Flow: Why It Can Increase Company Profitability

mitchellake on May 6, 2019

I first heard the word “flow” when my high school music teacher talked about playing the piano, and again during University when my singer friend spoke of writing music (the opposite of writer’s block). Now I know the term flow isn’t exclusive to hip-hop artists and stage performers.

Flow as a concept was pioneered by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the early 90s, and is said to be representative of a state of being when a person is totally immersed and absorbed in a given activity, entirely unaware of the world as it is unfolding around them. Martin Seligman, Founder of the Positive Psychology movement (and author of Flourish identified this is as an integral component in wellbeing, as it is indicative of engagement in a given life, and has been shown to also increase positive emotions, sense of meaning and life-satisfaction.

In their book Ikagai Garcia and Miralles (2016) make the connection between flow and living longer, portraying elderly residents of Okinawa in rural Japan who spend the majority of their days in flow – working or attending to their vegetable gardens. In Okinawa, the Western concept of retirement isn’t the done thing (in fact there is no Japanese equivalent for the word “retire”), yet the number of people over the age of 100 is far higher than the global average, and are said to be some of the healthiest, happiest people in the world. It’s important to note however, that different cultures experience flow from different things, and what would lead to flow in rural Japan wouldn’t necessarily be the same for the Western world. Put it this way, the Instagram generation is a bit of a flow-stopper.

The concept of “flow” has been consistently linked with wellbeing but is coming up more and more recently in relation to employee engagement. It is now widely recognised that employee engagement is linked with a multitude of positive business outcomes – including happier more productive staff, reduced sick leave and staff turnover, enhanced creativity and problem-solving skills, and ultimately increase bottom-line profits. A Culture Amp on the financial return from wellbeing programs focused on increasing employee engagement demonstrated that for every dollar spent, costs associated with absenteeism alone decreased by over fifty cents. This is in addition to all the other aforementioned benefits.

Flow is closely linked with employee engagement, in that for flow to occur there must be a match between the challenges of the job and skill of the individual involved in the role. This challenge-skill match is essential for flow to occur, and is ultimately conducive to more engaged, more productive, happier employees. In fact, a 10-year study by McKinsey showed that employees in flow are five times more productive than normal. Sign me up!

So how do we ensure our employees are attaining flow-states more often?

Understanding strengths – This starts with understanding employee’ strengths and weaknesses and assigning tasks/ upskilling accordingly. Flow can’t be attained where a task is too easy or too difficult. Strengths tests such as Clifton Strengths Finder and VIA Strengths are good, cost-effective ways to assess the strengths of employees during interview stages, as well as current employees.

Job description sculpting – Once strengths have been identified, it’s easier to see where staff flourish and assign tasks accordingly. This doesn’t necessarily mean changing their entire role, it can simply be adding extra tasks, or taking away something in favour of allotting more time to something else.

Minimise distractions – Allow employees time to block out time in their diaries to get big tasks done in one flow-like spurt. Check out this article by Paul Graham.

Delegate – Is there a task one of your team could take on instead of you? Risk in the short-term might mean opportunity in the long-term.

Empower – As much as possible, empower staff to make decisions and voice their ideas. Encourage them to be themselves, allowing them to bring their authentic selves into the workplace. Mark Robbins is a thought-leader in this concept of “bringing your whole self to work” so if you want to learn more about why it’s important, check out his latest book.

Vision – Although this isn’t a necessity for achieving flow, working towards a meaningful, common outcome increases overall employee engagement and the chances of attaining a flow-state more regularly. Ensure staff are kept up to date with the big conversations and understand where they fit into the wider picture/ how their contribution affects the overall success of the business they’re working in.

Thank you for reading; I’d love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to get in touch with any feedback/your personal experience of flow in the workplace.

Author

Originally from Scotland, Lara Morgan studied Psychology in her hometown of Glasgow before moving to the big smoke to pursue a career in clothing product development. Realising it was the people behind the products that fascinated her most, Lara moved to Melbourne five years ago and has since focussed her efforts on hiring in the marketing, product and UX design space. Lara satisfies her passion for people, culture and “human flourishing“ with postgraduate studies in Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, where she critically examines contemporary science-based methods for enhancing the wellbeing and performance.
Machine Learning Series: Hear it from Industry Leaders

mitchellake on April 12, 2019

Part 2: The journey of implementing ML featuring carsales.com Ltd and Culture Amp

 

Introduction (for new readers)

This series is dedicated to all Machine Learning (ML) enthusiasts, especially those who reside in Australia and are interested to learn more about the local landscape. It is an eight-part series, published weekly, covering topics from business applications, advice for business stakeholders and aspiring engineers, approach in implementing machine learning as well how to source for talent in the market.

The motivation for creating this series is a personal quest to satiate my curiosity in this space, at the same time I hope it offers a good insight into what goes on behind-the-scenes.

This week, we continue the conversation with Gus and Michael to find out how they’ve taken carsales and Culture Amp on the journey to adopting ML.

Panel:

Agustinus ‘Gus’ Nalwan, Head of AI and ML @ carsales.com Ltd

Michael Ridgway, VP of R&D Engineering @ Culture Amp

Background:

carsales.com Ltd (ASX: CAR) is the largest online automotive, motorcycle and marine classifieds business in Australia. Gus is the pioneer of carsales.com Ltd’s award winning AI technology, Cyclops, an AI-assisted image recognition tool for vehicle recognition.

Culture Amp is the world’s leading employee feedback and development. To date, they’ve worked with more than 2,000 companies and over 3 million employees. Michael was instrumental in making ML happen at Culture Amp, having built out their first ML team.

From here, carsales.com Ltd will be abbreviated to carsales.

Q: What was the process in implementing ML in the business and how did you approach it?

 

Gus @ carsales:

“… we gathered around 15-20 people from across the business which we call an AI guild to work on four AI projects.”

Our current Managing Director of Consumer Business, Ajay Bhatia, who was our CIO at the time, first raised the concept of using AI at carsales in 2015. We decided to explore what machine learning can do for our business and gathered around 15-20 people from across the business which we call an AI guild and to work on four AI projects.

I lead the AI guild and also was also a member of the Cyclops team and our business case was to identify how image recognition could automate our internal processes. We focused on how we could specifically reduce the manual load in classifying photos by carsales staff for ad listings. Initially we looked into solutions already available in the market, but they were going to be too expensive, so we decided to spend the next two weeks building something ourselves.

After building our proof of concept (POC) for Cyclops we required more resources, so we entered Cyclops into an internal carsales Hackathon. The carsales Hackathon is an event where people from across the business come together to solve business issues or be innovative. Cyclops was developed by a team of tech and non-tech professionals for diversity of thought and to ensure the final product would be commercially viable.

After a successful carsales Hackathon, we were given the green light to work more regularly on Cyclops. From the original Cyclops prototype we conducted a pilot integration into our internal photographic management solution. This process took about three months and we had terrific results. Cyclops is now integrated into all the photo publishing pipelines at carsales (including our mobile apps) and processes more than 100,000 photos a day.

Michael @ Culture Amp:

When I started, we had only a few data scientists and a large team of Ruby engineers working on the core product. Our data scientists were awesome at exploring data and coming up with theoretical models, however they did not have the ability to put that into production. On the other hand, our Ruby engineers were great at programming, but didn’t understand ML well enough to know what could be done with the data. There was this massive gap hindering the production of intelligent solutions, and I was hired to fix that problem.

“The goal was to build up a ML team, but hiring unicorn ML / AI developers wasn’t feasible, nor would it be the best approach.”

I pieced together the existing capabilities that we had and worked out what were negotiables and non-negotiables in new hires. The important traits we looked for were strong engineering fundamentals and passion. Commercial experience with ML would be great, but this is an immature space and not many would have had the opportunity to work with it commercially. This proved to be a good hiring strategy, as the ML engineers we hired had the ability to understand the math, algorithms and models produced by the data scientists, and work with Ruby developers to bring it into production.

—

Have some burning questions of your own that weren’t answered? Please comment below or let me know at rachel.chong@mitchellake.com as I’m planning the next series and would love new ideas!

(Next week) Part 3: Advice for business stakeholders

Merge of the Corporate and Startup World

mitchellake on February 11, 2019

It’s been so refreshing to see the emergence of digitalisation in the corporate landscape and how it was once a small part of teams trying to innovate.

Now, digital change and transformation are on every company’s leadership and cultural agenda. Digital innovation and transformation are necessary to stay ahead of the competition, exceed customer’s expectations and improve performance. The disruption from startups has contributed to this change.

Corporates are not only innovating by creating new software solutions for themselves to be more efficient, or creating new channels to be faster to market, but are also innovating by acquiring startups. We are seeing these two worlds merge as corporates find the need to reach new customers, access new skills or expand globally and into a new market.

According to a KPMG trend report, US $630 million of Venture Capital has been invested in Australia over the 2017-18 financial year.

We see large corporates create dedicated strategic venture teams to focus on these investments in startups. NAB, for example, is increasing investment in their corporate venture fund which will see it at $100 million by 2020. They have invested in over 12 FinTech startups providing the bank with access to world-class technology.

SEEK has strategically invested in startups that are aligned to them such as Digitary and Sidekicker, partnering with these businesses and being part of the disruption taking place in the employment and learning sectors.

It’s impressive to see how digital transformation has evolved and to hear about the successes of startups. We will continue to see corporates innovate and broaden their offerings by investing in and acquiring startups throughout 2019. The corporate world is recognising the need to work with startups and be agile.

Why I joined MitchelLake Group

This evolution is one of the reasons I decided to join the MitchelLake Group – merging corporate and startup recruitment.

MitchelLake works with the most exciting tech companies in the world. They have a global reach with offices in San Francisco, Singapore, London, Sydney and Melbourne, and are the only recruitment firm in Australia with global access to market insights from the startup ecosystem.

MitchelLake are experts in the tech space and have an in-depth approach to research methodology accessing the best global tech talent.

Clients have included – Qantas, Facebook, Etsy, EY, ebay, dropbox, atlassian, Snapchat, Redbubble, 99designs, Envato, Flippa, McKinsey Digital Labs, Campaign Monitor, Xero, Yammer, Hooroo, Aconex, Vend, Wikia, Avanade, Lonely Planet, Hotels Combined, Groupon, The Iconic, Boston Consulting Group, 12WBT, ANZ Bank

My background

I have invested over 16 years developing deep networks across Digital, Marketing and Product and ensuring the recruitment strategy is always aligned with my client’s overall business strategy.

I have worked with both local and international markets and was a co-founder of a boutique executive recruitment firm. I have also worked for a global listed recruited firm as well as for internal recruitment teams in the UK.

With a passion for digital innovation within corporates, I advise growth businesses on how to build successful teams.

Sources: Smartcompany.com, Business Insider, AFR, KPMG, NAB Ventures

To Share or Not to Share: Co-working Spaces

mitchellake on October 31, 2018

This question has come up several times lately – do we move our twelve person office into a shared workspace? For five or so employees it’s a no-brainer, but for more than ten and growing, further investigation is required to come to a sensible conclusion.

 

As with most things, there are pros and cons to both. Obvious pros – specifically for us, it makes sense being closer to our ecosystem of technology startup clients; and for startups and other more established companies alike; networking, partnerships, flexibility, funding, the list goes on. Obvious cons – lack of space, lack of privacy, distraction. But let’s dig a little deeper.

 

We recently moved our Sydney office to one of the main shared workspaces the Hub. I had a chat to one of Sydney counterparts to see what he thought. The main takeaway from our chat was convenience/ ability to network – many of the startups he was working with were located in the same space, and others heard he was there so came to chat with him, allowing him to easily foster new connections. He even managed to facilitate placing a Director into a startup in the same building.

 

Downsides, walking around whilst talking on the phone which he tended to do often is no longer an option, for fear of disturbing others. Another downside, a client he was working with was once sitting next to their direct competition in the market and heard their entire sales pitch. The client moved offices the following day.

 

I got chatting to a Rome2Rio Founder at an event recently and he explained that original co-working space Inspire9  was one of the main hubs of the startup ecosystem 7-8 years ago, and support network it created was the reason a lot of startups in during that time succeeded and became what they are today, like Culture Amp for example. Another advantage, the buzz that manifests with so many creative and driven individuals under the same roof can be impossible to replicate in a small office, where when a few people are absent or in meetings, can become pretty flat. But when your work requires constant human interaction in the form of stand ups and phone calls, would sharing an office space really be a feasible option to accommodate all of that chatter?

 

My brother works for video creation startup Biteable who are based in hip shared workspace The Commons (Collingwood). I popped over for a peep to aid my investigations further. Initial thoughts, WOW, so much greenery. Secondary thoughts, WOW so many people. He escorted me through all the living creatures, green and otherwise, until we reached a door surrounded by glass windows. He opened it, welcoming me into Biteables’ own little cordoned off area. Hurrah! You can have separate rooms within shared workspaces, now we’re talking..

 

So what next for our office dilemma? We will bide our time as we hunt for some more #curious #mindful lakers to join the Mitchellake [Melbourne team but who knows, if we can get a private space big enough, maybe in time we will join the cohort.. 🙂

Author

Originally from Scotland, Lara Morgan studied Psychology in her hometown of Glasgow before moving to the big smoke to pursue a career in clothing product development. Realising it was the people behind the products that fascinated her most, Lara moved to Melbourne five years ago and has since focussed her efforts on hiring in the marketing, product and UX design space. Lara satisfies her passion for people, culture and “human flourishing“ with postgraduate studies in Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, where she critically examines contemporary science-based methods for enhancing the wellbeing, performance and employee engagement.

Australia – You Should Be Paying Attention to eSports

mitchellake on October 22, 2018

Ten years, even five years ago, could you imagine a world in which people would pay to watch others play video games? Did you ever think there would be a future in which your children can be classed as a professional athlete for playing their most beloved video game?

The simple answer to both these questions is no, you probably wouldn’t.

For everyone who can’t possibly imagine that reality, if you take a look at the facts you’ll come to realise that this is real. eSports is making this real, and it is definitely on the rise. It’s an ecosystem experiencing near-exponential worldwide growth. This is spreading and evolving in Australia and as all predictors indicate, this will become a major player within the Australian sporting economy.

The Global Expansion of eSports

eSports in a global context generated a total revenue of $906 million US dollars this year alone (2018), had a worldwide viewership of 380 million people and is projected to reach $1.65 Billion US in total revenue by 2021. Considering that this is an industry that just 6 years ago generated an approximate revenue of around $130 million US, this is quite substantial in itself.

With revenues and growth of this magnitude, you would expect there to be a decent sum in it for the players – and you would be right.

According to esportsearnings.com, the largest prize pool for any eSports event goes to “The International 2018” for the game “Defense of the Ancients 2” (DOTA 2), which had a total prize pool of $25,532,177, beat last year’s prize pool of approximately $24.7M. And yes, this wasn’t paid in any form of crypto or in-game currency – this was some of that good ol’ paper money.

And if we have a look at how this compares to other traditional sports in terms of prize money in 2017, we can see in the space of less than 10 years, eSports competitions are already contending with traditional sports, which have been around for a substantial period of time.

In a viewership context, we have seen this grow alongside the revenue numbers. According to NewZoo, eSports is set to go well beyond this years viewership number of 380 million, with an expansion at the Combined Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.4%, which is set to push viewership numbers to approximately 557 million unique viewers by 2021 – that’s a lot of eyeballs.

When we also take into consideration that Twitch.tv, a video game streaming platform which was purchased by Amazon in 2014 to the tune of almost $1 Billion US, watched a total of 6 billion hours of content on their platform in 2017 – that gives considerable amount of evidence to suggest that people are into their eSports.

Australia has some catching up to do…

As with all things tech related, Australia is ‘there’, but ‘not quite there yet’. PwC’s Australian Entertainment & Media Industry Report 2018 recently indicated that the Australian eSports industry totalled $8 million in revenue last year, and is forecast to grow to $21 million by 2022. By all means, this is an indicator of major growth. But when you compare it to the global forecast of $906M, you’ll see that the Australian eSports industry really is a small fish in a big pond.

Although the numbers are considerably lower here at the moment in the land down-under, the eSports community is definitely growing. At the 2017 Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) hosted in Sydney, 7000 physical attendees and 8 million online viewers watched 8 teams battle it out on CS:GO. This year, TEG reported that over 12,000 people attended the Melbourne eSports Open.

To get to this stage so far, significant investment has been put into the industry.

You may have seen Guinevere Capital become a major investor in LG Dire Wolves in 2016 – from all reports this was the first eSports team purchase in Australia. Then the Essendon Bombers & Adelaide Crows bought their first eSports teams in 2017, and more recently the AFL announced a joint venture with Riots Games to bring an Oceanic League of Legends tournament to Melbourne.

 

So what’s next for eSports in Australia?

The F Word… Franchising

It could be wagered that the fact that a traditional sporting franchise, such as the AFL’s entrance and investment into eSports, will garner and propel the industry forward in Australia.

You only need to look at the investments made by larger sporting franchises in the US and UK to see how these companies have positively affected the reach of eSports. And what an investment by sporting franchises could mean for the industry in Australia.

In the US, Ted Leonsis and Peter Gruber, co-owners of the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Dodgers & Washington Capitals bought the esports franchise ‘Team Liquid’ in 2016. Then in 2017, the New England Patriots (NFL) and New York Mets (MLB) bought eSports teams in 2017, with both eSports teams set to compete in the Blizzard’s Overwatch League.

Over to the EU and we have seen prominent football clubs, such as Manchester City, FC Copenhagen and PSG buying into the eSports clubs, fielding teams that not only compete on the physical but also the virtual pitch. The list goes on.

With traditional sporting franchises in more advanced markets acquiring teams to add into their own franchise, not only can it be shown that eSports is starting to gain mass adoption in their economies; eSports are not just starting to look a lot like professional sporting leagues, they are truly becoming one.

So is this next for Australia?

Looking at the trajectory of the eSports ecosystem globally, you would see that this is a similar progression overseas as there are in Australian markets – there is a peak of interest, then teams are bought, traditional sporting bodies invest, finally more events and sponsors enter to bring the industry to the next level.

Currently, Australia is at the start of that journey. Who knows what the future will bring, but with the right companies, investors and national talent entering the industry one thing is for sure – eSports is a thing that you should be paying attention too.

Side Hustle: Leaders in Tech, On and Off the Clock (Pt. 1 – Evelyn Cordner)

mitchellake on October 10, 2018

A series of interviews that highlight successful people in tech and the things they do outside of work.

 

Evelyn Cordner: Ultra-Marathoner

Evelyn Cordner is the Head of Engineering at Storr, a stealth consumer startup backed by Craft Ventures, Abstract Ventures, the former CEO of Neiman Marcus, the former CEO of Macys.com, Alex Rodriguez, Elyse Walker, Phil Jackson, and executives from Apple and Google.

Storr is working with 60+ global brands like Chanel, Ray-Ban, and James Perse on a product that has been called the next evolution of commerce. Storr has created an ad-free model that drives significant revenue for users and charities. Prior to this, she was the Lead Engineer and Manager on the Growth team at cycling and running app company, Strava.

In the tech industry, we’ve seen the relentless drive of entrepreneurs who have set their sights on starting a company, growing it and selling it. Both those who have succeeded and failed have said that this experience was one of the biggest challenges of their lives. Evelyn Cordner set her sights on startup success when she accepted a role as a founding member and Head of Engineering at Storr earlier this year. On the side, Evelyn is an ultra-marathoner.

That means she runs a lot of miles and often at distances longer than a regular marathon. While it’s easy to equate the stamina and the drive needed to succeed in startups with what is needed to run these types of distances, Evelyn sees her hobby as a way to adventure and give herself a refresh from work.

Last month, she set out to run a 165-mile trail around Lake Tahoe. The Tahoe Rim Trail is a 165-mile single track trail (with 24,400 feet of elevation) that covers the circumference of Lake Tahoe. Organizing a group of family and friends for transportation, aid stations and crew support for the latter miles of the run, Evelyn completed 170 miles (includes some unforeseen detours) in 101 hours over 4.5 days which looked something like this:

  • Day 1: 40 miles
  • Day 2: 39 miles
  • Day 3: 44 miles
  • Day 4: 32 miles
  • Day 5: 16 miles

Some people would call you crazy. What was your motivation to do this?

I recently trained to do the Squamish 50/50 (50-mile race on Day 1 and 50K race on Day 2) and I wanted to leverage the fitness that I had from that training. I’ve always wanted to do the Tahoe Rim Trail, and this was the perfect opportunity. It felt like a now or never situation. And yes, people tell me I’m crazy all the time but my friends and I decided that bravenotcrazy is a more positive hashtag for something like this.

How do you motivate yourself to do something like this?

 

I’ve learned that it’s in my nature to want to understand my limits and try to push them as far as I can.

Is this same tendency also reflected in the way you approach your career?

Yes. The Tahoe Rim Trail was a new experience for me in a lot of ways. I had no idea how my body and mind would hold up to multiple, back-to-back days of ultramarathons. Starting a company is the same. There are so many unknowns. But in both running and startups, the unknowns are what make it so exciting, and what makes the accomplishment so sweet.

You used to work at Strava; why did you originally decide to join Strava?

Before I became a software engineer I was a stock trader on Wall Street. I felt an emptiness in my career. I couldn’t tie my daily work to a positive impact on the world, and I was surrounded by others who felt the same. We were all just counting down the hours until the weekend. I found Strava in my search for meaningful work in a positive and supportive environment. I was so lucky to find what I was looking for. One of the main differences between Finance and Strava was that people in Finance would say “Happy Friday!” and people at Strava would say “Happy Monday!”. That kind of positive attitude was infectious.

Why did you leave all of that to join Storr?

I came across Storr as I was looking for my next set of unknowns. I have always been inspired by Strava’s founders and the stories they told about starting the company. I was itching to try that myself. Then I met Eric (Senn), Jason (Senn) and Torie (Crown). I became a believer in the product, and the positive impact it could have on the world. I was inspired by the team and the validation they’d already achieved on the business side. On the engineering side, I had a clean slate. It was an opportunity for me to build a collaborative, supportive, inclusive and diverse engineering team from the ground up. My goal for our team is that they come to work inspired, and feeling like they can be their authentic selves every day. It’s a lofty goal. Storr presented a fantastic opportunity to push my limits. I had to take it.

So when you’re out there running 165 miles, what are you thinking about?

Not work! I was in what I like to call “Survival Mode”. All my physical and mental energy was dedicated to getting myself from Point A to Point B. You have to focus on the basic human needs: nutrition, hydration, rest, physical and mental health, and community (I could not have done this without my friends and family). I find that mindset to be very therapeutic. It allows you to remove yourself from the screens and go back to a primal state.

How does coming off an adventure like this affect you when you return to work?

Honestly, it’s a bit of a culture shock. But I find it helps to come back and see the problems you were working on with a fresh set of eyes. Like how going for a run often helps me debug a problem with my code.

What’s the message that you think you are sending to people that work for you and around you?

I’ve seen so many people burnout from working at an early stage startup. We want our team to stay around and grow with us. That means taking care of themselves and their families. So I think it sets the example that we can take our vacation, allow ourselves to focus on goals outside of work, live a balanced life, and thus be more productive at work.

Do you feel that you were supported by your team and management team through this?

The team was really supportive and I loved emailing them at the end of the day and updating them on my progress on the trail. They told me how proud they were and rooted me along remotely.

What did you learn from this particular adventure that you brought home with you?

The Tahoe Rim Trail was one of the first times in my life where failure not only felt possible, but probable. When starting a company, failure is also probable. I learned that with the right team, and maybe some “survival” instincts, we might be able to beat the odds.

Do you think you’ll do something like this again?

I will definitely continue to look for new challenges in both running and my career.

Founder insights: Lessons on hiring and restructuring for a scale-up

mitchellake on September 21, 2018

What constitutes a scale-up? How do you make the best out of your people and culture for success? Join us as we uncover interesting insights from the impressive co-founder of Oddle, Zeyan Lim.

What constitutes a scale-up? You’re probably not picturing two people tinkering on the next billion dollar idea in a scrappy garage. Instead, a company which has achieved a product-market fit, and have a band of employees working relentlessly to increase market share. As a company matures, the challenges of scale become more evident.

As a founder, you’re probably now giving a lot more thought to people and culture – do you have the right people to achieve your mission? Are they properly equipped?

How do you get the best out of your employees?

I had the chance to catch up with Jonathan Lim, founder of Oddle (an online ordering platform, equivalent of a “shopify” for restaurants) who shared his first-hand

experience of overcoming the challenges of scale. Founded in 2014, Oddle is now serving more than 1,400 restaurants in six countries, and had processed orders over $13M USD. Having only completed series A in October 2017, the team is already 60 strong and growing. Few have achieved such an impressive feat and I was excited to uncover some attributes to Jon’s success.

Rachel Chong (RC): What has been the biggest challenge for you in scaling Oddle?

Jonathan Lim (JL): In the past year, I had spent the bulk of my time in fundraising leading up to series A. We had a successful round, but I started to notice the lack of management depth within the team as the business scaled. In terms of technical and leadership abilities, there was an obvious gap between where my team envisioned themselves and where they were at that stage. We were also actively hiring across different markets, and didn’t have a structured assessment and hiring process in place to effectively screen out misaligned candidates.

The challenges were two-fold, figuring out how to bridge the gap in management depth as well as making sure our values were reflected across all company processes and hiring criteria.

RC: Let’s talk about the first step in making your hiring process more effective. What did that involve?

JL: I now require all candidates to be screened by myself as the last stage before they come onboard as a new hire. I also created an assessment template and implemented a structured way to document feedback by each interviewer so we can objectively review why a candidate passed or failed an interview. The documentation is really useful in facilitating our learning, especially when we revisit our process every time a bad hire is made.

Talking about bad hires, I’ve learnt to fire negative people without mercy. It reflects the wrong company values keeping them, and overtime will result in a toxic environment for the rest of the team. Some may have roughed through the difficult times with you, but you shouldn’t overcompensate them because of guilt. Compensate only if they are good.

RC: Do you notice a higher rejection rate now that you’re involved in last stage screening? What are some of the deciding factors on whether you offer someone a job?

JL: Yes, I’ve rejected many candidates who have passed all other stages of interviews. What I look for is attitude and curiosity. I offer jobs to people who are hungry and gritty, and I invest my time in training people up who show initiative and passion. For example, my two product leads would unfailingly ask me about the articles and books I’ve read over the weekend and what I’ve learnt from it. They have been great hires for the company and are spearheading the technical direction of the business.

On the other hand, I’ve learnt that people going through identity crisis are time bombs. I’d steer away from them even if they might appear to be good candidates on paper.

RC: You mentioned that you noticed a gap between what people can do and what they are expected to do. Did you find a solution to this challenge?

JL: I’ve come to understand that I can’t assume smart people can learn on their own, businesses have to create structures to help them learn better. Different capabilities are needed to grow the company from 1 to 10, 10 to 50, 50 to 100, and so on. This gap became more apparent as we scaled. To grow your people you have to let them experience first hand where the gap lies between where they envision themselves and where they are now.

For any solution to be effective, people need to feel like they are being understood and constantly be reminded of where they can improve. I first encouraged everyone to complete a Clifton Strengths Assessment to identify their five dominant talent themes (for example – futuristic, activator, empathy, maximizer, strategic). People identify with the results (it’s like a mirror) and when they have something concrete in hand as a consistent reminder, they are more receptive to feedback.

Then, I restructured my team into multiple business units headed by a leader / advocate who is accountable for all decisions, actions and performance of their unit. Their responsibilities reflect where they envision themselves to be (e.g. management), including hiring / firing, making judgement calls on risky decisions, how to optimise the talent and performance of their team. They are free to run things across me, but ultimately they had full ownership and accountability over all of their actions.

This was an extreme exercise which exposed the specific areas leaders are lacking in, putting them in a vulnerable position. The results were very effective. The leaders experienced first hand where their gaps were and what steps they have to take in order to bridge that gap.

The Clifton Strengths Assessment provides a highly in-depth and precise profiling of an individual strengths compared to the more commonly known Myers-Briggs personality test. It presents an individual’s five most dominant talent themes, in which 278,256 combinations of the five themes are possible. Factoring in the difference in order of the five themes, the likelihood of an individual finding the same top five as themselves jumps to one in 33 million.

RC: How has Oddle’s culture evolved as the business scaled?

JL: Every person who joins or leaves the business creates a different dimension to our culture, but at the basis of that is how we define the form and tone of our communication.

For example, we’re practising a new way to communicate and receive feedback. I’m a big subscriber to Ray Dalio’s concept of Radical Transparency, as it removes personal biases and introduces objectivity to gain group consensus. There are a few ways this is applied in our company:

In a team meeting, I like to encourage ‘thoughtful disagreements’ where anyone, regardless of rank, to speak up if you think something is amiss or if you have a better way to solve a problem. If you think there’s a particular weakness I need to address, lay it out on the table and we can look at it together. I do the same in providing feedback. The idea is to encourage more open conversations where people challenge each other in search of a better solution, instead of taking things personally.

To maintain the objectivity of radical transparency, it should be supported by documentation and measurable performance. Supporting your arguments with data is how you can build group consensus even for a minority-voted solution. Data here can refer to an individual’s strengths (based on the Clifton assessment), previous experience and demonstrated success as basis on influence.

RC: It’s been incredibly insightful to hear of your challenges in scaling Oddle and how you overcame them. What are some key learnings you believe would be helpful for others in the same journey?

  • Always train the people in the company, even if they might leave the company.
  • Learn to differentiate between innovation and execution. Tolerate innovation failures, condemn executional failures. Most importantly, learn from failures. You win some, you learn some.
  • To disagree well you must first understand well. You have to read deeply, listen intently and watch closely.
  • Focus on the right problems to solve. You will only know what to solve when you know the whys and objectives.

If you have scaled a successful team and would like to share your story with us, or are looking to embark on a journey to scale your startup and want to share in our knowledge, please get in touch.

How Technology is Helping the World’s Food Waste Problem with Jane Kou

mitchellake on September 20, 2018

When Massachusetts of Technology introduced the MIT Food Cam, which posts photos of leftover food to Slack, Twitter and Gmail with the simple message “COME AND GET IT!”, they began tackling the food waste issue at a University-wide level.

Will Glesnes and Jon Fergusson actually invented the Food Cam back in 1999 to tackle food waste in buildings with catering for conferences, before social media as we know it even existed. We know therefore that people have been using relatively simple methods to reduce food waste on a micro level for at least twenty years, but what has been done since then about the issue?

In Australia, the Government estimates that food waste costs the Australian economy $20 billion each year. What’s worse is 4 million tonnes of food ends up as landfill and 1 in 5 shopping bags of food ended up in the bin, yet in Australia alone, there are nearly three million people living in poverty (¼ being children) without access to enough food.

There is enough food produced in the world to feed everyone. If one-quarter of the food wasted was saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people. Eliminating food waste on a global level would save 4.4 million tonnes of CO2 a year! As an everyday life example, throwing away as little as one burger wastes the same amount of water as having a 90-minute shower. I was initially sceptical when I heard about the emerging subculture of freegans (bin-raiders), but the more I learn about the world’s food waste problem, the more I think their eating habits make sense.

Thankfully, there are various ways in which technology is stepping up to help with the world’s inextricably linked food waste and hunger problem. What if we could easily match-up surplus food, with hungry people? That is the premise of US founded app Copia, which does exactly that by offering businesses an easy way to donate their uneaten food to nearby shelters and not-for-profits. Copia is technically a for-profit organisation and charges businesses a fee per each pickup and in return, the companies making the donation receive a tax write-off. They can also pay extra for data and analytics that may be able to help them reduce future costs. So far, Copia has delivered 900,000 meals in San Francisco and the Bay Area, reducing 3.5million lbs of CO2 emissions, with plans to eventually go global.

I was delighted when I recently discovered that there are people helping to solve the problem right here in Melbourne too. I was lucky enough to meet Founder Jane Kou and chat with her about her startup Bring Me Home app. Bring Me Home (BMH) works by connecting cafes restaurants who have leftover food they are going to get rid of, with hungry people who pay a discounted price and collect the food before it goes in the rubbish bin! They have recently gone live in Melbourne CBD, Carlton, and Brunswick, and so far have around 50 food establishments on board. We sat down and talked ideas, idols, mentors, startup accelerators, growth and the challenges of being a Founder.

JK: Thank you so much for reaching out first of all. I think you’re the only one from the event Above All Human that’s reached out to me, so I really do appreciate it.

LM: No problem, it is an issue I am really passionate about, so I am really so grateful to be able to talk to you about it! I’m interested to know, what did you do before beginning to work on BMH?

JK: When I first started BMH it was a month after I started my Master’s Degree. I did a Master of Commerce and then specialised in marketing at Melbourne Business School. And so during my Master’s degree, I was also doing a subject called social entrepreneurship, and I was writing a paper about food waste which is something I’m really passionate about. I came across a European company online which was doing something similar. It’s called [To Good To Go](https://toogoodtogo.co.uk/en-gb) – they have been operating for around three years now, and they’re now recognised as the world’s number one food waste app. I actually reached out to them and said that I wanted to work with them and I was working remotely with them before I started Bring Me Home. They operate in seven or eight countries in Europe, they’re pretty massive.

LM: How is Good to Go different to BMH?

JK: We operate in a different way in terms of strategy and go-to-market plans and branding too, a lot of things have changed. I realised how things should have worked differently and decided to do that for myself with my own app.

LM: What motivated you to start Bring Me Home?

JK: It was an accumulation of events that made me want to do this. When I was a kid I used to be so picky with my food – I would take one bite and throw it out. I think one day my mum had to discipline me and told me a story about when she was starving. She was told to leave her country for a better life and she was starving for days, and she told me, food gives people life, you should respect it and not waste it. That conversation we had always stuck with me, I think I was like twelve or something. Then when I was sixteen I started working in hospitality, I worked in a cafe, I saw the problem on a bigger scale. They threw out everything they couldn’t sell and I felt pretty overwhelmed. At first, I was like, “Yes! Free food yes I can bring it home!” but then you get sick of the same food every day so I ended up throwing it out too. I tried to practice minimal food waste at home, reuse everything as much as possible, but it was clear to me that something more needed to be done. Ever since I went into my Masters I realised this is the best solution ever for the waste problem. I thought “This is it, I have to do it!”

LM: Who is your favourite entrepreneur?

JK: I don’t think he’s considered an entrepreneur anymore, but Jack Ma, the Founder of Alibaba – I think his story is so inspiring. I can kind of relate to him if I’m honest. Number one, the reason why he is an idol, he’s Chinese I am Chinese, we can bond, I can relate to that (laughs). Number two is the fact that he tried to apply for a lot of jobs and even got rejected by KFC because of his looks! When he tried to get into retail he kept getting rejected because of his looks, he applied for like over fifty or eighty jobs and none of them gave him a job so he decided to start something else, and now he has turned it into a billion dollar company! I can relate to this struggle, as I am actually not Australian, I am still on a visa. I don’t know if you know for international students it is so hard to find a graduate job. Most have a requirement that you have to be a citizen or permanent resident to be eligible to apply. This has ruled out a lot of opportunities – I applied for over fifty jobs and got a couple interviews, but once they found out I am on a visa none of them said yes to me. That’s pretty terrible because I got the best education in the best business school in Australia and I still can’t get a job. I didn’t want the system to screw me over so I just decided to start a company right away. I thought I’m still young, it works it works; if it fails I’ll do something else!

LM: Good on you! I can relate to those difficulties, being an expat too. Was it simple enough to start your own company as a migrant?

JK: It was actually easier than I thought to start a business on a visa, at first I thought startup accelerators/ incubators would have the same requirements, but actually they are so open to migrants who want to do a business here and are so willing to help. That’s why I love the whole startup ecosystem because there is literally no discrimination, in fact, the more diversity the merrier! Whereas corporates here, are like why not satisfy the superior English requirements, which I don’t think even most Aussies can do. Nine is the highest score, and the consulting firms are looking for above eight for international applicants, so want you to have a perfect score before applying. It’s a bit ridiculous, I tried three times and didn’t get it so I gave up.

LM: That’s disappointing, but it’s really reassuring to hear that startup ecosystem is supportive and inclusive when it comes to cultural diversity. Are there any ideas you wish you had thought of?

JK: I’ve got so many. Back in Uni days, I had this idea that I wanted to start a dress renting business, you know for those expensive dresses that you wear once and then they sit in the wardrobe for years, money wasted. I thought of a platform where people can rent those dresses to reduce waste for the textile industry. I had that idea and recently saw an article about this company called [Glam Corner](https://www.glamcorner.com.au/) and they’re doing that, already raised like a couple million dollars and have been operating for five years. I’m really happy when I see someone implementing an idea I already had!

LM: Do you have a mentor, and if so how did you find them?

JK: I was pretty blessed to be able to find my own mentor through my own networks. I was doing a pitch at this event and this guy came down and gave me his business card – he said I am really interested in your idea and we should have a chat. He invited me to his company to pitch to some of his exec’ members, to have one of those boardroom pitch experiences. He warned me that they could be pretty ruthless and not to be discouraged if they ask me tough questions. Thankfully it went really well. After that, I asked him to be my mentor.

LM: That’s awesome! What do you find most useful about having a mentor?

KT: Oh it’s beyond words – for me, it’s a bit different because I don’t live with my parents, my parents are still overseas. I live with my younger brother, I had to take on an extra role which is the parenting role to make sure my brother is okay. I don’t have a lot of time to myself, it’s mostly work and family. I guess having a mentor is like having a parent, a guardian in Australia. The meaning of having a mentor is much more to me, much more than compared to what people think it is. I had a few mentors back then but I don’t really stay in touch with them, it’s usually a one-way interaction, I always reach out for coffee they never ask me how I’m doing. Ken is very different, he will always message me when he thinks of something to do with my business or just to see how I’m doing. He will even initiate to catch up, that for me is what I needed and for me, that is what a mentor relationship should be – it should be a two-way thing. I have other people I keep in touch with and ask for advice, but I don’t see them as mentors.

LM: I guess that is the essence of true mentorship! What did the journey look like before you partnered with leading startup accelerator Startmate?

JK: Before I got into the Startmate programme, I was working (on BMH) nine to five, giving myself a bit more time to relax. I kind of had a vision on how I want things to be but I didn’t think hard about the difficult questions. I didn’t know the metrics, what I’d need to know to measure my success, measure my growth, I didn’t know any of that stuff. My schedule was really just lots of admin stuff, work that isn’t really generating growth.

Ever since I got into Startmate – they are called the best accelerator programme in Australia for a reason – I agree with them completely! They have over ninety mentors in the network where all the Founders can reach out to them any time; they run workshops, people helping us, keeping us accountable for our goals, teaching us how to set metrics and how to strive for these metrics every week. That was so useful for me, I feel like I am operating at a better scale.

Back then it was just all admin stuff, it was tedious, not efficient and doesn’t really contribute to growth. Now what we’re doing, we’re always looking at growth rates, these metrics, now that translates to my schedule to being in the office at eight and I don’t leave till eight or nine, but it’s okay I’m really loving it. I’m in a co-working space most of the days including weekends, I reach out when I need help or when I’m stuck and they’re always there.

LM: What has been the most challenging element of launching your own digital product?

JK: Most challenging is operating with very limited resources. That is still a challenge that I’m facing. I haven’t started raising funds yet. I am going to open my first seeding round, I haven’t told anyone this. We have a demo day in three weeks and I am going to announce on the stage for the first time in ever that Bring Me Home is opening our first seeding round investment. We haven’t actually raised funds at all, everything has been bootstrapped so far. It is really tough to have limited money.

All the problems actually just come from limited money yeah (laughs), if I don’t have money I can’t recruit people, I can’t build a better product, I can’t improve it or have innovation pipelines implemented. And so it’s like funding is one of the issues, then it comes to recruitment, not enough people, so yeah I’d say limited resources. I could tell you the pretty picture but I should just tell you upfront!

LM: That is what every budding Founder knows is true but doesn’t want to hear!

 

Were there any areas going into it you thought you’d be pretty strong at, but in reality weren’t as straightforward as you thought?

JK: Marketing to the public – something I thought would be easy to do but it’s actually really hard, especially because I come from a marketing background that I came into that with confidence. But I need to unlearn everything I learned at Uni because Uni teaches theories that aren’t applicable to real life. Now I’m still learning, we’re doing weekly tests to test our assumptions. It’s always exploring what channels work best. We’ve identified emails work well for us when it comes to conversions, but we’re also thinking about channels that are brand awareness and conversion so we’re thinking ahead to see what we need to do. On the flip side, there aren’t things that are easier than I thought they would be, I think everything is pretty hard! (laughs)

LM: Were there any major changes to the concept along the way?

JK: There was one very important feature that we just can’t implement because of the new Apple Store policy. On the payment page, we used to have this tip jar, or donation jar, where anyone can donate up to $2 to one of our partner charities. The reason why $1 means a lot, it could deliver two-five meals to someone. I just wanted to make donation easy, as if it’s via their website there is this tedious form, people don’t want to do that for just one or two dollars, I wanted to make it just click and donate while they purchase their meal. I was so confident that this would make people donate more frequently!

But unfortunately Apple changed the policy; we can’t have a tip jar, we can’t have a donation jar, we have to have hyperlinks to direct people to the charities website and they have to fill out the form again. I just thought I have to do that because otherwise, I can’t publish the app. This was a little downhill I faced because I was so excited about the feature (sighs). My dev’ team took a while to roll out the feature. It was a bit of a disappointment for me, but sometimes policies change and there is nothing we can do about it. I still have the hyperlinks but I am just not really sure what the conversion rates are like.

LM: With budding Founders in mind, how difficult was it to gain funding and help from a startup accelerator?

JK: Startmate is the hardest to get in I would say. They have a very rigorous process. Every year they have around three-hundred applications and take the top 10% to interview. This cohort is the largest one, they had more teams than they had before. Around thirty people got interviewed, then half of them goes to the final round and then they will select the ones that get through. I actually got through the application but I didn’t get through the interview so I didn’t get to the final interview. They actually called me up the week before Startmate started and said they really like me as a Founder and they like my hustle and they want me to be in the cohort. I said yes right away! I was really happy.

LM: What do you think your biggest obstacle to success will be in achieving your goals?

JK: I think actually it’s my visa. Funding is challenging but will not be an obstacle. Currently, there are people that are interested in investing, but when it comes it due diligence I have to tell them my visa is expiring in eleven months. And I am still trying to think of a plan B C D, to tell them it won’t expire and I have ways to extend it. There is self-sponsor for businesses, but this is hard when there isn’t enough revenue. It is a bit of a red flag for investors and a roadblock to funding. And lack of funding leads to things other things that we can’t solve, so I’d say visa is my biggest roadblock for now.

LM: That’s hard, well our fingers are crossed for you for that seeding round! If there is one moment you could either take back or have a “do over” in your journey so far what would it be?

JK: I’d probably get started earlier, not waste time focussing on my studies, 100%. If I could have started during my undergrad I would have done it. In my undergrad, I had a lot of misbeliefs from my friends or family saying I should get work experience before starting my own company. I do see the benefits, but my work experience is still not great before I started, nothing compared with what I am learning now. Now I feel like I am four or five years ahead of my peers because of what I am learning every day with actually doing it. I just wish I started earlier.

LM: What has been your biggest discovery or learning curve since starting work on the app?

JK: We launched roughly four weeks ago, we launched mid-August, I didn’t expect so much traction in the first week. We rescued over a hundred meals in the first week! That is around twenty sales a day for the first week. I was not expecting that, I was expecting maybe two sales a day to start with. I was like wow what is happening this is crazy! Not a learning curve but an unexpected moment (smiles).

In terms of a learning curve – make sure the foundations are laid properly before you grow. That is one thing I learnt from a conversation I had with a European Founder, the Founder of Karma App, who is doing something similar as Too Good to Go. I had a very interesting chat with the Head of Expansions. BMH and Karma are more aligned, we want to generate volume before expanding too quickly.

I think that was one of the biggest learning curves that I realised. Generate volume before expanding too quickly, quality not quantity. I think Startmate encourages everyone to grow and expand fast but doesn’t work if is a hyperlocal business where I need to make sure that everyone in the area is using it. It is different for SaaS businesses can operate anywhere internationally but not for me, I have to do it locally first.

That is the biggest learning for me, having that realisation that I am different from them, I shouldn’t be listening to some of their advice. It’s being able to filter out advice that is useful for me, and not be overwhelmed and bombarded by lots of peoples opinion. This is one of the biggest skills that I am acquiring at this stage.

LM: Ironically, that is one piece of advice that can be applied to almost any startup! Identifying what is relevant to you and filtering out the other advice. What is your ultimate vision for Bring Me Home?

JK: I want to be Australia’s leading B2C food waste platform, actually B2C retail surplus platform, not just food, I have plans to expand other potential markets. Anything that is perishable, anything that has an expiry date I would like to tap into that. I want to be able to saturate the major cities in Australia to begin with before I move into adjacent markets.

Bring Me home has so far saved 430 meals from going in the rubbish bin. If you’d like to help to reduce food waste, and save money on food while you’re at it, download the app via app store.