Perx Technologies’ Anna Gong on Gamifying Customer Loyalty

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:04
Ben Hillman
Do you remember Flappy Bird? For those of you that don't. Flappy Bird was a mobile game released in May of 2013. Its gameplay was pretty basic. A bird named Fabio moved to the right of the screen automatically. Your job was to avoid the pairs of pipes with equally sized gaps and varying heights. Fabi would automatically descend and only ascend when you touched the screen.

00:00:23:12 - 00:00:51:00
Ben Hillman
The more pipes you avoided, the more points you would get. And if you collided with pipes came over. Was it fun? Well, it generated 50 million downloads by January of 2014, topping Android and iOS stores. However, the phenomenon was short lived and it was taken down from Apple's App Store and Google Play under mysterious circumstances. Some say it was due to copyright infringement.

00:00:51:01 - 00:01:13:02
Ben Hillman
Others say it was because the creator wasn't enthused by its addicting nature. I'm by no means suggesting that you go out and get your customers hopelessly addicted to a game that they cannot put down. There's definitely lines we want to draw here. However, let's look at this gamification, because it's an interesting example of what you can do with your customer base.

00:01:13:23 - 00:01:39:16
Ben Hillman
Today's guest Anna Gong founded Perx Technologies in 2014 and is currently their CEO and sat down with Neel Desai at SaaStock 2022 to discuss, among other things, how gamification and game theory can drive customer loyalty, even in enterprise SaaS. And don't worry if you're concerned that gamifying customer loyalty results in shallow customer engagement, there's a way to use it for good.

00:01:41:01 - 00:02:08:00
Ben Hillman
From Paddle, it's Protect the Hustle, where we explore the truth behind the strategy and tactics of B2B SaaS growth to make you an outstanding operator. On today's episode, anti-gang dives deep on gamifying customer loyalty. We talk about embracing local culture while introducing innovation, using game theory to drive customer loyalty. Augmenting enterprise with a plug motion the benefits of having a chip on your shoulder and the pitfalls you want to avoid.

00:02:08:00 - 00:02:24:00
Ben Hillman
But game theory. After you finish the episode, check out the show notes for an in-depth field guide focused on what we go over. Then, when you leave your five star review, tell us what game you were most obsessed with.

00:02:26:04 - 00:02:32:18
Ben Hillman
First up, Neill and Anna talk about embracing local culture while introducing innovation.

00:02:34:03 - 00:02:35:19
Neel Desai
Anna, welcome. Thanks for being here.

00:02:35:20 - 00:02:36:13
Anna Gong
Thank you, Neal.

00:02:36:14 - 00:02:56:00
Neel Desai
Welcome to Protect the Hustle. We're here at SA Stock 2022 and I'm excited to chat with you on a number of axes today. Your background transition from the Bay Area to Asia, PSG, Enterprise, SaaS and a number of other things. But just to kick us off, like I'd love to learn a little bit more about your background, how Gia, how did you kind of get to where you are now and we'll go from there, so.

00:02:56:00 - 00:02:56:06
Neel Desai
Yeah.

00:02:56:14 - 00:03:20:08
Anna Gong
Yeah, Well, thanks. So my background is not very complicated, but it's a very unique journey to myself. I grew up in Florida, went to San Francisco and spent probably a dozen years there in my career, really hitting the startup ecosystem for startups in the Bay Area, and three failed miserably. We were part of mainly pioneering teams growing, you know, very enterprise type of software solutions.

00:03:20:08 - 00:03:40:20
Anna Gong
And then one of them actually exited very successfully and we pioneered the whole APM space. Why these technologies? And when I actually moved out to Asia, because the technologies who acquired us asked me to go bail out some of the, you know, territories that weren't growing. And so they and they immediately sent me to Japan. And I stay there for a couple of years.

00:03:40:20 - 00:03:52:23
Anna Gong
And I came back to Singapore for the next few years and I decided I am not really getting as much out of it, the big companies versus the startup ecosystem. So I went back to the startup and here I am.

00:03:53:06 - 00:04:06:20
Neel Desai
In some ways like unsurprising, right, given given your where you started and I guess just your interest. What was the transition like? Barry A culture very, very different than Japan, very different than Asia or emerging markets. Like what was that transition like? How it how did you go about that.

00:04:07:03 - 00:04:30:23
Anna Gong
While I was guns blazing American like brashness coming into Asia, I'm going to bring Silicon Valley to Singapore. Well, what you know, that was so such a wake up call when it didn't work out very much, a hybrid model where they embrace it. But Asia is still very behind in terms of, you know, the whole thought leadership and certain innovation.

00:04:30:23 - 00:04:55:14
Anna Gong
I've always been on the deep tech side and this company that I'm running today, it's a marketing solution and very focused on the front line and monetization and business models versus I.T. You know, operational heavy. And so my thinking when, when I was going out there was how do I start a company where I have no relationships, you know, how do you sell to a ecosystem that you never sold before?

00:04:55:17 - 00:04:59:08
Anna Gong
And that was a, you know, great learning for me and the team as well.

00:04:59:16 - 00:05:05:08
Neel Desai
What was the genesis of like, when did they hit you that you had something to actually build on? Like what? What was that moment like?

00:05:05:13 - 00:05:30:07
Anna Gong
Well, I was seen yesterday at the scale stage where when I was looking for a product market fit for the company, the first 20 logos I actually sold to Westerners. There were Western run, you know, companies or the CTOs Western or they're Western educated. They understand what leading edge cutting edge technologies, automation, innovation, and they really want to adopt that.

00:05:30:07 - 00:05:47:12
Anna Gong
And they themselves are trying to move a internal movement to transform those companies in Asia where there is a global financial institution or a local bank or a telco, they are going in there trying to disrupt themselves and their teams. And so most of the logos I sold to were to Western guys.

00:05:47:12 - 00:05:59:00
Neel Desai
That's funny. And that and then you kind of have to translate that right to the sales process and the adoption that the local market in Singapore had, Right? Yeah. Tell us about like what the company does and that they are who you are. Your customers typically are.

00:05:59:06 - 00:06:25:19
Anna Gong
Well, when I say that we're a customer engagement and loyalty platform is so unsexy. The VCs love hearing behavioral intelligence and marketing platform, but essentially we're using advanced automation and game theory to drive user behavior for first party data. So most of our clients are large financial institutions, insurance, banking, fintechs, telcos, whatnot. And we're actually sitting in front of the center and their own core business apps.

00:06:25:19 - 00:06:35:18
Anna Gong
And, you know, how do we help them drive and monetize on user behavior and customer actions? And they own the data rather than going to the external channels to acquire those.

00:06:39:01 - 00:06:46:07
Ben Hillman
Next And it talks about using game theory to drive customer loyalty.

00:06:46:07 - 00:07:00:18
Neel Desai
I find that facet. I haven't thought about game theory since my econ course back in my undergraduate studies. Tell me about what does that how does it play out in terms of like an actual customer journey, right? How do you use game theory to actually drive customer loyalty?

00:07:00:20 - 00:07:23:23
Anna Gong
So a lot of businesses have been investing in heavily on CAK right customer acquisition, but there are a lot of drop offs, massive churn going to, you know, what you guys are focusing on, but how do I drive it? 30, 60, 90 day. Let's say if I'm a fintech from acquisition to activation to the whole onboarding and engagement, because most of the time we focus on acquisition and then we punt it over to a different team.

00:07:23:23 - 00:07:27:03
Anna Gong
If I acquire this group now, use your turn to monetize.

00:07:27:03 - 00:07:27:15
Neel Desai
You take care.

00:07:27:15 - 00:07:52:11
Anna Gong
Of it. Yeah, Yeah. And so if you're actually owning the entire platform as a product owner, your metrics are everything from, you know, start to finish. And so a lot of product owners come to us by asking us to solve that entire customer experience and the whole journey, chaining multiple actions and do a singular campaign that means, you know, and also today in the mobile first economy, many users want instant gratification.

00:07:52:11 - 00:08:15:11
Anna Gong
They don't want to earn a series of points. It's not like airlines or hospitality. If you're frequently interacting with a brand, you should be instantly gratify and reward it for doing so. So we use a lot of, you know, the traditional game theory types of mechanics like leader boarding, badging, teaming, driving, social morality, all sorts of different layers of quests, missions.

00:08:15:11 - 00:08:44:17
Anna Gong
And how do you also couple that with mindless games and then how do you actually create that whole challenging effort to achieve a certain purpose or a meaning for what you've done yourselves? Because a lot of times I think mostly users, they it's not about the reward and this is what brands mistake mistaken. You know how to engage customers is all dangled as expensive you know promo or the voucher and then you take that voucher and you go away or you take that cash back and you go away.

00:08:44:22 - 00:08:51:11
Anna Gong
We're trying to continuously engage customers so that they keep on coming back and feel relevant for engaging with that brand.

00:08:51:20 - 00:09:07:19
Neel Desai
I think that's a really interesting point because if I'm engaging with my bank or my telecom, right, I'm not really in it for the badge or the reward. I'm in it to get something done. Yeah, Yeah. So to your point is like, how do we leverage those mechanics to actually help the user get value from purpose of the product in the first place?

00:09:07:19 - 00:09:29:16
Anna Gong
Right. Right. And even like, you know, covered most of the brands, but let's stop, you know, pushing our customers to spend one that you know it a high default rate and debt collection is also a challenge. Why don't we actually pivot our entire campaign to increase financial literacy, increase while savings. So how do you drive user behavior around that?

00:09:29:22 - 00:09:50:23
Anna Gong
And then how do you drive positive user behavior for timely repayment? So it's not just about spend. And we were kind of, you know, confused about driving user behavior for always spend, spend, spend. But for most brands, you can actually use all sorts of creatives to think about what does it mean to solve certain business challenges?

00:09:50:23 - 00:09:58:23
Ben Hillman
And now Anna and Neil discuss augmenting enterprise with a PLG motion.

00:09:58:23 - 00:10:11:07
Neel Desai
I understand your customers are these large enterprise telecom banks. Others. Right. Walk me through like what the sales motion looks like. I mean, it's largely self-serve or sales assisted to date, right? How is that going and how are you guys thinking about your go to market?

00:10:11:07 - 00:10:36:19
Anna Gong
So, you know, when we were saying that we're growing one or two X, it's not the hockey stick that you normally see from a blitz scaling culture. We you know, enterprises long sales cycle it's very sales led is expensive but it's quite sticky. You know churn for us is low high value, low churn also low volume. At the same time when we were looking at it, how do we create sustainability for the business and also predictability?

00:10:36:19 - 00:10:58:07
Anna Gong
We need a lot more leading indicators for what our user adoption usage patterns and behavior ourselves, but at the same time do it at scale. And we're now getting so many digital natives coming in organically asking for how do I saw my, you know, customer behavior problem, customer experience, I want your gamification platform and they're too small for my expensive reps to, you know, serve them.

00:10:58:07 - 00:11:07:09
Anna Gong
So we have a queue of now, you know, 50 to 100 digital natives just lining up for the beta program. And so we're launching a parallel initiative to enable. Now PLG.

00:11:07:09 - 00:11:25:06
Neel Desai
I think this is really interesting because I think a lot of these companies that have found product market fit in the enterprise, right, also noticed demand on the lower end of the market. Right. And so tell me about who like when you initially introduce this idea of building a parallel, you go to market motion. How did the team take that?

00:11:25:06 - 00:11:34:11
Neel Desai
Like it's not an easy or small thing to go about, right? This trend, I'm super fascinated by companies that transition from this enterprise and augmenting that with the P&G motion. How did that go down?

00:11:34:15 - 00:11:59:13
Anna Gong
Yeah, so we we talked a lot about it last year and only a certain business unit was so excited. And to rally the team across you need a PLG organization, right? And not just the product. That culture has to be there. And so we hired a new chief product technology officer who was really evangelizing across the organization from a very business led approach and really getting the team excited.

00:11:59:13 - 00:12:14:15
Anna Gong
So now the whole organization is rallying behind this initiative. I don't see one person that is actually pushing back by saying this is not going to work. And even some of our enterprise sales guys are saying we're we're super excited because it's giving us a lot more funnel. So that's positive through and through.

00:12:14:21 - 00:12:32:23
Neel Desai
I think the thing you mentioned that it's not just one team, right? And I think this is the inborn part is like it's really in the DNA of an entire company because it touches the entire entire company. Everyone needs to play their part. And how did you guys think about the allocation of resources? Because you you have these enterprise folks to sell to and maintain and keep happy.

00:12:32:23 - 00:12:35:23
Neel Desai
How do you balance these to at one time?

00:12:36:04 - 00:12:56:02
Anna Gong
Yeah, so that is an interesting question. So the teams will be very different terms of more insight sales approach and customer success on the PLG and just volume play. Right? And we're going to also experience a lot of churn. You know, Patrick said that a thousand or a 10,000 times just a pick up, but for the Enterprise guys, they're busy.

00:12:56:02 - 00:13:14:11
Anna Gong
Also expanding the existing accounts like one or two are. Our accounts should be $1000000 to $5 million HCV or are contracts and we have barely touched a surface. So there's a lot for them to already do. While we're embarking on this new initiative, we will focus on really top of the funnel and a B testing a lot of our assumptions.

00:13:14:11 - 00:13:34:08
Neel Desai
I love that. Yeah, I think to your point, it's not zero sum. Like you can grow both, right? And ultimately you have to figure out the way to incentivize the team to drive those. But that's, those are all things that you can solve for right? How are you guys thinking about? So from a, from a product perspective, the things that these enterprise folks want is probably also different than the POG, but the blogs unproven, yet the unit economics are very different.

00:13:34:08 - 00:13:54:23
Neel Desai
Are you are you how are you thinking about the future of the product specifically like where you invest in from here out? Is it is it just you got to do both? Is is it that simple or how do you how do you prioritize a product person? This is something I'm interested in because I'm constantly torn between right building for the low end, but then scaling that out there versus my one or two really big enterprise ones that I'm on the hook for.

00:13:54:23 - 00:13:59:01
Neel Desai
Like how, how do you yeah, how do you give that product team that, that, that direction?

00:13:59:02 - 00:14:17:22
Anna Gong
So this is interesting because my entire career has been in enterprise software, so I, I can probably do this in my sleep. Not really, but still very challenging. But when you look at doing it the hard way and building an enterprise fast company and then going downstream to mass market, it's a completely antithesis of what most companies do.

00:14:17:22 - 00:14:44:08
Anna Gong
And so when we looked at this, a lot of people were saying rarely do they succeed, even investors. So we're we're going to prove them wrong, because I think there's a mass market in the mid-market, as well as the SMEs that are looking for even in Latin America, like we're getting inbound activity from that. They want a specific use case that is not being solved by the traditional loyalty or martech sending emails type of solution.

00:14:44:08 - 00:15:03:02
Anna Gong
They really need to drive user behavior. How do you do that beyond that one off expensive promo or one off click through? And brands are seeking for monetization now more than the, you know, the the hype market when it was very heavy on cash and acquisition and top of the funnel now was about how do you drive revenue per active customer.

00:15:03:10 - 00:15:24:20
Neel Desai
I think what what I've been thinking about is like our industry is getting slowly but more mature in really trying to do this in authentic ways, right? We're not just shoving discounts. We realize that acquiring low affinity customers isn't going to lead to high retention. Where do you see this going in 5 to 10 years? As as as data becomes easier to access, first party data becomes easier to access.

00:15:25:04 - 00:15:38:20
Neel Desai
And at some point, right, you need to attract high quality, retain, retain these customers. What are you seeing in the industry when it comes to like the sophistication around how brands are actually thinking about engaging their customers over the entire lifecycle?

00:15:39:09 - 00:16:03:15
Anna Gong
So most of the customers that we are working with, they are also, you know, challenge with how to use a tool or a platform. And many of our competitors are very focused on API driven solutions and technology oriented. If I give you a tool, what are you going to do with it? So it's just an enabler. I think the IP comes down to your creativity, your content and your business model.

00:16:03:20 - 00:16:23:21
Anna Gong
And so we as we see that by the the same way we're actually, you know, saying this for the last few years to our customers, I give you this platform, it's up to your creative team and creative muscles to design the AB test and the different journeys around how you want to engage your customers fast, your IP, because they keep on asking, Oh, what has other banks been doing?

00:16:24:05 - 00:16:42:13
Anna Gong
Don't worry about what other banks have been doing. What can you do differently? How do you want to engage? What kind of content? Because if you think about Instagram with millions of influencers in an open loop platform like that and they're buying for the same eyeballs, how do influencers, you know, achieve that? Conversion is through content and creativity.

00:16:42:13 - 00:16:48:05
Anna Gong
So think about, you know, repurposing your own organization around that. And so this is what we're advising our customers as well.

00:16:48:09 - 00:17:04:10
Neel Desai
I imagine there's a huge educational element to what you guys are doing too, right? Because even if they have the platform, if their organization doesn't get it right, it's not going to work, right. So how do you how do you enable these companies to rethink how they engage with their customers over like on a fundamental level?

00:17:04:17 - 00:17:27:19
Anna Gong
Well, I mean, if technology's just the enabler, you know, in the creator economy, everything is around customer experience. That's the new product. So if you really dig deep inside, if my customer experience is not ideal, a pleasurable and friendly to use and it's not high friction, then I'm playing in the, you know, good sector. But most of our clients, they don't even get the fundamentals right.

00:17:27:19 - 00:17:40:11
Anna Gong
And most of the brands actually are not getting the fundamentals right. I mean, customer experience is still the traditional ethos around. I have to stand up a loyalty program. I had to set up a rewards catalog and then they will come. No.

00:17:41:20 - 00:17:54:07
Neel Desai
Where do you even start? If if, if we have folks listening to this that are in one of those large organizations and they realize, look, we're probably not thinking about this right away, what are some of the where do you start in terms of rethinking how to do this problem?

00:17:54:15 - 00:18:34:21
Anna Gong
I think a lot of it is really around what's hurting the most now from a business objective perspective, are you experiencing a lot of churn? Let's figure out where those segments are churning and lists, you know, reengage or reignite those customers. Are you experiencing a lot of drop offs or dormancy after a certain behavior? Let's focus on certain, you know, types of engagements, like let's drive some social virality, let's start building some creative campaigns around timing and how do you, you know, use teaming to also impact referrals because if I invite a team of five and four out of the five people are not an app user, now is a natural acquisition.

00:18:34:21 - 00:18:48:18
Anna Gong
I didn't have to pay anything because, you know, I invited you to perform a team to compete against others, to design a certain behavior or a journey. So there's so many different things that we can help them design that is really meaningful to solving the current pain point. First.

00:18:49:10 - 00:19:06:10
Neel Desai
There's this, and this is I've most of my experience has been in North America and now in Europe. Are there parts of this that vary by market like I imagine consumers in Singapore behave very differently than LatAm and you're like, you know, you're how how do you guys think about localizing some of these efforts based on the markets they're serving?

00:19:06:20 - 00:19:32:16
Anna Gong
That's a very good question, because we signed a 23 country contract with one of the global insurance giants press release or we going out. So they have a hub of a solution, the educator or center of excellence. And they're the ones who are learning our solution and really driving the effort to evangelize across the 23 markets. And when they're launching in Vietnam and Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, everyone speaks different languages to use to bring content.

00:19:32:16 - 00:19:55:13
Anna Gong
So those marketers are product platform. I would say users in those particular markets are driving their localized content. They know their customers better than anybody, so it shouldn't coming from a hub, you know, whereas if you're in New York, you don't drive a campaign to go after Philippines, you don't know anything about Philippines. So it's really enabling your product owners or your marketers locally.

00:19:55:17 - 00:20:12:16
Anna Gong
How do they actually drive those adoption activation, raise engagement rates, and then they can actually start AB testing and being more creative around their local market. But you need a solution to enable that. So we serve all languages from the very get go and then they can plot their own content to serve the customers.

00:20:13:03 - 00:20:24:11
Neel Desai
Now that that makes a ton of sense because I think to your point, it's not just like the language, it's it's how they think, right? It's it's the things they're thinking about, talking about their record. They're referencing context. It's so wildly different.

00:20:24:18 - 00:20:46:02
Anna Gong
Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, we we saw them executing very unique campaigns differently. And their creative muscles in certain markets are like off the chart and so we ended up seeing massive uptake in engagement rates and monetization and ROI around those unique, you know, creativity.

00:20:46:02 - 00:20:53:19
Ben Hillman
Next up. And it talks about the benefits of having a chip on your shoulder.

00:20:53:19 - 00:21:05:10
Neel Desai
What are you what are you most excited about? You have this impending POG thing happening. You have a pretty strong enterprise base. What are you most excited about as you think about growing in the next year and beyond?

00:21:06:01 - 00:21:20:09
Anna Gong
I'm excited about just proving our assumption is correct, but also learn around, you know, how do we grow this business through a PLG Journey future is that? But at the same time, running a dual strategy is a must.

00:21:20:09 - 00:21:39:10
Neel Desai
Now, shifting gears a little bit, why? Why this? Like, why are you on a personal level, why you could be doing a lot of things, right? You could be a product director at Google. You could be working on a whole number of other things, right? You could be a firefighter, whatever. Why? Why? This was something in your childhood, something your parents did like.

00:21:39:10 - 00:21:41:11
Neel Desai
Why? Why this?

00:21:41:11 - 00:22:00:18
Anna Gong
Yeah, that's a good question. I have some fire in my belly as an immigrant. You know, growing up in the U.S., I'm China from Gwangju. But that whole immigrant struggle of really trying to prove yourself in my DNA and I think, you know, Silicon Valley is made up of mostly immigrants and all the success stories around that, but more so.

00:22:01:04 - 00:22:21:03
Anna Gong
Singapore's also not known for founding global software companies, and needless to say, also single female founding, you know, software companies. So there is that chip on my shoulder there. I do want to show that you can Google grow a global company out of Singapore, and that's founded by a female.

00:22:21:03 - 00:22:37:18
Neel Desai
Have you what are some of the I mean, there's no entrepreneur that goes about this without running into challenges and obstacles in the way as you think back and reflect on your time, even just growing this business to 70 plus people and then the customers you have, what are you most proud of having overcome today?

00:22:38:16 - 00:22:43:09
Anna Gong
Just learning, I think being open. I'm just proud that I have sustained this long.

00:22:44:07 - 00:22:47:16
Neel Desai
Sometimes that's what it takes of just to be around longer than everyone else.

00:22:47:20 - 00:23:16:00
Anna Gong
It's like that to our, you know, not letting go of. I'm just proud of the journey that, you know, we emerge from a few valley of Death experiences. I can say that we're probably default alive and that default dead. And it's it's been a journey in terms of sustaining, persevering and really working with my team. Those who really believe in this story and this journey with me to grow a global company out of this.

00:23:16:00 - 00:23:21:02
Anna Gong
So and we have you know, we're serving customers in over 15 markets at a Singapore.

00:23:21:21 - 00:23:37:09
Neel Desai
We have a lot of, I think, dearly early stage founders. I listen to the show any words of wisdom or advice on how to how to how to how to keep going. Right. How to how to persevere. Because I think that's often like the thing that's probably the hardest in the early days is you're finding product market fit.

00:23:37:09 - 00:23:42:17
Neel Desai
You have a huge customer journey. You're trying to enter a new market like, Yeah, what is your advice to those, those folks.

00:23:43:00 - 00:24:04:05
Anna Gong
Mainly to seek help? I know I don't think that, you know, as, as a Chinese raise, you know, what's our core values, what not the way that we were raised is do it yourself and, you know, keep quiet and vulnerable with I had to learn the hard way to relearn and, you know, to unlearn all of my upbringing from my parents to now.

00:24:04:05 - 00:24:23:20
Anna Gong
And so that really, if there was this go to be vulnerable, you know, and to really be more open and to be a lot more humble, I've been joining a lot of networks that are safe spaces for us to really, you know, learn and talk about our failures and challenges and really and the mental health, Right. I mean, you're not alone.

00:24:23:21 - 00:24:26:02
Anna Gong
And that being a founder is a very lonely game.

00:24:26:19 - 00:24:31:15
Neel Desai
What did what did your parents do? I feel like that always provides really unique insight into a person.

00:24:32:06 - 00:24:52:17
Anna Gong
Well, my mom was a nurse and my dad was a professor. And then they came to the U.S. and they completely changed their career that the whole Chinese restaurant type, you know, pivot because of English barriers and have to, you know, restart from scratch. And so that's a big learning. And then for them to give us a future.

00:24:53:01 - 00:24:57:05
Anna Gong
So then you feel indebted. It's like the subconscious in you, you know, the fire, you know, I got it.

00:24:58:01 - 00:25:19:07
Neel Desai
And yeah, love it, love. I learned goop and it did take us home. As you think about all the things you have going on right now, growing the business, scaling into new markets, acquiring customers, where is this? Where in five years, if you think back to impacting this industry in the way companies use data to better engage with their customers, like what is what is what does success look like?

00:25:19:23 - 00:25:40:23
Anna Gong
Well, I'm not even looking at five years. I'm looking at the next five months, but surviving that the next quarter or two. But I'm just excited. I'm super excited about what's to come with PLG and running this parallel and dual strategy with Enterprise SaaS, I think most of even the large enterprises want to be more self-serve and tinker with MVP's and whatnot.

00:25:40:23 - 00:25:48:21
Anna Gong
So we're going to see a lot of different use cases coming in. But I'm just super excited about the next journey improving everybody. Well, I'm.

00:25:52:06 - 00:25:59:12
Ben Hillman
And now Anna and Neal talk about the pitfalls to avoid with game theory.

00:25:59:12 - 00:26:15:18
Neel Desai
Actually, I had one question before on the on the POG piece before we before we wrap up, one of the one of the things that comes up a lot when we think about this is like the your unit economics specifically from a cat perspective. How are you guys shifting, if at all, your acquisition strategy to get these folks right?

00:26:15:18 - 00:26:29:16
Neel Desai
I imagine your enterprise motion is perhaps a combination of inbound and outbound salespeople, right? How what is the process for acquiring? Is it all just organic? Right? Or what does that look like in terms of keeping cash reasonable in a P&G world?

00:26:30:00 - 00:27:00:17
Anna Gong
Right. We're going to spend a lot more on digital marketing and content and creatives, and that will actually feel to the inbound activities. And also we're testing whether freemium or free forever, a certain CSR approaches to giving communities like NGOs, education sectors, maybe to tease out, you know, how do we actually give back to communities that deserve it better driving financial literacy for a junior or for a younger generation and using game theory and gamification for good?

00:27:01:00 - 00:27:10:00
Anna Gong
How do we, you know, embody that and really just give back to the community? So there's different approaches that we're we're going to AB test and I'm excited about those.

00:27:10:01 - 00:27:23:09
Neel Desai
That's almost is there is there is there a world where you kind of have to protect your customers from themselves a bit If you can use game theory for for positive outcomes, I'm sure you can also use over negative outcomes. Like is there is that a consideration at all or not? Really?

00:27:23:17 - 00:27:43:09
Anna Gong
Yes. So I have a big moral compass where one of the tobacco companies came to us three or four times asking us to, you know, help them. We cannot drive people to smoke more thoroughly. So that that's something that I told my team. We will not serve any tobacco companies and other sectors as well that are not doing it for good.

00:27:43:09 - 00:27:46:06
Anna Gong
So we have to really stay true to our ethos.

00:27:46:10 - 00:28:04:19
Neel Desai
Know that that makes more sense. And I think as a founder like that starts with you, right? I think you said that that culture kind of percolates down to the entire team. And and and at the end of the day, when you have technology that's really powerful, right, that that comes with that certain responsibility. Anything else for for for beer is around just like building growing companies and just your journey.

00:28:05:10 - 00:28:26:07
Anna Gong
Not much I just feel like I wake up enthused with this, quite excited about the future. You know, it's been a grind getting here. Not one day, you know, despite all of the trials and tribulations of virus said, I'm going to quit. Like you said, I could be doing all this. Or the big tech companies and I have been quoted many times, but I just love what I'm doing right now.

00:28:26:11 - 00:28:36:16
Neel Desai
I love it. Well, and I thank you. I really, really appreciate the time. And how do folks if folks want to learn more about the technology you guys are working on or just how they can better use data, how can they find you or more about your company?

00:28:37:03 - 00:28:42:05
Anna Gong
I'm quite active on social media, so LinkedIn is the best way to reach out to me and then purchase.

00:28:42:05 - 00:28:44:06
Neel Desai
So down here somewhere in the show notes. Yeah.

00:28:45:03 - 00:28:51:16
Anna Gong
So look me up and our company is PR Experts Technologies and I love to hear from you guys.

00:28:52:01 - 00:28:56:14
Neel Desai
Awesome. Well, thanks and I really appreciate it. Thanks for being here.

00:28:56:14 - 00:29:22:09
Ben Hillman
Thank you so much to Anna for doing this podcast. Now you have what it takes to gamify customer loyalty state. We talked about embracing local culture while introducing innovation, using game theory to drive customer loyalty, augmenting enterprise with a plug motion. The benefits of having a chip on your shoulder and the pitfalls to avoid with game theory. Make sure when you give Protect the Hustle a five star review, you tell us what game you were most obsessed with.

00:29:22:15 - 00:29:32:13
Ben Hillman
Thanks for listening. Subscribe to and tell your friends about Protect the Hustle, a podcast from Paddle Studios dedicated to helping you build better SaaS.