Sometimes, things work out.

Just over four years ago, we decided to rebuild ThoughtSpot as a cloud company. In February of 2021, we formally launched ThoughtSpot Cloud, our SaaS business. Today, we announced we are crossing $150MM in ARR - one of the fastest growth stories from $0-$150M in Enterprise Software.

Here are a few lessons, thoughts, and reflections.

1. No gray area: It was an all-or-nothing proposition when we decided to leave on-prem behind and be a cloud company. Two years out, now only a single-digit percentage of our ARR comes from on-prem customers, and we will take them to the cloud soon.

Like harmful bacteria thriving in moist conditions, mis-execution and politics thrive in the gray area between clear decisions.

2. Self-doubt is part of the game: It was unclear if we could win new customers while dropping most of our on-prem customers. There was no objective reasoning behind our confidence that we could win net new customers in the cloud. But, we had faith in the solution and believed in the value of the problem we were solving for our customers. Today, over 90% of our customers landed first on our cloud.

Conviction before clarity is the norm in entrepreneurship, not the exception.

3. Never let short-term greed force your decisions: We knew we could solve an essential piece of the puzzle for our customers, but we also knew the customers needed the entire puzzle to be solved. Partnership in enterprise software is murky. Most partners want to enter your business or work with your competitors. If a technology partnership started working well, your own engineering team would start making noise about building that capability inside instead of partnering. If we optimize the relationship by focusing inwards, nothing of value would be created for customers in time. We choose to focus on the customer's point of view. Does Snowflake + ThoughtSpot work better in these three areas for our customers than Snowflake + Tableau ? Let's focus on them. Is Databricks delivering superior solutions for a vertical while competing with Snowflake? Can we treat both companies respectfully, clearly, and fairly while doing right for the customers? Let's do that.

Today's clarity is more important than tomorrow's potential conflicts.

4. Be authentic in humility and confidence: Working with smaller or larger companies, be exactly the same. Show up on time, be the fastest to respond to emails, be flexible on time zones, clearly communicate roadmap timelines, assume the best intent on behalf of the other party, over-communicate, overshare, and only share positive news about the partners when talking to customers. However, be confident in pushing back, holding the line, or walking away, no matter the size of the partner or customer.

Good days will end, and so will bad days. Place your confidence in things that don't waver.

5. Bring as many builders as possible inside the company and create space for them to thrive: We brought tech and talent from multiple companies, including Diyotta, SeekWell | a ThoughtSpot company , SagasIT Analytics Pvt. Ltd. , and recently Mode . All these companies brought new and better people, processes, tech, and ideas to Thoughtspot.

A culture that can't accommodate differing points of view is doomed to fail.

6. Move fast or die slowly: 80% of the best part of the decision is codified in the first attempt to solve the problem, which could take a few hours or a couple of days. Waiting, processing, and discussing past that point may improve the quality of the decision. Still, the return on that investment is worse than acting on the 80% solidified decision and improving it iteratively.

To improve is to change; to perfect is to change constantly.

7. Glass will never look half full: I constantly wonder why we are so bad at celebrating our wins. Won't the company be better off if we paused, reflected, and celebrated more? We are innately programmed to see everything that could be better and always think about the next thing to build or fix. This makes the work environment more stressful, but we are unsatisfied with the status quo. In our mind, what we build fast becomes the status quo. So, we have to build more.

To see perfection is to finish. To chase perfection is to build.

8. Gratitude is the fuel: Whenever I am confused, I focus on people around me, which makes me grateful. Ajeet Singh and Amit Prakash are always one text away to point me in the right direction. Or Ali Ghodsi or Frank Slootman , who would drop a short (or, sometimes, in the case of Ali, long) list of wisdom so operational and applicable. Sumeet Arora never sleeps and answers my questions; Cindi Howson knows everyone and everything in the BI industry; Mohit Daswani is always calm and insightful; Emma Robinson has an unlimited capacity to ideate and execute them; and now people like Gaurav Rewari , Srikant Gokulnatha , Benn Stancil , and Jeff Depa with much more experience building companies than me. I am incredibly grateful for Andrea C. Frisk 's Slack messages advocating for customers, or customers like Manish Varma , Jason Latta , or Joe Kane , who guide us momentarily when we lose our way.

Gratitude is the most underestimated motivator.

Enough of that, now back to work.