Kahran chats with Prem and Andrew from Humanly about building the company together, growing, creating avenues for growth for themselves, each other and those who work with them.
You can check out humanly here : https://www.humanly.io/
Kahran chats with Prem and Andrew from Humanly about building the company together, growing, creating avenues for growth for themselves, each other and those who work with them.
You can check out humanly here : https://www.humanly.io/
When you're in a partnership, you have to figure out how to navigate the fact that both of you are changing at different rates and in different directions.
Hi, I'm Divya. Hi, I'm Karyn. And this is... Thinking. I'm thinking.
I'm a CEO and co-founder of Humanly. We're trying to help mid-market companies create a scenario where they can upload job descriptions and have highly qualified candidates scheduled on their calendar in the coming weeks and days. So we've been on this journey for about five years now. My background, personally, before this, started my career at Microsoft.
So I spent about 10 years there. The common thread was HR, people, tech. I was the PM for a global HR portal. Then went to a company called Tiny Pulse where I focused on employee engagement before I started Humanly. Yeah, I'm Andrew Gartner, co-founder on the go-to-market side.
So Prem talked about his background in product and our third co-founder, Brian, who's not here. I make the joke he's in a basement coding somewhere. I think he is now in his own apartment coding, but it still rings true. I'm sure he's coding right now. But yeah, so I'm all things sales, marketing, customer success.
My role has obviously changed over time as well. So started kind of selling and supporting every single customer we have. And now it's more so from an enablement on the product side as well as sales and the rest to go to market. But yeah, my background is in software sales. So over a decade there, I actually, I've never been at a company over 100 people prior to Humanly, which is kind of wild.
So for me, like super early stage startup junkie. The first one I worked for out of college was my brother actually founded it out of his dorm room. And so I went to work for him as the second or third employee when I graduated, my older brother. So when I graduated college, I went to work for him as well. What was the company?
So it's a very different kind of business. So it was not like venture backed. It was more so like a lifestyle business, but we had an e-commerce startup in the ticketing space. And it actually goes back to part of the founding story of Humanly before Humanly started. Prim called me because had an idea.
His first idea was around ticketing him and Brian and using blockchain to transform the ticketing business. Right. And very quickly after talking to me, he realized how much of a shit show the ticketing space is and how much of a monopoly. I don't know if I knew that. So the origin was there was an unrelated idea.
And but then you guys started talking about ideas and then yes, we very quickly realized because we had worked together at Tiny Pulse. I had sold kind of our enterprise accounts and Prim ran product there and we were putting our heads together quite a bit on how we solve problems for customers. And we realized we looked at each other and we're just like, hey, ticketing is great and sounds good. But why don't we do something like we have to do something in like this thing we know so well that we know folk like we got this piece of advice to go out and interview folks. And we had all these HR talent folks that we could go out and interview but no one in ticketing.
Right. So that's where that was kind of the nexus from there. But yeah, all things on the go to market side. It's been a wild five plus years. And yeah, it's been it's been fun doing it with Brian.
With this episode and this season, like what we've been really trying to explore is we had this hypothesis that starting something with a co-founder is just fundamentally different because we read like a lot of startup book, but like have done like a startup or something before. Right. There's this idea that's fundamentally lonely. And so if you have a co-founder, then theoretically it shouldn't be fundamentally lonely. So I think we were kind of starting off by just exploring that notion and then just understanding the story of like how do people find the space?
Right. Like how do you figure out like what roles make sense for both of you? How do you kind of like settle into that? Well, the place I really kind of wanted to start was, you know, it's been a big week. It's been a big news.
I was just wondering, can you talk a little bit about like what happened with with humanly and like basically that you bought a company. Generally speaking at this stage, not necessarily the. The standard path to be going through an acquisition scenario when we're recently out of a series A and there's also certain things that come along with two private companies merging. But yeah, we're really, really excited for this. It's the right thing for us.
So we acquired a company called teamable. We've gotten really good at helping our customers screen job candidates have good equitable and efficient conversations with job candidates. But to make that really work, you first need to have the candidates there and teamable the company we acquired formally known as top funnel is really good at sourcing and matching. So I think we're now able to deliver a promise to our customers. It's about pay, give us your job requirements, sink in your job descriptions and we can deliver highly qualified candidates on your calendar in Gmail and Outlook next week, next day.
So I think that that kind of end end piece is pretty big for us. So yeah, we're really excited to announce that and lots, you know, obviously went into the process, but thanks for bringing it up. So yeah, so as you're kind of thinking about major decisions like that and as you've had major decisions like that, how did they happen? How do you guys figure out how to take those forward? Yeah, I'll let Andrew jump in as well because, you know, I agree with the for sure the premise of having co founders makes it less lonely, but there have been times that Andrew and I have fought a lot that I have not always involved him in everything where he has probably more so on my part.
I think with this one though, we were very involved together as a cohesive team and really to me it's like if you're doing the right things as far as communication and board meetings to your board to your investors via emails to your co founders then when something comes along that will accelerate the vision that you've already agreed to it's a let's go do this thing so so to me this was an acquisition that had a lot to do with accelerating something we all knew we were in together doing together. But but yeah, as far as like decision making process we've experimented with a lot of different things and it hasn't been perfect. And you're all a jump in there but yeah, I mean we have a structure around that but doesn't always go according to plan right and maybe also be curious Andrew if you could talk a little bit like do you agree with the rationale as well like do you have the same rationale for why you guys bought this company as preem does. Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, we're not 100% aligned on everything as he references right, but in this case we are 100% aligned for sure and I think one of the biggest challenges and maybe it's an existential challenge in a startup is like everything as you build a company and build a team and build a culture is like how do you align the group how do you align everyone from the co founder all the way down to the most recent hire around a set of like things we're trying to accomplish
goals like how do we really because again, we're trying to do something that if fundamentally breaks companies right like when you're trying to exponentially scale a business. Like there's a reason why 1% of startups, you know get to series here or whatever the stats are right. And one of the challenges you have outside of co founders is no matter how much you how good at hiring you are and bring in the best leaders and that like it's very difficult to always be able to rely on someone to have the like perfectly aligned similar goals inherently for the business that you as a co founder have because they just don't have as much at stake as we as we do as founders right and like preem and I and Brian were fortunate that like from the beginning we all have this shared state and we don't win unless we all win right and like so when it comes to decision making like this at the end of the day. We start with this like baseline or the shared understanding that like even with all the stuff going on in the business and disagreements and agreement and all the we all fundamentally need this thing to be successful and we're all aligned around doing what's best for the business and something like this it was really easy for us to identify it's
core hey it helps you know accelerate product development it helps us you know accelerate you know our go to market right and because we had that shared understanding from the very beginning it allowed us to build on that from the start and take on challenging things and make a decision like this to move forward even at this early stage of a company. So you kind of mentioned something in there how do you bring people into that space. Right you're saying that you know in the beginning when it was just you and your other co founders then you have this shared space but then as you grow the company you obviously have to bring other people into it. How do you think about that how do you approach that. Yeah I know I mean I think it starts with like like hiring and bring it up even in the interview I mean we're taking a bet that we're trying to do like anytime anyone says like this is the kind of game plan to follow to succeed.
It's hard for me to always buy into that because basically most companies that follow the game plan don't succeed right so like we have to be abnormal to even have that chance of success and I think letting folks as new employees that are coming in know that hey you are you are signing up to do something that is not just very hard but for you to succeed you have to do the unexpected you have to do the things that are not normal. So I think setting it up in the hiring process in our culture through all hands we do through meetings we do but just like kind of going back to what we're trying to create and then making it clear to people that we are expecting things that are not normal. It has been one way we've addressed that. So would it be fair to say this is like a value that you guys are trying to build into the company this notion that it's not normal or is that a leap there.
Yeah well I definitely think it ties into our values right so we don't have like a specific value saying do what is not normal but we feel if you adhere to all our core values you will end up doing something that is not normal and that idea has been core to us. So if someone says hey this company is doing it this way this company is doing it that way we know that most companies are going to fail so if you're just doing what other companies are doing probably going to fail you have to be doing something that's uniquely and tangibly different. Well the reality is the things we do every day like would otherwise it's like cause people to rethink being at an early stage start right like there's a much easier path for folks right you know and no job is easy that's not what I'm getting at at all right. But there's many moments on a day to day basis not just for me but for folks in our sales department for folks in product where it's like there are these moments that you just want to like hit your head on something and say like oh like why am I doing this to myself like I think I think Eli and customer success and Vanessa and product were up late talking to some of our engineers in Vietnam last night at 930 or 10 o'clock at night because of the time change.
The immediate thought is like they could very easily go to a job where you know it is nine to five and you know that but part of it is like building a culture and those values and aligning everyone around a set of goals that makes it worth it right and makes the hard stuff easier to navigate because I don't want to sugarcoat when we're in interviews. I don't sugarcoat the fact that there's going to be some really hard crap that comes up that you're is going to make you really doubt yourself and whether you want to do this but it's going to be your ability to power through that and push the business forward and help us get to our goals that's going to make it all worth it right. Do you feel like you compromise on some candidates maybe even to ask that in other words where do you feel like that's an area you're willing to compromise on with some candidates or if not what are you willing to compromise on. Yeah I mean I guess I'd question the premise because if I wasn't willing to compromise then I'd be assuming that I know everything right so like if we're trying to create more of what we have I know a lot about what we have I know about how to bring people in that can do what we need right this minute. But because this whole bet is one of predicting the future I can't assume that what I think is exactly right because the future hasn't happened yet is going to be perfect for this candidate so there are certain things that I might think but it's just I think them I don't know them for sure where I do need to make sure that the rest of the team you know I want to hear out those different opinions on how this future might play out with this particular candidate.
One thing I hate hearing is when hiring managers or leaders say things like oh that was a bad hire when really it might have been you were bad at onboarding you're bad at bringing them into the culture. So I think there's a lot more variability than people think in a single individual potentially being a success at your company or not and that variability can be reduced by how you onboard how you indoctrinate so there's only so much you can tell in the early phases. So I think if you place too much importance on not willing to be flexible you're being very I would say egotistical around your future predictions around how this individual might be able to succeed. Well taking back to the co-founder thing I think like this is where we benefit from having co-founders is we get to pressure test each other on things like this right like I can't count on my hand the amount of times primes come to me. With like a thesis a hypothesis something right or I've come to him with what I feel very strongly about right. We've challenged it in a safe space you know and having that ability right before decision making again with this shared understanding of us having the same fundamental goals at our core which is for this business to be successful right.
And I couldn't imagine being alone individual founder and not being able to like you'd lean on external folks or advisors or but again that shared understanding of you know advisors you know what they want to get out of a business might be different than having a co-founder right. And so I think it's really benefit us as the business has changed as the scale of the decisions we're making changes having each other to be able to rely on to pressure test things. So as you kind of think about the first few people you guys hired were you hiring them thinking about their commitment to growing the company with you. And maybe if I could ask the question in two parts like as you think about those people do you feel like the thing what do you think you were you were hiring them for and then also has that proven to be true. Like now as you think about the value they've added has it proven that that was the thing you hired them for was the thing that they actually added value for.
And does this relate back to your kind of point about having like building that shared understanding and get people who also are part of that shared understanding with you. I'm kind of curious about are you able to like sense for that and hire for that or is that just kind of a fool's errand. There are certain things we've done that I don't think and luckily it's worked out in many ways with some of these people but I think we could have been more clear early on and kind of what you're signing up for. And I think that's been a long term and you know not not just the job at hand we've been lucky that we've had folks that came in that ended up being very much in it for those reasons but I think we could have been much more explicit in kind of what you're doing as a lifestyle and change that you're making in your life by taking this job.
Yeah Andrew I'll let you jump in as well but I think generally early on tried to talk about it we probably could do more and we're starting to do that with hires now that hey by working here you're not just you know signing up for this specific job but you're signing up for a journey. It's kind of yeah certainly what I would say and in most cases when we've been explicit and sometimes we've been lucky even when we haven't but people have filled that but the thing is that what we need changes a lot too so to your question around like are people fulfilling what we ask sometimes are fulfilling things we didn't know we needed the time and now there might be a new need so there's a lot of flexibility needed in terms of where people focus their time and adaptability and whatnot. Well and I think that's part of almost the expectation you set and again we didn't do this perfectly by any means with everyone right but this again shared understanding with folks coming in that like hey we're building this thing but also what this thing and the needs to the business are going to change right and your role might morph and change over time right and we might not foresee that all the time right in terms of where that next thing is right and I think we have fostered that buy-in we fostered that shared vision very well but that alone in itself is not always you know what's going to make someone be a 10 year veteran of
of humanly right and in some cases the business morphs and someone skill set doesn't align to a need that you know we maybe have in the long term right and so it's like building the relationship enough to not just have that shared understanding of wanting the business to succeed but also help that person grow and accomplish their goals whatever those might be and at times that might be them moving on to another situation and growing their skill set or moving into something that we don't have to offer anymore based on where we're at as a business right and that's a tough conversation to have and that conversation certainly changes and again by no means have we done that the best but all we can do is again do our best to try and align ourselves with folks coming in and give them the opportunity they can to be the best version of themselves. It's interesting you frame it like that it feels different than I think how I remember it used to kind of be framed right where you're like you're coming into the startup you're becoming part of this family we have this shared responsibility and it's interesting that that language doesn't seem to be as much kind of where you're thinking it's kind of like you guys are if I may right you're looking at someone and saying okay you know where are these needs where you're trying to go how can we kind of see alignment for as long as it makes sense for us to kind of be aligned but if there comes a point where you're not that's that's it's not like you're
betraying your family by by leaving the company or something is that a fair kind of saying back of what you guys were into that. Yeah I think so for sure I mean we we look at it as kind of the the traditional way of looking at things is attrition is bad like metrics you look at is how long are you keeping high performers and to me like the the worst type of situation is definitely not a high performer leaving it's a maybe a reluctant stare there's been some research that has been done there but I would take someone who spends a year and a half here it is giving it they're all over someone that's here for 3 years and maybe isn't as engaged over time but I think a part of that too is yeah we want people to join us for a moment where they're able to maximize their potential and help us maximize their potential and then if at that moment is past and they need to leave that good with me if we if we got what we needed and they got what they needed during that time so you know a question will ask in interviews is like what what can humanly do for you over the next one year two or three years you know when I when I start my job at tiny pulse I was being interviewed by the CEO I gave kind of my two year notice in the interview I said I'm here I'm going to be here for about two years and eventually I want to start my own thing and to me like it kind of goes back to the fact there isn't like a perfect person for a job it's are you catching
that person in a moment where they have the engagement motivation to positively impact your business for a time frame and then are you getting other other humans to kind of jump in when that time frame has expired or that pocket of their impact has expired. So even in your senior leadership and I don't know if you guys have hired much into your senior leadership but even when those people you're not so much looking at saying like you're going to be shouldering the the responsibility of carrying this company forward with me for as long as I'm carrying it forward it's much more saying you know I've I've seen this kind of gap or I think there might be this need here and I'm trying to ask you to help me carry this part of it. Yeah for sure I mean part of that is like based on our stage in Milestone so and I do feel certain people are really good at going from zero to one or from you know a millionaire R to five and I also think just setting expectations that because we're trying to do something that is like by nature changing so much year to year expecting one person to be able to do all of those things is not necessarily to me the best way to optimize for maximizing your your chance of getting to the next milestone so I think you know there's some things that I'm good at for instance or bad at. So we've been trying really hard to be focused on what is it going to take to get us to that next milestone and you know there's a lot of talk right now about can you build a billion dollar company with no employees right can you automate and outsource and use AI I definitely am very much a believer in people but I also know that to really have someone that is engaged and to make it better for us and that human you have to account for the fact that they might not be in the journey in the same ways I am for the same period of time through those milestones.
Would you even look at yourself with that kind of lens right because if you separate yourself into multiple beings right there's the version of you that's the stockholder and an owner of this company right and wants to see right you have responsibility to kind of maximize value the company and then you also are this version which is the CEO right and so do you feel like there might be a point where you would be like oh I was the right person to grow us to 100 or to 10,000 but I'm not the right person to grow us to 10 million or something. Yeah absolutely I mean I can watch a million videos on YouTube about imposter syndrome but still be honest with myself that there's certain things that I might not be the best person to do it so it's more than just me not having that experience yet or thinking I can't do it there are a lot of things that I might not be the best person to do or Andrew might not be the best person to do so I think that becomes a both a cultural and performance process of filling those gaps but. There could come a point where you know the company would be more successful if things I were doing were done by other people and I look at my founders to hold myself honest and ourselves as well where. My number one goal my only goal is as it relates to humanly is for the company to be successful so so yeah I know I think you have to look at yourself there you have to realize that. There are certain things that you can't do just because you're a founder.
Do you look at some of your peers and feel like they don't have that insight or do you have to do avoid judging people in that way and I just gave you an out. I don't want to talk so much but but but I will say but this is a podcast and so I am allowed to talk a lot but I will say that like we've seen because like. Like tech has you know through kind of what we've seen since the gates and the zucker words there's a lot of examples of. Tech founders like that were really good at scaling themselves and not everyone is great at that and I feel up to this point I've done that but. I haven't yet experienced what it's going to take to scale to the next level to the next level to the next level so so I think to answer your question more directly I think we've.
Just like been indoctrinated in a culture where founders are put on a pedestal and just assumed that when you get to the next round OK the founder is going to be the. Leader whoever is the founder and CEO is is going to still be the founder and see but but I definitely do think that that needs to be looked at very discerningly. And you need to think about what's right for you at that next journey you're signing up for at the next phase but to answer your question yeah no for for sure. I mean there's a lot of a lot of people at the company that I think are really great and I've tried to be very direct about this that are really great at certain stages. I think there's feedback I've been given that I'm not scaling in some ways.
I think it's really important to hear that feedback and Andrew and I have made a lot of changes in terms of what we own what we're good at what we're not good at. Can we fill gaps versus just assuming that just because my title is CEO that I'm going to be able to be a CEO of this size company and this size company and this size company and that size company. Do you think we could pause on that for a second and just talk a little bit more about that like where would be some things that you know as in the early parts of your business might have been one your responsibilities and then as the business has grown the responsibilities have shifted. Yeah feel free to jump in Andrew otherwise I'm happy to. I think he was about to but.
Yeah yeah no I mean one real easy one is like I was I was the go to market co-founder. So for me like when it was me Brian and Prem I was the one creating trying to close trying to onboard you know sales opportunities sales prospects turn them into customers support them right like everything on that side right whereas now my role is when we actually have a sales team and we have a market. And so like my impact and how I've my role has shifted over time like you know part of what makes a co-founder successful or uniquely successful is having that self awareness to do what's right for the business right not necessarily what's doing what's right for your ego or not let me know what's right for you. And you hear all these horror stories about that they even in some of the most successful companies right like founders letting ego get in the way of things right and again I go back to the be so challenging as a lone wolf you know single founder to not have that reality check that pulse check that again an
ego check that's not what you should do but it's different when you're hearing it from a co-founder right so I do appreciate having folks with similar stakes to be able to call BS on things and give me an ego check when I need it and reset expectations and remind ourselves why doing something might be better for the business going going a certain direction right but. But yeah I mean I think like everything about our roles even in terms of like my personal health my you know I've had a kid since it right and like everything about our day to day not just related to what I'm actually doing in my job description has changed over the five and a half years we've been in business and if I'm not able to adjust and and change who I am and still provide value to the business in what that new role has become then what am I doing here right and then that would be that moment where you know you have to tell yourself hey maybe there's something else to do out there right if I'm not providing value back to the business. Do you think that you guys bring the same level of flexibility to other people's roles in terms of figuring out what you kind of just said right how we can you add value to the business and how kind of that can the role transform in order to make sure you are adding the most value can. Is that just kind of an approach that you're bringing to everyone or is that just something because you guys are co founders because you want to make sure you're both involved and excited that you're kind of doing that for if it's impossible to kind of do at scale once the business grows.
Yeah I mean what one thing I do agree with as far as like maybe a traditional way of looking at things which I really agree with is you know you hire smart people and people they're really mission aligned and they can do a lot of different things it doesn't. So yeah I know we certainly have had people that have been given opportunities to completely shift specifically what they're doing. So we had you know a couple examples we had Vanessa on our team who actually came in as an intern she was going to school for product design. She really wanted to be in product management and we made that shift and she's a very smart person she understood our buyers well. So I do think certainly when we've seen that opportunity to take people that have horror skills but wanting to kind of shift to other needs that the business has we've tried to make that a part of it.
Yeah I think the challenge or the opportunity we have is because we're exposed to so many parts of the business like not everyone has the 30,000 foot view that preamed myself and even Brian to some extent but he's so busy coding even to this day that he's not even given a lot of the same. Like view into all parts of the business right whereas even in leadership like you're bringing someone in you know when we hired our chief customer officer right very specifically came in with a skill set and a set of things that we wanted to bring him on to help right help do right and not necessarily getting exposed to parts of the business that might more fit whereas you know pream and I at the end of the day were like we're also like exposed to I mean everything the good the bad the ugly right and the question becomes is like with that exposure comes our ability to help try and add value where it can be done. Just to clarify your point from a minute ago though so you were managing sales and pre sales and then that responsibility once you weren't like kind of an IC over there the responsibility shifted to pream. Yeah no so now we have folks that are running marketing so like brought in a leader to run sales and brought in a leader to run marketing and now I'm in a support role where I am enabling folks because I've been exposed to so much from the beginning around
marketing and sales and so forth I don't necessarily need to own sales the way I did you know year one year one and a half in year two but I'm able to enable that part of the business and do my best as a co founder from my the perspective that I have of the business I'm able to come in and almost be like a tool that can help move things forward. How did you manage just not micro manage or maybe to say differently how are you able to kind of be confident in the value you were adding once you weren't actually doing the value. Yeah I mean I don't know that's a tough question. I guess at the end of the day what I'm always reflecting on is like is what I'm doing on a day to day basis like from where I see it adding value to the business. I know I keep harping on this adding value to the business but like I feel like I'm uniquely positioned even compared to preem because preems like you know he's he has so many things on his plate that are different than what I do that like the day to day stuff I'm exposed to even like there's no one else that can fill that void or that gap and and
and preem can call BS on this right but like no one else can fill that void or gap the way I can right and so I know that if I'm jumping in in a enterprise sales conversation and we're digging in on how our tool can integrate with this other tool. No one has has had the exposure to what that conversation needs to happen. Then me because I've been in five or six other conversations that have been in the sales rep or the marketing person whoever's drive even our product team hasn't necessarily been exposed to that before the way I have right. And if I can come in and enable and help folks do a better job and accomplish what they need you know help the account executive move a deal faster or get to a close or make the contract value higher on it right then I know that that's providing value back to the business. Another thing I'll say like Kahran kind of tying it back to what you mentioned with the topic of loneliness to me one of the lonely pieces is the fact that Andrew and I have to absolutely be OK with the impact that we're making on a day to day
basis not be known by everyone at the company there's a lot of decisions we make things we do that are very silent. So I think the the thankless part can be somewhat lonely. A lot of things we have to do that which was hard for me is you know you have to make decisions that people don't like you have to do things that not everyone like when we're talking about the acquisition a lot of the early parts of this you know transparency is extremely important to me and I think we did a really good job with that. When things are early we can't be you know going out and involving everyone it's a waste of their time it's not a good. So I think like doing a lot of things like silently can be lonely and so we have to be OK with not everyone at the company seeing every single impactful thing we do we have to be OK operating in silence knowing that we're the company is going to be better because of it. If I think about maybe maybe someone like my sister right who has a set of skills really around she's great at kind of getting things moving getting people motivated just get that first thing off the ground right.
And so now if I was running our more and I felt like that was an asset that we had that was somewhat underutilized I might think about like oh how can we make sure there's a cadence of new things getting started because we have this really strong asset that I know would be helpful for getting things started. So I don't know to maybe go off a little bit of what you were saying Andrew so you're kind of hinting at right you were really able to kind of connect with the initial set of customers define what it means to be selling in this space. Think about what is the story is you're going to be able to take out there and then other people are able to kind of go and take that forward. So now would you guys think about saying OK we have this asset in Andrew like how can we maybe as you think about how you're going to incorporate this new company you've acquired like how can we use that or is that kind of just in the back of your head and it's not really something that's an explicit decision making thing because there's so many other random things that like actually need your attention. It's not like we're in a maximize assets kind of place and building the company. I will jump in and so Andrew is the person at the company I feel that kind of is able to bridge the gap the best between the technology we're building and the problems it's
solving for end customers. So that's his secret sauce that we want to scale that we want to utilize that we want to like you're mentioning your sister is really good at starting things. Andrew is really good at that part. So I think like as we've gone forward certainly challenging for Andrew and I to get out of like the stuff we knew other people could do and we probably should give to other people but we just like felt like we had to own them for whatever reason. So I do think moving to a mindset where we're looking at that special thing that might not always be recognized might not always be seen and investing more. I do I do feel that's what we're doing with it with Andrew's new role. So we're putting him in a position where he doesn't have to do things that are not bring him energy that are not like he probably could do them. That's not the question here but what we know we can do extremely well is that piece which is bridging the gap between the technology itself and what the day to day things the customers are seeing. So short answer is yes we've seen things like that and have invested in it. And when I say that even in the leadership standpoint we our roles might change.
If we're ever changing your role because you're bad at something maybe that means you shouldn't be here or something like that. We should be changing your role because you're really good at something and other people can do those other things that maybe don't bring you energy. Well that's where the ego thing comes into as well as like we're fundamentally trying to do something that breaks 99 out of 100 companies and 99 out of 100 leaders at these 99 out of 100 companies. Right. So like with that comes the ability for you to understand and recognize where you're adding the most value as a leader at an organization or even not as a leader at an organization. Right. And while this idea of you know all just use the example of me leading the sales team right while the idea of it was great and good as someone who's been in software sales as long as I had right. You have to take a step back and say hey is me managing and running one on one's with sales reps and doing performance management conversations and is that adding the most value to the business or is me being able to you know jump into some of these other product related things and integrations talking partnership and be this almost
enablement tool for these sales folks as opposed to being the direct manager like have an honest conversation around like either or you can't do everything right. The first step is identifying that someone like preem can't can't do everything. But where can we utilize preem skill set or Brian skill set to add the most value to the business and have an honest conversation around what that value to the business is right. And again I think one thing is like going back I can't imagine doing that as a soul. Loan founder when you know me and preem and Brian are able to benefit from the fact of we have different perspectives to be able to hold each other accountable to what we're doing day to day and and and in the long term for for the health of the business because the reality is now it's no longer just our lives at stake right but we have 4050 people now at humanly that are counting on us to move this thing forward right and if we make decisions that you know if we run out of money and I know it's one thing for someone to read a book around doing a start up and taking risks and going out and putting billboards up in San Francisco and like spending a bunch of money right but that is going to burn runway and then you have the the stakes of the health of the business and the people that are counting on you that like rest on preem shoulders rest on our shoulders as founders so that the stakes there are different in many cases. Yeah so I guess maybe kind of on the same vein but also switching gears lately so right you Andrew hinted at like he just had a child and like I'm sure you both have what five children between you over time your ability to just invest time into the company must have been different.
How have you guys navigated that like have you been able to kind of just have upfront conversations around like this is how much time I have I only can put 30 hours a week in right now or 50 hours a week and I can't go beyond that or do you just kind of deal with it as it happens and muddle through. Yeah I know I mean I think certainly the the times of day that I'm investing in change a lot I think like there is certainly a correlation between time invested in impact but I've started to realize that I'm much more impactful in the time that I am investing in the past like my barriers around my time are really fluid like yeah I have this event I have to do with friends but I can probably miss it if I have some work stuff but I can't miss like reading to my daughter putting her to sleep like there's so it's created certain restrictions that have caused me to kind of maximize my time there's a book by a sales leader about I think he got sick I believe it was cancer was a long time ago that I read it but you have to move into you know working more traditional 30 to 40 hours in a really highly stressful job but he ended up being much more efficient so I think there are things you can do. My previous CEO used to do this little hack where when he went to Starbucks he would not bring his charger so that he knew he had to get everything done before his computer died and I think when you create those kind of boundaries and limitations on how your time can be used you can maximize but for sure though like we definitely one of the reasons Andrew and I. Not not reasons but one of the things that was compelling for us as we decided to enter into a founder relationship was the fact that you know we both had kids I knew there'd be times where you know brought Andrew brings a really strong business set so it was really great where I knew there'd be times where I might need him to go talk to an investor or do things that may maybe I could have done but I knew in the life I was signing up for I wouldn't be able to do it exactly the times that I wanted it to so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted to do so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted to do so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted to do so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted to do so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted to do so that did go into the founder decision but yeah those are the things that I wanted
to do so I thought there'd be that kind of thing and I didn't want to do it exactly the same way and I didn't want to do it exactly the same way and you know that I wanted to do it a lot more than just a couple of things I'll say. Yeah I mean the reality there gonna be times where it's like hey I just like I need your help. Like I there's there's no way around it right I was thinking you know like there was a moment and you know this is where it gets really personal like significant health challenges that I that I deal with and you know I remember when we're in Y.C. is that we obviously can spend talking about at length. But like Brian and Prem used to fly down weekly to go to Y Combinator and I would pick him up
at the airport on my way driving to Mountain View and like we would stay in a sleazy motel in Mountain View for the three months that we were in Y Combinator but actually ended up on one of the trips I ended up in the hospital for a couple of days
just because of some health complications, right? And like there are like real tangible moments there. Like we as founders have to be able to have honest conversations around like, look, I just need your help, right?
Like there's no way around it. Like I'm gonna need you to step up and like, again, it goes back to one of the first things we spoke about which is that like that shared understanding, that shared stake that like, hey, yeah,
it might suck for those three or four days I'm out and you're gonna have to be pulled in and you're gonna be working, you know, 20 hour days or whatever that, but like I'm only doing this because there's no physical
physical way for me to actually do it and I do need your help. And I'm gonna make up for it and we're gonna keep pushing this thing forward and like understanding that there's nothing
like nefarious behind it and that like we can just support each other and the business needs us to be able to support each other for us to be successful. Cause in five and a half years
there have been a ton of those moments, right? That we've had to pick up for each other. I guess the thing I'm thinking about is something that we've struggled with that Divya and I, my business partner
and I have struggled with is just that we're in such different places, right? That for me, you know, I'm doing this business having already run a company. Unfortunately, you know, I ended up shutting down
that company, it wasn't the happiest of outcomes, but also just in a very different financial place than my business partner is. And something that we've just kind of struggled with is like, how do you think about
what is fair compensation for hours worked? And then also how do you think about it in terms of need? Cause especially at the early parts of the company it's like, well, you know, if Divya is not being paid sufficiently
she can't do this with me, right? And I don't have that limitation, right? Like I don't need to be paid at this point and I still could do this. I don't know, did you guys ever deal
with these kinds of struggles early on? Like how did you navigate them? Yeah, no, it's a really great question. And yeah, we have, you know, I think obviously myself, Andrew and Brian, Brian not having kids.
It's a different situation from just the lifestyle. But, you know, at the end of the day, like it's, yes, there are scenarios where we know that someone's really important to the business and they might have different needs that they have.
But we do have to like, at some point, tie it down to some sort of framework and we can't be completely willy nilly based on assessing needs. We need to have rules, we need to have standards.
So we have like maybe more early than some startups gone to like a leveling framework and there's some like method to the madness using data from CARTA from PAVE from third parties to kind of have a, like what we want to do
is be able to be fair, equitable and pay obviously paying based on impact that you're making. But that has caused situations for sure where there might be some people that just happen to need more money than others.
It becomes a really slippery slope when you try and get too custom there. So we have to kind of stick to our guns. From a founder standpoint, when you're first starting it, like you can kind of adjust a little bit in terms of,
hey, I'm making a giant life sacrifice in this way, you're making a sacrifice another way, how can we kind of ensure that compensation both, like for example, and you can give choices where, yeah, I might like, because I have kids,
I might want to take more cash than equity. I'm just an example where there are things I think you can adjust for flexible benefits. Even in offers you give to employees that come on, there might be some people that are wanting
to take more equity. And if that is within the level band, I'm good with it. We're not gonna like go completely arbitrary, but if you're within kind of the framework we have, there might, I've had some,
one of our mutual friends Kabir, let me know at his company, he'd give folks like two offers basically, one that has a higher equity lower cash, the other that has a higher cash lower equity.
And to me, that can then help you adjust based on what's important to the individual. What was the circumstance that led you to putting the leveling system in place? Was it like a size?
Like you could just like grown to a certain size and it felt like we needed it or? Yeah, that's right. A lot of it was that. So as we started to, this guy would say,
as soon as we got to like 15 people, we started to realize that, hey, we've made some decisions from a salary standpoint that like they don't scale. We need to be consistent.
We need to be fair. And we had adjustments we made so that everything is more standardized. So that was part of it. We started realizing there was inconsistencies
that because we didn't have like a standard. Well, things at times get squishy, right? Like I think we think about things as binary as possible, but the reality is like, even in performance conversations,
like where someone is in their development, like I'm not always sitting there talking to someone about what their title is and what it's gonna be to the very next, like without having some sort of framework or structure,
it's a challenge to really provide someone the performance management and the career growth opportunities that they want to see because it's just not being talked about, right? In the right way, right?
And so I think for the sake of the folks we are bringing into the organization, it's less about putting them in this rigid box, more so defining a framework so that we can then ensure that folks that are growing, that are improving, that are doing it in a way
and compensated in a fair way, that they feel valued, right? Cause at the end of the day, if someone's not feeling like they're growing and being valued in the way they should, they're gonna leave or they might be disengaged
and not have that shared understanding of wanting to get through all the really hard, all the stuff we talk, all the hard stuff we have to get through. If they're not feeling valued,
they're sure as hell not gonna jump through those hoops, they're gonna go and find a much better situation for themselves, right? Yeah, and then that's a good point, Andrew. And I think it ties back to like,
Karni, you were kind of asking earlier too about, as we were having the conversation about the company situation changing and is everyone kind of like their roles might be different at different stages.
It is really tough when you have someone early that might be one of your first employees. And at that time where there's just a few of you, they're working with the founders every day. They're very much feeling like they're one of the founders.
It is hard if you don't have the conversation early when the company grows, if they are more junior, maybe they aren't necessarily going to be a good fit in the next stage once you grow the team. But I think kind of having those conversations early
is hard but important where you might grow in different ways than the folks around you or how the company, and the leveling framework can help there. I think setting that expectation early and showing people kind of, this is your path here.
Yeah, I'm reminded of my good friend and former roommate who was really early at Rover. And he kind of went through that where he was a co-founder and then they didn't really feel like he was in a great place to kind of be a CTO or be a VP of engineering.
And eventually, right today, he is the CTO, right? Eight years later, but there was good six years where he was an IC. And I think he didn't, it was only that he really loved a company that kind of kept him there
because he didn't feel very valued by that process. And they had to have some really difficult conversations around what is the equity that you're giving to me. And I think that really stemmed from not feeling valued. Then you really want to understand exactly
what is the compensation that I'm going to get from here if I don't feel like I'm seen as a valuable player. The music is by Akshay Ramu Halli of BTRPT Music. Editing is by Beatnik. First off, thanks, Kahran.
This has been an awesome conversation. And thank you for anyone listening out there. I hope that you enjoyed this video. I hope that you enjoyed it.
I'll see you next time. Bye now. Bye. For sure, check out our website if you have hiring needs, humanly.io.
You can send me an email to premhumanly.io or look me up on LinkedIn. But yeah, happy to be connected on any of these topics and to chat more about them. Mine's easy also, just Andrew at humanly.io.