Rajiv Parikh: 0:05

Welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. Today we're joined by Indy Sen, the ecosystem marketing lead at Canva. Indy's got one of those careers that reads like a who's who of tech giants. He started on the ground floor of Salesforce AppExchange Back then when they were trying to figure out how to make developers actually build on their platform. From there he went to Box to take on SharePoint and literally had billboards that said SharePoint sucks, led developer relations at MuleSoft, did a tour of duty at Google Workspace and even helped WeWork completely overhaul the product marketing before helping Matterport go public.

Rajiv Parikh: 0:43

What makes Indy really fascinating is his unique approach to product marketing and messaging. He has a quote messaging as an API quote philosophy, basically treating company messaging like clean code that's clear, concise and repeatable. It's that blend of technical mindset and marketing expertise that makes Indy such a great guest. Indy grew up in France, studied economics and international relations at Brown and got his MBA from MIT Sloan. Some of the key takeaways you can expect from this episode innovative approaches to product marketing and messaging, lessons from practical go-to-market strategies and ecosystem building experiences, insights into strategic career development and the importance of having skin in the game within the technology industry. And, finally, the enduring significance of human connections in an increasingly AI-driven technological landscape. Indy, welcome to the Spark of Ages.

Indy Sen: 1:39

Rajiv, thank you so much for having me. I'm so pumped to be here and I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:44

Oh yeah, indy, it's going to be great. I'm really excited to have you here. My team does a lot of work in building creative for companies and building content for companies, and so they were super excited when I was bringing in this leader from Canva, because our team many times will do their creative design work in Adobe, but then we'll move to Canva as part of driving adaptations, because we go after middle market and above companies, and so Canva is a great way to, once you get that initial design in, to then give it to the client and say make an adaptation here, make an adaptation there, change the language here, and like they've even done that for me when I was doing some stuff for HBS club. They're like here's all this, you can change stuff yourself, you don't have to know Photoshop. I'm like, oh, this is awesome. So really excited to have you and learn about what you've done with ecosystem marketing.

Rajiv Parikh: 2:34

We had Bobby Napoltonia, who was at Salesforce AppExchange, one of the creators, right, so we got this great combination. Just to let folks know, canva is still a private company. It's one of those Australian wonders, kind of like Atlassian. You guys have built a massive audience, going from PLG all the way up.

Indy Sen: 2:52

Yeah, absolutely.

Rajiv Parikh: 2:53

Yeah, I'm reading things like 220 million monthly active users, up from 200 million in October, probably higher now. Slightly higher yeah, we're at 240 million now. The last time we kind of reported that figure, which was just at VivaTech a couple of weeks ago, so yeah, yeah, and really I think when I think about what you guys have done at Canva, it's taking what used to be difficult or what people thought was somewhat approachable with Adobe products, and making it super easy to use, making design available for everyone.

Indy Sen: 3:22

Yeah, absolutely. I think our mission at Canva has always been centered around empowering the world to design right. So it stemmed from this notion that you know there's a lot of people who in this, especially in this day and age, at Canva is what only like 11, 12 years old right Like I think we had a 10th birthday two years ago was. You know, it all came from this notion that, as you were mentioning, rajiv, right, like people everywhere you know, visual communication is now more and more of a thing right Between. If you think about in business, obviously you transact in, like you know, presentations and like one pagers and, like you know, visuals, emails, those kinds of things, right. But even in your personal life, as more and more people are distributed geographically and it's easier than ever to keep in touch with friends and family, like friends and family, like even anything as simple as designing like a birthday card or like a holiday greeting, right.

Indy Sen: 4:09

That's something where initially and ironically, that's really where Canva first started was empowering the consumers to be able to have the latest and greatest design tools and make to make design easy, so that you don't have to like, pay an arm and a leg to get like design software where you only use like maybe 5% of the features and so on. Right, and also to remove the complexity of like using that software. So, you know, I think we really saw a sweet spot and opportunity to empower the world to design. And now, you know, fast forward to today, you know, taking that ease of use as well as that simplicity, right, like we have a value at Canva call which is like make the simple things, make the complex things simple. Right Is to really kind of like abstract all the complexity out of like the design process and really think about what the job to be done is. And as we have gone more upstream and selling it to the enterprise, we're seeing tons of pockets of opportunity to kind of enable these teams, whether it's like marketing, sales, to work, design better.

Rajiv Parikh: 5:03

Yeah, you've gone to so many places from that original route of being very consumer oriented, and that's not easy to do, right? So and I think that brings me up to the conversation we're going to have I mean, you and I have a whole bunch of good things in common. Before we get started, I'll say, like, we love products. We're both product marketers at heart. We are from companies that create a lot of content, we both have run marathons, and you went to Brown and my brother and all of his close friends went to Brown.

Rajiv Parikh: 5:27

So we got a bunch of that going too. We'll get to that. So let me ask you spent the last couple of years at Canva. You have a deep experience around ecosystems. You've said, quote a strong product marketing organization acts as a standard bearer for messaging that then serves as a multiplier for the entire company. How does this multiplier effect specifically manifest when nurturing and growing a platform ecosystem? So how should strategic product marketing work with partners and developers instead of just highlighting product features?

Indy Sen: 5:56

Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. I love that question because I think it really goes to the heart of what the heart and pulse of a great ecosystem can do for a company. You know, at Canva one of the things that we did early when I joined was come up with, like our own messaging framework for what the ecosystem could do, both internally for Canva right as well as externally for our business. And we started internally because you know, if you think about and I've seen this before right where, both at Salesforce or even at Box, where the platform play was not the main thing, even though you could argue now that it totally is, both at Salesforce and even at Box right Is how do you make that solution more extensible and integrated with everything else that you know a company or team may use in their organization right Before, like, crm was a monolith, before content management was a monolith, but now all these solutions need to work in concert and work together.

Indy Sen: 6:43

So with ecosystem, you know, our opportunity was to really come and think about, like, what the messaging would be internally. And the first thing that the word that really came to mind after doing a couple of workshops with our team was that ecosystem is a multiplier right Because it's a multiplier for the business. It helps engender brand new innovations, source them from like third party innovators, like developers and technology partners. It's also a multiplier for the business right the minute we our users see more value coming out of like you know a myriad of apps now that we have in the ecosystem. I think we're probably clocking close to like 700 apps now right From like. You know zero about like almost two years ago.

Indy Sen: 7:19

You know, the innovation coming out of the ecosystem is just insane right, and I think it's anything from like that. You know, canva may have a platform to kind of like showcase that functionality, but may not have the it's not something that we had on our roadmap or we didn't have this like sort of spark of like an idea to, like you know, say like hey, you know what, what, what. What really marketer really needs is easy access to like logos, because, as a product marketer, you need like company logos, like, instead of going to Google and doing an image search and doing a five-step process to get a SVG version of like a logo of a random company. What if you just had an app for that right, like within Canva, and so that's an app called BrandFetch, which is, you know, maybe not the sexiest app that we have, but so damn useful as a marketer, right oh?

Rajiv Parikh: 8:01

incredible. I mean I don't know how many times we'll sit there and we'll be like we won this new client, let's get its logo up there, and we can't find it on the webpage. And I go do a search and I try to find the transparent version. So now I could just take it and say you know, I'm sure there's some agent. Somebody will create an agent that literally says grab logo, put it in SVG, drop it here, make it transparent, you know. So the whole thing, yeah.

Indy Sen: 8:23

Yeah, I'm smiling because that's yeah, I can't talk about that yet, but you know that's certainly something we've been thinking about. But you're, you're absolutely right, rajiv, right Like, I mean, I think, if you think about the pain point. So, going back to, you know the analogy of the multiplier and you know what it means to. I think you know, if we just think about looking externally, right, I think where we've seen so much success in working with, like partners and developers is that we're in the age of, like agentic AI, as you mentioned, right like, where all this innovation is coming so fast and so hard as an innovator, as a developer, to kind of like have your product as innovative as it is. There's so many agents out there, right Like how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? How do you like pierce the signal through noise ratio? Right To like be front and center in front of the users that you want.

Indy Sen: 9:12

And, I think, where we've seen a lot of success, thankfully, as Canva is like, with this apps marketplace that we have.

Indy Sen: 9:18

We're, like you know, bar none like one of the best distribution mechanisms for these innovators to get discovered, right Like we have I think I mentioned close to 700 apps now and your app is just a search term away from being found by, you know, 240 million active users. Right, and we've seen a lot of like great success stories of like you know, we have this guy, kai, who lives in Singapore. He's a serial Canva app builder. He's now probably working on his fifth or sixth app and he has an app called Image Upscaler, which just overnight shot up. We looked at this in our dashboards as like one of the most used apps that we have. Right, Just in terms of like you know, larry Page and Sergey Brin had this analogy at the early days of Google being like you know, you have a great company. You know you have a great product when it's quote unquote a toothbrush product. Right, like something that you use at least twice a day.

Rajiv Parikh: 10:03

Got it, got to use it.

Indy Sen: 10:05

The American Dental Association recommends that for sure, right. But for image upscaler, think about the use case that it helps solve is like you may have like a low res image that you're trying to add to like a design, and what image upscaler does is that it uses AI to kind of fill in the gaps and upscale that image as this name.

Rajiv Parikh: 10:23

And that's great. So you came in as the person to now say, hey, we have this system that originally was a consumer tool that eventually became part of a business tool and then it started to move to become a platform and as part of building that platform, there's an ecosystem component to a platform and so now you need to establish all those relationships and measure all this right. So that leads me to this question. So for a horizontal platform like Canva right, vast array of you have diverse user bases, individual creators. You have large enterprises. How do you segment and collect actionable, qualitative consumer insights that inform your ecosystem strategy? How do you ensure that the voice of the developer or partner for a niche, complex use case like some of the upscaling company you know, like the upscaler example that you use doesn't get lost amid broader, high volume user feedback? How do you foster and grow that community?

Indy Sen: 11:19

So I think if I start with that initial example of like an image upscaler, right Like, that's one of the things where that's the power of having an open ecosystem right Like I think if I start with that initial example of like an image upscaler, right Like, that's one of the things where that's the power of having an open ecosystem right Like I think it was, there's a guy he wrote one of the first early books, at least for me as someone coming in and marketing and embracing the field of like technology and platforms.

Indy Sen: 11:37

He wrote a great book on API. So the guy's name is Kim Lane. He's like this famous evangelist in like the API field. And Lane, he's like this famous evangelist in like the API field and one of his axioms was that you know, done right APIs is like self-serve business development, right. So everything that we put out there as a company and I've seen this at other companies like Box and you know, mulesoft and so on right Like, if you do it right, your APIs should be accessible enough where it's easy enough for anybody to, by virtue, by dint of like you know, great documentation tutorials, by virtue by dint of like you know great documentation tutorials, to kind of get started with them Right.

Rajiv Parikh: 12:05

And then it just, it just unlocks the creativity of people of things that you haven't even thought about. Right, If you build things as APIs.

Indy Sen: 12:12

Yeah, yeah, so that's the. That's the first leg of it, right? It's, like you know, like let's make our tools so easy to use to enable developers, to enable our users to design, right, and, and I think that's where we've seen like some success stories from like the grassroots level right Now. I think that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is like looking back at and you know, canva does a lot of like research around, like you know what we call like closing customer loops, right. So we see, you might've seen a Canva Create back in April. You know the whole theme of that conference. It's kind of like our own dream force, right?

Indy Sen: 12:42

For those who know enterprise software and Salesforce's annual hoopla, canva Create is like our annual customer conference and the theme that we had for this year was really around saying, like you know, we are so grateful for all our customers.

Indy Sen: 12:54

Here are some of the wishes that you had, right, and obviously they were anchored in like some key things that we were building and looking to build for years now, but that we're saying like, hey, the reason we really wanted to build this was for you, right, we're listening to what you want to do, right, and I think, a lot of research done around, like what are some of those customer loops that we can close?

Indy Sen: 13:11

And when I first came on board, I think it was very clear that, out of all those customer loops that we wanted to close, there's only so many that Canva can build right. So what we try to do is we try to like share with our partners and the ones that you know we keep close to to our ecosystem, especially like the ones that we tap to, like use some new frameworks early and those kind of things. We'll give them a sense of like you know what we're looking for people to build, or what are the jobs to be done that canva by itself is not going to be able to do right, or what are the things that we're hearing from customers where they're saying we see so much value if Canva can help connect the dots between this workflow and the one that we have.

Rajiv Parikh: 13:47

So one of the things you do to make sure you don't compete with the folks that are in your ecosystem, you give them. Nvidia actually is known for this right, where they said this is our space and this is not our space, and we'll build the chip, we'll build CUDA and then you can build the rest. Right, and I think you?

Rajiv Parikh: 14:05

guys are saying. You're saying something very similar where you're saying we're strong. This is where my app is. These are the features we're going to build. Here's APIs. Now. Here's a place for you guys to play.

Indy Sen: 14:15

Yeah, as much as we can, we try to carve out that white space for developers and give them that guidance. Now there are inevitably, you know like, sometimes where there's something that's just so much so core, you know so core that we have to bake it into our product right, because it's almost like table stakes. And you know like, I think we still believe that a solution that's of value, that's integrated with us, and if a customer is already a customer of that solution, who are we to get in the way of that right? Who are we to get in the way of that right, Like, if they've built in, if the ISV, if the partner has built an integration and you know the customer's already a paid customer of that thing. We just want to make sure that we can meet our customers where they are right and I think that's at the core of like what you're seeing in enterprise software for the last like 10 years, I would say right Is as much as you believe that you have this mon and you know one. That's like you know the best in class right.

Indy Sen: 15:03

At the end of the day, we're now like so much of the computing is done not just on your desktop but on mobile and now soon, via agentic frameworks.

Indy Sen: 15:11

All these systems need to talk to each other, right?

Indy Sen: 15:14

So I think, going back to that first principle of, like you know, let's make sure that we can meet our customers where they are and also provide that value that you know, like you know all and also provide that value that you know. Like you know, all we care about is for you to go from point A to point B in terms of what you want to design and what you want to put out into the world, and we know, recognize that there might be some features that we don't have ourselves, that you can, and that are augmented by what our partners do as well. As you know, one of our biggest plays now, right now, is to bring data from third-party services into Canva as well. Right, because at the end of the day, it could be competitive intelligence, it could be sales data, it could be marketing product metrics right, but at the end of the day, like, the reason why people come to us is because we're that presentation layer, right, that visual communication layer that is the heart of every business, team and organization.

Rajiv Parikh: 15:59

So, then, a smart move there is that you're bringing data to help inform people about what content they should be building, and that's when you're pulling in data from other places or helping them present that about the content that they're creating.

Indy Sen: 16:10

You're absolutely right. I think there's a whole upcoming wonderful use case, right Like when we announced canvas sheets, for example, where you could basically use a spreadsheet form factor to then inform and you know like, collect data from like third-party sources and then say and create content as easy as like almost like you know copying a cell and dragging it over, right Like. And that's the thing where, you know, my first career was in management consulting and I spent so much time in spreadsheets, right, so when I saw that happen right Like you do, the fact that you could generate content just based on like columns of parameters and then Canva would do the rest of it, my mind was blown right, because I'm like, hey, this is this gives, like that, that, that mindset of, like you know, being in a spreadsheet and the mental model of a spreadsheet, but into like design workflows. And that, to me, is such a great opportunity because, again, spreadsheets can be very intimidating and you know, we still are working our way towards making like sheets like a more actionable and friendly kind of like you know, user interface, right, because working our way towards making like sheets like a more actionable and friendly kind of like, you know, user interface right, because all of a sudden, people are saying hey, canva, why are you doing spreadsheets? It's like, well, it's not a spreadsheet, it's more like a canvas for you to kind of do work that requires a lot of, like inputs and parameters. But then you know, we take care of like that last mile kind of production, right?

Indy Sen: 17:20

So I think that's where, to your point, rajiv, like there's metadata around the content that you have to create, right, saying like, hey, you know, here's my customer list, here are the formats, the channels that my campaigns build on. One is an Instagram Reel, the other is, like you know, linkedin posts. We have all the templates for those kind of things, right, but in the old days and even for us, like even six months ago, you would have to go to a LinkedIn template, pop your designs in. You'd have to go to Instagram Reels template, pop your designs in. Now, with the advent of AI and, like you know, bulk creation, that's all facilitated by our technologies you're just only minutes away from, like you know, going through that whole set and knocking that punch list up, all those content and creative that you have to do. So, yeah, so hopefully that's good news for everyone.

Rajiv Parikh: 18:01

That is great, because then you're providing more value when people are trying to do all those adaptations, exactly. So how do app developers stand out on a visual-first platform like Canva? So how do you tell developers and builders how to cultivate authentic stickiness beyond technical functionality? What are some non-obvious strategies for developers to differentiate and resonate effectively? You're speaking to a diverse user base. You have individual creators, you have large enterprises, so are there trends that you see around some of the top categories of these popular apps?

Indy Sen: 18:32

Yeah, you know, I would say one of the things that we try to do for any developer who's building an app within Canva right so, using an app SDK is that, you know, we tell them you may have amazing innovations and like a great piece of technology, but try to abstract it in no less than, like you know, five steps in the user workflow, right? So if you look at most of the Canva apps, you, within like two to three steps of clicks, you actually get the output from that app that you want. Right, and that really comes from, like, our design principles that we try to, like you know, help developers frame their innovations. But in the context of, like canvas, ease of use, and I think it's it's funny because at first, you know, when we didn't have, when we only had like what? Like 30 apps at first, we were like, well, should we be that have such a hard line on what those design principles are to these partners, right? Like, I mean, who are we to tell Asana how to build their app? Like it's such a rich functionality? But in many ways, even the feedbacks we got from Dasana all the way to some other innovators one of my favorite partners is a partner called Crikeyai. It's like two sisters who graduated from Stanford. They are building like an AI avatar, kind of like you know platform. But Canva was a great distribution framework for them, right, because they overnight they had tons of signups and activity over there. With Quaki in particular. The feedback we got was they'd say, hey, your design guidelines were so crisp that we actually incorporated them into our own web and mobile app.

Indy Sen: 19:53

Because they say that, hey, you must be doing something right from a design standpoint in terms of making things easy to use and grokkable for a first-time user and I think there's an acronym first-time user experience, fitui. I think that's one of the things that we really try to inculcate in, like any developer, no matter how big they are, when they're building an application with us. Now, that's with apps, right, and you know I think you know so many platforms you know apps and integrations. Those terms are used interchangeably, but what I just described are like apps and Canva With integrations that are powered by APIs.

Indy Sen: 20:24

I think, at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that Canva's workflows can be as seamless as possible within the context of another company's apps, right?

Indy Sen: 20:31

So we have recent integrations with MailChimp, with HubSpot, there's not so much we can do to kind of tell them what the look and feel should be like, right, but that's where our job for the API is to be seamless, for the APIs to be seamless, to make those things look almost like native-like experiences in those third-party platforms. And if you know, fast forward to today. You know, like our first integrations a little clucky, you know it was like a Canva button that was like an iframe, like it was very clear that you were going to Canva to do something and then come back right, which is not a bad functionality, right? Ultimately, you're still helping people make the most out of those two solutions that they love, whether it's like HubSpot on one side and Canva on the other. But fast forward to today. Even the HubSpot integration is way more seamless than it has been. Right, and I think that's like the APIs.

Rajiv Parikh: 21:13

We see the same thing with our platforms that we're building If it looks like I'm taking you to a different spot like we would do five-tran integrations for our data visualization capabilities, right, yeah, so we pull data from all these different places and then force the person to go into a different user experience. Yes, it did the job, but it really sucked because it's that first time user experience, the first time they're experiencing the product, they are using a particular interface, then they're going somewhere else and then they're coming back and it does the job, but really you want to refine it so that it feels like it's part of your product. So it's cool that you're talking about this and this is really happening in real time. And that takes me to where we're going next with the Gentic right, the Gentic era, where truly things are being done across multiple platforms, across multiple places, across multiple workflows, and so you've talked about that. Human connection will be the ultimate moat for technology companies even for developers.

Rajiv Parikh: 22:07

So, from your vantage point, the ecosystem marketing lead at Canva, andy, how are you actively building and nurturing these deep human connections with developers and partners, particularly when many of them and many of their interactions with a platform is increasingly digital or AI mediated?

Indy Sen: 22:24

At the end of the day, you know, I think the analogy I sometimes use right with my teams is that you know, when you fly an airline, right, like at the end of the day, the equipment is exactly the same. Right, like, the job to be done is exactly the same. You're going from point A to point B, you want to go somewhere and you have a favorite airline. I probably do too, Right, and part of it I have to do is probably the customer experience you get right, like, the, the, the, the, the feels you get like when you're boarding the plane. It could be by virtue of your status or it could be by virtue of, like, where you're, you know where you're going, that kind of thing, right. So I would say, at the end of the day, when you're building a platform, if's a big deal for them to make a decision being like hey, we're going to integrate with Canva first versus integrating with this other. You know big design platform, right, there's not so many out there, but you know, I will not name the ones who did not need to be named. But the reason I bring that up right and like and not to be facetious right, is the experience. The developer experience matters deeply, right. What I've tried to do and what I've also seen, like other companies where I've been at where we've ultimately been successful, is that if we can put our own imprint on how we transact with developers right, because it can't just be about the technology, right, or the fact that we have we're like an up-and-comer or even beyond that right, like with 240 million actives, we're definitely a platform that a lot of the partners if I think about some of the conversations I have with some of the biggest technology companies out there they've come to us to build an integration right. So obviously the play is clear. The technology is there, but I think what really differentiates you as a developer brand is that care and attention you put to a developer experience right. So obviously the technology has to work right and it has to be innovative enough and easy enough.

Indy Sen: 24:02

Where you're minimizing, you're de-risking somebody's decision whether they're a small developer or like a big company to be like hey, how much time is it going to take? How much non-recurring engineering work is it going to take? I mean, I have a business to run. This is going to be a distraction. How do you assuage those concerns? You do it by having easy to use frameworks, well-documented APIs and so on. That's one piece of it. So I like to think of that as like the technical enablement right. But then I think where platforms really earn good, platforms really earn their reputations. If you've coupled that technical enablement with commercial enablement and so, for example, fast track to Salesforce back in 2015, oh sorry, in 2009, when Bobby was there, I think we overlapped by a little bit. I think actually he was part of the guard that was moving and I was part of some of the new guard on the marketing side.

Rajiv Parikh: 24:52

Your job was to take it to the next level, right. Yeah, hopefully right he created the framework and you guys were there to take it to the next.

Indy Sen: 24:59

Yeah, yeah, I mean, bobby's a legend. He Bobby's a legend. He launched the AppExchange and I think at that stage we needed to figure out, like okay, now we have this thing, how do we get our users to use it? How do we get our salespeople to point people to these solutions? Right, because there was a lot of like channel conflict and there's probably a book that could be written about all this stuff.

Rajiv Parikh: 25:15

Anybody that does enterprise anything is going to deal with some conflict of all kinds that you have to work out.

Indy Sen: 25:20

And so, going back to spreading the needle on the initial question, right is where commercial enablement comes into play is that we have to make it Sesame Street simple for partners, as well as our users and our own company, to see the value that comes out of this ecosystem. Right, so you know, I think, if, for example, one of the early metrics that we had at Canva was around monthly active users, right, like can we prove that by virtue of having some great applications and integrations, that we can bump up the usage rates of specific doc types at Canva? Right so, doc types at Canva, so if you think about Canva as the platform presentations, social media, those are all that doc types, those are all the different types of file formats, so to speak, that we support. Right so we have product managers for every doc type. And we've seen with Image Upscaler that, like you know, photo editing has gone through the roof. Right, we've seen with, like, you know, like, and hopefully with, like, other applications that we see, right, that apps and integrations make these individual doc types more sticky. Right, so that you know, each of them has the potential of maybe becoming a toothbrush product in buying themselves.

Indy Sen: 26:19

Right, part of it's technical, but the commercial enablement piece of it goes into showing that. How do we expose some of these new things early to trusted partners to say, hey, we're going to launch this new framework that's going to put you right within a button, a click away from our users, as opposed to finding the app in the left-hand rail and activating it. This is actually going to be very much more in context of what a user is actually doing, where it's almost going to feel like a native-like experience. So I think that's the other piece of it is, how do we put together the apparatus to tell these developers and engage them early, right? Like? So we have a great team of hardware development managers who almost like I call it like hand-to-hand combat right, because they take meetings they look at like we have like a punch list of partners we want to talk to and we go reach out to them. Sometimes those partners go out to reach out to us directly. Sometimes we got to like knock at their door and it doesn't matter how big or small they are. We try to have an informed view on like who are the people who would be the best candidates for these upcoming frameworks, and so that's where, even though it's ultimately to build on technology. That's the whole commercial side of things, and you got to mount up as a go-to-market organization, right. It's like you've got to be very judicious in terms of like reaching out to partners, and you can't have an ego there. It's not because you're bigger than this partner that they're going to build for you. Sometimes we spend some time on like some small partners that we're making big bets on, right. And then sometimes we also obviously knock at the doors of the sales forces, the hubstarts of the world, but typically they want to talk to us as well, right.

Indy Sen: 27:42

So I think I talked about technical enablement. I think commercial enablement is another piece of that. So I think in our early days of Canva, it's been around like finding ways in which we can get people interested in building on things that are going to drive monthly active users on both sides, hopefully right. And then I think this next phase and I think this is something where I've seen it at Salesforce, I saw it at Box MuleSoft was obviously part and parcel of what we did was the monetization piece, right. And I think that's where, at Canva Create, we had our first partner day, where, you know, I think we hinted at what our plans are for, like co-marketing and co-selling. We're still figuring out a way to do that in ways that that scale, but that's obviously the next frontier right. I think.

Indy Sen: 28:36

To me, a good platform rests on three pillars. One is the technology right you have to have the right technology that people want to build on. The second is you got to help these developers be successful, these partners be successful, and that comes with usage and growth, but it also comes having a strong community where, if you tap them on the shoulder being like, hey, you know, rajiv, I would love for you to talk to me about the experiences you had building with Canada that they will drop everything or they'll be like 100%. Tell me when and where and I'll be there to be able to talk about what you're doing.

Rajiv Parikh: 28:54

Because you don't want to be in a spot where you get someone to do something. You reach out to them, they do all this work and then they get nothing, and you referenced that earlier, right.

Rajiv Parikh: 29:03

It has to feel like a win-win and I got to tell you what you're doing. What you're talking about is actually really hard. I've seen so many conversations with folks where everybody wants to partner. They have really great folks that enable the partnership, but then they get you trained up, you do a bunch of work and then they don't follow through right. They don't enable you to be commercially successful with it. So I think what you're talking about is really important. I want to go back. You mentioned earlier, actually, that one of the issues you had at Salesforce was orchestrating this internal sales team to say how do I get them to buy into AppExchange, right? Yeah, with incentives, right? So think about going to that time. So, beyond direct sales incentives, how do you cultivate a company-wide ecosystem, muscle memory where product engineering, customer success and other teams instinctively understand and contribute to partner go-to-market success? Are there specific internal? You have some great frameworks you laid out, so specific go-to-market playbooks, communication rhythms, cross-functional enablement programs that are essential for this partner first mindset.

Indy Sen: 30:08

Yeah, yeah. So I would say, you know, like all of the above right, and it's very hard to figure out at first, like how, what's the alchemy that's going to help you accomplish those goals? Right, Like we tried so many things at Salesforce. Right, like we we tried baskets of like tchotchkes and candy and stuff to the sales floor being like, hey, you know, and like you know, I had this colleague who put a lot of time and effort into, like you know, creating high calorie snacks with like partner logos in them or a great idea, super sweet, like the intent was there. But sales people in general, you know, they're pretty conscious of appearances and that kind of stuff and they're like you know, hey, I don't want to have this calorie bomb before I go work out and those kind of things, right.

Rajiv Parikh: 30:46

So so. But it was good for awareness, but in the end it's great. Yeah, ok, I know about this partner, but that's not what I'm getting paid on.

Indy Sen: 30:55

That's not what I'm getting paid on, yeah, so I think you know it goes back to for you to activate sales and, as tried as this sounds, right, like it has to be about, like you know what's in it for me. Like, what's the value for me as a salesperson to even pay attention to this partner, right, no-transcript, like, how do we let people know that this is happening? Right? And then how do we get people more invested the minute you have like like a rock star, ae, who's well-respected by their peers to kind of say like, hey, this partner stuff works. You need to like really think about it. How do we do that scale?

Indy Sen: 31:35

So you know, like I did this roadshow with our executive at the time. He was basically the executive who you know came after like Bobby and others, called Ron Huddleston, who was this great gentleman who came from Oracle, just visionary. Like you know we called him boy genius internally because he looked really young, but you know he's he's been around the block and like, but he just came in with like a very strong view that it had to be about the money actually right, like the incentives, and unfortunately he's passed away, but one of the things that he really helped set the course for was to really say how do we meter and measure and showcase the value of this ecosystem by the numbers, right? And so one of the things that he and I brainstormed this is going to date us, but if you remember when Salesforce Chatter launched, right Like social media within your CRM.

Rajiv Parikh: 32:19

It was everywhere. I remember going to Dreamforce and it was just everywhere. I'm like what?

Indy Sen: 32:23

Chatter, yeah, yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 32:25

We even had a Super Bowl. It was the second coming. I remember Exactly.

Indy Sen: 32:28

Yeah, yeah, so just to land the plane on, this story is basically we knew that this was like circa 2010, 2011. Chatter was a thing internally, right. And we're like, hey, well, what do people follow on Chatter? They're not just following people, they're following accounts and opportunities, right? What if we could use chatter as a mechanism to kind of communicate that when a partner landed a deal in an AE's kind of like account, that, whether the AE was involved or not, if that deal landed, that that AE would get compensated on it. So that was the model that we created.

Indy Sen: 33:00

Like I helped create that model with Ron around, like what that percentage compensation plan was and those kinds of things. But the way we communicated it was something that you know I worked with our marketing ops team was like, twice a week we had to have a list of all the deals that came into partners and then I manually went in and like tagged that AE and said, hey, it's a Ching, right, because it was like chatter, right, so chop. And then Ching is just you know, money, right. So I even came up with like a I have this designer, steven geraldo, who created this very salesforce-esque kind of logo with chiching written on it. And you know. So you got the visual. Then you have like a really pithy sentence being like hey, because job science sold 40 seats, you just got paid, right. And then click here for more details. And then I created like a two-sl slide deck that could again be previewed in the Salesforce chatter format, right? So this is early social media marketing for an internal social media platform.

Rajiv Parikh: 33:51

It's kind of the original emoji.

Indy Sen: 33:53

Yeah, it kind of was yeah, exactly, exactly yeah. And then what I did is, at the very early days, I tagged Ron and then I tagged our other executive, mike Rosenbaum, right, who was like our head of like platform at the time, and, I kid you not, within a week and a half, they both asked me, being like hey, this is going great because everybody's taking notice. Like Benioff, within like five days, like Mark Benioff, our CEO was like what is this Like? Who did this, you know? Like, is this real, like people are really getting paid.

Indy Sen: 34:20

And because we, you know, we knew that like, especially once, like an AE, especially one that was respected by their peers, they're being followed by all the people that are under them that look up to them, right, the minute they saw that. What I love about the story is that we turned a reporting requirement into a viral effect, company-wide right, and within a week and a half, everybody knew that they could make money with partners. Our partners were ecstatic because all of a sudden, they were like holy shit, this AD that I never talked to is now calling me. Being like how do I get my Cha-Ching, you know, and that kind of.

Rajiv Parikh: 34:51

Thing.

Indy Sen: 34:51

And so Cha-Ching actually became a verb at Salesforce and you know, I know the business has probably changed a lot. I don't even know if we still have that internal kind of moniker. But overnight like and I was so thrilled to see this is because, like we had this guy, a marketing ops guy, shea Casey, like very tacitturn, kind of typical marketing ops person, like he would just kind of crank through the numbers and give me the data that I would put in Cha-Ching on the feeds, but overnight, like you know, he would buy him drinks and, like you know, send him stuff. You know be, like you know, shay, give me the Cha-Ching, you know that kind of thing.

Rajiv Parikh: 35:21

So fast forward to today there's so many other ways in which you can communicate right, Like Slack and so on, right, so, yeah, so that's a great example. So how would you take that from what you did at Salesforce? How would you do that today? Because I'm assuming that at Canva you have enterprise salespeople too, right, and you have these folks that you're more than PLG. You're doing multiple levels right of sales and marketing. So can you take that to something you're doing today to drive that ecosystem? Because you basically have enabled the building of this?

Indy Sen: 35:52

Yeah, absolutely so.

Indy Sen: 35:53

It's still early days, you know, like I said, like on the monetization front, right.

Indy Sen: 35:56

But I think where we're already seeing, and without going into too much detail, where we're already seeing some traction and some nods to what partners can bring to the table is the fact that you know, a lot of our larger enterprise deals now are coming in because APIs are a fundamental selling point, the fact that we can integrate with either a built-in solution or a set of integrations that the customer wanted, being like, hey, we really are interested, but you have to work with this or you have to work with that, helping them build like a custom application using APIs that then basically takes a five-step workflow and turns it into like a button that they have that they can disseminate, like to their teams, right?

Indy Sen: 36:36

So one big use case and we've documented this publicly so I can share it is, you know, in real estate, right? If you think about any use case where we're seeing some traction is and where people are building custom integrations and apps and workflows, is whenever you have a use case where you have a high frequency, high velocity need for like content assets, right? So in real estate, it's think of it like a flyer right. You have a property, you have a listing.

Rajiv Parikh: 36:58

Yeah, it comes right out of your Matterport, yeah.

Indy Sen: 37:00

Exactly yeah, yeah, exactly yeah, yeah, so yeah, and that's honestly something that I would have loved to have at Matterport as well as at WeWork, honestly Right.

Indy Sen: 37:06

But where I'm going with this is that that's something where, you know, slowly but surely, we've knocked out and gotten deals at some of the biggest commercial real estate companies out there, right, because they're saying holy shit, like you know, with this integration, like you know, we know that we work in a very specific way, but the canvas, interoperable enough, where you can talk to the systems that we work with so that we can then, like you know, kind of create these, these workflows and help our team self-serve to generate assets like the, the creation of, like hyper personalized content at scale right, is is, you know where it can enable any like real estate agents at like Ingle and Volkers, for example, to kind of say like, hey, I'm, you know, I have these five properties that are, like you know, aaa kind of properties and in this kind of market and I wanted to start marketing this right, like before they had to work with an internal marketing department and kind of be-.

Rajiv Parikh: 37:56

Create the listing, do all these things.

Indy Sen: 37:58

Yeah, yeah, and now they can do it themselves in Canva, right, because they know how to use Canva, or they will learn how to use it fairly quickly, right?

Rajiv Parikh: 38:04

It takes no time to learn.

Indy Sen: 38:05

Like they have, like all this on-brand stuff, because at the end of the day, it's like we have the ability for companies to, with the brand kits, to generate templates that are always going to be on brand right.

Indy Sen: 38:15

But then it's only the information that changes, right, it's the pictures, the five pictures of the property, it's the price of the property, it's the location, it's the little headshot of the real estate agent that you pop in on the bottom right right. Those are all things where you can now do that at the touch of a button. That's when we we can. We know that we're punching at our above our weight in terms of like contributing to the success of like sales. Right, it's like in the last three months, especially a non-negotiable amount of like you know, sales-wide kind of slack posts of like wins right in the win library, right, so it's almost like cha-ching, because this was before like we didn't have like a wind channel. Like back then there was no slack, but now you could imagine that there's going to be references to what partners and ecosystem is bringing to the table on a fairly regular basis. Right, so it's not quite as like guerrilla marketing as like Cha-Ching was.

Rajiv Parikh: 39:01

Well, yeah, but but you're talking about it. You're talking about it, right? Yeah, you're making it technically straightforward, you're providing commercial level of success. And then there's a community aspect and it's highlighted by the marketing around it. Right? So it's all coming. It helps bring all that together.

Rajiv Parikh: 39:16

All right, this has been, this has been awesome. So now I'm going to take you to the Spark Tank. So today we're thrilled to have Indie Sen join us, a marketing mastermind who spent 20 years building platforms at places like Salesforce, google Box, mulesoft and now Canva. Indie, your career reads like a superhero origin story from the ground floor of Salesforce's app exchange basically the bat cave of B2B programs to now Canva, where your democratizing design faster than Bruce Wayne burns through sports cars. Your proof that great marketing isn't about having superpowers, it's about making everyone else feel like they do. So today we're putting you through the ultimate Batman trivia challenge. Here's how it works. All right, I'm going to hit you with a Batman trivia questions ranging from the obvious to the wholly obscure comic book reference. Batman Okay, no Googling, no calling your inner Robin for help, just pure Dark Knight devotion. So, indy, are you ready to prove you are the Batman trivia champion that Gotham needs?

Indy Sen: 40:21

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. Let's do it.

Rajiv Parikh: 40:25

That's so good. All right, great way to start it. All right, here's question number one In which comic book did Batman make his first appearance? A, action Comics, number one. B Detective Comics number 27. C Batman number one. So in which comic book did Batman make his first appearance?

Indy Sen: 40:49

The answer is B b. Detective comics you're absolutely sure about this? Oh uh, I am, because action number one is superman, if I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and then there was no batman comic before batman's introduction, so I will do you nailed it.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:05

That was awesome all right, I love it this great. You're right. Batman debuted in Detective Comics number 27 in 1939-12. I'm assuming that means 1939.

Indy Sen: 41:19

Oh nice.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:19

Yeah, all right, I love that you were so confident about it. This is great, okay. In 1978, comic Batman 295, batman faces a villain who uses a rather unconventional weapon, a giant mechanical version of which household item. Here we go A toaster, b vacuum cleaner, c typewriter, c typewriter. Oh, that's good, dude, you got it again. They used a giant mechanical typewriter as part of an elaborate death trap.

Indy Sen: 41:57

Yes.

Rajiv Parikh: 41:58

It's a classic example of the era's outlandish version of storytelling.

Indy Sen: 42:01

So yeah, and I'll just add that since then that typewriter by many writers has been featured in the Batcave in like Batman's trophy case. So whatever death trap he escaped he ended up. Probably Robin helped him, you know, move it to the Batcave, but yeah, maybe Alfred, probably also.

Rajiv Parikh: 42:16

So that? So it's now in his Batcave. There we go. It's, that's how you knew. That's why you knew the answer. This is awesome. Here's the third one. Which of these three Batman villains was originally introduced in the 1960s TV series before appearing in comics? So it appeared in the TV series, then it came to the comics A Egghead, B, King Tut, C Calendar man. That's a tough one.

Indy Sen: 42:42

I'm going to go with King Tut just because I remember him in the series and I was like this is kind of of crazy, but let's go with it. So yeah, let's go with king tut yeah.

Rajiv Parikh: 42:54

So my team says I thought we'd have you on this, but apparently no, you got it right king, tut is the answer king tut was created for the show and later adapted into comic continuity. Here we go um so egghead was created for the tv show but did not transition to comics until much later and less prominently.

Indy Sen: 43:16

And then calendar man originated in the comics but not the tv show right, yeah, yeah, I think calendar man, if I'm not mistaken, is a later era villain. Uh, julian dave is his name. So, yes, yeah, yeah, you are blowing it away.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:30

Okay, you're three for three. Usually we stop at three because you know you won't get it all right, but I'm gonna. I have two more.

Indy Sen: 43:37

If you want to go, keep going all right, I can do this all day, but you know, let's go with it all right.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:46

In the animated series batman beyond, what is the name of the gang that idolizes the joker? Do I, do I even need to give you choices for this?

Indy Sen: 43:54

uh, I want to say it's just the jokers, right with a z maybe, but uh, I'm not sure that's it.

Rajiv Parikh: 43:59

Maybe we'll go dude, you nailed it okay, that's it okay, I didn't even need to give you that other two. B was jokesters and c clowns. It was jokers with a, z, exactly yes, I love it, the jokers oh god it's. It's like very boy bandish. Okay, now here's the. Here's the last one. In the 1960s comics, batman and robin once encountered a villain whose criminal theme was based on which of the following competitive activities A chess, b stamp collecting, c kite flying.

Indy Sen: 44:36

You might be stopping me here.

Rajiv Parikh: 44:38

A villain, a 1960s comic encountered a villain whose criminal theme was based on which of the following competitive activity, so A chess, b stamp collecting and C kite flying.

Indy Sen: 44:50

Wow, I'm trying to visualize how stamp collecting would be a threat to Batman rather than you know I'm going to go with kite flying just because there is a villain called Kite man, but I don't know. So, yeah, let's go with kite flying.

Rajiv Parikh: 45:03

This is ridiculous. So you're right again, Indy.

Rajiv Parikh: 45:10

Yes Even on a pure shit luck, guess, you get it right. So today's your day, as my dad would say, go buy a lottery ticket. Yeah, because you got five out of five. Okay. So chess has been used as a motif by several villains, like chessmen and other comics, but not in this particular Batman story B. Stamp collecting is a real golden age plot. Superman fought a stamp obsessed villain comics, but not in this particular batman story b. Stamp collecting is a real golden age plot. Superman fought a stamp obsessed villain, but not batman. Oh okay, and c, you totally nailed it. Batman and robin battled the kite man, a villain whose crimes involved kites long before he became a cult favorite modern comics.

Indy Sen: 45:47

So yeah, he is a cult. Yeah, so he came back in like the the tom king. Uh, series like this is probably like five, six years ago and his catchphrase is just kite man, oh yeah. And then he always typically he does that when he attacks batman. He typically just gets punched in the face and then he's out. But I guess people like that. So, uh, yeah, you'll probably come to some movie or series adaptation soon.

Rajiv Parikh: 46:11

That's ridiculous. Okay, so my first question after this is what made you such a Batman fanatic?

Indy Sen: 46:19

So I will say this is probably in 1989. I remember seeing the Tim Burton Keaton movie in the theaters and my mind was just blown. So, like, I think it's also coincided, like if you think about movies, so I love movies, I am Batman, yeah, exactly. It's also coincided like if you think about movies, so I love movies, and like and that would, yeah, exactly so. So I think like that was kind of lives rent free in my head. But like, I think the reason why I just, for some reason, I just gravitated towards is because two things I would say. One is I've always been a prince fan. So the soundtrack, the fact that he was across, it was just I was like this is fucking awesome, you know. And then, and still to this day, a really good prince album. Right, like, people don't think of it that way, but it's, it's just amazing. And then I think the second thing was the car, the. That car just blew the batmobile that was awesome 89 batmobile, so freaking cool.

Indy Sen: 47:01

So today I'm actually speaking in my, in my basement, like because I'd be nodding, but uh, I'm just kidding my whole life.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:07

Your wife kicked you to the basement, yeah she's like.

Indy Sen: 47:09

She's like, stop reading so much batman comic books and actually go do some work. You know, no, uh, we have a guest and I and my office doubles as the guest room. But if, if we were to speak in my office, you would see a lego version of the 1989 batmobile, because that's probably if I, if I, if I could lay a magic wand and say, like this, this would be my dream car, that would be it.

Indy Sen: 47:28

So I think between that. And then you know, this is jack nicholson, kim basinger like oh, that was, that was genius.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:35

Yeah, it was.

Indy Sen: 47:35

Uh, yeah it was an apex moment for for, like, what a, what a cool summer movie should be right.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:40

And you know, I think I'm old enough to remember batmania, so yeah yeah, so you got obsessed from that point, so you were probably what like 11, 11, 12 good guess was it was the summer of 89.

Indy Sen: 47:51

So I think I was 11. There we go. Very impressionable age right it's a perfect age to get into it.

Rajiv Parikh: 47:58

Yeah, yeah, awesome, okay, so let's get back to work. Yes, you've talked passionately in the past about watching Steve Jobs keynote when Apple was launching the iPhone as the moment you knew you wanted to work in technology, because it brought together your love of storytelling with technology. Tell us more about it. Can you bring that moment to life?

Indy Sen: 48:20

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think for me, like, I do remember and, as you know, as cliche as it sounds, I do remember where I was when I saw it. Like I was still living in Boston. I was about to start business school, right, because this was 2007. You know, like the world felt like your oyster. You're like, oh, you know, I'm investing myself, like what am I going to do? You know, like what? What's the type of? Like there's so much you can do now, like potentially with, like like this degree in in your hands. But as I was about to go in, I think I had it, like I had a Mac mini at the time that I've connected to my TV. So this is how much of a nerd I was. I found a very contrived way to kind of like watch the keynote, like on my big screen TV, which back then was like a 30 inch TV, you know that kind of thing, but still pretty big. I was very proud of that, that that TV purchase. So, anyway, long story short, like so I watched the WWDC. Oh no, it was an Apple special event, I think, if I'm not mistaken. So I remember where I was. I was sitting on like this futon couch that I had in my you know part of my bachelor's in Boston, and I just saw this and like there was so much rumors, right, and I was already early, kind of like I was a PC user my whole life until then, but I got the iPod and I was like this thing is so cool, right, like, and and I was, so I was very much in the market for what the next iPod will be. The rumors is there was going to be a video iPod and this was before, like you know, the early like 5G bandwidth and all that stuff right. But I had a lot of like movies that I could download and rip from my DVDs, those kind of things. So I was in the market for that. So I remember kind of sitting down and, like, you know, watching it and I just see this.

Indy Sen: 49:45

You know Steve Jobs had this legendary way of kind of going about presenting things and I was like you know so one, I just wanted to see it because I was like it's always going to be a show. But then he did this really like very clever thing where he's like today we're going to announce you know, three things, right. So I'm like, oh, here we go. Minto principle, you know, like let announce, like a breakthrough communication device. And then what was the third thing I'm trying to remember? Now, a new portable video player or something like that, right. And then he's like, do you get it? Like this, this and that, a portable video player, a breakthrough communication device, a video iPod, right. And he's like these things are all the same thing, right, like it's the iPhone.

Indy Sen: 50:26

And just the way he went about it, right, like talking about why they decided to build this thing that you know if, if you know, if they had just listened to market analysts, they would all they would have done would be have been a widescreen video iPod, right, but they decided to kind of converge all those technologies. And I think what I really loved about that story was the fact that, you know, he kind of led you through the way, like the technical insight for them being like hey, look, there's a reason why we wanted to do it without any buttons, right, it's because your finger is the ultimate pointing device. Right, we've done our research. Here's what the market has right now. Like all of these things are very good at one thing, but not good at everything, right, and like they're either a great phone or they're a great email device, but they suck, they can't do both. And I think he kind of just threaded the needle from a storytelling perspective, right, like that, pulled that red thread, being like, look, this is why we built this thing the way it was.

Indy Sen: 51:16

And you know, I think it wasn't just what he announced, right, because I was already like, wow, when can I get my hands on this?

Indy Sen: 51:19

Right, but it was how they did it, right, and I think, for me, blending that, that art of storytelling, even the showmanship that Steve Jobs was so famous for, right, like you know, people were just eating out of his hands, right, like when he announced that thing was, I was just like I don't know what job that is, right, like, and not the Steve Jobs jobs, right, you know, like I knew what job that was, but it was who helped him put that story together.

Indy Sen: 51:40

Right, and even like analysis, with so much theatrics, right, and like cleverness and like kind of storytelling and what, taking each to the hand, so that, like, the end result was like I think everybody there afterwards was like, like you know, and was like I have to get this device.

Indy Sen: 51:54

Like this thing is going to be like the greatest thing literally since sliced bread, and just that storytelling, the way of like, identifying this unmet need and showing how, with this device, you can not just meet those three unmet needs but you can meet all of them and more by virtue of, like you know, using this device. I thought that was just masterful, right, and I think I was like you know, it's storytelling, it's showmanship. These are things that I kind of gravitate towards, you know I geek out on, and then it was also amazing technology at that time, right, the fact that you know touchscreen. I remember I don't know if you saw, like there's definitely a great plane movie, but the BlackBerry movie, right, Like when BlackBerry executives saw that announcement. Like in the movie they do it really well, but they were like we are so right, so screwed yeah, yeah.

Indy Sen: 52:35

So that that for me was like. I was like, hey, you know, let me cater my business school experience to figure out as much as I can Like what do I need to know to, you know, get a job that helps me tell those stories? Right? And I didn't know it then, but it was product marketing, which obviously Apple is super famous for as well. But that's what got me into my current career, I think.

Rajiv Parikh: 52:56

That's beautiful. I appreciate the story and how it really captured the moment and I think one of the other amazing aspects of it that we talk about the product so much, but it was also the ecosystem. Talk about the product so much, but it was also the ecosystem. This was the app store. This was the ability for people to to innovate using the capabilities of of the iphone. Now other firms had that, like in the nokia. You had a. You know, you had it. There's brew and some other operating systems where you could build apps, but it was a nightmarish process and you had to fight to get on deck, whereas apple created a way to create a whole app ecosystem Is that part of what got you to? Yeah, maybe that was later.

Indy Sen: 53:35

So I think that was later because, if memory serves right, the iPhone SDK right and the whole third-party ecosystem that I think came a little bit after. So I think that actually came at WWDC right Like, because initially when they launched it it was just portrayed as a phone. It has built-in apps that you're going to love, that we've built ourselves our own first-party apps, and it has all the content that you want from an iPod and that kind of stuff. So I think that first started off as almost like a walled garden and I think, having read some books about and some articles about that launch, it sounds like later on. I think Steve Jobs himself had to be convinced that they needed to open it up to third-party developers to kind of launch the ecosystem. So I think they had an SDK in the wings but it sounds like they-.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:14

But it wasn't there. Yeah, yeah, but obviously they built it as a platform and they've been able to take it from there. So now let's talk about you as a leader. So, indy, you've been described as a Zen leader who balances flawless strategic thinking with the dynamic ability to navigate ambiguity with compassion, joy and enthusiasm.

Indy Sen: 54:35

That's very kind, that's very kind.

Rajiv Parikh: 54:36

Yeah, how do you, as a Zen leader, approach decision-making and team motivation with the urgency required for the rapid scaling and continuous innovation that's occurring at Canva today?

Indy Sen: 54:48

Yeah, I think, over time, I would say I think I've learned not to take things personally right, like I think that you know business is business, right, and I think at the end of the day, especially as I've grown into the shoes of like a leader, it's like it's all about enabling the team. At the end of the day, that's your job, you know, in Hinduism you have like. Your job as a leader is to make sure that you can lead your teams with clarity, right, like give them the right direction, give them clear direction on like what the goals are, the stakes of like everything that needs to be done. But then try to remove obstacles because if you've done your job right as a leader, you either are surrounded by great people or you've recruited those people that yourself right, and you want them to be successful. You've brought them in for a reason Right, and I think, as my kids would say, right like let people cook.

Indy Sen: 55:33

Right, like you know, like let people do what they've come to do. And I think your job as a leader, especially as you start building greater and greater teams where you're a little bit more removed from the action, right, and I think at Canva we're a startup, so I am knee deep in, like my IC work. I'm also like helping steer. Like you know some of my Just a small multi-billion dollar startup.

Rajiv Parikh: 55:51

Yeah, but you're in a startup as part of a large yeah, so you know.

Indy Sen: 55:56

So the struggle is, quote unquote, real in terms of, like advocating for resources, getting setting the tone, that clarity Right, and I think so in my mind, what it really boils down to is can you like lead with clarity, right? And, and I think you know, sometimes you don't get that clarity because maybe that clarity does not exist right In terms of what our goals are, what our priorities are, right, how do you put your best foot forward to try and fight for that clarity or at least deal with ambiguity, right? Because I think what I've learned over time and this is applicable both at Canva but also like many places I've been, and I'm sure Rajiv, like this, will resonate is I think ambiguity is okay, I think indecision is not, and so I think ambiguity. I think your job as a leader is to help your team navigate that ambiguity, give them alternatives or ask them for alternatives and kind of then, with your mind of like or your knowledge of like where the business is going, try to like help arrive at a decision. But I think it's indecision that I think is just fraught with like peril, right, because I think to me, like indecision is the cancer you have to. Your job as a leader is to help your team make a decision, and I think you may not have all the right information, but if your team like no matter how experienced they are see that you're not making up your mind or you're kind of like going back and forth and having endless meetings about meetings, about meetings, about a decision that needs to be made, you're going to lose trust.

Indy Sen: 57:15

Right, I had this great executive at Google called Carol Carpenter who was like our head of product marketing at the time, and I think she rightfully kind of brought this model being like look, you know, I think, as a cross-functional leader and which product marketing is you know, I think you have to do your best to make sure that you're operating at a level where you can, because of the vantage points, do what you can to enable trust.

Indy Sen: 57:32

Right, like create trust builders and minimize trust busters. Right, and I think, to me, indecision is the ultimate trust buster, because no matter how smart you are or no matter how big your team is, or if anybody starts getting an inkling that you do not know what you're doing, or those kinds of things, I think that's an automatic trust buster. Right, and it's not on you, it's just more like how do you make sure that people are informed in real time of like decisions that need to be made, the obstacles that might be in the way and sometimes it may not be in your purview or your ability to set that clarity, but at the very least advocate for it, yeah, and I like that because you put it together with trust building, helping your folks make decisions.

Rajiv Parikh: 58:11

So you're not saying, hey, bring everything to me, I'm going to make the decision. So Zen leader doesn't have to make all the decisions, but it creates an environment to enable decision-making Exactly. And I think one of the things you've talked about, too, is the notion of psychological safety, right? So and we've had this with Udi- Lergaard right of Gong, right.

Rajiv Parikh: 58:32

So he'll talk about how do I help my folks take big risks by offering them the ability to create an environment where they can take those risks and speak out of turn and take big swings. And so you talk about that as well. Right? How do you innovate unless you create that notion of psychological safety where you open yourself up to radical candor or constructive dissent.

Indy Sen: 58:52

Yeah, absolutely, you know. I mean I think I can think of many examples, right, but I think there's one in particular is like I remember at my time at WeWork. Things happened very quickly at WeWork, both the good things and the bad things.

Rajiv Parikh: 59:02

Everything happened at high speed.

Indy Sen: 59:04

But you know, like the talent density at that company was insane, right, Like when I left Google to go to WeWork, there was a form leaving Google where I had to pick a drop list of like companies. I was going to right, and there's, you know the usual. You know Amazon's, facebook, that kind of stuff, but at the very bottom. Wework actually made that list because at the time WeWork was just hiring like great talent left and right. Now where I'm going with the story is that at one point, you know, I joined into the technical product marketing and then, very quickly, the leadership team determined that you know, we needed to kind of build out global product marketing, not just for technology but also like actually our physical properties and everything that we did there. And so overnight I ended up like inheriting a bunch of folks who are almost like, who are product marketers in name but really brand managers for, like, wework. And there was this really talented woman by the name of Julia who was, you know, had been at WeWork for a couple of years but was kind of struggling because she just saw like indecision everywhere, right, and she had big ideas, right, and she was not really that junior, but she was experienced and she was motivated and I saw that in her, and. But then, at the same time, some people said that you know, quote unquote, she might've been, like, you know, hard to work, was not empowered to do things.

Indy Sen: 1:00:09

I had my first meeting with her. She was one of my directs and you know, she told me what her desires were and she's like, hey, honestly, I want to do things because I want to have an impact and I want to get promoted, and I was like you know, that's interesting. You know, like I've just met you, so that's not a conversation we can have today. Occasion, right, like we gave her, like by the time, what was called AAA property marketing.

Indy Sen: 1:00:32

So these were, like you know, the big skyscrapers in New York where we work had all of a sudden, like you know, eight, 10, 12 floors, at least on those where we know that those things would be super desirable. But they have needed to move fast and they were a big whale, so to speak, in our inventory. And she just availed herself of that because she had the right relationships. In many ways she made myself and our CMO look great because she just sunk her teeth into it and did not relent, right, and so what I was really happy was, within four or five months, our CMO did marketing all hands and recognized her in front of everybody and actually brought her up to stage and be like hey, this is the type of determination and great and just ideas. Great ideas can come from anywhere, but let's make sure that you all feel empowered to do the best work of your lives, right?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:01:15

And I think that's really awesome.

Indy Sen: 1:01:16

It was like an early lesson and like how do you help people get to the highest point of contribution? Right, and I think, like I would say, it's on employees or even myself, right, I report to someone. It's my job to tell somebody if I don't feel I'm working towards my highest point of contribution, and it's also my job and my employee's job to tell me, or for me to tell my manager, these are the things I want to do, I believe I can do, and where you'll get the most bang out of your buck, out of me, so to speak. But I do think it's a manager's responsibility to know when somebody's clearly punching below their weight. I call that the lowest point of contribution.

Indy Sen: 1:01:48

Right, if you know, especially younger employees might just do that because they're asked to do it and they're like, hey, you know, like I mean, this is not a great job environment, I'll just do what I'm doing. Right, but it sucks to have somebody really talented do just stuff that literally will literally be replaced by AI at some point. Right, like market research, even some messaging. Right, like you can get 90, 80% of the way there with messaging by providing like a template for the frameworks and saying, hey, look at this website and tell me how what the messaging tree would be for the hierarchy would be for this AI can I did it a couple of weeks ago like cloud open AI, they'll get you 80% of the way there and then, of course, that's where you keep the as a human in the loop. You produce that output.

Indy Sen: 1:02:23

So I would say, you know, to me it's really a manager's job and I think maybe this is part of the Zen. Leadership thing is like create that environment where it's very clear that everybody can be working towards their highest point of contribution, because otherwise you know what's the point of hiring great people in this job environment especially, you know there's so much talent out there. Ai is not going to replace that talent, but it's going to help them maybe even better right and help you get things more done faster. So I think the key to that is really making sure that people are motivated right To do the best work of their lives, and I think for me that's like an early kind of like management lesson I had, especially at that stage when I had this ability to kind of like steer a sizable team. All these people were great. Like some of them, I have no doubt that some people were smarter, no doubt younger.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:05

But I mean, but that is great, that is great leader. Great leadership is you don't have to be the smartest person in the room, but you have to recognize how you can get the best out of people. And part of that is psychological safety and taking that employee that you had who had a great idea, and enabling her to to get it out Right. And at the same time, though, I'd say that part of also what you're doing is that I think you've talked about this too is that Steve Jobs will say focus is not saying yes, it's saying no to really good ideas. So you have this really tough balancing act right when you're saying I have a whole bunch of great ideas, I want to foster those great ideas, offer people a psychological safety of that. But you also have to say no to random acts of marketing Random acts of marketing.

Indy Sen: 1:03:43

Yes, exactly.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:03:45

Thinking about servant leadership at its core. You're thinking about enabling courage. How do you balance those?

Indy Sen: 1:03:50

Yeah, and I think it goes back in my mind too, and it's not always easy, because sometimes you yourself, as a leader, are so like submerged in all this busyness.

Indy Sen: 1:03:58

Right, like with the why Is that? You have to kind of every now and then pick your head up and kind of see like, hey, are we all working on the highest impact work that we can, right, or are we just doing things because we've done it before? Right, and I think you know I'm seeing this at Canva and I've seen this at other companies too right, when you're in hyper growth mode, especially at the company, it's very clear that what you've done six months ago may not be what you need to do to get to the next level. Right, like, what got you here is not what's going to get you there. Exercise of kind of like you know, maybe reinventing yourself or as the business then all of a sudden has more channels. Right, instead of having one developer event and you then have like piggyback on like your field marketing and just invite developers to those events, as opposed to having like a proper standalone developer conference.

Indy Sen: 1:04:40

You know, it's still early, we're still trying to figure out, like, what are ways in which we can target developers. But one of the signals I got at, like Canva Create, was that for the first time, we actually invited developers to kind of showcase their wares on the floor right, like you know, table stakes for many large conferences, but this was the first time actually inviting partners and having them sponsor and it probably got the second most foot traffic. I saw the metrics right the second most foot traffic across the whole conference outside of, like you know, our main activation points for, like, the new product announcements that we had, and nobody expected that. But people like you know who were MailChimp customers were walking around Canva Create and they see MailChimp and they're like I did not know you had an integration with Canva. Like, tell me more. And MailChimp was super happy, because that's more people who are happy and probably more likely to stay activated on MailChimp now that they know that it integrates with Canva. So you need to think about that type of thing very opportunistically, being like just because something worked for us in the past is not necessarily gonna work for us in the future, right, or maybe there are bigger bets that we can make across new channels that let us do the job we need to get done, but knock it out in a way that's gonna set us up for success for the next couple of operating quarters, right, and I love to say years. But next, like you know, like couple of operating quarters, right, and I love to say years, but you know, the truth is that nobody knows where they're going to be like six months from now and that kind of thing, or where the business is going to take us.

Indy Sen: 1:05:58

But I think your job as a leader, in my mind, especially in marketing and it's not because marketing is necessarily easier to kind of like course correct, but if you think about engineering, tech, tech, death and that kind of stuff, there's some things that are going to take literally months to change. Right, with marketing, if you're not oversubscribed in certain activities, it's pretty easy to kind of navigate new channels right, or at least try new things and establish channels and then experiment with others, right, you can mount a campaign, especially hopefully with Canva, right, like you can do, do a campaign and, like you know, like know, like months of work and, like you know, weeks, if not days. In my mind, marketing is the quintessential like situational leader, right, like, I think you have your finger on so many of the pulses, right. You work with product marketing especially. You work with product, you work with sales, you work with marketing.

Indy Sen: 1:06:41

If you're a senior leader, you're kind of plugged in into what the business cares about and you can kind of like think about like hey, you know what if we were to do this right, instead of like why are we doing this? Like what if we were to do that? I think it's really about like trying to lead with like ideas on the table, and then also don't think that the responsibility is for you to have all the ideas. Keep your nose to the ground, right, like, listen to either people on your team or, I would say, as a product marketer.

Indy Sen: 1:07:08

Yes, you do have to spend a lot of time with product, clearly, but at the end of the day, if your product team is not spending time with customers, be that person to get channel some of those, those asks and stress tests, what you're building and those kinds of things. So I would say, sometimes customers can not only give you like some good ideas, but also messaging right. What I really love about building ecosystems is that their success is going to be your success right. So if you do your job right, if you enable them technically, if you enable them commercially, like the minute you have and we saw this at Salesforce, I saw this at Box MuleSoft, you know, god knows like when people kind of took off like with their solutions, that was the bread and butter of the business.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:07:41

I mean yeah, mulesoft is ultimately all about connecting.

Indy Sen: 1:07:44

Exactly right. It was basically partnership as a product. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. It was integration as a service, partnership as a product, because no one company would use MuleSoft the same way. But when they did, it was like one, it was sticky as F, right, and then two, it really created like magical experiences for these companies, right, like where it was really creating a process out of their secret sauce was what most companies that were really successful in MuleSoft were able to do.

Indy Sen: 1:08:09

So I think leadership to me it's all about creating that clarity, enabling the people, making sure that everyone's operating at the highest point of contribution, and then also keeping your nose to the ground to being like, hey, what are the things where not just in my own vantage point, my metrics, the things that I have to hit, what are ways in which I can help, especially at startups? Right, what is that point of view I can inject to kind of help people really seize the opportunity that we have, especially with ecosystem. Like you know, I think we talked earlier about API as a self-serve business development, but I think, really think like, if I look at Salesforce's 10 Ks today, those kinds of things, right, every quarter, like you know, platform. There was one point like maybe two years ago a platform was the biggest piece of Salesforce's business. I don't know if that's still the case, but between and I keep on changing the platform name, so I don't even know what the latest greatest name is, but like Salesforce One or the Salesforce platform, right.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:08:56

In a way, what they're doing now with AgentForce is putting together what they did with AppExchange and all the different application environments they were building. Agentforce now brings all those elements together, along with outside applications, so it really is truly binding them together with so many other capabilities. So you're right, I mean, there's this providing safety. You're enabling folks, you're helping them to shine, enabling them to have metrics so they can make better decisions about what to keep and what to drop, and you're really propelling it forward. So very cool way of describing this. So let's talk. I have a few quick things to throw at you, so we're going to do quick Q and A things about you. Okay, what's something you're currently learning or trying to get better at? That has nothing to do with advancing your career, ooh um great question Beyond reading Batman comics.

Indy Sen: 1:09:43

Yes, there's only so much on a big market for people who can nail Batman trivia right. I would say so. I'm a runner. I think you mentioned you also ran marathons. I think one of the things that I do is that I've enjoyed what running has brought to my life. It's brought me a lot of perspective. You know, like as a parent, you probably know like four kids, right, like I have two. They're younger but like they still take a lot of time, and for me, running is my, my outlet, right, it's almost like moving meditation. As I get older, obviously, everything hurts more, it takes more work to do what we want to do, but I'm trying to just take care of my health, like more stretching, more flexibility. So I want to stay in the running game, but I recognize that it's going to be more work than it has been in the past.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:10:23

Yeah, I hope you do, because I had to give up long distance running, but I will say it was a great. My wife was not going to get angry at me about leaving to go run 12 miles, so she was I. You know, if I was going out to some you know to walk the beach or play golf, she'd be really annoyed. But you know you're going to put yourself in pain for the next two hours to run 12 miles. Go for it, yeah.

Indy Sen: 1:10:47

Yeah. So for me, I think, what I want to get better at just because so I do have a bucket list is, I think in the marathon circuit there's this six marathons that I call the majors right. So it's Boston, tokyo, london, berlin, new York and now Sydney is now the seventh. But that's that's. That's a little crazy. So I've done four out of six so far. So the only ones I've left are Boston and Tokyo. So ideally I would like, by the age of 50, to have been able to run like all six of them. If it goes a little beyond 50, like that's fine, the later the better, because that just means I'll stay on top of my running game. But yeah, I would say that that's probably a personal pursuit.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:11:21

Yeah, I think it's an awesome way of doing it and it's like. It's like you set a goal and keeping your body in shape as part of it, you can run forever. I probably could have too, had I taken care of myself a little bit differently as part of doing this stretching or more yoga, all that.

Indy Sen: 1:11:36

So I hope you can still go on the occasional run or like just shorter runs, right or?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:11:40

I can do short runs, I can do a lot of hiking. So there's that. What's a historical event or person or movement that inspires you, and you mentioned Steve Jobs. Is there someone in particular about that movement or event that lights you up?

Indy Sen: 1:11:53

Yeah, you know. So I think we talked about Steve Jobs quite a bit and I feel like any movement that's had some staying power to me is a definition of a movement right Like so it could be cultural movement, political movement, those kinds of things. Right Like something where you created something, where people are, you know, still talking about it to this day. Like I think, as a marketer, I have a fascination, so I'm a sneakerhead also, which that's actually my midlife crisis, other than reading Batman comics and keep on reading them is collecting sneakers. But I remember and again, maybe this is the impressionable age of like 11 or so, like 1989, right when Nike came up with just like nike air as like a campaign, as a piece of technology. They had like air in their shoes and many other companies did too, but that was the first time where they exposed the air through like that window. Right, and there's this designer called tinker halffield who's just like a legendary kind of like sneaker designer. He designed all the most of the first air maxes. So the air max one was the first one that exposed that bubble.

Indy Sen: 1:12:50

And as a kid, you know, like I, I liked sneakers, but I saw that as like every kid in our schoolyard was, like you know, and especially in france, like nikes were way more expensive, so some kids had nikes and then the rich kids had nike airs. It took me a while to be that kid who had a nike air, you know like, but I I really it lived rent free in my head. But what I like about that is that still to this age and this goes back to the movements creating staying power, and maybe it's not a movement, it's more like a campaign or brand coup, if you will, right, but Gen Z, right, they're still wearing Jordans, they're wearing, like, air Maxes. Those things are timeless, right, and I think, to me, anytime you can create like for marketing, especially to me, anytime you can create like for marketing, especially, everybody looks at like Nike as, like you know, masters in marketing.

Indy Sen: 1:13:32

Like you know, I think I ran, I ran the London marathon, right, like New Balance was the sponsor and New Balance had great creative. But Nike, you know, they were just like, okay, we're not, we didn't win the sponsorship, but we're going to plaster the fuck out of London with, like you know, like some great creative that inspires people and reminds them that and actually, Nike is like a brilliant guerrilla market, yeah, and.

Indy Sen: 1:13:50

I think you probably saw some billboards, like I had to. The only time I stopped during that race was to take a picture of the billboard and I was like this is so freaking cool, you know, like. And then I kept on because I was like, because you know, and you probably remember this from marathons is, you know, you only stop if you have to get your and to get things back, but anyway. So I think, with like with me and like like I remember, you know, and again, maybe it was because I was at an impressionable age but it just stuck with me and like I was joking about my midlife crisis, but I I think at this stage I probably own at least one silhouette of every shoe that tinker have feel created, and most of them have the nike air bubble.

Indy Sen: 1:14:27

But there's just some other stuff that he did where we're just so innovative and if you think about sneakers, it's such a like disposable, kind of throwaway item.

Indy Sen: 1:14:34

You cycle it, but that's one of the things that kind of help create the culture around sneakers and you know, I can walk on the street there's there's like old sneaker heads, there's like younger sneaker heads, but you just kind of you create that community right because you're all like real, real nose, real.

Indy Sen: 1:14:47

You see someone wearing a pair of Air Max 1s, the infrared Air Max 90s, and you recognize it. You just kind of have this knowing glance and then you go, but you're part of a community and so to me, I think it's always great when you can create some kind of movement that gets people together. It doesn't have to be world-changing, it doesn't have to be lucrative Nike probably makes money, or maybe sneaker resellers make all the money around this now these days, right, but the fact that there's this almost brotherhood and sisterhood of people who just appreciate that type of thing, like to me, like that's something where and again, maybe that's what in my back of my mind as an 11 year old is like man, marketing is awesome because it creates this sense of kinship between people.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:15:26

Creates this movement and the sense of community, sense of community, sense of community. So yeah, so that's one that stays with me. That's awesome if you had to choose a theme song that plays every time you walk into a room.

Indy Sen: 1:15:36

What would it be? That's a good question would it?

Rajiv Parikh: 1:15:37

would it be the batman opening theme from michael keaton's version original?

Indy Sen: 1:15:42

yeah, I think people I would just get physical looks because there's some people who would know it and some people are like what, what the hell is happening here? I would probably think about, like I love hip hop, too many artists who speak of, yeah, maybe like De La Soul or something like that, like Me, myself and I or something like you know that still like bops, that still slaps, as the kids would say. Randomly, I'll just say Me Myself and I by De La Soul.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:16:03

You'll know if people listen to this podcast, if they play that for you every time you walk in, so here you go. I'll ask you one more question what's something you believe that would be a huge deal in your life that turned out to be completely forgettable? And vice versa something small that ended up being surprisingly important?

Indy Sen: 1:16:21

I think something that felt huge at the time but that was just like clearly in the review now, is like I think, you know, when we got laid off at WeWork, that sucked right, like I think and it wasn't I didn't take it personally because there was literally 2,600 other people who overnight, through no fault of their own, were kind of sent packing Right and that's ultimately like organizational failures, like when you run out of money and of course the CEO left before I had money.

Indy Sen: 1:16:43

But I think that felt, you know, like devastating, because you know one like devastating because you know one felt like the end of the world yeah, you put so much into it, your heart was in it and absolutely, like I mean to this day, you know I talk about like some colleagues there and even just people in the different walks of life that I run and sometimes I ask myself like where was I the you know, the happiest or for a little amount of time when I first started? We work like like the sky was the limit and you know, I know that the company's taking all kinds of beatings like people just just pounding on it, that kind of stuff. But I will stand by what I said. The talent density was great, the opportunity was huge. It really sucked when we all got laid off and like I was like hey, you know I left Google for crying out loud. You know, like my Indian mom you know how Indian moms are she never forgave me for leaving Google.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:17:23

So to this day, right. How could leave?

Indy Sen: 1:17:26

Google.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:17:27

It's like you're a doctor. You hit doctor status when you were in Google, that's so true, so true, yeah.

Indy Sen: 1:17:35

So, like you know, that felt like it was going to be something. Oh, you know this sucks. What am I going to do? Do I go back to Google? Does Google even have a job for me? But I think now, clearly, we've seen layoffs happen, right, and, like you know, all kinds of things happen just because you know something happens. Like you know your job is not your identity, right, and like I think it's very hard, like I my cmo like, who I worked with very closely. His name is robin daniels great guy, maybe somebody you should have on your podcast.

Indy Sen: 1:17:59

I would definitely recommend it, but love to like he's like I'm the batman to his robin, or maybe sometimes I was a robin to his batman. But you know, like I saw, like he took it very hard because his identity was very. He was such a public figure there that you know he took it hard. And you know, when you see a good friend and even yourself, like you know you were working on towards something that felt so purposeful, it does suck to all of a sudden be, you know, shut out of that or like the market shutting you out of it, so that that was big, but it turned out to be not as important as you thought.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:18:26

What's the other way around? Something small that ended up being surprisingly important.

Indy Sen: 1:18:31

Yeah, yeah, random acts of kindness cost you nothing, but people remember it Right and I think you know it could be in a professional setting, it could be in personal settings. But you know, just the other day I caught up with somebody who's like navigating like the job market and he reached out to me. It had been like like some time. He's like you know, indy, like I remember when we first worked together you were one of the first people who were just so kind to learn about my background and that kind of stuff. You know we had coffee and that still sticks with me and I would love your advice on something.

Indy Sen: 1:18:58

And I'm typically empathetic by nature and I love, I like, I enjoy connecting obviously didn't cost me anything, but I just did because of who. You know how I perceive this person and, like you know, being a newcomer to the company, I just welcomed him. That has a different payoff, right, so completely different scale of measurement of those kinds of things. But I think in this day and age and you know, I think we're seeing it left and right here but kindness costs you nothing If you can help someone have a better day or better onboarding, treating everybody with grace, I think goes a long way and people remember it, and I think, unfortunately people also remember when the opposite happens. Right and kindness doesn't cost anybody anything and it can change someone's trajectory.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:19:41

But it can change the world for them. I think so, yeah, so, indy, I got to tell you I really enjoyed this. It was so much fun to talk with you. You have so much insight and perspective that we kept you going. I deeply appreciate your time with us. This was super enjoyable on my end.

Indy Sen: 1:19:54

Thank you so much for taking the time.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:20:01

That was so much fun to have Indy with us. He produced like it was like an insight machine. It was like almost every 30 seconds there was another one, and I think the one thing I will take from him as an ecosystem person he remembers everyone's name. So whether it was the person he worked with back at Google or the people he worked with at Salesforce, he remembers everyone's names and the impression or the insight or the boost they may have offered to him or he was able to offer to them, and I think that's so important when you're building your career and when you're thinking about how to connect folks together. You put that together with his notion of the product being the partnership, the notion of APIs and how they cleanly connect and how they need to be seamless. I think these are amazing insights that Indy was able to bring to us as part of his spectacular rise across so many of the tech giants in Silicon Valley. So love having him on and, frankly, I never thought that he would do so well at Batman. My team just couldn't believe that he nailed the King Tut one. So great to have you on, indy, and I'm glad everyone had a chance to enjoy this. So thanks for listening.

Rajiv Parikh: 1:21:19

If you enjoyed this pod, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and everywhere podcasts can be found. The show is produced by Anand Shah and edited by Sean Marr and Laura Ballant. I'm your host, rajiv Parikh from Position Squared, an AI-centric growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2.com and definitely go download our arena offering. This is an effing funny production and we'll catch you next time. And remember folks be ever curious.