Usage-Based Monetization with Akash Khanolkar - Episode 55

On this week’s Data Leadership Lessons podcast, we welcome Akash Khanolkar. Akash is a co-founder of Octane, which makes usage-based billing easier for any software-as-a-service company. We talk about the complexities of charging for variable services, and how Octane is trying to level the playing field.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/U5FFIOHlvZ8

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About Akash Khanolkar:

Akash is the Co-Founder of Octane, a drop-in metered billing system that gives businesses the flexibility to bill how they want. Octane is on a mission to become the cloud standard for usage-based monetization, freeing developers to focus on building the next generation of software. Octane was founded by engineers from Google and Facebook and is backed by high-profile venture capitalists. 

Octane: https://www.getoctane.io/

Episode Transcript:

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akash: access to this monitoring data. Why is no one using it and that? that is when I had

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akash: the thesis. Maybe there’s uh. there’s something to unlock here converting metering

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akash: infrastructure data into financial value?

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anthony_algmin: Welcome to the Data Leadership Lessons Podcast. I’m your host, Anthony J.

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anthony_algmin: Algmin. Data is everywhere in our businesses and it takes leadership to make

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anthony_algmin: the most of it. We bring you the people stories and lessons to help you

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anthony_algmin: become a data leader. Our show is produced by Algmin Business media, where

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anthony_algmin: we make having your own video podcast as easy as joining a video call and

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anthony_algmin: sending an email. At Algmin Business Media, the stage is yours! Today on data

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anthony_algmin: sending an email. At Algmin Business Media, the stage is yours! Today on data

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anthony_algmin: leadership lessons we welcome Akash Khanolkar

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anthony_algmin: Akash is the co founder of Octane, a drop in metered billing system that

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anthony_algmin: gives businesses the flexibility to bill how they want. Octane is on a

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anthony_algmin: mission to become the cloud standard for usage based monenization, freeing

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anthony_algmin: developers to focus on building the next generation of software. a cash.

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anthony_algmin: Welcome to the show.

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akash: Hey, Anthony, but thank you for having me appreciate it.

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anthony_algmin: Of course, so like we do with all of our first time, Gus. Why don’t you just

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anthony_algmin: take a couple minutes and just give us the story of a caution and cut of

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anthony_algmin: what led you up to what you’re doing now with octaain, and and how you had

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anthony_algmin: this vision for building this kind of business?

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akash: Yeah, absolutely. um, so I, I’ve always, I mean, I’ve always loved building things

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akash: and selling them

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akash: for the past almost multiple decades. I just a big part of what I did building as

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akash: seing man. I just I. I found the intersection of software and business to be

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akash: remarkably beautiful. Um,

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anthony_algmin: Hm,

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akash: so roughly a decade ago, I actually met my co founders at Carnegie Mellon. We were

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akash: all

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akash: software. We’re all software folks, Uh, we always, we all love billing. So I, we all

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akash: a building. Sorry, I got Billy on my mind.

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akash: Uh, we all love building, and um,

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akash: we all went on our separate paths. Me personally, I, I went on to to take you know a

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akash: few corporate jobs. Uh, really just get. just get. just get experience under my belt.

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akash: Um, I mean on the side, you know, wass building building apps and selling themselves

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akash: That. that was a pretty relevant part of my experience. Uh, but I guess Mo, most

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akash: recently when I really started to experience the entrepreneurial journey was when I

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akash: started a cloud consulting business. So I sorted at a cloud consulting business prior

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akash: to what I’m doing today at Octeainne, and that that was an. I mean, that was an

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akash: incredible experience. Um, Just to give you an idea of what what inspired me to start

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akash: that business? Um, I was, I was in the. I was in our cloud team at a previous

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akash: corporate job, and uh, I. I. I thought to myself, Well, you know, I really want to

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akash: start working with tons of different com, tons of different companies, Like I. I. I

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akash: see

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akash: there’s a pretty massive shift to moving to the cloud. and uh, a lot of companies

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akash: could use, just could use that help. So, uh, I,

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akash: at that point I, you know, I started a cloud consulting business and I worked with

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akash: companies ranging from hedge funds to fast growing Mobileb companies, The well funded

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akash: startus. I mean, I, I got a really amazing experience working with a large range of

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akash: companies,

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akash: and Um

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akash: without, I mean from just a pure leadership and business perspective, I, I gained a

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akash: lot of insights to like what it meant to sign deals, what it meant to get new

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akash: customers, What it meant to make those customers happy, Uh, what it meant to actually

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akash: take Technology takes software lesson that I’ve learned and implemented and Uh, be

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akash: successful and help companies be successful. So that was a pretty amazing business

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akash: experience, Um, and it was very successful. you know, I. I. I. I served a a large

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akash: list of customers. Uh, but I started to, you know, I really wanted a strive to do

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akash: something even bigger, even greater impact. a much larger set of much larger audience

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akash: effect. Globally, uh, the thing with consulting is you know, uh, it’s It’s something

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akash: that can grow, but it’s obviously if you’re consulting, it doesn’t scale as fast. Re

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akash: builllion

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akash: product business, You can scale and impact the entire world almost at once. And with

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akash: consulting it’s very um. one to one. Uh, and if you, you know, if you do it right,

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akash: you can serve many customers simultaneously, but you don’t have that global impact.

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akash: So

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akash: so going back to the consulting experience,

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akash: I did notice one specific trend across all my consulting experience. Uh, on the on

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akash: the topic of data, I was typically, you know, I was here to have set up their cloud

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akash: infrastructure. That was typically what I did for our different customers, And

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akash: the common theme that I had for all my set of customers was setting up monitoring

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akash: systems. I found myself setting up monitoring system after monitoring system for

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akash: different cops for different companies,

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akash: and the purpose of that monitoring system is as we know it today for system health

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akash: system up time, ensuring, uh, ensuring that your Apts are running. Infrastructure’s

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akash: good. Every all the apps are healthy.

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akash: Uh. what what I notice is? There’s a pretty significant disconnect in. I saw a ton of

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akash: relevant data business. Sorry, A lot of ton, ton of uh value in that monitoring

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akash: system. Data was creating these rich dashboards really useful from a business

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akash: perspective, but that data was being leverage purely for infrastructure people, s

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akash: or’s to make sure that your system is healthy and I think there was, and I found that

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akash: there’s a lot of contapped potential in that data that was going unused.

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akash: So what I did was that got me really curious. Um,

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akash: and I started to talk to more users. Like. why aren’t we reusing this monitoring data

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akash: for other use cases. Other stakeholders want access to this business. People want

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akash: access to this monitoring data. Why is no one using it and that? that is when I had

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akash: access to this monitoring data. Why is no one using it and that? that is when I had

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akash: the thesis. Maybe there’s uh. there’s something to unlock here converting metering

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akash: infrastructure data into financial value? Right, I started to. I started to probe

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akash: infrastructure data into financial value? Right, I started to. I started to probe

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akash: that, and that’s really where I stumbled upon octane. What we’re building today, Uh,

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akash: a usage based buelling platform to enable Sas businesses. Uh, I started talking to a

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akash: lots of companies about what does it mean to take monitoring data and and and package

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akash: that and sell that. And that’s that’s where consumption base buillling came from. In

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akash: our in our minds, Um,

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akash: it’s

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akash: and that that’s pretty much how Ocing came to be.

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anthony_algmin: so help me understand then what

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anthony_algmin: that that premise is in? In a little more details,

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anthony_algmin: literally, like using monitoring data to Um to facilitate building four,

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anthony_algmin: like consultants or for products, Is it is it cause? suffer as a service or

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anthony_algmin: or as a service offerings can. Take a lot of different forms. I’m curious

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anthony_algmin: how far do you reach into that other world where

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anthony_algmin: I. I was smiling because of my own experience with Uh consulting. I’

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anthony_algmin: obviously done a lot of consulting in my career, And it’s a well known

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anthony_algmin: tenant of a consulting business. Is that it’s hard to grow cause you

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anthony_algmin: basically grow linearally with your head count like that’s That’s all you

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anthony_algmin: can do in growing a consulting business.

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anthony_algmin: You get that exponential growth, so I, I hear you on on the mission to

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anthony_algmin: create a product that can reach more people than just what you could do as

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anthony_algmin: as a consultant in in a linear fashion, But with ocain,

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anthony_algmin: where you? where you really? um, focusing on and how does that billing

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anthony_algmin: actually apply

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anthony_algmin: Is? are you serving that space or are you doing something different? I’m

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akash: well, So so the consulting actually inspired inspired the capabilities and you’re and

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akash: you’re right. So the that? that same work that I did as a consultant didn’t

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akash: necessarily apply from a product perspective. It just inspired us to have that idea

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akash: and we talked. We started talking to Sas businesses more, and that lit Afi for us.

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akash: So, um,

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akash: at times, I mean, some of our consulting engagements were in fact with Sas

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akash: businesses, But uh, what really lit the fire for us was like, Okay, We just we saw a

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akash: massive trend towards the cloud and being able to do cloud based consumption billding

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akash: is, it was, was almost a a slight switch that happened, But what? really? what really

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akash: actually made it very real for us was when we talked to Sas businesses and we saw how

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akash: big of a problem it was for that,

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akash: Um,

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akash: we we were. We were talking to different house companies with that coast, the

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akash: database companies, uh, anywhere from Sead based startus to I p, o post, i p O

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akash: companies, and like they were taking a smaller stage, companies were taking several

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akash: months to implement consumption based billing to a larger company of you. Think like

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akash: the toilos of the world. they have on hundreds of billing engineers supporting their

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akash: Homeb billding system. So uh, we saw that there’s fairly significant challenges with

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akash: implementing consumption based billing across the Sass world,

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akash: And that was what really inspired for. And that’s what inspired me to move on from my

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akash: consulting world to into building a product business. I mean beyond. I. I think

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akash: there’s a whole conversation we had about what it means to grow consulting business

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akash: to what it means to grow product business. Um, but yeah, have type it to go on Any

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akash: rabbit holes.

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anthony_algmin: Yeah, well, maybe we’ll come back to that because I I want to make sure I’m

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anthony_algmin: understanding now. So now it’s starting to click with me right And and and

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anthony_algmin: that’s the thing is like I. I want to ask some of these questions that the

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anthony_algmin: audience may be having themselves

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anthony_algmin: as as we’re hearing what this is. And so, um, as I think about a, you know a

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anthony_algmin: software business. it sounds like you’re probably going to be more targeted

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anthony_algmin: than in terms of octain towards the small and mid sized businesses. I’m

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anthony_algmin: guessing bidsizeed businesses are probably uh, the sweet spot where they

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anthony_algmin: have consumption based billing, Um. But they’re providing a a robust enough

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anthony_algmin: Um. service software is a service offering, but they don’t necessarily have

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anthony_algmin: Um. it. It isn’t that the economically, um, Uh, optimal thing to hire on a

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anthony_algmin: couple hundred. Um, you know engineers to build their own home, growrown,

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anthony_algmin: very customized thing like, if you’re a a B, S. Yeah, you’re probably going

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anthony_algmin: to figure out you know consumption based billing. Um, though they certainly

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anthony_algmin: haven’t uh, necessarily figured out how to make that transparent to the

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anthony_algmin: people that are consuming some of those resources. And I imagine that. Um.

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anthony_algmin: that’s a request that you hear a lot Is how do we make it so that our

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anthony_algmin: customers know where they stand or what the impacts are going to be of

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anthony_algmin: actions that that they take in our perspective. Um, you know software

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anthony_algmin: platform that your customers who are going to be businesses are offering to

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anthony_algmin: their customers who are going to be either businesses or consumers. Um is is

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akash: Yeah, I mean, midsize business is definitely the the type of customers we work with

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akash: and you’re exactly right. It’s enabling anyone to build the way that a U. S does.

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akash: Obviously, there’s certain innovations that we want to make it even better.

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akash: But yeah, imagine trying to build the way that it’ll be. There’s so many Com

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akash: companies that compete uh on different dimensions in the Sas world, either against a

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akash: o B s. or even just beyond that. Um. And being able to charge on consumption is

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akash: really hard to give you an idea of the why it’s so hard. Let’s think of a C, typical

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akash: subscription business, a typical subscription business. You charge a single amount

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akash: per month, Pretty classic, right like I, I have an enterprise software. I’m goingnna

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akash: charge you one thousand dollars a month flat fee every month All my customers, Um. I

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akash: mean, there’s

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akash: massive billing businesses just on supporting a subscription base model, Um,

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akash: and it’s fairly. it’s it’s fairly common. I mean you all of us have experienced or

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akash: bought enterprise software that is pretty much on a month month. You pay you. Y, you

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akash: pay for that flat rate now from a vendor perspective, as you can imagine it’s. It’s a

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akash: relatively easy problem. Uh, you just got to take a single amount and charge everyone

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akash: for that amount And if they upgrade a hundred bucks to hundred fifty bucks, you

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akash: charge them the new hundred and fifty. All right now, think about consumption base

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akash: billing or, if, like, let’s say were a O, U. S. We are charging based on fifty

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akash: hundred hundreds of different meters with different skewes and we’ charging different

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akash: amounts

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akash: and we need to track on an almost per second basis how all of my customers are using

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akash: them. my software, and at the end of the month we need to. We need to ▁ultimately

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akash: come up with a reliable bill

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akash: and that,

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akash: as you can imagine, that is an explosion of complexity from a billing perspective

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anthony_algmin: right. right. well,

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anthony_algmin: it. it’s funny to think like how it’s evolved from your experiences when you

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anthony_algmin: are building these kind of monitoring systems where you are trying to

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anthony_algmin: understand the health of you. know. whatever the system is that you managing

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anthony_algmin: building, or what have you now? This is a. It’s almost an accounting overlay

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anthony_algmin: to that health over time, And so you need to have tracked over that period

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anthony_algmin: of time. You need it to be so that you can justify what the cost iscause.

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anthony_algmin: When people, though people love to ignore details until dollars get

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anthony_algmin: involved, and when a dollar get involved, we all become like you know it,

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anthony_algmin: investigative journalists said, and forensic accountants on what we are are

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anthony_algmin: dealing with, right it it’. So you’re

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akash: there’. there’s no room for error with Bill,

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akash: and with the monitoring system, sure you could occasionally incorrectly report on a

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akash: broken application. That’s okay,

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akash: but when it comes to the billing you need to be. you need to be very accurate in what

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akash: you and what you’re reporting on.

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anthony_algmin: Yeah, no, it it. I. I can certainly appreciate

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anthony_algmin: the uh complexity of this because of the variables involved, and and the you

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anthony_algmin: know, when you start to think about different customers, different clients,

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anthony_algmin: different bill rates, different Um, you service offerings different like

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anthony_algmin: everything becomes uh, so complex to unra. How do you create then? and a you

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anthony_algmin: know software based mechanism to handle that complexity be cause to me. It’s

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anthony_algmin: like the screams of something that. traditionally, even in the cloud space

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anthony_algmin: would be something you would have to home grow because of how complex and

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anthony_algmin: how unique that organization that client organizations, Uh, consumption

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anthony_algmin: patterns are going to be, or what they pricing is or how they’re offering

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anthony_algmin: their their services to their clients. Like how do you? How do you do that?

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anthony_algmin: Like how? what’s your strategy there at? At a high level of of how Octaine

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anthony_algmin: addresses that complexity?

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akash: Yeah, so there’s a lot of things that are doing and really proud of these. The way

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akash: that we’ve actually implemented a product.

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akash: We seem to we seen a a couple of major contentions in a homegrown setup, and one of

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akash: the big ones is, the engineer ends up doing a lot more than he he or she wants to do,

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akash: or choose want to do. He ends up having to you, pretty much has to create the entire

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akash: homegrown billing system and the product person, the person that ideally should be

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akash: owning the billing experience is unable to. So if the product person comes to the

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akash: engineer and says, Hey, actually, I know, we’re tracking based on storage, a number

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akash: of messages. I’m just making some random ones up. We actually also

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akash: want a charge based on a number of button clickes, I don’t know,

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akash: and at which point the engineer needs to go back mould to their homegrown billding

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akash: system to fit that new use case that the product person has described.

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akash: So So what we found is there’s pretty significant contention that happens between

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akash: engineering and products, which is why on the product side we built this really

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akash: awesome No code U, I experience for product people to create specifically metered

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akash: usage based price plans right into a U. I, uh, apply

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akash: those to different customers. Uh, roll them out. Vertage in them. It’s super awesome.

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akash: it. It’s an awesome experience for the monetization owners from an engineering

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akash: perspective. Uh, I know you were talking about. Uh. it’s so complex. Why isn’t it?

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akash: how do you even get away from home Growrown? To answer that we built a generic. We.

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akash: It’s generic. So we have an ap,

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akash: I, A, an s. D K, where you can send usage for any meter If you’re If you’re a company

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akash: like too, and you want to charge based on a number of messages. You just have to send

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akash: us the number of messages We do all that, E t,

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akash: ▁l in the in. The, We do all the transformations in the background. If you want to

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akash: charge based on compute, in your uh am machine Learning company, You send us Com. You

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akash: said you just send us those measurements. We obviously make it super easy to we. We

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akash: have Uh, in our system, really easy ways to actually report on those metrics and

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akash: that’s a whole. That’s one another, a different conversation. But ▁ultimately, we

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akash: built a generic product so you can send us whatever measurements you want. Doesn’t

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akash: matter what Sas business you are. Um, and for the product person, the person that

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akash: owns monetization. they could go in into our U. Y,

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akash: and actually define how do they actually want to charge the customer? Maybe they want

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akash: to charge

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akash: based on computer, Maybe they want to charge based on number of messages. Maybe they

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akash: want to give the first thousand messages for free. That’s up to that. That’s not up

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akash: to the engineer. Or you know they have that power.

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anthony_algmin: That’s That’s really cool. because I can. I. My wheels are turned down

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anthony_algmin: because I, I think about you know that would in effectively enable you to

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anthony_algmin: work with any

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anthony_algmin: architecture or anywhere, Because cause, the that last mile of connecting

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anthony_algmin: into whatever the source of that um of that data of the of that metric is

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anthony_algmin: that last piece that’s going to be best handled by the client engineers

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anthony_algmin: anyway, because they’re going to know their systems are going to know their

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anthony_algmin: transactional systems or operational systems or whatever they want to pull

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anthony_algmin: the insights from as soon as and cause that’s not really hard for them. Be

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anthony_algmin: cause, they’re working with it all the time, and then they can kick that to

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anthony_algmin: the Ap. and then you can handle the calculation engine using the rules that

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anthony_algmin: they set up on the product side to say, Okay, Here’s how we should actually

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anthony_algmin: do the billding based on these inputs that we have sent you the core data

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anthony_algmin: for. And now you can handle an octane. You can handle all of the that

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anthony_algmin: calculation complexity that we were talking about a little bit earlier.

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anthony_algmin: Might am I hearing this right?

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akash: That’s exactly right. So from an engineer’s perspective it’s really simple. They’re

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akash: just doing the Pl. They’re just doing the instrumentation, the plumbing to send

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akash: usage. So they

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akash: their their requirement to handle billing, which they don’t want. Typically, they

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akash: want to focus on their core product. They don’t have to. They just send usage, and

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akash: Um, it’s like you said the product person, whoevers owns monetization. they defin a

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akash: business rule And that’s where the

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akash: translation and we do the translation. We’re really good at that.

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anthony_algmin: Yeah, No, well, And and that’s where you can get, Like even, go back to the

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anthony_algmin: very beginning of the conversation where you can get that exponential growth

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anthony_algmin: and how you can help people. Is that if you can solve that function

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anthony_algmin: perfectly, like theoretically perfectly, but like if you can, if you can

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anthony_algmin: solve for that, and then anyone can input their own variables to it, and and

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anthony_algmin: their own cost models are own. You know what have you? You can have this

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anthony_algmin: very capable generic solution

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anthony_algmin: to the ▁ultimate complexity, which feels totally unique in every individual

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anthony_algmin: business.

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anthony_algmin: yet The the, the real connective tissue there. Those connective fibres are

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anthony_algmin: very common. It’s just what they’re connecting to is what the variables are.

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anthony_algmin: And so I think that’s a. It’s a clever way to address really complicated

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anthony_algmin: things by you handling a lot of the complexity and then connecting into

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anthony_algmin: client organizations where it makes sense for them

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anthony_algmin: and you to to have that complexity handled by the the client organization.

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anthony_algmin: Because a couple of those details are be really specific to each client.

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anthony_algmin: Everything else is going to follow a very generic pattern.

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akash: Exactly Yes, this

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akash: where where it gets the specific bits that goes. Thatcads obviously covered by the

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akash: customer itself and we deal. we deal

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akash: with what’s generic. That’s the pattern

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akash: we follow

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anthony_algmin: are people? are people able to implement octain

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anthony_algmin: you on their own, Or is this something that you have you know in in in your

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anthony_algmin: sales process, or what have you offer? professional services and onboarding

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anthony_algmin: guidance, or whatever? How complicated is this to actually implement for an

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anthony_algmin: organization that you know, just assuming out of the boxes doing you know,

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anthony_algmin: software is a service that has those consumptive metrics available, but

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anthony_algmin: don’t necessarily, uh, have the ability to do this, Um, this kind of

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anthony_algmin: building on their own,

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akash: So yeah, now that’s a great question. Um, we are a firm believers that the future is

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akash: going to be one of where product led growth businesses succeed, so there’s a pretty

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akash: significant trend for good reason of of moving towards what we call a product lead

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akash: model. where W in A in a product led model companies are self servicing onto a

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akash: product growing into that product and Uh, and it really becomes less of a handhding

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akash: experience, It, and it becomes more of a. I’m using this product. Onm, grow into this

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akash: product. Uh, I mean, different stakeholders are now consuming this product. Uh, A. a

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akash: good, ex, example, good examples of this Re, like data, dog, slack, Cenly, these are

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akash: pretty typical examples. Uh, telo. these are these companies where you just start to

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akash: use the product and consume it more and more. And as you can imagine it, with this

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akash: type of Cer service option, self service option, usage based billing is a very common

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akash: is a very common way of billing you. You charge based on usage. you, you, you self

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akash: serve onto the product you pay, you pay on consumption. and as you use that product

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akash: more, your consumption grows. and sort is your bill, Uh, and the Val itch all works

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akash: really nicely, So that’s my long way of saying, uh, we are we. We’re very much

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akash: focused on building a user experience that’s self service.

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akash: People can on board themselves. We have really good documentation to an to empower

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akash: them. Obviously we

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akash: really care about the success of our customers. So we’re always, you know. we’re

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akash: always available. Um,

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akash: and uh, And you know what we’re fighting is people want to self serve onto the part

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akash: Th they. people don’t want to talk to

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akash: sales reps anymore. People want to people, Uh, people want to talk to costume success

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akash: in case they get stuck. Th, uh, the know that they wantnna be able to easily talk to

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akash: people, but talk to the cop company and have that available. But ▁ultimately people

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akash: just want to start using your thing. Get value

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akash: and move on.

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anthony_algmin: yeah, I, I think you’re right, and and I think that

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anthony_algmin: Y, you’re designing this to be as light a lift as possible For these

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anthony_algmin: organizations that you know are are are good targets. I keep thinking about.

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anthony_algmin: So so one of my business ventures right now is to create what is effectively

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anthony_algmin: like podcasting as a service. I actually have this idea that what we’re

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anthony_algmin: doing

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anthony_algmin: now in our kind of post pandemic, or hopefully soon to be postpndemic world,

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anthony_algmin: where there’s so much of your remote work, so much of the Um, you know as

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anthony_algmin: synchronous types of connections that I think about this business that I’ve

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anthony_algmin: creating, And and it’s not just about. Hey, everybody wants to be the next

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anthony_algmin: Joe Rogan and have a podcast. And and you know, do that, but it’s really I

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anthony_algmin: think about podcasting, as this is the future of business cards. This is how

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anthony_algmin: we introduce ourselves to people who don’t know us in a virtually dominated

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anthony_algmin: world. And what I’ve learned through doing the podcast myself is that it’s a

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anthony_algmin: real pain to do it well and have it at a professional kind of calibre. And

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anthony_algmin: so what I’m thinking about, and how it pertains to octain is that I’m like

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anthony_algmin: well as I get more enterprise clients. Those folks that want to have dozens

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anthony_algmin: or hundreds of people with each their own, you know

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anthony_algmin: business card as a podcast type of offering to be able to say Hey, we can

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anthony_algmin: price based on the number of people or the length of episode or the length

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anthony_algmin: of recording or this kind, of. um, You know

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anthony_algmin: variety in metrics that may we may choose to use in the future. I could see

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anthony_algmin: a platform like Octane, helping us actually identify

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anthony_algmin: new innovations for our service offerings. Do you have any other examples of

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anthony_algmin: that where? like Bec, you now take something that like where I am at. In

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anthony_algmin: this business I am not doing consumptive billing. You know, it’s going to be

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anthony_algmin: like you get ten episodes or you get whatever, but it’s not going to be. For

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anthony_algmin: every second your podcast goes. We’re going to charge you eighty three cents

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anthony_algmin: or whatever the number is, but I could imagine when you can plug in

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anthony_algmin: something like octane, all of a sudden boom new new business models can come

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anthony_algmin: into existence. Do you have any examples of that by? by partnering with one

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anthony_algmin: of your clients that they found new opportunities to innovate that they

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anthony_algmin: wouldn’t have had if they hadn’t used octa in the first place?

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akash: Oh my god, Yeah, I mean. what? The? The example you’ve just described that the

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akash: podcasting is, The service is like a very classic’s. a very classic example of what

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akash: we deal with. It’s it’s

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akash: today, and we’ve empowered many of our customers to now shift to usage based belling

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akash: models that they could. they. They didn’t even think they could do and serve a new

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akash: audience and grow faster because they didn’t know they had that opportunity. Um,

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00:26:30,416 –> 00:26:34,666
akash: th. a lot of times. Yeah, I mean, for example, your poset podcast as a service you’re

373
00:26:34,750 –> 00:26:39,958
akash: charging, you would charge maybe a flat monthly fee, or maybe charge an amount once a

374
00:26:40,041 –> 00:26:45,291
akash: year, because you just don’t really have the flexibility to say Okay in in a in a. in

375
00:26:45,291 –> 00:26:49,166
akash: a world. I’d love to be able to charge based on a number of podcasts that my Uh

376
00:26:49,291 –> 00:26:53,166
akash: customers have created, where the number of videos that they’ve generated are the

377
00:26:53,166 –> 00:26:56,916
akash: number of business cards. It makes sense, too, because as they love the podcasts as a

378
00:26:56,916 –> 00:27:00,750
akash: service product more, they’ll use more of it. They’ll generate more videos. They’ll

379
00:27:00,916 –> 00:27:01,958
akash: generate more podcast.

380
00:27:03,000 –> 00:27:08,125
akash: and also you have the ability to acquire customers you couldn’t even acquire before.

381
00:27:08,291 –> 00:27:12,291
akash: Imagine the customers that are just experimenting with this business card concept,

382
00:27:12,833 –> 00:27:16,750
akash: Right this? Sorry, this podcast as a business card concept, How are you going to

383
00:27:16,833 –> 00:27:17,875
akash: serve those companies without?

384
00:27:18,500 –> 00:27:21,458
akash: Are you going to tell them I’m gonna. I’m going to charge you a thousand bucks or ten

385
00:27:21,625 –> 00:27:26,250
akash: thousand, ten thousand bucks a year. Um, they’re going to say you know, I just want

386
00:27:26,250 –> 00:27:27,250
akash: to try your product.

387
00:27:27,458 –> 00:27:28,500
anthony_algmin: well, that’s

388
00:27:31,250 –> 00:27:32,250
akash: two.

389
00:27:32,250 –> 00:27:33,250
anthony_algmin: yeah. yeah,

390
00:27:34,666 –> 00:27:39,458
anthony_algmin: no, I think it’s it’s that. The, the, the question is is is this is

391
00:27:39,625 –> 00:27:42,416
anthony_algmin: something that people aren’t really thinking about today like they get what

392
00:27:42,500 –> 00:27:47,541
anthony_algmin: a podcas is, but they don’t realize. Hey, if I had a minute longer, ten

393
00:27:47,708 –> 00:27:50,833
anthony_algmin: minute long, or whatever, the right amount is video that was sitting on

394
00:27:50,916 –> 00:27:54,041
anthony_algmin: Youtube to introduce myself to to other people And I’ve never done this

395
00:27:54,208 –> 00:27:57,541
anthony_algmin: before. Am I going to really spend hundreds of hours figuring this out? No,

396
00:27:57,625 –> 00:28:00,583
anthony_algmin: I’m just not going to do it. And if I comement at them saying hey, it’ll

397
00:28:00,750 –> 00:28:03,791
anthony_algmin: only cost you ten thousand dollars to have this. you know fifteen minute

398
00:28:04,041 –> 00:28:07,250
anthony_algmin: video. they’ll tell me to go pound sand like there’. That’s not a good value

399
00:28:07,541 –> 00:28:10,500
anthony_algmin: proposition, especially when they don’t know what I’m even talking about to

400
00:28:10,500 –> 00:28:14,666
anthony_algmin: begin with. So if I could say hey, why don’t we start small and and have

401
00:28:15,000 –> 00:28:19,541
anthony_algmin: something that is, you know, Uh, interesting, but is economical. But at once

402
00:28:19,791 –> 00:28:23,708
anthony_algmin: they see the power of having it. They’ll want more all of a sudden. Then

403
00:28:24,666 –> 00:28:30,250
anthony_algmin: that’s where we can demonstrate through usage the value proposition at a

404
00:28:30,333 –> 00:28:34,333
anthony_algmin: very micro scale, and that can expand into something much bigger over time.

405
00:28:34,750 –> 00:28:38,125
anthony_algmin: Or if it doesn’t meet its promise, then it doesn’t you know. I think that’s

406
00:28:38,250 –> 00:28:41,708
anthony_algmin: where business has to go, And and I think we’re seeing that you know, with

407
00:28:41,791 –> 00:28:44,666
anthony_algmin: Gig economy, I think we’re seeing that with you know, how

408
00:28:45,791 –> 00:28:50,916
anthony_algmin: organizations are becoming much more virtual and much more um, decentralized

409
00:28:51,083 –> 00:28:54,666
anthony_algmin: in in in their team structures, and and their human capital, and all of

410
00:28:54,750 –> 00:29:00,041
anthony_algmin: that. I think that these kinds of services, these kinds of Um offerings

411
00:29:00,750 –> 00:29:05,875
anthony_algmin: become part of the fabric of how business really gets done going for it. I

412
00:29:05,958 –> 00:29:09,875
anthony_algmin: think if we, if we think about it for a few minutes, some of the things that

413
00:29:09,958 –> 00:29:15,000
anthony_algmin: the pandemic has accelerated, I think, really mirror a lot of what we saw in

414
00:29:15,000 –> 00:29:19,791
anthony_algmin: the early days of the Internet. Um, and when? when the dot com, when the dot

415
00:29:19,958 –> 00:29:24,250
anthony_algmin: com boom was really taking hold in the early two thousands or late nineties,

416
00:29:24,416 –> 00:29:30,750
anthony_algmin: it’s like I feel that there’s this cha changing of the guard again. Um, in a

417
00:29:30,833 –> 00:29:35,250
anthony_algmin: way that we haven’t seen even since then, Not even not even mobile feels

418
00:29:35,458 –> 00:29:39,166
anthony_algmin: quite how transformative is as the workplace is these days.

419
00:29:39,916 –> 00:29:40,916
akash: Yeah, I mean. um,

420
00:29:42,500 –> 00:29:47,625
akash: I. yeah. th. that’s the thing. it’s I think, especially with the new changes in with

421
00:29:47,708 –> 00:29:51,541
akash: what Co. What? what’s happening with? Coveted? I think businesses are just generally

422
00:29:51,708 –> 00:29:57,166
akash: transforming Adding software Act. If it hasn’t already, it’s continuing to grow

423
00:29:57,541 –> 00:30:02,291
akash: rapidly. I mean the Sa. the Sast market is just actually growing substantially and

424
00:30:02,416 –> 00:30:07,791
akash: it’s a bi. This is a bit of a slight shift in conversation and thought, But I, I did

425
00:30:07,875 –> 00:30:10,916
akash: want to. It did actually spark something that I did want to share with everyone.

426
00:30:11,166 –> 00:30:15,291
akash: Which is interesting is is you know, we think pandemic

427
00:30:15,708 –> 00:30:20,416
akash: is accelerating a lot of what’s happening in terms of the software sphere. What I’ve

428
00:30:20,666 –> 00:30:24,750
akash: noticed. Uh. The reason we’re actually seeing a lot of activity moved towards the

429
00:30:24,750 –> 00:30:29,625
akash: usage based biiling model is because there’s also a lot of competition. There’s a lot

430
00:30:29,708 –> 00:30:35,458
akash: more competition that’s coming out and sometimes and at times what is the

431
00:30:35,541 –> 00:30:41,000
akash: differentiating factor? When you have competition, it’s how you build your Billy

432
00:30:41,166 –> 00:30:45,791
akash: model. Obviously, the the. The quality for product is the most important, but

433
00:30:46,041 –> 00:30:49,166
akash: alongside that is an incredible billing model. So

434
00:30:50,208 –> 00:30:53,958
akash: it’s something to think about Uh. having that flexiities important.

435
00:30:54,458 –> 00:30:55,958
anthony_algmin: Yeah, well, it, and I imagine

436
00:30:57,000 –> 00:31:03,625
anthony_algmin: how how easy does Oc make it to evolve that billing model, or to um

437
00:31:05,000 –> 00:31:06,333
anthony_algmin: to understand how

438
00:31:07,958 –> 00:31:11,875
anthony_algmin: a B test changes that I might do are promotions that I might consider. Like

439
00:31:11,958 –> 00:31:16,333
anthony_algmin: How much of that do you try to do as part of Octa, and how much of that gets

440
00:31:16,500 –> 00:31:19,958
anthony_algmin: into a different space around things like marketing analytics and pricing

441
00:31:20,083 –> 00:31:23,291
anthony_algmin: strategy, and things like Iagine, You’re not going to try to cover all of

442
00:31:23,375 –> 00:31:26,833
anthony_algmin: that ground for everybody. Where do you draw the line of saying? Okay, This

443
00:31:26,833 –> 00:31:30,166
anthony_algmin: is what we focused on and octain verses. These are some of the things that

444
00:31:30,250 –> 00:31:34,166
anthony_algmin: you might want to do also, but aren’t part of our core product.

445
00:31:35,208 –> 00:31:39,625
akash: Yeah, so yeah, obviously there’s a business. There’s a fine line with being very

446
00:31:39,750 –> 00:31:40,750
akash: focused and

447
00:31:41,708 –> 00:31:46,416
akash: uh, being very focused, and also not you know, being too focused or being too

448
00:31:46,583 –> 00:31:50,833
akash: general. So I do think we found a pretty nice. uh. A. We found that we found

449
00:31:51,000 –> 00:31:57,875
akash: that line to walk on. Um, we, we are a usage base bulling and pricing platform and

450
00:31:58,250 –> 00:32:02,750
akash: right now, in terms of the A, we have a pretty common. There’s a pretty common theme.

451
00:32:02,833 –> 00:32:07,625
akash: Like you said, People don’t know how to price and they would try different meters

452
00:32:07,791 –> 00:32:08,833
akash: Like. Maybe they want to try it

453
00:32:08,916 –> 00:32:13,791
akash: based on length of video. Maybe they wanted t try based on a number of podcasts. They

454
00:32:13,875 –> 00:32:19,041
akash: aren’t totally sure. A lot of times I find that very common, especially when they’re

455
00:32:19,125 –> 00:32:24,166
akash: doing usage base billing, and there’s many iterations. So one of one of the core

456
00:32:24,333 –> 00:32:28,666
akash: aspects, actually, one of the main, we. ha. We do have an analytics aspect to our

457
00:32:28,833 –> 00:32:34,166
akash: product, which is almost an augmentation of our cord billing nearer to build. Uh,

458
00:32:34,416 –> 00:32:37,208
akash: which is, you can actually experiment

459
00:32:38,333 –> 00:32:41,708
akash: with different price plans and see if I charge.

460
00:32:42,833 –> 00:32:49,125
akash: Uh, If if looking back at my customers, if I charged if I tweaked this number Like,

461
00:32:49,541 –> 00:32:52,916
akash: instead of charging one dollar per video, I’m charging

462
00:32:53,958 –> 00:32:59,625
akash: Uh, one dollar and fifty cents per video. How much money would I make? Uh, so that we

463
00:32:59,708 –> 00:33:03,958
akash: have in built into our products or the analytics capabilities? Because uh and then

464
00:33:04,083 –> 00:33:08,416
akash: ▁ultimately, Once you finalize or formalize on a price, you could just you could.

465
00:33:08,583 –> 00:33:12,416
akash: pretty much E. you can uh, deploy that and

466
00:33:13,458 –> 00:33:17,541
akash: ▁ultimately. What a bill is just a price point that’s actuated,

467
00:33:18,666 –> 00:33:23,291
akash: so we just uh, we just well on whenever price plan you ▁ultimately determine.

468
00:33:23,500 –> 00:33:24,500
anthony_algmin: Hm,

469
00:33:24,958 –> 00:33:25,958
akash: Does that make sense?

470
00:33:28,833 –> 00:33:29,833
anthony_algmin: that.

471
00:33:30,416 –> 00:33:36,083
anthony_algmin: Yeah, no, that it. it does. And and I think that, Um, you know there is that

472
00:33:36,250 –> 00:33:37,291
anthony_algmin: danger right of

473
00:33:38,500 –> 00:33:43,541
anthony_algmin: slipping into becoming like an e r P solution, where you’re trying to do

474
00:33:43,708 –> 00:33:47,708
anthony_algmin: everything for everybody and doing none of it. Well, you’re saying hey,

475
00:33:48,166 –> 00:33:52,666
anthony_algmin: we’re going to stay in our lane to to an extent here, Um, you know, and and

476
00:33:52,916 –> 00:33:57,458
anthony_algmin: facilitating that billing process, but you’re not going to try to recreate

477
00:33:57,791 –> 00:34:01,458
anthony_algmin: pricing analytics and and all of that. Now you’re provide some tools to

478
00:34:01,708 –> 00:34:05,208
anthony_algmin: understand your somewhat ifffs, and and some things that are very well tied

479
00:34:05,458 –> 00:34:09,291
anthony_algmin: to the core functionality of your product. But you’re not trying to move

480
00:34:09,625 –> 00:34:12,583
anthony_algmin: into a million different directions with Th, which I think is is wise.

481
00:34:12,750 –> 00:34:17,291
anthony_algmin: That’s that’s smart because it also keeps the focus for your clients on

482
00:34:17,625 –> 00:34:20,250
anthony_algmin: understanding what your tool is good at. And and that’s something that I

483
00:34:20,333 –> 00:34:22,833
anthony_algmin: think Um is is challenging. For many.

484
00:34:24,000 –> 00:34:29,041
anthony_algmin: many start up type organizations try to grow too quickly in functionality

485
00:34:29,208 –> 00:34:32,250
anthony_algmin: and they end up losing what made them special in the first place.

486
00:34:32,666 –> 00:34:37,000
anthony_algmin: And I think that if you focus on what you really do best, that’s where

487
00:34:37,708 –> 00:34:41,208
anthony_algmin: you’re going to have the most satisfied clients like. it’s okay to say hey,

488
00:34:41,375 –> 00:34:45,791
anthony_algmin: no, we don’t do this part. But as long as the thing that you do is executed

489
00:34:45,958 –> 00:34:48,166
anthony_algmin: extremely well, your customers are going to be very happy.

490
00:34:53,541 –> 00:34:59,291
anthony_algmin: So one of the notes that I had in a in the and the preparation for this

491
00:34:59,375 –> 00:35:03,208
anthony_algmin: episode and and I think we’ve already touched on it a little bit. But I’m

492
00:35:03,375 –> 00:35:08,666
anthony_algmin: curious just to make sure that we put Um an underline around. It is this

493
00:35:08,916 –> 00:35:11,291
anthony_algmin: notion that with sass companies

494
00:35:12,500 –> 00:35:14,083
anthony_algmin: that the current methods

495
00:35:15,458 –> 00:35:21,375
anthony_algmin: of billing clients, I is not particularly fair. Why is that? what is it

496
00:35:21,625 –> 00:35:23,875
anthony_algmin: about having something that is

497
00:35:25,000 –> 00:35:30,083
anthony_algmin: not consumptive base billing? Um, Why isn’t that fair? Or what? What have

498
00:35:30,166 –> 00:35:34,833
anthony_algmin: you identified at a deeper layer than I might just casually guess. Is is the

499
00:35:34,833 –> 00:35:35,833
anthony_algmin: reason for that.

500
00:35:36,250 –> 00:35:41,625
akash: so let me take. Let me give you the bad example, and it’s one that I’m sure many of

501
00:35:41,708 –> 00:35:48,250
akash: us, me included have experienced. It’s going to the gyp. the gym membership. Now you

502
00:35:48,250 –> 00:35:53,375
akash: you subscribe for a gym membership? Uh, and you’re You’re paying a monthly some

503
00:35:53,708 –> 00:35:58,500
akash: amount. Whatever molic you say, it’s like fifty bucks a month. Now you know

504
00:36:00,250 –> 00:36:04,041
akash: you, you. maybe you hurt yourself or you just didn’t have time, because work was

505
00:36:04,083 –> 00:36:09,458
akash: killing you or something of that sort, and you just didn’t go to the gym for one

506
00:36:09,625 –> 00:36:13,208
akash: month. Maybe it’s been two months. Maybe it’s been three months, but you still have

507
00:36:13,375 –> 00:36:17,000
akash: that gym membership and it’s pretty. You know. it’s pretty well untold.

508
00:36:18,500 –> 00:36:22,833
akash: They just like even being able to cancel that gym membership is really hard. They

509
00:36:22,916 –> 00:36:26,041
akash: make it really hard for you to actuallyra cancel the membership. Uh, make it really

510
00:36:26,083 –> 00:36:30,333
akash: easy for you to start the membership, But to cancel it, that’s really hard and going

511
00:36:30,500 –> 00:36:33,708
akash: back to the gym. If you just haven’t gone in past three months, you feel bad about

512
00:36:33,791 –> 00:36:40,750
akash: it. So this is the the ▁quintessential example of where subscription based billing is

513
00:36:41,000 –> 00:36:45,875
akash: a problem. You have really unhappy customers. Um, mean they actually want to chur.

514
00:36:46,166 –> 00:36:50,750
akash: they want to leave. I mean they want to leave your service because you’re you’re um,

515
00:36:50,916 –> 00:36:54,500
akash: you’re not built. you’re not. It’s not fair. you’re not using the service. You’re

516
00:36:54,666 –> 00:36:57,000
akash: just paying for it and they’re just wiping your car,

517
00:36:58,583 –> 00:37:02,166
akash: and one of the companies that really innovated is Yeah, go.

518
00:37:03,166 –> 00:37:07,083
anthony_algmin: Oh, no, I was just going to say the gimmership point is is actually

519
00:37:07,166 –> 00:37:08,166
anthony_algmin: extremely

520
00:37:10,125 –> 00:37:13,875
anthony_algmin: telling about that. Because of the incentives when we start to missile line

521
00:37:14,125 –> 00:37:18,750
anthony_algmin: incentives, things get wonky, and in a gym setting their business model is

522
00:37:18,833 –> 00:37:23,250
anthony_algmin: actually predicated the fact that some percentage, significant percentage of

523
00:37:23,791 –> 00:37:28,666
anthony_algmin: member who won’t show up, they can’t actually serve all their members. And

524
00:37:28,833 –> 00:37:33,458
anthony_algmin: so they want you to join. Pay them, but not show up there. There actually

525
00:37:33,708 –> 00:37:38,250
anthony_algmin: would prefer you show up as little as possible, because their business model

526
00:37:38,500 –> 00:37:41,458
anthony_algmin: depends on it. And so they, we have these misssalignments of incentives,

527
00:37:41,625 –> 00:37:45,166
anthony_algmin: which, if over the past several data leadership lessons episodes has been

528
00:37:45,250 –> 00:37:48,208
anthony_algmin: kind of a theme. It is like when when instead of start to miss a line

529
00:37:48,500 –> 00:37:53,791
anthony_algmin: between the Um, you know the the vendor or the the Um, the business, and

530
00:37:53,875 –> 00:37:57,958
anthony_algmin: then the consumer or the the customer. Um, bad things happen and that I

531
00:37:57,958 –> 00:38:02,250
anthony_algmin: think is it, Illustrate it. It reinforces your point. A little bit of you

532
00:38:02,250 –> 00:38:05,958
anthony_algmin: know. The gym membership just aret like any other business where they

533
00:38:06,208 –> 00:38:09,875
anthony_algmin: actually have an interest in you. not using what they’re offering. That’s

534
00:38:10,250 –> 00:38:14,333
anthony_algmin: that’s problematic from a business model perspective, Um, it may work in the

535
00:38:14,416 –> 00:38:18,583
anthony_algmin: short term, but over time that tends to to have problems in. and you know

536
00:38:19,000 –> 00:38:23,541
anthony_algmin: businesses like like ▁jims, uh, tend to have uh, economic cycles, and and

537
00:38:23,625 –> 00:38:26,250
anthony_algmin: some some big challenges. You don’t see too many gyms that have been around

538
00:38:26,416 –> 00:38:27,875
anthony_algmin: for fifty years, so

539
00:38:27,875 –> 00:38:33,000
akash: yeah. And, and especially with software with how easy it is to switch from one

540
00:38:33,166 –> 00:38:35,791
akash: software to another software, it’s It’s

541
00:38:35,875 –> 00:38:38,333
akash: an even bigger. I mean, it’s even bigger. Uh,

542
00:38:38,875 –> 00:38:42,916
akash: it’s it’s hard to get. I mean when you when you have a customer, you don’t want them

543
00:38:43,083 –> 00:38:45,541
akash: to chur, and they will not

544
00:38:45,708 –> 00:38:49,458
akash: chur if you if they get. if they’re paying the right amount for the software that

545
00:38:49,541 –> 00:38:52,458
akash: they use. So if instead of

546
00:38:52,750 –> 00:38:55,958
akash: a a monthly subscription where they’re not using the software at all,

547
00:38:56,541 –> 00:38:57,541
akash: Uh,

548
00:38:57,541 –> 00:39:01,125
akash: they should be charged for that. I mean. s. Slack is a good example of a company that

549
00:39:01,208 –> 00:39:06,041
akash: did a really good job of this. so I think In twenty fifteen they they release, Uh,

550
00:39:06,166 –> 00:39:11,958
akash: what they call a fair billing policy And how that works Is if you have a non active

551
00:39:12,083 –> 00:39:17,833
akash: slack you, they charge based on number of seats. And if you have a non active user on

552
00:39:17,833 –> 00:39:18,833
akash: the on slack,

553
00:39:19,125 –> 00:39:20,500
akash: you don’t get billed for it,

554
00:39:21,166 –> 00:39:22,166
akash: And

555
00:39:22,750 –> 00:39:26,583
akash: in a way that’s usage based buillling. If you think about it, it’s just a. It’s just

556
00:39:26,666 –> 00:39:28,416
akash: a slightly different way of looking at it,

557
00:39:29,791 –> 00:39:33,791
akash: and obviously you have a happy customer. If only active users are

558
00:39:33,875 –> 00:39:35,000
akash: getting built, then

559
00:39:36,583 –> 00:39:40,583
akash: you, you can imagine that people are happy with slack. Because if they have ▁zero

560
00:39:40,583 –> 00:39:41,583
akash: active users

561
00:39:41,625 –> 00:39:42,750
akash: then they are not paying slack.

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00:39:43,208 –> 00:39:44,208
anthony_algmin: right,

563
00:39:44,791 –> 00:39:49,833
anthony_algmin: right, Well and and to a to a lesser extent the flip side is also

564
00:39:50,958 –> 00:39:55,916
anthony_algmin: something to consider is that I don’t want to create a micro transactional

565
00:39:56,166 –> 00:40:00,791
anthony_algmin: friction for my customers that I don’t want them to feel like. Oh, if I use

566
00:40:01,041 –> 00:40:04,541
anthony_algmin: one more unit of this service, then it’s going to be another hundred dollars

567
00:40:04,875 –> 00:40:09,833
anthony_algmin: or whatever the the amounts are. I want it to be where I craft that usage

568
00:40:10,083 –> 00:40:13,833
anthony_algmin: based consumption billing Um, in a way that is

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00:40:15,125 –> 00:40:18,625
anthony_algmin: appropriate, but doesn’t hinder them from wanting to use it. So if you go

570
00:40:18,708 –> 00:40:23,041
anthony_algmin: too finely graed, I guess is my point. people will be like. How do I use as

571
00:40:23,125 –> 00:40:26,958
anthony_algmin: little as this as possible? Um, and that’s usually not what you want. Either

572
00:40:27,125 –> 00:40:31,291
anthony_algmin: you want it to be where people use it, and they find that that incremental

573
00:40:31,416 –> 00:40:37,666
anthony_algmin: cost is either you, relatively, um inconsequential, or that each of the

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00:40:37,750 –> 00:40:41,416
anthony_algmin: levels make a lot of sense, And I think that it. it’s There’s a magic to

575
00:40:41,500 –> 00:40:44,541
anthony_algmin: that which I don’t think you’re necessarily going to solve for all of your

576
00:40:44,541 –> 00:40:48,791
anthony_algmin: clients. But I’m sure, Um, you’ll you’ll provide the mechanisms for them to

577
00:40:49,041 –> 00:40:52,458
anthony_algmin: explore that for their businesses, and and figure out you know whatever

578
00:40:52,875 –> 00:40:54,375
anthony_algmin: approach is right, you’ll be able to support

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00:40:54,958 –> 00:41:02,250
akash: Yeah, exactly. I’m not here to say that us pure, a pure usage based pays you go model

580
00:41:02,458 –> 00:41:07,500
akash: is something that every single company needs to implement, but they need to. Every

581
00:41:07,833 –> 00:41:14,000
akash: company does need the flexibility to build however they want, and it’s up to up to

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00:41:14,000 –> 00:41:19,208
akash: the business to deploy those different billing tactics to make the customers really

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00:41:19,416 –> 00:41:26,333
akash: happy and also help them grow and increase revenue. So on that could be a mix of.

584
00:41:26,541 –> 00:41:31,833
akash: that, could be a pure usage based billing pays you go model that could be a multiple

585
00:41:32,083 –> 00:41:38,000
akash: tiered Uh plan that has different different unit amounts at different at different

586
00:41:38,166 –> 00:41:41,916
akash: points, That can be a volume based pricing. Whereas you use more units, it gets

587
00:41:41,916 –> 00:41:42,916
akash: cheaper

588
00:41:43,416 –> 00:41:45,416
akash: on Th. There’s so many different

589
00:41:45,750 –> 00:41:49,833
akash: tactics to deploy. It’s just important to have them all at your fingertips.

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00:41:51,375 –> 00:41:55,875
anthony_algmin: Absolutely so, and we only have another minute or two, so I want to give you

591
00:41:55,958 –> 00:41:59,125
anthony_algmin: the opportunity. I’ve asked you a lot of questions and have driven a lot of

592
00:41:59,208 –> 00:42:03,000
anthony_algmin: what we’ve talked about. What haven’t we captured about what Octa is or what

593
00:42:03,041 –> 00:42:06,500
anthony_algmin: you are doing or something that would help our audience

594
00:42:07,500 –> 00:42:08,500
anthony_algmin: understand better

595
00:42:09,208 –> 00:42:12,083
anthony_algmin: why you’re doing what you’re doing with Octaan, and what you guys have to

596
00:42:12,166 –> 00:42:15,458
anthony_algmin: offer, and and what they should be thinking about as they explore these kind

597
00:42:15,708 –> 00:42:16,916
anthony_algmin: of solutions.

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00:42:17,541 –> 00:42:21,708
akash: Yeah, I appreciate. So we. we live in a compet. We live in a competitive world and

599
00:42:21,791 –> 00:42:25,791
akash: that’s awesome. Uh, What’s amazing about Onte, And maybe I’ve already described this

600
00:42:25,958 –> 00:42:30,416
akash: before is, but you can charge on a pays you go billing basis. It is a little less

601
00:42:30,583 –> 00:42:35,875
akash: thirty minutes, and traditionally, and you look at, they’ve seen a lot of examples of

602
00:42:36,083 –> 00:42:40,041
akash: it. It takes months for companies we. We’ve been able to actually bring the time down

603
00:42:40,250 –> 00:42:44,583
akash: to actually implement muter billing to a really small amount of time, and I think

604
00:42:44,750 –> 00:42:49,000
akash: that’s one of the biggest value ads. Uh, the simplicity for the engineer and the

605
00:42:49,041 –> 00:42:52,833
akash: empowerment for the privatet person. I, I mean, that’s what I. I had, didn’t said it

606
00:42:52,916 –> 00:42:56,416
akash: before, But that’s really what we reached and what we’ve proven with our with our

607
00:42:56,666 –> 00:43:01,625
akash: customers. So, um, yeah, I mean that’s that’s really the main. The main thing. And if

608
00:43:01,708 –> 00:43:06,416
akash: you wanted to che, check us out. Uh, you know, check us out and get octained on. I.

609
00:43:06,583 –> 00:43:12,916
akash: o. I definitely learn more about us and what we’re doing. I’d be to chat with anyone.

610
00:43:13,375 –> 00:43:19,875
akash: I, if they want to talk one to one. email me at a Cas at Get otain, not io, Um, you

611
00:43:19,875 –> 00:43:24,583
akash: know, I always love chatting with users of the community and hear more about use

612
00:43:24,583 –> 00:43:25,583
akash: cases.

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00:43:26,750 –> 00:43:30,125
anthony_algmin: That’s awesome. This. this been great stuff. It really helps iliminate an

614
00:43:30,291 –> 00:43:35,791
anthony_algmin: area that. Um. I personally didn’t know a whole lot about Sokh. Thank you so

615
00:43:35,875 –> 00:43:37,083
anthony_algmin: much for being with us today.

616
00:43:37,083 –> 00:43:39,333
akash: Anthony, really appreciate you having me on.

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00:43:40,250 –> 00:43:43,041
anthony_algmin: My pleasure and thank you all for joining us today. You’ll find more

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00:43:43,291 –> 00:43:47,041
anthony_algmin: information and links in the show notes. Dive deeper with my book at Data

619
00:43:47,125 –> 00:43:51,458
anthony_algmin: Leadership Book Dot com and use Promo Code Almandel at the Diversity Online

620
00:43:51,666 –> 00:43:54,958
anthony_algmin: Training center for twenty percent off your first purchase. And if you enjoy

621
00:43:55,208 –> 00:43:57,833
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622
00:43:58,083 –> 00:44:01,458
anthony_algmin: Algmman Dot Com to learn how we make having your own video podcast as easy

623
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624
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anthony_algmin: times and go make an impact.