On a recent installment of the Dealmakers’ Podcast, Joseph Landes discussed his professional journey, and the transition from a 23-year career at Microsoft to co-founding Nerdio, an Updata portfolio company. Joseph is a thoughtful leader who has pursued a life centered around authenticity and continuous improvement.
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DealMakers: Nerdio CRO and Co-Founder Joseph Landes on Demystifying the Idea of Virtual Laptops
DealMakers: Nerdio CRO and Co-Founder Joseph Landes on Demystifying the Idea of Virtual Laptops
Choosing a Partner
“Vadim and I were aligned – as was our board – that we would take investment from someone who could exponentially grow our business. Vadim and I try to double our business every day, as many B2B SaaS companies do. Year on year we try to double our business. We knew if there was someone out there that could help us – in an unnatural way – achieve that escape velocity, we wanted to meet those people.”
“When you’re a founder, it gets a little distracting when you start to have a little success. Many people are reaching out to you to try to give you money, to invest, buy a stake in your company, to partner with you. Vadim as our CEO bore the brunt of that responsibility. He was getting tons of solicitations, to the extent that we finally went to Bret [Maxwell, MK Capital], one of our VC partners, and said can you start investigating who some of these folks are. Bret came to us and said we met these folks Updata Partners, they are an incredible growth equity company based in Washington, DC. And they have an incredible track record of growing companies like yours. We really think you should meet them.”
Updata’s Differentiation & Value Add
“We understood they were not looking to come and change what we were doing – they were just looking to add expertise. And I can tell you from the day that we met them until today, that is what they have done. They have added tremendous expertise to our company, tremendous expertise to the things I do as a CRO every day.”
“I can go to them with any topic that I have. It can be something as simple as quota setting to recruiting to modeling out different ways of doing business, and they have done it for many companies before. As a founder, that’s what you want – you want this sort of collective expertise, this database of knowledge that they have that they can bring to bear on your company. That’s exactly what we have received from Updata. They have become great partners to us….they have raised our game.”