YouSaid · the spoken record

Rick Nucci

lines on the record: 36
first: 2020-01-24
most recent: 2020-01-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As I said, they're my favorite episodes. You're always the ones where we actually just open up and have a really real and vulnerable discussion. So as I said, huge thanks to Rick for being so amenable to that. And if you'd like to see more from the show and behind the scenes, then you can on Instagram at hstebbings 1996 with 2Bs. I always love to see you there. But before we leave you today, this episode is brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank. For over 35 years, Silicon Valley Bank has been the bank for visionaries of all kinds, people and businesses who've revolutionized everything from software to social media, from workspaces to wine, with nimble banking services and solutions, Silicon Valley Bank helps startups adapt to the changing needs of a growing company, learn more at svb.com backslash next, that's silicon valley bank ideas bank here. Let's face it though also, everyone not only needs banking, but everyone today wants to start a podcast. But man, the incumbent tool set sucks for creating podcasts. Take my word for it. And that's why I love the scripts so much. Descript is the brand new”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other side once you actually have that and it is working is real and positively impactful to a company's ability to scale and launch new products and Truly for me, the biggest joy in doing the show is having really real conversations like this. So thank you so much for being so open. And also thank you so much for joining me today.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That. And then the final one, Rick, next five years for you and for Guru, what's that exciting roadmap ahead? For me, I think a lot about blind spots, I quickly alluded to it in the nine types of leadership book, but I'm constantly trying to see what they are because how can I be a more impactful team leader and co-worker with the employees here? So I would put that in the bucket of like coaching and personal development and then also I think at C and really excited about that opportunity for the team. Really looking at any relationship with an employee as a long-term relationship and how can we build and develop them under the context of it being a long-term relationship. And then I think for guru, just so excited at what I think is a market category that we have tapped into completely locked, by the way, I'm not going to say we called this one, but I think the world of knowledge management is truly something that matters to companies. The impact of not having it is real and painful and the impact”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In high school, college, and catching up with them, and they do not remotely work in the tech field. And it's so great. And you just go to a different place mentally, right? And I come out of those like social interactions with those friends and in a way feel reset, but also just take time off work and don't do it and recognize that whatever feels so important, there'll be 10 more of those tomorrow waiting for you. So like you need to turn it off. And I think I've sort of figured that out now, but like definitely through hard knocks. Absolutely. Listen, you learn from those experiences. How do you deal with shit here, the fan mom moments when something doesn't go right now, in that moment, how do you deal with it? Do you go for a run? Do you paint? Do you go for a beer? What's your coping mechanism? My coping mechanism is all centered around music, mostly seeing it, live music or playing just personally for fun. I think music tends to put your brain in a different wavelength and can be cathartic in those shit hit the fan moments. Yeah, I really do believe.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I learned a lot about work life balance at Boomi that now has informed a lot of that marathon mindset you heard me talk about. I think I probably put too much of my personal self. I think startups can easily consume you if you let them. And then you pick your head up and you're like, wow, I haven't spent time with my friends in the last X time. Never again, and I won't do that again. So I would say sacrifice of the personal side of yourself is one that I feel is like, I won't call it a regret because we should look forward, but something I hope to never do again. And a personal one, I hope it's okay for me to ask, have you ever been burnt out? Yes. How did you deal with and manage that? Not great. And I think over time have recognized the intentionality when you feel burned out of turning off slack, turning off your email, you know, getting yourself off your screens and consuming yourself with something. I remember cherishing time with friends of mine that maybe I grew up with.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say a short statement and then you hit me with your immediate thoughts. Are you ready to rock and roll? I'm ready to rock and roll. Okay, so I need to read more in 2020. So help me. What's the favorite book and why should we be reading it? Current favorite would be nine styles of leadership, which is all about you learning about your personality style, like doing the Enneagram test, which is a really fascinating way to learn more about yourself and then go into the book and just dig into what that means, what your number means and what you're blind spots might be. So yeah, that's my current favorite. What's your superpowering company building, do you think? I think that I can create a workplace that people want to be at and enjoy being at. We talk a lot about culture today, and I think I can get people excited about a vision around a product and a problem and a market opportunity. One from Ryan. What were the biggest sacrifices you had to make from building the three companies? The biggest sacrifice, I think, has changed.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Case very much, but no, I think it's absolutely not anymore. And I always advise Philly founders first thing I tell them is, sure, there's local investors here and you should pitch them, but they're just in your list like any other investor. It doesn't really matter that they're in Philly or not. Go to New York, go to Bay Area, pitch them because if, you know, you look at Guru today, we have some local angel investors with all of our venture money is either San Francisco or New York based folks. And none of them tried to tell me that, oh, you got to move the company and which I used to get that in the booming days. Yeah, oh, you got to move the whole company out to SF like no. We're not going to do that now, no conversation spent. And then I will have VCs that will literally say the opposite. They'll say, we're excited that you're doing this in Philly because we think it's great for the reasons I share. So I think that shifted a lot over the last 10 years. I really do. I think it's such a good shift. And from a capital efficiency perspective, I totally agree with you in terms of the advantages. I do want to move into my favorite rate, which is the quick fire round.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In hubs that are outside the valley in New York, in traditional VC ecosystems. That is a very interesting contrast when I think about fundraising for Bumi and fundraising for Guru. I personally have the belief that that has shifted dramatically. I think it used to matter a ton that you essentially pitch locally. You go to Bay Area, you build your company, you pitch VCs in Bay Area. I think now it's shifted to there are as many, if not more, VCs that actually like the fact that you're building a company not in a tech hub. Because with tech hubs, when they get to a certain size, there can be a feeling of saturation. There can be a feeling of massive talent, competitive talent wars going on. There can be a feeling of echo chambers where everyone's having the same conversation and using the same rhetoric. You get outside of that in the non-tech hub and all of that is gone. And it brings a different set of challenges, but it's not those challenges, right? And so I completely disagree with the idea that if you want to get amazing investors, you have to be in their backyard. I think that used to be.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The team today, I mean, marketing split almost 50 50 between Philly and SF, customer success, 50-50, engineering predominantly Philly, but we'll start adding some number of folks in SF. And the leadership team is now three members of the leadership team are in SF and the rest are here in Philly. And I love that balance. I love our weekly management team. We all get around the table together and it looks like the Brady bunch because we're all individually joining the Zooms. And so you have the tiles of everyone joining the meeting, but we try to create that even plain field experience. But yeah, you've got kind of folks coming in from both posts. But I think the talent advantage is fantastic building in a city like Philadelphia. I love that multi-tile Zoom cooler. I had it many times as well. I know how you feel there. The other element was the fundraising. I guess my question to you is a lot of founders ask me, how should I approach it given that I'm not in a Cortec club? Given your experience and massive success, what advice do you give to founders in terms of raising”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I think the talent strategy as you grow can be a great way to continue to build out the team and continue to bring in skill sets, especially specialized skill sets. And so if you, for example, want to bring someone onto the team that has done really focused on, let's say, like a product onboarding experience, well, that's a really small population to begin with. And so, yeah, you really do want to not hinder yourself by location, by only considering a certain geography, in my opinion. And instead, you know, try to increase your odds for success by connecting with folks that might be in tech hubs where maybe they work for that company that had an amazing onboarding experience and you can bring it to Guru. But again, those are kind of specialized skill sets. Today, mostly what we tend to do, we pretty much have all functions in Philadelphia and San Francisco. We open the job rec in both cities and the vast majority of cases and it increases our odds of finding the right talent.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of hiring, so you have to be willing to do that. But I've sort of made it clear those are kind of non-negotiable things for me. I'm not going to hit our hiring plan just for the sake of hitting it. We've got to hit it with those cultural things intact. So starts with hiring, then gets reinforced. All new employees, I sit down with all new employees and walk through the company values and ask them what resonates, what sounds confusing. And what I'm kind of listening for is like opportunities to improve the actual words, the values that make them better. But it's one of my favorite meetings because let's say it's five to ten new hires in a room and I walk through them and then I ask them to share what resonates and just it just takes off. You know, we take notes of everything they say of like oftentimes they're contrasting work experiences of like what it was in their past job and what it's like now and why they value the we measure your accomplishments not how many hours you worked and they'll just sort of talk about what they connect with and it's just really really fascinating to see and I always learn something”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important. I stouted off some already. You know, don't take yourself too seriously, embrace the journey, but writing them is really just the first step. The actual important part is how they actually get reinforced in the company. And that's what we spend a lot of time on and why I think people do say the kinds of things that they said to you there. You know, it starts at the interview process. We do a pretty structured scorecard interview. But always there's a culture interview as part of that. And the culture interview is done by someone who's not on the team that they're hiring for intentionally. And that culture interview, if everybody's a yes and culture interview thumbs down, then we don't move forward with the candidate. And I talk about it as 51% culture fit, 49% skill and capability. And I think if you're willing to be that unwavering about it, and then you're also, if you're willing to correct when you get it wrong, which unfortunately can happen, that protects it. And I think that can put an upper threshold on your rate.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, let me empower you to do that because that initiative you're showing is great. And you look at the careers of some of those folks I mentioned. They always want to show up, right? And they always want to kind of take that and run with that thing. And I think that just says a lot about what I think their success will be in that endeavor. Yeah. No, I totally agree. And I think kind of that autonomous and kind of belief in the people that you hire. It is very kind of emblematic of the culture that you have. And I want to ask, because as I said, both Ryan and Chase said about the incredible culture you have. It's often quite a fluffy thing though. And I often find that actually there's not huge strategy behind it. But I know there is with you. So how have you been purposeful and maybe very deliberate in building a strong culture? Yeah, I appreciate that question because it is drastically overused concept in terms. So for us, we manifest culture into our company values. And there are six of them. And we live by them. And so we write them, we revisit them once a year. They are both symbolic of behavioral styles that we believe.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Software engineer, and then first was like, wow, really gifted engineer, but then also like good people skills like good EQ and interest in managing people. And we just sort of kept kind of giving him more and more responsibility. And ultimately, he ran engineering for Boomi by the time we both left to start Guru. And so great example, you know, JJ Ferroni, who's our VP of sales here, he joined Boomi as an intern and was like, you know, in the early days, like, you know, putting together furniture and stuff, right? And then like, wow, this person's like picked up the product like that and he started doing support, you know, which taught him empathy. And then he started as a sales engineer and then he managed the sales engineers and then he managed the whole sales team and now he runs sales here at Guru, right? So I very much believe in sort of growing people. And I think where I've always tried to give people more, I believe very much in autonomy. Someone comes to me and goes, like, hey, I know the company cares about this thing. I think I can do X and Y to kind of get us there. You know, my disposition tends to be like, yeah, great, do that.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Long as that leader is someone where they still feel like they have room to grow. And by the way, I also very much believe in if you're going to hire and change a reporting structure where someone who maybe was reporting to me will now report to a new person, then together we're going to find that person, right? It's not, hey, meet your new boss, surprise. It's more like, no, I want you part of the process with me of like finding that person. And I think that tends to make the experience transparent and authentic in the sense of like, we're going to kind of decide on this person together and just, I think, ensures that there's like this level of trust of like we're going to find the right person for the job kind of thing. I totally agree with you there in terms of really bringing people in on the process. I think that makes a world of difference, actually. Yeah. And then contrast, I mean, we have absolutely done the other path too and promoted from within, right? I mean, my co-founder, Mitch, Mitch joined Boomi in the early, early days prior to Guru and joined as an individual contributor.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lead growth go to market motion in her past, her time. She's lived in the consumer world, but then in SaaS with her time at SurveyMonkey and some of the boards she serves on, her time at Zendesk, you know, these are all companies that have a product-led motion where people can engage with your product before they actually talk to a human. And just the way you think about your go-to-market in your business is very different in that world. So when you think about bringing someone in in that context, that's a good example of like, hey, on the team today, we don't have that learning or skill set or competency and the company will be in a better position if and when we can bring that competency, that skill set complement into the team and into the company. And so, okay, that conversation tends to go really well because, yes, the person I'm talking to, okay, you'll now report to this person. Maybe you used to report to me, but I don't think anyone is unexcited to report to a new leader.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just kind of keep trying to reiterate that mindset shift. But I think a lot of people feel that disarming experience as they connect with the team and see people sitting around them that are showing up the same way, right? And I think that makes a ton of difference. You mentioned the element there of really adding to the leadership team. I think the big question that I always have when it comes to adding to leadership teams is often there's people internally who think of themselves as having the potential to upscale. How do you think about that debate between internal upscaling versus bringing in external talent and if bringing in external talent, how do you think about that communication with that individual who's internal who maybe didn't make the grade this time? That's a fantastic question and I've thought through and lived through those many times at Bumi and at Guru those moments of those conversations to your point. I think there's one clean one, right? And to use Anne as an example of the several amazing things Anne has brought to the team, one of them is she's lived through a more product”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, like, I bought this. I was wrong. Here's what I learned about it, and here's what I think we should do now. And then hopefully folks kind of connect with that and do it. To your point about the importance of it with my coworkers, absolutely critical. I mean, I start with leadership team. It's a trait we look for in the interview process. I think it's a super dangerous sentiment to think that if you show up with vulnerability, that it's a sign of weakness. I think the very unfortunate reality is lots of people have worked for people whether their boss does look at his assigned weakness, right? And man, it only takes one of those moments where you're like, oh, okay, I'm never going to show weakness again because when I do, this very bad thing happens, right? So I am very aware of that reality. And I think it's terrible, right? But I think here, hopefully we can create a safe space for folks of like, no, you do want to actually be vulnerable because that actually is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness, right?”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're building and scaling a team, you're by definition going to bring leaders in that are going to be way better in their function and trade than you will because you're thinking about and looking at the different lens of the business.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely critical. And myself, I think one way I try to personally demonstrate vulnerability are in opportunities like Town Hall when we're talking about things that are going well, but also things that aren't going well. And I will try to demonstrate vulnerability with my colleagues on the management team and share something that didn't go well and tried to do it in a very like laying my cards out. Here it is. Here's the situation, right? Taking ownership for something not going well, right? Like as I've been working to build out our leadership team and like certain functions where we didn't have that leader, you know, this would be a recent example to your point of like Sean vulnerability, like I can see those parts of the business that I'm trying to help not be on the best path they could be. And it's because of me, right? And I'm not trying to be overly critical of myself in saying that, but I'm also trying to just speak plainly about like this part of the business is about to get a huge upgrade. And it's not because I think poorly of myself, but I think it's okay to recognize that.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Connect yourself to, and then ultimately your team, that just like I said, gives you tools or framework for how you interact with someone and show up with empathy, how you interact with someone and give them feedback on what they need to do better when that feedback might feel a little unnatural to you. But look, we all want feedback, right? So like if we don't know how to give it, well, let's learn, right? And so I think there are things now like these frameworks that are just massively valuable in helping you get there if you want to. And obviously that's important. But I don't think you have to be born with it. I don't. I agree with you, but kind of aligned to the kind of empathetic leadership style. The other kind of core trait is kind of vulnerability within leadership. I think many are concerned about vulnerability, maybe being perceived as a sign of weakness. What would you say to them? Can you maybe tell me about a time that you've been truly vulnerable with the team and how did they respond? Yeah, I think I would describe myself as demonstrating vulnerability with myself and then I'll tell you my view on how I value it in others because I think it's”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But still prioritize that with Guru. And like, customers keep you real, right? Like customers keep you out of the office and the good and the bad of that of testing something with a customer and it falling flat or customers having not a great experience and they tell you that and you need to make it better, right? Like that has ingrained empathy into me and understanding what it is really like for everyone from an ADR who's trying to get that stranger to want to get on a call with you all the way through to a support person wanting to fix an issue in the customer's emotional state, right? But the second part of your question there of like can it be learned? Yeah, I mean, I've been spending a ton of time and the guru leadership team on conscious leadership and there's a conscious leadership group and there's 15 commitments and I've really gotten into that and that gets into a ton of what you're talking about of empathy. So I think like if you as a leader want to do that, if you recognize the value in doing it, I think there are really good tools like conscious leadership group that you can”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Getting there, but like that's not the default thing of what's going on week after week after week, right? And so I think those themes of like getting folks rallied around a vision and excited, really trying to be authentic self and bring transparency to the team around what's going on. And then the third thread that I talked about are like things I feel like do resonate with the team here. I think the kind of common strain nature out in the three is that the theme of empathy in your leadership style, I guess my question and actually one from Ryan at Thrive, was leadership style and empathetic leadership style is inherent to character is it inherent to character or can it be learned as a leadership style? I think it can be learned. I think there is a bit of character, right, that resonates. I think one thing I would reflect on from, you know, I don't know that I would tell you it's part of my character or not. I honestly don't know, but what I would tell you is like part of how I got empathy as a person was, you know, spending a lot of time in front of customers earlier in my career. And as we were building Boomi in the early days.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Company values we talk about is called Embrace the Journey. We measure accomplishments, not hours work. And that's a theme or a vibe that is very important to me. I don't think the companies that perform the best are the ones where the employees work the most and earn themselves out. You know, this will never be a company where you as a person are measured on like what time you get into the office. I think it's total nonsense. And I don't think it's what leads to the best performing companies. Absolutely, genuinely don't believe that. And so I bring that in. I live that myself. And another example of something bringing over from Boomi of like that intentionality of like being able to show up to work with that more just stateful mind. Guru when you walk around here doesn't feel like a place of chaos. It doesn't feel like panicky, right? And I think that's kind of what we're really going for on purpose. And look, there's always those sprint moments. You know, we just launched exciting new, you know, starter plan for our product a couple days ago and like there was a ton of work and the team did an awesome job.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the outside, right? And so the way transparency might manifest to give specific examples would be like in our town halls when we talk about things and we always include lowlights in our town halls as well as our highlights, right? And I think if you kind of take people on that roller coaster ride with you, I think they just tend to feel more connected to the company. They tend to feel like, oh, cool, like, you know, I'm not getting hand waving, you know, platitudes here. You know, I just tend to feel that humans are smart and like don't them and speak authentically to them. And that means they have to be one, ready to hear bad news if this part of the business could be going better than it is. And also a professional like you can't go talking outside of the company about the stuff we're sharing, right? Because it's more sensitive than maybe other places or environments. And so I think that transparency tends to resonate well with folks. And then I think a third thing that would be connected to style is I just try to bring a control pace marathon mindset.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In a way that's like, in our case, funny, entertaining, reflective of the humans here, we don't take ourselves too seriously. And that's kind of the feeling you get when you start reading about your room. I'm so pleased you mentioned Anna. I've actually had her on the show before and she is just fantastic. But I do want to start the show today on you because when I spoke to investors, the overwhelming feedback on you as a person was your incredible leadership style. So if we dig in there, how would you describe your own leadership style, Ray? I think I operate with definitely a sense of enthusiasm and excitement and rallying folks around the vision and why we're all here. And I think just always try to connect that with transparency of the ups and the downs of the startup and try to bring a bit of a normalcy to the fact that all startups go through lots of zigs and zags and don't get caught up in what you read in media and publications. That's not really what's going on inside any particular startup. I don't care how well that company's doing.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Folks who think about messaging and in a pragmatic and practical sense of distilling it down to plain English. And I think I've seen that happen well at Guru. I've seen opportunities to improve it. But just holistically speaking, I think the team's done an amazing job of bringing that voice. And by the way, if you go to our website and read how we talk about it, our brand and how we bring that to life as part of that is probably like the third ingredient. We very much here have an intentionally fun and playful tone with our brand and our message. And we do that because I think brand is one of the last few opportunities of something you can do that is different and unique about your company. It's easier than ever to copy more and more things about a company and a product. Brand's a tough one to do. And frankly, it would be weird if you tried to copy someone else's brand, right? It's the brand is the expression of your own identity, a manifestation of the identity of the company, right? And every way it interacts. And so that's probably the third recipe of tying all that together and delivering it.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mean my word, the guru product really is a fresh steak. I do love the UI and the design specifically, but I do want to touch on a couple of things because you mentioned Boomi there, and it was an incredible journey. But I want to start with what worked at Boomi that you've taken with you to Guru.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would love to kick off those state with a little bit on you. So how did you make your way into the world of startups and what was that founding moment and story for you with guru?”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My what? I've heard so many good things, both from Jake and Emergence and Ryan at Thrive. It really is such a pleasure to have you on. So thank you so much for joining me today, Rick.”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chosen room to build a better workplace, and room offers free shipping and the best price on the market, so go to room.com slash two VC to learn more, that's room. com slash two zero vc however that's quite enough of my terrible voice so now i'm thrilled to hand over to rick nucci founder and ceo at guru”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seen for editing by far, we love it here. And now with our team at 20 VC also, Descript has this amazing live collaboration feature, so we can work on the edits in real time so we can comment, people can agree, disagree. Honestly, if you want to master your new podcast, you have to use Descript for the process and you can find out more at descript.com. They really have built something special that's descript.com. Finally, finding a quiet space for a phone call or a video conference, it's always a challenge. Conference rooms, well, they're always taken up by one person. That's why I was excited to discover room. Room helps businesses build a better workplace with their mobile soundproof phone booths helping you tune out the noise of the open office. It's soundproofed using recycled plastic bottles and fully ventilated to keep you cool. I've personally used the room booth before in our office and I love it. And with room you can create a quiet space for phone calls, video conferences and focused work at a fraction of the cost of building a conference room. That's why companies like Nike, Google, NASA and Salesforce have already”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Show today. This episode is brought to you by Silicon Valley Bank for over 35 years Silicon Valley Bank has been the bank for visionaries of all kinds, people and businesses who've revolutionized everything from software to social media, from workspaces to wine, with nimble banking services and solutions, Silicon Valley Bank helps startups adapt to the changing needs of a growing company, learn more at svb.com, backslash next, that's silicon valley bank ideas bank here. Let's face it though also, everyone not only needs banking, but everyone today wants to start a podcast, but man the incumbent tool set sucks for creating podcasts. Take my word for it. And that's why I love the script so much. Descript is the brand new way to record, edit, and mix spoken word audio. But for me, the main reason I just love it is because it takes your audio and it turns it into text. And so you can actually edit the text almost as if it's a Word document and remove the audio and the text that you don't want and it's super simple and just the best tool that I've”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are back, and this is Founders Friday on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and you can see more behind the scenes from us on Instagram at hstebbings 1996 with 2Bs. It would be great to see you there. But to the show today, and we're moving away from our usual valley focus and moving to the land of Philadelphia. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Rick Nucci, found and CEO at Guru. The Knowledge Management Platform that delivers everything you need so you can spend less time searching and more time doing. To date, Rick has raised over $38 million with Guru from some of the best in the business, including Thrive, Emergence Capital, First Mark Slack, and Salesforce. Prior to Guru, Rick was the founder of Boomi, which defined and led a new segment as the first ever cloud integration platform as a service, and Boomi was ultimately acquired by Dell, where Rick went on to grow the organization into the industry leader that it is today. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Ryan at Thrive, Jake and Emergence and Jason at Slack for some fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do appreciate that. But before we move into the”
2020-01-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: The Most Successful Companies Are Not Where Employees Work The Most, How To Know When To Promote From Below Or Bring in External Candidates & Why It Is A Unique Advantage To Be Building A Company Outside A Tech Hub with Rick Nucci, Founder & CEO @ G · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source