Prodoscore is an AI-powered data intelligence solution dedicated to making teams more successful. By clarifying what employees need to do to maintain optimal productivity without feeling pressured by meaningless metrics, Prodoscore helps empower people, streamline processes, identify opportunities for workforce optimization, and ensure better-informed decision-making.
Pulse 2.0 interviewed Prodoscore CEO Sam Naficy to learn more about the company.
Sam Naficy’s Background
Naficy has been an entrepreneur for the majority of his career. And Naficy said:
“I founded numerous companies across different industries and raised over $300 million of debt and equity. For the last 25+ years, I’ve focused on SaaS businesses, most recently in the quick service restaurant development and technology sectors.”
“Outside of the leadership roles I’ve held at tech companies, I’ve invested in several SaaS/technology-enabled software businesses. Currently, I’m CEO at Prodoscore, a SaaS business focused on data intelligence and productivity insights.”
“I’m also an active member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) Los Angeles, formerly serving as its Chapter Chair, and dedicate a lot of my time to various non-profits, including the Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club.”
Core Products
What are Prodoscore’s core products? Naficy explained:
“Put simply, Prodoscore is a data intelligence solution that gives leaders visibility into employee productivity in order to drive individual and organizational success.”
“Using Machine Learning, AI, and Natural Language Processing, Prodoscore captures thousands of daily activity points across core business applications (like your Office Suite, CRM/ATS, phone system, chat tools, etc.) to provide meaningful insights that inform better decisions. Our proprietary scoring system serves as a unique foundation to enable trending analysis around work habits, cloud tool adoption, collaboration, and general productivity.”
“With Prodoscore, leaders can find new ways to make people more effective and more efficient, and define a smarter plan of action that’s easy to digest and even easier to replicate.”
“We are committed to helping organizations unlock the full potential of their workforce. Our comprehensive analytics solution, coupled with our expertise in employee productivity, provides the insights and tools necessary to understand, optimize, and celebrate employee success and drive company growth.”
Evolution Of Prodoscore’s Technology
How has Prodoscore’s technology evolved since launching? Naficy noted:
“The company and product have evolved quite a bit over the past few years. I’d say the biggest shift for us has been to focus on optimizing the solution to drive employee success. We’re very employee-centric, which sets us apart from other productivity solutions. We want our data to motivate employees and leaders to be the best they can be. So, our data science team is hyper-focused on finding ways to surface critical insights that will inform coaching conversations and create new opportunities for improvement.”
“I think it’s also important to mention the development of our data science team. When we think about the evolution of the company, this is a huge step. Once we stopped to appreciate the breadth of the data we capture, we realized how much more we could glean from it and then provide to our customers with insight from a team of data and behavioral scientists. We started with one Data Scientist and now have a full-blown team responsible for transforming our raw data into actionable insights.”
“One of the most exciting products we launched, led by the Data Science team, is ProdoLabs, a data platform created to enhance existing Prodoscore metrics. It’s a sandbox or thinktank of sorts that encourages collaborative exploration so business leaders can identify new ways to leverage data insights, guided by subject matter experts, and translate those metrics into strategies that will improve people management and increase organizational efficiency.”
“In line with our data-forward and employee-centric approach, we have also started to see a lot more opportunities in the enterprise space. Early on, we thought SMB was our sweet spot, but we’re seeing more and more success as we move upstream, and I think a lot of that is tied to the depth of our data.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Naficy cited:
“In line with what I just mentioned, I think the development of a Data Science team this year is truly our most significant milestone. Adrian Reece, Data Scientist and People Analytics Specialist, and PhD student, is leading the team. He has a diverse background and a unique skill set, combining behavioral science techniques, I/O psychology, and computer engineering.”
“We’re starting to map out Prodoscore’s next iteration incorporating LLM, GPT-4, and more advanced Machine Learning to take our actionable insights and analytics to even greater heights.”
“I’ve never been more excited about Prodoscore’s future.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Naficy about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“My favorite customer success story comes from one of our biggest customers, a government agency based in New York. Prior to implementing Prodoscore, the leadership team was experiencing pressure from the Chairman/CEO to get employees back into the office after the COVID pandemic, and when leadership enforced a return to office, 100 employees on a 600-person team resigned. It was clear that the employees wanted flexibility but leadership needed visibility into their remote staff to gain confidence in their ability to work productively outside of the office.”
“The agency initially conducted a proof of concept with 9 Employee Productivity Monitoring (EPM) providers and ultimately signed a contract with Prodoscore. They started with 50 seats, then increased to 500, and today we have 4,200 employees using Prodoscore.”
“The best part of this story is that Prodoscore is something employees opt into – basically, anyone eligible to work a hybrid schedule can do so by opting into Prodoscore. The adoption rate is at about 94% today.”
“I love this story because it underlines the value of data intelligence for the end user, not just leadership.”
Funding/Revenue
After asking Naficy about funding and revenue information, he revealed:
“We closed our Series A in December of 2022 and have raised a total of $13 million led by PSG. We’re on track to grow 50% year over year in 2023 and expect to see similar results in 2024.”
“From a company standpoint, we have roughly 40 employees today and will likely see that grow to 50+ next year.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Naficy assessed:
“We have seen success with a very wide variety of companies and industries, but our focus is primarily on staffing agencies, law firms, and organizations with large sales and/or customer support teams. Our data is really valuable for revenue-producing employees.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Naficy affirmed: “I would say our biggest differentiator is that we’re API-based (vs. agent-based). An agent-based solution refers to out-of-the-box software installed on employees’ computers to monitor their activity throughout their workday.”
“These solutions have the ability to track keystrokes, browser usage, and emails, and many have the capability to record what’s on the employee’s screen at any given moment. By comparison, API-based monitoring like Prodoscore’s is more discreet and noninvasive, operating from a central platform that connects through APIs with business applications to monitor how workers interact with those tools throughout the day. You can see at a glance what tasks are being performed within a CRM platform or other business application, for example, and gain rich insight around those tasks.”
“Because we’re API-based, we’re the non-invasive, employee-friendly choice. Our solution only captures data from business applications, and employees have access to the metrics we surface. Plus, onboarding takes just minutes, the dashboard is very easy to navigate, it’s ultra-secure, and offers visibility across multiple devices (meaning, if you take a Zoom call from your cell phone while going to pick up your kid, that activity will be captured).”
“The other big differentiator I can highlight is our data science team, referenced earlier. Their combined expertise in machine learning, natural language processing, organizational psychology, behavioral science, workforce performance analytics, and behavioral benchmarking speaks volumes about our data competency and how our product roadmap is defined.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Naficy concluded: “Based on learnings from customers, we’re doing more and more to surface insights around how employees work that are replicable. The concept of replicating good work and providing a blueprint for success is top of mind as we head into 2024. Much of that work will be led by our data science team.”
