Jack Altman & Miles Grimshaw - Building and Investing in Lattice - [Invest Like the Best, EP.345]

My guests today are Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw. Jack is the co-founder and CEO of Lattice, an HR software platform. Miles is a General Partner at Benchmark, an early investor and Board Director at Lattice, as well as a former guest on Invest Like the Best. Jack started Lattice in 2015 and has scaled it into a multi-billion-dollar business that already serves over 5,000 organizations. In our discussion, we look at all aspects of building and scaling a software product from both an investor and operator’s perspective, which made this particularly fun to do. Please enjoy my conversation with Jack Altman and Miles Grimshaw.

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For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.

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Show Notes
(00:02:55) - (First question) - How Jack & Miles met at Y Combinator in 2015
(00:04:22) - Lattice found a niche in mid-market HR software
(00:07:55) - Discovering Lattice's true market need
(00:11:14) - Fear of stalling drove the need for business growth beyond initial product
(00:12:06) - Deciding on multi-product focus over up-market expansion
(00:17:01) - Prioritizing quality of usage over frequency for customer health scores
(00:20:06) - Balancing customer health scores and actual needs
(00:24:31) - Prioritized community by spotlighting HR voices
(00:28:20) - Building community helps companies sell a vision or lifestyle
(00:31:05) - Cultivating broad awareness instead of hard-selling
(00:35:33) - Overcoming the culture of 'perfection’
(00:37:22) - Flywheel effect makes suites efficient: lower go-to-market costs, more focus on product
(00:41:06) - The challenges of juggling current needs and future demands
(00:46:27) - Navigating disagreements and trust-building within a company
(00:50:36) - Investors' roles extend beyond founders, focusing on their own goals and interests
(00:51:52) - How transparency eases the founder-investor dance
(00:55:16) - The changing employer-employee relationship
(00:58:37) - Navigating growth from startup to public equity
(01:05:43) - Lattice's ultimate aspiration
(01:07:42) - Evaluating founders' authenticity
(01:11:18) - What Jack & Miles are most embarrassed about, the most proud of, and the most excited for
(01:14:30) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for Jack and Miles