EIR at Bessemer Venture Partners; Advisor at Chemistry Ventures; Board Member at 4 Companies
Palo Alto, California, United States
107K followers
500+ connections
107K followers
500+ connections
About
Once and future founder/CEO spending time with investors looking at AI startups and trying to figure out what's next.
Most recently co-founded Gainsight in 2013 and sold it to Vista Equity Partners in 2020 for $1.1B. I then ran it through 2025 when I handed the company off to my President. We grew the business from $0 to $235M ARR and $65M EBITDA when I left. We partnered with incredible venture investors including Battery Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures and Summit Partners. We helped popularize the category of Customer Success, wrote 5 books on the topic and supported the profession's growth from 1000 CSMs in 2013 to 200K+ today. Along the way, we were named Glassdoor's Best Company to Work for in 2023.
I'm passionate about building AI apps, learning about deep tech and exploring opportunities in health and mental health AI.
I'm also lucky to be a Board Member of 4 companies and co-founder of a nonprofit to help employees in the new AI world. I love spending time with others on how AI impacts the economy and our own ethics and philosophy.
As The Boss would say, I'm a "broken hero on a last-chance power drive" but I have "faith there's magic in the night."
Yes, I'm a lot!
Articles by Nick
Activity
107K followers
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Nick Mehta posted this"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." -Mike Tyson One of the biggest impediments to incumbents leveraging AI is their need to have a plan. If you've only worked in startups, the concept of a "plan" is like the concept of profit - you know it exists, but you've never seen it. But large organizations are built around the planning process. I've heard many CEOs (rightly) tell me that planning is the most important part of being a CEO. As such, as companies scale, they improve their planning - more years out, more dimensions, more scenarios, more variables. More meetings. This is all for good reason. They need to manage cash. They need to manage expectations. They need to manage uncertainty. I saw it myself as Gainsight grew. I added on 3-year outlooks, rigorous quarterly forecasts, alternate budgets based upon growth, etc. The GSheet had a LOT of tabs! Yet those plans are part of what is holding incumbents back. AI (at least as of now) just doesn't allow for long-term plans. Things change too fast: * Anthropic is unassailable one day and OpenAI has the momentum the next. * Tokens should be maxxed one week and minned the next. * Consultants are "so cooked" right until you decide to hire an army of them (in the form of FDEs). And the problem is the planning process often causes companies to not evolve with the changes: * "But our 3 year plan was to standardize on Microsoft Copilot! * "But we defined our compensation study based upon token-driven bonuses!" * "But we cut our consulting spend to fund tokens!" It's deeper than that too. Psychologically, many CEOs get trained to tie their self-worth and identity to "hitting plan." This shows up with private board accolades or public shareholder "beat and raises." Yet if AI is the biggest long-term opportunity, sometimes it means it's more important than building a great plan or hitting that plan. I'm not saying we should throw plans out the window. That's chaos. But we need to re-examine how we run companies if the rate of change is going to be this high.
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Nick Mehta shared thisMy friend Neel Bhatia just got diagnosed with a brain tumor and had immediate surgery for it. When he called me to tell me the news, his level of warmth and positivity blew me away. He has started writing a substack about his experience and it's powerful. In particular, he talks about how AI helped his doctors to isolate and remove his tumor and hopefully keep the cancer at bay for the long term. Highly recommend you check it out. ❤️Nick Mehta shared thisI don't post much on LinkedIn. But today I have something I needed to say. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor three weeks ago. I'm fighting it hard and I'm okay — more okay than you might expect. I wrote about it. But this first piece isn't about the diagnosis. It's about something I've been thinking about since surgery: we are getting the story of AI badly wrong. The introduction to my series Obsessed With Living is live now. I hope it reaches someone who needs it. I won't be posting all of the essays here. Subscribe on Substack if you want to follow the full series.
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Nick Mehta shared thisI'm so moved by the love Kat Leong Chuck Ganapathi Gainsight and the Pulse community showed for Summer's legacy and for LGBTQ kids everywhere just trying to live their lives. Big thanks to Trevor Project for doing such important work to help.Nick Mehta shared thisFrom the first day I met Nick Mehta, he was the most warm, personable, and engaging human I’d ever crossed paths with. Somehow, despite being one of the busiest people I know, he makes every person feel like they are the most important. I spent just over six years working in his orbit, and watching the way he led has truly inspired my professional journey. He always puts others first, no matter what is going on, and truly leads with a human-first mentality that is inspiring. When he lost his daughter, Summer, earlier this year, I was devastated for him. And even while battling that sadness, he still continued to put others first. So it was the honor of a lifetime to partner with The Trevor Project to bring an experience to our attendees at Pulse this past week, in honor of Summer Mehta. Witnessing the outpouring of love, support, and stories of belonging from the Pulse community was exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks for reminding me that caring for others is healing.
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Nick Mehta shared thisGarry Tan's quote below around using AI to create new products and services is so spot on - and so hard to do. 5 Failure Patterns in New Product Introduction to Avoid in the AI Era: Every established company has face-planted one or more times trying to get into a new market. Think of all of the failed product launches from even the most iconic companies like Google, Amazon and others. In my experience, there are at least 5 common patterns: 1. No "Right to Win." This is the biggest. What do you bring to the table in the new market that helps you win? Amazon had no right to win with the "Fire" phone. Apple had a right to win with AirPods (due to iTunes and iPhone). AI opens up infinite market - so choose the part where you are the logical winner. 2. Inferior v1. So many large companies have the hubris to think they can enter a new category with a "good enough" product. In the olden days where transparency was limited and switching was hard, this worked (e.g., Oracle). Now, every new space is a new fight. So you need to have a great product from day 1. AI obviously helps a lot here in terms of iteration speed. But don't let your incumbency go to your head. 3. No Sales Channel. Another challenge (particularly for B2B enterprise businesses) is they have an inability to sell the new offering. Maybe it's too cheap and the sales force focuses on the core. Maybe it requires a product-led motion and your main business is sales-led. This is where using AI to give the builders control of the go-to-market is huge. Before, product people would wait months for marketing to build a separate PLG site or for campaigns to go out. Now, speed can be rapid. 4. No Portfolio. The truth is that new products are bets. Author Jim Collins famously advised "fire bullets, not cannonballs" - meaning try lots of small things first. The problem is that in the pre-AI world, it was expensive to test new products. Hence companies often did it serially and with a lot of resource. Now, parallel processing is possible. 5. "Limited Talent." There was a perception that larger organizations failed to launch new products due to a lack of talent. I think this is partially true. I believe much of the talent was suffocated under a mountain of "cross-functional alignment meetings" for the new business. These are soul-crushing and demotivate the people that you want to be fired up. Free them by giving them autonomy and using AI as a part of that. What else would you add in terms of why incumbents fail in new markets and how AI can help?
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Nick Mehta shared thisLots of talk about AI ROI. Seems like all of us on X are getting an Econ 101 class now, with the questions about AI spend at Uber and Microsoft. In some ways, the logic we’ve all been following is: 1. Intuitively, AI/AGI should drive massive growth in corporate profits and GDP. 2. AI-native companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are operating at revenue/employee and growth rates never before seen in business. 3. If companies “adopt” AI, they should similarly benefit. The South Park meme below is a nice summary! What’s been challenging is finding the path between token consumption and improving revenue/employee. Revenue/employee has two solves: (1) more revenue or (2) fewer employees (you can pay me later). The latter is intellectually easier to grasp. Can AI reduce employees? Do you do it discretely in a function (e.g., through customer support AI agents) or in broad brush layoffs (e.g., Meta, Block, Cloudflare)? If the latter, do you have an organizational design strategy? (e.g., “fewer managers!” or “more senior people!” or “more ICs!”) The challenge with all of these approaches is they are brand new. No one has data on how they have worked yet. Indeed, there is a risk that they make the firm less competitive long-term, hurt revenue and therefore make revenue/employee worse. But even more complex is growing the revenue in revenue/employee? So many questions come up: * Do 1000 flowers bloom? If you give a coding harness to each employee and encourage token maxing, do new ideas emerge that accelerate growth? * Should you be top down? Do you hire McKinsey et al to figure out where to focus? * Even if you made your existing products better (e.g., power through the backlog with AI), do sales grow? Or are customers fully saturated? Frankly, for many products, I want less features, not more! * Is the answer to build new products? Do you have the talent to do it? Do you have the brand? Do you have the capital base? * Are the public markets too tough to do this in? Do you need to go private to make the transformation real? No one knows the answer. But the challenge is with the aggregate spend on AI in the economy, investors are going to demand answers sooner rather than later.
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Nick Mehta posted thisExperienced People Want Information: I remember being early in my career and meeting with a famous investor. I had no idea what to talk about. What could I say from my limited experience that would help him? Well, it turned out he was curious. He kept asking questions about what's on peoples' minds, what I'm seeing, etc. I was pleasantly surprised. Last Thursday night, after guest teaching a class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, we had dinner with 6 of the top students from the class. And I learned so much. I asked them about the job market, their views on AI and SF apartment costs (!!) They asked me some questions too, but I learned more from them. When you're meeting someone who you feel like is more experienced than you, remember that you something valuable that they don't have: information. Nearly every successful person is curious.
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Nick Mehta shared thisFriday was a special day. I checked The Trevor Project website [link in comments] and we achieved my late daughter Summer's goal. Her last wish was to raise $1MM to eliminate LGBTQ+ suicide amongst young people. And thanks to the generosity of so many (including countless folks reading this post), we did it! More than 1000 people donated, with checks ranging from $10 to much more. If you were part of that group, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You gave us a bright light during a dark moment. And if you are hearing about the organization for the first time, I hope you'll talk a few minutes to learn about its important mission. ❤️
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Nick Mehta shared thisIn 2020, we worked with Stanford's Graduate School of Business to write a case on Customer Success and Gainsight. And each term since, I've had the pleasure of joining the class "Building & Managing Sales Orgs" for a day. This term, Gainsight CEO Chuck Ganapathi and I teamed with with lecturers Dannie Herzberg Josh Leslie to cover how CS and Forward-Deployed Engineering are relevant in today's world. I focused on the FDE topic and learned so much from the students. Some of the bull cases were: * "Forward-Deployed Engineers allow companies to fit their product to their customers' processes, versus forcing customers' processes to fit their product." * "FDEs are sometimes a higher ROI investment than additional sales reps." * "FDEs are the best way to funnel product insights back to the founding team." And on the flipside: * "FDE can't be a one-size-fits-all and, in particular, it can't be used to paper over fundamental product issues." * "FDE means so many things from domain expert to deep architect." * "So much of product-market fit is getting the right customers and no amount of FDE fixes the wrong clients." Each year, I'm blown away by the existing knowledge and first principles' thinking of GSB students. Pretty awesome to watch.
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Nick Mehta posted thisMy birthday was Tuesday. And it was wonderful. It's strange saying that, given what I've gone through with my daughter's loss and the last few years personally, but the sentiment is real. I am feeling gratitude and love more than I've ever experienced. I used my latest substack post (in the comments), to explore the feeling of falling (in my typical nerdy fashion - across etymology, science, poetry and music!) and how sometimes, you've fallen so much that you learn to love the leap. This is quite different from the typical talk about grief and loss you hear - about healing, about protection, about a process. And I respect that each person is on a different path, so this definitely isn't for all. But I wanted to share one person's experience and turn grief from a caricature into a photograph. I feel like Summer's birthday present to me was to remind me that falling open-heartedly is my nature.
Nick Mehta commented on a post
1h
Congrats on an incredible run!
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Nick Mehta liked thisNick Mehta liked thisI’ve had the extreme privilege of leading Rapid7 for over 13 years, and today I am thrilled to welcome Wael Mohamed to the company as our new CEO, as I transition into my new role as Executive Chairman. Rapid7 is home to some of the most curious, brilliant, and compassionate people in cybersecurity. I am confident in Wael’s ability to continue driving our preemptive security strategy — effectively integrating MDR and exposure management into AI-led security operations to preempt attackers at machine speed. It has been an honor to lead Rapid7 through significant milestones: shaping cybersecurity research policy, leading the shift from traditional vulnerabilty management to threat aware exposure mangement, going from launching our MDR business to becoming one of the top MDR vendors in the world— to name just a few — and through it all, helping customers and business leaders navigate the constantly shifting technology landscape. As Executive Chairman, I look forward to focusing on our technology vision, the AI landscape and strategy, and continuing to drive momentum around policy that will help our customers stay secure. As it has been from the Metasploit days, I remain deeply passionate about community-focus and industry engagement as the two most important forces to drive meaningful change in cybersecurity. This marks an important moment for Rapid7 as we continue strengthening our position as a leader in the emerging AI-SOC market, and I couldn't be more excited for the chapter ahead. Please join me in giving Wael a warm welcome to the Rapid7 team!
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Nick Mehta liked thisNick Mehta liked thisI’m thrilled to share that Contentful has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Salesforce. Once the deal closes, joining forces with Salesforce will accelerate our mission of enabling modern enterprises to dynamically assemble and deliver rich digital experiences across every channel. Our API-first architecture and deep domain expertise will enhance Salesforce’s Headless 360 with a native, enterprise-grade content layer that connects customer data with engaging content experiences across Salesforce’s leading applications. Together, we’ll redefine how brands interact with customers by giving Agentforce the content layer it needs to make every interaction truly engaging. As we begin this journey, Contentful customers remain our top priority. We’re fully committed to delivering the same level of innovation, flexibility, and enterprise-grade support customers have come to expect from our team. You can read the full announcement here: https://lnkd.in/gx39bfmT I’m deeply grateful for the customers, partners and employees who have helped make Contentful the company it is today. I’m incredibly proud of everything we’ve accomplished so far, and very excited for this monumental next step in our journey together.
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Nick Mehta reacted on thisGrateful for Tanium teammates like Lorenz Van Look, nobly taking on a tough challenge…and giving back to an organization that supported him and his family. A meaningful way to honor Cruz, and make a positive difference for others. I’m supporting Lorenz and the willows - and encourage others to do the same.Nick Mehta reacted on thisHi everyone, I don’t usually post about personal things on here, but I’m asking for a bit of help 😊🙏🏻. On 14 September 2023, our son Cruz came into our lives. Sadly, he never opened his little eyes, but he is, and always will be, part of our family. In those early days, The Willows Support Group were there for us with so much kindness. It’s a small charity made up of parents who simply support others through a loss no one ever expects. On the 14th of June, I'm taking on an Ironman as my way of honouring Cruz and of giving something back to the people who helped us find our footing in the darkest of days. If you feel able to support, even in a small way, it would mean a lot to us and help them be there for other families. 👉 https://lnkd.in/e36MHgui Thank you 💙
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Nick Mehta liked thisNick Mehta liked thisCongrats to my husband Arif Janmohamed for making the 2026 Midas List. An incredible achievement for sure, and one that is so deserved for him. Arif’s journey includes a series of lessons that I share with our kids often. Arif has a tremendous work ethic - a grit and resilience that I am often envious of. He does things the right way, all the time, with a human first approach. And finally, he is an example of one of my favorite sayings - “You have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good.” He works so so hard, and at the end of the day, he knows that sometimes the puck bounces your way, and sometimes it doesn’t. Congrats Arif Janmohamed! Keep shooting!
Experience
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Advisor
Chemistry
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Gainsight
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Director, Product Management
XDegrees (acquired by Microsoft)
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Co-Founder & VP Marketing
Chipshot.com
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Investment Banking Analyst Intern
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation
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Education
Skills
Publications
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The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift
Wiley
If leaders aren't integrating their digital offerings into a philosophy of Customer Success, they will be defeated in the next decade, because technical excellence and other traditional competitive advantages are becoming too easy to imitate.
The Customer Success Economy offers examples and specifics of how companies can transform. It addresses the pains of transforming organizational charts, leadership roles, responsibilities, and strategies so the whole company works together in total…If leaders aren't integrating their digital offerings into a philosophy of Customer Success, they will be defeated in the next decade, because technical excellence and other traditional competitive advantages are becoming too easy to imitate.
The Customer Success Economy offers examples and specifics of how companies can transform. It addresses the pains of transforming organizational charts, leadership roles, responsibilities, and strategies so the whole company works together in total service to the customer.
Shows leaders how their digital implementations will make them more Amazon-like
- Helps you deliver recurring revenue
- Shows you how to embrace customer retention
- Demonstrates the importance of "churning" less
Get that competitive advantage in the most relevant and important arena today―making and cultivating happy customers.Other authors -
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Customer Success: The Book
Wiley
It’s one of the fastest growing new fields in the tech industry. Customer Success is the foundation of a future that runs on subscriptions. But what exactly is it? Where did it come from? Where is it going? Three of the pioneers and thought leaders of the movement answer those questions and more in the definitive new book on Customer Success.
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Organizations
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Young Presidents' Organization
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