A Conversation with New StorMagic CEO Susan Odle on Innovation, Scaling on a Budget, and Customer Focus

A: “I’ve been in tech for over 25 years, and I’ve gone through a lot of different technologies and markets, mainly starting off with more client-server-oriented solutions.

So when SaaS came along, so did things like subscription licensing, and it changed the whole paradigm of making it simple for companies to acquire technology capabilities.

Naturally, I think that was a real game changer for the industry.”

A: “I’ve always been endlessly curious about everything.

So when there are innovations in technology as a marketplace, I’m eager to learn the next thing — whether it’s an advancement in the technology itself or an advancement in business models.

SaaS is a perfect example of that; it really changed how businesses grow and how they operate.

StorMagic has an incredible legacy of customer service, offering simple technology combined with a deep dedication to customers and reliable solutions.

Now, with SVHCI, a subscription-based solution similar to SaaS in its licensing and go-to-market approach, it’s a perfect opportunity for me to help the company grow.

With the market conditions, our foundation of technology, and our customer centricity, I think our time is absolutely now.”

A: “What excites me the most is that I think our potential is untapped.

Even though StorMagic has a legacy of reliable solutions and strong customer advocacy, the message of our business value can be amplified greatly.

I think we have a huge opportunity to educate the market about the purpose-built nature of what we do. Our tech allows customers to forget about IT to a degree because it simply works.

We know margins are very thin, but you can’t sacrifice the quality and scalability of technology to grow with the future.

We see customers who have been thinking about or have been in a three-node architecture at the edge, actively finding ways to reduce it to two so they can cut out that third server and all the licensing associated with it.

But StorMagic has been two-node since day one. It’s another element of that perfect storm for us in terms of opportunity.

With our 30-second failover when a server goes down, we would argue — and we do! — that our two-node plus witness setup offers higher availability than a traditional three-node hardware cluster.”

A: “In terms of immediate opportunities and challenges: tariffs.

Tariffs are a big unknown for the world right now. But StorMagic is uniquely positioned because we can function on existing hardware that’s already out there.

Some customers are hedging on, wondering: Should I refresh my fleet right now? I still need to be at the edge, but will I be hit by a tariff? Should I wait and see?

We’re budget-friendly — we always have been, and that’s never going to change.

We have that opportunity to help them with what they have today and still be able to drive innovation, still be reliable and be able to plan for the future.”

A: “When I joined as Chief Growth Officer last year, one of my main focuses was how to bring the entire company together to support new prospective customers, especially with enterprise accounts.

And we’ve done exceedingly well; it’s what has resulted in our 600% qualified pipeline growth since my joining the company.

It’s not just about the sales team going out there and banging on more doors. It’s about what you do once you get through the door.

So we bring our technical services team in early, our managed POCs, our product management team, engineering — it’s a whole company approach.

We’re also unique in the way that we have 24/7 support that goes directly to an engineer; there’s no triage through a help desk.

Our Severity 1 tickets in the last two years have been 0.03%. It’s unheard of but it’s because of our technology. It’s a bit of an “aha!” moment for our prospective customers as well.

Another thing I’m really driving is our marketing team. Our new VP of Marketing joined us this week, John Serino.

He’s making sure that our business value — reliability — is what allows our customers to focus on innovation and focus on driving more profitability at the edge.”

A: “I think I’m definitely an evidence-based leader.

You have to look at the data but remember the data comes from multiple sources. We spend a lot of time with Gartner, who talks with a lot of enterprise customers out there.

One of the things we’ve prioritized in the last year is how much time we’re spending getting into the weeds with our customers.

They’re things like understanding what their future plans are, the pressures that the IT leaders are under from their CIOs, and what’s coming next.

It all comes together to help us make that strategic path forward, where we ask: What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? And what do we need to double down on?”

A: “I want to talk more about who our customer is.

Our customer is anyone with anywhere from one to tens of thousands of locations because they all have the same problem.

They all want simple technology that just works, is highly available, and gives them options to innovate at the edge — at the most budget-friendly cost as possible.

We’ve understood this from day one: The problem scales with the number of locations.

My final message is that we’re purpose-built. We have a legacy of being reliable at the edge and we understand what companies want to focus on.

We know they want to focus on their work, not worry about their infrastructure.”