Today we launched season 2 of our podcast, and we're calling it Humans of SaaS! But what does that mean for NPS I Love You? For those who have been following along our podcast journey, this post explains our thought process behind the rebrand.‍

We launched season one of NPS I Love You on September 22, 2020. One of our team members came up with the name during a company-wide brainstorming session (back then, our team was only 30 people or so). We loved that it was punny, we loved that it was CS-related, and we knew people in our industry would love it – so we ran with it.

We did 46 episodes of NPS I Love You, and quickly racked up over 100 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, and tens of thousands of downloads, making us the largest and top-rated Customer Success podcast in the industry. 

There were three key reasons though, that we ultimately decided to relaunch and rebrand the podcast:

Reason #1: Our Best Episodes Were Our Non-CS Episodes

When we looked back at our analytics, the very top-performing episodes were not the episodes that talked about Customer Success strategies, but rather the episodes that tackled mental health, parenting, entrepreneurial struggles, and the human side of tech.

Some great examples of this can be heard in:

• Happy Birthday Kevin (With Catalyst CEO & Co-Founder, Edward Chiu)
• The Feelings Flywheel (With Catalyst Head of Customer Success, Sydney Strader)
• More Than He Could Chiu (With Catalyst COO, Kevin Chiu)‍‍

We also obviously realized that many of our most popular episodes were with Catalyst team members, which we attribute to our culture that heavily values vulnerability and mental health. It also makes sense because people are more comfortable going deep right away with people they know well and trust, than with a near-stranger.

While many of our episodes that focused directly on Customer Success did quite well, the feedback we received from those who weren’t listening to our show was that when they spend 8-10 hours each day doing Customer Success, they don’t want to hear more about it in their free time. On the train home, people would rather listen to something fun, relaxing, and captivating than something that talks about their job and how they might be able to do it better.

Reason #2: Our Podcast Didn’t Quite Know What It Was

A CEO, an FBI Agent, and a Mentalist walk into a bar…

Not a joke, but accurate descriptions of the breadth of guests and topics we had on NPS I Love You! Episodes like:

• I Knew We’d Record This (With Mentalist, Steffi Kay)
• What CS & Sales Can Learn From The FBI (With FBI Special Agent, Jack Schafer)
• A Tiger In The Bushes (With Speaker Labs Founders, Eric Silverberg & Eli Gladstone)

As the show progressed, it became harder to explain what the show was all about to people, including new guests. It was great to be hearing from a highly diverse group of people and to hear different stories and perspectives, but we felt that our show was too widespread in terms of what it covered.

This was originally by design. It was our first podcast and we didn’t know what topics would stick with our audience. But as we progressed and we realized what was really resounding, we decided it was time to narrow our focus, establish a clear vision and direction for the show, and have a level of consistency with our guests.

Reason #3: We Want To Go Beyond Customer Success

While the Customer Success industry is the focus of Catalyst, we know that people in CS can learn incredibly valuable things from folks who are not necessarily in CS. The problem we started to run into, however, was that potential guests hadn’t heard of “NPS” before and therefore didn’t get the pun, or they had heard of NPS, but they didn’t want to come on the show because they assumed we were a very technical podcast about Customer Success strategy.

In order to keep expanding the breadth of guests we have on, we knew it was important to have a name that still immediately communicated the general audience for our show (SaaS professionals), but that wouldn’t alienate folks who might be unfamiliar with or turned off by very specific CS topics.

Under the “Humans of SaaS” brand, the door is now open to folks from all roles and walks of life, as long as they’re involved in the SaaS industry, or people in SaaS can learn from them. 

About Humans of SaaS - What Will Be Different?

You’ll hear a few differences in Humans of SaaS, but the biggest one is our new emphasis on storytelling. Every guest we have on will have a compelling story to share, which we’ll explore in a very open and honest fashion. 

As our new show description states, “This weekly podcast shines a light on the human side of the tech industry, with an emphasis on mental health, perseverance, creativity, successes, and failures. It goes beyond the flashy funding and acquisition announcements, and explores the entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders behind the scenes who make it all happen—what they’ve experienced, what they’ve overcome, and most importantly, what they’ve learned.”

Our first episode, “Losing $14 Million In One Day” with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro and Author of Lost & Founder, is the perfect example of what we hope to achieve with every episode moving forward. Rand talks openly and honestly about his journey with Moz, strategies he recently employed with SparkToro that were highly effective, and some of his strongest opinions about the tech industry.

To those of you who enjoyed NPS I Love You, I hope and believe that you will love Humans of SaaS even more.

To those of you who thought all NPS I Love You was about was CS strategy, I hope you’ll give Humans of SaaS a shot to win you over.

Thank you to all our listeners, and to our incredible guests who share so openly and generously for the advancement of our industry.

‍If you enjoy Humans of SaaS, don’t forget to leave a review 😉