Samer Kamal of InCountry: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS
Being an immigrant in this country really defines who you are as a person. The chance of losing your status and having to leave at any moment can really haunt you. While I have always had to keep this in mind throughout my career, it’s pushed me to focus on what’s really important. In order to pursue my interests, I’ve had to make some risky decisions. My work ethic is informed by both my immigration status as well as the support and encouragement I received from my parents growing up, which enabled me to explore my love for technology.
As part of my series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Samer Kamal.
Samer Kamal is the VP of product at InCountry, a data residency-as-a-service startup based in San Francisco. He brings 15 years of experience in enterprise software and SaaS including technical positions in consulting and solution management. Prior to InCountry, he led solutions marketing and management efforts at Pure Storage and SAP. Most recently leading solutions management for a data protection product at SAP.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
My career began when I moved to the United States. I moved to this country many, many years ago for college. I ended up liking it so much that I decided to stick around for a few more years. These few years became several, and this September, I will have spent half of my life in the United States.
What was the “Aha Moment” that led you to think of the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?
Before joining InCountry, I had worked on solving similar problems at a very large enterprise software company. While working there, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with some of the world’s largest companies and saw the challenges they continued to have when it came to data compliance. This was a big aha moment for me. I decided to leave my job with the goal of joining a startup to innovate and find solutions to these ongoing problems. I heard InCountry’s Founder and CEO, Peter Yared, on a podcast discussing data regulation and immediately contacted him via social media. Luckily, he understood my enthusiasm and invited me over to the InCountry office. After a great discussion and meeting with the team, Peter offered me a job on the spot.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Being an immigrant in this country really defines who you are as a person. The chance of losing your status and having to leave at any moment can really haunt you. While I have always had to keep this in mind throughout my career, it’s pushed me to focus on what’s really important. In order to pursue my interests, I’ve had to make some risky decisions. My work ethic is informed by both my immigration status as well as the support and encouragement I received from my parents growing up, which enabled me to explore my love for technology.
So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
I’ve been able to overcome challenges by framing them as opportunities for learning and growth rather than obstacles in my way. Now, I’m comfortable with stress and uncertainty and always remind myself to never give up and look for the lesson in the challenge.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
On my first ever sales call, when I was working out of my apartment, my girlfriend (now, my wife), walked in and I tried speaking to her while simultaneously pitching my first customer. Needless to say, both conversations failed miserably. I then realized that whatever I’m working on deserves my full attention. Otherwise, it won’t be done properly. Now, more than ever, this lesson has been put to the test. As we learn to balance work and home life during COVID-19, discipline and routine is even more essential.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
InCountry is the first and only data residency-as-a-service platform helping companies achieve global data compliance. Unlike legacy solutions, InCountry is the only data residency platform capable of meeting the compliance and security needs of modern businesses with health, payment, finance and profile data. With an operational footprint in six continents and coverage in 80 countries, our internal diversity and global mindset has been critical to our overall success. By prioritizing our presence in the regions we’re working to protect, we’re able to better understand the challenges our customers face.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Breaks are important. As small as they can be, they’re extremely helpful to overall productivity. As many of us work-from-home, tools like Slack and Zoom have helped to keep us connected. Yet, they can sometimes make it difficult to separate work from our personal lives, making it all the more important to regularly step-back.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
It would be impossible for me to name just one person to attribute my success to. However, there are a few notable figures from pivotal moments in my career that have helped me get to where I am today. My first manager, for instance, pushed our company to apply for work visas. This was a first for the business and enabled me to continue to work in the U.S. Peter, the CEO and Founder at InCountry, has trusted me to help develop our business and has opened more doors for me than I would have even thought possible. Several people in my life have taken chances on me when I wasn’t the obvious choice. I’m grateful for all of them and try to pay it forward.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Approximately how many users or subscribers does your app or software currently have? Can you share with our readers three of the main steps you’ve taken to build such a large community?
I currently cannot comment on the number of customers we have due to privacy requirements. Still, I can say that we’re seeing incredible interest in our solutions from companies we thought we wouldn’t be talking to for years.
My advice for other SaaS companies in the compliance and security industry would be first, to take their compliance seriously. If you do not hold yourself accountable and secure your business’s data via your solutions, how can you expect customers to trust you with theirs? At InCountry, our chief compliance and security officer’s dedication to compliance has enabled us to achieve certifications and accreditations with programs startups our age typically would not have access to.
Secondly, you must trust your team members’ decisions regarding building new tools and solutions, especially if you’re coming in at a later stage of development. More often than not, solutions are developed and rebuilt as part of an ongoing process of revision. Keep an open mind when making suggestions as it’s essential to march together to outpace the competition.
Thirdly, be open to fresh perspectives. As important as it is to acknowledge progress, it’s essential to be open to criticism internally and externally. These comments can be leveraged to make crucial improvements.
What is your monetization model? How do you monetize your community of users? Have you considered other monetization options? Why did you not use those?
InCountry’s monetization varies customer to customer. We offer our SaaS solutions to different companies based on their specific needs.
What our customers appreciate about us is our dedication to ensuring they have the best-of-class of SaaS solutions for the regulatory issues they struggle with. Our strategy officer refers to our specific relationships with customers, software vendors and system integrators as a ‘virtuous circle.’ As a result of our commitment to their needs, our partners often recommend our solutions and bring new customers to InCountry.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS? Please share a story or an example for each.
From the get-go, there are several important things SaaS startups should consider to achieve success:
- Acknowledge that the problem your tackling may evolve as you work to solve it — be open to change.
- Commit to dedicating the necessary time, money and technology needed to build your business the right way
- Build the right team of employees and investors who believe in your goal
- Be prepared to speak to why the difficult path you’re taking is not only important but necessary
- Don’t be scared to solve a narrow problem. At InCountry, our solutions address a narrow set of problems, yet they’re very deep and within a large market. This enables us to continue to scale and grow.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
It pains me to see what the immigration system in this country is becoming. Talent is choosing to go elsewhere. If I could start a movement, it would be to revamp the whole system and try to make it as much of a win-win to all parties as possible.
How can our readers follow you on social media? I’m on Twitter, all the time! @samerkamal
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
THANKS FOR HAVING ME!
