What You Permit Is What Gets Produced

0:00I'm a big believer in what you permit is what gets produced. And so if you are allowing negativity, you know, kind of sharp language, you know, any kind of toxic behavior, and as a leader, you're just turning a blind eye or you're allowing that to go on, you're giving permission for that to be what is then promoted around the business. So that would be one like big red flag. I think the other one is having differing expectations for different people. So not holding a group accountability to the same set of goals.

0:34Molly Matthews: Most of us learn culture by adapting to one that already exists. We join a company, figure out what gets rewarded, who has power, what people say in meetings, and what they say after the meeting ends. Founders don't have that luxury. They're not fitting into a culture. They're creating one, whether they mean to or not. SnapLogic president Molly Matthews has a more practical way to think about it. Culture is what gets repeated. It shows up in who you hire and what you build, and how you treat your customers. We get into the first five hires, why culture fit is often the wrong frame, what to do with a talented but toxic employee, and we'll end with a self-diagnostic you can run to see if your company is becoming the kind of place you meant to build.

1:17Molly Matthews: I'm Walter Thompson. This is Fund, Build, Scale. Are you building something that's hard to explain? It can be a sign you're working on something interesting, but it also raises the risk. that you're missing out on fundraising, sales, hiring, and media opportunities. I help early stage founders sharpen the narrative. What matters, why now, who needs to care, and why they're the right team to make it happen. If you're preparing for a raise, a product launch, an important customer meeting, a panel discussion, or even a hiring push, I can help you pressure test your story before the stakes get higher.

1:52Molly Matthews: Visit the FundBuildScale website to learn more or email fundbuildscale at gmail.com. Molly, thank you so much for talking today. I really appreciate the time. Yeah, of course. It's great to be here. What is SnapLogic and what are your responsibilities day-to-day as president? What does your day look like? Yeah, so SnapLogic is a integration software company at its roots. We also have been involved in AI for many, many years, since 2016. So trying to leverage the power of AI with integration software to make sure that data is accessible to people across different industries. And day-to-day for me, as in most of my roles, I wear many hats and I love it.

2:35I love to do that. I love to be involved in different parts of the business. So I serve as the president for SnapLogic. I look after really everything that happens post-sale, but I also have a lot of influence and responsibility when it comes to our GTM function as well.

2:52Molly Matthews: And how long have you been at the role at SnapLogic? Yeah, so I've been involved with the company coming up on one year, and I formally stepped into the president's role in April of this past year. And before that, you were CEO of PushPay. Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, happy to. What was the company's stage when you were there? And what kind of scaling problems are you working on at the point? Yes, so I was with PushPay for just under 10 years, served in many roles there. I joined the company when we had just around 100 employees, had been following along with the company because of the way in which they integrated into different organizations I was already a part of.

3:33So I had been following along for quite some time. My last role there was CEO. I was a CEO for four years and still am a part of the company today as an advisor. And I help with both the board and then their management team as well.

3:47Molly Matthews: What were you like? What was your biggest headache, I guess? Like what was the biggest like, you know, thing you had to keep up with as far as. Yeah. And I actually think, Walter, it's interesting whether it was in the like scaling up days of push pay or what we're doing at SnapLogic. I think that the number one thing that we have to be hyper focused on as leaders is talent and ensuring that we have the right talent in the business in order to ensure we are continuing our growth journey, to ensure that the culture is where we want it to be, to ensure that the values of our investors are really carried through to our product and to our, eventually to our clients.

4:26Molly Matthews: It leads right into the next thing I wanted to talk about really, which was company culture, fostering company culture. And we were talking a little bit before the show started. I think I've worked in startups and I've covered startups. And I think it's one of those things where culture is one of those words that people, you say so much that it starts to lose all, I think it's the term is semantic satiation where like you say a word, you say word over and over again, it starts to lose all meaning. And so let's, so culture, let's, let's say culture is not just a bowl of warm oatmeal. What actually is culture in terms of like a framework for understanding a company in your mind?

5:01Yeah, for me, it's the ethos, like it's the energy that's in the room that you're in. It's the energy in which you exchange details with colleagues. It's how you show up to work. So I'm a huge believer that culture is not, you know, some snappy phrase that's on the wall when you walk into a building. It has to really penetrate through to who you hire, who sticks with you. How do you sell? How do you interact with clients when things get sticky? How do you choose what products to build and what to shelf? Like all of that really has to be in the spirit of living out our cultural values. And I think, you know, for a lot of startups, there's usually some kind of great word that they use, but it really would likely draw toward innovation, right?

5:45Being an innovator, if you're a startup leader, has got to be one of, or something like that, one of the values that you're living out. And you got to hire people who want to take risks. And that innovation kind of characteristic, I think, is one of those cultural elements that I see. And it's fun, right? That's the fun part of working at startups and scale-ups is you really have to be on the cutting edge of innovating for your sector or your segment. I think the other piece that I always think about when I think about culture is the way in which we treat people, right? It is how we treat people who are onboarding as new hires.

6:19It's honestly the harder part sometimes. It's how we treat people when it's time for them to leave the business. It's also how we make sure that we're living out who we want to be, not just from a product perspective, but again, culturally when we're selling, like, are we selling with like high character and, you know, selling what we have, or you see a lot of times in startups, they're kind of futuristically selling some things that they're building, you know, depending on your cultural values, that's either okay, or it's not okay. And so I think all of that kind of for me, like really, I also hate like when we say, we're, you know, hiring like making a culture ad right when we're hiring or culture fit I should say the the culture fit it's like no you you are hiring for people to add be additive to who you are and I think that that's the way you when you really see that coming to life that's how you know your culture is actually thriving and growing and it's a part of the ethos of of the group as opposed to just some you know, fun phrases that you write on the wall.

7:20Right.

7:21Molly Matthews: I mean, so practically speaking, when a company has, I don't know, like 10 or 20 people, like, like seed stage. Yeah. Pre-series a word is I'm trying to say, cause I've been in situations. I'm not, so I'm trying to back into this question without giving away my own personal bias. Um, so you've 10 people, um, everyone's got, you know, their own role, but everyone's also wearing a few hats. Things are pretty casual. There's no HR function probably at this point. There certainly is no HR function at this point. Yeah, no. So at that point, is culture something that kind of comes, is it spontaneous?

7:54Molly Matthews: Is it something that the founder brings and tries to impose? Or is it something that kind of just like kind of springs from those people who are there at that point in time? I would say both. I've seen it happen both ways. I think when done well, it is infused into that first five, first 10. I think when done well, you're hiring for it, right? as a founder, you know, the kind of company you want to lead. The other piece I will just say in the kind of startup environment, which you and I have talked about a little bit is the advisors you choose, the investors you take on will influence the culture of your company.

8:30They will, right? And so you have to also be really wise and smart about who you're selecting, who you're saying yes to, what money you're saying no to and why, and are they going to really help round out or add to the culture of the company that you're trying to build? or is it going to drift into a direction that you don't want it to because of the values or the culture of that, whether it's private activity or VC or early stage dollars that's coming in?

8:55Molly Matthews: I try not to be too topical, trying to make the show as evergreen as possible. But I mean, I live and work in San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley. And so culture here, I think, I feel culture has a very different meaning, I think, in certain people's minds. I see people use culture as something that's kind of like uh it's something you fit somebody else into uh like like culture is like handing out like the logo backpack and the patagonia vest right and like that's it's kind of like culture is onboarding yeah it's culture is the yearly retreat it's not like the day-to-day kind of how we treat each other in the office or what products we release um i kind of wonder like i mean i i don't i don't know if there's a big this is why we're talking i'm because i don't know that there's an agreed upon like the definition of what culture is or how it works but like for example there was a getting back to the topical thing there was a founder recently who got attracted a lot of negative attention because they did an event in san francisco where you could he was going to give preference to people before an interview i believe if they got a tattoo of the company logo oh my gosh yeah yeah that's aggressive that's that's that's a word for it yeah and and i and i thought to myself like that's that's so off and like it and there's a lot of pushback like after the story broke and like it was negatively reported and you know, a lot of mea culpa's and that kind of thing.

10:07Molly Matthews: But I thought to myself, it's kind of like, why would you need like negative coverage to tell you and without talking about that founder, right? But like, there's something there's something in the air is what I'm trying to suggest that. Yeah. And I mean, I think you're right. And whether it's getting a tattoo, or it's, you know, wanting people to wear your swag all of the time. I think, you know, that is in some ways, a part of culture, because really, it's it's the sum of all of our values, our beliefs, but the piece I really want to like press into is behaviors, right? And most of the time there should be good behaviors that we're trying to double down on.

10:42That's like the shared piece that creates culture. I think on the negative side, which, you know, I wouldn't probably ask somebody as a partner to tattoo themselves, but there's also this unspoken rule of like how groups operate. And if you aren't careful and you can really tilt to one side or the other and the founder is going to, or those first few, right? I would say it's like the founding group. That culture, because it is some of those shared values and beliefs and behaviors, it's gonna tilt toward however that founding group leans. If it's, you've been in environments where they kind of come out of a sports background, right?

11:24and it's a little bit more sport, sporty, sports oriented, like go, go, go, go, go. Some come out of an engineering background where it's very code heavy and it's all about innovation and all of the dollars and all of the language and all of the behaviors really kind of fall into that engineering bucket. So I would say for me, how I define it just to be super crisp in my answer back is it really is the sum of all of those different shared values, beliefs, behaviors of that original founding group.

11:53Molly Matthews: I want to call back to something you said in the prep call, is that you thought, like, kind of the first hires kind of create your cultural operating system. And I think that's, based on my experience, I completely agree with you. But I do want to ask, based on your experience also, what are some of the most frequent problems that technical founders make when it comes to establishing a culture or, basically, I mean, not just like, you know, the tattoos are an extreme example, obviously, but they're a manifestation, I think, of a misunderstanding of what culture really is, perhaps. And so what are some other obvious errors or kind of like real red flags that you see from technical founders?

12:28I would just say I have seen a lot of technical founders who put up with too much. Like they have the brilliant, you know, engineer or the, you know, visionary product leader that they allow to behave in a different way than they would anybody else. But because they're so brilliant, because they're so special, they allow this like kind of negative behavior to go on. or lack of accountability, or, you know, if everybody else in the group is having to, let's say, socialize or kind of get permission from a budgeting perspective, but that one member doesn't have to because they're afraid they're going to rock the boat.

13:05That's one of the biggest cultural, I would say, missteps that I see like technical founders. And I would just say, I see it on more sales-oriented founders too, right? You have the one superstar salesperson that's out there like hunting and chasing and, you know, hitting quota over and over and over again. So you allow behavior to go on that you actually don't want repeated. And I would say, whether it's a sales-oriented founder or a technical founder, I think that's always the biggest watch out. I once worked at a startup and one of the senior engineers, his nickname when he

13:38Molly Matthews: left the room was Captain America because he sarcastically saw himself as like the hero of the company and the smartest guy in the room all the time. And yeah, we were glad to see him leave. What are some of the problems, actually, culturally? What's the negative stuff, the negative patterns of behavior that can become encoded culturally? What are some of those? Just some people who can call them that. Yeah, I think there are a few. One is I'm a big believer in what you permit is what gets produced. And so if you are allowing negativity, kind of sharp language, any kind of toxic behavior, and as a leader, you're just turning a blind eye or you're allowing that to go on.

14:20You're giving permission for that to be what is then promoted around the business. So that would be one like big red flag. I think the other one is having differing expectations for different people. So not holding a group accountability to the same set of goals. And this is actually a lot harder than it, that it sounds in practice because you, you have a technical group, you've got a sales group, you've got your kind of probably like lightly administrative group at that time. And so you want like the sales group to only care about the sales target and the engineering group. But when you're in this startup mentality, you want it to be a group win, right?

14:57Group fail, group win. And I think at times we don't bring those metrics together early to say, hey, we're going to have like three core company metrics that are influenced, right? By the great product we're producing, the sales that we're getting, customers that we're renewing. So that would be another one. And I think, and this is depends, honestly, on the culture you want to create. I want to always create a culture where there is absolute, like intellectual safety. If you have something to share, you have a place to share it, you're not going to be shamed for that. And I think it's really easy as a founding group to think you know it all and to sort of shame the new ideas that come in.

15:39And what that does then is those great innovative people, or even people who are just taking a different perspective, stop bringing those ideas. They stop bringing that thought, even if it's not like fully fleshed out to the group. And I think that that really can be very divisive and it can kill kind of culture, but also growth like in any smaller company.

16:00Molly Matthews: completely agree i um yeah i remember uh one of the best places ever worked people felt comfortable saying i don't know in public meetings and it was like absolutely you could feel like the kind of like the kind of the their shoulders drop because no one had to have all the answers all the time that's right and i like to use kind of these like cheesy little phrases that are really repeatable in companies that i work in or even like startups that i'm helping to kind of get up off the ground And the reason I do that is people think about it, they remember it, and they repeat it, right? Like one of them is progress over perfection.

16:32You could find a lot of like very brilliant people want something to be absolutely perfect before it goes to market, before it gets in front of somebody, before it goes into like the idea generation kind of wheel of our product and engineering teams. And in startup life, you do not have time for perfection. You've got to get something to about 80 % and then you have to have trust amongst the team that they're going to help you go from 80 to 100. I think that having those little phrases are what create the space. The other thing, and this is like a personality thing, right? There's a lot of big personalities of founders, but you have to say out loud the behaviors you want to be repeated.

17:14So if, as you said, I love that example. If what you want is people to bring ideas to the table and feel like that is a safe space to do it, you have to kind of call up the next rung, like in your leadership hierarchy, you have to invite them to the table and create safe space for them to speak. And once you've done that a couple of times, people know it and they start to do it. I'll use SnapLogic actually as a great example of this. when I first came in and started working with the business, it was very clear that there was one of the cultural behaviors or cultural norms there was only a small group of people got to generate good ideas and everybody else just needed to go into it.

17:53I was like, that is not how I lead. If you have been here for longer than me, this is like my second day, you have more information that you need to bring to the table. And if I don't hear from people, right, if I give space and no one speaks, I just want to let you know, I'm going to randomly ask you to share how you feel about that. And this is gloves off, safe space. We're not going to demean. We're not going to talk poorly about people, but we're going to call out truths and we're going to fight for truths. And it has completely changed the culture of that organization because now people, if they see something, here's another one of my little things.

18:30If you see something, say something, right? Like don't sit on it. Don't sit on it and let it become a problem for somebody else or goodness, a problem for an investor or goodness, a problem for a client. If you see something, you say something. And it has really started to like shift the culture at SnapLogic to where everybody feels like a business owner. Everybody feels like they're an innovator. Everybody feels like they're a solution oriented leader, even if they're a frontline employee. It's funny.

18:58Molly Matthews: It reminds me of like the, like those car factories in the seventies that decided that maybe it's more efficient if an employee could actually stop at the production line, if they identify a problem, then just kind of catching it afterwards. I want to call back something you said actually about progress over perfection, because I've also observed that the hiring process, especially in smaller startups can be so, it can take a really long time. And I think it's because they think they're doing a really curated job of trying to find the right person. And I think it's actually kind of a lot of performative nonsense where they have a ideal in their mind, like they're, you know, looking for a mate and they're trying to find everyone who fits every single box.

19:35Molly Matthews: What's your sense of that as far as the hiring process and culture? I, again, I know you're going to be shocked. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I would say, I think there are two truths in this. This is another thing I say a lot. Two things can be true at the same time. And the wisest of us can walk them both forward, right? I think it's like an FDR quote from way back in the day that I probably just completely messed up. But I love the concept of these two truths, which is as a founder, every dollar I spend, I have to be so thoughtful around, right? Because it's taking away from a dollar I can't spend somewhere else.

20:11I also, this is like my baby, right? This idea, this new company, this, I have so much skin in the game. And so to your point, they probably have this idealistic view of the unicorn that they're going to hire, right? It sometimes comes into conflict. On the other side, scale only happens with growth, right? Those two things go hand in hand. And at times, you got to make a quicker hire with somebody who you're 80 % confident about and make progress a lot faster than waiting for the perfect unicorn to come into your business. Because if you are like scaling, the good news is, is that one hire is probably going to need to be rehired futuristically.

20:52So learn from it, right? Learn from how you're hiring, do it relatively quickly. but I would say not so quickly that you make a mistake because in those early days, a bad hire is really devastating to a company. You can make a couple of not so great hires when you're a hundred people or 50 people, but when you're only 10 or five, that's tough. So I would say be thoughtful, have a vision, know what you want, but don't be so close fisted about like not letting go of your baby that you don't take somebody who is like an 80 to 85 % fit and you wait three months to get somebody who's maybe 90 because nobody's going to be 100.

21:27Molly Matthews: You yourself, you didn't come from that typical standard to founder pipeline. So I'm sure you have some thoughts about this. What are some things early stage founders can screen for that don't show up in a resume when you're trying to find that cultural fit and the talented person who can actually fit in? Yeah, I think the number one standard I have for hiring is grit. I think you can get a little away from that as your company scales and you have more functional hires. Like this is the role. This is what you're going to do. We can lay that out for you for the next three months versus in the early days.

22:01And not just, I would say this is not just for startups, but this is also for like new products that are being launched or like a new division or a new kind of test case that you're putting together. You have to hire for grit. I'm a huge fan of the book, Grit by Angela Duckworthy. Like the thing that you're looking for in that is has a person experienced a trial? or something that is difficult in their life and they have had to overcome it? Or have they just sort of like breezed through life with zero like friction? I want people who have had friction, right? And they can explain that to me in many ways.

22:41It can be a personal situation that they had to overcome, a professional situation. I do love like people who came from the military, people who come from like collegiate athletics, people who were in like a very high-end orchestra. Like, like this is about them and how they can succeed and overcome something right in their life with a group of people. That's what we need in business. So I think grit is my number one.

23:05Molly Matthews: Let me ask you another pointed question then. If the bulk of your career has been spent working in a large public tech company with a huge corporate campus and a cafeteria and commuting plan, do you have grit? I mean, because those are systems you're working inside institutions that are designed to eliminate friction, ideally. And so I'm kind of wondering, so if you have a candidate who's done six years at Meta and one who's done six years at five startups, which one fits the bill in that sense? Yeah, I would ask more questions. And those additional questions for that person is, have you experienced something difficult outside of your current Meta life, right?

23:52What did childhood look like for them? What did their early adult years look like for them? A lot of people get the grit outside of work. I think there's also a lot of times inside of bigger organizations. I live in Seattle, so it's a lot of Amazon, Microsoft, Concur, et cetera. There are a lot of people who I would interview from one of the, if I'm interviewing for a smaller company or startup, that would not be a good fit because they have not had to wear many hats. They have not had to overcome obstacles on a, at times hourly basis in order to make the thing go. But there are some people, a couple of my best hires have come out of those organizations that I just talked about because they were in charge of like the startup within the big company.

24:38They were challenged to go start a new division. They launched Latin America for something. They were, I mean, so there are opportunities, I think, inside of those bigger companies where you're well-funded, but you are asked to act like a startup, or there's been painful things that have happened. There's a big layoff, and I had to walk everybody through that at a big company. Those are gritty moments too. So I think you just have to be well-intentioned in your interview and subsequent conversations to kind of dig for that.

25:07Molly Matthews: Do you have a sense also, like in those early stage interviews and those conversations, how to ask questions that will screen for, like whether somebody can actually thrive or succeed in like a risky, chaotic environment, like an early stage startup where, you know, it's not just like there's no cafeteria, but you might be onboarding yourself that first day and finding a chair. Maybe you're, maybe you're building your chair because it's in a box and no one set it up. Like, that's right. Talk, talk about that. I think you have to ask more behaviorally oriented questions than KPI oriented questions, right?

25:39We all often want to go in, especially all these sales as an example. and okay, well, what percentage of quota did you hit for the last two quarters? What was the most difficult thing about how you got there? How does your sales enablement function work? These are all like, you could have sent them a form. They could have checked a box. They could have proven it in some other way. I like to get into conversations where I'm asking for them to explain a scenario. Give me an example of, hey, and I always leave. This doesn't have to be from your most current you know, job experience, like let's say they're at a bigger company.

26:15Tell me about a time when you didn't hit quota. How did you handle that? What feedback did you give your leader? Why was it? Was that, what were the pinch points for you, right? Tell me about a time when you've received negative feedback, you know, some criticism in the workplace and how did you overcome that? Did you agree with it? Did you not agree with it? But tell me a little bit about what you like to do outside of work. Like if you have people who are adventurous, right, and they're talking about adventure, I think that also tells you like they're willing to take a little risk in their life versus folks who don't.

26:52So I think those behavioral questions become so important.

26:56Molly Matthews: I do want to step in kind of talk about grit also in that kind of operational sense, maybe. I can totally see how it's appropriate in those early stages, but it's also I can see how it may become a fig leaf for dysfunction in like in a later stage. So like, is there, is, is there healthy grit and unhealthy grit? Like, how do you tell the difference? Well, I think this actually comes to like the, this comes well into this concept of scaling, right? How do you know when it's time to kind of break down this like really flat hierarchy and put some different levels of leadership in there? And the reason I say grit comes into this is because really gritty people can do it all, or at least they think they can for a while.

27:35Right. And they can probably carry, to use your plate spinning, they can probably spin a lot of plates for a long time, better than anybody you've been around. But then you have to ask yourself, as the leader of that really accomplished person who's looking after so many people, is that the very best use of their talent? Is that the highest use of their time? And when you suddenly realize it's not, that's when you have to kind of challenge and say, I know you can do it. I know you could continue to, but what I really need from you, what the business needs from you is for you to be using your talent to whatever it is, right?

28:14Spend more time here. Think about product more effectively versus managing people. Think about the vision for our company and how we're going to replicate our sales program from last year into two different geographies, right? Like that's where I need your head. And often you can help people kind of overcome that like gritty, I do it myself, you know, win, win, win, win on my own, when you really kind of help them to see that what you want, and I think it's really freeing for people who are like this, when you say, what I need from you is your brain, your personality, not your ability to do it all, but I want you to be more specialized and really give us your best self, and we're going to pass this off to some others.

28:57Molly Matthews: is there a danger with grit though as far as like grit you know intensity focus um but like i mean but in the early stage startup game there's just always kind of i wouldn't even call it a tug of war i think just kind of work-life balance is kind of usually not the highest priority top of everyone's list correct and so yeah um and so yeah so grit can become something else after a certain point when people are, I mean, I think about the easiest example, I try not to go to extremes. I'm trying to think of an example, but like the hacker house where you're basically 24 seven at work with coworkers talking about work, thinking about work.

29:33Molly Matthews: And even when you're not doing the work thing, you're, you're in that work milieu basically. So it's like, there's no separation between, you know, urgency and your expectations. This is, it's all work all the time. How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you approach this with like the whole, like, you want people to be intense and focused. Yeah. But you also want, yeah, go ahead. I think what you're talking about is boundaries versus grit. Like I think grit's like innate to who some people are. Some people have it and others just don't, or there's a continuum, right? Of levels of kind of grit you have.

30:03I think what you're talking about, I agree with. I think that's really poor boundary setting, right? And people are doing that intentionally. They are creating that environment because they want those people to, they want to exploit people's personal and personal life boundaries. And somebody's saying yes to that. Right. But for me, that's a boundary issue. It's not about grit.

30:26Molly Matthews: Like they're passing intensity off as culture, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's where you could go back and say, for some, maybe that is a cultural value that they want to double down on. I don't have to like it. Right. But that could be it. I I think, you know, I actually, this morning we were talking to our engineering group and our CEO, Brad Stewart, was talking about this kind of continuum of work-life balance. And there will always be seasons if you are a hard-charging, ambitious person where work will eat into some of your personal time. It will happen, right? And if you want your life to be eight to four with an hour lunch break, you need to think about what roles are right for you.

31:13Because for most companies, especially in software, but I think in many other companies, being a higher achiever, being ambitious means that you're willing to kind of rock the boat a little bit on time management in seasons, in seasons, right? And great businesses, especially when they're just out of that startup phase and they have a few more people to do a few more things should be acknowledging that and giving it back to you at some point, right? Like you go through a really intense product launch. People are working, you know, 12 hours a day through the weekend to get the product launched.

31:45Well, once it's launched, right? Like give that person an extra day off to reward them, right? Have that because then you get to burnout, right? And you see that happen a ton culturally in startups. And I think it's because there's not that, you know, I think of it as a pendulum swinging. Like you swing over into working to a lot to too much like at some point it's got to come back down i want to go back to

32:07Molly Matthews: the uh i mean i don't know what to call it exactly let's call it the captain america problem where you've got you've got the stellar performer who yes everyone agrees you know great individual contributor they produce but they're not great for the team as far as like what they represent or the way they interact and so forth and so yeah i think of like um you know stones you have stones in a bag and there's always going to be friction but sometimes like some stones can be too sharp uh So how do you, what's your framework for evaluating whether Captain America is worth the cost to the rest of the Avengers, so to speak?

32:40Yeah, I think it's actually a great analogy. I am a very direct person. I hire very direct people. I want us to, again, I want us to be able to have conversations with transparency and honesty. So I would have a conversation with Captain America and I would let them know how they're perceived by their team. And if that's what they want to be true, is that how you want to be perceived? And you'd be surprised. Most of the time people are like, nope, I think I took it too far. Great. And this is where that kind of original definition of culture becomes so important. Is Captain America living out our values?

33:20And if he is not, then it is my job as the founder. It is my job as any senior leader to hold that person accountable. Because again, right, what you permit gets promoted. And so others are going to say to themselves, let's just say it's a sales team. In order for me to be highly valued here, I have to behave the same way as that person. Not produce in the same way, behave the same way. And so I think there's a lot of course correction you can do in that moment. But honestly, there are moments where it can't be course correct, course corrected. That person doesn't want to change or in that season, for whatever reason, they don't have the openness or ability to change.

33:58And I think that's when the tough conversation has to come. And yes, you are a high producer, but you're also literally creating so much distance between yourself and the rest of the team that this is just toxic at this point in time. And you have to cut the cord.

34:12Molly Matthews: I mean, I do want to push this a little further because I, so you're, you're describing an accountability structure, which, you know, sounds healthy and appropriate for any, any organization at any size. But I also know that, you know, in smaller companies, stuff doesn't always get written down and documented and so on and so forth. And so like, if you don't have an HR person, if you don't have a formal process for all this, like, do you have a sense of how many, like, is it two, three conversations and then kind of you're thinking, okay, exit, or is it more, or is it more kind of, go ahead. Yeah, I don't think it should be, you shouldn't be having to have this conversation every week.

34:46That means that person is not leaning in, they're not listening, they're not attempting to change. I will also say, and I think that this is one of the most difficult parts of being a startup CEO, is you are wearing so many hats. You don't have HR. You don't have, right, like all of these different functions to support you. So I have a lot of empathy for that. I think there would be three books. I'm sure others would have other books that they would recommend. but that I think all startup leaders should read because you are gonna be the head of HR for a while, right? And you are gonna be the head of investor relations for a while.

35:23And so one of them is extreme ownership. The second one is grit, which I just mentioned. And then the third is radical candor. And I think the reason I like those three together is because grit for me is giving me a framework of the people that I want to work with me to build the dream. the radical candor is so practical. It is so practical on how to have these conversations, how to set up a little bit of documentation so that there's accountability there. It is like such a great guide of how to lead and extreme ownership for me. Also, it's just, it's a great listen if you like to listen to books, but it really, I think as a founder and an early stage person, at the end of the day, you're responsible for everything.

36:09You have to take ownership for the choices you make. And I think that gives you a great framework of how to think about that, how to hold accountability to teams, but also as a leader, how to constantly be thinking like, I am the owner of this project, I am the owner of this thing. And it gives you again, some like really practical examples of how to lead with extreme ownership. it. That's great.

36:31Molly Matthews: I will put all of these titles in the show notes for easy reference. Thanks. Before we move on from this, actually. So again, it's going to vary in situation to situation, but like once you've actually evicted or whatever, gotten Captain America off the team, and you've gotten the high performer, the individual contributor who's doing well, but what do you say to the rest of the team after they're being, actually twofold? If that person still on board and they're being coached, what do you say to the rest of the team? And if they've been moved out, what do you say to the team? What do you say to the team on Monday morning when they see the empty desk?

37:08Yeah, I think when they're staying and they're being coached, I think I would actually encourage that person, that contributor, the Captain America, he's the one who needs to show change to his team. Like me saying it is not going to help anything. Like it just doesn't. People need to see behavioral change and then they will start to believe it. if that person, and this is the coaching I give them, I think you need to verbalize that you acknowledge that you've been kind of an asshole and move forward, right? Apologize, move on, try to be better every day. On the other side, if we can't get to that resolution where someone's changing and you move them out, what I have said over and over and over again is I always protect people's honor, whether they're coming in or they're coming out.

37:54I'm not going to speak about people, but I will say we have a cultural standard in our company of how we treat each other and how we treat clients. And if that standard's not being met, it's best for that person to find a different place to be where they can be happy and they can thrive. And what I'd say, if it's a sales organization, we also just gave up our top producing rep to double down on what our values are. I now need everybody else to level up, to absorb some of that quota. and we're going to be searching and finding somebody else. But part of our cultural values also is hustle, right?

38:29So if we're going to make that change, then we all got to level up to try to achieve that same target.

38:36Molly Matthews: I feel like I should have asked you this before, but as a manager, as a leader of an organization, how do you think about morale versus culture? Yeah, I do think, I think they're connected. I think there are seasons where morale dips in businesses. it usually comes either when you're not winning, right? You're not putting the right number on the board. So you're constantly feeling defeated. And I think as a leader, you need to get lockstep with your investor community or your board or your leadership team. And you need to talk about resetting what those metrics are to make some more achievable things or to put some like kind of middle ground things in where people can feel like they're achieving, right?

39:16That's fully within the control of the leader. I'll say, as you get bigger, you need to align that with your board so that there's not two sets of metrics. The other piece I will say is sometimes it comes at the end of a really intense sprint season in product engineering, or maybe we're low on staff, or we had to like really cut back from a staffing perspective. So people have actually, it's not, it's not a, it's not an emotional feeling because of like win or loss, but it's a physical feeling because of extended work hours, pushing really hard, having to solve things, or maybe there was like a product flaw or something that you're having to overcome and have a lot of hard conversations.

39:54That you need to acknowledge as a leader in a group setting. I see it. I don't want this to be the situation forever. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. And not everybody can take the time off at the exact same time. So as a leader, you need to find a way to like stage kind of a break-in for everybody so they don't burn out.

40:14Molly Matthews: what's your take as far as how should inexperienced founders be like leaning more into that advisor relationship just for most people yeah i think that i'm i'm going to talk about two things so advisors truly and then the other one is investors so advisors as a start like as a startup leader startup ceo can be your greatest advocate and the greatest gift that you give yourself you often find those advisors if you're in a really early stage through like a Y Combinator or, you know, some of the different kind of groups that you can join. But the other thing, and this is going to tie into your investor group is I would ask my investors, right?

40:54Or investors, do you have somebody you would recommend, right? Their network is often 3X, 5X bigger than yours. So having them kind of point you toward, and I always ask for more than one, just so that I, let's say I needed somebody who was, who had experienced hyperscaling, right? And I would ask my, can you give me two to three people, right? Because it has to be a good fit, right? You have to have a conversation and you click and you enjoy that person. When you're an early stage founder, you also need somebody who will pick up the phone, right? There is nothing worse than like pouring into a relationship and they can't get the time on that person's schedule.

41:33So you want to find somebody who you have a good like kind of click connect with, and you want to, you want to be honest about the amount of time you think you're going to need from them so they can create that space for you. Most of the folks that have been advisors in my life were on a text basis, right? Hey, I'm, I'm struggling with how to think about this. Any chance that you have five minutes, like on your drive home from work, right? And this is where this like work by balance comes in. A lot of my calls that I take for folks that I coach are early in the morning or they're at night when they're, when they're commuting.

42:04And the reason for that is I know what it feels like to be in the trenches. And when you're in the office, it is go, go, go, go, go. Somebody's in your face asking for something. You're doing something nonstop. And so what I like to do is say, hey, call me on your drive in, right? When you have some headspace or call me on your drive home or go for a walk, right? Help them to kind of get out and like get some fresh air. So I think having those honest conversations with your advisors before you select is really important.

42:33Molly Matthews: What are some of the questions a founder should ask an advisor during that interview, during that intake process, before accepting their help? Yeah, I think I always like to ask, who have you advised before and what has made you feel like that was a successful engagement? And what have been engagements that didn't work out and why? Right? And you'll get a lot from them. Like the thing I love about business leaders and business advisors, they're super honest, super honest, right? So they're like, hey, this wasn't a good fit for me because of the time zone difference. It actually turned out that they were really looking for a go-to-market specialty versus general business.

43:10You know, you can just really flesh out a lot. I also asked them, what amount of time do you have to spend? How do you like to communicate? Because if you're a formal, I want to set this meeting at this time and we have a Zoom call, that's a different style of person than somebody who's like, oh, I'll just give you my cell phone number. let's text or we'll just jump on the phone.

43:32Molly Matthews: Hopefully we, most of us don't enter relationships thinking about how they're going to end. It's not a very positive outlook. Sure. But I mean, with an advisor, is that, is that intended in your mind? Is that supposed to be an open-ended relationship or is that something that basically has an expiration date? Yeah, it should have an expiration date from my opinion. And this is why I like to say if I am really kind of unsure, Or sometimes people make a recommendation that you should get an advisor. And sometimes you know you should. With founders, it's often the opposite. Someone's saying, hey, I think you should.

44:05Great. 30 days. Let's meet four times. And at the end of that 30 days, let's be really honest with each other if this is working or it's not working. And if it's not working, I always say, I don't want to waste your time. It's precious. And people are like, cool. I mean, and that's the end of it. And then after that 30 days, I do 90 day increments. Like, hey, for the next 90 days, can we be committed to creating space and time for each other? Yeah, great. I mean, and then usually what happens is you either as a founder, you need somebody else, a different specialty that you want to chat with, or that just becomes being like what I'd go from advisor to mentor.

44:42And so they're just a part of your network and they're a part of your life forever after that.

44:47Molly Matthews: I want to ask you for kind of a usable framework for first time founders, technical founders, building their team, they're about to make their first five hires. What are, I don't know, maybe like five bullet points they could write down that'll kind of help them kind of create some guardrails for the kind of people they're trying to attract? Yeah. I think that they need to have a really good understanding of what their cultural values are, right? And they need to hire with that in mind. Is this person, let's just say we know we need somebody who's a product specialist or product and engineering, oftentimes in the beginning, right?

45:22I need somebody who's sales oriented for sure is my number two hire. And then number three usually needs to be somebody who's like a jack of all trades and they can kind of fill in a lot of gaps. Could be customer success and support. It could be, you know, like lightly HR, meaning thinking just about recruiting. It could be, right? But you need to frame that up as who are the types of high performing individuals that I need in this business? And then the biggest one, Walter, is what do I need to hire to complement my own skillset? Right? You're not going anywhere if you're the founder. So what do you know enough about yourself to say, I'm very good at this and I'm terrible at this, right?

46:03I love the product and engineering side, but boy, when it comes to sales and marketing, I need somebody. If that's the case, that should be your number one hire. And you should absolutely go all in on trying to find the best GTM leader who can, again, wear the hats, they can run marketing, they can run sales, pre-sales, enablement, all of it as it kind of comes together.

46:27Molly Matthews: That's helpful. That's good. But I think also, but on the cultural aspect, as far as like the kind of company you're trying to create. So here's the example I would use is this. Some friends of mine were co-owners of a bar in New York way back in the day called Milk and Honey. And the bar, a lot of notoriety, not just for their amazing cocktail menu, but because, and I love this, they had rules on the wall and in the bathrooms of how customers were expected to comport themselves. Like rule number one, I think it was gentlemen should not approach a lady without an introduction so that everyone can kind of like have a drink in peace and that kind of, so it kind of set the tone for the kind of place they're trying to create.

47:05Molly Matthews: But as I understand it though, that list of like their 10 commandments, they didn't have when they hung up the shingle and opened the bar for business, it evolved over the course of dealing with people and customers and not getting the place. And so what I'm asking is like, if you're starting your company from scratch, from employees zero through five, can you actually write down, can you have a list of your culture or is that something that you were going to have to basically, it's going to be revealed to you as you - I think it evolves. I wouldn't say it reveals. I think it evolves. I think when you start, if you go back in time and you were to interview the push pay co-founders, they had a really good, like three or four things that they knew are going to be central to the business that they created.

47:50Excellence, innovation were two, and they wanted it to be a people-centric business. They wanted to, they're like ethos is we would be, feel like wildly successful if we were able to change people's lives through the work that they do, right? Like come in as a, you know, frontline employee and as a VP of marketing, you know, like that was a big part of it. And so they, they called that being people first, but those three things are still evident in the company today. Like even as they left the company, this is why I like to use the word ethos. It's like the air that you're breathing. It doesn't change because those two gentlemen left the business.

48:31Now, is there a bigger challenge for the people who step in to continue it and evolve it to like represent who they are. Absolutely.

48:40Molly Matthews: Molly, this has been a fantastic chat. I've one, here's my last question for you. Yeah. What's one culture question every founder should ask themselves once a month? Do I like what I see? When I walk around the building, when I walk through the halls, when I'm on a Zoom call, if we're remote, do I like what I see? and I think that's kind of a gut punch to some people and I think then that should inspire them to do a better job of verbalizing and holding accountability for the culture that they want to have in their business. Fantastic. Thank you so much. We'll leave it there. Molly, thank you for a great conversation.

49:20Molly Matthews: I hope we get to talk again sometime. Yeah, thank you so much, Walter. The fund build scale theme was written by Michael Tritter and performed by Michael and Carlos Chires. Michael also composed Ocean, the track he heard at the top. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and leave a rating. It helps more people find the show. You can get the Fun Build Scale newsletter on Beehive, follow along on Instagram, and if you have a guest suggestion or a question, reach me at funbuildscale at gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Fun Build Scale is a production of Truth and Soul Media, LLC.