Latest / Found-HER with Kimberley Hiebert / What Actually Happens Between Startup and Scale

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What Actually Happens Between Startup and Scale · Found-HER with Kimberley Hiebert

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey besties.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh welcome back again to the Founder Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have another fabulous guest.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like this guest is somebody I was not.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you guys are hearing our conversation for the first time.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is not somebody that I knew about, but I knew the business behind that she represented and did tons of work in.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm really excited to introduce Miranda Levers.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I said your name correctly, last name.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: And Miranda is the co-founder and former COO of ThinkIffic.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And just as a little nudge, ThinkIf It is a learning management platform, correct?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she went on to build a billion-dollar uh company within this uh framework while keeping people, this is really important, at the center and culture and people at the center of it.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm I'm not gonna do her justice by telling what she has done and who she is.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, Miranda, welcome and please give us a little more context into kind of what your expertise is, but also who you are as a person, as a human.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um excited to be here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Giverly, for the beautiful introduction.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I am looking forward to this conversation.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, probably my most uh quoted or repeated line is that I am just like I'm well, first of all, I'm just very nerdy and I am unabashedly addicted to the light in people's eyes when they shine about what they're passionate about.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that just happens to like never be more true than with entrepreneurs.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it happens to be that what I am ultra nerdy about is business and business models.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I can take the thing that I am really nerdy about and I can help people build the business around what it is that they are here to do and they are trying to do.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then I get to see them light up about their thing.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like I basically just live uh in the happiest place.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so that is like the context of uh who I am and what I do.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've had many small businesses of my own over time.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of those turned into not so small businesses.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Thinkific was a way to marry uh supporting small businesses in a way that gave them an extra set of hands.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Entrepreneurs always have more to do than they have hands to do.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: They need help and support, but they don't know and have time or have money for help and support.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: But ThinkIphic was a way to tech enable entrepreneurs, giving them an extra set of hands, uh, giving them help that they didn't know that they needed because they like our platform just worked in a certain way.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it allowed, uh, allowed and continues to allow, you know, tens of thousands of businesses have um scaled and grown on Thinkific, small ones and big ones.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of big companies too, but the the smaller ones are always going to be um where my passion lies.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh in the process of supporting other businesses, we built that business from like four of us around a table, literally imagining uh what we could do uh to a team of hundreds.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: We took it public on the Toronto Stock Exchange um a few years ago.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: That journey, yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like that journey alone, when I think all the things you're saying, like what I was so my husband and I, he's a subject matter expert.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about people that are like the gleam in their eye about the thing that they're most crazy about, that's him with doors.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: 100%, yeah.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so random and it's so obscure, but it is like it is like in his blood, and he does not go a minute without thinking about that.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so I I understand what you mean about that, and then helping that type of person really build and expand in a way that brings legacy and impact to whatever it is they're doing, and also validation to this like crazy passion.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what when you're talking about the growth of ThinkIffic and starting, you know, really founder, scrappy startup, round the kitchen table, whatever kind of table, coffee table, um, the impact that you have contributed, you and your four, three other fellow partners and whoever else joined you along the journey, the impact to that, and it's not just about the financial impact, but for those small, medium, whatever large businesses to be able to have additional platforms and to be able to impact whatever they're and whoever their true who were and all that, that's like that's pretty fucking massive.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's big.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's quite humbling.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um well north of 200 million people have taken courses on Think of that's crazy, yeah.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: My god, people if you take anything like that.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't even know what the current number is.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, like that that's what I mean.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if anybody can take anything away today, take that.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you can start from your kitchen table and have impact like that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, good on you for that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that must have been quite a journey.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, like a like a crazy journey, of course.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can I can I I I'm gonna be selfish in this episode.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, can I ask you a question?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the saying the people that you started with aren't the people that are gonna get you there, with the whatever that's saying, right?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: The people, the people that got you there won't get here, won't get you there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Get you there, that saying.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this has been, you know, as a founder, and we're building something big, and I do the business strategy and scale and all that on one side.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: My husband's a subject matter expert on the other, but on a much smaller scale.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a few of us.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I have recently experienced this in my small team in a way that caught me off guard because I I always kind of roll my eyes at this saying, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I would think, like, what does that mean exactly?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't see me starting and and and getting rid of or intentionally choosing different people than the people that started with the vision.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: However, people, it's other people that change and make decisions that I wasn't really.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought it was something as a founder that I would control the or have more intention.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Control is probably the wrong word, on when that um next group of people would show up or whatever.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I never really considered that, oh, it's the other people around that start to shift.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's a little naive, but and so I've experienced that in a really uh, it was actually a hurtful, painful way.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because there are decisions made that I wasn't expecting.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but as Eddie, you know, great founder, I would kind of move, you know, work through that and the highs and lows of that.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: But tell me a little bit about that in your evolution as a co-founder, going from that scrappy group of four to hundreds of team.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's like that's a loaded one.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, um, I think when you're like when you are uh at the head of the company, you I mean, you can hire ahead of you, but like you can demote yourself and hire bring in, you know, bring in an external CEO or president or something, but that's um that's a bit of a different thing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: But you need to grow personally at or ahead of the rate of the growth of the company just to stand still in your role.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so like a and when your company is growing really fast, that's crazy, right?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because what it took to be um, you know, whatever, like what it what it took to be CEO or head of marketing or whatever the role is in the organization, what it takes to be that role for a team of 20 or a team at 1 million revenue is very different than what it takes to be a team of like a hundred or five million in revenue or a team of like 300 or and and 50 million dollars in revenue, right?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, so just to stand still in your role, you need to be personally growing at or ahead of the rate of growth of the company.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that when you think like which is which is intimidating when you're at the head of the company.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you're and you're in the beginning phase, you're still kind of working out some of the stuff.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we gotta run to just to keep to stand still.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so, so what we I think it's a little bit different between um our roles when we're sort of in like that C-suite sort of position or founder position versus members of our team.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's tricky in different ways because um when we've got somebody who's come in as like head, let's say head of marketing, so somebody on our team, and and this idea of like, you know, who got you here, can't get you there, like people can people can double, like sort of like double their capacity and like grow with a company, like once, maybe twice, but they like it's like but but you can only grow so fast, and we end up into this really challenging position.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: I actually don't think it's so much that the people can't continue to stay and contribute and support the team, but that the role that they're in, they may not be able to expand to it.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And we have so much uh bullshit around ego and title that we end up in a situation where often, and so again, I'm talking about our teams, not us.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we end up in this situation where we over-title people, and it's not that the person can't continue to support, it's that they can't they they no longer can meet the needs of the title, but we have a hard time shifting um positions in a way that feels like we're going backwards.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, yes.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I wish I had this conversation with you eight months ago.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, yeah, because yeah, so because sometimes, like if we over-title, like the takeaway is if we over-title early, we we back ourselves into a corner where it's like, actually, this person is amazing, but now maybe they're amazing as like a director, and we need somebody, like we need to actually bring in um somebody above them so that they have an internal mentor and that they can learn and grow, but we can end up into this muddy, messy conflict with titles um that can be tricky.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna pause there because like I can go deep into that, but then about our roles as founders, because it's like you can't bring in like a like a like a super CEO.
• 9:49
  unknown: Like you have to.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so that that that was just my that's why I said I was gonna be selfish for a minute because that speaks to just my own experience in, especially in a young startup phase, the whole struggle with titles.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I, you know, again, going back to my own gut, it was like I don't really like to title people, uh especially at the beginning.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're everybody's flexing and moving and learning different roles and new things.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I was really reluctant, but recognizing that there was some need for some structure internally as the team was growing really rapidly.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, so uh, but it did, it had ended up biting me in the ass.
• 10:23
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I thank you for validating that.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So let's move on.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have so much to talk about.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so it's been a journey.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: How many years has it been since like how long ago was that?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: 2012, we incorporated 2021.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: We um went public.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Holy shit.
• 10:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's like sorry, I also have I also have street mouth.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, but I already swore, so we're on the same page.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: So how how would you define six?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: How did you define success, Miranda, when you in 2012, the younger younger version of you versus now?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now that you that's behind you and part of your Yeah.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I I um I joined my co-founders about 18 months after incorporation.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like literally just um for people around a table, like rented in a tech in some another tech company's space above a taco shop.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like I thought it was attractive.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're just like, I don't know, let's work on this for a while.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because early on, you don't like you don't spend a lot of time like dreaming about the future.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like, I don't know, like let's work on this problem for a while.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like maybe we can make this into something interesting.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so at first, like it's like you're really just spending, honestly, like the vast majority of that is just heads down building what you imagine can be.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's not a lot of time to like sort of stop and look up and like grade yourself or try to evaluate like where you are or where you thought you'd be, because you're just like heads down working.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you now that you're kind of it, you've had that success as well as other successes, when you look now and start into a project or anything like that, do you do you have a different kind of intention with that now?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is there more connection, or you're just like, what can you just look at the project, what it is, and what can we get into kind of yeah, good question.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had the like I said, is is our babies grow up?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I stepped away um three years ago.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, eventually we were a public company and a team of hundreds and like all of these things, and it's like no longer uh the type of container that that lights me up the most.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: I love the team, I love the work we're doing, I love our customers, but um, I no longer owned a company, I really owned a job, and so it was to step away.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And when I did, I had the luxury of this time and space, and frankly, uh like an incredible amount of privilege and and optionality about like what do I want to look like now?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like what like what am I doing now?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't have the same constraints that um that I had before.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out that uh even when I can do pretty much whatever I want, I just am really very nerdy about helping founders.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what I'm doing.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I took a couple years off in in like pure sabbatical mode.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and now I have a uh uh coaching and advisory practice.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm writing a book on like the working title is literally the scaling fallacy of crazy.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh because this stage, this stage between like you're too big to wing it, you're too small to feel stable, you're not a startup anymore, but you certainly are not at scale.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like we talk about it as like the messy middle, and it's like it's only messy because we can't see what's right in front of us, and we actually like we're just walking around in the dark.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and my pattern matching brain has at this point like uh like a couple decades of of experience of like helping and supporting other people building companies and then helping like and then building my own.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I have um, I can see things that I couldn't see before.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so now I'm focusing my time not on building something new, but on supporting founders through uh advising and and um coaching work.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So this is what I love about I say this.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I just turned 59 this year, and one of the things I love about aging, and I'm not suggesting that you're aging, but it comes with the experience.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the experience that you went through.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that for me, what I always say about aging is it I have the ability to see patterns in a way that whether it's relationship patterns, behavioral patterns, business patterns, economic patterns, whatever it is, but because I have some time under my belt now, um, I can see those.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I can see those replay over and over.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is absolutely that's what I love about even about AI is its ability to recognize the patterns deep into our systems that we can't see because it's just the data is so you know convoluted and all that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think being really good at recognizing patterns is actually for me, it's like a superpower, and it's really a great skill that I think is undervalued and underutilized.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and also like I'm very autistic.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like my like my literal, this is your my literal brain is just a pattern machine.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It is how I've accomplished everything I've ever accomplished, and it is an absolute superpower.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you're like a little mini AI.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, I I it's like from the outside, I feel like this is a side tangent, but like from the outside, it feels like it looks like my brain is like this, like this really sophisticated computer.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, it's like a steampunk on-off machine.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like I'm not as good with like the in-between sometimes, but but it uh altogether it functions in a way that serves me well as an entrepreneur and serves me well at helping other entrepreneurs who are building something that doesn't yet exist, and we're trying to build a machine in a world that is not designed to actually help us do this work that we're so in your experience in scaling, so you know, as a COO, that's all you're doing is operations, building scale capacity.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how did you manage to maintain uh well, I'm sure there was some trial and error in that, but how how what how did you maintain culture uh within the company and have that grow?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well what are some kind of lessons that you would like to share and some maybe tips for those that are, you know, that's kind of the it always has been not the catchphrase, but it really is um, you know, the entrepreneurs and founders that I'm associated with, this is the one uh pain point that we always keep coming back to is how do we create good culture?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have things happen that, like, wow, did how did I miss that?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And kind of I call them pink flags that turn into red flags, and vice versa.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then how is a leader?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, this is a loaded question.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's okay.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then how as a leader do you create an environment where your team can give you the feedback that's honest?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, those are great questions.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I think uh I can remember there's like some very particular points that are burned into my memory.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the ones um early on, when we were just a team of 13 people and we did our first retreat, and we went like our we took our team to Whistler, we rented a big house.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I went to Costco and like bought everything.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we like cooked and everything for ourselves.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And uh my co-founder, CEO um Greg, and I sort of sat at one point and and founders who were further along than us, like everybody talked about culture, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: About like it's like, oh, it's never gonna be this good.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we I like we really were holding on to that.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I remember like we had this conversation on that, like that one night, and we're like, wow, like we really need to soak this in because as we grow, it's never gonna be this good.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what was interesting was the next year when we were a team of like whatever, 30, um, we're like, no, like it's like it's like this is better.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next year when we were a team of 60, it's like, it's like, no, this is this is better.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: And like, and eventually it it was because we kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, like we kept.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, fair enough road.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like it, and it, and it wasn't, it was like, it's like actually like we grew and we got better, and we grew and it got better.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's a hopeful tale.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, like so it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to match this other this other vision.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that um one of the biggest things that I can uh point to, and of course you stumble on it at the beginning, and then you get to like own it as like, no, no, this is like the thing.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but at the time it wasn't it wasn't as strategic early on.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: But you need to build the rhythms and the systems internally just as much as you do with the ones that are actually customer-facing and external.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things that I can point to uh that we did early on was we built a rhythm around um quarterly engagement surveys.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like very, very simple, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's like we did, it was like a like ENPS employee NPS, like, how likely are you to recommend think of it as a place to work?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: The number, I didn't really care about the number.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: The number goes on a slide.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: What mattered more were the open-ended questions of like, what should we start doing um that we're not doing today?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: What should we stop doing because it's actually hurting or harming or like being a problem?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And what should we keep doing so we're aware of what actually is working so that we don't accidentally break what works for you?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the open-ended questions that we were asking on a quarterly basis to our team that ultimately I can point to as being a huge part of um our culture over time.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because it wasn't about us like coming up with like, oh, the team needs this or the team needs that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: If anything, I was constantly surprised.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, um, our team told us at one point, they're like, they're like, we want performance reviews.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur, so I don't have to have performance reviews.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't want, like, what do you mean you want performance reviews?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, like I guess.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then we like did performance reviews, and then they're like, we want more frequent performance reviews.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, Oh, what do you mean you want more?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we went from a year, then we did every six months, then we did every quarter, and then the results were mixed.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Then it was like half of the team was like, we want more frequent, and then some were like, This is killing us.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, it's like, okay.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: So then we went back to like three times a year, and that whole process was over a couple of years.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: But the point being is that we didn't have to like make up what we thought.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: We literally just had a mechanism to consistently ask, listen, and and we couldn't change everything, but at least then our team felt heard.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: We could like stack rank and be like, hey, we asked, you told us like these were the things that one thing, or we can only do one thing, and you consistently said this.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so then our team felt heard, and every single quarter we were able to like actually do something based on the feedback that they had given us to make things a little bit better.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: You can't make it perfect, but can we make it better?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: When you do that, quarter over quarter, year over year, you build collectively a culture and a team that people are excited to work in and to invite their friends and and other people into um over time.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's very good.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's really good stuff that we can integrate right away, even with a small team.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: My question was, you know, I always uh uh my team is now really small.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I feel that to ask questions about the leadership, which is basically my husband and I, and then a couple of external team members, um, they don't have a lot of buffer to find safety and being right, like it's it's very, it's very um intimate the conversations because it's so close.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: So creating that culture where it's safe to give that feedback and you know, um yeah, like an anonymous survey wouldn't be helpful because there's only a few of us.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like and you know what?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like here's a nerdy tidbit because I just analyzed everything because we went back and forth between anonymous and not anonymous over time, and what we found was when we tried anonymous, then people would make their feedback more generic because they were trying to hide who they were to the point that it wasn't actionable.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so we like so so we didn't have anonymous surveys because um because but at the same time, we also had to create safety by like by really showing that it was safe to to give feedback hard feedback.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and as a leader, especially as a leader on a small team like you are, like sometimes.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was even like almost like even blowing things out, like taking taking things and using it as a way to be an example of like, hey, like um, I was reading for everybody's feedback, I got this feedback and it and it was about me or something.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, yes, you know what?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I fucked up or I haven't done this well, and being able to stand up as a leader and show them because we can't just tell them that it's safe to give real feedback.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that actually it's like I can hear that feedback, even if it's hard to receive.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And this is how I'm committing to make change and how I want support in making change.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that creates the safety so that they will continue to tell us the hard things.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love this.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm getting coached.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's let's get back to you.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I love this.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you have so much experience.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why have I not been in your world sooner?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um what so I think you've already kind of uh touched on this people first leadership.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of like how our our company is uh people centered, transact people first, transaction second.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and our mission internally and externally is to leave lasting great impression.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to, again, everything around the center of doing that.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as you've as you help founders with scaling and maintaining culture, what do you think is the one thing that they're missing?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: What is the question they should be asking right now as they're starting?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: What is Yeah, like I said, is is the biggest thing is having a drum beat around the like listen, iterate, communicate model that doesn't disappear when times are good.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because what ends up happening is is we'll often like jump in to like solve a problem when things are a problem.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: But culture is something that is built slowly over time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: So what ends up happening is is like things are good, and then all of a sudden, like, well, we're not running, like we're not, we're not doing the engagement survey or like we're not like like things slipping until there's like a fire, and now all of a sudden it's like, oh, we need to care about our team again.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then we're trying to dive in and like and and culture and safety are built over time consistently.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just like deal with them as a fire.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so if you you need to have a consistent practice.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so did you have somebody, was that something that you always had your eyeball on?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was um like a happy accident at first.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like I I'm allergic to farming, like I'm allergic to doing the boring repetitive things over and over again.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And what that means is for me, it makes me a good operator, I think, because I'm very good at like um automating, systematizing all the things that I don't want to have to like hold on.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, how can I not do this again?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how do I not do this again?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so because of that, it was like, oh, like quarterly, like you know, employee survey, it's like this is like it's a big heavy thing.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: But once you've kind of done it once, then it's like, oh, we know how to do it, we know what system, we know how to do it, whatever.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you can kind of systematize it and make it somebody's like, it's like you want to have a process so that it happens automatically, and that was just how I tended to approach things.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um the happy part of that was that like actually that was the right way to approach it.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: But when I did it, I was really just trying to- It was more like you're trying to figure out how can I so in like in hindsight, it makes it look like I was really strategic and smart.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but like it was sort of like we stumbled into it, and then it actually turns out that that is out of necessity, because you're like, how do I not do this all the time?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: I like these.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: These are great, but these are this, this is the simple, these are the simple questions that we need to ask.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, do you think that every business is scalable?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that yeah?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Here, like is this is this like I have a different definition of the word at scale than most of the things.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: I want to hear it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I want to hear it.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, so so um we've got lots of resources for how to start businesses, right?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: We understand that like like what it looks like to start.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: My definition of at scale is when the company, when when the vast majority or like 99.9% of the company's efforts are going into things that we've done before.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: So everything is something that we're like, we've done it before.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: So even the yoga studio down the street, they are operating at scale because everything that they're doing is something that they've done before.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we we always point to like the Starbucks of the world and we say, well, they're at scale.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, yes, everything that they've done, they've done before.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: But what's interesting is like even Starbucks, when they're launching, not just a new store, but like they're they'll launch new regions or new products.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: But they've done that activity so many times that it's also just something that they're running on a playbook.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like at scale, okay, is everything, it's like it's like everything we're doing is something that we've done before.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: We have a system, we have a process, we have a playbook, we have SOPs for this stuff.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's why like the yoga studio also is at scale.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like they're operating at scale.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because they're just running the same play, like their playbooks, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, however, whether we want to be at scale or not depends on uh like what ideally what we're trying to get to is a business that is operating at scale.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is something that we've done before and like basically running on systems, like with a small sliver of work that we're still in a like input, like a little bit, you need some supervision and input.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: But like, but most of it is stuff that we're um that we've done before, and uh that we are growing at the rate that we want to be growing based on expansion of our existing run layers, not based on new work that we're or new things that we're piling on top.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so what I mean by that is like uh like again, I'm just gonna use Starbucks because it's the easy one where it's like, oh, they're actually like their stores are increasing revenue X percent year over year.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: So even though it's all stuff that they've done before, the run layers of their business are expanding.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they're so they're growing at the rate that they want to be, all with a machine that is uh working on things that they've done before.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's very different than, of course, um when you're starting or when you're scaling.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Scaling is the process of trying to build the machine that looks like that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of people think scaling is just uh SOPs.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, I know.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's what I think writing the book called The Scaling Fallacy, because we don't know how to talk about this.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I literally think everybody thinks, and that you know, there's a shit ton of online coaches.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I help you scale your systems, I help you scale, scale.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody, uh I just roll my eyes.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, everybody thinks it's a fucking SOP.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: I know, and but that's the thing, is because most people have never actually gone through the process of scaling.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Even the people that were in a company that was scaling, they generally were in a role within the company.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: They weren't overseeing the whole company.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So at any given time, a company that is scaling, yeah, there's parts of the company that are operating at scale.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: There's parts of the company that are on repeat.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're doing this over again.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: This should be a playbook, this should be SOPs, and part of the company is still in startup mode.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know how to do this.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're figuring this out, we're building it, we're in blue sky mode.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not just a bigger version of startup, and it's not just a bit smaller version of at scale.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's its own thing.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's why it's ungrounding, it's why it's chaotic, it's why, it's why it feels um like this giant mess, but um, but we just don't understand like the mechanism of what we're trying to build.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: So what ends up happening is we look at an at-scale company and we say, well, what does that look like?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we see the systems, the SOPs, the process, the forecasting.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like we see all of that and we're like, oh, that's what it takes to get to at scale.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, no, that's what is required to hold the company when it's at that stage.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's not what gets you there.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that is a whole yeah, this like scaling fallacy.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: That is this like in between when you're trying to do both at once and trying to create the company that and that earns the size.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, I've like I uh you're just speaking all my language because that's where we're at, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's in franchising, it's exactly that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we and now we're like we're holding still, we have our whatever 13, 14 point system that incorporates all these things.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it, though, we were still trying to figure out.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: So everything's on pause, right?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: What does that ground game for one in home services door knocking, like ground game door knocking?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: We had to really figure out the system to make that work and then trial it in various areas and then implement it as a playbook, yes, then reinforce it in a group training for all of our franchise partners, and then send field people out to reinforce it in person, and now it's part of the system.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it is like literally that's my language you're speaking because that's where it's not just writing at first, it it was like, oh, we'll just write the SOP for it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Nah, nah nah nah.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't write an SOP until you have done it so many times that it's boring, like right?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're writing an SOP and it's something that you've not done before to the point that it's boring, like you have no business writing an SOP.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's like you still have to iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because otherwise, you're going to codify.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's so many ways that we end up screwing up scaling, and we've all done it, myself, of course, included, but you end up codifying something that doesn't work.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because you if you try to systematize before you've done it so many times you could do it with your eyes closed, now all of a sudden you're like teaching everybody how to do a thing that's not a thing yet.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: It hasn't earned that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and as founders, you're like, you know, for us in this case, we have personally like we're funding the franchise build, uh-huh.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a runway, and there's right, and there it's burning, burning, burning, burning, burning.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you're like, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, but you can't force it, like, because then you actually make yourself you give yourself a bigger problem.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why, like, you're actually doing both.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: It is not a bigger version of startup, it is not a smaller version at scale, it is totally its own thing.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to think about the fact that you are literally running two companies at once, and and which part is which company keeps changing and how you manage both companies is totally different.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, but that is the like the lens to be able to start to see how to navigate this time.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: I really, I'm really uh I'm really looking forward to the book.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, didn't know I needed when's the when's the launch date?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so what is the one thing that you would like to leave our listeners with?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because we are already kind of at time.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, this was a fast conversation.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know because I like I said, sorry, listeners, I was like, I wanted to also learn a lot about where your perspective on scaling.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because, like I said at the beginning, as a female um franchisor in the trade system, uh it is very hard for I have a great uh he's fractional COO, uh, but he's been with us almost since the beginning, probably into from year two that we started putting our structure together.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's he's like he is obsessive about the systems and the operations before like and so he's helped us a lot, like save a lot of air every single time.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it is still something I'm so passionate about because it is the lane that I live in, and I don't get much contact with people that really truly understand that.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because there's not that many of us.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm loving this conversation.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: I will have you on again.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: But what's the one thing that you would like to leave uh the listeners with, whether it's personal, you know, the transitions and the growth.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think at the beginning you said as a C as the founder, you have to be growing at or ahead of the rate of the company, just to stand still, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just to stand still.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, how does that translate personally?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my, like a whole it's like a whole spiritual journey, isn't it?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know what?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: What's um you sort of it's easy to look back in hindsight and be like, how could I should I have done that differently?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it was only when I was able to step away from my company and take sabbatical, where I literally like the first few months, I was like, I'm gonna schedule a self-work.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've not done any self-work for the last 10 years because this is all I've been doing.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's like, I will just schedule this in.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then that took me down like a two and a half year rabbit hole.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because it turns out like we're not just the intellectual business part of our brain and we're a whole human.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, and what's interesting is that now for me personally, uh, if I had to give up every professional success that I've had in my life, um, or that two and a half years of just focusing on me, like I wouldn't give up the understanding of me for anything.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so Oh my gosh, I love there.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's um, there's um uh that's a quote.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't give up the understanding of me for anything.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's powerful.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my husband left a he was in his family business for 50 years straight.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: From the time he was 13 till uh he sold his at 57.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the longest break he'd ever had, and built, you know, built it with his dad, like that kind of generational, just one location.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: But um, here's what happened when he was I got I got sick, I got diagnosed with cancer.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my break from you know, multi-businesses, social work, all that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was my two-year journey into the real healing, not the head healing, but the cellular.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when he stepped away, um, he went, it took him probably two years to unpack.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it was only then that he realized he's like, every single founder, business owner needs to take a sabbatical for a year at least every 10 years.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you need to build it into your growth plan and your revenue and your expense because the amount of unpacking and realization, you know, his contribution to the toxic parts of the business in the past, like he's like, holy shit, I was just so far in.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so he that's his kind of a soapbox for him now.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I especially love that he said a year, yeah.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because it takes months just to get like off the wheel, just to get out of like almost like vacation mode.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Vacation mode is not sabbatical, vacation mode is like like it's like a holding pattern, like yeah, you just put everything on hold for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, whatever it is.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's the thing, and so I love that he said a year because because I I agree.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I don't know that there's anything that I could have told my younger self that would have changed the situation that I got in, but that I could have said that, and that was great advice.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he that was uh his lived experience.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Oh, I'm too old for that now, but in the moving forward, as we're building this one, that that's top of mind, is because you just yeah, you can't get the you gotta understand you, if especially if you're leading.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, Miranda, this has been a beautiful conversation.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know if I find do I find you on have I been stalking you on Instagram?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Instagram is like the best place to get like actual me, like it's like the business me, but then also like I was at base coast dancing all weekend.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, oh fun.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, are you in Canada?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are you based in Canada?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm in North Van.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, that's my home place.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I was born and raised in East Van.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, as a foster kid.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was born in North Van.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh spent up until about 13, third 12, 13 in North Van, and then East Van for the rest and in foster care.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you're from East Van to North Van during the pandemic.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, well, if I can't be around people, I need to be around trees.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_02: So now I'm in North Van.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, great.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so uh yeah, so Instagram is like the best place to get sort of all of me.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I am specifically like it's like my whole nerdiness, like I said, is this scaling phase, founders with teams, too big to wing it, too small to feel stable.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um come hang out with me on Instagram or message me on LinkedIn or uh follow me at torchtheplaybooks.com.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Torch the playbooks.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, awesome.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna you'll find me there.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: This was great.