While we mostly talk data, sometimes, when I’m in the (Zoom) room, we dabble in Yiddish. I draw on the language of my ancestors, particularly when telling allegories intermingled with anecdotes. Whether using an analogy to get a message across or sharing an example from past experiences, one thing stands at Vendia: When you’ve done it before, you know when (“ven”) you’re (“y’a”) doing it right because it lands in a Venn diagram.
Venn diagrams, again?
We’ve often shared how Vendia enables a new era in the data space — real-time data sharing with control by merging the best of APIs, blockchains, and databases. In fact, yes, we even Venn diagrammed it. It’s no coincidence that “Venn diagram” sounds like our name, Vendia.
Our platform Vendia Share combines critical capabilities across independently, paradigm-shifting products into a SaaS solution that changes the ethos of how companies and teams think about building data solutions: That ethos now lets enterprises define first, albeit flexibly (schema) with data that is distributed, trusted, and immutable. New intersections for new insights follow, and finding the intersections of previously independent data circles creates a future of data fluidity that breaks down data silos, enables real-time data, and opens up business opportunities and data alliances between companies.
What does that have to do with people?
It’s not just Vendia Share and our customers that thrive in the intersections of circles. It’s our people, too.
At Vendia’s retreat, our founders, Tim Wagner and Shruthi Rao, emphasized the value of the people in the room. I’m paraphrasing here, but the unifying message was, “Yes, we have a unique product and intellectual property, but it’s the people that make this thing great.” It makes outstanding engineers want to work here and collaborate, strategic sales team members excited to sell the product, and operational teams want to grow and support the talent. One thing was clear: Vendians have done “this” before.
My colleagues and I have built a business from the ground up, developed mission-critical products, and built high-performing teams. Our team knows the critical ingredients. Each member of the team has a depth of experience that is a multiplier, well beyond their capacity as a single contributor. The scale of the product, care for the customer, and solution partnership for our prospects is all enabled by our Vendians.
So, what makes it work? It’s not just our individual talents, but the overlapping of our respective functions. We are a living, breathing Venn diagram. While we each have focus areas, it’s how we come together to collaborate that makes Vendia both a company and product that stands out.
Looking in the circles
What’s in each “circle” of people and what are the overlaps? Glad you asked.
The circles themselves can be broken down by team functions or working styles:
- Sales teams are top-notch at working the art of the possible.
- Engineers, prime-fit for scalable coding.
- Marketing, great at honing the message and narrowing in on the right audience.
- Some folks are better at ideating with a group on a whiteboard or in a Slack huddle.
- Others may prefer writing down thoughts in a document to share individually.
But what makes these disparate styles come together to form a humming operation? It’s the appreciation in finding the overlap of these different, seemingly distinct functions and approaches in order to flex and grow together.
While each department has its function, the power is in the intersection — not the handoffs between teams but the handshakes. At Vendia, having representatives across each department in another department’s meeting is the norm, not the exception. Ensuring partnership between individuals on different teams is foundational. And welcoming all styles of working is a given, not a reminder. Our Slack channels are open. The meetings are inclusionary, but with active participation expected. Duplicative team coverage is reviewed and remedied because, otherwise, we’d just be stacked redundantly in concentric, siloed circles rather than distributed across Venn diagram sets.
We know that it’s better to partner a “detail-oriented” person with a “big picture” thinker — one ensures follow-through and success while the other pushes the envelope and connects the dots. Both are equally important. Both are valued at Vendia. And together, they result in more than the sum of their parts. (Figure 1) Sharing, whether with a data sharing product or among teams, happens when people collaborate.
- With Sales and Engineering collaborating, the product is aligned to the features that people want, that our sales team can sell, and that positions well for “sales plays”.
- With Engineering and Solutioning teams regularly shaking hands, it ensures that customers are successful in using the product and the development backlog aligns with customers’ priorities.
- With Sales and Marketing partnering, the value proposition is crisp, the top of the funnel is full, and the leads are high-quality.
- With Marketing and Solutioning cooperating, online thought-leadership content is created that both celebrates high-value product features and resonates with the target audience.
- With Marketing and Engineering uniting, they can collaborate to build a marketing engine that manages content, targets buying personas, and measures campaign success and lead generation.
- With Sales and Solution teams creating an allyship, they can better respond to customers with tailored demos that meet their needs, guide customers through a white-glove onboarding experience, and add technical coverage should those questions arise.
FIGURE 1: Overlapping circles of people-oriented teams
NOTE: There are many more teams involved beyond those mentioned above. A sampling includes Internal Operations, Talent, and Product. They are very much a critical part of the success of these intersections. But, our circle got messy, and we opted for simplicity.
How might you fit together with Vendia?
Our collaboration is what turns good ideas into great outcomes, and our kind humans make it fun. See what the resulting product can accomplish with a poc. Read more about how our principles display in all aspects of what we do together. And join us in creating more intersections in the Venn diagram.