics segment as well, but there are other segments like digital Experience monitoring digital adoption and so on and the all these segments are kind of converging and colliding With each other and there is a lot of acquisition happening on the market So I believe that in the future and it's quite soon It can be like three four years from now that there will be some I call it like super solution for digital experience like in general so you can monitor like from Releasing new features or monitoring the backends back and activities or server activities to product Production activities to monitor like to ask it arose and everything like like basically You can see the whole picture not only in that as it is in our case now in What is happening in Releasing something but you can monitor that Before you release that and so on so I think that there will be some super solution and I want to be part of it and thanks to This possible cooperation with Cisco. I believe that we can deliver that to on the market It's been great to have you on the show Peter. Thank you so much for your time Thank you for having me