Frederic Plais - The Video Generation

So my name is Fred Plais and I'm the CEO of Platform.sh. So we are a French company operating globally. I'm based in the US. We've got 80 employees and I just came here for the StatStore event in Europe. First time. First time, right? Because first time in Paris, which is my hometown, so I'm biased but very happy it's happening here. And I just had a talk earlier with a panel with other CEOs. And it was fun. We are sharing about stories where we felt and if we could do it again, we would do it differently. So that was fun and I enjoyed it a lot. Oh, you know, I think when you look at generations X and Y and Z, the next generations are really all about video. I think they like reading less and they like when it's very interactive. And they've been educated with video games as well a lot. So they love screens, they love action and they love video. So I think that's the natural way for them to communicate, learn, exchange as well. And so I think it's the thing right now, right? Well, I think videos are a must have today. And it's a bunch of different ways to actually use videos. I can't tell generally, but I can tell you that for Platform.sh videos, it's a great way to actually show the product, how people get it, understand how to get on board, do the basic stuff with the platform. So we use it a lot for onboarding and tutorials is really the first usage for us, the platform of the video platform. And then the second one is actually customer testimonials. It's great to actually be able to record a customer that is happy and wants to talk about your product and wants to share tips or success. We have 80 people today, building a really great product, very, very dedicated engineers, customer success people that really care about their customers. So we're trying to really get the right experience for our customers. So when we get up on the morning, we are driven by that goal, which is getting satisfaction to our customers, providing value, helping developers succeed, also helping developers to get less stress because we're doing something which actually helps developers on a day to day. We help them when they have to release new code to their platform to make sure that that code is going to work, that that shipping of the code is going to be successful, that they won't have to robot, they won't introduce bugs into production, they won't get their application on fire because the service is not delivered anymore. So we're very focused at helping developers do their job better, focused on getting the right product to their customers. That's great, we love it, and if you're innovating for that, even better. There's as many marketing strategies as there are companies and markets and good markets as well. So I want to talk specifically about us, and what I see is it's all about understanding your customers in details, providing the right message at the right time. You want to be relevant, that's the whole thing, you want to be relevant, you don't want to oversell, you want to be just right on the marketing pressure, on the sharpness of the messaging. So to me, the right team is going to be the team that just gets it and finds the right balance between getting to the objectives and being very respectful for data privacy, but being relevant. People get to discover you online first today. So now this being said, we do a lot of events, we love FaceTime, we love Face2Face with customers, we go to a lot of tech events and we actually talk to developers a lot, personally, we run demos. But obviously the website and social networks, all this has become a major, major thing globally and for us of course. So it's all about having the right experience online as well, being, again, precise on what you're saying, not oversell-y, transparent, no bullshit is really a rule that we apply to ourselves, we want to be straightforward on what the product does and does not, and I think that's the right way forward. Videos are a big deal, they are part of the mix, it's not the only thing, but it's an important thing. And again, for the new generation, this is the right way to interact with them. So yeah, we do videos probably more on the low end of the funnel, like on the conversion side, once people are pretty much sure that they want to go and they want to try, it's just to help them on board. So that's actually the focus is more on the low end of the funnel, like either they've closed or they're not exactly sure, so they want to see, they want to get testimonials from customers, that's when video comes in, or they want to, they get questions that are sometimes technical, like those guys say they use Git for their platform, what exactly does that mean in that context? And then their search on Google and they find videos to say, well, here's how we do with Git, and that's great, that's fast, if the video is well done and streaming it, it's more clear, it gets it, and so low funnel is really our focus for now. I don't say that video doesn't work on the top of the funnel, it may work for now, at least with platform SSH, we're very much focused on the low end. We use marketing automation too, again, it's all about nurturing and just trying to educate at the right time, at the right context, so marketing automation tools are here for that, to just measure and segment and use the right triggers to convey the message at the right time, so yes, we are using it, and again, that's a must have now in proper marketing strategies. So next year, we're going to continue doing the things that work and do less of the things that work less. What works great for us is events, events work very well, so we want to double down on this. Content works well as well, we don't do enough content, that's one of my goals, to actually do much more content. Those are the two main things, I would say. You know, then on the growth strategy, it's a lot about partners for us, so less marketing, pretty much more sales, but working with partners, being tight to them, having great relationships and maintaining that relationship very frequently, whether it's online or offline, that's a trigger for us, that's a key thing. So, you know, it's basically those three things.