Francis Potter

Next year, Lightspeed Commerce will exit its teenage years and turn 20. What does that maturity mean? For me, it’s all about shifting from simply a growth mindset to one of profitability. I sat down with Gus Papageorgiou, our Head of Investor Relations and host of the Inside Lightspeed podcast, to discuss this cultural shift, where we’re heading, and how my role as CEO will guide this moving forward. When Lightspeed first started, we were all about seizing opportunities — whether it was moving to the cloud early on, expanding into new markets, or launching payments. These bold moves have driven us to where we are today. Now, as we approach this new chapter, we're putting an emphasis on: - Doubling down on areas where we can truly excel and deliver the most value to our customers. - Making profitability our new North Star and ensuring that every move strengthens our foundation. - Staying true to our core mission: helping SMBs thrive. But now, we’re doing it with a sharper focus on long-term success. Had a great time reflecting on Lightspeed’s past, as well as discussing our vision for the future. Check out the full podcast here: https://lnkd.in/gF3vG-Qn

124

8 Comments

💥 Two years after Tim Horton’s settled a class action in Canada for sharing location data through its use of the Radar SDK in its app… 💥…And two years after Greenley vs. Kochava claimed the Kochava SDK intercepts consumers’ location data when using mobile apps 💥…Bender vs. Twilio claims the Segment SDK collects personal information in a similar fashion. Are class action plaintiffs taking up the cause of SDK liability? Or are these flukes? In Bender vs. Twilio, Noah Bender downloaded and used the Calm meditation app on his cell phone. He later claimed the Segment SDK intercepted sensitive communications between himself and Calm. Segment is designed for developers to collect data , including search terms, search results, keystrokes, button presses, page views, and consumers’ names and email addresses. Bender is suing Twilio for violating America's Wiretap Act, the California Wiretap Act, and California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA). This may be the Calm before the storm for class actions. Bender's complaint alleges over 11,000 app developers have integrated Segment into apps for shopping, productivity, gaming, and mental health. With Boltive, companies find litigation risks in their iOS and Android apps before plaintiffs do #privacycompliance #dataprotection #dataprivacy

66

13 Comments

Last night, I attended BetaKit's Town Hall on the state of innovation in Canada. It was an inspiring event that brought together Toronto's brightest minds to discuss how we can move forward. Every speaker resonated with me, but a key takeaway is the immense opportunity we have to showcase Canadian craftsmanship in building world-class products. We can also empower the next generation to follow suit. Here are the top points that struck a chord with me personally: 1. Tech Talent: Scale up your career in Canada and make monumental impact here. (Ivan Zhang of Cohere) 2. Canadian Government: Continued innovation is crucial for solving problems in outdated industries like healthcare and pharmacy. Don't stifle our ability to make a real difference in the everyday lives of Canadians. (✨Joella A. of MedEssist | Transforming Pharmacy with Technology and AI 🏥) 3. Top Tech Leaders of Canada:  Our arguments about stagnation hold weight across Canada. Let's focus on the most impactful solutions. Is capital gains tax the most effective approach to get buy in from the average Canadian? (Ali Asaria, formerly Transformer Labs, Tulip) 4. Industry Veterans: Our mentorship is invaluable, especially for young professionals entering the remote workforce post-pandemic. Make time to guide them. (Jocelyne Murphy of Socratica) 5. Canada: Our differentiator is our CRAFTSMANSHIP. We have excellent product builders. Let's keep building here. Let's keep learning here. Let's get better here. (Tobias Lütke of Shopify) Let's go 🚀 #CanadianTech #Innovation #BetaKit #TownHall

37

The Quarterly Business Review (QBR) is a great way to understand what's happening in your business. The best are run with participation from adjacent groups including Product, Marketing, Engineering and CS. https://lnkd.in/gXhe3aYP

19

8 Comments

All the small web shops should look into this as a funnel for new biz and all the small and medium size businesses should really consider where your best ROI is at. Fix it and be accessible!

8

Your buyers are on a journey that starts long before they reach out to you. Most buyers have already researched potential solutions to their unique problems. They want social proof, and they know where to get it. Sites like G2 exist to strengthen the confidence a buyer can have by seeing actual reviews for software from actual customers. So, by adding interactive demos to your G2 profile, you have an additional leg up on the competition and more evidence for your future champion to take back to their buying team. Take 5 minutes to learn how to let customer see your fantastic product through G2! #buyerenablement #consensus #demoautomation #testimonial #voiceofthecustomer

2

As someone who's been in software development for over 20 years, I've learned a lot about what really affects the price of custom software. Let me share some insights that might surprise you: 🚀 Time is the hidden multiplier. The longer a project takes, the more it costs - not just in billable hours, but in opportunity cost for your business. 🚀 Complexity compounds. Like interest on a loan, each added feature increases the overall cost exponentially, not linearly. 🚀 The cheapest option often comes with the heftiest price tag. I once chose a bargain developer for a critical project. The short-term savings led to long-term headaches and costly rewrites. 🚀 Your team's involvement is invaluable - and expensive. The time your staff spends on the project is a real cost, often overlooked in budgeting. 🚀 Maintenance is the long game. The real investment begins after launch. Ongoing updates, security patches, and scalability needs can dwarf the initial development costs. Remember, we're not just buying lines of code - we're investing in digital assets that can propel our businesses forward. The true value lies in how these solutions transform operations and drive growth. In software, as in life, true value isn't determined by price, but by impact. #SoftwareDevelopment #AppDevelopment #TechStartups

19

2 Comments

Happy Q4! 😊 Great time to highlight, when setting up LiveRecover agents - we understand it is not a "one-size fits all" for our merchants. Let us help you. Our dedicated Account Management team will ensure your P2P / live agent workflows are optimized for success this Q4; proper segmentation, include/exclude existing marketing subscribers, cart value thresholds, etc. Want to reach 7x more customers and increase revenue lift by 10-20%? Let’s chat asap and get you on a risk free test before BFCM! #IncrementalRevenue #5minuteinstall

8

1 Comment

If software is your strategy, you know a thriving engineering team is key to success. But team health is about more than just numbers. That’s where the Ultimate DevEx Playbook comes in. This step-by-step guide, featuring insights from Jellyfish and AWS, explains how to improve the developer experience meaningfully. Teams with great DevEx are: ✔ 33% more likely to hit business targets ✔ 31% more likely to improve delivery flow ✔ 20% more likely to stay with their employer Ready to level up your team’s performance? Access the playbook now. Link in comments

17

1 Comment

I am thrilled to introduce a suite of exciting new features that are now available as part of the Anypoint Code Builder (ACB) June Release. These long awaited features will make your integration development experience smoother, faster, and more powerful. Can't wait to hear what you think. Let me know in the comments. #mulesoft #integration #ipaas #mulesoftcommunity #anypointcodebuilder #api #governance #dataweave #munit #muleruntime #ide

71

RevOps vs Chief of Staff work "I think RevOps is like a right hand to CRO of an organization. So a Chief of Staff is essentially like an extension of an executive member on any team. I think if you're smaller, than you have your hands in a lot of different pots." - Ravi Neppalli from our new Chief of Staff Podcast episode 🎧 Key takeaway: the size of company and who you report to impacts the work you do!

38

5 Comments

Excited to announce PolyAPI's Release 16, packed with powerful updates! - Enhanced Management UI: A complete UX overhaul to improve navigation and usability. - Expanded UI Pages: More functionality at your fingertips. - Catalog Scalability: Reusable schemas now support faster, more scalable catalog population for functions. - Granular Permissions: New fine-grained permissions to enhance tenant and user management. - GitHub Copilot Extension: Improved admin tools and smoother usage. - New Out-of-the-Box Functions: Built-in support for Zoom and OHIP integrations. - Upgraded Documentation: Fresh pages and guides for seamless onboarding & enhanced Postman Collection. - Azure Marketplace Listing: Now discoverable and accessible on Azure. - Extra Stable Instance: Customers can now opt for an instance one release behind for added stability. - Resiliency and DX Enhancements: Overall system robustness and developer experience improvements. Kudos to our team and gratitude to our customers for their invaluable feedback. We’re proud to keep building together!

13

Unlock the potential of your Shopify store with a multi-touch attribution model! Discover how to assign credit across every customer interaction, optimize your marketing strategy, and drive higher ROI. Attribuly walks you through the essential steps and benefits, making it a must-read for savvy e-commerce marketers. Dive in to elevate your business intelligence and stay ahead of the competition! #Ecommerce #Shopify #MarketingStrategy #AttributionModel #DigitalMarketing #BusinessGrowth #MediaBuying #Attribuly

3

1 Comment

Do companies really need a Chief AI Officer? ❓ We know it by now: ⚡ AI is disruptive ⚡ The disruption is happening in lightspeed ⚡ AI is here to stay I have not met any leaders saying that they (in sail terms) "weather" and wait until the storm passes by. Everyone understands the importance, but when it comes to the how, less people know what to concretely do. Depending on the company culture you can see nuances of these two extremes: 🚨 Companies with “individual test labs” and a laissez-faire attitude without any boundaries where literally everything is possible and allowed and the idea is to let creativity flow in order to detect the right AI for the jobs. Biggest Concern: Data privacy 🚨 Companies who are very rigid in their guidance on what is and isn´t allowed in order to honor data privacy as the highest good to protect.  Biggest concern: Pace of innovation As a result of this “wild west situation with companies racing to find the best gold claims” you can see the rise of a new C-level role: the Chief AI Officer. Why would companies appoint such a leadership role in contrast to deploying crossfunctional center of excellence across the existing functions that decides on a strategy together?  I personally see the biggest benefit in avoiding silos and duplication and by establishing the right focus. By having a dedicated leader for this transformation the company makes sure to have enough room and dedication for it. What are the must do´s when deploying a CAIO so that you set this role up for success 💡 Crystal clear Roles & Responsibilities between the C level positions such as COO, CIO, CMO, CCO, CDO  💡 Clear and explicit expectation laid down on the goals to achieve; how does success concretely look like 💡 Clear budget and resource allocation (and these resources should ideally not be taken away from other C-level pockets) 💡 Selection of the right leader. A CAIO needs to have strong change management skills and needs to be able to lead through influence. This role will need to convince other organizations to adopt and change and will have to overcome internal resistance to change. CAIOs should have a good overview of internal and customer facing processes e2e as disrupting the ways of working with AI requires the business to fundamentally transform. I personally think the CAIO role makes sense to appoint during the transition to embrace AI technology. This role will make sure that a company has an e2e strategy not a quilt and patchwork. In addition it will setup the structure and framework for this AI enhanced way of working  and will ensure the proof of generating a proper ROI. I cannot foresee yet if this role is here to stay or if the benefit for it will deteriorate over time and with the development of more profound knowledge of how to best incorporate AI into the day2day business. Time will tell. and for now: Let´s GOOO... Picture: Dall-E with my female-biased prompts 😎

11

I am so excited to be presenting in this webinar with Julia Swenda! Who is joining us to learn more about HX?

6

2 Comments

In this talk, #Couchbase's Ben Greenberg breaks down keyword, semantic, vector and hybrid search approaches. He'll explore how each method works, their advantages and disadvantages, and practical use cases 🔎

1

“Organizations buying your software are asking for a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) and you can tie business metrics to that.” Andrew Chung Chief Product Officer at Level Access explains that two strong ways of advocating for product resources for accessibility are to bring product customers who are asking for VPATs, and quantifying the business risk of not being accessible. He goes on to share a great reminder that “don’t wait, just start” is a compelling way to create evidence of the benefits of allocating a small amount of resources, which can then be used to build a business case for unlocking more resources to build accessible products. Use free tools to help you get started and if you can show early success you can build a much stronger case for incorporating accessibility early in the product process. We all purchase software, next time ask for a VPAT during the process.  Every request adds up, and it will make a meaningful difference in how Product teams prioritize limited resources. Full interview is in the comments. This is now conversation #5 in our series for National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and we have a few more that we’re editing and will share soon. My mission with these conversations is to help build awareness of the importance and business opportunity for building accessible, and give advocates the tactics and strategies they need to make forward progress in their organizations. Stay tuned for more and in the meantime let me know what more you’d like to hear from our guests.  Upcoming conversations include conversations with startup founders, senior accessibility leaders who have worked at major tech and consumer companies, venture capitalists who invest in the ability space, and more. Drop your questions in a comment, and I'll get as many asked as I can. #NDEAM #GoodJobsForAll #inclusionworks #DisabilityRights #InclusiveWorkplace #InclusionMatters

21

3 Comments