Episode Transcript
Asia Orangio (14:55.328)
So we have another episode today of In Demand, the podcast, and we are talking about operations, I believe.
Kim Talarczyk (15:33.418)
Yes. So why bootstrappers ignore operations as a growth lever? And this is interesting because many people hear operations and might not be thinking growth lever. So what does that even mean?
Asia Orangio (15:39.744)
Yes.
Asia Orangio (15:46.883)
Totally. Yeah. So I'll do the quick recap on the top growth levers that I see that slow growth down for us as company. so when I'm thinking, and I want to be hyper specific here because there are many different growth levers and depending on the stage and phase of growth, I think that there are different things that appear at various stages, but I want to be specific when I say if you are less than 10 million in ARR annual recurring revenue.
in a software SaaS business, chances are there are the top four reasons and we're gonna add a fifth and spoilers, the fifth is operations, but the top four. So the first is value decline. this is customers join your product and, or I'm sorry, I wanna restate that. You gain customers, they hire your product for a very specific job and as...
they continue to use the product, new jobs pop up that the product does not solve. And they don't know it at the time, and customers I would say are not great product managers or product designers, so it's actually really hard for them to articulate this, but it actually would make sense for your product to help them solve those things. However, it's tough for them to identify that, to know that, and so they start feeling like, have all these other things that I want to accomplish, I'm paying for this. So at some point,
the scales tip and then they churn because they're like, I really wanted it to do these things. But it's weird. There's usually like a cognitive disconnection here or cognitive dissonance, because it's not like they see your product as not doing the thing. They just kind of think, if I want to be able to do X, I use this product. But if I want to be able to do X, Y, and Z, I probably need to find something else. And that's what ends up happening. So they churn. We call this long churn. Long churn is that like,
eight month, 12 month, sometimes even like 14 month turn that happens. And it's purely because they got the initial value, but then the value from the product over time declined relative to their experience. Now, not all value decline obviously is solvable or fixable. And also similarly, not all value decline is worth addressing, but that is, tends to be a primary reason for like customers deciding to leave after a long period of time.
Asia Orangio (18:11.224)
The second reason has to do with activation not being as efficient. So there's an overemphasis in general in SaaS on acquisition, on customer acquisition, therefore marketing. And yes, like that certainly is one of the things that we're going to talk about. But a lot of companies forget that once you acquire the leads or the trial lists or the new accounts created, you are also going to have to activate them. So if they get into the product and they don't know what to do, they're not sure, they never get fully onboarded.
And we do see this also in sales led companies. So it's not just PLG that, that experiences this sales led can suffer from the same thing. like you close, you book the demo, you close the deal. Maybe there's a little bit of activity that happens on the client side, but they don't get spun up enough to get the full value. And so they either, they have this impression of the product or of the company of like, it's actually not going to do what I think it does.
or maybe they just have a poor experience. It could be any of those things and they either never become a customer or they do, but they don't stay very long. So activation still can kind of be an issue. Even if people become a customer, activation can actually still create issues because if they never get the full value, it's hard for them to gauge if this is the right thing to keep for the long term or what have you. And the...
I mentioned this, the third reason is customer acquisition. You're already familiar with this, but, you should be at least if you're listening to this podcast, but messaging is misaligned, positioning misaligned. Maybe it's the wrong channels. Maybe you're going after the wrong type of customer. You already get number three. And then the fourth reason is going to be pricing. So pricing is completely whack. pricing needs to be updated and revisited at least once a year.
You might not make any meaningful changes to it every year, but you at least need to consider it as a growth lever. A lot of Bootstrap founders especially will set pricing and then never touch it for like five years, 10 years. Some like literally never do anything with it at all, which is wild because if you have a base of raving fans, like there are customers that you have who absolutely love your product. Chances are you, to Rob Wallings point, if you're fan of Rob and you follow him, you could probably double it.
Asia Orangio (20:28.504)
possibly even triple it and still keep those same exact customers because they just love it so much, which is, I don't wanna say like free money in your pocket, but like very easily gained revenue, like very quickly in a very short amount of time for relatively small effort. So those are the top four. Now I go through that list because we wanna draw a direct comparison to the fifth lover. And I'll give you a couple of others that do pop up. The fifth,
I do firmly believe is operations for some companies, not all, but a lot of them. There are other things like technical debt. There's also culture. Hiring can actually have a huge impact on your growth as a growth lever. And there are some other levers that I can list here that have to do with how the business is set up, how the business is structured, et cetera.
But operations is interesting. So when I say operations, what I'm referring to, like all operations means is how do we deliver value? And how do we internally structure ourselves to deliver that value? That's all it means. So when we think operations, we're thinking everything from how we structure our teams, to who we hire, to the meetings that we have, to the cadences of those meetings, to how we track and manage the work.
to what are we ultimately reporting on or against? What are our top KPIs, metrics, et cetera? Operations certainly can focus on how do we mitigate risk? This is usually like pre-legal, like maybe when you get big enough, you have like a whole legal department. But sometimes ops is just focused on like how do we mitigate risk in some of the areas that there are some unknown unknowns or known unknowns.
But yeah, so that's the category of operations and we can certainly dig into why it's underestimated and undervalued, but I just want to kind of give that foundation to start.
Kim Talarczyk (22:24.878)
Mm.
Yeah, that's a good foundation. I'm curious to dig more into, like, isn't, aren't most companies already kind of doing like a baseline operations anyways?
Asia Orangio (22:38.776)
Yeah, it's kind of like politics. Like you may not do politics, but politics is doing you. You may not think about operations, but you are operating, right? And I think that's kind of the, I used to talk about this a lot, like in some of the earlier days of Demand Maven where you may not think you're doing project management or process management. However, you are absolutely executing a process. You are absolutely executing projects. It's all about,
Kim Talarczyk (22:44.174)
Haha.
Asia Orangio (23:08.45)
how you're thinking about doing those things and how intentional you are about what you do and how you do it and when you do it. So when I think about founders who are very operationally intentional, I think about Arvid Call actually, who to my knowledge doesn't have a large team. Arvid runs, I mean if you're listening to this and you're a bootstrapper, you're probably already familiar with Arvid, but he runs the Bootstrap founder. He also runs Podscan, which I believe is a brand scanning app that looks for
mentions of your brand in podcasts specifically, pretty fascinating tech. Arvid is very intentional about how he operates. And what's important about operations as a founder, especially for Bootstrapped, is how aware are you of it? So when you think about how you do the work that you do, again, operations, all it means is how do we deliver value and how do we internally structure ourselves to deliver value? And
As long as you are, of course, you could be executing things and have no real awareness about how and what and why you're doing what you're doing. But what I think is important about ops is taking a step back and kind of looking at what do you want to accomplish, where do you want to go, and how can you internally structure to get there in a number of ways. Someone like Arvid is very intentional about how he operates.
He probably would make a joke that it's because he's German. But, but I think what is inspiring about someone like Arvid is not only is he intentional, he's also aware. And I think he's very aware of what are the trade-offs in his businesses, I'll say, because I think it's more than one. don't think it's just one thing, but pretty sure he does several things. So that's an example of someone who I believe to be very intentional. So he has his processes. He,
I don't know all the details. I would imagine to some degree they are defined, maybe they're documented somewhere. He adjusts processes based on what his needs are, what his goals are, but it's very intentional based on his mission, his goal of what he wants to actually do with his businesses and how he wants to be in his businesses. Also similarly, what type of value does he want to provide? I think that's an example of someone who
Asia Orangio (25:32.513)
Small, to my knowledge, doesn't have a fully scaled out team, although I'd be shocked if it was literally just him doing everything. I'm sure he probably has some freelance help, maybe contractor help here and there. But for the most part, he is both aware and intentional, and it is serving him, I think, in one of the best ways possible. One of the cool parts about being bootstrapped is you kinda don't have any rules. You can kinda do whatever you want. VC, I think, is very different. Now, if you're VC founder,
you probably are thinking a lot more about ops. And I think, you know, if you have a board, which if you're VC funded, you probably do, you are going to be pushed to think about this, whether you like it or not, because the board wants to see, again, like, are we structuring ourselves with the resources that we have in the best way possible to achieve the goals that we want to achieve, while also hopefully delivering value? And I think like, yeah, like you're VC funded, you're you're going to be thinking about ops.
But what's interesting to me about Bootstrapped is I think founders have a lot more options here than they think that they do. And Operations has a lot to do also with how you think about pulling growth levers. And I think that's why Operations is so interesting because if you don't have a sound like internal operative structure, it's actually gonna be really hard for you to like pull the sales lever, for example, or pull the activation lever.
or pull the acquisition or go to market lever. So that's why think Ops is so interesting because if Ops is not great, even if it's just you or maybe you and like a few freelancers, what have you, and maybe some engineering support, if you don't have great internal operations, this can actually sacrifice the others. And I think that's why Ops is so interesting.
Kim Talarczyk (27:23.234)
Hmm. So you're, cause I was actually just going to ask like, at what point should you focus on that as a growth lever? Cause my guess is many like bootstraps companies are focusing on the first four that you mentioned. Right.
Asia Orangio (27:36.161)
And I would actually say probably just acquisition to be honest. Most of them are just focused on acquisition. Like sometimes I have to remind them that, know, pricing exists. There's also activation. But to your question though, in terms of when, I don't think that there is a specific stage of business because operations, again, it speaks to who's on your team.
Kim Talarczyk (27:40.801)
Okay.
Asia Orangio (28:04.286)
If you hire people, is it a flat organization? Is it structured? Do you have middle management, do you not? But it's also like, are the cadences and the processes internally that you execute or leverage at any given time? Now if it's just you and a few engineers and maybe you've got some freelance marketing help, then your internal operations, it'll be lean, but it should still have something.
there's probably some type of scrum that you have with your engineers either every day or every week, depending on your cadence. There's also probably some type of micro project management. We're talking minimal project management to deploy whatever it is that you're trying to deploy in the product. Similarly, on the marketing side, what content are you creating or what campaigns are you running or what promotions are you running, et cetera. And how all of those things gets organized is operations.
Like that's part of like what operations is. If you don't have a good sense of that, and if it kind of feels like random and ragtag a little bit, similarly, if you don't have a good way for how to prioritize projects or prioritize ideas, then everything else just gets that much harder. Like it becomes much more difficult when it's just you. I would wager that most, least tech, well, and possibly not technical, but I would say most bootstrap founders likely have
this is how they're structuring their time, this is how they're structuring their work, especially if it's just them, literally. So some days are spent coding, some days are spent thinking about business development and marketing and go to market, et cetera. But even that is still like personal operations. Like how do you personally conduct yourself to, again, deliver value through your product and how also do you internally structure to do that? and I think, so all that's to say, like there isn't really a stage where
you're thinking about it more or less. think everyone has to think about it. I think the caveat is how aware are you of it at any given time? Because again, you may not think about operations, but operations is thinking about you. Like you are executing operations, whether or not it's good is a different story. And I think that that's the, that's the tea, I think at the end of the day. I used to get in these, I don't wanna say like debates on Twitter, but I remember back in the day when we were all hanging out on Twitter,
Asia Orangio (30:29.674)
I remember we would discuss like, may not have, you may not think that you have processes, but that's just because what you're doing has ever been written down. And I remember we would discuss like, you are executing a process. Is it a good process? Is it a documented process? TBD, but you're still executing something and in a particular way. And whether you...
Kim Talarczyk (30:43.832)
Yeah.
Asia Orangio (30:58.142)
believe in process management or project management or not, things are like, it is still happening. Whether or not you're aware of it is a different question. And also whether or not you've documented it or decided to improve it in some kind of way. But yeah, and I'm happy to share stories about how we've adjusted operations in the company. And that was actually like the thing that made them grow in addition to other things. But yeah.
Kim Talarczyk (31:20.598)
Yeah, yeah, right. So it's just be intentional about it because it's happening.
Asia Orangio (31:28.312)
Quite literally, quite literally. So I wanted to get into some success stories about this. Okay, so operations is a big word, right? So it includes who is on your team, how do you get the work done, what is the right work in deciding that work, which can get a little strategic, but some of it is a little more tactical, it just depends. There are other elements of operations, things like how do you...
how often do you think about executing these things or how often do you meet to determine what gets executed, et cetera. So there's so much that goes into ops. I was working with a company, I wanna say a couple years ago now, they had a relatively junior marketing team, they had an engineering team, and there were some co-founders, the co-founders respectively looked over marketing and product and then the other co-founder over engineering.
And the marketing team was relatively junior. And I remember working with this, with this team and it was, it was interesting because there's always more than one growth lever to pull. Like it's rarely ever just like, this is your one problem. Like usually it's like, Nope, there are like three to four other opportunities. We're going to start with these two and we're going to start here. And I remember working with them and thinking,
Yeah, go to market and acquisition. Yes. Like sometimes it is just like the most critical thing. And we worked on streamlining, go to market and like aligning all that strategically, making it make sense, doing the research, making sure to apply to the market, yada, yada, helping them update their messaging, helping them think about to like what their like marketing processes looked like. And in, in that umbrella,
exists operations. like within marketing, there are operations. how do we decide what the work is? Who does it? How do we do quality control? Then there's making sure that we're prioritizing the right work, that it's done well. What does that look like? All of that has to do with marketing operations. Not like marketing operations like in like a CRM, but like.
Asia Orangio (33:54.365)
marketing project management, like how do we just like get the work done and decide what the work is? And it dawned on me that a lot of their struggles were actually happening because of the meetings. So what was happening was the CEO at the time was running these like weekly marketing meetings and we've talked about EOS before and I think that they were following EOS.
But what was happening was because the team was junior, it was really hard for them actually to contribute in a way that, was like at that strategic level and like, helping them decide, you know, helping them prioritize, typically a junior team might struggle in that scenario because they're not senior. They're not executives. You didn't hire a CMO or a VP. So that, that team is going to feel like a disconnect a little bit. And what was happening was the CEO was running the meeting.
And I remember observing for weeks I observed and I took my notes, but there was a dynamic where the CEO would have these ideas and the marketing team would just say, yes, like, yes, like we're to do those things. And then they go off and they spin their wheels and then they'd execute it. But then the CEO would be like, well, wait, I didn't realize that we had committed to that. And then also is that the right thing? And then the junior team's like, crap.
but we've already done it. We forgot to ask that question. that's a scenario where contextually EOS makes sense when you've got the right people in the right seats and also those people are the ones driving that meeting or driving those conversations. But because EOS didn't actually perfectly align with how their team was actually structured, because again, this is a junior marketing team.
Kim Talarczyk (35:17.998)
We forgot to ask that.
Asia Orangio (35:46.789)
no one on this team has ever had any like executive experience or, even like director, possibly even management level experience. It was more like coordinators, assistants, et cetera. And in order to, like that team would need to be coached essentially like in, into the roles, that they would need to serve in that way.
based on the way that those meetings were structured and based on the cadence of them and also how the team was structured and then you've got EOS, which is like its own operational infrastructure like type thing. None of it was working and that was part of what was creating the struggle and the strife. So part of what I did was restructured the marketing team, restructured how we actually met and like what we talked about in those meetings. Putting the CEO and being like, love you, mean it.
but you need to sit over here for a minute so that way this team can shine in this way, you still get what you need, you're still happy, but also we're changing up how we're talking about our projects, that way only the best ideas are really the ones that get pulled through because we don't have infinite resources and time and energy. And then everything else, we consider over time based on what the priorities are. And...
That was one change out of a few. So again, we also tackled go to market together and like what does positioning look like messaging and also like what are the right marketing projects? So strategically, what should marketing be executing and how we should measure success? So those were all pieces that we tackled. And in that process, the company started to grow and that was a huge portion of the work that we did. There was some other work around product as well.
it's like I said, it's never just one thing. It's usually like a number of things, but that company has actually more recently, I think, I think they've quadrupled now. So after working with them the first time they, they two X and then more recently, the CEO just got back in touch with me and was like, we two X again, which is really cool. So they're actually, they're even bigger now, which is, which is awesome. in that, in that growth period, they did end up hiring a CMO who now oversees the team. And now the CEO and the CMO can liaise on strategy stuff.
Asia Orangio (38:06.038)
the junior team is happy because they have, you know, they have clear like structure and like what they're doing. But part of that hire adjusted operationally how they worked. And that also is what unlocked growth. And I think like, again, operations, I think kind of flies under the radar. Now, this is a bootstrap company. This is not a VC funded company, bootstrapped. And they're in the millions of ARR. Like they're less than 10 million in ARR. And but making that key hire,
They also made a couple of improvements product wise, like I mentioned, but part of their growth was tackling both. I, again, I think, I think operations just flies on the radar a lot of the time of like, I think people underestimate who is on deck, who's on first base, who's on second base, who's batting, who's pitching, like all those things matter. And it's easy to forget.
Kim Talarczyk (38:49.976)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Talarczyk (38:56.178)
Yeah. And I think it can feel kind of meta, you know? Like, why do I have to think about how I'm going to think about something or how meeting, think about the meetings and all that. it's, but really it's, it's, it's a worthwhile exercise and something that you have to keep like iterating upon.
Asia Orangio (39:01.673)
does feel very meta.
Asia Orangio (39:19.522)
Something that gets overlooked, I think, in the operations process also is how do you decide? And thinking about how you're going to decide does not sound fun or sexy, but it is absolutely necessary because the amount, part of business is making a bajillion decisions. And if you're the founder, chances are you're also probably the CEO. Now, if it's just you,
Kim Talarczyk (39:33.07)
You
Asia Orangio (39:46.999)
or maybe just you and a handful of freelancers, I guess you can kind of do whatever you want. I mean, truth be told, if you're bootstrapped especially, you can kind of do whatever you want. You can literally run your company however you want to run it. No one will tell you anything else because you have no boss at the end of the day. I do think to a certain, if you're the bootstrap founder who's like, want to build something that supports
you know, dozens, maybe even hundreds of employees, I want to support something that serves thousands of customers. You do have to address the operations problem because it will become a problem. Like it will become the thing that holds you back. There are companies, for example, that I've worked with and this isn't just one. I've seen this in like dozens of scenarios where the, the org structure is completely flat.
they're making millions in ARR, but there are like 30 direct reports. Sometimes they're all like contractors. Like I've seen that before too, where there are 30 direct reports. They all report to the CEO. That CEO is just in constant one-to-ones, like constant. There's one company I know of that they don't even do one-to-ones anymore. They just do asynchronous check-ins and most people are contractors. So like, I think they still have like 30 or 40 contractors
or sorry, 30 to 40 people working at the company, but maybe five people are actually employees and the rest are all contractors and it's all asynchronous check-ins. That CEO is running around the room constantly with their hair on fire. There's always something. I think with, this is a case for middle management, but with no middle management, that CEO doesn't have time to think strategically about anything.
they are constantly either in one-to-ones or they are constantly reacting to asynchronous check-ins and also on top of that, leading product and leading engineering and leading marketing, which is a lot. That's so much. And so to me, that company's biggest growth lever is actually gonna be Ops. But this is kind of where Ops rears its ugly head, I think, in scenarios like this.
Asia Orangio (42:11.104)
It is so difficult and challenging in my opinion to fix ops late or later in the journey than it is earlier or sooner in the journey and like being very intentional about like what it is that you're doing and for how long and all the other details. Because in order for that company to use operations as an unlock for growth, they're going to have to hire. They're going to have to create an internal infrastructure that supports middle management now. So all of like the asynchronous check-ins and like all of like the
kind of like disconnected pieces, they're all gonna have to be kind of brought up under one umbrella. Like there's a lot of change management to create for all those different contributors and people. And because there's no middle management, that CEO is gonna have to do it all by himself. which to be fair, he may never do, like, doesn't have to. But when I think about like, man, like, why am I so stressed all the time? And it's like, well, you've got,
30 to 40 direct reports who, and they're all yours, and you have to interface with all of them because of the way that your team is structured. Super flat organization. And we've seen, we have heard stories of this working well for some people. I think that there are some people who are just wired this way and like they can make it work. But I think the vast majority of people are not. And I think this is where internal operations becomes an unlock based on how you.
how you structure your team, who you hire, who you place in those seats. And now we can think about like, okay, now you can free yourself to think more strategically about the business rather than being constantly in it all the time. So, but again, when you're bootstrapped, you can do whatever you want. Like I think it does depend on what do you want to do and what do you want out of this and how do you want to show up in this space?
Kim Talarczyk (43:59.023)
Right. And it could easily swing the other way. I've seen organizations that have too many layers too soon. And it just water sinks down and you're spending money that you shouldn't on middle and upper management. but I think to go back to what you were saying in the beginning is about being intentional and thinking about how are you going to make decisions? What are those frameworks thinking about that? And then kind of building upon there, okay, now who do we need to hire? Who owns what? Being really thoughtful about
Asia Orangio (44:04.674)
Yep, see you that too.
Kim Talarczyk (44:29.542)
people's seats and accountabilities and all of that.
Asia Orangio (44:35.042)
Totally, totally. And I think we see hiring executive leadership too soon, way more I think in VC funded. I actually think for most bootstrap companies, think that they traditionally tend to be slower on the ball when it comes to hiring W2 employees that are not just individual contributors.
Kim Talarczyk (44:45.293)
Yeah.
Asia Orangio (45:01.464)
And that makes sense. Typically what we see is they hire individual contributors first, but sometimes they miss, I feel like they miss the middle management mark sometimes where it's like, the next step is, and it just depends on how your business grows at the end of the day. There's no hard and fast rule, but sometimes they'll hire all the individual contributors great. Maybe someone gets promoted to a management role.
Maybe though that person doesn't have direct reports, like it's more like indirect reports, but that person might be leading the function. I see this a lot like in product engineering where the founder is still the product manager, but maybe there's like a lead developer or whatever. That scenario I think is very common. It gets tricky when you think about like marketing and sales. So this is kind of where the CEO might or the founder still might be overseeing those functions.
but at some point it does get to a place to where it actually might make sense to have like a marketing manager. Maybe that person doesn't have direct reports, but they have indirect reports. So like they're maybe the ones working with the different freelancers and contractors and that's not all on you anymore. And I think that evolution is what I think a lot of bootstrap founders miss. And it can be a shame because they actually might be perfectly profitable to do it.
But they don't, again, they're not thinking of ops as an unlock of growth. They're thinking about it like this is a cost center. And I get that. I totally get that. Obviously, if the numbers aren't numbering, if you're not profitable or if the profits aren't profiting, you're not gonna hire anybody. You're just not, you're gonna piece it together as you can.
Kim Talarczyk (46:47.936)
Right, and it makes sense not to hire management because you want people that are actually executing.
Asia Orangio (46:52.758)
Right. Believe it or not though, and we've, we've seen this too, cause we've, I feel like we've seen everything, almost everything. But we've all, we've seen companies that are perfectly profitable, have been profitable for a long time, making tons of profit actually. And they have the leanest team. And I know that that is the dream. That is the dream I think for a lot of bootstrappers is like, yep, sign me up a millionaire R and then like three full-time staff. That sounds great. And I, I get that.
However, you can't then be frustrated or surprised later when growth is slow or when it's like, when it's really stressful, it's all on you. you know what I mean? Like, yes, like that type of growth and that type of profitability feels amazing. However, if those profits, if you can reinvest them into the business to make your life easier, do it. Now,
Kim Talarczyk (47:36.494)
You
Asia Orangio (47:50.211)
There are certainly people out there who are running smooth sailing businesses. They make a bunch of money. It doesn't require a whole lot of energy and effort. It's just them. they're just gonna, as April Dunford says, they're just gonna coast. They're just gonna ride the wave and just coast into the sunset. Great. The majority of Bootstrap founders are not that. The majority of them are absolutely not that. Most of them are not just sailing into the sunset, coasting. That's not at all what's happening. They have to make much.
trickier decisions based on their market conditions and the type of product they have, yada yada. But all that to say, I know that that's the dream, but it's not as common as you think. You'd have to be insanely lucky to get there. And everyone else, for the most part, to, they've gotta do the work. They've gotta think about those decisions and making those decisions. And we've seen the companies that, again, are just kind of like,
It's like they're printing money and they have very low overhead. And yes, that is certainly the dream. However, those companies are risky in their own way. Once that market changes, when market conditions shift, when the economy shifts, that can go away. And you may be left holding the bag a little bit on that. And it might be hard to figure out where to go and how to pivot. It might be easier in some ways, because it's just you and maybe a couple of other people.
Kim Talarczyk (49:08.012)
Mm-hmm.
Asia Orangio (49:16.856)
But that's something to think about too. And I think like, again, how you structure your company does have a lot to do with your ability to be nimble, but then also similarly to see other opportunities and to see outside of it. That's just me. But like I said, when you're bootstrapping, can kind do whatever you want. As long as you're not hurting yourself or others, for the most part. Yeah, like there's no...
Kim Talarczyk (49:34.99)
you
Asia Orangio (49:43.672)
There's no forcing function. But I think for the, like this episode is really for the founders who they want to grow. They're looking at all parts of the business. Something not to overlook is operations, how you're structuring.
Kim Talarczyk (50:00.493)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's good advice and to one of the things just to set yourself up for success.
Asia Orangio (50:06.028)
Totally. Totally. What did we miss? Did we miss anything?
Kim Talarczyk (50:12.814)
Any quick advice about where a founder should start if they hear this and they're like, okay, let me think about operations.
Asia Orangio (50:23.66)
Yeah. Okay. So if you're kind of like, yeah, that's a really good point. I might be struggling with this. there are a couple of areas that I would have you analyze or audit, so to speak. The first is when you think about the work that you're doing and how, like, and when I say the work that you're doing, I mean, like all the work that you're investing in to the product, into marketing, into sales, like into all the areas of the business.
The first I want you to think about is, do I have the right people in the right seats? And what that means, this is a, I think this is an EOS concept if I'm not mistaken. But it's basically like, are the right qualified people in the right seats that you are at least aware of? And what I mean by that is, you might have the right person in the marketing seat, for example, but you might also say at the same time, yes,
but I'd really love it if I actually had a CMO or if I had someone more executive or had someone more senior, whatever the word is. So I do want you to pause and just think about, do you actually have the right people in the right seats? And are those the right seats? So it's a two-parter. That's, I think, the first step. And that kind of gives you the land of team. The second thing that I want you to think about is if you don't have a very big team or if you're not really thinking about expanding in that way,
The second part to this is, the resources that you have, are those getting spent in the best way possible when it comes to staff, personnel, and resources. So the cash that you're making, is that getting spent in the most effective way with the team or resources that you have? So this kind of gets into budget of...
Do you have budget to hire someone? Do you have budget to upscale someone? Do you have budget to yada yada, maybe bring on a consultant or an agency, whatever it is. But that's usually like the secondary question, which is, are the resources that I have available and is it getting spent in the best way possible? And then the third area that I want you to look at is when you do the work and when you think about the processes that it takes to execute to do the work.
Asia Orangio (52:41.482)
Are those processes clear, effective, and as efficient as need be? Now, this might be a tricky one because again, if you're not aware, it's hard for you to see, it's just really hard for you to see if you're not aware. So the first step is to get aware in this third phase, so to speak, or third pillar. The first step is really to get aware. So what are your processes? How do you currently execute things? When you think about,
designing a feature, when you think about creating a campaign or when you think about making decisions, what are the processes that are in place for you to do that? Now, this can be tricky because again, it's just really hard to see unless you're seeing outside of it. But the second part to this is deciding, does this work? Could it be better?
Are there more effective or efficient ways to get the same outcome but for maybe less resources or less time or less whatever it is? And this is kind of where we like min-max a little bit on how we think about output and delivery. This I would say is probably the hardest thing out of everything I've listed because if you're not like an ops guru, like if you're not like, yep, structure your team this way or yep, use these tools or use this process, this is really tricky.
I'm not going to say hire like an ops consultant, but that could be an option for you. Or like, if you know that things are messy and they're in, like you're flying by the seat of your pants and it's chaotic as heck, that might be a thing that you do. but it also could be as simple as depending on operationally what you're looking at. So like, for example, if you know, like you've got product and engineering on lock, you're a technical founder, you know what that looks like. but marketing and sales, that project management is really tough. That's like, I don't know how to think about this. I'm not sure.
That's where even working with like a marketing consultant or working with a sales consultant can help a lot. So like those specific areas where the processes are being executed, but maybe like, know, it's kind of messy finding like those specific, like focused individuals who can consult or help you structure that, like, that would be like a great way to kind of fill in the gap of experience and knowledge. So for example,
Asia Orangio (54:59.892)
If you know that enterprise sales is the key to you growing your business and like you've dabbled in this and you've tried it and it sucked, your answer might be to hire like an enterprise sales consultant. What are the processes and steps you got to deploy in order to achieve the outcome, which is enterprise sales customers. That's an example. Same thing for marketing, customer success. There are success consultants out there who can kind of show you like how to structure your team and like how to
structure your processes, what to measure, et cetera. So that's the third area is really again, taking a step back of what are our processes and are they good enough to accomplish the outcome that we want. I think the fourth area is, it's much more like, I don't wanna say fluffy, but it's like, dare I say spiritual. It's more mental I think.
Kim Talarczyk (55:54.216)
Yeah
Asia Orangio (55:56.568)
But I think the fourth is like...
when you make decisions, how do you want to make them? What does that look like to make decisions? And then similarly, how often do you need to communicate with others? What do you communicate about? I think it's the softer side of ops. So these are soft skills. And if you're like, God, I get it. I've had to learn my own set of soft skills. There are certain gaps that I have as well that I'm.
I'm always like constantly learning and like working on. Like politics management for example, which every company has politics, but like that's a whole other thing. But that fourth category I think is like the, I don't wanna say it's culture, because I don't think it's that. I think it's more the how do you make decisions, what's actually important, and like how do you communicate and show up within
the team or if it's just you with yourself. If you were to have your own board meeting, for example, with just you, like what does that look like? What would you say? What would you present? Things like that. So I think it's like the internal comms, I guess, slash decision making.
Kim Talarczyk (57:12.566)
Yeah. And from what you're saying, it almost sounds like, like an executive coach could help you with this, right? If you were looking for support or don't have the experience of kind of what this looks like, or really how you think about making decisions and what those frameworks look like. Yeah.
Asia Orangio (57:18.868)
Yes.
Asia Orangio (57:26.616)
Totally, totally. In my fractional CMO work, I actually had a conversation like this with my CEO and I actually asked him, how do you like to disagree? And I realized, you know, I've been working with them for more than six months now and I realized I never asked this question. And his answer, it didn't surprise me, but it was like, it was massively helpful. like, he basically was like, he's almost like,
hyper data driven. Like he cares about VOC and qualitative. That's great. But you know, like he likes to make decision with with data. Like he likes proof. So when we have conversations and we're trying to decide, he likes having the report in his hand or having like the cut, the handful of stats or the, yep, I've pulled those numbers. I've analyzed this already. Here's what I found.
he like that's what he thrives on and it gives his brain peace of mind of like, okay, we're not just, this isn't just like a willy nilly. He doesn't like willy nilly messy decision making. Like that's not his style. There are some leaders who thrive in that and it works for them and they're able to like use their intuition and they thrive in chaotic environments in that way. That is not him. He doesn't, that's not his vibe. He would prefer having like a
a truly data, I don't wanna say driven approach, it's more like data informed. He doesn't like knowing what the data is at the end of the day, even if he goes completely against it. He at least wants to know what it is. So that's, and I know that probably is like, oh, we're like that too. What's critical here is that you present the data even when it's uncomfortable, even when you don't want to, even when you hate it. And that is like a true, partly core value, but also just,
an approach to decision making. So I remember there was one day where I was gonna have to deliver, I was delivering bad news, but I can't remember exactly what it was. It was something like, I can't remember what it was, but it was news that I was like, this really sucks to have to share. It wasn't anything that I did or that I was, technically I'm like accountable for it, but it wasn't anything that I directly did. I had just started,
Asia Orangio (59:47.575)
I think I remember what it was. There was a team member who was leaving and it just sucked to share, honestly. But I remember I was like, I don't know how to posture about this. Like, I'm not sure how to present this information in a way because I'm new. I'm new to the team and changes are happening fast. And I'm not exactly sure how to talk about it. That's not going to make it seem like it doesn't feel weird. And I remember the CEO was just like, you just say it, just say it like as directly as possible.
no matter how uncomfortable it is. I heard that story because that is how they want to internally communicate. Moz had tag fee that was related to their core values at the company that I'm working with now. They don't have, they have like a list of core values. They don't have like an acronym for it, like a tag fee, but, but I remember they are very big believers in just delivering like it's the radical candor. Like they just believe in delivering hard news.
TBD on if they sugarcoated or not. I guess debatable on how it's communicated, but what's important to them is this is how we communicate and you're not gonna hurt anybody's feelings, no one's gonna cry, no one's gonna be upset. We'd rather just have the straight facts and information than anything else. We don't want anyone to come in here and posture in a way. And I was like, no, that makes sense, and that's fair. But that's a intentional choice, right?
They're aware of that. They know that that's their style. There's three co-founders. They all have a technical background. They just like the hard truth and the facts quickly and efficiently. And they'll deal with it. They'll deal with whatever fallout after, but they'd rather just have the truth in front of them. Not all teams are like that. There are some teams that I've worked with that are like, now you've got to wrap this in bubble wrap and tissue paper and put a bow on it before you share it with us.
I work with teams like that in that scenario too. But I'll just say, it's a conscious decision, they're aware of it, and they've communicated that to everybody. So those are my couple of examples of kind of like internal comms slash the psychology of how you wanna decide.
Kim Talarczyk (01:02:04.674)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's helpful.
Asia Orangio (01:02:08.76)
Kim's like, great job, Asia, you did it. All right, cool. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, asking questions. And yeah, we'll catch you, everyone, on the next one.
