from our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley Palo Alto California this is a cute conversation hello and welcome to this special cube conversation here in Palo Alto California cube headquarters I'm Jennifer echoes the cube our guest here is Megan Eisenberg CMO of a new hot company called trip actions formerly the CMO at MongoDB before that taki sign we've known each other some advisory boards great to see you yes great to see you as well so exciting new opportunity for you at trip actions just transitioned from MongoDB which by the way had great earnings they did what was the big secret to Mongo DB z earnings tell us well it's fresh and I think they're executing and their growth is amazing they're bringing their costs down I mean they're they've got product market fit their developers love them and so I'm proud and not surprised you're there for four years yeah transformed their go-to market so that fruits coming off the tree yes yeah it's exciting to see the you know process people technology all coming together and seeing them scale and do so well in the markets yes you know being here in 20 years living in California Palo Alto you see the rocket ships the ones that flame out the ones that make it and there's a pattern right when you start to see companies that are attracting talent ones that have pedigree VCS involved yeah raising the kind of rounds in a smart way where there's traction product market fit you kind of take special notice and one of the companies that you're now working for trip actions yes seems to have the parameters so it's off the pad it's going up its orbit or taking off you guys have really growing you got a new round of funding one hundred fifty million dollars yes unique application in a market that is waiting to be disrupted yes travel about company you work for transactions trip actions is a fast growing business travel platform we service customers like we work slack zoom box and we're growing we're adding 200 customers a month and it's amazing just to see these fast-growing companies right when they hit product market fit I think the keys are they've gotten a massive addressable market which we have 800 billion online travel they're solving a pain and they're disrupting a legacy the legacy providers that are out there we're three and a half years old and we are you know really focused on the customer experience giving you the choice that you want when you book making it easy down to six minutes not an hour to book something and we've got 24/7 support which not many can compete with you know it's interesting you know I look at these different ways of innovation especially SAS and mobile apps you know chapter one of this wave great economics yeah and once you get that unit economics visibility say great SAS efficacious happened but now we're kind of in a chapter two I think you guys kind of fit into this chapter to where it's not just SAS cuz you know we've seen travel sites get out there you book travel it's chapter two of SAS is about personalization you see machine learning you got cloud economics new ventures are coming out of the woodwork where you could take a unique idea innovate on it and disrupt a category that seems to be what you guys are doing talk about this new dynamic because this is not just another travel app when you guys are doing gets a unique angle on this applying some tech with the Corpse talked about that this chapter to kind of assess business I think when I think about chapter 2 I think about all the data that's out there I think about the machine learning I think about how we understand the user and personalize everything to them to make it frictionless and these apps that I love on my phone are because they they know what I want before I want it and I just took a trip to Dallas this week and the app knew I needed to check in it was one click told me my flight was delayed gave me options checked me in for my hotel I mean it was just amazing experience that I haven't seen before and it's really if you think about that that business travel trip there's 40 steps you have to do along the way there's got to be a way to make it easier because all we want to do is get to the business meeting and get back we don't want to deal with weather we don't want to deal with Hotel issues or flight changes and our app is specific to when you look at it you've got a chat 24/7 and someone's taking care of you that concierge service and we can do that because the amount of data we're looking at we're learning from it and we make it easier for travel manager half the people go rogue and don't even book through their travel solution it's because it's not tailored to them so this is the thing I want to get it so you guys aren't like a consumer app per se you have a specific unique target audience on this opportunity its travel management I'm I'm gonna date myself but back when I broke into the business they would have comes like Thomas Cook would handle all the travel for youlet Packard when I worked there in the 80s and you had these companies I had these contracts and they would do all the travel for the employees yes today it's hard to find that those solutions out there yes I would say it's hard to find one that you love and trip Actions has designed something that our travelers love and it is it's for business travel it's for your business trips it's taking care of your air your hotel your car your rail whatever you need and making sure that you can focus on the trip focus on getting there and not just the horrible experience we've all had it you travel a lot I traveled certainly back and forth to the East Coast and to take those problems away so I can focus on my business is what it's so just just look at this right so you guys are off to unicorn the funding great valuation growing like crazy got employees so people looking for jobs because they're hiring probably yeah but you're targeting not consumers to download the app it's for businesses that want to have company policies and take all that pressure off yes of the low so as a user can't buy myself can't just use the app or get I know you can Nano that's the the the whole thing is that as a user there's three things we're providing to one inventory and choice so you go and you know all the options you get the flight you want it's very clear and art we have a new storefront where it shows you what's in policy what's not so we've got that its ease of use it's booking quickly nobody wants to waste time dealing with this stuff right you want to go in booked quickly and then when you're on the trip you need 24/7 support because things go wrong airline travel gets cancelled weather happens you need to change something in your trip and so yes the user has the app on their phone can book it can you do it fast and can get support if they need it so stand alone usually can just use it as a consumer app but when you combine with business that's the magic that you guys see is that the opportunity yes I should say as a consumer as a business traveler so you're doing it through your company so I'm getting reimbursed for the companies the company is your customer yes the company's our customer is the traveler yes okay got it so if we want to have a travel desk in our company which we don't have yet yes it would we would sign up as a company and then all your employees would have the ease of use to book travel so what happens what's the sum of the numbers in terms of customers you have said 200 month-over-month yes we're over 1500 customers we're adding 200 a month we've got some significant growth it's amazing to see product market and the cost of the solution tell people $25 a booking and there's no add-on costs after that if you need to make as many changes as you need because of the trip calls on it you do it so basically per transaction yes well Little Feat one of our dollars yes okay so how do you guys see this growing for the company what's the some of the initiatives you guys are doing a new app yes mo what's what's the plan it's a massive market 800 billion right and we've only just started we've got a lot of customers but we've got many more to go after we are international so we have offices around the world we have an Amsterdam office we've got customers travelling all over so we're you know continuing to deliver on that experience and bringing on more customers we just on-boarded we were ten thousand travelers and will continue to onboard more and more so as head of marketing what's the current staff you have openings you mentioned yet some some some open recs yes yes hi are you gonna build out I've got 20 open Rex on the website so I'm hiring in all functions we're growing that fast and what's the marketing strategy what's your plan can you give it a little teaser on yes thinking core positioning go to market what are some of the things you're thinking about building out marketing CloudStack kind of thing what's what's going on all of these things my three top focuses are one marketing sales systems making sure we have that mark tech stack and that partnership with the sales tech stack second thing is marketing sales alignment that closed-loop we're building we're building pipeline making sure when people come in there's a perfect partnership to service what they need and then our our brand and messaging and it's the phase I love in these companies it's really building and it's the people process and technology to do that in the core positioning is what customer service being the most user-friendly what's the core position we're definitely focused on the traveler I would say we're we're balancing customer experience in making sure we get that adoption but also for the travel managers making sure that they can administer the solution and they get the adoption and we align the ascent in the incentives between the traveler and the travel manager and customer profile what small munis I business to large enterprise we have SMB and we're going all the way up to enterprise yes has it been much of a challenge out there in the business travel side I'm just don't know that's why I'm asking is like because we don't have one I can see our r-cube team having travel challenge we always do no centralizing that making that available but it'd have to be easier is it hard to get is there a lot of business travel firms out there is what are some of the challenges that you guys are going after there well I I think what matters is one picking the solution and being able to implement it quickly we have customers implementing in a week right it's understanding how we load your policies get you on board get your cut you're you're really your employees traveling and so it's pretty fast onboarding and we're able to tailor solutions to what people need what are some of the policies that are typical that might be out there that people like yeah so maybe for hotels you may have New York and your your policy is $500 a night what the I would say a normal typical behavior would someone would book it at $4.99 they go all the way up to the limit we've actually aligned our incentives with the travel managers and the employees and that if you save your company money you save and get rewards back so let's say you book it for 400 that $100 savings $30 goes back to the employee and rewards they can get an Amazon card donate to Cherry charity whatever they'd like to kind of act like an owner cuz they get a kickback yes that's the dot so that's how you an interest adoption yes what other adoption concerns you guys building around with the software and or programs to make it easy to use and we're constantly thinking about the experience we want to make sure just I mean I think about what I used to drive somewhere I'd pull out a map and map it out and then I got lucky and you could do MapQuest and now you have ways we are that ways experience when you're traveling we're thinking about everything you need to do that customer when they leave their front door all the way to the trip all the things that can hang them up along the way we're trying to remove that friction that's a very example I mean Waze is a great service yes these Google Maps or even Apple Maps ways everyone goes to backed away yes yeah I don't I mean ways did cause a lot of Street congestion the back streets of Palo Alto we're gonna expedite our travelers well it's a great utility new company what what attracted you to the opportunity when was some of the because you had a kid going over there MongoDB what it was the yeah motivation to come over to the hot startup yeah you know I love disruptive companies I love massive addressable markets good investors and a awesome mission that I can get behind you know I'm a mom of three kids and I did a lot of travel I'm your typical road warrior and I wanted to get rid of the pain of travel and the booking systems that existed before trip actions and so I was drawn to the team the market and the product that's awesome well you've been a great CMO your career has been phenomenal of great success as a CPM mother of three you know the challenges of juggling all this life is short you got to be using these apps to make sure you get on the right plane I mean I know I'm always getting back for my son's lacrosse game or yes event at school this is these are like it's like ways it's not necessary in the travel portfolio but it's a dynamic that the users care about this is the kind of thing that you guys are thinking about is that right yeah definitely I mean I always think about my mom when she worked in having three daughters and I work and have three daughters I feel like I can do so much more I've got door - I've got urban sitter I've got ways I've got Google Calendar I've got trip actions right I've got all these technologies that allow me to do more and not focus on things that are not that productive and I have no value add on it just makes me more efficient and productive how about some of the tech before we get in some of the industry questions I want to talk about some of the advantages on the tech side is there any machine learning involved what's some what's not what's some of the secret sauce and the app yeah definitely we're constantly learning our users preferences so when you go in we start to learn what you what hotels you're gonna select what where do you like to be near the office do you like to be near downtown we're looking at your flights do aisle window nobody wants middle yes but we're we're learning about your behaviors and we can predict pretty closely one if you're gonna book and two what you're gonna book and as we continue learning you that's why we make you more efficient that's why we can do it in six minutes instead of an hour that's awesome so Megan a lot of things going on you've been a progressive marker you love Terry's tech savvy you've done a lot of implementations but we're in a sea change now where you know people that think differently they gonna think okay I need to be on an app for your case with with business travel it's real policies there so you want to also make it good for the user experience again people centric this personalization has been kind of a cutting edge concept now in this chapter to a lot of CMOS are either they're they're not are trying to get there what are you finding in the industry these days that's a best practice to help people cross that bridge as they think they cracked the code on one side then realize wow it's a whole another chapter to go you know I think traditionally a lot of times we think we need we're aligning very much with sales and that matters that go to market marketing sales aligned but when it comes to products and a customer experience it's that alignment with marketing and the product and engineering team and really understanding the customer and what they want and listening and hearing and testing and and making sure we're partnering in those functions in terms of distribution getting the earned concept what's your thoughts on her and media yeah I mean I definitely think it's the direction right there's a ton of noise out there so you've got to be on topic you've got to understand what people care about you've got to hit them in the channel that they care about and very quick right is you don't have time nobody's gonna watch something that's 30 minutes long you get seconds and so part of the earned is making sure you're relevant you what they care about and they can find you and content big part of that for you guys huge part of it yes and understanding the influencers in the market who's talking about travel who's who is out there leading ahead you know leading in these areas that travel managers go and look to you know making sure we're in front of them and they get to see what we're delivering I like how you got the incentives of the employees to get kind of a line with the business I mean having that kind of the perks yes if you align with the company policies the reward could be a Starbucks card or vacation one more time oh whatever they the company want this is kind of the idea right yeah they kind of align the incentives and make the user experience both during travel and post travel successful that's right yes making sure that they are incented to go but they have a great experience okay if you explain the culture of the company to someone watching then maybe interested in using the app or buying you guys as a team what's the trip actions culture like if you had to describe it yeah I would say one we love travel too we are fast growing scaling and we're always raising the bar and so it's learning and it's moving fast but learning from it and continually to improve it's certainly about the user all of the users so not just the travel manager but our travelers themselves we love dogs if you ever come to the Palo Alto office we've got a lot of dogs we love our pups and just you know building something amazing and it's hard to be the employees gonna know that's a rocket ship so it's great get a hold on you got a run hard yes that's the right personality to handle the pace because you're hiring a lot of people and I think that's a part of the learning we need continual learning because we are scaling so fast you have to reinvent what we need to do next and not a lot of people have seen that type of scale and in order to do it you have to learn and help others learn and move fast well great to see you thanks for coming in and sharing the opportunity to give you the final plug for the company share what who you what positions you're hiring for what's your key hires what are you guys trying to do give a quick plug to the company yeah so I mean we've grown 5x and employees so we're hiring across the board from a marketing standpoint I'm hiring in content and product marketing I'm hiring designers I'm hiring technical I you know I love my marketing technology so we're building out our tech stack our website pretty much any function all right you heard it here trip actions so when you get the product visibility those unit economics as they say in the VC world they've got a rocket ship so congratulations keep it up yeah now you're in palo alto you can come visit us here anytime yes love to Meagen Eisenberg CMO trip access here inside the cube I'm John Ferrier thanks for watching you [Music]