Trudging outside in the balmy Irish winters to feed the cows before the sun came up wasn’t exactly something Noel Goggin looked forward to every day while growing up, but looking back, it helped prepare him for success as a technology titan, industry thought leader, and dedicated product specialist.
“My family had one of the most modern, high-production dairy farms in Ireland back then,” Goggin says. “When we had thousands of gallons of milk coming in every day, we had no choice but to move forward, solve problems, and make it work.”
The lessons learned have served as reminders throughout Goggin’s career. When he landed an internship with a large telecommunications company due to “dumb luck” in college, Goggin stood out because of his work ethic, ability to handle complex projects, and natural curiosity.
“A lot of situations were sink or swim then, and I think my work ethic from the farm is what got me through without sinking,” he says.
As CEO of Conga, a SaaS solution that helps some of the biggest companies around the world manage their revenue life cycles—companies such as Michelin, Hitachi Energy, and Roche—Goggin has faced complex people challenges, technology hurdles, and business trials. But he mentally goes back to those cold Irish mornings, laces up his “work boots,” and gets the job done.
Founded in 2006, Conga offers “middle office” solutions that use artificial intelligence to enhance customers’ various financial and commercial functions, including quote-to-cash, revenue management, contract lifecycle management (CLM), and e-commerce management – ultimately helping them achieve a Revenue Advantage.
In 2020, Apttus, a business-to-business software provider specializing in business process automation and CLM tools, merged with Conga and adopted the Conga name. Today, the company generates over $400 million in annual revenue.
The interior of Conga headquarters
FEARLESSNESS: AN ENTREPRENEUR’S LIFELINE
“My internship turned into an opportunity to travel all over the world, but up until that point, I’d never been on a plane before,” Goggin says. With the sense of fearlessness he learned from dairy farming, he got on those planes, plunged into new environments, and leaned on innate curiosity to turn a variety of customer needs into business opportunities.
At first, it was all over Europe, but before long, Goggin was jet-setting to Japan and Korea.
“I’d talk to our customers, learn that their needs were totally unique, then bridge the gaps with our product organization to meet their needs,” he says.
Becoming a product strategist and product manager happened very naturally, but without those skills, he wouldn’t have been as successful as he moved on to his next challenge: the startup world.
“I found myself running all the enterprise architecture for a fast-growing business,” he says. “While I put the systems in place to enable scale, I caught the attention of the CEO. I think it was because I was able to approach problems differently than most people in the organization.” Soon after, he was the go-to resource for business development and M&A strategy.
Throughout Goggin’s career transitions, one key variable that remains steadfast is his fearlessness in new situations. He was never afraid to face a challenge, learn a new skill, and get the job done. It was because of that same fearlessness that he decided to become an entrepreneur himself. The first company he founded was a software platform designed to allow people to build applications for things like click-to-talk, screen sharing, and other collaborative tools, then converge those tools into one business platform.
Despite the clear need for a platform like this one and impressive support from major VC companies, the economic volatility on a macro level made it hard to get off the ground.
“We didn’t survive the internet bubble crash; all the money in the tech space dried up and most internet startups—and the VCs behind them—went out of business overnight,” he says. But still, that thread of fearlessness gave Goggin the momentum to keep going, keep pushing, and keep creating thoughtfully designed products.
THE PEOPLE SIDE OF BUSINESS
As he progressed as a leader, Goggin realized that building companies took more than a good idea and a momentous execution; it was about the people behind the products—his employees. “I started reading books like Daniel Goleman’s The Emotional Quotient, Jim Collins’ Built to Last, and Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline, and these concepts of learning-based organizations and personal mastery were what I wanted to use as the foundation when building businesses,” Goggin says.
Although the learning curve of incorporating a people-first approach came with some naivety and mistakes, Goggin’s commitment to people—both internally and externally—transformed his abilities as a leader and his success as an entrepreneur.
“I learned that I needed to be having conversations with people more often,” he says. “In the early days as a founder, I’d make a decision and people would be surprised by it, and that just wasn’t going to fly if growth was the goal.”
Goggin had product strategy down, but by refining his relationships with his employees, he up-leveled his abilities as an entrepreneur tenfold.
“How you treat people is the most important thing in business,” he says. With ongoing dialogue internally, he could more quickly identify anyone who was becoming a source of friction within the organization, allowing him to rectify the situation before it caused damage.
Goggin giving his keynote address at the 2024 “Conga Connect” event
WHAT IT TAKES TO SCALE
To Goggin, starting a business is binary—it either works or it doesn’t. The speed, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit behind startups is their driving force, but once it’s time to scale, things get a lot more complex. “When companies get bigger, they get lazy,” he says. “They focus their energies internally versus externally, losing that entrepreneurial spirit.”
Avoiding the plateau that so many successful startups fall into is about knowing how to scale business processes and the teams that support those processes.
Goggin always tells his teams that he can’t elevate the organization until they elevate what they can do, too. In order to scale, founders have to avoid “founderitis,” trying to make all the decisions on their own and inadvertently creating bottlenecks. Instead, he suggests, founders need to develop the team structure and operational framework that allow for scale.
“To scale, the two most important things are framework and talent,” he says. “The bigger your organization gets, the more communication mechanisms you’ll need, but you’ll also need people that can step up in their roles, giving you the capacity to move the business into the next phase of growth.”
As a regular test, Goggin says that founders should ask themselves about leaders in their organization—if they left tomorrow, would you be devastated or relieved? If the answer isn’t always “devastated,” you might not have the right people in the right roles.
Goggin credits mentors Lawrence Jackson and Frank Blake for his success and leadership strategy
THE CONGA WAY
The many successes, failures, and lessons learned over his long tenure as a technology leader have culminated into one impressive outcome today: Conga’s success. Conga’s B2B business product offerings are stellar from a product perspective, but it’s those learnings about people and company culture that bookend Goggin’s tenure as a leader. The “Conga Way” focuses on three pillars: entrepreneurial spirit, achieving together, and championing the customer. He reinforces the Conga Way by celebrating his people, uplifting internal leaders, and leading by example.
“You get what you celebrate,” he says. Conga does a top-performer trip annually, and it’s not just for high-performing sales representatives; all functions are included. Customers get the chance to give awards to the top “Conganeers” and customer champions are celebrated on a monthly basis.
It’s no surprise that Goggin’s business savvy helped him propel his career as an entrepreneur and technology leader, but when truly examining his spectacular milestones, it’s the soft skills he learned on the dairy farm and throughout his career that provide the biggest boost.
“I’m a builder by trade,” he says. “I like to build things that have long-term value.” But after the building phase, it’s Goggin’s abilities to lead, connect with people, and problem-solve that make him successful.
