As many of you have kicked off the new calendar year, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on 2022. I’m very proud of the work we have accomplished and am truly blessed to do what I love every day, and work with so many talented teammates, customers, partners, investors, and advisors.
As we look ahead to 2023, I feel excited about what lies ahead. Here are some takeaways on why Provus is positioned to do extremely well in 2023.
- Market opportunity – Services Quoting and lack of automation in Services quoting is a very big pain point. The validation we have received from our existing customers plus industry conversation has only cemented our thesis of how big of an opportunity this is.
- Problem across the industries – Bringing end-to-end automation to maximize revenue is a problem across all kinds of services industries. Provus’ innovative and configurable approach to solving this problem allows us to get our customers to realize value very quickly.
- Our Leadership Position in the Market – We are undoubtedly the thought leaders when it comes to solving Services Quoting problems across industries.
- Partnerships – we have natively built on the Salesforce platform and we have a great partnership on multiple fronts. We are also an approved partner of NetSuite which allows customers to automate the entire “Quote-To-Cash for Services” motion.
- Domain Expertise of the team – I am super proud of the team we have built at Provus. All of us have been practitioners in the quote-to-cash domain for a long time. This allows us to bring not only the best product but also, the best practices for the customers to be successful.
- Our customers – We are working with some of the most courageous and innovative leaders in the industries across our customer base. They continue to support us and guide us in the right direction. We are very grateful to them for embarking and staying with us on this journey.
- Economic Uncertainty – There are a lot of companies going through layoffs and cutbacks. 2023 will be full of uncertainties. However, our product is mission-critical for any services business. We significantly help maximize revenue, optimize margins and accelerate sales. It makes our product a ‘Must-have’ for every company, especially in these times.
During a company-wide offsite last month, we were lucky to have Nick Mehta, CEO and Founder of Gainsight, for a fireside chat discussion on a variety of topics. Here are some of the key learnings:
- Be obsessed with early customers and make them successful. Nick talked about the early days of Gainsight and how they worked with an early set of customers who helped shape the product, earn the trust, and stayed with Gainsight through the journey. It is critical for start-ups to be obsessed with their customers and make them successful.
- Stay away from bespoke development. It is hard to say NO to the customers early on for feature requirements. As difficult as that might be, it is harder if you do one-off development for customers irrespective of the size of the customer. It is harder to generalize the product and create repeatable motion.
- Community is everything. Nick calls it an accident but we all know that it is not an accident that Gainsight has the largest CSM community. Pulse is the conference that the entire CS community looks forward to. While the community has helped shape the product, the fact that the CS community feels that they can connect with each other to share, and leverage their experience is the biggest gain.
- Focus focus focus. Nick’s #1 advice for Provus was to stay focused on early customers, making them successful and shaping the product with the broader market needs.
Overall, we are super psyched about what 2023 holds for us. We have an incredibly talented team, amazing customers and partners, and a great foundation for growth.
