From building an Automation SaaS to getting acquired by Notion

During his stint as a product manager at 2014, the time when SaaS
was booming, Ashok noticed that there’s a high demand for complex
workflow automations from customers. This got him to start
Automate.io, and they would later go into head on competition
with Zapier.


Fast forward, Ashok was getting inbound interests for acquisition
left, right and center. But he and his team kept their heads down
and kept on building.


But one inbound interests for a partnership got his attention,
which eventually got them acquired by Notion.


Tune into this episode to gain insights on how they powered
automations at 30,000+ organizations and the A-Z journey of
getting acquired by Notion.


Key take aways:


8:11 - Scale of Automate


10:23 - Acquisition opportunity


15:23 - Team expectation management during acquisition


19:16 - Duration for acquisition and competing offers


21:22 - Company structure that smoothened the acquisition


24:34 - Acquisition - Culture Compatibility and Adaptation


26:36 - Navigating specific cultural differences 


29:20 - Transition from role as a CEO post acquisition


32:32 - GTM for 1st 100 customers and first 500


36:39 - Pricing models


39:37 - Do’s and Don’ts for acquisition


Happy listening!


Happy listening!