What do you do to maintain balance in your life?
Me Time — Balancing work and private / family life has been challenging, so I sought regular therapy for better reflection. I've learned that while I love my family, I need personal time to relax, read, and refresh my mind, and I definitely prefer listening to music over podcasts.
What's a perspective that we should pay more attention to in the workplace?
Business acumen or business sense — Many people excel at their specific jobs, like coding or managing, but few also possess strong business acumen. Understanding financial markets, business sustainability, identifying business opportunities and your own strengths and limitations is crucial. Developing these skills will help people succeed in any profession.
What's a mistake that you're happy you've made?
Solutions looking for a problem — We initially developed a solution without a clear problem in mind, which is a common reason for startup failure. This experience taught me to challenge every idea and code line, ensuring there's evidence of a well-defined problem. I've also learned it's more effective to start with a niche problem.
What's your secret sauce for building a great team?
Drive and passion over skills — Building a great team differs between an early-stage startup and scaling a mature company. But in both cases, I prioritize drive and passion over skills. Skills can be learned, but attitude, resilience, and passion are crucial and best assessed through personal interactions (dinner, rollercoaster, sports). For early-stage startups, I generally avoid hiring from corporate or big tech backgrounds.
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Here’s More, From Other Founders Around the World
What’s an important guiding principle that informs the way you build and run your business?
One of our core values is experimentation. Rather than get stuck in arguing about what solution may best solve a problem or play to our ego, we focus on the smallest step we could possibly take to learn whether that’s true. It moves our minds away from thinking too big without sweating the small stuff and from getting stuck in discussions rather than actually doing something to understand the possible solutions better.
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
Your own time and energy is the most precious resource you have. Use it wisely, and learn what gives you energy, and what saps you. In the early years of building something, you need to throw a huge amount of time at it - and do many things you perhaps don’t like doing. But as you scale, it’s vital to take a step back and build a business that can grow rapidly beyond the time you put into it.
What shift in perspective has allowed you to see things differently?
It may sound simple, but realizing and truly understanding that we are all different and driven by different things has made a significant impact on me. This insight has changed the way I approach relationships and leadership.
What’s a guiding principle that informs the way you build and run your business?
One of our core values at Cozero is radical candor. It is the idea that the willingness to repeatedly enter uncomfortable situations to speak the truth benefits everyone in the long run. We believe that in order to grow and improve as an organization, we need to create an environment where our team is not afraid to challenge processes and decisions. Making this a core value guides us in difficult situations when it’s not clear which road to take.