Anaplan is all about creating disruption because the company and its founders believe status quo does not breed success. Instead, companies have to regularly modify their planning processes in order to stay ahead of the curve and the competition.
Forming their name from “Analytics,” the science of logical analysis, and “Planning, the act or process of making a plan to achieve or do something, Anaplan is illustrating how good business should trump the traditional framework of environments like Silicon Valley. Fred Laluyaux, President and CEO, explains why they are making this case.
Q: In many cases, VC firms, especially those in the Silicon Valley tech space advise their companies to address local audiences/needs/problems first, then expand. Clearly this is not the approach Anaplan took. Why did you not take the traditional route and why did it work?
In 2010, which was our first year to market, we acquired customers in the US, APAC, and EMEA. Today, we have 13 offices around the globe and sell in 22 countries. We saw that we couldn’t solve the problem unless we became global. Our large enterprise customers are looking to solve interconnected process and planning challenges that are global. You may meet a company that’s based in London, but likely it has teams in New York, Singapore, and Paris that all need to be collaborating on Anaplan.
Why would a company trying to achieve a global sales forecast have one region forecast in seconds, using Anaplan, while another is taking weeks to roll-up hundreds of spreadsheets? Companies are attracted to the benefit of an immediate global process offered within Anaplan. And, because we are cloud-based, they are able to achieve it without a cumbersome and costly global IT project. The cloud has also been an accelerator in the process, allowing us to more efficiently deploy new offices and equip teams.
Q: What would you advise other companies given your story and success?
Because the world is changing so quickly, entrepreneurs need to regularly challenge the status quo. Some of the advice from five years ago simply might not apply today. In our case, challenging conventional wisdom and going global first made sense. For us, the decision was a result of knowing our own DNA as a company, the size of our market opportunity, our customers and their needs and the scalability of our technology. All of these factors showed us that it made sense to go global.
I have three pieces of advice for others based on our experience. First, people will come into your company and say, “This is the way we did it at X company.” What we try to do at Anaplan is solve problems from first principles. Go back to a blank sheet of paper and design how a problem should best be solved. This will drive innovation and ultimately disruption.
Second, maintain a strong startup mentality around fiscal discipline no matter how much capital you raise. Try to build your organizational structure with hypergrowth in mind, but keep it lean and simple. Maintain the ethos of a startup and your resources focused on your customers and product. Third, don't spend your life in the Silicon Valley bubble or exclusively rely on your VCs for introductions. Instead, build your brand with real customers outside of the Valley.
Q: Silicon Valley is often accused of being too inward focused. How does the story you tell to potential customers, partners and investors differ when you tell it in Silicon Valley versus internationally?
Your story shouldn’t differ by location. When I talk to potential customers and partners, I find that the problems they face are universal. The story of Anaplan resonates whether I am in Singapore, Moscow, or San Francisco. Depending on location, sometimes I adjust my language to cultural nuances and what stage each market is in. If you feel the need to have multiple stories, then you may want to take a closer look because your story may not be sharp enough.
Q: What are some of the pitfalls of expanding internationally too quickly/too slowly?
Starting on a global scale means that you multiply every problem that a startup has and then compound it by time zones, languages, and cultural mores. This creates a huge intensity because you not only have to execute on day-to-day customer acquisition and implementation, but you also have to build international structures and processes simultaneously. On the other hand, this provides a broader talent acquisition for our company. We now have growing development teams in San Francisco, UK, and France.
Q: Have you been able to play your International DNA to advantage in Silicon Valley? (Anaplan has a French CEO, British CTO and Chief Product Officer, Canadian EVP, Australian CMO).
Unlike many tech companies in the Bay Area, we weren’t born in a garage in Palo Alto but actually started in a cowshed in York, England. It’s definitely a memorable and differentiating point from companies here in the Valley. However, the real benefit of having an international team is the many points of view. Having built their careers across different countries and moved their families around the world, each member of our executive team brings a broad, creative perspective to operating a global company.
Q: If you were to start again now, which investors would you approach with a B2B SAAS idea and why?
We would still pick our current investors because they understood what we wanted to achieve from the very beginning and shared our mindset for challenging the status quo and creating a disruption in the marketplace and rules here in the Valley. Having a team of backers that just get us and had a similar vision for radically changing how business can modify and build their planning processes through various apps has accelerated our success.
