My journey from CRM to DevCRM

Becoming a DevReveler

Having spent nearly a decade building enterprise software, I continue to be motivated by the impact technology enables. My passion will always lead me to find ways to create products of lasting value that transform the way people work.

I am optimistic that the biggest opportunity for work transformation lies in connecting the maker toolchain to customers. That is what drove me to join DevRev and lead the Product Management organization. My role is to help us rev from zero to one, as we create a new product category which enables developers to build products, support customers and grow their businesses in today’s product-led world.

Meeting DevReveler

I came to DevRev from Salesforce where I was Vice President of Product Management, heading up the roadmap and strategy for Salesforce Anywhere, a real-time & intelligent CRM collaboration application. After joining Salesforce through the acquisition of MetaMind, I led a subset of Salesforce’s Einstein AI products including Einstein Voice, Einstein Voice Assistant and Einstein’s Deep Learning Platform Services.

I was first introduced to DevRev while the company was in stealth mode. It was quite a serendipitous experience that brought us together. I was chatting with a close colleague about my passion for end-user experience and the intersection of machine learning and design, and he quietly hinted at a new startup that shared these same enthusiasms. It was a vague introduction due to DevRev still being pre-launch, but the ambiguity of it all piqued my interest and it didn’t take long for me to recognize our vision and passions aligned.

Diving into a new adventure
I believe that timing in life is everything. When an opportunity arises that you feel like you can’t miss out on, the best thing to do is to take the plunge. That said, I had an amazing journey at Salesforce from the day MetaMind was acquired and appreciate the mentorship I received there.

While at Salesforce, I was able to help start its applied AI Research team and the Einstein product portfolio with Richard Socher and John Ball. A couple of years later, I got the chance to work extensively with Salesforce CEO, Chair and Co-Founder Marc Benioff on Einstein Voice Assistant and Voice Apps. I then finished my time at Salesforce collaborating on Salesforce Anywhere with Bret Taylor and Kevin Gibbs at Quip.

All of these experiences shaped my product mindset but the hardest part of moving on was leaving behind a team of amazingly talented product managers, designers, and engineers with whom I was so fortunate to collaborate with during my time at Salesforce.

Transforming the product development experience

What attracted me to join DevRev were the people, the culture and the vision. The fact that we are building a lasting company with a long-term mindset for how we get there, makes DevRev feel like a place where I could happily spend the rest of my career.

Coming to DevRev, the biggest adjustment for me has been starting from scratch at a new organization and ensuring that I invest time in building relationships with my colleagues across not only the engineering, product and design team but also with all of my cross-functional peers.

I’ve been working on product-led growth (PLG)-focused products almost my entire career. As a product manager, I relate deeply to the problem we are solving, which makes building a product for this space feel natural to me. Every pain point, every metric, every process we look to improve for our customers, I too have experienced first-hand. I’m excited to find creative ways to improve how dev teams operate and influence the future of SaaS.

The potential is limitless, so I like to ground myself in how we execute in the near-term. In many ways, the future is already moving in the direction that we are headed. Every business is truly starting to think like a software company, and every software company is becoming PLG-focused. Ensuring we are building the right tools and user experiences to make every organization successful is what I find most exhilarating.

At DevRev, we are transforming the product development experience and delivering joy to end users. I recommend anyone that is motivated by the problems we are solving and the impact of their work to reach out to be a part of this journey.