Back to First Principles, with James Neufeld

In this episode of the Metric Stack podcast, James Neufeld, CEO of Samdesk, digs into the critical role metrics play in communication between company leadership and board members, particularly post-Series A and B funding rounds. James talks about the universality of metrics as a language for investors, who often lack deep domain expertise and rely on financial, user, and adoption metrics to gauge opportunities.

James shares insights from his experience with the board, describing how they evolved from merely tracking performance to understanding the underlying drivers of their key metrics. He talks about Samdesk’s initial struggles in determining which metrics were leading and lagging indicators and the challenges of measuring success based solely on a first-principles driven culture. Lessons learned from these early days inform current practices at Samdesk, where they focus on actionable metrics that directly influence business outcomes. As an example, he describes how measuring customer satisfaction, with metrics like Time to Customer Complaints (TCC) speeds up innovation at Samdesk, while combining first principles and common sense actions to derive meaningful insights.

Since preparing for and achieving Series A and B funding Samdesk has grown from using a primarily first-principles approach to one that combines those principles with a metrics-focused strategy. They’ve also dealt with the rapid and pervasive changes brought about by COVID-19 by adapting and continuously learning, from both successes and failures.

James describes how Samdesk communicates with the board by combining qualitative (customer experiences) and quantitative (metrics like ARR and Churn) information. His final bit of advice – pay attention to your metrics but don’t be paralyzed by them. They’re not a substitute for talking to your customers. You need to do both.