Suggestions
Nick Mehta
Professional based in Palo Alto, California, United States
Nick Mehta
CEO, Gainsight
Nick Mehta (he/him), is the CEO of Gainsight, the platform that helps companies of all sizes and industries drive durable growth through customer-led and product-led strategies. He works with a team of over 1400 human beings who together have helped create the Customer Success category that's currently taking over the SaaS business model worldwide.
Gainsight is a five-time Forbes Cloud 100 recipient and Nick has been named the #2 CEO by the Software Report, has a 99% approval rating on Glassdoor, and was named Entrepreneur Of The Year for Northern California Award. He is a member of the Board of Directors at F5 (NASDAQ
Prior to Gainsight, Nick was the CEO of LiveOffice, where he led the Inc. 5000 company's profitable growth to $25 million in revenue and successful sale to Symantec. Nick has held senior operating roles for public and private companies in the enterprise and consumer technology markets, including Veritas Software (acquired by Symantec), Symantec Corporation, and XDegrees (acquired by Microsoft). Mehta also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Trinity Ventures and Accel Partners.13
In a recent talk at SaaStr Annual 2023, Nick shared his top 10 failures as a CEO while growing Gainsight to over $200M ARR. Some key lessons he learned include:
- Not holding leaders to the highest standard of the company's values early on25
- Trying to do too much and not focusing on the most important priorities5
- Hiring too fast without enough rigor and cultural fit5
- Letting politics and ego get in the way of doing what's best for customers and employees5
Despite these challenges, Nick has led Gainsight to become a market leader in Customer Success software. He is passionate about building a values-driven culture and helping other SaaS founders learn from his experiences, both successes and failures.4
Highlights
This might help you if you are trying to be there for friends or work colleagues who are going through hard or tragic times:
For me, so many wonderful people have reached out (literally thousands) over the last 2 months and said "just checking in - how are you doing?"
That on it's own is such a gift. It's amazing to wake up in the morning and feel supported.
And I try to answer them honestly. For example, right now, I'm feeling a lot of joy and am excited about some startup ideas, fun travel, friends, etc. And the grief creeps up when I least expect it. But it's ok - the grief for me is a reminder of my love for my daughter. And I don't ever want to lose that.
When I share this answer with friends and I ask how they are doing, most respond with a more pithy "I'm doing great!"
Those that take it further open up about themselves, braving the world of vulnerability.
And I can understand why folks don't always do it. Maybe they aren't feeling anything strongly now. Maybe they are and it's too hard to talk about. Maybe they're busy. Or maybe they are worried to share because they think their challenges are relatively insignificant (they aren't - in my view, all emotions, joy and suffering matter equally).
Those that cross this threshold are incredible. They make me feel so much less alone.
So when you check in on a friend, an interesting question is whether it would serve you and them to be real with how you're doing too. It's not a recommendation (everyone's life is different) - just a thought.
Lawyers used to be so based.


