Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 For us, it's about investing in the growth of our folks. That to me, I mean that the data shows it right. The reason why people stay within organizations, the reason why we have such great RA, uh, retention rates here at Susie, especially during the great resignation we call it, I call it the great reset, but, um, is because we're investing in our folks. And I think we're, we're going to double down on that this year,
Speaker 1 00:00:28 MarTech scale-up Susie has been waking ways in the U S tech scene, since it was founded in 2018, many of the biggest brands in the world, you Suzy to deliver breakthrough products and experiences backed by data-driven decisions, which is fantastic, but it wasn't the customer side of things we wanted to dig into. Susie has also been recognized on Forbes list of America's best startup employers, 2021, Inc magazine's best workplaces in 2021 and built in NYC's best places to work in 2022 with ambitious growth goals on their Roy's and their journey showing no signs of slowing down. In this episode, we speak to Susie's founder, CEO, mark Britton, and the chief people officer, and to me and Eastover, to understand how they've built an award-winning place for their team to work their learnings along the way, and what sheeting 70% headcount growth this year, it looks like in reality for them, hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did here it is my Anthony really pleased to be speaking with you today. Thanks very much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Matt, start with you far less than this. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 00:01:41 Um, well, let's see, I've been in lifelong entrepreneur. Um, I spent the majority of my early part of my career in the advertising industry. I started an agency called Mr. Youth back in 2002, which is really at the Dawn of digital era, helping large brands, target teens and college students, uh, with a variety of different. At that point, what was considered innovative tactics like banner ads, um, was fortunate enough to be, um, in the marketing and digital marketing space when Facebook was amended in 2004, and my agency really doubled down on social media marketing and, uh, really built one of the first major social media marketing agencies rebranded as MRR Y and built the agency for about 12 to 13 years at which point it was acquired. Uh, but before that spun out a software company called Crowdtap, which would later become Susie. So, um, I've been part of this continual business journey, uh, which has evolved into Susie now, uh, for a good part of the last 20 years. Um, and it's been a great ride. Uh, personally I live in New York, uh, with my wife. I have three kids and, um, you know, I'm just enjoying the journey.
Speaker 1 00:02:44 Good. Excellent. And auntie be great to hear your story too.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 Yeah, sure, sure. Always love hearing that story by the way. Um, so mine is a little bit different. Um, I actually am a failed accountant, so I have a degree in accounting from, from college. Uh, and the first company I worked for as an accountant, uh, told me I wasn't good at it. So they fired me, so changed my, my career trajectory, uh, basically into human resources. So, uh, I went back to the recruiting firm and I said, listen, I don't really, I'm not really good at accounting. I don't really like it. And they said, oh, why don't you do recruiting for accountants? And that was it. And I got bit by the recruiting bug and started doing recruiting for startups during the big.com push many, many years ago. So I was in there recruiting, and then I would also provide these smaller companies with HR services.
Speaker 0 00:03:37 So it was like coming in and being like an interim head of HR for these really small but fast growing startups. And that's when I was bit by the startup bug, uh, even after the.com bust boom and bust, uh, then the mobile boom and bust, uh, and, and just been really scaling early stage startups. Um, the largest startup I've ever scaled was frustrated here in the city. You, I scaled it from about 40 people to 3000, uh, built an HR operation around that, um, and, and did so many really interesting. I was part of the first company to do the first video on mobile phones. If you can imagine that the amount of mobile video we have, we were the first company to actually stream video on mobile phones. So really thinking and being a strategic partner to folks like Matt entrepreneurs, like Matt, and just loving the creative space in the innovation space, um, and was connected to Matt, Matt and I had known each other.
Speaker 0 00:04:33 Um, when he was at Mr. Youth, uh, his agency, I was with a, uh, another agency called big fuel who was run by obvious Inbar when a Matt's good friends and we were connected. Um, and we had lunch and he told me all about his plans for Susie. They had just pivoted from Crowdtap and, and basically the sky was the limit. Uh, and that was, uh, I was really excited about the vision. Matt had. I, I was really excited about the company, you know, SAS, uh, particularly in the enterprise space in New York, there were a few really strong players. Um, I really thought Susie can make a difference not only in New York now, of course, globally. And so I've been with Susie for, I think in, in, uh, in February, it'll be four years. So a, an amazing ride thus far and really excited. The, uh, the future is really ahead of us and, and really excited about the next couple of years here.
Speaker 1 00:05:24 It sounds like you're focused on a lot, but time is flowing, um, sort of, um, maybe have a bit of a flashback when talked about first video on mobile phones. It's scary how long ago that was anyway, before I go down the wrong rabbit hole here and segwaying on really quite neatly. So Matt, could you tell us a bit about Susie, um, and I'd really love to hear what you feel your mission is for the
Speaker 2 00:05:48 Sure. So Susie is a enterprise software platform. Uh, it's a two, essentially a two-sided marketplace where we have a network of over a million consumers who live on my gamified application called Crowdtap. Uh, those consumers are rewarded for answering questions, um, on behalf of our brand clients. Uh, so you can download the app. It's a kind of fun gamified experience where you can just answer a variety of different questions way to monetize your downtime. As we like to say, um, on the flip side of the, of the Crowdtap side is an enterprise software product called Susie. Susie is licensed by over 400, uh, major organizations, corporations, uh, from around the world to essentially empower direct to consumer market research, um, users at large enterprises across the product development life cycle, whether it's innovation, um, advertising, uh, R and D even customer experience or, uh, merchandising or retail marketing, um, have the ability to use this tool to target every variety of consumers by thousands of different targeting parameters and get instant on demand feedback to any concept or idea. So essentially we are disrupting the market research space, a space that has been for a very long time, um, you know, taken up by sleepy legacy incumbents who have not innovated at the pace of digital, who don't have their own technology, who don't have their own data. And we're coming in providing a better, faster, more efficient experience to these marketers and brands who right now, more than ever have to listen to consumers to help drive the decision-making.
Speaker 1 00:07:22 And it's really evident when you look at the, I was looking at your website earlier on, and when you see some of the sort of high profile clients, you've actually got into this, you must be doing some very good things there. So, excellent. And as an Antony, you've been with Susie since 2018, you were saying, so you've seen the company go through huge amounts of growth. What's that journey look like for you so far?
Speaker 0 00:07:47 Well, I can tell you, I didn't have any gray hair before now. I started way before. Um, you know, there's a great example. So we, we partnered with a company called gaping void when I first started and they have this cartoon of the entrepreneurial journey and it's really one of my favorites. It's like, you know, oh, oh crap. Oh crap. You know, it's actually, you know, a different word in New York word for crap, but it's, and then it's like, hell yes. Right? So it's that kind of journey where everyone thinks it's like a hockey stick. It's more about these fluctuations, right. Still growing, but the opportunity it's and, and a lot of it is changed, right? It's, it's thinking about always innovated, like Matt talked about there's a lot of players, particularly in our industry that don't do it, but even on the, on the people side of things, like thinking of innovative ways of building and some of it is innovation and, and frankly, some of it is just really blocking and tackling like really basic things.
Speaker 0 00:08:43 Often people think about scaling companies, they think there's some silver bullet, right? They think that there is some technique in recruiting. And the fact of the matter is the secret is it's, it's actually, it's no different than scaling your sales and your marketing. You know, it's, it's no different in that. You know, you have to have great recruiters that are reaching out to the best talent. You have to have find ways to qualify. Again, nothing very different than what Matt and the sales team are doing on the, on the sales side. So, you know, it's, it's an incredible journey like to me and working with someone like Matt, who has given me really great autonomy, you know, here's the vision, here's the priorities, you know, in Europe, your stakeholders are the people in giving me the runway to say, okay, do what you need to do to hit these goals.
Speaker 0 00:09:28 It's just been an incredible, incredible journey for us. And, and, you know, 40 years seems like a lot in startup years. It's probably six months, you know, it's, we're, we're just getting started like Suzy, you know, we're starting to get brand awareness. We're, we've always had brand awareness on the, on the business side, but on the talent side, we're now becoming, you know, 2021, we were Inc magazine, best workplaces. We're going for that again in 2022, we just got built in, like, we are just hitting our strive here, it's using. And it's just like, it is just been an incredible journey. Uh, and, and our future is ahead of us. And I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1 00:10:06 Excellent. I mean, it looks like you're almost about 300 employees strong at the moment. And you mentioned about the magazine's best workplaces for 2021. So congratulations on that, that these things are never easy accolades to get a nude. So you touched on something right there. So I suppose the next question I'd like to ask is how has your approach to scaling teams involved throughout your growth journey and a map? And we'd like to hear your thoughts on next one?
Speaker 2 00:10:32 Well, I mean, our approach largely driven by our fundraising. You know, we are a company that is fueling our growth through the funding of venture capitalists. Uh, we have some great venture capital partners, uh, that have, uh, decided to invest in the company like a Foundry group and Rowe, capital partners and HIG capital. Um, and with each new round of funding that has come in, um, our kind of goalposts has changed so to speak, uh, the expectations of the company and our growth ambitions have expanded, and that has impacted our hiring trajectory. Uh, it's made us hire in some instances more rapidly. It's made us think about different skill sets that we need to expand our remits with customers, um, and has made us create new departments and look for new special specialties that maybe we hadn't in the past. So with each new round of funding, our business plan is expanded and that obviously expands our hiring or hiring trajectory.
Speaker 1 00:11:25 Absolutely. And I think when you, when you're in this sort of startup zone and you're right, what you said about the four years being six months with things changing and growing and getting more challenging depending on the market. And I suppose that leads me to the next question, which was, what does 2022 have in store for Susie from a people perspective? And what do you think of the key initiatives and focuses that they're going to be for?
Speaker 0 00:11:48 Yeah, I think, you know, over the past four years, um, having scaled organizations, it was about getting the foundation set correctly, right? So thinking about not only Susie as a, you know, when I started and, and Matt brought me in early on, I think most startup founders would wait to a certain pivot point, uh, to bring in a CPO with, with my experience in that had the foresight of looking at this and going, okay, we need to invest. So we did a lot of foundational things. We put in a lot of foundations to make sure we scale. Now it's all about delivering on those things, right? Making sure 20, 22, I, you know, we we've put in so many awesome benefits to be competitive, not only within our space, within the larger companies that we're going after and finding talent, right? So we need to be in parity with those folks.
Speaker 0 00:12:35 So 20, 22 is about adding and what we call the year of elevation, right? So again, a lot of companies believe it's, it's so funny. I got a note today about, uh, writing an article about something, and some companies are giving out Rolex watches to compete for talent. And it's just the wrong way to think about these things for us. It's about investing in the growth of our folks. That to me, I mean that the data shows it right. The reason why people stay within organizations, the reason why we have such great RA, uh, retention rates here at Susie, especially during the great resignation we call it, I call it the great reset, but, um, is because we're investing in our folks. And I think we're, we're going to double down on that this year, we're going to make sure that our folks are trained that at a, at a company level, we provide training at a leadership level.
Speaker 0 00:13:22 You think about, you know, we are now fully remote organization when COVID hit, uh, our leaders in HR, we always knew the leader is the direct leaders of employees were important pieces of the organization. Now they're critical, right? Like they are before we're employees would have to go into an office and they would see Matt. They would see me. They're not seeing us on a regular basis. They're seeing their direct leader, their direct manager. And so investing in our leaders invest in our employees is a huge issue for us. So I don't think we'll have free Rolex's any, anytime in the near future here at Suzy, I'd rather spend it on learning and development. I'd rather spend that money on elevating our employees because there'll be not only impact for them, but impact for our business. We only get better as we elevate our employees. And so twenty, twenty two is really, we call it the year of elevation and that's really what we're focused on.
Speaker 1 00:14:14 And with that, when you look at that sort of growth trajectory that you've had earlier on, you talked about having sort of the basics in place to get things right. So I think you're right. People do over-engineer or over-complicate, um, you've mentioned some of the investments you're looking at now. What, what for you, um, resulted in the success you've seen?
Speaker 0 00:14:37 Well, I think it's, you know, for it's, it's really structural basics, right? So making sure we have an organization like Matt talked about, we have the right departments, we have the right leaders in those departments. Um, those are the basics, right? Making sure that we're hiring the right folks, that we're continuing to build out our culture, right. With every hire, it's a risk of culture. Uh, and so making sure that we have those things in place, make sure we have the right hiring processes, right. Um, the right hiring tools, uh, the right HR systems, like the basics, the architecture of these things. Uh, and then adding on top of that, all the things that we need to, to elevate our employees. And so for me, the basics, you know, it's, we think of things or at least I think of things as people process and technology, right?
Speaker 0 00:15:22 So ensuring we have the right people, but of course the right organizational design and that's ever, ever changing, right. There's some staples like finance and accounting and, and HR, but for us, there's some, you know, we have some new departments within our organization that are six months old that are starting to just sort of, um, you know, formulate themselves and really provide value into the organization. So it's organizational design, it's the structures of our systems getting all that stuff. Right. And just making sure, you know, we pulse our employees, a lot of companies will pulse or survey their employees every year. We do it every two weeks where, you know, in, in the way that Susie goes out into the consumer base in real time, it gets feedback for our clients and big brands. We're doing that at Susie. We kind of, I think they call it drinking your own champagne or eating your own dog food, whatever metaphor you like, but we're really trying to get data and, and really drive the decision-making based on what our employees are telling us. And there's a balance of that, right? Like you're not, you're not providing everything that they're asking for for, for a certain degree, but you're, you're really trying to align the program.
Speaker 1 00:16:30 That's good. That's, that's great to hear that you're taking that approach quite similar to us as well, as far as that sort of insight and too valuable. And so there must've been a huge amount of learnings throughout your career. So I'd love to hear from each of you on what some of those have been when it comes to scaling teams and people practices in particular, especially at that sort of startup scale phase.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 So I think one of the learnings that has proven fruitful for me as a leader is when you find somebody that, um, has initiative and has ambition, no matter what their prior experience is or was what their age is, you have to promote them and empower them with the reckless abandoned to give them more and more her time. Um, because that's the fastest way to scale your organization is by delegating, empowering other people. I think a lot of organizations are too quick to look at somebody's resume or their age and say, oh, they're not ready for this. Uh, and they forget that people like mark Zuckerberg were running Facebook, uh, you know, a multi-billionaire company who's is 26 years old. Um, but for some reason, the 26 year olds that works for you, you don't think can do it and you'll invest in that company, but you won't invest in your own people. Right. And I think when we've done that nine times out of 10, it works out better than hiring, you know, a highly paid executive from another company that might expect to come into the office and put their feet on the desk and wait for things to happen. So that's been a huge, um, I think boom, nor success is really empowering. Other people
Speaker 1 00:18:00 That's really refreshing to hear actually, because I see that as being some of the biggest challenges I've seen in previous roles. It's good to hear you doing that. And, and, um, from your perspectives, from your side, what would you say has been your biggest learnings or lessons in situation?
Speaker 0 00:18:16 I, for me, it's really, you know, is it's managing the growth, right? Like, you know, a lot of w when you're a startup company and you have an infusion of capital, you know, your, the expectation is that you're hiring quickly. Um, and I think, you know, oftentimes when you're hiring quickly, things tend to fall through the cracks, right? Or you, your, your rigor around hiring becomes less. And I think continuing that rigor around recruiting, uh, and starting that at the very beginning and making sure that you're hiring folks like the unique opportunity in a company like Susie, is that you get, and I use, uh, an orchestra, uh, analogy here is you get to be both Maestro and violinist, you know, in one day you're actually doing some tactical work on another day. You're, you're trying to make sure the orchestra is playing in concert with each other.
Speaker 0 00:19:06 And that's really what leadership, and, and even like that talked about employees have an opportunity here to do that stuff. And I do, you know, when we're talking about onboarding, uh, particularly here at Susie, we talk about the idea of initiative, right? That, that people at, in any part of the organization can step up, identify issues and bring it to our attention. And even sometimes we delegate it back to them. So I think it's making, you know, culture, obviously everyone's been talking about it. If you ask anybody, they have different definitions, but for me, it's making sure, you know, we have a framework here called radical candor book by, uh, written by Kim Scott, uh, which is care personally and challenge directly. So I think you consistently build that culture as you scale, but don't lose sight of that. Like, you know, and, and you gotta make tough decisions when someone is not fitting in that culture, uh, or in that framework, uh, you have to make tough decisions as an organization. I think we've, we've done that and I've done that in my career. So I think that's a key, key factor, especially when you're scaling.
Speaker 1 00:20:05 Thank you. And when you look at this, the practice around fast growing companies, do you think there are any myths that need to be busted when it comes to people practices and an organization scaling like yours and any pitfalls you think really needs?
Speaker 2 00:20:20 I think one of the myths is that you need to hire people that have done what you're trying to do in the past. Sometimes that works, but I think that myth, oh, you need to hire somebody that was at Google or Facebook prior that that's gonna solve your problems. And my experience is that does not solve your problems. Um, if you equate the business, somebody who's at to the success of that business versus their aptitude to be a core driver and a catalyst of your organization, I think it's a mistake. And I think, you know, I've never built a SAS company before. So under that premise, I shouldn't have my job. Um, and maybe I shouldn't, but I think that most people who built successful companies, especially in software, I've done it for the first time. You know, nine out of 10 software CEOs are first-time founders that build great companies. They're not people who necessarily have done it before. Now. I have created another business from an entrepreneurial standpoint, but I was a complete different business model. So I think that often you're pushed into that area and I'd rather build talent, you know, who are on the upswing of their career with sign the proof, um, that are ambitious versus people who might feel like that, you know, they've already done it and, and come on board with and not invented here syndrome.
Speaker 1 00:21:31 Absolutely agree. Ansley from your side. Any thoughts on that? So,
Speaker 0 00:21:38 Um, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, for, I think I, you know, I talked about the Rolex comment, right? Like I think it's from a people or an HR perspective, I think oftentimes when you're in a company in the same vein that Matt's talking about where you're, you're trying to create parody to the Googles and the Facebooks of the world, right? So a lot of folks, particularly in the HR space will Google this something like, okay, ours now, everyone, it might not be right for your organization. So I think it's not only adopting what Matt is talking about, which is finding folks that have that experience, but also looking at companies and benchmarking, you know, Matt talks about, uh, uh, he has a great example of the Michael Phelps, right? I think it's a famous photo where Michael Phelps is like two body lengths ahead of his next competitor.
Speaker 0 00:22:25 And he's looking straight and this competitor is looking at Michael Phelps, right? So it's like, let's, you know, obviously it's important to know what folks are doing, but from an HR perspective set the standard don't, don't go to the Google. So I think oftentimes, you know, in parts of the great example, right, Google, everyone gets free food. It's not what people want. We, we survey folks, we know what they want and we're going to deliver those things. And to me, I think it's, it's, it's, you know, trying to be like Google, especially from an HR perspective, often does not work. You have to be like you like Suzy, we have to do our own thing. And I think that's a big pitfall.
Speaker 1 00:23:02 When you look at the, um, you know, run the sort of mess and the pitfalls that you finally get when I've been at startups. The biggest challenge they've had when they've been growing at pace is being able to keep food to themselves, not to go into the root of like say Google or someone like that. Um, but also to try and keep that culture strong when it's, when it's at risk of fracturing, um, when you're growing at pace, how have you managed to sort of maintain the culture and the focus for Suzy and happy for either one of you are going to be,
Speaker 2 00:23:33 I mean, well, it's definitely hard in a remote environment. I think that, you know, you need to make sure that people understand who are especially people who were during your onboarding process, what your values and your mission is what your is, or your organization is, um, what behaviors you stand for and support ones that you have no tolerance for. Um, and the types of people you hire really are indicative of the culture of, because essentially culture is about relationships. So, you know, when I started the company, I relationships with our top six or seven execs and the cold dry believes in became the culture that they were. And of course they give me feedback as well. But as a group, we create the culture and it's up to us to hire people that will espouse that culture of the organization. But the second as you go down the chain, as you scale, you start to look away from that. And maybe you hire somebody that you, that could be productive for your organization, but maybe not right for culture where then you're creating a broken chain link in that chain. And then they may be hiring a team that can be really toxic to your culture. So you have to be very careful as you hire people that you know, that they understand the type of business that you want to create, the type of culture you want to build so they can embrace it and essentially spread it as they hire people who work for them.
Speaker 1 00:24:48 Yeah. Okay, good. That's good to hear. Susie's also been named one of the NYC's best places to work for 20, 22, as well as the magazine accolade you mentioned earlier on. So you've clearly build an environment that is appreciated by your people and incredibly well-recognized by the industry, which is quite an achievement. What does that look like in reality? What elements of the people experience of Susie do you think have contributed towards this?
Speaker 2 00:25:16 Well, I think Anthony is a big driver of it is he's really, I mean, I think he's excellent at what he does and he's somebody who, you know, myself as an entrepreneur, I'm always thinking about the business and the numbers. Um, you know, I'm waking up in the morning and looking at our revenue growth and I'm looking at our customer growth and our retention and things like that. And often what I think entrepreneurs do is when they do that, they forget about the most important asset they have, which is their people. So, and, and when you overlook your people, you know, you're overlooking the biggest arbiter of your future success. And I've been fortunate enough to bring Anthony on board who wakes up every morning, thinking about just that and, and put as much passion and energy and creativity towards, towards our people as I put into, you know, our customers and our business overall.
Speaker 2 00:26:01 And I think because of that, we've been able to be very detail oriented, um, you know, be super attentive to people's needs, uh, you know, have a, have an employee centric organization where as Anthony's that we're pulsing consumers constantly, and we're largely in touch. And when you're in touch, you at least know what the issues are and you can respond to it where I think because a lot of CEOs and leaders are so focused on the business results over time, they become out of touch. And the second you become out of touch is the second that you know, that you are at risk for your culture eroding and your workplace or already,
Speaker 1 00:26:35 Um, when you look everything that, um, has just said, um, what was perhaps the most challenging aspects to, or put into practice,
Speaker 0 00:26:45 You know, for it's, especially when you're, when you're pulsing employees on a regular basis. Um, you know, a lot of times, and we get both quantitative and qualitative feedback and we do it across three different, well, actually four different pillars now, but engagement, diversity and inclusion, health, and wellbeing. And now what we call psychological safety. Um, and the, the hardest part is really getting the feedback, right? So you're, you're looking at the numbers and you're looking at trends and numbers and the really great thing. And the solution that we have were, you know, much like Susie, we can really dive into the data, oftentimes you can get lost in it and really double-click and find attributes and slice the data in a couple of different ways. So I, I totally get geeked out on that stuff. And then you start looking at the comments and you're like, I, you know, like I am a terrible head of people.
Speaker 0 00:27:36 Uh, this is the, you know, like it's, and, and, and oftentimes, and I will say, you know, for our organization, will we be very cognizant of making sure that it's, you know, people can vent, but it's constructive, right. Matt talked to very recently in our, all hands about, you know, great, we want to get your feedback, but do you have an idea, like, you know, that initiative piece. So, and I think, you know, Matt and I can look through this stuff and I send Matt the comments every week and it looks through every single one of them, which is, again, I think having a CEO like Matt, and most of my career, I've been pushing water up a hill with CEOs, trying to sort of just, you know, like, Hey, here's the data, this is important. And this is going to help our it's not Matt just has the instinct.
Speaker 0 00:28:16 And that's why I was brought in early on, which is great. But then it's the leaders right now, training your leaders to listen, training your leaders, to check in with their employees, especially now in a remote environment where they don't get to see us, you know, they get to see us on an all hands zoom every two weeks. So, um, I think it's, it's really, like Matt said, hiring the right leaders, but then training them and getting them used to the fact that we are going to ask employees every two weeks, how they're doing. And by the way, it's for them, it's there, it's not an HR system it's democratized to them so they can get better, right. That they can get the feedback. So, um, so that's the hardest part is really translating a lot of these things to the next level of leadership. And that's always going to be the case in, in, in all organizations, whether you're growing or not.
Speaker 1 00:29:03 You mentioned a moment ago that sometimes getting that feedback is tough and it is greatly during it to weekly, lots of stats. I've just started to look at that now. Um, but how you, how you, how you make, ensure encouraging or engaging the employees that they actually feel the need to, and they want to give you that feedback.
Speaker 0 00:29:22 I, I, I think, you know, there's a lot of folks, particularly in market research that talk about survey fatigue, even in employee engagement, but the reality is it's not getting a survey over and over again, that creates the fatigue, it's the inaction. And so for us, um, perfect example of this is we instituted a new health and wellness stipend benefit for 2022. So we're giving every employee, which is incredibly generous, a stipend to go out and, you know, they could put it against a Peloton. Although I don't, you know, who knows where that is, recent events, but a mirror or whatever it is, a Fitbit, or they can go get, you know, yoga classes, whatever it is. And, and Matt and I didn't make that up. We got that from our feet. So I think for us, it's not only getting and listening to the feedback, filtering out some of the noise or responding to it.
Speaker 0 00:30:10 Um, but also taking action and the tool that we have allows you to have a non-US discussions with the employee that provides a comment. So a lot of times where you were most tools, you just get the comment and you look at it and you're like, I have no idea what this means I actually can respond. And they do to every comment either. I say, thank you as just a way to sort of read comment, or I actually respond back and say, I don't quite understand what you're saying. Can you give me more feedback? It's that intention and that detail for, you know, and Matt looking at comments and then being transparent in all hands meetings and making these changes. That's how, again, this is, this is not rocket scientist, uh, you know, a failed accountant, wouldn't be able to do this. So, uh, uh, it's, it's really basic. And it's a lot of just really intentioned. Like, what is, what is your intention with this thing then? How do you make change?
Speaker 1 00:31:02 Great. Great. I know you have ambitious plans to grow by almost 70% by the end of 2022. So how are you approaching this and what do you foresee as being some of the biggest challenges?
Speaker 2 00:31:15 So our hiring plans always driven by our goals. We're very goal oriented. So we have goals around people. We have goals around our, our Crowdtap audience. We have goals around our product. We have goals around our revenue. Um, and basically we start with our goals and we figure out department by department there, the human resources needed to achieve those goals. And that's really what builds our hiring plan.
Speaker 1 00:31:40 Excellent. Okay. And for both of you, if there was one thing that you could wave a magic wand done fixed when it comes to people and talent, what would that be?
Speaker 2 00:31:51 You want to take the family,
Speaker 0 00:31:53 Uh, COVID tests, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, can we wipe out a pandemic? I mean, you know, the interesting thing, particularly in HR, I was talking, um, I'm part of the CPO group and it's like, you know, and, and I love it because give me more stuff to do. I love HR now, you know, with Matt, it always had a seat at the table, but from an industry perspective, HR was always a second thought. Now we're like chief medical officers and we're pandemic relief folks, and we're figuring out employee experience. So I think part of it is I say jokingly, but obviously getting rid of a global pandemic is not only good for people, but for business. Um, but we've, we've scaled, uh, during this, you know, we've scaled, we've been successful and we continue to be, um, I, you know, for me, I think it's, it goes back again to the leadership it's.
Speaker 0 00:32:45 Um, if I could wave a wand, every, every leader would be a great leader. Like to me, Matt gave me credit for the HR and people, and I do appreciate that, but I have to give credit to our people leaders to me without that's our first line of defense. When we think about our people's scores and our engagement scores. And if they're not good, we're not good. I'm not good. I'm not doing my job. So for me, the wand would be just hiring great people, leaders and have them train to just be naturally great with people, check in, think about their growth and, you know, newer leaders don't and even some experienced leaders don't. And so we, that's why I'm here. I have to make sure to remind them to train.
Speaker 1 00:33:25 Okay. It sounds like you're, you're very big on this. The whites are sort of lead people and engage people from the top down here. So looking at that leadership thing, just briefly, what, what to you in Susie makes a good leader in your organization?
Speaker 2 00:33:39 I'd say somebody who takes initiative, somebody who doesn't wait to be told what to be done, but finds opportunities and go out, goes out and grabs them and executes
Speaker 1 00:33:48 A couple of, sort of slightly more informal questions to bring on chat. So we've closed it today. So is there anything that you're super passionate about that you really find joy in know this can be of course, professional personal, then we'll look at,
Speaker 2 00:34:04 I mean, I find joy in a lots of things. I find joy in traveling. I love any time with my kids. Um, I love getting outdoors and doing things like hiking. Um, I love writing and really innovating, uh, both, you know, business on a business standpoint and a personal standpoint.
Speaker 1 00:34:21 Thanks, Nancy. What about yourself?
Speaker 0 00:34:24 Kind of same thing, you know, family, obviously three kids, I've a daughter in college now, so I'm getting the, you know, college experience again. Uh, but with someone that was much smarter than I was in college, um, you know, it's that riding, you know, riding bike. I love, I mean, here in New York, it's just super cold now. So it's riding a Peloton at least for now, but, uh, riding my bike, I, I have a book coming out then that is committed to writing. One more word on. So I'm excited about that. Um, and just getting that creative outlet out there. I also have a comic book series to encourage girls to pursue stem called Ella. The engineer. We're actually pitching that to a couple of studios now for an animated series. It's just, it's, it's everything, it's all, but it's all foundationally comes to like the family at the core for me, and really excited to just, and I love basketball. I, I am a basketball not and so constantly watching basketball.
Speaker 1 00:35:18 Excellent. Thank you. And is there a thought value or phrase that either of you live?
Speaker 2 00:35:24 I would just say enjoy the journey.
Speaker 0 00:35:28 I mean, the steel, uh, Adam Grant, think again, right? The idea of, you know, when you're presented with new information or a new environment, you know, sometimes the old way of thinking of things or changing your POV. Some people call it flip-flopping I call it thinking again. So that's kind of how I think about things.
Speaker 1 00:35:46 Excellent. Well, both I really appreciate your time today. It's been really insightful, some really great stuff talking about, and I think Alice is going to be quite impressed. So thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:36:00 Thank you. Appreciate it.
