Seizing The Middle | Johnson Phanyaseng - GRIT ED. 7 Your Next Move - Magazine - Page 35
Seizing The Middle | Johnson Phanyaseng
ADAPTIVE PULSE
Adaptive Pulse helps
businesses keep a pulse
on every customer while
predicting and prioritizing
their retention efforts,
reducing churn and
increasing revenues.
Seizing
The
Middle
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
JOHNSON PHANYASENG
CTO & CO-FOUNDER
Next AI, 2021
JENNIFER HUYNH-PHANYASENG
CEO & CO-FOUNDER
Next AI, 2021
A chess strategy that requires forward-thinking and seizes the
middle game by using pieces to expropriate the middle of the
board. Players then restrict their opponent’s movements to control
the maximum number of pieces in the game.
A
s the Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder of
Aaptive Pulse, Johnson Phanyaseng embodies
seizing the middle game by identifying at-risk and
expanding customers for B2B SaaS companies.
Using advances in NLP and predictive analytics,
Adaptive Pulse analyzes internal and external data
sources, including structured and unstructured data,
to provide unified customer views, segmented into the
most at-risk, likely to expand, and how to successfully
convert them. Providing Adaptive Pulse’s customer base
with the broadest possible vantage point from which to
control the movement of the other pieces in the game of
business and chess.
game by launching his first startup in 2009 and again in
2015, which provided vital lessons that helped shape his
career. In 2017, Johnson P decided to join a post series A
startup to help grow and lead their engineering efforts,
which prepared him to start Adaptive Pulse.
The competition for success is only becoming more
complex. Customers, employees, and partners
compete for the same resources and opportunities,
making it essential to stay ahead of the game and limit
your opponent’s options by anticipating change and
maneuvering effectively.
“The more you talk to customers and get that
quick feedback loop, the more insights you get
CEO, Co-Founder and wife, Jennifer Huynh-Phanyaseng,
towards the ideal product you need to build.”
built the internal infrastructure for Adaptive Pulse
through her previous work. The Customer Experience,
Retention & Data extremist, conducted over 100
customer interviews and identified problems for
small businesses and mid-market and enterprise
companies. At the same time, Johnson P worked
closely with customer success teams, building internal
infrastructures and tools to leverage data for insights.
Johnson P made his first move in the entrepreneurial
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GRIT
In chess and business, the chance of success is increased
by taking an analytical approach before making your next
move. Throughout this power couple’s journey, they’ve
had to pivot and plan a few times. Like the analytical
method in a chess game, Johnson and Jennifer would talk
to their customers and release products/features early,
looking for feedback before making a move.
Johnson P and his team plan 3, 6, 12 months ahead and
think of the long term in 3-5 years. A high percentage
of the planning and decision-making comes from
conversations and insights from their customers
and prospects, driving their product roadmap while
keeping a pulse on the industry’s trajectory. As the
world goes through a digital transformation, more
companies are becoming data-driven. With this in
mind, Adaptive Pulse is building more features to
easily integrate and leverage data warehouses and
data lakes, even if that is not something they thought
would be needed initially.
The biggest challenge Adaptive Pulse is currently facing
is breaking through the noise. Customer retention
and churn have historically been a problem for any
business, so many companies are trying to solve this
problem and competing for the same keywords and
value propositions, leaving their team to evaluate
how to position themselves differently and stand out
from the competition. With product-led growth as
the focus in the era of big data, Adaptive Pulse has
positioned itself in the right way to capitalize on this
opportunity.
“More companies are getting better at utilizing data
to make data-driven decisions, and for us to be able
to provide that extra layer of intelligence, we know
we can provide any company we work with the most
value with little effort from them.”
Adaptive Pulse continues to improve its products and
offerings, having reached a 97% accuracy in the predictive
churn model, now serving both Canada and the US markets.
They have reached an oversubscribed pre-seed round of
funding through global investors, including early-stage funds
and angels from the U.S., Canada, and UK.
In chess, everyone starts with limited resources, and it’s
up to each player to decide how to use those resources to
achieve their goal. For Adaptive Pulse, the upcoming year will
be enormous, raising their seed round in Q1 of 2022, releasing
their PLG strategy and opening up the top of the funnel to
bring in new leads.
GRIT
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