and we are live welcome everybody to
another YouTube hangout super excited to
be back here with my friend the CEO of
sage mr. Stephen Kelly welcome back mr.
Kelly how we doing great to be here ever
– I was just gonna ask you how the Blue
Jays are doing and obviously a lot of
stuff going on how the kids are but
we’re good we’re back on air I’ve missed
you we haven’t been on for a couple of
weeks so it’s good to be back with Evan
Almighty the the Blue Jays last no play
out so since it’s a sore point we’re
thinking next season now we’re thinking
next season but where are you in your
London office where are you joining us
from yeah just back I did since we we
talked last I did a crazy world tour
went out to see all our colleagues
around the world so we did three and a
half kind of rotations of the earth in
about three weeks good new job we
finished up in Vancouver in Canada
so you’re great country and what a great
way to finish it was fantastic harbor
for Vancouver and the Canadians
absolutely set the bar high and they
rocked as they always do I love that
well today we’re talking about how to
how to go from start up the scale up how
do you take that you know part time idea
you have and make it something bigger or
how do you take that you know small
company haven’t turn it into an empire
but before getting into it Stephen
people always love your quotes to kick
us off so what what is this the curated
Stephen Kelly quote that you want to
lead us with today yeah totally I got a
couple of two or three today just to
kick it off and they make frame some of
the questions as well
first thing is 50% we survey all our
customers some 50% of our customers
business builders business owners said
they actually grow in a business is
actually harder than starting a business
I said there’s something to reflect on
and then also a good quote we’ve used a
lot is kind of work on your business not
totally in it obviously day-to-day
running is relentless but sometimes you
need to just step back and think about
how you build it for the future and go
to the next level and then the final
thing is you know if
core values I think we all we all know
business builders have a dream mission a
sense of purpose and if those core
values are the soul in the organization
then really bring them to the heart of
everything you do as you grow your
organization very cool so I wanna we’re
gonna give you some questions we’ve got
people watching they’re already asking
some questions for us but before getting
into it I’m curious your number one
piece of advice for somebody who wants
to go from startup to scale-up
what would the man Stephen Kelly
recommend as this top piece of advice I
think top advice is be be absolutely
true to the vision and the idea you
started with and that’s kind of back to
the culture and then as you grow
obviously almost certainly you’re gonna
have to hire folks in your business to
support your growth and high rock stars
it’s really clear to me the great
companies have fans has two things that
stand out is great culture and that’s
really all about you the founder you
inspire that culture and people really
galvanize around your movement and your
dream but then also when you bring them
in you need to make sure that you hire
rock stars and then we all rock stars
they want to fly like eagles so you need
to be a bit careful that you gonna don’t
suffocate them because it’s quite likely
you’ll be better than the people you
bring in and certainly some parts of the
business and to scale and grow that
business you’ve got to give them a bit
of space to do what we talked before
like fail fast learn quickly get it
right and really kind of power off it
reminds me of the quote if you want to
go fast go alone but if you want to go
far you got to go with the team I wonder
for you because velocity is so important
every time I’m around you talking
velocity and speed we gotta go fast how
do you how do you go fast for the
entrepreneurs I feel like I can do
everything myself I can do it way better
than these people that I’m bringing on
you know I hired somebody that’s not
working out and like I’m just gonna go
back and do it myself because that first
hire didn’t work out because I want to
go fast how do you go fast and have a
team at the same time yeah I think um I
think
do it I do think this is narrow Evan you
know and I talked to so many businesses
that have kind of scaled up and quite a
common theme is a lot of the guys who
used joined in the the early days in the
pioneer days say you know when the
company’s a million or two million reps
you know we’ve lost the essence of
meeting on the Friday afternoon ringing
the bell 1 we had a great week in terms
of sales or you know we hadn’t won an
award and we lost that informality so I
still think you can go fast and have
great clarity so and that’s down to
again the founder and the chief
executive really probably the same
person and make sure there’s that
clarity of purpose what we’re here to
achieve the moon mission and then take
some moon shots out of that but just
carve a bit of space out for you people
to celebrate the successes and feel part
of the family you you know you are
galvanizing a team of people around your
vision that you hold very dear yourself
very special something unique and
magical and the more you kind of engage
them in your movement and also back to
where what Evan said if you can get
partners involved to join your volunteer
army then wow you can amplify the
message and really go much much faster
and then through through modern kind of
digital technology and social media you
can amplify and you can get a volunteer
army of millions of people out there so
so that’s when you go really fast great
velocity and businesses but also you
bring in people with you which i think
is really important to be inclusive and
then just carve out rid of time with
your trusted guys around the table just
to say you know what’s working well how
do we go faster says that quote I gave
you at the beginning when business
builders just don’t get lost in the sea
of noise of the day just take a bit of
time to step back and reflect on what’s
going well you know is the product
launch go and well as a website looking
good is you know e-commerce whatever
part of the business it is is the
services utilization tracking are the
clients go and were they happy are they
in good space there all those sort of
things that you have to do you need to
carve out some time and then
strategically you’re going to say are we
burn through to ourselves because
you if you’ve got a great idea and
you’ve been through that kind of really
steep white-knuckle ride of growth you
want to go to the next stage and if
you’ve got a great business there’s no
no reason to stop you rather than your
own capability so just go for it and
make sure you go fast but bring people
with you I love it where the words of
motivation from Stephen Kelly I love it
cool let’s hit that some questions and
hope some give some knowledge to some
entrepreneurs first up we got Christoph
Hussain hello thank you so much for your
inspiring and educational video you’re
so helpful to my life my question is how
do you find good people to work with to
scale your business okay it ties in to
what you were just talking about so now
how do we find these people these
rockstars to help us achieve velocity
for our company hey Christopher I go
back to the crowd deal with them Evan
he’ll know this whatever he’s a legend
in terms of a business person I’m Steve
Jobs
so Christoph his quote is famous quote
you know the Big D Boehner hashtag
number one D motivator for talented
people is to have to put up with bozos
so Steve Jobs said nothing’s more
frustrating than a player’s having to
work would be players who who absolutely
number one slow them down and to suck
their energy from them so the best thing
you can do as a leader obviously is hire
great people and Steve Jobs said it’s
better than giving them for spell off or
sushi free sushi you want to hire a
player so how do you do that that’s the
crux you question I think number one you
have obviously a brand out there a big
idea and I think actually if you do that
well it attracts great people second
they are always always go out to your
network and we’ve sort of talked about
on previous broadcasts about how you go
out attract really good people but first
of all identify them you know if you’re
working in a company today or you
starting off in your own people who
really impress you and people who
consistently kind of knock the ball out
the path there’d be great targets to
join your personal crusade in your
business so I think a lot of it is
around kind of networks obviously things
like LinkedIn and stuff like that make
it even easier
but I think most of all you really want
to build a business and a company that
attracts the very best attracts rock
stars and probably the most important
thing you can do as a growing business
actually probably the most important
thing is to actually invest your time
making really smart eyes and and
candidly I’ve made bad heart in my life
I’ve made lots of mistakes and if you do
many lots of mistakes and you know on
hiring it’s somewhere where it can hurt
you but if you haven’t made a mistake
let’s be honest everybody’s done it and
what you’ve got to do is really be
honest with itself and have the honest
conversation with the person apart and
and you know cut loose if they’re not
happy and they’re not going to make it
in your company you’re much better off
having someone really motivated and
really capable to do that job but the
best way to do it is build a great
company great brand and that will
actually draw you know the bees to the
honey bar yeah I think just always
keeping an eye out for talented people
whether you’re at a networking event
whether you’re going to Sage summit
whether you’re you know at a conference
whatever it is if you see somebody who
really impresses you and there might be
a way to work together on it on a
project you have calmed up you always
want to you’re always looking for you
always want to keep that in mind you’re
looking for talented people to help join
and build this thing you’re creating if
you’re posted out on social media you
know Steve my table you’re having a
really galvanizing message and something
powerful that people want to come and be
attracted to our people respond to that
if somebody was going above and beyond
and you know if you’re looking for a
programmers or somebody on there who’s
like sharing their programming skills
and you can ask to join your team you
know people who love your mission
already I think it’s great to be able to
involve them in what you’re doing
so the Steve I’m thinking now you know
when you came to Sage it’s still you
know relatively new I guess it hasn’t
been something you’ve been at for 20
years you know you come over how did you
go about building your team obviously
this is a team in place you’re bringing
new people on as well how do you think
about the people that you surround
yourself with there yeah you know one of
the most critical things we had to do
was hard huge talent and we made a lot
of changes in the team
so just a few data points we got about
40,000 people but I think it’s a lot of
about capability some experience and
attitude but if you’ve got attitude and
you’ve got desire it’s amazing what you
can overcome so we’ve actually kind of
really focused on hiring Millennials
we’ve really focused on a much better
gender balance so in the senior
management team I’m really pleased to
say I think we’ve now gone up from about
22% female it’s now 32 percent and
that’s just in less than a couple of
years so there’s loads of elements not
just capability but it comes back to
that culture you want to build you want
to be an inclusive company a company
which is obviously high-performing but
also a company that really encourages
young people to come in and learn and
rotate through their careers so they can
go you know into one function and go off
and we you know it’s great actually I’m
in Vancouver melody I called Tom Gough
who used to work in the London office
now it’s working in Vancouver you know
27 28 year old guy phantom what an
opportunity if we can create a company
where people individuals colleagues have
huge aspirations and their aspirations
and their dreams touch and connect with
Sage so that they can make the career
but I’d also say evident you know I met
I’m a 23 year old entrepreneur this
morning who blew me away a guy called
Jack and Jack has just started the
company he’s got I think he’s closing
around to get about 8 million of funded
but what impressed we were Jack firstly
he contacted me on Twitter he said can I
have a coffee with you the answer was
yes he’s done that with Ronan Dan who’s
a rockstar at Verizon he’s done it with
superb female entrepreneurs and he’s
just assembled an unbelievable little
company about you know a dozen people
but he’s also done that through just
perspiration hard work hard graft and
and being bold and asking people and
actually you know quote is if you don’t
ask you don’t get so I think when you’re
looking for talent it’s exactly what you
say save some of all these great
conferences you go to look a network and
find out who the stars are share with
them you big idea in your vision and you
always find people gravitate to leaders
and fantastic business ideas as well and
a mission
and a good cause with a great culture I
love it just just Tyco tagging on that I
got asked a question in a previous live
stream of how do you how do you make
friends with a guy like Stephen Kelly
how do you get on a guy like Steve and
Kelly’s radar so maybe maybe you could
answer like how do you get on your radar
so this gotta be Chelsea Twitter what do
you look for when somebody’s reaching
out to you uh you know I think um
everything is really amazing Evan and
you know I’d encourage everybody on this
but just generally to believe in
yourself you you you espouse that you’ve
written your book it’s all about hashtag
belief I see so many people lacking
self-confidence when they’re great
people and inherently you know maybe I
don’t know the education system beats
confidence other people but if it does
it’s a real shame because I think
there’s so much talent is latent and
untapped so people contact me this
Jackie ping me on Twitter DM me and
three times later he was still DMing me
I said okay come in for a cup of coffee
and he came in for a cup of coffee did
his pitch brilliant idea I’ve got some
photos of them up on him on Twitter
later I’m really happy to promote him
he’s he’s really you know just the
inspiration of his idea his attitude his
B’s business he’s get up and go is our
work um so I think I would argue nearly
all chief Eutychus like me probably
don’t get asked enough and everyone in
this summer in the London office and
around the world actually Sage we’ve
done loads of interns kind of kids come
in at the age of 16 to work experience
and and I just would encourage everybody
out there especially they’ve come from
tough backgrounds to just ask people
like me people like you III couldn’t
imagine anybody Kevin to Evan Carmichael
and saying will you give me ten minutes
your time I’ve got an idea to run by you
it might not be this week because you’re
a busy guy but you’ll find time for them
and I just I would always you know
beseech you guys out there to ask the
question back yourself believe in
yourself I have the conviction that you
believe in your eye
and you think he’s gonna change the
world for the better I love it
another thought that came to mind as we
were talking about trying to bring on
more women and that being a really key
part of you coming in and increasing the
women on the executive team I forget her
name we talked about her I think back in
July of the the tech Cranmer god kriti
Sharma oh man she’s a rock star she’s uh
I think she’s unbelievable ya know so
she’s our bill and credit to her she’s
just come in bootstrap t this is this is
real the essence of everything we love
so she’s boot structure team she came up
an idea met customers came up with a
revolutionary basically a chatbot this
allows you from you little each on the
your smartphone or whatever device you
use to use Facebook Messenger or slack
or one of the messaging platforms to
actually talk to your accountant engine
so you can just take a photo in a
restaurant of the receipt and you can
post it straight through your messaging
platform like Facebook and it makes it
like it’s incredible because I think
we’re gonna see that sort of they call
it artificial intelligence type
technology more and more over the next
decade but credit took really what she’s
probably twenty seven twenty eight years
old
and again I just I’m so excited when
young talent comes in and lands
something really exciting connects it
with customers and and she launched this
product pick and you guys can download
it and have a look at it but it’s
literally from launcher safe summit a
soft launch on the stage of me Evan
within I think it’s about six weeks we
had users in 85 countries so ten years
ago even to have 85 countries uses in
front of that would probably take three
years and they haven’t for her in six
weeks and she’s very enthusiastic
visionary passionate our high energy get
stuff down she’s everything you look for
if you’re you’re hiring people at
Rockstar hmm
I remember reading too about I think it
was Jacqueline Jacqueline the Rojas who
won all these awards a pioneer of female
in the tech industry who you guys
brought on to be a EVP at Sage so I mean
you’re making all these hires now these
are smart women there’s a lot of people
going after them they could have
opportunities at any company and and so
this is the question you got
entrepreneurs who are trying to build
their team you you know we’re saying a
team is important to go from startup to
scale-up what do you do to recruit those
women and and have them pick sage over
the hundred other companies that they
could go work out as well with their
skill set yeah I think this there’s a
question we should ask before that as
well but of why do we need you know
obviously for us reality is I think I’ll
be the first want to hold my hand up and
say you know we’re on a transformation
at Sage but wow we got so much more to
do we’re gonna we gotta have yeah every
day I beat myself up about I’m better
products better customer service not new
you know there’s always more to do
that’s just life but one of the things
that I looked at when I looked
originally at the management team when I
walked in there all old guys like me you
know Evan look at me you don’t want you
don’t want Stephen Kelly clones walking
around this place so the first question
is where’s your audience and then you’ve
got a hard people to represent your
audience we want millions of millennial
customers we want you know what now
probably about over a third then it’s
40% of new businesses started by females
and the whole world has changed
dramatically in the last 20 years and so
our audience is you know these female
entrepreneurs our audience is
Millennials they’re the people so for
everybody on this broadcast think about
where is it your audiences that are
going to be attracted your service your
product and then you want people in your
team who really represent their views
that round the table you can get the
customer in the room and have an empty
chair for the customer or the
marketplace so that they are
representative then I think key thing
evan is you’ve got to really make
a priority and a focus so simple things
we did to change it was every time you
get down to a sort of shortlist of three
candidates it’s got to have a female
candidate on the slate and we changed
some of those things and then also you
know a lot of people here are founders
they’re leaders in their businesses what
you say I use this phrase called the
tone at the top what you say has huge
impact and the shadow following you
every day in the business literally with
all these things it’s all about trust
and culture and credibility and
integrity and authenticity and literally
with these sort of things you know it
takes weeks and months to build trust
with colleagues and customers and if you
kind of screw up or do something stupid
you destroy that trust in a second so I
think when you go out and target rock
stars you need to make it a priority
honestly probably the thing I still
spend a lot of my time on is on
recruiting the rock stars we want to
take the company forward I know I think
you should never kind of abdicate that
or outsource it to anyone else you’ve
got to be responsible especially began
from like ten people to 50 people the
next 40 people you hire ideally should
be better than you should have real
essence of what your customers need and
where the audience is and should add a
spark and a different lens to your
company as you grow and scale up and
whether that’s engineers development
guys arm or consultants salespeople
marketing people whatever it is they
should kind of really come in and be a
be part of the cohesive team and I think
it’s a really exciting thing in terms of
the recruitment process that you’re a
part of that because you’re going to
inspire them let’s not kid ourselves
then they’re gonna come and work for you
because you are the person and you know
that another little quotes you know
people join companies typically because
of the founder or the leader and they
leave because of managers so so it’s
important for you to be involved in that
process
Jean rice is asking a question following
up on your galvanizing message
quote at the start he’s wondering what
is the galvanizing message of sage to
attract your volunteer army it’s great
so Oh Evan you know this is like Evan
and I almost were cut from the same
cloth so what do we love so much you
know we’ve kind of just streetfighters
working class heroes we started I
started in my life when I was like seven
years home again home from school going
to my dad’s small business sweeping the
floor packing bags helping out I used to
love it I just loved it but I also was a
witness and at the table where I knew
the hard work that he put in to being
his own boss to follow in his dreams to
pursue in his passion and you know he
got sick and I so I saw the human
sacrifice that it takes if you really
want to build a great business yourself
and you want to be your own boss
and then you know I’ve come full circle
to Sage now I’m just so blessed and
lucky to be here because now I have the
opportunity to serve the business
builders and what I think like Canada
where Evan sets 70% of the jobs across
Canada are created by small and medium
businesses the you know the guys around
in Calgary the guys are up in Jasper the
guys are in Nova Scotia who probably
have used their life savings to fund
their businesses they’ve been working at
it 5 10 20 years and they’re the engine
room of the economy Canada and every
economy around the world and we know
they work 60 70 80 hours a week and we
know that’s you and the drink so I use
this phrase you know I am serve it in
the noble cause I’m serving the noble
cause of business builders not I’d say
unless you kind of want to work and I
respect people who do it I love them in
the charity sector then how lucky am I
to serve business builders at Sage all
these you know we’ve got three million
customers around the world they’re the
best people I’ve met so many of them
they’ve given their lives to follow
their dreams pursue their passions and
what an honor it is for me to serve them
and ultimately you know I believe
because there’s such a
some people and they’re absolutely the
engine-room their economies then they
deserve awesome technology so sages the
sort of digital heartbeat to help them
you know power their business collect
their cash from customers manage their
suppliers pay their employees all these
other things that are fundamental and
we’ve got to make that as simple as
possible for them to make sure you know
they’re in compliance with the tax
authorities and they can sleep well at
night so Trust is really important a
hundred percent compliance hundreds at a
time but also that they can run their
business from the palm of their hands
and we’re on a mission to make you know
technology for business builders as
simple as we kind of use apps like it
was whatsapp or snapchat or any of these
apps in our personal life so what an
honor so literally of them for me I’ve
been here almost a couple years to be
given the opportunity to lead sage which
is on a mission to serve business
builders around the world and give them
awesome technology and make their lives
easier and allow them to do what they
love which is grow their businesses hire
more people create more prosperity for
rural Canada rural America
rural Britain and urban cities around
the world is a huge privilege and
honestly I just get so excited about I
could I could I could talk for hours on
this and just infused with love of
business builders I love it
Kathleen is asking how can I upscale my
fashion brand I’m just starting out so
advice for someone who wants to start
out a fashion brand and scale it up
alright so I think again at Kathleen you
know you you probably know the market in
terms of fashion brands think about who
is it your is is gonna be who’s going to
be your market you know you’re gonna go
for it’s a good generational play or is
it going to be a segment of the
marketplace and then I kind of think
what is your big idea about how you get
to both the product and why you’re
different and then also what’s the best
distribution channel who can you either
partner with or do you want to do it on
a website and
kind of through basically digital
presence once you determine that then
I’d always actually honestly kind of
test-drive stuff so you know I I believe
you Kathleen should have huge dreams you
should be the next kind of massive
fashion icon walking down you know all
the all the platforms picking up the
awards but in the meantime you’ve got to
take the first baby step so if you kind
of got a product an idea and you’re
gonna say market two out of a sixteen to
twenty five year old females then
wouldn’t it be good to go and test drive
it with six or seven of your friends or
again if you’re gonna market it in two
guys are high fashion brands then that’d
be great so get people around test their
ideas and then actually prototype it
then test drive it and I actually I know
quite a lot of our customers who have
built businesses like this and one of
them in maternity we’re actually a
different business but in return to
where and she did it through our friends
first of all and then she did it through
building a very small website and then
she scaled up and I think she now
employs about forty people and it’s been
hugely successful and really kind of
high-end brands so I think with all
these things again kind of have a bigger
idea which it sounds like you have and
then understand the marketplace you’re
trying to sell it why are you different
what Steve kind of unique differentiator
and then get loads and loads of feedback
so when you kind of go to market you’ve
constantly iterating and learning as you
scale up your business yeah I think
you’ve got to find a product that’s
gonna work gotta find the unique thing
whether it’s a special dress or a new
hoodie or whatever it is you know you’re
you’re creating amazing new colorful
ties for Stephen Kelly to rock – with
matching cufflinks
you gotta show the cufflinks a fitting
it little cop you said can you see that
Evan yeah yeah we love colors you see
see I love it I have a new looking cool
in the hoodie man I love that so you’ve
got to find the thing that is different
about your your brain why is your
fashion brand different than everybody
else’s and test drive and I think a lot
of people make a a mediocre product they
make
you know a t-shirt like everybody else
to make it a t-shirt and then they buy
5,000 t-shirts is sitting in your mom’s
garage you need to find the thing that’s
unique about you this is that this is
like the startup before you scale up you
got to start up to find what is the
angle that’s gonna work for you and when
you have a product that you know works
and people love it then you focus on the
scaling up you work on the partnerships
and the distributorships in the
marketing but if you focus on that too
soon you’re just burning dollars you’re
burning marketing dollars without
something that’s gonna work so you got
to figure out what that key product is
first hey Emma just on that I got um
this sort of top five reasons why
companies fail to go through you know
from startup to scale up the number one
reason the number one reason is 42% of
businesses fail because they fail to
understand the market need all about
your point about the wrong product and
making sure that it’s a great fit with
the market I love it and I want the
other four are good enough so the
obvious were about a third of a third of
them obviously I guess this is sad
because I think people over engineer you
obviously got to understand the cash
requires a third of them run out of cash
for a lack of funding or poor investment
or getting ahead of themselves so
tracking your finance is really crude
obviously that’s where people like sage
can come in and help next one is a
quarter of them go back and say they
actually hire the wrong people which is
interesting we talked about that less
than 20 percent of them fail because of
competition and then actually the last
one is about one sixth of them say they
had cut our cost or pricing issues with
their products so they’re the top five
reasons but number one standing out is
kind of the product related to the
market need interesting Stephen Kelly
always comes preparing with stats and
quotes and stories and energy ready to
go that’s the hot out of my week token
to yo-yo all the guys
they’re cool Kendra is next Kendra is
asking how much test-driving do you need
to do before you ask for an investment
oh I think I I think with all these
things actually let’s let’s look at it
the other way what our investors look
for they look for a really good kind of
management team and an idea so back to
the product idea and I you know I know
that you can raise money on the back of
a management team and idea I think for
your your confidence because I hate kind
of seeing you guys give away too much
here companies I think you want a test
drive again run it on fumes don’t spend
loads of money to Evans point because
you can do things really cheaply
especially through social media and
digital and you can test drive loads of
stuff really coolly but really cheaply
as well and that’s what you should do so
iterate it and test driver and I’d say
I’ll be honest businesses should never
stop test driving you know when they get
super scale they should always be test
drive and stuff new ideas new products
prototyping them incubate them kill kill
them if they’re not going to work if
they are gonna work cause correct to
make sure they learn from it and then
when you go to investors I think I would
we’ve talked about this a lot I would
always kind of try and run your business
almost on fumes you want to plan your
cash so you’ve got plenty of cash wrong
way but the best way to do that is
either through friends and family
certainly wouldn’t be going to get loads
of money because I’ve seen the parallel
the extreme and when I was a CEO of a
Nasdaq company and we were startup back
in this a long time ago 1997 we we had
this phrase where we you know basically
treat treat the company’s money as if
it’s your own number-one revenue always
should follow expenses in a business
kind of number two rule and number three
rule we saw loads of companies at that
time go and raise at a hundred million
dollars or two hundred million dollars
and they would just waste money just you
know you couldn’t believe the waste
they’d be booking private jets and
stupid stuff like that rather than
worrying about what really matter it was
about the customers on the front so I
think it’s a really good ethos even when
you
to scale up your company to keep that
kind of hungry sort of street fighter
kind of mentality that we’re really
going to preserve cash we’re going to
preserve every dollar and we’re going to
ask ourselves Oh on that dollar we
invest what return do we get but within
that context I think there’s tremendous
scope to test drives and when you feel
confident in terms of your business your
test driving to get investment then I
think that’s a whole different
conversation around where you get there
but probably the last place I’d go for
businesses like ours that we talk about
is to the sort of traditional places I
think there’s much better sources of
investment and people who will be great
partners to you in your business who can
give you advice who potentially can join
your board or your management team and
all those sort of things and the final
thing back to recruitment actually back
in the day even when I started the
business I got people to join our
company take a massive haircut on their
salary and trade that for equity so they
had a share of the business but Wow did
that change their attitude they had so
much skin in the game and you know they
worked harder and and we build a great
business and they got rewarded over long
term much more than they would if
they’re just taking a salary so that’s a
question I get asked a lot from my
audience and I’m Cruz to hear your
perspective giving up ownership in a
start-up business who to give it to how
much to give up because then you still
need to raise capital as you grow and
you can’t give the same percentage to
everybody if you’re certain the business
and you’ve identified some key employees
that you want to keep long term do you
have advice on how to go about
determining how much to give them and
how much you want to lose in the
business yeah I would say ever Don this
I think yeah this is this is an extreme
philosophy but I would counsel you that
everybody you hire should have equity in
the business I think there’s no more
powerful way to get commitment and to
get alignment
around the purpose and you know the
dream that you have than people having
real skin in the game so even if you
have to sort of pay them hopefully you
could pay them what 7080 percent of the
market salary or even 50% and then give
them the trade on equity then that’s a
great thing to do and I’d say that pays
for itself a hundred times I the other
thing back to your message about
partners if you’ve got a great product
and you do our dependent potential on a
distribution partner I don’t think
there’s anything bad if you’re if you
structure something with a partner so
they actually make an investment that’s
a pretty cool thing to do in return for
a bit of equity but then have some
really big milestones in terms of
distribution you collect the more with
partners you know the real thing is how
are you gonna get them committed how you
know if they’re carrying fifty thousand
products why do they care about your
product so anything that you can do back
to Evans what can you do to
differentiate yourself when they’re
looking at catalog on a screen of a
thousand products if yours popped out
and they’ve got an investment in it
that’s not a crazy thing to do and so on
it comes back to sort of the design of
your business what what’s your big idea
how are you gonna be successful and who
are the people that you need and where
the audience is to really deliver that
dream that you have and then I would use
equity as a good way I’d suggest as you
grow and scale your business typically
you’re going to dilute your company and
you just have to accept that
ah but again to have it’s always the old
adage of Nohr percent of a billion
dollars is not as good as ten percent of
a hundred million so you know I think
you just have to be in some ways
generous as you share the opportunity
for world creation in your business and
you connect people you do dream but I’d
certainly look at key stakeholder groups
and then obviously if you’re raising
money Evan I’d always go to things like
friends and family I’ll get Network it
I’ll definitely if you’ve identified a
rock star potential sort of board member
who really knows the industry that would
be a great person to be invest in your
business
well so if those sort of people he
people are really gonna have skin in the
game who can bring something to move the
dial for your business and normally
that’s great experience or contacts or
networks or access to markets and
distribution very cool or Kendall’s
writing back to say thank you sir that
is awesome advice and then a big happy
face so hey thanks dander this is like
in the answer
Jason’s asking are all of Sage’s
products digital would you they sell
tangible physical products as well yeah
nearly all well all our products
technologies to work on things like
smart phones so they are and we have
this concept I learned a big plug for
Sage but we have this concept in a
business it’s about always managing your
income your assets and expenditure so
we’ve created a golden triangle which is
kind of underpinned by an awesome
accounting engine real-time accounting
and then obviously if you’ve got
employees you need to pay them and
there’s payroll and then the other thing
obviously you’ve got customers you’ve
got to have payments so collecting the
cash sort of the movement of money and
what we provide is the digital heartbeat
for most of our customers are moving to
mobile mobile first some of them are
still kind of using kind of laptop and
desktop technology but more and more
kind of we’re seeing a lot of our
customers sort of running their business
and being controlling the business from
the palm of their hand and their digital
part harpy is both fair sort of personal
life management which is their
smartphone and also their safe system so
that’s kind of what we do and then
obviously you know actually in Canada
with probably the market leader over in
Europe France Spain Africa UK with a
market leader and we partner with a lot
of people though ever naturally as well
so we partner with some of the companies
you’ve probably heard about Google’s
Apple Salesforce all these sort of
companies and we do loads of great stuff
for those companies where we build our
technology on their platforms or on
their devices and you know actually what
we want to do is embrace the business
builders and just give them awesome
technology and if we can partner and go
faster and quicker
deliver better solution for our
customers that the business builders
then that’s absolutely what we’ll do
rather than building ourselves I love it
I want to I want to expand on that point
just a little bit the idea of partnering
with other companies to scale up to go
from startup to scale-up and I know I
know you’re gonna be really humble about
it but I know you had a big role to play
and bring you some of those big
companies on board and it’s been a key
part of the goal your goals at Sage
what’s your approach if you don’t want
to give advice to entrepreneurs who are
looking to form partnerships it’s a
scale up so we’ve talked about building
a team we talked about raising capital
now it’s okay who else can we partner
with to help this business grow what
kind of advice would you have on your
approach of reaching out to potential
partners making it attractive making a
deal to make sense for everybody what
advice would you have yeah I think um I
think particularly product businesses
but also services business again its
kind of know where your audience is so
who are the partners that are really
gonna allow you to accelerate your
business and scale up quicker that’s the
first question
secondly is how do you construct
something where it’s a real win-win so
you both win out of it and thirdly I
think from both parties point of view my
experience of partnerships where they’ve
been really successful is their their
partnerships were you personally invest
time with their senior executives as
well and you form a common understanding
a bond around the mission that you’re on
together so you know and particularly
around us if you go and talk to the guys
sales force or Google they’ve got a
massive ambition to support business
builders as well so the alignment of
vision is very compelling and when I
talk to their senior executives you know
they’re almost just listening to myself
back in the mirror so and then it’s
about what do we do really well what do
they do well and if there is only any
overlap you’ve got to think about being
pragmatic about associated with that and
then back to the final point of the
question how do you construct a
relationship where you’ve got a real
win-win and skin in the game so I think
if you’ve got chronic business you
probably don’t want to give up a ton of
jinan that product business and
therefore if you can trade a little bit
of equity where they have a big
incentive to be successful in your
business and see you grow and create
value through the expansionary business
the other thing evan is just asked the
really obvious questions like if they’ve
got a sales force and their sales force
is going to carry a product you know the
obvious question is well how did the
sales force get incentivized and
compensated around our product because i
promise you if they’re not compensating
around your product you got no chance of
being successful so it’s just the kind
of real common-sense things and i think
all of us would say you know it’s very
it’s very alluring and very excited and
I’ve been there myself and I’m sure
every entrepreneur on this broadcast has
been there where you kind of sign a
partnership and you think wow you know
you open the champagne and the party
star and you’ve already just started
you’ve sold Zippo there’s zero sales
from that partnership and yet you think
the partnership is the mountain you’ve
climbed you put the flag on top of it no
no that’s just the start you’re in the
foothills so that’s when the hard work
starts it’s really easy to sign
partnerships and sign contracts I reckon
our probably 90 percent of partnerships
don’t work out because people declare a
victory way too early and you got to
hunker down you’ve got to go the extra
mile and with that partner the other
thing I’d obviously do is make sure the
partner builds a business plan has real
skin in the game has real volumes
committed pays their salespeople based
on your product success in sense their
salespeople gets you in to pitch it to
their salespeople take the salespeople
out for their monthly parties or
whatever or their holiday parties at
Thanksgiving all those sort of things
that the more you connect and get
alignment around your business and
vision on the partnership the more
successful the partnership will be I
don’t know if you can answer this
question but I’m curious what kinds of
partnerships you see yourself getting
into in the future maybe not specific
companies but the kinds of industries
you see yourself partnering with like if
we’re gonna see sage you know in a Tesla
I do my sage in the in a car or
something else like where do you see the
industry going that you need to partner
with these kinds of companies maybe not
specific companies but like the English
that you want to get into is there
something that comes to mind yeah I
think and this is pretty cool you know
we’re at a time where the industry is so
disruptive technology is changing faster
than I ever remember and I’ve been in
the industry 35 years and it is so
exciting so we do see in the future
actually even different sorts
partnerships things were getting really
excited and tell me if I’m talking kind
of gobbledygook you know I hate using
the three-letter acronyms and stuff like
that but there’s this whole movement
around one area of artificial
intelligence where a lot of things that
have been done in the past manually will
be automated and we already see in it
you know around robotics around kind of
machine learning and we’re building
stuff and partnering with other
companies to build stuff there’s kind of
learning software and actually can
replace a lot of the the stuff that are
done manually the moment especially in
the air accounting you just imagine it
many entrepreneurs still give their
accountant that the tax year a shoebox
of receipts and invoices and stuff and
it’s just crazy it’s inefficient you
know and then there’s loads of manual
hand offs rekey and data it’s just it’s
just mad and I’m sure everyone foreigner
here who’s probably on on this course
they’re over 35 will remember loads of
mistakes that made on accounts and stuff
like that just wasted time all that we
believe will be frictionless it will all
be automated it all be real-time and it
will get smarter and smarter in terms of
sort of clever stuff they give you
predictive analytics about sales future
product requirements and the other area
that we think is pretty cool is things
like we call it data science but
obviously we’re very lucky we got over
three million customers but wouldn’t it
be nice to tell think about an
electricians business in Toronto you
know do you know every other
electricians business in Toronto gets
paid in 15 days and you get paid in 45
days you know what what could you do to
get more rapid payment improve your cash
flow all those sort of things around
sort of the healthier business I think
companies like us and companies in
partnership with us can really help
provide a much better insight and
service to business builders and also we
work in lots with accountants because I
think you see an accountants going
through a massive transition where they
used to be kind of old-fashioned
bookkeepers keying our data in and now
they’re becoming sort of virtual finance
directors to hundreds of entrepreneurs
you know typically an accountant has 300
clients and they can give really good
insight into some of the questions we’re
answering here like where would I go for
cash what was my cash flow requirements
based on this projection of sales over
the next year where would I best go for
even things like export markets where
should I
where should I scale up my business all
these questions you know you’re dealing
probably with somebody’s an accountant
who’s got tremendous obviously financial
acumen but they’ve also got probably a
lot of business experience that they can
share with you and help you grow your
business faster interesting I’m curious
if and this I think is a great lesson
for entrepreneurs if you see an
opportunity so like you know you love AI
this big big opportunities in AI Sage is
a technology company how do you make the
decision to partner or develop and so
where are the entrepreneurs who are like
see this future path for them how do
they know like they should go down that
path or just partner with somebody else
to help them I think um this is quite a
really key issue a really great one to
answer I think Evan there’s probably a
lens of a number of criteria you want to
apply number one could you get there
quicker by partnering and develop it
yourself
number two you know what are the other
resources in your business plan and
priorities that you’ve got to deliver
and if you do the partnering option does
it allow you to get there quicker
without distracting you or changing all
your priorities around and sort of
robbing Peter to pay Paul and then the
other thing is you know what are you
giving up what’s the downside relative
to what the upside
and if the partnership paid off how much
quicker could you scale and grow and
then the final thing is quite a subtle
thing but I think my experience of many
businesses probably listening today
would be ultimately you’ve always got to
put your shoes in your customer so you
always want to maintain a relationship
with your customer so I would really be
careful about a partnership where you
have to advocate complete responsibility
for your customer in the marketplace and
be dependent on another another company
for that and what I found I’ll be honest
in relationships particularly retail
area where companies great little small
businesses are selling for a big retail
chain there’s a very uncomfortable power
shift where the retailer has really
terrible the keys to the castle and can
apply and really uncomfortable leverage
and basically kind of screw the small
business and I think personally I think
that’s not ethical but also I think you
should always keep if you do do that
sort of partnership well and good on you
be careful to make sure it pays off but
also keep some sort of web presence so
you’re keeping directly you’re keeping a
retail channel to the consumers so if
the partnership failed to materialise or
work out you’ve also always got a
contingency and you haven’t kind of
abdicated sort of responsibility for
your customers in the marketplace I love
that cool thank you
next Susan Susan with two ends
interesting spelling of Susan is asking
what books or videos inspire you the
ones are you know I’ve done all the sort
of good to greats Jim Collins every bit
old now I read yeah look at that behind
ya believe hashtag believe Evan
Carmichael inspiration read this guy’s
book other guys I love to have books and
we had him on the stage at Sage Summit
Richard Branson and I like people who
just tell a human story I love
storytellers so and I think business is
about storytelling I love to hear when
people tell me about their dreams
love when they talk about their lives
and their personalities and so things
like Branson’s book um it’s a good read
and and I think you know them actually
with all that sort of stuff any book you
read there’s probably two or three kept
great nuggets that apply to your
business but again I think you’ve got a
you got a player in Faro so you don’t
want to be a slave to any book again
you’ve got your own dream and no one’s
got your dreams so you should be proud
of that but if you can use the source of
all the great business books that are
out there then that’s absolutely the
perfect accelerator to get your idea to
market and grow your business and for
your dreams I love it
gooo rob is asking this is an
interesting one how do you market
products to customers who hate the
products what’s your strategy
um I think you probably need in that
girl I think if they really hate the
products you’ve got to find out why you
got to put your number one obviously
I’ve said go where the audience is put
yourselves in their shoes and then
there’s some great ways again through
social media to find out exactly why
they don’t like the product and then
back to iteration test-driving and the
product development re-engineer the
front to make sure they do like it and
you know I think these days the product
is so much more than just a product it’s
the brand it’s the customer service it’s
the partnership network it’s so many
different things that are part of a cry
at these days that I think it’s really
important that you kind of get a
understanding of all the elements of the
sort of prime mix to make sure that
you’re landing better and and again I
would know don’t beat yourselves up you
know good I I beat myself up probably
too much and and with any company I you
never should be satisfied you always
want to do more but you should save at
the moment of what you got and even if
you’ve got a product out there with
customers the reality is you’ve probably
done pretty well to get it to that stage
but then the next stage is get new
customers to become raving fans so I
think they are I don’t you know reality
or
customers they just human beings they
want to love your product and love your
company and if you start believing that
then you’re on a mission to let them be
incredibly happy and big kind of nit
promoters and big advocates and big
ambassadors and they’re part of the
volunteer army do you pray
yeah I mean I think if you have products
that customers hate you need to stop
marketing and start listening and retool
the product yeah right that like you
just stop spending money trying to get
new customers in if your current
customers are really unhappy just listen
to your customers and make them happy
make the product better hey actually
heaven I’ll tell you a little story so
um 1998 in my startup company and we
built it we thought as an awesome
product the engineers were great down in
California and then we actually ship the
product to a few customers out in the
East Coast and one of the customers in
Wilmington that Chuck they’re pretty big
brand name I probably not appropriate to
tell you who they are but they picked up
the phone to me one day and said you
know your product sucks and he was in
the call center and and I said look I’ll
fly there and you know I’ll fix whatever
whatever it takes because it’s really
important we get you home and make you
really happy that we’ve done the right
thing for your business and I met with
him and um in his office in the big
glass office there’s all these people at
the contact center and when when the
contact center went down in those days
this is kind of pre-internet so this is
when there was really old technology and
we were pioneering but when our all
these agents put their hand up it meant
some part of the system had gone down
and I was hitting his office glass doors
and all these people putting their hands
up and actually it wasn’t related to our
product that their systems had gone down
but he said that’s what I’m dealing with
every day and he said and gothis later
he gave me he said every one second we
lose on call costs us $300,000 so what
did I do
I went back to California I’ve got all
the engineers together I said guys we
got a big problem we built something
that we thought with high integrity was
an awesome product but it’s kind of not
it’s not it’s row test
we tested the quality all that stuff but
but it’s not doing the job we expected
so what I said was who’s up for going
out to the East Coast giving up their
lives I’m making that product work and
we had 20 engineers 20 engineers put
their hand out their sensei said the
dirt and literally I’m not kidding you
we put them on a plane they went out
there and they just camped with the
customer in their IT department and they
got that product working now reason why
I’m telling you that is number one kind
of a core belief I’ve always had from a
baby really when I was watching my dad
in the business you never let a customer
down number two that customer became a
raving advocate and fan and he said you
know in the world of technology
technology never works away suppliers
say it well but the great companies make
it work according to what we as the
customer wants and then the third thing
wow what a lightbulb moment for those
engineers when they came back to
California number one they were rock
stars but they said that was the best
thing we ever did we could never have
imagined how a customer would have used
our product we back here in California
doing all these clever sort of business
analysis data flow diagram building
products but when you actually see how
customers use your product you’ve got no
appreciation of how they use your
product until you actually go out there
and you’re sitting in the trenches next
to customers seeing it so that comes
back to you know that was an extreme
example but off the back of that heaven
we built 100 million dollar company in
four years sold that product to all the
great institutions Canadian Tire you
know CIBC MetLife Barclays bank all
these great companies and the product
won awards and those engineers they were
the proudest people in the company and
they they they put a fire out for a
customer and they build a company very
cool I love it I love this story story
time with Stephen Kelly I love it it’s
great
we’re quickly winding down maybe time
for one more question that we have Roman
writing in I said I’m 20 years old I’m
study communications
I have a huge passion for the Arts it’s
hard finding people that have big dreams
big ambitions and because I believe I
have them but what I don’t have the
people in an environment that dare me to
have such big ambitions everyone wants
to settle down for the normal path of
life how do I create a great environment
for myself wow that’s a great question
you sound like a great guy you sound
like you should be on here every week
now what I would say wherever your lemon
there’s great people out there like you
it sounds like you got a massive vision
great ambition and you connect that with
an awesome idea at a product you got a
business and I guarantee you no I don’t
think I’ve ever lived in the world and
there’s been so much excitement and
energy around people like you and it
sounds like just from everyone reading
your question you’re contagious in terms
of your energy it’s infectious and I
guarantee you’ll be able to hire if you
believe and you talk right that you’ll
be able to hire great people and you’ll
be able to surround yourself with rock
stars who can build a business so I’d
say never give up I never let you know
those guys ground you down and and
believe in yourself
comes back to ever always believe in
yourself and I think you know the most
most biggest thing we can always say is
and this is another quote there are no
straight lines or in nature or in
business reality of my business career
is everydays actually even now sometimes
a white-knuckle ride but when I was in a
startup every day was so hot knuckle
ride there was exuberance and highs and
there was crashing downloads and the
great thing about entrepreneurs that are
on the broadcast today and it sounds
like you are you know absolutely
exemplified that’s all is your spirit
and your energy and your you know
passion will be absolutely infectious
and when you hit the brick brick wall
you can bounce off and you can pick
yourself up pick your colleagues up and
you can go up and shoot for the stars so
so never ever stop back in yourself
I love it well we’re at time and I think
that’s a great one too to end on Steven
thank you so much for joining us again
for people who want to follow you and
all the things you’re up to what’s the
best place just on on Twitter or any of
the other social channels Facebook
Instagram but I think the hashtag s
Kelley CEO and Evan it’s always great to
be there hopefully we’ve been helpful to
all the guys out there you know guys
keep the faith love the questions really
excited sounds like you guys are almost
at a stage you don’t need ever tonight
you’re rocking and rolling and you’ve
got big ideas lots of passion loads of
energy so it’s back to ever this kind of
tagline of hashtag belief
hanxiang conviction back yourself and
you’ve got so much confidence you’re
gonna be successful will back you hello
well maybe anyone one last quotes in the
chat Kendra saying best advice of the
year so that’s a winner so thank you
guys for watching I will see you again
next month well figure out when our
topic is gonna be and we’ll be in touch
have an amazing rest of the day continue
to believe or whatever your one word is
much love Thank You Steven again and
we’ll see you soon
great job thanks Evan Greta see you take
care money
another YouTube hangout super excited to
be back here with my friend the CEO of
sage mr. Stephen Kelly welcome back mr.
Kelly how we doing great to be here ever
– I was just gonna ask you how the Blue
Jays are doing and obviously a lot of
stuff going on how the kids are but
we’re good we’re back on air I’ve missed
you we haven’t been on for a couple of
weeks so it’s good to be back with Evan
Almighty the the Blue Jays last no play
out so since it’s a sore point we’re
thinking next season now we’re thinking
next season but where are you in your
London office where are you joining us
from yeah just back I did since we we
talked last I did a crazy world tour
went out to see all our colleagues
around the world so we did three and a
half kind of rotations of the earth in
about three weeks good new job we
finished up in Vancouver in Canada
so you’re great country and what a great
way to finish it was fantastic harbor
for Vancouver and the Canadians
absolutely set the bar high and they
rocked as they always do I love that
well today we’re talking about how to
how to go from start up the scale up how
do you take that you know part time idea
you have and make it something bigger or
how do you take that you know small
company haven’t turn it into an empire
but before getting into it Stephen
people always love your quotes to kick
us off so what what is this the curated
Stephen Kelly quote that you want to
lead us with today yeah totally I got a
couple of two or three today just to
kick it off and they make frame some of
the questions as well
first thing is 50% we survey all our
customers some 50% of our customers
business builders business owners said
they actually grow in a business is
actually harder than starting a business
I said there’s something to reflect on
and then also a good quote we’ve used a
lot is kind of work on your business not
totally in it obviously day-to-day
running is relentless but sometimes you
need to just step back and think about
how you build it for the future and go
to the next level and then the final
thing is you know if
core values I think we all we all know
business builders have a dream mission a
sense of purpose and if those core
values are the soul in the organization
then really bring them to the heart of
everything you do as you grow your
organization very cool so I wanna we’re
gonna give you some questions we’ve got
people watching they’re already asking
some questions for us but before getting
into it I’m curious your number one
piece of advice for somebody who wants
to go from startup to scale-up
what would the man Stephen Kelly
recommend as this top piece of advice I
think top advice is be be absolutely
true to the vision and the idea you
started with and that’s kind of back to
the culture and then as you grow
obviously almost certainly you’re gonna
have to hire folks in your business to
support your growth and high rock stars
it’s really clear to me the great
companies have fans has two things that
stand out is great culture and that’s
really all about you the founder you
inspire that culture and people really
galvanize around your movement and your
dream but then also when you bring them
in you need to make sure that you hire
rock stars and then we all rock stars
they want to fly like eagles so you need
to be a bit careful that you gonna don’t
suffocate them because it’s quite likely
you’ll be better than the people you
bring in and certainly some parts of the
business and to scale and grow that
business you’ve got to give them a bit
of space to do what we talked before
like fail fast learn quickly get it
right and really kind of power off it
reminds me of the quote if you want to
go fast go alone but if you want to go
far you got to go with the team I wonder
for you because velocity is so important
every time I’m around you talking
velocity and speed we gotta go fast how
do you how do you go fast for the
entrepreneurs I feel like I can do
everything myself I can do it way better
than these people that I’m bringing on
you know I hired somebody that’s not
working out and like I’m just gonna go
back and do it myself because that first
hire didn’t work out because I want to
go fast how do you go fast and have a
team at the same time yeah I think um I
think
do it I do think this is narrow Evan you
know and I talked to so many businesses
that have kind of scaled up and quite a
common theme is a lot of the guys who
used joined in the the early days in the
pioneer days say you know when the
company’s a million or two million reps
you know we’ve lost the essence of
meeting on the Friday afternoon ringing
the bell 1 we had a great week in terms
of sales or you know we hadn’t won an
award and we lost that informality so I
still think you can go fast and have
great clarity so and that’s down to
again the founder and the chief
executive really probably the same
person and make sure there’s that
clarity of purpose what we’re here to
achieve the moon mission and then take
some moon shots out of that but just
carve a bit of space out for you people
to celebrate the successes and feel part
of the family you you know you are
galvanizing a team of people around your
vision that you hold very dear yourself
very special something unique and
magical and the more you kind of engage
them in your movement and also back to
where what Evan said if you can get
partners involved to join your volunteer
army then wow you can amplify the
message and really go much much faster
and then through through modern kind of
digital technology and social media you
can amplify and you can get a volunteer
army of millions of people out there so
so that’s when you go really fast great
velocity and businesses but also you
bring in people with you which i think
is really important to be inclusive and
then just carve out rid of time with
your trusted guys around the table just
to say you know what’s working well how
do we go faster says that quote I gave
you at the beginning when business
builders just don’t get lost in the sea
of noise of the day just take a bit of
time to step back and reflect on what’s
going well you know is the product
launch go and well as a website looking
good is you know e-commerce whatever
part of the business it is is the
services utilization tracking are the
clients go and were they happy are they
in good space there all those sort of
things that you have to do you need to
carve out some time and then
strategically you’re going to say are we
burn through to ourselves because
you if you’ve got a great idea and
you’ve been through that kind of really
steep white-knuckle ride of growth you
want to go to the next stage and if
you’ve got a great business there’s no
no reason to stop you rather than your
own capability so just go for it and
make sure you go fast but bring people
with you I love it where the words of
motivation from Stephen Kelly I love it
cool let’s hit that some questions and
hope some give some knowledge to some
entrepreneurs first up we got Christoph
Hussain hello thank you so much for your
inspiring and educational video you’re
so helpful to my life my question is how
do you find good people to work with to
scale your business okay it ties in to
what you were just talking about so now
how do we find these people these
rockstars to help us achieve velocity
for our company hey Christopher I go
back to the crowd deal with them Evan
he’ll know this whatever he’s a legend
in terms of a business person I’m Steve
Jobs
so Christoph his quote is famous quote
you know the Big D Boehner hashtag
number one D motivator for talented
people is to have to put up with bozos
so Steve Jobs said nothing’s more
frustrating than a player’s having to
work would be players who who absolutely
number one slow them down and to suck
their energy from them so the best thing
you can do as a leader obviously is hire
great people and Steve Jobs said it’s
better than giving them for spell off or
sushi free sushi you want to hire a
player so how do you do that that’s the
crux you question I think number one you
have obviously a brand out there a big
idea and I think actually if you do that
well it attracts great people second
they are always always go out to your
network and we’ve sort of talked about
on previous broadcasts about how you go
out attract really good people but first
of all identify them you know if you’re
working in a company today or you
starting off in your own people who
really impress you and people who
consistently kind of knock the ball out
the path there’d be great targets to
join your personal crusade in your
business so I think a lot of it is
around kind of networks obviously things
like LinkedIn and stuff like that make
it even easier
but I think most of all you really want
to build a business and a company that
attracts the very best attracts rock
stars and probably the most important
thing you can do as a growing business
actually probably the most important
thing is to actually invest your time
making really smart eyes and and
candidly I’ve made bad heart in my life
I’ve made lots of mistakes and if you do
many lots of mistakes and you know on
hiring it’s somewhere where it can hurt
you but if you haven’t made a mistake
let’s be honest everybody’s done it and
what you’ve got to do is really be
honest with itself and have the honest
conversation with the person apart and
and you know cut loose if they’re not
happy and they’re not going to make it
in your company you’re much better off
having someone really motivated and
really capable to do that job but the
best way to do it is build a great
company great brand and that will
actually draw you know the bees to the
honey bar yeah I think just always
keeping an eye out for talented people
whether you’re at a networking event
whether you’re going to Sage summit
whether you’re you know at a conference
whatever it is if you see somebody who
really impresses you and there might be
a way to work together on it on a
project you have calmed up you always
want to you’re always looking for you
always want to keep that in mind you’re
looking for talented people to help join
and build this thing you’re creating if
you’re posted out on social media you
know Steve my table you’re having a
really galvanizing message and something
powerful that people want to come and be
attracted to our people respond to that
if somebody was going above and beyond
and you know if you’re looking for a
programmers or somebody on there who’s
like sharing their programming skills
and you can ask to join your team you
know people who love your mission
already I think it’s great to be able to
involve them in what you’re doing
so the Steve I’m thinking now you know
when you came to Sage it’s still you
know relatively new I guess it hasn’t
been something you’ve been at for 20
years you know you come over how did you
go about building your team obviously
this is a team in place you’re bringing
new people on as well how do you think
about the people that you surround
yourself with there yeah you know one of
the most critical things we had to do
was hard huge talent and we made a lot
of changes in the team
so just a few data points we got about
40,000 people but I think it’s a lot of
about capability some experience and
attitude but if you’ve got attitude and
you’ve got desire it’s amazing what you
can overcome so we’ve actually kind of
really focused on hiring Millennials
we’ve really focused on a much better
gender balance so in the senior
management team I’m really pleased to
say I think we’ve now gone up from about
22% female it’s now 32 percent and
that’s just in less than a couple of
years so there’s loads of elements not
just capability but it comes back to
that culture you want to build you want
to be an inclusive company a company
which is obviously high-performing but
also a company that really encourages
young people to come in and learn and
rotate through their careers so they can
go you know into one function and go off
and we you know it’s great actually I’m
in Vancouver melody I called Tom Gough
who used to work in the London office
now it’s working in Vancouver you know
27 28 year old guy phantom what an
opportunity if we can create a company
where people individuals colleagues have
huge aspirations and their aspirations
and their dreams touch and connect with
Sage so that they can make the career
but I’d also say evident you know I met
I’m a 23 year old entrepreneur this
morning who blew me away a guy called
Jack and Jack has just started the
company he’s got I think he’s closing
around to get about 8 million of funded
but what impressed we were Jack firstly
he contacted me on Twitter he said can I
have a coffee with you the answer was
yes he’s done that with Ronan Dan who’s
a rockstar at Verizon he’s done it with
superb female entrepreneurs and he’s
just assembled an unbelievable little
company about you know a dozen people
but he’s also done that through just
perspiration hard work hard graft and
and being bold and asking people and
actually you know quote is if you don’t
ask you don’t get so I think when you’re
looking for talent it’s exactly what you
say save some of all these great
conferences you go to look a network and
find out who the stars are share with
them you big idea in your vision and you
always find people gravitate to leaders
and fantastic business ideas as well and
a mission
and a good cause with a great culture I
love it just just Tyco tagging on that I
got asked a question in a previous live
stream of how do you how do you make
friends with a guy like Stephen Kelly
how do you get on a guy like Steve and
Kelly’s radar so maybe maybe you could
answer like how do you get on your radar
so this gotta be Chelsea Twitter what do
you look for when somebody’s reaching
out to you uh you know I think um
everything is really amazing Evan and
you know I’d encourage everybody on this
but just generally to believe in
yourself you you you espouse that you’ve
written your book it’s all about hashtag
belief I see so many people lacking
self-confidence when they’re great
people and inherently you know maybe I
don’t know the education system beats
confidence other people but if it does
it’s a real shame because I think
there’s so much talent is latent and
untapped so people contact me this
Jackie ping me on Twitter DM me and
three times later he was still DMing me
I said okay come in for a cup of coffee
and he came in for a cup of coffee did
his pitch brilliant idea I’ve got some
photos of them up on him on Twitter
later I’m really happy to promote him
he’s he’s really you know just the
inspiration of his idea his attitude his
B’s business he’s get up and go is our
work um so I think I would argue nearly
all chief Eutychus like me probably
don’t get asked enough and everyone in
this summer in the London office and
around the world actually Sage we’ve
done loads of interns kind of kids come
in at the age of 16 to work experience
and and I just would encourage everybody
out there especially they’ve come from
tough backgrounds to just ask people
like me people like you III couldn’t
imagine anybody Kevin to Evan Carmichael
and saying will you give me ten minutes
your time I’ve got an idea to run by you
it might not be this week because you’re
a busy guy but you’ll find time for them
and I just I would always you know
beseech you guys out there to ask the
question back yourself believe in
yourself I have the conviction that you
believe in your eye
and you think he’s gonna change the
world for the better I love it
another thought that came to mind as we
were talking about trying to bring on
more women and that being a really key
part of you coming in and increasing the
women on the executive team I forget her
name we talked about her I think back in
July of the the tech Cranmer god kriti
Sharma oh man she’s a rock star she’s uh
I think she’s unbelievable ya know so
she’s our bill and credit to her she’s
just come in bootstrap t this is this is
real the essence of everything we love
so she’s boot structure team she came up
an idea met customers came up with a
revolutionary basically a chatbot this
allows you from you little each on the
your smartphone or whatever device you
use to use Facebook Messenger or slack
or one of the messaging platforms to
actually talk to your accountant engine
so you can just take a photo in a
restaurant of the receipt and you can
post it straight through your messaging
platform like Facebook and it makes it
like it’s incredible because I think
we’re gonna see that sort of they call
it artificial intelligence type
technology more and more over the next
decade but credit took really what she’s
probably twenty seven twenty eight years
old
and again I just I’m so excited when
young talent comes in and lands
something really exciting connects it
with customers and and she launched this
product pick and you guys can download
it and have a look at it but it’s
literally from launcher safe summit a
soft launch on the stage of me Evan
within I think it’s about six weeks we
had users in 85 countries so ten years
ago even to have 85 countries uses in
front of that would probably take three
years and they haven’t for her in six
weeks and she’s very enthusiastic
visionary passionate our high energy get
stuff down she’s everything you look for
if you’re you’re hiring people at
Rockstar hmm
I remember reading too about I think it
was Jacqueline Jacqueline the Rojas who
won all these awards a pioneer of female
in the tech industry who you guys
brought on to be a EVP at Sage so I mean
you’re making all these hires now these
are smart women there’s a lot of people
going after them they could have
opportunities at any company and and so
this is the question you got
entrepreneurs who are trying to build
their team you you know we’re saying a
team is important to go from startup to
scale-up what do you do to recruit those
women and and have them pick sage over
the hundred other companies that they
could go work out as well with their
skill set yeah I think this there’s a
question we should ask before that as
well but of why do we need you know
obviously for us reality is I think I’ll
be the first want to hold my hand up and
say you know we’re on a transformation
at Sage but wow we got so much more to
do we’re gonna we gotta have yeah every
day I beat myself up about I’m better
products better customer service not new
you know there’s always more to do
that’s just life but one of the things
that I looked at when I looked
originally at the management team when I
walked in there all old guys like me you
know Evan look at me you don’t want you
don’t want Stephen Kelly clones walking
around this place so the first question
is where’s your audience and then you’ve
got a hard people to represent your
audience we want millions of millennial
customers we want you know what now
probably about over a third then it’s
40% of new businesses started by females
and the whole world has changed
dramatically in the last 20 years and so
our audience is you know these female
entrepreneurs our audience is
Millennials they’re the people so for
everybody on this broadcast think about
where is it your audiences that are
going to be attracted your service your
product and then you want people in your
team who really represent their views
that round the table you can get the
customer in the room and have an empty
chair for the customer or the
marketplace so that they are
representative then I think key thing
evan is you’ve got to really make
a priority and a focus so simple things
we did to change it was every time you
get down to a sort of shortlist of three
candidates it’s got to have a female
candidate on the slate and we changed
some of those things and then also you
know a lot of people here are founders
they’re leaders in their businesses what
you say I use this phrase called the
tone at the top what you say has huge
impact and the shadow following you
every day in the business literally with
all these things it’s all about trust
and culture and credibility and
integrity and authenticity and literally
with these sort of things you know it
takes weeks and months to build trust
with colleagues and customers and if you
kind of screw up or do something stupid
you destroy that trust in a second so I
think when you go out and target rock
stars you need to make it a priority
honestly probably the thing I still
spend a lot of my time on is on
recruiting the rock stars we want to
take the company forward I know I think
you should never kind of abdicate that
or outsource it to anyone else you’ve
got to be responsible especially began
from like ten people to 50 people the
next 40 people you hire ideally should
be better than you should have real
essence of what your customers need and
where the audience is and should add a
spark and a different lens to your
company as you grow and scale up and
whether that’s engineers development
guys arm or consultants salespeople
marketing people whatever it is they
should kind of really come in and be a
be part of the cohesive team and I think
it’s a really exciting thing in terms of
the recruitment process that you’re a
part of that because you’re going to
inspire them let’s not kid ourselves
then they’re gonna come and work for you
because you are the person and you know
that another little quotes you know
people join companies typically because
of the founder or the leader and they
leave because of managers so so it’s
important for you to be involved in that
process
Jean rice is asking a question following
up on your galvanizing message
quote at the start he’s wondering what
is the galvanizing message of sage to
attract your volunteer army it’s great
so Oh Evan you know this is like Evan
and I almost were cut from the same
cloth so what do we love so much you
know we’ve kind of just streetfighters
working class heroes we started I
started in my life when I was like seven
years home again home from school going
to my dad’s small business sweeping the
floor packing bags helping out I used to
love it I just loved it but I also was a
witness and at the table where I knew
the hard work that he put in to being
his own boss to follow in his dreams to
pursue in his passion and you know he
got sick and I so I saw the human
sacrifice that it takes if you really
want to build a great business yourself
and you want to be your own boss
and then you know I’ve come full circle
to Sage now I’m just so blessed and
lucky to be here because now I have the
opportunity to serve the business
builders and what I think like Canada
where Evan sets 70% of the jobs across
Canada are created by small and medium
businesses the you know the guys around
in Calgary the guys are up in Jasper the
guys are in Nova Scotia who probably
have used their life savings to fund
their businesses they’ve been working at
it 5 10 20 years and they’re the engine
room of the economy Canada and every
economy around the world and we know
they work 60 70 80 hours a week and we
know that’s you and the drink so I use
this phrase you know I am serve it in
the noble cause I’m serving the noble
cause of business builders not I’d say
unless you kind of want to work and I
respect people who do it I love them in
the charity sector then how lucky am I
to serve business builders at Sage all
these you know we’ve got three million
customers around the world they’re the
best people I’ve met so many of them
they’ve given their lives to follow
their dreams pursue their passions and
what an honor it is for me to serve them
and ultimately you know I believe
because there’s such a
some people and they’re absolutely the
engine-room their economies then they
deserve awesome technology so sages the
sort of digital heartbeat to help them
you know power their business collect
their cash from customers manage their
suppliers pay their employees all these
other things that are fundamental and
we’ve got to make that as simple as
possible for them to make sure you know
they’re in compliance with the tax
authorities and they can sleep well at
night so Trust is really important a
hundred percent compliance hundreds at a
time but also that they can run their
business from the palm of their hands
and we’re on a mission to make you know
technology for business builders as
simple as we kind of use apps like it
was whatsapp or snapchat or any of these
apps in our personal life so what an
honor so literally of them for me I’ve
been here almost a couple years to be
given the opportunity to lead sage which
is on a mission to serve business
builders around the world and give them
awesome technology and make their lives
easier and allow them to do what they
love which is grow their businesses hire
more people create more prosperity for
rural Canada rural America
rural Britain and urban cities around
the world is a huge privilege and
honestly I just get so excited about I
could I could I could talk for hours on
this and just infused with love of
business builders I love it
Kathleen is asking how can I upscale my
fashion brand I’m just starting out so
advice for someone who wants to start
out a fashion brand and scale it up
alright so I think again at Kathleen you
know you you probably know the market in
terms of fashion brands think about who
is it your is is gonna be who’s going to
be your market you know you’re gonna go
for it’s a good generational play or is
it going to be a segment of the
marketplace and then I kind of think
what is your big idea about how you get
to both the product and why you’re
different and then also what’s the best
distribution channel who can you either
partner with or do you want to do it on
a website and
kind of through basically digital
presence once you determine that then
I’d always actually honestly kind of
test-drive stuff so you know I I believe
you Kathleen should have huge dreams you
should be the next kind of massive
fashion icon walking down you know all
the all the platforms picking up the
awards but in the meantime you’ve got to
take the first baby step so if you kind
of got a product an idea and you’re
gonna say market two out of a sixteen to
twenty five year old females then
wouldn’t it be good to go and test drive
it with six or seven of your friends or
again if you’re gonna market it in two
guys are high fashion brands then that’d
be great so get people around test their
ideas and then actually prototype it
then test drive it and I actually I know
quite a lot of our customers who have
built businesses like this and one of
them in maternity we’re actually a
different business but in return to
where and she did it through our friends
first of all and then she did it through
building a very small website and then
she scaled up and I think she now
employs about forty people and it’s been
hugely successful and really kind of
high-end brands so I think with all
these things again kind of have a bigger
idea which it sounds like you have and
then understand the marketplace you’re
trying to sell it why are you different
what Steve kind of unique differentiator
and then get loads and loads of feedback
so when you kind of go to market you’ve
constantly iterating and learning as you
scale up your business yeah I think
you’ve got to find a product that’s
gonna work gotta find the unique thing
whether it’s a special dress or a new
hoodie or whatever it is you know you’re
you’re creating amazing new colorful
ties for Stephen Kelly to rock – with
matching cufflinks
you gotta show the cufflinks a fitting
it little cop you said can you see that
Evan yeah yeah we love colors you see
see I love it I have a new looking cool
in the hoodie man I love that so you’ve
got to find the thing that is different
about your your brain why is your
fashion brand different than everybody
else’s and test drive and I think a lot
of people make a a mediocre product they
make
you know a t-shirt like everybody else
to make it a t-shirt and then they buy
5,000 t-shirts is sitting in your mom’s
garage you need to find the thing that’s
unique about you this is that this is
like the startup before you scale up you
got to start up to find what is the
angle that’s gonna work for you and when
you have a product that you know works
and people love it then you focus on the
scaling up you work on the partnerships
and the distributorships in the
marketing but if you focus on that too
soon you’re just burning dollars you’re
burning marketing dollars without
something that’s gonna work so you got
to figure out what that key product is
first hey Emma just on that I got um
this sort of top five reasons why
companies fail to go through you know
from startup to scale up the number one
reason the number one reason is 42% of
businesses fail because they fail to
understand the market need all about
your point about the wrong product and
making sure that it’s a great fit with
the market I love it and I want the
other four are good enough so the
obvious were about a third of a third of
them obviously I guess this is sad
because I think people over engineer you
obviously got to understand the cash
requires a third of them run out of cash
for a lack of funding or poor investment
or getting ahead of themselves so
tracking your finance is really crude
obviously that’s where people like sage
can come in and help next one is a
quarter of them go back and say they
actually hire the wrong people which is
interesting we talked about that less
than 20 percent of them fail because of
competition and then actually the last
one is about one sixth of them say they
had cut our cost or pricing issues with
their products so they’re the top five
reasons but number one standing out is
kind of the product related to the
market need interesting Stephen Kelly
always comes preparing with stats and
quotes and stories and energy ready to
go that’s the hot out of my week token
to yo-yo all the guys
they’re cool Kendra is next Kendra is
asking how much test-driving do you need
to do before you ask for an investment
oh I think I I think with all these
things actually let’s let’s look at it
the other way what our investors look
for they look for a really good kind of
management team and an idea so back to
the product idea and I you know I know
that you can raise money on the back of
a management team and idea I think for
your your confidence because I hate kind
of seeing you guys give away too much
here companies I think you want a test
drive again run it on fumes don’t spend
loads of money to Evans point because
you can do things really cheaply
especially through social media and
digital and you can test drive loads of
stuff really coolly but really cheaply
as well and that’s what you should do so
iterate it and test driver and I’d say
I’ll be honest businesses should never
stop test driving you know when they get
super scale they should always be test
drive and stuff new ideas new products
prototyping them incubate them kill kill
them if they’re not going to work if
they are gonna work cause correct to
make sure they learn from it and then
when you go to investors I think I would
we’ve talked about this a lot I would
always kind of try and run your business
almost on fumes you want to plan your
cash so you’ve got plenty of cash wrong
way but the best way to do that is
either through friends and family
certainly wouldn’t be going to get loads
of money because I’ve seen the parallel
the extreme and when I was a CEO of a
Nasdaq company and we were startup back
in this a long time ago 1997 we we had
this phrase where we you know basically
treat treat the company’s money as if
it’s your own number-one revenue always
should follow expenses in a business
kind of number two rule and number three
rule we saw loads of companies at that
time go and raise at a hundred million
dollars or two hundred million dollars
and they would just waste money just you
know you couldn’t believe the waste
they’d be booking private jets and
stupid stuff like that rather than
worrying about what really matter it was
about the customers on the front so I
think it’s a really good ethos even when
you
to scale up your company to keep that
kind of hungry sort of street fighter
kind of mentality that we’re really
going to preserve cash we’re going to
preserve every dollar and we’re going to
ask ourselves Oh on that dollar we
invest what return do we get but within
that context I think there’s tremendous
scope to test drives and when you feel
confident in terms of your business your
test driving to get investment then I
think that’s a whole different
conversation around where you get there
but probably the last place I’d go for
businesses like ours that we talk about
is to the sort of traditional places I
think there’s much better sources of
investment and people who will be great
partners to you in your business who can
give you advice who potentially can join
your board or your management team and
all those sort of things and the final
thing back to recruitment actually back
in the day even when I started the
business I got people to join our
company take a massive haircut on their
salary and trade that for equity so they
had a share of the business but Wow did
that change their attitude they had so
much skin in the game and you know they
worked harder and and we build a great
business and they got rewarded over long
term much more than they would if
they’re just taking a salary so that’s a
question I get asked a lot from my
audience and I’m Cruz to hear your
perspective giving up ownership in a
start-up business who to give it to how
much to give up because then you still
need to raise capital as you grow and
you can’t give the same percentage to
everybody if you’re certain the business
and you’ve identified some key employees
that you want to keep long term do you
have advice on how to go about
determining how much to give them and
how much you want to lose in the
business yeah I would say ever Don this
I think yeah this is this is an extreme
philosophy but I would counsel you that
everybody you hire should have equity in
the business I think there’s no more
powerful way to get commitment and to
get alignment
around the purpose and you know the
dream that you have than people having
real skin in the game so even if you
have to sort of pay them hopefully you
could pay them what 7080 percent of the
market salary or even 50% and then give
them the trade on equity then that’s a
great thing to do and I’d say that pays
for itself a hundred times I the other
thing back to your message about
partners if you’ve got a great product
and you do our dependent potential on a
distribution partner I don’t think
there’s anything bad if you’re if you
structure something with a partner so
they actually make an investment that’s
a pretty cool thing to do in return for
a bit of equity but then have some
really big milestones in terms of
distribution you collect the more with
partners you know the real thing is how
are you gonna get them committed how you
know if they’re carrying fifty thousand
products why do they care about your
product so anything that you can do back
to Evans what can you do to
differentiate yourself when they’re
looking at catalog on a screen of a
thousand products if yours popped out
and they’ve got an investment in it
that’s not a crazy thing to do and so on
it comes back to sort of the design of
your business what what’s your big idea
how are you gonna be successful and who
are the people that you need and where
the audience is to really deliver that
dream that you have and then I would use
equity as a good way I’d suggest as you
grow and scale your business typically
you’re going to dilute your company and
you just have to accept that
ah but again to have it’s always the old
adage of Nohr percent of a billion
dollars is not as good as ten percent of
a hundred million so you know I think
you just have to be in some ways
generous as you share the opportunity
for world creation in your business and
you connect people you do dream but I’d
certainly look at key stakeholder groups
and then obviously if you’re raising
money Evan I’d always go to things like
friends and family I’ll get Network it
I’ll definitely if you’ve identified a
rock star potential sort of board member
who really knows the industry that would
be a great person to be invest in your
business
well so if those sort of people he
people are really gonna have skin in the
game who can bring something to move the
dial for your business and normally
that’s great experience or contacts or
networks or access to markets and
distribution very cool or Kendall’s
writing back to say thank you sir that
is awesome advice and then a big happy
face so hey thanks dander this is like
in the answer
Jason’s asking are all of Sage’s
products digital would you they sell
tangible physical products as well yeah
nearly all well all our products
technologies to work on things like
smart phones so they are and we have
this concept I learned a big plug for
Sage but we have this concept in a
business it’s about always managing your
income your assets and expenditure so
we’ve created a golden triangle which is
kind of underpinned by an awesome
accounting engine real-time accounting
and then obviously if you’ve got
employees you need to pay them and
there’s payroll and then the other thing
obviously you’ve got customers you’ve
got to have payments so collecting the
cash sort of the movement of money and
what we provide is the digital heartbeat
for most of our customers are moving to
mobile mobile first some of them are
still kind of using kind of laptop and
desktop technology but more and more
kind of we’re seeing a lot of our
customers sort of running their business
and being controlling the business from
the palm of their hand and their digital
part harpy is both fair sort of personal
life management which is their
smartphone and also their safe system so
that’s kind of what we do and then
obviously you know actually in Canada
with probably the market leader over in
Europe France Spain Africa UK with a
market leader and we partner with a lot
of people though ever naturally as well
so we partner with some of the companies
you’ve probably heard about Google’s
Apple Salesforce all these sort of
companies and we do loads of great stuff
for those companies where we build our
technology on their platforms or on
their devices and you know actually what
we want to do is embrace the business
builders and just give them awesome
technology and if we can partner and go
faster and quicker
deliver better solution for our
customers that the business builders
then that’s absolutely what we’ll do
rather than building ourselves I love it
I want to I want to expand on that point
just a little bit the idea of partnering
with other companies to scale up to go
from startup to scale-up and I know I
know you’re gonna be really humble about
it but I know you had a big role to play
and bring you some of those big
companies on board and it’s been a key
part of the goal your goals at Sage
what’s your approach if you don’t want
to give advice to entrepreneurs who are
looking to form partnerships it’s a
scale up so we’ve talked about building
a team we talked about raising capital
now it’s okay who else can we partner
with to help this business grow what
kind of advice would you have on your
approach of reaching out to potential
partners making it attractive making a
deal to make sense for everybody what
advice would you have yeah I think um I
think particularly product businesses
but also services business again its
kind of know where your audience is so
who are the partners that are really
gonna allow you to accelerate your
business and scale up quicker that’s the
first question
secondly is how do you construct
something where it’s a real win-win so
you both win out of it and thirdly I
think from both parties point of view my
experience of partnerships where they’ve
been really successful is their their
partnerships were you personally invest
time with their senior executives as
well and you form a common understanding
a bond around the mission that you’re on
together so you know and particularly
around us if you go and talk to the guys
sales force or Google they’ve got a
massive ambition to support business
builders as well so the alignment of
vision is very compelling and when I
talk to their senior executives you know
they’re almost just listening to myself
back in the mirror so and then it’s
about what do we do really well what do
they do well and if there is only any
overlap you’ve got to think about being
pragmatic about associated with that and
then back to the final point of the
question how do you construct a
relationship where you’ve got a real
win-win and skin in the game so I think
if you’ve got chronic business you
probably don’t want to give up a ton of
jinan that product business and
therefore if you can trade a little bit
of equity where they have a big
incentive to be successful in your
business and see you grow and create
value through the expansionary business
the other thing evan is just asked the
really obvious questions like if they’ve
got a sales force and their sales force
is going to carry a product you know the
obvious question is well how did the
sales force get incentivized and
compensated around our product because i
promise you if they’re not compensating
around your product you got no chance of
being successful so it’s just the kind
of real common-sense things and i think
all of us would say you know it’s very
it’s very alluring and very excited and
I’ve been there myself and I’m sure
every entrepreneur on this broadcast has
been there where you kind of sign a
partnership and you think wow you know
you open the champagne and the party
star and you’ve already just started
you’ve sold Zippo there’s zero sales
from that partnership and yet you think
the partnership is the mountain you’ve
climbed you put the flag on top of it no
no that’s just the start you’re in the
foothills so that’s when the hard work
starts it’s really easy to sign
partnerships and sign contracts I reckon
our probably 90 percent of partnerships
don’t work out because people declare a
victory way too early and you got to
hunker down you’ve got to go the extra
mile and with that partner the other
thing I’d obviously do is make sure the
partner builds a business plan has real
skin in the game has real volumes
committed pays their salespeople based
on your product success in sense their
salespeople gets you in to pitch it to
their salespeople take the salespeople
out for their monthly parties or
whatever or their holiday parties at
Thanksgiving all those sort of things
that the more you connect and get
alignment around your business and
vision on the partnership the more
successful the partnership will be I
don’t know if you can answer this
question but I’m curious what kinds of
partnerships you see yourself getting
into in the future maybe not specific
companies but the kinds of industries
you see yourself partnering with like if
we’re gonna see sage you know in a Tesla
I do my sage in the in a car or
something else like where do you see the
industry going that you need to partner
with these kinds of companies maybe not
specific companies but like the English
that you want to get into is there
something that comes to mind yeah I
think and this is pretty cool you know
we’re at a time where the industry is so
disruptive technology is changing faster
than I ever remember and I’ve been in
the industry 35 years and it is so
exciting so we do see in the future
actually even different sorts
partnerships things were getting really
excited and tell me if I’m talking kind
of gobbledygook you know I hate using
the three-letter acronyms and stuff like
that but there’s this whole movement
around one area of artificial
intelligence where a lot of things that
have been done in the past manually will
be automated and we already see in it
you know around robotics around kind of
machine learning and we’re building
stuff and partnering with other
companies to build stuff there’s kind of
learning software and actually can
replace a lot of the the stuff that are
done manually the moment especially in
the air accounting you just imagine it
many entrepreneurs still give their
accountant that the tax year a shoebox
of receipts and invoices and stuff and
it’s just crazy it’s inefficient you
know and then there’s loads of manual
hand offs rekey and data it’s just it’s
just mad and I’m sure everyone foreigner
here who’s probably on on this course
they’re over 35 will remember loads of
mistakes that made on accounts and stuff
like that just wasted time all that we
believe will be frictionless it will all
be automated it all be real-time and it
will get smarter and smarter in terms of
sort of clever stuff they give you
predictive analytics about sales future
product requirements and the other area
that we think is pretty cool is things
like we call it data science but
obviously we’re very lucky we got over
three million customers but wouldn’t it
be nice to tell think about an
electricians business in Toronto you
know do you know every other
electricians business in Toronto gets
paid in 15 days and you get paid in 45
days you know what what could you do to
get more rapid payment improve your cash
flow all those sort of things around
sort of the healthier business I think
companies like us and companies in
partnership with us can really help
provide a much better insight and
service to business builders and also we
work in lots with accountants because I
think you see an accountants going
through a massive transition where they
used to be kind of old-fashioned
bookkeepers keying our data in and now
they’re becoming sort of virtual finance
directors to hundreds of entrepreneurs
you know typically an accountant has 300
clients and they can give really good
insight into some of the questions we’re
answering here like where would I go for
cash what was my cash flow requirements
based on this projection of sales over
the next year where would I best go for
even things like export markets where
should I
where should I scale up my business all
these questions you know you’re dealing
probably with somebody’s an accountant
who’s got tremendous obviously financial
acumen but they’ve also got probably a
lot of business experience that they can
share with you and help you grow your
business faster interesting I’m curious
if and this I think is a great lesson
for entrepreneurs if you see an
opportunity so like you know you love AI
this big big opportunities in AI Sage is
a technology company how do you make the
decision to partner or develop and so
where are the entrepreneurs who are like
see this future path for them how do
they know like they should go down that
path or just partner with somebody else
to help them I think um this is quite a
really key issue a really great one to
answer I think Evan there’s probably a
lens of a number of criteria you want to
apply number one could you get there
quicker by partnering and develop it
yourself
number two you know what are the other
resources in your business plan and
priorities that you’ve got to deliver
and if you do the partnering option does
it allow you to get there quicker
without distracting you or changing all
your priorities around and sort of
robbing Peter to pay Paul and then the
other thing is you know what are you
giving up what’s the downside relative
to what the upside
and if the partnership paid off how much
quicker could you scale and grow and
then the final thing is quite a subtle
thing but I think my experience of many
businesses probably listening today
would be ultimately you’ve always got to
put your shoes in your customer so you
always want to maintain a relationship
with your customer so I would really be
careful about a partnership where you
have to advocate complete responsibility
for your customer in the marketplace and
be dependent on another another company
for that and what I found I’ll be honest
in relationships particularly retail
area where companies great little small
businesses are selling for a big retail
chain there’s a very uncomfortable power
shift where the retailer has really
terrible the keys to the castle and can
apply and really uncomfortable leverage
and basically kind of screw the small
business and I think personally I think
that’s not ethical but also I think you
should always keep if you do do that
sort of partnership well and good on you
be careful to make sure it pays off but
also keep some sort of web presence so
you’re keeping directly you’re keeping a
retail channel to the consumers so if
the partnership failed to materialise or
work out you’ve also always got a
contingency and you haven’t kind of
abdicated sort of responsibility for
your customers in the marketplace I love
that cool thank you
next Susan Susan with two ends
interesting spelling of Susan is asking
what books or videos inspire you the
ones are you know I’ve done all the sort
of good to greats Jim Collins every bit
old now I read yeah look at that behind
ya believe hashtag believe Evan
Carmichael inspiration read this guy’s
book other guys I love to have books and
we had him on the stage at Sage Summit
Richard Branson and I like people who
just tell a human story I love
storytellers so and I think business is
about storytelling I love to hear when
people tell me about their dreams
love when they talk about their lives
and their personalities and so things
like Branson’s book um it’s a good read
and and I think you know them actually
with all that sort of stuff any book you
read there’s probably two or three kept
great nuggets that apply to your
business but again I think you’ve got a
you got a player in Faro so you don’t
want to be a slave to any book again
you’ve got your own dream and no one’s
got your dreams so you should be proud
of that but if you can use the source of
all the great business books that are
out there then that’s absolutely the
perfect accelerator to get your idea to
market and grow your business and for
your dreams I love it
gooo rob is asking this is an
interesting one how do you market
products to customers who hate the
products what’s your strategy
um I think you probably need in that
girl I think if they really hate the
products you’ve got to find out why you
got to put your number one obviously
I’ve said go where the audience is put
yourselves in their shoes and then
there’s some great ways again through
social media to find out exactly why
they don’t like the product and then
back to iteration test-driving and the
product development re-engineer the
front to make sure they do like it and
you know I think these days the product
is so much more than just a product it’s
the brand it’s the customer service it’s
the partnership network it’s so many
different things that are part of a cry
at these days that I think it’s really
important that you kind of get a
understanding of all the elements of the
sort of prime mix to make sure that
you’re landing better and and again I
would know don’t beat yourselves up you
know good I I beat myself up probably
too much and and with any company I you
never should be satisfied you always
want to do more but you should save at
the moment of what you got and even if
you’ve got a product out there with
customers the reality is you’ve probably
done pretty well to get it to that stage
but then the next stage is get new
customers to become raving fans so I
think they are I don’t you know reality
or
customers they just human beings they
want to love your product and love your
company and if you start believing that
then you’re on a mission to let them be
incredibly happy and big kind of nit
promoters and big advocates and big
ambassadors and they’re part of the
volunteer army do you pray
yeah I mean I think if you have products
that customers hate you need to stop
marketing and start listening and retool
the product yeah right that like you
just stop spending money trying to get
new customers in if your current
customers are really unhappy just listen
to your customers and make them happy
make the product better hey actually
heaven I’ll tell you a little story so
um 1998 in my startup company and we
built it we thought as an awesome
product the engineers were great down in
California and then we actually ship the
product to a few customers out in the
East Coast and one of the customers in
Wilmington that Chuck they’re pretty big
brand name I probably not appropriate to
tell you who they are but they picked up
the phone to me one day and said you
know your product sucks and he was in
the call center and and I said look I’ll
fly there and you know I’ll fix whatever
whatever it takes because it’s really
important we get you home and make you
really happy that we’ve done the right
thing for your business and I met with
him and um in his office in the big
glass office there’s all these people at
the contact center and when when the
contact center went down in those days
this is kind of pre-internet so this is
when there was really old technology and
we were pioneering but when our all
these agents put their hand up it meant
some part of the system had gone down
and I was hitting his office glass doors
and all these people putting their hands
up and actually it wasn’t related to our
product that their systems had gone down
but he said that’s what I’m dealing with
every day and he said and gothis later
he gave me he said every one second we
lose on call costs us $300,000 so what
did I do
I went back to California I’ve got all
the engineers together I said guys we
got a big problem we built something
that we thought with high integrity was
an awesome product but it’s kind of not
it’s not it’s row test
we tested the quality all that stuff but
but it’s not doing the job we expected
so what I said was who’s up for going
out to the East Coast giving up their
lives I’m making that product work and
we had 20 engineers 20 engineers put
their hand out their sensei said the
dirt and literally I’m not kidding you
we put them on a plane they went out
there and they just camped with the
customer in their IT department and they
got that product working now reason why
I’m telling you that is number one kind
of a core belief I’ve always had from a
baby really when I was watching my dad
in the business you never let a customer
down number two that customer became a
raving advocate and fan and he said you
know in the world of technology
technology never works away suppliers
say it well but the great companies make
it work according to what we as the
customer wants and then the third thing
wow what a lightbulb moment for those
engineers when they came back to
California number one they were rock
stars but they said that was the best
thing we ever did we could never have
imagined how a customer would have used
our product we back here in California
doing all these clever sort of business
analysis data flow diagram building
products but when you actually see how
customers use your product you’ve got no
appreciation of how they use your
product until you actually go out there
and you’re sitting in the trenches next
to customers seeing it so that comes
back to you know that was an extreme
example but off the back of that heaven
we built 100 million dollar company in
four years sold that product to all the
great institutions Canadian Tire you
know CIBC MetLife Barclays bank all
these great companies and the product
won awards and those engineers they were
the proudest people in the company and
they they they put a fire out for a
customer and they build a company very
cool I love it I love this story story
time with Stephen Kelly I love it it’s
great
we’re quickly winding down maybe time
for one more question that we have Roman
writing in I said I’m 20 years old I’m
study communications
I have a huge passion for the Arts it’s
hard finding people that have big dreams
big ambitions and because I believe I
have them but what I don’t have the
people in an environment that dare me to
have such big ambitions everyone wants
to settle down for the normal path of
life how do I create a great environment
for myself wow that’s a great question
you sound like a great guy you sound
like you should be on here every week
now what I would say wherever your lemon
there’s great people out there like you
it sounds like you got a massive vision
great ambition and you connect that with
an awesome idea at a product you got a
business and I guarantee you no I don’t
think I’ve ever lived in the world and
there’s been so much excitement and
energy around people like you and it
sounds like just from everyone reading
your question you’re contagious in terms
of your energy it’s infectious and I
guarantee you’ll be able to hire if you
believe and you talk right that you’ll
be able to hire great people and you’ll
be able to surround yourself with rock
stars who can build a business so I’d
say never give up I never let you know
those guys ground you down and and
believe in yourself
comes back to ever always believe in
yourself and I think you know the most
most biggest thing we can always say is
and this is another quote there are no
straight lines or in nature or in
business reality of my business career
is everydays actually even now sometimes
a white-knuckle ride but when I was in a
startup every day was so hot knuckle
ride there was exuberance and highs and
there was crashing downloads and the
great thing about entrepreneurs that are
on the broadcast today and it sounds
like you are you know absolutely
exemplified that’s all is your spirit
and your energy and your you know
passion will be absolutely infectious
and when you hit the brick brick wall
you can bounce off and you can pick
yourself up pick your colleagues up and
you can go up and shoot for the stars so
so never ever stop back in yourself
I love it well we’re at time and I think
that’s a great one too to end on Steven
thank you so much for joining us again
for people who want to follow you and
all the things you’re up to what’s the
best place just on on Twitter or any of
the other social channels Facebook
Instagram but I think the hashtag s
Kelley CEO and Evan it’s always great to
be there hopefully we’ve been helpful to
all the guys out there you know guys
keep the faith love the questions really
excited sounds like you guys are almost
at a stage you don’t need ever tonight
you’re rocking and rolling and you’ve
got big ideas lots of passion loads of
energy so it’s back to ever this kind of
tagline of hashtag belief
hanxiang conviction back yourself and
you’ve got so much confidence you’re
gonna be successful will back you hello
well maybe anyone one last quotes in the
chat Kendra saying best advice of the
year so that’s a winner so thank you
guys for watching I will see you again
next month well figure out when our
topic is gonna be and we’ll be in touch
have an amazing rest of the day continue
to believe or whatever your one word is
much love Thank You Steven again and
we’ll see you soon
great job thanks Evan Greta see you take
care money
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