Natalie Nagele Wildbit Feeding the Beast
Transcript of Natalie Nagele Wildbit Feeding the Beast
Natalie NageleCEO of Wildbit
@natalienagele
Keeping the Fun in Your Business Life
16 100,000+ 27YEARS IN BUSINESS
COMPANIES LOVINGOUR PRODUCTS
FAMILY MEMBERSIN 5 COUNTRIES
A development workflow you use, not manage
A fast & reliable transactional-only email platform for web applications
A complete workflow to write, review & deploy code.
Instantly build and ship code anywhere in one consistent process for your entire team.
In Beta!
1. Happy
2. Profitable
3. Growing
4. Bootstrapped
5. Having a LOT of fun
We are:
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Beanstalk Growth
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Beanstalk Growth
Growth happened to us
Don’t just copy what others do (duh!)
We had no purpose except to grow
Photo by Medena Rosa via Unsplash
1 Why did you start your business?
Photo by averie woodard via Unsplash
Why did we start Wildbit?• Financial security
• Control our future
• Prove we can do it
• Have fun!
Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov via Unsplash
Why are you running your business?
The bigger you become, the farther away you drift from why you started in the first place.
2 The Beast
The Beast is the business itself
Image credit:Google
What do I need?What does the team need?
–You
What does the business need?–The Beast
Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash
But, the business isn’t real
What is real?• You
• Your team
• Your customer
• Your community
What is real?• You
• Your team
• Your customer
• Your community
Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
What’s real? The people
3 Your Team
Happy team = $$$$
Focus on your team first. Then they can focus on your customer .
We exist for our team
Team is committed to each other , not a product
3.1 Team - Intentional Culture
Cyprus Retreat2007
Culture sometimes happens to you
Does your culture leave others behind?
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–Wikipedia
Organizational culture encompasses values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and
psychological environment of an organization.
“”
Image BenKrantz.com
Photograph by Officesnapshops.com
Photograph by glassdoor.uk
Photograph by Yucatar
You need to make sure you have healthy values if you want to build a company
focused on the people that build it.
Why do people have a job?1. Success or purpose in their professional life
2. Enable a life outside of work (we work for our hobbies)
Work to live vs. live to work
Tie your values to those simple principles.
Wildbit is product agnostic. We exist to support our team.
As individuals, we are self motivated and constantly improving our craft.
As a team, we support each other to do the work of our lives.
We expect great things from ourselves. You should expect the same from everyone else.
We are driven by one metric: our customer’s success.
Be respectful, natural and transparent in communication.
Most things are not urgent. Be patient, stay calm, go home.
The best work happens in peace and quiet (or when you are not around a computer).
Be practical. The best decisions consider time, resources and mutual acceptance.
Don’t be an asshole.
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Wildbit is product agnostic. We exist for our team.
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Don’t be an asshole10
Policies back up values
1. Flexible working hours
2. Profit sharing
3. Competitive salaries
4. Private offices
5. Best benefits we can afford
Policies like:
What work fulfills the team?
If we built Beanstalk today , what would it look like?
4 The founders
Lifestyle Business
Lifestyle Business
Unicorn
Lifestyle Business
Unicorn
Regular Business
Businesses are not built for martyrdom
Growing to sell
Photo by Alice Pasqual via Unsplash
Growing to keep
Take care of yourself so you have incentive to keep going
5 Grow! Grow! Grow!
Grow with intention
It’s ok to exit, too
Photo by Andrew Neel via Unsplash
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Postmark Growth
–Seth Godin
Don’t grow unless it brings you joy.“ ”
You can do it.6
Consciously and explicitly make choices for yourself and your team.
Quit serving the business and serve the people
The business serves you
Natalie NageleCEO of Wildbit
@natalienagele
wildbit.com