Scaling up: Lessons from the world's best CEOs and Founders

Includes show notes, links to sources and other interesting thought starters - ⁠DOWNLOAD

Chapters:

(02:00) The importance of belonging in high performing teams

(06:56) What makes for great hiring and why is it the centre of successfully scaling culture?

(13:56) The role of the Chief People Officer and the right time to hire one

(16:29) The importance of onboarding when it comes to building a cohesive culture

(20:12) Let's talk remuneration

(23:43) Building trust through feedback

(30:34) Diversity of thought and why it produces better outcomes

(33:23) The wrap up

For more content and insights:

⁠www.tdmgrowthpartners.com⁠

⁠https://twitter.com/TDM_Growth

Includes show notes, links to sources and other interesting thought starters: Download

For more content and insights:

www.tdmgrowthpartners.com

https://twitter.com/TDM_Growth

Reggie Aggarwal is the co-founder of Cvent, a $600m revenue Software company, that is listed on the Nasdaq (ticker CVT). Cvent is allows organizations to  more efficiently run, manage and host all formats of events from virtual to in-person and hybrid. If you have been to a large conference recently, chances are it hasa been powered by Cvent.

Reggie is in a very unique position, having founded the company in 1999, he has seen 3 recessions, an IPO, A SPAC, a merger, competitors come and go and everything in between, and so it was a privilege to try and piece all the important moments in history together, and distill into lessons for current operators.

To have been at the helm of a business that has scaled from 12 people to almost 5000 people has also required Reggie to be on his on scaling journey and to dig into the how he has thought about this, from someone who is consistently voted one of the best CEOS in the US, makes for a fascinating conversation.

This is probably a great conversation to pair with a previous TDM blog, what makes a great CEO, as no doubt going through the conversation, you will be able to identify many of those traits shining through.

As previously mentioned, all our podcasts now have transcripts available, and you can find them at our website tdmgrowthpartners.com.

This is a great podcast to pair with our previous TDM blog  - What makes a great CEO

Show notes:

Cvent Founding Story (3:13)

Cvent’s product evolution from a point solution to an integrated and highly scalable platform (8:40)

How pivoting out of necessity created Cvent’s Triple Threat; in-person, virtual and hybrid

virtual events (14:35)

Cvent’s balanced and ‘frugally profitable’ approach enabling sustainable growth and longevity (18:10)

Maintaining confidence and market share against rapidly scaling competitors (22:55)

The differences and unique challenges of IPO and SPAC processes (25:50)

Lessons and growth opportunities from being taken private by Vista (31:54)

Managing an executive team with a long-term tenure (36:15)

Continuous involvement and hiring tips to effectively scale across countries and cultures (40:03)

Strategic and tactical advantage of the New Delhi office (43:13)

What makes a great CEO and fostering an intrapreneurial culture (45:09)

The three Proverbs Reggie lives by that enabled his and Cvent’s longevity (47:25)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Ruslan Kogan, the CEO and co-founder of Kogan.com (ASX:KGN) is the guest on this episode of 'Scaling Up'. Kogan.com is Australia’s largest pure play online retailer with over $1b in sales. Many listeners over the years would have no doubt been introduced to Kogan.com via their incredibly successful own brand electronics business that catapulted the business to a size and scale that has allowed them to enact a phenomenal e-commerce playbook. Aside from expanding their direct to consumer product offering, Kogan.com has also been able to drive greater efficiencies and value to customers across a range of service verticals.

Ruslan’s story in many respects mirrors Kogan.com’s story – bootstrapped and always thinking entrepreneurially as to what is required to succeed in any given moment.

This episode also dives into all the big ticket decisions that any e-tailer has to face - from how to acquire customers cheaply, as well as the importance of best in class logistics and what that looks like,  be it warehousing, fulfillment or freight.

Ruslan is character, a true entrepreneur in every sense, and someone who has changed the retailing landscape in Australia for the better.

We are also now releasing transcripts of each episode, to find them, you can click through the show notes, or find all episodes on our website. https://www.tdmgrowthpartners.com/insight/

Show Notes:

Ruslan’s upbringing in Belarus and the formative nature of immigration guiding his entrepreneurial spirit (3:10)

Kogan founding story (7:08)

The early years of Kogan with a bootstrapped and presale funded business model (8:43)

Ruslan’s unique strategy to create customer attention by engaging with the enemy (12:32)

Kogan’s diversification across new verticals through partnership with service adjacencies (18:11)

Success of the Marketplace and Kogan First program, transforming Kogan into a platform business (22:10)

Maintaining best in class in bound logistics in the e-commerce industry (26:51)

Proliferation and efficiency of robotics and automation in warehousing (30:21)

Launching a last mile logistic service in the pandemic and the transition back to external courier services (33:14)

Understanding and optimising for your unique core position and competitive advantage (36:16)

Initial hiring tactics e.g., only accepting CVs from Gmail accounts to filter for logical and analytical competencies (38:30)

Expectation to ‘reply all’ in work email chains, building a culture of transparency and accountability (44:11)

How Kogan’s cultural values have scaled from the company’s inception (45:48)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

After a mini hiatus, 'Scaling Up' is back, and we have some incredible guests lined up in the coming months, none more so than this episode.

Alex Vynokur came to Australia as a 16 year old from Soviet Ukraine, not speaking a work of English, but with a steely determination to make something of himself. And that is an understatement as to what he has achieved since – in the midst of the GFC, he co-founded BetaShares, a passive Exchange Traded Fund (or ETF) fund manager, with roughly $23b under management, making them the second largest in Australia and New Zealand.

An ETF mimics an index but allows it to be investible and bought and sold on an exchange. The industry has moved swiftly from fairly vanilla – think tracking the ASX 200 or S&P 500, to more thematic or exotic type indexes - be it ESG based,  or even more niche such as tracking a basket of companies involved in the creation of the metaverse.

BetaShares has been at the forefront of this innovation – continually pushing the boundaries in its mission to democratise the ability for anyone to invest, given the ease, diversified and low cost nature of investing ETFs.

BetaShares, despite having over 800k retail customer, will no doubt be an an under the radar success story to many listeners, but one I have been wanting to tell for a while now. You are about to hear why – it is a story of grit, and passion – and a little peek into what has driven the success of a massive business, with a huge opportunity still ahead of it.
To learn more or donate to the United Ukraine Appeal visit theukraineappeal.org

You can stay across all of TDM news and views via our socials, be it LinkedIn or Twitter, our handle is - @tdm_growth

Show notes

Alex’s background immigrating to Australia and lessons from growing up in the Soviet Union (3:14) 

Influence of the Soviet Union on BetaShare’s mission to democratise investing and encourage equal access (6:42) 

BetaShares Founding Story and the opportunity in the ETF industry (9:20) 

Turning a great idea into a great business and disrupting incumbents in the ETF industry (12:13) 

Nuances in the Australian retail ETF market that allowed for BetaShares growth (14:06) 

The movement of the ETF industry to thematic and ESG investing (17:44) 

Diversification and innovation in the index industry led by new index providers such as Solactive (21:41) 

The future of BetaShares (Horizon Two) – leveraging technology to improve financial literacy in Australia (23:24) 

People as BetaShare’s competitive advantage and secret sauce (26:06) 

Fostering innovation by fostering a culture that breaks down the stigma around failure as detrimental to performance (28:56) 

Lessons on empowering leaders, managers, and the team at large to see the benefit of failure and mistakes (30:39) 

Hiring and testing for innovation and curiosity (31:36) 

Diagnostic tools to measure innovation within BetaShares culture (32:45) 

How to balance giving customers what they want and innovating to provide something they haven’t even thought of (34:03) 

The United Ukraine Appeal –delivering non-military aid to the victims of war in Ukraine (37:30)

Joel Montaniel is the Co-founder, and CEO of SevenRooms, a private software company devoted to improving the way hospitality operators leverage their data to enhance business operations, build better direct relationships with customers and deliver an unforgettable customer experience. In their own words, SevenRooms allows ‘the big to feel small and the small to feel big’ when it comes to customer relationships.

The conversation traverses a wide range of topics; from scaling a global business from day one, leading with empathy and its power on customers and employees, and the great frameworks for how SevenRooms prioritises product innovation, given the breadth of their customer base.

Named among the ‘Best Places to Work’ in New York, it’s clear that SevenRooms culture-first mentality is deeply embedded in the company’s DNA. With this in mind, Joel talks to how SevenRooms is investing in its employees and the programs they have put in place to enable them to do their best work.

Show Notes;

Founding story and inspiration behind SevenRooms (3:15) 

Empathising with customers to better understand the problem and re-think the solution (5:27) 

SevenRooms Value Proposition for restaurant operators (7:04) 

Transitioning the hospitality industry from systems of record to systems of intelligence that drives outcomes for businesses (11:31) 

SevenRooms competitive advantage to streamline operations, personalize service and maximise revenue profitability for customers (13:41) 

Pain points when scaling a global business – how your greatest weakness can become your greatest strength (16:50) 

Implementing a prioritization framework to inspire product innovation and identify where SevenRooms can uniquely serve their customers (18:57) 

Fostering innovation to drive the hospitality industry forward as the company scales (23:00) 

Supporting customers and managing interactions during the pandemic (27:27) 

Inspiration to build a culture first company (30:00) 

SevenRooms core values (33:54) 

Career planning with employees to resolve cultural tensions and find an intersection between company and employee needs (37:46) 

The importance of investing in employees and providing recharge periods – Fresh Start Program and 7 R&R (41:13) 

How the leadership team catches cultural bugs and detractors in the company (45:35) 

We also discuss Hugh’s most recent passion project as the co-founder of CS in Schools, which is empowering the next generation of DigiTech professionals. 

Growing up at the frontier of technology and working alongside some of the greatest minds of the era, Hugh’s experiences transcend his industry and will provide key lessons for all listeners, of all interests.

Show Notes; 

Hugh’s upbringing and introduction to computer science (4:00) 

Initial career steps manoeuvring through a technology boom and the rise of search technology (6:20) 

Lessons from working in Silicon Valley (11:28) 

Current labour climate shifting the power back to the employer (14:10) 

What makes a great engineer? (18:05) 

How to foster the best performance and innovation within teams of all sizes? (21:45) 

The two-pizza team (the optimal structure of a technology team) (27:34) 

How do the engineers integrate with the wider organisation? (31:09) 

Minimizing the number of company goals to unify and improve business functionality (34:09) 

Key lessons as a leader to build a sustainable and scalable company culture (38:40) 

CS in Schools mission and the key steps for Australia to be a driving force of technology progression (41:20)

Our guest today on scaling up is Jenn Hyman, co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway (Nasdaq:RENT). From a thought bubble to ringing the bell on the Nasdaq and being the first business to do so with a female CEO, CFO and COO, Jenn has been at the helm of a business that is a classic two-sided network case study. We dive into this, and the scaling challenges of growing both sides of the network in creating a closet in the cloud for over 2.5 million American women. The network playbook has been rolled out perfectly by Jenn and her team, and the lessons on the power of the network effects that come at scale and how hard it is to compete against are clear as Jenn adeptly walks us through how Rent the runway has layered in platform utility over time. 

We also discuss the leadership growth she has had to undergo to scale with the business and the importance of a feedback culture in doing so. 

There are so many lessons that hopefully will get the juices flowing for business builders of all sizes. 

If you want to learn more about how we think about Networks, and how to assess them at TDM, we have some useful videos linked below. Also below are other links to deeper discussions on the founding story of Rent the runway, as we do move through this fairly quickly in the episode.

Show notes; 

TDM Network Effects Youtube video: https://youtu.be/ed292C36CvA 

TDM Network Effects Blog post: https://medium.com/tdm-tidbits/network-effects-tdm-style-ff0828165a5 

How I Built this episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ufSODSepCl5PPVuNAjUw6?si=6d286431430546f7 

Founding story (2:47) 

Business model evolution – leveraging the power of a 2-sided network (Inventory/designers and consumer facing) (6:50) 

Scaling the supply network from a minimum viable supply to the present-day aggregation of designers (8:23) 

Integrating and innovating with designers – share by RTR (consignment business) and exclusive design collections manufactured by RTR (13:28) 

Scaling the demand network – diversifying the inventory to increase customer engagement (15:56) 

Challenges in scaling logistics and technology to create a vertically integrated end-to-end logistics experience (20:15) 

Utilising data at scale to improve the customer lifetime value and inventory ROI (23:47) 

The impact of covid on RTR and avenues used to overcome these challenges/leverage opportunities post pandemic (27:59) 

Jenn’s growth and evolution as a leader and advice for scaling leadership (30:09) 

Operationalizing a feedback culture into Rent the Runway (33:12) 

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

League started on the premise that the future of healthcare and its delivery was going to be less bureaucratic, less institutional, and consumer first. This simple insight came about both from personal interactions with the health ecosystem in the United States, but also more importantly from Mike’s previous experiences of solving problems through a consumer lens – first at Zip 2, working alongside the Musk brothers, and later as the founder and CEO of Kobo, the largest Amazon Kindle competitor. 

Being at the forefront of the consumerization of healthcare and driving outcomes by making the convoluted simple, League is currently the infrastructure platform that allows large US insurers, providers and employers a consumer-centric one stop shop, digital front door in a world currently employing multiple single point solutions. 

This conversation traverses a variety of topics including an interesting discussion on the emergence of cloud marketplaces and their impact on enterprise technology deals, as well as the deliberate and thoughtful nature that League has scaled multiple aspects to it culture, particularly on its journey in become a best in class diverse workplace. 

You can’t buy experience, and Mike has had that in spades – the lessons for business builders of all sizes are weaved right throughout this episode.

Show Notes; 

League founding story (3:40) 

US health ecosystem snapshot (7:44) 

How League fits into the ecosystem and the problem being solved today by League (11:26) 

League customer proposition (14:30) 

Customer engagement in the consumerisation of the health space (16:33) 

Lessons about shaping the strategy of League throughout its scaling evolution (consistent mission, relentless adaptability) (18:39) 

Effectively allocating resources to grow a business aligned with its core (23:10) 

Emergence of cloud marketplaces and Leagues interactions with them (Go-to-market models) (26:24) 

Enterprise growth phase at League (29:15) 

Reinforcing culture and values in scaling a business (31:46) 

Journey of hiring generalists to specialists (35:53) 

Advice for building a diverse workforce (39:49) 

Leagues ‘Work Your Way’ policy (43:20)

Series 6 of Scaling Up kicks off with Tim Brown & Joey Zwillinger, the co-founders and co-CEOs of AllBirds. From a Kickstarter campaign, to listing on the NASDAQ (NASDAQ:BIRD) in a little over six years, this is an insane scaling story of one of the fastest growing brands in history. 

Originally born out of hustle and grit and then of thoughtful growth and innovation, Allbirds’ brand has always centered on a promise that great products have to be sustainable. Allbirds is the leading brand when it comes to sustainability in amongst a global industry that emits 2.1billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – more than the total contributions of cars in the USA! 

• “How I built this” podcast episode – Allbirds for a deeper dive on the founding story
• Tech Crunch, Ed Cowan – As Allbirds goes public, sustainability is the mantra of the future:

Show notes: 

Allbirds founding story (3:20) 

Brand philosophy and maintaining mission integrity in a fast growing-business (6:25) 

Material innovation and design trade-offs (12:27) 

First principles thinking and its potential conflict in scaling a consumer forward business (15:38) 

Advice for founders scaling an e-commerce business (19:50) 

Product strategy evolution (25:00) 

Impact of sport on leadership and building a high performing team (30:34) 

Creating talent density and evaluating talent in hiring (36:47) 

Employee compensation in falling capital markets (39:57) 

What does the brand look like in 10-20 years (42:26) 

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Phil McKenzie, the CEO of Pacific Smiles Group, the ASX listed (PSQ:ASX) dental services business is our final guest of Season 5. Phil joined Pacific Smiles in 2018, taking over the previously founder led business and completely reshaping the corporate culture. Many listeners may be familiar with Pacific Smiles given its listed nature, or as a customer of one of its 115 dental clinics around Australia. 

Phil is a wonderful leader – someone who intertwines himself deeply within the business, understanding his own strengths and weaknesses and ensuring he is playing to the former and allowing other great leaders cover the latter. His previous experience running a 200 audiology clinics in the US, as well as leading Apple’s retail rollout in Australia, have given him wonderful lessons to apply to Pacific Smile. It has not been all smooth sailing though, a global pandemic tested his leadership, as it did to every leader around the world, and he gives great insights into how he and his team approached the various challenges as they were thrown up. Phil’s real strength is around galvanising teams, and this theme plays out over and over again through the episode. 

Here at TDM we are trying to create content relevant for both founders, leadership team and investor. Since our last series, you may have missed some of this, including Jess Bell Allens superb deep dive into what makes a great medical device business. This is sadly the last episode in this series, but we will be back in 2022. 

In the meantime, the best place to find all of TDM content is on our website or across our social channels - you can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) via the links.

Show notes; 

Dental ecosystem in Australia and the scope of Pacific Smile’s (3:25) 

Pacific Smile’s greenfield organic growth strategy (4:48) 

Role of insurers in the dental ecosystem (6:30) 

How to develop a great brand and Pacific Smile’s competitive advantage (9:45) 

Pacific Smile’s journey to further capture the dental market (11:18) 

The key successes of a leader and improving by recognizing previous mistakes (13:53) 

Phil’s leadership style and the importance of visibility in leadership (17:00) 

Importance of communication and chair-side manner (19:00) 

Pacific Smile’s people and culture, values and employee synergy (20:11) 

Phil’s personal growth as CEO and advice to his younger self (26:46) 

Impact of the pandemic on Pacific Smile’s as a consumer-facing business (29:02) 

Process of decommissioning and recommissioning dental centers during the pandemic (30:59) 

Lessons learnt from the first lockdown (Mar-Jun 2020) and applying these to 2021 (32:40) 

The fear of the unknown and investing in times of darkness for future gains (35:04) 

Experience as a public company CEO (36:35) 

Establishing the consistency of Pacific Smile’s message and story (38:37) 

Optimizing for long-term growth (39:11) 

Role of the board in a public growth company and CEO interactions (40:22) 

What makes a great chair to the board (43:01) 

10-year vision for personal and professional growth at Pacific Smile’s (43:42)

Episode 2 of our People and Culture mini series features the phenomenal Anna Binder, the CPO of Asana, the $15b NYSE and LTSE listed technology business that is changing the way businesses work, collaborate and thrive. 

The genesis of Asana is important to frame this conversation; When co- founders of Asana Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein were both working at Facebook, of which Dustin also co-founded, they discovered amongst the hyper scale journey that that business was on, everyone was spending over half the day sitting in meetings, responding to email, and searching for infomation. Doing skilled work was taking a backseat to the 'work about work', the ultimate inefficiency for any high performing employee and business. 

So Dustin and Justin built a tool to make it easier for teams to coordinate and collaborate on their work flow. It was such a game changer, they left to go fulltime and all in on this idea, and started Asana, building solutions to help more teams do the great work. 

From day one, the company has been about letting employees around the world be empowered to do their best work by providing the software to enable this. Of course this is also self fulfilling to the Asana mission and this virtuous cycle has enabled Asana to be the exemplar of what scaling a great culture looks like – it is without fail voted one of the best places to work by every award and measure, and at the centre of this is Anna – who is considered in the industry to be the best. 

This conversation covers some ground and importantly gives wonderful insights into what has enabled Asana to scale so effectively – from the mental model of “culture as a product”; that is one to be constantly designed, tested and iterated upon, to what Anna describes as corporate mindfulness, this was a treat to listen to one of the great business leaders in America talk passionately about the topics that are relevant to every fast growing business. 

TDM is always publishing insights into how we think about scaling culture, including an investor lens on how to diagnose it. All our content is on our website and social channels, the links are in the show notes, and you can always get in touch with me on twitter - @ eddiecowan 

Show notes; 

How is culture defined (triangle analogy – mission, values and 10,000 decisions) (4:16) 

Asana as a culture first business and its long-term focus (7:00) 

Unique value proposition of Asana (10:01) 

The key drivers of engagement and the Pyramid of Clarity, energizing the workforce (11:25) 

Founders background and the beginning of Asana (13:43) 

Epic empowerment enabling a united team (16:02) 

Culture as a product at Asana – how it has changed from the initial vision (19:07) 

Identifying and overcoming cultural bugs through engagement feedback (21:31) 

The skills required for and role of the strategic CPO (23:42) 

Mindfulness in the workplace – intentions, prioritisation, focus and flow (27:08) 

Asana’s similarity to the culture of high performing athletes (30:44) 

Recruitment – hiring for a cultural fit (32:01) 

Tools for tracking performance and engagement – the growth and impact cycle (34:17) 

Importance and implementation of diversity, equity and inclusion at Asana (36:40) 

Wellness in the workplace and regular mental health check-ins (40:03) 

The role of the board and the CPO’s interactions with them (44:15) 

Changing dynamics of investors’ interest in culture (46:26) 

Opportunities for Asana to continue to scale people and culture (48:14) 

To kick things off Elias Torres, the co-founder of Drift with his CPO, Dena Upton. This was a bit of a treat. Drift, aside from being one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies in America, is the beacon of what corporate America could look like - the new American dream if you will, focused on diversity and equal opportunity. This has been deeply baked into the Drift mission from day one – Elias immigrated to the USA as a 17 year old from Nicarangua. From the humblest of beginnings, he has had an immense career, initially at IBM and Hubspot to now as the co-founder of Drift, where he has become a voice for latin and immigrant founders. 

Dena has seen what scale looks like, having been on the LogMeIn journey for over 6 years and gives wonderful insight into her role and how it supports the visionary founders of drift. 

We are committed here at TDM to helping founders, management teams and investors understand why people and culture is so critical to the enduring success of businesses. We have a few things in the works in this space, so keep across our website and social channels for more people and culture related content. You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. 

Show notes:

Drift’s vision for a people-&-culture-first company (3:17) 

Role of founders in driving the cultural vision (6:05) 

Role of the CPO in enacting the cultural vision (7:55) 

What makes a great CPO (12:35) 

Hiring a great CPO (14:36) 

Maintaining culture in a hyper-growth company (16:17) 

Tools to measure engagement, performance and culture and acting on insights from these tools (18:42) 

Hiring at scale and recognizing when you’ve made hiring mistakes (20:18) 

Managing the tension between diversity and cultural fit (24:38) 

Creating a positive exit process (26:02) 

Enacting and scaling diversity and inclusion (27:33) 

Measuring progress on DEI goals (32:33) 

How being a digital first business advances DEI and equity goals (33:37) 

Role of the board in achieving DEI goals (35:12) 

What does cultural success look like for Drift (38:30)

Cameron McIntyre is one of Australia's most respected executives, having played a major part in the Carsales.com (CAR:ASX) journey over the last 15 years, initially as the CFO in the late 2000s where he was charged with seeing the business' transition to the ASX boards, and most recently as the CEO, where he has been guided the business tremendously well through their next stage of growth. Carsales is now a beast of the business, with a market capitalisation of over $7b and a top line revenue of c$450m, making it one of Australia's greatest ever technology companies. 

Carsales.com was started in a garage in the late 1990s by Greg Roebuck, and this episode explores the growth journey from these humble beginnings, but more importantly zooms in on the strategic pillars that has enabled the business to flourish. 

This episode is a great exploration into the variety of skills required to succeed as a modern day executive, and serves as a great case study on what it takes to build and lead great teams over long periods of time. To hear Cam speak on how he thinks about fostering innovation, retaining great talent and what is on the next horizon for Carsales as it strengthens it global footprint was both enlightening and inspiring.  

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes;

Carsales’ origin story (2:36) 

Cam’s first impression of the CarSales business (3:49) 

Disrupting the secondhand car market (5:31) 

Key strategic pillars in growing the business and winning the consumer (7:05) 

Managing important investors (8:44) 

Finding the right investment partner in the early stages of a business (10:38) 

Key learnings from the public listing process (11:54) 

Skill development from a CFO to a CEO role (14:45) 

The growth quotient and its importance at an organisational level (16:06) 

An entrepreneurial board as growth partners (17:33) 

Transitioning away from a founder-led business (19:01) 

Expanding margins in a high growth business (21:24) 

Growing the business into new, emerging markets (24:22) 

Fostering a culture of innovation (26:19) 

The next big horizon for CarSales (28:55) 

Attracting and retaining talent throughout the growth journey (31:34) 

Prioritising diversity and inclusion in a large tech company (34:59) 

Obtaining board support for diversity and inclusion initiatives (36:53) 

Growing from mistakes as a leader (38:45)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Pro Medicus may well be one of the most under the radar growth stories of the world. Many listeners would not have heard of Pro Medicus (ASX:PME), nor its low profile and humble CEO and founder, Dr Sam Hupert. Which is funny, given that the business started in 1983 and has a current market capitalisation c$6.5 billion. This is a story of patience, persistence, and perseverance. An inspirational story that needs to be told. 

There is some ground to cover for sure - in 1983, the IBM personal computer had not even made its way to Australia, there was no venture capital community and yet, here we are almost 40 years later lauding what many assume is an overnight success story. We walk through the timeline to pull out the themes that emerge over such a long and succcessful career.  

Pro Medicus has become a leading software solution for radiologists to help manage their practice - from scheduling patients or billing patients to ensuring great clinicals outcomes, be it viewing scans on location or on mobile. Think of it almost as the clinician’s operating system – a cross between a CRM, practice management software and data visualisation bespoke for the needs of radiologists and surgeons. Sam is a gentleman, full of sage advice and views, all the while delivering them with an egoless charm that is just so genuine. Settle in, this is a story not to be missed. 

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes;

History of Pro Medicus; the IT and healthcare ecosystem in 1983 (3:46) 

Initial product and demographic for version 1.0 (6:22) 

Challenges of listing Pro Medicus in 2000 during a tech crash (7:40) 

Benefit of Pro Medicus’ balance sheet strength during the GFC (11:07) 

Impact and advantages of visage technology (12:57) 

Visage acquisition and its influence on Pro Medicus’ product and cultural synergies (15:25) 

Pivotal Sutter Health deal in 2014 (18:10) 

Selling into a tier one hospital (20:03) 

Competitive advantage of partnering with universities (22:03) 

Scope of Pro Medicus’ sales representatives (23:45) 

Navigating technological changes (25:32) 

Plan for the personalization and consumerization of healthcare (26:57) 

Basic principles for talking with investors (31:28) 

Should Australia change their system around founder sell-downs (35:26) 

Role of the board to support business growth (37:38) 

Biggest changes after transition to publicly listed (39:54) 

Vision for Pro Medicus’ legacy (40:53)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels. 

Show notes

Brighte founding journey and Katherine’s background (2:56) 

Evolution of the Brighte business model over time (8:27) 

Building a revolutionary consumer brand and a consumer value proposition (11:45) 

Energy marketplace network effects and the impacts for Brighte (13:25) 

Understanding Brighte’s financing (15:43) 

The impact of green investing and financing tailwinds on Brighte (18:44) 

Scaling challenges in automation and digital capabilities (20:55) 

The origin of Brighte’s values (23:05) 

Evolution of Katherine’s role as a founder, CEO and leader (25:25) 

Challenges of hiring in a purpose-driven company (28:16) 

Hiring in a remote / hybrid work environment (30:00) 

Maintaining culture and enabling productivity in a hybrid environment (31:28) 

Juggling fast growth and business sustainability at Brighte (33:45) 

Female founders in the start-up world and how we can empower more as a society (35:45) 

Maintaining work life balance when scaling a high growth business (39:38)

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes; 

Founding story (4:00) 

The original vision for Athena (4:30) 

Why the 'talent first' strategy (8:45) 

Overview of the Australian homeloans market (10:40) 

Building bands and scaling acquisition costs (14:00) 

Biggest difficulty on consumer side of the bussiness in terms of scaling business (16:33) 

Processing power and scaling a range of products for consumers - what is Act 2? (19:12) 

Funding model and value proposition for funders (23:25) 

Trying to scale the funding side of the business (26:30) 

Being a culture first business (28:10) 

Concept of a cultural balance sheet (32:50) 

Heading back into the office and working remotely (36:13) 

The importance of the role of the Chief People Officer (40:10) 

Biggest scaling challenge when it comes to culture (43:05) 

What does success look like over the next 5 years and what are the hurdles to overcome to achieve this (45:10)

Abhishek Gupta is the co-Founder of Circles Life, Asia’s first fully digital telco. Everything a Circles customer experiences is completely online, bringing the same level of sophistication to the telco world that consumers enjoy in many other walks of life, such as their food delivery or ride sharing. 

Circles is currently kicking off its second act. Having penetrated Asia initially with it direct to consumer telco offering, they soon realised that their in house technology stack could be rolled out for other telcos to use, and have now started to offer a B2B SaaS platform to enable this. This is an interesting vertical playbook to be running, and we dig into Abhi’s vision of where this may lead. 

This is a wonderful deep dive into the challenges and advantages of scaling a company in Southeast Asia, as well as giving insight into the technology eco system more generally. 

Raised in India, Abhi is a true high performer, a wonderful leader and someone who is trying to disrupt one of the largest markets in the world. You would not want to bet against his success. 

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes;

Growing up in India (00:03:11) 

Skills Abhishek learned from his years in consulting (00:05:01) 

Circles Life founding story (00:07:14) 

The tailwinds of the telecommunications sector in South-East Asia (00:09:49) 

The insights that had developed as to how Circles Life was going to disrupt the legacy telcos and why the customer-centricity was so important (00:10:48) 

What led Circles Life to make the transition to  B2B from B2C (00:15:52) 

What the telco industry could look like in 10 years (00:17:58) 

Insight into the technology scene in South-East Asia (00:21:56) 

Circles Life culture and how it has evolved (28:09) 

Circles Life’s culture as a competitive advantage (31:13) 

The value of an employee ownership plan (33:12) 

How Abhishek’s job has evolved over time (34:45) 

Having a personal board of directors (36:59) 

The power of story-telling (39:59) 

How Abhishek thinks about adversity (42:32)

David Obstler is the CFO of Datadog (NASDAQ:DDOG), a $30b hyper growth monitoring and security platform for cloud applications. Few current active CFOs have been at the forefront of fast growing technology companies like David has - he is the seasoned pro that founders and CEOs have turned to to help them scale effectively for the last 25 years. You may remember from a previous episode the anecdote that Ethan Berman told of the CFO doing investor calls in his ski boots, as the financial world collapsed around RiskMetrics in 2008. That was David. 

The emergence of software and the nature of the business model has created an opportunity for the CFO to move from what once was more of a financial controlling role to that of the most important strategic partner to the CEO. No one epitomises this elevation of the CFO role more than David. 

He has been through it all, and his sage wisdom on scaling transpires in a wonderful and far reaching conversation not just on his role and what has made him successful, but also the key ingredients that have intertwined him and his teams throughout. Sometimes half an hour with the best in the business can elicit a lifetime of golden nuggets. 

This mini series was inspired by a blog post that TDM produced last year - “What makes a great CFO” - and I hope this podcast episode brings this blog to life. 

The best place to find this, as well as other TDM frameworks is on our website or across our social channels (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan can be found at linktr.ee/eddiecowan

Show notes: 

David’s Core skills as a CFO that has made him so successful (00:03:50) 

Catalyst for the role of CFO as a strategist, people-leader and culture-carrier (00:06:44) 

How the CFO keeps the chaos intact in high-growth companies: (00:08:38) 

How does the executive team manage the rigour and processes involved in scaling rapidly (00:10:20) 

David’s relationships with the various founders over time and what makes a great CEO (00:14:22) 

David’s approach to culture (00:18:15) 

The process in creating great IR (00:21:20) 

What David appreciates from investors and his “pet peeves” (00:25:08) 

Key steps CFO needs to take control of in order to make sure the transition from private to public is manageable (00:27:29) 

What makes a great director (00:30:42)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

The first episode in this mini series is Jill Woodworth, the CFO of Peloton (NASDAQ:PTON). Since 2018, when Jill joined, Peleton has been on a hyper scale journey – she took the reins of the finance function when the business was a private, $200m revenue company. In under 4 years since then, it is now a $4b revenue business listed on the NASDAQ. 

The next two episodes are moving the spotlight away from the CEO and Founder to their most important partner in the business, the CFO. You can liken the role of the CFO to that of a navigator on a ship – charged with the responsibility of charting the course, tracking the journey and ensuring hazards are avoided along the way. CFO is often the most underestimated piece of the scaling puzzle, and why we felt the need to finally shine a spotlight on them. 

Jill gives some fascinating views into her transition out of investment banking, scaling her team from 12 to 200, working with a passionate founder, as well as what in her opinion makes for good investor relations. We also traverse  the work that goes into preparing a company for an IPO. All these give deeply valuable insights into what it takes to scale quickly and effectively. 

This mini series was inspired by a blog post that TDM produced last year - “What makes a great CFO” and I hope this podcast episode brings this blog to life. 

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes;

Jill’s background in banking and then transition into her role as CFO at Peloton (00:03:32) 

Including the skills that were transferrable to the CFO role from her banking experience and the skills she felt she needed to develop (00:7:22) 

How Jill’s leadership style has evolved as the company has undergone hypergrowth (00:11:01) 

The elevation of the role of the CFO within an organisation (00:13:47) 

Skills that make for great CFOs (00:15:40) 

Jill’s relationship with Peloton Founder & CEO, John Foley: (00:18:06) 

How has John’s leadership style changed over time (00:21:31) 

The role of the CFO in creating wonderful IR (23:35) 

TDM blog 'What makes great IR'  (00:26:15) 

Insight into transitioning Peloton from private to public (00:27:02) 

Including how this changed Jill’s job (00:30:37)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Ethan Berman, was the CEO and founder of the NYSE listed Risk Metrics, until it was bought by MSCI in 2010 for US$1.55b.

RiskMetrics, which was spun off from JP Morgan Chase in 1998 and became the market leader in risk management software systems. We need to transport ourselves back to the late 90s – a time of floppy disk distribution and only a handful of pioneer SaaS companies.

From writing plays in Paris, Ethan ran one of the fastest companies, software or otherwise, anywhere in the world during one of the most interesting modern decades, spanning both the dotcom crash at the turn of the decade and the GFC just 8 years later. 

Few have had Harvard Business School case study written about them, nor received a letter from Warren Buffet commending him in his remuneration philosophy. Ethan is a private person, and so the opportunity to interview him was a tremendous honour.

TDM was an investor in RiskMetrics back in the day, and Ethan’s view of the world – from remuneration to fundraising - has shaped our own views more than any other singular force. After this, we hope you will see why. 

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show Notes;

Articles and documents mentioned in this episode

1. HBS Case Study on RMG
2. Ethan's Letter to the Board to pay him less - full version
3. NYT article relating to Ethan's leaked letter to the board 

Sadly the letter from Warren Buffett is not publicly available

Ethan’s journey from playwriting in Paris to being the founder and CEO of RiskMetrics (00:03:38) 

The difficulty of spinning a software company out of a huge global investment bank (00:07:53) 

Creativity in starting a business (00:11:15) 

The changing role of the CEO in fast growing company (00:14:36) 

How Ethan’s leadership style changed over time (00:19:40) 

The hiring process at RiskMetrics and assessing culture fit (00:22:30) 

Transition from private-market CEO to public market CEO (00:26:28) 

How Ethan view and dealt with crises at Riskmetrics (00:30:05) 

The appropriate level of transparency (00:34:30) 

Becoming a bad news organisation (00:35:11) 

How Ethan viewed remuneration (00:38:10) 

RiskMetrics’ approach to options (00: 43:27) 

The philosophy behind RiskMetrics only raising ordinary equity (00:45:55) 

Ethan’s view on M&A (00:49:22) 

What led Ethan to sell the business (00:53:45) 

Does Ethan regret that RiskMetrics did not change the way risk was measured in the world after the GFC (00:59:18) 

Ethan’s new project, i2learning (1:01:05)

Howard Lerman is the CEO and co-founder of Yext (NYSE:YEXT) a US$360m revenue business that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Maybe listeners have had interactions with Yext and never known it. Every time you google a business, or ask Siri a question, the up to date information is being powered by the Yext platform. We all know of that terrible customer experience of getting misinformation – like googling opening times for example, only to turn up and the shop or your favourite restaurant is closed. Digital knowledge management across platforms is what has built Yext into the business it is today. But this is only the first act - letting brands take control of their information via search and ensuring they are the ultimate source of truth is where Yext’s next act lies. 

Howard  is peerless in his entrepreneurial spirit, an entertainer with an infectious optimism. But this does not hide his deep strategy ability to see an opportunity and run at it with all of his energy. Above all else, this episode will shed some light on all the scaling challenges that get thrown along the journey from start up hustle to the life of a NYSE listed company. 

This podcast sets out to share  the secret sauce of great business leaders – if you enjoy this episode, why not share it with someone who you think might gain benefit – whether as a source of inspiration or to pass through a nugget of advice. TDM Growth Partners also share a great deal of content on their own website and blog pages, and they too can be a wonderful resource for executives and leaders of all businesses sizes. 

You can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.  

Link to Steve Cakebread's book - "The IPO Playbook"

Show notes:

Howard’s upbringing and entrepreneurial background (00:03:23) 

Pivoting from SME to enterprise (00:11:49)

How Answers was developed (00:15:01) 

How to drive change in consumer behaviour for search (21:34)

The operating changes required to cater for greater technology needs in search (24:00)

Howard’s transition as a CEO from founder to running a listed business (00:26:36)

When is the right time to bring in the “pros” to build the systems at scale (00:29:03)

Howard’s relationship with Yext CFO, Steve Cakebread (00:32:23) - link to Steve's book above

Response to Covid (00:37:20)

How to balance being a visionary founder with quarterly reporting (00:39:01)

Raising money at fair valuations (00:39:33)

Interacting with investors (00:41:17)

Brand impact of being a public company (00:42:44)

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact. 

To kick off Series 4 is the the CEO and co-founder of Braze, Bill Magnuson – one of the world’s hottest technology companies. Based in New York, Braze is a customer engagement platform that works with some some huge brands and businesses like Gap, Deliveroo, The NBA and Canva to deliver real time and personalised messaging across platforms

From a serendipitous meeting on a NYC street crossing, Bill and his co-founders set out to build an enduring company based on the premise that mobile technology was going to fundamentally change the world. With vision and purpose, Braze has grown into the gold standard, tool of choice for innovative marketers. While customer love has driven success, building great product requires building and supporting great teams, and this is where Braze has excelled.

Bill is a rare type of software CEO – deeply humble, highly technically proficient and possesses  the softer people skills required to execute on the visionary strategy and inspire the rapidly growing team. If this is the first time you have heard of Braze, rest assured it won’t be the last. This business is a next generational category leader in the making. I hope you enjoy this episode with Bill Magnuson.

You can follow TDM ( linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) across social channels.

Show notes - 

• Bill’s background (0:02:27);
  
• Braze’s founding story (0:04:26);
  
• The rise of mobile (0:08:05);
  
• How Braze has been used by brands to drive engagement (0:10:23)
  
• What the future of customer engagement is going to look like (0:18:52)
  
• The technology behind Braze (0:22:21)
  
• Including the difference between batch processing and string processing (22:29)
  
• The transition from CTO to CEO (0:27:58)
  
• How Braze has scaled its culture (0:32:03)
  
• The advantages of having headquarters in New York (0:35:42)
  
• The value of having operators on the board (0:37:47)
  
• Bill’s experience of sitting on a board (0:40:32)
  
• The role that venture has played in Braze (0:43:41)
  
• The importance of balance in Bill’s life (0:48:08)
  
  
  

People's minds will always drift to how good an investor Hamish is having compounded capital at high rates of return for 15 years, it is perhaps easy to ignore what an incredible business Magellan itself is, having scaled from humble beginnings to now being a ASX 100 listed company with a market cap of over $10b.

This was not by accident but rather design, with he business set up from day one with scale in mind. This is an episode intertwines Hamish’s reflections as an investor with how that has shaped his views as a business operator – from strategic insight and building competitive advantages, to scaling people and cultures.  We hope you enjoy one of the most successful Australian scaling stories of this century – the story of Magellan Financial

Robbie Cooke is one of Australia’s most experienced CEOs – having seen 'big' in his time as CEO of Tatts as well as entrepreneurial and fast growing in his previous role at Wotif.com. Robbie of is now the CEO of the $2b Tyro Payments, which listed on the ASX last year as the second biggest technology listing ever in the history of the exchange.

We cover a range of topics in this conversation – from how he thinks about innovation as a professional CEO, to brilliant insight into how to best prepare for an IPO. Robbie also gives great colour to how best a board and the management team should interact and the importance of a culturally aligned board. This is a wonderful deep dive into the thoughts of a CEO reflecting on all his experiences and at the top of his game, all delivered with the laid back humbleness that those who have followed Robbie’s career know all to well.

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.

Myles Glashier is the co-founder and co-CEO of Phocas Software. Most listeners would not have heard of, nor read about Phocas, as this is a story that is largely unknown, but certainly needs to be told. 

20 years ago an Aussie backpacker in London, falls into starting a bootstrapped business selling on premises business intelligence software. Fast forward 20 years, and Phocas has carved out a niche to serve manufacturing and retail customers around the globe. Having grown consistently year on year, and now with revenues north of $40m and 180 employees across 3 continents without any significant external capital, this is a scaling up story of boundless hustle, and drive to make every dollar count. 

Loved by all customers and employees alike, Phocas is now at an inflection point, with the business on the cusp of securing significant funding that hopefully you will indeed read about, when you do, you can understand and appreciate all the hard work and effort that has been poured in over nearly two decades, and marvel at the lessons leant along the way. 

Paul Bassat makes for a unique 'Scaling Up' episode. As most listeners will know, Paul and his brother Andrew, along with Matt Rockman founded Seek in 1997 and in doing so carved the path in Australia for great technology businesses. This was a time when the internet itself was in its early days, and it is hard to fathom the foresight required to build what is now a $8b company.

Paul left Seek in 2011 and has since founded Square Peg, one of South East Asia’s leading venture capital companies, with investments including Canva, Deputy, Airwallex and Bruce Buchanan’s ROKT, who was featured in episode 2 of this podcast.

Because of the duration and success of Paul’s career, we traverse time periods in this conversation to extract the key lessons he has learned through the lens of Seek and how he has applied them in years since. There is no one in my mind who has seen the full spectrum of the ecosystems as a founder, a board member and investor, and so being able to compare and contrast all these experiences makes for a fascinating conversation.

Paul is a an Australian treasure for so many reasons, and I am hoping after this conversation you can see why.

Show notes to come.

Simon Griffiths is the Co-founder and CEO of Who Gives a Crap. People listening might not, until now, appreciate both the scale of the business and also the deep community impact it has had in the developing world, where Who Gives a Crap donates half of its profits to charity each year.

From the humble idea that they could sell toilet paper online and deliver a great customer experience, all the while being at the forefront on consumer driven philanthropy, this is a Australian success story we should all be wonderfully proud of. This crowd funded, bootstrapped business has donated almost $9m to organisations focused on sanitisation and hygiene in the developing world, and it is this mission and purpose that shines right through out this conversation as well as every single decision that Simon and his team make. These are the stories that need to be told, these are stories that inspire me personally the most, and a story I hope I do justice.

Beyond the social impact headlines, Simon and his team really have built a wonderful business -  best in class direct-to-consumer metrics, cash flow positive on every new customer from their very first order. To be able to donate half your profit, you need to be  profitable, and at its core, this is a story about the successful scaling of a global online business. WGAC is a largely unknown national treasure we should all be proud of. 

Show notes and links

WGAC's original crowd funding video https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/who-gives-a-crap-toilet-paper-that-builds-toilets#/

Simon giving the team a week off and why - https://blog.whogivesacrap.org/home/goodnews/wellness-week-update (38.08)

Sankar Narayan, the CEO of SiteMinder is my guest today and the tapestry of his career is equal parts fascinating and inspiring. Born into the India middle class, Sankar has swung from the branches of a variety of roles across the US and Australiatech scene that have enabled him to bring a unique perspective to his current role. Sankar has become one of Australia’s scale up experts, cutting his teeth at Xero as both he CFO and COO, and now as CEO of SiteMinder, a billion dollar, truly global, fast growing Australian technology success story. From managing founder transition and other stakeholders as a business grows, Sankar gives wonderful insight into not only what it takes to scale the soft skills required as a CEO, but also how he thinks about the vertical Saas playbook and how that is currently playing out at SiteMinder.

SiteMinder has a massive opportunity ahead of it – already the dominant player worldwide and yet hardly penetrated into its market, Sankar’s expertise in scaling both system and processes and cultures will hold the business in great stead on this next stage of its growth journey.

Show notes to come.

Mike Frizell and James Edwards, co-founders of Pet Circle, are the quiet achievers of the Australian consumer business scene. Their story is largely untold and unknown. Whenever newspapers publish lists of Australia’s largest e-commerce players, Pet Circle is always a surprise omission to those in the know. Having grown at an astronomical rate over the last decade to now over $300m in revenue, Mike and James have built a business second only in size and scale to Kogan – the undisputed pure play online retail king in the country. This has been done without press releases, and public acknowledgement, but certainly with the deliberate decision making that  enables durable long term growth. Many start a business and then adapt to patch the holes as they go. This is far from the Pet Circle scaling story – from day one both ensured the boat was water tight – from back end technology processes, to the front end consumer experience. I loved uncovering their magic to what is certainly one of Australia’s finest examples of growing an online business.

This series is set against the backdrop of Covid 19 and both Australia and the rest of the world on the precipice of the biggest economic slowdown since the great Depression. Millions of people are now working from home, and never has there been larger catalyst for structural changes to how we all live our lives. But it is also a time that has seen a huge divergence in outcomes for many businesses – some have exponentially grown due to these structural shifts, some have sadly put up the shutters, never to return.

Pet Circle certainly falls into the category of the former, but super growth set against this backdrop has its own challenges as well, and it was great to get some perspectives of how Mike and James have thought about this real time.

This scaling up story  really is a masterclass in how to grow a online business in the digital age.

For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM tidbits – which can be found at medium.com/tdmtidbits, or it might be easier to follow @tdm_growth on twitter and get all the news and views there.

You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan.

Luke Anear, CEO and Founder of SafetyCulture, is undoubtedly one of Australia's finest modern entrepreneurs. A boy from Townsville in Northern Queensland starts a software company from his garage with no technical expertise. SafetyCulture is now a pin up of the Australian technology scene – a billion dollar valuation, revenue growth at break neck speed, tens of thousands of customers across 85 countries, and some of the world's largest companies relying on SafetyCulture software to provide their safety and inspection.

It is a story that is boundless in Luke’s ambition and desire to do something significant. It is a story engrained in a mission to build an enduring company that shapes the world. The lessons Luke has gained from this journey is both inspiring but also deeply important for any entrepreneur to hear first hand. Luke has a wonderful disposition, a knock about fella, who is just warming up when it comes to fulfilling what he set out to do.

Brief show notes/ links mentioned in the episode

The New Hustle - an anthem to entrepreneurship -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN0NlchcUS8

Steve Jobs story of the 'rock tumbler' as a metaphor for great teams https://vimeo.com/195796089

SafetyCulture customer conference  -https://safetyculture.com/summit-2020/ "From thriving to surviving"

---

For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM Tidbits – including a written series on what frameworks we use to assess great CEOs, CFO and non executive directors.

Easiest to it follow @tdm_growth on Twitter and get all the news and views there.

You can always find me on Twitter @eddiecowan.

Rick Stollmeyer co-founded Mindbody in 2001 and is still the CEO 20 years later. This is his story as much it is Mindbody’s story; from his learnings as a nuclear submarine engineer, to selling CD ROM software from his garage with his co-founder Blake Beltram, to now scaling a multinational software company. 

Rick is one of the most passionate and deeply mission-driven CEOs you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. A high performer in every sense, motivated by solving complex problems through the power of collaboration - I think this could be my favourite interview of the entire podcast project.

We talk about the Mindbody journey and its bootstrapped founding story, its growth to a venture capital-backed start-up and then a public company, right through to being taken private in 2018 by Vista Partners for Us$1.9 billion. This journey has had its ups and downs, triumphs, and challenges, all met with the same hunger he possesses today. Sit back and enjoy the reflections of one of the world's finest entrepreneurs 

This episode was recorded in the first week of March, well before the full impacts of Covid-19 in the US could have been imagined. The messages though are timeless. 

For those interested in further insights and commentary, follow @tdm_growth on twitter and get all the news and views there.

You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan.

I am thrilled that Anneka Gupta has joined as the guest of this episode. Anneka is one of the rising stars in the US technology scene. She is currently the co-president of LiveRamp, a New York Stock Exchange Listed $2b business with offices around the world. Her own corporate journey is as fascinating as the company itself – a journey that highlights the potential of ‘generalists’ with ambition and passion, who when a new door opens, have the courage to explore it with their full attention and heart.

She started as an engineer at Liveramp straight out of college when the business had just 20 employees, and while it was a division of Axiom, she worked her way up to become the Co-CEO and lead over 1,200 people. She gives some great insights as to why, when LiveRamp was acquired by Axiom, she insisted the business ring-fence its highly agile and mission driven culture, and operate as a stand alone business, rather than be subsumed by its owner. As a young leader, she gives invaluable views on the challenges of leading a hyper-growth business in an ever changing world - how she has managed both cultural transformation and innovation, and the lessons she has learned along the way. As a ‘culture carrier’, she is the epitome of a modern-day leader, whose voice will only become more well known around the world in the coming years.

For those interested in further insights and commentary, TDM Growth Partners has been posting to their new medium publication – TDM tidbits – which can be found at medium.com/tdmtidbits. If easier, we always post all our content to twitter, so if interested, follow @tdm_growth to and get all the news and views there.

You can always find me on twitter @eddiecowan.

If you are enjoying what you hear, there are more episodes of 'Scaling Up' coming down the pipe, so make sure you subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and don’t forget reviews and shares always help other find the podcast as well, so please share the love on your own social channels.

Jonathan Corr is my guest on this episode of Scaling Up.  Jonathan is the current CEO of Ellie Mae.

This episode is a wonderful deep dive into the world of a highly experienced CEO who has had the benefit of seeing the full spectrum of the growth curve. Ellie listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011, relatively early in its journey. Jonathan oversaw and came through all the common scaling challenges – re-platforming of their technology stack, changes in their business model, and by far the biggest challenge, scaling the people and culture of the business. All the while being a listed public company and facing the volatility that that brings.

Jonathan gives great insight into all these challenges and  was incredibly transparent in relation to the take over of Ellie by Thoma Bravo, a leading Private Equity technology company, for US$3.7b. 

Ellie Mae sells software to the mortgage industry, streamlining and automating the process of originating and funding new mortgage loans as well as facilitating regulatory compliance. As you can imagine, mortgage brokers and banks love this software, and this is reflected in Ellie’s 35% market share

This is an episode for the business purists – a phenomenal growth story, unsurprisingly wrapped up in the importance of great people, all working under a common mission.

Spencer looms as a large figure in the US tech scene – twice he has co-founded billion dollar businesses. His first, the travel website HotWire was sold to Expedia, and it was there, he met Rich Barton – the Expedia and Glassdoor founder. Together, with several others, they then set off and co-founded Zillow.

Zillow is now all things real estate in the US – for anyone looking to buy, rent, value a house, or obtain a mortgage, you have significant interaction with Zillow. It is now a US$2.7 b revenue, US$11b market capitalisation business (at the time of recording). Spencer was CEO for 9 years, and is now on the board.

I often find guests who are no longer in the day to day grind makes for a great interviewees, as they have had time to reflect without bias. There was a temptation to go wide in our conversation, but I felt it could have spread Spencer’s wisdom too thinly. Instead I decided to really focus in on a topic that I know is close to his heart as well as mine – the importance and power of people and culture when scaling businesses.  Spencer is a culture evangelist – he has seen first hand how and why culture is a leading indicator of business performance. Importantly to note,  this was not always his belief and it was great to hear how his views have evolved. I also loved his views on managing cultural merges – Zillow did 16 acquisitions in his time  - as well as why employees who he describes as ‘culture carriers’ can adapt to any job inside an organisation.

If you love what you hear – Spencer hosts his own podcasts, among them Office Hours is in my opinion just a mandatory listen.

Plenty of people have got in contact with regards to previous episodes, and the TDM team loves getting feedback. It makes this project worthwhile You can always find me on twitter - @eddiecowan, and TDM is constantly keeping the world up to date with great insights and views as well -  @tdm_growth

This podcast is created and published for informational and entertainment only. It is not financial advice. Transcripts may contain occasional errors in fact.