Dougal Shaw- 17 February 2025
In this instalment of our weekly video series, My Business Leader Secret, we talk to Doug Winter, who founded San Diego-based Seismic in 2010 and leads it as CEO.
Seismic has emerged as a significant player in the highly competitive SaaS space, using technology to help sales teams work more efficiently. The digital platform helps employees with everything from sales insights to onboarding, with artificial intelligence helping everything to run more smoothly. The company has annual recurring revenues (ARR) of $300m (£238m) and is valued at $3bn.
Winter says his leadership team is highly focused on gross revenue retention in order to scale. This means spending a lot of time thinking about how well it is doing at holding on to the customers it already has and allocating the resources to do this.
"It's particularly important in a company like Seismic," says Winter, "where we've made the decision to invest and focus on large enterprises in industries with very mature processes, very precise needs.
"You have to have a strong mechanism to help them onboard, to help them on an ongoing basis, [help them to] recognise the value in the product that they got [from you]."
This philosophy helps to retain clients they've worked hard to acquire, reducing churn. But it also provides a feedback mechanism, so product teams can work on new features that clients have highlighted as emerging needs for the business.
Related and recommended
Contestants from The Apprentice reveal the fundamental business lessons they learned from taking part in the TV show
From global talent pools to AI-powered documentation, a work-from-anywhere model is a new way of thinking about productivity, innovation and teamwork
The story of how cycling brought Business Leader member John Readman together with his co-founder and investors
Stuart Machin’s hands-on leadership has revived M&S, tripling its share price and reshaping its future, by obsessing over the details, from shop floors to staff message boards