Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 We all happy for people to be who they are. Like, it really is not a lot of people talk about, bring yourself to work and all of those other things, but that, that is what it is at the end of the day is that we're, we're a bunch of 140 weird people. And we embraced that. And I think a lot of this comes down to a big shift in the way that the relationship between companies and employees is changing from the old days, the relationship was very much a parental. Once the company or bus was effectively, the parents and the employees were effectively the children. And you could see this in a lot of ways in terms of people would have a single career and they'd be there forever. And all of the benefits that were provided with these very long-term things, focus heavily on things like pension and retirement.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 And if you stay with us for 30 or 40 years, you'll get the gold watch, et cetera. So there was very much a very strong, dependent part relationship. And I think over time that's changed and much more of a partnership where people, employers and employees say, okay, we recognize that we can only be together for 2, 3, 4, 5 years. How do we make this work best for both of us? This was something I heard from Reed Hoffman on one of his podcasts and said that he called it, he took it to the extreme. The tours of duty is saying, when you hire people and he's interviewed sites them, what's your next role going to be after this one? And how do I help you get there? But we need to recognize that that companies and people are just in this together for a few years, how do we make the best of it together? How do we bring out the best of each other for a few years? And if we part ways it's okay. It's really okay.
Speaker 1 00:01:23 Hello. Hello and welcome to series three of seeds scaling so far podcast where we speak to founders, talent leaders and people, professionals about their scaling stories and had to take a people first approach in business. And beyond. In this episode, I chat with Jonathan rumor, one of five co-founders of insure tech company. You life, the folks taking a gamified wellness oriented approach to life insurance. They've won a ton of awards since inception in 2017, making the startups 100 lists for 2021 and being named by city am as one of the top 50 London startups to work for listening to Jonathan and the way he describes the life culture. And what's important to them as they scale the company. I'm not surprised we had an awesome conversation about their people plans for 2022. Why workplace culture is so important and how fast growing scale-ups can level up on that front too. I know you've got a ton of insight from this. So grab a coffee listening, and I hope you enjoy the chat as much as I did.
Speaker 2 00:02:29 Jonathan, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really, really excited to be chatting with you and hearing more about you life for our listeners. Um, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself? What's your story?
Speaker 0 00:02:43 Yeah, but very happy to, and, and happy to be here. Always find doing, doing a different podcast. Um, so yeah, as as mentioned, my name is Jonathan I'm one of the co-founders of, uh, of you life. Um, what's my story. Uh, I am south African, so, uh, I've in the UK for just over a decade now, um, of which most of their time has been spent working with, with the, your life guys as a background, I'm trying to, as an accurate, which was fun. Um, and I'm not sure if the listeners can hear the, the, you know, the emphasis on the word fund there. Um, so I trained as an actor and I spent quite a few years at KPMG in the laugh actuarial department, which I didn't love, I'll be honest. Um, but then when it was very fortunate to move into a new team, which they started called the tech growth team, which was around helping companies, helping startups to, to get going to grow to scale.
Speaker 0 00:03:35 And it was something I really enjoyed and I did it for about four years and it was, it was an amazing experience because we were just kind of given the brief to get out there, help however possible. And hopefully as they grow, they'll come back and buy some tech services and other things afterwards. So, yeah, that was, that was a little bit about my journey trying to, as an actor, he worked in South Africa for a while, moved to the UK, spent some time in KPMG and then met with the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the guys as they were just kicking off the, your life journey.
Speaker 2 00:04:04 Well, so that was back in 2017, right?
Speaker 0 00:04:08 Yeah. So back end of 2016 and then early into the 2017,
Speaker 2 00:04:13 And you found it, you life, co-founded, you live together with your four other co-founders. So is Yacko Josh, Sam, and Sammy. You've got a full, full five of you busy stuff, especially at the start I'm sure. Can you just tell us a little bit about the company? Um, like what's the vision, what's the mission and what you guys have been up to since then?
Speaker 0 00:04:37 Yeah, of course, of course. So you laugh as an insurance company with a mission to inspire people to live their best lives every day. And we really are very mission and vision led as a business. It's something we hold very dear to ourselves. And the way that we look at the world and look at insurance is a little bit different. So we've redefined what insurance means. And I think that there's a lot more follow in the market on this. So historically insurance has been around claims compensation when something goes wrong, the company pays out. But the way that we see insurance is that it's not about the client's compensation, it's about risk mitigation or risk partnership. How do we work with the person who we reinsuring to either reduce the risk or to find ways to prevent it? So insurance is totally redefined. And what that means within our context of life insurance, is that we want to find ways to help people to live and to live well so that they live for longer.
Speaker 0 00:05:26 So you could look at it from a bit of a critical eye and say, yeah, it's just because insurance companies don't want to pay out well, yeah, that's true. We'd like for people to live longer and it's a real win-win because hopefully people live longer, they're healthier, they're happier. And we pay up later or not at all. So it's just a great alignment of everything. And the way that we actually accomplish that on a daily basis is through the app. So we've created an incredibly fun gamified app that helps and then inspires and rewards people for looking after their, their, so you own your coin, which is a currency of wellbeing we've created for doing things like walking, mindfulness cycling, and you can use your Yukon to get some incredible rewards, everything from Amazon vouchers to planting trees.
Speaker 2 00:06:10 Oh, that sounds awesome. And yeah, I think like a lot of the time, or, well, in the past, we just sort of, um, relied heavily on managing the situation when to put it bluntly shit hits the fan, right? Like as soon as something bad happens, we then have to go to hospital the dentist, whatever it might be and make that claim when actually taking that more preventative approach since a lot more proactive. And, um, you know, you don't want people to have to claim on the insurance. That's not, that's not necessarily the end goal. Actually the end goal is to help people to live a better life and a healthier life. So yeah, love that and definitely a mission that I could get behind. So what, what's that journey at you life for you specifically, like so far?
Speaker 0 00:06:55 So it's, it's been a, it's been a, I can't say it's been a smooth journey. It's been an amazing journey. It's been, it's been one where I've learned so much every day. Um, it's been, it's been, it's been brilliant really. So when we first started back in 2016 and 2017, we were, uh, five of us trying to find our way within this incredible world of insurance with all very different backgrounds and how to get there. And, you know, the first couple of years were very slow. We started with absolutely nothing. And then Josh, our CTO. And I started to, to build an incredible team and to, to pull out our first product, which was very slow and we didn't get the initial traction that we wanted and it was, it was quite difficult. And then we, we kind of pivoted the product laughy and the way we were selling it, I started to bring on some other incredible people.
Speaker 0 00:07:42 And, you know, from there the last two, two and a half to three years have just been, been phenomenal growth. And for me personally, you know, I played a lot of roles across the business. So for the first few years involved in everything from the insurance side and pricing it to helping Josh on the game side, uh, and then in the direct sales team and helping out out, across, and then, um, over the last 18 months or so really just creating a home for myself within the customer success side of the business. So making sure that our, our, our customers are looked after and getting as much value as they possibly can. Um, every day
Speaker 2 00:08:19 Wearing many hats,
Speaker 0 00:08:22 Shrinking, shrinking the hats now to hopefully one, one big one with a few teeny ones.
Speaker 2 00:08:27 And I feel like, you know, no startup is smooth sailing. That's the nature of a startup it's like chaos, and then how you organize it. So that's the fun part. Um, and you mentioned that like in the early stages, bringing on incredible people and incredible talent, um, what was your approach to really growing the you life team? You know, with five co-founders, I'm sure you had an incredible network of people that you're able to tap into. Um, but yeah, I'd love to hear a bit more about, especially at those early stages, how you went about that. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:09:00 So it's very simple, basically, Joshua I've mentioned already a few times, our CTO hired everyone. He went to school with or was mildly related to. So our very early stage of our business was, was just friends and family of Josh. Uh, and actually a lot of them have stay throughout the entire journey. So it was a, he did a very good job with it, but in the beginning, it's very interesting because when you are just starting out a pre-seed or just off the seed, you have very little, so you might have funds to pay some, some form of salary, but the people who are joining or not joining as we well know at that stage for financial stability and they join him because they believe in the vision and the mission and the people there. So that's what you have to sell when you recruiting is come along on the journey, um, B be with us, this is what we're trying to achieve in the world.
Speaker 0 00:09:46 So you really have to find people who are prepared to put their, you know, at risk at fault for, for the vision and the mission. So for us, that early emphasis on what we trying to achieve was the way that we were able to bring in people who, you know, we should have had probably no right to bring in given the stage of the business. And it was a lot of people when you were ready, you know, who had some form of trust or, uh, or, or, uh, foolishness to say, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give it a go.
Speaker 2 00:10:15 Brilliant. Yeah. Trust or foolishness. I like that. But yeah, you're right. It's, it's a level of, um, yeah, potentially, yeah, just taking a leap and a leap of faith in some instances. Um, and it, and it does help, especially like that early stage, being able to tap into your network where you do have that level of trust already, um, people know you, they know your passion, they know your capabilities, so, um, yeah, that makes total sense to, to be looking at those closer to you than starting off cold. Right. Um, cool. And then now you're about 140 employees, is that right?
Speaker 0 00:10:52 I think so. I haven't checked today, but I believe it is around a yes.
Speaker 2 00:10:56 Um, and on the startups a hundred list for 2021. So congrats for that. Um, awesome, awesome news and a huge achievement and raised your series B funding in July last year, you've got some huge clients, you know, have us co-op capsule one, um, who I see now, as you mentioned in your role, you're taking good care of, um, what's your approach to growing the life team. Um, now in the stage that you'll write and obviously how's that different to that early, early stage.
Speaker 0 00:11:27 It's a, it's, it's a very interesting journey and the way that, you know, that there's this changes, I don't think it's just, how's it different than today. It often changes, you know, by, by the month or the other week or the other day. Uh, but they have been, I suppose, some themes in the way things have changed. You know, when we were first starting the business, there's, there's just so much potential. And a lot of the people we hire or the skills that we hire for where you're higher on somebody's potential as well. Not only just the fact that they, you know, cause you don't know what you need, like, all right, we need to start selling the product. So you hire somebody who has the potential to be in sales, head of sales or whatever the different type of role is. And you hire, uh, all we said needed higher just based on the person, less than a little bit less than probably their direct experience.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 And as we've grown and as the company has formed, and as we have clear needs to what we need, we've needed to have more classic job description and actually hire people who have specific skill sets, as opposed to just hiring based on what we think the potential is. So we still very much want to hire incredible people regardless of the role, but it does become the balance between hiring well, this person that's amazing. We'll make it work in a certain way with actually, well, we need someone for the specific role changes. So the balance of what you're looking for, what we've looked for has, so to me change, um, and also we have to be cautious of just, you know, we can't just hire Willy nilly. You know, we, we, we have raised good funds, but we really want to put it to work. We want to be lean.
Speaker 0 00:12:57 We want to make sure that we know we're hiring the right people for the right roles. Because I think the, the, we have quite a stringent interview process because one of the things that's most important for us is the culture of the people coming in. So most people, when they, when they join, we'll need four or five people within your life before they've got their, but their technical skills would have been assessed within the first or second interview to, to, you know, let max and the rest is just making sure that the person we feel is a fit and that they know who we are so that they can also make an informed decision. So we really want to make sure to get that process right, because it's a long process and don't want to have to repeat it if we get it wrong, which we do occasionally.
Speaker 2 00:13:39 Yeah. And especially at the stage that you're at Ms. High as a costly, right. Like it's visible. It seems so. Yeah. Maybe it's worth taking the time in a longer process to make sure that they're the right fit and on the culture sort of interview conversation, that part of the candidate experience, how, how are you assessing culture? Like how do you understand if somebody, um, would be the right fit?
Speaker 0 00:14:07 So it's, you know, I think it's, it's a very difficult one to have a specific set of questions from what, like, you know, do you, what is, how do you define culture? You ask a lot of it for me personally. And I know that with the other team and that's what also, we have quite a few people meet them is because we need to get a few different opinions, come from different perspectives, asked different questions for me personally, I'm just trying to peel off that top layer of an interview. And we're persons trying to present themselves in a very polished way and basically out their CV. I'm trying to just find out who the person is. So one of the questions I've started asking, which I, which I quite like, and it's usually, hopefully it disarms people a little bit is, you know, most people at the CV will have the section at the bottom of saying interests and do sometimes I particularly like it because I want to just see what's beyond the skillset. So I'll often ask people, what was the thing you wanted to put down there that you were embarrassed to because you were worried, you know,
Speaker 2 00:15:03 I love that.
Speaker 0 00:15:04 He goes, a lot of, most of us would have something there now I'm not looking to find out what people's, you know, like crazy personal, uh, adventures are. But I do want to understand who they are. And now it's very important for two reasons, because number one, actually, I may not like it, but that's okay. Because if that type of interest doesn't align with who we are as a business, they probably don't want to work for us anyway, because it's not, they're not going to enjoy it. It's not going to be the right place. So it qualifies us out for them. But at the same time, if the, you know, the interest of what they show and who they are aligns with, who we are, that's great. If it needs, it, they'll accelerate the process. So I don't think there's any problem with like, kind of being yourself in your CV. Cause if a company doesn't black, it that's a good sign. It means you shouldn't be there anyway. So I like to try and just peel off that top layer and say, who is the person that I want to be clear that there's, there's no list of interests that I have written down that if someone says, Ooh, I like reading. That's a tick. It's purely to see if the person is passionate about something and prepare to be themselves because that's, what's really, really important
Speaker 2 00:16:09 How that person handles that question as well. Right. Because as you said, that kind of really dissolves some people actually, they might laugh and say, do you know what I really wanted to put down like Trainspotting or crochet, but we tend to, you know, especially in the interest section, very generic thing,
Speaker 0 00:16:31 Traveling, cooking, and a lot of people, they are passionate about that. And that's okay. And if someone is questioning, I want to see that passion. When I say travel, I'm desperate to go to Greece. You know, I've learned about this place and that place and the culture and the light. It's just, yeah. It's just, I want to see that people are happy to be them.
Speaker 2 00:16:49 Yeah, exactly. Um, no, I really liked that. That's a cool question, but people should try and implement that in their, uh, in that process as well. See how it goes. So as we look to sort of 20, 22, um, what does the year have installed for, for you life, from a people perspective? Um, like what are some of your goals, initiatives, things that like, you're really focusing in on when you're scaling your, your team.
Speaker 0 00:17:14 Yeah. It's, this is one of those things that comes back down to our mission, which is to inspire people to live their best lives. So now that's not only for our customers, that is for every single one of us that works at you life and our extended families as well. So, you know, we focus heavily on that question of how can we inspire people to the fitness lab. So we were doing a lot of investing within, within our people at the moment. There's a lot of, there's a lot of training that's going on. There's a lot of investment into just, you know, not, not only, uh, everybody, themselves, but also into the way that we, you know, we, we hopefully to look after and manage people. So a lot of investments into people who have leadership roles as well, cause that's where it all cascades down is that we need to, you can have the best work and the best culture, but if you've got a bad manager or experience is going to quite focused on that also, you know, we've been because we have been scaling quite a lot.
Speaker 0 00:18:03 We have, you know, a huge number of people who've joined in the last few months. And for a, for a, for a lack of a better expression, we still need to indoctrinate. Then, you know, it's the proper, you know, you laugh way in culture. So we have to focus quite a lot on, on taking the time to make sure that we, we, we keep, uh, maintain and grow the culture that we've created, that we know works for us, that we really want to go. So a lot of it is consolidation at the moment, making sure that everyone is working in the same direction, uh, making sure that, you know, we, we can keep that. Yeah, just that amazing way of working that we've, we've had so far as we've now doubled and tripled in size and we'll still continue to grow.
Speaker 2 00:18:44 It was a lot of that growth remotely as well that you've experienced recently. Or have you been sort of hybrid back to office?
Speaker 0 00:18:52 Yeah, I mean, we we've, we've kind of be fluid because, you know, when we closed the office relatively early, when all the pandemic stuff started, uh, we're very fortunate that at the time we were fully kitted out and capable of everybody working anywhere and quite quickly, we just said, okay, that's, you know, that's, uh, this is, this is the way we're going to be. Everyone can, you know, pick the working patterns that work for themselves within teams. So we've kind of left it to each of them, individual managers or teams to, to set the cadence that works for them. We are in the process of renovating our office. So we will have the office, we have not gotten rid of the office. Um, but we haven't scaled it up because we had it with a maximum capacity of 40 or 50 people. Um, but we're not, so we're not going to move.
Speaker 0 00:19:37 We're going to keep it as, as, as a habit and more of a place for collaboration and team meetings and things like that. So I think for me, it's, it's a particular one. I like working from home. It doesn't work for it. Uh, I particularly, I enjoy the extra time I can spend with the family. I, I miss the commute tool. Yes. I don't miss my Northern line. Uh, you know, twice a day, 40, 45 minutes. There are a lot of benefits from being in person as well. So I think that the goal for us that we've seen working is just trying to create a cadence per team that works for, for those teams and for people. Cause I have a lot of people in my team who, who love going into the office and love being, you know, it's just what they want to do is fits their personality. So we don't want to hamstring that. Um, but we're also happy to hire anywhere in the world now as well with within reason Tom's zone, some other things, uh, permitting. We're not, um, we're not too fast.
Speaker 2 00:20:29 That's brilliant. And you'll hide just out of interest, your approach to hiring anywhere, obviously within reason. Like did that come, um, like following the pandemic and the sort of shift to accommodate in that remote work or actually, is that something you've always been open
Speaker 0 00:20:45 Until I think, I mean, we were open to it, but we've embraced it now. So, but you know, pre pandemic, we, we had quite a few people working in our product and technology team who were based in various parts of the world. I think that in, for many companies, certainly for us, the, the product and the engineering teams and the, the tech teams kind of have always led the way in remote working. They've always embraced technology and ways of trying to make things more efficient. Um, and so we, we were certainly already had people working across Moldova, Philippines and other places across the world on our technology side. Um, and then we've embraced that now, you know, for the rest of the team or the rest of the company, but it, again, it depends on each team and the cadence. So, so certain roles are more difficult to do remotely certain sales roles where people need to visit the customers also to be honest, most of that is still now zoom based, um, are better, a bit more local, but my, my most recent hire into our team, an incredible guy named Kevin lives and works in South Africa.
Speaker 0 00:21:45 So, yeah.
Speaker 2 00:21:47 Yeah. And I think there are some, some instances as you say, where specific market knowledge or presence is beneficial, um, but having the flexibility of where in that location, um, it's always good to be open to that. So, no, that's super interesting. And, um, obviously you've got a ton of experience in scaling you life itself by almost 150 people. And obviously in your role, um, advising I think more than 200 startups as part of that KPMG, um, tech growth team, which is insane. Um, so you've seen a lot. Um, are you able to share what some of your biggest learnings and realizations have been when it comes to building teams?
Speaker 0 00:22:30 Yeah, happy to, I think the first one is the, you know, the KPMG sign where I did, I spent four years helping startups to, to grow. Um, what did I learn from that? The single most biggest lesson I learned from that is it's much easier to tell people what to do and do it yourself. I mean, I know it's a really, it's a really easy thing to, to say. Um, but there's a huge difference between advising and doing. And I think you only realize that often when you actually start doing so, there's certainly a lot of things that I learned from listening to startups and their problems and things, but there's, there's no, there is no other way to learn other than by doing that. That's the real way I remember often started to come to me with these very simple questions. All right. I mean, right at the beginning, I've got an idea of what do I do?
Speaker 0 00:23:15 And you say, well, the first thing you should probably do is register a company. You want to go, you're going to company's house website. So it sounds really simple. But then when I left and was doing it on my own as well, and you'd go to a company's house or I do, I do limited in a full thing or do an LTD in small caps or do, is it capitalist? Does it make a difference in that I'm spending half now with Google and the difference between limited LTD and LTV and like I'm panicking, I'm going to get it wrong. So there's a very, very big difference between advising someone when it's just okay, go to this website and you're emotionally attached to the outcome that you're doing. So that was, uh, that was interesting. I think, you know, from, from the Ulaf experience, it's hard to draw too many lessons cause we're in the thick of it now, like we are scaling, but we are still, still learning every day.
Speaker 0 00:23:59 So there's a lot that we've learned. I think for, you know, for me personally, um, I've learnt a lot more around how to manage people, how to lead teams and how to, uh, ha you know, how to, just to deal with people because that's ultimately what the role becomes as you become more senior within a business. It's far less about the outcomes and far out, how do you enable your team to get to those outcomes? So it's, you know, you're a psychologist, you're, uh, you're, you're, you're an everything and not something, you know, they trained actuaries to be really trained us to deal with human beings that trained us to deal with numbers. So I deal with numbers much more easily, but my team are amazing people, not, not just numbers. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:24:40 Um, if you don't mind me asking, like, was that really on the, on the job, so to speak that you were learning and you're adapting your style, or like, did you, have you got a mentor or are there books that you read or resources that you look at?
Speaker 0 00:24:56 So a lot of it was, was getting help from my incredible team as well. So when, when it comes to reading, I'm just one of these people that likes to read fiction. I find it very hard to read non-fiction books. So there are, you know, there are some, there are some incredible books out there, but, um, I'm very fortunate that one of, uh, one of the co-founders our CEO, Sam Fromson is just one of the most incredible people when it comes to training and helping and learning and absorbing information. So he reads all of those books. He'll read them in five minutes, distill the lessons and then can help me and help the rest of us to actually implement and learn and grow and have a huge amount of support from Sam and from Josh as well. Um, despite the fact he's being our CTO has just incredible insight into how people work, not just, not just computers as you'd say. Uh, so the two of them have helped me a huge amount on that personal journey I've had in how I work with my team, lead my team and have grown in my last thought and ability to do this.
Speaker 2 00:25:52 Amazing. It sounds like, yeah, you've got some great people around you and we've got you as well, so awesome. And is there any advice on building teams that you've heard of, um, that you think is just totally misguided should be avoided pitfalls to avoid? I think there's so much out there that often it's hard to cut through the noise and actually some things are just, just, shouldn't be,
Speaker 0 00:26:18 It's a tough question. I think I don't, I actually don't know. It's, it's very hard to, to answer that question, you know, cause you're looking at so many things that are totally contradictory. Um, you, you know, have a very solid job spec with all of it. Have, you know, have something about loose or user recruits that doc use recruits. I, I don't think I've found anything that's always wrong always. Right. Uh, for a lot of the roles that we we've hired for, it has been more fluid and some things have worked in some things I have. And this is a question not I've, I've waffled it. Haven't given you an answer at all. So I should be a politician, which is which perhaps the next actually will definitely never be the mood, but I don't, I actually don't. I think that's let me be clear and give territory in my speech. I do not know.
Speaker 2 00:27:05 Perfect. That's okay. And I think also that's kind of the nature of advice as well. Right? Like some things do work for some people then I might fall down a certain pit because it's not applicable to my company or my situation. Um, so yeah, all good. Not knowing is good. I think that's actually probably the right answer who knows. Um, and obviously you life as a brand is, is playing a huge part in shaping what the employee experience of today should look like. And I think many companies clearly just aren't getting this right. Um, and still, and it's a continual continual evolution, right? Um, obviously we've got like the great resignation, the great attrition, whatever people are calling it, all those names. Um, but that was more towards the end of last year and just seems to be really coming through into this year as well. And I don't think it's necessarily going to slow down. Um, I'm really interested to hear and understand, like what does a great workplace culture look like for you?
Speaker 0 00:28:06 It's, it's a, it's a, it's a great question. I can reflect on what our culture is and why I love it. And, you know, I compare it to, I suppose, interesting cultures that I've been involved in from, from other workplaces. And then I think I'll talk a little bit about a trend and why I think it's also going that direction, you know, for, for me and for what we've done at Ulaf. I think the reason why our culture is something that comes out so strongly and, you know, what's allowed us to hire people who we should have never been able to hire across the, you know, the, the, the spectrum of our scaling is that number one is genuine. So when we talk about it, when I talk about these things is actually the way that people feel. And I think that the single most important thing that comes out of that is that we are happy for people to be who they are.
Speaker 0 00:28:48 Like, it really is not a lot of people talk about, bring yourself to work and all of those other things, but that, that is what it is at the end of the day is that we're, we're a bunch of 140 weird people. And we embrace that and that's okay. And I've been told I shouldn't be too flippant that calling people we had cause they lack it. But that's, that's, you know, that like when I, when I say the word with so much love and passion, because people are happy to come and say and be who they are within reason, because obviously we still need to have a safe place to work that doesn't make anyone feel uncomfortable. But I love being a Muslim called where people will talk about Natasha, who we just hired is passionate about cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, she loves cheese. And then Claire will talk about Lego because she's loves Lego.
Speaker 0 00:29:32 And she wants to be a professional Lego collector and build that. And we know we have these incredible people who are very passionate about things that other people would go, okay, let's just cheat. No was not just cheap. So I think we, you know, we we've created an environment and hopefully we'll continue to sustain an environment where people are happy to talk about their passions. Um, without fear of, of being looked, looked upon in a funny way, it's one of those things I really see myself as kind of being brought up there in those uniquenesses. We can just talk about it and, and, and being, you know, happy to show who, who I am again, within reason, cause we've done once a month. Uh, but it is, it's just a great place to, to, to come in, to be, and to not feel like, you know, you're you're, you have to leave.
Speaker 0 00:30:16 Okay, I have to turn on zoom. Now I have to stop being, stop being me. And I think a lot of this comes down to a big shift in the way that the relationship between companies and employees is changing. That's been happening over many years. And I think the pandemic has really highlighted. It is in the old days, the relationship was very much a parental once the company or boss was effectively, the parents and the employees were effectively the children. And you could see this in a lot of ways in terms of people would have a single career and they'd be there forever. And all of the benefits that were provided with these very long-term things, focus heavily on things like pension and retirement. And if you stay with us for 30 or 40 years, you'll get the gold watch, et cetera. So there was very much a very strong, dependent part relationship.
Speaker 0 00:30:57 And I think over time, that's changed to much more of a partnership where people, employers and employers say, okay, we recognize that we can only be together for 2, 3, 4, 5 years. How do we make this work best for both of us? Yeah. So it becomes much more of a partnership approach. So often as was something I heard from Reed Hoffman on one of his podcasts, he said that he called it, he took it to the extreme that too, as a duty is saying, when he hired people and he's interviewed, say to them, what's your next role going to be after this one? And how do I help you get there? So know we need to recognize that companies and people are just in this together for a few years, how do we make the best of it together? How do we bring out the best of each other for a few years?
Speaker 0 00:31:36 And if we part ways that's okay. It's really okay. So I think that, you know, a lot of the things about the great resignation of people is they're looking at that and that meaning and saying, I want to be somewhere where I can contribute, but grow at the same time. And I want to have meaning from what I do. It's not a seminar. My CEO talks about this work. The term work-life balance is, is ridiculous because if you put them on a scale work, the opposite of life is death. It's not work. That opposite of work is not living. You don't stop living when you come to work. They're not at, they're not on a scale that two things that you can balance they're there. They're just not. So when you're working, you should still be able to live. You should be able to get meaning and, and feel like you're contributing to the, you know, to, to the workplace in the world. And I think that's a big part of what the great resignation has been about.
Speaker 2 00:32:23 Yeah. I feel like you've just said so much that I want to talk about first off, I feel like me and Natasha would get on really well. I also love cheese. Um, but yeah, I think like also really interesting is just that comfortability people being with you for a temporary time and being okay with that and knowing, especially as an early stage company, that the people that are with you when you were at seed series a that those really early stages might not be right for you, you know, a few years down the line and the stage of growth that you're at then, and they might not be right for you, but also you're probably not going to be right for them at that point. Like they love the build stage. So it's that comfort of saying like, yeah, let's go through this journey together, get the best out of, for both.
Speaker 2 00:33:14 And let's see where it ends up and it's okay. And, and I love, I love the reference to Reed Hoffman as well. I've had that myself and just, they'll actually, that's, it's brilliant. Like, oh, our role as leaders is to help people be who they want to be and to progress them. And, and, um, yeah, I think that's super relevant for that. So yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that with us. And, and obviously when it comes to work-based based culture, many fast growing companies really struggled to really maintain that. Um, once they surpass like a hundred, 200 mark, um, and as they continue to scale beyond, especially if they're like scaling in different territories, um, and operating remotely as well. And what sort of measures do you think, um, could really be put in place to try to succeed when it comes to really scaling that workplace culture?
Speaker 0 00:34:06 I think there's, there's a couple of things. So the first, um, something that we do comes a lot from our SEO, which is ritual building. So how do we build rituals within the business that kind of become those things that everyone looks forward to gets used to knows what happens. And, you know, we have two very big rituals every week. One is on Monday morning, kick off. So at half past nine and a Monday morning, we have a 15 minute all hands where Sammy, our CEO will come and talk something about on his mind, but it always will relate back to the vision and the mission of the business and what we're doing and how that affects the world and how things in the world can. We can see how we can use that to, to just, to keep growing and keep helping them to, to inspire people.
Speaker 0 00:34:43 So every week always starts with why are we here? Not what are we doing? You're not in that session. We don't talk about our KPIs. We don't talk about sales numbers. You don't talk about revenue. You don't talk about any, you just talk about why are we here and why is it important for our mission and to succeed and to help people. So it always starts the week, always starts with a reminder of why are we here and what we're trying to achieve. And then on Thursday afternoons, we have our bigger all hands, um, which is usually led by Sam, which is super high energy. And it has a few costs. Number one, it's about gratitude. So it starts with shout out. So it's throughout the week, people go and slack and fill out a anonymous form to give a shout out to anybody. And a lot of them are incredibly generous, generous, and genuine at this person that does.
Speaker 0 00:35:32 And it was, it was amazing. Some are silly, some are fun, but we have a big session of just shout outs just to recognize people and give gratitude for, for, you know, for how people have helped us across the business. And then we do our news. And then at the end of it, we will talk about our KPIs, how are we doing what's out without goals for the year? So those are two very big rituals that we have every week, which bring everyone together and get everyone on the same page. And then a lot of it is also the recognition that as we grow, um, we need to make sure that, that, that the people who joining have the ability to transfer into trust that I'm looking for to keep the transmission going of the, of the culture and the value. So they have to really, really live it so that when, when they become leaders and managers, they can then bring it to their teams. So it's almost like running a pyramid scheme where you have to be very good at, they sent me out a leader. If the CEO is the living embodiment of all of our vision and mission FCP is, and then that comes to the, you know, the co-founders. And then we, we, we, we have to, we've got this really great layer of incredible people. Who've been with us for a long time. And then as new people come in and we have to just keep, keep embedding, keep embedding so that they can keep spreading
Speaker 2 00:36:39 It's all my second assimilation. Right. And like having those cultural pillars throughout the business allows you to sort of have that quite natural, but then reinforced by you say those sort of regular rituals and communications from, from the leadership team. So, no, that's cool. Thank you. And as we look in further into 2022, um, can't quite believe we're halfway through January already. Um, what you see as some of the biggest sort of challenges, um, and potentially trends when it comes to workplace culture, um, what can people really start to get ahead of right now?
Speaker 0 00:37:18 Yeah, I think it's a very difficult question and I don't know any specific answer for it. I think, and I hope that as the CEO comes along and goes, we do get to some form of normal, new, normal, old, normal, whatever, normal, where everything is not just about COVID every, every single day. And I think that they will be more conversations around, do people go back to the office and culture and can you really create a remote culture? Is it sustainable? How can you do it? I think that, and as far as possible, we should kind of preplanned just make sure that we have onsets regardless and make some decisions now of who, you know, who we want to be in the world. I think for us, the way we see ourselves as being digital first, so having a digital headquarters, so yes, we have an office we're not remote and maybe we'll be some form of hybrid, but just making sure that everyone, regardless of how, how they choose to interact and work is very much part of the team and feels part of the team. So it's not like, oh, well, everyone's going to be in the office. Now the five people you're about to feel left out. So it's very much just by Keisha that we can create a cohesive, inclusive environments across suppose a hybrid. ,
Speaker 2 00:38:31 I'm not, I love that. And I think that's like a, it it's a continual process right. In an evolution. And that's actually something we've been discussing internally at seed is, um, around employee voice. And actually as we're scaling where we've just launched over in the U S so we're looking at scaling our culture or making sure that people, you know, there's that inclusion and, um, and the right communications. And we are obviously very mindful of actually, as we're doing that, we need to keep a pulse on how employees are feeling. And our employee voice initiatives are so important now more than ever. And actually we're bringing into play a few more things like focus groups and, um, like hub round tables to make sure that everyone has a voice and is able to come forward. Um, so that we've constantly got that pulse back into the business, because as you said earlier, like things are changing so quickly. Um, and you, how do you stay on top of that by listening? I suppose
Speaker 0 00:39:34 Exactly what more importantly by doing that listening is a great first step. Yes,
Speaker 2 00:39:39 Exactly. Listening and then taking positive action. Cool. And a couple of more lighthearted questions to bring that to the close. And now, now that you've told me about your interview question, I'm really interested about this one thing that you're super passionate about unapologetically find just ultimate joy in that maybe you would you think,
Speaker 0 00:40:04 You know, it's such a horrible question to be asked for me personally. And I think the reason I ask it of everyone else is because I'm still in search of that. I think for me, there's, I love gadgets and I love reading fantasy books and I love just being a nerd, to be honest, it's just, that's just know it's something I've really embraced over the last few years mean growing up and in high school and all of these other things, you know, it's something that you're, you're kind of trying to want to avoid, or you find a few people just to be friends with you, can you kind of in secret do do these things and just, uh, be, be who you are, but I've re I that's. I think that's really, I love these things. I'm unashamedly on Twitter, looking at virtual reality and AR and all of these things, and always wanting to get the, the latest and the greatest gadgets and read fantasy books all day and all night. And just, yeah, just, just embrace being a nerd, I suppose, at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 00:40:52 Love it. That's a very cool answer. Thank you. And for you, is there like a thought value or phrase that you live by?
Speaker 0 00:41:02 Not one in particular? I think I just, just wanting to add value every day. It's something that I think about quite a lot is, you know, am I adding value? That's really something that goes through my mind a lot in a Workday. I see such incredible people in our business adding so much value. And I just keep thinking to myself, am I adding value? Just hopefully the answer is yes, most days, but that's the that's, that's what I think about quite a lot.
Speaker 2 00:41:29 And, um, I suppose obviously you mentioned earlier that you've got your awesome co-founding team who definitely act as that sort of mentorship layer and people to lean on, but is there anybody else, like any people leaders or, or source of inspiration, um, that you personally have or admire?
Speaker 0 00:41:49 Yeah, I think, you know, in this particular instance, I am going to say Sammy, our, our CEO, who really is the, the essence of our business who lives that values and has set the mission and lives it every single day. And in particular, we've spoken a lot about people in hiring today. He just has the most incredible insight into people and seeing who they truly are often before they note themselves. So it's just been incredible to, you know, to be with him and to be on this journey with him and to be here because he saw things in me before I even also realized that about myself along the journey. So it's just very, um, it's very inspiring to work with him and to, to be with someone who just really loves those, you know, the vision and the mission every single day with our values, just, just living embodiment off of our mission.
Speaker 2 00:42:39 Yeah. And energizes you as well. Right.
Speaker 2 00:42:44 Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And thank you for sharing. Um, yeah. Those final answers with us as well. More like, yeah, I'll talk personal questions are always fun, so really appreciate it. And I think it's so clear, like, you know, you like you guys, as a, as a company itself are obviously trying to, um, you know, create life enhancing benefits, um, and inspire like life and positive living and stuff. And actually when it sounds a bit, you, as a company for your employees are doing exactly the same. Right. Um, so it's, it's a, it's a company that clearly lives really does live by its mission, um, and its values as well. So thank you so much for sharing that with us today.
Speaker 0 00:43:27 Thank you very much.
