Episode 8: Andrew Lau, Jellyfish

Second Acts with Krish Subramanian

In this episode of Second Acts, Krish is joined by Jellyfish’s co-founder and CEO, Andrew Lau.

Andrew begins the conversation with a modest admission: "Part of this is the entrepreneurial journey, probably a little impostor syndrome (we’re not done yet)... it’s hard to draw a line or make declarations around things definitively working or not. But I’m excited to share what we’ve done if that’s helpful for others to learn from along the way."

But, with stints at Microsoft and IBM in the late 90s, being an engineering leader at a startup (Endeca) that turned into a billion-dollar exit, and multiple ventures of his own under his belt, Andrew's discerning lessons cut across different eras of SaaS.

He revisits standard “binaries” (PLG vs enterprise, saturated vs white-space categories, and founders vs markets) and illustrates how a nuanced understanding of each of those and 25 years of common context with his co-founders have helped shape Jellyfish’s scaling path.

—

Chapters:

(02:50) “We’re not done yet”

(03:18) An introduction to Jellyfish

(05:02) Why startups are the by-products of founders’ experiences

(07:09) How Andrew and his co-founders arrived at Jellyfish’s core thesis and values with 25 years of shared context

(16:17) The quiet, services-mindset-informed early years of Jellyfish

(21:59) Choosing a GTM motion — why they decided against both an SMB-first, PLG play and a seven-figure, enterprise play

(27:59) The foundations that allowed Jellyfish to accelerate during the pandemic

(29:39) Creating a category vs picking a mature market — “People think that something like Salesforce is preordained, it’s not”

(33:45) Figuring go-to-market operations as technical founders

(39:53) Managing reserves of capital and patience to address the inherent unpredictability of markets

(46:15) Understanding central forecasting levers as a way to unlock next acts of growth

—

Mentioned/Resources:

Jellyfish aims to ‘do for engineering what Salesforce did for sales’

Navigating 2024: Engineering management principles to tackle the unknowns & challenges ahead

How to Translate Engineering to the CEO

MGMT Boston - The Endeca Effect - Special Report (1/5)

—

Connect with Andrew:

LinkedIn

Connect with Krish:

LinkedIn

X

—

Chargebee is a revenue growth management platform that helps thousands of subscription businesses unlock second acts of scale with transformative billing, monetization, and retention infra. Learn more.