In this episode, Frank Sohn sits down with Erik Pilgrim, Founder and CEO of RenderDraw, to explore how 3D visualization is transforming the complex world of CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote). Erik shares his journey from leading pre-sales and product teams in the SAP and Salesforce ecosystems to founding RenderDraw just as the world changed in early 2020. We dive deep into how RenderDraw acts as a powerful visualization and interaction layer for some of the world's largest manufacturers and high-tech companies.

They discuss:

• The "Visual Gap" in CPQ: Why standard configurations often fall short for heavy industrial manufacturing and complex CAD-heavy assemblies.

• Platform Agnosticism: While heavily rooted in the Salesforce ecosystem (including integrations with Agentforce), Erik explains how the market is shifting toward a CPQ-agnostic approach, with RenderDraw now supporting ServiceNow (Logik.ai) and Conga.

• The Manufacturing Lifecycle: Moving beyond the quote to explore product discovery, digital twins, and spare parts reordering.

• The AI Revolution: An inside look at Journeys, RenderDraw's new standalone 3D + AI application designed for both humans and AI agents.

• Implementation Realities: Why a "one-day setup" is a myth for enterprises, and how to build a visual solution that a standard Salesforce Admin can maintain.

Whether you are a Mid-Market leader or an Enterprise architect in industrial manufacturing or data centers, this episode provides a roadmap for leveraging spatial reasoning to close deals faster and improve the post-purchase experience.

🔗 Learn more about RenderDraw at https://renderdraw.com/

📬 Contact Erik on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikpilgrim/

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, Frank speaks with Eyal Orgil, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of DealHub, about how the company has evolved over the past 12 years and what that growth says about broader trends in CPQ, billing, and revenue lifecycle management. Eyal reflects on the responsibility that comes with building a company of roughly 300 employees and serving around 1,000 customer organizations, while also sharing why this stage of growth feels especially meaningful.

The conversation also explores Eyal's transition into the Chief Growth Officer role after leading sales for more than a decade, and how that shift changes his focus from direct customer engagement to broader product and growth strategy. Frank and Eyal discuss DealHub's acquisition of Subskribe, including the reasoning behind the move and why the combination of CPQ, billing, and invoicing is becoming increasingly important for many companies.

In addition, this episode covers DealHub's recent $100 million funding round, the continued strength of the tech and SaaS customer base, the changing CRM landscape, and the market impact of Salesforce's Revenue Cloud end-of-sale announcement. Eyal also shares how DealHub is approaching AI, including conversational quoting, prompt-based insights, contract intelligence, role-specific AI capabilities, and plans around MCP servers and future admin-focused AI developments.

For anyone following CPQ trends, revenue operations, AI in quoting, or the convergence of CPQ and billing, this episode offers a timely look at how one established vendor is thinking about growth, product direction, and market change.

🔗 Learn more about dealhub at https://dealhub.io/

📬 Contact Eyal on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/eyalorgil/

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, Frank Sohn speaks with Rourke McCarron, founder of Kabaido, about building a modern CPQ solution for precision manufacturers. Rourke shares how his experience in the tooling industry revealed a disconnect between sales and engineering teams, which ultimately led him to launch Kabaido in late 2025.

The conversation explores how Kabaido is approaching complex quoting and product configuration for manufacturers that process high volumes of quotes. Rourke explains the company's focus on precision manufacturing, its support for 2D and 3D configuration use cases, and how its platform is designed to help companies move faster from customer request to quote and integration. He also discusses implementation timelines, customer size fit, and why adoption can matter just as much as technical deployment.

A key part of the discussion centers on AI. Rourke talks about KAI, short for Kabaido Applied Intelligence, and describes how AI is being used to support quoting, configurator logic, and integrations with tools such as Excel, Symphony CRM, and Microsoft Dynamics. The episode also touches on Kabaido's MCP-native approach, current growth stage, global team setup, and efforts to obtain SOC 2 Type 2 and related certifications.

For anyone interested in CPQ software, AI in manufacturing, product configuration, quoting automation, or the future of digital sales in complex manufacturing, this episode offers an early look at how a new vendor is approaching the market.

🔗 Learn more about Kabaido at https://www.kabaido.com/

📬 Contact Rourke on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/rourke-mccarron-a78374207/

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, Frank Sohn speaks with Tyler Moini, Founder and Managing Director of Expedite Commerce, about how the company has evolved since its earlier positioning around composable commerce and API-first architecture. Tyler explains why Expedite Commerce now describes its approach as a governed execution platform, designed to help organizations manage commercial processes across pricing, quoting, contracts, subscriptions, billing, and asset-related workflows.

A central topic in the discussion is Genesis, the company's underlying AI system. Tyler outlines why Expedite Commerce sees AI not as a separate add-on, but as part of the foundation of the platform. The conversation looks at how this approach is intended to support user guidance, manage commercial state across the revenue lifecycle, and help organizations handle complex selling environments with more structure and consistency.

The episode also covers the company's target market, including mid-market and early enterprise organizations with complex revenue models, such as subscription businesses, manufacturers, and companies managing configured products, services, warranties, or serialized assets. Tyler also discusses support for CRM platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho, as well as ERP integrations with systems including SAP S/4HANA, NetSuite, Oracle, and Workday.

In addition, Frank and Tyler discuss e-commerce capabilities, billing support for more complex pricing models, and how AI may affect the future of revenue management and CPQ. The conversation provides useful context for listeners interested in CPQ, revenue lifecycle management, AI in CPQ, subscription management, digital commerce, and enterprise sales technology.

If you follow developments in CPQ software, AI-driven quoting, revenue management platforms, or enterprise monetization, this episode offers a detailed look at how one vendor is approaching those challenges today.

🔗 Learn more about Expedite Commerce at https://www.expeditecommerce.com/

📬 Contact Tyler on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylermoini/

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, Frank Sohn speaks with Garima and Pulin about how AI-driven fair market value (FMV) intelligence can support pricing and CPQ-related processes in the used IT asset market. The conversation goes beyond product features and also explores the personal stories behind the business. Garima shares her journey from flight attendant to entrepreneur and explains why perseverance has been such an important strength throughout her career. Pulin talks about starting out in finance, teaching himself computer skills, learning from a failed startup, and even driving Uber in the early days of the company to help keep the business going. On the business side, this episode looks at how their platform is designed to bring more structure and pricing transparency to the used IT asset industry. Pulin describes the goal as creating something similar to a Kelly Blue Book for used IT assets, while Garima explains why fair market value is at the center of the platform. The discussion also covers why they see CPQ and their business as mirror images, how FMV-based intelligence can influence pricing decisions, and why this matters for organizations involved in reverse supply chain and asset monetization processes. Frank, Garima, and Pulin also discuss the company's ideal customer profile, including OEMs, VARs, and ITAD organizations, as well as broader trends around AI, data, integration, and the future of pricing.

This episode is especially relevant for anyone interested in:

• CPQ
• AI in pricing
• Fair market value intelligence
• Quote-to-cash
• Used IT asset pricing
• Reverse supply chain technology
• IT asset disposition (ITAD)

If you work in CPQ, pricing, revenue operations, or B2B technology, this conversation offers a different perspective on how pricing intelligence can shape commercial processes in markets that have historically lacked consistent benchmarks.

🔗 Learn more about Pyxtech at https://www.pyxtech.com/

📬 Contact Garima on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/garimaoza/

Contact Pulin on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pulinkumar/

At Conga Connect 2026 in Orlando, Conga made one thing clear: it wants to be seen as more than a CPQ or CLM vendor. In this episode, Frank Sohn shares his high-level takeaways from the event, including Conga's new brand direction, what the company's "connected commerce" message means, and why the future of its three CPQ paths matters for customers and prospects alike. Frank also looks at the emerging split between Advantage and PROS CPQ, Conga's iFrame-based approach to surfacing Advantage capabilities inside its Salesforce-based product, and why price optimization and AiMe stood out as important parts of the story. The result is a balanced, practical debrief for anyone trying to understand where Conga appears to be heading — and what buyers should watch next.

Note: We go on a short spring break and will be back by April 5

It's a solo episode this week — interview scheduling has been unusually tough this year, so I'm using the opportunity to talk about something that's top of mind for many teams early in the year: CPQ selection.

In this episode, I share the six questions that fix most CPQ shortlists before demos start: business model, biggest challenge, CRM fit, ERP fit, go-live speed, and company complexity. The goal isn't to rank vendors — it's to get to a realistic shortlist faster, using a repeatable framework grounded in high-quality briefing research.

I also tease a new way I'm building to help teams decide which CPQ briefings to read first — without showing the app.

If you tell me your preferred tone (more neutral/analyst vs more conversational), I can tighten this into a single final description that matches your usual intro style exactly.

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, Sergey Jermakov joins Frank Sohn to explore how CLARITY is moving beyond classic Quote-to-Cash into intelligent revenue operations management—a broader approach that connects CPQ with billing, revenue processes, and monetization models.

Sergey explains how his role has shifted from "sales leader" to Revenue Architect, focused on designing scalable solution architectures and packaged delivery. They discuss CLARITY's focus on mid-market to enterprise organizations (now often $50M+ revenue) in high tech and hybrid product + services businesses, plus their expanded delivery footprint across Europe, North America, and Asia.

A major theme is AI: not as magic, but as an accelerator. Sergey shares where AI adoption is strongest today (especially sales and marketing) and how AI can help with document-heavy work and data-driven pricing support—while also exposing weaknesses in process and data readiness.

They also dig into why CPQ projects fail—reactive architecture, over-customization, and unclear ownership—and why CLARITY increasingly favors implementation packages over open-ended custom projects to drive faster time-to-value and more controlled releases. Finally, Sergey outlines why many SAP customers are moving from Quote 1.0 to SAP Quote 2.0, with performance and scalability as major drivers.

Topics: CPQ, AI in CPQ, revenue operations, SAP Quote 2.0, CPQ implementation best practices, solution architecture, packaged delivery, hybrid selling.

🔗 Learn more about CLARITY at https://www.CLARITY.cx/

📬 Contact Sergey on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jermakov/

In this episode of the CPQ Podcast, we sit down with Dustin Anglen, Strategic Partnerships Manager at PandaDoc, to discuss how PandaDoc CPQ supports faster quoting for SMB teams (roughly 5–500 employees). PandaDoc is widely known for proposals and eSignature, and Dustin explains why CPQ is a natural extension—especially for organizations that want a practical, easy-to-administer approach without heavy configuration overhead.

We cover where PandaDoc CPQ fits best (including SaaS, software & technology, professional services, and education) and how customers typically use it alongside their CRM. Dustin outlines PandaDoc's API-forward SaaSapproach and its key integrations with HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce. We also discuss what's available today—and what's still evolving—such as ERP connectivity (currently not a standard integration, with MVP work underway) and common customer expectations around implementation, which is often 8–12 weeks.

On the capability side, Dustin shares the top requests he sees from the market: product configuration, contract-based pricing, and CRM integration. We talk about product structure support (including bundles), pricing flexibility across segments and regions, usage-based pricing, and how PandaDoc positions its CPQ as a rules engine that is largely no-code (with options for more advanced logic when needed). We also dig into PandaDoc's AI direction—template generation, OCR and document intelligence, metadata-driven automation, and an admin-focused AI feature for helping set up product and pricing rules (currently in testing, with broader availability expected later this year).

You'll also hear a few personal moments from Dustin—from his early career in the Salesforce ecosystem (including starting at Apttus in 2014), to an unexpected chapter running a beekeeping business in Santa Barbara, to his passion for freediving near San Diego. A PandaDoc CPQ free trial is available on PandaDoc's website.

🔗 Learn more about PandaDoc CPQ at https://www.pandadoc.com/lp/cpq-software/

📬 Contact Dustin on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/danglen/

In this CPQ Podcast episode, Frank Sohn sits down with Nils Olsson, Chief Strategy, Product, and Customer Officer at Tacton, to discuss how Tacton is evolving beyond traditional CPQ into a broader platform for configurable products.

Nils shares his unique perspective as a former Tacton customer who joined the company in 2015, and explains why staying close to manufacturing customers—through regular conversations across North America, Europe, and Japan—is central to Tacton's strategy. He outlines why 2026 will be a transformative year, with new offerings planned not only for CPQ, but also for engineering, order fulfillment, and services.

The conversation also explores how customers are responding to Tacton's recent acquisitions of Variantum and Serenytics, and where AI is delivering real value today. Rather than replacing core CPQ logic, AI is primarily being used to support product modeling, helping customers turn unstructured data into usable configuration knowledge faster and with less effort.

Additional topics include hybrid sales models in manufacturing, the shift from ETO to CTO, and why trust, security, and enterprise certifications matter more than ever.

Topics covered:

• The shift from CPQ to end-to-end configurability

• AI adoption in real-world CPQ projects

• Manufacturing sales and automation trends

• What's next for Tacton in 2026

A must-listen for anyone tracking the future of CPQ, configurable products, and manufacturing transformation.

🔗 Learn more about Tacton at https://www.tacton.com/

📬 Contact Nils on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nils-olsson-400715/

2025 was full of CPQ and Quote-to-Cash headlines: AI agents, platform transitions, consolidation, and promises of faster execution. Following those announcements is important — but it rarely tells the full story.

In this episode, I look at what often gets lost between public messaging and real-world CPQ decisions. Drawing on patterns observed throughout 2025, I explore where market narratives diverged from evaluation and delivery reality — and why that gap becomes even more important as we head into 2026.

The discussion covers AI and agent-based capabilities, platform transitions, consolidation, and delivery constraints — not to judge vendors or predict winners, but to explain how execution, readiness, and sequencing shape actual outcomes.

If you're involved in CPQ as a buyer, vendor, system integrator, or investor, this episode offers a practical lens for reading headlines without mistaking them for reality.

Contact Frank at [email protected] for any questions

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/franksohn/