37 min
[E5] It’s Not Nuclear Physics: Lessons on Hiring and Leveraging a COO with Jay Abraham of the Abraham Group AppChat
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- Business
Jay Abraham, founder of the Abraham Group (and departing COO of CloudCraze, acquired by Salesforce in March), joins the AppChat to discuss his fascinating journey from nuclear physicist and submariner to highly-sought-after startup consultant, as well as what goes into a great (read: productive) relationship between a COO and CEO. Also addressed is: defining scale and how an organization prepares for it; how to know your organization needs a COO; and mistakes Abraham learned from in the trenches at CloudCraze and in his career. Here are the key topics, with timestamps, as well as the full interview transcript: Key Topics 00:00-1:56 Introducing the AppChat and our guest, Jay Abraham (formerly of CloudCraze) 1:57-4:35 Abraham's early career as a nuclear physicist and submariner before he held multiple COO positions 4:36-7:40 Experienced gained from handling the outsourcing of American Express' IT infrastructure 7:41-9:53 Transition to becoming COO of CloudCraze 9:54-16:42 The relationship between COO and CEO, and creating processes to delegate responsibilities 16:43-18:42 Defining scale and how an organization prepares for it 18:43-22:46 The cultural shift that happens when processes are defined and put into place 22:47-25:44 At what point does your organization need a COO? 25:45-31:02 How a CEO begins a great partnership with a newly hired COO 31:03-33:56 Giving power to employees to help identify and solve problems cross-functionally 33:57-36:37 Mistakes that Abraham has learned from 36:38-37:31 Closing out and how to get in touch Full Transcript Intro: 00:01 You're listening to the AppChat. A podcast focused on SasS growth strategies, plus successes in the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond. Here's your host, CodeScience CEO, Brian Walsh. Brian Walsh: 00:13 Alright everybody, welcome back to the AppChat podcast. And thrilled to have with us today, Jay Abraham, who is coming to us most recently from CloudCraze, and they're fresh off of their acquisition by Salesforce, which actually just closed last week. Welcome, Jay. Jay Abraham: 00:28 Welcome Brian, thank you very much. Brian Walsh: 00:32 Yeah, absolutely. Jay, before we get into you, give us a little bit of background, who was CloudCraze, talk about the acquisition, just what happened there? Jay Abraham: 00:41 CloudCraze is, I'd say, one of the foremost B2B e-commerce platforms. It's built natively on Salesforce, so it's tremendously helped our growth and scale, and obviously that was recognized by Salesforce by their recent acquisition of us; and I congratulate them on our acquisition and I think they're gonna have a wonderful future in the years ahead. Brian Walsh: 01:02 Fantastic. I think another statement of how amazing the Force.com platform is to be able to support an application this complex, as CloudCraze across so many large enterprise companies. Jay Abraham: 01:14 That's true, I think one of my team members on the product management side, was very appreciative. She came from one of the competitors, and she said that the biggest thing she recognized is that she didn't have to worry about the backend. But she had to worry about customer facing issues, giving them the capabilities they wanted, and that relying upon the Force.com platform allowed them to leverage everything they could -- and there's a whole team at Salesforce, obviously, building upon the Force.com platform. Brian Walsh: 01:47 Yeah it's such an efficient capital spend to not have to worry about that part of your infrastructure, the pager, all of those headcount just to manage what servers are up. Jay Abraham: 01:56 It is. Brian Walsh: 01:57 Awesome, so let's actually back into you, in your role getting there. So I mean you've done the COO role dozens of times in your life? Jay Abraham: 02:07 Officially as a COO, this is probably the first time. But I think I actively fulfilled the role as a Chief Operating Officer in many projects, both working at company's directly as well as being brought in as an
Jay Abraham, founder of the Abraham Group (and departing COO of CloudCraze, acquired by Salesforce in March), joins the AppChat to discuss his fascinating journey from nuclear physicist and submariner to highly-sought-after startup consultant, as well as what goes into a great (read: productive) relationship between a COO and CEO. Also addressed is: defining scale and how an organization prepares for it; how to know your organization needs a COO; and mistakes Abraham learned from in the trenches at CloudCraze and in his career. Here are the key topics, with timestamps, as well as the full interview transcript: Key Topics 00:00-1:56 Introducing the AppChat and our guest, Jay Abraham (formerly of CloudCraze) 1:57-4:35 Abraham's early career as a nuclear physicist and submariner before he held multiple COO positions 4:36-7:40 Experienced gained from handling the outsourcing of American Express' IT infrastructure 7:41-9:53 Transition to becoming COO of CloudCraze 9:54-16:42 The relationship between COO and CEO, and creating processes to delegate responsibilities 16:43-18:42 Defining scale and how an organization prepares for it 18:43-22:46 The cultural shift that happens when processes are defined and put into place 22:47-25:44 At what point does your organization need a COO? 25:45-31:02 How a CEO begins a great partnership with a newly hired COO 31:03-33:56 Giving power to employees to help identify and solve problems cross-functionally 33:57-36:37 Mistakes that Abraham has learned from 36:38-37:31 Closing out and how to get in touch Full Transcript Intro: 00:01 You're listening to the AppChat. A podcast focused on SasS growth strategies, plus successes in the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond. Here's your host, CodeScience CEO, Brian Walsh. Brian Walsh: 00:13 Alright everybody, welcome back to the AppChat podcast. And thrilled to have with us today, Jay Abraham, who is coming to us most recently from CloudCraze, and they're fresh off of their acquisition by Salesforce, which actually just closed last week. Welcome, Jay. Jay Abraham: 00:28 Welcome Brian, thank you very much. Brian Walsh: 00:32 Yeah, absolutely. Jay, before we get into you, give us a little bit of background, who was CloudCraze, talk about the acquisition, just what happened there? Jay Abraham: 00:41 CloudCraze is, I'd say, one of the foremost B2B e-commerce platforms. It's built natively on Salesforce, so it's tremendously helped our growth and scale, and obviously that was recognized by Salesforce by their recent acquisition of us; and I congratulate them on our acquisition and I think they're gonna have a wonderful future in the years ahead. Brian Walsh: 01:02 Fantastic. I think another statement of how amazing the Force.com platform is to be able to support an application this complex, as CloudCraze across so many large enterprise companies. Jay Abraham: 01:14 That's true, I think one of my team members on the product management side, was very appreciative. She came from one of the competitors, and she said that the biggest thing she recognized is that she didn't have to worry about the backend. But she had to worry about customer facing issues, giving them the capabilities they wanted, and that relying upon the Force.com platform allowed them to leverage everything they could -- and there's a whole team at Salesforce, obviously, building upon the Force.com platform. Brian Walsh: 01:47 Yeah it's such an efficient capital spend to not have to worry about that part of your infrastructure, the pager, all of those headcount just to manage what servers are up. Jay Abraham: 01:56 It is. Brian Walsh: 01:57 Awesome, so let's actually back into you, in your role getting there. So I mean you've done the COO role dozens of times in your life? Jay Abraham: 02:07 Officially as a COO, this is probably the first time. But I think I actively fulfilled the role as a Chief Operating Officer in many projects, both working at company's directly as well as being brought in as an
37 min