UNTANGLING THE CHAOS OF START-UPS

Words by Rachel Zammit Cutajar Photography by Julia Boikova

The rapid growth that is associated with a start up – or scale up – often comes with a certain amount of chaos. Managing that chaos is what determines the survival and ultimate success of the new company. Rhi Burns, Chief Commercial Officer at Zimpler, has been a part of the company that has overseen growth of up to 1000% in a single year, and she attributes her success to a system of structuring and planning, creating healthy habits that lead to success in both her work and personal life.

At a glance, the life of Rhi Burns, Chief Commercial Officer at Zimpler, seems very rigid, with calendars and spreadsheets ruling the day. But Rhi believes that the success experienced by her Execution Team (known for their ability to get any job done) is down to these same structures. They untangle the chaos, freeing up time and energy for the things that are most important.

“Start-ups are usually created by passionate individuals who want to change the world, and by that very nature, forming the right structures ends up falling by the wayside,” Rhi said. When she had joined Zimpler in 2019, it was a small fintech company with 25 employees, offering instant banking products geared towards the iGaming industry. In the last three years, they've experienced rapid growth, expanding their workforce to 150 people, with a sales team that has increased by 375%, from just four people to 30. The sales, account management and business development department that Rhi leads grew by 57%, whilst keeping efficiency and productivity high. “We're not perfect, but we are an incredibly well-oiled and slick machine, considering the growth we've seen and how new most of the team is. Having an organiser at the helm has helped steer people towards more efficient habits!” “It’s not that I'm afraid of chaos and disorder, but it's not sustainable in the long term and not conducive to growth. This is why setting up structures is so important in the early stages.”

So how does she do it? Rhi leads by example, and encourages her team to adopt more efficient schedules, but she does not impose her system on anyone. “I use my calendar religiously. If it’s not in the calendar, then then it’s not happening. I do this for both my work and personal life. This allows me to maintain boundaries, not allowing work to spill over into my personal time. I schedule working hours with auto-rejects for people requesting meetings outside working hours. I don’t take meetings on Fridays and use that time to catch up, reflect on the week gone by and plan for the following week. I encourage my team to do the same, to book lunch and not allow people to talk them into moving it around and block off vacation days with auto-rejects. Setting working times is important for everyone, but more so for people who are working less than 40 hours a week.”

Unproductive meetings are generally blamed for the largest bottlenecks in workflow. According to Forbes, up to 70% of meetings are considered unproductive. Elon Musk recently urged Tesla employees to forego excessive meetings in a company-wide email, calling them the "blight" on large companies.

“Some rules I have that create good habits in others is that I don't accept meetings without an agenda. I'm starting to enforce a dedicated note taker in each meeting and to always have a summary and action points afterwards. This helps avoid unnecessary meetings that don't go anywhere. I prefer pre-reads as well, so the meeting can be about decisions, not just getting info. When it comes to digital meetings, I just leave if someone's five minutes late. It just avoids time being wasted. These rules help people consider if the meeting is really needed. We've started to reduce unnecessary meetings, making them more productive.”

Rhi insists that this isn’t a one-size fits all and flexibility is just as important as structure. “You need to find a solution that works for every member of the team. As CCO, I need to know the probability in percentage of each deal as well as estimated launch dates to make realistic projections. I usually log my own deals on the Salesforce system, but managers and their respective sales teams were struggling to keep up with inputting data. So, we developed an automated system which is far from perfect but frees up much of the sales team’s time. It’s important to understand what everyone needs, and develop a system that works for everyone.”

Though the intensive planning may seem time consuming, Rhi insists that it frees up time for more creative endeavours. “Every other week, I schedule a three-hour slot for ‘daydreaming’ and encourage my team to do the same. During this time, I don’t take meetings, phone calls or answer emails. This is the time team members can use to map out new projects and get them started.” This method of planning spills over into Rhi’s personal life. She schedules time to go on hikes, call her mother and even water her 100+ plants. “I don’t spend hours a day planning, but spending half an hour a week to put these things into the calendar frees up a lot of time. Once it’s in the calendar, you don’t have to think about it, or worry about forgetting to do it.”

Decision fatigue is the idea that after making several decisions, your ability to make others over the course of a day becomes worse. Taking away the necessity to make mundane decisions about what to wear, what to eat or whether you should go out for a walk frees up more brain capacity for more important decisions.

“I’ve started to plan my meals. On a Sunday, I decide what to eat with my partner and we make sure we have the right ingredients and prep whatever we can from ahead. This not only ensures we have a healthy meal to come home to at 5pm, but it also reduces food waste and saves us money on takeaways just because we didn’t have a plan.”

Having a consistent bedtime has also helped Rhi. Simple steps using iPhone tools such as reminders to go to bed, at what time to start winding down, and automatically switching to Do Not Disturb mode ensures she gets enough restful sleep. “Since I started using this, I never need an alarm clock, and I naturally wake up between 6:30am and 7am, which is so much nicer than being jolted awake by an alarm that makes you angry from the moment you're awake!”

Saving money has become a priority for Rhi, as she plans on early retirement to enjoy her sunset years. And this too has fallen into a very structured pattern. “Despite having a good salary, I’ve always lived pay cheque to pay cheque. Over the last two years, I decided to become the CFO of my own life… and treat my spending as such.” The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, Rhi started to track her spending. “Keeping track of things is the biggest change you can make to start implementing better behaviours.”

Today she budgets her spending, with everything laid out on a spreadsheet, including a part of her salary that goes directly into a savings account. “Every time I save something significant, I see it as a week earlier that I can retire. This doesn’t mean that I’ve become stingy. I still enjoy spending money on good meals and wine and I don't deprive myself of anything. What I’m trying to do is avoid wasting money.” When Rhi first started this exercise, she was really disheartened by how much money was being wasted on things that weren’t important. “I think you have to go through that period before you can start to make a change.”

This doesn’t mean to say that everything goes exactly according to plan. Rhi talks about spending €500 on shoes she bought online that don’t even fit (and she missed the deadline to return them). “It’s important to balance this structure with flexibility. If I’ve overspent on something this month, I forgive myself and just try to keep it in mind for next month. If I’ve scheduled time to go for a hike at the weekend and I don’t feel like it, I don’t go. The idea behind the plan is not perfection, but improvement. Expecting perfection will only cause added stress, which is exactly the opposite of what planning is supposed to achieve.” One thing Rhi would like to do more of is reading. “It takes me ages to read a book as I tend to fall asleep quite quickly. I’ve moved over to audio books. Rather than sitting on the sofa watching Sienfeld for the twelfth time, I’d like to spend more time going for a half hour walk whilst listening to an audio book. This is something I’m working on – and scheduling – at the moment.”

Rhi wasn’t always this structured. It’s a series of healthy habits she's developed over the last 10 years or so. “I struggle in life when things are out of control. I found that setting these structures and developing healthy habits have helped me manage life whilst also being prepared for when things get out of control. The catalyst that pushed me into this structured way of life was moving to Malta. Coming here without a job or knowing anyone and with just one month’s salary in my bank account, I couldn’t just lie on the beach all day and wait for something to come my way. I needed the structure to apply for jobs, network and get something going pretty quickly.”

Rhi believes that this is a way of life than anyone can learn. “Creatives are stereotypically less organised, though I believe that this is probably somewhat based on fact, as part of the package is having less boundaries and the ability to be freer. However, learning to be more organised is just a question of small bouts of work that in turn allows you the space to be creative.”

Having a schedule allows Rhi time for her more creative endeavours. She likes to hike, has her own blog about living in Malta and has over a hundred plants. She believes planning helps her manage to fit everything in whilst maintaining a successful work life. This is something for which everyone should strive. “There is no one size fits all for good habits, structure and routine. But finding your groove will improve your life beyond measure. It'll free up so much brain space for you to focus on the things that bring you joy."