Beyond Product-Market Fit: Building a Foundation for Long-Term Growth

If you're at the Seed or Series A stage, product-market fit is likely all you are focused on - and that's right, or, at least mostly, right. There're many paths you can take as a leader to getting to product-market fit.  

During this session the co-founders of Smooch will share lessons learned as to the early decisions they made and actions they took that helped them scale through the growth stage and their acquisition by Zendesk.

Speakers

• Warren Levitan - Warren is responsible for defining Zendesk's global platform strategy, along with its cross-functional execution. Previously, Warren was co-founder and CEO of Smooch, an omnichannel messaging platform powering award-winning conversational experiences for CX leaders from Four Seasons and Uber to Genesys and LogMeIn. Warren joined Zendesk through the acquisition of Smooch in 2019. A longtime CX industry leader, Warren was previously CEO of Radialpoint, a SaaS tech support platform used by global ISPs including Verizon, Comcast, Rogers, and Virgin Media, which was acquired by AppDirect in 2015.
• Mike Gozzo - Mike is a serial entrepreneur and investor. In 2014, he co-founded Smooch.io as its head of product & CTO - transforming the way that thousands of businesses and millions of consumers communicate over messaging. Smooch was acquired by Zendesk in May 2019 where he currently serves as its Vice President of Product for Conversational initiatives leading teams in Canada, Ireland, and Australia. His first venture, Appifier (2011), a venture-backed SaaS platform that brought web publishers to life on mobile phones and tablets was acquired in late 2013. In 2012, Gozzo was named one of Quebec's top 25 emerging entrepreneurs by the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Foundation.

This event was organized in part by Grace Lancaster, Event and Community Manager at Startup Grind.