Not Another CEO Podcast | Creating a Culture of Customer Focus - Todd Olson - Pendo

Creating a Culture of Customer Focus - Todd Olson - Pendo - Episode #40

April 22, 2025 / 01:05:00/E40

How do you scale a company to $200 million+ in ARR while maintaining deep empathy for the customer? In this episode of Not Another CEO Podcast, David Politis sits down with Todd Olson, the Founder and CEO of Pendo, to find out.

Todd shares the values and rituals that helped him scale Pendo into a product-led powerhouse, including his unwavering commitment to customer-centricity, his direct approach to hiring, and the operating cadence that keeps his nearly 900-person team aligned. Todd reflects on the highs, lows, and philosophies that have guided his journey.

Takeaways:

Customer Obsession as a Foundational Value: Todd emphasizes how being “maniacally focused on the customer” has guided every stage of Pendo’s growth. From answering support tickets himself in the early days to personally monitoring feedback as CEO, he’s created a culture where customer empathy cascades through every department.
Every Hire Must Talk to Customers: Todd shares a hiring principle he’s followed since day one: only hire people you'd trust on the phone with a customer. This standard shaped Pendo’s culture, even affecting how they screen engineers, ensuring they’re willing and able to engage directly with users.
Personally Interviewing Hundreds: At one point, Todd personally interviewed every employee… almost 800 people. Beyond vetting talent, it was a powerful tool for maintaining cultural consistency and calibrating hiring managers across the org. He also ran 90-day check-ins with new hires to ensure expectations matched reality.
Product Leadership Rooted in Vision: Though product leadership has evolved at Pendo, Todd has remained deeply involved in product vision and strategy. He describes how he stays hands-on with design sessions, brainstorming new features, and ensuring Pendo’s tools meet the high bar of product teams building for product teams.
Disciplined Operating Rhythm: Todd credits much of Pendo’s success to a consistent cadence of planning and communication. Annual and quarterly planning rituals, town halls, and regular team offsites help align the company around shared goals and keep stress in check during turbulent times.
Built in Raleigh, Built to Last: Despite early pressure to move to Silicon Valley, Todd built and scaled Pendo out of Raleigh, North Carolina. He shares how the local ecosystem shaped the company and how hiring executives from outside the region helped them compete on a national scale while staying grounded in local roots.

Quote of the Show:

"Nearly every product is like, strongly opinionated, meaning when you use it, you feel like it has a point of view that it’s trying to impart." - Todd Olson

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