Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Steve, thanks so much for joining us.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Thanks, Keith, I'm excited to talk with you.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Likewise, we're going to talk about Veeva, which is a company that's doing really, really meaningful work in terms of building software for life sciences. So let's talk about Veeva and what the company does.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Founded in 2007. And we are we are public, we have about 1200 customers than 6000 employees. And our customers are mostly pharmaceutical life sciences companies. So if you can think of pretty much any pharma company that you could name that probably a customer of Veevas, and they probably have multiple Veeva products as well, because we do have a lot of different products, we actually have 47 of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies. So we've, we've had some success out there with our specific customer base. In terms of what we do, we're trying to build the operating system for life sciences. So we put together a combination of software, which is the area I'm in I love building products, and we build great products. But then we also have a large services team as well. And they implement the software products for our customers. And then we also have data services as well. So where Veeva have collated the data, and our customers buy that data and use it to, get insights into the industry as a whole. And then we kind of have two areas of life sciences that we address. There's the commercial side. So that's, that's the part of pharma that's trying to commercialize and sell their product. But then we also do a lot of work within research and development. So in the drug development process, the quality processes around that getting people trained, getting people through clinical trials, going through the regulatory process, as well as getting the drugs approved in the first place.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So Veeva was early in terms of creating software that's verticalized, around a specific industry. So talk about the background story of how the company came to fruition.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Yes, so our co-founders were Peter Gassner and Matt Wallach. And I think what's interesting about that pairing is Peter has big technologists, he came from Salesforce, he helped build the Salesforce platform. And Matt was the industry expert. He knew life sciences like the back of his hand. So it was that pairing of industry of technology experts and industry experts that I think is some of the secret sauce of Veeva that that story that pairing actually now is part of our culture, where at every level of the company, we have what we call the two in the box model where we pair someone who's really good at technology and product, we have somebody that's really good at the industry and knows the industry really well. And that helps us build really specific products that are best in breed, and Greg and good for solving the problems of our industry.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now in terms of the platform, you talked about the number of customers that you're dealing with, which is extraordinary. So talk about some specific examples of use cases or customers that you're working with.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Yeah, so in the area that I'm in, we're building something called a digital trials platform. So obviously in the news, you hear a lot about clinical trials. So the digital trials platform is part of Veeva technology, that, that helps clinical trials be more efficient, and remove a lot of the paper that's involved. Today, if you're a patient on a clinical trial, you're filling in a lot of paperwork, you're paper signing documents, you're filling out forms, we're trying to remove a lot of that paper. And in doing so, in digitizing the experience, we can help the data flow between the different participants, you know, you've got the patients on the trial, but then there are clinical researchers that are running the trial on behalf of the sponsors who are actually paying for the trial and trying to find out whether they're whether their drugs actually work or not. So it's our job is to try and stitch all that together and help our customers have a more efficient process. And hopefully, they'll they'll save a significant amount of money in the process as well. So our goal is that through providing this software to all of those participants, we can make clinical trials 25% Faster, 25% cheaper, and we want to do all of that by 2025 is our goal to have that digital trials platform up and running and being used by many of our customers. The other example that springs to mind of a customer is Boehringer Ingelheim. So they're a large pharmaceutical company. And I mentioned about this operating system that we're building and I think the Boehringer Ingelheim A story really illustrates that idea of the operating system, they have decided to basically go all in with Veeva and use all of our products across their, their development process. So they're using our clinical products, the quality of our regulatory products, as well as using some of that digital trials platform that I was just talking about. They're going to use that to reduce the complexity right in there, with their old setup, they'd be working with, you know, dozens, if not hundreds of vendors, now they can work with one vendor, and the data flow between all of that different software can be automated, because everything's on the same platform. So there's significant savings, and also a lot less complexity in terms of what they're doing as they're trying to bring these drugs to market.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So you talked about the size of Veeva, as a company, you know, 6000 or so employees. So talk about the plans ahead in terms of hiring and growth.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Yeah, sure. So, Veeva is always growing, we have new applications and new ideas and new initiatives every year. And we are a global company as well. So we're growing in both directions, both in terms of the scope of the products, but also in terms of the reach of our products, as well. So I like to think that really, we're still just getting started. We had huge growth last year, about 37% of hiring growth. While we were seeing other companies slowing down in terms of their growth, we have about 1200 Open Positions globally right now. And about 700 of those are in North America. So we're really looking to grow the team hire great people that are excited about the mission and, and help us build great products.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So once someone joins a team at Veeva, what's it like working there? What's the culture like?
Steve Harper, Veeva
It's great, it's my favorite part of working here. We just, we do a really good job of hiring very passionate, hard working, intelligent people. And sometimes I'm not sure whether I'd get the job if I were to join today. And you know, the people that work here are very much behind the course, right? It's about helping our customers build their product, which saves lives. And so that makes you feel good, right? You're building products that really are making a difference to the world. We are a very product-centric company, I think some companies are, are led by marketing or led by sales. And that Veeva is very much it's about the product. So as a product guy myself, that brings me a lot of joy, because it's all about how do we make a really good product? How do we strive towards product excellence. And there's always something new going on. So we do have a strong culture of autonomy over alignment. So what that means is that we're always going to favor autonomy, rather than trying to get the whole Veeva all like perfectly aligned, we kind of accept that that's probably impossible. It's a big old company, 6000 people to have perfect alignment across all of the products and all of the people, we're just going to slow you down and stagnate you and put in too much process. So we tried to keep that startup feel that we had when we were very small, we call it trying to stay Veeva and it's about moving fast, being responsive building products and iterating fast, but also sometimes accepting when you've gone in the wrong direction, you know that a product might be might not be the right fit. Let's try and learn that fast and pivot and do something else. So it's got kind of that startup feel, even though it's a very large company.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So what's the work environment like at Veeva? Are you in person remote or hybrid?
Steve Harper, Veeva
During COVID, we really embrace this idea of people being able to work from anywhere and now our offices are open again. And we give people the choice, they can work from the office that they'd prefer or they can also work from home. And I think people are being attracted to the company because of that.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now, there are lots of companies out there in the tech industry that are scaling and growing hiring. So there's options for people to explore, which is a good thing. So why is now the ideal time to join Veeva.
Steve Harper, Veeva
Well, I'd say that anytime is a good time to join Veeva. But I can certainly tell you why I believe people are joining right now why we've seen this rapid acceleration of growth. I think first of all, just our business is suddenly a bit more pertinent to people. The pandemic obviously has, has put the force of clinical trials and the act of performing clinical trials. Everyone's now heard about that people weren't talking about clinical trials three or four years ago. So you know, my team built software that helps patients go through can clinical trials. And I think people can now relate more to that, sort of before the pandemic, I'd tell people about my job and what we do. And I sometimes get that glazed look, as they're not quite sure what the clinical trial is. But now it's very, very relatable. Because we know that clinical trials have really helped us move forward from the pandemic. I think the other thing that is attracting people to Veeva is, is our stability, right? Life Sciences is obviously not going anywhere, anytime soon. And these life sciences companies need a company like Veeva to make them more efficient and more effective. And that's why you're seeing growth in Veeva where other companies maybe are, are slowing down. And I think the final piece that people are really related to as recently, we changed to a PBC. So that's a public benefit corporation. And so what that really means is that we're not just driven by stockholder profits. So we're not just in it for the money. We're doing what's right for our employees, for our customers, and also for the community at large. An example of that we have a product that, that I'm helping lead, is called Site vault. And we have a version of that it's for smaller clinical research sites that might not have the budget to implement and run software to help them manage their clinical trial execution. So we have this sitebulb Free is the product and it lets our customers use this software, it makes the pharmaceutical companies more efficient. But it also allows these clinical research sites that might not have budget otherwise, to use this, this best of breed software. And we're doing that because it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing for the industry. And so I think, you know, people are looking right now, for companies that are doing the right thing for companies that are doing good things out there for companies that are making a difference. And I think so they read Veevas story and they, they, they can relate and they think that will make me feel good about the job I do on a day to day basis.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Yeah, and I'm gonna double down on that statement to Steve. So, you know, the fact that Veeva was the first public company to convert to a public benefit corporation, I think speaks volumes about the company, the leadership, the culture, and the good, mission-driven type of company that it is. So if you are interested in exploring opportunities at Veeva, as Steve mentioned, they are hiring across the board. So go to their company page on VentureFizz. You'll see all their listings there, go to venturefizz.com/veeva and you'll see all their jobs. Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the great things happening at the company.
Steve Harper, Veeva
That's great. Thanks, Keith. It's been great talking with you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
