Principles
Durable claims that survive beyond the speaker's biography — each with explicit limits, transferability judgment, and evidence.
Principle
Pace of product integration + talent decisions = M&A success determinant
M&A value capture is time-decaying: every quarter without integration loses synergy potential, and every quarter without talent decisions lets cultural friction calcify.
Set explicit 12-month integration + talent-decision deadlines on every acquisition. Slipping past them is the predictive signal of underperformance.
“The two big things that we've learned is the pace of product integration and talent. Where we moved fast on integrating the platform ... and then where we needed to either upgrade talent or make talent changes, when we do those two things well, what we've seen is — and by the way, little acquisitions that nobody asks about.”Sasan Goodarzi
“Making the tough decisions up front is far better than waiting.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
SMBs are consumers, not mini-enterprises
SMB buyers operate with consumer-grade attention budgets and decision processes; products built around enterprise-grade complexity overshoot the buyer''s capacity to evaluate and use them.
If your SMB roadmap looks like a smaller version of an enterprise roadmap, you''re building the wrong product. Reset to consumer-grade simplicity and decision-process.
“They're actually consumers. They behave like consumers, they act like consumers. The minute you put the word they're a "business" in front of it, then you start thinking large business, large enterprise, and they behave and act like consumers.”Sasan Goodarzi
“Most people treat small businesses like they're large enterprises, because they're a business. And the reality is they are absolutely consumers that behave like consumers.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Look at multiple SMB metrics — high NPS with no growth is a real failure mode
NPS measures satisfaction of the existing base; it doesn''t measure acquisition. Satisfied users who don''t recruit new ones produce a high NPS in a stagnant business — undetectable on a single-metric dashboard.
If your NPS is high but new-logo growth is flat, NPS isn''t the bottleneck — and continuing to optimize it is wasted attention.
“You can have a very high NPS and no new customer growth. So you have to really look at multiple metrics. ... we look at what I just articulated, to really get a feel for are the things that we're doing working or not?”Sasan Goodarzi
“We'll look at product recommendation scores. ... services, because customers may give you one NPS, but if they're using more and more of your services, then that's a huge indication. So we'll look at are they using payments? Are they using payroll? ... gross retention. Also just retention dollars.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Word-of-mouth + accountant-channel are the only ways to keep SMB CAC sane
SMB unit economics don''t support paid-acquisition costs at scale; the only sustainable acquisition channels are network-effect-driven (word-of-mouth, referrers) which compound rather than tax revenue.
If your SMB CAC is paid-channel-dominant, you''re subsidizing acquisition from your equity. The defensible model is network-effect-driven; pay to seed it, then let it run.
“I would say two big things: one is referral and our partners and accountants. The better of a job that you do serving one business, the word of mouth is huge. ... accountants only recommend things that they use, love and recommend. That's how we've learned to keep the CAC down.”Sasan Goodarzi
“Now what I would tell you is every time we've tried to go into a new country, CAC is very high. ... You're trying to get the first customer, get them to — you know, word of mouth to spread, then get an accountant to use it, and then create that network effect.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Grit and hard work over talent — solve for winning, not joy
Grit is what gets you through the period when the work is hard and the rewards are deferred; talent without grit fails to convert into outcomes because it doesn''t persist through the trough.
For senior hires, treat grit as a primary filter, not a tiebreaker. Capability without grit doesn''t convert at the senior level.
“I think talent is overrated. I think it's all about grit and it's all about hard work. I will take anyone that has grit and hard work versus [...]”Sasan Goodarzi
“I'm not solving for joy. I think that's the advice I would give is if you're solving for just following your passion and defining how the day went by, joy and happiness, you're not going to succeed in this world — as a CEO or not a CEO.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Stay in love with the customer problem — and willing to disrupt yourself
Companies that fall in love with their solution stop disrupting it; companies that stay in love with the problem keep finding the next answer when conditions change.
When you find yourself defending the current product against a new approach, ask: am I in love with the problem or with the answer? Only the former survives platform shifts.
“Our success is when we were always in love with the customer problem and always willing to disrupt ourselves. And that's so much easier said than done, by the way. So much easier said than done. But that's why we're still around.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Anchor first, then build adjacent — never parallel-stack
Adjacent-problem expansion compounds because the customer-relationship and data-asset built by the anchor product carry over; non-adjacent expansion forces re-acquisition and re-trust.
Map your anchor and the 3 nearest adjacencies. Build the closest one to dominance before starting the next. If the next one is non-adjacent and would take 5+ years to build, evaluate acquisition.
“First of all, everybody has an anchor — ours was tax and accounting. Then the question is: What's the next problem you can solve for that customer that's right next to that anchor? ... let's build that out. And then let's build out payroll, which is very hard. ... it's really being very intentional about what's next to your anchor, and is that a big enough problem to solve? Can you build advantage by solving it, and then really nail that and then go to the next thing?”Sasan Goodarzi
“That's why we acquired, like, a credit karma. We wanted to do more than taxes. We could have replicated credit karma. It just would have taken us five-plus years because of the data and AI capabilities.”Sasan Goodarzi
Principle
Customers don''t do what they say — observe, don''t confirmation-bias
Confirmation-bias customer research feels like research but is actually validation; only observation-mode research yields the surprises that change the roadmap.
Audit your customer-research practice: how often does it produce a surprise that changes the roadmap? If rarely, you''re doing confirmation-bias research, not observation.
“You can do a follow-me-home where you're telling the customer, Here's what I'm doing, and just you want confirmation bias. Then there's follow-me-homes which is a real technique and you're truly there to observe, learn and try to capture the a-has, the surprises. Because the big thing we've learned is customers don't do what they say.”Sasan Goodarzi