Erik Troan

Cofounder, Pendo

Search every verified Erik Troan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Erik Troan, cofounder and CTO of Pendo, discussed topics related to company growth, remote work, and technology innovation in several appearances. In a 2019 round table conversation on managing high-growth startups, he compared Pendo’s centralized office model with GitLab’s all-remote approach, noting that while remote work can be effective, it can create challenges when some participants are in a conference room and others join individually, describing those on their own laptops as "second-class citizens" in meetings. He also commented on the importance of intentionality in fostering career opportunities and information flow outside a traditional office setting. In a 2018 talk on market disruption, Troan traced how falling technology costs over four decades enabled the rise of major companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, and argued that lower entry costs have shifted venture capital from funding company creation to scaling proven ideas. He emphasized the role of total available market in evaluating opportunities and advised entrepreneurs to prove their concept before seeking large investments. In a separate 2018 interview, he described Pendo’s mission to help software teams understand feature usage and customer behavior, noting that the company took about ten months to land its first paying customer and that a Series A investment from Battery Ventures supported significant growth in headcount and revenue.