Tracy is going to stop.
In 2018, Tracy and its co -founders sold their company Plan Grid for $ 875 million. By 2021, she was ready to jump back and work again with the new startup: Tigreye.
The AI ​​-powered planning and revenue management software for businesses for businesses, and connect AI and machine learning with the company’s own historical data to help them predict their future. As Tracy has said, it’s “mini -hair but for business.”
I recently sat down with Tracy to find more information about it, what it runs, and something he has learned on the way. We talked about it:
- Why she wanted to jump back as a founder/CEO, and what gave birth to the idea of ​​Tigrai
- YC interview that encouraged him to focus on enterprise software
- Why did he and his partner “find the past” in the past before starting the second company, and what they are doing this time.
- Hard parts of joining a large company after acquisition, suggesting it for new founders passing through YC, and much more!
Lightly modified for explanation and length, find our conversation below.
You got out with a plan grid on a large scale. You took a couple of years and then jumped back to do it again. What do you drive?
This is a really good question.
I think my children drive me. I always need a project to work. I am busy like this. I like to work, and I really like to work with talented, talented people.
But I also have a lot of energy and intensity, and my children do not need them all the time. They have their own life, they do not need the founder mother on them-because after that I am dealing with every little thing. “Why are your toys? Go pick it up!” (Laugh)
They do not need this energy at 24/7. So I get it out in a startup.
But more than anything, I saw my parents working incredibly hard to give my siblings and my life to give me my life. He was a refugee of the Vietnam war. He worked seven days a week a week. They worked in two jobs to work for our family things. He made me nowadays, and I want my kids to see that you can dream, you can work hard, and as long as you are fond of it, you can do whatever you want.
What came first: desire to maintain the idea or building (after plan grid)?
Want to continue construction.
– We saw a lot of cool technology during the interviews, and reading thousands of requests from all these prominent, talented founders.
It was really clear to us that there was very little hanging fruit in the enterprise, but the only people who would prepare the solution there … let me tell you a quick story: I remember taking an interview really, Really Talented engineer. She may have been 18 years old, and she was building .. I do not remember, there is something vague around the video. We were looking at it and asked: You can make anything! Why don’t you solve real problems of real people’s jobs?
He looked at us and said: Enterprise software is for older people.
Oh What was your answer?
I laughed, but he forced me to think that the only people who would create a big solution in the enterprise world are the ones who have seen it themselves.
We had the unfair advantage of making startups for almost 10 years, seeing that it had increased all the time, and deployed every solution to our company to scales and work under the sun.
We then received the honor to get in a public company, and create a new construction business unit (within this company), where we changed all our startup tools with (major brand) winners – we were paying millions of dollars to buy software every year, and then managing it and making it a million.
It was so obvious to us: We can take any category between CRMS and ERPS and there were ten good start -up ideas, okay? But the only people who will produce this kind of software are the people who have seen it fail for years.
For those who do not know, can you explain what Tijrai does? What was the pitch?
When Ralph raised me the idea of ​​Tajiri, he said, “Remember that all the spread sheets that were available to us (when plan grid), and they don’t really answer our questions? I think I can make a business simulator – and automatically prepare this figure through a simulation theory.”
In the past life, he worked at John Hopkins University, which had a physics laboratory applied using simulation theory and felt intensely that it could be applied to the business. It was really interesting to me.
Can you give me examples of how the tigers are doing, and what do you have for the implication of it?
Something interesting about the sales force is that this is a flat database. When a sales representative escapes an opportunity, it subdue history. No version is controlled.
But that history is interesting! Especially if you have a lot of it, because we can now understand the representative behavior over time. So we go to CRM and snap everything every 15 minutes. We choose every minor change that is happening over time and uses AI, machine learning, and a group of modern statistics to use our historical (data) to predict our future. We are like mini balls but for business.
It becomes even more important in public companies, where you are trying to find out: Where are we going this quarter, or this month? Where will our business be?
You have really smarter numbers on the spreadsheet to try to predict the future, and these spreadsheets do not work.
What was you from living in a large corporate environment, moving your startup for 10 years, moving at your own pace?
He really sucked for me. I think everyone knew it.
Startups move at such a speed. There is a cultural difference to enter a 40+ year old public company. Certainly there are differences of decision -making, and I think this was the most difficult part. I felt as if I couldn’t sneeze without asking for permission from five heads.
How much frustration do you have to do with your experiences with plan grid and then in a big company – before diving in diving?
We left the Autodesk in March 2020 – and then, as you remember, went into the lockdown around the world.
I have married my co -founder (Ralph), so we have mostly shelter and just endured the past to end the past. We didn’t have a sudden job, we would leave the autodesk, we were accustomed to moving at such a speed, and then we stopped a complete.
What we have finished doing is to do everything we have felt wrong, and what we have done right. Everyone we thought about we wanted to work again, and everyone with whom we would not work again with certainty. We created a map of the differences between them, with which we want to work again, and those who did not do. The first 24 or 25 people (in the tajra) were the people we worked with.
Is it fixed whether you want to work with someone again or not?
These were the people we think were incredibly talented, and that we had a leisurely time with us. It’s just as simple: turning back, yes, I would love to work again with this person. Before we reduced the idea of ​​a product, we had its basic value.
Can you tell me a little about what you are doing as a daily founder this time?
This time it is a bit different. When I first started the plan grid, I was in the middle of my mid -20s. I am approaching 40 this year, and I have 3 young children.
For the second time getting its luxury, I know the things that are a high price – the things I can do as a CEO and founder only. Some decisions can only be made, and there are decisions that are made by someone else in the company.
“It makes people feel that when the CEO jumps and does for them, they suck in their job.”
I think in my 20s, as the founder and the first time the CEO, I did not know honestly what my job was. I was always jumping on support tickets. If consumers have a problem, I will be the first person to jump. Companies arrive at the point where this is not the best use of your time. We really had a great help in the team – and when the CEO is jumping to do your job, it’s really bad! It makes people feel that when the CEO jumps and does for them, they suck in their job.
So this time I really deliberately spend my time.
Does it look like?
These days it is mostly products and sales. But it’s also about really very safe family time, and really heavily full of safe work time.
Family Time Time… I usually don’t ask questions about the founders about marrying each other because it feels very personal, but since you have mentioned it earlier: Is it easy or difficult to separate life and work? Easy because your partner is already running in your life, or understands the hard things because, in some way, works always in the air?
We have been working for so long that it is difficult for me to know that it is like the other side. We worked together (on the plan grid) in 2011. We got married in 2013. With three children, and now two startups – yes, it’s difficult.
It’s funny, but we often find founders who think about starting a company with their partners, and the advice we give is: Don’t do it. And the reason is that startups are difficult. And marriage is difficult. And it is difficult to have a baby! So this is a joint explosion of problems that can come out.
But we are also a good example that it can do, but we have worked a lot to practice personal development, and patience, and to practice forgiveness so that we can be able to do what we do.
The last question here, but: is an incredibly rare view on your YC. You were undergoing this as a founder several times, you were the next group partner … For someone who goes through the coming YC batch, or to apply in the future, what would you say to give them really more time?
It is easy to be a bit mad – the goal is to make more and more progress in three months, so you have a great day of demo with maximum income and development.
But I will encourage everyone around me (in the middle), and to see the beginning of them, and try to know them. Learn what they are making.
I think back to YC winter 2012 and summer 2022, and these are the people who are really the best part of the YC. This is the friendship I did. Partners with whom I worked. 100 % tone on your item is really easy to be. – But don’t forget that you are getting an incredible opportunity to meet people who are going through your exact journey.
Get more information Here about TigereyeAnd Find the “predicted growth” to the Tracy Newsletter.