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The Lucid Story | Building a Category-Defining SaaS Company with Ben Dilts, Karl Sun, & Dave Grow
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Ben Dilts, Karl Sun, and Dave Grow are the founding team behind Lucid Software, one of the most successful SaaS companies to emerge from Utah. From a scrappy student-built prototype to a global platform with tens of millions of users, Lucid redefined how teams collaborate visually in the cloud.
Ben built the first version of Lucidchart while still at BYU. Karl, an early Google product leader, saw the future of collaborative software and joined as an early advisor and executive. Dave left Bain for what was supposed to be a six-month stint that turned into a decade-plus journey leading the company as CEO.
In this episode, they break down the Lucid journey from early product insight to scaling a generational company and shaping the Utah tech ecosystem.
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00:00 The broken tools that sparked Lucid.
05:20 Building the prototype on nights and weekends.
10:30 Thousands of users in weeks.
22:10 The round that got away.
28:00 Betting the firm on Lucid’s Series A.
34:30 The $100M decision that almost didn’t happen.
42:00 Hiring only “great,” never “good enough.”
58:30 Core values that scaled to 1,000+ employees.
01:06:20 Staying in the weeds as a CEO.
01:14:40 Speed as a competitive advantage at scale.
01:22:00 Why most companies underestimate how long winning takes.
01:29:10 From scrappy underdog to market leader.
01:36:30 Catching the next wave: AI and the future of software.
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Ben Dilts is the co-founder of Lucid and the architect behind Lucidchart, which he built from scratch while still at BYU after spotting a massive gap in team collaboration. Nearly two decades later, he remains deeply embedded in the product and code, driving Lucid’s technical vision and pushing the frontier of collaborative software.
Karl Sun is the co-founder and former CEO of Lucid, and an early Google product leader who helped pioneer cloud-based collaboration tools. He joined Lucid in its earliest days, helping turn a student project into a global SaaS company while instilling a culture of excellence and talent density.
Dave Grow is the CEO of Lucid, who joined from Bain for a short-term experiment and ended up helping build a generational SaaS company. He scaled the business from early traction to global scale, bringing a rare combination of operational rigor and deep product intuition.
Gavin Christensen founded Kickstart in 2008, establishing the region’s first seed-stage venture fund. He has since backed many of Utah’s most successful technology companies, helping shape the Mountain West into a nationally recognized startup ecosystem.
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Kickstart is the Mountain West’s most experienced and active early-stage venture capital fund. Kickstart provides pre-seed & seed funding to ambitious tech founders across Utah & Colorado with a focus on AI, B2B SaaS, and frontier tech.
See Kickstart’s full investment portfolio here.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Kickstart Podcast and Guests
00:00:04
Speaker
yeah Welcome to the Kickstart Podcast. And today I have three special guests. This is unusual for us, but very exciting. Three of the legends of Utah entrepreneurship um from the Lucid a software company and from the early days until now.
00:00:19
Speaker
um We have Carl Sun. We have Dave Groh and Ben Diltz. And I'm really honored to have them
History of Lucid: Three Acts
00:00:26
Speaker
with us today. And we're going to go through the history of Lucid in three acts.
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm a fan of This American Life, and so we're going to try that format
Origin of Lucid: Identifying Problems
00:00:34
Speaker
today. um And what I'd love to start with is getting started. You know, where did the idea come from? What was the problem that you were trying to solve? Tell us what that was like. um We all have a lot of shared experience here. i think, you know, you all have, how many years, guys, would we say?
00:00:52
Speaker
Too many. 15, 50, 20. Yeah, 15 all together. And in but yeah, for you, it's getting to that 20 mark. And um you know I've been part for like maybe 14, we'll say.
00:01:02
Speaker
so lot of shit So a lot of things we could talk about. A lot of good, lot lot of highs, some lows, some challenges. But let's start in the getting
Ben's Early Tech Experiences
00:01:11
Speaker
started part. Tell us about that, Ben. Yeah, yeah I'll give you a a little bit there. Before Lucid, I was working at Zane Benefits, who, you know, i Kickstart got involved there a little bit. um So that was actually my first introduction to the world of tech startups. So I actually took a summer job at what was then two people working in a you know a garage ah home office um and and helped us sort of start the technology team and and build the initial technology there. um And you're still an undergrad.
00:01:42
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I took a summer job after I think my sophomore year at BYU. um Moved up to Park City. ah It was interesting. i'm I'm from the East Coast and never skied in my life. And I didn't even know that Park City was a ski town. Not even when I went to to interview. I went in person to interview, but it didn't register because it's just so far away from that world. I actually moved there and realized the place I had rented on Craigslist was three houses down from a ski lift. Wow. That was when I found out that it was a ski town. and
00:02:13
Speaker
Pretty common place to be as an Erdogan. It was lovely. I have yeah great memories from up there. I think the the rent there has probably gone up a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. little bit. Yeah, yeah. um But ah we were working on some really interesting products there, actually. So we were doing um health benefits tech. And there was new legislation, ah you know, authorizing new kinds of health benefits plans. And so we were building software to service those. And so from a software perspective, from an engineering perspective, was actually cool project to work on because we weren't just...
00:02:43
Speaker
building a better mousetrap, hiring a slightly better sales team and carve out a little corner of the market. It was really read the legislation, figure out how does this work? How are we going to administer this What does the software look like? um You know, financial ledgers and protected
Challenges with Microsoft Visio
00:02:58
Speaker
health information, all of this. So was it was um it was a complex project. ah And how we were thinking through it was using flowcharts. So we had...
00:03:07
Speaker
maybe ah half a dozen of us on the team working on this. Among us, we had, I think, two copies of Microsoft Visio. And I will tell you that even on the best day, especially 2008 when i was working on this, ah Drawing a flowchart in Visio even by yourself was just sort of a pain in the neck. And ah this was also, you know, save the file onto the shared drive and hope you're not overwriting the other person's file. And this is Ben's final, final October 2nd edition. And... And not everyone even had the software. So we were like printing out copies and leaving them on people's desks and drawing on them and bringing them. I mean, it was a disaster. um And so the project itself was actually really fascinating and I enjoyed working on it. I sort of dreaded going to work and working on it in the morning just because of the tools available.
00:03:57
Speaker
right So um this was in 2008, sort of early days around Google apps, right? the The spreadsheet word processor sort of world at Google. And and they were super rough around the edges ah at that time. But I think they were delivering on this core promise that you would be able to work together with other people, not worry about versioning and and work simultaneously and get at it from the browser everywhere without having to install anything. And I think many people sort of saw that this was the way that software distribution was going to go. Mm-hmm.
00:04:31
Speaker
and And so I went looking for who had done this for flowcharts. right I didn't need anything elaborate at the time. I was just looking for shapes with text on them and arrows, right? um And what there was in 2008 was, well, there was nothing you would want to use at work, right? I mean, this was like...
00:04:49
Speaker
in the days of flash apps, right? Like there were some things that you could do, but it was, it was a mess. Um, and so, uh, as I tend to do maybe too often, I just started working on it nights and weekends, um, through summer, fall, 2008.
Birth and Growth of Lucidchart
00:05:04
Speaker
Um, basically all of my waking hours outside of work, uh, working on this, uh, and, and got something pulled together that,
00:05:12
Speaker
basically worked by the end of the year, just a few months later, um put up what is in retrospect, ape like a mostly working most of the time prototype of lucid chart, i wrote to some bloggers who'd written about similar stuff in the past, got picked up a couple of places, some medium sized blogs and ah signed up a couple of thousand users in the first week or two.
00:05:34
Speaker
um And so I knew Very early on, i sort of, I'd struck a nerve, right, that I was not the only person who was super fed up with this whole category of software. um But of course, at that time, it's impossible to know what kind of legs it would have. ah But that was, you know, the sort of end of 2008, beginning 2009, right? you know, that following summer, I left my day job there. Actually, I had been there now for almost four years. ah And it was time to come back and finish up school ah before my wife killed me for dropping out. and And also to pull together a team and a company around what was essentially at that point, like a tech demo that I had built myself and had, you know, several thousand users. um And so, you know, I came back down to BYU, started to pull together um other students who were interested in similar things. And actually,
00:06:21
Speaker
Ran into Carl as a potential investor pretty early on in that process. Maybe, Carl, you can tell how you got like sucked into the beginning of this. Yeah. so So that would have been the end of 2009, think. and you know I'll rewind a little bit. So, you know Ben talked about you know collaborative applications.
Carl Sun's Experience and Involvement
00:06:41
Speaker
So, you know I had spent um the years before that in my career at Google. And so, we were um you know early days of you know Google, um I guess, Google Docs, what's known now known as Google Docs. And so, we were using those kinds of applications internally. um In part, we were mandated to use things, which is a good idea to always dog food your own product. But um I also drank the Kool-Aid on the idea of how software could be delivered. You know, no more shipping CDs because those of us, some of us can still remember those days. um
00:07:13
Speaker
um And I think I really had bought into the idea that, you know, you could constantly updating and pushing software and improving the product as opposed to these scheduled releases every year you were lucky or two years, you know, more likely. um And so i had recently left Google. um I was ah looking around here in Utah because I'd been living here for a couple of years looking for something to do and met. um Actually, I didn't even meet Ben. I met a couple of these students that Ben mentioned that he had roped into shooting wrinkle into working with him. Yeah.
00:07:47
Speaker
We have a little joke that, you know, Ben, um you know, loved working on Lucid, obviously did a great job there. He was finishing his degree. But, you know, I think Ben much preferred to work on, you know, the the Lucid chart and Lucid products um as opposed to going to classes. But the only thing he liked, you know, even less was going to meet potential investors or something like that. So.
00:08:08
Speaker
So I met some of these students, um saw the product, saw demo of the product, um really ah from that first moment fell in love with ah the idea of graphical collaborative applications because we had been using mainly text-based um applications, right? Like early version of Google Sheets and um Google Docs.
00:08:28
Speaker
And here, Ben had built um a graphical visual application that ran inside of a browser. you know, this was back in 2008, 2009, right? And it had a really smooth and, you know, seamless and very, you know, nice UI. In many ways, better than sort of the the lagginess that you could see even, you know, from Google Docs back in the day. So so really fell in love with the product, um decided to sign on board as an advisor, which meant, you know, I brought pizza once a week. The tradition continues. um I don't bring the pizza anymore, thankfully. ah That stopped a while ago. um
00:09:03
Speaker
but But yeah, just started working um with Ben and a couple
Building the Lucid Team
00:09:08
Speaker
of students. And, you know, I think the early days there, it was, you know... um I think Ben and team were gearing up for like the BYU business plan competition. yeah i actually think, didn't you get like disqualified for some reason? and They sure did. It's a bit of a sore spot. yeah Yeah. It's fine. yeah Yeah. we we We don't need to go into that, I guess. But, but yeah. And just, just thinking about what we needed to do. um
00:09:37
Speaker
And I say we, like it was mainly what Ben and these couple of students need to do. Like I thought I would just, you know, uh sort of observe give some advice as necessary and then um you know as ben mentioned he was looking for to raise a little bit of money and mainly that was so ben could focus more time working on lucid i mean he was still working his part-time job at zane benefits he was going to school full-time and then he was you know working on lucid yeah in the other time which was like essentially full-time or three-quarters time or something like that so He had way too much on his plate. And so our goal was just to be able to, you know, have Ben quit his part-time job, um you know, focus on just school and Lucid and maybe hire another student developer, which we did. So convince someone else to leave their BYU sort of job that they worked, you know, part-time while they were going to school and to work on Lucid. And so that's, that's where things really started like thinking about them. And and I think I probably met you, Carl, uh, during that period when you were kind of kicking around. I think Nathan Furr put us together who was a professor there.
00:10:43
Speaker
And, um, and I remember, um, you know And I think you were very – like I remember being a mix. It was great to meet you. I actually incidentally had spent a summer with Google during business school, and so it was great to meet you. And so I think we had a shared view of how the world would evolve with collaborative apps. But I think you were kind of like, isn't there more going on here? you know I think you you're like you were hopeful, but you're also like, shoot, there's not like a ton that went and I want to invest. I want to get involved. And so you're trying you were really trying to get involved. And of course, it was very fortunate that you two met up because it was a great, you know, your background and mixed with Ben's passion was a great ah of interest. And um probably the next, that's sort of like the next part of the story here is, um you know, what you when you raise money in the seed round, it's sort of all I'll just... ah
00:11:35
Speaker
say this was a This is a sad moment for us because um you know there was a discussion about a seed round that
Funding Challenges and Investor Relations
00:11:41
Speaker
happens. At the time, I had started Kickstarter in 2008. This was our first fund. It was only $8 million. dollars So we were talking during the time frame of Fund 1. Sadly for us, Fund 1 is not that great of a fund. Fund 2, which has Lucid in it, is a wildly successful fund. Also has a lot of other great companies too.
00:11:57
Speaker
Fun 1 would be fabulously great if we'd gotten to terms. It'd actually probably be a a top, you know, all-time fun. If we'd gotten to terms on um un Lucid, we didn't.
00:12:08
Speaker
we can We can talk about that. yeah well Well, thank you for saying those kind words. And, you know, I know this is um you know this is to talk about the history of Lucid, not necessarily the history of Kickstart, but I'll just take a little segue and just say, you know, things were very early, very nascent. So coming having moved from the Bay Area...
00:12:27
Speaker
Things felt very different here. That meetup event that I met the other students that Ben was working with, that was the sole meetup funding universe, if you remember that. Similarly, the ecosystem, the angel groups that were active or not very active,
00:12:42
Speaker
and similarly the you know the the the the ecosystem the
00:12:52
Speaker
was very different. And obviously so much has changed over the last 15 years. Totally. But now seed funding is, there's so much available capital, which is great for entrepreneurs and for startups. And there's programs like BYU Sandbox, which are doing fabulously well. But I really give you a lot credit for... I remember we were talking back in the day, you were starting Kickstart and then you moved New Mexico for a little while. So you weren't here for all of that, but honestly, you sort of put seed investing on Matt Beers. Oh, thank you. It was my own version of Ben, which was in order to make Kickstart work, I had taken a job in New Mexico and was flying in every week. So it was kind of my own, yeah, for actually the first four five Yeah, but maybe just to take our story a little bit. So, you know, raise that little bit of, you know, friends and family money, like a couple hundred thousand dollars so that Ben could focus on it. We hired one other developer who's our employee. We call them employee number one. Right. And, you know, started working, you know, Ben and Alma was his name, decided they wanted to a revamp, rewrite, you know, the whole friend end, give it a much better UI. And as we looked to think about launching the product in the fall, we did that, but then pretty quickly knew that we needed additional help. And that's where was able to twist Dave's arm a little bit and persuade him to come on board just for a trial run. He
00:14:27
Speaker
He was, ah you know, understandably, justifiably, and intelligently probably a little skeptical about, you know, what the these guys are up to. um And so he decided to give us six months of his time, and it's turned into a lot longer than that. Okay, so um so we have a visual here as we're as we're bringing Dave into the story. um Yeah, so maybe talk about the recruitment of Dave, Dave, your choice to join. Yeah, just that that that period of Lucid.
00:14:56
Speaker
Sure. So this was late 2010. At that point, I was at Bain & Company, a big consulting firm, and was looking for something to do for about six months until I was planning to go to business school, get my MBA. And nba and you know Carl pitched me on what what they were doing here at Lucid, and it actually immediately resonated with me because of my Bain experience. At Bain, I'd spent six or eight months working on helping a large defense company with their redesign their engineering process for helicopters.
00:15:31
Speaker
and And so I would go interview all these experts and then consolidated that all into a massive flow chart in PowerPoint. I did the same thing in consulting as well for a ah ah pharma firm. There you go. oh This is a painful shared experience. Was it one slide? Was actually one slide? Well, mine actually spanned many slides. yeah yeah um And so I know you yeah you you had an experience where you shrunk it all down to one slide. Yeah, 2.1.1.
00:15:55
Speaker
But it was incredibly painful because it wasn't at all collaborative. It wasn't easy to use. It wasn't really, you know, great to get people involved. And so when I saw the first version of Lucidchart, it immediately resonated with me because I'd felt some of the same, you know, pain points that the Ben had described earlier.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so, you know, ah Carl essentially said, we need someone to help us come figure out and grow the business. And I said, great, I'm in for six months.
00:16:20
Speaker
A few years later. That's great. Okay. Yeah. And as you can see, you know, um we we had a joke that, you know you know, consultants think in slides and PowerPoints and stuff. And so, you know, our our game got upped a little bit, you know, once Dave
Series A Funding and Market Expansion
00:16:40
Speaker
came on board. So, you know, and we have we have the 2010 era deck here, but we also this is like the more the right so if you um you know i guess I guess in the intervening period, you guys you also raise a seed round, which that's the one we didn't get to terms with. Right.
00:16:57
Speaker
And at the time, you know one of the and this was this this this was like the disconnect in the in in the time you know because pricing was – Carl was unique and he had all these kind of wealthy friends from the Bay Area. And it was like – and really locally, it was kind of like – What can companies even sell for? And so we were really worried about pricing. And, and you know, we wanted to, like, have a board and preferred stock. And Carl was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, common stock. You know, i was I was like, who is this guy? this You know, kind of like freewheeling hippie guy from the Bay Area.
00:17:33
Speaker
Not really. but No, not really. Come on, not I was a corporate lawyer in Bay Area. I don't know what you're talking about, man. You know, for for us, it felt like crazy, you know? And I, you know, maybe the pricing on that was like an eight, I feel like, is where it ended up. and Or, yeah yeah, eight, three, no, it was sub, sub, that was a four, so, yeah, basically. Okay, yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
so And I looked back at our memo, and we were hoping to do it at like a one and a half. So now, like I say, the crazy thing is like that would have been it've been awesome. think Times have changed. head Times have changed. and Times
00:18:07
Speaker
Of course, the the rest of the story from our side is that we i had so much regret about not investing Lucid for for these reasons, which it was sort of like something that really resonated with me based on my experience.
00:18:18
Speaker
Love the team and what you guys are doing, and you're making tons of progress, that we really bet the firm on the Lucid investment. At the time, I didn't realize it, but um we led your Series A as a seed fund, and we put 10% of our fund in that first round. Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
And it was, for us, it was an insane valuation, you know. mean Did your helppiece know that? i You know, i yeah I think they, I'm sure they, um were I'm sure they recognize like, whoa, that's a, and at the time, actually, in and I have a, you know, it might be interesting to go through your deck and then maybe go through our memo a little bit, but, because I think some of those, there's some interesting things that will come out of both.
00:18:54
Speaker
But I think one of the key considerations for us was, you know, you know We're just like, wow, we just have so much belief in what they're doing. But it was a really big bet of like how... Because we're coming in, like it was like a 29 post money. We're like, to get 10x on that, it just has to be so big. you know And that was a real... For us, it was we hadn't seen that many exits that were kind of at that scale. So it was a big swing. And and there was some controversy inside of Kickstarter.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think that's a pretty yeah common... Yeah, it's a theme. yeah team When yeah and I look back at raising money, particularly you're in the early days, I think a lot of investors actually had a lot of confidence in the team.
00:19:32
Speaker
yeah um And that's why I think slide one there was the team, um you know because it was it was a great team ah and and really smart people. um But I think there were a lot of questions on how big can this be? yeah you know In that same Series A that you guys led, I remember sitting across from some other investors, and we were doing a few million of revenue at the time.
00:19:53
Speaker
And they looked at me with all seriousness and said, do you really think you can triple this business? Yeah. um And I actually just laughed, you know, because I had every confidence that we could. And that seemed such such a low bar. And we believed the opportunity was much bigger. But it wasn't as obvious, I think, for most people at the time, even for us, as exactly how yeah big, you know, we could get over time. And and one thing I'd say is, you know, think, you know, as founders of the founding team, you obviously have optimism and belief in what you're doing. You're close to the ground. You see the potential for growing. But the the external noise can get to you. And so, you know, we talked to a lot of folks and a lot of doubt, a lot of challenges. And, know, was talking with Dave the other day. was thinking, As we were reflecting on this, I think you know that was sort of almost the the low point. right like yeah There's so much um question out there about, like is this actually a venture fundable business? you know How big could it be? um you know There was a lot of that that feedback. that you know you know you know This is one of the things that you know maybe i we we'll go to the market slide here to kind of you know kind of tee this up. Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
that the the milestones You can kind of see they'd hit some really great milestones. Here we go. Market size. You know, you guys were talking about that. i You know, one of the things that was a real benefit to you, um especially as I looked at this, is is to say you have a very large and highly flawed competitor, you know, with all respect. Yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
you know, neglected, ah back then neglected and flawed and even much, and much more bigger and just as flawed now, which that was, ah it always was, you know, this, this experience really baffling to me because yeah, so many VCs were worried about the market size, um you know, and, and the whole collaboration space was nascent, right? And, ah and,
00:21:44
Speaker
And one of the things we skipped over is you guys were doing some really novel things from a technological standpoint, too, to kind of make this possible. You were pushing the edge of what could be done in a browser, right, ah along with a few other frontiersmen, you know, so that was also part of it. You were right at the edge. um But, I mean, it really like was very reassuring to me to say, you have this very large, flawed competitor. If we do nothing other than grow the market a bit and still share, this is a big business.
00:22:14
Speaker
and It's one of the simplistic ways I thought about it. Yeah, and I think, you I love this slide. It's a work of art. A nice arrow there up to some unnamed, you know, large market opportunity. um But I think that actually reflected how we have always thought about it, right? You know, Microsoft Visio, you're right, sort of was the floor in terms of how big, you know, our opportunity could be. Of course, there was always the question is you have to ask, you know,
00:22:42
Speaker
will Microsoft wake up and do something more with this product one day? 15 years later, ah we're still benefiting from that. you know That said, a very small portion of the market was using a tool like Microsoft Physio. Even in a professional setting at one of the largest consulting firms in the world, i wasn't. No, I neither was
Strategic Decisions and Investments
00:23:03
Speaker
I. And so i I think, but we understood the pain points you know that that that Ben had felt were relatively universal.
00:23:11
Speaker
Right. ah So many teams need to come together to understand and visualize the complexity in their in their jobs and in their organizations. ah You know, the people, the processes, the systems. We saw that in the early days, you know, attracting all these users who would never have considered themselves sort of Visio users or even diagrammers before. And I think that gave us a lot of confidence, you know, for for us to say to investors, don't underestimate you know the size of this opportunity.
00:23:39
Speaker
But still, I think over time, we just had to go out and execute and prove it by the numbers yeah um for that confidence to really build into something much more meaningful for investors.
00:23:50
Speaker
And certainly what we we we' ah have observed in our investing is that to have a really big outcome, you obviously need really you know brilliant teams, you need a great insight, but there needs to be a a wave that you catch. you know And you know usually it's some kind of cultural transformation. And in this case,
00:24:07
Speaker
ah the growth of cloud collaboration, you know, and, that you know, there was the the the market exploded with users changing how they worked, which you were, you know, you were a big part of that. You were one of those influences that changed that behavior. But that was certainly a wave that we caught that um expanded how we all thought about the market. i I think it's one thing is this unique about the Lucid team that um is maybe not obvious to the outside world is, know,
00:24:33
Speaker
um you know you guys are are very self-reflective and actually pretty modest and about how you saw your opportunity and yourselves you know very confident what you're doing but also very like you know there wasn't like the bluster yeah there's confidence but there wasn't like the like you know they i mean there is an unnamed unnamed ah upside here but but you know like uh i i i mean i maybe i just fast forward to a moment that i think was pretty pivotal that i think we've talked about maybe once before um So I think of maybe the next moment is is being like the time that you guys are about to raise money from Spectrum at $100 million. you know which for you know Given how we had thought about it and you thought about it, like and there was this moment, and and um they were excited to invest. You guys had gone out and fundraised. It's sort of an evaluation we wanted to do.
00:25:23
Speaker
um you had You had really grown the business to where this wasn't a huge multiple, certainly by today's standards it wasn't, but like even then it wasn't that crazy. um But there was like an existential moment. And like, I remember being at your office and like sitting down with the three of you, you know, after we played ping pong, as I recall, um you know, which is always a great lead up to this kind of thing. um and And really just like you guys were wrestling with, should we take this money? Because can can we get a return on this money?
00:25:51
Speaker
Which I think is a very responsible way to see it, by the way. I think a lot of entrepreneurs could benefit from that pause. Yeah. Because, you know, the goal the goal here is to make money for everybody at every turn. makes makes life a lot easier for everybody. um But, yeah, maybe maybe talk about that maybe as our next...
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, um you're right. It was a big inflection. actually, as you were saying that, I was reflecting on the previous rounds, right? And obviously, we needed to raise the seed the seed round, the one that Kickstart passed on. But even then, it was this realization that, okay, we're actually taking third party, like not just friends and family, like certainly there's an obligation to friends and family, but when you're starting to take other people's money of that, like, well, Hey, we need to return this and they expect and want us to return this. Right. um And it's a big obligation. And the idea that, well, if we do this, then, you know, we're, we're, we're locked in, we're focused. We, we, we have to like dig in and make sure, find a way. And that same conversation,
00:26:55
Speaker
happens at every round, right? Except the stakes get bigger, the number gets bigger. So the outcome that is required
Vision Expansion and Talent Development
00:27:02
Speaker
gets bigger. And yeah, it was, I remember that conversation that you're referring to was sort of a somber is not quite the right word, but it was very serious, right? Like we were thinking about like,
00:27:11
Speaker
okay, well, we believe that there's a big market out there. How fast can we capture it? Can we capture it? Are we the right team to do it? so Totally. And um you know and i I play different roles in different settings. And I think in that setting, which is, I played the opposite role of what I usually play as an investor, which is,
00:27:28
Speaker
you know, you guys were, were being very thoughtful and serious about it. And I flipped it and it's like, guys, you may never work on something this interesting again. Like this might be it probably like you're going to do great things your career, but when are you ever going have this chance?
00:27:42
Speaker
You know? So I was, I kind of, usually it's like me kind of saying, Hey, let's temper. Yeah. You know, this was more like, let's go, let's, you know, damn the torpedoes. Let's go. Because I could tell, you know, and I, my guess is you would end up there either way. But, um,
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're by nature a very tactical group, yeah always have been, you know especially in those early years. um ah you know like you know Big unnamed upside aside, we often in those first few years, we're very much looking at what are we doing this month? What are we doing next month? And ah you know how far can we get this year? We weren't thinking a lot on the day-to-day of like,
00:28:22
Speaker
What does this look like five years down the road? um And so from a very early part of our history, we actually sort of brought the burn really under control and we're like masters of our own destiny. And so when we were looking at that kind of investment, part of the conversation too was we don't have to take this investment. Right. Like we we could carry on operating this business and continue growing without taking an additional massive tranche of money. um But this gives us the opportunity to like dig more in right to to move faster than we than we otherwise could. And so it was this conversation of. um
00:29:01
Speaker
How big is our vision? Like force us to look a little further out and a little farther up and say, like, do we believe this and how far can we go? And, you know, and obviously, ultimately, we decided and I guess in retrospect correctly that like there was a long way more to go.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, there was. Yeah, and you mentioned it that, but I think it's just worth reinforcing how important it is to have the right people around the table, right? And note that can be part of your core team. It can be, you know, a couple key board members or investors who can help you sort of tackle whatever the big, hard question it is at the day and bring a very different perspective. And I think in that moment, you were able to zoom out maybe a little bit further than we were and and and help us kind of see, you know, that that next opportunity. Yeah. And just, you know, someone who's maybe not in the day to day and but but knows you well enough to say, because it's easy to be cheerleader, but it's it's better. It's better to be an informed kind of like, no, no, go for it. And and that was that moment because there you guys had had there so much confidence that that people who had invested you had at that point, which is like, you're really doing everything you say you're going to do. And so it will just keep going that way. And
00:30:11
Speaker
and And you guys didn't have like the crazy competitive dynamic that maybe had happened in other companies. And so it was a little more, let's move more to offense. um But I will say, I think that's been a strength of Lucid. And just think about some through lines about what's made this company work is you have had a culture of very data driven and open conversations throughout.
00:30:33
Speaker
you know, the the big decisions. a lot of companies, there are these moments where you you're making, you know, these hard choices and you say, wow, that moment was pivotal and there's there'll be other ones. But I think you, as a team, fostered this environment where you really could make those decisions together and And really, you know, look, it wasn't just you looked hard at the data first and which is a with a cool cultural.
00:30:55
Speaker
And I think you were able to retain amazing people because of because of that. You know, it wasn't just one person or it wasn't just one way of doing things. Right. Yeah. And I think that relates to sort of ah a core theme generally of Lucid and a lot of great companies is just the focus from the very, very beginning on great people. Yeah. And I give a lot of credit on this yeah you know to Carl. um you know I remember when we were maybe 15 or 20 people, every time we had more money, right? with The burden was pretty low. where Every time we had enough money, we hired another engineer. And so at some point, it was about 15 engineers and Dave. and And I said, you know, i maybe I need someone to help, you know, do do a few other things outside of write code here. um And so I was pretty burned out. We needed someone.
00:31:43
Speaker
We started interviewing and we interviewed someone who was pretty good. um And afterwards, you know, Carl and I had this back and forth and and Carl, you know, finally turned to me and said, is he good or is he great?
00:31:59
Speaker
And it seems like a very simple question, ah but it was a discussion that continued for the next little while, you know, debating this back and forth. Again, for me, from the perspective of I need someone, you know, I can't sort of keep doing the marketing and the support and XYZ, you know, on my own. But I think Carl recognizing in part, given his experience at Google, we have to hire great people and form this early nucleus because that's going to compound over time, you know, to really build out something special here from a people and culture perspective.
00:32:32
Speaker
Yeah. No, I 100 percent. You want speak to that, Carl? Well, ah only that, um you know, that that only works if the team is willing to, you know, like in Dave's case, right? Like that meant he had to suck it up for a little bit longer until we found that next great person. And um but but I think, you know, Dave's right. Like, I think um our focus early on of finding great people... You you build that core group that's great, and it then other people see it, and they're like, hey, those are we know those people. Those are really amazing people.
00:33:04
Speaker
Why are they all doing this? There must be something there. You get interested. And and then you know that first dozen makes the next five easier, and then yeah that makes the next dozen easier. And I do think... um That was sort of a secret to to our success, but it did mean that everyone had to you know pull those long days, a long nights, um you know ah you know certainly on the on the business side. I mean, Dave was you know handled support, he handled SEO, he handled you know all marketing, and then jumped into product. and so There were a lot of things. Business functions. And it was, i mean, you talk to some other early people, like, um you know, that was hard. Like, just ah on the engineering side, there were only a few people, like, being on call. And, like, you know, on call in the early days means there's actually stuff.
00:33:54
Speaker
yeah That hits the fan all the time. And so like you're up a couple of nights a week in the middle of the night. Which great metaphor. Because at the time, you guys were in office space where engineering was upstairs. And it was kind of weak sauce AC. And so the like the fan, right? like it was going It would actually go out itself, too. So the kind of bug in the fan. So it actually was part of the drama, right? but see You make it sound like we were running an engineering sweatshop. Yeah.
00:34:19
Speaker
It kind of felt that way up there. I remember going up and being like, man, it's pretty warm up here. I think the AC only went out once, and that might have been when you visited. I think it was during a board meeting, really. were trying to put the heat on you. Let's wrap this up. I actually remember another story around recruiting from about that same time.
00:34:36
Speaker
you know We were recruiting as fast and as hard as we could on engineering, um And I was spending a huge amount of my time at universities, especially BYU, which was close. And I had connections to, um you know, doing events and sponsoring clubs. And um and ah we had a lot of hustle and got a lot of people to apply. um And i think we did in-person interviews of a couple of dozen people that summer. and there was one standout, just a far superior interview to to sort of the the crowd. um
00:35:13
Speaker
ah The problem was this person was a sophomore. um And so they would only be able to come on for the summer. And so I went to Carl and had this conversation with him and said, look, we interviewed a lot of people, some good people, and there's some great people in here. There's one person who is a standout from the crowd. Um, but he's going to be able to come on long-term or full-time exactly. Um, and what Carl told me was if we interview a bunch of people and we don't hire the best person that we interview, what are we even doing here? Hmm.
00:35:44
Speaker
Right. I mean, like, what are we even doing here? And so what we did is we figured out, well, I guess I guess we're doing an internship program. So we we hired Ryan Stringham. OK, is that how that started? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. okay yeah Yeah. So we hired ah Ryan Stringham as our her first ah intern. he And he's doing chemical? ah No, he's he's doing computer science. And he's, um you know, he's ah in the leadership of like the ACM club at the university and doing like the competitions, all of this stuff. And so what turned out there was we hired him and ah put him to great use for the summer. And then he went back to school in the fall. Yeah. And he advocated for us. He was sort of the voice in the face of Lucid at the university. um We sponsored the programming competition there and he helped us to sort of get involved in all of the activities there. And the next summer he came back and he brought all his friends. Right. And ah and so he for a long time and you'll remember this. We cleaned up. Yeah. We ah we really were taking all of the top talent from BYU's computer science program year after year. And um and especially, you know, in the undergraduate, in that in that internship program, I mean, we would, at times, we'd have as many interns in as the as the full-time new hires. and And everyone in engineering who had worked at Lucid for six months was mentoring a new person, half of half of which were were summer interns. um
00:37:06
Speaker
But, you know, this was part of... You know, in the same way that the um the sort of community around fundraising in Utah has grown a lot over the years, I think yeah also the depth of the bench in terms of talent yeah and all those different departments, including engineering, has sort of grown over those years. And this was part of us in those ah in those early summers sort of helping to develop that pool of talent um and
Building an Engineering Reputation
00:37:30
Speaker
bringing those people up. and And a lot of those people, i mean, Ryan Stringham is now, you know, our chief architect at ah At Lucid continues to do absolutely fantastic work. um And raise he just leads there.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think, and I think you guys developed the reputation for having the strongest engineering team in the state, you know, you know, through those type of efforts, which is with a lot of homegrown talent, is, which is amazing.
00:37:53
Speaker
um Any other thoughts, you know, general advice just on the subject of hiring? Because I think that's been an elite ah area for Lucid that you would give either on the business side or on the engineering side, you know. You know, you guys did a lot of interviews. You certainly look for elite attributes academically.
00:38:12
Speaker
But, you know what are the, you know, what do you feel like are the takeaways? know, I guess one thing that I would say is, um especially back in the day, I think this has changed somewhat, um is it was early days for the ecosystem here. And so there weren't a lot of... um you know, tech companies, mature tech companies, for sure. And so it forced us in some sense to hire early career people, right? Like people who were young, eager, like the majority of our hires for the first several years, many years, were sort of straight high university for this job yeah kind of things. And, um you know, we had this theory, and in part it was driven by necessity, is that
00:38:59
Speaker
you know, we're going to hire people who are bright, eager, ambitious, um willing to dig in and learn. um And ah there were, and not the people who have a lot of experience on their resume, again, because those people were were harder to find, right? And I think that that worked out really well for us. I think things are a little bit different now. And and also, as as you mature as a company, you do realize that at some point, having people who've had the experience, who've seen some things, can see around some corners, yeah that becomes more helpful. right as well. but But certainly for us in that timeframe at that early stage, that wasn't. there There also was probably a technological aspect where, you know, SaaS was new, the stack was new. And so there was, you know, there was experienced hires elsewhere you could have drawn them, but there wasn't a ton even outside. um Yeah. I think our our sort of philosophy around engineering hiring was if if you were really great at the last thing that you did, you will probably be really great at this.
00:39:55
Speaker
right There's nothing that unique, that difficult to learn and to pick up for somebody who's sort of tremendously talented. And so we looked mostly for tremendously talented people and then they can learn all of the specifics of the stack right um on the job. And that that continues to be our position on yeah bringing in engineering talent.
00:40:14
Speaker
I would just add, there's there there was no outsourcing to anyone else in the organization, right? I mean, Carl did every final round interview for the first few hundred hires, um even as we continue to scale. And I think you know that made a big difference. But it also meant that the executive who was the hiring manager really was going to make sure that this person was great, right? Because, you know, they didn't want to pass that person on to Carl and then have a subpar review come back. And so there was just, again, that that core emphasis from the very beginning, ah because if you have the right people, a lot of the other problems will work themselves out. Yeah.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yeah. I do think that's, Carl, that that was a huge contribution you made here was just keeping the bar so high on talent, you know? And, ah you know, and it meant, you know, waiting on a lot of roles, you know taking a long time. And honestly, you guys didn't use recruiters for a long time at Lucid, right? I mean, it was a long time in the, yeah you guys did a lot of your own, you know, you know, kind of sourcing. And so anyway, just it's a good for people to know that.
00:41:18
Speaker
One other thing I'd say and also about recruiting is um you know, i relatively early on ah when we were about 50 people was the first time that we sort of codified and wrote down our core values as an organization. um It was interesting, actually. We were about 50 employees and ah we're coming up on, you know, university graduation. And so that's like this big wave coming in. Right. And and i think we were going to grow from 50 to nearly 100 in the course of a couple of months. And ah You know, when you're yeah when you're half a dozen people like the culture of the company and who you are. Yeah. Is like the average personality of the half a dozen guys sitting around the ping pong table trying to figure figure out like, what are we doing next? um
00:41:57
Speaker
And if in a year you grow from that to 12 or 15, you know, there's a lot of inertia and everybody's sitting with someone who's part of that that initial nucleus of the team. But if you're going from 50 to 100 in a matter of months, like you can, if you're not really deliberate and careful, lose what it was that made the place special, and made the place winning.
00:42:16
Speaker
And ah so we took a big chunk of the team. i think it was 15, 17 of us. We went off site for a couple of days, actually, to talk through this was like company vision and mission and all of this. But by far, the most important thing that came out of that exercise was our core values. And the core value exercise was not meant as an aspirational exercise. It was meant to be introspective. to look around the room and say, like, you know, who who are we?
00:42:45
Speaker
How are we deciding who to hire? What behaviors are we promoting? And, and you know, that sort of thing. and and and um And so when we wrote down those core values, they immediately rang true to everybody there and to the rest of the company. um And they they felt immediately like they were right. And in fact, they have remained unchanged um from then till now. ah You know, and so these ideas of of teamwork over ego being real and and the way that and operate and you know our belief that
00:43:17
Speaker
passion and excellence are like the flip sides of the same coin that the people who are passion about their job, who dig a little bit of themselves into it, those are the people who are best at their job, right? We believe that. And so in our hiring process, we're looking for people who have passion about the job and the role and the opportunity, believing that those people are going to then deliver really excellent results, right? Anyway, this this set of core values are really central to us. It's a big part of our hiring process. And I think um there's this anti-pattern in recruiting where you look for a culture fit, which is finding somebody who's like me, who like I want to go up beers with. right like I want to find like the guy who like I'm going to pal around with, but that's not...
00:44:05
Speaker
A good culture fit. A good culture fit is someone who shares your core values. And you bring in people from like ah a lot of different backgrounds and different kinds of experiences and bring that power of that diversity into the team. Right. But sharing those core values and beliefs about how to operate, how to be effective and how to, you know, do a great job. Yeah.
00:44:26
Speaker
That's great. and And I think what's um really interesting and powerful for us is, you know, those core values are the same today that they were. um And, ah you know, I think they ring as true today as they ever did. Now, the mission and the vision that came along with that, those have changed multiple times, actually. um And this goes to our earlier conversation about, like, you know, for a long time we were – sort of one step in front of the other and we were sort of a little bit two heads down but it took us a little while um to really see the landscape and see what we could be as a company and the opportunity and where we could fit in that and so I think that vision and that mission has expanded dramatically over the last you know 10 years but those core values are the same yeah and they there's still things that
00:45:18
Speaker
you know As Ben likes to say, you know at this point, they're they're painted on the walls, you know and they are there, but it's more than that. right like It's things that we actually talk about.
Core Values and Team Culture
00:45:28
Speaker
It's things that um we actually recognize in people. like um Every sort of company meeting, there's um a chance for peers to recognize and acknowledge their coworkers who have helped them. We call them fist bump awards. and you know It's all about living those Corvettes. That's awesome. I mean, here's kind of an interesting data point. So I had my LP meeting yesterday, which, you know, thankfully these three are all investors. Now I work for them now. and But what we report back to our LPs and ah two, we had two former lucidites who are really leading companies. These are in in our portfolio doing really well. um
00:46:08
Speaker
And what's cool is they take that culture onto the next company, you know, teamwork over ego, that passion and that, the focus on the details, the focus on you know operational excellence. And um what was what was cool in one of those instances, I matched that person up with this company because I'm like, look, this reminds me of, you know and it's also a PLG company. And was like, this reminds me of the magic you guys had. And what was what was really interesting about this person, who had he had been a CEO at his previous role. He jumped in and kind of like a, call me whatever you want, but I want to be part of this. So I i just think great people do, they are drawn to be with other great people and kind of have that special experience. And yeah, you guys have preserved that. um
00:46:52
Speaker
And, you know, a great example is around the table where, you know, um you know, Ben's got this whole thing going as a, as a project. He's still you know playing a really important role. He's changed hats um a few times, you know but he's still one of the best you know tech technological leaders at Lucid.
00:47:10
Speaker
Still really critical to the AI strategy, among other things. um you know you know part of the Part of the board and all this stuff, but you know change whatever the role is required.
00:47:21
Speaker
Carl, you know, led for a long time, brought in a lot of the team, including Dave, and, you know, and then it decided ah at some point, hey, let's transition. Had been kind of grooming Dave say, hey, let's have him take over at some point.
00:47:33
Speaker
And Dave takes over and, you know, the company feels the same. You know, it feels like... Yeah, this is what always it should have been. So it's it's cool that, and there's been all these, and it'd be interesting to, you know you guys, we've had all these generations of the company, you know, this moment, that moment, this external external thing, but there is a through line of the culture. And I know that's partly what you you all are so passionate about is taking care of these people and this culture that's special. And it's it's beyond Lucid now, which is cool.
00:48:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I think you guys know that, but as an investor, we look for it because we're like, oh, we can win with that. You know, and and it's and it's also a ton of fun, right? It makes it. So anyway, any comments on that? If, yeah you know, how that feels or if you've noticed that?
00:48:19
Speaker
I'll say how it feels. it's it is It is rewarding to see, you know, where the company has gone. But to me, it's the team that has, well, is still here, the people who have passed through and they are doing other interesting things. I mean, that is that is rewarding to see, um you know, how the whole ecosystem has grown and, you know, our our part and yeah and in helping support and seed that.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, you know I remember in the early days, sitting around the the table, the board meeting or whatever, and going, wow, this is this is a bunch of ceo CEOs and CTOs and entrepreneurs that are here. And they many stayed longer than they would stay anywhere else. you know and And then, yeah, it's it's cool what they've gone on to do. So it's one of the great legacies of this company, I think.
00:49:08
Speaker
We certainly hope so. yeah I think if we look forward 10 years, it'll be fun to see it all play out a little bit more. Yeah. Awesome. um Okay, so um let's let's so we're so in the in the Lucid story, let's say you know we've raised money, where we've got to critical mass.
00:49:26
Speaker
you know maybe we just There's so much that's happened. you know you're You're a very large company now. you have 1,000-plus employees. You're all over the world. You have... tens of millions of users. You've got so many enterprise clients.
00:49:38
Speaker
What are some of the key lessons that you would want to leave people with? you know people I'm sure most of our listeners, viewers, use your products, enjoy your products, admire what you've built.
00:49:50
Speaker
What are some of the key lessons that you would share of scaling Lucid, of scaling a team, of scaling yourselves?
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah, you go first, Carl. Yeah.
Balancing Execution and Vision
00:50:03
Speaker
ah I'll say um it's ah it's a balance. It's a combination of, I think, the execution, the operational excellence of, you know, figuring out, hey, what do we need to do in the next three months?
00:50:18
Speaker
How does that come back to the next three weeks? how does it come back to the next three days? And, like, actually focusing on, hey, we all have a job to do. We all need to, like, execute to get there. But balancing that with also the perspective of where you're going. And, you know, I mentioned that for a while we were a little bit more biased towards the first part. yeah I think um as as you scale, as we've scaled, we've realized that. the opportunities in front of us, the capabilities that we have as an organization, as a company, um the technology that has been built up over a long time. um You know, some of the stuff that Ben initially built, the stuff that allowed us to have that great experience in the canvas, that was very new back in 2008, 2009, 2010.
00:51:06
Speaker
But not so much about 2015 or 2016, right? But we were always working on stuff that, you know, positions us, you know, some of the intelligence there um that's setting us up for the next wave and things that we need to do, right? And the the the waves, the trends that are coming. And so I think um it is that balance and always being able to look forward and see, you know, it's it's that mantra of like, you know, going to where, skating to where the puck's going. Yeah, yeah.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's great. ah One thought I would add is just a a lesson for me has been staying in the details yeah um and and being somewhat fanatical about the details. Because I think great companies are built on thousands and thousands or maybe millions of small details happening you know all the time, you know every day, every month, every year.
00:51:56
Speaker
And, you know, for me personally, that started in the early days when I answered every support ticket for a long time and did that for really our first kind of year or two. And then I hired someone, but then I continued to answer some support pick support tickets and then either team continued to grow. And I continued to read them, even if I wasn't responding to all of them. um And so I read every support ticket for our first year.
00:52:20
Speaker
you know five to seven years Wow. and i've done the math it's probably about one hundred thousand support tickets um and for me that was actually really valuable because i'm a quant yeah like i love looking at the data and you know deriving kind of the key insights from that but i was able to pair that with you know the qualitative side that i was hearing every day from users what were they loving about the product what were they not You know, where were the pain points? What was resonating? What features were coming up the most often? And so it allowed me as a leader in the company to be a part of almost any conversation and bring credibility to to it from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. yeah And so that was a big learning for me. And even as we scaled, I no longer read every support ticket. um But I see the best leaders at Lucid tend to still be the ones that are involved in the details. Yeah. because it's hard to fix problems from a 30,000-foot level. yeah You've got to get down to the 30-foot level and understand what's actually happening on the ground floor, what conversations are happening with customers, what is the true user experience. And so it's a hard balance, right, um figuring out you know how do I scale effectively as as an individual, as a team, as a person, but how do we also stay close enough to the details? Yeah.
00:53:34
Speaker
to make sure that the company, the product, the go-to-market motion is operating in the way that we want it to and the way we're that we're proud of. Right. i i I will say that's that's something I've learned, i think, alongside watching you and seeing other companies is that ah leaders that scale often have a bias towards the details longer than people think.
00:53:55
Speaker
And and it it keeps them grounded in the realities of the business in a way that's hard to be if you're not. so i And especially what in the in the in the evolving workflow of AI, it's more possible even than it was and Yeah, i think that's I think that's a superpower that often see, you know, young, or not young teams, but we'll say ah early teams at scale tend to have their grounded in the data and the details of their businesses.
00:54:23
Speaker
Yeah. So I think if you could develop that capability to go from the details and also zoom out to the big picture and then zoom back in. That's right. no I think that's that is a true superpower with teams at scale.
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah. Agreed. And I think that can be a superpower because that's hard. Right. like And I don't think anyone does it better than Dave. Yeah. No, i agree. And I think that's right. I think we should say that like that's a bit of a paradox that we should say. and And I think that's... You know, and I think that, you know, part of that is, you know, I think, Carl, your mentorship of Dave is going to help.
00:54:52
Speaker
But yeah, that is a paradox. But it but ah good leaders have that, you know. So, yeah, I've seen that in my own role also. I mean, I as you say, I've changed hats a number of times over the years, yeah but I continue to I continue to write code. Yeah, no. And I think that being close to it and helping with the architecture and the design and and actually building the thing um keeps me grounded in the process. I mean, we we are a technology company. The thing that we are selling is the technology that we are building. and And so I think it's important at the executive level to have some understanding, real ground understanding of how it works and involvement there so that as we have strategic conversations around technology,
00:55:29
Speaker
you know, what to
Leadership and Technological Direction
00:55:31
Speaker
build and when to build it that I can bring a grounded understanding and position on, you know, how difficult of a thing are we talking about here? what do we have right now that we can leverage to do that faster, right? at yeah and And help to, you know, make better decisions that are that are better informed. Totally. I mean, I think that's on the tech side, this is the same metaphor that I would use for you, Ben, which is that like you have stayed very close to the customer, very close to the product. And you're continuing to lead the cutting edge efforts of the of the company. and you And you've done a great job. And this is, ah ah I think, such good advice for other founders, especially deeply technical founders out there to say, hey, the goal is to win.
00:56:12
Speaker
And so what you want to do is keep your keep your time and energy where you where you it's most best deployed and where you and where you get the most from. right And I think you've done a great job of that. you' saying,
00:56:22
Speaker
I'm going to recruit amazing people along with me. I'm going to trust them and I'm going to be part of the conversation, but I'm going to focus where I'm i'm special and and stay interested after 20 years thereby, right? which went And stay at the cutting edge, which has been awesome. So, um you know, the goal is to win and it and that means that we play different roles at different times. um So anyway.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think of the the other thing I'd add is winning can take a long time. And I think sometimes as a team, you just have to be willing to grind it out Yeah, no, totally. There's times that are harder than others. Obviously, I think you know and in the market today, you hear it was sort of triple, triple, double, double, double. And now that seems like that's last you know last week's news. And now it's you've got to be to $5 million or $50 million within a couple of years. And and there will be a handful of companies that do that. yeah ah But for the vast majority of us building companies,
00:57:12
Speaker
it's It's not going to be always this amazing exponential curve onto the right. um But, you know great effort with a great product, with a great team compounds year after year after year to where you build, hopefully, you know, a legacy and enduring business. hu But, man, it takes a lot of time and work to to do that. It does. It just, yeah, and there's no substitute for that, right? And, you know, the millions of happy cost customers and um you know out there are a big testament of that, right? And now many of those um users that started in, you know, EDU accounts who, you know, fell in love with Lucidchart or LucidSpark, now it's part of their lives. You know, it's pretty amazing. Yeah.
00:57:56
Speaker
The other thing I would say is um as you scale, ah I think a natural state for a company to grow into is that sort of bureaucracy grows over yeah over time yeah as you introduce new rules and new new guardrails around things to make sure that you're not doing things that are hurting your customers or internally. Um, and, uh, it's very easy to use the scale of your company as an excuse for why everything takes forever.
00:58:20
Speaker
Um, but I think that the best companies use the scale as leverage to go faster. Yeah. Um, you know, I look at some of the internal things, I mean, where I'm close to in, in engineering, um, and you know, in, in 2015, uh, the sort of lead time from engineers building a thing to it, showing up to customers was,
00:58:38
Speaker
sometimes three or four weeks between ah the time that you actually made the thing and when you're able to deliver that value. And and now we're doing dozens, maybe hundreds of code releases a day.
00:58:50
Speaker
um so Right. Like over time, like we've built the systems. And instead of saying like, um using, well, now the system is bigger and it's more complicated and therefore we're going to actually slow that down and take more time on QA. Instead, we looked at it and said, how can we take the strengths that we do have, point them at this problem and find ways to go faster? And and um and I think in in basically every meaningful respect, our R&D operation is faster now than it ever has been so and and continues in that direction. I think it's really important to be ah like introspective on that. Like look at your organization, say like, you know, what strengths do we have and how can we use those to go faster?
00:59:32
Speaker
Speed is how you win always. Right. Yeah, it's great. I mean, I think, and I think that's one of the really important aspects of keeping founders involved in a business is that level of urgency and that, and that spirit of reinvention that, you know, really the three of you constantly bring to Lucid, which is that, you know, you're, you're, you're constantly saying, well, okay, is this, is this what, is this, are we, are we where we dream we would be or that our values support or do we need to reinvent something? Any closing thoughts about ah what what you're excited about and and maybe what's what's challenging you know now versus before?
01:00:09
Speaker
mean, that's an interesting way to think about it. I'll go ahead and start. I think you know people always ask, why have you stayed least for 15 years? And i give the same answer as you know I largely did 15 days into the job, ah which was twofold.
01:00:26
Speaker
you know The team, it's a great team. You surround yourself with great people, and everything else just is a lot more fun and a lot more successful, as well as, too, the opportunity to really build something. Yeah.
01:00:38
Speaker
um And so that stays you know as true today as it as it has been for many, many years, Lucid. So that makes me excited about you know what what we're doing. What's interesting about you know some of the maybe challenges or what's different is you know when you're...
01:00:54
Speaker
ah You know, four people in a student apartment or, you know, 50 people ah in ah in a strip mall. It's kind of you versus the world. Right. And you're the underdogs. yeah And and that's that's, you know, can sometimes maybe be us pose a little bit intimidating, but also exciting as you sort of get the opportunity to sort of punch up.
01:01:15
Speaker
yeah um and And then you sort of scale, you know, more into the size that we are. And obviously, you know, we're a lot bigger than we once were. We're a lot smaller than, you know, the greatest software companies in the world. ah But the expectations are high and sort of constant in terms of the next quarter, the next year, the next three to five years. And so it's just a different sort of feeling and that you have to evolve with and and be excited about the underdog stage, you know, as well as the scaled stage yeah and and what's ahead.
01:01:43
Speaker
It's a greats great thought. Yeah. And I think um to Dave's point, you know, I think in some ways it's a little bit more liberating early on because, you know, you can take risks and do crazy things. And if they work out, that's great. That's what's going to let you get somewhere. If it doesn't work, it's not a whole lot lost and you can try something else. Whereas that gets harder as you have a larger team that you're thinking about the organizational inertia and things like that. So it takes time.
01:02:12
Speaker
It takes different leadership styles, different takes a lot more communicating ah both internally um with our employees and also externally with our customers and our users about where we're going. um So companies definitely grow and evolve and change change. It's certainly necessary. um And the company now is not going to be the same as it was. But if those values and the reason that people want to be there because they want to be part of that team, want to be part of building something, I think that is the thread that runs through and that keeps keeps organization thriving.
01:02:47
Speaker
Awesome. but Yeah, I think the the world of software right now is obviously in sort of the middle of a big upheaval. yeah um everything is ah Everything is exciting and ah and new and scary and unknown, right? You you don't know what ah what the sort of world of software looks like in five years. um But I look around at the team that I've got around me here at Lucid, and we are sort of ah we are doing, ah we're doing what you need to do to make sure that you're part of that wave. Right. That like, as the world is changing around us, that that we are part of that future of of where the software world goes. And that's very exciting to me. Right. Yeah. Part of that, to be able to see it and to be able to to run along with it. And so, yeah, it's, it's, ah it's interesting times as they say, but, but I love it.
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, it is very exciting times. And, you know, I i ah joke with some of my companies that, you know, even a scaled up company like Lucid, you have to kind of put the pirate app back on a little bit and, and you know, get back into a little bit of founder mode. And, you know, but there's lot of you know We're still working together, so there's a lot of exciting times ahead. and and um you know yeah so Thanks for all these thoughts. i mean Certainly for Kickstart, this is definitely one of the most important investments we ever made. and it you know Obviously, we wish we'd made it just a little bit sooner, but really glad we bet the butt the firm on it. It turns out it was a great... We have ah we have a special wall out here. i was We were just sitting by before we started called the Dragon Wall, and Lucid is featured prominently on there with a gold coin next to the dragon. I'd just love to get your thoughts on
Lucid's Role in Utah's Tech Ecosystem
01:04:30
Speaker
on the future of Utah now that you you have been a big part of really helping Utah get to the next stage of SaaS companies, technology companies, technology ecosystem. what do you you know How does it feel now versus when you really you know started Lucid and got going? and yeah What do you see?
01:04:51
Speaker
I would say i'm I'm very bullish. I'm all in on Utah. And, you know, obviously we've come a long way. Yeah. um You know, since we first started when there were just a few companies coming, you know, out from under the covers and a little bit of funding, you know, here and there, not as deep of a bench of talent. But now, you know, we've gone through, I think, a couple of cycles. There's amazing talent here. I think both entry level and, you know, more experienced. um I think you've got a whole host of great companies, you know, that that have the opportunity to break out. And so I think super optimistic looking forward. I think there may be a little bit of the same yeah you know opportunity for when we were in that room 10 years ago saying, what's our opportunity, right? yeah well And I think yeah you know collectively as an ecosystem, I think we can...
01:05:38
Speaker
you know, look a little bit higher yeah and aim a little bit higher at how big of an opportunity there is for the ecosystem. yeah And I also hope it maintains as a really strong ecosystem. yeah ah Because as it gets a little bit bigger, you don't know everyone quite as well. You don't know every company yeah that's in the space and all those sort of things. But I hope we maintain that sort of social fabric together because I think that's one of the things that's made ah the Utah ecosystem great from a tech perspective. And I think it's one of the things that will continue to be essential looking forward. Yeah, I love that. I think Utah is ah as as its own startup is a great metaphor. And the same challenge we've talked about with scaling for that, I think is is is excellent. And I love the, I think that's really right, which is like, what's possible?
01:06:23
Speaker
We have all these, you know, billion dollar software companies, you know, can we have so software companies that have tens of thousands of employees and, you know, tens of billions of market cap Why not? Right.
01:06:34
Speaker
You know, we were all struggling, like, can we get something to a billion? You know, is that possible? We hope it is. And we've blown through that. Right. Collectively. So why not? Yeah, and I would say so much ah feels different in in a better way. Like, you know, I talked about the early struggles that we had, you know, trying to find our footing, trying to find funding. um Obviously, that has changed the number of entrepreneurs with just great ideas, the number of the amount of support infrastructure, like different accelerator sandbox programs is amazing.
01:07:07
Speaker
um But at the same time, it is it does feel like a great community, right? It's still um personal enough that I think there's a lot of personal connection, people wanting to help each other. yeah I think that is still very much defines where we are. And and um i I do hope that that's the way it will continue, to Dave's point, that it's an ecosystem where we support each other. And I i think um we're well on the path to doing that, right? yeah like And I think that's what makes this a special place. Yeah. And I think you guys are a great example, right? It's like you're, you're investing, you you yeah guys spend a lot of time mentoring other entrepreneurs. You invest in local funds, you're, you know, so where you're really paying it forward and the team Utah kind of spirit is awesome, you know, and we're, we invest other places and it's, it's, it's hard to have that same, um you know, kind of vibe, you know, but definitely exists here.
01:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, Utah is is different than other places. yeah And I think it's okay. And I think yeah that we should ah hold on to that. yeah I mean, we should play to our strengths. yeah I mean, you know we talk about our own core values sort of holding steady and being this this center of gravity of the way that we operate and do business. And I think that Utah has this culture that we you know we're we're very sort of family oriented. And then there's people here love the outdoors. There's there's this these great local universities that, again, each sort of have their own personality. And I think that all of that together, that makes Utah what is Utah, yeah right? ah Us, the people who are here. And I think it's okay to lean into that and and to, ah you know, ah focus on our strengths, do the things that we're good at and like use that to our advantage. Yeah, I love that.
01:08:49
Speaker
It's great way to end. Yeah. Thank you, Gavin, for support. All the supports we got. Yeah, you bet. Thank you, guys. well i mean you you know We're not recording anymore, Carl. You can stop the brown notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.