Invest Like The Best
Episode 345 Building and Investing in Lattice
Invest Like The Best

Episode 345: Building and Investing in Lattice

Invest Like The Best

Episode 345

Building and Investing in Lattice

Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Lattice and Miles is a General Partner at Benchmark. We cover the lifecycle of developing and scaling software, why they prioritize building communities around products, and how investors and operators contribute complementary viewpoints.

This episode is brought to you by: 
Tegus. 
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(00:02:55) - (First question) - How Jack & Miles met at Y Combinator in 2015

(00:04:22) - Lattice found a niche in mid-market HR software

(00:07:55) - Discovering Lattice's true market need

(00:11:14) - Fear of stalling drove the need for business growth beyond initial product

(00:12:06) - Deciding on multi-product focus over up-market expansion

(00:17:01) - Prioritizing quality of usage over frequency for customer health scores

(00:20:06) - Balancing customer health scores and actual needs

(00:24:31) - Prioritized community by spotlighting HR voices

(00:28:20) - Building community helps companies sell a vision or lifestyle

(00:31:05) - Cultivating broad awareness instead of hard-selling

(00:35:33) - Overcoming the culture of 'perfection’

(00:37:22) - Flywheel effect makes suites efficient: lower go-to-market costs, more focus on product

(00:41:06) - The challenges of juggling current needs and future demands

(00:46:27) - Navigating disagreements and trust-building within a company

(00:50:36) - Investors' roles extend beyond founders, focusing on their own goals and interests

(00:51:52) - How transparency eases the founder-investor dance

(00:55:16) - The changing employer-employee relationship

(00:58:37) - Navigating growth from startup to public equity

(01:05:43) - Lattice's ultimate aspiration

(01:07:42) - Evaluating founders' authenticity

(01:11:18) - What Jack & Miles are most embarrassed about, the most proud of, and the most excited for

(01:14:30) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Jack and Miles

 

 

Building and Investing in Lattice

Introduction

Patrick
My guests today are Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw. Jack is the cofounder and CEO of Lattice an HR software platform. Miles is a general partner at Benchmark, an early investor and Board Director at Lattice as well as a former guest on the show.

Jack started Lattice in 2015 and has scaled it to a multibillion-dollar business that already serves over 5,000 organizations. In our discussion, we look at all aspects of building and scaling a software business from both an investor and operator’s perspective, which made this particularly fun to do. Please enjoy my conversation with Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw.

How Jack and Miles' Partnership Got Started

Patrick
I would love to know when and where you guys first met because this is experimental format. I've never done a conversation with a very early investor and founder and a company that's grown to this scale that have been together since the beginning so hearing about how and where you met would actually be quite interesting.

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