Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Stacking Growth. I'm your host for today, Kaylee Edmondson. Look, I'm going to kick it off real quick with a PSA for anybody that's listening. It wouldn't be a justice for my role if I didn't say.
I'm obviously leading marketing for Refine Labs. We are in the midst of creating programming for the next six months and want to make sure that we are inviting the best guests covering the most relevant topics for all of our listeners. So if this is your first time listening to this episode, if you're back for the 100th episode, if you've been following your fine labs for years, all of that. As this applies to you, I would love to ask that any listeners shoot me an email personally to my Refine Lens email address and let me know who you are, what you do for work, and what it is that you're most interested to come to this podcast to learn about.
It can be anything. We just want to make sure that we're tailoring this content to what it is that you need in your stint of growth right now. So my email address is Kaylee, K-A-E-E at Refine Labs.com. Shoot me an email.
I will personally respond to every one of you. I appreciate you taking five minutes out of your day to let us know what it is that you're trying to learn about or tackle in your nine to five or your five to nine, I guess, for that matter, we can help you with that too. But tailoring programming to what you need, that's the stint we're in right now. So let me know, shoot me an email.
Kaylee at Refine Labs, I'd love to hear from you. So let's get into this episode. We'll transition. I'll talk about advice, insights, and general wisdom on evaluating go-to-market job opportunities, career growth, mentorship, leadership.
There was no one better that I can think of to invite than our guest today, Robin Daniels. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Kaylee. I hope all of your listeners take you up on your offer to email you.
So just to get flooded with good ideas, it's a great show. I'm a huge fan. I'm honored to be on this podcast with you and I hope we get into some awesome topics today. So thank you.
Yeah, no, I'm so honored that you're here. I actually called our one of our producers before this to ask if this would be a bad idea for me to share my personal email and ask for a flood of emails. But I actually think it'll be really cool. I'd love to see how this works out.
So we'll do a micro marketing experiment in the middle of trying to finish this episode, which feels full circle. Okay, Robin, so for anybody that doesn't know about you, let's see, the things I know about you are, I don't know, you've worked for a couple of companies. Most people can recognize like Matterport, LinkedIn, WeWork, Box, I think Vera and Veritas are in there too. Yep.
And you did a growth stint in between, right? Consulting and advising. And you've just recently joined LMS 365. Correct, correct.
So yes, I think you covered most of it. I also was the Chief Marketing Officer at WeWork. We'll get into that in a little bit. So eventually I was also at Salesforce in the fairly early days.
And that's really when I saw my career take off, I would say my time at Salesforce working with someone the best at the best in the industry, people who I still look up to today who become leaders of so many awesome businesses out there. But yes, I recently joined LMS 365, which is a growth stage company here in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a global presence. Because now after 20 years in California and working and living over there, I moved back to Copenhagen about two and a half years ago. Nice, I love that.
Okay. And so you actually moved back to Copenhagen while you were doing this like consulting advisory stint. Yes. And I was very shocked to see in my feed that you've decided to go back in house.
Can we just start there with your search for moving? What were there things in your life or in the world, economically, whatever, that made you start considering rejoining the dark side and going back in house? For sure. So I've been an operator for 20 plus years and I love being an operator.
But the Matterport experience was both something I'm super proud of. We took the company public in 2021, but it was also hard. I mean, I, with Matterport, I ended up moving from California to Copenhagen and working with a nine hour time zone difference when the whole team was in California and the leadership team was there. I was up till one or two o'clock pretty much every evening.
And you know how it is. If you have an intense meeting, let's say it ends up two, you can't just go to bed. So I would oftentimes get to bed at three or four AM in the morning. And it was tough.
I was honestly burning out a little bit. But of course it was an exciting journey because we were about to take the company public. So I left not too long after the IPO and I wanted to take some time off to just kind of recover a little bit. So I did that for a few months.
And then I went into what I would call advisory work. And it was kind of like my way of getting back into it. It's the ultimate try before you buy. And I got to meet so many great entrepreneurs.
I got to meet great CEOs and founders and VCs. And what I would come in as is really to help unlock the potential in their brand, in their marketing, in their go-to-market engine sometimes, in their team and leadership. And it was fun doing it. But I started realizing after about a year of doing that that I also feel like I have too much energy and too much to offer to sit on the sidelines.
Honestly, I'm in my mid 40s. I feel like I've had a good run. But I still feel like I have so much more to offer to the world. And if I'm completely honest, it was a little unsatisfying being an advisor because you've never quite seen the full impact of what you're doing.
Sure, I am having some impact. But I feel like I miss being part of a team. I miss having a team. I miss working with a great team.
And I started thinking, I want to find something. And then of course, the question is, well, where and who and how and all those kind of questions that you usually get. I have a fairly strong list of things that I evaluate a company on. But of course, like mission and people and culture and potential and all kinds of things.
And I write about this a lot. At the end of the day, though, a lot of it comes down to gut feel. I mean, I remember reading an article in 2001 that really changed my life. It was a guy called Pope Ronston.
He actually wrote a book based on his article. But it was an article in Fast Company. And it was called What Should I Do With My Life. And it's a great article.
I can send you the link at some point. We can post it in the show notes. In this article, he talks about how people have switched careers. And there's one quote that always stuck with me is that at the end of the day, either you love what you do or you don't.
And I think that's really true. And I think that to me, that's about gut feel. I mean, we can try to rationalize away a lot of like things in our in our life. You know, all of the pay is better here or the opportunities better here.
All these things. And of course, they do matter. But at the end of the day, it comes down to gut feel. Do you like the team you're working with?
You like what you do? You motivated every single day in the morning. And so there's lots of parameters I look at. There's two that matter more than anything I would say.
Number one is, is it a mission worth fighting for? Can I see myself waking up every single day, fight for this mission, whatever it is? You know, and this is one of the reasons why I left Vera, the cybersecurity company. I love my job.
I actually love the team, but I was just not motivated by the mission we were on. And for me to be a go to market leader, especially marketing and tell stories about it. It's very hard if you don't love what you do. So I ended up leaving.
So that's number one is like waking up every day being motivated by that. The second thing is feeling like I'm a place where I'm working with great people where I'm making a difference. That's also hugely important. You know, like right a lot about not working with assholes, for example.
And it takes, that's why I want to always like meet a lot of people first and really get to know them because it needs to be easy or simple and can't have some conflict. But like these people on the same wavelength as me, do we see the world kind of similar? Do we have core values that are aligned in what we want to do and what we want to get out of life and how we treat people and how we think about leadership and growth and all these things? You know, have some morals and ethics behind what we're really doing.
And so that's super important. The other things of course matter, but they don't matter as much as those two. So I ended up, that's how I ended up at LMS 365. It sounds like you go through either one of two things, either such an intense like vetting process or such a, or maybe it's about making a sound issue, but we're such a like, customized journey for you to like stand alongside these people that you're potentially going to be partnering with in a full-time capacity.
I feel like I hear from just like personally, but also through Refine Labs, so many, so many revenue leaders who are trying to find their next gig feel like they've done a successful job vetting for red and yellow flags from the outside, only to find that once they join the company, all of a sudden you look under the hood and it's just like fire after fire after fire that wasn't successfully exposed in the interview process. Are there tips or tricks or things that you do to like try and really get to the heart of a company what's working, what's not working before you commit like a full-time ticket? Yeah, there's a couple things, it's a great question and I also want to be clear, as you know, I'm at the point in my career where I feel at the luxury of being able to choose a little more. When I was coming up to my career, of course, sometimes you have to compromise some of these things.
Of course, not your core value, I would never do that. You should always stick to something that makes you happy and motivated, but if the pay is not right there, quite there, or maybe the salary or location, whatever it could be, right? But of course, as you get more senior and you get more options, I feel like you have an obligation to choose something that will unleash your creative power. Honestly, I'm an idealist.
I think the world needs that once you're in a job and motivation makes you happy, you will unleash the creative power of the world as rarely seen. And we need that to solve some of these big issues that we have in the world. It's about inequality or climate change or whatever it is. So anyway, so your question, yes, I have a couple of ways.
I think about this. Number one is culture matters a lot to me and how you treat people. So it was a little easier before COVID, but now it's coming back to being a little bit easier again. So after I left there, this cybersecurity job, I really wanted to get back to working with something I was very human oriented.
So I was speaking to four companies. I was speaking to Asana and Airbnb and Uber and LinkedIn. And one of the things I would do is I would show up early to an interview with people I was meeting with and just see how people would interact with each other in the office. And sometimes a little weird if you show up way too early, but I was showing up maybe 20 or 30 minutes early.
I was just sitting in the lobby and just working on my phone or whatever. And you could really gain a lot of wisdom and insight from that. For example, at Uber, this was before the scandal. So everyone seemed stressed out of their mind.
It was super intense. They were frowny faces. There wasn't joy in the air at all. And I just thought to myself, this is not an environment that inspires me to do my best work versus I would go to Asana or Airbnb and people would high-fived each other in the hallways and accept a lot of laughter and camaraderie.
And that's a feeling that motivates me. So, and of course, everyone's different, but that was one thing I would do. I think it's super important. The other thing is just ask.
I think you've got to be bold enough and brave enough to ask. Well, tell me what's not going so well at the company. Tell me what's keeping you up at night. And if somebody comes back with either a bullshit answer or there's nothing, that's also a huge right flag.
The best section when they come back with the whole laundry list, at least it gives me the awareness that, yes, there's a lot to fix. Well, why do you even need me if everything's going as well as you claim it is? It makes no sense. And I've been to some of these interviews where they're only talking about how well things are going well.
Why do you need me then? So I actually love when they come back. And Rasslist, the CEO of this new company, I just joined LMS was very honest about a lot of things that they needed to do better. And I love that.
I mean, sometimes you nearly like too much. I'm like, oh my God, what do I get into? But I kind of like it because I'm not a person that likes to come in and just do small incremental things. I like to come in and try to do as big of a thing as I can do to have as much impact.
So I think that the second one is just ask. And even if you're coming in a more junior level, ask away. I mean, always remember that this is a two way street that you're of course they're interviewing you, but you're also interviewing them. I saw Postio Day on LinkedIn was really interesting about somebody, I think it was a recruiter who was pretty upset about how candidates were dressing nowadays.
They were too casual. And I'm like, what the hell is this the kind of world where people are now being judged on what they wear? And I get the point, but at the same time, I think I know, judge a person for their skills and motivation and aptitude at impact they can have versus what they're wearing. And so I've actually seen this so much in my career that I try to do opposite now.
So for example, when I went to Intu-Git Apple, this was a few years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, I knew that they were a little bit more buttoned up because I know some people there, they always kind of wear a button down every day. So I show up super casual in my sneakers and a t-shirt and so on. I just see what they're reaction to me. And I always have the secret where I always swear at least once in an interview, at least once.
But always in a positive way, never in a negative way, but always in a positive way to see what their reaction would be, right? To see if they have a reaction by this kind of role with it or if they have a negative reaction, because honestly, I do swear it works so sue me. And then the opposite is also true where, you know, if they're super casual, then sometimes I'll come in maybe a little bit more formal just to see not in a full suit, but maybe a blazer just to kind of see how they would react to that. You know, it's more kind of a test just to see how they deal with differences in diversity and somebody who's a little not part of their core group, you know?
So anyway, those are a few tips. No, I love that so much. It's also interesting to push the boundaries just on their comfortability level, right? We as people naturally get comfortable with what we see and know and hear and react to whatever.
And so to almost make them just a little bit uncomfortable in what should be their comfortable setting, right? Because they're the interviewer is actually a really interesting thing. Something else that I'll throw in for anybody that that I tried actually on this last round when I was choosing to come to Refine Labs or a couple of other companies I was choosing between. If you are interviewing for a remote company, I think what Robin's point is super interesting about trying to figure out culture is huge and it's hard when everybody is global distributed calling in from, you know, their pajamas from their kitchen or whatever the thing is, it's so hard.
Something that I tried and I think succeeded in is asking the either your hiring manager or the recruiter who you're partnering with to join and sit in, fly on the wall, a handful of company all hands to understand how they're running these Zoom calls or whatever they're, whatever they're running them on to see if like, if it's only the CEO that's talking to me, that's a flag. If they are distributing the wealth and the knowledge and calling up people, what does the chat look like? Are people reacting? Are people on camera?
Are they all off camera on mute the entire time? Like, I think that could be an interesting gauge of culture as well. If it's a remote company and you don't have the opportunity to sit in their lobby and watch people high five, that could be an interesting angle to try to because it's so important and it's so hard to gauge when you truly aren't getting an interaction physically to meet or bump into any of the people that you could be working with. It's completely great.
Another experience I had was so interesting is because I spent most of my work in the U.S. and so in the valley where I think when you reach again at a certain level, I would say probably the rector, maybe VP level or above, a lot of conversations end up being very casual because of course, I feel like at that level, the interviewer is really skilled at putting in questions that test your knowledge and aptitude, but in a very casual way, like if you go out to a cafe, you know, maybe you're having dinner and so on. And then now being in Europe, I was talking to a few companies besides LMS, you know, back in the spring and some of these, the process felt very robotic. It was really interesting how basically they would come in here.
So checklists that my 10 questions I want to ask you and I'm like, and I remember leaving some of these and I won't give away the names, but telling the recruiter like, this felt super inhuman. Like there was no effort at all to get to know me, what I care about, my motivation or anything. It was just by basically trying to get through a checklist of questions. And maybe there's good reasons not to say that there's one way is better or the other.
It was just a little bit of shock for me coming from the U.S. style. And maybe the truth is that, you know, maybe the U.S. has gotten too casual in some ways and maybe the Europeans are a little too robotic and maybe there's a merger.
I don't know what the right answer is, but it was super interesting. I guess my point is, if anybody's listening, I bet you probably have a global audience is you also got to be mindful of the style of into you that you're going into. If you're going to a cafe or lunch or something, you can be very different than if you're sitting in a conference room answering a list of 20 questions, you know, you just got to prepare in the right way, you know, so you're coming across the way you want. Yeah, no, it's so interesting to even think about cultural differences depending on who you're interviewing with or where, like physically where you are interviewing from, to transition quickly.
I think that something that stands out about you specifically in my feed, I think I've been following you for years now. So I think I feel like I know you, which I know it's first time we're meeting, but it is what it is, that's the beauty of LinkedIn. You talk so openly about experiencing imposter syndrome and the importance of first impressions and evaluating opportunities and being a strong leader in today's environment. Are there things that have informed this version of you in your career that you feel stand out to you most?
Like you've worked for very notable companies, very reputable companies, probably with really strong leaders or maybe not strong leaders beside you. Have any of those instances stood out in informing how you show up on LinkedIn today? It's a great way to do it. There were many in my early days of my career and I would say, I mean, it comes from a deep, I think, insecurity in many ways.
I mean, I'm very confident in certain things. I mean, I feel like I can go toe to toe with anyone on like my energy and my excitement about things and passion in life and so on, but I don't have a, you know, a fancy MBA, you know, I don't then go to a great school or anything like that. I grew up in poverty. My parents were divorced when I was pretty young.
So my superpower was always my energy that I brought to something and the initiative I took. When I, I always felt like, you know, the hardest part for me was always just getting my foot in the door. Once I had my foot in the door, I feel like I felt confident enough that I could convince anyone of anything of how, that this give you a chance. But it for me was always like, I didn't have the network or the background that you would look at me naturally and say, this is somebody to, to invest in.
But I've always taken any of these moments that I could to really go about me on to, because I have this philosophy that whatever meeting you have with me, but it's 20 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour, I want the meeting to be the one that you remember for the rest of your day. So when you think back at the end of the day, like, what was the best meeting I have on it to be the meeting I had with Robin Daniels. So, so I'm always trying to bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm and maybe some insight or wit or humor or something to a meeting. So the person doesn't leave the meeting drain because we've all been in those meetings where you go like, Oh, this was a heavy meeting, right?
Even with candidates and so on. And I was trying to leave it better off that they want to spend more time with me in some way. And of course, it took me a while to kind of like really understand what that meant, but I would say, having that mindset and then in the early days of my career, finding people who took a chance on me, you know, just could see the potential that I had, which is why I'm so passionate myself about writing about, you know, the three big things that I always look for that are non-negotiable is is really aptitude and grit and the passion that you have because then a lot of times you can overcome anything else. Like, and I've had a good chance in my own career hiring people who I could tell just needed somebody to believe in them, just like so many people have believed in me, you know, along the way, it started out when I first moved to the US, I had a great boss.
Her name was Elise Zimmerman and she was the VP of marketing and she took me under her wing and gave me kind of my start. But then along the way, it led to a lot of like people just taking a chance on me. And in my career, honestly, was going well for I would say the first six, seven years, but then I ended up at Salesforce. And Salesforce was when my career took off, there's no doubt about it because this is when I felt like I was working with the Navy SEALs at the industry.
And so I got to be included, I would say, in a group of people who were probably among the best of the best. And I felt like it was an honor and privilege to show up every day and work with these people. Of course, it raised my game. I had to perform or else I couldn't be a part of it.
It also taught me a shitload of things around my skills and my, you know, capabilities. But of course, I also had to deliver. So I'd like to think that I could hold my own as well. But it was definitely a special moment in time when we were just like gathered together.
But even within that group, there were people who I would say took a chance on me and said, why don't you take ownership of this? Like this? So for example, one of my great mentors was a guy called Sean Whiteley, who's created several companies, he's kind of a legend in Silicon Valley. I think all of them have been sold to Salesforce.
I think he's got a little bit of a playbook going on there. But I worked for him for a while. And he was just somebody who gave me enough freedom and trust to go and kind of run with the task at hand, at the mission at hand. Well, of course, he was always there to support me and be available for me and so on.
And that really kind of that moment at Salesforce when I leaned in and took complete ownership over that role and the mission I had led to me getting quite a reputation on the in Silicon Valley, which meant that the next job, Fox.com, they came to me and they basically said, whatever you did at Salesforce.com, just come to it for us because we want that magic. And I could see that that me leaning into something and giving it my all really had worked. And there it was Aaron Levy, who I met with in the interview process, he's the CEO over there. And Whitney Vauk, who also then became a mentor she again, believed that I could come in and step into a bigger role than I had at Salesforce.
But she saw also something in me. So I guess my point is I I'm grateful I come from a long line of people who have taken a chance on me and believe in me and seen that I could rise to the occasion and ultimately has gotten me to wear an today. So I feel that an obligation to do the same for other people. I mean, it's how you create equity and equality in the world where we all need like just a little bit of a helping hand.
100%. I love that so much. We have a such a variance in our listener base in terms of the seniority at which they currently are in their role or in their career overall. When you look back at yourself, your younger self, maybe that moment that clicked at Salesforce, I'm sure you were probably already like a director by then.
But what were some of the things that people can either do to like actively lean in or actively seek mentorship that I feel like everyone talks about building a board of mentors at some really, really like 30,000 foot view level. But how do you get those doors to open? I think a lot of people probably will resonate with what you're saying. Even I am resonating with what you're saying.
Like I don't have a great degree from a reputable college. I don't have an MBA. I have I think lucked up to some degree in getting a good group of peers around me that I can press your test ideas with. But I don't know that I have like a systematized way to build a board of mentors that like systemizes the way that I need to like move my career forward.
And I'm sure others will resonate with that too. Yeah, I would say I mean, you you kind of lean into a couple of things here to unpack. One is, I think you will see your career take off based on two things. One is the energy you bring to something every single day.
That's kind of obvious. I mean, the more energy you bring, the more people you will attract into your spheres or I believe. And to me, the energy and mindset you bring to something is something you can control 100%. A lot of stuff you can't control at work, a lot of stuff you can't control in the world, but you can certainly control the way you show up every single day.
And the energy you bring to something that's number one, number two, is the initiative that you take in finding new opportunities for whatever it is. It could be fixing the team dynamics. It could be finding a new way to go to market. It could be finding and fixing a sales process that's broken.
Taking initiative, unless you're working in a really horrible company, it's not usually something that is frowned upon or or doesn't get rewarded in some way. And you're doing it because you believe in what the mission of the company is and the mission of the team and you want to make everyone better. And maybe at the end of that, there's a reward. Maybe you get promoted, maybe you get more salary, maybe you get more responsibility, lots of different things.
But you're doing it because it creates enough momentum and reputation around you that you're somebody who goes above and beyond. And if you're just show up every single day and you kind of have a heavy attitude and you just kind of do the bare minimum work with the work that's expected of you, you're never going to see the take off in your career, really. Because I would say that, Kaylee, the question I get the most as a leader is how do I kind of get to next level? How do I get promoted?
I'm sure every leader out there can kind of resonate with that. And it's a totally fair question. I've had the same question to my bosses back in the past, but I would say there are three things that you have to do. Number one is, you have to crush your goals consistently and over a pretty long period of time.
Meaning if everyone can have a good quarter, but if you don't have a shitty quarter afterwards, it doesn't really inspire confidence. So if you have like three or four good quarters suddenly, or you're crushing your goals, that's a really good sign. But how do you get there? Well, number one is, you have to be clear on what your goals are in the first place, which comes back to, again, what I think I talk about a lot of right about clarity.
You have to clarify whether it's that you're trying to achieve, how are you going to be measured at the end of the quarter, Kaylee, or the end of the year, and so on. So that's number one. Number two is, you have to act as if you're at the next level. So if you're a senior manager and want to get promoted to a director or director to a VP, start modeling your behavior as if you're already at the level.
Even if you don't have to title, I understand sometimes like, wow, what I need to do to get it, but if you model yourself after people who have that type, they usually take on more responsibility, they work more collaborative across functions. There are certain behaviors that you could probably look up to and learn from and so on. But at this, if you're at the next level, that's number two. And number three, we just think it's probably maybe the one that gets neglected the most is you've got to have a chorus of support around you.
Because I can guarantee every single job I've had, when it comes time to get somebody promoted, it's not a decision I make in isolation or just by myself. I usually sit with a group of peers and we say, so it's Joe ready to get promoted. And I can always tell how the direction is going to go based on the responses of other people. Who's Joe again?
What did you do? Or Joe, he's the one who's a little hard to work. He produces good results, but he's not, he's not the easiest to work with whatever. Okay, what about Kaylee?
Okay, she's awesome. Everyone loves working with Kaylee. She goes above and beyond. Everybody wants her on her team.
She brings the dynamicism and energy to the office every single day. I can always tell which direction the kind of conversation goes. It's not to say you should go out and try to like gain the system or be political, but it means what are you doing to lift everybody else around you? How are you bringing energy and an insight and a helpfulness and a collaborative mind spirit and mindset to work every day that lifts people up around you?
I think that's super, super important. And so, because I would say, when I'm coaching people, 90% of the time it's probably more around their soft skills and the way that they're maybe showing up or how they're communicating or what they're saying or how people are perceiving them versus honestly their hard skills. Yes, they're sometimes their hard skills. You have to kind of get better at and so on, but honestly, it's very rare.
Most people take their jobs and their vocation fairly seriously. Most of the time, by far, is the soft skills. And that comes back into those kind of buckets of, I use somebody that people want to work with. I mean, it sounds to me to try it and it's hard to measure.
I totally get it. So, it's not an easy thing, right? Because people are doing a very data dreamer, but it's true. It's just true.
If you don't, if you don't succeed in that last one, it's very hard to ever get to the next level. Honestly, I would say that even like this category that we're talking about now really layers nicely with the categories that you're talking about when you're understanding which pillars or which attributes you want to look for in a company. If you are not showing up well, it's probably because you're not hitting the mark on the company that you're showing up for. Maybe you don't enjoy spending time with the people you've surrounded yourself with.
Maybe the company product, passion for the product, whatever it is, isn't quite taking the box for you. Maybe you're trying to work in cybersecurity and you don't really care about cybersecurity. I think those things kind of actually create a nice red thread together instead of super deep inside. I think it's actually what you said there.
It's really, really deep because it comes back to there's no bad people. There's only bad matches with the company or the group of people you're surrounded with and so on. There's really no bad people out there. I mean, yes, do you come across as well?
I'm not for sure. But honestly, it's pretty rare. It's mostly just a bad fit. I don't believe in the mission.
I don't believe in my job as to boring or the colleagues and not jiving. Whatever it is. But there's really very, really bad people. I think it's something super much.
If you're feeling that, I also think go to something else with your life. I'm a big believer that life is too short to show up every day for something that you're not passionate about. Of course, to be clear, it's not just quit your job and not have any way to sustain yourself. But if you have the opportunity, if you're working in an industry where there's high demand, honestly, go to something you love.
Your life will be much better because of it. 100% and honestly, the company that you leave probably will be to that will allow them to fill that spot with somebody that is going to fit their needs or add to their culture or whatever it might be. I would be remiss if I didn't bring you onto this podcast and actually talk about marketing. You're starting a new gig and there was this headline, hold on, I have to find it and read it because it's so good.
I'm sure you wrote it, which is probably why I love it. But there's this headline. Oh my gosh. Okay, so as part of you announcing that you're joining LMS 365, there was this post that came out with the headline that reads, WeWorks XCMO returns to Denmark to bag the IPO he couldn't with Adam Newman.
Can we talk about your, I mean, I'm like, I can't even, I had to read it three times because it was so good. Anybody, obviously, Adam Newman is the CEO of WeWork for anybody that's living under a rock and doesn't know who he is and hasn't, you know, I don't know, completely benched that documentary that Apple put out WeCrash. But I would be remiss if we don't talk about marketing. I think we can talk about WeWork if you want to, but I really am interested in understanding how you are stepping into a leadership role at a new company and approaching your first like 30, 60, 90.
We've, I feel like, so the first half of this call talking about how to get yourself into a gig that you're confident and comfortable and pumped to join. What do you do once you're in? Like, where are you, how are you framing up your first 90 days? Yeah, I mean, I think you got to do two things in my mind.
You got to start making an impact very quickly. And you also got to build a trust. And those are two hot things. I think in the first 60, 90 days, you might have to work double time because I have a big believer in spending as much time with the humans who either I work with or work with before me.
So I've been in the first month, I was in England, I was in Romania, I was in the US, I was in another office we have done the part of Denmark. And I just put a lot of value in showing up to people who I was working with to build a trust because I know it'll pay dividends down the line. It's so much easier to get shit done, honestly, when you've built some trust versus I'm showing up calling a Zoom call and asking somebody for something and they've never spent any time with me. Why should they have any investors interested in working with me or helping me?
I mean, of course, overall, it's a company, we will do that, but it's just I find it much. So that's number one. Number two, put some wins on the board and find opportunities to do that. Some of them, of course, will take longer to come in and fix, you know, and some of them can be very kind of quick.
So for example, there's two things that happen to focus on, because I run not just, you know, the marketing kind of go to market part of that messaging and so on, which is like what I've done for many years in my career, but also product. And so it's two things I'm focusing on. One is how do we create an innovation machine? So I've been spending a lot of time with the product team and the PM team on how I think about innovation and how I want our team to really like pushing ourselves to innovate faster for our customers to be successful.
We've done very well so far. We're growing at over 50% year over year. We've got, you know, over at one hundred point five million users already. So we're doing well, but I feel like there's so much more opportunity, which is why you bring somebody like me in.
So I'm focusing a lot on how do we create an engine of innovation that motivates and inspires our PMs to go above and beyond. We have quite a good PM team and I think they have the potential to think much bigger than honestly they have in the past. So that's number one. Number two is I think about our messaging a lot, you know, like how we communicating what we do that's unique or different or has a point of view.
You know, I'm very clear around this is that we're in this golden age of storytelling and there's so many great ways to tell you. So of course your website is an obvious one. LinkedIn is a great channel, TikTok is a great channel, videos podcast, I love being on podcasts, it's super fun. There's so many great ways to tell your story.
The downside I think of this golden age of storytelling is there's so much noise out there. There's so much noise. So you can't just be slightly different, slightly better. And if I'm honest, if I look at some of our messaging right now, I think it's just okay.
Right. So one of my big projects of course is well, how do we change this to a unique point of view to be very different than anything else that's out there? What's our stance on AI? What's our stance on learning and development?
And how do we do talk about this in a way that's different? I think it's just slightly better, slightly different. It's very hard to break through. And so, so a big focus for me, of course, is this one of my skills?
I love storytelling, I love messaging and positioning. So spending a lot of time and really digging into what we can do that's different. We haven't announced it yet or released, but you'll see it soon enough. We're working on what that would look like.
But to me, it's really around how do you juggs to post this time that we're in, where it's just a lot of hype around AI and techno dominance and there's a lot of fear and uncertainty out there around how do you juggs to post that with something that's a little bit more human and accessible and not scary. And that's where my mindset is that because I don't particularly want to create a world where everyone is fearful for their jobs all the time or fearful for their development. I want to create a world where everyone is constantly being invested in so they can unlock the potential that they have. Again, it comes back to our beginning of our conversation because that's how I see the world.
So for me, it's like, how do I create messaging that is emotionally resonant? Even though in my whole career, I've only worked with B2B companies, but I've always had the mindset of trying to market like a B2C company. And why? Because people respond emotionally much better to B2C messages.
If I ask you, Kaylee, tell me three brands you love, it's probably three consumer brands. I'll tell you, I love Lululema and I love Nike and Patagonia, you know, and because they speak to me at an emotional level and I think B2B brands can learn a lot from that. And that's the mindset I'm coming in with this one here too. Yeah, I think it's very powerful.
I think that B2C brands have a way of feeling very relational. Although I don't know anybody that works at Patagonia, but I do feel the same resonance when I am hit with an ad or I'll tell you this, there was actually an ad I saw on TikTok yesterday that was, I know you're like, I don't want to make people feel for all of AI, but it was an incredible ad. Like, I mean, scroll stopping. I don't know anything about soccer.
I am not a soccer guru. And I mean, soccer and it's true as intent, but I don't know anything about soccer. But there was this ad that came up on TikTok yesterday that was showing the emotion of the crowd being rallied when all of these male soccer players are making these great kicks and goals. I don't even know the words for soccer.
But anyways, the emotion that came through this ad was wild, all geared towards male soccer players. And then halfway through the ad, this message comes up on the screen that's like, but this is AI, what you've just watched isn't the male soccer team of whatever country they were representing. And then it re does the ad and it's actually showing you how they've used AI to make all of these female soccer players look like males. And it's actually like, you can show up for the women too.
Like you can get just as excited. It doesn't have to be all about male I don't even know anything about soccer, but this ad was so gripping. And I'm like, wow, I could go watch a soccer game. And it's because it's so emotional.
I got sucked into this storyline. They told me an entire story. I learned more about soccer in those 30 seconds that I've ever consumed in my entire life, because it was a gripping hook that got me invested in watching 30 seconds. I love the passion that you're sharing the story with.
I mean, it's kind of like, I want to go see that now. That's how good that was and how good your storytelling is. But second, you can also tell like, this is about storytelling, storytelling is at the core of it, right? Because they told the gripping story, right?
It's like, so I feel like as marketers, right, we're in this world, we have so many opportunities. Like, it's great. I love the fact that you mentioned it was on TikTok too, right? So there's so many opportunities for you to tell your story, be bold about it.
But I'll guarantee that any story that's kind of boring, doesn't elicit emotion, doesn't have a point of you, you're going to fail miserably. So the way I tested this, Kaylee, is I usually say to the seat my team is I know we're on to something when it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Because that means it doesn't mean we should pursue everything that makes me feel uncomfortable. But it usually means that there's something to investigate a little bit more.
When I have that voice in my head that goes, can we do this? Should we do this? Is this stupid? What will people think?
Will we get lots of hate for it? And usually it's very rare, honestly, you get to just massively, because I'm not trying to be an idiot or upset people, but when you have those thoughts around, can we do this? That's usually a fairly good sign that you're onto something that is at least evoking an emotion in here. When you think back at some of your pillar moments in your career, are there moments that still to this day stand out to you as these like, that's a little uncomfortable.
Are there moments you can look back to today that are like, yes, that was uncomfortable? And either we did it or we didn't do it. Yeah, I would say that the one we did at Matterport when we launched our iPhone version, it was so different than anything that we had done. I mean, we're B2B brand, we sell like an expensive camera, a SaaS plan on top of it and all that stuff.
This is like very consumerish. And I thought like, well, alienate our audience. I also had some of those questions. I was like, alienate our audience.
Are we wasting a shitload of money on this very expensive campaign that we're going to roll with? That's really not going to get anything. I mean, a lot of doubts, honestly, that was going to turn out as well. Of course, I've conviction that it would go well.
But I also think myself and the team had the courage to stand by it. Like, let's do something different. It is kind of a freem consumer-ish product, even though it's hard to say it's fully consumer. But it's kind of in that vein.
So we went a very consumer language. It's something we'd never done before. So we'd never done that before, right? So, and it turned out actually really well.
I'd say that's one of the reasons why the company IPOed quicker than I thought when I first came into Matterport, I thought it was going to be a journey of probably 24 to 36 months. So I feel we ended up IPOing in about one year. But because of the success of our freemium product, but honestly, there was a lot of doubts. And it was kind of also rushed because we were, in other words, the fact that we were all remote, we never, during the whole creation of this campaign, we never saw each other.
We never saw each other. We were like, look at each other in the eye and be like, are we doing this? So what's happening here? So lots of, like, but at the end of the day, we just went, okay, I mean, it just kind of succeeds spectacular or it's going to fail.
It's just when I come back to, at this framework, I use that, you can execute at a tactical strategic or an epic level. And the reason why it's so hard for most companies and most individuals, honestly, to move from tactical to strategic to epic is because the further you move towards that epic thing, there's very little data to guide. When you're just operating tactically, you've got all the data in the world. So you know if you're just going and fix this thing or you make your ad to slightly better, you optimize this channel, you're going to get incrementally better results.
So I think tactical decisions breed incremental results. I think strategic decisions, which is like where you have some data, but you also have a lot of unknowns, usually breeds more linear results. You have a good thesis behind it and you have a good team and investment in whatever it is. You should use these bigger things that will take probably months, maybe even quarters to kind of build out, maybe campaign or a new product and so on.
But the epic things, where these are very hard for most companies or individuals to kind of grasp because there's no roadmap. If there was, it would have been done already, which is why you're stepping into the unknowns. When I think about where my career has taken off, it's when I've had those moments of stepping into the unknown. Of course, with strong conviction and a thesis, but honestly very little data, if you were to ask me, show me the data that's going to work up, I don't have any.
I just don't. I mean, you know, I think it's the same. I think a lot about some of the greatest brands that I admire when I think about Nike and how they created the Colin Kaepernick, you know, whole movement around him. I'm sure they must have had fierce debates, the boardroom with executive, like, I mean, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to stand by this guy. He's very divisive and all this stuff. And he did. They stood by him, which I applaud.
And now you can see that I think it was the revenue grew like 8 billion in the year following because I think they stood by the conviction and then you have like the new Bud Light thing that's happening, you know, where they did something bold, but then they kind of retracted it and they didn't stand by it. I feel like they were wavering too much. And again, I mean, I'm just sitting here playing armchair, you know, quarterback, but at the same time, like to have conviction in what you do is a big part of being in marketing. He's having courage to try something new and standing by it.
And if you don't have that, I think I think I think you're never going to realize your full potential. I really don't. I think that's interesting. And I think there's also something that goes unset around not only you having conviction.
I feel like I've had a handful of moments that I can recount quickly in my career, where I have had such strong conviction and my CEO has not. And so there's this magical song and dance that happens between you as either like the strategist or sometimes honestly, I'm the strategist and the executor comes with such conviction in a way that is internal storytelling. We do a lot of storytelling externally, but internal storytelling is just as important to bring that CEO or executive or sometimes if you're asking for a lot of budget, your CFO, whoever your financial partner is, to bring them into what you're seeing and this lens of how you see this campaign playing out, how you see, I don't know, this website redesign playing out, whatever it is, like bring them along with you instead of just like sending them a brief or like a one-liner, like, yo, I need this much budget. It's never going to work because they don't see the magic.
They're not experiencing this energy or conviction with you. You have to like create this song and dance to bring them along for the ride. So that it's almost like a duh moment by the time you get to the negotiation of like budget. Because I feel like that's the moment when you normally lose people is when you have such an epic idea that also requires an epic budget.
Yeah, of course, of course. But you've also had another court with us. We're getting into some good stuff here. I think is the only way I've ever seen epic ideas come to fruition is that you have to, if you're the idea generator, you have to, first of all, such conviction and passion and a good thesis behind why you want to do whatever it is you want to do.
And then the only way to sell this idea is to go one-on-one with people, to get enough of a movement around this idea to actually go make it happen. Every time somebody goes in with an epic idea into a group meeting, it obviously, in a hard way to always get shut down because once somebody says something negative, it starts defaulting to the negative. So if you have conviction on you got to do what you're just saying, like talk to a bunch of people to get momentum around it. So when you finally go to your CEO or CFO, say, yeah, our chief part is officers on board or head of business development, as some boy, they love the idea.
And here's who we have. We have a lot of conviction. This is the right thing for the business. But if you ever bring it up in a group meeting, you're completely shooting yourself.
It's so funny because I actually have seen that play out this quarter, actually, already. We're 18 days into the quarter and I've already seen that happen twice where somebody's brought something up in a group setting and one person is like, let me be the person that's serving up the objections or the objections saying, oh, but here's a whole, here's a whole, here's a whole, and then it becomes this awkward, just like whole poking activity. It's so uncomfortable. So yeah, you have to really destroy it.
It's so destroyed. It's so uncomfortable to even watch. I actually just don't really enjoy confrontation. It's so uncomfortable to watch that ideal person present their heart and soul and then just be like slowly trying to back away from the zoom.
Oh, it's awful. It's so uncomfortable. But it's why you can never, you can never do it. It's also, I mean, I think of it also this way is ideas are fragile and they need nurturing and care.
And so if you bring it up in a group setting, you're kind of killing that idea very quickly and give it some room to breathe. First of all, spend some time internally thinking about what not this is good because not every, honestly, idea is a good idea either. That's the other thing, right? It's not like every epic idea needs to be pursued.
But once you've like sat on for a while and you feel like just kidding magical, then you start talking to some people that you trust, right? And then if they, you get them on board and they don't completely hate it, then maybe you start bridging out your circle like a little bit broader and so on. And I find also just comes back to kind of the mentorship and coaching conversation. Well, one of the ways I've had success is like, don't be afraid to reach out to people in your company.
And I was more junior, let's say, a product marketing manager. You'll have the courage to reach out to maybe your VP of product or your, your, your, your chief engineer or whatever it is and just say, Hey, you know, you've had a great career. Can I pick your brain over coffee or something? If you make it non-threatening, most people will be happy to invest a half an hour or an hour in you.
And most people also, if you make it really flattering to have an ego, right? They're like, Oh, wow, somebody's looking up to me and I'm happy to spend some time. So there are ways and you know what? I've always had this mindset, like, what's the worst that can happen?
They say no, I've lost nothing. Absolutely zero. So go ahead, have the courage. I have, I'm only surprised.
I mean, I come into these companies and I'm like, reach out to me, talk to me. I'm honestly, a lot of times surprised by how few people I've got the direct reports of people below my direct reports, don't reach out. I'm like, what do you think is going to happen? You think I'm going to, oh, you have the courage to audacity to reach out to me.
I'm going to put you through the ring. I'm like, of course, I'm not going to do that. It's like, what can I ask all these leaders? So interesting though, because I feel like though, there's, so when I first started in my career, we were in person in the office, like, you know, executives had physical offices with very thick wooden doors and those doors, you know, it's like, people started saying like, Oh, we have an open door policy, but like, you walk by their office and their doors literally always shut.
And so I think that there's something that's like, not, I think I've always been a notebook. Yeah, I think I've always been an open book where I'm just like, you know, people are people. So I'm just going to ask for help when I need it. And I don't think I think so much about it.
But I do feel like I've had the opportunity to talk with a lot of peers and meet with other sets. You have this like weird, like psychological boundary between the access that you either are allowed to have or should have or should never approach around executives or people that like hold a certain title. And it's such a strange thing to try and debunk because it's like, no, they're just people. And like, yeah, they probably are busy, but like, are they too busy to say hello or to like, give you advice on a very specific thing?
I think the thing that's hard is when people approach leaders with broad like, I'd love to get to know you, like broad asks that are specific. The things that even myself, like that I always pick up from others that shoot me at a young LinkedIn is like, hey, I'm experiencing this problem with this leader, or I'm experiencing this problem launching this campaign. Sometimes it's like tactical stuff that they just need help with. Can you help me?
That is an easy yes. If you're approaching somebody with a broad like, I'd love to be like you one day. It's a really hard thing to say yes to because you, you as the committer have no idea what you're committing to completely completely completely. I think that's true.
I think I think it's different internally or externally. You're right. If I get some of these, I get some of these requests on LinkedIn as well. If they're pretty generic and there's no details about why me or what you're looking for almost the time to say no.
But I will take quite a few of these meetings if they're very specific about what is they're trying to get out of it. Because I truly believe it being a for. But internally, I think it's different. I mean, it's very rare that I say no to somebody internally.
Because again, I'm here to serve. It's not about me. It's about me making somebody else's maybe potential come true. If I can just give them some insight, some care, some attention, maybe they will feel like what they're doing matters, maybe they matter more.
And I think it feels like it's always worth it. I can't think of many times where I've really said no to somebody internally, unless I'm crazy busy in my counter stack. But then I usually, I never say no, I just say, I can't right now, but maybe next month or two months or something like that when things come down. Extremely, of course, I think it's very different.
And I just kind of have to be mindful of not wasting your time also. Because I mean, at the end of the day, what the thing you can control the most is your time and your energy and getting stuck into things that you don't really want to do. I would say it's one of the lessons as I became an advisor is suddenly people saw that I was open, and I wasn't a matterport anymore. I'm like, oh, now you have time for me.
And so I would get hit up incessantly by people just like, hey, can't you spend 30 minutes with me? And I ended up getting taken quite a few of these meetings. And a lot of them would just leave me feeling drained or like, why was I doing this meeting? I didn't get anything out of it.
And it's not because I need to get something out of it. But I also want to feel like the energy expenditure or gain is worth it. And I've learned to be a little bit more protective of that as well. So I don't.
Yeah, so I think that speaking of time and being respectful, we are at the top of the hour, which is crazy sad. It's on fast. I think we've given hopefully given the audience so much wisdom just about career growth and mentality. I think that your specificness around energy is very interesting.
It's something that I am really attracted to. But I've never interviewed anyone or met anyone that has a same like vibe around the importance of giving and taking energy from literally every part of your day. It's critical. I feel like I didn't understand or value that until I became a mom.
And so maybe that's like part of my evolution. Does that energy is now more important than ever? Because I have limits of it. But I'll say if people want to find you, follow you, whatever, what's the best place for them to do that?
Well, right now it's definitely on LinkedIn. Just look up Robin Daniels. I'll probably come up. You can find me on Twitter.
I don't tweet as much. I wish I wasn't threads with threads. It's not available in Europe. So I'm still waiting for that.
I don't have a US App Store account. So I can't even get it, which kind of sucks. But I'm dying to try it out. But yeah, LinkedIn is definitely the best place to get me.
So anywhere but threads for a one liner on threads, it's peaked. And then now it's like 100 million. And now it's literally at 50 million. I think so.
But they've like plateaued in the last week. So maybe you're really not missing out on that much. I think you missed out two weeks ago at the peak. And now it's kind of like, we're not warm.
So we'll see. After the marketing team was pulling their hair out over there. Oh, look at the growth. Oh, shit.
What's happening? I mean, it's so interesting. We should have talked about threads. I didn't even think about it.
But anyways, yeah, threads is interesting. I'm very fascinated to see how it turns out. There is such a laundry list of social media graveyards that I really hope threads does not join the social media graveyard. But time will tell.
Robin, thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. We'll leave everything that he mentioned in the show notes. So I'll find those links and all that and drop it in the show. That's for anybody that's listening.
Thank you so much. We'll chat soon. Thank you.