Kathryn Drake is an Integrated Campaign Manager at LogicMonitor.
How long have you been at LogicMonitor?
I started in June 2019.
What has been your favorite project at LogicMonitor so far?
We recently launched the first dedicated asset of the 2020 ICP campaign, the “Alerting and Monitoring Best Practices Guide.” I enjoyed this project because I was able to work with a lot of members of the marketing team, and it was truly a collaborative effort. We spent a long time developing the ICP messaging and personas, so it was really cool to finally see them come to life in an asset.
What is the most rewarding part of your role?
It’s really rewarding to see people align their activities with the personas and messaging we’ve created. It’s great seeing everyone on the same page and working together.
Was there a certain moment in your career that you felt was a turning point?
I always thought I’d be in consumer advertising, but I fell into an internship at a B2B marketing firm in Austin. I was hired to be a summer intern assisting on different projects, but one of the account managers ended up unexpectedly leaving. This allowed me to work on bigger projects than I would have originally as an intern. That was my first exposure to B2B tech marketing and I realized that’s where I want to go with my career. I ended up joining them full time after graduating.
What is your favorite book?
My all-time favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. I love classic novels. My most recent favorite is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It was really eye-opening and written so well that I couldn’t put it down, even though the subject matter is difficult.
If you could choose anyone, who would you pick as your mentor?
I would pick Reese Witherspoon. We both grew up in Tennessee and she’s a great example of a strong woman. She’s an entrepreneur, supports the arts, and has created opportunities for not only herself but also for other women in the entertainment industry.
Where’s your favorite place?
Any random cafe in Paris. The people-watching is entertaining, and you can get a great cup of coffee. Every time I go on vacation, it’s always go go go, and stopping at a cafe forces me to pause and really take in the city.
What are 3 words you’d use to describe LogicMonitor?
Supportive. Evolving. Exciting.
Kenyon Willis is a Sr. Manager, Customer Success at LogicMonitor in Austin, TX.
How long have you been at LogicMonitor?
It will be 5 years in June.
What is the most rewarding part of your role?
The most rewarding part of my role is the interactions I get to have with people, both internally and with customers. I have been able to find what I’m really passionate about, which is engaging with people and helping solve problems.
Was there a certain moment in your career that you felt was a turning point?
For a long time, I was an individual contributor at other companies. I helped people achieve and become their best selves. One day, the boss at my last company sat me down and said, “You have a lot of leadership qualities. You can’t dodge being a leader forever.” That was the first time I realized it was time for me to lead a team and be a mentor so that I can continue to grow.
What are some of the new challenges you’ve seen facing your customers recently?
Our customers are facing the same challenges that we’re all facing, which is managing a remote workforce. It is a massive undertaking for people, especially when they haven’t done it at scale before.
As a Customer Success Manager, what are some of the steps you are taking to help eliminate these challenges for your customers?
Our internal team is doing a ton of work around the best ways customers can leverage our software and ensure that they have visibility of remote platforms, like Zoom. We want to make this transition easy for them. We’re also doing a webinar series for people new to LogicMonitor, or maybe not familiar with some of our functionality, that will help them get up to speed faster with our platform and make sure they are functioning properly.
What is the best advice someone has given you?
Don’t be afraid to aim high and miss your goal; be afraid to aim low and hit your goal.
What advice would you give to other Customer Success Managers?
Be you and be genuine.
What is your favorite book?
In the last year or two, I’ve started reading more. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is one of my favorites. It’s about how to stay present and not let mistakes from your past or your ‘imagined’ fears of the future dictate what you’re doing today.
What’s your favorite restaurant for take-out in Austin?
Tyson’s Tacos! It’s a great spot on Airport Boulevard.
What’s your favorite thing about working at LogicMonitor?
My favorite thing is definitely the people and the culture. One of the coolest things is that it’s from the top down. Our CEO and the rest of the executive leadership exude what it means to be an LM employee.
Celebrated on March 8th every year, International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. This year, the theme is #EachforEqual. The theme is a call to action for accelerating gender equality, not just on International Women’s Day, but all year long.
To mark International Women’s Day, we asked Alice Young, Sales Director, EMEA and Astra Duke, Customer Experience, EMEA to share their thoughts and experiences as female leaders at LogicMonitor.
Was there a certain moment in your career that you felt was a turning point?
Alice Young: After being in sales for several years, selling a range of products and services, I needed a new challenge. It was then I decided to move into the software industry. I was fascinated by the speed of innovation, the ability to make such incredible impacts on entire organizations, and the sheer complexity of the sales cycles. Nearly 6 years after making the leap into software, my fascination with this brilliant industry is still stronger than ever. Whenever I walk into a room, no matter the age, seniority, or gender of the audience, I’m confident that I can add value, provide insight, and facilitate interesting discussion.
Astra Duke: I haven’t had my ultimate turning point in my career as of yet, however, the one point that has been an influential moment is when I decided to leave Inbay; my father’s company. After 5 years of hard work and true career progression, I decided to break out onto my own path. I was invited by the SVP of Autotask (now Datto) to come and work for him and build his Customer Success and Implementation teams–and I said yes!
What advice would you give to other women in the tech industry?
Alice Young: Give it your all. It doesn’t matter who you are. Success takes hard work, focus, and drive. Don’t stand still, and constantly think about how you can make small improvements. My biggest advice is to not waste time complaining and instead spend your time fixing the problem and finding a solution. This is something I completely believe in because ultimately you make your own luck!
Astra Duke: My advice is to make sure you pair yourself with a great mentor in your field, no matter their gender. Doing this allows you to have a go-to person for all your unanswered questions. Whether the questions are around your career progression, change in role, company adjustments, or industry changes, it is always good to be a step ahead if you are aiming for your next position.
Who is your female role model?
Alice Young: My female role model is Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder & CEO of Bumble. Whitney has had an incredibly impressive career, where she has overcome challenge after challenge and still doesn’t shy away from the next one. Online dating is a modern-day necessity for many people who are looking for a relationship. Many of my friends have done it, and several of them are now happily married after meeting their other half online. I have a lot to thank online dating apps for myself as I met my boyfriend of 3.5 years through Tinder. Whitney has shaken this industry up with Bumble, empowering women to speak first, and she is continuing to push boundaries by expanding Bumble to India. In a recent interview she said, “I’d rather be overly ambitious than completely complacent”, and I completely agree with her.
Astra Duke: My role model is Heather Rabbatts.
What does International Women’s Day mean to you?
Alice Young: For me, it’s a time to take a step out of hectic schedules to read about and acknowledge all the great things people are achieving in the world every day. To ensure that everybody on my team (regardless of gender) feels that they have equal opportunities, a plan of where they want to be, and the knowledge that we are helping them get there.
Astra Duke: International Women’s Day to me is about congratulating and recognizing the hard work and great initiatives that my female colleagues and peers contribute to every day. It’s important that there is a day for women to be recognized for their contributions and success in a company, no matter how big or small.
Has International Women’s Day inspired you to take action in any specific way?
Alice Young: International Women’s Day has prompted me to make sure we are constantly discussing the incredible things that are being done across the world and also locally in our office. It enables the team to learn, celebrate others’ success, and find inspiration to drive them forward.
Astra Duke: I have been invited this year to participate in a Women in Tech drinks event celebrating International Women’s Day. Going forward, I would like to participate in some way each year to encourage other young women to achieve great things in the workplace and at home.
Each quarter, LogicMonitor recognizes its top performers with the “All-Star Award” — a prestigious honor awarded to internal team members who truly embody LogicMonitor’s core values and consistently go above and beyond to contribute to customer and company success.
The following employees were recognized by their peers and form the most recent class of LogicMonitor All-Stars. Keep reading to hear about what sets these Q3 2019 All-Star Award recipients LMers apart. Congrats to all of our Q3 winners!
Dondy Aponte
Sales Engineer, Santa Barbara
#CustomerObsessed
“Dondy is an All-Star in every sense of the word — he comes into the office every day with a positive attitude, always fired up and ready to go. The tireless contributions that he has made to the business, specifically in the APAC region, have been instrumental to LogicMonitor’s success.”
Amber Marsh
Team Lead, Sr. Sales Operation Analyst, Santa Barbara
#OneTeam
“Amber is a great leader and role model who has been transformative during her time at LogicMonitor. She’s compassionate, direct and dedicated to helping the company achieve great success.”
Julio Martinez-Thorpe
Manager, Engineering, Santa Barbara
#BetterEveryDay
“Julio is an integral part of the LogicMonitor team. He has made huge strides for the company, especially on the engineering front, and is one of the most passionate, caring leaders that anyone could ask for!”
Tahmid Nabi
Sr. Software Engineer, Santa Barbara
#OneTeam
“Tahmid is an exceptional engineer, mentor, and colleague. His calm and focused attitude helps keep the team momentum high, and he constantly goes above and beyond his job description to help fellow LMers succeed.”
Ryan Cheng
Team Lead, Business Development, Sydney
#BetterEveryDay
“Ryan is incredibly smart, driven to succeed, and ticks all the boxes of LogicMonitor’s core values. He demonstrates great leadership and serves as an excellent source of guidance and inspiration to everyone around him.”
Zach Butler
Sr. Market Development Representative, Austin
#CustomerObsessed
“Zach is a true team player, always fighting to do what’s best for the company. In addition to consistently hitting goals, Zach always keeps customer’s needs top of mind, staying late to field questions and speak with our valued customers. We are so lucky to have him!”
Sarah Robinson
Sr. Manager, Customer Experience Operations, Austin
#OneTeam
“Sarah is a stellar example of true leadership. She is a wealth of knowledge who always makes herself available to answer questions and provide support to those around her. Sarah can always be relied on to get the job done and is an invaluable asset to the LogicMonitor team.”
Rory Stoddart
Customer Success Manager, London
#BetterEveryDay
“Every morning, Rory walks into the office with a smile on his face and a bounce in his step. He has shown a tremendous amount of willingness and eagerness to learn, consistently improving his technical knowledge and thinking outside of the box. He is a true example of what it means to be #bettereverday and should be an inspiration to everyone!”
In between team offsites and catered lunches, our 2019 summer intern class worked on some pretty amazing projects. In part two of our “intern spotlight” series, we’ll hear from Sabina Friden, Product Marketing Intern in Santa Barbara, to learn more about how she spent her summer at LogicMonitor.
Why did you choose LogicMonitor?
Before starting this internship, I had a small amount of knowledge of what goes into working at a growing, fast-paced SaaS company. This is partly due to my older sister, Briana, who works on the Talent Acquisition team here at LogicMonitor (I know, leave it to the recruiter to get her sister hired). What I was not aware of, however, was just how much I would learn and grow from the experience.
What did a typical day look like?
Contrary to popular belief, I did not spend the summer fetching coffee or running errands. I was given an abundance of freedom to unleash my creativity and take the lead on important projects. On a typical day, I would spend my time polishing breakout session decks for our inaugural user conference, Level Up, creating datasheets and Confluence pages, learning about dashboards, Salesforce, Confluence, Asana, Jira, and Jamf, and sitting in on meetings. One project that I was particularly passionate about was creating a datasheet highlighting the key differentiation between Infrastructure Performance Monitoring and Application Performance Monitoring. In the performance monitoring industry, there is a common misunderstanding of the difference between the two. My job was to break down and analyze each device and establish that IPM tools are complementary devices that work well when used alongside APM tools.
What was mentorship like?
I had the opportunity to work under a small but mighty team of seasoned product marketing professionals — or as I like to call them, the power duo. Melissa and Aubrey guided me through my internship with the utmost kindness. They urged me to ask questions, share opinions, and get inventive with my projects. Not only that, but they constantly offered valuable advice and tools that were meant to be helpful outside of my role at LogicMonitor. They took a sincere interest in both my professional and personal development and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from these two.
What will you remember most about your summer at LogicMonitor?
When asked what I will remember most about my summer spent as a Product Marketing Intern at LogicMonitor, one image quickly comes to mind — avocado toast with hard boiled eggs. You’re probably thinking, “Seriously…? You worked at a rapidly growing tech company and that’s what you remember most?”. Allow me to explain. You see, when I think about what made my summer at LogicMonitor so amazing, it’s the little moments spent getting to know and learning from the people at LogicMonitor that stand out the most. Something as simple as sharing a snack with fellow team members in the kitchen lounge (hence the avocado toast) is a perfect tribute to this unforgettable summer spent with the incredible people at LogicMonitor.
Any additional thoughts?
LogicMonitor is a very special place! It is packed full of people who are there to inspire and challenge you. It’s a place where hard work is applauded, and people are empowered to do what they love. So, if I have any advice to give current or future LMers, it’s this: head over to the kitchen, grab a snack, and get to know the people around you — you may just learn something phenomenal!
Bio:
Sabina is a local Santa Barbarian who worked as a Product Marketing Intern at LogicMonitor. As a recent Strategic and Corporate Communication graduate from Chapman University, she spent her summer at LogicMonitor expanding her knowledge and passion for the industry by getting an in-depth look at the product side of marketing. During her free time, Sabina enjoys traveling (she spent a semester in Florence, Italy), visiting with friends and family, attending music events, and eating good food.
As our summer internship program comes to an end, we say goodbye to the 17 LogicMonitor interns who spent the past 10 weeks helping us live out our mission: to expand what’s possible for businesses by advancing the technology behind them.
To kick things off, we sat down with Michelle Nguyen who worked as an Engineering Intern in our Santa Barbara office.
How did you hear about LogicMonitor?
As an Engineering student going into my senior year UC Santa Barbara (Go Gauchos!), it is quite appropriate that I spend my last summer before graduation getting hands-on industry experience. I actually came across LogicMonitor unintentionally. So at my university, I serve as the President of an organization supporting women in Engineering and Science, Phi Sigma Rho. Towards the end of March, a LogicMonitor recruiter contacted me as part of an effort to create partnerships with campus groups. During our conversation, I started researching LogicMonitor and found out about their internship program. I expressed my interest and got called in for an interview — the rest is history!
Tell us about the internship program.
Coming into this internship, I expected to be handed all of the “easy” grunt work from a larger team of engineers — you know, writing test code or refactoring. However, what we actually got was quite different.
The beginning of the internship consisted of a bootcamp to help us become familiar with the tools in LogicMonitor’s technology stack. Honestly, we were like a bunch of newborn chicks running around just trying not to break anything. Here’s a picture of us on the first day!
The subsequent weeks were spent going through a project’s entire software development cycle: understanding the requirements, creating a technical design, implementing through test driven development, testing, deploying, and demo-ing. We worked in 3 week sprints and reported our actions in a daily stand up, which allowed us to get a firsthand look into the life of a Software Developer!
Luckily, all of the software interns got to sit next to each other which was super cool. This created a fantastic environment for collaboration, idea sharing and getting help on common issues without the pressure of feeling incompetent in front of the LM team (take that, imposter syndrome!!).
What project did you work on?
As interns, we were put into teams and received our own projects to build from the ground up. My partner and I were assigned a project to create a new alerting method for the LogicMonitor platform. If you’re reading this, you probably know that LogicMonitor is an infrastructure monitoring platform. And when some part of your infrastructure is down, LogicMonitor sends you an alert. Currently, LogicMonitor delivers these alerts through SMS, phone calls, email, and any HTTP integrated methods (i.e. Slack). Our project was to incorporate push notifications so people can get notified from their desktop. In my personal opinion? We killed it.
Although we signed up to be Back-End Developers, we also ended up being Product Managers and Full Stack Developers. We got a glimpse into the development decision making process and had the opportunity to build an entire project from scratch — from behind the scenes in the back-end to the user experience on the front-end.
What was mentorship like?
We were all under the guidance of the Engineering Manager, Sam Dacanay. Despite his busy schedule, he always made time to answer the interns’ questions. He understood that we were interns, never made us feel incompetent, and treated us all with respect and fairness. Sam is a powerhouse and I’m so grateful he was our manager. LogicMonitor, you’ve got yourself a good one.
In addition, each team was given a mentor to guide them through their project. My mentor, Louis Yang, is an incredibly intelligent and amazing software engineer — we really couldn’t have finished this project without his guidance. Louis was always available to help me with any issues I ran into and was a constant pillar of support and encouragement.
Any final thoughts?
Looking back on this internship, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity that LogicMonitor has provided me. If you’re reading this as a prospective LogicMonitor applicant, I highly recommend applying for their next summer internship program (or even for a full-time position right now!). From strengthening my development skills and pushing the limits of learning to being surrounded by all of the wonderful people at LM … it’s been real. I’ve genuinely enjoyed my time here and will be coming back during the school year to work part-time for LogicMonitor! Catch me around.
We recently passed 10 years since the first incorporation of LogicMonitor. (An LLC back then – a C corp now.) Traditionally this is a time to reflect back, distill some lessons learned, prognosticate about the future, and celebrate the milestone.
Luck played a huge part. I was lucky to have worked at very early SaaS companies, so LogicMonitor was designed as a pure SaaS offering from the start. This was a differentiator from all the premises-based systems out there – a hindrance initially, but definitely an advantage recently. We’ve had many large customers that have come to us explicitly because we are SaaS, and they wanted a SaaS monitoring solution to align with their enterprise transformation or modernization.
I was lucky that despite not even knowing what a product manager was, and making the cardinal mistake of product managers – confusing yourself with the customer – we created a product with good product market fit, that genuinely addresses customers needs. We’ve never had to pivot, and the product we have today has fundamentally the same value proposition as the one we launched with. (Now, of course, it works at much larger scale, covers a much wider array of technologies, is easier to use, and has a myriad more features – but it’s performing the same role as the product our first customers bought.)
We were lucky to find great investors at each level – Angel, VC and Private Equity Growth – that encouraged us, helped us, but let us run the business.
I was lucky to partner with Jie Song to head development, and that he had friends in China that were also exceptional developers – and that at the time, developers with Masters degrees and experience were affordable in China. (Important as I was seeing my own money fly out the window to fund LogicMonitor, with no revenue coming in…)
LogicMonitor founders Steve Francis (left) and Jie Song (right)
On the technology side, the increasing rates of change in technologies (a convex function, if you want to harken back to calculus class) have been both a pain and good thing for LogicMonitor. Businesses adopting new technologies need to monitor them – and often brought us in to fill gaps their incumbent solutions couldn’t address. (Some of our very first deals involved monitoring VMware, which was then fairly new – ten years ago was also the year VMware had their IPO.) Of course, that meant that we, as a tiny company, had to scramble to figure out how to monitor VMware (or NoSQL, or containers, or Kubernetes, or Azure, or whatever the change-driver du jour was.) Even with a team of engineers dedicated to expanding the scope of our coverage, it’s still a challenge – and an opportunity.
The journey from idea to real enterprise is in some ways quicker than my head has caught up with. It’s not an infrequent occurrence when I walk through one of our offices to think “Wow – all these people work for LogicMonitor!” Just this week, heading to a meeting with a partner, someone said “I’m not going to introduce you as the founder, as I think it will intimidate him.” I didn’t care – I am still in the mindset when I would not usually reveal I was the founder, because I was also the guy doing technical support on the chat system, or doing cold calling to prospects, and I didn’t want to give away how small we were.
The cliche that the culture of the company – who you work with, how you interact – really does matter, and does require attention is a cliche as it’s true. I love coming to work at LogicMonitor. In the early days there was the drive to create something, and seeing the company grow with every customer and every release (not to mention the urgency of needing sales to stop the money hemorrhage). There was the satisfaction of having customers appreciate the product, and express the value they get from it. I still love visiting customers, and hearing how we’ve helped. I still love the intellectual challenge of solving an obtuse technical problem within the paradigm of our product. I even enjoy doing trade show booth time, and explaining to people that we do solve their problems. (It is oddly satisfying to get someone to engage at a trade show, when they were steadfastly averting their eyes and trying to avoid contact, and then, after a conversation and maybe a demo, have them express “I’m really glad I came across you. This makes the whole trade show trip worthwhile” – a surprisingly common occurrence.) But as we’ve grown, we now have over 200 employees, and they are the reason I love coming to work.
Our employees are awesome, and all really good at their jobs. And they all really care about monitoring, our customers, and the company. What does it mean to care about “the company”? It means wanting to do good work – for whatever reason motivates them (intellectual challenge, pride, competitiveness, etc); it means caring about the people you work with, and it means caring about our customers. So in a real sense, the company doesn’t exist – it’s just the people here doing good work and caring about each other. But when you are in an environment like that – it’s a great place to work.
As to the future? So long as we keep this a place people love coming to work at, we’ll be able to help our customers and each other – regardless of how the technology landscape continues to rapidly change. And we’ll have fun doing it.
Culture is a set of beliefs and values that guide social norms. Establishing a company culture is no easy feat. At fast-growth tech companies like LogicMonitor, a distinct culture is incredibly important to driving success. Culture defines your company’s personality, the characteristics of the employees that are likely to be successful in it, and impacts customer experience. It’s established early (whether you like what you’ve created or not) and requires attention and investments in process and people, to be sustained and to thrive.
Ben Horowitz wisely wrote “Culture isn’t a weekly yoga class.” However, it’s often and easily misconstrued as that. Here at LogicMonitor we do offer weekly yoga (I know, cliché!). We also play hoops, host team lunches and sneak away for the occasional beach day. Our holiday party includes the company founder doing his best imitation of Eminem on the karaoke mic. Functional teams are mandated to take a quarterly offsite day to work on team priorities and to team-build over activities like rock climbing, cooking class, paddleboarding, and hiking. These activities are not ‘the culture’; instead they are the realization of a key element of our culture: balance.
Usually balance means exercise but sometimes it means letting off steam! Start-up stress is severe and continuous, so exercising your body helps maintain mental stamina and creativity. At LogicMonitor you won’t get any sideways glances if you return from lunch late because you attended an exercise class. Retaining your sharp edge allows you to think more clearly, solve more problems, and do more, faster. This intense balance makes you love your work and love your life. This is the personality of LogicMonitor and certain types of people thrive here as a result.
If you wander around our offices in Santa Barbara, Austin or Chengdu you’ll find open workspace. Pods of desktops are pushed together to foster personal interaction. Each office has common work area, a lounge and a game room. It’s space that lets people collaborate, but is also suited for head-down time. We don’t frown on our CTO’s occasional nap at his desk, or his long walks to work through tough problems. And we encourage activities that keep people fresh and creative.
The people who work at LogicMonitor are all shapes and sizes, from disparate backgrounds and cultures. There’s no pretense at LogicMonitor. Show up in board shorts and a tank top to work (as long as you aren’t going to see a client!) and no one will judge you. What binds us is our dedication to our mission: simplifying technology management for humankind.
We demand that our employees have a thirst for learning, working smart, taking initiative at all times, and that they always surround customer experiences with helpfulness and sincerity. We don’t demand that a customer is always right, we don’t copy competitors, and we don’t fire people for trying and failing. We try hard to select for fit in our hiring process. Occasionally we miss in the hiring or we find that an employee doesn’t keep up with the progression of the business. Either case usually becomes obvious fast, and we treat people with respect and move them on gracefully. Just because someone doesn’t excel at LogicMonitor doesn’t mean they can’t do great work elsewhere. But I’d argue that if you work well here – a place where you have to do your best work at a sustained pace – that you can ultimately work just about anywhere (and demand a premium for your talents).
Our customer experiences are fed by our culture. Two examples are our technical support and our pre-sales process. Our in-app chat support is staffed by IT engineers. Customers use chat to understand the LogicMonitor platform and also to troubleshoot monitoring their infrastructure. Our engineers work with clients to solve their problems, and clients regularly tell us how much they love the level of support. Our pre-sales process involves a white glove approach to a proof of concept. LogicMonitor is built to monitor the most complex infrastructures. By definition of the infrastructures they manage, our customers are technical, bright and under performance stress. We work as a partner to ensure prospects understand the platform and we let the product and its value do a lot of the selling. Our pre-sales team is well-trained, technical, and genuinely loves solving customer problems. Many of our customers don’t even know that we have a sales team.
We don’t do business this way because we have to. We do it because it’s who we are. It’s our culture.
This post was a team effort. Kevin McGibben is CEO, and Yasmeen Farukh is People Operations Manager at LogicMonitor. If you’re interested to join the LM team check out our profile at Glassdoor.com.