You Need to Believe In the Product or Service You’re Selling: Interview with Chris Pantaenius, Co-Founder and CEO of Onspring Technologies
I recently went one-on-one with Chris Pantaenius, co-founder and CEO of Onspring Technologies.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Chris: The combination of my upbringing and my work experience has gotten me to where I am today. I grew up as a small-town, midwestern kid and was fortunate to see how parents and grandparents ran businesses and treated others in the community. My grandfather sold insurance, owned rental properties, and always treated people well. He was hardworking, honest, fair, and highly respected in his community. At an early age, I knew I wanted to be like him in whatever profession I chose later in life.
While I had the opportunity to work in family-owned small businesses since the age of 12, it wasn’t until post-graduate school that I began my career in the software industry at Deloitte Consulting. I started as a Sr. Consultant working on implementations in Oracle and found the work to be both fun and challenging. I loved the problem-solving aspects of the job, as well as working with the different companies, industries, and people we served. It was an amazing time as I didn’t just focus on the product; I worked directly with the organizations to better understand their specific needs. I then could work with my teams to deliver value, and that had a significant impact on me.
From there, I moved to my next role in sales operations with Cerner Corporation, a healthcare software company, and then my next position with Archer Technologies, where I was introduced to the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) market we serve today. There, I also met a small yet incredibly talented group of people, including Chad Kreimendahl — who would later become my cofounder and co-CEO. While at Archer, we formed a bond and friendship over shared interests in software and entrepreneurship. While the company was acquired four years later, if Chad and I never met there, Onspring would not exist today.
The best part of my job then was deploying software solutions that enabled our clients to better serve their customers. This still holds true today in my position as Co-CEO/Founder at Onspring Technologies.
Adam: What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Chris: It’s not a happy topic, but I lost a parent at an early age. My father passed away when I was 10, and my mother raised us as a single mom for a few years with support from grandparents before remarrying. She worked hard as a schoolteacher, continued to raise us, and even gave her time to others. My grandparents were wonderful people, too. I remember my grandfather taking us to school, telling stories on the way, and constantly imparting some wisdom. All of this left a significant impression on me. It showed me that everyone goes through hard times, but the pain can be overcome with love, a little effort, and rallying around one another.
Another common challenge people run into (and that I almost fell victim to) is “finding the right time to start a business.” I’m here to say the stars rarely align. You just have to start – and MAKE it work. When I left Archer to start Onspring, we were not sitting on a pile of money. We had all the same things most people do — monthly bills, a mortgage, car payments, three kids, and another soon on the way. Failing meant we’d be in worse financial shape, and I’d be out job-hunting again. But I remember thinking what would be worse would be seeing someone else living out our ideas or waking up at age 50 and wondering what could have been. For me, I just had to find out. And maybe it was hubris or mild insanity, but I did believe in the business from the beginning. I knew we would make it.
Adam: How did you come up with your business idea and know it was worth pursuing?
Chris: A lot comes down to timing – Chad and I were fortunate to have met at a time when we both were chasing entrepreneurial dreams. We both have a love of software, and at the time, around 2010, we began brainstorming ways in which we could make life easier, more efficient, and more productive for businesses. In addition to enterprise software, mobile apps were big at the time. We wanted to help companies of all sizes manage vendor relationships and contracts in a new way with better performance, reporting, and ease of use. We had about 25 ideas but landed on plans to build a contract management point solution. After about six months into our new venture, it became apparent that companies would not want to manage contracts in the same way. They each have unique workflow and reporting requirements. And so there we were — now creating a highly configurable platform that could support any business process. Of course, we knew this was more difficult, but it would be worth doing, as companies were already purchasing products in this space. We felt the incumbents seemed dated, however, and ready for some fresh competition. We also had key features not offered by anyone else then, which was exciting.
Together, we developed a customizable software solution and platform that married the benefits of cybersecurity, governance, risk management, and compliance. At the time, the industry was still new — and organizations — of all sizes — needed these solutions. We were an incredibly agile team. This is how Onspring was born.
Adam: What advice do you have for others on how to come up with and test business ideas?
Chris:
Get in front of customers. You must know your market. Don’t just build it and hope they come. That only works in the movie, “The Natural.”
Stay focused. Focus on the one or two (1 or 2) things that you can do better than your competitors. Anything beyond three is too much and will only spread you out too thin. So, drill down deep on what makes you amazing, and then get customer feedback and take it to the next level.
Go out on your own. Do as much of your early development and homework using your own funds. You will learn a ton, you won’t waste investors’ time, and you’ll be in an overall better position to negotiate should investment be something you want to pursue later. I also believe there’s value in these austere years. You’ll do a better job managing a budget, and last I checked, running a business in the black is still pretty cool.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business?
Chris:
Be Customer-Focused. They will tell you what you are getting right and what you are getting wrong if you only take the time to listen.
Hire Great People. Hire people who are better at things than you, and then help them find opportunities to do their best work.
Treat People Well. Treat both groups — your customers and employees — very well. Happy customers and happy employees do not exist without one another.
Innovate and Adapt. Be ready to innovate and adapt. It doesn’t matter what your business or industry is; it’s just not enough to be “good” or “okay” at something. You must be remarkable. There’s so much competition in everything. If you go to a restaurant and have an okay experience—it’s not bad, but it’s not great either — are you returning? No. There are too many other options out there.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
Chris:
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. For sales, you must constantly put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Try to be an empathic problem-solver. Think about what problems you solve for them. Do you have an actual solution? Maybe ask, would you buy from you?
Believe in What You Sell. Persuasion has real power, but you need to believe in the product or service you’re selling. Whether you do or don’t, it will show.
Metrics Matters. For sales and marketing, it’s important to start tracking metrics on day one. Whether you’re concerned about click-through rates, SEO, lead generation at industry events, or whatever it is, track your spending and results. If you do that, your return on investment (ROI) will improve.
Be Predictable and Experimental. Regarding your marketing budget, I’d recommend doing 75-80% of what you know works and 20-25% experimentation.
Network, Network, Network. I’m a big fan of hosting groups or events that unite customers – user summits and the like. This is a critical element as your business begins to grow. It provides valuable networking opportunities, camaraderie around your product or service, and valuable feedback into your future product roadmap if you're listening. Software is still a people business.
Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand?
Chris: Efficiency is always in style when it comes to enterprise software. Everyone is trying to do more with less, and resources are finite. While technology constantly improves and evolves, anything that drives productivity will be welcomed. We set out to do this in process automation when we first started, and now, we are doing so with artificial intelligence (AI). We’re taking big swings again as we build several value-added AI features into the Onspring platform. As a product company, we’re never done – we are always working on new ways to enable our customers to achieve outsized success.
In our space, specifically, we see GRC professionals faced with managing an ever-complex world that is generating more data, processes, cybersecurity threats, needs for privacy, risk mitigation, and demonstration of regulatory compliance and, often, with a small set of resources. On top of this, AI is another tool that businesses will need to manage in the right way. We are in a great place to offer solutions that address this need.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader?
Chris: An effective leader should be able to think critically, problem-solve, be humble, and learn from mistakes. No one is born with all the answers, so you must be a lifelong learner and adapt as needed. One must also have strong communication skills. You can’t do everything yourself, nor should you, but you must use your communication skills to inspire others to do their best work.
It’s also important to be trustworthy, accountable, and lead by example. Leading by example is one of the best ways to do the right thing yourself and inspire others to go and do likewise.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
Chris: Don’t seek all the glory yourself; instead, help people on your team be the best versions of themselves. If you can do that, you’ll get plenty of glory.
One of the ways I try to do this is by helping people align with their “fish in water” skills. They’re happier, and they go farther. It’s much easier to add a new team member with the skills you’re missing than to ask someone to change or set aside their innate talents. And, if you can do that for others, you’ll also have one of the most loyal and hardworking teams you can find.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Chris: Leave things better than you found them.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Chris: Yes, if you’ve dreamed of being an entrepreneur, just start. You can talk yourself out of anything, but to have success, you need to start. Start planning, start building, and start doing. If you make a mistake, it’s okay. Just course-correct and keep moving forward. Nothing happens on the sidelines.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one-on-one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
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