Feb 11Looking back at my startup journeyIn a blink of an eye, I am one year into my career sabbatical. As I’m preparing to be a Visiting Partner at Iterative’s Winter 23 batch, I thought reflecting on my startup founder career would be timely. The most valuable lessons I have learned have come from hearing stories…Startup5 min readStartup5 min read
Dec 6, 2022Our customer success crisis response plan — what we did, what we learnedTimes are tough for tech. Since the beginning of 2022, more tech workers in the US have been laid off than in 2020 and 2021 combined [1]. Not to mention globally and many more that went unreported. While it isn’t reaching the levels that the industry saw during the dot-com…Customer Success6 min readCustomer Success6 min read
Nov 8, 2022Train your Customer Success Managers in this underrated and important skillHere’s an underrated knowledge to provide training for your Customer Success Managers. . . . 💸 Reading financial statements . . . If you are a manager who struggle with CSMs not thinking “big picture” and “not strategic” enough, try providing training for some basic Corporate Finance knowledge. Carve some…Customer Success Manager2 min readCustomer Success Manager2 min read
Nov 7, 2022How to spot a high-performing Customer Success ManagerOne of the challenges I had in the earlier days of building out a Customer Success function was developing predictable renewals and expansion measures. For context, this was when performance data was in the progress of being collected and historical could not yet provide sufficient predictive power. If someone were…Customer Success5 min readCustomer Success5 min read
Feb 9, 20224 tips for people managers who are empathsIntroduction Few will argue with me when I say being a people manager is tough. You are figuratively (hopefully not literally) expected to be a human shield [1]. The strategy of learning to manage yourself to manage others better is not new, and personal experience has affirmed my conviction that you…Leadership7 min readLeadership7 min read
Sep 21, 2021The Southeast Asia Customer Success Survey 2021Introduction Customer Success is often said to be going through a golden age. You only have to look at Gainsight being acquired by Vista for a $1.1b back in December 2020. …Customer Success7 min readCustomer Success7 min read
May 21, 2021We lost our pet after a routine annual vaccinationSummary On April 11th, 2021, we lost our precious Cavalier King Charles — Cookie. She was 4 years, 8 months old. Cookie had her routine annual vaccination on March 11th, 2021. She went into an IMHA (immune-mediated hemolytic anemia) state on Mar 13th, 2021, requiring an urgent blood transfusion. She…Pets8 min readPets8 min read
