How Entrepreneurs Can Build Scalable Companies That Last

Yeah.

So I'm really intrigued by the notion of the five of you really be kind of leading the company and working together over the course of years.

Were there any particular processes or guidelines or rules of the road that you put in place so that the five of you could continue to work collectively but also focus individually? How did that work?

Yeah, we started board meetings inside the company that was really senior leadership team.

But, you know, it wasn't all the VPs in the company.

It was the founders.

And then if we you know, when we acquired other branches, we would select maybe the president of that branch that we acquired to to be on the board.

So we had an internal board and a regular cadence of meeting meetings.

Early on, it was every month, and then eventually we transitioned to quarterly meetings.

But it was multidimensional.

That was kind of the top leadership thing.

We did cultural stuff like having game night or movie day or talent shows or things to engage the employees and their families and really create a tight cultural environment that really kept people engaged.

And we had a growth program that we would reward people for taking courses or volunteering or teaching each other things or whatever that just kind of kept them engaged and kept them growing.

And again, a lot of this came from Curtis and his advisory board bringing in ideas from the outside.

But between the leadership and then the kind of systematic records of people's performance and promotions.

We got really systematic about recruiting, making sure we had good job descriptions and assessments, and then had, you know, small teams on the hiring review board and stuff like that, but that kept it very selective and proud of the quality of the people that we had on board.

And yeah, looked at them for more things than just their coding skills, for example, if they were technical or their accounting skills, if they were an accounting firm or whatever.

It was also personality fit and engagement with the rest of the company so that we built the culture that we wanted.

Yeah, well, you know, people say culture is important, but yet many people don't pay any attention to it, right?

Yeah, it's hard to translate from this is important to how am I actually going to do it? So, again, I feel super...

I don't know, fortunate to have experienced that, right? That Curtis was bringing in these ideas from outside and we had great people that owned HR and kind of the cultural part of it and accounting and all of the different facets of the business.

We managed to scale, delegate, and just have great engagement all through that.

Yeah, tell me a little bit about, you just said one of my magic words, which is delegate.

And of course, the mirror to that is accountability.

Tell me a little bit about how you invested delegation and accountability in your culture, because this is a challenge that a lot of first-time entrepreneurs face, right? Is knowing how to delegate appropriately and then holding people accountable.

Yeah.

So I'm really intrigued by the notion of the five of you really be kind of leading the company and working together over the course of years.

Were there any particular processes or guidelines or rules of the road that you put in place so that the five of you could continue to work collectively but also focus individually? How did that work?

Yeah, we started board meetings inside the company that was really senior leadership team.

But, you know, it wasn't all the VPs in the company.

It was the founders.

And then if we you know, when we acquired other branches, we would select maybe the president of that branch that we acquired to to be on the board.

So we had an internal board and a regular cadence of meeting meetings.

Early on, it was every month, and then eventually we transitioned to quarterly meetings.

But it was multidimensional.

That was kind of the top leadership thing.

We did cultural stuff like having game night or movie day or talent shows or things to engage the employees and their families and really create a tight cultural environment that really kept people engaged.

And we had a growth program that we would reward people for taking courses or volunteering or teaching each other things or whatever that just kind of kept them engaged and kept them growing.

And again, a lot of this came from Curtis and his advisory board bringing in ideas from the outside.

But between the leadership and then the kind of systematic records of people's performance and promotions.

We got really systematic about recruiting, making sure we had good job descriptions and assessments, and then had, you know, small teams on the hiring review board and stuff like that, but that kept it very selective and proud of the quality of the people that we had on board.

And yeah, looked at them for more things than just their coding skills, for example, if they were technical or their accounting skills, if they were an accounting firm or whatever.

It was also personality fit and engagement with the rest of the company so that we built the culture that we wanted.

Yeah, well, you know, people say culture is important, but yet many people don't pay any attention to it, right?

Yeah, it's hard to translate from this is important to how am I actually going to do it? So, again, I feel super...

I don't know, fortunate to have experienced that, right? That Curtis was bringing in these ideas from outside and we had great people that owned HR and kind of the cultural part of it and accounting and all of the different facets of the business.

We managed to scale, delegate, and just have great engagement all through that.

Yeah, tell me a little bit about, you just said one of my magic words, which is delegate.

And of course, the mirror to that is accountability.

Tell me a little bit about how you invested delegation and accountability in your culture, because this is a challenge that a lot of first-time entrepreneurs face, right? Is knowing how to delegate appropriately and then holding people accountable.