Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to the victory show.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hey victors. Welcome to the victory show where seven figure founders, entrepreneurs and executives reveal the real playbook behind scaling past that first million in recurring revenue. We go behind the highlight reel into the hard lessons, the cost of mistakes, key growth, inflection points and the human decisions the that shape the numbers. And here is the twist. Every conversation we have becomes a chapter in my victory book series so the next generation of builders doesn't have to start from scratch. Today I'm sitting down with Sanjay Patel, the director of product management for casualty solutions group at Enlight, where he leads the development of smaller, smarter, more effective technology to provide products that touch patients, clinicians and payers every day. With over 11 years of experience spending, management consulting, supply chain, fixed income finance, and service in the US army sales, Sanjayog brings a rare mix of analytical rigor, operational discipline and human centered thinking to product leadership. He's not just building the software, he's helping design systems that make complex healthcare processes simpler, more transparent and more effective for everyone involved. Sanjayog, thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate you taking time out of your day to have a conversation.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: So let's talk a little bit. I always love when somebody's been in the military. Talking a little bit about your experience there. So we were chatting earlier, you, you were planning to be a career military, but after four years you kind of had a pivot that took you somewhere else. Let's talk about that a little bit.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Yeah, so, you know, the goal was to, to finish out my 20 years of service in the military.
Something that I was passionate about. But I guess life had different plans. You know, my, my training was pushed as I transitioned out of the army and into the Air Force. Ended up getting a civilian job that I really started to like and so just decided to stick with it eventually and pivoted into a civilian career.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Wow. So what was the job that you found that you ended up liking better than, you know, being in the military?
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, so at the time my job was I was a systems analyst for integrations at a company called Expediters International. They're a freight forwarding company here in Seattle. I was really enjoying doing the work because it was very analytical. I was designing integration systems for, you know, some of the large fortune, you know, 50 companies think the apples and the oracles of the world and kind of helping them create transparency through their supply chain as their, you know, as their freight was moving across the world. So it was very, very interesting work, very Analytical, it was a mental challenge, while, while the military was a pretty significant physical challenge, more of a mental challenge. So I loved the change up and started liking to liking kind of, you know, designing new solutions there.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: So have you always been good with the sort of the analytical stuff?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's one of those things that I really enjoyed as a kid. I used to enjoy doing puzzles. You know, I've always loved doing kind of, you know, short, fast math problems, things like that. And so it's one of those things that I've always enjoyed. I also like the creativity of it, especially when, you know, you're kind of looking at something that somebody's already built and you, you kind of find ways to optimize that to make it more streamlined. Things like that. It's, it's always fun to kind of make things a little better than you found them. Wow. Yeah.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: See, being a writer, the analytic part of my brain, sometimes I like a disconnect. Unless I gotta do research for a character and I can dive into it and I get it, but I just get to touch it. I'm not stuck in it, and then I get to come back out.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting, right, how our brains work some, you know, for some people, the creative side is supercharged. For me, like anything that relates to creativity, if it's not analytical creativity, I could be banging my head against a wall.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Which is funny though, because you said you, you spoke six languages are going to learn seventh. Right. That to me, that, I guess that's kind of analytical, but that also feels to me to be kind of the creative aspect of your brain.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: But yeah, I think it, it, you know, it's, it's one of those things.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Like, again, because it's the analytical aspect. I've noticed that as I'm starting to learn, learn a new language right now, when I have options to choose from and context to go with, it's much easier to pick the right answer. But if somebody told me to just start speaking French out of the blue and communicating ideas that, you know. Yeah, that would be very, very hard.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: That's fascinating. What an interesting way to look at that. So what I'm fascinated with and what I'll have conversation with is the fact that, you know, you started at sort of the ground level and you've worked your way up to where now you're the director of project management, you got a team. So, you know, a lot of people, a lot of the entrepreneurs that I speak with, they really struggle with the leadership aspect of it.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Many people think that they, they want to be a leader, they want to be a CEO, they want to run their own company. But then when it sort of like boots on the ground at time to implement what, a lot of times they end up kind of treading water because they just haven't got the skill set yet to be able to manage that. So for you, coming from an analyst, like as your career evolved, what were the, what were the things that you did to kind of be able to step into the leadership as you went up the, up the ladder?
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, one of the very interesting things that happened when I first joined the military was that because I went in after I'd already completed my bachelor's and master's, you know, was I had an E4 rank within the, the, you know, within my platoon. So while we were waiting to ship out for boot camp, because I had a higher rank, I was put in charge of about a, you know, 100 person company for, albeit for a few days. But nonetheless, I found myself a little bit overwhelmed being in charge of so many people. And I had to kind of have a very honest conversation with myself as to how I was going to handle this responsibility for, for the next couple of days while I still had it until we shipped out of basic training. And what I saw happening in the military was, you know, a lot of strict discipline, right? These were a bunch of 18 year olds that essentially had never been out of their house and, and they showed up to boot camp, right? And, and so there was a lot of yelling and a lot of strict discipline. And I sort of thought to myself that what I needed to do was three things, right? I needed to, to obviously have the strict discipline when it was needed. However, the other two things that I thought were very important was number one, empathy, right? These were in fact 18 year old kids that had never been out of their house. And so I needed to have a certain level of empathy to let them learn that what being out of the house and being in the military meant, right? And the third thing was people first leadership, right? Meaning I had to take care of them. I've always been of the philosophy that that leadership isn't something that you're given, it is something that you earn and, and it is not something that somebody that sits above you gives you, it is somebody that sits beneath you, allows you to have, right? And so this idea that those people needed to respect me for who I was as a leader, not what rank was on my chest, and that philosophy really served me very well. For the, for the few days that, for the week, week and a half or so that I was in charge of this entire platoon. Right.
I made personal relationships with people, I spoke with them, I tried to understand what parts of their onboarding still remain, what their challenges were. I talked to them about them, I told them what worked for me, and that allowed them to come to me with challenges and that, that allowed them to have respect for me. And then I realized that slowly, I didn't need the strict discipline part of it as much, you know, as I moved forward. And so I took that forward into my, my leadership in my civilian jobs, you know, in my career. Today, when I speak to my team, it's always from a position of the fact that I need to help them grow into my role so that my role can grow into something that it is not today. And so I need to look out for where they need to sharpen their pencils to become a more complete professional, to eventually become a leader themselves so that they will help me grow into something that I can grow myself into in the future. So to me, that is something that I've always practiced and it's served me very, very well.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Love it. So as a leader, then, what are some of the traits that you look for with people underneath you that I guess they're kind of like the green flags that you go, that guy's probably got leadership potential. Let's start there. And then I will talk about the opposite side when people, what are the traits? Where you look at it going, okay, that person just needs to be the grunt that kind of has got a task but no responsibility.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So to me, the most important quality that I look for in somebody that I hire is hunger and motivation. So I personally feel that experience is, you know, largely overrated in the society that we live in. If we only cared for experience, you know, no entry level individual would ever have a job. Right. And so the issue is that, you know, we tend to feel like if somebody has experience in a certain arena, in a certain industry, in a certain job function, that they're automatically going to do well. Well, initially, yes, that might be true when they first joined the company, you know, or join the team, having some background knowledge or experience is going to serve them well in getting the job done faster and getting to efficiency sooner.
However, if they do not have the hunger longer term, they're not going to be nearly as successful as somebody else that has an insatiable amount of hunger to learn to perform and to do better on a day to day. Basis. And so that's what I look for because I don't mind investing some time and energy upfront into an individual that I hire or bring on board. What I'm looking for is once I've invested that time and energy up front, how self sufficient is that person going to be and how self motivated are they going to be to continue to do better and better and better on a day to day basis? Because if that's the kind of person I'm going to hire, I only have to invest a little bit of time upfront. I do not need to continuously invest time into that individual.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: That's interesting. All right, so sort of the flip side, if you've got people and you haven't identified the hunger yet, are there traits where people, people display them? You kind of go, yeah, that, that guy. We don't want to put them in leadership. And right. Like there's not everybody's meant. There's some people that are just fantastic workers and that's all they want to want to do. But I'm also wondering if there's things that you identify immediately where you go, okay, so that, you know, like you were saying, right. If you're working with a group of a hundred people, how do you know where to put them all according to what they're good at?
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, I agree that not everybody's going to be, you know, good in a leadership position. Not everybody's born to be a leader, not everybody wants to be a leader. And that's okay, right. It's not a ding on anybody. I'm a strong believer in the fact that, you know, sort of there needs to be every type of individual on a team. There needs to be every type of individual in the world. And so if somebody has a knack for, say, you know, very deep analytical problem solving, meaning they just love going down the rabbit hole and they love to problem solve in the trenches. Those are the types of people that I look for that are going to be great individual contributors, Right. People that have a natural curiosity for finding issues, finding problems. Those are the type of people that I try to put in say a support organization, right.
People who are great problem solvers but they problem solve within the trenches. Right. Those are the people that I would like to have in a support organization. Because usually in a support organization when you're going to, especially I'm talking more technical support, but you know, when those kind of issues pop up, they're the ones that are going to figure out where the problems are, right. Then you have folks that like to problem solve at a more market level. Right. And people that like to find problems that exist in the marketplace. Those are the types of people that you want in like product management roles, if you will. Right. Those are the types of people that are going to say, okay, well, there is this shortcoming in the market or there is this niche in the market that nobody's serving. Right. I could potentially create a product there that can fulfill that niche in the marketplace and there's a pocket of opportunity there that I'm going to leverage into creating additional revenue. So you try to find the type of skill set that people naturally gravitate to and put them in positions that they're going to succeed. One thing that I ask for my team, however, is invariably to have scratch assignments, right? Getting them out of their comfort zone, meaning they may or may not succeed at something that's outside of their comfort zone and that's okay. But it is important for them to try something that feels uncomfortable because that is going to keep them engaged, that is going to keep them pushing their boundaries. And when they eventually do succeed in one of those things is going to build confidence. And that's where you find leaders, right? People that get out of their comfort zone, succeed, build confidence and, and then eventually when you need to tap them to become a leader, they're going to be more ready to take on that challenge.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: That's an interesting statement.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Right?
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Because most people of a certain age realize the only way that you're going to get better at things is to try things and fail. Yet at least in American culture, and especially depending on the age set, there's this really weird sort of aversion to failure. Like it's almost like a ego thing of like, oh, if I do something and fail, I'll be embarrassed or it'll mean I'm not worthy or. But that's the rub, right? You actually can't reach your potential unless you actually try things and fail. And so I just, I find that, I find that an interesting part of our culture right now. The, the just some of the people that I've worked with where they're, they won't even, they won't even try if they don't know how to do it because they're like, oh no, no, no,
[00:13:57] Speaker B: I gotta stick to my, I feel like it's the type of environment that your leadership builds as well.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: On my team, you know, it's, it's interesting. Like I have a 4 year old daughter and sometimes I will ask her, like, what did you fail at today?
[00:14:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: And that is to show her that it is okay to fail at something. Right. Because failure is as much part of life as successes. Whether we like it or not, there are things that we are going to fail at. And the way that we respond to that failure is ultimately going to determine how successful we are and the things that we do succeed at. Right. So in my team, that is perfectly fine. Always.
You know, I have this idea that I own my team's failures. Well, my team owns all of our successes. And when, when a team starts to believe that, it's. It's a great thing to say. But when a team starts to believe that, suddenly the team starts to take risks because they're not as scared of their failures. Right. Because they know that I own their failures. And then when they succeed, they know they're going to get credit for their successes.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Well, that, what a great. It's interesting you point that out of like that's also a cultural thing. Right. And you've created that culture.
So for someone on the outside, what does it mean to be the director of a product? Product management, especially for like kind of a tech company.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, product leadership really is about creating an environment where your product managers are going to drive strategies for your products to succeed in the marketplace. Right. So sometimes as, as product leaders, we may think that we actually have a lot to do with the product itself. But actually if you're doing it right, you probably don't.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: If you're doing it right, it is the pro, it is your team's job, it is the product manager's job to continue to sharpen the product and build a product market fit to where it is ultimately going to drive revenue. It's going to drive growth, it's going to drive customer experience. Right. All of those things in order to make that product successful. And then ultimately revenue growth is all tied to that. Right. So if you look at sort of my, my, my LinkedIn title, it says I'm driving product led growth at Enlight. Right. And so product led growth to me means this idea that good product should be able to stand in the market by itself. Right. Not that it doesn't need a sales team, because even the best of products does need a sales team, a marketing team. But the idea is that it is the product, product itself and its attributes are competitive enough that it'll stand by itself within the market. Right. And so whatever products that a product leader or a director or a VP has in their portfolio, the individual product managers that Own those products are the ones that need to continue to build and sharpen those products to create the best possible product market fit as they can.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: I love it. So let's talk a little bit about for you personally. Like we understand that failure is part of the process. What, what are two or of the bigger failures you've had over your career that have also given you some of the biggest learnings?
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. And I've had, gosh, I've had a number of failures. So again, I'll start with the military. I wasn't nearly in the type of shape that you probably want to be when you go to boot camp, when, you know, you join the military. It was just one of those things that I never really thought too much about when I joined the military.
I remember taking my first PT test in boot camp and I absolutely failed miserably. I believe I did 14 push ups or 15 push ups, something like that. I, I probably did like 17 sit ups and, and ran my two miles in, in 20 minutes. And so I'd failed all three of those events. But I was incredibly determined to complete this, this dream that I had as a child of, of, you know, wearing a military uniform. And so about a week after that I stress fractured my foot. But I was so committed to completing this that my training within the first go that I actually did most of the required activities with a boot on my, and I changed every aspect of, of how I operated for those nine weeks. I started eating incredibly healthy, started.
You know, obviously you're working out a lot while you're in the army, but I try to take as many opportunities to put my body through rigor as possible by volunteering for things that eventually I got to a fitness level where I was able to, to, to complete my final fitness test, you know, and get a passing grade again. That's not saying a whole lot, honestly given how some people were within my platoon, but it taught me a lot about what I was capable of if I put my mind to it.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: So that was, that was a pretty big failure.
When I went in, I didn't really know that all I could do was, was 14 push ups. That was a huge, you know, awakening for me. Right. So that was a pretty, pretty significant failure for me. Another one was when I came out of the, the army, I took a job, you know, with the state of Washington for, for about a month or so. And obviously you don't take a job to work there for about a month, month and a half. Right. But two Days into that job, I. I realized that I'd made a huge mist.
I had another job offer that I eventually went back to with expediters, but the background check was taking a while. Here I had another offer, and so I decided to take it.
And I realized that the leader over there that I was working. Going to work for, in my very first couple of conversations that I had with her, I realized that I'd have made a very, very wrong choice in terms of a leader that I was going to work for. And so I came back home, I told my wife that, you know, I think I'd made a very wrong choice and that I needed to go back and talk to the other company to see if I could have the job.
And she said, well, I think you ought to give this place a real chance. Which I thought was very sound advice. Right. You can't really make those types of career decisions in short order that way. But. But I gave that place a chance. I worked there for about a month and a half. But then eventually I did realize that it was not the right place for me. There was a lot of complacency there because it was a lot of bureaucracy, because it was the government. So I very quickly realized that that is not the right environment for what I was trying to achieve with my career, and then eventually made the pivot. So sometimes you make those mistakes and you sort of realize the kind of environments that you expect to thrive in, or if you don't find yourself in that kind of an environment, it's perfectly fine to make a pivot. And I found my other job to be very, very satisfying eventually.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: It's an interesting one because I've had some clients that work with the government. We've had conversations about how the people in those situations, the culture is bureaucracy, and so they just kind of come to expect it. Like, someone like, you can come in and go like, oh, if we got rid of this and this and this, we could move faster and go. And they're just like, but why would we do that?
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: That's not the way that we do things around here.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Precisely. Yeah. I remember somebody had told me I was trying to make a change, and I was talking to somebody in the hallway, and they were like, dude, you're trying too hard. And I said, but. But it's so obvious. And they're like, it's okay. Just give it time. Eventually you'll get there, too. Right now I'm at a place where I'm like, give me my paycheck. I go Home, give me my 30 years, I retire and I go home, you know, and I, I realized like, this is not who I want to become, you know, and then so that was a pretty stark indication for me that, that I needed to make a change.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, my own experience, that was one of the things that, in my earlier career that was really confusing to me is the realizing that not everybody had the drive to do something right. So like you were saying, right. A lot of people don't ever want to be a manager or they don't want to be in leadership at all. They, they just want to come, they want to do their work, they want to go home, have their weekends and that's it. Right?
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Me that when I was coming up, that was so confusing to me because I'm like, why would I not want to get to the next level and the next level and the next level in my business, helping people with books, you know, I always talk about business. Most publishers kind of treat the publishing of the book as the finish line and in my perspective like that's the starting point. So there's all these cool things you can do with a book once it's done. But probably 90% of the people that work with me, like, they just want the book.
All this other stuff that you can do with it, they're like, ah, I don't want to do that. So I always have to like sort of check myself time sometimes when I have having conversations because I'm like, yeah, and there's no right or wrong answer.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: There's just what your path is. So, so now that you're kind of in the role that you are and you're, you know, I'm, I'm sure you've, you've, you've mentored a lot of people. You've got a 24, 25 year old kid, maybe he's got his master's degrees kind of at the early start of his career. What's one or two pieces of his advice you would give them, knowing that where they're going to go over the next 20 years?
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Well, first of all, my, my, my daughter's four. I'm not 24. But eventually, when.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Oh, no, I mean, I meant employees. Like you have employees.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: I thought you were, you're talking about my kids. Sorry, my bad. Yeah, so, so, you know, right now there's a huge amount of, you know, conversation about how AI is going to impact everything in technology. And, and you know, I heard somewhere a few days ago that like this idea of like, hey, Software engineering is basically a commodity at this point, right? Code is a commodity because AI can write all the code in the world that you want. This idea that you need software engineers to, or programmers to write code anymore is just completely foreign to some degree. I agree. And so my advice to anybody that's out there entering the workforce or as early on in their career is focus on anything that is a human quality. Meaning, you know, I will write all the code in the world. I cannot have empathy. AI cannot have vision, AI cannot have the ability to motivate somebody. Right. At the end of the day, you know, if, if your AI or notifications on your phone, jump up and say, let's go work out right now. You know, it's, it, it's not the same as your buddy texting you and saying, dude, let's, let's meet at the gym, go work out. And so there are these human qualities that I think are something that AI is never going to replace. And I think leadership is as human equality as, as imagine as you can imagine, right. To me, leadership is, is all about humanity. Your team has to trust you. I can't build trust, right? Yeah, you can trust AI based on like, yeah, it always gives me the right answer and so I trust it. But still, right. There's a human to human trust that AI is never going to build. And so I would focus, I would ask, you know, anybody that's early on in their career to focus on developing those human skills that are never going to get impacted by, you know, a machine taking over those things. If you can do that, well then kind of what realm of career you go into is less important, but success becomes more inevitable because those are qualities that you master.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, it's, it's interesting because obviously with AI, Hollywood is, you know, kind of in tether and, and Chris Pratt, somebody asked him about that earlier and he was like, I'm not worried about it. And they're like, why is that? And he's like, because AI doesn't have a soul.
Like, so you can't, at least in terms of a performance, can you have somebody that looks real? Yes. But there's no energetic resonance inside of that. Right? That's the, that's to the point, Right. I was reading an interesting article that where everybody, someone of our age, right, we remember when, when, when iPhone came along, we started getting apps and everybody's like, oh my God, social media and the Internet and the iPhone, it's going to make us so productive that we'll no longer have to work 40 hours a week. Well, we only have to work 20 hours a week. But instead the companies were like, no, no, now you just need to do 80 hours of work in the 40 hour work week.
And now we're bringing AI on and everybody's like, oh, AI is going to do this and go do this. And the article is all about like, yes, it's making things faster and it's also now making work way more intense because everybody's like, we gotta be doing all the AI.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Exactly. You gotta be using AI for practically everything that you do. Right. And you gotta turn out that much more productivity. Whenever there is a, you know, big shift in the way that the world operates. Whether you talk about the industrial revolution, whether you talk about the arrival of the Internet, whether you talk about the arrival of the first personal computer, all of those things are always, in a capitalistic society, are going to be viewed as productivity supercharger, right? And economic growth, as important as it is to our society, is driven by productivity growth, right? And so the whole AI boom expectation is really based on how much additional productivity is going, going to create. It's not, it's not meant to be. Well, let's create more well being, right? Let's create more time for people to do the things that they love and time for people to spend with their family. No, it's, it's never about that. It's. Maybe Norway thinks that way or they might think that way, right? But, but in a capitalist society it's always going to be about economic growth driven by productivity.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: You know, Elon said something interesting a few weeks ago where he was talking about how combining AI and robotics we, we might actually get to the point where those companies are making so much money that though the companies can provide a universal basic income to the jobs displaced, right? And he said, that's probably where we're headed. But then the thing that he said I thought was so fascinating. And he said, but the thing that we're not addressing with that everybody keeps talking about universal basic income. And he's like, and we'll probably get there. He's like, but what happens to society when you remove a person's purpose? And he's like, I'm not saying that all jobs are purposeful, but being able to get up and have a place to go to work and providing value and getting a paycheck for effort that you put in, what happens when you remove that? And he's like, we need to start addressing that now. And I was like, well, wow, that, that is A really interesting thing. What happens to society when you unplug purpose to that?
[00:28:12] Speaker B: I mean, that is. I wouldn't have thought about it that way, but yeah, that is a very interesting proposition. The way that I thought about it was like, well, the problem is that any robot, robotics or AI company is ultimately also going to have investors on the board of directors that, that represent the investors. What board of directors that represents the investor is ever going to say let's, you know, create a UBI and take a huge chunk of our profits that technically are belong to our investors, you know, and hand them out to, you know, society. That's the other problem that, that we would deal with in a capitalistic society. Investors would say, well, I invested money in making this, this business what it is and growing it as large as it is today. You know, now the spoils belong to me. Right. How do you, how do you then, you know, and that's why you need sort of this idea of the government doing the, the UBI if you know, you were to talk about ubi, Right. Because that's where the government comes in. Because the government's really the only entity technically that's like not for profit. Right. And it is their job to manage the well being of society. And so they're the ones that could do a universal basic income. But how does a company that potentially is for profit turn around and, and, and hand over their profits?
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. All questions to be addressed. So let's talk a little bit about enlight. Tell me what specifically you guys, the challenges you're solving. Who's like your perfect like you know, best fit for somebody that, for your technology and, and the stack that you have.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: You mean from a, from a sort of individual perspective?
[00:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, from like a company perspective. Like who, who would, who would benefit from the, the technology? You guys obviously, you know, you're in the insurance and processing and all that sort of stuff is there, Are you already in like some pretty bigger. Is there like the reason I'm saying, let's say somebody's reading this chapter in the book or they're listening to this conversation and they're like, okay, what you guys are doing in the insurance space and the casualty space is interesting and they would want to look at you like who would be a good fit for that?
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So you know, primarily we serve property and casualty insurance carriers. They utilize our software as well as our services for their insurance claims workflow for both workers comp and auto casualty. Some of the challenges that, that we deal with within our market, it's a very heavily regulated industry, right. We're talking healthcare security is paramount. So you know, everything is regulated by, by, so security's paramount. Rising healthcare costs is another one of those things that we actively deal with. Right. So how do we manage rising healthcare costs costs and how do we make sure that there's a solid balance between costs of healthcare versus insurance payers and how they manage the benefits for their payees? Because ultimately if an insurance company is going to pay too much for a particular insurance claim, what's going to happen? They're going to have to increase premiums. Those premiums are going to burden then, you know, the ultimate claim, ultimately the claimants. Right. How much you pay for a car insurance depends on how much your car insurance pays for an average claim. And so those are the types of issues that we deal with and we try to manage or more or less balance the costs between the cost of health care, ultimately the cost of the insurance company that's paying for that health care and ultimately the premium cost of the consumer. And how do we create the balance between, between all of those things?
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Wow, I love it. So how do they like, if somebody wants to try to engage with your tech or they think might be good fit, how do they find you?
[00:31:49] Speaker B: So essentially we're, we're kind of a niche player, right? Sort of a pretty large player within our industry specifically, but it is a niche industry. So if you ask somebody that works in, you know, at, for a large insurance carriers claim division within property and casualty, I guarantee you they've heard of us. But you talk to somebody that works in the, the fire insurance claims division of the same company, they may never have heard of us. Right. So it's one of those things that's an incredibly niche market. So anybody that operates within our marketplace will invariably know about us. Anybody that doesn't, it's kind of a hard sell. But, but that's the other part of it, right. Like that I've learned through my career as well, which is you don't necessarily, you know, I live in Seattle and anytime I talk to somebody and I tell them I live in Seattle, they always ask me if I work for Microsoft or Amazon. It's a very, very typical question.
If I had a penny for every time somebody asked me that. Right. But the idea is you don't necessarily have to have a Microsoft or Amazon on your LinkedIn profile or on your resume in order for you to be successful within your career. Right. To me, being successful is sort of a definition that everybody creates for themselves. And even when you find yourself within an industry that is niche, just like, you know, the property and casualty industry is within this country, it's still multiples of billions of dollars worth of an industry and you could still find and carve out a place for yourself within that industry. You can carve out credibility for yourself within that industry through partnerships with other organizations within. Within, you know, creating connections with other people that you may meet at conferences within the industry as well. And you can become, you know, obviously a lot of the executives within our organizations are very well connected within our industry and they're incredibly successful, right? Yeah, they. People outside the industry may not necessarily know them like somebody would know the CEO of Google or YouTube.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: But they're still pretty incredibly successful at what they do.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: I love it. Well, Sanjiag, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you again for taking time out of your day. I appreciate you being here.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me.
