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Josh Schachter:
Alright. Welcome to this week’s episode, everybody. I am Josh Schechter, your co host of unchurned here with the incredible Christy Falterusso, my co host.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We have not been able to get, like, the 3 of us together, you, me, and John, for some weeks now.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I know. I know. John’s detained today. Not at the border, but he’s just detained. He couldn’t get here.

Kristi Faltorusso:
But we don’t know, actually.

Josh Schachter:
We don’t know. We don’t know. It could be. Could be. You know what I mean?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Go by what he’s told us, which is usually just lies.

Josh Schachter:
But we have a great guest. Start over. We have a great guest, miss Ozge Oz I’m debating whether to tell our producer just to start this whole thing over. I think we just wanna roll through it, all my hiccups right now, and just like Ozge Ozkan, CCO of Forter. Thank you so much for being here. I’m gonna hand over the rest of the show to Christie Paul Turuso. Thank you for being on the episode.

Ozge Ozcan:
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Josh Schachter:
Of course. Of course. Okay. So to start, I wanna learn. We wanna learn a little bit about Forter, what you guys do as a content. Right? What you do, what the organization, what your organization, you know, operates as and looks like. Tell us a little bit about Forter.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Definitely. Forter is a is a software provider for ecommerce vertical. So that’s where it starts. And then we provide customer experience optimization in multiple touch points of ecommerce. We work with some of the logos that you hopefully are shopping on a daily weekly, and we are just couple of days before the cyber week, actually. So, hopefully, we will do some Black Friday, Cyber Monday shopping as well. Think about Wayfair, eBay, Nike, Adidas, Home Depot.

Ozge Ozcan:
Those are all of our customers. And what we do for them is, there is a lot of actually fraud or good behaviors and bad behaviors that happens across the ecommerce journey. Right? It starts with when you log into a website, there can be account takeovers, you know, which can really be dangerous for your loyalty points or identity points. While we were actually shopping, there might be some coupons. You know? We sometimes I don’t know if you have ever done it, but that 20% first customer coupon, and then you use another email to get another 20%, another email to another email Never

Josh Schachter:
done that.

Ozge Ozcan:
Right? We’ve never done those things. Right? So we actually optimize those kind of touch points, customer experience touch points. And, obviously, at the at the checkout, we do a fraud check to make sure that you are who you are, and, we can protect, you know, from bad, actors, our customers, and really optimize for the good actors. But think about it in all touch points of ecommerce. And the secret sauce is we have an identity graph that we actually know, you know, a lot of identities in the ecommerce space. We almost know 99% of US and 90, 90 plus percent of Europe and Asia. And we see our customers every other week. So it’s a very fresh database.

Josh Schachter:
Our customers might suggest who is who. You know, who who the shoppers are.

Ozge Ozcan:
Exactly. Exactly. And, and, obviously, you know, we use that to protect the ecommerce out there, and you might you being, let’s say, a merchant, you might see a customer every other month, every other maybe 6 months, but we see a customer in our network every other week. So it’s a very fresh set of behavioral signals. That’s the gist of it. That’s And

Josh Schachter:
you sell the data to all their competitors. No. I’m just joking.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, no. But I’m I am curious. So, like, if it’s your database of of user and identity, like, are you able then to see like, if I’m on Nordstrom and then I end up going over to Saks and I make a purchase there, like, are you able to see those buying behaviors and patterns? And then are you able to share patterned data anonymizing the end user, but are you able to share that with your customers?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Exactly. So that’s the beauty of the network. Right? Once you’re in the Forter ecommerce network, you are not only protected for a customer doing something on Nordstrom or let’s say doing something different on eBay, we are able to actually see the patterns. Because here is the here is the thing that no one talks about. Fraud is using exactly the same tech tech tactics or techniques that we are all using. Right? AI, cheap cloud infrastructure, Gen AI coming up. Right? You will not believe actually how many advancement has been happened just in the last 6 months.

Ozge Ozcan:
So if you place a consortium that will help protection, that’s how you get ahead, and that’s what Fortress Network is.

Josh Schachter:
Incredible.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So you’re saying you got protecting the the retailers or the ecommerce brands, not the consumer. Right?

Ozge Ozcan:
No. It is actually if you think about it, it’s protecting Christie because if someone steals your credit card and starts shopping on your behalf or takes over your identity, it’s actually protecting both. Both our direct customers who are the merchants and their end customers who are all of us, basically.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
How big is the company? How old is the company? What stage you’re at? And then in your org, how many people report up to you?

Ozge Ozcan:
Okay. So the company is 10 years old. We are, we are a global company, around 550 employees now across, you know, multiple locations from America to Europe to APAC region. I have around, I think, right now, as I said, we have been hiring really aggressively, probably approaching 100 across multiple teams. So under the customer organization, I have customer success, technical implementation, technical support, analytics, and also recently our customer marketing team. And

Josh Schachter:
you’re hiring. And you’re also an adviser to other start ups, and they’re hiring too. So you are, Asge, you are the one to know right now, like, the only one to know in the industry.

Ozge Ozcan:
I don’t know if the only one, but hopefully one of the ones to know. And, yes, the good talent is never looking for the next thing. So we have to, you know, find them where they are and get them attracted to hopefully be interested in their next thing. And I wish no one does that to my own top talent, but anyway, that’s the game. Yeah. We need to retain and hire well. But, yes, if, if someone who is listening to this show is looking for their next thing and interested, any logos they can see in my LinkedIn, I’m very happy to make introductions and help in that very difficult career transition.

Josh Schachter:
So what are the themes that that you’re seeing though when it comes to hiring in the space right now? Did you catch that?

Ozge Ozcan:
I think yeah. Yeah. You there there was a bit of a disconnect, but I think now we are back. Can you hear me? Okay. Great. Mhmm. So I think there are there are 2 trends that I’m seeing. One is everyone is looking for that magical unicorn, principle, CSM, who can communicate in all levels of a customer, you know, engagement, can communicate, can handle an executive conversation, can handle a user conversation, can understand communicating business value, can be a project manager, you know, on all fronts.

Ozge Ozcan:
So there’s a lot of, a lot of demand out there for really good, principal individual contributors. And then the second trend is, the companies are going through in their journey of, you know, post COVID, cost effective growth, customer, retention becoming really important, growth is slowing down, so you really need to protect and expand your revenue base. So there is a lot of leadership positions now to bring some playbooks and some expansion focus. Those are the 2, you know, job profiles that I see that are really highly demanded.

Josh Schachter:
What are you looking for when you think about people? Because because you’re tell us a little bit about at Forter, you’re you’re taking on more of a of a revenue focus, right, through the role of revenue life cycle. So maybe you can share a little bit about that, that initiative on your end and then how that’s driving the types of folks that you’re looking for to grow within your current company, within your current team, and then also to bring in to the growing team.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. That’s a great question. So customer success or customer organizations take different shapes and forms. Right? It depends on where your product maturities, where your GTM maturities. So there is no simple single answer. In Forter right now, our product is extremely stable and actually on a really good road map. So for us, it’s all about, commercial conversations, expansions, and customer outcomes, and how we expand with our revenue. So also differently from some other customer organizations, we commercially also responsible for renewals, all the renewal baseline and creating expansion.

Ozge Ozcan:
So there are really revenue KPIs that we are measured on. That doesn’t mean technical skill set is a secondary thing, but that’s really where the, let’s say, the the the, you know, the gear can switch a little bit to to more high. So I’m looking for, I’m looking for profiles. I’m looking for people who are driven by owning that number and having KPIs and actually connecting the customer outcomes to revenue for for Forter. It takes a certain personality to be okay with that kind of accountability and exposure, right, while balancing a very customer service mindset. So it’s not an easy combination. But when we find it, it’s it’s really it’s really magical. It’s it really helps both the team and the customers and the company all at the same time.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Now when you’re hiring, are you also indexing on subject matter expertise? Like, do you care if this person has any experience working with retailers or in the ecommerce space? Do you find that there’s an added benefit, especially if you’re asking these folks to be as strategically aligned with their customers enough so that they’re they’re having these you know, revenue generating conversations? Do you find a benefit there?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. If I if I if I get my wish list, I would absolutely, you know, want that to to exist either an ecommerce background or a payments background or some kind of a vertical background. But having said that, I’ve optimized this all, Because in 6 months’ time, in probably 12 months’ time, because in 6 months time, in probably 12 months time, my product setup where I’m really innovating, what the competitive landscape is going to shift anyway. So I might optimize for vertical knowledge, but that vertical knowledge is probably going to change and, you know, not be relevant. So, yes, if I get an intellectual curious person and they have been in the vertical, you know, Christmas present, but I I go for, I go for more the, curiosity side.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So let me ask a question because I I think if I recall here, there has been a a more of a shift for you guys over the past I don’t know if it’s been 12 months or longer, but really a shift in focus around revenue. Now when you started building out the team, did the initial team that you hire I mean, obviously, the profile may have looked a little different. Right? So you probably weren’t over indexing on revenue experience. Is that correct?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. So I’ve been here for 2 years. There has been already a team that was built up and servicing customers, and they were doing a tremendous job. Right? So this was not a let’s, break things down and build the cake kind of kind of, role for me. Having said that, the focus and what we have been celebrating has been very focused on churn mitigation.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Mhmm.

Ozge Ozcan:
And I think there are so many other customer success teams out there that they do the same thing. Right? Retention of the revenue, protection of the revenue if they is their job number 1, which is great. It’s okay, but it has a dark side. If you are measured on churn protection only, you are not looking for expansion. You are probably doing inorganic things to prevent churn, which is discounts, giving giving away termination clauses, or not challenging the customer to actually think differently or service the customer in a very cost ineffective way, right, by putting a lot of manual headcount to just service the customer rather than thinking more effective and scalable way to service the customer. So there is there is a dark side of a churn obsession that people actually don’t talk about. Whereas what I find more helpful

Josh Schachter:
We’ve found we’ve found by the way, we found the title to this podcast episode, the dark side of churn obsession.

Ozge Ozcan:
Churn. That’s great. Yes.

Josh Schachter:
That’s it. That’s it right there.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look. I’m not saying the job is is not to watch churn and not to manage it, but I think there are ways to very organically manage it while we focus on expansion. The thing is in an enterprise segment with your large customers, if you’re not expanding, if they are not adopting more product, meaning they are not seeing the value of actually your innovation, you are likely slowly churning anyway. You just don’t know it yet.

Ozge Ozcan:
Right? Like, that’s the problem with the churn obsession because you actually don’t watch the slow churn. You watch the tactical churn. You watch the customers who were just testing your product or they were not the right ICP. And you get obsessed with that part whereas there’s a slow I mean, I don’t we are going really dark now, but, like, there’s a slow decay happening that no one is watching. So so that has been a big journey shift for us, Christy. And, you know, it it it touched on everything. It touched on our hiring profile. It touched on our playbooks.

Ozge Ozcan:
It touched on KPIs. I mean, it even touched on, like, how do we run our QBRs, you know, very, very tactical. There was not one thing that we did that changed it. There were probably 1,000 things that has to be done in orchestration. And some of them we failed, some of them we succeeded. We didn’t do it all either.

Josh Schachter:
Well, we’ve got all day, so let’s go into each of them.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yes. Right?

Josh Schachter:
No. But but you you laid out what? You laid out, like, 4 or 5 pillars there, and I do wanna go into them. Like, what are what are some of the ways that this infiltrated? What were the give us the tactical stuff. Give everybody listening here the tactical details of what you guys tried, what worked, and then probably more interestingly for people, what didn’t work.

Ozge Ozcan:
Okay. And the caveat here, right,

Kristi Faltorusso:
is we’re talking about enterprise customers. So I think also people need to right? Because we’re only talking enterprise. We’re not talking mid market. We’re not talking SMB.

Ozge Ozcan:
Surprisingly, whatever you do in enterprise or whatever you do in SMB actually travels up and down the segments because you’re really touching a mindset shift, in your team. So, you know, I found it valuable to actually apply things cross segments. But, yes, there is a flavor change that you need to establish. But I think the common theme persists across the segments. Well, for executives, first of all, it starts with the board and the exec team. Right? Like, I think that was what I, didn’t do right, and then I had to very quickly realize that because there was a such a celebration on minimum churn and managing churn really, really well, the moment that you didn’t talk about it, everyone wanted to talk about it, and I didn’t want us to use the churn word. Right? I want everyone to ask about the expansion, everyone to think about that. So I realized very quickly in my Q1, oh, I need to actually start top down to that to that change management.

Josh Schachter:
Because they they because the because the executives in the boardroom were just focused on what’s the churn, what’s the churn, what’s the churn, and you want to flip that on its head and say, no. No. No. We’re talking about expansion here. We’re helping to drive revenue. We’re not just a cost center helping to reduce churn.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. And not I’m I’m obviously painting a very black and white picture here to make the point. Obviously, there were different people in different, you know, gray zones, but that that was that was point number 1. It’s very important to actually agree to a timeline of, you know, we are going to take this shift and give me this time for me to execute, right, as an as an operator, as a GTM operator, as a CCO, CRO, whoever you are, that you’re trying to make a change, you need to give a timeline to the board and the executive team for you to actually execute that change because it’s not going to happen over time. Right? What

Josh Schachter:
was the timeline you gave, and what was the real time?

Ozge Ozcan:
I gave, so this is you’re asking for my forecast methodology now. I gave I gave 12 to 15 months. We were showing really good signals in 9 months.

Josh Schachter:
Great.

Ozge Ozcan:
But 9, I was also surprised. I will be very honest. I was expecting a more like 12, you know, a year kind of shift.

Josh Schachter:
But you also there’s the next lesson is that you over you under understate and over deliver. Right?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yes. Yeah. That’s why I I said you’re asking for my forecastment to the ledger. Yeah. So look, I think the second thing that I did, which was which can be very tactical maybe for for whoever is listening to us, I actually sat down with the finance department and got a very clear churn budget. How many dollars and how many logos am I allowed to churn in a year? Right? Like, what is acceptable? Once I have that, I gave it to my teams. I separated, and that’s why, Christy, I said it might be applicable to bunch of segments. I gave 0 churn budget to my enterprise segment.

Ozge Ozcan:
I said, you cannot churn, but I gave some to my mid market and SMB segments, right, in varying degrees. And then I said, as long as you’re managing to this budget and you are, you know, in the 60% in any given time, I don’t wanna know.

Josh Schachter:
And you just hit it

Kristi Faltorusso:
on annual? You didn’t care about monthly, quarterly, anything?

Ozge Ozcan:
Quarterly. Quarterly. I gave you quarterly. Yeah. So you

Kristi Faltorusso:
took the annual and then you broke it down across quarters.

Ozge Ozcan:
Exactly. Yeah. That’s a good point.

Josh Schachter:
We broke it Absolutely. We do know what, like, what what your churn budget can be. Like, where where does where does that come from?

Ozge Ozcan:
Well well, we have revenue projections. Right? And in the revenue projection, you kind of model out what’s going to come from new logo, what’s going come from, you know, current revenue base. You have a NRR target. So your NRR breakdown tells you how much churn, you are allowed to have. Right? So it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a process that you could develop with your finance team.

Josh Schachter:
So it’s based on their projections. Okay. Got it. They’re forecasting for next year. Christy, stop laughing at me.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, I I know. I’m sorry. Doctor couldn’t help myself. It was a smirk. It wasn’t a laugh. It was just, like, it was cute. It was a cute question. Yeah.

Ozge Ozcan:
Thank you.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I do wanna dig into this for one second, though, because the part that always interests me is how organizations design the NRR target. Right? Because that’s making assumptions on growth. Right? And it’s based on existing logos and a whole bunch of things get factored into that. But I’m always curious because I feel like that number is what changes behavior for good and bad in companies. So how did you work with your finance team to find the growth target that you also felt comfortable with owning?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. That’s a great question. It’s it’s a lot of negotiation. Right? It’s a lot of also the good conversation that, as an operator, you should have with your finance team on investment versus metrics. Like, what are you going to get as investment and what are you willing to sign up for that investment? What is the ROI of your team? Right? Which is at the end of the day, my team’s ROI is how higher can I drive the NRR number? Like, that’s it. I mean, there are a bunch of other metrics, but, like, that’s the metric. So I I suggest what I have done and I suggest to actually break down the NRR into chunks so you’re clearly understanding where you’re losing revenue and where you can gain revenue. So I divide it into very very, you know, simple term, positives and negatives.

Ozge Ozcan:
So negatives is churn, discounts, downsizing of volume, right, like usage, basically. Yep. Cancellations, like, whatever you think is going to reduce your NRR. I broke it down. We analyze what was last 2 years’ trends, and then we decide on what the numbers should look like. Right? That’s 1. On the positives, it’s it’s obviously ramping volume, organic growth, right, price increases and then expansions, upsells, cross sells, the same method methodology there. I find it very helpful because it shows you specifically where you are probably losing revenue.

Ozge Ozcan:
Mhmm. And for me, this was the this was what I mentioned. There is a dark side of churn obsession. My NRR NRR number was good at the high level. When I dig deeper, my churn was minimal, less than 1% for the last 2, 3 years, my discounts were completely out of control. Right? And if you think about it one step further in the chess game, the more discounts you give, the less expansion you’re likely going to have because you’re not protecting the value add of your product. You’re constantly devaluing your product by giving discounts.

Josh Schachter:
What was the source of those discounts? Why did they give them out?

Ozge Ozcan:
Well, because the customer says if you you don’t give me a discount, I’m going to churn, and now you don’t want to customers to churn, so you give the discount.

Josh Schachter:
But was it because there’s more competition in the market? Was it because they’re just, like, they they weren’t receiving the they didn’t think they got the value?

Ozge Ozcan:
There I the majority of it was everyone in the industry, just like probably you have done and I have done, was trying to cut cost. Right? Yeah. So everyone was looking for yeah. Exactly. So that’s where it was coming from. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Did you find that there was certain

Josh Schachter:
true sense. Can I

Kristi Faltorusso:
just ask one more question, Josh? No. No. No. Can I just ask one more question? I promise that

Josh Schachter:
I’m sorry. I’m not trying to interrupt you. We have a little delay on my end. So yeah. That’s fine. Go.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Okay. Thanks, Josh. Okay. Now with the profile of folks, because obviously when you break this down, did you find that certain profiles organization were the ones that were generally culprits of discounting? And did this help drive a different profile as you thought about how you’re gonna grow the team? Like, did you find that folks that didn’t really have strong revenue experience or skills were the ones that were more inclined to provide discounts, to be okay with down sells that was just like save the logo at all negative revenue costs because they lacked the skills to actually have the appropriate conversations around value and owning that ability to drive the revenue forward.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Yeah. Abs absolutely. I mean, you’re setting me up right way. Right? Like, there is a there is a profile. There is a little bit of the so why why discounting or why churn happens? Right? To Josh’s point, you don’t communicate the value very well. You don’t communicate it to the right person in the right time. Therefore, you’re measured on the wrong, you know, KPI, and then you don’t feel comfortable in a uncomfortable conversation, right? The last one is can be can be helped with more training, negotiation training, discovery question training, you know, conflict management training, But at the end of the day, it’s a little bit also depending on the personality and what you find joy with.

Ozge Ozcan:
Right? Do you like winning? Do you like losing? Like, they always ask this question to salespeople. It’s a little bit same on the on the CSMs too. So we had to dial up that part, on all of our teams actually. Have you communicate value? Have you defend the value? And when the the conversation is going to come up in in a maybe a conflicting way, how do you manage that for the good outcome for both parties? Right? So, yeah, it definitely informed our profile.

Josh Schachter:
I’m afraid to speak. I don’t wanna speak over, Christie. No? Okay. How, did this inform your playbook? And my company, our nature, is talking to customers in meetings, And you mentioned some meetings there, so it could be from a meeting perspective of your interactions with your customers or other parts of the playbook. But you mentioned that was one of the things that informed this, you know, getting away from the churn obsession. So where did that manifest itself?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. The the terminology of happy ears, you guys probably smiling, so you know that one. Yeah. We had we had a chronic happy ears situation going on because, unfortunately, my CSMs thought or were, you know, expected to actually always present the customer in a good state because if they were to raise any risk or if they were to actually communicate where the problems were, they thought they were not doing their job. And you asked me about, like, what worked, what didn’t. I think that was the second thing. It took me a while to understand what was going on, and I had to come out and very clearly tell the team the success doesn’t mean there are no problems in a customer, you know, state, in a customer health check, or in a customer restriction. The success is we minimize surprises for everyone, meaning even to the customer.

Ozge Ozcan:
If we are going to have a problem, if we have a bug that’s going to take a long time, if we have a service disruption, we have to minimize the surprise for the customer. We have to tell them internally. If there is a risk of competition, if there’s a risk of pricing pressure, we have to tell those things. And it doesn’t mean you’re not doing your job, dear CSM. This is the job. Right? So that was a big playbook change, mindset change, you know, however you would like to categorize that. Because I think there’s a lot of happy years on hiding the real assessment of the situation that goes on in high pressure CS roles.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I wonder about that. I mean, I I’ve never been a, you know, entry type of, level type of CSM. Where does that come from, the happy years, the rose tinted glasses syndrome? And, Christy, I’m looking at you to answer this as well. Like, I, you know, if I was in that role, I’d I’d wanna be doing CYA the whole time and and be a squeaky wheel of, hey. There’s a risk over here. There’s a risk over here. There’s a risk over here to cover my own tracks.

Josh Schachter:
But why do you like, I’m genuinely curious, and so you can, you know, do the cute smirk thing at me now, Christy, for this. Where does that come from, the the happy year syndrome?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’ll give you my perspective, and then, obviously, I wanna hear a different perspective on this. But I’m gonna say it’s it’s a cultural thing in the organization. If it is not a safe culture for a CSM to raise a flag or if they are being judged based on how many of their customers are in a good standing versus not good standing, they don’t want to paint themselves backwards into this corner where it’s their entire book looks looks like it’s on fire. If it does not feel like a collaborative environment where you can actually go and say, this customer is at risk, whether it is product, experience, business, whatever the the related drivers of that are, if they don’t feel like it is a safe place for them to go and raise that and it is not a reflection on them and the work that they’re doing, then you’re gonna hear more of that. When you actually drive the business and you’re scaring them into saying, like, your job is to have a book that is all green all the time where these customers are happy and getting value, and they’re being penalized if that’s not the case. Of course, no one’s gonna go raise their hand voluntarily and say, hey. Look. My book’s on fire.

Kristi Faltorusso:
For my team, though, I’d rather I’m like, tell me your whole book is on fire. I actually they I don’t know what to say. They get penalized. But when I see that my team is actually rating their customers extremely satisfied, those are the ones I almost always drill down into because that to me says there is nothing else we can do better. And I guarantee you, there’s always something we can be doing differently to enhance the value that customer is getting or the experience that they’re having. So if you look at my book, there is not one customer right now that a CSM would say is extremely satisfied because I would rather see that there is something else we could or should be doing as a business rather than for me to sit here pretending like the universe is perfect for any one of my customers because I just know that that’s not the case. So I would say it’s a cultural driver, in my opinion.

Josh Schachter:
For me I mean, in in the entrepreneurship world in which I live, it there’s this creed of only the paranoid survive, which is the same thing. Like and I can imagine that would be the case if I was a CSM. It’ll be, like, only the paranoid survive.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Balance, Josh, too, because you can’t also be the person where it’s like everything’s on fire. Like, I do really think that there’s, like, an art and a science. Like, what is the severity of what it is that you’re hearing? Right? Is it like, hey. The entire product doesn’t work for me, and I cannot use this. It is preventative, and so it’s a blocker. Okay. That’s one thing. But if the customer’s like, hey.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Like, I really wish your orange button was about all all the day, like, all the time. That isn’t gonna be prohibitive. They’re not gonna not renew. There’s not a business blocker. There’s nothing prohibiting them from continuing to stay or grow with you. So I think it’s also, like, how do you read the room and forecast it to the point earlier? Like, how are you forecasting this a little bit from a state of value realization experience kind of all combined?

Josh Schachter:
Ozge, can we just blame it on Gen z?

Ozge Ozcan:
No. We cannot because I have many, many segments. I yeah. Yeah. But the beautiful thing that happened after we had that conversation very openly in a QBR where in a way, I had to stop the conversation and say, this cannot be, you know, where we are because then we are saying we actually I I act this is how I put it to team to actually trigger some reactions. I said, so you’re basically telling me I can stop investing in product and I can stop investing on this team because we are all good. Right? And then the team is like, oh, maybe not actually. And then the truth starts to come out.

Ozge Ozcan:
So the reason I think sometimes also the teams, the individual contributors, they don’t understand how the investment decisions, how the strategy of a company is done. So, for instance, if you are able to bring me the knowledge that the product is the challenging common pattern of the customer, we will invest in the product. If you’re telling me competition, we will invest in branding and differentiation. Right? If you’re telling me pricing is off, I will invest in my product packaging and pricing. So I think it is it has to be done in a very open way to tell the CSM team that you are actually my signal on where I invest in the company because you do know what the customers are demanding of the company. Right? That empowerment sometimes also doesn’t happen. So in addition to everything Christie said, I totally agree, but there is also this connecting why are we asking you to state the real real, you know, assessment of a customer, portfolio is because then we can invest in the right place in the right time with the right urgency also.

Kristi Faltorusso:
How do you get your team to accurately prioritize? Because it could be true that there is a product issue. It could be true that there’s a pricing issue. It could be true that there’s an experience issue. How do you help your team understand how to prioritize when they’re hearing multiple signals across their customer base?

Ozge Ozcan:
Together with the customer, I think, is the right way, and I’m not sure if there is a clear prioritization. Sometimes you have to not prioritize and sometimes there is the old, maybe not very effective way of small steps in multiple fronts rather than a full resolution in only one front. Right? So the customers sometimes appreciate that you’re actually making improvements even though small in multiple fronts and communicating it because I am yet to see a startup who has product pricing and value conversation altogether all at the same time working great. Right? Like, they might have it for 3 months and that something will happen and it will drop again. The the the trick here is the customers who are buying software from startups or innovative companies, they also know what they are buying. They know the trade off of investing in innovation versus investing. You know, the trade off that innovation comes with a little bit, you know, not fully stable, not fully baked service models, what have you. I think being very honest about that with the customer is the right way to go here.

Ozge Ozcan:
And just say, engaging the customer to say, like, look. There are 3 things we can work on. Which one is your priority? Which one is going to take me a long time to invest? Which one I can show you, you know, maybe 10% of what you’re asking? And just solve it together. This is the same thing. Instead of hiding it from the customer and pretending all is great, is actually involving them in problem solution. I I I find that more, you know, helpful.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. So let the the the truth shall always set you free is what you’re saying, being very upfront and setting the right expectations with the customer. I like that a lot.

Ozge Ozcan:
You’ll be very surprised how open the customers are when you actually are also open with them Yep. On on what’s going on. Obviously, I’m not saying, you know, expose all your startup problems to a customer they they cannot solve, but I think it’s co problem solving, just like co value creation, right? You’re creating value together. It’s their business and your technology as the partnership.

Josh Schachter:
I agree. Last question for you. So in the spirit of the presidential election and transition, everybody talks about the first 100 days of the new, the new presidency. So in your first 100 days of 2025, you’re focused on expansion. What’s, like, the top thing tactically, strategically on I guess, the strategy part is the expansion, but tactically, what’s the top thing on your plate when you start the new year to help your team to get those NRRs to soar?

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Can I start my 100th day before the year starts? Sure.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Start yeah. Starting right after Thanksgiving, it starts.

Ozge Ozcan:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. After after cyber week. So, look, hopefully, you’re going to at this point, I know a high level target that I need to oh, did we lose Christy? Should we wait?

Josh Schachter:
That’s okay. We didn’t need her anyways.

Ozge Ozcan:
Okay. Oh my god. So what I was going to say. Yes. So first of all, hopefully, I know my next year target. Hopefully, you know, other leaders at this point listening to this, they also know what kind of, you know, numbers they have to deliver next year. Ballpark is even okay. Hopefully, you also know what kind of investment or team size or budget you need to actually use to deliver those numbers.

Ozge Ozcan:
I will sit down and, I mean, I’m right now doing it. I’m making sure that my headcount plan is aligned with my growth and what I need to deliver. Who am I going to hire? When am I going to hire them? Their ramp up time, you know, what I expect from them, how the team is going to work together. That’s point number 1. Point number 2 is I actually do this every 6 months. I check my, Cadence calendar to make sure that my calendar is aligned with the priorities that I need to drive. I do like a calendar detox every 6 months. I delete some of the meetings.

Ozge Ozcan:
I change their frequency. I adjust their cadence. You will be surprised how much it’s like a seasonal cleaning. How much actually on irrelevant or unnecessary meetings accumulate if you don’t just stop them. So I do I do that for next year’s cadence. I will probably put a little bit more emphasis on teams that I need to collaborate more, and maybe I will move my attention away from teams that I feel they’re in a good place. Right? So that’s my own personal assessment. And then the third thing is, I mean, I every week, I talk with customers, but I think my whatever my top accounts, you know, for next year that can make a meaningful impact for my revenue numbers, I have to know what they are thinking for next year.

Ozge Ozcan:
So I need to do a lot of either me or the other executives that I assigned to those accounts, we do an executive, take in for the new year. So we completely know what their executive agenda is. That might be related to Forter, might be completely unrelated. Regardless, it’s very helpful to know those.

Josh Schachter:
Christy, welcome back. Asge, I think we’re gonna leave it at that. This was such a great conversation. Thank you for really opening up to us about all the ins and outs of your priorities of of the activities that have worked, that that haven’t worked, and your plans for 2025. I think it’s amazing that you guys are growing, that you’re that you’re building out and hiring more people and more leaders into the new year. And so for I hope you can share this episode with all of those, candidates that are in the pipeline so they can get a real sneak peek at how you operate. I think this would be very helpful for them. And if they’ve enjoyed it, they should start.

Josh Schachter:
Give it 5 stars. And, yeah. But, wishing you the very best for the New Year. Have a wonderful holiday, and thank you, everybody. Thank you, Christy.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Our problem isn’t shopping and stopping.

Ozge Ozcan:
Thank you. Enjoy the Cyber Week. Please shop.

Josh Schachter:
Chris.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Alright, guys. Take care. Bye.

Ozge Ozcan:
Okay. Well, we’ll take that too.

Josh Schachter:
Bye, guys.

Ozge Ozcan:
Bye. Bye.