Yanir Calisar | How to build an enterprise product with hundreds of customers over a weekend
Description
Yanir Calisar traces his path from selling at mall carts, through Insightera and its acquisition by Marketo, to a one-man company that sold 12 micro solutions to large enterprises. A WhatsApp message from a customer on a Friday night gave birth to Tuvis: a Chrome extension that brings Salesforce into WhatsApp Web, built over a weekend, with a first deal closed in week one. He describes how launching on AppExchange at the start of COVID brought in Volkswagen Argentina, why Brazil became the core market, the 11-million-dollar raise and the hard period that followed, and the pivot to WhatsApp security and compliance for enterprises. He closes with a rule of thumb for turning custom development into product enhancements, and his personal tip: curiosity and proportion.
Key moments
- 0:00 · Intro and meeting Yanir
- 2:11 · Playing by ear and a childhood of technical curiosity
- 4:52 · From mall carts to business development: Insightera and the Marketo acquisition
- 8:25 · Inside Marketo: micro solutions for enterprise customers
- 13:27 · 12 small solutions and the WhatsApp message that gave birth to Tuvis
- 19:14 · The golden 24 hours: time, money and enthusiasm
- 23:07 · From a weekend MVP to AppExchange, Volkswagen and Brazil
- 34:10 · Listening to the customer and distilling the real problem
- 36:03 · The pivot to WhatsApp security and compliance
- 40:20 · Enterprise only: deals of 50 thousand dollars and up
- 42:06 · Bootstrapping, an 11-million-dollar raise and the fall
- 46:22 · Custom development vs. product enhancement, and the Brazilian market
- 52:36 · Yanir's tip: curiosity and proportion