Welcome to In Depth, a new podcast from First Round Review that’s dedicated to surfacing the tactical advice founders and startup leaders need to grow their teams, their companies and themselves. Hosted by Brett Berson, a partner at First Round, In Depth will cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics, from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to the importance of storytelling inside of your organization. But every interview will hit the level of tactical depth where the very best advice is found. We hope you’ll join us. Subscribe to “In Depth” now and learn more at firstround.com
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Welcome to In Depth, a new podcast from First Round Review that’s dedicated to surfacing the tactical advice founders and startup leaders need to grow their teams, their companies and themselves. Hosted by Brett Berson, a partner at First Round, In Depth will cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics, from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to the importance of storytelling inside of your organization. But every interview will hit the level of tactical depth where the very best advice is found. We hope you’ll join us. Subscribe to “In Depth” now and learn more at firstround.com
Saying yes to everything: How customer obsession built Samsara | Kiren Sekar (CPO)
In Depth
1 hour 8 minutes
3 weeks ago
Saying yes to everything: How customer obsession built Samsara | Kiren Sekar (CPO)
Kiren Sekar is the CPO of Samsara, a company that brings real-time visibility, analytics, and AI to physical operations. Before Samsara, Kiren was an early leader at Meraki, which was acquired by Cisco for $1.2B.
In this episode, he walks us through Samsara’s origin story: from hardware hacking in a basement to scaling a cross-industry IoT platform. He shares how early customer feedback loops led to the company’s first product, why starting with the mid-market was a deliberate choice, and how Samsara kept a startup mindset even as it scaled.
In this episode, we discuss:
Lessons from Meraki’s acquisition by Cisco
How Kiren hires for intrinsic motivation
Why Samsara was built for operations industries
The early hardware prototype and the Cowgirl Creamery insight
Building broad vs. niche from day one
The shift from founder-selling to a scalable sales motion
Organizing product teams around revenue vs. experience
How Samsara uses LLMs and AI today
What Kiren learned from longtime co-founder Sanjit Biswas
Where to find Kiren:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirensekar/
Where to find Brett:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
References:
Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
Clay: https://www.clay.com/
Cowgirl Creamery: https://cowgirlcreamery.com/
IBM: https://www.ibm.com/
Meraki: https://meraki.cisco.com/
Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
Samsara: https://www.samsara.com/
Sanjit Biswas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjitbiswas/
Uber: https://www.uber.com/
Timestamps:
(01:27) Meraki’s growth and acquisition by Cisco
(03:25) The "evaporating" exit strategy from Meraki
(04:42) Identifying the IoT market gaps
(07:38) The early keys to success at Samsara
(09:39) What does quality mean to Kiren?
(10:54) Building a customer-centric roadmap
(17:34) Early customer research and the failed fridge monitoring idea
(20:57) How a cheese producer helped create Samsara’s first prototype
(28:06) Balancing depth and breadth in customer profiles
(33:45) Developing customer trust to build feedback loops
(40:27) How “ease of use” became a growth secret
(44:23) Pricing strategies and market positioning
(51:51) How Meraki influenced Samsara’s GTM strategy
(57:19) Helping customers navigate change management
(1:00:48) How Samsara’s team evolved during rapid growth
(1:04:03) What AI means for an IoT giant
In Depth
Welcome to In Depth, a new podcast from First Round Review that’s dedicated to surfacing the tactical advice founders and startup leaders need to grow their teams, their companies and themselves. Hosted by Brett Berson, a partner at First Round, In Depth will cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics, from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to the importance of storytelling inside of your organization. But every interview will hit the level of tactical depth where the very best advice is found. We hope you’ll join us. Subscribe to “In Depth” now and learn more at firstround.com
